And Then There Was One (31 page)

Sammie opened her eyes slowly and moved her hand to brush aside a stray lock of hair. But it wasn’t hair, it was a soft spongy thing stuck to her face. She yanked it off in the dark. She tried to swing her legs out of bed. They met immediate resistance, and in a flash, she remembered running from the big scary man, hiding in somebody’s garage, and jumping into a dirty trash can. Propped up in a sitting position, her legs crossed beneath her, she realized that this was not a dream. She was still in the smelly trash can. She was sitting in garbage and in her own vomit. Her legs were covered in it, her jeans soaked to her underpants. Something squished between her toes when she tried to move. The stench turned her stomach and she gagged, then retched, but nothing came up. Thirsty, she was so thirsty.

Nobody had found her. Was it morning? She attempted to stand in the big plastic container and struggled as she reached upward, lifting the plastic cover over her head. When she dislodged it, she saw daylight. Everything was quiet. The rain had stopped. The man must
not have followed her in here. She needed to get out. Find help. That big horrible man and that crazy lady still had Alex, and Sammie just knew he would hurt her. Trying to forget her own terror, Sammie struggled to think, to do the right thing to help find her sister.

She stood upright in the garbage can and began thrusting her weight from side to side, hoping to topple it over. After only a few tries, the plastic container fell with a thud. Sammie hit the ground and as she did, she felt a terrible pain in her right shoulder. Ignoring it, she scrambled to her feet. She glanced at the inside of the container and froze. Fat white maggots were everywhere. Most of the garbage was semisolid or liquefying. As her eyes moved from the disgusting slop in the can to her own body, she started screaming. The maggots were all over her. She could feel those horrifying white things crawling on her. With her good arm, she tried to swat them off. Underneath she could see the scratches and dried blood from running through the woods last night.

She finally stopped screaming and started groaning with disgust. She stank so badly and those horrible things wouldn’t brush off and she was covered with puke. Would anyone help her looking and smelling like this? She wished it was still raining. Slumped against the house, she decided she had to try to go for help. No one had been home last night and there was no car in the driveway.

Shivering and wet, she clutched her hurt arm more tightly against her and took off down the muddy driveway leading to the dirt road. Running faster now, she searched for a house, a house with people who would get help for Alex.

Sammie had always hated trips to the countryside. It was Jackie and Alex who begged to go hiking in the woods to pick wildflowers. Not Sammie, give her the city. Baseball fields and people living in houses close together. Once she reached the road, she saw a house a ways down on the other side. Her shoulder hurt so bad that she had to slow down. And for the first time it hit: her right arm was injured. And she was the Condor’s pitcher. She stopped and kicked the ground as the tears came. Tears of anger and defeat. Dad would have to bench her.

A car slowed, and Sammie cringed. She didn’t want anyone to see
her crying. Still hugging her arm close to her chest, she started out again. Wiping her eyes with the back of her filthy hand, she noticed that the car was backing up. Panic made her jump into a clump of bushes. Her eyes stinging again with tears as sharp thistles tore into her legs. Was that bald man driving the car? Had he recognized her?

She’d give away her position if she moved, so she held perfectly still, not even breathing. When she dared to peek out, she saw two men walking toward her hiding place. They were ordinary looking men, not giants like Maggie’s son. They were dressed in suits like men wore to work or to cocktail parties. She looked down at herself and sniffed the air in disgust. Would they help her?

The thought of Alex made up her mind. “Could you help me?” she asked, stepping out of the clump. “I need to find my sister. She’s in a house back —”

She didn’t finish. One of the men had scooped her up while the other talked into a radio like the police do on TV.

“Honey, what’s your name?” the man who held her asked.

Sammie didn’t know whether they were good or bad. “Ouch, my shoulder,” she said as the man shifted her in his arms. He didn’t seem to care that she was so smelly and dirty.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said, loosening his hold.

His kind tone reassured Sammie. “I’m Samantha Monroe. Can you help me find my sister?”

She didn’t think he meant to do it, but he squeezed her and she gave a yelp of pain.

“Oh, didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. Grimacing, he turned to his partner, “Patch me through to Agent Streeter.”

“Shit,” the other man mumbled, “we almost passed her up. Wait’ll Streeter hears we have her.”

