The Year of Fog (33 page)

At two a.m., the phone rings. “Abby Mason?” an unfamiliar voice says.

“Yes.”

“Wiggins here. Just got your message. Sorry to call so late.”

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear from you.” I go over to the chair by the window and speak as quietly as possible.

“Don’t get too excited yet. I’m actually in Honduras right now, but I’ve made arrangements to come back to Costa Rica tomorrow morning. Nick told me the story a while back. To be honest, I didn’t think you’d find her. Weird things happen, huh? I just contacted our people in San Francisco and had them fax the forensic sketches to me. They’ve talked to Emma’s father and are bringing the ex-wife in now. What I need you to do is tell me how you found her. Did you see her kidnappers?”

“No, but I got their first names, Teddy and Jane.”

I tell him the whole story. It comes out in a rush, a jumble of breathless sentences. “They’re driving a yellow van,” I say.

“Where do you think I might find it?”

“They were at Playa Espadilla earlier today, but that was hours ago.”

“I’ll send some people out to Manuel Antonio right away. Can you be reached at this number tomorrow?”

“I’m taking Emma to the airport at seven a.m. to meet her father. I haven’t thought beyond that.”

“I’ll send somebody over to escort you to the airport in the morning. He’ll deal with any issues you run into there. Emma can go home, but you’re going to need to stay in the country for a few days, maybe longer. When we find these two, you’ll have to make an ID.”

Not
if
, but
when
. His confidence is reassuring. “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you so much.”

78

A
N INHUMAN
shriek awakes me, followed by other shrieks, a cacophony of them, just outside our window.

“The howler monkeys,” Emma says, opening her eyes and stretching. Her brown skin is damp from sweat. Despite the noisy air conditioner, the heat is stifling. Last night, I lay awake for hours, staring at the miracle of her. At some point I fell asleep. Now, once again, I am struck by the beautiful impossibility of her presence.

The clock says 6:15. “Time to get up,” I say. “We’re going to the airport.”

“Now?” she asks.

“Very soon.”

“And Daddy will be there?”

“Yes.”

She looks at me warily, as if she isn’t sure she can believe me.

Twenty minutes later, there’s a knock at the door. I peek out the curtain to see a young guy, striking Italian features, no more than twenty-seven.

“Who is it?” I ask through the door.

“Wiggins sent me.”

I open the door.

“Name’s Panico,” the guy says, reaching out to shake my hand. “Mike Panico.” He looks over my shoulder into the room, where Emma stands barefoot, wearing the same dirty yellow dress she had on yesterday. “You must be Emma.”

She nods.

He smiles at her. “I understand a lot of people have been looking for you.”

At the airport, I buy Emma a new dress and sandals. The dress is slightly too big, the sandals slightly too small, but Emma does a little twirl, modeling the ensemble as if it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever worn.

Afterward, Panico takes us to a small room on the second floor. The room contains only a table and four chairs, all of which are bolted to the floor. Two of the chairs have circular metal bands on the sides, with keyholes for locks, and I realize that the bands are for locking down criminals. Beige paint is peeling from the walls.

Panico shuts the door and kneels down so that he’s eye level with Emma. “Looks like you’re going home. What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get there?”

“I want a hamburger and chocolate shake from Cable Car Joe’s.”

“I don’t blame you,” he says. “It’s impossible to get a good burger in this country.”

Emma smiles, and I feel myself relaxing. Panico reaches into his jacket and pulls out a coloring book and crayons, which he sets on the table. “Do you like to color?”

She nods shyly.

“I used to love to color when I was a kid,” he says. “But I never had much talent for it.”

Emma sits down and begins flipping through the coloring book. I sit across from her. “
El gato,
” she says, pointing to a drawing of a cat. She selects a yellow crayon from the pack and begins to color. “Do you know Spanish?” she asks me.

“A little.”

She turns to Panico. “Do you?”

“
Sí, señorita.
” They exchange a few sentences in rapid Spanish, and he says something that makes her laugh. I can only make out the word
pie,
but even that may be a faulty translation.

