Trapped

Whatever is causing this—it feels like her thoughts are slurring—it isn’t like ecstasy or marijuana or alcohol. It’s something much more powerful. So powerful it’s amazing that her body continues to breathe—she can feel the air in her nose and throat, the gluey dryness of her mouth—and her heart, yes, she can pick up on the slow thump of her pulse. Much too slow to keep up with her jittery thoughts, the panic that’s rising like a tide, or the burning sensation she’s just now detected in her abdomen.

Seth, what about Seth? It was his plane, his flight plan, his delivery. What went wrong?

What happened? Where is she? Is Seth okay or did they kill him?—three lines of a chorus that slowly rises into a scream of fear and confusion. She can’t make her mouth work, so for now the scream stays inside her mind. Silently screaming a heat-seeking name, over and over, endless loop.

MOMMY HELP ME PLEASE HELP ME MOMMY PLEASE HELP HELP HELP MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY HELP HELP HELP

Hot tears leak from her paralyzed eyes. She’s five again, terrified beyond endurance, and she wants her mommy.

12. The Man Called Shane

It’s Fern who suggests trying the name on the card. Having called for an update and gotten an earful—anxiety makes me vent—Fern has agreed that the computer files are vitally important.

“It’ll all be there,” she assures me. “These kids, they keep everything in their e-mail and blogs, or on MySpace.”

“Kelly’s not on MySpace” is my instant retort.

“Really? How do you know?”

“She promised. We agreed it was too dangerous. All that stuff in the news about perverts.”

Fern sighs, thinks I’m being ridiculous. Teens lie about everything, get over it. “Okay, fine, she’s the only girl in Valley Stream without a page on MySpace, whatever. What about her e-mail? Her address book files? Whatever whippy snippy thing the girls have going this week. You need to get in there.”

“I need help, Fern. And it has to be fast. Today.”

“Agreed. So call the consultant, see if he can recommend an expert.”

“Consultant?”

“You said the cop gave you a card. So call. What can it hurt? Takes you three minutes. Worst case, he can’t help. Best case, he looks like Johnny Depp.”

“Fern!”

“Admit it, when Johnny D’s on the screen you are stuck to the seat like a sticky bun.”

Swear on a Bible, if I was lying in the wreckage of a major vehicular accident, gasoline leaking, wires sparking, Fern could still make me laugh. After decades, all the way from that first day in first grade, she knows where the laugh button is, and when to push it. Plus she’s right, I have to stop letting anxiety and panic get the best of me. I have to get my little house in order for my daughter’s sake. Get on the horn, Jane, start making some noise, get things rolling. The world is full of computer geeks, I just have to find one who can get started right now, no excuse, no delay. And if the old retired fogy from the FBI can’t help with that, then he gets crossed off the list of helpers, on to the next.

Randall Shane Former Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation Consultant, Special Cases

Special cases, what does that mean, exactly? Only one way to find out. Punching in the number, I rehearse my opening gambit. Try to sound cool, calm and collected. All of which vanishes the instant a thick male voice comes on the line.

“Shane.”

“Um, I need, ah, to speak to, ah, Randall, um, Shane?”

“This is he.” Sounding more than a little gruff. Like, get on with it lady, what’s your problem?

“It’s about my daughter,” I blurt out. “She’s gone. Missing.”

His tone is no longer impatient. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”

“They gave me your card,” I tell him in a rush, clutching the phone with both hands so it doesn’t slip out of my fingers. “I don’t know the boy, isn’t that stupid? I mean I do know his first name, it’s Seth. But not his last name, or where he lives. Nothing! I never heard of him until yesterday and by then it was too late. They can’t, the police, they need somewhere to start, I understand that, really I do, but I don’t know anything and now she’s gone and she was supposed to call and she did and she said she needed help and then the phone got cut off and something really bad has happened I can feel it in my bones a mother knows you know?”

“Okay,” says the voice. “Take a deep breath. Hold it for a count of ten and then let it out slowly. Okay?”

“‘Kay,” I manage.

“I’ll count. One. Two. Three …”

As he counts I can feel my heart slowing, and I’m thinking he may be an old fogy, he might be a scam artist, but he’s got a great voice and would be calming and reassuring even if he was reading from the phone book. Or counting, for that matter.