Sammie was about to ask the man to put her down when he spoke, “Agent Streeter. We have the one named Samantha. She’s okay, but there’s something wrong with her shoulder.”

Sammie heard a voice come on, “Get her to Children’s Hospital quickest way possible.”

“That’d be in our car, sir.”

“The other sister?”

“Negative. Haven’t questioned the child yet.”

“Priorities: make sure she’s safe, then find the other one.”

One guy was talking and the other holding Sammie in his arms. She figured that they were policemen.

“Will you put me down?” she asked. “I can walk.”

“Who are you?” she asked once the man lowered her gently to the ground.

“We’re the FBI, little lady. We’ve been looking high and low for you and —” Sammie didn’t like the way he stopped talking.

“Did you find Alex?” she interrupted. She didn’t like the way he avoided her question. “She’s in a house. I don’t know exactly the street. It’s on a dirt road. We have to go get her out of there.”

“Right now we’re getting you to a hospital. Take a look at that arm and all those cuts. Okay?”

“No!” Sammie stomped her foot, her good arm flailing in the general direction of the woods. “You have to find my sister. A bad man is hurting her. Back there. I know he is.” And Sammie did know. At times, not always, the triplets had a sixth sense, a sense of the emotional status of one or both of the others. With Sammie, the sense was very strong about Alex. But all of a sudden, she felt sickened by a horrible sensation. It had nothing to do with Alex. It was about her other sister. Tears filled her eyes. “Jackie?” she asked. “Is Jackie dead?”

Both the FBI men looked at her funny. Then they turned to each other. Sammie knew that look. They were afraid to tell her the truth. Jackie must have been so sick that she died. She’d left Jackie at the movies and now she’d left Alex alone with a horrible man. Everything was all her fault. She was the bad one, just like everybody always said. She had to get back to that basement to find Alex.

Sammie took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, lurched forward with all her strength, and started to run. The FBI man talking into his radio put his arm out to stop her, but it was too late.

“Shit,” she heard him say into the handset, “the girl got away. We’ll get her.”

Sammie got a few feet before tripping over an exposed pipe. She fell hard on her knees, scraping them on gravel. Before she could get back up, both FBI men tried to pull her up and she had to yank her
hurt arm away. Before she could say anything, the one who was already grimy and stinky picked her up again.

“No! “Sammie scrunched up her face and yelled as loud as she could. “Find Alex! I think the house is that way.”

As she pointed, an EMT van appeared in the distance, lights flashing but no siren.

“There will be lots of police here to look for your sister, Samantha. Right now you’re on your way to the hospital.”

Sammie wriggled, but couldn’t get loose again. The ambulance had stopped and she could see more cars coming toward them. As the FBI man carried her to the big square van, a voice came out of his radio. “Streeter here. Do you or do you not have the child?”

The man walking beside them answered. “Affirmative. Just getting her inside the EMT van. She’s a handful. Keeps trying to tell us where she left her sister.”

“If she’s physically okay, drive by the place now. I’ll meet you there. Maybe if we let her walk though, something will pop up that we missed.”

“Yes sir,” the man said. Turning to Sammie he said, “We’re going to take a ride up the street. Check out the house where they kept you two.”

Sammie couldn’t see out of the windows of the van. But when the back doors opened at Maggie’s house, she stiffened.

A tall man with short brown hair in a really nice suit greeted her. “I’m Agent Streeter,” he said, taking her filthy hand in his. “I’ve gotten to know your parents pretty well the last few days. Man, are they going to be glad to see you!”

“What about Alex and Jackie?” Sammie asked, tilting her grimy face to study his. “Nobody will tell me.”

“Sammie, we haven’t found Alex yet,” Streeter said. “So we want you to take a look around this house. She’s not here, but maybe you’ll find a clue. Is that okay with you? Then we’ll take you to your parents. Okay?”

Sammie nodded. She’d to do anything to help them find her sister.

“This is where they had you and Alex?” Agent Streeter asked. He seemed friendly and Sammie immediately trusted him.

“Yes, we got here at night and went straight inside. That lady — Maggie — made us stay in the basement. Then when that big man came, I ran out that door.” Sammie pointed to the side door.

“Can you come down there with us and show us?” Streeter asked, as another agent held back a strip of crime-scene tape.