Emma inserts Indigo into the sharpener on the back of the box and turns the crayon. Then she blows on the pointed tip, bows her head over her book, and sets to work on
el gato
’s water bowl. The waxy scent of crayons mixes with something else. The odor is coming from Emma; even though she bathed last night, she has taken on the slightly feral, salty-sweet smell of kids who aren’t properly cared for.

Panico moves his chair closer to her. “Can I ask you some questions, Emma?”

“I guess.”

“Where have you been staying?”

“Sometimes on the beach, sometimes in the van. Sometimes we go stay with Teddy and Jane’s friends.”

“Do you know where their friends live?”

“Different places.”

“Did they tell you how they know your mom?”

“Teddy is Mommy’s cousin,” Emma says. “Can I color now?”

Emma tugs at her ear, and I feel grateful for this small, recognizable gesture, this nervous habit she’s had as long as I’ve known her. She looks up at me, then Panico, and says, “Are Teddy and Jane in trouble?”

“We just need to find them to ask them some questions,” Panico says.

Emma returns to her coloring. Sitting here with her, I feel both elated and nervous. Gone is the easy camaraderie that had developed between us in the weeks before she went missing, and I’m still trying to discover what essential thing in her nature has changed. How much of this new Emma is simply the natural process of growing up, and how much of it is the result of spending so many months with her kidnappers?

A voice booms over the intercom, announcing arrivals and departures. Each time the speaker in the corner crackles to life, I hold my breath. Let the flight be late. Let Jake be delayed in customs. Just a little more time with her, a couple more hours, a few more minutes. Of course, I want Emma to see Jake. Of course, I’m excited about the reunion. But I’m dreading that moment when they step onto the plane, beginning the trip away from me.

Finally there’s a knock at the door, three taps.

Emma jumps a little, and so do I. Her back is to the door. Her head remains bowed, but her hand goes suddenly still. She stares at the coloring book and squeezes the crayon so tightly her fingers turn white. Panico opens the door, and there’s Jake standing on the other side. He’s got no luggage except a messenger bag slung over his shoulder. In one hand he’s holding an enormous, auburn-haired American Girl doll, decked out in an embroidered dress and black shoes with fancy laces. He stands there for a moment, staring at the back of Emma’s head, as if he’s afraid to believe it’s her. He has gained weight, and his hair is longer.

I reach over and touch Emma’s hand. “Look who’s here.”

She glances up at me, still holding on to the crayon, but she doesn’t move. Jake comes to the table and kneels down beside her. When she sees him, something changes in her, something lets go, her face softens and her lips turn up in a tiny smile. Jake drops the doll and takes her in his arms. For a long time he sobs into her hair. Finally, he holds her away from him at shoulder’s length and says, “It’s you. I can’t believe it’s really you.”

“Of course it’s me, Daddy.”

Panico glances away. Like me, he must feel like an intruder on this intimate scene.

Jake looks up at me. “I can’t believe it.”

“I know.”

He picks Emma up, takes a step in my direction, and hugs me tightly. He smells so good, looks so good, feels so good. “You were right all along,” he says. “I’m so sorry I doubted you.”

Emma looks at the doll on the floor, and a grin spreads across her face. She wriggles out of his arms.

“Meet Felicity,” Jake says. He kneels and sets Emma down.

Emma touches the doll’s hair, runs her fingers over the white lace at the hem of the dress. “She’s pretty.”

Jake is staring at Emma as if he doesn’t quite believe she’s really here, as if he expects to wake up at any moment from this incredible dream.

“Our flight out isn’t for another two hours,” he says to me. “Do you have time for coffee?”

I can’t help laughing. “Are you kidding?”

Panico steps forward. “I’m with the embassy,” he says to Jake. “I’ll meet you at the gate and make sure you have no problems boarding the flight. Do you have her passport?”

“Yes,” Jake says, tapping his coat pocket. “Thanks for your help.”

