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“You really don’t remember?” Jonathon sounded surprised.
“I’m sorry.” She’d always been glad her brain had closed off those memories, but now for the first time in twenty-three years she was wishing it hadn’t.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Clara,” her sister rebuked. “You were six years old and traumatized; your mind did what it had to so that you could function.”
“Clara.” Jonathon moved closer to her, and she was beyond irritated with herself when his proximity comforted her. “Look at me,” he prompted.
Reluctantly, she did, and the raw understanding in his eyes warmed her heart in a way it shouldn’t. It was as if he put her under some spell.
“What about Thomas? His statement is as vague as yours. Did you two discuss not telling the police anything, or did he not remember what happened as well?”
“We didn’t discuss anything, at least that I remember. I really don’t know what Thomas told the police.”
“But you kept in contact with Thomas?” Continuing when she nodded, he asked, “Did you two ever discuss it?”
“No, never. I never talked to anyone about it, not even Naomi or my brothers.”
“Tell us about Thomas,” Detective Bennett all but demanded.
Narrowing her eyes at the woman, Clara snapped, “I’m not helping you pin this on my friend.”
“We’re not asking you to,” Jonathon soothed. “Just tell us about him.”
“Tommy really struggled to fit in,” Clara began, still suspicious of their motives, but perhaps if they came to understand Tommy, they would realize he wasn't a killer. “He was very sensitive and emotional and he got teased a lot at school. He was very smart, but for a while, he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. His dad wanted him to become an accountant, like him, but Tommy didn’t love numbers; he loved art. Once he got into that, things finally settled down for him.”
“Have you met Thomas?” Detective Bennett asked Naomi.
“A couple of times, but he was pretty shy; he never really said more than hello,” Naomi replied.
“Did he ever see a psychiatrist? Take medication? Suffer from depression?” Jonathon asked.
“We both did,” she said softly. The darkest time in her life had been just after graduating high school. Her brothers were both busy with their lives, she hadn’t known what she wanted to do with her own life, and she’d quickly started falling into a deep depression. But then she’d met Naomi, and the two of them had hit it off, instantly feeling the sisterly bond even though they'd just met. It had been her sister who had encouraged her to follow her dream and open a bookstore. That had given her focus and drive, and she had managed to shake off the dark bonds of depression that had been holding her down.
“Before yesterday, when was the last time you saw Thomas?” Detective Bennett asked.
“Maybe six months ago,” she guessed. She’d been busy lately and hadn’t had time for anything, even friends. “Tommy suffered because of what they did to us, but he wouldneverhurt another kid. If the killings have started up again, then it must bethem. The ones who took us, who killed all those other kids.”
“It’s been twenty-three years since the killings stopped, and they’d been going ten years before that, that makes thirty-three years, depending on how old the killers were when the first pair of children were taken, they may be too old to have committed the most recent murders,” Jonathon explained.
“You said you don’t remember much about your time being held captive, and you don’t remember how you managed to escape, but do you remember your abductors?” Detective Bennett’s blue eyes clearly said she believed that Clara was lying and remembered a whole lot more than she was saying.
“No.”
“But you remembered enough to tell the police that there were two of them,” Jonathon reminded her. “Before that, they were working under the assumption that it was a single killer. You and Thomas told them that it was a male and female pair who took you.”
“A man and woman, that’s all I can tell you about them.”
“We just need an age,” Detective Bennett persisted. “You say that Thomas wouldn’t have committed these crimes, that it was the original killers, so we need to know whether that’s a viable possibility. If you can give us an approximate age of the people who took you, then it will help us discount or confirm your theory.”
“Old, but I was six; everyone over the age of about thirteen looked old.” She desperately wanted to convince them that Thomas was not their killer, no matter how sick it made her to think that the people who hurt her were still out there hurting other children. But she sincerely didn’t remember anything about the people who held her prisoner for six weeks beyond that they were a man and a woman.
“What about the abduction itself?” Jonathon asked.
Her whole body froze as though it had been turned to ice. “What about it?” she tried to keep her voice steady but feared she failed.
“You don’t remember much about anything else. Do you remember how you were taken?”
Clara could feel herself shutting down. There was no way on earth she was talking about that. With anyone. Ever.
