The Promise (4 page)

              "For the record, detective, do you think it was a kidnapping?"

              Gallagher mused for a moment, "I’m leaning that way. It could be an abduction, yes. In that case, we should be getting a ransom note any day now. I favor that possibility over a psycho which I don’t believe is involved here. 

The disappearance was in broad daylight with lots of people around. Someone would have seen something at that time. Psychos are generally not that precise and they tend to work at night.

I think it was someone she knew."

              Elie asked him, "And you believe she never made it back to her home that afternoon?"

              Gallagher nods, "According to the report made by Mr. Taylor she didn't. Maybe she snuck home, packed up her things without anyone seeing her and disappeared that night."

              Elie nodded, "That would explain the vanishing a little easier. Obviously, it is easier to disappear at night with only a few people around than it is during the day with a cast of thousands.

Let's begin with the locations and roads between the library, where she was last seen and her home. We might see something that could give us a clue.”

Glancing up at the clock, Gallagher exclaims, “Hey, I think I see Mrs. Taylor out there. It’s time for that interview."

              Mike Gallagher went to the outer reception area to greet a well-dressed lady in a red fur coat. Everything about her projects a sense of class, from perfectly styled hair to her designer shoes, 

Mrs. Taylor was someone who understood what it meant to live well and she had experienced that concept for quite a long time. 

She had also been crying and the lines in her eyes told Gallagher it had probably been non-stop since the tragic news had hit her.

              "Ms. Taylor?  I’m Detective Gallagher and this is my partner, FBI agent Larsen. Thank you for coming down."

              The lady turns and faces them. Up close the pain in her eyes was even more evident. She looks completely helpless.

It is clear she wants some hope. It is obvious that her daughter means a great deal to her.

              "Detective Gallagher, I’m glad to make your acquaintance. This is so unreal. I am sorry, I did not get your name dear?"

              "Agent Larsen, ma'am."

              "Yes, it is nice to meet you, too. Oh, please excuse me, I am on some medication and I do not even know if I can do this today.  This is just so difficult, perhaps another time."

She gets up to leave.

              Gallagher moves quickly. "Ms. Taylor maybe you better sit down for a few minutes. Please come with me to our conference room. You’ll feel more comfortable there."

              The detective moves the distraught lady into the room and quietly shuts the door. As she sits down, he hands her some ice water giving her a chance to calm down and collect herself. 

He waits several minutes before he speaks to her.  "Thank you, again, for coming down to see us. We want to help you at this very difficult time."

              Mrs. Taylor nods calmly and seems to understand that she is safe with the police department. She begins to speak slowly at first and as her composure returns she relaxes and talks about her daughter, 

"Allison means a great deal to me. I do not know what has happened to her or why I just want to see her face again.

I want to tell her that everything is going to be all right. I want to tell her that she is safe and that no one will hurt her, but, I don’t know if that is really true." 

Ashley Taylor is struggling with her emotions and Mike Gallagher senses it. 

              "Mrs. Taylor, we all want Allison back and she knows that you love her. Can you think of any reason why this happened?"

              This question causes the lady to stop and temporarily halt her emotional slide. She thinks about the question while the two interviewers sat there patiently.

Finally, she speaks, “I don’t know. I have been thinking about this all day. Knowing my daughter and how caring she is it might have something to do with it. And, of course, “The Promise,” that’s all I can think of right now.”

              Gallagher and Larsen quickly look at each other, "The Promise?” What exactly is that, Mrs. Taylor?"

              The Promise is made up of a group of girls from her prep school. They made up a secret club that swears lifelong allegiance to each other no matter what the cost. 

It is based around a promise that if any of them got into trouble they would all stop what they were doing and meet to solve it, no matter the cost to any of them. 

I think someone called Allison telling her to come to a secret place for the sake of one of the girls in that group."

              Gallagher was a little mystified. He asked the next question gently, "Mrs. Taylor, has Allison ever disappeared before and gone to these, uh, “Promise” sessions in the past?"

              "Not that I am aware of, no. But, on one occasion she told me that a day might come when she might be called to assist in the need of a friend and not to worry because she would be back shortly." 

At that, Mrs. Taylor lets out a small smile and seems to breathe a sigh of relief. "That is what it is, The Promise. Yes.

