Chapter 5: What Gary Was Protecting
I was on my feet before I knew I'd stood up.
Reyes was faster.
She put herself between me and the door with both hands raised, not touching me, just blocking.
"Mrs.
Hollis—"
"What does that mean?
What did she just say?"
"Please sit down."
"Tell me what that means.
Is Cynthia—" I couldn't finish it.
"Sit down and I will get Detective Walsh back in this room right now.
I promise you."
I sat.
My legs weren't working properly anyway.
Reyes stepped into the hallway.
The door swung open wide enough for me to see Walsh standing ten feet away with her phone still at her ear.
Her back was to me.
Her shoulders were rigid.
She came back in two minutes later.
She sat down across from me and she didn't open her folder.
"The facility in Vermont," she said.
"Dr.
Marsh was contacted by our field office approximately thirty minutes ago.
When officers arrived at the address on record, the building was vacant.
It had been cleared out recently — within the last forty-eight to seventy-two hours."
"Someone warned them."
Walsh's expression didn't change.
"We don't know that yet."
"Gary called me this morning the moment I was at the scanner.
He knew I had the suitcase.
He had time to make another call before he drove here." I leaned forward.
"Someone warned them.
And Cynthia was there and now she isn't."
"We are treating this as an active situation.
There are field teams moving now."
"She's fifteen years old and she's been in an unlicensed facility for a year and now she's gone and you're telling me you don't know—"
"Laura." Walsh used my first name for the first time.
It stopped me.
"I need you to hold on.
I need you to stay in this room and let us work.
Can you do that?"
I pressed both hands flat on the table.
"I want to see Gary."
"That's not possible right now."
"He knows where she is.
He called someone.
He knows exactly where they took her and I want to be in the same room as him when you ask him."
"That's also not possible."
"Then I want a phone.
I want to call someone."
Walsh nodded to Reyes, who handed me her own phone without being asked.
I called my sister, Donna.
She answered on the second ring, heard three words of my voice, and said, "I'm already in the car."
I sat in that room for another hour.
Reyes brought more water.
An officer came in and took a formal statement.
I answered every question.
I signed every form they put in front of me.
At some point the door opened and I heard Gary's voice in the hallway.
Just briefly.
He was talking to his attorney — a man in a grey suit I'd never seen before.
Gary's voice was low and controlled and I recognized the tone.
It was the same tone he used on the phone with contractors, with insurance adjusters, with anyone he was trying to manage.
He was managing this.
I had spent a year watching him grieve.
I had made him tea.
I had held his hand at the vigil.
I had told him it wasn't his fault.
The door closed again.
Walsh came back in twenty minutes later.
She sat down and this time she did open her folder.
"Gary's attorney has indicated that Gary is willing to provide information about Cynthia's location," she said.
"In exchange for consideration."
"He wants a deal."
"His attorney used the word consideration, yes."
"He took our daughter.
He hid her for a year.
He let me believe she was taken by a stranger.
He let me believe she might be de@d." My voice cracked on the last word and I let it.
"And now he wants consideration."
"I understand how that feels."
"Do you have enough to charge him without the deal?"
Walsh paused.
Just briefly.
"We have the intake agreement.
We have the photograph.
We have evidence of a fraudulent psychological evaluation.
Yes — we can charge him.
Whether those charges lead to a conviction without his cooperation is a question for the prosecutor."
"And Cynthia?"
"Finding Cynthia is the priority.
If Gary's information gets her home faster—"
"Then you do what you have to do," I said.
"But I want it on record that I said no.
That I did not agree to any deal.
That I want him charged with everything you can charge him with regardless of what he tells you."
Walsh looked at me for a moment.
"Noted," she said.
She stood up.
She was almost at the door again when I thought of something.
"The key," I said.
"The safe deposit box.
Did you find out what bank?"
Walsh turned.
And for the first time since she'd walked into that room, something close to a real answer crossed her face.
"Yes," she said.
"We did."
She didn't tell me what was in it.
But she didn't have to.
The way she said it told me that whatever Gary had locked in that box was the reason for all of it.
Every lie.
Every year.
May you like
Every tear he had cried in front of me.
It was all in that box.
