Archive of Our Own ^beta

Summer

“Mama, Mama,” Noah tried to get his mother's attention.

“Yes, sweet boy,” Olivia didn’t look up from her book, “are you done with your sandcastle?”

“Not yet, but Mama, I need you to look please,” there was a strange urgency in Noah’s voice.

Olivia looked up from her book, squinted against the bright sunlight reflected on the sand and saw that indeed Noah was only halfway done with his sandcastle. He was standing facing her with his little thumb pointing over his shoulder. “Is she lost do you think?”

She looked past her son to the distant shoreline and saw a young girl at the edge of the water, smaller than Noah and alone. Olivia reached out and shook Raphael’s shoulder. “Rafa, wake up. I you need to get the lifeguard.”

Raphael opened one eye, looked dubiously at his wife, and saw that she was in fact serious. “What did I miss?” he asked, sitting up and shaking the afternoon nap out of his head.

Olivia pointed at the girl down the beach who had no adult supervision and with the tide coming in was rapidly in danger of getting swept into the oncoming water. As soon as she knew Rafael understood the situation she jumped up and ran.

Raphael focused on Noah, “Will you stay right here and not move?”

“Of course, Papi.” Noah’s nod was vigorous and Rafael knew that Noah understood the gravity of the situation.

Rafael dug a cell phone from Olivia's tote bag, unlocked it and handed it to his son, “You know what to do if something goes wrong.” Noah nodded again and held the phone carefully in his hands. Rafael headed for the lifeguard station which seemed to be miles away, but he knew wasn't and was never as grateful for his regular jogging as he was in that moment, the distance growing smaller as he ran.

Olivia slowed when she neared the little girl to avoid alarming her and approached from the side, hoping the girl would be aware of her in her peripheral vision. She noted in passing that the sundress the girl wore was threadbare, the hem in the back having come undone and hung unevenly. She was small, much younger than Noah Olivia estimated, making her around five perhaps. The little girl turned when Olivia was near enough to touch, her blonde hair blown in the breeze off the water and brown eyes huge looking up at Olivia.

“Come away from the water, sweetheart, the tide is coming in.” Even as she said it, the water lapped past Olivia’s ankles, much higher on the small child’s legs. The girl wobbled at the surge of water and her arms flailed, Olivia caught her before she could fall. The girl clung to Olivia’s neck.

Olivia cradled the girl to her and retreated toward the umbrella and loungers where she and her men had spent most of the day. Noah was waiting and she could see Rafael on his way back with a lifeguard in tow. Noah handed the phone to her when she was seated in the shade, he had cued the phone to Fin’s number but not called it. “Thank you, Noah,” she nodded at the cooler they had brought drinks and lunch in, “could you find a juice box or water in there for me?” Noah nodded, eyes wide, and knelt at the cooler to search as she’d asked.

Olivia took a quick picture of the little girl who still had her arms wrapped in a death grip around her neck, sent the picture to Fin and then pushed the call button, talking softly to the girl as she listened to the ringing on the other end of the call.

“Can you tell me your name, sweetheart?” The girl buried her head against Olivia’s, neck. Noah sat at her feet with boxes of apple juice and fruit punch as well as a small bottle of water. Olivia tried every language she knew but the girl didn’t respond with a name but did give Noah a smile when he punched the straw into the fruit punch and offered it to her. She unwound one arm from Olivia’s neck to take the juice box and sip at it.

Fin answered the call and Olivia quickly explained the situation. “I have no idea if she’s lost or what but on the off chance she is, will you see if she’s in a database we have?”

“Sure, Liv, but I gotta tell ya, this’s not how you’re s’posed to vacation.” Fin chuckled as he signed off the call with a promise to get back to her either way. Rafael and the lifeguard arrived as she sat the phone aside.

“This is my wife Olivia Benson and our son Noah,” Rafael introduced the lifeguard.

“Clinton Delano, Ma’am,” the young man said, taking a knee close to the lounger she sat on. He nodded at Noah, “Hi, Noah, you can call me Clint.”

“Nice to meet you.” Noah put his hand out and an amused look crossed Clint’s face as he shook hands with the boy. “I’m Noah Benson-Barba but we still don’t know her name.” Noah nodded at the girl now hiding her face again against Olivia’s neck, clutching her juice box to her chest.

“Maybe she’s shy,” Clint said to Noah with a smile. He turned back to Olivia then, “The beach is technically a park, so I called the Rangers, they’re sending someone. I have a first aid kit, but I don’t see any injuries.”

“I think she’s scared and maybe overwhelmed; we are a lot of strangers for a little girl to deal with,” Olivia said. “I called one of my coworkers with her picture to jumpstart a search in case she’s been reported missing.” Olivia looked around for anyone who appeared to be searching for a small child, but this area of the beach was mostly deserted in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

The girl started to relax as the adults exchanged information and she sipped at the juice box. When the Rangers appeared in the distance, Clint stood and shouldered his kit, waving a goodbye to Noah as he left to jog toward the officers approaching. Liv’s phone rang and she picked it up and answered as Rafael stood to wait for the Rangers.

“What we got, Fin?”

“I checked New York first and have two possibilities, then Jersey has one. That’s as far as I’ve searched right now. Any chance you have a name yet?”

“She’s remaining silent.”

Fin chuckled. “That’s no good, did you Mirandize her?

“Of course not,” Olivia scoffed. “What sort of ogre do you think I am, anyway?”

“I don’t, Liv,” he laughed again. “Want me to text you what I got so far?”

“That would be fine, I’ll share it with the locals who are about to arrive.”

“Will do.” Fin signed off and shortly there was a chime as her phone received the information.

The pair of uniformed Rangers joined them. After introductions, Olivia explained what little she knew, then showed them her phone with the pictures and information that Fin had sent. “I know I’m a few miles outside my own jurisdiction, but I figured any information would be better than the zero we had to start with,” she said.

“Thank you for that,” the one who had introduced himself as Smithsen said, handing her a card. “My info is there if you’d like to send me what you got.”

Olivia took the card and the other Ranger, Brinks, held out his arms for the girl who hid her face against Olivia’s neck again. “Hey sweetie,” his voice was gentle, “I have a little girl about your age. She likes Teddy Grahams and Goldfish Crackers so I always have some in my truck. Would you like to come have some with me?” The girl continued to hide her face, not acknowledging the offer.

“I think she’s immune to bribes,” Olivia said. “Noah, why don’t you come with me and show her that crackers are good?” Olivia handed off her phone and the card from the Ranger to Rafael so she could hold her free hand out to Noah.

Noah was past the age where handholding with his Mom was a thing he encouraged, but he understood that this situation called for some reassurance to this tiny stranger so he took his mom’s hand and they followed Ranger Brinks up the sand toward the parking spaces where a truck waited. Behind them Rafael was sending information to Ranger Smithsen and talking about what would come next.

Brinks opened the tailgate of the truck, then pulled an old but clean towel from behind the seat in the cab, spread it out on the tailgate for Olivia to sit on, then asked if he could help Noah up to sit next to her. Olivia nodded and when they were settled, he went back to the cab again and returned with an old lunch box that when he opened it was full of snacks. He offered it to Noah who chose the aforementioned Teddy Grahams and opened them, showing the girl that he ate one, then offered the open pack to her. Noah grinned when she took her arm from around Olivia’s neck and reached tentatively for a cracker. He scooted away from his mom and patted the open space, “You can sit with me and we can share if you want?” Olivia sat the girl between herself and her son now that the girl was engaged with the snack and there was no protest. Noah held the snack while the girl ate and sipped her drink. Olivia smiled and nodded at Noah to let him know he was doing well.

Rafael and Smithsen joined them, having broken down the beach chairs and brought their things up the slight hill to the parking area. Rafael offered drinks to the Rangers who each took a cold bottle of water from the cooler, then handed a juice box to Noah and took water for himself and Olivia. He set the chairs up again and sat on the cooler, offering chairs to the Rangers.

“I’ve got some backup on the way, someone from Children’s Services who has a station wagon and a car seat,” Smithsen told them. “I appreciate you staying for a bit, then we can get statements and all that usual kind of thing.”

“No problem,” Olivia said, “we know the drill.”

Eventually a dark sedan showed up, followed by the promised station wagon. Both Rangers stood to go meet the newcomers and Rafael gathered his family’s belongings and stowed it all in the Mustang they had come to the beach in. He returned with the coverup Olivia had worn over her swimsuit as well as his own shirt and one for Noah. Now they had the trappings of civilization on to meet the new round of officials who turned out to be investigators for the National Park Service and the Children’s Services people who would become the caretakers of the little girl.

After they were finally finished with interviews and sharing contact information, they were ready to head for home. “I’m sorry you didn’t get your sandcastle done, sweet boy, but I’m sure glad you were so helpful today,” Olivia said and leaned down to hug her son. “Thank you.”

Noah hugged her in return and looked up, “Will they find her family do you think?”

“I sure hope so.”

“May I ask Abuelita to light a candle for her when she goes to Mass?”

Rafael put a hand on Noah’s shoulder, “She’d like that, Mijo, we’ll call her when we get home, how about that.”

Noah leaned into his dad, “Thank you, Papi.” Rafael smiled and looked up to see Olivia watching them with a soft expression, never tiring of seeing her family loving one another.

