Taken (9 page)

“What in the name of Pete are you doing out here all by yourself?” he said.

“Trying to get home.”

He shook his head impatiently.

“What I mean is, what brought you here in the first place?”

“Somebody kidnapped me.”

“Kidnapped you?” He squinted at me. “Where'd you say you were from?”

I told him. He studied me for a moment, and I saw a flicker of understanding in his eyes. He turned his back to me and squatted down.

“Hop on,” he said.

“No, it's okay.”

He looked over his shoulder at me.

“You can't walk on that ankle, and I don't have one of those damned cell phones everyone seems to be carrying these days. Les Andruksen's place isn't far. Hop on and I'll carry you.”

Reluctantly, I climbed onto his back. I hadn't had a piggyback ride since I was a little girl, and it felt weird to be carried by someone I didn't know. He scooped up his rifle and set off as if I were no heavier than a bedroll. He'd said our destination wasn't far, but he hiked along for over an hour without slowing. Finally I heard something. It sounded like…a car, whizzing down a highway. A few minutes later, we left the trees behind us and stepped out into a roadside clearance. Beyond it lay a paved two-lane road, flanked on both sides by deep ditches. The man took his time going down into the ditch and then climbing up the other side, with me still riding his back. We crossed the road, and he started the long hike up a graveled driveway to a house set on a rise well back from the road. There was a barn behind it and fields all around. A herd of cows chewed contentedly in a grassy pasture.

He carried me up onto the porch and helped me slide off his back. He pressed the doorbell.

A woman answered.

“Zeke!” she said. “What a surprise. Come in. Can I get you some coffee?” Then she noticed me.

“Is Les here?” Zeke said.

“He's out back. Come in, and I'll call him.”

Zeke helped me inside and sat me down on a bench in the front hall. The woman was back a few moments later. A man followed her. He was wearing denim coveralls and heavy boots that he probably should have taken off at the back door. He looked at me, frowning, as if something was bothering him. He turned to Zeke and said, “Is everything okay?”

“I was out looking for that bear,” he said.

Les nodded, as if he knew exactly which bear Zeke was talking about.

“I found him,” Zeke said. “He was charging this girl.”

“Charging her?” Les said.

“Yup. But I took care of him.”

Les stared at me again with that same frown on his face.

“What's your name?”

“Stephanie Rawls.”

His expression changed, as if that cleared up whatever had been bothering him.

“You're that girl who's been missing,” he said.

I nodded.

“I'm Les Andruksen. This is my wife Susan. I'm a police officer in Angel Falls.”

Angel Falls? That was a long way from home.

“Your mom has been worried sick about you,” he said. “Are you hurt?”

“She's wrenched her ankle,” Zeke said. “It's swelled up like a cantaloupe, but as far as I can tell, it's not broken.”

“When was the last time you ate anything?” Mr. Andruksen said.

“I'm not sure. A few days ago.”

“Susan, heat up some soup,” he said. He turned to me. “I bet you're hungry.”

Was I ever!

“We'll get some hot soup into you, and then I'll run you up to the hospital to get you checked out.”

“I'll find her some clean clothes,” Mrs. Andruksen said. “We should let her wash up.”

Mr. Andruksen shook his head. “I need to talk to Stephanie first,” he said. “She can wash up later. Right now she should eat something.” He glanced at Zeke. “I'd appreciate it if you could stick around for a little while, Zeke. I may need you. Susan will get you some coffee.”

Zeke nodded. He followed Mrs. Andruksen down the hall to the back of the house. Mr. Andruksen helped me into the dining room and pulled out a chair for me.

“What happened, Stephanie?” he said. “Where have you been for the past week?”

“I was on my way home from the bus when someone grabbed me from behind. The next thing I knew, I woke up in a shack in the middle of the woods.”

Mr. Andruksen frowned. “Someone grabbed you?”

