The Vanished (11 page)

Chapter
12

1

On Wednesday, May 25, Carol said she wanted to hire a psychic to find Annie.

“When are you going?” David asked.

“I haven’t found one I trust yet.”

“I’ll go with you, if you want.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know.”

Although David didn’t believe in psychics, he was now willing to suspend his skepticism and hope that not all of them were scammers. He was desperate enough to try anything.

At three in the afternoon David went outside to get the mail. There were two junk letters and a package in the mailbox. As he walked back to the house, he read the sender’s name and address on the package: Sam Jones, 301 Alderson St., Dallas. He had no idea who Sam Jones was. He read the addressee’s name: David Miller.

After he threw the junk mail in the trash, David tore the package open, looked inside it, and saw what appeared to be some kind of electronic device. He took the device out.

It was a cellphone. A no-frills clamshell cellphone. When David touched the OK button, it occurred to him that the phone must have been sent by the kidnappers. His pulse quickened.

The kidnappers wanted to contact him. They had sent this cell because they thought the police were tapping his phones.

The envelope also contained a USB cord and a computer-printed note, which read: “David, wait for my call. It’s about your daughter. Don’t say a word to anyone, including your wife. Use the cable to charge the phone.”

His heart began to slam against his ribs. Annie was still alive. He would pay the kidnappers ransom, and they would give her back to him. This nightmare would be over soon.

David switched on the phone and then stared at it for a minute, waiting for it to ring, but the cell remained silent.

There was no reason to expect the kidnappers to call now, was there? They had no way of knowing he had opened the package and turned on the phone.

David checked the battery indicator. The battery was still full. He put the phone on the coffee table and reread the note.

Don’t say a word to anyone, including your wife.

Okay, he would keep this secret.

Sam Jones, 301 Alderson St., Dallas. David was sure the sender’s name and address were bogus.

He decided to hold onto the envelope because it was evidence that could potentially help identify the kidnappers. He locked the envelope and the note in a cabinet in his study.

The phone rang at a quarter to four, when David was in the second-floor bathroom taking a piss. He pulled the cell from his shorts pocket, flipped it open, and held it to his ear.

“Hello.”

“Is this David Miller?” The voice sounded odd, artificial. David figured the kidnapper spoke through a voice changer.

“Yes. Who are you?”

“Call me Ben. Are you alone?”

“Yes.” David stepped out of the bathroom and headed for the study.

“I have good news for you, David. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes.”

“Annie’s alive.”

A flush of heat came over David. A torrid mix of ecstasy and rage ignited in his heart.

Annie was alive!

Please, God, let it be true!

“Do you have her?” David entered the study and shut the door.

“Yes.”

“How much do you want?”

“It’s not about money.”

After waiting a few seconds, David asked impatiently, “So what do you want?”

“I want to offer you a deal, David. Do you love your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Will you do whatever it takes to save her life?”

“Yes. Tell me what you want.”

“Here’s my proposition. I’ll let your daughter live if you confess to killing her.”

“You want me to confess to killing Annie?”

“That’s right, David.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter. If you don’t do it, she’ll die.”

“I’ll give you a million dollars if you give her back to me.”

“I told you it’s not about money. I want you to confess to killing Annie.”

“Are you going to let Annie go if I do it?”

“Yes. Eventually.”

“What do you mean ‘eventually’? When are you going to let her go?”

“In six years.”

“Six years? That’s too long.”

“Well, I disagree.”

“Why six years?”

“Because I say so. Listen, David. If you don’t like the terms, don’t take the deal.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your promise?”

“What a stupid question. What do you want me to do? Sign a fucking contract?”

David clenched his free hand into a fist. He felt the urge to tear this guy apart.

“Who’s going to feed Annie? Who’s going to take care of her during these six years?”

“I am.”

“Do you know how to care for children?”

“I’ll hire Mary Poppins. Are you happy now, David?”

“Please don’t hurt her.”

“She’ll be fine if you do what I tell you to do. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes. But first I need you to prove that Annie’s still alive.”

“Okay.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“No. I’ll send you a picture.”

“Just let me talk to her. Please.”

“No. I’ll send you a picture. What’s your favorite basketball team?”

