The Girl in the White Van Read online

  “Where do think he took her?” My heart felt like it would beat out of my chest. “Do you think she’s still alive?”

  Dad took a flash drive from his pocket and slid it into the computer. “I’m going to go talk to Mr. Hixon and try to find out,” he said as he copied the file. “I’d like to hear what he has to say about this.”

  JENNY DOWD

  When we had heard Sir coming back, Savannah and I froze, barely breathing, waiting for the door to open. We measured Sir’s progress toward us by Rex’s barks and Sir’s occasional guttural commands. Savannah’s knuckles turned white as they tightened around my fishnet tights, ready to smash the can into his head. I stood with my open hands in front of my face, elbows in, mentally trying to rehearse all the kung fu moves she’d just shown me.

  While I’d been hitting the pillow, I’d felt confident and strong. Every time I heard Savannah grunt when I landed a blow or watched her stagger backward under my assault, it had given me a false sense of security.

  But as the moment crept closer when I was going to have to actually try my moves, I started to realize how ridiculous it was to believe that I could damage Sir. Hurt the man who could fill me with fear with just one look from his icy blue eyes.

  “Hier! Fuss! Platz!” Sir ordered. He sounded inches away. Suddenly the metal and plastic wall separating us from him seemed as insubstantial as cling film. My stomach bottomed out as I waited for the chain to rattle as he unlocked it. My pulse slammed in my ears.

  The next sound was the crunch of gravel, but it wasn’t on the other side of the door. Instead it came from underneath our feet. I stared into Savannah’s wide blue eyes, as puzzled as mine. We were both panting soundlessly through open mouths. I realized I must look like her reflection in a fun house mirror.

  And then from somewhere under our feet came the rush of water.

  We were still frozen, too scared to move, when the sounds reversed. First the water stopped. Then the gravel crunched under us. Followed by footsteps receding, accompanied by Rex’s barks and Sir’s commands.

  “What did he do?” Savannah demanded in a whisper as Rex’s barking faded.

  Part of me already knew the answer, but I still hoped I was wrong. After putting the glass under the kitchen faucet, I turned the handle. The first second the faucet gushed solid water, but then it hissed and fizzled as the stream became more and more air-filled. And when the glass was only about three-quarters full, the water stopped altogether.

  When I turned, Savannah had her hand over her mouth. Her eyes told me she understood. I resisted the sudden urge to toss the water in her face. If she hadn’t caught Sir’s eye, if she hadn’t resisted when he took her, maybe he wouldn’t have done it. Wouldn’t have taken the water away.

  With a shaking hand, I set the glass down on the counter.

  “There’s probably still some water in the shower,” she said. “And I’ve heard you can drink the water in the toilet tank.”

  And there was milk and orange juice in the fridge, and it wasn’t summer, so we weren’t sweating as much. But the truth was that none of that would ultimately matter. I shook my head. “All that means is it’s going to take a little longer.” I sank down on the couch and put my face in my hands.

  Savannah stayed where she was, the useless can still dangling down her back. “That’s it, isn’t it? Your face is scarred, and my wrist is broken. Neither of us is what he thought he was getting. I bet he’s just going to leave that door locked, and he won’t come back for weeks. He won’t come back until he’s sure we’re dead.”

  How many days could you live without water? Was it three weeks without food but only three days without water? Or maybe it was some other multiple of three. Thirty hours without water?

  Ever since I’d been taken, I’d been afraid that something would happen to Sir, a heart attack or an accident. And because no one knew I was here, I would starve to death in this RV.

  But I had never dreamed that he would actually choose to let me die.

  I didn’t know if Savannah was right about why he was doing it, but she was right about what was eventually going to happen.

  This trailer would soon become our tomb.

  LORRAINE TAYLOR

  When the doorbell rang, I ran to it, hoping it was news about my daughter. About Savannah.

  Instead it was a dark-haired woman. “Lorraine? I’m Amy.” She held out a business card. On one side was In Trevor’s Memory, and the other, Amy Dowd, Volunteer Victim’s Advocate.

  “Can I come in and talk?” she asked.

  After a second, I stepped back. Was I doing the right thing? And would Tim mind? He’d gone into work, putting in some overtime. He said he didn’t see the point of sitting around the house if there wasn’t anything he could do to find Savannah. Besides, he needed the extra money to fix his car.

  Amy seemed only a few years older than me, but she might as well have been a different species. A show dog next to a mutt. I could tell her black pantsuit was expensive, and it sure hid her extra weight way better than my wrinkled scrubs with a drawstring waist.

  “In Trevor’s Memory is affiliated with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It was started by the family of Trevor Strider. Maybe you remember him?”

  The feeling of unreality was so great that it was like I was watching myself nod. Anyone alive twenty years ago knew who Trevor Strider was. Six-year-old Trevor had disappeared from his front yard in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He’d never been found.

