Missing Without A Trace (8 page)

A detective called. She was in charge of Tanya’s case and this was her first call. “I need a print out of all your accounts,” she said.

Tom told her, as he’d told everyone so far, that the only card Tanya had with her was her Nordstrom Visa, and that he hadn’t set up his online password yet so he had no access to that account.

“Where’s the account?” she asked. “And how do you access it?”

Tom gave her their account numbers and all the information he could. He also provided his social security number and his PIN numbers, so she could check out everything for herself. He
wanted
her to. He insisted that the detective search the house and even take his computer, to prove that he wasn’t involved with her disappearance in any way. He told them that they didn’t need to get a warrant and that he wanted to be as open with them as he possibly could. He
pleaded
with the police to follow up on
every
lead, and he prayed that they would eliminate him as a suspect as quickly as possible, so that, then, they would move on to investigate more productive leads.

I wake up cold, so cold. My fingers and arms, legs and toes feel so cold and my heart gives a little flutter and then I feel some hard, pounding beats. I know a lot about health, but I do not understand what is happening inside my body. I just want to rest. I want to sleep and dream, but I’m angry
and I want to cry. I don’t have the strength, just a lame attempt, a whimper. I talk to Tom inside my head. I pray to God. I drift out above the blackberry bushes, away from the smells in my car, up to tops of the cedar trees
.

“Come with me, Lady,” I say inside my head. “Let’s go for a ride.
”

But I can’t find Lady. I don’t know where she is
.

“
Tom?” I say in the silence of my mind. “Do you know where Lady is?
”

Tom doesn’t know where Lady is but, he says, “I love you.
”

“
Well, I love you too,” I think I say. “So why don’t you come and get me?
”

But Tom doesn’t answer. He will come, I think
.

My gut twists and turns and I feel sick again, but it is not my stomach this time. I have to go to the bathroom! I start crying. I have always worked hard to keep my life clean and orderly and, here I am, sick in my pants. Locked in my seat, fully clothed, I have diarrhea. The fresh smell is horrible and I am in agony
.

I drift away again. I see myself hovering over our property in Shelton, where we had built our house, a nice home on a double lot overlooking a beautiful bay. During construction, we had lived in an RV that had air conditioning. I liked that, though I am so cold right now, I do not understand why! The RV was small, but I was happy, being so close to Tom. We know that we can conquer any challenges. We can do anything!

Facing my situation in the car, I see and smell the same horror. I keep trying to pound on the window, claw at the clasp. I try them again and again. I do not care if I have tried them a thousand times. I do not care if they have failed a thousand times. I must keep trying, even if it is futile. What else am I going to do? All I can do is choose to erase everything that binds me. I can give in and let go, but I do not want to. I have dreams to live for, so failure is not an option. I must will myself to live
.

After the detective left, Tom worked around the property. It was mindless labor that he needed to do, but he only did it to keep his tortured mind occupied for a little while. Tom also worked on flyers and tried to raise money for a reward. He knew that he needed to do all he could to add to the media stories every day, so that Tanya’s disappearance would stay in front of the public—and so that the public would keep the pressure on the police.

I hear a sound. I can’t make sense of it, though it seems familiar. I think I should know what it is. It comes from up above me, a vibrating hum that gets louder until there’s a red glow, and then the red light fades away as the sound becomes fainter. But, soon, it happens again. And again. Then it happens again but this time, the noise gets louder as a white light gets brighter and brighter and, then, the light turns to red and the noise and red light both fade away. I don’t understand it
.

I don’t know where I am. I am in a box full of broken stuff and the box is surrounded by bushes. I can’t get out and I don’t know why. Why can’t I get out? Why can’t I move and why does everything hurt me? My head hurts so badly and my left shoulder is burning with pain—for that matter, my whole left side hurts me. I can’t seem to move my legs and my back hurts. I’m stuck. My stomach cramps up. Maybe that is why I am not hungry or thirsty. Maybe I am sick. Yes, that’s it! I must be sick. I think I might throw up. I reach my right arm to my belly but I feel tremendous pain in my armpit when I move my arm. Doesn’t matter. I throw up anyway. I don’t care. I don’t think I can care
.