“Don’t thank me,” Panico says. “Abby’s the one who pulled this off.”

“What do you know so far?” Jake asks.

Emma is busy tying and untying the laces on the doll’s shoes. “The man from the yellow van is Lisbeth’s cousin,” I say quietly. “At least that’s what they told Emma.

Jake shakes his head, incredulous.

I carry the doll, Jake carries Emma, and we walk down to the café, Panico trailing after us. Emma keeps staring at Jake, and he keeps staring at her, and I keep staring at the two of them. It feels so strange, so impossible, the three of us together like this, walking through the airport like a normal family.

“You need a haircut,” Emma says, running her fingers through her father’s long bangs.

“Then I suppose you’ll have to give me one as soon as we get home,” he says, his voice choked with emotion.

At the café, we order coffee, a fruit shake for Emma, and some pastries.

The three of us take the most private table, one over by the window. Jake pulls Emma’s chair close to his own. He starts to cut her pastry into tiny bites, the way he used to do, but Emma pulls the plate toward her and says, “I can do that.”

“Sorry,” he says, smiling. “I guess you’ve grown, haven’t you? God, look how much you’ve grown. You’re taller.”

She grins, looks like she’s about to say something, but then shoves a bite of pastry into her mouth.

“What?” he says.

“I’m taller, but you’re fatter.”

We all laugh at that, even Emma.

“I missed you so much,” he says. “So much. You have no idea.”

Emma wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and stares down at her plate, chewing.

I know he’s trying hard not to ask questions yet—all the obvious, terrifying questions. He’s staring at her, mesmerized.

“Your bedroom is just like you left it,” he says. “You even have some Christmas presents.”

Emma’s eyes go wide. “When can I open them?”

“As soon as we get home.”

“And birthday presents,” I say.

She looks confused. “My birthday?”

“It’s in November, remember?” Jake says. “You’re seven now.”

Her eyes light up. “I’m seven?”

A voice comes on the intercom, announcing the departing flight for San Francisco.

“That’s us,” Jake says. “Baby, are you ready to go home?”

“Yes.”

He reaches across the table and takes my hand. “When can you leave?”

“I don’t know. Hopefully soon. There’s still a lot to do here.”

My conversation with Jake feels like some awkwardly staged play. The choreography’s off, the lines fall flat, both of us are speaking a little more loudly than necessary. I find myself wondering what the possibilities are for us now. When I left for Costa Rica, he made it clear it was over between us. But doesn’t this change things? Haven’t I done the one essential thing I had to do to win him back, to make our lives normal again?

There is no way to ask these questions of him. This is nothing like the scene I imagined, nothing like the reunion I’ve been picturing in my mind ever since I arrived in Costa Rica. I pictured the three of us going home together, a family. But the truth is Emma and Jake are the family, the two of them alone.

I go over to Emma, lean down, and hug her. I don’t want to let go. “Bye, sweetheart.”

“You’re not coming with us?”

“I need to stay here for a little while, but I’ll be home soon.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, Jake.”

“Thank you so much,” he says. “It’s a miracle.” He takes my hair in his hand and flips it over my shoulder, the way he did on our first date. This simple gesture is enough to spark my hope, enough to make me think we may find a way to make it work.

Jake picks Emma up, and as they walk away, she glances back and gives a little wave. “Adios,” she says.

“Adios.”

I watch them walk toward the departure gate—Jake moving quickly, as if he can’t wait to get out of here. They could be any father, any daughter, on their way home from vacation. I could be any girlfriend, the unnecessary part of the equation that, once subtracted, leaves the proper sum.

79

A
FTERNOON. A
hotel room in San José, waiting. Day 335. As I mentally note the number, I realize that the calendar I’ve been obsessed with for the past year is now irrelevant. I get to start over from scratch. Yes, it is 335 days since I lost her. But it is also two days since I found her.

