Finding Claire Fletcher (35 page)

My jelly-like spine hardened, and my anxiety morphed into a sort of resolve. How many girls came before me? How many would come after?

Even though I had dreaded my freedom and still did to a degree, a little anger lived inside me. This person took ten years of my life, possessed me entirely and violated whatever innocence survived in me at fifteen years old. The rapes, the beatings, the starvation, drowning, killing and various humiliations I suffered at his hands went unpunished. He destroyed lives with impunity, and there appeared to be no end in sight.

“Do you think I can help catch him?” I asked.

“Yes,” Connor said. “Yes, I do.”

They placed me in an interrogation room, which was scarred by cigarette burns and graffiti. It contained a table and three chairs. There was no mirror. Instead there was a square cut into the wall facing the table. In the square was a video camera protected by thick Plexiglas.

I had my choice of either Boggs or Stryker as an interviewer. Boggs was older and he did not look quite as mean, but I chose Stryker instead, remembering how gentle he had been with me and Alison the night we returned from captivity.

He brought a notepad and cup of coffee. He offered me something to drink, and I accepted a soda. He explained that I was not under arrest but advised me of my rights. I waived my right to an attorney.

I glanced repeatedly at the camera in the wall until Stryker informed me that they were taping the interview and that it was standard procedure. Then, for the first time since my aborted attempt to explain to Tiffany that my captor had raped me, I told my story.

Connor sat in the video room with his injured leg propped on a table. Boggs stood behind him, and Captain Riehl paced the room as they watched Claire’s interview on a large screen television.

Boggs set a cup of coffee in front of Connor, but it stood untouched and now cold. The camera revealed only Stryker’s back, but Connor could see every nervous tremor in Claire’s frame as she spoke. At times, she looked at the floor, unable to meet Stryker’s eyes as she recounted her story in enough detail to make Connor shudder and Boggs murmur “holy shit” every so often. At other times, Claire’s face paled considerably, and she pulled her borrowed EMT jacket tightly around herself as if she were chilled to the bone.

After three hours, they broke. Stryker called for food and the two of them ate in silence, Claire unwilling to be left alone in the room with only the dead eye of the video camera on her.

One of the other detectives poked her head inside the video room and nodded to Connor. “Parks,” she said. “Visitors.”

Muscles stiff and tense from sitting still in his chair, Connor rose and followed her out to the office. Mitch, Jen, and Rick stood by his desk, talking quietly. They smiled as Connor limped toward them. Jen’s smile disappeared as he drew closer.

“What is it?” she said.

Rick looped an arm around his wife’s waist and met Connor’s eyes, worry darkening his features. “Just tell us,” he said.

Connor swiped a hand through his hair and shook his head.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Mitch said.

Connor felt lines crease his own face as he glanced from Mitch to Jen and Rick. Jen looked up at each one of them and folded her arms across her chest. Her chin jutted out, mouth a thin, firm line.

“Well, we expected that, now didn’t we?” she said.

Mitch nodded and Rick’s gaze swept along the floor, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. Connor said nothing. The things he’d heard in the video room chilled him and made his hands itch.

“Well, I don’t care how bad it is,” Jenny said. “I have my child back and I’m going to get her through this.”

As she spoke, Connor saw how Jen Fletcher must have looked to the many police officers and reporters she’d faced in the last ten years during her search for Claire. She was suddenly taller than all three of the men around her. Her presence filled up the room. Connor felt the grim, raw waves of determination rolling off her like a magnetic field, encompassing and drawing in everyone and everything around her.

“Okay,” Connor said, not daring to argue with her.

A tiny smile played at the edges of Mitch’s mouth. “So,” he said, “how much longer?”

Connor shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re taking a break now. Could be a few more hours.”

“We want to be here when it’s over,” Rick said.

“
Sure thing. I’ll call you once she’s finished,” Connor said. “She’s going to need some time to decompress. She was nervous. Where to after this?”

“I’ve made arrangements,” Mitch replied. “The press is all over this so Jenny’s house is out. They will never get any peace there.”

“Clearly,” Connor said, jiggling his injured leg.

“My place is about twenty minutes west of here. It’s secure. We’re thinking that’s the place to hide out for now until things settle down.”

“The kids are gathering some personal belongings, groceries and stuff like that right now,” Rick added. “They’ll meet us there later.”

Connor nodded. “That sounds good,” he said. “I’ll escort you guys out there.”

Boggs called to Connor from across the room, beckoning him back to the video room. Connor shook hands with Mitch and Rick and kissed Jen’s cheek.

“Give me some time to talk to her afterward,” he said. “I’ll call you when we’re ready.”

By the time the interview was over—nine and a half hours after finding my file in Connor’s desk—I was exhausted. I felt as if I’d been running on a treadmill the entire time rather than talking. Sweaty ringlets of hair stuck to the back of my neck. My body was weak. My limbs shook. There were so many questions. Far more than I anticipated. I tried in vain to explain to Stryker the extreme sense of disorientation I had felt during most of my captivity.

He wanted dates and timelines, and I could not answer. He wanted the location of the second house, where Rudy and Sarah were buried, but I had no idea of the address. I explained I could probably find it again given time but could not tell him how to get there. He wanted to know Tiffany’s real name and several other items of personal information, but I knew none of that. I knew only the things she had told me the rare times her guard was down and she deigned to talk to me.

Stryker assured me I had been very helpful, but I felt useless and drained. “Are my parents here?” I asked when we finished.

“I’ll find out,” Stryker replied.

“Can I see Connor now?”

Stryker grinned, the first smile I’d seen on his face all day. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll send him in.”

I waited in my chair. I’d been sitting in it for so many hours. It felt like one of my appendages. Connor limped into the room smiling and leaving the door ajar behind him. We looked at each other for a long while. I knew he’d been watching the interview all day, but his eyes betrayed nothing. He looked the same and looked at me the same.

