THE FORGOTTEN CHILD
Chapter 1
Alicia quietly crept up to the window, peering in just under the sill. Inside was a family sitting down to eat dinner talking animatedly with each other. Alicia could hardly catch her breath staring in at the woman. She hadn't seen her in years; that is until this morning when she nearly bumped into her at Salem Place. She side stepped just in time to avoid knocking her over and darted off into an alley. The woman had been looking down at a young girl trying to brush strands of hair out of her face. Alicia was so startled by the sight of her that she nearly collided into her.
'How can it be her? Stefano said she drowned in the river. It can't be her, but I know it is. She looks exactly like I remember.' Alicia thought to herself as she stepped out of the alley and began trailing the woman and her daughter. She followed them all the way to their house and quickly skirted into the bushes before the man of the house spotted her. And here she stood two hours later still spying on the family through the kitchen window. Another young woman had joined the family and sat eating with them now.
"Did you have fun shopping with Mommy today, Ciara?" Bo asked the little girl.
"Yes Daddy." Ciara answered.
"Hey Hope are you and Dad going to the grand reopening of The Blue Note?" Chelsea asked Hope. "'Cuz if you are, I can watch Ciara for you."
"Sweetie aren't you going? I can call Aunt Maggie to watch Ciara."
"Um no, I'm not going. Besides, I thought I could spend some time with my little sister here and give you and dad a night out." Chelsea said hugging Ciara.
"Well, we haven't decided anything just yet. Your dad has a lot of paperwork to finish." Hope passed a piece of pie to Bo. "Unless of course you finished while I was out with Ciara?"
Alicia moved to stop the cramp that was creeping up the side of her leg. Big mistake.
"There's someone outside!" Shrieked Chelsea.
"Where? I don't see anything." Bo said getting up to go outside and check on things.
"I saw something in the window just now." Chelsea said pointing to the window Alicia had just ducked under. She crawled along the ground in the near dark, making her way to the front of the house where she got up and ran off into the night.
"Whew that was close." She said as she made her way into Salem park. "I'll have to be more careful next time." She said aloud to no one. Alicia wandered around the park trying to make sense of the day. 'I remember Stefano telling me that she died in the river. Why would he lie to me? It's not like he had anything to gain by telling me that. But if she died then who is that woman? It has to be her. She looks just like her. And that man is the same man that I've seen in pictures with her. There's too much of a coincidence for it not to be her.' Alicia kept wondering why Stefano would lie about something like that. What purpose did it serve him.
'I guess I should find a quiet spot to set up for the night. Hopefully tomorrow I can find some answers.' Alicia lay at the base of a tree off in the corner of the park hoping no one would notice her lying there. It was scary in the park at night. She had been in Salem for three days now lying low while searching for her family. She couldn't let Stefano know that she had escaped from his complex. He wouldn't stop until he found her and brought her back to that dungeon. It wasn't long before Alicia fell asleep into a tumultuous dream. Stefano was laughing, sneering at her in the dark room. She couldn't move. She couldn't get away. He just kept laughing that sick hearty laugh of his.
"Leave me alone! Go away!" She screamed at him.
"Miss. Miss. Wake up." Officer Reynolds tried to shake the girl awake.
"What?" Alicia asked rubbing the lingering effects of the dream out of her eyes. "What's wrong?" She asked now looking up at the officer who stood towering over her.
"The park is closed. It's after hours now. There's a woman's shelter down the street from here if you need a place to sleep tonight."
"I don't. Thanks." Alicia turned to go, but the officer stopped her.
"Are you a run away?" He asked.
"What? No, I'm not a run away. I'm over 21 too by the way. I just happened to sit here to rest earlier, but I must have been more tired than I realized and fell asleep. Don't worry, I'm on my way home now." She said turning to leave once more.
"Where are you going? I can give you a ride home. It's not safe to be walking the streets at night." He said grabbing her arm with his hand to keep her from walking away.
"Ummm, that's ok. I don't live that far from here. I'll just call my friend to come and pick me up."
