Promises Pt. 11

Anna's belly is huge now, with the twins appearing to each be almost the size that non-twins would be at this point in their gestation. There's no way she should be taking a two-day road trip in this condition, but the idea of leaving her alone like this is killing me. Fortunately, Sandy was planning on being with her daughter for the last month of her pregnancy anyway, and is flying down tomorrow, a week early. At least I won't be leaving my wife alone.

"Peter," she says, "don't you dare worry. Mom's going to take good care of me, and the hospital is less than a mile away. You just keep Teri safe, okay?"

"You can count on that, and we'll be back as soon as we can. You're my biggest responsibility, and I don't take that lightly."

Early on a cool April Monday morning, Teri and I pull out of the driveway and head for Minnesota.

Teri stays in the motorhome's bedroom with the blinds drawn, except for furtive trips to the tiny bathroom. Still, she says she's doing fine when I ask her, so we continue to push on.

Late that evening, we pull into a little town north of Nashville where, by calling ahead and explaining something of our situation, I've managed to get permission to park our rig in the police station lot overnight. Teri is reassured by the video surveillance and having law enforcement coming and going at all hours. I snag some badly needed shut eye, curled up on the fold-out couch, then we're right back on the road at the crack of dawn.

The last thing we want to do is alert Teri's abductor that she's back in town, so we're not going to take the motorhome anywhere near the Zwilling place. Instead, we pull into our assigned spot in an RV storage facility in Minneapolis where I've paid for a month's rental. Marsha meets us there in her minivan, pulling up right next to us.

I transfer our luggage, then stand guard in the narrow space between the vehicles while Teri gathers her nerve to exit. Finally, in a burst of manic energy, she races down the steps and leaps up into the van's passenger seat, slamming the door and ducking low. I quickly lock up the RV and join them, stretching out in a second-row captain's chair.

Teri and Marsha talk animatedly, and I'm glad to see that Marsha has put their rather tense parting behind them. (Teri, of course, only knows about that whole business from watching the recording of it that Kira made.) On the other hand, Marsha is coldly polite with me.

When we get close to the house, I leave my seat and crouch low on the floor while Teri scrunches down into the footwell. Marsha hits the button to open the garage door and eases into the spot next to Carl's Beemer. Ten seconds later the door thumps closed behind us.

Marsha has prepared the upstairs guestroom for me, but with Teri's backing, I get her to agree to let me sleep on an inflatable mattress pushed right up against the outside of Teri's door. There are glass-break sensors in her room and the greenhouse, linked into the alarm system, (not to mention a very serious guard dog) so I figure we're safe. Marsha goes right back to the hospital as soon as we're settled in.

An ambulance brings Carl home the next day. I stay out of the way during his subdued homecoming. If circumstances warrant it, I'll go talk to him, but in the meantime we all figure it's best not to risk raising his blood pressure by having him see me.

Teri spends most of her time in the room with her father, quietly working on her novel while he sleeps, but does take breaks to chill with me or work in her greenhouse. She's also packing several boxes with personal possessions she'd like to have with her in Florida.

For my own part, I spend most of my time at the desk in Carl's study, refining designs on my laptop. Through the etched-glass French doors I can see the door into Carl's room, the home's entryway, and into the kitchen. Through the big window, I have a panoramic view of the street. I stay vigilant while I work, waiting impatiently for Saturday when I can take Teri back to the safety of our Florida compound.

* * * * *

It's midday on Friday and I'm starting to get everything squared away so that we can get an early start the next morning. We still need to get the boxes of Teri's stuff into the minivan, but she hasn't finished packing. I go to her room and knock lightly on the door.

"Teri, it's Peter."

"Come on in," I hear in a voice that sounds far away. I open the door, but don't see her.

"Teri?"

"I'm in the greenhouse. Come on back."

So, she doesn't always work nude in there. I walk past her bed and step into the greenhouse, looking left, then right.

"Holy shit, Teri," I say in a shocked, but fortunately low-volume tone that her ailing father is unlikely to have heard. "Are you sure you want me to see you like this?" She's up on a step ladder, working on plants along the top row. And she isn't wearing any clothes.