In the far distance, behind some rocks that shielded the parking area from the sand, a teen girl turned away, picking up a bucket she’d filled with clams and a few shore crabs she managed to catch and keep at the bottom of the bucket. She walked quickly down the sand and then up toward a set of derelict cabins that had seen better days, far out of sight of the public beach.

Autumn

It was dark when she opened her eyes and she wasn’t sure she’d even opened them but she was aware of a hard surface under her and when she reached out she felt rough wood against her hands. She was on her back and could hear muffled voices so she was sure she was awake and not trapped in a bad dream. She reached up and there was more rough wood near her face. Was she in a box? How had she gotten here? She remembered getting off the bus and a girl she didn’t know getting off at the same stop who said hi to her. Then nothing. The voices grew louder, at least one of them did.

“I said throw it out the damn window!”

The subdued reply remained muffled.

“There’s nothing in there you need, just chuck it already.”

An engine revved and she became aware of movement, she was in a vehicle, going somewhere with nobody she knew. She thought about screaming but realized nobody who could help her would hear her. She felt tears spark. She bit her lip and did her best to suppress that urge to bawl. Panic never helped a crisis, her Grams would say. Thoughts of her Grams calmed her. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine that the rocking of the highway under the wheels of whatever she was in was her Grams rocking her to sleep like when she was little. The urge to cry passed and now she concentrated on calm, wondering if she’d have enough air in whatever she’d been put in. That thought almost bled into panic again, but she concentrated on memories of Grams and kept her cool as best she could. She had no sense of time in this dark place so she had no idea how long they’d been driving when the sense of motion slowed, the sound of the wheels on the road changed and now there was a sharp turn and bumps on what she thought might be a dirt road. Even more time passed, the bumpy ride going on and on. When the motion stopped, she kept her eyes closed as she heard doors open and shut. More doors opened and the voices were closer now.

“Go get Ma, tell her we have a replacement now.” The voice was male, not one she recognized. There was a rocking sensation and she heard someone approaching, he must have gotten in the back of whatever the vehicle was. She relaxed, kept her eyes closed, hoped to play possum for a bit.

Metal clicked and hinges rasped and then she felt light on the other side of her eyelids, she breathed as normally as she could, feigning sleep. She heard steps approaching and more rocking as someone else entered.

“Get her feet, we need to get her out.”

A feminine voice murmured a yes and then she felt someone take her ankles and someone lifted her shoulders, she kept herself limp. She was carried out and into more light, she could hear wind in trees maybe, or water, she wasn’t sure. She ignored the need to open her eyes and see what was in the surroundings. When they were out of the van or whatever it was, she was hoisted over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and they were walking away from the vehicle. She dared a look but could see nothing but the shirt of the man carrying her so she shut her eyes again. She was laid on a soft surface, a bed she thought, then the softer hands were there, smoothing her hair back from her face and straightening her clothes.

“What do we call her?”

“Dunno. I took her before Alice could ask her questions. You need to get her changed so I can burn her clothes, when she wakes up we’ll find out her name and age. You get her in the isolation room after you get her changed, I want to get her acclimated as soon as possible.”

Again, a soft yes from the woman and there were footsteps leaving and a door closing.

She endured the changing of her clothes, remaining as limp and pliable as she could, felt herself lifted and moved into a different room, this time the soft surface was lower, like on the floor, the woman lifting her carefully, carrying her like a very large baby and again arranging her clothes and hair after she’d been laid down. Then footsteps retreated and a door shut, the sound of a lock clicking into place and finally silence.

She heard nothing, nobody breathing but her, so she opened her eyes to see a small room, a high window with something like chicken wire outside the glass, a thin mattress indeed on the floor, and nothing else. She remained still. The light outside the window faded. She let her eyes close again.

“Wake up sweetheart, it’s time to eat.” The feminine voice again, and a gentle touch on her shoulder. She had actually fallen asleep, curled on her side with her back to the wall beside the mattress. She opened her eyes and saw that the voice belonged to a woman likely near her mother’s age, maybe a little older. She was smiling and holding a plate with a sandwich on it. On the floor sat a glass of what looked like milk. She pushed herself up to sitting and retreated to the other end of the mattress, folding her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees, never taking her eyes off the woman.

“You need to eat, sweetheart.” The woman held out the plate. No move made to take it. “What’s your name?” The silence stretched.

“Margot,” she finally said when the quiet reached what seemed a breaking point. It wasn’t her name, but it would do.

“That’s a pretty name, Margot.” The woman sat the plate on the mattress and slid the glass closer. She sat on the opposite end of the bed. “My name is Carolyn. How old are you?”

“Twelve,” Margot lied again.

Carolyn stood. “Please eat, Margot. You need to stay strong.”

She wondered what Carolyn might have meant about staying strong, watching the woman leave and listening to the lock click again. She thought about her Grams, the real Margot, and wondered what she’d do in this situation.

At some point she slept again and was startled awake by a loud voice. It was still dark, the high window black on the other side, the only illumination a dimmed lantern. A man, she guessed the one from before, stood in front of the door. He was speaking, voice loud and strong and oddly mesmerizing, like an actor or preacher who was used to using his voice as a tool. He was talking about end times and salvation of the chosen and quoting bible passages, some of which she recognized from infrequent church visits on holidays but the context seemed all wrong. He talked about responsibility and duty and how they needed to bring the people to salvation and back to power again. He sounded so calm, so reasonable, his conviction so evident that it distracted her from his obvious raving, because he had to be crazy if he believed the things he was saying. She had curled into a ball when he’d woken her and she stayed curled into that ball the entire time he spoke. It went on for a very long time. She started counting in her head, one one thousand, two one thousand, three. She lost count after two thousand, started over. He stopped finally. He left without saying more or addressing her directly, she was his captive audience for whatever point he was attempting with his sermon and no more. The lock clicked once again in the darkness. Exhaustion dropped her back into sleep eventually.

There was light again when she woke, the high window showing a blue sky. There was a big bucket with a toilet seat attached to the top and a roll of toilet paper next to it in one corner, the other held a bowl of cold water with a washcloth in it. She wondered how she slept though the delivery of those. The glass of milk and sandwich from the night before remained where she’d left them, untouched. She examined the cold water and decided it must be safe enough so she dipped a hand in and drank the water down. It tasted fine so she had a few more handfuls, then wrung out the cloth and washed her face, folding it neatly and placing it over the edge of the bowl. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at using the bucket, but did it anyway, then washed her hands on the washcloth, hoping to save the water for drinking.

Quite a lot of time passed before the door opened again, Carolyn returning. She took the wash bowl out of the room then returned and stood inside the door. “You need to eat, Margot. We must be grateful for the gifts we are given.” Her voice was soft, there was a tone of pleading, needing to convince Margot to eat last night’s food for reasons she wouldn’t explain. She left again, the lock clicking.

She could hear voices so she got up and put her ear to the door.

“If she refuses to eat it, take it away and give her no more until she begs,” the man’s voice. The reply was too soft for her to hear but the stomping footsteps away gave her all the information she needed.

She returned to the mattress on the floor and picked up the sandwich, sliding the glass closer. Sliced cheese on white bread, dry on top now after sitting on the plate all night. The milk was room temperature, unappealing but not yet turned sour. She nibbled the cheese and realized she was starving and gulped down the rest of the two slices of cheese in one big bite stuffed into her mouth. She dipped the dry bread into the milk to make it edible, then drank half the milk. She savored the second slice of bread, finished the milk and wished she’d had some way to save the water from the wash. She put the plate and glass by the door, then retreated to the mattress, laying on her back with her hands behind her head. She closed her eyes and thought about her last normal day. She had gone to school as usual, there had been a spelling test and a surprise quiz in history. P.E. class before lunch, and who knew she’d miss flush toilets and showers, that thought nearly made her grin. Then the bus home and the girl who’d said hi to her. She tried to remember anything after getting off the bus but couldn’t. She refused to give in to tears. She rolled to her side, back to the wall, and tried to sleep her way out of the bad dream she’d woken up in. She wondered how many police were looking for her, how loud her mother had cried and her father had shouted when reporting her missing. She hoped they would come for her soon.

The same day repeated again and again. Daytime brought Carolyn with a glass of milk and a cheese sandwich, the wash bowl and toilet bucket changed out every morning. She would eat half the sandwich as soon as she woke to find it there and save the other half for late in the day, it was all she would get. She would drink as much of the water as she could before it would be taken away. At night she would awake to the man preaching. She concentrated on counting to herself to block out the man talking on and on. She lost count of the days and had no way to keep track of them. It was getting colder outside and she heard the wind blowing storms in more often. She was given a blanket and a pair of warm socks for her bare feet. She wore only the thin cotton dress that Carolyn had dressed her in the first night. Her hair felt limp and tangled though she finger combed it every morning, missing the brush her mother used to draw through her hair sometimes before bed. She started doing the kinds of stretching exercises she learned in her P.E. class every morning, hoping they would help her feel more awake and less weak, but they didn’t seem to help much, she felt weak anyway and still did them. The dress had been too big for her to start with but now it hung on her small frame. The better to seem younger than her age, she thought.

She had a lot of time to contemplate those lies she had told. She didn’t lie normally; it just wasn’t a thing she ever needed to do. Some little voice in her head had warned not to give them anything. She understood from what little she had heard that they didn’t know her, her name, her parents. Her family didn’t have money so ransom was just a dumb idea, so she’d lied about her name. She hoped taking her Grams’ name would lend her some of her Grams’ strength. She had no idea why she lied about her age. When Christmastime came, she’d be turning fifteen but her captors would think she was thirteen. She had always been small, she was the shortest girl in her class, her mother said she was a late bloomer, that it ran in the family. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad now. She spent a lot of that time making up stories in her head or remembering the plots of books she’d read, trying to remember all the lyrics to songs she loved. She refused to cry.