"Miss, it's really not a good idea for you to be alone this late at night. This is a bad area to be wandering around so late alone. Come on I'll take you home. If it's really not that far, you won't be putting me out of my way." He persisted.
"Okay." Was all she could say. 'Now what am I going to do? Where am I going to go now. I don't know anyone.' Alicia worried about what was going to happen now while they walked to the patrol car and she got in.
"Where to?" He asked her as he started the engine.
……. Meanwhile back at Bo and Hope's house…..
"Did you find anything?" Hope asked Bo as he cased his gun and put it away.
"No. Are you sure you saw someone out there kid?" Bo asked Chelsea.
"I'm not sure what I saw, Dad. I just happened to look up and thought I saw someone looking back in at us. Maybe it was just a shadow and my imagination got the best of me."
"Well, I looked all around the perimeter of the house and couldn't find anything or anyone. Guess you might be right about your imagination. But, better safe than sorry. And if you're still willing, you can sit with Ciara tonight while Hope and I go out."
"Yeah it's still alright. Why wouldn't it be?" She asked.
"Well, I thought maybe the events of the night might have left you a little skittish."
"What? No. I'm fine Dad. A little shadow play won't scare me. I'm a tough girl. You know that."
"Well then I guess we should be getting ready." Hope said circling her arms around Bo's waist. He looked down and lifted her chin with his finger to draw her into a kiss. "Let's go get ready then. I can't remember the last time I had a night out on the town with my wife." He said kissing her again. Bo and Hope left Chelsea sitting with Ciara as they made their way upstairs to their bedroom to change for the evening.
….. Back in officer Reynolds car……
"I…I'm not really sure of the address. I just recently moved here and I'm staying with some friends. Really, I can walk it. It's not that far." Alicia said trying to get the officer to let her alone.
"Are you hiding something Miss?" He asked her.
"No. Really I live right down here on the right. It's that blue house right there." She said pointing at the house she had run from earlier that evening.
"You're staying there? That's Commissioner Bo Brady's house. He and his wife Detective Hope Brady are the people you're staying with. Well then it's a good thing I found you tonight. They wouldn't have been happy to know you were alone in the park this late."
"Wait. That's not it. I don't know the Brady's. I must have gotten it confused with my friends house. I told you I'm new here. Every street looks the same to me."
"What's your name?" He asked her pulling over to the side of the road in front of the Brady house.
"It's Alicia. What does that have to do with me getting home?" She asked looking nervously around for an escape.
"Last name, Miss?" He asked just as Bo came out and knocked on the drivers side window.
"What seems to be the problem officer Reynolds?" He asked looking over at Alicia.
"I found this girl in the park and was giving her a ride home. She can't seem to find her house." he told Bo.
"Look, why don't you just drop me off at the Brady Pub and I can call my friend form there and she can come and pick me up." Alicia told Officer Reynolds.
"I have a better idea." Hope said startling Alicia as she had just walked up to the passenger side window. "How about you come inside and call your friend from our phone. Then she can pick you up here or she can give you the correct address so officer Reynolds can drive you home." She said. The four of them walked back to the house and went in. "The phone is right there on the coffee table." Hope told Alicia pointing at the table.
Alicia walked over and picked up the phone. 'Now what? How am I going to get out of this situation?' She looked around and saw the three of them standing by the door talking. Alicia thought quick and placed her finger on the receiver button and began dialing out random numbers. After a few minutes she said, "No one is answering. Maybe you should just take me to the pub and I can try again later. I don't want to keep you from anything." She said turning to see Hope right behind her.
"Maybe if you try calling your friend without holding down the button so your call actually goes through, you might have better luck reaching your friend. So, what's your story?" She asked taking the phone from Alicia and hanging it up. "It's obvious you're giving us the run around here."
"I don't have a story. Like I told officer Reynolds here, I just moved her several days ago and I'm a little unsure of where my friends house is."
"What's her name?" Hope asked not believing a word.
"Her name?" Alicia stalled.
"Yes? Or was there ever a friends house that you're staying with? My guess is you're a runaway."
