It Only Takes a Moment (22 page)

“T
his will probably be a wild-goose chase,” the police officer said to his partner. “If those kids saw a black van on Monday afternoon, it’s long gone by now.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said the other patrolman, “but we’ve got to check anyway.” As they rounded the corner of the dry-cleaning plant, they saw a white Volvo station wagon parked on the cracked and otherwise deserted macadam.

“Eureka.”

They called the find into headquarters.

“You search around the perimeter of the building. I’ll go over the parking lot.”

The men got out of the police vehicle and began pacing the area.

“Hey, Barry. Come over here.”

“What have you got?”

The policeman pointed to the strip of green construction paper stapled together to form a circle. A dirty yellow feather dangled from the band.

“Somebody’s been playing cowboys and Indians.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

The other cop nodded. “Janie Blake was last seen with paint on her face. The kid was decorated for Indian day at camp. What’s an Indian without a headdress?”

He reached down to pick up the paper headpiece.

“Careful, Arnie,” warned his partner. “If there are prints on that thing, you don’t want to screw them up.”

M
argo couldn’t remember the last time she had been this tense. The kidnapping had shaken her deeply, and so far she had felt utterly powerless to help her friend. With the interview, Margo felt she was being given the opportunity to help get out further news of the kidnapping investigation and to present Eliza to the audience as the devoted mother she was. Margo was intent on being prepared and doing it right.

In the years of medical school, internship, residency, and hospital and private practice, Margo had seen countless examples of people who had been pushed to their limits and finally had broken. Afterward, it took years of nurturing to build them back. Some were never whole again.

Margo was glad she would be the one questioning Eliza, primarily because she wanted to ensure that the interview would be handled with the delicacy it deserved. Eliza was under extreme pressure as she waited for word on the fate of her child and Margo didn’t want this interview to add to an already almost unbearable load. Despite Linus’s urging, Margo had already decided she would not ask Eliza to respond to the ridiculous reports that she herself was a suspect.

Margo looked at her watch. Ten minutes until the hour. This would be the time to reach him, while he was between patients.

She made the call.

She waited for her colleague to pick up the phone.

“Margo. Good to hear from you. I caught you on television this morning. Nice going.”

“Thanks,” said Margo. “But I’m afraid I’m a duck out of water there. And that leads to the reason I’m calling. I need your help, need your opinion.”

“Shoot.”

“I’m about to interview Eliza Blake.”

“That’s a terrible situation. Terrible.”

“It is and I don’t want to make it worse with this interview. I don’t want to screw it up.”

“You won’t, Margo, I’m sure you won’t. What exactly are you concerned about?”

“That I’ll ask her something that might hurt her.”

“She’s not going to be hurt by anything you ask her. The hurt comes from what’s happened to her child. Whoever took her daughter is the one who has hurt her. Unless you plan on attacking her, I don’t think you’re going to damage her. I don’t know the woman, Margo, but I know some of the things she’s been through. She’s survived them, and she’s not only survived but she’s thrived in a pretty high-anxiety professional world.”

“Losing a child is different,” said Margo.

“But she hasn’t lost the child, not yet anyway. And let’s hope she doesn’t.” Her colleague paused momentarily before continuing. “But I suppose we should acknowledge, Margo, that there’s also the horrific possibility that Janie will never be found or won’t make it through this alive.”

“Eliza would blame herself for the rest of her life,” Margo whispered. “Whatever kind of life would she have after that?”

“Look, Margo, it’s not a therapy session. It’s a television interview.
You don’t have to probe, you don’t have to get into Eliza’s innermost feelings, just ask the questions you think you should, the questions the audience would ask if they were in your place. Trust your instincts. And trust Eliza’s strength.”

Trust your instincts.

Trust your instincts.

The words filled Margo’s head. She just had to go with her gut, question Eliza and see where the interview went.

