Little Girl Gone: The can’t-put-it-down psychological thriller

I don’t know what to tell Jack once he shows up. They told him Mia is missing and he will question me. Jack will return from Chicago, he will ask questions, many questions. He will want to know about the day Mia disappeared. About the morning I found her crib empty. Amnesia is just another shortcoming of a long list of my other countless inadequacies. Shortfall after shortfall.

I must be insane, for the only explanation I can come up with is of my daughter and my ear, together in the same place. And above them, floating suspended like a mobile, the sun, the moon, and the stars. Bright as bright can be, surrounded by darkness. A chaotic universe illuminated by heavenly bodies.

I rest my hands on my lap. My body stills, comes to a halt. I was in an accident. I was shot or tried to harm myself. My ear is gone. There’s a hole that’s draining fluids.

I don’t care about any of that. Mia’s gone. I can’t even bear the thought of her. I want the pain to stop yet her image remains. I raise my finger to push the red PCA button, longing for the lulled state the medicine provides. I hesitate, then I put the box down. I have to think, start somewhere. The empty crib. The dots. I have to connect the dots.

Chapter 3

After Mia was born I relived her birth every single night; her first gasp triggered by the cold birthing room, that gasp turning into a deep breath, then a desperate cry escaping her lips, her attempt to negotiate the inevitable transition between my womb and the outside world.

And every morning I realized that her actual cries reached me deep in my dreams and I woke up feeling like a million tiny bombs exploded inside my head. Then my muscle memory kicked in. Wake up, get up, feed her, change her, bathe her, rock her, hold her. Feeding and changing and bathing and rocking and holding.

I had stopped keeping track of time, the date or even the days of the week. I was unaware of whatever events might be gripping the rest of the world and I hadn’t picked up a book or a magazine in months. My life was reduced to a process of consolidating motor tasks into memory, loop-like days and repetitive responsibilities performed without any conscious effort.

As I rose from the couch, the world spun and then stilled. I listened for the echoes of Mia’s colicky morning cries, by then seven months after her birth, hundredfold replicas of her initial primal moment that visited me in my dreams. Lately her cries had been reaching me time delayed, distorted almost, as if communicating a certain distance between us.

That morning, I listened, yet the house remained silent. A sense of normality enveloped me, an image of a round-cheeked child pressed against the mattress manifested itself, an elfin body heavy with peaceful sleep. I had been waiting for this moment when Mia would wake up and not begin to scream before she even opened her eyes. Maybe today was the day, the end of her colic, the end of her constant crying?

I debated rolling over, going back to sleep, but something irked me. Shouldn’t there be cooing, babbling strung-together sounds? Usually by this time, Mia was attempting to pull herself up by the bars of the crib, her eyes rimmed with tears and rage.

Barefoot down the hallway I went and paused by her door, still ajar. I had forgotten to take my watch off the night prior and the band had left an imprint as if I had been tied up all night. It was just before nine and I’d been asleep for an unprecedented continuous six hours.

Mia’s door was cracked just as I had left it hours ago. Opening it wide enough to pass through, I entered the room. Something jabbed at me, made my heart stumble.

The Tinker Bell mobile overhead, unbalanced and lopsided, somehow imperfect, and disturbed. The room, barely lit by the sunlight spilling through the window, soundless. Her crib in front of the window. Silent and abandoned. Not so much as an imprint of her body on the sheets.

Pyrotechnics went off in my brain. I was trapped in the twilight zone, something that cannot be, I’m clearly looking at it. How can she be gone? My molars pulsated as I inspected the windows and rattled the cast-iron bars. I searched the entire apartment, rechecked every window twice. Not a trace of her.

I ran to the front door. The locks were intact, the metal still scratched, the paint still chipped, signs of my clumsy attempt to install a deadbolt. All locks were engaged and everything was where and how it was supposed to be. Except Mia.

There was no proof that anyone had been here − no footprints on the floor, no items left behind − nothing was disturbed, yet this peculiar energy hovered around me. The apartment seemed physically undisturbed, but felt ransacked at the same time.

I realized the contradiction of the moment: Mia was gone, yet there was no evidence, no clue, that someone had taken her. No shards on the floor, no gaping doors, no curtains blowing in the breeze of a window left ajar. No haphazardly bunched-up sheet, no pacifier, no toy discarded on the floor.

9-1-1.

I ran to the kitchen, took the receiver off the wall mount, and stopped dead in my tracks. The dish rack was empty. No bottle, no collar, no nipple. No formula can, no measuring cup.

I rushed to the trash. Surely her soiled diapers must still be in there. The can was empty, even the plastic liner was gone.

I ripped open the fridge. All the prefilled formula bottles I had prepared the night before were gone.

Back in her room, the shelves of the changing table, usually stacked with diapers and blankets, were empty. The closet door was wide open, not a hanger dangling, not a shoe left on the closet floor.

