Punch Like a Girl (13 page)

I gasp for air, coughing and sputtering, wiping my eyes like mad. I kneel. Water streams off me.

“Casey!” I shout, glancing up and down the path. My teeth chatter. My chest thuds.

Casey is nowhere in sight.

FREAK
to explode with panic

Seconds pass like hours. I stand at the edge of the pond, rigid.

Call
9
-
1
-
1
. Tell Jia. Find Casey.
My brain fires off thoughts, but my body refuses to react. Inside, I'm screaming, thrashing, punching holes in the sky.

How could this happen?

The sky is a cheerful blue. My clothes are covered in muck and feathers. My shorts drip water down my legs. The Velcro straps on my cast have come loose.

I pick up Casey's sunhat and hold it to my chest.

Jia. Go to her.

I force my feet to move.

My shoes squelch with every step.

Jia. I need her.

I break into a run, desperate to tell her the horrible thing I let happen, desperate for her to fix it.

I slip on wet goose poop and slam backward onto the brick path.

I arrive at the playground smelling like goose crap and pond scum.

My mascara must be smeared down my cheeks.

More than one mother gives me a fearful look, as if I'm the monster, but there are bigger monsters than they can imagine.

My skin feels raw. I stumble toward Jia.

She's watching Jonah swing across the overhead bars. When she sees me, her smile wilts.

“Tori, what happened? Where's Casey?” Her eyes dart to the pond and back to me.

I open my mouth.

Gone
, I want to say.
Let me tell you what happened. We need to find her.

Instead, a wail comes out. I dive at Jia and bury my face in her shoulder.

“Tori, talk to me,” she begs.

I can't breathe.

Minutes later, I'm sitting at a picnic table, Casey's sunhat in my lap. The hydro truck is back, parked outside the playground fence. It's lifting a worker in an orange hard hat with the hydraulic arm. How can hydro wires matter right now?

Francine has run down the path to the forest, looking for Casey. Sal has gathered the rest of the kids in a tight knot near the slide. Fatima propels a yellow tractor over a sand mound that the bigger kids are building. Sal watches us anxiously. When he finds out how I let Casey get taken, he won't want to go bowling with me anytime soon.

“The police will be here soon.” Jia's face is in mine; straight black hair, freckles across her nose, pleading eyes. “What did he look like? Tori, please focus.”

“Um, he's tall. White. Short brown hair. And he's clean.” My head spins. The clouds race by. The treetops bend in the wind.

“What do you mean?”

“He's always well dressed. Today he's wearing a collared shirt. White with blue stripes. Pressed pants. Manicured hands.” Then I remember the important detail. “He lives across the street from the backyard of the shelter.”

“He's a neighbor?” Her forehead wrinkles.

“Yes. The corner house with the blue front door.” I marvel that I can remember such details right now. “He was mowing the lawn this week.”

“Are you sure?” Jia looks puzzled.

I stand up, still holding Casey's hat. “I should have kicked the back of his knee. It would have made him fall.” I mime a kick. “I thought he was creepy. He…felt wrong. I should have told you about him.”

“Tori, this isn't your fault. But I need you to concentrate. Tell me everything that happened.”

“We can't let him hurt Casey. We have to—”

Just then Francine returns, shaking her head. “I couldn't find her.”

A moan rises from deep inside my chest.

I let the tears come.

I'm repeating my story to two police officers when Peggy arrives in a rusty four-door. She skids to a stop beside the squad car and runs across the grass toward us. Rita—Casey's mom—is with her.

In the playground, the kids from the shelter stare at us while Francine and Sal try to distract them with sand toys. I sink lower on the picnic bench and wipe my eyes with the tissue Jia gave me, but the tears keep falling.

“Tell us everything.” Peggy's eyes flash. She grips Rita's elbow as if she's trying to prop her up.

I've let them all down.

Jia sits beside me and holds my hand while I start my story from the beginning again. My soggy tissue is black with mascara. I clench it in my good fist.

