Jenny came after me. “No, Savannah.” She caught my upper arm, her long fingers like wires. “If you kill yourself, then you’re just letting him win. And you’d be leaving me alone.”
“Then join me. We’ll show him that he can’t control us the way he thinks.”
She shook her head. “I can’t kill myself. I used to think about it when I first got here, but I couldn’t make myself do it.” Her voice was rough with emotion. “And if you die, then I’ll just be left here alone with your corpse. Do you know how awful that would be?” She wiped drool from her chin. “There has to be some way to get out of the RV. And even if we only make it part of the way and then Rex gets us, you’re right. It still beats the alternative.” She touched my arm. “Here. Want to know what Bruce Lee would do? Because I think I saw your answer.” Retrieving the book, she paged through it until she found what she was looking for.
I read aloud the quote she pointed at. “Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.”
LORRAINE TAYLOR
I jumped when the doorbell rang. It was Officer Diaz, his expression serious. “Can I come in, Ms. Taylor?”
I had called to tell him about Jenny’s resemblance to Savannah. But he had sounded busy and distracted, as if their resemblance didn’t matter. Now here he was. By his expression, I could tell he did not come with good news. I wanted to freeze this moment, so that time would never move forward. Or erase it altogether.
Instead I gestured him inside, introduced him to Amy. He knew about In Trevor’s Memory. She and I sat on the couch while he took Tim’s chair. I found myself reaching for Amy’s hand. She squeezed back. Her fingers were warm. Mine were like icicles.
“Did you find her?” My voice sounded strangled.
“No. But we do know what happened Thursday night.” He paused, and my heart twisted in my chest. “After she left kung fu class, Savannah was kidnapped by a man who tasered her and then dragged her into a vehicle. A white van.”
Each individual word made sense. Savannah. Was. Kidnapped. By. A. Man. Who. Tasered. Her. I just couldn’t make the words fit together into a coherent sentence. Things like that happened to other people’s daughters. Women you felt sorry for when you saw them weeping on the news.
I finally forced words from my mouth. “Where is she? Is she okay? Who did it? How do you know what happened?”
“There’s surveillance video from the parking lot above the kung fu school, but unfortunately it doesn’t answer many questions.” He held out his hand. On his palm was a flash drive. “Do you have a computer we could watch this on?”
“I’ve got my laptop,” Amy said.
He sat between us on the couch and played the section of video for us. It only lasted a few seconds. Savannah’s feet, a man’s feet behind hers, Savannah toppling like a tree, a man’s hands grabbing her. At the end, what looked like a white van driving past. I sat frozen while he played it again, explaining how the stiff way Savannah fell made him believe she had been tasered.
The third time through, Officer Diaz hit the pause button in the middle. “I want to ask you something, Lorraine.”
“Okay.” It was hard to force the word past the lump in my throat.
“Do those boots and coveralls look familiar?”
I squinted. The parking lot was dark. The video was blurry. They were far away. Still …
“Do you think they might belong to Mr. Hixon?”
I wanted to deny what we were all seeing. “I don’t know. But that looks like what he wears to work.”
“There’s something I haven’t told you, Lorraine.”
Now I really didn’t want to know. “Yes?” I made myself ask.
“Before I came here, another officer and I attempted to question Mr. Hixon about what we saw on this tape.”
Dizziness washed over me. I had brought Savannah here. My daughter. “What did he say?”
Officer Diaz pressed his lips together before he spoke. “It did not go well. Mr. Hixon was uncooperative and belligerent. He accused us of trying to ‘pin it’ on him. But he was also saying something about how it’s impossible to know what people are really capable of. He ended up throwing a punch at the other officer. Right now, he’s in jail, charged with assault.”
“That doesn’t sound like Tim,” I whispered. Only it did sound like him. “But what about that white van? That’s not his. He drives a sixty-eight Camaro. But it’s not working right now.”
“He’s a mechanic, right?”
“It’s the parts,” I said, misunderstanding what he was saying. “They’re hard to get.”
“Does he have access to vehicles customers leave at the shop?”
“I guess he would.”
“Has he shown any unusual interest in your daughter?”
Bitterness coated the back of my tongue. I didn’t think it was possible, but things had just gotten worse. “No.” Was that really true? She and Tim were home alone together every night while I was at work. And Savannah had made no secret of not liking him. I had thought it was just because he was rough around the edges.
Officer Diaz continued. “Did you know Mr. Hixon was once arrested for domestic violence?”
“What?”
“Fifteen months ago, he was arrested for assaulting a woman who also occupied this residence. But rather than cooperate with the DA, she moved away.” He paused. “At least that’s what we thought happened at the time. We are currently having trouble locating her.”
Slowly, I filled in what he wasn’t saying. Had Tim done something to his last girlfriend to prevent her from testifying? I remembered how he had apologized when he saw the marks on my wrist. How he had kissed them. But he was the one who had made them. Who was he, really?
“Does Mr. Hixon own a Taser?” Officer Diaz’s voice seemed like it was coming from far away.
“Not that I know of.”
But what did I really know? I was starting to think: nothing.
“Do you mind if we look around? See if we find anything?”
“No.” A voice inside me was shouting that I was responsible for this. “Go ahead.”
“Is there any area of the house that’s off limits to you?” Officer Diaz asked as he got out his cell phone. “Or where he’s told you not to go?”
A chill ran over my skin. I shook my head.
Ten minutes later, three more officers arrived and joined Officer Diaz in searching the house. Amy sat with me on the couch, which became an island of calm in a sea of movement. Not knowing what else to do, I played the video over and over. Were those Tim’s boots? Tim’s hands roughly grabbing under Savannah’s arms?
I realized Amy was shaking, an almost imperceptible trembling. We exchanged a glance. Was she thinking what I was? That Tim could have taken both Savannah and Jenny?
When Amy pressed the button to watch the video one more time, I got up to use the bathroom. All the outlet and vent covers had been taken off. “Are you looking for drugs?” I asked one of the new officers, a woman, who was in our bedroom, across the hall.