PART 3 -THE BOY IN THE BLUE JACKET
Rachel did not faint.
People say that someone “collapsed” when they want to make fear sound graceful. There was nothing graceful about it.
Her knees struck the cabinet. Her shoulder hit my table, and she slid to the kitchen floor with both hands pressed over her mouth.
On the phone, Oliver whispered my name.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m still here.”
A fist pounded on my front door.
“Police!”
Rachel grabbed my ankle.
“Don’t tell them about Noah.”
I looked down at her.
“Who is Noah?”
The pounding came again.
“Ma’am, open the door.”
Oliver breathed into the phone.
“Miss Ida?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“I hear a car.”
“Can you see it?”
“No. The window has wood over it.”
“Stay away from the window. Keep the phone hidden.”
The kitchen went silent.
“Oliver?”
No answer.
Then a woman’s voice came through the speaker.
“You should not have called her.”
The line disconnected.
I opened the front door.
Two officers stood on my porch. The younger one had his hand near his belt. The older one looked past me and saw Rachel on the floor.
“Is anyone injured?”
“The missing child just called me.”
Both officers entered.
The older one introduced himself as Officer Bell. I forgot the younger officer’s name immediately.
I handed Bell my phone.
“He said he was in a place with a red door and trees. A woman took him. He said Dex ordered her to do it.”
“Dex is the mother’s boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
Bell looked at Rachel.
“Ma’am, is that correct?”
Rachel pushed herself upright.
“I don’t know.”
I stared at her.
“You told me he knew where Oliver was.”
“I said I thought he knew.”
“That is not what you said.”
Officer Bell raised one hand.
“Let her answer.”
Rachel stood slowly, gripping the edge of the table.
“Dex left on his motorcycle ten minutes ago.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“No.”
“Do you recognize the woman Oliver mentioned?”
“No.”
“Who is Noah?”
Rachel’s eyes snapped toward me.
I had not told them.
Officer Bell had heard her.
“Nobody,” she said.
The younger officer moved closer to the window and looked toward Rachel’s house.
“Ma’am, a child is missing. This is not the time to protect anyone.”
“I’m not protecting Dex.”
“Then who are you protecting?”
Rachel looked at the grocery bag hidden beneath my sink.
Officer Bell followed her eyes.
I stepped in front of the cabinet.
“That bag belongs to me.”
It was a poor lie.
Bell knew it. Rachel knew it. I knew it.
The younger officer walked to the sink and pulled the bag out.
He placed Oliver’s birth certificate, the passport, the cash and the prescription bottles on my table.
Officer Bell’s expression changed.
“Were you planning to leave?”
Rachel sat down.
“I have been planning to leave for eleven months.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Because Dex told me what happened the last time a woman took a boy away from him.”
Nobody spoke.
Outside, a lawn mower started two houses down.
It was an ordinary summer sound, and I hated it for being ordinary.
“Tell us about Noah,” Bell said.
Rachel stared at the prescription bottle.
“Noah is Dex’s son.”
“With another woman?”
She nodded.
“What is her name?”
“Marian Vale.”
I knew the name.
Not personally. From the news.
Six years earlier, a woman and her seven-year-old son had vanished from a town forty miles north of us. Her car had been found beside a reservoir with the driver’s door open and her purse on the front seat.
Search teams dragged the water.
They found neither body.
The newspapers decided Marian had driven into the reservoir, even though the car was still on the road.
People will accept a foolish answer when the alternative is too frightening.
“Marian Vale,” I said.
Rachel looked surprised.
“You remember?”
“I read newspapers.”
Officer Bell was already speaking into his radio.
“Was Dex investigated?” he asked.
“He was interviewed.”
“And?”
“He had an alibi.”
“What alibi?”
“His sister said he was with her.”
“Does the sister have a name?”
“Celia.”
My phone rang again.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
Officer Bell took the phone from the table.
He answered without speaking and put the call on speaker.
At first, we heard only movement.
Then Oliver whispered, “Miss Ida, she went outside.”
“Oliver, this is Officer Bell. We’re going to find you. Can you tell me anything else about the place?”
Oliver did not answer.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “you can talk to him.”
“There’s a picture here.”
“What kind of picture?”
“A family.”
“Who is in it?”