I pulled the dresser drawers open. All her clothes were gone. Every single drawer of the dresser empty. Not a button or a tag tucked in a corner. The basket on top of the dresser, where I kept the diapers and the ointment, was empty. Nothing but empty pieces of furniture.

I checked every inch of her room, every drawer, every corner of her closet. My heart dropped into my intestines. Not only was Mia gone, but so was every trace of her.

The 70th Precinct on Lawrence Avenue in Brooklyn was a five-minute walk from North Dandry. As I passed through the building’s glass doors, the front desk clerk lifted his index finger, pointed at the earpiece, indicating he was talking on the phone.

A janitor pushed a neon yellow bucket and a scraggly mop across the floor. He wore blue overalls and clear booties over his white sneakers. I watched him as he wheeled the bucket across the linoleum, mopping in circular motions, dipping the mop in the wringer and squeezing out the water.

I studied my reflection in the glass door and saw a woman rocking back and forth with the movement of the mop, cotton strings slithering over the floor, wipe, dip, wring, wipe, dip, wring.

Standing there, it was just me and the sound of my beating heart. I had rehearsed this moment countless times. What I was going to say, which words I was going to use – missing implied a moment of inattention, kidnapped was all wrong because I didn’t see anyone snatch her – I can’t find my daughter the perfect choice of words.

Footsteps jerked me back into reality. Behind me, simultaneously a door opened and a phone rang. A detective in slacks and a light-blue shirt, his tie tucked into his waistband, walked up to the counter. He was holding a short, skinny man by his tattooed upper arm. The man was almost catatonic. The detective gave him a shove to move him along, making the man’s chest hit the edge of the counter. The man had a crooked smile on his face and seemed indifferent, as if he had been through this too many times to care.

‘Get an officer to take him to booking,’ the detective said to the clerk. ‘I don’t want to see his face again until he’s sobered up.’

‘I need to speak to someone.’ My voice was loud, so loud it made the clerk look up from the phone. ‘Please, I need help.’

‘Just a minute,’ the detective said. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’ He was too far away for me to make out his name on the tag clipped to his shirt pocket. He seemed young, maybe too young. Will he understand me, is he a father, has he worked with missing children before? I wonder if I should ask for a more experienced detective.

‘I need to talk to someone,’ I repeated, even louder than before.

He stepped closer, reluctantly. ‘How can I help you?’

Words sped through my mind, then images of locks emerged, doors secured with bolts, hasps and locksets.

HELP, I screamed in my mind. I opened my mouth but no words emerged. I swallowed hard, the gulp in my throat echoed through the silent precinct hallways. I wanted to confess to whatever it was I had done, must have done, for no one disappears through locked doors or walls, especially not a baby.

Nausea overcame me. I welcomed the strangled retching, wanted to let go of the words, the confession of what I must have done. I refused to fight the heaviness in my throat. Saliva collected in my mouth and instinctively I pinched my nose to keep the vomit from ejecting through my nostrils.

He stepped backward, as if I was a contagious leper. ‘There’s a bathroom right over there,’ the detective pointed towards a door less than ten feet away.

The bathroom was vacant. I knelt in the stall and on all fours I convulsed with spasms. Ripples shook my body, my cold skin was covered in a layer of sweat. As I studied my reflection in the mirror, I rummaged through my mind for an explanation, never lifting my gaze off the stranger that stared back at me. I felt fury for the woman in the mirror, a woman with unwashed hair, her eyes sunken in and sad, the woman who had replaced the real me. I willed myself to leave the bathroom and to do what I had come here for; ask for help to find Mia.

Back in the hallway, the detective was waiting for me. ‘Ma’am?’ He seemed impatient, as if dealing with someone who had no real police business after all.

I didn’t know what to tell the detective anymore. Had someone walked through brick walls, had some ill-fated Houdini act occurred while I was sleeping? When a magician pulls an endless scarf out of a hat, everybody knows it’s a simple trick, but this was real. And I didn’t know if I was a victim or if I was guilty. A crime has been committed. But what kind of crime?

I don’t know where my daughter is.

An all-encompassing statement, implicating everything possible but not implying anything specific. No fault, no crime, no blame. Just a fact.

I don’t know where my daughter is.

I couldn’t fathom a single logical way of explaining how Mia had disappeared.

Say it, I kept telling myself, say it. JUST SAY IT. I pushed myself to speak but the woman I had become didn’t comply. There was nothing anyone could do for her.

No one can help me. No one can help me. No one can help me.

Like an oath, I repeated it three times, hoping the reiteration would conjure up some sort of sense and logic.

As I looked past the detective, down the hallway, the tattooed man from earlier darted for the front door. The detective’s eyes followed him and then he ran after him. The tattooed man, unsteady on his feet, had reached the glass door by the time the detective got a hold of him.