As she went over the questions she had planned to ask, Margo’s thoughts turned to the psychic who had been sharing her premonitions with Eliza. She hoped Stephanie Quick’s instincts were wrong and that Janie wasn’t hurt, or worse.

H
e wasn’t sure which way to go, but Phil Doyle started walking along the dirt road. He didn’t realize he was going deeper into the forest and farther away from civilization. Instead, he was thrilled when he spotted the small house and separate shed set back from the road.

Phil noted that there were telephone lines coming from the house, lines that draped from pole to pole as far as he could see in both directions. It was getting late and it would be dark soon. There was no way he wanted to spend the night in these woods. He needed to call for help and let the police know about the necklace he’d found.

Approaching the house, he considered the possibility that Janie Blake and her kidnapper could be inside. If that were the case, he would be risking his life. Phil decided he would try to see in the window before knocking on the door.

As he crept around the foundation of the small house, Phil saw that some of the windows at the rear were covered with planking, allowing no view in or out. He positioned himself near one that he supposed would be an opening from a bedroom. The walls of the cabin were thin and Phil
could hear the sound of a television. It sounded like cartoons were playing inside.

Was Janie Blake in there? Why would these windows be boarded up when none of the others were?

He took out his pocketknife and began prying out the nails that attached the plywood to the window frame. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he was able to remove four nails from the corner of the board. Phil slid his hand beneath the plywood and pulled back enough of it to be able to see inside.

A little girl was sitting on a bed, watching television. Her back was to him, so he couldn’t be absolutely sure it was Janie but, because of the necklace he had found on the dirt road, Phil was convinced the girl was Eliza Blake’s kidnapped daughter.

Should he try to get the child’s attention? Or should he run and try to find someone who could help him?

Before he could decide what to do, Phil felt himself being pulled backward by a strong hand grasping him under his chin. Another hand grabbed the back of his head. Both hands twisted and pulled in opposite directions at the very same time, snapping Phil’s neck and silently killing him.

T
he studio was cleared except for only the most necessary personnel. Margo fiddled with the microphone battery pack that was attached to the rear of her waistband, invisible from the camera, while Doris Brice finished brushing powder on Eliza’s cheeks.

“We don’t want you looking all shiny,” Doris said soothingly in her throaty voice.

“It’s hard to care a whit about how I look,” said Eliza. “But thanks, Doris.” Eliza rubbed the zodiac medallion Stephanie had given her.

“Good-luck charm?” asked Doris.

“Something like that,” answered Eliza.

The makeup woman patted Eliza’s arm before retreating to her post behind the cameras.

Eliza and Margo sat in chairs facing each other on a raised, carpeted platform. Spotlights were trained on the two women, but the rest of the studio was dark.

“Ready when you are.” The announcement came over the speaker from the director in the control room.

Margo cleared her throat and began.

“Thank you for coming in to do this, Eliza.”

“You’re welcome,” Eliza answered.

“First of all, is there any new information you can share with us?” asked Margo.

“Actually, there
is
something. Just before I left my house, I was told that there’s a new lead up in Milford, Pennsylvania. An employee at an Urgentcare was found murdered this morning and investigators think she might have been trying to make a phone call last night to the Find Janie hotline.”

“And she was killed because of
that
?” asked Margo.

“That’s what they’re trying to find out,” said Eliza. “But if the woman did have information about Janie and was killed because of it, that lets you know what we’re dealing with here, doesn’t it?”

“You must be terrified,” said Margo.

“That doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel.” Eliza took a deep breath. “But it doesn’t matter how I feel. What matters is finding Janie and Mrs. Garcia, our housekeeper.”

“There’s been speculation that Mrs. Garcia might be involved in the plot to take Janie,” said Margo.

“I know there has been,” said Eliza. “But that women is totally trustworthy and gentle and good. When this thing is over, everyone will see that Mrs. Garcia had absolutely nothing to do with it. I’m sure of that.”

“What do
you
think happened, Eliza?”