Winter

The pattern finally broke when Carolyn entered the room midday countless days later. “Come along, Margot, we have a celebration to attend.” Carolyn held her hand out. Margot stood and folded the blanket she’d been huddled in, leaving it on the mattress. She took the outstretched hand and was led out the door into the outer room. There was a ratty looking couch and a single bed in the room and nothing else. By the door to the outside stood a pair of boots and a pair of coats on hooks. Carolyn led her to that door and pointed to the boots, “Slip those on.”

Margot did as she was told, then put on the coat she was handed as Carolyn donned the other. Then Carolyn took her by the wrist and led her outside. It was intensely bright and Margot squinted, trying to take in all the surroundings at once. She was being led toward a larger building circled by more small places like the one she’d just left. It looked like some kind of beaten up resort or camp, something that had been abandoned and then inhabited by vagabonds, some of the small cabin structures were clearly still in disuse, the windows broken and steps worn and falling. Others looked cleaner and had intact windows. Margot could see those had padlocks on the doors. Carolyn pulled her toward the central building and up the stairs, into what looked like the entryway to a hotel. There was a staircase leading up to the right, a large desk next to open double doors that led to a large room that might have once been a dining hall or entertainment area. That was all she got to see as Carolyn took off her coat and indicated that Margot should as well, pointing to the boots lined up under the coat hooks and telling her to put her boots there. She did and Carolyn took her wrist again, leading her up the stairs.

Carolyn took her into a large room where a fireplace was warming the area and a group of girls gathered around an old tin tub, some were pouring buckets of water into the tub, others were putting more buckets of water by the fire. One girl stood apart, a look of apprehension on her face as she watched the water go into the tub. Her expression changed as soon as she saw Carolyn, going entirely blank.

“Margot, this is Nelly,” Carolyn said, indicating the now blank faced girl. “We’re celebrating Nelly’s Womanhood Day today.” Carolyn beamed at the quiet girl. “I want you to introduce Margot to everyone and make her welcome.” Carolyn turned and left the room again, Margot standing awkwardly where she’d been left by Carolyn, the other girls staring at her, some with horror and others with pity. Only one girl wasn’t staring, she was looking at the floor, speaking without looking up.

“I’m so sorry,” the girl said in a very small voice. Margot recognized her as the girl from the bus stop.

“I’d hoped you were lying,” the girl introduced as Nelly said. If it was possible for the other girl to hang her head lower she did. “It’s ok, Alice, you can’t help what you’re forced to do.” Nelly went to the girl and put an arm around her shoulders. She looked at Margot, “This is Alice, if you remember her I’m sorry. She was forced to help him.” She introduced the other girls but Margot was overwhelmed and didn’t even try to remember names. They all appeared to be younger than Nelly, mostly near her own actual age and the age she pretended to be.

Nelly checked the water and said it was the right temperature, then took off all her clothes and got in the tub. Margot watched as Alice brought her a washcloth and a bar of soap while another girl gathered up the discarded clothing and yet another brought a towel and a set of clean clothes from a dresser by the window. The rest of the girls sat against one wall, quiet and subdued. Alice helped Nelly rinse her hair of soap, pouring water over her head leaned forward. Nelly talked while she took her bath, explaining to Margot that Womanhood Day (Margot could hear the capitalization in Nelly’s voice) was one of the only holidays they were allowed. Christmas and Easter were somber occasions to remember the Savior’s Sacrifice, birthdays were forbidden, Womanhood Day was today for her. It was a month after her sixteenth birthday and she would be graduated to wife status.

Margot suppressed a shudder. She listened in a stunned understanding that her world was entirely off the tracks and suddenly very glad she’d lied about everything. “Who will, um,” Margot stuttered to a stop.

Nelly looked up at her from where she was sitting now on the floor, putting on shoes, “I don’t know. Elder Peter will decide.” Some of the girls had gotten up and taken buckets of water out of the tub while others added hot water from the fire. “You’re new so you get the next bath. Sorry we have to share, it’s the way it is here.” She got up and went to Margot. “There’s a real toilet to use in the other room, I’ll show you while the girls get the bath warm again.”

There was a bathroom off the room she’d been left in, and there was running water, it was cold in the sink. Nelly explained that hot water heaters took too long to warm and the generator they used for short periods of time would never heat the water fast enough for everyone to bathe. Margot just nodded her understanding.

“There’s a well for the whole complex so the water is good,” Nelly explained as Margot washed her hands in cold water. Margot noticed that there was no mirror over the sink, but holes where she guessed the mirror had once been bolted in. She put her hand out to trace a finger over the marred wall, wondering if the mirrors had been taken out when whatever this place had been was closed. “Mirrors create vanity, you won’t see one here,” Nelly said.

“Oh, ok, good to note.”

“There are lots of rules like that. If Elder Peter thinks you are ready to join us, you’ll have to learn them. Alice is the oldest of the unwed now, so she will be in charge of teaching you. Try not to blame her, she had to do as he said. She’s been,” Nelly sighed, “she’s been unhappy about it. He didn’t tell her what they were doing in the city.”

“I don’t blame her, now I can’t, she’s kidnapped too, right? We all are?”

Nelly just nodded and stayed silent.

“Ready,” came a voice from the other room. Nelly led Margot to the communal bath, a sad look in her eyes.

She was given fresh clothes, old and worn but clean, long warm socks and a pair of cloth shoes that reminded her painfully of the patent leather Mary Janes she’d gotten for her last birthday. All the girls wore similar outfits, plain dresses that were threadbare and shoes not suitable for the weather or long walks. One of the girls explained that the boots downstairs were only for doing chores.

When the last of them was washed and dressed they all helped empty the tub and as they were finishing that chore, one bucket at a time dumped into the tub in the other room, the lights flickered. Nelly told Margot that was the signal that the generator would be turned off in five minutes, that they needed to hurry. Two of the girls gathered the baskets of dirty clothes and towels and sat them by the door, the rest hurried the water out of the tub, using towels to wipe it down. They were done and lined up at the door, so Margot joined the line. As the lights went out the door opened and Carolyn was there to lead them down the stairs, a lantern in her hand.

In the large room downstairs there was a huge banquet table not far from a fireplace roaring with bright flames. Margot wondered if the table was left over from whenever this building had been a hotel or whatever, she couldn’t imagine that it could have been gotten out the doors again. Four men were gathered at one end, talking quietly, three of them obviously deferential to the eldest, a man Margot judged was older than her father by a decade or so. The others were younger than her father, more like her eldest cousin’s age, maybe late twenties. Across the room were girls, late teens to young twenties, and they all had small children around them. There were half a dozen young women, some holding small babies, others attending to a couple toddlers and one young boy who looked to be about five or six. They were all oddly quiet. Margot counted eight children in the makeshift daycare area.

The line of girls came to a halt halfway between the doors and the table, Margot wasn’t sure what they were waiting for but stopped at the end of the line when they did. Carolyn continued on, sitting her lantern down on the big table, Margot saw that there were a lot of lanterns in the room, making it seem warm and cozy with soft light. The oldest man, the one in charge Margot guessed, gave a nod and the men took up positions behind chairs at the table. All but two of the girls from across the room joined them, the other two left to tend the smaller children. Those girls walked over to stand behind the young men, one each, the last standing behind the oldest man and next to Carolyn who was directly behind the man Margot now supposed must be the one Nelly had called Elder Peter.

Peter held out his hand and Nelly walked forward, leaving the other girls behind. When she reached him he took her hand and pulled her close. “Nelly joins the ranks of the Wedded tonight and shall be my new Bride,” he announced. Margot could see brief disappointment on the younger men’s faces, quickly covered. There was dismay on both Nelly’s and Carolyn’s faces, again quickly covered. He sat and the rest also took their seats. Alice then led the remaining girls forward to where a sideboard held a pot of stew and a basket of bread. She sent the younger girls around with the bread to let the seated diners choose some, she kept Margot with her and served stew into bowls.

“I will serve Elder Peter and James, you serve Paul and Mark. Then we serve the Brides, Carolyn and Nelly first. You take bowls over to Jen and Lily,” she nodded at the children’s group. “The babies will already have been fed. We’ll have the rest done then,” Margot saw that the other girls were returning now, ready to take up bowls to serve.

When everyone was served the other girls lined up with Alice and she put stew in each of their bowls, they each took once piece of bread and then Margot followed them to the opposite end of the table from the adults. The girls lined up behind chairs, sitting down the food and Peter nodded, the signal that they may sit. Nobody was eating so Margot folded her hands in her lap, watching for clues of what to do by keeping Alice in her peripheral vision. Elder Peter held up his hands and everyone bowed their heads so Margot did as well, but she didn’t close her eyes, just lowered her eyes and continued to take surreptitious looks at the people at the table. With their heads bowed she couldn’t get a read on expressions but could see the tension in Nelly, the stiff way she held her shoulders and her head hanging much lower than the others.

Peter gave thanks for the food and the safety of the group, all standard for any pre-meal prayer Margot was used to, but then started talking about how Nelly was now raised to Wife status and her duty to carry on the work of rebuilding the righteous race and then he said amen and everyone echoed him. He took up his spoon and started eating, only then did everyone else follow suit.

