might have felt jealous of the guy, but he wouldn’t have been suspicious.
“Slowly, he started to learn things about me. Asked where I was from, about my family. I told him that I lived with my grandfather, about how my parents died in a car crash when Alyssa and I were little—told him I had a twin sister. Maybe I should have been suspicious that he was interested to hear about me, but he was always so friendly and positive about everything, I couldn’t resist talking to him.”
Much as Eric wished Vanessa would hurry with her story, or even skip over the parts that made his skin crawl, nonetheless, he sensed it was important for him to hear it. Not just in case there were details that might help them track down the leader of the trafficking ring, but because, after all, Vanessa had been through a terrible trauma. She needed to tell someone what had happened.
He also felt strongly the need to hear her out. Eight years ago, he’d failed her. He hadn’t been there for her. But he was here now. He had a second chance—the kind of second chance he’d prayed for, but never really dared to dream he might get. He could be here for her now. It wouldn’t change the past, but it was the best he could do.
Vanessa looked down at her hands as she spoke, as though eye contact would be too difficult, given the content of her story. “Then one weekend, I was really bummed that I had to work, because I wanted to come out here to the cabin. Jeff said he wanted to make me feel better, that he wanted to do something special. He offered to take me out after I got off work. By then I felt like I knew him, even though I didn’t, really.”
Eric didn’t want to interrupt, but he had to. “You didn’t tell him about the cabin, did you?” If Jeff knew about the cabin, then he might have told Virgil or any of their associates. They could track them down. No doubt they wouldn’t want someone at large who knew so much about them. They were probably looking for Vanessa right now, not content to let the police and television viewers do their searching for them.
“No. I never told him about this place. It’s too special to me. It didn’t feel right to share it with him, even before...” Her voice trailed off.
“So you went out with him after work?” Eric prompted, dreading to hear what came next.
“Yes. I got in his car, and at first he was just as charming as ever. But we didn’t stop. He kept driving toward Chicago, and I realized I didn’t know where I was and didn’t know where he was taking me or how to get home again. It was dark out, almost winter, and very cold. I started to ask questions, and he just kept assuring me that he had a special place in mind, and I was going to love it.” Her voice broke.
“I didn’t love it. I hated it,” she whispered, shaking her head, her unspoken words telling him vastly more of the horrors she’d suffered than anything she might have said. “He tied me up, did whatever he wanted to me.” She wiped away a tear, gulped a breath and kept talking.
“He kept me tied up for nearly a year. When I got pregnant with Abby, for a long time he threatened me that I wouldn’t be able to keep her, but eventually he came around and took me to the doctor for medical care, but only once I promised not to let on about who I really was. He had these fake IDs. I was Madison Nelson, supposedly four years older than I really am, with blond hair. After that, he didn’t keep me tied up, just locked in the basement with my baby.
“For a long time, I tried to think of a way to escape, to get away when he wasn’t looking, but I couldn’t leave Abby behind, and I couldn’t run with a baby. Once I got pregnant with Emma, I knew there was no way. I hadn’t been able to escape with one child—how could I run away with two? So I turned my attention from thinking about how to escape, to thinking about how to give my girls something resembling a normal life. Jeff recognized the change and let us out more, even took us to the park, but he was always there with his gun on him when I wasn’t locked away.”
Eric wasn’t sure what to do or say. Part of him wanted to pull her into his arms, to hold her tight enough to squeeze the brokenness inside her back together. But he didn’t dare do that. The fact that she couldn’t even look at him told him she wasn’t ready to welcome his embrace.
Back when they were high-school friends, he’d more than once worked up the courage to place his hand on her back or his arm across her shoulder, innocent ways of testing whether she felt anything for him like what he felt for her. But he’d never gotten a clear indication from her either way, and after all she’d been through, he wasn’t sure how she’d respond to the old gestures of their friendship. As a high-school science teacher, he didn’t play a huge role in helping those who’d been abused, but he’d had some training on how to spot signs of abuse and what to do about it. So he kept his hands to himself and listened as she continued her story.
“Jeff used the kids for leverage. And I think maybe that’s why he got sucked into work so much—his boss used the kids for leverage, too. That’s how I knew I needed to be ready to leave. I overheard Virgil’s threats the last time. He wanted money—I don’t know how much, but I know it was a lot, more than we had, which supposedly Jeff had kept back from some of the deals he’d run, or that he’d missed out on by not running some deals, I don’t know. They wanted the money, or they were going to kill us. All five of us.”
At her words, Eric remembered. “Your son, Sammy. You said you left him with your sister, but she doesn’t even know you’re alive?”
“I wrote a note on the shirt he was wearing. It said ‘A DNA test will prove this is Alyssa Jackson’s son.’ It wasn’t a lie,” she clarified. “Sammy isn’t Alyssa’s son, obviously, but since we’re identical twins, a DNA test would still conclude she’s his mother.”
“So, you handed him to her?”
“No. I couldn’t risk that—I couldn’t let her see me or she’d come looking for me, and that might lead Virgil to her. That’s the same reason I didn’t use Sammy’s name. No, I left him in her manger.”
“In her manger? The nativity scene? Her concrete sculptures?”
“Yes. The nativity scene is up next to the house. I watched her working in the yard, saw her go inside the house, and I left him in his car seat in the manger with his diaper bag. Then I drove away a couple of blocks and watched until she went outside and saw him.”
For all of Eric’s fears that Vanessa might be crazy, leaving her son in a manger was nearly enough to convince him. Granted, the weather that day was warm for October. The baby would be fine outside, even if he wasn’t noticed for a couple hours or more. And she had stood by to make sure her sister found him.
“But why did you leave him with her?”
Vanessa looked him full in the face, her warm brown eyes boring into his. “To keep him safe. I don’t believe, even for a second, that Virgil or the people he works for are going to let me get away easily. They’ll look for me. They’re probably trying to track me down right now. They know I know what happened. If the cops find me first, I’ll go to jail and lose my girls. If the traffickers find me...” She shook her head. “I thought about leaving the girls with Alyssa, too. I debated where they’d be safest. But if three kids go missing and then three suddenly appear somewhere else, that might lead Virgil to them. And he knows the girls are old enough to identify him. No, this way, we’re split up. If something happens to me, at least Sammy has a chance.”
Her voice broke again, and Eric realized how difficult the decision must have been—to choose to leave her son with her sister, as a gamble that one way or another, at least part of her family might escape the criminals who had terrorized them for the past eight years.
But even more than the pain of her story, Eric felt chilled by the threat that had led her to abandon her infant son. “Do you really think they’re trying to track you down right now?”
“I’m sure of it.” Vanessa shuddered. “They’ve always made it a point to make an example of those who disobey them. In fact, that’s where they got my identity. The real Madison tried to run. They tracked her down, left her body in a shallow grave and made me look like the picture on her driver’s license.