  “Can I sit down?” After I nodded, Amy took Tim’s recliner, and I sat on the couch. Tim’s sweatshirt was thrown over the chair. The coffee table was covered with mail, dirty plates, and an open pizza box that still held a curling slice. I looked for judgment on Amy’s face. But all I saw was barely concealed pain. And somehow that was worse. This was the life I had made for myself, for me and my daughter.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “I’m here to help, if you want. I’m not law enforcement, although I’ve worked with them many times, and they’re the ones who notified us. I’m not a counselor, but I’ve been to counseling and learned a lot from it. I’m mostly just here because I’ve been in your shoes. My daughter, Jenny, disappeared nearly a year ago.”

  Her words hit me like a blow. “What happened?”

  In a few sentences, she sketched out the story of Jenny’s disappearance from a tanning salon. Then she switched topics to what she could do for me. “I can assist you in getting the word out, help you deal with the media, set up a website, or whatever else you need. And I know about resources you can use. There’s a print shop downtown that will make missing posters for free. And there’s a fraternity at Portland State that might distribute them as a community service project.”

  This was all going so fast. Just hearing Amy list everything she seemed to think I should be doing was overwhelming. I tried to find something to hold on to. “Wait. Your daughter. Jenny. Did they ever find her?”

  Amy looked down at her black pumps with their sensible two-inch heels. “No.”

  “So you don’t know what happened to her?” Even though I was sitting on the couch, I felt like I was falling.

  This time she looked at me. Her eyes were the color of old ice. “No.”

  “How do you live with that?” The words burst out of me.

  “I won’t lie to you. Of course you want your child back. And if you can’t have that, then you want a body. When you realize this limbo might go on forever”—she raised her empty hands and let them fall—“it feels unbearable. Only you have to find a way to live with it.” She straightened her shoulders. “But it’s far too early to be talking about that. What we should be doing is figuring out how to maximize every resource to bring your daughter home. We need as many eyes as possible looking for Savannah.”

  It was clear she was a much better mother than I had ever been. The best I could hope to do was follow her lead. “Okay.”

  “The first thing to do is make a flyer and then get it put up
all over the metro area.” She pulled a sleek silver laptop from her leather bag and set it on her knees. “Do you have a recent photo of her?”

  “When Officer Diaz sent out one of those ‘be on the lookout for’ announcements to all the other cops, he used Savannah’s school portrait.”

  “It would also be good to have a candid photo. Ideally, head and shoulders, with a light-colored background. But it needs to be sharp. So if you don’t have one that’s suitable, we’ll just go with the one from school.”

  As I scrolled through photos on my phone, I realized how many there were of Tim and how few of Savannah. Again, shame washed over me.

  While I searched, Amy asked me questions, gradually reducing my precious daughter to numbers and colors.

  I found myself telling her what I never would have told Officer Diaz. “When I was pregnant with Savannah, I could feel her. Do you know what I mean?” I rested my hand on my belly. She stopped typing and almost reluctantly nodded. “Like this little hum of connection. And I can still feel it. I know she’s alive.”

  Amy glanced away, blinked rapidly, then looked back at me again. “If that keeps you going, then good. Because you’re going to need every source of strength you can draw on.” She looked back down at her keyboard. “So have you found a photo?”

  I held out my phone. “What about this one?”

  It was Savannah the night she got her orange sash. She’d asked someone at her school to take the picture and then sent it to me.

  Amy’s eyes widened. “My God!”

  “What?”

  “Jenny’s face was more rounded. But she and your daughter—they look a lot alike. And my daughter disappeared only about seven miles from here.”

  Suddenly it seemed like Jenny’s mom and I had something in common after all.

  Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it.

  —BRUCE LEE

  SAVANNAH TAYLOR

  I stared at the half-empty glass of water. Sir was going to let us die of dehydration. It was incredibly cruel. For us, but not for him. He wouldn’t even have to get his hands dirty.

  I slumped into one of the swivel chairs. Putting my feet on top of the seat, I sat with my face pressed against my knees.

  “What are we going to do now?” Jenny sounded close to tears. Water we couldn’t afford to waste.

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t raise my head. My voice was muffled by my legs. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

  “What? You’re just going to give up?” Her tone was a challenge.

  I didn’t raise my head. “Everything you said earlier is true. There’s no way to get out of here. And even if we could, that dog’s out there just waiting for us. And even if we somehow managed to get past the dog, then Sir would hear all the barking, realize we’re escaping, and then he’d kill us.” My chest tingled, and there was an ache in the back of my throat.

  “But there’s gotta be something we can do.”

  Jenny’s words started to reach me. “Whenever I get stuck, I ask myself what Bruce Lee would do.” The question echoed and faded inside of me as it went unanswered. “That’s where I got the idea for putting the can in your tights, because it was kind of like these nunchucks he used. But I don’t think even Bruce Lee could get out of here.”

  “Bruce Lee—that’s the kung fu guy your book’s about, right?”

  I nodded, then got up and found the book. “It’s kind of ironic that his most famous quote is about water.”

  “What did he say about it?”

  I sat next to her. “Something about how you need to be like water, because it’s formless. He said that if you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup, or if you put it in a bottle, it becomes the bottle.” I started to flip through the book, looking for the quote. Jenny leaned in.