The entire table remained silent through the meal, the only sound was the scraping of spoons on bowls. When everyone was done Peter stood and started speaking again, lecturing or perhaps preaching on his favourite topic. Margot sat with her head down, as the other girls did. She tried not to clench her fists or jaw when he started talking about the inferiority of others, the stain that every minority put on his righteous race. His nightly preaching at her she could at least endure in darkness where nobody could see that his comments set her on edge. She did her best to remain expressionless and not react when he disparaged her own forbears. She counted in her head as she always did and kept the vision of her Grams in her mind, soothing and strengthening.

A new pattern started for Margot. In the daytime Carolyn led the girls in washing clothes, keeping their room clean, and taking care of the common areas. The older girls, the Brides, tended the babies and toddlers and took care of cooking and keeping the kitchen clean. Margot’s group of girls, called the Unwed, were housed all in one large room in the main house where there were bunk beds set up. There was a bathroom for them with cold running water and they could shower if they wanted to brave the cold. Warm baths were only for special occasions. They were locked in at night. After breakfast there were lectures from Peter, then work. In the evenings the women mended the clothes they used or knitted and crocheted hats and scarves and baby blankets, Carolyn taught them how. The men were usually absent, only joining the women and children for meals. The Wedded and their Brides had cabins separate from the main building while Elder Peter and his wives, Carolyn and Barbara and now Nelly, had a room in the same building with the Unwed. The older girls with children kept them in a room off the kitchen during the day taking turns watching them and alternating out to do the cooking and washing. After dinner at night were more lectures from Peter. It was equally as monotonous as her time in the cabin but now at least Margot wasn’t alone. She lost count of the days and still had no way to keep track of the time.

At night when it was full dark, Alice would curl up in the bottom bunk with Margot and they would pull the blanket all the way over their heads and Alice explained how things worked and what was expected. She never mentioned her life before coming to the compound nor did she ask about Margot’s life from before. Margot guessed maybe that was a forbidden topic. After several days Alice exhausted all the lessons she had to share and stopped staying with Margot before going to sleep. During the day she would stick by Margot and tell her how Peter wanted things done, seeming to take her responsibility to help Margot adjust very seriously, yet she remained subdued and quiet. Margot wondered if she was still feeling that guilt from their first real meeting on Nelly’s Womanhood Day. She tried to put Alice at ease when she could, but closeness was not really encouraged by either Peter or Carolyn, who most of the children called Ma. Elder Peter was never Pa, only and always Elder.

One of the new routines that disturbed Margot the most was the punishments meted out for any infraction. If one of the younger Unwed misbehaved or wasn’t quick enough finishing chores, then she and Alice were both taken outside to one of the smaller buildings by Elder Peter and some or all of the men. The first time it happened Margot was confused until Alice returned and that night she explained to Margot that they were whipped by whichever of the men were chosen by Elder Peter, then the younger girl would spend time in the isolation cabin, the one Margot had spent so much time in. The entire time the punishment went on, Elder Peter preached. Margot asked why both of them had to endure this and Alice explained that as she was the eldest of the Unwed it was her responsibility to make sure the younger girls learned their place. Margot vowed to herself to avoid this if at all possible.

Spring

“Thanks for meeting me here, Lieu.”

“Not a problem, it’s good to see you.”

“You too, I mean it. You look good.”

“If you mean I don’t look ill, thanks. Remission’s been real for a while now.”

Mike sighed in relief, “That’s good to hear.”

“I know you didn’t ask me here for a wellness check,” Anita looked around at the parklike setting of the graveyard, “so what gives, Detective?”

“Sorry, Lieu, I didn’t think ahead how the meeting place would look, I just needed somewhere you’d be able to find easy and that the view would be unobstructed.” Mike looked around, theirs were the only cars to be seen and they could see several blocks in any direction. They were entirely alone with the dead.

Anita put the flowers she carried on the grave they stood near and saw that there was a fresh bunch already there, she guessed that Mike had brought those. She also saw that the stone vase had a bouquet in it, wilted and a little past its expiry yet still pretty and likely no more than a week old.

“Who do you suppose delivered those?” Anita indicated the vase of wilting daisies and daffodils with her chin.

“I have some theories. In Winter it’s white roses and ivy. I don’t want to give up any state secrets though.”

Mike and Anita exchanged a look full of history and knowledge, neither willing to out the bearer of flowers to this particular grave. There were old wounds everywhere like landmines or old scars too long healed to rename.

Mike took a card from his coat pocket and passed it to his former Lieutenant, “I took a case I wish I hadn’t. Reached the end of the line and all I can do now is go outta town for a while, get my head back on straight again. On the back is the number I’ll be at if you want to get in touch again,” he shrugged, “maybe have coffee when I get back in a few weeks.”

Anita took the card and could feel something taped to the back of it, something small like a phone memory card or a thumb drive. She tucked it in her own coat pocket without looking and put her hand on Mike’s shoulder, leaning close as if sharing a confidence at the grave of their dead friend. “Were you followed?”

“No, and I won’t be. Don’t worry about me.” Mike shrugged, gave a reassuring grin to his former co-worker. “I started out doing skip-traces and built myself a pretty good business of security and background checks, then moved into divorces, which suck. If you decide to have a second act in the private eye business, skip that shit. I’ve done a few missing persons, mostly poor little rich kids that took mommy’s car or daddy’s cards and had a wild weekend. But this last one,” he shook his head, voice low, “working class family. Dad works fifty or sixty hours a week and mom worked two jobs to keep their girl in private school. She’s gone and I think she’s not coming home. They’re good people, decent people. They refused to let me look pro bono so I’ve been keeping the costs to a minimum but even then I got more than they bargained for and then the threats started. I told them to make a report, but they were too scared. I’m not, but I have a lead on a different case to follow out of town and in case I don’t come back either, I want a backup. Everything you need is on the back of the card.” He sighed again. “I’m afraid she might end up as your case anyway, in the end.”

“I’ve got a good crew, we’ll see what we can find, discreetly.” Anita nodded. “Not as good as you and Lennie, of course.”

That brought a laugh from Mike. “Hopefully a little more self-controlled than some of us though?”

“Not sure I’d go that far.”

“Uh-oh, good luck then. Watch your back, Lieu, and tell your crew to do so as well, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Anita reached up and hugged her former detective, then tucked her hand under his arm as they made their way to their cars, leaving behind the grave of Clair Kinkaid with a wealth of flowers in the afternoon sun.

*** *** ***

“We’re not ready to take this live,” Olivia ran a hand through her hair and tried not to sigh her exasperation, “and we won’t be by the deadline if we can’t find a test run. I’m not even sure this is a good idea in the first place. What works for us isn’t what will work for everyone.” Olivia rolled her head left and then right, trying to ease the tension in her neck while still holding the phone to her ear, hoping the man on the other end of the line didn’t hear the popping of her joints as she did. “Of course, I’ll do my best, sir, as always.” She signed off the call and didn’t quite slam the receiver into the cradle of the phone but still felt the satisfaction of hanging up on the man. The fact that he’d hung up first didn’t negate the release of frustration.

“Bad time?” asked a voice at her door.

Olivia looked up to see Anita Van Buren in the doorway. She stood and smiled, “Lieutenant, what brings you out of the 27th?” She came out from behind her desk, “Can I offer you some coffee?” Olivia hoped she would say yes because she needed one herself.

Anita nodded so Olivia led her to the break room where the coffee was surprisingly fresh, she would need to remember to thank Chloe for that. Once they had their coffee fixed, they retreated to Olivia’s office and sat on the couch and drank and visited for a moment.

“Ok, I’m betting you didn’t come here to save me from administrative nightmare phone calls, so what can I help with?” Olivia asked.

Anita set her cup down and pulled a file out of her bag, handing it over. “I got this from someone I used to work with, Mike Logan was one of mine. He’s got his own security and P.I. office now. He’s afraid it would be a case for my homicide guys, but we looked into it as much as we can and I think it might be yours instead.” Anita picked up her coffee again as Olivia looked over the file. “I’m not palming it off on you but giving you a heads up. We’ll keep looking into it, but you might have some resources or informants we don’t.” Anita shrugged, “Maybe another set of eyes will help.”

“Was that Logan’s reason for getting this information to you, another set of eyes?”

“Maybe.”

“He got threats?” Olivia looked up from the file, “Have you or your detectives figured out who did that?”

“No. The parents are freaked out, understandably. The mother quit her night job because she was afraid, and they were very reluctant to speak with me or my detectives. We haven’t had anything ourselves, no calls or letters, so either the kidnapper is unaware that we got involved or draws the line at threatening actual police.”

“That was a dumb move on his part, if he’d never called the parents or sent the letter to Logan then she would have been a runaway and written off the way the first set of cops did,” Olivia said. “Have you spoken to the cops that took the initial missing person report?”

Anita nodded. “They gave me a copy of the paperwork. That’s as far as it went, and I don’t think either of them even remember taking the report. Not the shiningest example of our profession.” Anita finished her coffee and sat the cup on the low table nearby.

“Can I copy this?” Olivia asked, closing the file and holding it up.

“It’s yours, I made a copy to hand over,” Anita nodded. Olivia raised a brow. Anita continued, “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to get involved but I know you’re good with the difficult cases, and this is starting to look like one.”

“I’d say thanks but I’m not sure I can take the compliment without pointing out that I don’t do any of this alone.”