“Okay,” he says. “Good. Now, if you could tell me your name.”

I tell him.

“Jane Garner, fine. Here’s how it works, Mrs. Garner. I’m going to ask you a few questions and then we’ll decide if I can be of assistance, okay? We’ll start with the note your daughter left. What exactly did it say?”

My brow furrows. “I mentioned the note?”

“Not exactly. You mentioned a promise to call. I assumed that promise was in the form of a note, but I suppose it could have been a voice mail.”

“It was a note,” I tell him. “I’ve got it right here.”

As I read him Kelly’s note, part of me concludes that we’ve been in conversation for, at best, a few minutes, and already he’s established that he’s paying attention. Listening. Which is not what I carried away from my conversation with Jay Berg, the Nassau County detective, who let me run on more out of professional politeness than actual interest. As far as Berg had been concerned, my daughter took off with a guy, end of story. Whereas Mr. Shane seems to be taking me seriously. Or at least taking the situation seriously.

“Okay,” he says. “Got it.”

I can hear him taking notes, the mouse squeak of a felt-tip pen. He reads it back, and I agree he’s got it, word for word.

“Now the call,” he says, “As best you can remember.”

“‘Mom, I need your help, please call.’”

“That’s it?”

“Last word was cut off.”

“And what was her tone? Excited, worried?”

“She was whispering. Like she’d didn’t want anyone to hear. Whispering and worried and maybe a little afraid.”

“Please call as in ‘please call back,’ or ‘please call for help.’”

I think about it, Kelly’s voice replaying in my head. “Not please call back. It was like she had a lot to say and had to tell me in as few words as possible. So it was more like ‘please call for help.’”

“Or please call someone specific?”

“Maybe.” I rack my brains, reliving the call, but that’s all I get, a maybe.

“You mentioned computer files.”

I must have, but have no recollection. Unless, of course, he’s a mind reader. “That’s why I called. To see if you know anyone who can get into protected files.”

“How protected?” he wants to know.

“I don’t know her password.”

“So not necessarily encrypted? Just password protected?”

“I’m not really sure. All I know is I can’t into the files. So, do you know anyone who can?”

The man called Shane chuckles, warming my ear.

He says, “Matter of fact, I do.”

13. Bingo He Says

Two hours later, Randall Shane arrives in a gleaming black Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows. Is it a cop car thing, or a retired FBI thing, or does he moonlight as a chauffeur? Or does he just prefer a car the size of a boat? As it pulls into my driveway, the big Lincoln looks like it could eat my little Mercedes wagon and spit out the chrome.

Standing in the open door—I’ve been chewing my nails and watching the street for at least an hour—I give a wave of greeting as Mr. Shane unfolds himself from the driver’s seat. He nods in my direction—right place, obviously—and pops the trunk lid with his key. Retrieves a bulky briefcase and a laptop, secures the trunk, and strides up the walkway, all business.

There’s a lot of him. Very tall, six feet four or five. Wide shoulders, long muscular arms, and a purposeful, no-nonsense way of walking. Not a walk exactly, certainly not a strut—more of a march. Fern’s joke comes to mind—can’t think of anyone who looks less like Johnny Depp. He could put Johnny Depp in his pocket and still have room for lint. No, there’s nothing wistful or soft or feminine about Randall Shane. More the Liam Neeson type, if you have to pick an actor. He’s all angles, with a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee that gives him a long, slightly gaunt face. Deep-set, utterly serious sky-blue eyes that are already studying me. Age, somewhere in his forties. Surely not old enough to be retired, and obviously not the elderly gent I’d been expecting, even if he does drive a car associated with seniors.

His attire is less formal than I expected. Crisply pressed khaki trousers, a lime-green Polo shirt with a soft rolled collar, brown leather Top-Siders. On someone else it might be a preppy look. Not on Shane. On him it looks like something an NFL linebacker would wear on his day off.

“Mrs. Garner?” he asks, with a slight, wary smile. Nice, even teeth.

“Jane, please. Come in, come in. This is very kind of you.”

“We’ll see,” he says, ducking slightly as he eases into the foyer. “No promises.”

“Understood. I’ll pay for your time, whatever happens.”

He shrugs, as if indifferent to the notion of payment. Towering over me in the little foyer, smelling faintly of Ivory soap and something like cedar. Manly cedar, though, not the perfumed version.

