Medical Kidnap Files 1-6, page 42
Gabriel forced himself to straighten up and leave the master bedroom. There was no time to search the rest of the house. He had the information he needed. He had to get out of there before Katt and Heather returned. His legs were tired, but he made himself put his shoes back on and leave the house. He heard the garage door just as he stepped out onto the back step. He darted to the side, finding new energy reserves. He secreted himself as he had before, behind a bush where he could see them, but hopefully, they wouldn’t see him. Katt led the way to the house. When she reached the door, she turned the handle and let herself in.
Heather frowned. “Did we leave that unlocked?”
Katt looked back, her hand on the door.
“Um… I guess. I don’t remember locking it.”
“I don’t either. But I never leave it unlocked; it’s just something I do automatically.”
Katt shrugged. “I guess you forgot. Maybe you got distracted by Alex.”
“Maybe,” Heather said doubtfully. She looked around the yard.
Gabriel froze where he was. If he moved, she might see him. As long as he was still, he didn’t think that she could see him through the leaves of the bush. But Heather didn’t just glance around quickly. She took a slow and careful look around.
Alex started to fuss and wave her arms around. Heather’s attention was distracted, and she looked down.
“What’s up with you, Miss Fuss-budget?” she asked in a high, silly voice.
Alex gurgled and waved some more.
“She’s probably getting hungry,” Katt suggested. “You said she didn’t eat much at breakfast.”
“That’s true.” Heather walked the rest of the way up the walk and into the house, not worrying any further about the door having been left unlocked.
Gabriel waited a long time before leaving the yard. He didn’t want to walk across the kitchen windows. If Heather were going to feed Alex, then she or Katt might sit where they could see him. He sat down on the ground, where it was cold, but he’d gotten accustomed over the past year to sitting on the ground no matter how uncomfortable it was. He might as well take the opportunity to rest and get his energy back. His heart slowed, and Gabriel closed his eyes and rested.
He didn’t know how much time had passed. When he next became aware, the sun was high in the sky, and sunlight was shining down on him from above instead of filtering through the bushes. Gabriel stretched and rose to his feet. He rubbed his sore joints and sneaked as quietly as he could up to the kitchen windows. He stood with his head right beside them, out of view, and listened. He couldn’t hear any voices. He waited, concentrating hard. If there was one thing he had learned in the time since leaving the Foegels, it was not to hurry. Don’t rush things. Wait for it.
There were no sounds from the kitchen. Gabriel peeked in through the window. There was no one at the table. No one at the sink. He ducked down and slipped past the windows as unobtrusively as he could manage. Five more minutes, and he was away from the house, waiting at the bus stop that he and Renata had used when they had left the Foegels’ house a year ago.
Gabriel was at a payphone the next time he called Renata. There weren’t a lot of pay phones around, but every now and then he came across one. It was always a surprise when they worked. Gabriel leaned against the wall, holding it to his ear. The cord wasn’t long enough for him to sit down with it, so he would have to keep the call short.
It took longer than usual for the nurses to answer it.
“Hi. Renata, please.”
He tried to use a different greeting each time he called. Never asking her for the same way twice in a row. Using a different tone of voice or accent.
It was silly. He knew that he wasn’t fooling anyone. They knew exactly who it was every time.
“Renata’s not available,” the nurse said in a smug tone.
Gabriel considered. “Is she okay? She’s not hurt or sick, is she?”
“This is a hospital, what do you think?”
“No, I just mean… is she worse? Did she have a… problem? Or is she just off at therapy?”
“Her phone privileges have been revoked.”
“Oh. For how long?”
“Until we decide that she can handle the privilege. She will have to choose to be cooperative if she wants to talk to anyone.”
Whatever Renata had done, she’d ticked off at least one nurse. That wasn’t unusual. Renata had a way of getting under people’s skin.
“So… next week?” Gabriel suggested.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” the woman said nastily.
“You can’t keep her from the phone for longer than that,” Gabriel said. “She’ll be screaming human rights violations.”
“She can scream all she likes; she won’t be getting the phone.”
Gabriel hated the way that they tried to control Renata. He remembered how they had bullied him in the hospital, especially in the psych unit. If they didn’t get the behavior they wanted, they would find a way to get it. And pushing around frail, isolated teenagers was easy.
He hung up the phone without any further discussion or saying goodbye. He dialed up Wilkes, Renata’s lawyer instead. The man was court appointed, but he was pretty good about taking action when Renata needed something. Gabriel had his direct line so he didn’t have to go through a secretary or gatekeeper to talk to him. He didn’t bother introducing himself. An officer of the court, Wilkes would be required to report any contact with a fugitive who wasn’t his client. Wilkes couldn’t help but know who Gabriel was, but if neither of them ever confirmed it, the man still had plausible deniability.
“Renata needs you,” Gabriel told him.
“Renata? What’s wrong?”
