Twin Threat Christmas: One Silent Night / Danger in the Manger

This was the woman from the picture on the news, the woman who’d killed her husband just before dinnertime in a quiet Chicago suburb. She was dangerous. Her children were in danger. The reporter had called her Madison Nelson.

Should he let on that he knew who she was?

And why did she remind him so much of Vanessa, who was supposed to be dead? What was she doing here, in the cabin where he and Vanessa had spent so many happy times as children and teens?

Before he could sort it out, a voice echoed from outside the house.

“Mommy?”

The woman darted back out of the cabin.

Still unsure what was going on, Eric nonetheless realized the voice he’d heard probably belonged to one of Madison Nelson’s daughters—what were their names?

“It’s okay, Abby.”

Eric remembered the moment he overheard the woman soothing her daughter. Abby and Emma. And Sammy.

Abby had clambered half out of the Toyota Sequoia—the same vehicle featured in the news broadcast. Eric couldn’t see in the darkness, but he felt certain the front of the vehicle was probably banged up, at least a bit.

Abby clung to her mother, and the woman stroked her hair and held her close. “I’m right here. Mommy’s right here, honey. We’re at the place I told you about—the cabin.”

“The most wonderful place in the world?”

“That’s the one. It will look more welcoming once the sun rises. Let’s get you into bed.”

“With the kitten quilt? Did you find the kitten quilt?”

“I didn’t have time to look. We’ll see. Can you walk? I need to carry your sister.”

Eric listened, still unsure whether he was dreaming or what exactly was going on. The woman sounded like a loving parent, but weren’t most psychotic killers supposed to seem normal on the outside? More disturbing still, Eric felt sure that somehow, though this woman matched the description of Madison Nelson, she was Vanessa, who was supposed to be dead.

After all, she had a key to the cabin, and she knew about the kitten quilt.

Abby slid down from the high SUV and blinked up at him warily. “Who’s that?”

Eric looked at the woman—Vanessa? Could it be Vanessa? Or was she Madison now?

She cast him a brief, uncertain glance. “That’s my friend Eric. He’s okay.”

Something welled up inside him at the words and the reassurance that filled the little girl’s face. Even the girl looked a lot like Vanessa had looked when they were kids together, playing in the yard here at the cabin, chasing fireflies after dark.

What had happened? Eight years ago, one of his best friends had disappeared, and now this woman was here, knowing things Vanessa would know—acting and talking like Vanessa, even looking like her, aside from the blond hair and eight years of passing time.

When the little girl stumbled uncertainly after her mother, Eric held out his hand.

Abby looked up at him with eyes so much like Vanessa’s had been at that age, he couldn’t speak. But the little girl trustingly placed her hand in his, and he steadied her as they walked into the cabin.

“Debbi and I have the upstairs bedrooms,” Eric explained as they entered, as though this was a regular, planned visit, and he hadn’t just been pointing a gun at the woman.

“The downstairs bedroom just has one bed—”

“It’s a bunk bed now, the kind with a single on top and double below. Some buddies of mine sold it after college. I thought the cabin could use it.”

“Perfect. This way, girls.”

Eric let go of Abby’s hand as her mother led her toward the bedroom. Still not quite certain he wasn’t dreaming, he tried to assure himself he wasn’t doing anything illegal by offering hospitality to a murderer—after all, he didn’t know for a fact she’d murdered anyone, did he? Maybe it was self-defense? Maybe a lot of things had happened in the past eight years. All he knew was that he’d prayed for years that his friend would be safe, and now all of a sudden, here she was with little girls who needed a helping hand.

He wasn’t about to turn them away. Besides, even if she was a psychotic murderer, he ought to make sure her kids were safe. Shouldn’t he?

Eric bounded up the stairs to fetch the kitten quilt, which was usually kept folded at the foot of the bed in Debbi’s room. The beloved blanket from their childhood had come with the cabin, and even though it was a little juvenile for his twenty-five-year-old sister, it was too soft and delightful to get put away in a closet, unused.

His sister peeked at him from the doorway as he approached her room.

