Im sorry. Im sorry. I feel so stupid. No matter how hard I try, another spasm of weeping comes along every few minutes. Detective Berg has thoughtfully provided a box of tissues and my lap is full of wadded-up Kleenex.
Youre not stupid, Mrs. Garner, he assures me. Believe me, the parent is often the last to know. And if this guy your daughter is seeing is over eighteen, as you suspect, he might even face charges.
I dont care about that. I just want her back, safe and sound. Of course. But there are legal ramifications. Let me read you the statute, he says, picking up a card from the desk. If the victim is under fifteen and the perpetrator is at least eighteen, this constitutes a second degree sexual offense. However, if the defendant is less than four years older than the victim, this may constitute an affirmative defense.
Whats an affirmative defense?
Berg reads from the back of the card. Affirmative defenses are those in which the defendant introduces evidence which negates criminal liability.
Meaning he gets away with it? Taking advantage?
The detective shrugs. The legal age of consent in the state of New York is seventeen. Your daughter is sixteen, so it depends on how much older he is. If hes thirty, he can and probably will be prosecuted. If hes twenty or under, probably not, unless your daughter testifies that he forced himself on her.
Oh God. The whole thing feels like its spinning out of control. All this talk about criminal liability and prosecutable offenses, all I want is for Kelly to be okay. And I want every cop in the known universe out looking for my daughter. I want them a lot more proactive than Be On The Lookout.
I told you the boy is a pilot. Cant he be traced that way? Cant I look at pictures, pick him out?
You already have a photo of the guy, he reminds me. Well post it with the BOLO.
A picture but no name. Cant you like run it through a computer or something?
Berg chuckles. Like on TV? Face-recognition software isnt that precise, not in the real world. Plus, youd have to get access to the right database. But there might be someone who can help. He rummages around in a desk drawer, hands me a card. Never met this guy, but he comes highly recommended.
I check out the business card. Just a name, title and phone number. Nothing fancy. Says here hes retired, I say, feeling stunned.
The friendly, sympathetic detective is passing me off to some geezer.
Hes not a real cop, I point out.
Dont let him hear that, these retired guys get very offended. Berg stands up. The interview is over. Hes palming me off, passing me along. Get me a name, Mrs. Garner. A last name for this bad boy who ran off with your daughter. Give us a place to start and well do the rest.
He shows me the door.
10. Girl Talk
First thing I do when I get home is call Kellys best friend, Sierra Wavell. Im thinking I should have called her first, before reporting Kelly missing. Call the girlfriend, that should have been obvious. If Id been thinking straight. Which, admittedly, Im not.
Im instantly bumped to her voice mail, which means her cell is already engaged, no surprise.
Sierra? This is Jane Garner, Kellys mom. Please call me when you get this. Its an emergency, Sierra. Please?
I leave my number, enunciating slowly.
Next task is Kellys computer. Seth will be on there somewhere. Name or number. Something to work with. Something to give the cops.
My computer skills are, by the standards of your average ten-year-old, modest. I know how to work my spreadsheet software, how to send and receive e-mails, even, with Kellys coaching, how to download digital photographs from my little Nikon, which comes in handy for taking pictures of first fittings. I know how to search for stuff on Google, all of it business relatedfabrics, suppliers, manufacturers and so on. I have a pretty good understanding of how computerized cutting and sewing machines operate, how the information is fed in one end and the complete item comes out the other.
Thats pretty much it. A recreational computer person I am not. I dont game or chat or role-play. If I have an hour to myself Id rather read a book, or, if my brain is really stressed, veg out watching one of my shows.
So I dont know how to write code or mess with the hardware or hack into encrypted programs. Which means Im able to open Kellys e-mail program, but I cant get into the files where she actually keeps her saved mail. Files marked with enticing names like Girltalk, Junk-o-la, Facers, S-man.
Girltalk. Very clever, my daughter. This will be where she keeps all the gossipy stuff. And every time I click on the file it comes up File locked, enter code. Which I would gladly do if I knew the code.
I try Kellys birthday.