“Show me to her room,” he says.

“This way. Up the stairs and to the left.”

“No calls?”

I shake my head. No calls, no contact. My frantic calls are still going directly to voice mail, and my daughter is still in the wind.

The summer days are long, so there’s plenty of light in the sky, but early evening has arrived, and as we traipse up the stairs, the host in me automatically offers this stranger something to eat.

“Not right now,” he says, pushing open the door to Kelly’s bedroom. A step inside and he stops, checking out the walls, furnishings. The place is girly-girl, teenage girly-girl, but very clean and organized because Kelly is a neat freak.

“Did you tidy up?” he wants to know.

“She keeps it this way.”

He nods to himself, as if registering a fact to be filed away. Sets his briefcase on the floor, his laptop on her desk, and then turns to look at me. More of a quick study than a look.

“You didn’t have supper,” he says. A statement of fact.

“Not hungry.”

“Okay.” He nods to himself, registering another fact. “Do you drink tea?”

What’s this about? I’m thinking, but admit that sometimes I do, in fact, drink tea.

“Good. Then I suggest you make yourself a mug of strong, hot tea. Put sugar in it, for energy. Eat two pieces of toast, you’ll be able to hold that much down.”

“What?” I say, thinking he’s been here less than a minute, already he’s telling me when and what to eat.

“You look like you’re about to faint, Mrs. Garner. Time and efficiency are very important at this juncture, and I need you to be conscious and thinking coherently. In a crisis like this, many parents tend to fall apart. We don’t have that luxury. Tea, toast. Stay downstairs. I’ll let you know if I need help, or have questions.”

I’m halfway down the stairs before I realize he just ordered me out of my own daughter’s bedroom.

He may be brusque and bossy, but Randall Shane is right about my needing to eat. The toast settles my stomach and the hot, sweet tea gives me energy. Hadn’t realized how depleted I’d been, how close to passing out. Maybe even fainting, as he’d suggested. But “at this juncture”? Is the man a robot? Nobody says “at this juncture.”

Cops do, I realize. They lapse into cop talk. And FBI agents are federal cops. They dress better but they have cop hearts. Not that I’ve ever met an FBI agent, retired or otherwise. All my thoughts on the subject of FBI agents come from TV shows, and muttered asides from my late father, so maybe I’m way off, reading too much into Shane’s formal manner of speech.

Whatever, I’m not about to remain confined to the kitchen. With an extra mug of tea as my excuse, I slip upstairs, into Kelly’s room, and find him at her computer. Making her prim little swivel chair look small indeed.

“You said tea, so I thought maybe you drank it, too.”

Without looking up from the screen he says, “Thanks. Leave it on the desk.”

“Any progress?”

“I’ll know in twenty-six minutes,” he says, grunting softly to himself as he hits a key. “Make it twenty-five.”

There’s a clock on screen, counting down.

Shane swivels in the chair, picks up the mug, takes a cautious sip. He studies me with a good internist’s eyes. “You look better,” he says, rendering judgment.

“I am, thank you.”

“Proprietary software,” he explains, nodding at the screen. “If Kelly left her password anywhere on the hard drive, we’ll find it, and if need be the software will crack it. Preliminary search indicates numerous references to both Seth and S-Man, so once I get the files open, we should know a lot more.”

“You found his last name?” I say. “That’s great. I’ll call the county cops. I mean police.”

“Cops will do,” he says with a slight grin. “No, not his last name. Not yet. Just a search engine tracer showing there are references buried within the files. E-mail folders, HTML folders, chat room folders.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to. It’s just the way computers organize themselves. Each folder has a name and a location. I was able to list the folders by title, but can’t open them without the password. If this particular software doesn’t get us there, I have other ways.” Making it sound almost ominous. Like no mere microchip would dare defy him.

“So you’re, um, a computer expert?”

“In a limited way, yes. As you say, I’m something of a geek.” He smiles, letting me know that geekness doesn’t offend him. “Actually, for the last several years before I left the bureau, that was my primary role, overseeing the development of software applications.”

“You don’t look old enough to be retired,” I point out.

“I resigned under special circumstances,” he responds, in a way that shuts down that particular line of inquiry.