She will be all right, she is actually fine and here I am babbling like there is a problem or something. Everything is good. I am sorry to take up your time. I shall be going now."

              Mike Gallagher recognizes that his interviewee is lapsing into a state of shock. 

He goes to her side and helps her sit back down.

Elie goes to the phone in the outer office and dials the hospital. "I need a couple of paramedics right away to campus precinct number 19. My name is FBI agent Elie Larsen and I have a lady going into shock. She is approximately forty-five years of age and will need a sedative immediately.

Please come quickly!"

Hanging up the phone, she runs to a storage closet and retrieves a blanket and returns to the conference room.  Together, she and Detective Gallagher help Mrs. Taylor to a nearby couch and place the covering over her.

As they wait for the ambulance to arrive they hear her murmur over and over,  "It's The Promise, she will be fine. It's The Promise. I understand now."

Within six minutes, the paramedics arrive and carefully place the lady on a stretcher and quickly load her into the vehicle.

As it speeds off, Mike Gallagher wonders aloud, "A secret club from high school? I would never have expected that from the level-headed Allison Taylor.

Maybe there are some things to this girl lurking underneath that carefully crafted image of hers."

              Larsen shot back, "And maybe there is no secret club like the one Mrs. Taylor told us about. It could have been a group of girls who made some silly high school promises, period."

              "Yeah, but if it isn't the end of it, we have a new wrinkle on this case. I know one thing for sure now.”

              "What's that Gallagher?"

              "You need to forget about being an adult for awhile and go back to prep school. If there is a secret club for girls we may just find the elusive Miss Taylor."

              “You want me to go undercover, as a teenager?”

              Gallagher laughed, “It’s not what I want, it’s the chief’s call on this one.”

              “I’m a profiler, not an actress.”

              “Even Julia Roberts had to start somewhere.”

              “Oh my god,” sighed Elie.

Chapter Four-
the Colony

             
Prep schools are the backbone of the upper end of a society.  They ensure that the wealthy families can continue to flourish in a system that calls itself capitalistic but is, in reality, more of a socialist state. 

It is an elite few who truly govern the masses, even in America. It has economically been that way for over two hundred years and it was inevitable that the so-called middle class would eventually collapse and relinquish the remaining power to the upper echelon which gladly accepted it. 

The system which carries on the ongoing success of this echelon is education and breeding.  The heart and soul of private education is the prep school.

It was here that Allison Taylor was nurtured and primed for her future. Like her well-off counterparts, she knew that the society in which she lived would be hers to shape and sculpture for years to come.

              The Colony was such a school. 

Like most all-girls schools in the South, it was steeped in tradition. The outer walls were red brick and ivy of course, but the philosophy inside was even more  protective. 

The old world and ways of the elite were programmed into the students like a pounding bass drum.

They had a responsibility to maintain the status quo and to stand united against any less fortunate interloper who tried to grasp even a semblance of economic power.

They were noble and they were ruthless. The system was replenished with each graduating class. It was a machine that never failed since the beginning of our Republic.

              Students were as far removed from the unfortunate and ugly side of the world as they could possibly be. 

Sheltered and protected, the high school students had imposing iron gates to ward off any unpleasantness. These fences succeeded not only in keeping the unwelcome ones out but in trapping the ones inside as well. 

It is a social tragedy that young people have to be exposed only to their kind. It is the subtlest form of bigotry. 

Good looking kids who have everything in life but lack a sense of reality. 

The world outside their walls is not theirs, it belongs to their ancestors and to their heirs. They would capture its materialism and technology, but they would never understand its soul.

              It was in this privileged setting that a red sedan wound its way through the curving trees and arrived at the front of the school. 

Out stepped a young woman looking nothing like her real identity as an FBI profiler. She was well-dressed like many of the others who attended there. She was accompanied by an older policewoman posing at her legal guardian.

Ms. Margaret Hamilton and her young charge, “Bree Kelly.”

As a new applicant to the school she was warmly greeted by its headmaster, Dr. Theotis Morgan, and his assistant, Dr. Malcolm Oden.

Introductions were exchanged.

The headmaster, Dr. Morgan, was lanky, with bushy eyebrows and a decidedly pointed nose. He seemed to have a nervous tic around his eyes that instantly made Elie smile and irritated her at the same time.