“Yes. I was taking a shortcut through a field near my house. I know it was a dumb thing to do. I wish I hadn't done it.” I was close to tears again. I struggled to control myself. “Someone grabbed me. I think he jabbed me with a needle. He must have drugged me, because when I woke up, I was tied up in a shack.”

He nodded, but I didn't see the sympathy in his eyes that I had been expecting.

“Then what happened?”

“I managed to untie myself, and I got away from there as fast as I could. I've been walking ever since.”

He sat very still. Only his eyes moved. He studied me methodically, as if he were trying to memorize every detail of my appearance.

“What about whoever you say grabbed you and jabbed you with a needle?” he said finally. “Where was that person while you were escaping?”

“I don't know. I never saw him.”

“What do you mean, you never saw him? Was he wearing a mask?”

A mask? Was that important? Was the man who had taken those other two girls wearing a mask?

“No,” I said. “At least, I don't think so. He grabbed me from behind, so I didn't see him. Then he drugged me. When I woke up, I was alone in a shack in the woods somewhere.”

“Alone? The person you say grabbed you wasn't there?”

I shook my head. “But I was afraid he would come back.” I started to shake uncontrollably. “I was afraid he would see that I was trying to escape, and then he would do something awful to me. But he never came back.”

“You keep saying
he
. If you didn't see him, how do you know for sure it was a man?”

“Well…I guess I don't,” I admitted. “But he seemed strong, so I'm just assuming.”

He leaned back in his chair.

“So you were on your way home…from where?”

I told him.

“And someone you didn't see grabbed you and drugged you and took you to a shack. But you didn't see him when he grabbed you, and you didn't see him at the shack either? Is that right?”

“That's right. And I was so scared he would come back. I knew I had to get out of there.”

“How did you manage to escape? What exactly did you do?”

I told him. He frowned.

“He tied you up with rope?” he said.

I nodded.

His eyes went to my wrists, but he didn't say anything.

“How long do you think you were in that shack before you escaped?”

“I'm not sure.” I had no idea what day it was. I had to ask.

“It's Friday,” he said.

Friday? I tried to count the days since I had woken up. If it was Friday, then I must have been in that cabin for more than one day.

“It was Saturday when he grabbed me,” I said. “I thought it was the next day when I woke up, but if this is Friday, then I must have woken up on Monday.” It didn't seem possible. What on earth had he drugged me with?

“Did you notice anything different when you woke up, Stephanie?”

Different? Hadn't he been listening to me?

“I was tied up,” I said, my voice shrill now. I didn't understand what was going on. Why was he asking me such strange questions? “I had no idea where I was, and I was tied up.”

“It's okay, Stephanie,” he said, his voice soft and soothing. “I'm just trying to get a picture in my mind of what happened. That's my job. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“What I meant when I asked you if you noticed anything different was…well, for example, did you notice if all your clothes were the same or if anything had been, well, disturbed?”

Disturbed? Oh my god.

“Everything seemed the same,” I said. “I was tied up, that's all.”

“Did you see anything that made you think that the person who took you had been in the shack with you while you were unconscious?”

What did he mean? “Like what?”

“Like, say, blankets or a pillow or anything that he might have slept on? Or any belongings of his— maybe a backpack or duffle bag, something like that? Or food?”

“There wasn't any food in the shack. I looked. There was nothing like that.”

“Okay, well, then maybe the smell of food. If he'd cooked anything…”

“There was no smell of food.” I was one hundred percent sure that I would have noticed. “It looked like no one had been there in years. The place was covered with cobwebs.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“Do you think you could show me where this shack is, Stephanie?”

“I…I don't know. I don't think so.” I hated to say that because of the way he was looking at me. “It was nighttime when I got free. I looked around as best as I could. I didn't see any roads or even tire tracks. All I know is that ever since I got free, I've been walking west.”

He perked up at that.

“Why west?”

“Because I could see the glow of lights from the top of a hill near the shack.”