“Phoenix Suns. Why?”

“I’ll send you a picture of your daughter wearing a Phoenix Suns cap. I want you to make the confession within twenty-four hours of receiving the picture.”

“Send me a picture of her holding today’s newspaper.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“You’re going to show the photo to the cops, and they’ll drop the charges against you. If you don’t like a cap, pick something else.”

David thought for a moment and then said, “Have her hold up four fingers on her left hand.”

“Okay. Four fingers on her left hand. What’s your email address?”

David gave “Ben” his email address. “Why are you doing this?”

“For fun. I’ll send the picture tomorrow. Don’t lose the phone. Bye.” The kidnapper terminated the call.

2

David went online and found that the kidnapper had called him from a payphone in Dallas. He did a reverse lookup on the number of the cellphone he had received from “Ben” and came up with nothing. It was probably one of those disposable prepaid phones you could buy without showing your ID. The number had a Dallas area code, which meant the cell had been purchased in Dallas. David called Vincent and asked him to find out who the number belonged to.

What was the kidnapper’s motive? His real motive?

Maybe “Ben” was telling the truth. Maybe he was a sadist who enjoyed framing other people for murder.

The kidnapper had told him not to lose the phone. Apparently “Ben” was going to call again.

Should he tell the police about “Ben”? To prove that he wasn’t lying, he could record his next phone conversation with the kidnapper and give the recording to the cops.

They would say he had staged the phone call to get the charges dropped.

He should have asked the kidnapper how Annie’s blood had gotten on the knife found in Ardmore Park.

Vincent called back an hour later and reported that the number David had given him was not registered to anyone.

He had to think of a way to identify the buyer of the cellphone. First, he needed to find out where it had been sold. It shouldn’t be hard to do: every mobile phone had a unique identification number known as IMEI, which enabled the phone manufacturer to keep track of what retailer a particular phone had been shipped to. He would ask Paul Sibert to contact the manufacturer.

David called Paul and gave him the IMEI and the cellphone number. Paul said it might take a few days to get an answer from the manufacturer. An hour and a half later Paul sent him a text message saying that the cellphone number wasn’t registered to anyone.

Chapter
13

1

He received the picture promised by the kidnapper at eleven-fifteen in the morning. In the photo Annie was standing in front of a white wall, holding four fingers up on her left hand. She was dressed in a pink T-shirt and blue shorts. Her hair was combed, and there was a smile on her face.

David felt tears sting his eyes as he looked at the picture.

The photo had been emailed from [email protected]. David typed “mail.ru” into the address bar and pressed Enter. The text on the website appeared to be in Russian. David looked up the information on the .ru domain and found that it was the top-level domain of Russia.

Did the fact that the kidnapper used a Russian email service mean that he was Russian?

No, it didn’t. After examining the website for a few minutes, David discovered that its email portion had an English version.

At eleven-fifty the phone sent by “Ben” rang, and he took the call.

“Did you see the picture?” the kidnapper asked. He was using a voice changer again.

“Yes.”

“Are you satisfied?”

“How do I know you won’t kill Annie right after I make the confession?”

“If I wanted to kill her, I would already have done it.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“For fun. I already told you that, didn’t I?”

“Does Annie have seizures?”

“No.”

“Annie has epilepsy. She needs to take medication to control her seizures.”

“What’s the name of the medication?”

“Dilantin and Tegretol. I’ll email you the dosage. She also needs blood tests every two months.”

“Okay. Now let’s talk about your confession. The cops are going to ask you how and where you killed your daughter. You’ll say that you killed her in a forest north of Frisco, that you stabbed her to death with the knife they had found in Ardmore Park.”

“What about the body? They’ll ask what I did with it.”

“You’ll tell them you buried the body in the forest. If they ask you to show the grave, you’ll say you don’t remember where it is.”

“Okay. What about the motive?”

“I’ll let you come up with the motive.”

“Annie’s blood on that knife—where did you get it from? Did you cut her?”

“I drew it from her arm.”

David prayed the kidnapper was telling the truth.

“Are you sure you don’t want a million dollars?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Why did you pick us?”

“Because you’re a capitalist pig. Don’t fuck it up, David. If you get acquitted, your daughter will die.”