“Do we ever?” Anita grinned and shook her head. “I’ll keep my guys looking at what they can between their current cases and maybe check back in a week or so and compare any new notes we have, if that works for you?”

“Absolutely,” Olivia nodded.

They shared another cup of coffee and spoke of nothing to do with the case Anita had brought in but instead the latest demands from their command structure. After Anita left, Olivia opened the file again and started reading it more closely.

*** *** ***

“This girl has been gone for six months,” Olivia was addressing her squad as they looked over the scant information she had tacked to a movable bulletin board. “Odds are not good that she will be found alive, and we got this file rather round about, so it isn’t even officially ours. It would have been if the initial report had been taken,” she paused trying to form the rest of that statement without painting the original officers as incompetent or just uncaring.

“By someone who gave a shit?” Tommy Ryan spoke up. Olivia gave him half a glare for the swearing and he pulled a fiver out of his pocket. “I am sure as hell gonna need to swear a few more times today so take this on account.” He grinned and walked to the file cabinet where the mason jar sat on top with a collection of quarters and singles inside. He was all seriousness when he turned back toward the case board. “I don’t see much here about canvassing the neighbors, interviews with her friends and like that.”

“There isn’t much,” Olivia said. “The original officers took the report, assumed at fourteen she was a runaway and went on their way. VanBuren’s squad tried to do some interviews but didn’t get anywhere, it was already three months into her disappearance and folks have short memories. They won’t have improved by now. I want to see if anyone at the school remembers anyone hanging around that didn’t belong, it’s a long shot but that’s all we’re going to get is long shots. Karla, Chloe, I’d like you to go to the school. Tommy and Fin, the neighborhood shops, there are several on the way from the bus stop she would have gotten off at and her home. Amanda and I are going to go see the parents at their workplaces. Stay away from their home on the off chance that whoever sent the threats still has eyes on the place.”

“That leaves me with checking street cameras,” Taylor said.

“It’s like you read my mind,” Olivia said, giving her detective a grin. “You do have a way with the tech side of things.”

“You mean Connie wants to get in my pants and will go above and beyond to find a clue,” Taylor laughed when he said it, knowing his boss was throwing him in a briar patch he didn’t hate.

Olivia shrugged, “Call me Cupid.”

Everyone paired off to leave the squad room while Taylor picked up the phone to call ahead to the department he needed to get the ball rolling on camera files. He grinned at Olivia as she left with Amanda, indicating Connie was indeed on shift and on task.

At the end of the day, they were once again around the case board with not much to show for it. None of the businesses had surveillance footage older than a month or two, one shot of a pair of girls exiting the bus was as much as they got from city cameras and it was from the back so not very conclusive, and neither parent had been hopeful or had any new information to add. The only thing new they had was one more threatening letter that the mother had kept, it had arrived after Logan had passed the file off and she hadn’t called him or the police about it. It was garden variety threats to stay quiet but no ransom demand, printed on plain white copy paper with no unusual characteristics. Olivia had passed it on to the Crime Scene techs but didn’t hold out much hope for a real lead from it.

“If I believed in aliens, I’d say this girl was beamed up to the mothership or something,” Tommy said after they’d all reported their lack of findings for the day.

“No facial rec results from any of the databases I can get from watch-groups,” Karla said, “not even the feebs have her in a database.”

Fin grinned at her, “I’ve taught you well, grasshopper.” Karla grinned back and gave Fin a fist bump.

“FBI failure aside, any ideas we haven’t tried yet?” Olivia asked. They spent another twenty minutes brainstorming then Olivia sent them home for the day, it was after five already.

The next week Taylor came in her office with a printout. “Got a fingerprint on that last letter the mom got in that missing person’s we aren’t looking into.”

Olivia looked up from the paperwork she wasn’t interested in, “Someone in the system?”

“Has a sheet for petty theft mostly, done a few months at a time in county lockup. He works at one of the bodegas in the neighborhood. He was in jail the day the girl went missing, in the drunk tank and couldn’t find anyone to raise his bail, he was in there for a couple days then got cut loose with a fine and some community service for hitting the bouncer at the club he was nabbed in.”

Olivia took the papers and glanced over them, handed them back and said, “Go pick him up and charge him with being stupid. Then call the feds and see if they want to charge him with mail threats or something, maybe scare him into explaining himself.”

*** *** ***

Olivia watched through the window into Interrogation where Detectives Robison and DiShaivi had their letter writer in custody. The man next to her spoke up, “The guy didn’t make a ransom demand but did imply some harm so I can’t say federal charges will stick. But we can put the fear of God into him and maybe if he knows something he might give the kidnapper up.”

“If there is one,” Olivia said.

“A god?”

“A kidnapper,” Olivia gave her companion a wry smile. “We have a missing girl but no proof of any kind how she went missing. We have parents who have nearly given up hope, a school that reports the girl was a model student, and friends who say she was a happy and rule abiding kid,” Olivia shrugged. “We’ve got fuck all squared inna box, as my colourful Detective Ryan would say. And now I owe the coffee jar a quarter.”

The agent next to her laughed. “Let me go in there and steal the suspect away and I will see what I can do with your missing person file as well. Guy might get a decent lawyer and end up back on the street in a few days, but he won’t write bogus threats to anyone again. I’ll be in touch.”

“Thanks, Agent Fitzgerald, any help would be welcome.”

“George tells me you’re good people, and I owe him one, so it’s win all around, I hope.”

Olivia watched the FBI agent enter Interrogation, badge the room, and take over the case. Her detectives made appropriate noises of dismay and anger, then let Fitzgerald take the man into his custody and leave the building, as they had planned all along.

“Think it’ll work?” Chloe asked when she joined Olivia in the hall.

“No idea,” Olivia replied.

Summer

Winter finally melted into Spring and then Summer and Margot learned they were within walking distance of the seashore when one of the Wedded brought his wives to the kitchen one afternoon with buckets of clams and shore crabs. Dinner that night was again stew and bread as it always was and Margot wondered what happened to the seafood she’d anticipated but knew better than to ask. Nobody ever asked questions. Nobody spoke unless addressed directly and nobody addressed Elder Peter except the other men and sometimes Carolyn. The Brides and the Unwed were kept apart most of the time unless the older girls were asked to supervise the younger when gardening the plants they set in the trees, vegetables planted for the evening stews in among the woods, hidden among undergrowth. One of the older men always went with them, keeping watch and never helping dig or plant or harvest. There were salad greens and tomatoes and all kinds of beans and peas and corn, melons and squash and even mushrooms encouraged to grow, but Margot never saw those on the dinner table. She wondered who was eating all that salad.

She missed her mother desperately when her cycles began. She knew all about the process from health class in school and talking with her friends as well as her mom, who’d assured her after her third friend started and she still hadn’t that she would bloom eventually. Now she was glad to have been so far behind her friends. Carolyn gave her a talk about the glory of becoming a woman and how she was a vessel now for the work and a bunch of other stuff that Margot didn’t pay any attention to, she was preoccupied by the underthings Carolyn had handed her. She was given a stack of panties with thick cotton padding sewn in the center. These were nothing like the disposable items her mother had shown her but it figured if the babies had cloth diapers that these folks wouldn’t use disposable feminine items either. Margot tried hard to suppress her distaste and when Carolyn was done with her speech she just went off to take a cold shower and dress herself in her new and frankly horrifying underthings. She realized why she’d never encountered these before when she was instructed to go to a different room the next day to wash her new clothing items. There was a room upstairs that was set aside for washing and hanging to dry the clothes she’d been given. Another of the girls was there washing her own. She wanted to demand to know why she’d never been told about this new horror but once Carolyn showed her the room and left the other girl turned away in embarrassment. She acted ashamed of a perfectly normal human event. Margot kept quiet and washed her clothing items.

Winter

When Winter came again Nelly lost her baby. Two of the other Brides had given birth after Margot arrived with no issues at all, Carolyn acting as midwife to healthy babies, one boy and one girl. Nelly had been terribly ill throughout her entire pregnancy, her morning sickness had never gone away and she suffered terrible swelling in her feet and all the way up her calves, she was miserable the entire time and grew so weak she could barely walk up the stairs in the evening. When she went into labor finally, Elder Peter and Carolyn bundled her into the van and drove away. That evening dinner was entirely silent after Mark said a brief blessing over the meal. The van returned the next day and Elder Peter and Carolyn brought Nelly in and up the stairs, nobody saw her for a week and Carolyn tended to her, saying nothing to any of the others. When Nelly rejoined the larger group she was frail and spent most of her time taking care of the younger children and looking sad. Margot overheard a whispered conversation between Barbara and Nelly, something about losing babies but they were quick to stop talking when they saw Margot and Alice had come near. Barbara seemed to know something about losing a child and Margot wished she could have found out more but didn’t dare ask, so pretended she hadn’t heard anything.

*** *** ***

Midday came and Olivia went to the break room to retrieve lunch from the communal fridge and ran into Chloe doing the same. “I thought you took a personal day?” Olivia asked as she sat at the table.

“I did,” Chloe said and joined her boss at the table, both unwrapping sandwiches and arranging their lunches.

“And?” Olivia encouraged.

Looking a little embarrassed and a little proud, Chloe continued, “I have a side project I wanted to concentrate on.” As they ate Chloe explained her research then said, “It might be easier to show you, I have a board set up in the conference area.”