I close my eyes and talk to God. Lord, why is this happening? Why are you doing this to me? Please, Jesus, help me to remember that, in all my sufferings, I am united with you on the cross. Help me trust that my suffering is not in vain. Help me to know that you are ever close by my side. God, I offer up my despair and weakness to you. Please, give me strength and hope. Please protect me
.

I open my eyes and I think I’ve been asleep. I see flies swirling around me. I lose them, though, as I am dizzy, spinning. It is hard to keep my eyes open. But I feel something strange along the seatbelt line, spots that hurt, from my hurt shoulder down to my right hip and across my pelvis. It doesn’t feel like bruises, but like I have new cuts there, raw open wounds. I don’t understand it. I look down and see new, red blood on my white shirt near a spot that hurts on my chest. My knees hurt, too, where they’re pressed up against the front of the car. The skin on my knees feels raw
.

I look at the grey mist through the blackberry bushes. I feel cold. I want to get warm. What can I do? Nothing, I guess. I close my eyes to shut out the spins but, in the darkness of my mind, the dizziness continues. I moan. At least, I think I moan. I am not sure
.

From pitch black to pre-dawn, Tom stood at the end of the street, watching and waiting for Tanya.
Where could she be
? He
knew
that she was coming home but he didn’t know when and he feared that, if he nodded off, he’d miss her arrival. He hadn’t slept in three days.

As Monday morning came, he was listless. He staggered to his truck and drove to work on autopilot, and then he sat in his truck, listening to a sad song, over and over, waiting for seven o’clock.

He tried Tanya’s number again. This time, it didn’t ring. It went straight to messaging and, in that sickening moment, Tom realized that Tanya’s phone had died. He began to sob and his whole body shook as if he was having a seizure. He couldn’t move. He felt as if part of him died, as terror that ripped at him bubbled through his tears. He couldn’t handle it. His thoughts descended to primal fear and dread and it was more than he could bear.

My eyes pop open. Here it comes again. I dread it. The nausea swells up like a wave but my body has nothing left. It doesn’t matter. It
comes anyway, in violent dry heaves that make my broken body cramp and lurch against the restraints. Shaking and locking down on my injuries and on all the other unknown processes that are taking place inside my body, my abdomen seizes and thrusts and spasms as I retch again and again, producing nothing. Please, God, make it stop, I say inside my head. Please, God, make it stop. Finally, it does, and I drift away
.

“Lord,” he prayed, “if you can’t keep her safe, then keep her with you.”

Finally, Tom gathered himself and sucked in a deep breath. He wiped his face and stared into space.
Maybe the detective has news
, he thought. He wanted to check in. He steeled himself and then dialed.

The detective asked if Tanya knew anyone in Yakima.

“No,” Tom said, feeling a faint flash of hope. “Why?” In that instant, he thought he heard Tanya’s voice calling him.
Was it wishful thinking? Maybe Tanya heard her phone ringing?
He realized that his tired mind was playing tricks on him. Her phone was dead.

“We had a tip on a car like hers,” the detective offered. “In the parking lot of the Yakima Fred Meyers.”

Tom felt hopeful. It hurt a lot less to think that, maybe, she
had
just left. Then, she’d be happy, at least. That was all he’d ever wanted for her—just to be happy. The news sparked a bit of energy in Tom as he worked on his chores. Still, he couldn’t shake that nagging feeling—the screaming dread. It wouldn’t go away, no matter what logic came his way. The despair tugged at his reasoning and barraged his mind with images of horror and the possibility of Tanya’s death.

Tom thought about the detective’s information for a while, and then he called her back. He asked her
why
she thought it was Tanya’s vehicle. The detective explained that, in the morning, one of the Riders’ credit cards was used there to buy gas.

Tom’s heart sank.
He
had purchased the gas that day.

Why was the detective monitoring the wrong account?
Tom wondered, confused. Tanya didn’t have that card so he asked the detective why they were bothering to monitor it. The detective claimed that Tom had said that he didn’t have access to that joint checking account. Tom felt weak, sinking.
Where did she ever get the idea that he didn’t have access to their joint checking account?
he thought. Sarcasm riddled his voice as he apologized for whatever he might have said that had confused the detective. Again, he said, the
only
card Tanya had with her was her Nordstrom Visa.
All
of the other cards were at home. Nonetheless, the detective blamed the confusion on Tom.