“I won’t fuck it up.”

“You have until tomorrow noon to make the confession. Send me an email when you’ve done it. Do you have any questions?”

“How did I know that the knife was in the bushes behind the restrooms in Ardmore Park?”

“You put it there. And that’s all I have to say about this. Any more questions?”

“No.”

“Goodbye, then.”

The kidnapper hung up.

This time “Ben” called from a payphone in Fort Worth. After he emailed the kidnapper the dosages for Annie’s medications, David consulted the map and found that there were several wooded areas north of Frisco where he would have been able to bury a body. All of them were within twenty-five minutes’ drive of his house and Ardmore Park. If Barton asked him for the timeline of the crime, he would say that he had left home at about one in the afternoon, gotten to the forest around one-thirty, murdered Annie at one-forty-five, finished burying the body at a quarter to three, and arrived at Ardmore Park at about three-twenty.

He felt an urge to show Carol the picture he had received from the kidnapper, but he fought it off.

If you get acquitted, your daughter will die.

Did it mean that the kidnapper wanted him to stand trial rather than plead guilty?

Perhaps “Ben” just assumed he was going to go to trial.   

He should tell Vincent about the cellphone “Ben” had sent him. He wasn’t sure if he should tell the investigator about the kidnapper’s demands, though.

2

As he passed through the lobby of the building where the office of Daley Investigative Services was located, David got a call from Paul Sibert. Paul informed him that the phone number he had asked him to check had last been activated on May 2, four days before Annie was abducted.

Vincent was looking at his computer screen when David went into his office. They shook hands, and David sat down.

“Do you know how to trace where an email was sent from?” David asked.

“Yes,” Vincent said.

David pulled his laptop out of its case, set it on the desk, and opened it. After he logged into his email account, he clicked on the kidnapper’s message and said, “I want to know where this email was sent from.” He turned the laptop so the investigator could see the screen.

About five minutes later Vincent said, “When this guy sent this email, he was logged in through a proxy server in Ukraine. We can’t find out his real location without looking at the server logs.”

“Thank you.” David closed the laptop and slid it back into its case. “Do you have any connections in Ukraine?”

“No.”

He could ask Paul Sibert to request the logs from the proxy server owners, but, considering that they were based in Ukraine, a country with rampant corruption, it would be months or even years before they bothered to produce the files. And David was pretty sure the real location was a public Wi-Fi hotspot that would yield no leads on the identity of the kidnapper.

“Who sent you this email?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I noticed there’s Annie’s picture attached to it.”

“I want to show you something.” David withdrew the cellphone sent by “Ben” and placed it in front of Vincent. “I received this phone from the kidnappers.”

“Did they call you on this phone?”

“Yes. I want you to track down the person who bought it. If you find him, you’ll find Annie, I’m sure of it.”

“Did the kidnappers say Annie’s alive?”

“Yes.”

“Did they prove that she’s alive?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a disposable phone?”

“Yes. It was activated on May second. They probably activated it the day they bought it. I’ll tell you where it was sold in a few days.”

“Are you going to leave it here?”

“No.”

David opened the cell, retrieved the IMEI, and then asked Vincent to write the identification number down.

“Did they ask for ransom?” the investigator asked after jotting down the IMEI.

“I can’t tell you what they said to me.”

Vincent pressed some buttons on the phone and then said, “How many times did they call you?”

“Two. Yesterday and today.”

“Did you record any of the calls?”

David shook his head.

As Vincent wrote down the numbers “Ben” had called from, David said, “He called from payphones.”

The investigator nodded. “Did he speak with an accent?”

“He used a voice changer, so I don’t know if he has an accent.”

“Did he sound as if English was his second language?”

“No.”

He gave Vincent the envelope the cellphone had come in, and said, “Don’t tell anyone that the kidnappers contacted me.”

“Okay.”

David licked his lips, which were as dry as sand, and said, “I’m going to confess to killing Annie, but I want you to ignore it.”

Vincent gave him a puzzled look. “Did you say you’re going to confess to killing Annie?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Vincent drew his brows together. “What’s going on, Dave?”

