The Vanished
Authors: Tim Kizer
TIM KIZER
THE VANISHED
Also by Tim Kizer
Copyright 2015 Tim Kizer
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CONTENTS
THE VANISHED
Description
On May 6, five-year-old Annie Miller goes missing in a park. On May 7, her father, David Miller, fails a lie detector test. On May 9, during a hypnosis session, David confesses to murdering his daughter and gives the police the location of the knife he used to kill her. The knife has traces of Annie's blood and David's fingerprints all over it.
Two weeks later, a man named Ben calls David and tells him Annie's alive. Ben is willing to let the girl go, but first David has to do something for him—something that would land David in prison for the rest of his life.
Can David trust him?
Is Ben even real?
Chapter
1
Chapter
2
Chapter
3
Chapter
4
Chapter
5
Chapter
6
Chapter
7
Chapter
8
Chapter
9
Chapter
10
Chapter
11
Chapter
12
Chapter
13
Chapter
14
Chapter
15
Chapter
16
Chapter
17
Chapter
18
Chapter
19
Chapter
20
Chapter
21
Chapter
22
Chapter
23
Chapter
24
Chapter
25
Chapter
26
Chapter
27
Chapter
28
Chapter
29
1
“Annie!” David Miller took off his sunglasses and looked up and down the drive aisle.
He was in a great mood, but that was about to change. Today was the day he would report his daughter missing. And in seventy-two hours he would confess to killing her.
“Annie!”
Annie wasn’t in the second aisle, either.
He crossed the parking lot and stepped onto the grass, his eyes sweeping the park. “Annie! Annie!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
His daughter was nowhere in sight. A stab of fear pierced him.
Where was she?
Perhaps she had wandered off after a stray cat or a butterfly or a squirrel.
In the back of his mind, a voice whispered: Annie’s been kidnapped, and you’ll never see her again.
David supposed it was normal. He was not in a panic. He was sure most, if not all, parents had thoughts like these when they lost sight of their young children in a public place.
Absorbed in thought, he walked over to the path running parallel to the parking lot.
How long had Annie been out of his sight before he got out of the car?
She had stepped out of the car when he switched off the engine. After he pulled the key from the ignition, he checked his cellphone for messages. Then he opened the door, dropped the phone on the floor, picked it up, and got out of the car.
About twenty seconds. How far could she have gone in twenty seconds? Fifteen, maybe twenty yards.
He had spent about twenty seconds checking the parking lot aisles, so she could be as far as forty yards from his car.
David wiped the sweat from his brow with his hand. His anxiety grew by the second.
She was probably not too far away. She couldn’t hear him because she was having a convulsive seizure. What if she had been bitten by a snake? Were there poisonous snakes in Ardmore Park?
To find a child one had to think like a child. Where would he go if he were Annie?
The playground. That was her favorite place in the park.
David rushed to the playground and searched it thoroughly, checking every structure and looking into every slide tube. When he was finished, his head throbbed with panic.
Standing at the edge of the playground, he yelled his daughter’s name twice.
She’s been kidnapped. She’s been kidnapped. She’s been kidnapped.
The dreadful thought raced through his mind over and over.
David ran over to the pavilion and walked through it from end to end, scanning the tables and the floor. Annie wasn’t there. Calling his daughter’s name, he circled the pavilion.
No Annie.
His stomach churned with sickness.
David went to the pond, which was near the pavilion, and didn’t find Annie there, either. As he stood wondering where Annie could be, he saw a woman in pink leggings and a white T-shirt twenty yards away, who was strolling along the path, watching her Maltese playing on the grass. Cursing himself for not doing it earlier, David pulled his wallet from his jeans pocket, extracted Annie’s photo from it, and approached the woman.
“Excuse me, have you seen this girl?” David showed Annie’s picture to the woman. “She’s wearing a white dress with strawberries on it. Red strawberries.”
The woman studied the photo for a few seconds, and said, “No, I haven’t seen her. What happened? Is she your daughter?”
David nodded. “Yes. I… I can’t find her.”
“Oh my God! I’m sorry. I hope you find her.”
“Thank you.”
David slowly turned full circle, surveying the park.
He would have been so happy to spot a white dress with strawberries on it. He would have been ecstatic.
Maybe she was playing hide-and-seek with him?
It was possible. Annie liked to play hide-and-seek. She had never played hide-and-seek with him in Ardmore Park before, but there was a first time for everything.