I’m sitting on the balcony. Spanish music is playing loudly next door, but not loudly enough to drown out the noise of a couple having sex. I saw them earlier, checking in. He was thin, she was fat, and they had no luggage. I should be doing something—writing thank-you letters, sending e-mails, calling everyone I know. But to whom would I write? I’ve been on the phone all morning. I’ve already told Annabel, Nell, and Nick. Like Franco Magnani, the memory artist who was obsessed with his childhood village, my tunnel vision over the past year has caused my circle of friends to dwindle; there’s no one else to call.

Jake and Emma arrived home last night to a few dozen well-wishers, crowding the airport with welcome-home signs and stuffed animals. Jake called from the house to let me know they’d arrived. “Can I talk to Emma?” I asked as he was hanging up.

“She’s already asleep.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Of course.” There was a long pause. Then he said, “Thank you. I can’t believe this is happening.”

For so long, every waking minute has been devoted to finding Emma. Now, I’m not sure what to do with myself. I turn on the television—
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. I struggle to keep my eyes open. I think of Emma, at home in her very own bed. I imagine Jake sitting at her bedside until she falls asleep. At some point, growing tired, he decides to go to his own room. But at the doorway he stops, unable to leave her. He stands there all night, watching his daughter breathe, that beautiful child. Maybe at some point she wakes up, cries out, and he rushes to her. But for a moment, in her confusion, she does not recognize him. She doesn’t recognize the bed, the room, the stuffed animals lining the walls. “Where’s Teddy?” she says. “Where’s Jane?” And how, I wonder, will he answer that?

On the television there are explosions, snakes, Kate Capshaw in a thong swimsuit, bathing in a muddy river. The couple in the next room grows quiet; laughter wafts down the hall. Sleep comes.

A jolt. A knock at the door. A rhythmic, bouncy knock, sort of like the way Annabel used to knock on my bedroom door when we were kids, our own special code. For a moment, waking, I think the knock is inside the dream, but there it is again. I straighten my dress—one of several items I bought this morning at an open-air mall near the hotel—and answer the door. It’s a guy of medium height, wiry build, wearing a Cuban shirt, a straw hat, and loose khaki pants. He’s very tan. He’s clearly American, but there’s something different about him. He’s nothing like the tourists who wander the markets of San José, looking over their shoulders and clutching their wallets.

“Wiggins,” he says, stepping into the room. “Nice place you got here.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t mean it,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“About the room. It was a joke.”

“Oh. Right.”

I’m not prepared for Wiggins’s sunny disposition. I guess I pictured a guy in a flak jacket and combat boots, shouting into a walkie-talkie. The couple next door starts up again.

“Sorry about the sound effects,” I say.

“No need to apologize. It’s not like you planned it.” He jingles something in his pocket and pulls out a massive key ring. “Ready?”

“Where are we going?”

“Police station. There’s the matter of identification.”

“Pardon?”

“We need you to pick these folks out of a crowd,” he says.

“Are you telling me you got them?” It seems impossible, too much to ask for.

“Yes, I’m pretty sure we did.”

Last night, over the phone, I explained to Wiggins the details of my search. I imagined that his own hunt for Teddy and Jane would take weeks, months even. Now, something feels off. I’m wondering if this is all there is to it. He captures the bad guys, and I make the identification. It seems too easy, after all these months of searching. I guess some part of me wanted to be there when they made the arrest, to see Emma’s captors cowering before a group of armed police officers. Maybe I wanted a SWAT team, camera crews, shots fired. I wanted them to feel, for a moment at least, the fear Emma must have felt when they took her. I wanted them to know what it’s like to experience overwhelming dread.

In front of the hotel, there’s a tanklike Jeep with several antennas. It’s high off the ground, spattered with mud. Wiggins opens the passenger side door and I climb in. Inside, there are all sorts of gadgets. He gets behind the wheel and turns the engine. It doesn’t rumble the way I expected, but instead lets out a soft purr, like a humble Toyota.

“What’s all this?” I say. “Is there a satellite somewhere in space transmitting our conversation to Washington?”