“It’s the Toyota Sequoia—I shined my high-beam flashlight out the window. The license plate matches the one on the news.” She followed him into her room, where her laptop sat on the end of the bed, open to a news page about the missing children and their murdering mother. “That’s Madison Nelson, isn’t it?”

“Shh. If it is, do you want her to know you know who she is?”

Debbi’s eyes widened, and she clamped her mouth shut.

“Something’s going on.” Eric lifted the laptop, pulled the kitten quilt out from underneath it and explained briefly, “I’m nearly positive that’s Vanessa Jackson downstairs.”

“Eric, no.” Debbi’s voice fell into the chiding tone she’d used long before when he’d vowed to go out searching one more time. “She’s been declared—”

“I know.” Eric didn’t want to hear the words again. “But nobody ever found out what happened to her. All I know is, Vanessa was my friend. I’ve got to help my friend.”

Debbi grabbed his arm as he stepped toward the bedroom door. “Even if it means aiding a known criminal?” She showed him the cell phone she held in her hand. “I was about to call the police.”

Eric sucked in a breath, his conscience in sudden conflict. Any other time, he’d say it was the right thing to do. “If Vanessa wanted to go to the police, she’d have done it already.”

“So we let her kill us in our sleep?”

“She’s not going to hurt us. Not in front of her kids.” He’d seen enough of the way the woman interacted with the girls to know she was purposely protecting them. That she was used to protecting them. But how far had she gone to protect them?

Debbi cut off his thoughts. “That didn’t stop her from killing her husband.”

“We don’t know what happened.” Eric wasn’t sure he wanted to know, exactly. He could guess at a few things, but all of them involved the kind of ugliness and hurt he wouldn’t wish on anyone, certainly not on the girl he’d cared for so strongly. “We should at least wait and hear her story. Can you wait that long?”

“How long will that be?”

“Give me an hour, maybe two. If she won’t tell us what’s going on, then you can call the police.”

“Fine.” Debbi flashed him the look she always gave him when he outfished or outmaneuvered her. Her final words floated after him on a sigh as he headed back down the stairs. “Although I don’t see why she’d let us live once we know what she’s up to.”

* * *

“Mommy, the kitten quilt.”

“I’m going to look for it.”

“No, it’s there.” Abby pointed.

Vanessa turned to see Eric standing in the doorway, an uncertain look on his face, kitten quilt in hand. “Ah. Thank you.” She accepted the quilt, which solved one tiny problem while introducing various others.

Her first priority from the moment the shadow of Virgil’s Land Rover had darkened the basement walls had been to get her girls tucked safely into bed at this cabin. But she hadn’t expected anyone to be there, certainly not Eric, the friend she’d long ago wished would be more than a friend, whose presence complicated everything. She felt a stab of guilt as she avoided looking him in the eye, instead focusing her attention on tucking the quilt securely around her daughters on the double-size lower bunk.

“Good night, Mommy.” Abby and Emma effectively dismissed her, snuggling in under the blanket as though they were on one of the countless innocent visits she and her sister had made to the cabin a generation before. She’d prayed for something like this for them—but not this way, not going through what they’d been through, or what yet lay ahead.

“Good night.” There was nothing more to do or say. She couldn’t put off facing Eric any longer.

She closed the door behind her and stepped toward the living room, deciding as she did so to ask questions first, to play offense instead of defense and maybe put off answering too many questions until she knew a bit more about what was going on.

Eric stood in the middle of the cabin’s great room, near the table that separated the open kitchen from the sofa and television on the other side.

She glanced at him only briefly, saw confusion and maybe even anger on his face, and quickly looked away, taking in all that had changed and all that had stayed the same in the cabin. Her grandmother’s knitted afghan still topped the sofa, but it was a newer sofa. Some of the pictures on the walls were the same. Some had changed. The familiarity of it all made her want to sob with relief, but she held herself together. She had to. For the kids.

“So, you—” Eric started.

Vanessa remembered her plan and cut off his question quickly. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s my place.”

“No, it’s not. It’s mine.”

“Alyssa sold it to me.”

“So my grandfather—”

“He died. Six years ago.”

She’d told herself that much was likely. Her grandfather was old, and his health had been declining rapidly, but the words still hit her like one of Jeff’s controlling blows.

