Through the Fog Read online

  Shannon peered from the doorway and watched her husband as he sat, consumed by their loss. It was the worst possible thing a parent could ever imagine, and it had hit him devastatingly hard.

  She finally cleared her throat. “Are you hungry?” He didn’t answer. “Dennis?”

  With a jolt of surprise, he turned his head. “What?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  He seemed to think about the question as if he’d never heard it before. “No,” he answered, turning back to the window.

  Behind him, Shannon rolled her eyes as they began tearing up again. Was it ever going to stop? She opened her mouth to reply but stopped herself. She left the door open, and headed back to the stairs.

  Dennis Mayer was caught in the trap of a depression as deep as any his wife had witnessed. He now sat in the chair all day, every day, gently rocking the glider back and forth with an expressionless stare. He used to wear his uniform and stand while looking out the window, but not anymore. Now he barely bothered to dress at all. Instead, he just sat . . . and rocked.

  They’d kept Ellie’s room exactly as it was the day she’d disappeared. The only change they made was to make the bed and return her stuffed animals to their place on the pillows. Everything else was the same, and it was where Detective Dennis Mayer felt the closest to her. The dresser, the clothes in the closet, even the crayons strewn on the floor, all made him feel as though she were somehow there, with him.

  Even the glider chair he sat in was hers. It was her favorite place to sit and read during rainy days. It was where she was nursed as a baby. That room was all he had left to cling to.

  He used to sit in the room to think, hoping that something, anything, would stir a memory or a thought and provide a clue to give him a new place to look. After taking leave from the LAPD, he had spent every minute of every day looking. He studied every possible clue, every piece of paper, every word from every eyewitness. Something must have been left; someone must have seen something significant, even if they didn’t know it. He talked to the same eyewitnesses over and over until they finally stopped calling him back, or refused to answer the door.

  That’s when he had his epiphany. He shouldn’t be focused on who saw Ellie’s abduction, he should be focused on who took her! He was a cop for Christ’s sake. He’d put so many people in jail it wasn’t even funny; people who had every reason, and more than enough time, to dream of their revenge.

  It took almost a year to track down every convict, every defendant, every arrest, every single person who might have thought he’d wronged them. And he memorized every word of their cases. But he found nothing. The only possible exception had been a slimy ex-principal that Dennis and his partner had busted and helped put in prison for twelve years. A bad economy and an overburdened state prison system sent that one home on early release, but nothing ever indicated he was involved in Ellie’s disappearance, not a single clue. And God knows Dennis looked. He’d even broken into the man’s apartment in a desperate attempt to dig something up, but eventually he had to admit he’d hit a dead end.

  With each passing month, his desperation slowly turned into depression as Dennis ran out of ideas about where else to look. He had racked his brain endlessly and come up empty.

  Whoever wanted revenge on him was smarter than he was. They had stolen his little girl from him and over time turned him into a shell of a man. The most fundamental role of a father was to protect his children, to protect his family. And Dennis Mayer had failed miserably. That guilt alone would have been enough, but it was how Ellie was taken that truly destroyed him.

  He was the one who was supposed to pick Ellie up from school that day. His wife had reminded him twice that morning, but later, after getting caught up in a significant break they received in a case, he did the unthinkable . . . he forgot. He forgot to get his little girl on time. And in the forty-five minutes she sat in front of the school, wondering and waiting for her daddy, she disappeared.

  He was a complete failure, both as a husband and a father.

  13

  From the outside, the Glendale Central Library on Harvard Street looked more like an office building than a library. But its beautifully renovated interior, and familiar smell of old books, more than made up for that. Evan’s archaic home computer was having problems, which meant a fifteen-minute trip downtown to use one of the library’s machines. Sitting at the new, modern desk, it didn’t take long to find what he was looking for, and once he did, he read from the screen very carefully.

  According to the newspaper archive, seven-year-old Elizabeth Mayer was kidnapped near her elementary school at approximately 12:30 p.m., on one of the busiest school days of that year. The entire school had gotten out at once, due to one of the district’s mandatory teacher conference days.

  A few kids had reported seeing Ellie walking down the street, and one classmate thought he even saw her get into a car, but couldn’t remember what the car looked like. When it was discovered that she was the daughter of a local police officer, every off-duty cop in the city showed up within minutes to help. The newspaper article described the entire city as being in a veritable lockdown. Nearby neighborhoods were searched, and drivers on most major roads were stopped and questioned. A local Amber Alert was issued in record time, resulting in hundreds of possible leads, which quickly poured in from as far away as Anaheim. But in the end, none of them led to anything tangible, nor were the police able to turn up any solid clues from the scene. Even after studying video from the traffic cameras, and a couple of pictures taken by parents in the area at that time, the case of Ellie Mayer faded into obscurity and was categorized as “unsolved.”

  Evan stared at one of the “missing” pictures of Ellie with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and a wide smile on her face. He remembered her clearly now from the news broadcasts.

