She Once Vanished, page 25
Zachary pictured Elysse turning back toward the man, reaching toward him to take the proffered photograph from his hand, an automatic reaction. And instead of pulling out a picture, he had pulled out a Taser.
“He didn’t warn me or tell me to get in the car or to do anything. He just pulled the trigger, and there was this… pain, and I was on the ground wondering what was going on. I didn’t know what had happened. Couldn’t figure it out at first; my mind was so muddled. And he just kept doing it. If I tried to get up, or crawl away, or open my mouth to scream, it didn’t matter what I did. He just hit me with another shock.”
Zachary had faced his own psychopath wielding an electrical behavioral modification device. The pain had been excruciating. It had been much stronger than the Tasers sold as personal defense devices or what the police used to subdue suspects. They had been worried that it had done permanent damage, but he had eventually come through it relatively unscathed, the physical damage healing over time.
“It’s a power thing,” he said. “Some people like causing pain.”
“I think I know that,” Elysse told him sharply.
Zachary grimaced. “Yeah, sorry. I’ll just listen.”
“Actually… it helps me to have someone who reacts. I’ve told myself so many times that none of it mattered. Looked at myself in the mirror and told myself that no one would care. I kind of like… someone caring what happened.”
Zachary smiled. He had experience dealing with abrasive people, especially his oldest sister, Jocelyn. She tended to be sharp with him, but she was still his sister, and he loved her. And he knew that, despite her often-angry attitude toward him, she really did love him, so he put up with it.
He didn’t mind putting up with a few sharp comments from Elysse as long as he knew he wasn’t actually aggravating her.
“Did he say anything to you?” Zachary asked. “Anything to indicate what he wanted from you or why he was doing this? Was it just because he was obsessed, or was there something else going on?”
Elysse shook her head. “That first day… I hardly knew what was going on. He kept zapping me any time I tried to ask questions. He just shoved me into the car while I was still wonky and he got in to drive. But he had needles, and he injected me with something. I was so doped up. I didn’t know where he was taking me or why. It was all just… like going down a tunnel. Everything dark, and moving forward, and nothing to hang on to or look at. Like a nightmare.”
“Do you know what he gave you?” Kenzie asked, leaning forward with interest.
“I don’t know. Roofies, maybe. Between the Taser and whatever he injected me with, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. That’s when he took me across the border.”
“How did he get you across the border in that shape? Didn’t the border guards notice there was something wrong?” Kenzie queried.
“He just… told me what to do and I did it. Maybe it was the drugs. He said to smile and tell them we were going on vacation. And if the guard acted worried about me, just say I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to get to the hotel to lie down.”
“And that worked?” Zachary asked. “There wasn’t any trouble?”
“No. They were all nice and said they hoped I would feel better soon. It’s not easy being sick while you’re away from home. He said it was probably just a twenty-four-hour bug, and I’d be fine the next day and could enjoy my holiday.”
“Did you know your kidnapper’s name then? Or do you know it now?”
She shook her head. “You can’t do anything about him. You can’t touch him. No matter what we do, he will get away with it. I just know it.”
She had been conditioned right from the start not to ask questions, but to believe what he told her absolutely. He’d had power over her every movement and she believed there was nothing she could do but obey his instructions. If she didn’t, bad things would happen to her.
Elysse looked around the restaurant again. “I have to get back. You have to help me get back so he doesn’t know I was gone.”
“We will,” Zachary assured her. “But we need to hear the rest of the story.”
“What else is there to tell?” Elysse protested, agitated. “He took me from one place to another. He threatened me. He made sure I would do exactly what he said, or he’d go after my family, too. You think I wanted Celine going through the same thing? My mom or auntie?”
“No. You wanted to protect them. Do you know why he took you to Canada in the beginning? It doesn’t make any sense, other than to take you in an unexpected direction. But why cross an international border and risk people seeing you and realizing something was wrong? Did he have a friend there? Someone who met him? Someone who was supposed to help him out?”
“No. It was just him.” She thought about it. “He left a few times, but I didn’t think he was far away. I was worried that if I tried to escape, he would be right there, outside the door, with the Taser.” Her voice broke. “I couldn’t deal with the Taser anymore.”
“Of course not,” Kenzie said encouragingly. “You were conditioned. You were afraid.”
Elysse ran her hand over her face. “He said if I left, if I talked to the cops, I would be arrested. I’d crossed the border, lied to the border guards, and he’d had other stamps added to my passport, saying that I’d been in the Middle East. He was going to make it look like I was a terrorist. That’s what they do, you know, they go to Canada, come into the US from there so that there’s no flight from Iraq or Afghanistan or whatever.”
“But you are an American citizen.”
“It doesn’t matter. Americans can still be terrorists. They go overseas to train, then they come back, and… they’re moles until they’re ready to attack a target. That’s the way it works.” Her voice rose, challenging Zachary to argue with her about it. “Do you know how my fans would react if they thought I was a terrorist?”