“The woman. Dex. And a boy.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
“Is the boy wearing a blue jacket?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Rachel made a sound deep in her throat.
“Oliver,” Bell said, “can you see a name written anywhere? A sign, an envelope, a calendar?”
“There are marks on the wall.”
“What marks?”
“Lines. Like measuring.”
“Anything else?”
A floorboard creaked through the speaker.
Oliver breathed faster.
“She’s coming back.”
“Hide the phone,” I said.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It isn’t mine.”
The woman’s voice came from directly beside him.
“No,” she said. “It’s mine.”
The call remained connected.
We heard fabric rustle and then a chair scrape across the floor.
Officer Bell motioned for everyone to stay silent.
The woman spoke again.
“You brought police into this, Ida.”
She knew my name.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I want Rachel to tell the truth.”
Rachel shook her head violently.
The woman continued.
“Ask her why she was sitting in her driveway.”
I looked at Rachel.
“She was afraid of Dex.”
The woman laughed once.
It was not a pleasant sound.
“No. She was waiting for me.”
Rachel stood.
“That isn’t true.”
“You promised you would bring Oliver yesterday.”
Officer Bell’s head turned sharply toward her.
Rachel backed against the counter.
“I never promised that.”
“You said you were ready.”
“I said I was ready to leave.”
“You said you understood what had to happen.”
“I didn’t know you meant taking him.”
On the phone, Oliver began to cry.
I stepped close to the speaker.
“Listen to me. Whatever agreement you made with Rachel has nothing to do with that child.”
“It has everything to do with him.”
“Then explain it.”
The woman went quiet.
Officer Bell pointed to his phone and mouthed that they were tracing the call.
I kept talking.
“Are you Marian?”
Rachel whispered, “No.”
The woman answered at the same time.
“Marian is dead.”
“Are you Celia?”
Another silence.
Then she said, “Ask Rachel who gave her the tracker.”
Bell looked toward the blue jacket Rachel had mentioned.
Rachel’s face changed.
“You gave it to me,” she said.
“No,” the woman replied. “I gave it to Oliver.”
I felt a coldness move through me.
“When?” I asked.
“The day he moved into that house.”
Rachel gripped the counter.
“You’ve been near him?”
“I have been near all of you.”
Officer Bell wrote something on a pad and showed it to the younger officer.
KEEP HER TALKING.
“What do you want Rachel to admit?” I asked.
“That Dex did not choose that house by accident.”
I looked toward my kitchen window.
Through it, I could see my back step, the cooler and the shed beyond the garden.
The same view I had watched for months.
“He chose the house because of me?” I asked.
The woman laughed softly.
“You still don’t understand.”
A vehicle passed on her end of the call.
There was a faint musical chime.
Four notes.
I knew those notes.
Every Saturday morning, a bakery truck drove through the northern farming roads selling bread and pastries. It played the same four notes over and over.
My husband used to buy cinnamon rolls from it when we visited his brother.
My husband’s brother had owned a cabin near those roads.
A cabin with a red door.
“Pine Hollow,” I said.
Officer Bell looked at me.
“What?”
“She is near Pine Hollow.”
The woman stopped breathing for one second.
That was enough.
Officer Bell pointed toward the door. The younger officer ran outside.
“How do you know?” Bell whispered.
“The bakery truck.”
The call disconnected.
Bell spoke rapidly into his radio.
Rachel grabbed her car keys.
“I’m going.”
“No,” Bell said.
“That’s my son.”
“You will stay here until another unit arrives.”
“Dex is going there.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Celia wants him to.”
“Why?”
Rachel looked at the photograph Oliver had described as though she could see it through the walls.
“Because Noah is alive.”
The room went still.
“You said Marian and Noah disappeared,” I said.
“Marian disappeared.”
“But Noah—”
“Celia took him.”
“Why?”
“To protect him from Dex.”
Officer Bell stared at her.
“Then why has she kept a missing child hidden for six years?”
“Because she helped Dex hide what happened to Marian.”
Rachel’s voice broke.
“She gave him his alibi. If she brought Noah to the police, she would have to admit she lied.”
“And now she has Oliver,” Bell said.
Rachel nodded.
“She contacted me three months ago. She told me about Marian. She showed me photographs of Noah. She said she could help me get Oliver away from Dex.”
