Louise blinked. “Actually, now that you say that, there was something else. He said Alice was a special girl. He made a point of saying it.”

“Special?”

“Yes. No . . . Very special. He said she was very special.” She paused. “What do you think he meant?”

Olivia’s thoughts spun back to Michelle’s abduction. A monster that could not fathom the meaning of special had crushed their lives.

Five minutes. That was the time difference between saving Michelle and allowing her to be taken. Time. In Alice’s case, it wasn’t the time it took to get a quart of milk; it was the time she’d lived prior to her amnesia.

“It means we have hope,” she said, reaching for her phone. “It means he values her. It means we may have more time. It means the key to her abductor probably lies in her past.”

“A past she doesn’t remember.”

“But someone else does. Whoever that is, I have to find them.”

She dialed the field office on her cell phone and got her lead analyst. “Get me Alice Ringwald’s adoption files. I want everything, as far back as you can go. And find out who’s running the orphanage that handled her adoption. I want them on the phone ASAP.”

4

Day Two 10:23 am

I DON’T KNOW how long it had taken us to reach the cabin in the woods—maybe two hours after we left the city—but it felt much longer because all I could think was that at any second the police were going to pull up with flashing red-and-blue lights behind the truck and take me back. Each minute it didn’t happen felt like an hour; every mile farther felt like the distance between the earth and the moon.

Back in the house I’d been in too much shock to fully realize what was happening, but the moment we pulled onto the highway with me sitting in the cab, gray duct tape over my mouth, I realized that everything I knew might be changed forever. I really was being taken. Stolen. Driven away into the darkness without a clue about what would happen to me.

I might end up a slave. I might end up dead. I didn’t think the man would kill me—my thoughts were more about suddenly feeling totally lost. For six months I had carefully constructed my world from nothing, and now that nothing seemed to be coming back to me.

There on the highway I began to cry silently.

The man had been focused on getting away as quickly as possible and the sight of tears on my cheeks so surprised him that he swerved. He reached over and took the tape off my mouth, apologizing profusely: “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? I promise I’ll take the tape off your hands as soon as I can pull over, but I have to get to a safer place. Please don’t cry . . . It’s going to be okay. You’ll see . . . you’ll see . . . .Please don’t cry, sweetheart.”

He told me that his name was Wyatt; that he was my father; that everything was going to be okay. That my mother’s name was Kathryn and that she was going to be out of her mind with excitement when she heard that he’d rescued me.

But I kept crying.

Worried, he pulled out his cell phone and called her. On one hand, I could hear the enthusiasm in his voice when he told her he’d rescued me, but his face went flat when he told her that I was crying. He listened intently for a while.

“I will, sugar. I promise.” He listened again. “You’re right . . . It would be too much. I will, sugar. I promise.”

They spoke a little while longer and then he hung up. He glanced at me with sad eyes.

“Kathryn said just to let you feel whatever you need to feel. It’s going to be okay. This is a big shock to your system and you’re going to be confused for a little while. To let you sleep and tell you more when you wake up. You just need to know that she loves you very much. You’re going to be so much happier now. You’ll see, sweetheart . . . you’ll see.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked. I think those were my first words to him.

“Because you’re our daughter. You deserve to belong to your own family. It’s the way it should be. I can’t tell you everything right now; Kathryn said you should go ahead and cry if you want to. It’s okay. I promise.”

By the time we left the highway maybe an hour later, my mind was numb and my tears had stopped. We followed a few paved roads then turned onto a dirt road that wound up into the hills to an old cabin hidden in tall trees. It was dark so I couldn’t see much as he led me into the house and to a bedroom at the back.

He lit a small oil lamp and brought me some pickles, a glass of milk, and two Snickers bars with a plate of crackers. The small bed had been neatly made and the room looked tidy. A brown teddy bear sat on the white pillow, smiling at me with one white eye.

We’d hardly spoken during the ride—him because Kathryn had told him to leave me alone, I suspected; me because I felt too lost to voice any of my thoughts. Every time I thought of a question or wanted to say how I felt, I would realize that it was pointless. But when I sat down on the bed, I looked up at him and told him that I was afraid.

He stood at the end of the bed, looking at me awkwardly, at a loss for words. So I told him I wanted to go back home.

“I am taking you home, Eden,” he said. He meant his home, where he thought I belonged. “I know you’re afraid. And I’m sorry. But please don’t be. I’m going to be right outside on the couch. There’s bears in the woods up here, so don’t go outside. No one can hurt you here, I promise.” He looked around uncomfortably. “Okay, get some rest, okay? Okay . . . I’ll be right outside if you need anything. It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

My first thought was that he was telling me about the bears because he didn’t want me to run away. But after he left, it occurred to me that he could just as easily, and probably had, locked all the doors and windows to keep me in, so he probably was serious about the bears, for my own safety.

I only had to leave the room once—to use the bathroom, which he quickly showed me to. Then I returned to the room, ate one of the Snickers bars, drank some of the milk, lay down, and stared at the ceiling. It took me a long time, but I finally fell into a numb sleep.

It was late morning when I awoke and my first thought was that I’d had a terrible nightmare. That Louise was downstairs setting the table with eggs and bacon, because I could smell it. But it only took a few seconds for the events from the night before to come crashing into my mind.

I was in a cabin. In the woods. With a man named Wyatt who’d kidnapped me. I was still alive. He hadn’t threatened or hurt me. He claimed to be my father and was taking me to my mother.

It took me a few minutes to work up the courage to get out of bed and open the door, and when I did, I had a direct line of sight down a small hall into the kitchen. He was there, leaning over a skillet, dressed in the same clothes from last night, humming softly to himself.

My fear eased a little as I watched him, thinking that he didn’t look like a man who’d committed a terrible crime. I glanced to my right and saw that the hall ended at the bathroom I’d used last night. The window in there was too small to climb out, I remembered that.

But it was day now—what if I could climb out the bedroom window? Once outside, I could sneak to the road and make a run for it. Maybe find someone who could help me. Hide in the forest if Wyatt came after me.

I slowly backed into the room and closed the door, then rushed to the window, grabbed the two handles at the bottom, and yanked up.

It didn’t budge. I immediately saw why. The edges were painted shut. Staring beyond the smudged glass, I saw that rusted nails pinned the window to the frame. And there would be no way to break out through the glass because metal bars blocked the way, maybe to keep bears out.