Log-in did not complete for the following reason(s):
Log-in Information Is Missing Or Invalid
I try her never-to-be-mentioned middle name. (Edith, my mothers namethere I said it. Kelly Edith Garner. Live with it.)
Log-in did not complete for the following reason(s):
Log-in Information Is Missing Or Invalid
I try the date when she got the all-clear from her cancer. Hit return, fingers mentally crossed.
Log-in did not complete for the following reason(s):
Log In Information Is Missing Or Invalid
I try, what the hell, SETH. Banging hard on the keys, S-E-T-H, take that!
Log-in has timed out. Please exit program.
Three strikes, Im out, and its all I can do not to push the insolent little computer off her desk, thinking there ought to be an emergency button for mothers.
Maybe its not being able to make the computer give up its secrets; maybe its having been more or less dismissed by the Nassau County cop. Whatever the reason, suddenly Im having my first major meltdown.
Heart racing, lungs gulping far too much air.
Panic attack.
Its been years. Okay, weeks. Part of me able to make the diagnosis, the rest of me huffing like a fish pulled out of water.
Paper bag. Im supposed to get a paper bag, breathe into it so I dont pass out. But the bags are in the kitchen, a million miles away. Cant possibly make it down the stairs. Finally I put my head between my knees, and that helps. Constricting the diaphragm.
Whoa, thats better. Big sigh.
Im in the kitchen, uncapping a spring water, when my cell goes off.
I flip it open, hoping its Kelly. No such luck.
Hi, Sierra. Thanks for calling back. My heart instantly tripping again, hands so slick its hard to hold the phone.
You said it was an emergency, Sierra says, adopting a tone of whiny accusation.
It is an emergency. Kelly is missing and I think shes in trouble. I need to call Seth, do you know how I can do that?
After a pause she says, Seth? Seth who?
Her boyfriend, Sierra. She must have mentioned him.
Uh-uh. Nope. Theres a Seth in my math class but hes like fourteen. A freshman. Him?
You said it was an emergency, Sierra says, adopting a tone of whiny accusation.
It is an emergency. Kelly is missing and I think shes in trouble. I need to call Seth, do you know how I can do that?
After a pause she says, Seth? Seth who?
Her boyfriend, Sierra. She must have mentioned him.
Uh-uh. Nope. Theres a Seth in my math class but hes like fourteen. A freshman. Him?
The very idea of a freshman boy offends her.
This Seth is older, I tell her. He might be nineteen or twenty. Maybe even older.
No way!
Way, I insist. I cant believe she wouldnt mention a new boyfriend. Youre still best friends, right?
Another long pause, I can sense her fidgeting, imagine the face shes making. Not exactly?
Not exactly? What does that mean?
Were, like, still friends and everything.
Youre not sharing?
Not exactly.
Not exactly. The adolescent equivalent of thats for me to know and you never to find out.
Please, Sierra, I need your help. Kelly took off in the middle of the night. I assume with Seth. Ive reported her missing but the police need somewhere to start. Like with the boyfriend.
Big gasp. Youre going to have her arrested? Your own daughter?
No, of course not. Im trying to find her. She called me and said she needed help, but her cell phone got cut off before she could tell me where she is.
Really?
Yes, really. I wouldnt bother you otherwise.
Mmm, okay, sure, Sierra hems and haws for a while. Its like, Mrs. Garner, its like youre not bothering me exactly. I just dont know anything. Sorry.
I tell her about the photo album, the images of Kelly skydiving. You dont know anything about that, Sierra? She never mentioned skydiving?
No way! she squeals, excited again. She really jumped out of a plane?
I think her friend Seth was flying the plane.
Oh. My. God. And then, to whomever shes with, a shout to the side. Its Kelly Garner! She jumped out of a plane! Thats so cool!
And so it goes. Theres probably no way to know for sure, not without hooking Sierra up to a lie detectorand maybe not even thenbut Im starting to believe she really doesnt know anything. Not that shed tell me if she did. At least not directly.
