My Lost Daughter (56 page)

“Help me!” Shana cried in a high, shrill voice. The shadowy figure suddenly froze and then began kicking out with his feet, smashing into the commodes and sinks. There was the sound of gushing water. One of the fixtures had broken.

Shana lunged for the door when the man placed a hand over her mouth and his other arm around her neck in a choke hold. How could it be Alex? It could be a maniac rapist or killer. Her eyes fluttered. She gasped for breath. The pressure on her throat increased. All she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat and the low eerie monotone of his voice. For just that instant, Shana thought there were two attackers, two men in the room with her. She couldn't fathom one human being with such raw strength.

“I'm not going to hurt you. This is just a process we have to go through. It's called transformation. You want to see your mother, don't you, your real mother?”

Kicking the door out of his way, the man started dragging Shana from the building up the hill to the road. The waves were breaking and crashing onto the shore. Cars zipped by on Harbor Boulevard only a few feet away.

“As soon as we get your mother, we'll all leave. We'll leave together like a family, the way we should have left years ago.”

 

Alex opened the trunk of the blue Chrysler, glancing around to see if anyone was nearby, then gently lifting Shana and placing her in
the trunk on top of a stack of blankets. “I'm going to close the lid, but don't panic. You can breathe. There's more than enough air in there. We'll take a short ride and then I'll take you out. We can talk about our journey, make plans, and get something to eat. Before you know it, your mother will be here with us.”

Shana was unconscious and close to death. The choke hold had deprived her brain of oxygen. A trickle of saliva ran from her mouth. Her eyes were open but unseeing.

Alex closed the trunk and climbed into the driver's seat. He was perspiring and used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe his face. Shana wasn't heavy, but she was unconscious and therefore a dead weight. The whirring noise inside his head was deafening and painful, like a malignant cancer expanding his skull. He thought of his brain more like a human heart, a lifeless, bloodless heart. He stared at the ocean and brought forth the imagery of the pond.

“The pond.” Alex whispered the words as if they were something delicious on his tongue, something reverent and holy. “We're almost there, Jennifer.”

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26
VENTURA, CALIFORNIA

Lily's eyes sprang open in darkness.

She felt her gown and discovered she was drenched in sweat. In her dream, she had been trapped in the midst of a brackish red funnel cloud spinning through space. All the things from her house, things she recognized—chairs, tables, beds—were twirling around her. Then she saw a man she knew was Alex, his smile stretching his face as if it were made of rubber, floating in front of her holding a bouquet of white flowers. He was nude from the waist down, his erection enormous. Just before she woke up, he bowed before her. When he raised his head, he was pointing a sawed-off shotgun at her face and laughing loud and abrasively. She screamed for him to stop but he fired, the bullets flying past her like rocks.

Even in sleep, Lily couldn't escape this awful man who had tried to steal her daughter from her. Alex had crawled inside her brain.

Turning on her side, she curled up next to Chris and tried to go back to sleep. All she could think about was Alex. Was he alive or dead? Where was he right now? Had he left, given up on Shana, moved on to someone new? She had to find a way to disentangle his insanity and find the string of bread crumbs that would lead
her to him. Alex may not have stabbed Shana or shattered her bones, but he had almost stolen her sanity.

She got up to go to the bathroom. As she walked down the small hallway lined with closets, her eyes caught the green light on the alarm panel. She stopped and stared at it in a sleepy daze. She remembered setting the alarm before she went to bed.

“Chris,” she said, tapping him gently on the shoulder.

“What? What time is it?”

“Did you turn off the alarm?”

“No,” he mumbled, turning back on his side and pulling the covers up over his shoulders.

“The alarm was set when I went to bed and it's off now.”

“God, Lily, set it and go back to sleep. You probably forgot.”

In seconds, she heard him snoring. She started to walk away but she had a horrid feeling that something was wrong. “No,” she said, shaking him again. “I didn't forget.”

Now he was awake and grumpy. He reached over and turned on the light. “Why do you have to wake me up? Now I won't be able to go back to sleep and my calendar is jammed tight tomorrow.”

Lily didn't want to hear anymore. She tossed on her robe and rushed to the other side of the house, where the guest room was located.

The bed was empty!

Where had Shana gone at this time of night? She went to the garage, but both cars were there.

Returning to Shana's room, she sat down in a chair and stared into the darkness. Why would she do this to her? She wanted to scream, throw her body on the ground and thrash around in anguish. Her daughter was gone, possibly abducted. A maniac who was supposed to be dead was stalking her, maybe with the intention of killing her. Lily was responsible because she had taken Shana to Whitehall. If she had not overreacted, Shana would have never crossed paths with this lunatic. What she refused to accept, even though she knew it was possible, was that her daughter might already be dead.

The room was suddenly flooded with light. Chris was standing in the doorway in his robe. “I had a feeling she might run off. She may not act like it, Lily, but Shana has to be furious that you put her in a mental hospital. Maybe this is her payback.”

“You're wrong,” Lily said. “Something terrible has happened. Shana told me how much she loved me today. It was the first time in years that we really connected. She wanted to go back to Palo Alto and get a job to help with her expenses. She didn't run off, Chris. Where would she go on foot? She doesn't even know anyone around here anymore and I'm almost certain she doesn't have any money.”

“I have no idea where she went, Lily. Most girls with Shana's background would be terrified to go out alone at night.” His eyes filled with concern. “Come on, honey, come back to bed. I bet you a hundred bucks she'll be here in the morning. You can't let this drive you crazy. I called her a girl, but she isn't a girl. She's a twenty-eight-year-old woman.”