Teri's blushing deeply, and the redness runs down her chest, almost to her perfect little breasts. "It's okay, Peter. I'm not coming on to you or anything. It's just that I always work my garden in the buff. What's up?"

My cock is what's up, but I don't say that. "I just wanted to see how your packing is coming along. And to ask if you could use some help."

"Actually, yeah. I keep getting distracted, so your assistance would be awesome. Give me a minute to get dressed and I'll join you."

"Uh, sounds great," I manage.

Teri's clothes are hanging on a couple of hooks just inside the greenhouse, so I'm expecting her to dress out of my sight. Instead, she walks into the doorway, panties in hand and begins to step into them. Out of what I know is politeness, I turn and look the other way.

"Peter," she says softly, "it's okay to watch. That's why I'm dressing where you can see me. I know you like how my body looks, so this is my little way of saying thank you for everything you do for me. Besides, I'm getting a bit of a thrill out of letting you see me this way."

I take her at her word, turning and ogling to my heart's content. She seems so much like Kira that I'm really having to concentrate on not stepping forward, scooping her up, and having my way with her.

"You really are beautiful, Teri," I say, hoping that I'm not stepping over some sort of line by saying so.

"A girl always likes to hear that," she says. I watch intently as she does a full reverse strip tease, mourning as those cute little breasts disappear under her lacy bra, then a Van Halen T-shirt. She pulls on a pair of jeans, socks, and shoes, and the fun's over, though, as always, she's still very nice to look at. She gives me a naughty little smile that's subtly different than one I might get from Kira, then she purposefully steps over the threshold into her room. It's like someone flipped off the fun switch. She's shy and slightly aloof now.

She can evidently see the disappointment in my expression. "Hey, I know it's weird," she says, "but things that are okay to do when I'm in the greenhouse just aren't when I'm not. I'm not totally sane, you know," she says with a wry smile.

"Well, it's not like I am either, but I'm here to help you finish packing, so let's get busy."

Like Kira, Teri's not very organized. She hasn't made a whole lot of progress, and we're almost starting from scratch here. I begin boxing the items as she brings them to me, and we quickly start to make some headway. I'm being careful to wrap the delicate ones in items of her clothing and I'm being vigilant about not overstuffing the boxes. There are five of them, all of a pretty good size, but dimensioned so that I know they'll fit in the RV's currently empty under-floor storage compartments. After an hour, her room is looking a little bare.

"I think that's about got it," she says at last. The last box is nearly full. I run the tape gun along the top, but naturally, I get the brown cardboard leader about halfway across. We're out of tape.

"I think I know where there's more," she says. "I'll be right back." She heads out the door.

This is the first time I've been in Teri's room without her, so I take the opportunity to look around. It's kind of eerie, because it's so much like the room I built in Florida. Ostensibly, I'm looking for items that she may have overlooked, but really, I'm trying to get a better feel for how Teri has lived here.

I'm fascinated as much by what she's leaving behind as what she's taking. Some of what we packed seemed like junk to me, while there are what I would consider veritable treasures still sitting on the shelves and furniture. I suppose everything here has a story, and some stories are more compelling to her than others. We're probably all like that to one degree or another.

Teri's ensuite bathroom is festooned with bottles of fancy shampoos and other products that are still mostly full. I gather that this is typical of females, who reputedly are always on the lookout for products that work just that little bit better. Anna's way too practical for that, and for all our wealth, refuses to buy another bottle until her current one is nearly empty. It's just the way she was raised and she's more comfortable that way.

I wander around Teri's room some more, but then realize that it's been a while since she left to get more tape. She's probably still looking for it, so I go to help.

She's not in the kitchen, garage or storage room. I look into her dad's room, where both he and Marsha are snoring to beat the band. The nurse looks up from her paperback and gives me a quick smile, but Teri's nowhere to be seen. Now I'm starting to get a little concerned. I do a full sweep of the rooms upstairs, now calling out her name, though softly. Nothing. I race down to the basement. She's not there.

Shit!