And just like in the early days when Jeff hit her, Vanessa fought back. “So Alyssa sold you her half? Half the cabin was supposed to go to me.”

“Your sister sold me both halves.”

“She can’t sell my half—”

“She can. You were declared legally dead.” Eric took a step toward her. “What’s going on, Vanessa? Or should I call you Madison?”

Vanessa pinched her eyes shut at the words, which struck her like another blow. “How do you know—”

“It was on the news.”

“What was?”

Eric opened his mouth, looked toward the ceiling and made a resigned noise in his throat. “Maybe you should just watch it yourself. I can find it online. But first—what happened to the baby? Sammy? He wasn’t in the vehicle.”

Vanessa heard real concern, maybe even fear in Eric’s voice, almost enough to drown out her own terror over what the news might have to say. “I left him with my sister.”

“Alyssa knows you’re alive, then?”

Much as she’d have liked to confirm his words, she knew it wouldn’t be entirely honest to do so. “She’ll figure it out. I need to see that newscast.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Eric climbed the steps and returned with a laptop, which he set on the table. The website was already up on the screen.

“Debbi had it open,” he explained quietly as the broadcast began to play.

Vanessa reached past him to adjust the volume, just loud enough for her to hear without risking the girls overhearing anything from the other side of the bedroom door. She’d made too many sacrifices to preserve their innocence, to let it be destroyed now.

“Authorities are asking everyone in the Chicago region to be on the lookout for this vehicle, driven by Madison Nelson of Barrington, who is believed to have shot her husband dead before driving through the back wall of their garage with their three children in the vehicle.”

“Dead,” Vanessa repeated softly. She’d expected it from the moment the Land Rover pulled into the driveway. Still, hearing the words, seeing the images of the house where she’d been held captive for so long, made her tremble.

Pictures flashed across the screen—her home, the prison where she’d been held, surrounded by yellow police tape. The broken-out back wall of her garage. The vehicle, which was now parked outside. Pictures of her children and a particularly unflattering photograph of her, which had been taken mere minutes after she’d given birth to Sammy after a grueling labor.

But the most horrifying thing wasn’t the pictures. It wasn’t even the fact that Jeff was dead.

“They think I killed him? Why would they think that?”

No sooner had she voiced the question than Virgil appeared on the screen, saying horrible things about her, voicing ugly motives made all the more terrifying because, to anyone who didn’t know her, they would sound plausible. And no one really knew her, not anymore. So everyone would think Virgil’s lies were true.

“You didn’t kill him?” Eric’s voice behind her was soft, even cautious.

She turned and met his eyes for the first time. “No, I most certainly did not.”

Eric looked visibly relieved.

Vanessa might have felt offended that he’d doubted her, except that, given what she’d seen on the news broadcast, he had every right to believe the worst. Gratitude welled up inside her that he was willing to trust her word over that of everyone else. She pulled out a chair and sat down, the weight of the news broadcast too much to bear standing up.

She needed to explain a few things quickly. “He kidnapped me. He hid me and gave me that name, made me dye my hair, broke my nose once and it healed with a bump.”

Eric nodded patiently. “So, who killed him?”

“He did—” she pointed at Virgil, who was still on the screen “—or one of the guys who works for him.”

For a long, silent moment, Vanessa looked at Eric, waiting for some sign that would indicate whether he believed her or not. She wasn’t sure what she would do if he didn’t. All she knew was that she had to keep her children safe. The news report was a terrifying development. Where could she go without being recognized? Where could she hide?

Finally, Eric spoke. “Can you prove these guys killed him?”

Vanessa blinked, her shock at being free, her uncertainty about what to do next, clouding her thoughts, muddling her judgment.

“Look, Vanessa, I want to help you, but this does not look good. Debbi wants to call the police.”

“No! Don’t do that. Please.” Vanessa wrapped her arms around her shoulders, wishing for the millionth time that none of this had ever happened. She’d gotten away, but only briefly. Her face was all over the news. She’d have to stay in hiding, keep her daughters in hiding, or she’d go to jail and lose her kids. “If you call the police, they’ll take the kids. I’ll go to jail, their word against mine.” She repeated the threat Jeff had ingrained in her, the fear that had kept her frozen in the basement, even when she thought about breaking out a window and running for help.