Retired or fired, gunslinger or geek, it doesn’t matter. If the big man manages to get a line on the mysterious Seth, and Kelly’s location, I don’t care what his specialty is or was, or why he left the FBI.

“Have a seat,” he suggests. “I need to get some background.”

There’s only one chair in Kelly’s room, so I perch on her bed. Amazingly enough, this stranger is offering me a seat in my own house. Not that he’s trying to be offensive—far from it. He’s focused on a task, on helping me, and for that I’m grateful. Still, I can’t think of the last time a single man has been in my home, let alone one of the bedrooms.

No ring. I noticed. Not that I’m even slightly interested—every fiber of my being is focused on getting what I need to find Kelly.

Shane glances at the clock on the screen, seems satisfied with the progress, then takes a small notebook from his briefcase. “First things first,” he begins. “Where is Kelly’s father in all this?”

“Nowhere,” I respond, a little too fast.

“I take it you’re no longer married?”

“I’m a single mom.”

He nods. Not a judgmental nod, just noting another fact. “Has the father been informed that she’s missing?”

“There is no father,” I tell him, a flush rising into my cheeks. “Can we leave it at that?”

“For now,” he says, conceding nothing. “So. How do you make your living?”

“Weddings,” I tell him. “I design and make wedding gowns, bridal gowns, bridesmaids gowns. Or anyhow, that’s how I got into the business. I still do custom gowns when requested, but mostly we work with a couple of different gown manufacturers. Small specialized factories. We do the fittings, they do the sewing.”

He makes a note. “So you’re in sales.”

I shrug. “Bridal design, we like to say.”

“Dissatisfied customers?”

“It happens. But no one has been upset enough to take it out on my daughter.”

Duly noted.

“You’re sure about that?” he asks without looking up from his notebook.

“Last time it happened I refunded their deposit, simple. That was more than a year ago.”

Mrs. Hampton-Barlow of the Sag Harbor Hampton-Barlows. The bridal gown arrived on time, but the bridesmaid gowns were lost in transit, and no time to make them again. We arranged for perfectly good store-bought versions. No fault of mine, but I couldn’t really blame her for being upset. We parted with a formal apology on my part, and a promise to return her deposit, which I did. The Hampton-Barlows had their wedding and moved on. Me, too.

“Okay,” he says, ticking that off. “Ever been involved in a lawsuit?”

“Small-claims court, does that count?”

“Depends on the circumstance.”

“Collecting an unpaid bill. The marriage was annulled and the couple walked away from their debt.”

“You never collected?”

“There was nothing left to collect. That’s what they told me.”

“And this was when?”

“Three or four years ago. Cost of doing business. Happens every now and then. You try to cover your outlay with the initial deposit. In that case, I got stuck on the wrong side of the estimate. My own fault, you might say. They upgraded an order, I failed to upgrade the deposit. Live and learn.”

“Uh-huh.” Scribble, scribble. “Personal animosities?”

“Excuse me?”

“Does anybody hate you, Mrs. Garner? Hate you enough to hurt your daughter?”

What a question. And yet it has occurred to me, of course. Is there someone out there in the world who is angry enough at me to lure Kelly away? After a moment, I say, “No one I can think of.”

“No personal vendettas? How about angry boyfriends? Stalkers?”

That’s easy. “No boyfriends, period. No stalkers that I know of.”

Shane’s eyebrows lift. Men always seem to think that any reasonably attractive single woman under the age of forty is being hounded by suitors. Guys with flowers constantly ringing the doorbell, begging to sweep you off your feet. If only.

“Has Kelly complained of unwanted attention?” he wants to know. “Mentioned someone following her or watching her, or exhibiting menace?”

“No,” I say with a quick head shake. “But to be honest, over the last few hours I’ve been thinking about that a lot. And I’m not sure she’d tell me. Yesterday I’d have sworn on a Bible that Kel would share the important stuff, but today I’m not so sure.”

At that moment her computer chimes.

Shane’s eyes snap to the screen. Beneath his trim, neatly cropped beard his lips turn up in a slight smile.

“Bingo,” he says.