Moving as quickly as I can without making a racket, I check the backyard, then around the front. Nothing, and I don't see her when I glance up and down the street. I race back into the house and straight to Carl's room. Marsha's awake now and comes to her feet when she sees my worried expression. She scurries out and closes the door behind her. "Where's Teri?" she asks, smart enough to know that the well-being of her daughter is the only thing that could worry me this much.

"She's missing," I say, working hard to keep my voice calm and low. "She stepped out of her room to get more packing tape about ten minutes ago. She said she knew where there was more, but now I can't find her anywhere in the house."

"Oh no!" Marsha gasps. "I told her when I bought it that I only got one roll. She knew that if she needed more, we'd have to go buy some."

My mind is racing. "Where would she go for that?"

"Probably the pharmacy. It's two blocks that way," she says, pointing south, "then a block to the right. We've been going there for years." Then she pauses. "But I was talking about getting some ice cream for dessert tonight. Knowing her, she may be getting that too. She'd go the other way in that case."

She hurries over to the little table next to the kitchen and digs through her purse, pulling out a heavy ring of keys. Then she snags another ring from a hook on the wall. She hands it to me as we head for the garage.

"You can use Carl's car. I'll take the minivan." Then she looks at the way I duck through the doorway and reconsiders. Her husband's BMW is a small sedan. "No, take my car" she says, swapping her key ring for his fob. "You try the pharmacy. I'll head north to the grocery store. Call me if you find her."

"Likewise," I say as she hurries to the car. I waste precious seconds holding the buttons long enough to move the driver's seat all the way down and back. Even so, it's a tight fit, but I'm on my way, just seconds after Marsha. I floor the pedal as I head down the street, slowing only slightly for the stop sign halfway to the light, then howl the tires as I hang my right turn on green.

My heart sinks as I see a cop car with its lights flashing, approaching from a couple blocks ahead of me, especially when it slows and cuts across my lanes to enter the pharmacy parking lot. There are a couple of girls there, gesturing wildly to him. I swing in just behind, parking in one of the handicap spots. The girls run up to the officer's window as he rolls it down. I arrive about three seconds later and stand by the rear fender.

"This guy grabbed a little girl and stuffed her in a box," one of the girls exclaims breathlessly. She's practically jumping from foot to foot. I want to shout questions at her, but calculate that the officer has more experience dealing with frantic witnesses. I bite my tongue.

"Hang on there," he says reasonably. "Where was this?"

They both turn and point toward the far end of the lot. "He jumped out of a minivan as she was walking by. The hatch was already open and there was a box in the back."

"Like a cardboard box?" the officer asks.

"No, it was like one of those wooden shipping crates," the other girl says. "He grabbed her and stuffed her in there so fast, she only, like, got one little scream out. The crate had a door and he slammed it closed and locked it. Then he closed the hatch and drove away. We were yelling at him to stop, but he didn't even look at us."

"Can you describe the man?"

"He was old, like thirty or something," the taller one says. "He was white, kinda overweight. He had jeans and a jacket..." She stops there, seemingly out of details.

"What about the girl? How old was she?"

"Like maybe nine or ten," the shorter one said, taking her turn.

"And what was she wearing?"

"Uh..."

"Was it a pink jacket, pink tennis shoes, blue jeans and a black Van Halen T-shirt?" I ask. All three of them turn to me in surprise, evidently not having seen me walk up. The cop looks especially startled to see me towering over his car, but recovers quickly upon seeing my studiously non-threatening expression. He turns to his witnesses.

"Yeah," the taller one exclaims. "That was her exactly."

The cop reaches for his radio. "We're going to put out an Amber Alert," he says. He looks at me. "Is she your daughter?"

I shake my head, still dying to make things go faster, but knowing that pushing will only slow things down. "She's not a child. She's very small, but she's twenty-three. Her name is Teri Zwilling and she's been taken three times before."

The cop's eyes get big. "Oh shit, not her again?" I shouldn't be surprised that he knows the story. Now I turn to the girls. "What make of minivan was it?"

They shrug. "It was, like blue," the shorter one offers.

"Maybe dark blue," her companion adds, but without much confidence. "I can't tell minivans apart."