Lily walked over and placed her palm in the center of his chest. “We have to find her. She could be in terrible danger.”

“Not the dead guy again.”

“When did you stop trusting me?”

“I trust you, Lily. I just think you're overwrought right now. I might be overwrought too if I'd gone through what you have, but you need to calm down and think rationally.”

Lily started down the hall to get her coat when he stopped her. “Go back to bed and try to rest. I'll drive around and see if I can find Shana.”

“I can't sleep until we find her. I'll go with you.”

“No, honey, I want you back in bed. Let me handle this. I have a different perspective.”

“And what is that?”

“Shana's been locked up at Whitehall. Being here with us watching her every move isn't exactly freedom. So she went for a walk.” He leveled a finger at her. “You relax and I'll find her, but I'm warning you now, Lily, I refuse to drag her back like an escaped prisoner.
If she wants to see the sun rise over the ocean, she has every right to do so. Do you agree?”

Lily nodded and then followed Chris to the bedroom, leaning back against the wall as she watched him throw on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He pointed to the bed and Lily quickly got in and pulled the covers over her. She had never seen him so commanding, but she liked it, even found it sexy as long as he didn't go overboard.

If she'd taken the time to visit his courtroom, Lily thought, she would have seen this side of him before now. They were both judges, and their salaries were similar except Lily made slightly more. She wouldn't have a case to try without municipal court judges like Chris. He handled arraignments, various motions, plea agreements, misdemeanor crimes, and most important, preliminary hearings. A preliminary hearing was basically a mini trial, and at the end, the judge hearing the case decided if a crime had been committed and if there was substantial evidence that led to the belief that the defendant had committed it. The judge's official ruling was that the defendant should be held to answer in superior court, which was Lily's domain.

She had failed to treat Chris with the appropriate respect, the same mistake she had made with both of her husbands. She would have to correct herself immediately or she might lose a man she truly loved.

She jumped when Chris bent down and kissed her. “You seem more relaxed. I'm proud of you.”

“I was thinking how much I love you and what a wonderful judge you are. Before I go back to work, I'm going to come to your court and watch you in action.”

“I'd like that,” Chris said, scooping his car keys off the dresser. “Try to get some rest. I'll call you the moment I find her.”

Lily's concern returned, causing her to shiver. “What if you don't find her?”

“Then we'll call the police, the FBI, and notify every law enforcement agency in the state. Now rest and try your best to remain positive.”

Shana regained consciousness in the trunk of the car. Inside a flashing second, she experienced complete and utter terror, so intense and horrifying that she was certain nothing could ever surpass it. Death was squeezing the breath out of her like a boa constrictor. She knew without a doubt that her entire life had been leading to this one moment. The rape could not compare. Whitehall could not compare. Nothing could compare.

Her internal organs were working desperately to keep her alive. Her heart was beating in tachycardia and placing her at risk of cardiac arrest. The human defense mechanism, sensing imminent danger, was flooding her body with adrenaline, coursing like a raging river inside her veins. Her brain, short-circuiting on fear, knew it must escape the reality of her predicament.

It could not.

Shana plunged into a dark well of thoughtlessness. Her mind took this avenue as the only solution.

When she awoke, she was in a twin bed. She tried to move but met resistance. A white canvas tarp with metal holes at the ends, such as the type you might find on a tent, was strapped tightly over her body, ending only a few inches under her chin. She could turn her head from side to side. Other than that, she couldn't move.

“Shana,” Alex said, “you took a long nap.” He had a chair pulled to the edge of the bed and was peering down at her face, a cigarette dangling from his mouth and the smoke swirling above his head like a dirty halo. He tossed the butt in an ashtray and then pressed it out with his thumb. “Sorry, Shana, I know you hate cigarettes. Nicotine is a terrible addiction.”

“Where . . . where am . . . I?” Shana stammered, her mind dull and confused.

Alex stood and walked to a window a few feet away, his back to Shana. “You're only a short distance from your mother. She's right across the street. See.” He turned around to make certain she was watching and then pointed out the window. “That's your house right over there.”

Shana's mind was now alert and racing. She looked around the dark room and tried to figure out where they were. If they were near her mother's house, they had to be in the apartment complex outside the back gate. She had to find a way to escape. Alex was insane. She could see it as well as smell it. There was a putrid odor emanating from his body, as if he hadn't bathed in months. If Shana didn't get away, she would die.

She discovered she could move her hands if she sucked all her breath inside her and pressed her abdomen to her backbone. But moving her hands a few inches wasn't going to help. Somehow, she had to talk him into removing the tarp. “Why are you doing this to me? I thought you cared for me, loved me. I thought we were going to run away together and start a new life.”

Alex spun around, his eyes darting all over the room and then landing on Shana. “I'm going to get your mother soon.” He waited until he saw the agony on her face and then he smiled. “Don't worry. We're all going to be together. You don't have to worry about your mother. You look so much alike. I was stunned when I saw you both on the beach. I had trouble telling you apart.”

Shana started to say something but Alex was approaching her. He took a seat in the chair next to her bed and lit another cigarette. “Sorry, I can't help it. The smoking, you know.” He followed her eyes to the dresser, where a disposable syringe, a small glass vial, and a package of cotton balls were sitting. “That, well, that's Demerol. It's a narcotic. It's always been one of my favorite drugs. Unfortunately, it's addictive. Everything good is bad for you these days. Life's a bitch, huh?”