I rose and walked slowly toward him. He came closer and lifted his arms to hug me, but I shook my head. I didn’t want anyone to touch me so soon after discussing the rapes. I asked him for a few minutes, and he gave them to me, leaving the door to the room open slightly.

I paced for fifteen minutes, trying to bar all the memories from my mind. Connor poked his head into the room, and I waved him in. He stood several feet away from me. After a few minutes, I walked over and touched one of his hands. I expected the contact to repel me—he was a man like my abductor and there were parts of me that would always equate men with terror. The touch was not as frightening as I expected.

In small increments, I went from a touch to holding his hand to carefully laying my cheek on his shoulder. When he sensed I was comfortable, he put his arms around me. He held me until the tears came, riding silent on each exhale of my breath. My body quivered in his embrace, shedding the bleak horror of dredging up so many memories in one day. We stood like that for almost fifteen minutes, until the raw emotion in me wore itself out.

I followed him back to his desk. There were far fewer people in the office, but it was still busy. Again, no one even glanced at us, for which I was grateful. Connor handed me a box of tissues and explained the temporary living arrangements that had been made.

“Your family will stay at Mitch’s house,” he said.

“What about you?” I asked.

He smiled. “I already told you, you’re stuck with me. I’ll be around.”

My shoulders slumped, relief easing the tension in my muscles.

“You take as long as you need,” Connor said. “Use the bathroom, get a drink. Compose yourself, and then I’ll call in the troops.”

I nodded and wiped my eyes with a clump of tissues.

“I know you’ve had a long day,” Connor continued. “But the worst part is over.”

I wanted to smile, but my face hurt like hell. I kept my eyes on Connor’s, my anchors in this new and overwhelming reality. “I hope so,” I said.

Mitch’s house was twenty minutes outside of the city. My father drove my mother and I in his rental car. Connor followed behind in my mother’s car, ready to head off any press that might follow us. The driveway leading to it was marked only by a mailbox. A half mile of gravel opened up before a large one-story, ranch-style house. Mitch’s nearest neighbor was a half mile away. It was the perfect refuge from the press. I had a vague recollection of having been there for a couple of barbecues before I was abducted.

The first few weeks at Mitch’s house I slept in the living room, ensconced between my parents on an air mattress in front of the fireplace. Sometimes Tom slept on the couch above our heads, and Brianna stretched out in a sleeping bag near our feet. It was like camping out. Nestled between my parents’ bodies, I fell easily into sleep. My sleep however was riddled with nightmares in which my abductor found me, slaughtered everyone I loved, and took me back to a cold, dark place.

My mother or father shook me awake. I screamed and thrashed during the dreams and woke pale, trembling, covered with sweat. Together, my parents held me, cradling me in their arms the way they had when I was a small child, one stroking my hair while the other whispered soothing words in my ear.

My wounds began to heal. The bruising on my face, back, and legs faded to a dull yellow, making my skin look jaundiced. The stitches in my hand were removed, and I went without a splint during the day, though the doctor and physical therapist cautioned me to continue my home exercises. We could not go back to my old home immediately because of the press camped outside, hungry for any news or a glimpse of me. For the most part, I was able to avoid being photographed. The press had gotten one or two photos of me wearing hats and sunglasses, my face not fully visible. Tom became the family spokesperson, fielding all press requests, although we all made a point not to watch any press coverage.

When I was abducted, Tom had been a software engineer. In the last ten years, he had gone back to school and was now a financial planner. He set up a trust fund for me made up of donations that strangers sent. It added up quickly, and I was grateful. I was uninsured, and my medical bills were already upwards of $50,000.00. I spent many hours writing thank you cards to people I had never met whose kindness astounded me.

My family insisted that I see a psychotherapist. I resisted at first. I did not want to tell my story to yet another person, especially a stranger. But the therapist’s strategy consisted mainly of getting me assimilated to my new life. She spoke to my family about what they could do to make the transition easier for me, and they put her suggestions into action with gusto.

Tom gave me Internet lessons. My father resumed the driving lessons he had been giving me ten years earlier. My mother took me shopping for a new wardrobe with Brianna trailing along behind us, seeming disinterested. We had family dinners each night, and my family talked about all the things that had happened in their lives in the last ten years. Mitch stayed with us most nights, our unofficial bodyguard. He and Connor mostly concerned themselves with helping us avoid the press at all times.

Connor joined us for dinner once a week. I pumped him for information about the hunt for my abductor but there was none. Leads were still being called in to his department, but none of them had panned out. Even the fingerprints the police had taken from the house he and Tiffany had lived in did not yield immediate results. Connor said there was some problem matching the prints. I was able to help Connor and his colleagues locate the house where Sarah and Rudy were buried, but for the most part my parents tried to discourage me from discussing my case with Connor or becoming too involved in it. Still, I lay awake nights wondering where my abductor was and if he would take another girl. Maybe he was lying in wait until he thought that police interest had waned before targeting someone new.

Again and again I was told to focus only on healing my wounds and making a new life for myself, but I was a person who had ceased to exist until two months ago. The future was a large black hole in my mind. For so long I believed it held nothing. Now I could simply not imagine filling the black hole with anything. I was reluctant to try, knowing that my abductor was still out there somewhere. Connor kept reminding me he would not return for me. It was too risky and he would not want to draw that kind of attention to himself. But images of Alison, naked and shivering next to a bucket in a small, dank closet filled my brain until I could not block them out. Her terrified face became the backdrop for everything else in my mind. There was another girl like me, like Alison, in the world right now whose life was about to be ruined by my abductor if he wasn’t apprehended soon. I knew his appetites well, and they could not be satiated or suppressed.