I was offered TV interviews. Book deals. Movie rights. Maybe I should have grabbed the money and run. But I didn’t. I just . . . couldn’t. My family had lost enough of their privacy during their own desperate efforts to help find me. I couldn’t take more from them. Plus, it turned out, I was one of those survivors who assumed that now I was safely home, I could put it all behind me. Never look back. Never utter Jacob’s name again.
All those moments, hours, days I’d promised myself, if I could just get out of here, I’d never complain again. I’d always be happy. I’d never forget the feel of the sunlight on my face. I’d be the perfect daughter, the most loving sister. I’d never take life for granted again.
If I could just get out of here . . .
Return home.
Survive.
Four hundred and seventy-two days, plus six years, who was I?
? ? ?
MY BROTHER LEFT. HE’D RUN the Facebook page, Find Flora, when I first went missing. One of his jobs had been to post daily photos, family tidbits to remind my yet-unidentified abductor that I was a sister, daughter, friend, dearly missed. We never spoke of it when I returned. Me trying not to traumatize him. Him trying not to traumatize me.
But even sooner than my mother, Darwin realized the truth: His efforts had saved a girl, just not the sister he’d once loved. He went off to Europe on a voyage of self-discovery. I wondered sometimes if he ran daily along the Thames. If those were the only times he could think, if the question he still asked himself the most was who am I, who am I, who am I?
Stairs. Up, up, up to the bridge spanning the Charles. I loved the quick rat-a-tat of my tennis shoes against the metal steps. Moving so fast nothing could catch me. Not even my own spinning thoughts.
Last year, I’d done something I hadn’t expected to do: I’d saved a girl. Another abducted college student. Just like that, the media returned. Except now, they didn’t just want the story of Jacob Ness and the four hundred and seventy-two days I’d never spoken of; they wanted the story of me. Flora the fighter. Flora who’d gone from victim to vigilante.
They asked and bullied and demanded and begged.
I still didn’t answer. Maybe I just didn’t like to talk. Or, more likely, I still hated the press.
But what to do?
Once upon a time, I’d thought about trying to return to school. Find a career, get a real job, become a normal person again. But thanks to my PTSD, I still had problems with crowds, rooms with limited exits, and, oh yeah, focus of any kind.
Not to mention, most days, I simply didn’t feel normal.
Some can do it. I’ve read their stories. Examined, reexamined, hyperanalyzed.
You can be traumatized and still pick up the pieces of your life.
Except then there are the others, the survivors like me. Who waited too long to be saved and gave up too much along the way.
My strengths? Lock picking, self-defense, threat assessment, and really fun weapons you can make with items found in the trash. Not to mention homemade Mace-like concoctions. And running. I loved to run. Morning, noon, and night. Anything to quiet the thoughts in my head, but also to feel the wind, rain, snow in my face.
Not in a box, not in a box, not in a box. That’s how my footsteps sounded as I pounded across the bridge into Cambridge. Not in a box.
Who was I?
A survivor.
My victim advocate, Samuel Keynes, called me that the first day we met. At the time the word sounded good. Strong. Definite. Once I was a victim. Now I was a survivor. One who ran like a cheetah, and had a fanny pack stuffed with enough items to ensure she was never a victim again.
But even now, edging up my pace, nearing the end of the bridge, my final sprint, I could still hear the other thoughts that come with that.
Being a survivor didn’t just mean being strong. It meant being lonely. Honestly, truly lonely. Knowing things other people weren’t supposed to know. Carrying memories I was desperate to forget and yet still couldn’t blank out of my head.
And guilt. For so many things. The coulda, woulda, shouldas.
Once there was this pretty girl dancing on a beach . . .
And I can never go back there again.
End of bridge. Faster, faster, faster. Till now my chest was heaving, heart thundering, faster still . . .
Who am I, who am I, who am I?
I thundered across my self-designated finishing line, breaking across the end of the bridge into Cambridge. Stopped. Bent over. Drew three quick deep gulps of air, then resumed moving before I cramped up. I had a mile to walk now to return to my one-bedroom, covered-in-deadbolts apartment, which my elderly landlords graciously granted to me at well-below-market rent. They’d followed my case in the news, they’d told me when I first met them. And not with a voyeuristic gleam in their eyes, but with genuine compassion. I still didn’t trust many people, but I learned I could definitely believe in them.
Now, I worked on turning my attention to the day ahead. Despite my best efforts, I had managed to scrounge out a semblance of a life. I worked at a pizza parlor. I’d even made friends, of sorts. A budding group of other survivors, some who’d found me in the days after the Stacey Summers rescue, others whom I’d found on my own. All of us had one thing in common: We’d survived once. Now, we wanted to live again.
Which maybe was a piece of the answer I still sought.
I wasn’t a perfect daughter. Apparently, I was only a shadow of a sister. I still didn’t know how to relax when my mother gave me a hug, or sleep through the night, or go anyplace without at least half a dozen tools for self-defense.
But for some people out there . . .
If everything in your life had gone wrong. If the worst had just happened, and a predator now had you in his sights . . .
Well, then, I was the girl you wanted to have on your side.
I was the person who knew exactly what you were going through, and would never give up till you came home again.
Chapter 3
D.D. HAD A LOT TO DO, and it all needed to happen fast. First, she got out her cell and phoned her boss, Deputy Superintendent of Homicide Cal Horgan. She ran him through the scene.
“We need an Amber Alert. It’s been ninety minutes since the sound of shots fired, still no sign of the sixteen-year-old daughter, Roxanna Baez, or the family’s dogs.”
“Dogs?” Horgan asked.
“Two Brittany spaniels, both blind. Answer to the names Blaze and Rosie. We should release their details to the press, as well. Some people may not feel like getting involved with a missing teen. But two elderly dogs . . .”
“Are they chipped?” Horgan wanted to know.
“Unknown. Detective Manley is searching credit card receipts now, looking for charges to local vets. She’ll follow up with possible docs, see what she can learn about identity chips, temperament, special needs. If the girl ran away, it’s possible she took the dogs with her, which would make all of them easier to track. But it’s also possible the dogs bolted at the sound of gunfire and are currently hunkered down under someone’s porch.”
“Neighbors?”
“We have foot patrols walking a one-mile radius, looking for signs of the girl and/or the dogs. Detectives are conducting door-to-door canvasses, requesting immediate access and making note of anyone who warrants follow-up.”
“Gonna handle the follow-ups yourself?”
“Most likely.”
“Contact Laskin yet?” Horgan had switched gears; Chip Laskin was the BPD’s media relations officer, who was about to have a very busy day.
“My next call,” D.D. assured him. “Phil issued a BOLO upon first arriving at the scene, providing local media with a description of the missing teen. We need Chip to follow up with a photo of the girl and the dogs to state and national channels, while also hitting the internet.”