Finding Claire Fletcher (13 page)

“She’s beautiful,” Connor said.

Again, as if he’d flipped a switch, tears gathered in Jen’s eyes. “Is she? Is she really still beautiful? He didn’t—he didn’t destroy her?”

Jen’s voice trembled, and Connor joined her on the couch. She slid one hand easily between both of his. A single tear made its way down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly with her free hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be sorry,” Connor murmured. “Listen, Mrs. Fletcher. I don’t know what Claire has gone through in the last ten years. Since she was abducted, it’s a pretty sure bet that she’s seen her fair share of torment.”

Jen nodded and put her other hand atop their joined hands. The skin on her face pulled tight as she tried to rein in her emotions. Connor thought of Claire’s anguished eyes. He wondered if he could prepare this mother for the sight of those eyes.

“When you see her,” he tried.

He hadn’t been comfortable talking with anyone about those eyes that, at moments, had provoked unmitigated terror within him. But Jen Fletcher deserved to know. He could not imagine what it was like for a mother to lose her child and not know, year after year after year, what was happening. Was she being tortured? Raped? Beaten? Neglected? Deprived? No matter what had happened to Claire, Connor sensed that it would not diminish Jen’s love for her daughter in any way.

He started again. “When you see her, there might be moments, looking into her eyes that you can tell. You can see that she’s been,” he searched for the right word but could not find one so he settled on, “hurt.”

“Ten years is a long time,” Jen agreed. Tears slid down her cheeks. “I understand.”

Connor squeezed both her hands gently. “But you know, whatever happened to her is not all there is to her,” he said. “I mean she’s interesting and funny and witty.”

Jen looked up at him and smiled brightly through her tears. “She was always like that.”

“Tell me about her,” Connor said.

Jen sank back into the couch and wiped her tears away. “Claire was always extremely persistent. Very stubborn but in her own quiet way. She was not one to give up easily when she wanted something. She loved animals. Over the years we had so many different pets. She always wanted a dog more than anything else in the world, but my husband is allergic so there was just no way we could have a dog. That didn’t stop Claire from lobbying for one. Every time a new allergy drug came out, she’d ask Rick to try it. She did so much research trying to find a way around Rick’s allergies.”

“What about cats?”

Jen nodded. “Yeah, we had a cat. Actually, it had just gotten out of the house and run off a couple of months before Claire went missing. We never did find that cat.”

Connor thought of the yearbook recitation Claire had given when Connor asked her about herself. “She was a good swimmer?”

Jen’s eyebrows shot up. “How did you know?”

“She told me.”

“Yeah, she was a great swimmer actually but she had no real interest in it. Rick was so disappointed. She could have done something with that, but like I said, she was more interested in animals. She wanted to be a veterinarian. I was always glad that she had found her calling so early in life. My other kids never really knew what they wanted to do, and now they are both approaching thirty and have changed careers twice already.

“Claire loved to read too. She always read way above her grade level. She was never without a book to read. She was your typical teenager too. She loved to go to the mall or the movies. She didn’t have a ton of friends, just a few that she hung out with. She idolized Brianna. They’re only two years apart, you know. They were really best friends. So it has been very difficult for Brianna.”

Connor pictured Brianna’s glare. “I’m sure,” he said.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” Jen asked.

“I have a brother. He’s three years older than me. He teaches seventh-grade history in Elk Grove. My mom died of cancer when we were teenagers so it was just us and my dad.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is your father still living?”

“Yeah. He lives in Elk Grove too, near my brother. I don’t see them as much as I should. Losing our mom was horrible. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if something had happened to my brother.”

Jen nodded. “Brianna is a wonderful person underneath all the hurt. She just misses Claire. We all do. I just want my baby back, Connor,” she said with a sigh.

“I know,” he said. “I’ll do my best to try and find her.”

Jen Fletcher spent more than an hour at Connor’s home. They talked easily, and Connor felt as if he had known her for years. He gave her his card and wrote his home number on the back, instructing her to call or stop by with questions at any time.

When she left, she pulled him into an embrace that seemed impossible given her size. She held him close and squeezed him tightly for a long moment. She kissed him on the cheek with dry lips before she left.

Once she was gone, Connor phoned Farrell. “Jen Fletcher just left,” he said. “You could have given me the heads up.”

Mitch’s hearty laugh came through the line loud and clear. “Why? What were you doing?”

“Nothing,” Connor said. “I just wasn’t expecting her.”

Connor could see Mitch waving a meaty hand dismissively. “Oh, Jenny’s a sweetheart. She’s all good stuff, that one. It’s Brianna you have to watch out for.”

“Watch out for?” Connor said.

“Oh shit,” Mitch said.

Connor’s eyes widened, and he stood up in the middle of his living room. “You gave her my home address?”

“Hey,” Mitch said, voice rising defensively. “There’s no talking that girl out of something once she’s got it in her head to do it. You have a gun, right?”

“Very funny, Farrell,” Connor said humorlessly. “So when can I expect her?”

“Don’t know,” Farrell said. “Just let her do the talking.”

“You mean the yelling.”

Farrell ignored that. “You’ll be fine. It has nothing to do with you anyway. She’s just...bitter.”

“Is there anyone else you plan on sending to my door? Cause my dance card is full,” Connor said.

“Women beating down your door, huh?” Farrell said, laughing again.

“Something like that,” Connor said, thinking about the one woman he’d like to beat down his door.

Farrell changed the subject. “I got the make and model on that car,” he said. “She was right, you know. The Chevy Caprice from the late 80s is almost identical to the car Strakowski gave you today. Write this down. A Pontiac Parisienne, probably ’87 or ’88. Only difference between that and the Chevy is the hood ornament—well, from the outside anyway.”