One cop writes down everything I say. He's big like Dad, his uniform bulging with muscles. I watch the sunlight hit the fine pale hairs on his arm. The other cop—a small woman overloaded by the gear strapped to her belt—studies me. I avoid looking at Casey's mom. I don't want to see the despair in her eyes.

When I finish, they decide that Jia, Francine and Sal should take the rest of the kids back to the shelter with a police escort. The female cop also radios for a search-and-rescue unit and a patrol car to visit the house with the blue door.

Jia hugs me before they leave. “It's not your fault,” she says again, but I know she's wrong.

Sal stays focused on the kids. I'm sure he hates me for what happened. I hate myself for it.

A goose near the pond honks, and I'm instantly mad at it. “If only we hadn't gone to see the geese,” I say.

But no one's listening.

Peggy is deep in conversation with the police. Rita's chest heaves with heart-wrenching sobs.

The terrible moment by the pond replays in my mind like a horror movie that won't stop.

“There's one more thing.” I sit up. “The man who took Casey—he said something about Carita.”

Rita turns to me. Her eyes are red-rimmed. Her tears have gummed up her eye makeup, which is on both eyes this time. “I'm Carita,” she says. “Rita for short.”

My skin prickles. My broken hand aches. “He said”— I pause, not sure how to say it—“
Tell Carita she can go to hell
.”

Rita gasps like I've slapped her. “It was Stewart. I prayed it wasn't—”

“Who's Stewart?” the female cop asks.

“Her ex-husband.” Peggy frowns.

“But he lives across the street from the shelter,” I say.

“That's not possible.” Peggy shakes her head.

“He must have found us somehow, maybe pretended to be a neighbor.” Rita's hands tremble. “He's a good liar. Too good. Oh, Casey-Lynn!” She looks up at the sky, where gray clouds have gathered.

I swallow hard.

“Listen to me, Rita.” Peggy's tone is urgent. “Do you have a photo of him on your cell phone?”

“No. I erased them all. I don't want a photo of that man—”

“I can get one.” Peggy is on her cell phone in seconds. “Hello, Nathan? I need you to pull Rita Foster's file. Find the photo of her ex-husband, Stewart Foster, scan it, and send it to my phone. Hurry!”

Moments later, Peggy shows me an image of Casey's father on her phone. “Is this him?”

“Yes.” I clench my jaw. How could I have let this happen?

Rita rocks back and forth. “Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…”

“Try to stay calm.” The female cop puts an arm around Rita and slowly lowers her to the picnic bench.

I leap up to give them space.

The cop sits. “We need you to answer a few questions. Can you do that?”

Rita nods. Her chin trembles. Fear lives in her eyes.

“Did your husband—”

“Ex-husband,” Peggy pipes up.

“Did your ex-husband ever attempt to abduct Casey-Lynn before?”

“No.”

“Has he ever assaulted her or attempted to assault her?”

Rita shakes her head. “He only came after me. I think”—she shudders—“it's me he wants to punish.”

“Why would he want to do that?”

Peggy interrupts. “He has a history of domestic abuse, and there's a restraining order against him. He didn't want them to leave him for the shelter.”

The male cop nods. “Does he have joint custody of your daughter?”

“No. I was granted full custody of Casey-Lynn last month. His lawyer said he was moving to California. I thought he'd already gone.”

I still can't believe he's not a neighbor.

“Will you be putting out an
AMBER
Alert?” Peggy sets her hands on her hips and sticks out her pointy elbows. “I've heard the first three to five hours after an abduction are the most crucial in recovering a child.”

“That's not up to us to decide,” the male cop says. “Certain guidelines need to be met for an
AMBER
Alert—”

“But we'll make a request to initiate one,” his partner continues. “And I promise you that we'll do everything we can to get Casey back.”

So will I. My eyes well with tears again. I won't stop until she's found.

Fifteen minutes later, police officers are swarming the park. Some investigate the bushes near where Stewart Foster snatched Casey, and others disappear into the community to widen the search. Meanwhile, police dogs sniff Casey's hat before following her scent into the forest.