CLEO: I’ll be there Saturday night, but I’ll leave the rest to Bug.
BUG: Thank you.
After Bug told everyone where and what time to meet, they signed off.
Harper sat quietly for a moment. She thought about her husband and children, including the child growing inside her womb. She had made a promise to The Crew to do all she could to hold certain sexual predators accountable. These men, every one of them, deserved what they had coming.
And yet all she really wanted was to find a way out before it was too late.
CHAPTER FOUR
Surprised her daughter had almost outgrown her shiny new red Mary Janes, she put a little more muscle into getting the shoe over the arch of Molly’s foot.
“That hurts. Stop! Please! I want to go home.”
“Don’t be silly, Molly. You are home.”
“My name is Riley.”
“No, dear. It’s Molly. And from now on I’d like you to address me as Mom.”
“I will never call you that!”
The shoe finally slid fully onto Molly’s foot. Thank goodness. “There. That’s better.” Leaning close to her daughter, she brushed a loving hand over her pale, soft cheek. Every time she looked at Molly, her heart swelled. It was difficult to pull her gaze away. And yet the longer she stared, the more concerned she became. After all she’d done to make the girl comfortable and at home, Molly seemed unreasonably obstinate. A moment of goodwill washed over her, prompting her to say, “You’re obviously having a difficult time adjusting to your new bedroom after being gone for so long. So I have an idea. My . . . Someone very dear to me used to call me Bubbles.” She leaned over the bed and patted Molly’s leg. “From here on out you may call me Bubbles.”
No response.
Molly’s stubbornness showed in the stiffness of her shoulders and arms. Bubbles sighed. “I have to go to work, but there’s plenty of food and drinks in the cooler.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m sorry. I must.”
“Are you going to unlock the chain from around my foot before you go?”
“If you’re a good girl, the chains will come off very soon.”
Molly broke down in a flood of uncontrollable sobs.
“Now, now. We’ve talked about this. Enough is enough. No more crying.”
“What about school? I was supposed to start fifth grade.”
Bubbles snorted. “When you do go back to school, you’ll be starting fourth grade, not fifth.”
Molly wiped her eyes. “Can I start today?”
It made her proud to see how eager her daughter was to soak up knowledge. “Of course we can. As soon as I return home, we’ll get started.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re going to be homeschooled.” She pointed toward the stack of books next to the cooler. “I left you everything you need—books, assignment sheets, and pencils—so you’ll be all set! After an early dinner, we’ll get to work.”
Bubbles admired Molly’s adorable yellow dress with the big bow at the waist. It was a little big, but her daughter would grow into it soon enough. She swept the flyaway hair out of Molly’s face. The girl growled, and she yanked her hand back. “Maybe I should give you another dose of medicine before I leave.”
“No,” Molly pleaded. “I’ll be good. I promise.”
She stared at the girl for a long moment, trying to decide.
Her eyes widened. She’d almost forgotten the most important part. Rushing across the bedroom to the nightstand, she opened the top drawer and found the mini instant camera that had arrived yesterday. The batteries and film had been installed, everything ready to go. Her old Polaroid had stopped working a long time ago. The price of film was outrageous, but everything was overpriced these days. Walking back to the foot of the bed, she held the camera up so she could see Molly through the lens. “Say cheese.”
Molly looked away.
She was already running late. Irritation flowed like lava through Bubbles’s body, sparking electrical currents in her brain that flickered and glowed. “I said, ‘Say cheese.’”
Molly didn’t move.
Her body stiff, Bubbles walked forward and set the camera on the bedside table. She then went to the ground on all fours and reached under the bed until she found what she was looking for. Chains rattled.
“What are you doing?” Molly asked, her voice rising.
On her knees, her chest level with the mattress, Bubbles grabbed hold of Molly’s wrist and clamped the metal cuff tight.
“Please don’t,” Molly begged. “I’ll smile. I’ll say ‘cheese.’ I promise.”
“Too late,” Bubbles said as she made her way to the other side of the bed. Again she reached under the bed. Chain in her grasp, she reached for Molly’s left wrist, but Molly pulled away defiantly.
Bubbles pounced, grabbed the girl’s arm again, and yanked it toward the cuff attached to the end of the chain. Click. Her vision clouded as she marched to the nightstand at the other side of the room and opened and closed drawers until she found a long-sleeve cotton shirt. With the cloth grasped in both hands, she ripped the shirt in two as she returned to Molly’s side.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Molly begged.
It was almost as if the child was no longer in the room. With single-mindedness Bubbles wound the cloth through the wooden slats of the headboard and around Molly’s forehead tightly so Molly had no choice but to look straight ahead.
Satisfied, she went in search of a red permanent marker and used it to draw a big red smile on the girl’s face.
Perfect.
Breathless, she grabbed hold of the camera, positioned herself at the foot of the bed once again, and peered through the lens at her daughter. “That’s better,” she said before snapping the picture. “You’re a scrappy one, aren’t you?” She waved the picture through the air and waited for it to develop. “Look at that smile,” she said when it was done. “I’m going to cherish this picture forever.”
CHAPTER FIVE
That same day, back in her cubicle at work, Sawyer clicked on the link she’d found earlier and searched for children who had gone missing over the past five to seven years. Many of them had since been found and were now accounted for. The Polly Klaas Foundation website had a master list of missing children in the state of California. She also checked out information on the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Statistics revealed that less than 1 percent of abductions were nonfamily abductions.
In under an hour Sawyer had the names of three young girls missing from the Sacramento metropolitan area.
Cora O’Neal, Alexa Moore, and Carly Butler.
Cora O’Neal had disappeared five years ago near David A. Simpson Park in Elk Grove as she’d walked home from school.
Sawyer opened the bottom drawer of her desk, found a map of the Sacramento metropolitan area, which included seven counties, and made a red X where Cora had disappeared.
It amazed her that tens of thousands of children went missing every year and yet so few got national coverage. When it came to active investigations, sometimes law enforcement was reluctant to get the media involved. In other cases, if there was any hint of the child being taken by a family member, the media often didn’t cover the story. Age, race, and gender bias also played a part as to how much attention a case received. Evidence showed that missing white children received more media attention than black children due to socioeconomic status. Resources of wealthy parents and neighborhoods were shown to improve the chance of recovery. Overall, despite the studies and theories, there was no evidence that law enforcement efforts varied by race or gender. As a whole, children who went missing received more attention than adults because they were vulnerable. Most adults who were reported missing disappeared because they wanted to.