The Girl in the White Van Read online

  Jenny’s disappearance had broken open my beliefs about the world and revealed them for the lies they were. Lies about how bad things only happened to other people. About how things always turned out okay in the end.

  The girl in the sleeping bag looked from the flyer to me. “Is this your daughter?”

  I nodded, feeling ashamed. When you’re a father, you only have one duty, and I had failed. I hadn’t protected my child.

  After Jenny disappeared, some people looked at my family with suspicion. How could a girl vanish so completely? Unless one of us was lying about what had happened. And of the three of us, it was me they side-eyed the most. I would have been just one of a long line of husbands, boyfriends, fathers, and stepfathers who had gone on TV and cried and begged for their missing loved ones to be returned. We all knew how those stories ended. With the sobbing man revealed as the guilty party.

  “Yeah,” I told the girl. “Have you seen her? Or anyone who looks like her?”

  In the first few weeks after Jenny disappeared, when the media was still interested in us, people reported seeing her walking in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Shopping at Hot Topic in Omaha. They caught a glimpse of her in a back room of a strip club in Boise.

  Only it was never her, or by the time word reached us, it was weeks or months later. Still, I had chased after leads, used up all my vacation time. Nearly every day there was a sighting that had to be followed up, just in case it was real. Jenny could still be somewhere, wanting to come home. Maybe putting up one more flyer, calling one more senator, begging one more reporter to write a story, maybe that would make a difference.

  But now I wondered if they would even be interested on the anniversary.

  How long can a person live on hope?

  Amy said it wasn’t even hope anymore, just stubbornness. I said that people were taking their cues from us, and that if they saw us giving up on her, they would too. Amy said that I had never been good at accepting reality, and this was just more proof. She believed Jenny must have died that first night.

  Amy made that choice because otherwise she would go crazy.

  But I didn’t believe Jenny was dead. Just like I didn’t believe that our marriage was. Sure, we fought a lot, but yelling at each other and throwing things was an escape valve when we were both on the verge of exploding.

  Then Amy had said one of us had to leave. That she couldn’t live with my searching anymore. That she had to move on.

  So I moved out. Moved out but not on. And we hadn’t yet filed the paperwork to get divorced.

  My apartment complex was filled with single mothers, old people trying to stretch their Social Security checks, and other men who had suddenly found themselves alone. Like me.

  Amy had started volunteering for In Trevor’s Memory. She helped other parents whose children were missing.

  But when we were the ones with a missing child, we hadn’t been able to help each other.

  The girl in the sleeping bag looked from one photo of Jenny to the next.

  Every couple of months, a news story reinforced my belief that she was alive. A girl, missing for three years, found in a hidden basement room. A boy who went to the police after his longtime captor took another boy. A girl who swam across a lake after being held captive for months in a ramshackle cabin.

  When I was a kid, my grandma would make these truly awful Jell-O desserts, pieces of canned fruit suspended in crayon-colored jelly. I felt like that. Suspended, unnatural, unable to move.

  Sometimes girls I met on the street would claim that they thought they’d seen Jenny, at least long enough to get coffee and a hot meal in a restaurant that couldn’t shoo them out because they were now a paying customer.

  But this girl was honest. She looked up and said, “I don’t think so.”

  I focused on her for a second. She wasn’t my daughter, but she was still someone’s child. “You should go to a shelter. It’s not safe out here for you. Even with your dog.”

  “But I can’t go to a shelter. Because of my dog.” I could see the girl mentally cataloging my dirty tennis shoes, my jeans worn to threads at the heels. “But if you give me five bucks, I’ll hold on to this flyer. And I’ll keep an eye out. For Jenny.”

  Even knowing it was probably a lie, I took out my wallet.

  Because what if this girl was the key? The key to finding my daughter.

  To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

  —BRUCE LEE

  SAVANNAH TAYLOR

  Slumped in one of the RV’s swivel chairs, Jenny told me about the night the man she called Sir had taken her. The whole time she was speaking, her fingertips absently traced the red ridges of her face.

  “So we’re in a wrecking yard?”

  “Yeah, there are lots of junked cars.” With the back of her hand, she wiped her glistening chin, wet with leaking spit.

  I averted my eyes. “My mom’s boyfriend is named Tim Hixon. He’s a mechanic. And he drives this stupid old 1968 Camaro that’s always breaking down. A couple of times he even made us go with him to some nasty old junkyard to see if they had the parts he needed.”

  Jenny straightened up. “Do you think he’s the one who took me? Who took us?”

  “It kind of makes sense, at least as much sense as anything does. He hates if you question him. He calls it disrespectful and talking back. And he goes out at night a lot when my mom’s at work. She works swing shift. He never says where he’s going. Maybe he’s been coming here to see you.” This motor home, the tiny stained couch I was sitting on, the scarred girl sitting across from me, my broken wrist splinted with a magazine—it was hard to believe any of it was real. I was trying not to look at her face, but it was impossible not to. “Who stitched you up?” I asked.

  “Sir did. Whoever he is. He watched prepper videos on YouTube on his phone. Of course, they’re about how to do surgery if society collapses. Not how to stitch up some girl you’re holding hostage.” She grimaced. “Before he started, he had me drink a bunch of whiskey, almost to the point of passing out.”