“Nothing’s going on. Don’t tell anyone you’re working for me, including my wife.” David took out the check he’d written to Vincent and put it on the desk. “Here’s an advance for your services. Fifty thousand. When you need more, let me know. I’m going to call you from jail every two, three days to get an update.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. Why do you want to confess to killing Annie if she’s alive?”

“It doesn’t matter. If you need to contact me, call my lawyer. Here’s his number.” David handed Vincent Aaron Brady’s business card.

Vincent looked at the card for a few moments and said, “Let me dust the phone for fingerprints.”

He grabbed the cell and left the room.

While he was waiting for the investigator, David decided that he would make the confession tomorrow morning. Vincent returned twenty minutes later and said he had found no fingerprints on the battery or the SIM card. Then the investigator took David’s fingerprints.

3

“Ben” had said he had put the knife in the bushes in Ardmore Park. Was it true?

“Ben” must have said it just to annoy him.

On the other hand, the kidnapper’s claim that he had picked their family because they were rich had the ring of truth.

Could he trust the kidnapper? Would this bastard let Annie go in six years?

He didn’t trust “Ben,” but it didn’t really matter because if he refused to satisfy the kidnapper’s demands, his daughter would die.

If he didn’t confess to killing Annie, the kidnapper would stab Annie to death and then let the police find the body, thus ensuring his conviction. Either way, he was going to prison for the murder of his daughter.

Was Annie going to remember him and Carol after six years? If no one mentioned their names to her in the next six years, she was likely to forget them.

Would the kidnapper let Annie go to school? To enroll the girl in school he would need to obtain a fake birth certificate for her. David supposed it was not going to be a problem.

The murder of a child under ten was a capital offense in Texas, which meant that he would be sentenced to death if the state chose to seek the death penalty. He’d need to work out a deal with the prosecution that would allow him to avoid death.

Three hours after his meeting with Vincent the urge to show Carol the picture sent by the kidnapper became irresistible, and David gave in.

“Annie’s alive,” David said to his wife as they left the dining room.

Carol looked at him and said nothing.

“I want to show you something.” He motioned for Carol to follow him. They went to the study, where he opened the kidnapper’s email and showed Annie’s photo to Carol.

“He sent me Annie’s picture to prove she’s alive,” David said as Carol studied Annie’s photo.

Her eyes fixed on the laptop screen, Carol asked, “How does this picture prove Annie’s alive?”

“She’s holding up four fingers on her left hand. I asked him to take a picture of Annie holding up four fingers on her left hand.”

“Who sent you this picture?” 

“The man that kidnapped Annie.”

“When did you talk to him?”

“This morning.”

“Did he call your cellphone?”

“Yes.”

“Did he call from a payphone?”

“Yes.”

“What does he want?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why?”

“He told me to keep it secret.”

“Do you have what he wants?”

David nodded.

“When are you going to give it to him?”

“Soon.” He hesitated, and then said, “We’ll get Annie back in six years.”

“Six years?” Carol frowned. “Why? Why do we have to wait so long?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t explain.”

“Dave, is it a trick? Did you make it all up?”

“I didn’t make it up. I’m telling you the truth, honey.”

“Dave.” Carol drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I don’t believe you. It makes no sense.” She looked at the screen. “Why are you doing this? Do you think it’s going to make me feel better?” She rose from the chair.

“You can’t tell anyone about this picture. He’ll kill Annie if he finds out I told you about it.”

Carol stared at him for a long time and then said, “Okay, I won’t.”

Standing behind his desk, David watched his wife walk out of the room.

I should have kept my mouth shut, he thought.

Maybe Vincent was right? Maybe he had actually killed Annie while he was blacked out?

David dropped his eyes to his hands. He opened his hands, palms up. Staring at his palms, he imagined himself holding a knife. Then he imagined himself grabbing Annie by the hair and stabbing her in the chest with the knife.

He stood still, carefully scanning his memory for any traces of what he had just pictured in his mind.

He felt goosebumps rise on his skin when he suddenly realized that at some point in the last four weeks he had actually grabbed Annie by the hair. Then a memory surfaced of him stabbing Annie in the chest with a knife. It was a carving knife with a black handle. He couldn’t remember what brand it was.