As I will keep her here forever…
Kara Marshall gazed unseeingly out the train window, the clacking of the wheels on the tracks — a sound that normally lulled her into a half doze within moments of leaving the Camden Green station — doing nothing at all today to calm the turmoil of her mind.
She had to do something! And she was going to do something, the moment she got to the city.
Unconsciously, her hand closed tighter on the bag filled with the posters she’d made up last night. Except they weren’t really posters — they were just sheets of standard size copy paper showing an image of Lindsay and pleading for any information about where she might be.
And Kara’s phone number.
Not that it was going to do any good, for deep in her heart she knew — knew with a terrible certainty — that Lindsay hadn’t simply taken off for a few days.
Someone had taken her.
Turning away from the world racing by beyond the train window, she remembered that there were people around her. People who might have seen Lindsay.
Pulling one of the posters from her bag, she began to circulate through the train, showing it to anyone who would look at it. Half the people simply turned away; the rest shook their heads sadly and looked at her with pity in their eyes.
When Kara had reached the last car, she collapsed into a seat and stared vacantly at her daughter’s image.
And felt utterly helpless.
Was she going to show the poster to ten million people? And even if she could, what good would it do? It doesn’t matter, she told herself. You have to do something, and there isn’t anything else you can do.
She got off the train at Grand Central and took the subway south to Spring Street, emerging from the station into the streets of SoHo. And everywhere she looked — on every kiosk and lamppost — she saw masses of posters just like hers, advertising everything from rock groups to performance artists to housecleaning services to free kittens. On some of the kiosks, the posters were layered more than an inch thick. Even if she put hers up, how long would they remain uncovered? A day? An hour? Five minutes?
Steeling herself, she began. She went into every shop, every store, every gallery and restaurant along Spring and Prince and Houston. Wherever they let her, she taped a poster in the window, and sometimes taped one to the outside if they wouldn’t let her put one inside.
But none of them would let her show Lindsay’s photo to their customers. Not in the restaurants, not in the shops, not in the galleries.
When her stomach finally told her she had to eat something, she bought a hot pretzel and a bottle of water and walked up to Washington Square to eat the makeshift snack. The pretzel seemed to have no flavor at all, and she could barely swallow the water. Finally, she threw the last bite to the pigeons, stood up, took a deep breath and began her work again.
By four o’clock she was numb from repeating her questions. She was almost out of posters, and had seen some of the ones she’d put up earlier already covered by posters for other things.
How many girls went missing in New York every day, apparently with no one giving a damn about any of them, let alone her own daughter?
Kara felt like crying, but would not. Instead she took another deep breath and looked around to get her bearings.
She was on the corner of Bleecker and Lafayette, only a few blocks from where she began. She’d been in the city nearly all day, and had covered only about twenty city blocks.
Manhattan had almost seven thousand city blocks.
She had not even made a dent. She felt exhausted, broken, and almost overwhelmed with hopelessness.
She wasn’t going to find Lindsay this way.
So what was the use?
Before she could decide what to do next — call Steve or start back home — her cell phone rang. She glanced at the display, didn’t recognize the number, but pressed the key to accept the call.
“Kara?” a woman’s voice caroled. “Hi! It’s Rita Goldman!” For a moment Kara couldn’t quite place the name, but then the woman spoke again, and Kara remembered who she was. “I’ve found the perfect apartment for your family. It’s a three-bedroom, two bath with a great view on West Eighty-fourth. Lots of light, and you’ll love the price. The sellers are highly motivated—”
Kara clicked the phone off without speaking at all.
Rita Goldman. Their agent in the city. And she didn’t even know about Lindsay.
With everything that had happened — the TV coverage, the stories in the paper, the dozens of calls she’d made and the hundreds of posters she’d put up — even their own agent didn’t know that Lindsay was missing.
The world was just too big, and there were too many places someone could hide a girl.
Finally it all caved in on Kara. She sank to the curbing on a corner in the middle of the city, put her head on her knees, and began to cry.
Chapter Twenty-nine
All things come to he who waits.
I do not know who first said that, but I have always found it to be true.
I wait.
I am observant.
I am able to see the signs.
And this morning another one came.
Yet even now, as I write this, I couldn’t say exactly how I know that this was what I have been looking for.
Waiting for.
Searching for.
At first glance there was nothing special about the ad at all.
A seemingly innocuous little ad for an equally innocuous-sounding house.
And yet something about it kept bringing my attention back to it, and soon it stood out from all the other ads like a brilliant signal shining out of darkness.
A beacon, reaching out to me, drawing me to it.
I have circled the ad in red, of course, and I suppose I must admit the possibility that I could be wrong.
Which is why I circled a few other ads, too, and though I shall go and look at all the houses, I have a feeling about this one.
After I’ve been to the house, and assured myself that it is, indeed, the place where she lives, I shall paste the ad into this journal, just as I have the ads for both the girls’ houses.
I could probably paste the ad in now, so strong is my feeling, but again I must remind myself to be patient and wait until everything is proven and everything is right.
Still, things are coming together perfectly — far more perfectly than I could ever have imagined.
It won’t be long now.
I can be patient.
I must be patient.
I will be patient.
But it is hard, and my cravings are so strong…
Chapter Thirty
Mama.
Lindsay focused on the word that had become her mantra, silently repeating it over and over again in the suffocating darkness. Sometimes it helped her slip off into a restless sleep.
But mostly — as now — it was the only thing that kept hope alive.
Somehow her mother would find her; would know what had happened to her; would come to her rescue.
Mama.
She had to come soon, before the man — the monster—turned from Shannon to her.
Shannon.
The other girl’s name echoed in her mind. How long had she been here? Where had she come from?
And what had the man done to her?
Lindsay didn’t want to think about it, but no matter how hard she tried, images kept forming in her mind — terrible images cobbled together from scenes she’d seen on television and at the movies.
Images of the man looming over Shannon’s emaciated body. In her mind’s eye, Lindsay saw Shannon tied down, her body stripped naked, the man’s fingers running over her skin, touching her arms and her legs, then moving over the contours of her body. Lindsay’s own skin crawled as she imagined how Shannon must feel, and as she imagined his hands caressing Shannon’s breasts, then moving lower until his fingers slipped between her legs, her own groin began to tingle and she found herself trying to twist away from the touch that wasn’t even happening.