In the conference area Olivia found a bulletin board covered in pictures and paper, on the far right was a picture of a smiling strawberry blonde with bright green eyes she recognized, then spreading from there to the left were more pictures of blonde girls in increasingly older fashions, then on the wall were taped more.

“All these girls went missing, usually off the street on the way home from school, no ransom, low chance of runaway, good stable homes and like that. No bodies found and no sign of them in any of the databases for exploited children.”

“Why are all of them white?” Olivia asked.

“I don’t know. I have found a few cases of non-white girls missing that started to match, then found them recovered later or,” Chloe paused, “evidence of them found.” Chloe put her hand on a stack of files, indicating the cases. Olivia understood that evidence probably meant some had died by means other than natural.

“And you took a day off to work on this?”

“I don’t have a wall in my apartment with enough space to lay it all out and I wanted to see it, maybe seeing the big picture would make it make sense. And the timeline is easier to see this way. Over a dozen girls in the last decade fit the pattern. I’ve been working on this in my off hours.”

“We’ve been helping, Connie and I, when we can. Only when we have free time. But it’s all Chloe’s work for the most part, we’re just support staff.” Taylor’s voice from the side sounded amused but still determined.

Olivia gave him a smile over her shoulder, “You may as well join us, and give my thanks to your contact in computer tech.”

“She’s coming to dinner tonight, I’ll be sure to tell her,” Taylor’s smile was well pleased.

“Ok, take me through what you’ve got,” Olivia said.

*** *** ***

“Benson,” Olivia answered the phone on her desk with only half her attention, the rest on the paperwork in front of her.

“Hi Olivia, Kelly Conroy here. I’m at Mercy-Gen and I have a case you might be interested in.”

“Hey Kelly, I can get you some detectives.”

“No, I think you want to see this for yourself. I have an abandoned baby here who’s a paternal match to a kid you found on the beach a couple years back, you remember her?”

“What the fu, uh, I mean, yeah I do remember her. Not my jurisdiction but I kept up with the case anyway. They never found her parents.”

“Nope, but her DNA is in the system and now this baby matches as a half-sister. She’s about a month premature the doctors think, but she should be fine. The mother had a terrible time with the pregnancy, was brought in by a couple who identified themselves as her parents and then as soon as she was released to recovery they took her out of the hospital. Didn’t sign out AMA and gave all bogus information on the forms, then disappeared. The doctor says she looked very young, like underage young, but she insisted she was eighteen. Doc says if she was eighteen she was severely underweight even before the birth and certainly had no kind of prenatal care.”

“So we might be talking abuse?”

“At the least,” Kelly agreed. “Add in the abandonment and these are less than ideal parents, if they are even related. She can’t file a complaint but I can try to get her in the system if she shows up anywhere, we might get her some help.”

“Did the doctor think she’d be safe being taken out of the hospital?”

“Not really, but that’s mostly because she needs bedrest and there’s no telling what kind of care she’s getting in her home. Doc says she’ll be alright if allowed to rest, gets a decent meal or three, maybe gets away from people who won’t let her recuperate in a real hospital.”

“I’ll come over and get a report started, won’t be the first Jane Doe we have on our desks. We’ll meet you in the NICU.”

“Thanks, Olivia. See you soon.”

Olivia gathered her things and picked Fin up on her way through the bullpen, wondering what weird set of coincidences brought this little baby into her orbit, considering her half-sister was found at the seashore several jurisdictions away.

Autumn

Olivia sighed and pushed the two year old file away, put her elbows on the desk and leaned her head in her hands. Rafael looked up and watched a moment.

“Still all dead ends and false leads?”

Olivia sighed once more and nodded. “I’ve looked at every database I have access to and some the FBI is reluctant to admit they have available to them, nothing after nothing.”

Rafael stood from his desk facing Olivia’s and walked around to stand behind her, put his arms around her shoulders and rested his chin on the top of her bowed head. “You know you are at your best when the odds are against you. You do three impossible things before breakfast every day. I have faith in your ability to find this girl.”

Olivia turned her head and Rafael leaned back, still holding her. “Thanks, but I am not so sure about this one. It’s the anniversary. We haven’t found her by now it just isn’t in the cards.”

Rafael leaned in to place a kiss on her temple. “Don’t care, still believe.” He straightened again and turned her chair to take her hands and pull her up to stand in front of him. “A good night’s sleep may help, come to bed.” Olivia looked down at their desks, both with open files and notebooks and a riot of so far unfinished work. “It will all be here in the morning, waiting for us to save the world. Come to bed, let it be for now.”

The case had officially been declared cold. The file still lived in Olivia’s desk, she and Anita VanBuren still met to compare notes, of which there were none. Mike Logan called his old boss every once in a while for the same reason. None of them had any new leads, the only suspect had turned out to be a part time cleaner and full time scumbag who swept up at a bodega the missing girl was known to frequent. He’d sent threatening letters to the parents and the private eye they’d hired to get them to stop coming by his place of work, he had a record and lied about it to get his job. The best Olivia and Anita could hope for was eventually finding a body that might lead them to whoever and whatever had happened to the girl. Olivia hated that it was how this case had gone. She still studied the case file hoping for inspiration, or even dumb luck. So far, neither had struck.

*** *** ***

Margot could hear muffled crying and knew it was Alice. She slipped out of her bunk and up to where Alice huddled under her blanket, putting her hand on Alice’s shoulder. Alice pulled the blanket up, inviting Margot inside.

“What’s going on,” Margot asked in the barest whisper. She’d never heard Alice cry.

“I turned sixteen last month. In a few weeks I’ll be made a Bride. I don’t want to be a Bride.”

Margot put her arm around the closest thing she had to a friend here and let her cry into her shoulder, tears dampening the nightdress she wore.

“You’ll be the oldest Unwed now, you have to take care of the little ones,” Alice continued.

Margot thought about that. She would be turning seventeen when Christmas came, but her captors thought she had turned fourteen this past Summer. She had been sixteen in the real world for some time now. Alice had continued talking and Margot tuned back in to what she was saying.

“…says you need to be taught how to save others, so you’re going with us. I’m so sorry, still, and now you have to help me.”

Margot caught her breath, “Tell me again what we need to do.”

Alice explained that they would need to find another girl in the city for Elder Peter to induct into the group and Margot could feel her heart beating faster, they’d be going into the city.

Two days later Carolyn took Alice and Margot aside and led them to the porch outside the main building. She gave them cardigans to put on over their dresses and then a few dollars in change to put in their pockets, explaining that they would need it to get on the bus later when they were in the city. She explained carefully and at length the importance of doing as Elder Peter said, how the work they did here was needed in a wicked world, how they were upholding a sacred duty in saving the righteous. Margot couldn’t tell if Carolyn was a true believer or was trying to help them avoid an afternoon in the punishment shed, or some of both. Elder Peter drove up in an old panel van with no windows and doors that opened off the back of the boxy vehicle. Carolyn led them to it and opened the passenger side door, indicated that they should get in. Alice climbed up and then Margot followed and Elder Peter handed them burlap bags. Carolyn told them to put the bags over their heads and lean forward so nobody would see them in the van, to keep that position until Elder Peter told them otherwise. Then she shut the door on them.

As soon as the van was in drive and they were headed out of the area, Elder Peter started talking, or preaching, or lecturing, or whatever he imagined he was doing whenever he addressed the girls. Margot was already uncomfortable and too hot in the burlap over her face, but tried to turn her head enough to see outside. It was no use, her head was too far below the lower edge of the window. Elder Peter was going on about the sort of girl they should look for, one who would be like them, able to become a vessel for the righteous. Margot tuned out until he told them to remove the burlap and sit up. He continued to drive and lecture for a very long time. Margot watched the traffic and the street signs and planned.

*** *** ***

“Captain, we have a situation in the park.”

Olivia looked up as Karla walked into her office. “What kind and which park?”

“Central Park, and a girl is there saying she was kidnapped and is insistent on talking to real detectives. The uniforms called here directly.”

Olivia was already up and shrugging into her jacket and checking her badge and weapon, around the desk and following Karla out her door. She called for Chloe and Amanda to join them. She nodded to Fin as she left, he was already making calls.

They took two cars to the park and pulled up behind an ambulance and a patrol car, silent but with lights flashing. There was a gurney outside the ambulance with two teen girls sitting on it, one in an oxygen mask and the other with an arm around her. One of the patrol officers was off to one side, talking to a woman in jogging clothes with a dog on a leash and a concerned look on her face. The other officer stood by the gurney looking dismayed as the pair of paramedics tried to do their jobs. He looked relieved when he saw Olivia walking toward them, then covered that relief with a professional look as fast as he could.

“I’ve got it from here,” she nodded at him.

“I’ll be,” he said, gesturing toward the jogger and his partner.

“Got it, I’ll be with you shortly.” Olivia turned her attention to the teens on the gurney. “I’m Captain Olivia Benson with the Special Victims Unit,” she put a hand on her chest, then waved over her team, “and these are my detectives Karla Blevins, Amanda Rollins, and Chloe DiShaivi. We’re here to help.”

The girl in the oxygen mask gasped and the mask slipped, one of the paramedics gently put it back in place, her voice soft telling the girl to breathe slow and try to count to four before exhaling, giving her instructions on calming without actually saying calm down.

“Does your friend,” Olivia’s voice held a question over the word friend, not sure the relationship of the girls, “have asthma?” She addressed the obvious immediate issue before asking for names.