  Whiskey. Tim mostly drank beer, but he kept a bottle of whiskey on top of our fridge.

  As I replayed the rest of what she had said, my stomach did a slow flip. How much would it hurt to have someone sew your face? “Almost?”

  Her torn lips twisted. “Yeah, it probably would have been better if I had. He kept yelling at me to stop moving. He drank a lot, too. You could tell the whole thing was really grossing him out.”

  “Oh my God.” I didn’t want to imagine it, but my brain kept showing me pictures anyway. “So this guy, has he…” My voice trailed off. “Has he left you alone?” I tried to take a deep breath, but it didn’t go anyplace.

  “He uses the Taser on me if I don’t do what he wants. Like he got mad because I kept looking him in the eye. So he shocked me.” She twisted back and forth in the swivel chair. “And when I didn’t want to call him Sir, he fixed that in a hurry.”

  I hated to keep asking. I knew how cruel it was. But I had to know. “That’s not really what I meant,” I said carefully.

  Jenny stilled, and I saw that she finally understood. “Oh. No. Even though all the clothes he had in the closet for me were sexy ones. He hates the way my face looks. He was hoping I’d look better once the scars healed. Everything he read online said it might take as long as a year. But it’s been ten months, and it’s pretty clear I’m never going to look normal again.” She regarded me with something I thought might be pity. “I figure that’s why he took you. You must be the new me. Only with fewer defects.”

  Jenny and I did look alike, I realized. Blue eyes, pale skin, long dark hair.

  An icy finger traced my spine as I stared at this ruined girl. “Forget that! I’m not waiting around to see what he wants me for. I’m getting out of here.”

  She shook her head. “You can’t.”

  “Just because the front door is chained doesn’t mean there’s not a way out. It’s not like this is a supermax
prison. It’s a motor home.” Using my good hand, I awkwardly got to my feet, ignoring how it made my head hurt even worse. I pushed aside the brown polyester curtain that led to the driving end of the RV. The windshield and side windows were also covered with silver tarps. The faint light from behind me revealed a deep dash made of fake wood. The driver and passenger seats were shaped like recliners. Any flat surface was piled with stuff.

  My pulse was a drum in my ears as I realized to my horror that neither the driver’s nor the passenger’s side had a door. The only way in or out was the door in the living area, the one that was chained shut. The one with Rex on the other side.

  The windows operated on sliders. I pinched the bar on the driver’s-side window, but it refused to move. Pressing my cheek against the cold glass, I saw that a piece of wood had been wedged into the outside track. On the passenger side, the window was the same.

  It felt like my throat was closing. Like my heart was about to give out. I could hear my own breaths, shallow and fast.

  I recognized this panicky feeling. The first time it happened, I was eight and we were living with this guy named Adam and his kid, Cameron, in Hebron, Nebraska. I’d been retrieving a Monopoly game from the top shelf of the living room closet when suddenly Cameron, who was a year older, closed the door. I heard him giggle as he stuck a dining room chair under the handle, the way people did in movies.

  No matter how hard I turned the knob or slammed my shoulder against the door, it refused to budge. With the wood of the door on one side of me and the winter coats pressing against the other, I started feeling like I might smother. Or that my heart would explode. In less than five minutes, I went from shouting, kicking, and pounding to crying and hyperventilating. When Cameron let me out, he took one look at my face and burst into tears himself.

  “Are you all right?” Jenny asked.

  I didn’t answer, just moved back into the living space. I pounded one fist experimentally on the window. The blows sounded muffled. On the other side of the door, Rex growled. He seemed close, like his feet were on the top step.

  Jenny winced. “There’s nothing to break them with. It’s not like he left a hammer or a crowbar in here.”

  Suddenly, I knew what Bruce Lee would do. “Maybe we could try this!” I said, moving until I found the right angle. Taking a deep breath, I leaned my upper body to one side while I brought my left knee to my chest, so that I was standing on my right leg like a stork. As I said this, my left foot shot out and hit the window with as much force as I had ever kicked a heavy bag. But it didn’t break. It didn’t crack. It didn’t even bend. I stumbled backward. Jenny reached out her hand and steadied me before I fell over.

  The kick, which had taken every last bit of my energy, had accomplished so little that Rex didn’t even start barking. He just growled louder.

  “I think all the windows are made of plastic, not glass,” Jenny said.

  After Cameron had locked me in the closet, I couldn’t stand elevators, small rooms, or crowded movie theaters. Even getting stuck in traffic was torture. Those other times were just a product of my imagination. But this RV was just as real as the closet had been. Only no one was coming to let me out.

  Once my mom learned about my fight with Tim, she’d probably think I’d run away. Even if she didn’t, no one would know to look for me here. Sir had snatched me from a deserted parking lot. Nobody would be able to connect the dots from me to this place.

  Jenny had been here for months. That meant we could be here until we were both officially adults.

  Until we were old.

  Until Sir died.

  And then we did, too.