The last thing he wanted to do was to slow down the cops, so Tom pent up his feelings about the detective. He knew well that, if he behaved badly, it would have slowed the effort to locate Tanya.

The detective asked him to print out his bank statements and, again, he explained that he had not yet set up his password. He feared that the police weren’t really listening to him—or paying attention to Tanya’s case at all.

Someone is looking at me. Through the dark nothingness, the night is eerily quiet, but I feel someone out in the blackberry bushes. Something is there, I can tell. The distinct feeling will not let go. I hear it! An animal snorts and I hear a crunch of the shrubbery. I freeze. I see a dark image move slowly, tentatively just outside the windshield. Oh, God! What is it? The rotten-egg smell permeates the night air and I have no way to clean myself and get rid of it, as I have always done with anything and everything in my life that was not clean, and I realize that the creature is not just attracted to the bushes but to the rotting-carcass smells imprisoned within my vehicle. The dark shadow grows closer, larger. Suddenly I can see the glint of an eye as the furry body sniffs back and forth. “Help!” I scream. “Get away from me!” Everything in my body hurts as I flail my right arm and try to bang on the console, the dashboard, the windshield. The bulk of
the creature fades away. What was it? Oh, God, I’m scared. Please, God, deliver me from this darkness…

Tom felt restless. Too many feelings of hate, dread and grief welled up inside him. It turned the flavor of every food to ash. Though it was late at night and he was exhausted, he couldn’t sleep. Tom stepped outside and walked down the street. His head rang with thoughts of vengeance when he thought about whoever had harmed Tanya. His vision focused on a blank face, its features absent. Tom was consumed with the need to know: What had happened to his wife?

I open my eyes and see a butterfly dancing on a blackberry bush somewhere near me. It flits around and in and out, here and there. I try to watch it because I like it. I think it comes inside my room and I raise my fingers toward it, but it flutters away. I look at my hand, and see that my fingers are puffy and swollen. Have I gotten fat? I don’t care. My cheek itches. I would like to scratch my cheek but I don’t bother. Instead, I close my eyes again so I don’t have to look at the world spinning by me
.

With my eyes closed, I think about swallowing but something tells me I shouldn’t even try. But I think about my mouth. I have a weird taste in my mouth that makes me think maybe I licked some foil or a metal pan. I think that’s crazy. “Strange,” I said, maybe aloud. I think maybe I did actually say it because I smell something new, something very foul. I feel embarrassed. I think maybe it’s my breath that stinks so badly
.

Sometimes, I still feel my heart flutter so I think I am still alive. But I am tired—so tired. It is easier to keep my eyes closed and just rest. I can’t even move, but I am so afraid of the animals, the darkness, the noises. I have been here for a long time. So long. I don’t have any idea. Maybe it has been a few hours. It may even have been a few days. I don’t know anything
.

I talk to God. I tell God that I am sorry for anything bad I might
have done, but I can’t really remember things like that right now. I tell God that I hope I see Tom again, so I can tell him I love him. “God,” I say inside my head, “I do really love Tom, you know.” God tells me He knows
.

It had been another short, fitful sleep and, yet again, Tom woke with a start, his body drenched in sweat. Then, the sickening reality sunk in: Tanya was still missing. The cops were still pointing their fingers at him instead of aggressively searching for her.
Why?
He thought.
Why didn’t they understand that he had nothing to do with her disappearance?
Worse, even, than that, the officials didn’t seem to
care
, and the more noise Tom made about finding Tanya, the more the police insisted that she had the
right
to leave—to go wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted. He had no say in any of it.

Was she gone forever? Had she left of her own accord, as the cops insisted? The questions twisted in his mind as he tried to ready himself for yet another day of more and more unanswered questions. Forced by the situation, Tom had no choice but to let the days drag into one long, sleepless miserable void, where unwelcomed and unstoppable thoughts tormented him.