Zachary kept his mouth shut. What did he know about International travel and how terrorist cells worked? From what Elysse was saying, it was lucky that the man hadn’t radicalized Elysse and turned her into a Patty Hearst, ready to commit a bank heist or some other crime for him. She was terrified of him and, for six months, she had sat at home, unable to break free, to do anything against his will. Whether he had been there or not, whether he had actually had her under surveillance or not, she was entirely under his control.
To the point that she wanted to go back home and take her place there again before he could discover that she had escaped.
56
“How did you get from Sudbury to Salt Lake?”
Elysse looked surprised at Zachary’s question. She rubbed her temple, shaking her head slightly. If she’d been in a fog from roofies and repeated tasings, maybe she didn’t even remember.
“We drove again. But not the same way, not back to Vermont. It was a different border crossing. Into Michigan, I think?”
Zachary had studied the maps of the area and different travel routes. “Sault Ste. Marie?” he asked, pronouncing it how it was spelled. Salt Stee Marie.
Elysse gave a little nod, but she was laughing. “That’s not the way they say it. They pronounce it Soo Saint Marie.”
Zachary shook his head. “Soo Saint Marie? Why would they say it that way?”
“French, I think.”
“Okay. So that’s the border crossing you used?”
“Yeah. And then we caught a plane in Traverse City and flew to Salt Lake City.”
“Why did he want to go to Salt Lake?”
“I don’t know… I thought it was probably just because it is a hub. Maybe there weren’t any flights from Traverse City to Portland… or Phoenix… I didn’t really know where we were going or why. When we went west, I just thought we were going back to Oregon. He kept telling me that he was going to take me home. But then he took me to these other places, and I had no idea why.” Elysse pushed food around on her plate. She took a sip of her coffee and looked around. “We should go soon,” she worried.
“We will. I’m thinking about how to get you back without anyone realizing. The more you can tell me about what happened and what you know about him, the better. Do you know his name?”
“You can’t find him, he’s a ghost.”
“Is that what he told you?”
She nodded. “Yeah. He said no one could identify him; they would never be able to track me back to him.”
“Your passports were used together twice.”
She shook her head. “He said no one would be able to connect us. That he was a ghost. If they tried to grasp him, he would just slip between their fingers like smoke.”
“So Salt Lake was just a stopover?” Kenzie asked. “You were just there to kill time?” She was frowning.
“I guess so. I don’t really know. We had to get some supplies. Changes of clothing, toiletries, stuff like that.”
“You were seen at the mall.”
“Yeah. A few people recognized me there. I was trying to stay low profile, but I couldn’t stop them from seeing me. I wasn’t exactly in disguise.”
“But you didn’t ask anyone for help?” Kenzie asked.
“No! I just did what he said to do. I couldn’t tell anyone that I needed help or that there was anyone with me. He told me what to say, what to do, so I did.”
“You did what you had to do to survive,” Zachary soothed. “That’s all you could do.”
Elysse nodded vigorously.
“And then, Salt Lake City to Phoenix and the Grand Canyon.”
“Yes.” She knew what he was going to ask and shook her head. “I didn’t know why we were going there. I think… it was just a test. Seeing if I would do everything I was told to, whether I understood why or not.”
“What did he tell you to do? You went on a tour together?”
“Just self-guided tours. We were there for more than a day. It’s hard for me to remember… the timeline is all screwed up. I can’t remember when I was there. I wasn’t sleeping very well. It’s all… distorted like a nightmare.”
“Was he still drugging you?”
“No. He said he wouldn’t if I did everything I was told. And I tried to do everything he said, exactly the way he said to do it. When the fans recognized me in the Grand Canyon, I told them no, they were mistaken. But they knew, and they called the police, and they questioned me, and someone called the media, and I had to do a press appearance to quiet everything down. He told me what to do and say. He said it would all settle down if I just did the one interview and told people it had just been my own idea, that I was just… taking a break from everything.”
She swirled the ice that remained in her glass of orange juice. “That reporter who did the interview… she did not like me. After the interview, she said how irresponsible she thought I was. That I had caused this huge manhunt, costing thousands of dollars, all the people putting their time and energy into it. And all the time, I was just on a little vacation. I couldn’t tell her any differently. That was the story he said to stick with.”
“And after the Grand Canyon, you came back here.”
“Yeah. Finally home.” She sighed. “I thought I could relax, go back to my old life.”
“But he had other ideas.”
“I guess it could be worse,” Elysse said. “I mean… I was trapped there, his prisoner. He could have done anything. But he didn’t. Just told me what to do and reminded me that he could do to my family what he had done to me. That we could all be his prisoners. His robots. Under his control.”
“And what did he want you to do?”
Elysse chewed on her lip. “Are we leaving? We need to get out of here. What if someone sees me? I need to get back to the house before he knows I’m gone.”
“We will. What did he want you to do? You transferred the title to your house. Was he the beneficiary of that?”
“No. It’s my own company. One I had set up before to handle certain financial transactions. He said that if I transferred the house out of my name, people wouldn’t show up on the doorstep looking for me. It would keep the reporters and stalkers away.”