  From photo after photo, Bruce Lee stared back at us. His dark gaze was intense, and his thick black hair looked almost like a wig. The muscles in his arms and abdomen were so defined that he could have posed for a medical textbook. In one picture he had parallel red scratches on his cheek as if a beast had clawed him. In almost every photo, he was unsmiling, but then I turned a page and saw him grinning up at me. There was no way to look at that photo without smiling back, at least a little. It was hard to believe that he was dead and had been for almost fifty years.

  “When did he die?” Jenny asked.

  “Nineteen seventy-three.” The word die reminded me of our own hopeless predicament. Abruptly, I closed the book. “Maybe Bruce Lee was saying there are times you have to stop fighting and redefine yourself based on your circumstances.” I felt like I had stepped up on the railing of a balcony.

  “What do you mean?” Jenny’s hands twisted in her lap.

  I leapt. “I mean—maybe we should just give up. We tried to get out of here, and we failed. Maybe we just have to redefine escape. Why should that creep get to decide how we die?” As I spoke, my voice strengthened. “If I’m going to die no matter what, I’d rather just get it over with.” I got up and started toward the bathroom. “Do you have any medication I could use to overdose?” If I was going to do this, it would be best if it was fast and painless.

  Jenny came after me. “No, Savannah.” She caught my upper arm, her long fingers like wires. “If you kill yourself, then you’re just letting him win. And you’d be leaving me alone.”

  “Then join me. We’ll show him that he can’t control us the way he thinks.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t kill myself. I used to think about it when I first got here, but I couldn’t make myself do it.” Her voice was rough with emotion. “And if you die, then I’ll just be left here alone with your corpse. Do you know how awful that would be?” She wiped drool from her chin. “There has to be some way to get out of the RV. And even if we only make it part of the way and then Rex gets us, you’re right. It still beats the alternative.” She touched my arm. “Here. Want to know what Bruce Lee would do? Because I think I saw your answer.” Retrieving the book, she paged through it until she found what she was looking for.

  I read aloud the quote she pointed at. “Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.”

  LORRAINE TAYLOR

  I jumped when the doorbell rang. It was Officer Diaz, his expression serious. “Can I come in, Ms. Taylor?”

  I had called to tell him about Jenny’s resemblance to Savannah. But he had sounded busy and distracted, as if their resemblance didn’t matter. Now here he was. By his expression, I could tell he did not come with good news. I wanted to freeze this moment, so that time would never move forward. Or erase it altogether.

  Instead I gestured him inside, introduced him to Amy. He knew about In Trevor’s Memory. She and I sat on the couch while he took Tim’s chair. I found myself reaching for Amy’s hand. She squeezed back. Her fingers were warm. Mine were like icicles.

  “Did you find her?” My voice sounded strangled.

  “No. But we do know what happened Thursday night.” He paused, and my heart twisted in my chest. “After she left kung fu class, Savannah was kidnapped by a man who tasered her and then dragged her into a vehicle. A white van.”

  Each individual word made sense. Savannah. Was. Kidnapped. By. A. Man. Who. Tasered. Her. I just couldn’t make the words fit together into a coherent sentence. Things like that happened to other people’s daughters. Women you felt sorry for when you saw them weeping on the news.

  I finally forced words from my mouth. “Where is she? Is she okay? Who did it? How do you know what happened?”

  “There’s surveillance video from the parking lot above the kung fu school, but unfortunately it doesn’t answer many questions.” He held out his hand. On his palm was a flash drive. “Do you have a computer we could watch this on?”

  “I’ve got my laptop,” Amy said.

  He sat between us on the couch and played the section o
f video for us. It only lasted a few seconds. Savannah’s feet, a man’s feet behind hers, Savannah toppling like a tree, a man’s hands grabbing her. At the end, what looked like a white van driving past. I sat frozen while he played it again, explaining how the stiff way Savannah fell made him believe she had been tasered.

  The third time through, Officer Diaz hit the pause button in the middle. “I want to ask you something, Lorraine.”

  “Okay.” It was hard to force the word past the lump in my throat.

  “Do those boots and coveralls look familiar?”

  I squinted. The parking lot was dark. The video was blurry. They were far away. Still …

  “Do you think they might belong to Mr. Hixon?”

  I wanted to deny what we were all seeing. “I don’t know. But that looks like what he wears to work.”

  “There’s something I haven’t told you, Lorraine.”

  Now I really didn’t want to know. “Yes?” I made myself ask.

  “Before I came here, another officer and I attempted to question Mr. Hixon about what we saw on this tape.”

  Dizziness washed over me. I had brought Savannah here. My daughter. “What did he say?”

  Officer Diaz pressed his lips together before he spoke. “It did not go well. Mr. Hixon was uncooperative and belligerent. He accused us of trying to ‘pin it’ on him. But he was also saying something about how it’s impossible to know what people are really capable of. He ended up throwing a punch at the other officer. Right now, he’s in jail, charged with assault.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Tim,” I whispered. Only it did sound like him. “But what about that white van? That’s not his. He drives a sixty-eight Camaro. But it’s not working right now.”

  “He’s a mechanic, right?”

  “It’s the parts,” I said, misunderstanding what he was saying. “They’re hard to get.”