“Something like that.” He leans down and speaks into the stick shift. “The white snow gathers by the red door.” He straightens up, pulls out of the impossibly narrow parking space in a single swift motion.

I like this guy. I can imagine being friends with him in some other life, how I’d invite him to my dinner party and he’d tell riveting stories of international intrigue, filled with shady characters and complicated, implausible plots.

“Where were they?” I ask. “How did it happen?”

“The Costa Ricans picked them up a few hours ago. They were sleeping in a van like the one you described, and they matched the sketches. They were parked on a dirt road by the beach just a couple of miles from Manuel Antonio.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Your average criminal isn’t very smart.”

“Have you talked to them yet?”

“Well,
talk
might not be the right word. But the answer is yes. They confessed. This ID is a technicality.”

“What about Lisbeth? Did they say anything about her?”

“She paid them ten thousand dollars.”

“I don’t understand. What were their plans? Were they just going to live down here with Emma indefinitely?”

“Seems they didn’t think very far ahead. Lisbeth told the SFPD that she just wanted to spend a little time with Emma, claims Jake wouldn’t let her see her and she didn’t know what else to do. Her story is that things just got out of hand.”

“None of it makes any sense.”

“These things rarely do. That’s what I mean when I say criminals generally aren’t very smart. Most of them lack the ability to think through to the end of the plan. They get one idea in their head, one story—the perfect scenario, in which everything goes smoothly and the outcome is ideal. But when one little thing goes wrong, when the pieces stop fitting together, they can’t figure out how to revise the plan and come up with a workable solution.”

We drive the winding roads through Quepos—past a schoolyard where children are playing soccer, past the bus station and a grocery store, white churches and decrepit offices and a smattering of tourist hotels. Soon, the city gives way to jungle, and we’re bumping along a pitted dirt road, tree limbs slapping the Jeep.

“So,” I say, catching my breath. “How long have you been doing this?”

“This isn’t my usual job. I’m more of a—what’s the word—peacekeeper.” Something about the way he says peacekeeper doesn’t sound the least bit pacifist.

Then just as suddenly, the jungle gives way to a small clearing, and we take a sharp turn onto a newly paved road. The smell of tar rises in the heat. A large, hand-painted sign proclaims
Bienvenida
in bright red letters. It seems a grand affair for the town itself, which is just a cluster of wooden houses, a fruit stand, a chapel, and a single-story brick building, arranged on either side of the new road. Wiggins parks the Jeep in the dirt in front of the chapel, where an elderly woman is selling things from a card table: three plastic combs, a couple of warm orange sodas in bottles, and Costa Rican scenes painted on blocks of wood.

“This way,” he says, nodding down the street. “I never asked how you know Nick.”

“I’m a photographer. He was a client. What about you?”

“We once worked together at the UN, or something like that.”

“He never told me he worked at the UN.”

“I bet there’s a lot he never told you.”

We stop in front of the brick building. It’s nothing special, just a one-story affair with an unpainted wooden door and a few dingy windows. But in front of the building is a garden with bougainvillea growing wild.

“You ready to do this?” Wiggins says.

“Not really.”

I look at the ground and take a deep breath, steeling myself. My feet have tan lines in the shape of the plastic thongs I’ve been wearing since I arrived in Costa Rica. Now, in the new leather sandals I bought this morning, I feel somehow out of place.

Wiggins opens the door and ushers me through. Inside, the air conditioner is on, and the room smells like newspaper and cheap cologne. Three men in uniform are playing checkers and drinking beer at a table in the corner.
“Hola!”
they say. They all seem to know Wiggins. A hulk of a man rises to greet us. He smiles, revealing a shining row of silver braces. Wiggins exchanges some rapid-fire Spanish with the men for a couple of minutes before the man in braces leads us out of the room.