“They’re denying her phone privileges. The nurse said they’re going to hold them back for weeks, until she behaves. They can’t do that.”
“No,” Wilkes agreed. “She has to have some way of communicating with the outside world. I’ll take a run over there later today and have a talk with them.”
“Maybe get her social worker involved too. She’s Renata’s guardian; she’s supposed to be making sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Any message you want me to pass on to Renata?”
Gabriel hummed while he thought about it. “Ummm… yeah. If you can tell her that I have confirmation of the diagnosis. Uh… I still need to do more research before taking action.”
“Hang on, let me write that down.” There was silence from the lawyer for a minute. “Okay. I’ll let her know. Keep out of trouble.”
Gabriel laughed and hung up.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The information in Heather’s files had included printed out emails from foster parents who were in Katt’s home neighborhood who vouched for the fact that Katt and her mother were known, and they didn’t think that there was any abuse. Gabriel had written down all the clues to where Katt had lived. Street and school names gave him a starting point. He looked like he fit in at the school, even if no one knew him there, and with a few casual conversations, he managed to elicit Katt’s last name and the street she lived on. He rang doorbells along the street until a woman answered one door. Gabriel put on a bewildered expression.
“I was looking for Katt,” he said, looking past the woman as if Katt might be hiding behind her, “isn’t this her address?”
“Your cat?” the woman said blankly.
“No—no, Katt Lindholm. Did I write down the wrong house number? I thought it said—” he took a quick look at her house number, “sixty-five.”
“No, there’s no Katt here.”
Gabriel wasn’t sure whether she was still saying cat, or if she had understood him.
“And you don’t know where she lives? A slim, blonde girl and her mom…?”
The woman frowned for a moment, then pointed to a house across the street. “That pink one, I think. With the fence.”
“Oh, great. Thanks so much!”
She closed her door, and Gabriel crossed the street but didn’t go directly to the house that he’d been directed too. He rang the bell of one of the neighbors’ houses and got an answer the first time. The woman who answered was younger than the first. She smiled at Gabriel and looked curious. Maybe she thought he was selling something, but she seemed friendly enough.
“Is this Katt Lindholm’s house?” Gabriel asked.
“Oh, no. You’re a couple of houses off. It’s that one there. The pink one.”
“Oh, okay!” He smiled at her. “Do you know them? I heard Katt was hurt again…”
She picked at a nail, not looking at him. “I don’t know anything. They haven’t been around for a while. But I saw her mother back a few days ago.”
“It seems like she gets hurt a lot,” Gabriel suggested. “You don’t think… her mom hurts her, do you?”
“No, no.” She frowned and shook her head adamantly. “Her mom is very nice. We talk all the time. It’s just that Katt is a little… well… awkward. She hurts herself.”
“On purpose?”
“No! She doesn’t cut herself or anything like that. She just… well, she falls down a lot, for one thing. I’ve seen it happen myself. She’ll be walking along the street on the way home from school, her backpack on, and then she just goes down in the middle of the street.” She shook her head again. “Awkward. Just… really… awkward.”
“Oh.” Gabriel tried to show relief at her words. “So you don’t think she’s abused. She’s always got bruises, and her scars…”
“No. If you know her, you must have seen how she runs into things, falls down. I’m not just repeating things they’ve said. I’ve seen it myself.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said. “I was just worried. I wouldn’t want my friend to be hurt… you can’t turn a blind eye, right?”
She smiled approvingly. “You’re a good boy,” she said, touching him briefly on the arm. “You’re looking out for your friend. You don’t need to worry. Really. Ask her yourself.”
“Yeah. I will. Thanks for your help!”
She nodded, and Gabriel walked away, back down to the city sidewalk. She kept watching him. Gabriel wasn’t quite ready to talk to the mother, but the neighbor kept watching, so he was forced to go to Katt’s house and ring the doorbell. It would look pretty suspicious if he asked for Katt’s house and then went somewhere else.
He hoped there would be no answer, but it was only a minute before the door opened. The woman looked similar to Katt. He hadn’t gotten a really close look at the girl, but her mother had the same general body shape and hair, though hers was darker. She looked tired, but she summoned up an inquiring smile.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you Katt’s mom?”
“Yes. But she’s not here.”
“Could I come in?”
She looked like she would say no. But after a pause of several seconds, she nodded. “Yes, of course. Come in.”
She opened the door farther and motioned him into the house. Gabriel stepped in and looked around, trying to compose his approach in his mind. Karina Lindholm sat down and looked at Gabriel.
“So… are you a friend of Katt’s?”
“Sort of,” Gabriel said. He tried to find the right words, looking away from her and pretending to study the pictures on the side table. “I’m here to find out if I can help you and Katt.”
“Help us… how?”
Gabriel looked back toward her. He noticed that she had a brace on her wrist. It was a genetic condition, he remembered, so Katt’s mother or father had EDS as well. There was no hint in the room that her father was in the picture. He literally wasn’t in any of the pictures on display.
