She Once Vanished, page 10
“Except they would have had other people to ask. Other possible witnesses. Other people who might have had something to do with her disappearing.” Zachary realized he was nearly shouting, and tried to lower his voice and talk calmly. “You know now that she doubled back on her trail, but you didn’t know that then. For all you knew, someone might have killed her and stuffed her in the trunk. Mike. Someone else you haven’t told me about. Your girlfriend, or however many of them there are. You didn’t know if she was okay. Why wouldn’t you tell the police all the details?”
“I knew how they would act. They already thought I was a suspect. I didn’t want them focusing on me or any of the others. None of us did anything to her. I wanted them to find her. In case something did happen to her.”
“You didn’t know that none of you did anything.”
“I did know,” Dain said stubbornly. “And what do you think would have happened if I told the cops that we were in an open relationship and were both seeing other people? They would have spread the word around that we were some perverted sex club and that she was just off with someone else. They wouldn’t look for her. They would out us to all the fans. I had a hard enough time getting them to open the investigation without them knowing that part.”
He was probably right that the police would just have assumed Elysse was off with another partner. Especially after having had a public argument with Dain, even having slapped him in front of witnesses. She wouldn’t want to be with him. She would go to her other boyfriend. Or someone else she was attracted to. They wouldn’t see her as a vulnerable girl who might have been waylaid by a predator in the Vermont wilderness. Just as a girl who was off somewhere with a friend.
“Did Elysse know about your past?”
“My past?” Dain repeated, “What are you talking about? I told you that we’ve been friends since school. Of course she knew all about me.”
“So she knew that you had been convicted of sexual assault.”
Dain swore. “How did you find out about that? You can’t go spreading that around. Do you know what that would do to my reputation? To Elysse’s?”
“It’s public record. Anyone willing to do some general background on you can find it. You’re lucky none of the reporters working on Elysse’s disappearance found it. They certainly should have, as soon as you were suspected in Elysse’s disappearance. I would have.”
“I pled that charge out. Because I didn’t want to face twenty years in prison if something went wrong during the trial. They said that she had a solid case. She was believable. People would believe her before they would believe me. Accused means guilty these days. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. If you didn’t assault this girl, you probably assaulted someone else. That kind of karma just follows you around. You treat women like that and, sooner or later, you’re going to get caught, and you’re going to have to pay.”
“You pled guilty and served a year.”
“Yeah. To get it over with so I could live my life. If I went to prison, I wouldn’t be out until my forties. My life would be over.”
Zachary rolled his eyes at the limited view of youth. But his lawyer had probably been right. If they thought there was any chance Dain would be convicted and sentenced to twenty years or more, it was best to plead down and see what kind of deal he could get.
“And Elysse knew all of this? What you had done or been accused of? Why you pled out?”
“Yes, of course. Elysse knew the girl who accused me. Trust me, it was all just regrets. Telling her parents she hadn’t been with me voluntarily. She was still their good little girl.”
“She was friends with both of you? Did she know that you were with Elysse? That you guys had this… open arrangement?”
“Sure. She was Elysse’s friend. Elysse introduced us.”
Zachary decided he didn’t want to go any further into the details. He had the answers he had been looking for.
“Okay. So, if I talk to Elysse and happen to bring it up, she won’t be surprised or shocked. She knows all about what happened?”
“Why would you bring it up with her? Have you talked to her? She won’t answer when I call.”
“No, I haven’t talked to her yet, but I hope to. And I don’t want to hear from her that you were lying to me about this, too.”
There was silence from Dain at first. “Yeah, fine,” he said finally. “I told you, she knows it all. We were open with each other. Talked about everything.”
“And this never got out on Elysse’s social networks?”
“People post ugly stuff all the time. Any time there was any hint of anything, we would report it and get taken down. People knew that Elysse and I were committed to each other.”
“Just not that you were seeing others as well.”
“Yeah. That wasn’t any of their business. We wanted to keep the brand clean. Something like that can totally throw everything into chaos. We consulted with more than one expert who said to make sure it stayed out of the media if we wanted to keep our sponsorships.”
“Elysse’s sponsorships.”
“What?”
“Elysse’s sponsorships. Not yours.”
Dain grunted. “We were a unit. You don’t understand that. People liked the ship. It was all a part of the brand.”
“The ‘ship’?” Zachary repeated.
“The friendship. The relationship,” Dain said impatiently. “Elysse and Dain.”
The ship. Zachary scratched it down in his notepad. The next time he heard it, he wouldn’t have to ask.
“Look,” Dain said, his voice firm, trying to get control of the conversation. “This isn’t why I hired you. I don’t need you looking into our relationships. I already know all that stuff. And my conviction. Sheesh. Stay out of it. If I hear you’ve repeated that to anyone, I’ll sue you for slander.”
“You can’t sue someone for slander when they say something true. You can’t sue me for saying you have a conviction for sexual assault, because you do.”