  He leaned back in his chair, still staring at the screen. She was a beautiful little girl; the look on her face was so happy and so innocent. He was only eighteen, and he could not begin to imagine what Dr. Mayer had suffered through, what she was still suffering through, but he understood its depth. And he puzzled over her resolve in saying that she didn’t want him to help.

  He crossed his arms, hooking one hand into the crook of each elbow. He didn’t even know if he could help. Something strange was happening to him, something dangerous, but if there was even a chance of finding out what happened to her . . . shouldn’t he at least try?

  Evan knew Dr. Mayer was worried about what might happen to him, and as bad as that was, he still hadn’t told her about the other effect of his episodes. Something that was far more frightening to him. He sure couldn’t tell her now.

  Tania knocked gently on the large office door and poked her head in.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Mayer?”

  Shannon brought her face up from her hands and blinked hard. “Yes, what is it?”

  “I know you told me to cancel all of your appointments today, but Evan Nash wants to talk to you.”

  Shannon blinked again with a confused expression. She glanced down at her phone but didn’t see any lights flashing. “Is he on the phone?” she asked.

  “No.” Tania tilted her head. “He’s here in front, at my desk.”

  “He’s here?” Shannon’s eyes widened. “Did he say what for?”

  “No, should I bring him back?”

  “Yes, yes, please.” Shannon sat up and instinctively began straightening things on her desk. She picked up a pen before catching herself. She studied the pen for a moment and set it down calmly.

  A few moments later, Tania quietly opened the door again. “Here you go, Evan.”

  “Thanks.” He smiled at Tania with a touch of nervousness, and squeezed past her into the room.

  Shannon took a deep breath and came around her desk. “Hello Evan, this is a surprise. What can I do for you?”

  Evan glanced at th
e door as it clicked shut, then he turned back to her. “I went to the library yesterday, and I’ve been doing some thinking.” He paused, waiting for Dr. Mayer to respond as she normally would, with a question. He chuckled to himself but didn’t let it show. He took a deep breath. “I don’t know what this ‘thing’ is, but I want to help you try to find out about your daughter.”

  Shannon’s eyes showed her sadness. “Evan, we talked about this. We can’t. I can’t. I—”

  He cut her off. “Listen! Wait. I know you think this is dangerous, but I can handle it. I promise.”

  She frowned.

  “I mean it,” he pressed.

  Shannon didn’t move. She kept her stoic gaze on the boy. “Evan, we don’t even know what it is that’s happening to you, let alone how to handle it. This could kill you, Evan. Do you understand that? It could kill you.”

  “It won’t,” he insisted.

  “How do you know that? How do you know? Because from what I saw two days ago, it damn near did!”

  “I just want to help.”

  “Why Evan? Why risk it?”

  Evan stood his ground. He swallowed hard, and lowered his head. “I had a sister who died when I was little,” he said softly. “She was four. I was six.”

  Shannon was frozen. She didn’t know what to say.

  He nervously pushed his hands into his pockets. “Her name was Elizabeth. I still think about her. Sometimes I wonder if she would be proud of her big brother.”

  Shannon placed her hand on her chest. She could see his pain. “Do you want to talk a little bit about it?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Okay.”

  “Dr. Mayer, I know you don’t want to,” Evan said, raising his head. “But you have to let me try to help.”

  Shannon rolled her eyes and turned away. Don’t want to? Don’t want to? Jesus, she was on the verge of losing her mind. He couldn’t possibly know that she was hanging on by a thread, barely making it from day to day. She could feel herself slipping into that dark, horrible place that had already claimed her husband. Then what . . . who would search for Ellie then? She looked at the ceiling, and felt the tears begin to return. She had to do something. She had to! Because there was something she hadn’t told anyone, something even worse. She was running out of time.

  Less than a mile away, Mary Creece winked at her elderly patient and gently closed the examining room door. She slid the thick chart into the plastic holder mounted outside of the door and glanced down as her phone buzzed. She reached into her pocket and pulled it out, examining the number displayed.

  She ducked into an empty room and accepted the call. “Hi Sue.”

  “Mary, I think I have something on our boy Evan.”

  “Really? That was fast. It’s only been two days.”

  “What can I tell you,” Sue Bales replied. “I work fast. Besides, most journals and archive records are computerized these days, although in this case that wasn’t a lot of help.”

  “Did you find something?”

  “I did. But I didn’t find it in any database, at least not one of my medical databases. It actually turned up in a very unlikely place, Google Books.”

  Mary was surprised. “All you had to do was Google?”

  “Not exactly. I’m referring to the Google project. They’ve spent the last several years scanning and digitizing the contents of old books that were published before computers and before digital copies. They’ve got teams all over the country, sitting in libraries with nothing more than a laptop and a scanner.”

  Mary turned and peered out the second-story window as she spoke. “What does that have to do with Evan?”

  “It has to do with him because I couldn’t find anything resembling his pattern of symptoms in any of my usual databases. What I did find turned up in an old book that Google had scanned into the system. Anyway, this book mentions an article submitted to the Annals of Family Care, a very small and obscure journal that went out of business in 1985, and it also describes some symptoms . . . symptoms that sound eerily familiar.”