“Not that I know of, but this is a scary day.” She turned to the other girl, softly asked if she had asthma or allergies, the other girl shook her head through her gasps.

“I think it’s a simple panic attack,” the paramedic told Olivia.

Olivia nodded. “Maybe we could talk over there,” Olivia nodded toward the gate to the park, within sight of the ambulance. The girl in the oxygen gave the other a pleading look but her friend spoke softly to her, assuring her that she’d stay in sight, then got off the gurney and followed Olivia and Karla while Amanda and Chloe stayed by the other girl.

Her voice was very soft when she started talking. “My name is Marjorie Sandersen and I was kidnapped two years ago or so. The man who kidnapped me likely knows by now that I took Alice because we were supposed to be somewhere else by now. He might still be on Staten Island if traffic is bad. He’s in an old panel van that might have once been blue but is mostly grey and rust now. I didn’t see the license plate, I’m sorry. He made us wear bags over our heads for the start of the trip, but I know were on Long Island and he took the Brooklyn Bridge and then the Verrazzano and we were supposed to take a bus. I didn’t take the bus he wanted. Alice thinks my name is Margot. Please don’t confuse her, she’s,” she shrugged, “fragile, I think.” Karla stepped away and called Fin to start a lookout for the van when the girl stopped talking.

“Why does she think your name is Margot?”

“I lied about my name and age when they asked.”

Olivia was nonplussed. “Why?” was all Olivia could think to ask.

“It might help if you’d ever met my Grams, the real Margot. She’s a very strong person and I wanted to be strong like her.”

Olivia nodded, knowing she needed more information. “Did you live with her?”

“No, I lived with my mom and dad, here in Manhattan, before. Can I see them soon?”

Olivia nodded.

The paramedics had gotten Alice calmed, determined that she was healthy enough if dehydrated. They agreed to release both girls to the SVU team if they promised to make sure she got some fluids in her and maybe a meal or three. Olivia and Karla took the girls in their car, not wanting to separate them since Alice seemed to keep calm if they were together.

At the station they escorted the girls into the nicer interview room and Chloe and Karla stayed with them. They each had a bottle of cold water and had been offered snacks but both declined them. Olivia and Amanda watched through the one-way window.

“Alice told the medics that she had oatmeal and water at breakfast, and stew and water last night for dinner. She told them that was what they had every day. Boring.”

“Lacking imagination, certainly. Maybe we could get some fruit from the canteen, just put it in there and see if they’ll have some,” Olivia said.

“I’ll call down and see what we can get.” Amanda left Olivia watching the girls talk to her detectives, not interviewing so much as letting them share what they wanted. Nothing formal could take place until they had an adult with them, which should be shortly if the rest of her crew had done their jobs, and they always did.

First to arrive were Mr. and Mrs. Sandersen. Taylor escorted them to the hallway where Olivia watched. Mrs. Sandersen gave Olivia a teary smile, then stepped to the window, hands gripped in front of her chest as if she were restraining herself from jumping through the glass.

"Oh, Tony, our baby is alive,” she said, turning to her husband who was looking in the window as if he were viewing the crown jewels, a mix of wonder and disbelief on his face, matching his wife. He could only nod and then smile. “Can we go in?” she asked.

“We’re going to need to interview her, we’ll go to my office,” Olivia said, “and bring her in to you. She mentioned her Grams.”

Mrs. Sandersen gave a teary laugh, “She did? Grams is our Matriarch of sorts, my great-great-grandmother who I think plans to outlive us all. She’s on her way from Staten Island which is a long way for a woman in her nineties, but she insisted she needed to come. My Uncle Will is bringing her. I hope that’s alright; she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“Give me her name and I will make sure the desk sergeant knows to bring her upstairs,” Olivia said.

“Her name is Margot,” Mrs. Sandersen told Olivia. “Margot Ross. My uncle is Will Clark.”

“We’ll make sure they’re taken care of, shall we go to my office?” Olivia gestured down the hall and Mrs. Sandersen watched the window as she was led away by her husband.

*** *** ***

Someone’s phone beeped and Marjie saw the detective named Chloe check her phone and return a text. Then she looked up and told Alice that she needed to stay here for a bit but that Margot was needed in another room. She was glad they’d kept calling her by the name Alice knew, she felt bad about lying all this time about her name. She reached out and patted Alice’s shoulder, giving her a smile when she looked up, trying to give her encouragement. She wondered if her parents knew where she was yet, if they knew she was alive. She followed Chloe out of the room. In the hall she saw a woman looking in the window with her hands up on the glass. She was crying. Chloe led her past the detectives and the crying woman. They passed desks where people were working, on phones, giving instructions, and passing information. Then through a door into an office and her parents were sitting on a couch. She stopped cold, overwhelmed suddenly by the weight of the day, of the last two years, of the experience of seeing her parents after so much time wondering if she ever would again. She felt tears falling down her cheeks and heard herself gasp as the door closed behind her and the detective that had led her here. Her mother stood and opened her arms and Marjie ran the few steps to her, feeling her mother’s arms surround her and then her father’s. She finally let herself cry.

*** *** ***

“What a flaming mess,” Taylor said, looking at the two bulletin boards full of pictures and paper.

“But not our mess, thankfully,” Chloe said as she taped the last slip of paper reading ‘Found’ in red on the picture of Marjorie Sandersen. She turned as the rest of the SVU team joined them in the conference room.

“Go ahead, Chloe, it’s your show,” Olivia said when they’d all taken seats at the table, coffees in front of them.

“Eight of the girls from my list of twelve, including Marjie Sandersen, were being kept at an abandoned resort site by a self-proclaimed prophet, Peter Harris, who decided the world was going to wrack and ruin and he needed to create a society of the righteous to inherit the earth after all governments inevitably fell from war and social crisis,” Chloe waved at the pictures she’d marked with the found papers. “The remaining four girls are still missing and don’t seem related to this case. The reason we never found any sign of these girls is that they weren’t used in pornography or prostitution rings. But just as bad, they were brood stock for him and his three disciples. His scheme was to take girls young enough to, as he said, mold them into good helpmeets, his word, and then breed a new generation of righteous who would remake the world as he saw fit. So basically kidnap girls, train them to obedience, have babies on them, rinse and repeat. The weird thing about him is that he isn’t a gun nut or a prepper, which a lot of the supremacist tend to be, the only violence he seems to have perpetrated was on the girls for their so-called training and even that he delegated. He would have the three younger men beat the girls for infractions while he preached at them whenever the girls had broken rules. He also sold nearly all the food they grew, except for what he kept for himself and his disciples. The guy kept good stuff for the men and the women and children got nearly nothing.”

“Grade A scumbag,” Taylor said, raising some brows around the table as usually it was Tommy who voiced such judgments. “What? Calling it like I see it.” Taylor grinned at Fin and Tommy who gave him thumbs up.

“And he’s the father of both the abandoned baby and the girl found at the seashore, the half-sisters,” Olivia added.

“Yes,” Chloe agreed. “The older child was taken there and left by one of the older girls, referred to as Brides in the group. The child was mute and the Bride overheard this Elder Peter, as he called himself, telling one of the disciples that they would need to weed out this weak child. The Bride took the child and left her where she thought she’d be found. That Bride, only known as Karen in the group, disappeared. The girls thought she’d been taken to the punishment shed but she never returned. There are teams searching the surrounding area for a burial site but so far nothing has been found.” Chloe put two more pictures on the board, one of a baby under the picture of Nelly Ford and a picture of an older girl under Barbara Nelson. “These are the half-sisters. Nelly’s baby was premature and Harris decided to weed that weak one fast, or he thought the baby was going to die. It’s not like he waited to find out.”

“Our role from here is simply support, only Marjie Sandersen and Alice Whitlock are our official cases,” Olivia said as she stood from her chair. “The feds are getting involved because the abandoned camp is technically on park land and a few of the girls were taken from New Jersey. It’s all out of our jurisdiction and I can’t say I’m unhappy to let them have it. It is, as Taylor said, a mess. Chloe is going to be our liaison with the task force sorting out the aftermath. Taylor, I’d like you to work with the Sandersens and Karla, you have the Whitlocks. The Ford baby is our case as well, but since her mother is not, we’re handing that one off to keep them together.” Olivia finished her coffee, then added, “The only good news, Carolyn, the actual wife of Harris, is spilling her guts. The three other men, and Harris himself, are keeping silent about it all. Today is a day I am glad I didn’t want to be a public defender when I grew up.”

The meeting broke up and the squad went their separate ways to do the things they needed to do, hoping to make their corner of the world better.

*** *** ***

Anita looked up when there was a knock on her door, “Hello, stranger.”

“I come bearing gifts,” Olivia said and held up a cardboard tray with coffee and pastries.

“And I am happy for a break,” Anita pushed aside the file she had open and gestured for Olivia to sit.

Once they had the coffee and pastries demolished and Olivia had filled in the details of the case that hadn’t been in the papers, she pulled a slim book from her bag. “Marjie Sandersen wanted me to have this, so I am loaning it to you. I think you will find it interesting reading. Her great-great-however many grandmother survived World War Two and was asked by her daughter to write a journal which eventually that daughter typed up and had made into a book. The family has multiple copies and every so often updates it and reprints it. Now they interview Great-Grams and add to the book that way.”

“She’s still alive?” Anita asked as she took the book Olivia offered.

“In her nineties and still spry as anything. She’s a character.”

“So the name Marjie used,” Anita looked up from reading the cover, “was her great-however Grandmother?”