"Me either." Damn, couldn't one of them have been into cars?

"Which way did it go?" the cop asks, retaking control of the interview.

The girls both point in the direction I've just come from.

"Okay, I'm calling it in," the cop says, grabbing his radio's microphone. I don't want to be stuck here being interviewed by the police, so I pull a business card from my wallet and hand it to the taller girl, motioning that she should give it to the cop. She nods. The address on it won't be helpful of course, but it has my cell phone number. Now it's time for me to get moving.

I remember to pull out my phone before I stuff myself into the minivan. There's no way I'd be able to get it out of my pocket while wadded up inside. I head back in the same direction as the kidnapper reputedly went, trying my best not to drive like a madman. The last thing I need is to be pulled over by a cop who should be looking for Teri instead.

I call Marsha. "Teri's not here," she cries when she picks up. "Have you found her?"

"Marsha," I say, "I need you to stay calm, but Teri was snatched from the pharmacy parking lot."

Marsha's low moan is not for the weak of heart. I wait until she can hear me again. "Her kidnapper must have known somehow that she was in town and had to have been watching for her. The cops have her description, along with a description of her kidnapper and what he was driving. They're looking for her. So am I."

I don't know what I'm going to be able to do if the Minneapolis police force and the FBI were stymied by this bastard three times. But I made Teri a promise that I would do everything within my power to keep her safe, and she's going to get my very best effort.

"But this doesn't fit the pattern," Marsha says through her sobs.

"Huh? What pattern is that?"

"She was always taken in the middle of July before. This is April."

Oh. I hadn't known that, but I don't see how that little nugget of information is going to help. I do have at least one idea, though. As I'm thinking it through, I tell Marsha everything I know about what went down at the pharmacy. I hang up as I pull up across the street from the Zwilling house.

The neighbors must think I'm a madman, but I run to every tree on both sides of the street staring up at their trunks. What I'm actually doing is looking for cameras. It's too much to believe that her kidnapper just happened upon her on the one occasion in the last six years when she ventured out alone. Somehow, he knew that she'd left the house, and he'd been ready.

I move quickly, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but come up empty. No cameras, no wires, and nothing out of the ordinary. Could it have been one of the neighbors? I doubt it, because Teri told me that after she'd been kidnapped for the second time, the FBI, also puzzled at how the kidnapper knew just when Teri had left her house, got permission from everyone on both sides of the street to have their homes thoroughly searched. They supposedly found nothing suspicious.

I'm stymied now, and the enormity of my failure falls on me like a dark, heavy weight. I promised Teri that I'd keep her safe, but I've failed. Unbidden, the thoughts of what he could be doing to her right now begin to fill my mind, as does a burning rage. Not being able to take it out on the monster who's taken Teri again, I want to lash out in the worst way, but at what?

Finally, the logical side of my mind begins to resume control. Raging about the situation will do absolutely no good, and the window of opportunity is closing fast. The best time to apprehend a kidnapper is before he has time to go to ground and clean up the evidence of his actions. I need to be acting now, but what should I do?

For lack of any better idea, I begin to drive around the neighborhood, looking for anything out of the ordinary. I know the area well from having used it as the turnaround point for my runs for a couple of years, varying my route often. This had been an aspirational area for me, back before the possibility of owning a mansion in Florida became a reality.

I'm driving in an outward spiral, looking for blue minivans or anything else suspicious. I know my chances of finding Teri this way are small, but at the moment, it's the best I can come up with. I continue to wrack my brain for anything else that might help. Some of the best minds in the FBI were baffled by this monster, but maybe there's something they missed.

Then I drive by a familiar black brick house with a horsehead fence in front. Hey, this is the place where Bethany grew up, and where her brother, what was his name? Yeah, Spencer, lives by himself, now that their parents are gone.

My mind wanders for a moment and I think about the fact that I'm an orphan too. There's also a similarity from the fact that we were both let down by our parents. In my case, it was by my mom's predilection for alcohol. For the Kozlowski kids, it was because their parents were too busy with their own lives to give much of a crap about their own children. Like when they left them at home with an au pair to go on a couples vacation every July.