a special necklace. He had given it to Emma as a surprise and she still refused to love him and Mary told him it was time to send Emma away.
The first week, Judith Chen hadn't screamed or yelled; that came later. When he offered to buy her clothes, any clothes she wanted, she had said yes and thanked him. She had modelled the clothes for him, said how nice they were, and thanked him. He bought her the books she wanted, DVDs and magazines; he cooked her favourite meals and always she thanked him.
With her soft voice and disarming manner, Judith had seductively manoeuvred him into walks outside to get fresh air. He always took her out late at night, when the rest of the world was asleep. Blindfolded, she sat in the passenger seat and he drove her a mile away, to an isolated section of woods, and walked with her. She never complained about the gag or the handcuffs. When he returned Judith to her room, she thanked him, she always thanked him.
The night she tried to escape, they were out for one of their lovely walks. This time he hadn't gagged her but her wrists were cuffed. On the way back to the car, she asked if she could kiss him. She leaned forward, smiling, and drove her knee into his crotch.
The pain was like a white-hot supernova; it exploded across his vision and the next thing he knew he was down on the ground among the dry pine needles gasping for air. She kicked him in the stomach and kicked him in the head once, twice, three times. Then she was sitting on the ground and, like an acrobat, moving her cuffed wrists across the back of her legs and over her feet. She grabbed the car keys from his coat pocket and ran through the woods.
Bleeding and dizzy, he managed to get to his feet and run after her. Mary told him to relax – everything would be fine, she said, and Mary was right; she was always right.
Walter caught up to Judith just as she reached the car. He pulled her away from the door and Judith screamed and he shoved her face against the hood and she kept screaming and again he smashed her face against the hood and windshield until Mary told him to stop.
Judith didn't talk after that. Then she got sick and she… she had to leave.
Why wouldn't Hannah speak to him?
This morning, when he delivered breakfast, he had asked her if there was anything she would like: a book, movie, a CD by her favourite band – anything, just name it. Hannah didn't answer.
Walter came back an hour later and knocked on the door. She didn't answer. He collected the dishes from the sliding tray and carried them upstairs. He worked out extra hard and took a long shower.
He brought her lunch and knocked. When Hannah didn't answer, he let himself in. She was sitting in the leather chair again.
Unable to stand the silence any more, Walter decided to tell Hannah about the accident, how he had woken up in bed with his skin and hair on fire and Momma already collapsed on the burning bed. He stressed how he didn't blame Momma for hurting him. Momma was angry because Daddy had left them when Walter was still in her belly and Momma had to work two jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Momma talked about how angry she was at God for having him take away her dreams and sticking her with a bad child – and he had been bad, oh yes, he had done bad things to get Momma's attention. He didn't tell Hannah about the time he was caught choking the little girl. It was an accident. All he wanted was to hug her. She was so pretty and she smelled so good.
Walter told Hannah how he had learned, through patience and prayer, lots of prayer, to forgive Momma even after all the terrible things she did to him, like the time she dunked his hand in a pot of boiling water. He still loved her now, even though Momma was gone and in heaven.
And now it was time for Hannah to forgive him. It was time to move forward. It was time for Hannah to be thankful for all the wonderful blessings in her life.
As a show of good will, Walter gave her a present – a sheet of beautiful Crane stationery and a matching envelope. He handed her a pen and told her to write a letter to her parents. He promised to mail it. Again he said he was sorry for hurting her. It was an accident. Forgive me, Hannah. Please.
Hannah didn't answer.
Walter gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. He had opened up to Hannah, shared his most painful secrets, and she hadn't said one word, just sat in the damn chair, waiting for him to leave. Her silence mocked him. He felt like slapping her right then but he didn't. Walter was proud of his self-control. He washed the dishes and shut off the lights in the kitchen.
For the next two hours he worked on a client's website. Then he hit the weights until his muscles were depleted.
Walter felt lighter, much better. He sat down with the wedding album.
The first picture was a wonderful black-and-white photograph of Hannah dressed in a stunning Vera Wang wedding gown. Walter wore a classic black tux. They were holding hands. The people sitting in the pews were smiling, admiring them. Everyone was clapping.
Here was another picture of them on their honeymoon in Aruba. Hannah stood on a beach of white sand, wearing a breathtaking black bikini that barely covered her tanned body. Her hair was wet, smelling of the ocean, and she was smiling and happy as she looked down on him, her husband, lying on a towel under the bright, hot sun, his skin perfectly tanned and sculpted with muscle, not a blemish or scar anywhere.
Walter was very good with computers. Using Photoshop, he had transferred the digital pictures he had taken of Hannah walking to her job and class and pasted her face on the various photographs he had found on the internet. The results were spectacular.
His favourite picture was the last one – Hannah holding their newborn son.
65
For the next three days, Darby searched through Hannah Givens' cramped bedroom cluttered with notebooks and textbooks piled on a thrift-store desk. She hunted through Hannah's receipts, pictures and scraps of paper jumbled with notes and 'to-do' lists. She examined Hannah's Day Runner and interviewed Hannah's two roommates, friends, classmates and professors, and her parents, who had flown into Boston and were staying in Hannah's apartment.
Three long days and this was all Darby knew: Hannah Givens was last seen leaving her shift at Downtown Crossing's Kingston Deli on the day of the snowstorm. The bus driver for that route confirmed Hannah Givens never got on the bus. A canvas of local businesses owners, as well as the extensive media coverage, had failed to bring forth any witnesses.
Given the amount of media attention, the taped pleas from the parents and the toll-free number set up by Commissioner Chadzynski playing in heavy rotation on all the news cycles, some people believed Hannah's abductor might let her go. Boston PD had traps on all the phone lines. As of this morning, they had logged thirty- eight calls, all cranks.
CNN's Nancy Grace, ringleader for the freak media circus, had stirred up the trash journalists, and they had adopted the college girl's plight with a fevered, Anna Nicole-like intensity. Hannah's high-school graduation picture screamed from the supermarket tabloids, her story the lead item on shows like Inside Edition. Darby wondered if the national exposure would scare Hannah's abductor, prompt him to panic and kill her.
The twenty-six-year-old mystery of what had happened to Jennifer Sanders was, at the moment, only regulated to the New England news outlets. Tina Sanders refused to speak to the police. Her lawyer, Marshall Grant, an ambulance-chaser with a bad toupee who ran successful TV commercials during daytime soap operas promoting his firm's extensive legal services, had swooped in and somehow convinced Sanders to allow him to take up her case.
Grant had no problem speaking to the press. The exposure landed him an interview with Larry King.
'The police have officially identified a set of remains belonging to Jennifer Sanders but refuse to tell us where she was found for reasons we don't understand,' Grant said. 'We do, however, have reason to believe Jennifer's murder might be connected to a man named Samuel Dingle, who was the prime suspect in the strangulations of two Saugus women in 1982. Unfortunately, Larry, one of the few people who can provide us with clues, Detective