“Have you ever heard of medical kidnap?”
She shook her head. “I hadn’t… until the last few days.”
Gabriel wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“Katt and I don’t need any help,” Karina said. “I was released. They dropped the charges and released me.”
“Did they say they’re going to reunite the two of you?”
Karina looked at Gabriel, pursing her lips and looking at him with narrowed eyes.
“No, but they have to. Now that they know I didn’t hurt her, they will bring her back.”
“They won’t.”
“Of course they will.”
“Did they tell you that?”
“They will.”
“They won’t,” Gabriel told her. “EDS kids taken into care take at least a year and a half to get returned to their families, if they ever are. And right now, Social Services says they’re just going to let her age out in foster care. They don’t plan to return her to you at all.”
“How do you know that?”
Gabriel shrugged. “I heard it through the foster family.”
“Who are you? How would you know any of this?” Karina shook her head. “Who are you?” she repeated.
Gabriel didn’t answer her directly. “There is an underground organization that helps get kids reunited with their parents. Outside… outside Social Services.”
“What do you mean? How can you do something like that outside Social Services?”
Gabriel shrugged. “It’s underground. If you want us to help get Katt to you, you would need to be willing to take on a new name and identity. You wouldn’t be able to stay here; you’d need to move out of state. Somewhere they couldn’t find you.”
“I can’t do that,” Karina said blankly. “How could I do that?”
“We would help you. But you would have to understand that what you were doing was… outside the law.”
“Illegal?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I could do that.”
Gabriel stood up. “That’s fine. It’s your decision. You’ll need time to think it through and decide if that’s what you really want. But you have to understand… they’re not going to send her back. Just because they’ve dropped the charges against you, that doesn’t mean that they believe you. And even if they do believe you and don’t think that you hurt Katt… there’s still more money in it for them if Katt stays in foster care. They’d rather not take the risk.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Talk to the social worker. See if she tells you she will return Katt. And if you think she’s telling the truth.”
Karina shook her head and walked Gabriel back to the door. She didn’t offer to shake his hand; she just showed him out of the house.
“If you decide that you do want to go through with it,” Gabriel said, “you’ll need a way to get into contact with us.” He handed her a small white paper. “Send a postcard to that address. Say you wish you could see the ocean again.”
“What?”
“If you want us to try to reunite you with Katt. Send a postcard to that address and say that you wish you could see the ocean again. It will have to be in the next month or so. We don’t keep the same address for long.” He gave her a long, measuring look. “Do you understand?”
Karina nodded mutely. Gabriel walked out, and she shut the door behind him.
Wilkes showed his business card at the security desk and was also required to show his driver’s license and his bar membership card before they would agree to allow him into secure psych to see Renata. But they knew they couldn’t keep a lawyer away from his client, so after running him through the metal detector, they finally let him in.
He knew the way to Renata’s room and didn’t need to be escorted, so he ignored the guard that walked a couple of steps behind him. He stepped into Renata’s room and his blood pressure immediately went up a few notches.
“Why is she restrained?” he demanded.
The guard stopped in the doorway and looked reluctant to engage. “I don’t have anything to do with that,” he objected.
“You’re a security guard here, and you don’t know why she’s in restraints?”
“I wasn’t the one who put her into restraints. I don’t know what has been going on.”
“Renata?” Wilkes shook Renata’s arm gently. “Renata, are you okay?”
Her eyes opened a crack so that he could see the glistening of her eyes, but she didn’t wake enough to talk to him. Wilkes prodded her harder.
“How long has she been tied up? And what’s she doped up on?”
The guard held his hands up defensively. “Not my department,” he insisted. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Wilkes pressed the call button for a nurse, but he didn’t wait to see how long it would take one to appear. He walked back out of the room to the nursing station.
“What’s going on with Renata? Why is she restrained?”
The nurse that faced him, Piper according to her name tag, gave him a smile that was all bared teeth.
“Who are you? Renata isn’t allowed any visitors right now.”
“I’m her lawyer. You have to allow me to see her. Why is she in restraints?”
“She has been acting up. Violent. She attacked me. So she’s in restraints for her own safety and the safety of those around her.”
“Ridiculous. I demand that she be released now. And what have you drugged her up with?”
“She’s not on any drugs.” The woman shook her head. “No new meds. She’s just tired herself out fighting. She’ll be fine once she relaxes and just accepts the situation. If she’ll behave herself and quit fighting back, everything will be fine.”
“How long have you had her in restraints?”
She measured him with her eyes, trying to predict his reaction. “Two days.”
“Two days,” Wilkes repeated. “You can’t keep her tied up twenty-four hours a day. You can’t keep her in restraints continually for two days.”
“She’s had breaks.”
“She’s been up and walking around?”
“Not walking around, no. But she’s been out of the restraints for a while.”
“You think that’s reasonable? You want me calling judges to order you to discontinue restraints?”