“I don’t care. I’ll sue you anyway. You can’t go around repeating that kind of thing. You’ll wreck my reputation.”
“I don’t plan on repeating it to anyone. But you must understand that all this ties in to Elysse and what happened to her after your argument that day. You can’t separate it out like that. You can try, but the relationship between the two of you and between you and others may all relate to what happened. I have to look into it if you want me to find out what happened to Elysse.”
“Just stay out of it. Stick to tracking Elysse. Find out where she went and when. I want to know what happened. That little story she told the TV reporter was a big fat lie. I want to know what really happened.”
“I’ll do my best to figure it out,” Zachary agreed.
He didn’t say he would leave the relationships out of it. He’d already explained why it was relevant. As he moved forward with the investigation, he would continue to look at Dain, Mike, and anyone else involved with Elysse or Dain.
19
Wednesdays were therapy day. Either Zachary’s individual therapy or couple’s therapy, generally on alternating weeks.
Zachary saw Kenzie looking at her calendar and grimacing as she mentally planned her day over breakfast. She scratched her head.
“It is couple’s day,” Zachary reminded her, even though he was one hundred percent sure she remembered this and was already considering it. It was a compulsion he couldn’t restrain. She knew that Zachary worried about her missing therapy on couple’s day. And he knew that she tried to get there and would if it were possible and no emergencies came up. But he couldn’t help being anxious about it. It was one of those things that just threw his whole day off. His whole week.
As much as he tried to stay quiet about it and just be flexible, he couldn’t.
Kenzie sighed and nodded. “So… we’re supposed to have dinner with Mom and Dad in Burlington tonight, and I don’t think I can take off the afternoon for couple’s and then go to Burlington for dinner. I could skip therapy so that I have more time for my workload and then go out to Burlington after you’re done therapy, or I could take the afternoon off for couple’s therapy and then go back to work when we’re done to finish my work for the day.”
Zachary didn’t want her to have to go back to the office after therapy. Therapy was exhausting and left them emotionally raw. They liked to relax afterward with ice cream and something mindless. It wasn’t fair for Kenzie to have to go back to work afterward. And it wasn’t fair for her to have to cancel the planned dinner with her parents.
But the solution was easy. “I’ll just do individual therapy today, then. We can do couple’s next week.”
“Are you sure? I know you don’t like me missing.”
“You’re not missing it if we reschedule. That’s different.”
He couldn’t explain why one made him crazy and the other was a relief.
“Are you sure?” Kenzie checked. “I don’t like to bail on you.”
“You have work that needs to be done. Neither of us is in the middle of a crisis. It’s fine to put couple’s off for a week.”
“And how will you be after your session? You won’t want to go all the way out to Burlington, will you? I mean… you’ll be tired and want to spend the evening recovering. Dinners with my parents aren’t exactly… relaxing.”
Zachary shrugged. “It should be okay. I’ll chill during the drive.”
Highway driving was as good as meditation for Zachary. Better, because it was easy for him to stay focused on the road and nothing else. Meditation with nothing to focus on was impossible. Not without plenty of medication and possibly hypnosis.
“We shouldn’t have scheduled it for a Wednesday, but Mom said that was the only day she had, and I really want to see Dad and make sure he’s okay.”
“It will be okay. You finish the work you need to do and call me when you’re done. I’ll be back from therapy by that time, and I’ll just pick you up and we’ll head out. Unless you want to come home for a shower first. Maybe we should plan for that.”
“I shouldn’t have any autopsies this afternoon. I think I can get by without a shower, as long as I take some evening clothes with me.”
Her comment reminded Zachary that he would have to remember to shave and change into suitable clothes before picking Kenzie up. She would not be happy if he showed up looking like a homeless person.
“How fancy is this dinner? Do I need to wear a suit?”
“No, no suit or tie. Just…” Kenzie looked at Zachary and gestured toward his shabby work-from-home clothes. “Pants with a crease. Shirt with a collar. No sneakers.”
Zachary nodded his understanding. Her clear guidelines made it easier for him: No sweats, no jeans, no t-shirts or hoodies. Formal dress was not required, but he needed to be clean-shaven and neat.
“I’ll clean up and change before I go to therapy so I’m not rushed,” he promised. “But… if you could talk to me sometime in the afternoon just to remind me… I’ll set an alarm, but sometimes I just shut them off.”
Kenzie nodded her agreement. “Okay. I’ll try.”
As it turned out, Zachary managed not to ignore his alarms. He was shaved and neatly dressed when Kenzie called to remind him. He felt good going to his therapy session with Dr. Boyle.
“You look good today,” his therapist commented, looking him over. He didn’t usually dress up for therapy appointments and she had seen him at his worst, shepherding him through some very challenging times or encouraging him to get additional help when he needed it.
Her eyes lingered on his face, and Zachary’s cheeks heated slightly. She was, he knew, looking at the healing cuts on his face, revealed and, in some cases, irritated by the close shave. She knew about the package bomb. He had not tried to keep it from her.
