She gave a harsh laugh that made him wince. “I still don’t know what day it is. I don’t know anything,” she said. “I woke up in that rattletrap of a decommissioned riverboat cruiser that you were talking about, but I didn’t feel like myself. My head was heavy. My tongue was dry. My throat was parched. I didn’t feel like I had my wits about me. So I presume I was drugged. Whether that was initially or afterward, I can’t tell you. For all I know, they gave us several shots and kept us out for three days or something. There was food and water, once we were awake. My mother was not in very good shape at all, and my father was worse, or at least it seemed like he was. I don’t know.”
“Did you recognize any of the kidnappers?”
“Well, if you found my journal, you know I put one face down because it was so memorable,” she said. “I had been sitting up on deck, sketching, when they arrived. His face really caught my attention because of the harsh lines to it. Just something was ominous about the man, about the whole thing. My parents didn’t seem to feel the same way, but I did, so I quickly did that sketch. I know it wasn’t very good, and it certainly wasn’t likely identifiable,” she said, “but it’s what I could do in the moment.”
“No, it was very identifiable,” Baylor said, “and gave us a place to start. So it’s all good.”
She smiled. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “I had it in my hand when I dashed to go below but to no avail. I ended up losing it, along with everything else.”
“But that’s also okay,” he said, “because that’s how I found it.”
She nodded. “And that was all I could really do,” she said. “We were on the riverboat for probably two days, or a day and a half maybe,” she said. “I would surface, and then I’d go under. Then I’d surface and then go under again.”
“But they fed you, and you had lots of water?” he asked.
“Yes. We were held in that end of a room, where you found us. Nothing was there, so I presume it was like a cargo hold area. They had erected plywood at half height, so they could stare at us from the other side. We had nothing, no mattress or blankets. Nothing. We would be taken one at a time to the washroom.”
“Did they touch you?”
She winced. “No,” she said, “but I overheard an argument between two of them about that. One saying something about they weren’t allowed to touch the merchandise, but the other guy was being an ass about it. He didn’t like that at all,” she said finally. “He was really angry because he wanted access to me and didn’t seem to think it would matter.”
Baylor kept asking for details, with question upon question, backtracking to go over the same answers again and again.
“I feel like you’re interrogating me,” she finally cried out in frustration.
“No,” he said gently. “But, when we’re tired, we remember things differently.”
“So you’re trying to get me tired?” she snapped.
He chuckled. “Nope,” he said. Then he got up and poured them coffee and gave her a cup.
She wrapped her hands around it gratefully. “I know you’re not trying to be mean,” she said, “but I am tired, and I feel like half of what I saw wasn’t real and like half of what I saw I couldn’t even believe. I didn’t have any way of knowing what was the drugs and what wasn’t,” she said. “It’s so frustrating to think a whole chunk of time is missing from my life.”
“True enough,” he said, “but thankfully it’s been a relatively minor duration.”
“To you, yes,” she said quietly. “Not to me.”
“I know,” he said, “and I do understand.”
“And I still don’t quite believe what happened yet,” she whispered. Then she shook her head. “I’m more tired than I thought.”
“You just need to wind down a little bit,” he said. “Then you should crash easily.”
“I hope so,” she said, with a smile. “And I hope we’re not here very long. This definitely feels like a place where I don’t belong.”
“Nope, you don’t,” he said, “but we’re doing what we can to get you home.”
“I don’t want to go without my parents though,” she said.
“That could change the plan then,” he said. “It depends on when your father will be well enough to travel.”
“And my mother?” she whispered.
“So, what is the update on your mother’s health?”
She shrugged. “According to her, she completed the chemo, and everything was looking good.”
“And yet …” He paused.
She looked up at him, then nodded and said, “I know. And yet.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I’m not sure I do,” she whispered. “Inviting me on this trip seemed like such an off-the-cuff request. But she seemed a little desperate, and I didn’t know if she was trying to avoid my father or what. They had been reconciled for a while, but, for all I know, he’s had another ‘relapse’ or something,” she said, making an air quote gesture and sounding bitter.
“Was he always a wandering man?”
“Well, you don’t want to think such a thing about your father,” she said, “but, when you find out that he’s been wandering, you don’t know how long it’s been going on, and now you can no longer believe the truth from the lies.”
“Of course,” he said. “How much was it an issue in their life?”
“It was big,” she said, “the biggest. My mother wasn’t the type to just sit there and take that kind of betrayal.”
“So a divorce was in the offing?”
“Absolutely,” she said, “and then she got the breast cancer diagnosis. She hadn’t been feeling well for the longest time, but she had chalked it up to her marital problems. But they persisted, got worse, never went away. She didn’t