“What happened, Vanessa? You disappeared eight years ago, and everybody thought you were dead. What’s been going on?”

“It’s a trafficking ring. They’re criminals.”

“Who are? This Virgil guy?”

“And Jeff—they came to the house and killed Jeff this evening. I ran with the kids or they would have killed us, too.” She swallowed, hating the words, hating the memories. “Jeff kidnapped me eight years ago as part of this human-trafficking scheme. They take girls and traffic them, but Jeff kept me to himself. He left me tied up when he wasn’t around until Abby was born.

“Once Abby was born, he allowed me just enough freedom to take care of her, never enough to get away from him. He was always there, for every minute of every medical appointment, every second I was ever around other people, watching me, making sure I didn’t reach out for help. Not like I would try anything—I knew he’d go after my family if I did or take Abby from me. It’s a big ugly crime ring. They run drugs, too. They use the drugs to control people. Virgil’s just one piece of it.”

Eric swallowed slowly, as if forcing himself to digest her words. “Can you prove it?”

“I know a few things, but no, I don’t have any evidence against them. Any time I saw a piece of paper I wasn’t supposed to see, Jeff warned me what would happen if I ever so much as touched anything that could be used as evidence against them. I purposely closed my eyes. I had no choice.”

“The only way to prove your innocence is to prove these guys are guilty.”

“I agree.” Vanessa nodded. But at the same time, Eric’s words scared her. “But Virgil’s not the ringleader. He was Jeff’s contact, some kind of bully employed to keep guys like Jeff in line, but he wasn’t in charge. If we turn in Virgil, that’s just cutting off an arm.”

“And the real monster would turn on you,” Eric muttered, understanding. “So, who’s the ringleader? We find him, find evidence against him, and we can prove your innocence.”

Vanessa liked the idea. If they could shut down the trafficking ring, all the other innocent girls who’d been taken just like her could go free.

There was just one problem.

“I don’t know who’s in charge.”

THREE

Eric was wide-awake now, but he almost wished he could roll over and forget this nightmare had ever happened. Except that Vanessa was back. He’d prayed for her safe return, even imagined himself holding her tight if he ever had the chance again. But the fact that she was a wanted fugitive gave him pause. He wanted to believe she was innocent, but there were too many things he didn’t understand.

“Want to tell me what happened? Maybe we can sort out how to catch this guy, or what to do, or something.” Eric was also hoping that he’d learn enough to tell him whether he was crazy for trusting Vanessa. He wanted to pull her into his arms, to embrace her as he’d always pictured himself embracing her if she was ever found. But if she’d been held captive by a man for eight years, maybe she wouldn’t welcome his touch. He held back, waiting for some sign from her that would tell him if it would be okay for him to reach out to her.

“Oh, wow, where do I start?”

“How about the night you went missing?”

Vanessa closed her eyes, gulped a breath and then shook her head. “I need to start before that. You know I was working as a waitress at the Flaming Pheasant down by the interstate.”

“That’s where you were last seen, getting off work at the end of your shift. You walked out the back door, but you never came home. Your car was still in the spot where you parked it when you arrived at work.” Eric filled in what he knew.

Vanessa nodded, confirming his words. “There was a guy, the same man who was murdered this evening. Back then he was young and handsome and charming. He was a regular at the restaurant. He’d say the kindest things to me. ‘You have pretty eyes’ or ‘I like your smile’—not creepy things or even really hitting on me. I just thought he was nice, you know. Unlike a lot of other customers, he never complained, never got impatient when the kitchen was slow. The restaurant often wasn’t busy, so we’d chat. It got to where I looked forward to seeing him. My day was better if he showed up.”

Eric felt a bead of cold sweat creeping down his arm as Vanessa spoke. If he hadn’t known where her story was going, it would have sounded so innocent. He might have felt jealous of the guy, but he wouldn’t have been suspicious.

“Slowly, he started to learn things about me. Asked where I was from, about my family. I told him that I lived with my grandfather, about how my parents died in a car crash when Alyssa and I were little—told him I had a twin sister. Maybe I should have been suspicious that he was interested to hear about me, but he was always so friendly and positive about everything, I couldn’t resist talking to him.”