We pass through a metal door, down a corridor lined with empty cells, three on each side. The hallway reeks of burnt coffee and body odor, along with a faint scent of urine. My stomach turns: fear, anger, nervousness, all roiling around together. The officer inserts a big skeleton key and pushes the door open. My mouth tastes sour, and I have my hands in my pockets to hide the fact that they’re shaking. These last eleven months, every time I’ve prepared myself for something, imagining possible outcomes and steeling myself to face them, the event itself has been a surprise, something I could not have predicted; all my preparations have amounted to nothing.

Then we’re in a tiny room. The door clicks shut behind us. Bars span the entire length, and behind them are a dozen men and women dressed in street clothes, looking bored and sweaty. There’s no air conditioner in here, just a couple of electric fans stationed on this side of the bars, blowing into the cell.

The man with the braces jiggles his keys. The fans emit a weak clickety-clack.

“Well?” Wiggins says.

I don’t have to study the faces, don’t have to deliberate. There they are, sitting on a bench in the back. Her hair is pulled back tight in a ponytail, just as I remembered it. He has gained weight, gone pudgy around the face, but it’s him. I’m surprised to find they don’t look frightening, they don’t even look criminal. I search for some family resemblance that Teddy might share with Lisbeth, but find nothing. Teddy and Jane are sitting close together, almost huddling, holding hands, like those couples I’d occasionally see in church when I was a kid, couples who clearly didn’t belong, couples who had been goaded into attending a service in exchange for a Thanksgiving turkey or a bag of secondhand clothes.

Both of them are looking at the floor. Teddy is bouncing his foot up and down, biting his fingernails. His manner is nothing like it was that day at Ocean Beach—the laid-back confidence of a man who was completely aware of his own appeal. A couple of days ago, seeing how thin Emma had become, I wanted to kill him. Now, the anger is still there, but instead of red-hot rage it’s just a sick feeling in the gut.

“It’s them,” I say, nodding toward the back of the cell.

“Which ones?”

“On the bench,” I say. “The blond ones.”

The woman looks up, as if her name has been called. I catch her eye, try to gauge her expression. Is there remorse in her face? Fear? Anger? I see none of that. Her face is blank, the eyes dull. I hold the woman’s gaze, determined to confront her, if only in this small way, but she quickly looks away.

“Certain?” Wiggins says.

“One hundred percent.”

I’ve gone over this moment in my mind hundreds of times. I imagined coming up with just the right phrase, just the right tone, that would force Emma’s kidnappers to understand the cruelty of what they had done. In my fantasies I always found some way to take my revenge with the most harsh and honest words. Now, my throat is tight, my mouth dry, and the words won’t come.

We step back through the door, down the corridor, and into the air-conditioned room, where an ancient fridge hums loudly.

“What now?” I ask.

“I’ll take you to your hotel,” Wiggins says. “I’m guessing you’re ready to get back to California.”

“And them? Teddy and Jane?”

“Charges have to be filed, then there will be an extradition. I’ll call you with the details.”

Outside, a light rain has begun to fall. I can hear it slapping the trees, the cement paving stones, the street. We’re in the middle of nowhere, a few cleared acres buried within a wild jungle that seems to be closing in. Far off in the distance there are mountains, pale brown against the white sky.

He opens the door of the Jeep for me, then goes over to the driver’s side and climbs in. “Delta 687,” he says, sliding the key in the ignition.

It sounds like some secret code, and I imagine a half dozen agents in some faraway government room, leaning in and listening, making important decisions based on this tiny piece of information. This world of international influence that Wiggins—and, apparently, Nick—inhabits seems so far removed from my life, much like the surf culture did a few months ago, and I’m reminded yet again how much that single moment on Ocean Beach changed everything, rearranged the context of my life in ways that cannot be undone.

“Pardon?” I say.

“Delta 687. That’s your best flight out. It leaves at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Of course. I thought you were—”

Wiggins starts the engine and glances over at me. “Yes?”

“Nothing.”

I watch the scenery roll by—the mountains, the enormous green plants growing wild, the tiny houses with their brown dirt yards. It occurs to me that I’m going to miss them. I’m going to miss a lot of things about this country.