“What did she ask in return?”
“She wanted evidence.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
I thought of Oliver sitting on my step with his shark book.
I thought of the sentence I had written down.
He’s fine when Mom’s there.
“You used Oliver to collect evidence?” I asked.
“No.”
Rachel’s denial came too quickly.
“You left him outside every day because you wanted him away from Dex,” I said. “But you also knew children hear things.”
“I never asked him to listen.”
“You did not have to.”
Tears ran down her face.
“You think I don’t know I failed him?”
“I think you are still failing him.”
Officer Bell stepped between us.
“Enough.”
A second police car arrived.
Bell instructed Rachel to remain with an officer. Then he looked at me.
“You will stay here too.”
“I know where the cabin roads are.”
“We have maps.”
“The old access road does not appear on most maps.”
“We are not taking a civilian into an active situation.”
“Then write down the directions correctly.”
I did.
Left after the abandoned feed store. Right at the broken stone wall. Follow the road until the pavement ends. The cabins begin after the second cattle gate.
Officer Bell took the paper and left.
Rachel and I stood in my kitchen while a uniformed officer watched us from the doorway.
For twenty-three minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Rachel’s phone rang.
Dex.
She answered.
“Where are you?” he asked.
His voice was loud enough for me to hear.
“At home.”
“You called the police.”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Rachel looked at the officer.
“Oliver is missing.”
“I know.”
Her face twisted.
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“With Celia?”
Dex paused.
So small a pause.
But we heard it.
“You’ve been talking to her again,” he said.
“She took my son.”
“She took mine first.”
“Noah was afraid of you.”
“Noah was seven. Seven-year-olds are afraid of thunderstorms.”
“And Marian?”
The line went quiet.
Rachel’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“What did you do to Marian?”
Dex did not answer.
Then he said, “Tell Ida to check her shed.”
The call ended.
All three of us turned toward the garden.
The shed door was open.
I knew I had closed it.
The officer ordered us to remain inside and went out with one hand on his weapon.
He reached the shed and pulled the door fully open.
Nobody was there.
He looked around for several seconds, then bent down.
When he returned, he carried Oliver’s shark book.
There was something tucked inside it.
A photograph.
It showed me standing at my kitchen window.
The picture had been taken from inside my garden shed.
On the back, someone had written:
YOU WATCHED THE WRONG HOUSE.
Beneath that was a date.
Eleven months earlier.
The week before Dex, Rachel and Oliver moved next door.
Rachel stared at the photograph.
“Celia took this.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she was watching you before we arrived.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not good enough.”
“I swear to you, Ida. I don’t know.”
My phone rang.
This time the number belonged to Officer Bell.
“We found the cabin,” he said.
“Is Oliver there?”
“No.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What did you find?”
“A chair, the photographs and the phone used to call you.”
“And Celia?”
“Gone.”
“Did she take Oliver?”
“We found two sets of fresh footprints leaving through the woods.”
Two sets.
Celia and Oliver.
“Where do they lead?”
“To the old reservoir road.”
Rachel heard him.
She made a choking sound.
The same reservoir where Marian’s car had been found.
Officer Bell continued.
“There’s something else, Miss Ida.”
“What?”
“We found a room beneath the cabin.”
I waited.
“The walls are covered with photographs of your house.”
I could not speak.
“Some are recent,” he said. “Some are older.”
“How old?”
“The earliest date we found is twelve years ago.”
I sat down.
Twelve years ago, Oliver had not been born.
Rachel had never met Dex.
I had still been married.
“Officer Bell,” I said carefully, “why would Celia have photographs of me from twelve years ago?”
“I don’t think Celia took all of them.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she left a message on the wall.”
The officer beside us stepped closer.
“What does it say?” I asked.
Bell hesitated.
Then he read it.
“Ida was supposed to remember Marian.”
I closed my eyes.
A woman beside a reservoir.
A red scarf.
A little boy in a blue jacket.
A rainy evening twelve years earlier.
Someone knocking on my car window while my husband told me not to stop.
The memory returned so suddenly that I dropped the phone.
I had seen Marian before.
Not in the newspapers.
Not in a photograph.
I had seen her alive.
And on the night she begged me for help, I had driven away……………….
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
