The Abduction

Epilogue

Flames lit up the late Monday evening newscasts across the country, though the fiery loss of the St. George Hotel was just a footnote to the breaking story on the night before the election. Kristen Howe was safe, and Allison Leahy had rescued her. That was as much as Harley Abrams and Tanya Howe would tell the press. It was the kind of headline that had Lincoln Howe empathizing with a certain Republican governor named Dewey who’d gone to bed on election night thinking he’d defeated Harry Truman.

It was a half-truth Allison couldn’t let stand.
At 11:15 P.M. eastern time, she issued a brief statement to a packed pressroom back at the Justice Building. “With great shame and personal regret,” she told the American people what they deserved to know—that her late husband was behind Kristen Howe’s kidnapping.
Stunned silence fell over television audiences across the country, followed by an immediate outburst of questions from reporters. Allison answered none of them. Exhausted, she retired to the sleeping loft in her office suite, leaving it to Tuesday’s voters to decide whether she was a hero, a victim, or something else altogether.
She rested only a few hours. At 5:00 A.M. the Justice Department’s Sabre jet flew her to New York. Harley Abrams went with her. She didn’t have to force him. He seemed unwilling to have it any other way.
At 8:00 A.M. they were on their way to Ellington Prep School. It had been the school—the redbrick building in the background of Gambrelli’s photograph—that led the FBI to Emily. The analysts in the lab had picked up something invisible to the naked eye—a plaque dedicated to the school’s founder posted by the door. Once they had the school, they had Emily.
The sedan stopped directly across the street from the schoolyard. Brownish grass and bare oak trees stretched beyond the chain-link fence surrounding the yard. Mothers and fathers led their children down the sidewalk to the school gate, sending them off for another day. Harley parallel-parked near the crosswalk, then shut off the engine. Allison sat quietly in the passenger seat, gesturing with her hands, engaged in a silent and imaginary conversation.
“Who you talking to over there?” asked Harley.
“Huh?”
“Who you talking to?”
Her head rolled back as she sighed with anxiety. “Oh, jeez. I was just explaining to Emily—” She stopped herself. “Her name’s not even Emily. It’s April. April Remmick. The only child of Henry and Elizabeth Remmick. Two decent, hardworking people who had no idea the little girl they were adopting eight years ago hadn’t come from Russia but was stolen from me.” She grimaced, as if suddenly in pain. “They’re a family, Harley. What right do I have to upset that?”
“You’re her mother, that’s what right you have.”
He got out of the car. Allison stayed put. She watched through the windshield as he walked around the front. She locked the door as he reached for the handle.
He tapped on the window. “Allison, get out of the car.”
She shook her head.
“Allison, we’re right here.”
“But if I see her…” Her voice trailed off. Her eyes shifted toward the schoolyard, forty yards away. The children were lining up to go inside—young boys and girls, all wearing the school uniform. One, however, seemed to stand out in Allison’s line of sight. It was as if she were wearing a different uniform. As if she were alone in the yard.
Allison unlocked the door and got out of the car. She crossed the street slowly, one step at a time, drawing closer. Her gaze never left the little blond-haired girl with the pink barrette and red knee socks, third in a line of twelve youngsters arranged from shortest to tallest. She stopped at the fence and grasped the chain links with both hands, still staring, just thirty yards away.
Harley’s footsteps clicked on the sidewalk behind her.
She couldn’t look away. “That’s her,” she said.
“Looks just like her picture.”
“Somehow, I think I would have known it was her. Even without the picture. I feel something inside. A connection. Can you understand what I’m saying?”
Harley nodded.
“She looks so happy. A little shy, but happy.” She looked at Harley. “April. That’s a pretty name, too, isn’t it?”
He smiled with his eyes. “You know, lots of kids have two sets of parents. Some kids who are adopted even get to know their biological mother. It’s not unheard of, I mean.”
She looked at Emily—April—then back at Harley. “Honestly, if you were her parents, would you let her get anywhere near me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because these special kind of arrangements are hard enough when you have two sets of normal parents. Win or lose today’s election, I can never offer anyone a normal life. It’s like the kidnapper said—fate has found me. Any family I touch will be instantly dysfunctional.”
“That’s crazy, Allison. Every family is dysfunctional. No, I take that back,” he said, raising a finger for a case in point. “The Addams family. Now there’s the one family that was not dysfunctional.”
“The Addams family?”
“You know—Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester. The only family in the history of the world where everyone just accepted each other for exactly what they were.”
She smiled. “Never thought of it that way.”
“You should. All those people in Washington who keep trying to define the perfect American family should, too.”
“So, do you think Emily’s—I mean April’s—parents are like Gomez and Morticia?”
He laid his hand on his heart, smirking. “We can only hope.”
She smiled, then glanced back at April. The children were filing inside.
Harley turned toward the car, offering his arm. “Come on, Allison. Let’s go talk to Mr. and Mrs. Remmick. You might be surprised.”
She paused, then took his arm. There was a spring in her step as they crossed the street.
“Allison?”
“What?”
“You’re on my arm, and you’re leading.”
She didn’t break stride. “Harley?”
“What?”
She pinched his ribs. “Don’t be a pain in the ass.”



About the Author

James Grippando is the bestselling author of seven novels—Beyond Suspicion, A King’s Ransom, Under Cover of Darkness, Found Money, The Abduction, The Informant, and The Pardon—which are enjoyed worldwide in fourteen languages. He lives in Florida, where he was a trial lawyer for twelve years. Visit his website at www.jamesgrippando.com.

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