The camera lens closed in on Eliza’s face. “I’m not sure what happened,” she said. “Someone took my daughter, that much is apparent. I don’t know why. So far, it doesn’t look like money is the motive because there hasn’t been a legitimate ransom demand. But whoever has Janie…”

Her voice trailed off. She bent her head and looked down at her hands, in her lap. Margo waited while Eliza composed herself. After a few moments, Eliza raised her head again.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” said Margo. “Do you want to continue?”

In that instant, Eliza had a mental flash of Linus praying out loud in the control room, praying that she would keep talking so he would have lots of tape to use on his show in the morning. But satisfying Linus wasn’t the reason she forced herself to go on.

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s keep going.”

Margo glanced at her notes. “You said it doesn’t look like money is the motive for this kidnapping,” she said. “Do you have any suspicions about what the motive might be?”

Eliza shook her head. “No, I don’t,” she said. “Of course, your mind wanders and goes where it shouldn’t. You think of all sorts of things that could be happening to your child. You’re scared to death that some sick person has taken her and is doing God knows what with her.” Eliza’s voice cracked. She grabbed hold of the arms of the chair to steady herself. “I was watching some videotape of Janie before I came here, tape you could show on the air. There is such a happy shot of Janie waiting to talk to Santa Claus last Christmas and a little while later there’s video of her upset and hiccupping when the visit didn’t go so well. I hope you’ll use that shot, too. Because that picture of Janie is the one that is far more likely to look like she does now. Whenever Janie is scared or really worried, she gets the hiccups.”

Margo watched and listened, marveling that her friend could speak as eloquently as she was. She decided to change the subject to something more productive than speculation about what hell Janie was going through.

“Law enforcement is all over this case, Eliza. But what can
we
do?” Margo asked. “What can somebody sitting at home do to help?”

“They can download our missing-persons posters from the Find Janie Web site and put the flyers up wherever they can. They can keep an eye out for Janie, and if they see her or Mrs. Garcia or anything at all that seems suspicious, call into the hotline.” Eliza paused. “And we can all pray.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to say, Eliza?”

“Yes, there is. I’m reaching out to anyone who might be able to help. If you’d told me before that I’d be consulting a psychic, I would have said you were crazy. But that’s how desperate I am to find my daughter. So, even though many people will think I’m nuts, I want to let the audience know what the psychic says she has seen, in case it might help find my daughter. She thinks Janie is near moving, or rushing, water and is hurt, and she thinks the letter
M
and a bridal veil are involved in some way. So I ask anyone listening to keep those things in mind as well as we try to find Janie and Mrs. Garcia.”

T
he stack of multicolored flyers sat on the kitchen table.

“Where did you get all those?” Nell’s uncle asked as he took another beer from the refrigerator.

“I went around town and pulled them down,” Nell answered, not particularly concerned. She had witnessed her uncle help himself to fistfuls of mints at the diner and take piles of the free community newspaper so he could get the coupons inside. If something didn’t have a price tag on it, Nell figured it was up for grabs. “I thought it would be a good idea since they were about Janie.”

His fist came crashing down on the table. “Damn Janie and damn you,” he shouted. “What the dickens were you thinking?” demanded Lloyd. “People in town already think you don’t belong up here alone with me. If some busybody saw you tearing down those flyers, they’ll send the cops for sure. We don’t need that kind of attention.”

Uncle Lloyd will get over it. He always does.
His blowups were always followed by more beers. Sometimes he would drive off and leave her there, not coming back until the next morning. So far, tonight he was staying home.

After Uncle Lloyd went outside to the porch to clean his gun, Nell spread the flyers out. She arranged them according to shade. Yellow, orange, red, blue, green. She pasted them, one by one, in her scrapbook, thinking all the time what a good mother Eliza was. She had everybody, everywhere looking for her daughter. Nell suspected her own mother would never have made such an effort. Uncle Lloyd wouldn’t have, either.

She was jealous of Janie Blake.