  Mary took a breath, excited. She reached out and gently closed the door. “So what exactly did you find?”

  “It’s too much to tell you on the phone. But it’s not good. Where are you now?”

  “I’m at work.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “295 Cypress, suite 210.”

  “Good. I’m coming to you,” Sue said.

  Evan positioned himself on the couch and adjusted his body, trying to get comfortable. He closed his eyes for a moment, following the sound of Dr. Mayer moving from window to window, closing each of the room’s shades. With less light, the cherrywood furniture and leather upholstery appeared even darker. A few moments later, she returned to her chair beside him.

  She sighed and looked softly at him. “Remember, I’m going to wake you up at the first sign of stress.”

  “Okay,” he agreed.

  Shannon slipped the pulse oximeter over his fingertip and turned on the small machine that her sister had left behind. She placed a strip on his forehead and ran her finger gently over it, pressing the simple thermometer in place.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Shannon swiveled around in the chair and grabbed her purse. Reaching inside, she retrieved her wallet and proceeded to pull out several photos. She placed the wallet on her desk and spun back to Evan. “Here are the most recent ones I have.”

  Evan took the pictures, six in all, and studied them. They were pictures of her daughter Ellie; two looked like class pictures, another showed her kneeling with a soccer ball, and the rest were family photos from various occasions. He focused on each one for a long time, trying to memorize them.

  He’d seen people before when he pictured them in his head. He prayed he could do the same thing again, but this time intentionally. More importantly, he prayed he could do it quickly, before the fear came.

  Evan placed the photos on his chest and closed his blue-gray eyes. He calmed his breathing and felt his heartbeat begin to slow. One by one, he let each muscle in his body relax and waited for the weariness to take him.

  It took longer this time, but almost ten minutes later, Shannon watched him finally let go, and saw his head roll slightly to the side. The electronic monitor continued to beep methodically, with both pulse and oxygen levels normal. She looked at the pictures on his chest and then she turned her eyes back to his face. Her heart was racing faster than his. Please God.

  The seconds ticked by unmercifully as Shannon glanced back and forth between Evan’s body and the monitor. But before two minutes had passed, it happened.

  The beeping frequency increased without warning, and his temperature began to change. She pumped the cuff on his arm and measured his blood pressure. It was coming down fast!

  Shannon touched the skin on his arm and gasped. His temperature wasn’t just falling; it was plummeting, and so fast that she could feel him grow colder!

  She grabbed Evan and shook him hard, but got no response. She shook again, harder. “Evan!” she yelled. “Evan!”

  She twisted her hands into his shirt and shook him back and forth as hard as she could. “Evan!” Her eyes bulged. He’s not waking up! The lights on the monitor suddenly started flashing red.

  Without a second thought, she reeled back and slapped him across the face, hard enough to make his head turn to the other side. “Evaan!”

  Nothing. Frantically, she hit him again, and watched in horror as the color appeared to drain from his face.

  Outside, Tania nearly jumped out of her chair when Shannon came screaming out of her office, “TANIA, CALL 911 NOW!”

  14

  The urgent care waiting room at Glendale General Hospital was unusually quiet when Connie Nash came through the doors. Shannon had only met her once, dur
ing the first visit with Evan, but she recognized his mother immediately. And it was the moment she was dreading since making the call.

  “How is he?” Connie cried.

  Shannon held up her hands nervously as Connie Nash approached. “I don’t know yet. The doctor hasn’t come out.”

  “What in God’s name happened?”

  Shannon swallowed. “He had a reaction in my office. His body had a powerful physiological response during one of his episodes, a bad one.”

  Connie stared at her incredulously. “How bad?”

  “Bad enough to be in ICU.”

  “Oh my God!” His mother gasped. “What happened to my baby?” She was unable to say more. Shannon closed the distance between them and put her hand on the woman’s arm. “He did get here with a pulse, which is critical. So he stands a good chance—”

  “A chance?” Connie cut her off. “A chance? He only has a chance!” She began to cry. “I don’t understand. He was getting help. How could this happen?”

  Shannon wanted to tell her the truth but she couldn’t. Not there, not yet.

  “Ms. Nash,” she said, helping her down into a chair. “Evan’s problem is more severe than I thought, but I promise you, when he gets out of here, we’re going to fix this for good.”

  Connie looked up at Shannon, who could see the woman was in mild shock. “I can’t . . . I don’t . . .” She peered up at Shannon helplessly, then let her face fall back down into her hands. “My God, he’s all I have in this world. He’s all I have.”

  “He’s going to be fine,” Shannon whispered. She had no idea if this was true.

  Less than five minutes later, the large white door opened and a doctor in light-blue scrubs emerged. He spotted the women and walked briskly over to them. As he approached, he removed his cap and crumpled it in his hands.

  “Ms. Nash?” he asked, looking to the older of the two.