We chat for another few minutes. According to Sierra, Kelly has been like out of the group, you know? An older guy makes like so much sense, because she never wants to hang with them anymore even though shes been like superficial friendly and everything and one time Sierra went to Kelly, she went, whats up with you lately? and Kelly gave her this like Mona Lisa smile thing that, Im sorry, Mrs. Garner, but it really pissed me off.
I know that silent smile, how infuriating it can be.
Sierra, can you do me a big favor? Can you ask around?
I guess. Sounding like shed rather extract one of her own wisdom teeth with a pair of rusty pliers.
Its very important. Please?
Yeah, okay, whatever.
Then she breaks the connection. Not goodbyes, just a hang-up. Not that she means to be rude, or even knows what rude is. And Im left with basically nothing, not a clue, or even a sense of where to go next. Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. Where are you, baby?
11. When The Scream Stays Inside Your Mind
Kelly Garner wakes up dead. Dead and floating.
Thats the feeling. Her body isnt there; shes left it behind. All that remains are a few dim thoughts flickering in the dark nothing. The sensation of flying, of falling through the air. His face, his voice holds her attention briefly, earnestly, then fades. Cant think of his name. Name on the tip of her tongue, if only she had a tongue. Then gone, leaving nothing behind.
Its just herself alone now, the part of her that lives inside her mind, the dark, knotted core of her innermost self.
Warm.
There, she actually feels something, a physical sensation. Where is it coming from? Is death warm? No, no, shes feeling the warm on her skin, on her forehead and scalp. Thats where the warm message is coming from.
Beads of perspiration on her scalp. Sweat in her eyes. She blinks instinctively, feels her eyelids respond.
How very strange. Her eyes are open but she sees nothing. And although shes starting to detect the numbing tingle of a body beyond her face, its very distant, as if her limbs have been hidden over the next horizon. Not that she can see the horizon in the dark.
Dark.
Thats why she cant see! Its dark. The absence of light.
With that realizationshes alive, in the dark, and something is terribly wrong with her bodycomes a wave of sheer terror. A flood of icy adrenaline that freezes her brain like an arctic blast.
Why cant she feel her hands, her feet, whats wrong with her? Was there an accident?
The memory floats up like a bubble through honey: she didnt have an accident. There was an attack. Just as she and Seth are disembarking the aircraft. She has the cell to her ear, telling her mother something important. Something about trouble, about calling the cops. Before she can finish asking her mom for help, a man on the runway is pointing something at thema gun, a weapon?and theres a sharp, needlelike pain in her abdomen, then darkness.
Not a bullet, something else. A powerful drug. Was that the needle slamming into her abdomen? Is that what happened? Does that explain the vast numb tingling? The thickness of her thoughts? The sensation that her mind has been wrapped in a fluffy blanket?
Kellys experience with drugs is somewhat limited. Beer and chronic at parties, and that one time she and Sierra dropped Ecstasy at a warehouse rave in Long Beach. The X was funshe danced for hours and hoursbut at the same time a little scary because part of her kept chanting, Three! Four! MDMA, methylenedioxymethamphetamine! Shed made the mistake of looking up the drugs chemical name on the web, read what it did to the brain, the neurotransmitters, and couldnt quite shake the uneasy feeling that little bits of her mind were frying like that stupid ad from the last century, your brain on drugs, sizzling like an egg in a pan.
Whatever is causing thisit feels like her thoughts are slurringit isnt like ecstasy or marijuana or alcohol. Its something much more powerful. So powerful its amazing that her body continues to breatheshe can feel the air in her nose and throat, the gluey dryness of her mouthand her heart, yes, she can pick up on the slow thump of her pulse. Much too slow to keep up with her jittery thoughts, the panic thats rising like a tide, or the burning sensation shes just now detected in her abdomen.
Seth, what about Seth? It was his plane, his flight plan, his delivery. What went wrong?
What happened? Where is she? Is Seth okay or did they kill him?three lines of a chorus that slowly rises into a scream of fear and confusion. She cant make her mouth work, so for now the scream stays inside her mind. Silently screaming a heat-seeking name, over and over, endless loop.
MOMMY HELP ME PLEASE HELP ME MOMMY PLEASE HELP HELP HELP MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY HELP HELP HELP