“How did you know it was west from where you were? Did you have a compass?”

I shook my head. “But I know how to find my direction.” I explained it to him, adding, “My grandpa taught me. My grandpa knew everything about living in the woods.” I told him about wilderness spaghetti.

“It's lucky that you know as much about wilderness survival as you do, Stephanie,” he said. “I didn't see anything like that mentioned in the report your mother made to the police.”

“She didn't know,” I said. She had been so involved with her new life when I got back from Grandpa's that she hadn't asked very much about how I had spent my summer. And I was so mad at her that I didn't volunteer the information.

“Is there anything else you can tell me, Stephanie? Anything at all?”

That's when I remembered the chain. I dug into my pocket and pulled it out.

“I found this caught on the lining of my jacket,” I said. “It's not mine. I never saw it before. And I know it wasn't there when I got on the bus to come home. I'm pretty sure I pulled it off whoever grabbed me.” I described to him what I remembered happening.

Mr. Andruksen looked at the broken chain. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. He got up, found a piece of paper and asked me to put the chain on it. He folded the paper around it like an envelope and excused himself. I heard him speaking to someone out in the front hall, but I couldn't make out what he was saying. I heard the front door open and close. Mr. Andruksen came back into the dining room from the front hall. Mrs. Andruksen came in from the kitchen. She was carrying a bowl of steaming soup, which she set in front of me. It smelled heavenly.

“Eat up, Stephanie,” Mr. Andruksen said. “Then we'll get your ankle looked at.”

“Can I call my mom?”

“I'll take care of that too,” he said. “Susan, stay with her, will you? I have to make a few calls.”

The soup tasted even better than it smelled. I devoured the whole bowl without stopping and eagerly said yes when Mrs. Andruksen offered me seconds.

THIRTEEN

F
irst we went to the hospital, where they x-rayed my ankle. It turned out Zeke was right. It wasn't broken. But it was badly sprained. After the doctor examined me, he had a nurse wrap a big elastic bandage around it.

“I don't want you to put any weight on it for at least a week,” he said. “Then we'll take another look.”

The nurse brought me some crutches.

While I was in the hospital, another police officer arrived—a woman. She brought me some clean clothes and asked me if I needed any help changing. I said no. She told me to put my old clothes on the end of the bed and said that she would come to collect them. Before she left the room, she scraped the dirt from under my fingernails. She also looked carefully at my arm where I had been jabbed with the needle.

After I had changed into the clean clothes, Mr.— I mean, Sergeant—Andruksen came back into the room.

“I called your mother,” he said. “She and her fiancé are on their way to the police station.”

Fiancé? Since when had my mom started referring to Gregg as her fiancé?

I didn't see Mom and Gregg when I hobbled into the police station with Sergeant Andruksen. They probably hadn't arrived yet. It was a long drive from our place up to Angel Falls.

Sergeant Andruksen showed me into an interview room. He asked me if I was hungry.

“Starving,” I said, just as another man came into the room. He was wearing a dark suit.

“Stephanie, this is Detective Carlysle,” Sergeant Andruksen said. “He's going to ask you some questions about what happened. I'll see if I can get you something to eat.”

He disappeared. Detective Carlysle asked me to sit down. He asked if I needed any help.

“I can manage,” I said. I hobbled over to the table and eased myself down onto a chair. Detective Carlysle sat down across from me.

“Tell me everything you can remember about what happened, Stephanie.”

“I already told Sergeant Andruksen.”

“I know. And I appreciate that. But I need you to tell me too. Do you think you can do that?”

I nodded. I told Detective Carlysle the same thing I had told Sergeant Andruksen. He listened intently and didn't interrupt me even once. As soon as I finished telling my story for the second time, Sergeant Andruksen came into the room. I could be wrong, but I had the feeling that he had been out there watching and waiting for me to finish before he came back in. He had a packaged sandwich and a bottle of juice with him.

“I hope tuna is okay,” he said.