Page 37 of Booked for Kidnapping

I regarded the scar with a frown, wondering how long I’d spent sedated following my intervention with the senator’s murder. Then again, the new intel did a lot to help me cope with my long-term captivity.

I hadn’t been able to save Senator Maybelle, but I had made a difference. One man lived because of something I’d noticed—of something I’d done because I’d noticed something amiss. I’d have to weigh the cost of consequence later, sometime after I found my way home and got a better idea of what had happened and why.

To add to my problems, at the same time of the bombing and in an entirely different city, the serial killers had struck again, murdering Representative Islanney in front of his Washington D.C. residence, witnessed by at least five people. Islanney’s murder confirmed what most had come to believe: I couldn’t have saved Senator Westonhaus in a different state and kill someone at the same time, thus permanently removing me from the list of suspects.

The pictures the media provided showed me with my glasses, a hell of a lot less gaunt, and using my medical boot and cane. Even if someone spotted me with the same gaudy glasses on, I doubted anyone would recognize me, even my own mother. Nine months without a haircut hadn’t done me any favors, either.

According to the article, I’d been marked missing but presumed dead. A short time after the declaration I was likely dead, Senator Westonhaus had opted to announce his last-minute candidacy for President of the United States. The date put his announcement during the first week of November, at the very last minute candidates could announce their run. He had even gone so far as to martyr his fellow bill signers, using their deaths—and my disappearance—as fuel for his campaign fire.

I scowled, as my actions at Senator Maybelle’s ill-fated rally were included, supporting Westonhaus’s platform, which involved a complete overhaul of the current rating system, further paving the way for the bill he’d helped bring to life.

My disappearance and presumed death bore some fruit; part of Westonhaus’s platform involved a donation drive to send exsanguinators to medical school, his campaign paying for the entirety of their education. Curiosity got the better of me, and I clicked the article’s link to the application for exsanguinators to see what sort of criteria he thought was needed for people like me to be useful in hospitals and medical care. Apparently, any confirmed exsanguinator with a demonstrable ability to manipulate blood could apply.

As nobody discovered they were an exsanguinator without blood being manipulated in some fashion or another, he used me to transform society’s opinion of us. Rather than toting us as weapons, he pitched us as healers. Then, as he couldn’t seem to stop making use of me as an example, he’d rounded up a collection of people I’d helped in my hospital volunteering ventures.

I spent five minutes of thought on the situation before I decided either the senator was a master opportunist or he’d been involved with our kidnapping, using the donation to the library as a way to lure me into a place we could go on a well-planned trip. An experienced farm hand wouldn’t have left so many goats without halters, and while it was possible the driver had gotten lost, it was equally probable he’d gotten lost on purpose.

Not a day went by when somebody didn’t get turned around in that area.

The article made a token mention of the Hampton family, and it mentioned nothing of my parents. The politics of my disappearance dictated the entire tone of the piece, and everything within served a purpose: bringing attention to Senator Westonhaus’s presidential campaign.

I returned to the search engine, skimming every article I could find on Westonhaus’s campaign to discover I’d become a foundation for his run, something that could only happen with me out of the way. In the months following the announcement of his run, the news had quieted.

My reappearance would stoke the fires again, and like it or not, boost his campaign run.

Assuming he’d engineered my disappearance, I’d likely served my purpose. If he hadn’t been involved, he’d wasted no time reaping the rewards of someone else’s scheme. I suspected countless possibilities existed, and I would obsess until I identified as many of them as possible. What I didn’t understand was why me?

Had I just been a convenient tool? Nothing seemed convenient about making me disappear for so many months. Caring for my foot defined what it meant to be inconvenient. Erasing a gunshot wound so I hadn’t even noticed it went beyond merely inconvenient. Why go through so much effort to keep me alive and healthy? Why go through so much work to heal my battered foot?

If killing Senator Westonhaus had been the goal, why not eliminate me permanently for interfering with their plans, whatever those plans might have been?

While time had warped for me, it hadn’t felt like six months, let alone almost nine.

How long had I spent under sedation? How long had it taken my kidnappers to restore functionality to my foot?

Had California been chosen as my prison because of the stable weather? I could believe that. I’d never looked much into California’s climate, but I’d been under the impression they had summer and spring, skipping right over winter and fall entirely. Curiosity got the better of me, and within five minutes, I’d learned my current location did have seasons, but winter was a little cool and rainy, while the rest of the year, the weather stayed a somewhat stable temperature until the peak of summer, where the state tended to catch on fire and burn before winter came and snuffed the fires out.

I gave the illusionist credit: I hadn’t been aware of when it rained at all, and if there had been any earthquakes since the start of my captivity, I’d missed them.

At a loss of how to cope with my status as a long-term missing person, one likely presumed dead by just about everybody, I turned my search to Bradley. The first few articles called him reclusive, a few dubbed him an available bachelor who would need a tender hand to get over the death of his fiancée, and a straggler article indicated he refused to accept my death without a corpse to prove I no longer lived. I liked that article, as it offered me a little hope I could somehow get out of my current situation somewhat intact.

Aware I no longer had a job, as life went on no matter how much I loathed the idea I’d been taken out of the picture, I went to the one place I’d have a way to contact Bradley: my email.

Fortunately for me, I had several, including a personal one I’d used to send Bradley information as needed. As such, I had his phone number, his email address, and other scraps of my life in a place I could access.

My password worked, and I winced at the ridiculous number of unread messages. Bracing for the worst, I skimmed through to discover Bradley, Beatrice, and everyone else in my life had taken to emailing me at least once a week with updates on what they were doing, why they were doing it, things I had missed, pictures of what I’d missed, and everything needed to put the pieces of my life back together as needed.

The latest emails, from yesterday, promised they hadn’t given up on me when everyone else had.

It would take me days to sort through the mess, and I expected I would need several boxes of tissues to work through the nightmare they’d endured.

With Senator Westonhaus having opted to use me as a publicity stunt, I decided against going to a police station to get help, which meant I’d have to try Bradley’s email, hope he checked it, found the library, and figured out where I hid until he could catch a flight over.

While I waited, I’d prowl the beach and find some place to lay low until he could come. I’d also make sure he understood if I didn’t get good Chinese food after a nine-month hiatus, I might actually expire. I also asked for my cane, as I expected after a full day of walking around, my foot would be a miserable mess. As I had some awareness of my current state of mind, I asked him to please ignore any incidents involving tissues, and that I’d only met with the senator because he was donating to the library and needed information on the donation and how to submit it.

The articles on Senator Westonhaus and his campaign had made mention of the donation, which he’d upped by several million dollars after it had become obvious I wouldn’t be found like he’d been found, within hours of having been kidnapped thanks to someone who’d called in a report of someone driving erratically.

Senator Westonhaus hadn’t gone out without a fight, unlike me, who’d slept right through being moved across the country.