Page 53 of The Vanishing Wife

Leigh kept her next question to herself until Mrs. Fuentes was out of hearing range. “She loves you.”

“Too much sometimes, but after she left my dad, I think me and my sister are all she has.” Saige suddenly looked like her younger sister, the one who’d been spying through the doorway the last time Leigh sat here. Younger. Innocent. She didn’t see the youngest today, though. Most likely at school. “Did he… Did he take Ava too?”

“No,” she said. “She’s staying somewhere safe. It’ll take some time and a lot of effort, but she’s going to be okay.”

Tears glimmered in Saige’s eyes. “I was the one who introduced them. Ruby and Poppy and Ava. None of them knew him before.”

“Are you talking about Samuel Thornton?” Leigh asked.

“Yes.” The fight Saige had shown her mother drained in an instant, and the scared fifteen-year-old girl Leigh expected looked as though she wanted to sink into the couch cushions and never surface again. “If I hadn’t, maybe none of this would’ve happened. Maybe they would still be alive.”

“Samuel Thornton got to Ava through social media. We’re still sifting through Ruby’s messages, but it looks as though that was how he contacted Poppy too.” Leigh knew all too well what the weight of responsibility—of not seeing Chris Ellingson for who he was sooner, for not telling her parents about her fears—could do to a teenager. “It wasn’t your fault, Saige. He was smart. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he used you to do it. He was the adult in every encounter. You four are minors. According to federal law, there is no way for any of you to consent.”

Saige seemed to take her words to heart. For just a moment.

Leigh leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “You didn’t get a chance to answer my question from before.”

“Everything hurts.” Saige rolled her lips between her teeth and bit down. Trying to hold back the tears. “I told you the truth. I don’t remember drinking anything except some water that was in the room with me. My mom said I’ve been gone for three days, but to me it just feels like a few hours. How is that possible?”

“You look like you’re suffering from a headache.” Leigh pointed at the girl’s temple. “What about your stomach? Any nausea? Throwing up?”

“Nausea.” Saige grabbed her stomach. “But I haven’t eaten in a while. At least, I don’t think I have. I’m sorry. I can’t really remember a whole lot.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me. You’ve been through something terrible and scary, and I understand it’s going to take some time to untangle,” Leigh said. “You’re sure it was Samuel Thornton who abducted you?”

“Yes. He’s been trying to message me, but I blocked him after the night we all had some drinks last summer.” Saige pinched her eyes closed, trying to remember every detail right. “But he showed up outside my school before lunch. Said he could help me find Ruby.”

The son of a bitch had played on Saige’s emotions. Within less than two weeks, he’d discarded Ruby Davis on the beach and gone for another victim? And, again, a week before, had assaulted Ava? Not to mention hair recovered from Samuel Thornton’s home possibly identified him as Poppy Slater’s killer, only for him to wait an entire year before abducting Ruby? Only Ava had survived. Saige too. Why the inconsistency? What was different about them? Serial offenders found a unique satisfaction in hurting others. A high that couldn’t be achieved anywhere else. But they also had strict personal rules on when to seek out that pleasure again, to avoid getting caught or drawing too much attention. Despite needs or compulsions as they claimed in court, most criminals had the ability to deny themselves from acting out. And the tendency to go longer between highs. But she’d never seen a cooling-off period as short as this.

Leigh forced the questions to settle at the back of her mind. For now. “Did you get in his vehicle then?”

“I wanted to find Poppy.” The tears poured out then. Saige wiped at her face, but they came too fast. Her gasp was soaked with a tightness Leigh couldn’t see.

“That’s understandable. You were worried about your friend.” She tried to keep her voice even, soft, to trigger the same kind of neutrality in her witness. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it took longer periods of time together. “Where did he take you, Saige?”

“I don’t know. I woke up in a dark room.” Saige shook her head, but despite Leigh’s several attempts to reverse time with the same action, seconds still ticked by out of their control. “I called for help, but no one came. I screamed until my throat hurt.”

Leigh fought the urge to cross the living room and put her arms around this girl. To comfort her the same way she’d comforted Ava after they’d gotten off the bus together. But she would have to let this play out. Emotion triggered memories, sensory experiences. Saige would have to stay scared just a little bit longer.

“But then there was someone else.” Two divots furrowed between Saige’s eyebrows. The tears stilled, her face smooth but for the patches of dry skin on her chin. “She told me she was going to help get me home. But… he was there.”

Tightness intensified its hold in Leigh’s arms. Her heart rate surged at the potential of a new lead. Of knowing whether or not Elyse was alive. “Who was it? Who was there to help you? Did you know them?”

“I’m trying to picture her face. I think I knew her.” Saige pressed her palm into one eye. “She broke the lock on the door. She tried to help me stand, but?—”

“That’s enough, Saige. You need your rest.” Annalea Fuentes charged from the kitchen and crossed the living room, helping her daughter to her feet. Turning that disapproving face to Leigh, Saige’s mother looked as though she intended to cut glass with her gaze alone. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Both of you. My daughter has been through enough. We just want to forget about this whole thing and move on. As a family.”

Detective Moore set down a fresh glass of lemonade on the coffee table. “Annalea, the more Saige can tell us, the sooner we can get answers about who took her. We need her to tell us what happened and who else might’ve been there. To keep it from happening again and to protect more victims.”

“I need you both to leave,” Annalea Fuentes said.

Leigh leaned forward. “The physician?—”

“No. No physician.” Annalea Fuentes shook her head. “I’ll take her to our family doctor on the way to pick up my youngest from school.”

Saige tried to leave her mother’s protective embrace. In vain. “Mom, I want to help.”

“You don’t know what you want,” Annalea Fuentes said. “For all we know you sustained brain damage and talking is making it worse. Now, please leave so I can take care of my family.”

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