I focused on the floor and the tiny specks in the blue linoleum. I felt my knees weakening, I had to keep moving, keep the blood circulating through my body.

No one can help me.

I exited the precinct and kept on walking. I felt numb inside, anesthetized, yet somehow purged, ready to accept the facts. The numbness dissolved long enough to allow the gravity of what I must have done to sink in. As I passed a store window, out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman studying her hands as if she hadn’t seen them in a long time.

In that brief yet gruesome moment of clarity I realized those hands might just be the hands of a monster.

Chapter 4

Jack arrives and he’s all business; his suit, his posture, his demeanor. The thing that strikes me is how in control he is. I used to crave his attention, his company. But not only am I disgusted by him, I can’t even conceive of ever having had feelings for him.

My hands shake at first, then my whole body trembles. Whether with fear or anger I don’t know. I fix my gaze on his anxious face. He whispers, yet his words pierce through me.

‘I came straight from the airport. I can’t even wrap my mind around this. What the hell happened?’

His comment feels familiar. Not the words, but the feeling it evokes. I’ve been belittled so many times. So many faux pas committed by me – little ones first, then major ones.

‘Someone took her, Jack.’

‘What do you mean someone took her? Where were you?’ He slides his briefcase across the nightstand sending a plastic cup tumbling over the edge and to the ground. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘Jack, I—’

He swipes his hand through the air as if to dismiss me when I open my mouth. ‘Who loses a baby, Estelle? Who? Tell me who loses a baby?’

I press my lips together.

‘I leave for a couple of weeks and you get in an accident in … Dover? That’s hours from here! What were you doing there?’

I don’t dare make eye contact with him.

‘Why did you take her to Dover?’

The beeping and buzzing of machines behind me is the only sound in the room. ‘I didn’t, Jack, that’s the thing, I don’t know why I was even there.’

‘I was questioned by the police – no, wait – questioned isn’t the right word …’ His face twitches, then he steps closer. He lifts his index finger as if to scold me like a child, ‘I was interrogated. I was detained at the airport, taken to the police station and interrogated like a common criminal. Just what did you tell them?’

‘I didn’t tell them anything. I haven’t even spoken to police—’

‘I was questioned by police.’

‘They always question the parents first, you know that.’

‘I was treated like a suspect. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. Once my boss gets wind of this …’ He doesn’t finish the sentence. ‘Where is she? Tell me where she is?’

‘She’s missing, Jack!’ I’m alarmed by the distance in his eyes. I want to cry but that would only make him angrier. All this time with Jack has paid off. I’ve learned to hold back my tears.

‘I know she’s missing, they’re searching for her. I want to know how it happened, tell me everything. I talked to the police and the doctors, but I want to hear it from you.’

I start with how I found the empty crib. How it was a Sunday and none of the workers were in the house, it was empty and quiet. Lieberman was out of town, like every weekend. How nothing made sense. How I went to the police and left without saying anything. Jack doesn’t say, ‘It’s going to be okay’ or ‘we’ll sort it out.’ He just says, ‘Go on.’

When I’m done, he shakes his head. ‘I should’ve never left town. Never. You fooled me. You told me you were okay and I believed you. Did you leave her somewhere? Tell me where you left her.’

Jack’s got it all figured out, like always. In his world you put one foot in front of the other and you’re sure to arrive anywhere you want to be.

‘Jack—’

‘You promised me, promised me, you were okay, and now look at what you’ve done.’

‘I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so sorry.’ I don’t know what I’m sorry for but it seems like the proper thing to say.

‘Sorry isn’t going to cut it. My daughter is gone. Gone. Did that sink in yet?’

‘I wish I knew what happened. All I know is she was gone when I woke up.’

‘You don’t know where you left her?’

‘No, I didn’t leave her anywhere. I don’t know where she is.’

‘Did you leave her with a sitter? Did you leave her at an overnight daycare? Maybe—’

‘No, no, there was no sitter. No daycare.’

‘I should’ve known something was going to happen. I never should’ve …’ He doesn’t finish the sentence.

Remember, a change of scenery would do me good, you said. It would be like starting over, you said. I believed you, Jack. I thought I could leave the other woman, the one who had taken over my life, I could leave her behind. But she followed me.

‘None of this makes any sense.’ Suddenly his face relaxes. ‘You’ve been acting strangely ever since you had Mia. Either I worked too much or I slept too late. Nothing was ever right. I’m starting to think this was your plan all along.’

‘My plan? What plan?’

‘Yeah, you land a lawyer, get married, have a baby, divorce him, and get alimony and child support. That plan.’

‘You’re the jackpot and I’m the gold digger? We’re broke, remember? You took this job in Chicago because we are broke.’