Much as Eric wished Vanessa would hurry with her story, or even skip over the parts that made his skin crawl, nonetheless, he sensed it was important for him to hear it. Not just in case there were details that might help them track down the leader of the trafficking ring, but because, after all, Vanessa had been through a terrible trauma. She needed to tell someone what had happened.

He also felt strongly the need to hear her out. Eight years ago, he’d failed her. He hadn’t been there for her. But he was here now. He had a second chance—the kind of second chance he’d prayed for, but never really dared to dream he might get. He could be here for her now. It wouldn’t change the past, but it was the best he could do.

Vanessa looked down at her hands as she spoke, as though eye contact would be too difficult, given the content of her story. “Then one weekend, I was really bummed that I had to work, because I wanted to come out here to the cabin. Jeff said he wanted to make me feel better, that he wanted to do something special. He offered to take me out after I got off work. By then I felt like I knew him, even though I didn’t, really.”

Eric didn’t want to interrupt, but he had to. “You didn’t tell him about the cabin, did you?” If Jeff knew about the cabin, then he might have told Virgil or any of their associates. They could track them down. No doubt they wouldn’t want someone at large who knew so much about them. They were probably looking for Vanessa right now, not content to let the police and television viewers do their searching for them.

“No. I never told him about this place. It’s too special to me. It didn’t feel right to share it with him, even before...” Her voice trailed off.

“So you went out with him after work?” Eric prompted, dreading to hear what came next.

“Yes. I got in his car, and at first he was just as charming as ever. But we didn’t stop. He kept driving toward Chicago, and I realized I didn’t know where I was and didn’t know where he was taking me or how to get home again. It was dark out, almost winter, and very cold. I started to ask questions, and he just kept assuring me that he had a special place in mind, and I was going to love it.” Her voice broke.

“I didn’t love it. I hated it,” she whispered, shaking her head, her unspoken words telling him vastly more of the horrors she’d suffered than anything she might have said. “He tied me up, did whatever he wanted to me.” She wiped away a tear, gulped a breath and kept talking.

“He kept me tied up for nearly a year. When I got pregnant with Abby, for a long time he threatened me that I wouldn’t be able to keep her, but eventually he came around and took me to the doctor for medical care, but only once I promised not to let on about who I really was. He had these fake IDs. I was Madison Nelson, supposedly four years older than I really am, with blond hair. After that, he didn’t keep me tied up, just locked in the basement with my baby.

“For a long time, I tried to think of a way to escape, to get away when he wasn’t looking, but I couldn’t leave Abby behind, and I couldn’t run with a baby. Once I got pregnant with Emma, I knew there was no way. I hadn’t been able to escape with one child—how could I run away with two? So I turned my attention from thinking about how to escape, to thinking about how to give my girls something resembling a normal life. Jeff recognized the change and let us out more, even took us to the park, but he was always there with his gun on him when I wasn’t locked away.”

Eric wasn’t sure what to do or say. Part of him wanted to pull her into his arms, to hold her tight enough to squeeze the brokenness inside her back together. But he didn’t dare do that. The fact that she couldn’t even look at him told him she wasn’t ready to welcome his embrace.

Back when they were high-school friends, he’d more than once worked up the courage to place his hand on her back or his arm across her shoulder, innocent ways of testing whether she felt anything for him like what he felt for her. But he’d never gotten a clear indication from her either way, and after all she’d been through, he wasn’t sure how she’d respond to the old gestures of their friendship. As a high-school science teacher, he didn’t play a huge role in helping those who’d been abused, but he’d had some training on how to spot signs of abuse and what to do about it. So he kept his hands to himself and listened as she continued her story.

“Jeff used the kids for leverage. And I think maybe that’s why he got sucked into work so much—his boss used the kids for leverage, too. That’s how I knew I needed to be ready to leave. I overheard Virgil’s threats the last time. He wanted money—I don’t know how much, but I know it was a lot, more than we had, which supposedly Jeff had kept back from some of the deals he’d run, or that he’d missed out on by not running some deals, I don’t know. They wanted the money, or they were going to kill us. All five of us.”