Chapter 3: Protecting Her From You
They put me in a small room off the main security hall.
Not a cell.
A waiting room.
Pale walls, two plastic chairs, a table bolted to the floor.
A female officer named Reyes sat across from me with a notepad and a paper cup of water she'd brought without asking.
"Can you tell me how long the suitcase has been in your possession?" she asked.
"It's not mine.
It's my husband's." My voice didn't sound like my own.
"He took it on a trip a year ago.
To Disney.
With our daughter."
Reyes wrote something down.
"And your daughter's name?"
"Cynthia.
Cynthia Hollis.
She's fourteen." I stopped.
"She was fourteen when she disappeared.
She's fifteen now.
If she's still—"
"Ma'am." Reyes set down her pen.
"The photograph we found.
Is that definitely your daughter?"
"Yes."
"You're certain."
"She has a scar on her left hand.
From a bike accident when she was nine.
You can see the edge of it in the photo, just below her wrist." My throat tightened.
"I know my daughter."
Reyes picked up her pen again.
Two officers entered without knocking.
One of them placed the documents from the suitcase on the table inside a clear evidence bag.
I could see Gary's handwriting on the top page.
I'd seen that handwriting on birthday cards and grocery lists for sixteen years.
"Mrs.
Hollis," the second officer said.
"Your husband is currently en route to this airport.
He called 911 approximately twelve minutes ago and told dispatch that his wife had taken property belonging to him and that he needed police assistance."
I stared at him.
"He called the police.
On me."
"Yes, ma'am."
"He hid a photograph of our missing daughter inside a sealed package in a suitcase he wouldn't let me touch for a year, and he called the police on me."
Neither officer answered.
I looked down at the evidence bag.
Through the plastic I could make out the top line of the first document.
It wasn't Gary's handwriting after all.
It was a letterhead.
A clinic name.
And beneath it, a patient name.
Cynthia Marie Hollis.
"What is that?" I reached toward it.
Reyes moved the bag back.
"We can't let you handle it yet."
"That's my daughter's name on that paper.
That is my child." My hand was shaking against the table.
"What does it say?"
Reyes and the two officers exchanged a look I wasn't meant to see.
"Mrs.
Hollis," Reyes said carefully.
"We've contacted the lead detective on your daughter's missing persons case.
She's on her way here now.
Her name is Detective Anara Walsh.
She'll be able to speak with you more fully about what we've found."
"That's not an answer."
"No," Reyes said quietly.
"It isn't."
She didn't apologize for that.
I almost respected her for it.
I picked up the paper cup and held it with both hands because I needed something to hold.
The water was cold.
The room hummed with the distant noise of the airport beyond the door — announcements, rolling luggage, the ordinary sounds of people going somewhere.
Cynthia had been somewhere for a year.
Gary knew where.
And somewhere in those documents was the name of a woman I had never heard of, in a room Gary had said in his sleep, in a voice I'd thought was just a dream.
The door opened.
Gary walked in.
He wasn't in handcuffs.
He was in the grey sweater he'd been wearing when I left the house that morning.
His hair was uncombed.
He looked like a man who had driven very fast and was trying not to show it.
He looked at me.
Then he looked at the evidence bag on the table.
Something crossed his face — not guilt.
Calculation.
"Laura," he said.
"Please don't say anything else until I can explain."
"Explain what, Gary?" My voice came out steadier than I expected.
"Explain the photograph?
Explain the documents?
Explain why you told me our daughter was taken by a stranger when you knew exactly where she was?"
"It's not what you think."
"Then tell me what it is."
He pulled out the empty chair across from me and sat down.
He folded his hands on the table the way he did when he was about to say something he'd rehearsed.
"I found out something about you," he said.
"Something that made it impossible for me to leave Cynthia in your care."
The room went very still.
"What did you find out?"
His eyes moved to Reyes.
To the two officers.
May you like
Back to me.
"I'm not saying another word without a lawyer."