‘I’m just trying to understand what happened. I’ve done nothing but support you. What happened to you, Estelle? Did you wake up one day and just say to yourself, fuck Jack, fuck Mia, fuck everything? Just like that? I’ve done everything you wanted me to do, given you everything you’ve ever wanted. Now it’s time to do something for me.’

I just look at him.

‘Tell me the truth. We can still fix this.’

‘I was in an accident. I have amnesia. I don’t know what happened.’ My voice is monotone, like a robot, repeating a prerecorded statement.

‘Let’s assume you really don’t remember, let’s entertain that for a minute, then explain to me how you don’t call me. Explain that to me. I’m her father, how do you not call me? Was this another one of your crazy moments?’

‘My crazy moments?’

‘One of those moments when you go off the deep end. When you can’t hold the baby, when you can’t stop crying, when you follow me to my office, when you go through my stuff, when you can’t pick up the phone, can’t dial 9-1-1! One of those moments. Do I need to go on?’

Everything in his world is either black or white. The scary thing is that I have to agree with him, I wasn’t good for anything. I tried to be a good mother, I tried to do what mothers do. I wish I could make him understand how hard I tried.

‘Everything okay in here?’ We turn towards the door where a nurse stands, holding an empty tray.

‘Sorry,’ Jack says and I nod in agreement. ‘We’ll keep it down. Everything’s all right.’

Jack doesn’t like to be told how loud he can speak. He lowers his voice but the look in his eyes makes up for contained his rage.

‘There’s a cop sitting outside. Do you get how serious this is?’

I nod.

‘Any idea why he’s here?’ He doesn’t wait for my answer and lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘It’s not for your protection.’

‘What are you saying?’ I ask and can’t keep my voice from shaking.

‘You need a criminal defense lawyer.’

I cringe at the word criminal.

‘Jack, I’m not a criminal. I don’t remember what happened. I’m beside myself!’ Is it possible for a nonexistent ear to throb? I know my outbursts only reiterate the fact that, in his eyes, I’ve lost my mind. I know I must look like a deer right before the bumper makes contact.

‘I woke up and she was gone. Everything was gone. That’s all I remember.’

‘Something must have happened. Did she cry and you got upset? Did you do something to her?’

I try to sit up but the pain in my ribs is excruciating.

‘Look at me.’ Jack steps closer and he grabs my chin, turning my head towards him. ‘Look me in the eyes and tell me what happened.’

‘Do you think I’d hurt our daughter?’

The candor of my question startles him. His eyes widen, but immediately he catches himself and lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘I’m not saying you hurt her, all I’m saying is that I blame you for what happened.’

Jack opens his briefcase. ‘One more thing,’ he adds.

There is always one more thing with Jack.

‘I’m not sure if you’re getting this, but there’s a possibility you’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars or strapped to a gurney. Now is the time to grasp the severity of your situation.’ He pinches his lips into a straight line and adds, ‘I’ve talked to the doctors at length and if I can convince the DA, I’ll get you into a clinic with a doctor who specializes in memory recovery. I don’t see any other way, all I want to do is find my daughter.’

I stare at him, and then I lower my eyes.

‘Where’s this clinic?’ I ask.

‘Here in New York. The doctor, some foreigner from the Middle East, specializes in trauma-related memory loss.’ His shoulders relax but even his expensive suit can’t hide the fact that suddenly he looks like a deflated balloon. ‘I need you to sign a voluntary admission to a psychiatric facility for an unspecified length of time.’

‘I don’t belong in a psych ward.’ I attempt to organize my thoughts into separate, manageable portions. It barely seems possible. Memory recovery. I imagine wires hooked up to my brain, truth serums, and my retinas relaying images to computer screens. A psychiatric facility. Unspecified amount of time. I’m agreeing to go to a loony bin and I won’t be able to check out.

Jack cocks his head and raises his brows as if he has caught a kid in a lie.

‘In your eyes I’m just this crazy lunatic, right? Why don’t you just say it? You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’

‘Not crazy in a certifiable sense, not crazy as in failing a psych exam, but I believe that you need help and that this clinic might just be your only chance. And most of all, it’s Mia’s only chance.’

His voice is soft now, almost seductive. ‘I don’t think you have any other choice. This is it.’

Jack has spoken, there’s no alternative. He’s right, this is Mia’s only chance and so I force my legs off the side of the bed. My rubbery socks search for the sticky linoleum floor. I feel suspended, unable to find the ground. I sign my name in shaky letters and the second the pen rests, I feel an overwhelming urge to take it in my fist and scratch out my signature until the paper is torn to shreds.

Jack grabs the pen and pulls it from between my fingers and checks his watch.

‘That doctor will help me remember and we’ll find Mia. We’ll find out what happened, right, Jack?’

He closes his briefcase and leaves the room before I can even get my feet on the ground.

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