  JENNY DOWD

  Listening to Rex’s growl was nearly unbearable. But he was safely behind a locked door, while Savannah was in here with me, breathing so fast it was almost a pant, clearly freaking out.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her. Savannah was starting to remind me of a broken doll.

  Her voice was so soft I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or herself. “I can’t be here forever and ever. Stuck in this tiny space.” She looked toward the door, and her voice got stronger. “When’s he coming back?”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. He wants to put a cast on your arm, but the swelling has to go down before he can do that. He said that might take a couple of days.”

  She bit her lower lip. It was flawless, red and plump. “And how long was I out?”

  “I think close to twenty-four hours. I don’t have a clock or anything. The only way I can tell time is by looking at the sky through the vent in the hall.”

  “Then I’d better hurry and figure out how to get us out of here before he comes back.”

  With Savannah’s plans and schemes and refusal to accept reality, she reminded me of me.

  Me when I first came here. Me when I had made the split-second decision to try to escape the first day.

  When Rex had leapt toward me, I had felt his hot breath wash across me. Smelled the stink of it, the fug of something rotting. When he clamped his jaws onto my face, I instinctively pulled back. It didn’t even hurt. Not at first. The feeling was not so much of pain, but of pressure. Still, I knew I was in terrible trouble. Knew Rex was doing damage. And that if he managed to knock me off my feet, he would surely kill me.

  Sir was yelling, “Nein! Aus! Aus!” Finally, he pressed the Taser against Rex, holding the trigger to deliver a sustained shock. The dog’s jaws instantly loosened. I heard him squealing as he thrashed in the dirt.

  Meanwhile, despite my bound wrists, I somehow managed to push myself to my feet. With my hands holding my face together, I was able to stagger forward a single step. Then another. My hands were coated with blood, but I still made for the gap.

  Then Sir grabbed me.

  The months since had been a slow-motion nightmare. After they were stitched, the wounds swelled and turned red, inflamed from infection. Fever left me weak and delirious. I slept for days on end. But even in the depths of it, whenever I was alone and aware, I left fingerprints everywhere. In case one day, after I was gone, the police thought to search the motor home.

  Sir eventually brought me a bottle of antibiotics with a missing label. Had he lied to a doctor? Bought them from someone on the street? Slowly, my body recovered, even if my face remained a horror. At first, Sir tried to make me be the obedient girl of his twisted dreams, grooming me for the day my scars would finally heal. Now he left me alone for two or three days at a time.

  Whenever he did come by with more food or toilet paper, I tried to stay out of sight. But even in the bedroom I could hear him muttering and swearing. About how I was no good to him now. Not with my disgusting scars.

  So while Rex had nearly killed me, he’d also saved me. But if I went back out there, if I tried again to escape, Rex would definitely finish the job. And I thought Sir would let him.

  Now I grabbed Savannah’s chin, her perfect unmarred chin, and forced her to turn toward me. “Look at me! This is what happens when you try to get out. It’s a miracle I didn’t die out there. Sometimes I wish I had.”

  With a twist of her shoulder and a press of her arm, Savannah easily broke my grip and stepped away. Like kicking the window, it seemed something she might have learned from that Bruce Lee book of hers.

  Her gaze suddenly sharpened. I turned my head to see what she was looking at.

  She pointed. “What about the vent?” Made of translucent plastic, it was in the hallway ceiling, next to the bathroom, and could be raised a few inches with a metal arm. On warm days, I kept it open.

  We moved to stand directly under it. I felt the floor dip under my weight. I was standing on the spongy part, the spot that got wet every time it rained hard enough and the vent leaked. The vent was held in place with six screws: one on each corner and then two in the middle, where there was a dividing arm.

  “But I don’t have a screwdriver.”

  I’d searched the motor home from top to bottom, but I�
��d found nothing I could use against Sir.

  And nothing I could use against myself.

  The control of our being is not unlike the combination of a safe. One turn of the knob rarely unlocks the safe; each advance and retreat is a step toward one’s final achievement.

  —BRUCE LEE

  SAVANNAH TAYLOR

  Terrible things had happened to Jenny, but there was no time to pity her. I had to focus on getting out before he came back. Still, I tried to sound patient. “Come on, there must be something we could use to get it off. It’s only six screws.”

  “Even if we were able to get the vent off, and somehow managed to climb out, we’d just be up on top of this thing.” Jenny pointed at the ceiling. “On top of a slippery plastic roof twelve feet above the ground with nothing to cushion us once we jumped—or fell—off. And even if we managed to get down without breaking an ankle, there’s Rex.” She put her hands to her scarred face. Her eyes peeped at me through the cracks between her fingers.

  “I know you’re scared of the dog.” I also knew that was an understatement.

  Her voice shook. “He’s been specially trained to kill people.”

  Remembering the dog’s long, sharp teeth as he lunged at me through the door gap, I could believe it. Still I found the flaw in her argument. “If Rex is trained to kill people, then why hasn’t he killed that guy? Killed Sir?”

  “Because he’s the one who trained him, only in some kind of foreign language like Dutch or German. But even if Rex didn’t kill us, he’d start barking and then Sir would catch us. And he’s got that Taser and the big knife on his belt.” She shivered, her fingertips tracing the red ridges of her face.