"I'm not a run away. I'm over 21 and I have no family, so how could I be a runaway?" She asked her boldly with her chin thrust up. Every muscle tensed in her. She was angry that Hope didn't know who she was. She was angry that Stefano had lied about her death and she was angry that she had gotten caught in this situation. 'Why does she look at me as though I'm a complete stranger?'
"It's obvious you're hiding something. So if you're not a runaway, then you're probably running from something. What is it? Are you homeless? There is help out there for you. We have a woman's shelter where you can stay so you don't have to hide out in the park." Hope said looking at her intently trying to figure out what her story is.
"I'm not homeless. I just don't want my friend to come here and I don't want this officer driving me to her house. She wouldn't like that. It would be much easier if I met her at the pub." She said darting her eyes from Hope's intent gaze. 'She knows I'm lying. I need to find a way out of here. Maybe I can divert their attention so I can slip out without them noticing.'
"Don't even think about it." Hope said.
""What?" Alicia sassed back at her.
"You know what." Was all Hope could say.
"Mommy?" Ciara called from upstairs.
"Coming sweetheart. Don't move." She said turning back to Alicia. "I know what you're thinking and you're not going to slip out of here without answering our questions."
Hope went upstairs and Alicia made to sit on the couch to wait for her. Bo and the officer watched her sitting there for a few moments before Bo pulled the officer off to the side to talk with him.
"Did she mention anything that might be of some help to us? Did she say what she was doing in the park this late at night?" Bo grilled the officer.
"No. She said she was sitting by the tree to rest and had fallen asleep. When I offered to give her a ride home, she got all defensive. Seems very suspicious to me."
"Yeah, that's the feeling I have too. She's lying about this friend of hers, I'd bet my life on it. But if she knows about the shelter, why does she continue to go on with this lie?"
"Hey Dad, I thought you and Hope had left. What's going on?" Chelsea appeared from the kitchen. "I was just getting some milk for Ciara so she could go to sleep and I heard all this commotion out here. Is something wrong?"
"Where did Alicia go?" Hope asked having returned from seeing to Ciara. "You didn't let her get away, did you?"
"Who's Alicia?" Chelsea asked. "Will someone please tell me what's going on here?"
"There's a runaway ...err, um at least we think that might be her story. She claims to be over 21, in fact she kept insisting on it. She looks younger though. Anyway, Officer Reynolds found her sleeping in the park and she gave him this song and dance about having just moved here and she didn't know where her friends house was.""Well, that's all possible. People tell me all the time that I look younger than I am. And if she's not from around here, she could've easily gotten lost."
"Well… that's true. It is possible. But when I gave her the phone to call her so called friend, she kept her finger on the receiver so she wasn't actually making a call and then proceeded to tell me no one was picking up. She's been acting very suspiciously for someone who has nothing to hide. I told her to wait here for me to return and she seems to have disappeared while two cops were supposedly watching her. Brady!" Hope turned to Bo with her eyebrow raised. "What happened? Where did she go? I don't like the idea of a girl her age to be out on the streets all alone."
"I'm on it. I just called in some of my men to be on the look out for her. Officer Reynolds is already going to see if he can catch up with her now."
"You didn't answer my question?" Hope said.
"What question was that?" Bo said scratching at the top of his forehead.
"How could she have slipped out on two cops who were supposed to be watching her? Did you leave her in the room alone?"
"No. Of course not. I just pulled Reynolds aside to ask him if she might have mentioned anything that could be helpful to finding out who she is. Then Chelsea walked in and asked what we were still doing here and then you came in and started yelling about where Alicia disappeared to."
"I wasn't yelling." She said lowering her voice. "Ok, maybe I raised my voice a little, but it's only because I'm worried about this girl. She shouldn't be out there all alone at this time of night. I don't care if she's 21 or younger, it's not safe for a woman to be out alone this late." Bo pulled Hope into his embrace.
"We'll find her Fancy face. We've got plenty of men out here looking for her now. It's just a matter of time. She couldn't have gotten to far."