Sammie took the lead and descended the steps. Agent Streeter kept his hand on her good shoulder. When she reached the bottom step, she could smell the mildew. She hesitated, not wanting to step into that basement ever again. But she had to. She stepped forward and showed the FBI agents where she had last seen her sister. She showed them the twin beds where they’d slept, the small refrigerator, and a scattering of toys.

“Alex didn’t take her teddy,” Sammie said. “The brown one’s hers. I had a gray one.”

Agent Streeter took her upstairs and Sammie told him that Maggie had never taken them up there. When Agent Streeter showed her the room with the two cribs, decorated in so many shades of pink, Sammie gasped. “Did she keep babies up here?”

“We don’t know, but you’re never going to have to come back here again, Sammie. Now let’s go see your parents. Then I bet you’d like to have a bath.”

Hunt for Mother and Son Intensifies. Marge Spansky and Samuel.
— Saturday News, June 20

Evan Spansky nodded off while perusing the business section of the Friday edition of the
Toronto Star
. Normally he’d have read it in his office at Canada Life. But today his new manager had taken all the actuaries on a golf outing. Even though Evan didn’t play the foolish game, he’d hacked away through the course with three guys unfortunate enough to get stuck with him. He’d ended up with a sunburned bald spot and an ignominious score. Worse yet, he’d pay the price Monday when he faced the bulging stack of computer printouts on his desk. Given his choice, he’d have chosen a boring day in the office to the stress of having to make awkward conversation with men and women he hardly knew. Evan was a private man, shy actually. But a happy man, content with his job and his family and his home.

The slam of the door jarred him awake.

“Hi, Mom. Hey, Dad, you awake behind that newspaper?”

Pamela, Evan’s wife, muted the television and checked her watch. “Five minutes past curfew,” she announced in a voice that was unable to disguise her pleased relief that he’d been so close to target. “I just turned on the ten o’clock news.”

Tim headed toward his mother to bestow the nightly peck on the cheek before retreating to his room upstairs. “Dad, just so you know. I am the only guy who has to be in by ten on a Friday night.”

Evan peered over his reading glasses at his youngest son. Tall for his age with a bulky build, he could pass for older than his fifteen years. “After your birthday,” he said. “Just like Craig. Once you’re sixteen, we’ll extend curfew.”

Evan thought he heard “shit,” as Tim hit the stairs. Maybe he was too strict with his two boys, but he had his reasons.

Pamela clicked off the mute and Evan adjusted his glasses when he heard, “Breaking news: the FBI has just disclosed that the missing two of the Monroe triplets, abducted from a mall outside Detroit six days ago, had been held in a home in Holly, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. All branches of law enforcement are cooperating in the search for Margaret — Marge — Spansky, a fifty--two-year-old white woman and her son, thirty-three-year-old Samuel Spansky.”

Evan dropped the newspaper and rushed to the television to turn up the volume. As he did, Marge’s picture flashed onto the screen. Evan reeled backward, banging his head on a bookcase, causing Pamela to jump to his aid.

“Evan? What’s wrong?”

Evan righted himself in time to see the woman, recognizing his ex-wife even though he had not seen Marge in twenty-five years.

“ — thought to have escaped with her son.” The picture of an unshaven hulk of a man of indeterminate age followed that of the woman. The man must be Spanky, grown up.

“Spansky? Evan, did you hear that?” Pamela said. “Something about those missing triplets?”

Evan took advantage of his tumble to buy some time. What was he going to tell Pamela? He thought of Tim upstairs and of Craig, his oldest, who was away with parents of his friend, checking out colleges in Ottawa.

“Evan, are you okay? Did you hear what they said? About those triplets?”

“Yes, I heard.”

“About
Spansky
?”

“That woman, Marge Spansky. She’s the one I was married to. Back when I lived in the States. Back before I met you.” There, he’d said it.

“Oh, no, how horrible.” Pamela’s hand flew to her mouth. “Is this for real?”

Pamela had always known that he’d been married, was divorced, and had no contact with his former wife. What she did not know was that he and Marge had had twin daughters, Jessica Ann and Jennifer
Marie. The most precious of babies. He could still see them as they had been that day. Eight months old, bubbling over with laughter, their dark curly hair flouncing in the summer breeze, their copper brown eyes the exact color of his. He’d never told Pamela. His loss was too painful to discuss, but now he must.