“It’s healing,” Zachary said with a shrug, looking away from her to break the eye contact. “I’m fine.”
“You were lucky. How are you feeling about it?”
“Fine. I think it was probably worse for Kenzie than it was for me. She was the one who had to see me like that after the explosion. All bloody and panicked. It must have been really hard for her.”
“Have you talked to Kenzie about it?”
“Not much. She doesn’t like to discuss it.”
“You need to make sure that you keep those lines of communication open so that if she is looking for a way to talk about it, you recognize it.”
Zachary nodded. “Yeah, of course.”
She gave him a look that meant his “of course” was too glib. He hadn’t put any thought into what effort he needed to exert to ensure that Kenzie felt like she could talk to him about the bomb and how she had felt about it.
He ran his fingers through his short-cropped hair and thought back to it. How calm and reassuring Kenzie had been after the explosion. She had recognized immediately that he was stuck in a flashback to the fire that had taken his family home when he was ten. She had reassured him that everyone had gotten out and had made the firefighter treating him repeat her words, just as the firefighters who had rescued him from the fire that day had assured him that his family had all gotten out safely. Zachary hadn’t been able to get unstuck until he knew everyone had been saved from the inferno.
“I’ll let her know I’m open to talking about it whenever she wants to,” he assured Dr. B.
“Good. She might be afraid to bring it up, worrying it will trigger you.”
“Yeah. I’ll make sure.”
“It’s fine if she doesn’t want to talk about it, too. Sometimes, we need time and distance before we’re ready to deal with a traumatic event.”
Zachary nodded his agreement. “Yeah, I know.”
20
Dr. Boyle nodded. “And how are you dealing with it?”
“Fine. No trouble.”
“Really? None? You haven’t noticed any increase in symptoms? Anxiety? Compulsions? Rituals?”
He shifted in his seat. “Well… I mean, I get anxious; that’s natural after something like that.”
“After something like what?”
Zachary took a breath. He was using avoidant language. Not saying the words that might trigger an emotional reaction and prove him wrong. “After the explosion. The detonation of the package bomb.” He waited for his racing heart to slow back down before giving Dr. B a longer answer about the aftereffects that he was experiencing.
“I get nervous whenever I know a package is being delivered to the house. I got one of those electronic explosives sniffers online so that I can check out any package that I get before opening it. Even if it is something I am expecting. I just really need to know it’s not going to happen again. Which is silly because the culprit is behind bars. She can’t do it again, and it’s not very likely that someone else would do the same thing.”
“Most people don’t have to deal with a bomb once in their lives, let alone twice.”
She was referring, of course, to the fact that he had dealt with two bombs during the past year. Although the first one hadn’t even been wired properly. The chances of another criminal planting another bomb for Zachary to detonate during his lifetime were extremely low.
However, the chances of Zachary being attacked were considerably higher than the average person’s as long as he kept investigating violent criminals.
It was probably good that the Elysse Allan case was just a missing person case, and he already knew she had survived the ordeal, whatever it had been.
“It’s perfectly reasonable to be using an explosives sniffer after that,” he told Dr. B, who nodded.
“Certainly. I think it is a very reasonable response to being targeted and the injuries you sustained, which could have been much worse.”
“I don’t want Kenzie to get hurt either.”
“No. You’re very protective of your family.”
“We’re going to see Kenzie’s parents tonight.” Zachary knew it was tangential. They had been talking about his family, not Kenzie’s. But he worried about Kenzie and how she was managing the stresses in her life and the memories of her abduction just a year before. “She’s really worried about her dad.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I know why. Even though Walter has never admitted to being kidnapped before Kenzie was, she believes he was. He wouldn’t cooperate with the kidnappers when his life was in danger, but he changed his tune as soon as they kidnapped Kenzie.”
“So she worries about him and what else the kidnappers might do. They were never caught?”
“It’s not just one or two guys. It’s… an organization. There wasn’t enough evidence for any arrests. She knows the organization, but not who exactly ordered it or the individual players. And the police can’t bring the entire cartel down.”
“That must make it difficult for Kenzie to let it go and feel safe.”
“Yeah. She says that she’s okay. She’s moved on. But… I know she still really worries about her dad. And she’s still really triggered by things that remind her of the abduction, especially now, the same time of year.”
“That’s not surprising.”
“No.” Zachary hesitated, wondering if he had sounded like he was judging her or was implying that she was overreacting. “It makes sense to me. I wish she would talk about it more. But I know it can be really hard to talk about something so traumatic.”
“You have your own traumas that you’re not ready to talk about yet.”
He wanted to protest and say that he had dealt with all those things, as evidenced by his going to therapy appointments every week. Clearly, he was doing everything in his power to deal with his past traumas.
But there were things he still could not talk about. He had never talked about his own abduction and the torture he had endured at the hands of Archuro. And he didn’t know if he would ever be able to. He didn’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it and share it with another person. He didn’t want to hear the words spoken aloud, even by himself. He was still trying to bury what had happened to him.