He had searched the playground. He had searched the pavilion.
He hadn’t checked the restrooms.
David ran to the restrooms and called Annie’s name, standing at the entrance to the women’s room. Then he asked if there was anyone inside. Having received no response, David went into the room and checked the stalls. No one. He hurried outside and looked behind the building.
Annie was not hiding behind the restrooms.
David showed Annie’s photo to four more people—two young women, a middle-aged man, and a boy in his late teens—but none of them had seen his daughter.
As he stood on the walkway, a young unshaven man with long unkempt hair waved to him and said, “Hey, man. I saw that girl.”
Dressed in well-worn sneakers, ragged jeans, and a dirty faded sweatshirt, the guy seemed to be going through a rough patch.
“Was she wearing a white dress with strawberries?” David asked as he approached the man.
“Yeah. Four—five years old, brown hair.”
“Was it her?” David showed the man Annie’s picture.
The man nodded. “Yeah.”
“Where did you see her?”
“Here. She was with some chick.”
David and his wife had warned Annie not to talk to strangers or get in their cars, but young children were bad at following rules.
Had the woman promised Annie candy?
“Where did they go?”
The man shrugged. “I don’t know.” He held out his hand. “I’m Eddie.”
David shook his hand. “When did you see them?”
“A few minutes ago.”
He might have made it all up.
Why would he do that?
Because he has nothing better to do.
“Which direction were they going?” David asked.
“This way.” Eddie pointed toward the volleyball court, which was located on the south side of the park.
David peered toward the volleyball court and saw no little children near it.
“Did you see the woman’s face?” he asked.
“No. Well, kinda. She had huge sunglasses on.”
She wore huge sunglasses so that no one would be able to identify her.
“Thank you,” David said.
“No problem, man.”
David closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
It was time to admit the terrible truth: Annie had been abducted.
He broke into a sweat; his heart dropped into his stomach.
No, she just got lost.
First she had gotten lost, and then she had been kidnapped.
David sprinted to the parking lot. Chances were the kidnapper had already left, but he had to check anyway. He crisscrossed the parking lot several times, shouting Annie’s name and looking into cars. Annie was nowhere to be found.
Intending to call his wife, David withdrew his cellphone from his pocket and pressed the Home button. His hand was trembling.
Was it a good idea to tell Carol now that he’d lost Annie?
No, not now. There was still a small chance his daughter would turn up in the next hour or so. He would tell Carol when he got home.
David put the phone back in his pocket. Then he searched the parking lot for surveillance cameras and was disappointed to find none. He hoped he’d seen no cameras because they were inconspicuous and not because they weren’t there.
Before he headed home, David combed the wooded part of the park for twenty minutes. The search proved fruitless.
2
When he arrived home, David went to his study, switched on his laptop, and printed three pictures of Annie, all of which had been taken in the last month. His heart cramped as he looked at his daughter’s photos. As he copied the electronic files of the pictures to a flash drive, he heard Carol’s voice: “Where’s Annie?”
David turned his face to his wife, who was standing in the doorway, then rose and stepped out from behind his desk. “Annie…” His right eye twitched. “She’s gone missing.”
Carol frowned. “What? Did you say Annie’s gone missing?”
She started toward him.
“Yes. I lost her in Ardmore Park.”
“Oh. Oh my God! How did you lose her?”
“I’m not sure how it happened. I think someone abducted her.” David took her hand in his.
“Oh Jesus! Did you look for her?”
“Yes, I did.” His eye twitched again. “I looked everywhere.”
Suddenly David remembered telling Carol about the death of their son, Brian, two years ago, and a lump rose in his throat. He had done it over the phone, so he hadn’t seen her face when she heard the terrible news.
“Have you called the police?” Carol’s voice was trembling.
“I’m going to the police station now.”
They went to the Plano Police Department together. During the initial interview, which took place after he filed a missing child report, David asked the interviewing officer when the police were going to contact the FBI. The officer, whose name was Victor Alvarado, said they would notify the Dallas FBI office shortly. After the interview, Alvarado told David that the Plano PD was going to send a K-9 unit to Ardmore Park to conduct a search. David wanted to say it would be a waste of time because Annie was not in the park, but decided against it. They went to the Millers’ house, where Alvarado collected a pair of Annie’s sneakers. The officer asked David not to remove anything from Annie’s room for the next several days.