Connor took down the information. “A Parisienne? What the hell kind of name is that for a station wagon? Okay, thanks. I’ll check it against the list, see if I can narrow it down some more. Listen, see if you can get last knowns on Teplitz, Speer, and Randall. I want to talk to those guys.”

“I’ll have ‘em tomorrow,” Mitch said.

They hung up, and Connor took Jen Fletcher’s Tupperware dinner to the fridge. He looked over the vehicle registry again and found a single woman who had owned a blue Pontiac Parisienne station wagon and lived several blocks from Strakowski at the time Claire was abducted. Her name was Irene Geary. He locked his front door and went to bed. Tomorrow he would find the car owner and break the case wide open. He hoped.

In his dream, Connor stood in the doorway from which he had shot the rapist nearly two weeks ago. Except this time, Boggs and Stryker stood smoking cigarettes outside the closet door, joking irreverently about each other’s wives, although in reality, only Boggs was married. Connor stood in a shooter’s stance. His Kevlar vest pulled heavily on his shoulders. His gun was aimed at the sliver of closet door between the heads of Boggs and Stryker. They didn’t seem to notice he was there or that he had a gun aimed in their direction.

Behind him, a gruff voice said, “Come on, kid. Let’s go.” It was Farrell. Connor wanted to turn and look at the older man, but he could not. It was as if his body was frozen in place, but he could feel every nerve ending, every small twitch of muscle. He yelled for Boggs and Stryker to clear the way, but they did not acknowledge him. It was as if a massive block of soundproof glass separated them from Connor and Farrell.

Connor yelled and yelled. Beads of sweat formed along his hairline and popped, sending hot drops down his face. He felt an urgency he could not explain. Finally, he sighted and aimed between the heads of the other detectives. He fired off a shot. Boggs and Stryker disappeared. Farrell rushed into the room past Connor and opened the closet door.

A man whose face had been blown off fell to the floor at Farrell’s feet. But it wasn’t the rapist Connor had shot in the chest. It was Claire’s abductor. Even though Connor had never actually seen the man, in his dream he knew with certainty that the body before him was that of Claire Fletcher’s kidnapper.

Mitch looked at him, eyes burning intensely. “Where’s Claire?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Connor said.

“Where’s Claire?”

“I don’t know.”

The dream shifted and Connor was running through the halls of his house. They were elongated, stretching before him, the distance from one end to the other infinite. There were more doors than his little house could hold, but he checked every one, yelling Claire’s name and getting no response. Every room was empty.

Then he heard sirens. He kept running, bursting from room to room. The sirens got louder and closer. As he moved through the endless maze of halls, he realized the sound was not that of sirens but of a phone ringing. His dream-self began searching the rooms for the ringing phone until his body began to wake and somewhere between sleep and waking, in the haze of unreality and confusion, his mind told him that he was dreaming. He had to wake up because the sound was his actual phone ringing.

Connor rolled to the side of the bed and thrashed in the general direction of the phone. He opened his eyes the moment his hand closed over the receiver to be greeted by the glowing green numbers of his alarm clock. It was 2:27 a.m.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice husky and raw with sleep.

There was nothing. Air.

“Parks,” he said.

Silence. Then, “Connor?”

“Yeah?”

More silence. Then his body jolted fully awake as a rush of adrenaline surged through him. His upper body sprang from the mattress. He sat on the edge of the bed. He wanted to say her name, but he was afraid that if he did he would suddenly wake up to find that the phone call really was part of his dream. He felt dizzy.

“Claire,” he said.

Still no response, but he could hear her breath moving in and out of her body in ragged gasps.

“Claire? Don’t hang up. God, whatever you do, do not hang up.”

“Connor,” she said again.

“Where are you?”

“I can’t tell you that. I just called because I...”

“Claire, tell me where you are, and I will come and get you. Just me. I’ll bring you in.”

“That’s not possible.”

Connor’s body pulsed, his blood rushing so furiously it sounded like a tsunami in his head. He wanted to swim through the phone wires and capture her. He had never felt so powerless in his life. She was there on the other end, and he couldn’t get to her.

“Claire, I know what happened.”

There was a sharp intake of breath, and her voice went up an octave. “No, no you don’t. Listen to me. What I did—coming to you—I may have put you in danger. I’m not supposed to see or speak with you again, but I had to warn you.”

Connor gripped the receiver so hard his hand ached. “What are you talking about Claire? Are you in trouble? Let me bring you in.”

Her voice was throaty, as if she were about to cry, and Connor felt a tightness in his chest. The woman he met was so self-possessed. Damaged, but very poised and in control. He could not imagine her crying.

“I can’t,” she said. “Please. Just be careful. I have to go.”

“Claire, no,” he pleaded. He must have sounded as desperate as he felt because she did not hang up right away. He listened to her breath, which had become even more irregular. Connor lowered his voice. “Just wait,” he said. “Don’t do this. I can help you.”

“No one can help me,” she said. “You don’t understand. Please, just be careful. You could be in a lot of danger.”

She didn’t speak for a long moment. Then, “I have to go.”

“No.” The word came out much more forcefully than he anticipated. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t hang up either. Connor didn’t know what to say, but he did not want to sever the connection. He knew what he was about to say would sound ridiculous, but he forged ahead anyway. “I just want to see you again.”

He heard a muffled sound, and her voice was barely a whisper. “I know. I want to see you too.”

Silence. He listened to her breathe carefully, taking in every little part of the sound. Finally, he said, “Just tell me what to do.”

“You can’t help me,” she said. “It’s too late for that.”

“You don’t know that,” he said. “Give me a chance. Please.”