“And what else did he want you to do?”
“It was more… what he didn’t want me to do.”
Zachary met her eyes. “Not posting to social media.”
She looked surprised at this, but nodded. “Yeah. Nothing at all.”
“And you weren’t allowed to talk to your family?”
“I couldn’t… explain to anyone what was going on. I couldn’t tell anyone what was up. I couldn’t have anyone in. He didn’t want me talking to anyone but him.”
“That’s why you have the new phone. So he can stay in communication with you.”
“Yes. But not anyone else. He killed the phone I had.”
Zachary mused on her use of the word “killed.” Not that he had broken her phone, or ditched it or thrown it out, but had killed it. She mourned its loss. That phone had been her lifeline, her livelihood, her means of staying in contact with her friends and livelihood. By destroying that phone, he had effectively killed her old life. She had lost everything it represented.
The new burner flip phone probably didn’t even have email on it. No access to her old social media or contact list.
But she had somehow still kept a connection open with Celine. Celine had somehow been able to warn Elysse that Zachary would be coming. Maybe she had a second burner. One that her sister had given to her on one of their brief doorstep conversations. Hidden from the man and the rest of the world, only used covertly when no one was around and she knew she could not be overheard. Maybe in the bathroom with the water running to defeat any bugging devices in the house.
“We need to get out of here,” Elysse insisted again. She stood up, looked around for the waitress, and approached the closest one, not the one who had served them. “Please, we need to pay our bill. I have to get out of here.”
“Be right with you, honey.”
They waited. Elysse picked up her knife, studying the edge, and eventually put it down in the middle of her plate.
“You know what to do?” she demanded. “Have you figured out how to get me back inside without anyone seeing? You can’t do it in another refrigerator box!”
“I know,” Zachary assured her. “I’m working something out. But we’re going to get you out of there. I’m going to figure out how to help you. So… hang in there. Don’t give up hope.”
“You don’t know what he’s like. You can’t outmaneuver him. He’ll just… hurt someone else you love. I can’t let him do that to my family.”
“You can’t continue to live like this.”
“I can,” Elysse insisted. “It’s better than the alternative.”
The older waitress came over and fiddled with the point-of-sale machine for a few minutes before finally offering it to Zachary. He paid the bill and motioned for Elysse and Kenzie to accompany him.
57
Zachary had gotten a good look around when he had picked Elysse up from her house. He had been walking in blind and had tried to construct a scenario that would succeed even if Elysse was in a busy neighborhood or under direct surveillance. But there had been no sign that anyone was sitting in a car watching her, in the house, or in a neighboring house.
There had been no obvious reaction when he had taken Elysse. If the man did not know that she had been removed from the house, he would not be watching for her to come back. He would assume that everything was as he had left it. If he were monitoring a street cam nearby, he would only know that Elysse had gotten a delivery. If there were bugs in the house then, hopefully, her abductor did not monitor them constantly or have a program set up to alert him if things got too quiet because Elysse had left the house.
Zachary felt a lot more conspicuous in the big red truck than when he went out in his anonymous compact car, but it would have to do. Elysse was too anxious to get back and would not want to wait while they tried another car rental place to see if they could get a less noticeable vehicle.
Zachary drilled Elysse on the locations of and approaches to the other entrances to the house, of which there were two.
Once they were within a few blocks of the house, Zachary pulled over, and he and Elysse got out of the car. He checked his watch. “Ten minutes?” he checked with Kenzie.
She looked at the time on hers and nodded. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she agreed.
Elysse led Zachary through the streets toward her house until they reached the back alley right behind it. Zachary looked up and down the alley, using one hand to motion Elysse to be quiet and still while he made sure that they would not be observed.
She was fidgeting like a junkie hurting for a fix. They were so close to getting back into the house that she could barely stand waiting.
“We do this right,” Zachary whispered to her. “What would be the point of going through all of this just to be seen coming back?”
She bounced on her heels. “I could have come out to the alley to take out the garbage. It doesn’t matter if he sees me go back in from here.”
“Do you want this to be clean or not?”
She did, of course. So she clenched her teeth and waited for him to give her the “all clear.” Zachary eventually decided that the alley was safe. There was no surveillance, no neighbors watching from their back porches, and no obvious cameras pointed at Elysse’s house.
“Come then,” he murmured to her. “Just into the yard. We wait before going into the house. You let me make sure that it is safe, and we wait for Kenzie to do her part. Understood?”
Elysse nodded. She was pale, but at least entering the yard was helping to settle her down. She was on her own property. If the man were looking for her, she was where she was supposed to be.
Zachary traversed the yard, looked around, and approached the house. There was no back door surveillance camera. Elysse had said there were no outdoor cameras that she was aware of, but a camera might have been mounted without her knowledge. That was part of what Zachary did. He knew how easy it was to mount a button-sized camera where no one would see it unless they were looking directly at it. And maybe not even then. But he couldn’t see any spy cameras where he would have put them.