“Yes, Marjie wanted to be as strong as her Grams. I think she succeeded.”

Anita opened the book and saw it had been autographed in beautiful copperplate handwriting, ‘For Olivia, thank you for bringing our treasure home.’ “Do people still write like that?”

“When they’re ninety plus, yeah. It’s a hell of a story. Margot, the original, was born in Germany and then escaped to France, fell in love with an American G.I., and then ended up here in New York.”

“Jewish, escaping Germany?”

“Her mother was, her father was Catholic. Quite the scandal in both families from what I read. Like I said, interesting reading.”

Anita laughed, “So Mister White Supremacist stole a part Jewish girl who then brought about his downfall. I love it already. And I will return it in the same condition you loaned it, but my crew might want to read it, too.”

“No worries. You’ll find that this is a new edition with the latest chapter Margot’s thoughts on Marjie’s escape. Call me when you’ve all finished, we can meet for lunch and have Book Group.”

“It’s a date,” Anita told Olivia.

The War Years

~~~excerpt from the journals of Margot Ross~~~

My daughter has given me this diary and asked me to write the story of my life so far. I feel silly doing it but she saved up her allowance to get this book for me and how can I refuse when she asked so sweetly. In school both her history class and language arts class are doing units on diaries, reading published ones and comparing them to what events were going on when the authors were writing the entries. She has heard the story of how her father and I met endless times, she asks to hear it over and over. Less often I agree to tell her about my parents or theirs, that story is sometimes too painful to say out loud. I don’t know if writing it will be less so, but for her I will try. And perhaps someday she will pass these stories to her own children. The stories will be told one way or another and maybe in the telling, we won’t repeat the mistakes.

My world as I knew it ended the Summer I was fourteen and my baby brother Willi was two. Our parents shielded us as best they could from the madness that had taken over but that madness came to our doorstep anyway. We lived in a little apartment over the equally little watch repair shop my father owned. That last morning of my world I woke early and had breakfast with my parents and brother, helping Mama wash up when Daddy kissed her and then us children before heading downstairs to open for the day. Mama was singing at the sink and Willi was banging toys together in discordant percussion, making happy sounds as he did. I added to the cacophony when I went to the front room to practice piano. After lunch I went down the stairs with Daddy to his shop, he had a watch for me to drop off with the baker near our place, he told me to take it there after my piano lesson. Before I left, he put his hands on my cheeks and smiled down at me. “Learn well today, mein singvogel,” he said. He always called mama and me his songbirds. I assured him I would and kissed his check and skipped out the door.

When my piano lesson was done I made my way to the bakery. Daddy knew this was one of my favourite places to pass on my way home. I liked to look at the window because sometimes there were sweet confections to gaze longingly at, though not often because times were hard in our city then. Today I could go inside and breathe in the scents of warm yeasty bread and maybe a cake if I was lucky. I opened the door and showed the lady at the counter the watch I was carrying but before I could get a word out she came from behind the counter and bundled me to the back and then down the stairs to a basement. Downstairs her husband, the baker, was checking papers on a clipboard against items on his shelves, he looked up when we came down the stairs. His eyes widened when he saw us, then there was alarm when he saw his wife’s expression. He took the watch I offered and thanked me then told me to wait for a moment in the basement and he took his wife up the stairs. I could hear them talking but couldn’t make out the words, then they were gone. The longer I waited in the basement storage area, for that was what it had to be, bags of flour and jars of yeast were stacked there, the more confused I became. Daddy had told me the baker had already paid for the repair of his pocket watch, so what could be happening upstairs? I waited a long time. Finally, the baker and his wife returned, he looked sad and she looked scared. They led me from the basement and then through the kitchens behind their shop and up more stairs to the rooms they lived in, much like my family lived above daddy’s shop. They explained that there’d been a raid two streets over, the street that I lived on.

We were Catholic, my family and me, we went to Mass not very frequently, but on holidays certainly, and celebrated some of the saint’s days. I went to catechism like my friends did, Willi and I were baptized and we both had saint’s pictures above our beds, the saints Mama and Daddy had chosen for us to be watched over by, and we’d been baptized on their special days. But Mama had not been born a Catholic, she was a convert. My Mama was Jewish, which in Stuttgart in Germany in 1940 was a dangerous thing to be.

I never cried. I realize now looking back on it that I was likely suffering from shock, that my stoic response was not resignation or understanding or anything like that. I was just numb with the sudden changes and the realization that I was separated from everyone and everything that I loved and the knowledge that I may never see them again. There was no more time for grief, only for survival, so I did not cry but I wish now that I could have.

For three nights and days the bakers hid me in their rooms, warning me to stay quiet during the day so no customers would hear me. On the morning of the fourth day we woke before daybreak and I was hidden in the back of a delivery van and we traveled out of the city. Every time the van stopped, I huddled lower under the blankets and behind the boxes stacked between me and the opening where bread was taken from the back. I kept both hands over my mouth, barely daring to breathe when the door was open and bread was handed off to people I couldn’t see but whose voices sounded so loud to me back there hidden behind loaves of bread.

We reached a farm far from the city by midday and we went into a barn where the baker opened the door and came to uncover me, assuring me we were safe and among friends. I was taken to a barn loft and told to stay quiet, that I should rest if I could because there would be more traveling as soon as it was dark. The baker gave me a small cloth bag and apologized that it wasn’t more, then he left. The woman who had greeted us when we came out of the van gave me a lidded jar of milk and a meat pie wrapped in a cloth napkin. I thanked her and she told me to rest, stay quiet as I could, and smiled with a sad look in her eyes, then she too left. Inside the bag I found a huge loaf of fresh bread, a small sweet cake wrapped in waxed paper, and a big warm shawl that someone had knitted, I wondered if it had been the baker’s wife. I would never know. I ate the meat pie and drank the milk, then wrapped myself up under the hay in the loft and tried to sleep.

That night when it was full dark the woman came for me, leading me down into the barn where several other people gathered. The farmer had a wagon and a huge horse to pull it, everyone got into the back of the wagon and we all laid flat and the farmer and his wife covered us with blankets, and then hay was piled high above us. We traveled what seemed a long way over a bumpy track, and then there were voices calling greetings. I stiffened, afraid that we were caught. The voices remained friendly and we came to a stop, then the wagon rocked as the driver got down and another climbed aboard, and we were once again moving.

We came to the end of our journey in another barn, welcomed by people speaking French which I had been learning in school. The few women in our group were given papers and what looked like train tickets and a young man led them from the barn, perhaps to go to a train station, I didn’t know. The men in the group gave reports, they had information and some had maps that they spread on a table and they all huddled around discussing their news. I understood most of it though I didn’t get to hear much. The man who seemed to be in charge took me aside, led me to where milk cows were milling in a big stall, offered me a seat on a three legged milking stool and sat on one himself.

First he asked me if I spoke French, I answered that I did in the same language. He nodded, then explained that I was in a Resistance enclave and had been a last minute addition to the refugee wagon that night. He asked if I understood what was happening in my home country and I shrugged, nodded, indicated that I knew a little, only what we were told in school, we didn’t talk about it at home. He nodded again, thought for a moment and then told me it would take a few days to get papers for me and asked if I had family outside Germany. I told him I didn’t, that the only family I had was my parents and my brother and they’d been taken away. He didn’t ask why or seem to make any judgements, for which I was grateful. He told me to stay there and got up and left. He returned with a woman who seemed to be his wife. She sat where the man had, he left us there. She had kind eyes and asked me questions, I answered in French. She said that they had nowhere to send me but if I was willing to help around the house and with her two children they could take me in, explain that I was a cousin sent to stay with them for safety from the city. I agreed, because what else was I going to do. That is how I came to be involved with the French Resistance during the Second World War. When asked I said I was sixteen because I hoped if they thought I was older I would be able to help them more, and I took their last name on the papers they created for me in order to shore up the illusion that I was family. I kept my given name, Margot.

I spent nearly all my time on the farm, very rarely going into the French city of Strasbourg. My French improved and eventually my English as well as we sometimes had British or American soldiers hiding in the barn or in outbuildings further from the house. It was almost the end of the war when we had three American soldiers show up in the dead of night. Two were injured and the third was exhausted from getting his compatriots to safety. They spent their convalescence in the loft of the barn, two of them ready to leave fairly quickly but the third had a shattered knee and they weren’t sure he could make it to the next friendly area safely, so he was left behind. I spent all my free time in the loft practicing my language skills and, yes, flirting shamelessly. I was nineteen, twenty-one on my papers, and the sandy haired soldier told such delightful stories of his home in New York in the states, that I was enchanted. He was a few years older than me and had seen so many places I wanted to go, I had endless questions. He asked our host if he could court me, taking the story of my cousin-hood as true. His reply was that I was my own woman and could choose for myself, a very forward thinking answer considering the time. That is how I came to be married to a young G.I. from New York State, who took me home with him shortly after the war ended in Europe. The only papers I had said I was twenty-one and that my name matched his, there was nobody to say different. He was a Presbyterian and I happily converted when we went to his home in New York, had a second wedding ceremony to please his mother, and then had children and a home.

There are more stories to tell, but for now that is the start of so many things. There were adventures. There were letters sent back and forth with my adopted family in France. I am grateful to them and pleased that they wanted to stay in touch after I took my leave. They remain my only contacts from that childhood cut short by war and loss, all I have left of family, my own lost in the terrors following.