14. Flygirl

My mother put up with a lot. It wasn’t that I was a surly adolescent, not like Kelly, because my pathological shyness extended to the family. We had learned, Mom and I, never to raise our voices in the presence of my father. How to hide in plain sight. But I had my silent, secretive ways, and that probably bothered Mom more than surliness or back talk. What are you thinking? she would ask me, as if she really wanted to know, and I would never say, or mutter something and go hide in my room, or have long phone conversations with Fern where we said nothing much at great length.

Poor Mom. All she wanted were a few clues, a guidepost or two, and I couldn’t or wouldn’t oblige. Now I know my punishment for letting her down, all those years ago. It’s right there on the computer screen: Kelly has a secret life. Or, more accurately, a life she has kept from me, and apparently from her friends as well.

Her user name is flygirl91. The number is, of course, the year of her birth and the “flygirl,” well, to this mother’s ears it sounds slutty somehow. Wild and crazy, at the very least.

“But she swore she didn’t have a page on MySpace!” I wail, staring in horror at all the messages and responses in the files she calls “Facers” and “S-man.”

“She doesn’t,” Shane explains, manipulating the mouse as we scroll through the files. “You don’t have to post a Web page on MySpace to have access to the site. It appears Kelly logged in as a member but never set up an accessible Web site. She seems to have been deeply involved in searching categories for particular types of individuals.”

“Oh my God,” I say, hand to my mouth. “She was trolling.”

Shane chuckles and shakes his head. “I believe it’s called ‘browsing,’ Mrs. Garner. Simply a way to search through the millions of entries for someone you might find interesting. The folks on MySpace often affiliate themselves with groups or common interests. Just like people tend to do in real life.”

The Facers file contains dozens of images of young men, mostly posing with their computers or leaning against their cars. One has his shirt off, showing tattoos on his arms and chest. Another, his new nipple ring. There are several motorcycles and a hang glider proudly displayed by boys who look ready to die at a moment’s notice. All of it heart attack material for the mother of a teenage girl.

“This is interesting,” Shane says, clicking on the photo of the kid with the nipple ring.

“It must have hurt,” I say, wincing at the very thought.

“No, I mean what’s missing. Your daughter saved this image, but there’s no indication she ever messaged this particular individual.”

“Thank God for that.”

“It’s true for most of these images,” Shane says, making eye contact. “She was culling pictures but not necessarily making herself known to the subjects.”

“But what does it mean?” I ask.

Shane shrugs. “Hard to say. Might just means she liked the pictures. Maybe because they fit her definition of a Facer, whatever that is. Kind of a wise guy, out-there type, maybe? Any thoughts? Have you heard her use the word?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe. The cool words change from day to day, you know?”

“We can Google it later, if it seems to be pertinent. Right now I’ll concentrate on the file contents.”

Shane scrolls through my daughter’s secret life, or her fantasy life, all of it reduced to thumb-size snapshots. I’m standing over his broad shoulders, close enough to smell his deodorant—kind of a pine scent—aware that under normal circumstances this level of intimacy with a stranger would be, for me, uncomfortable. But these are not normal circumstances. Far from it.

“You think that’s how she met this Seth person?” I ask “Because she saw his picture—his Facer—on the Web site?”

“Yet to be determined,” says Shane, manipulating the keyboard with all ten fingers, a level of typing skill never mastered by yours truly.

“Ah,” he says, as another folder opens. “Here we go. This is linked to a message Kelly mass-mailed to forty-six recipients.”

He deftly places the e-mail in the center of the screen, enlarges the font so we can both read.

Young, aspiring pilot looking for flight instruction. Willing to help with cleaning, maintenance of aircraft. Ready to learn.

I’m too stunned to speak.

“You notice she doesn’t mention her age or gender, other than to say ‘young.’”

“I never knew. Never had any idea.”

“That she wants to learn how to fly?”

“Any of it. Willing to help with cleaning? I can’t even get her to vacuum the hallway! She takes care of her own room, that’s it.”

Ready to learn. The question is, and it breaks my heart to think it, was she ready to learn more than flying? Was this her very clever way to make herself interesting to grown men?

“Four,” Shane announces.

“Four?”

“Responses to that particular e-mail.”

The first response comes up with a snapshot of a guy who has to be in his thirties. Deep in his thirties, with crinkled eyes and a jaunty handlebar mustache. Wearing a distressed-leather flight jacket as he poses in the open cockpit of an old-fashioned airplane. Two wings, like Snoopy used to fly.