Her rapid exhales matched the frenzied thumps of her heart in its chamber and were only a couple of the plentiful signs of her exertion. The cab she previously occupied had driven away and left her in solitude no more than five minutes ago, and it hadn't taken much of an internal fight before Stephanie drew a clear conclusion about what had to be done. The parking lot pavement had become a temporary tabletop for her purse and its contents, as she placed the item down and lugged a large, decorative rock that had been lining the building, where the landscape cut off and met the unoccupied woods. Only, it wasn't simply a rock, yet it also wasn't large enough to fall into the boulder category.
The chunk of stone was hefty enough that it would do moderate to severe damage if used as a projectile, and Stephanie's hope was that the breaking glass would set off alarms in and around the building. Titan Towers was the McMahon family's most prized accomplishment, aside from actually owning such a large corporation in itself and, even on Christmas night, Stephanie anticipated they would pile into their car and come first thing when word got back to them that there had been a break-in at Titan. She paused a while, breathing huffily as she swiped several droplets of sweat from her brow that even the briskly cold weather hadn't been able to prevent. Stephanie reached a hand up awkwardly behind herself and attempted to massage away a sharp pain in her back, which she assumed had come from straining her muscles in the process of finding a decent missile to use.
She bit her bottom lip while gazing into the patchy darkness and soaked in the silence of the night, knowing it was the last stretch of quiet she would hear for a long time. Her life was going to be as noisy and raucous as possible from there on out, which was fine, because it would mean she would return to her rightful place within the family she belonged in. When her thoughts began straying to Gregory and Melissa and how heartbroken they would be that she had truly left them for good, Stephanie immediately turned her attention back to hoisting the weighty rock in her arms. If she thought too hard about who and what she was leaving behind, she would lose her nerve.
"On the count of three," she whispered to herself, swaying her body lightly with the rock as she prepared to toss it straight through the glass window enclosing her family's corporate offices. She hoped they would forgive her for the destructive act against their property, but something told her a cracked window would be the least of their concerns when they realized who she was and what had brought her. "One, two...two and a half...two and three quarters...three!" she yelled, flinging the rock with enough power that it slammed directly through the front window, the power of the blow resonating in waves, to the point that surrounding glass collapsed and shattered to the ground.
The sudden security breach set off a howling alarm system as red lights began flashing on and off all around the building and, had she not been so terrified, Stephanie would have squealed with glee over having committed the act that would ultimately beckon her family. It would also bring the police, who she would have to remain hidden from if she didn't want to be arrested before her family arrived. Scooping up her purse and all other evidence of having been near, Stephanie retreated in the nearby woods, finding a large cluster of bushes to seek refuge behind as she waited for the real action to begin. Her stomach twisted in knots as she hugged her jacket more closely around her body and prepared to lie in wait for the sea of responders to begin pouring in.
In a matter of minutes, she was set to meet the family members she had been stolen away from a lengthy 19 years prior.
Thoughtfully decorated Christmas cookies and warm glasses of apple cider had been Melissa's ammunition of choice in keeping her parents distracted all day long. Having supplied a semi-solid excuse as to why Jennifer hadn't shown up for the holidays, she was running out of options to stave off trouble for much longer. It was clear after Melissa's brief conversation with Jennifer that morning that she wasn't coming back, and it would only be a matter of time before the police were knocking on her door, wanting to bring her and Gregory down to the precinct for questioning. Though technically a criminal, Melissa considered herself on a whole different level from the mostly vicious beings to be found in jail, and she'd sooner skip the country altogether than resolve herself to a fate filled with jail cells and public humiliation.
Taking Jennifer hadn't been within her rights, but she hadn't done it to torture her or refuse her the simple pleasures in life. She had done it out of the desperation of wanting a little girl to call her own, and she'd always done right by Jennifer, whether her daughter wanted to believe that any longer or not. Yet, Jennifer wasn't truly her daughter, not anymore, and Melissa was still so mentally drained and damaged by the thought of losing her that she hadn't been able to bring herself to call her by her actual name. If she referred to her as Stephanie, it meant she was relinquishing ownership of her to the McMahons, and she wasn't ready to let her go — not now, or ever.
Dusk had fallen upon their small Minnesota town, and her parents were in the beginning stages of nodding off. Their older age worked to her advantage, because they were no longer as aware or sharp as they might have been in the past, and it gave Melissa another chance to sneak off to the other room with Gregory and plan their fate. Melissa took a seat at the kitchen table and Dusty strayed over, plopping her head in her lap, as if intuition alone signaled Melissa needed a friend. Melissa smiled sadly at her beloved pet, swiping her hand gently over the top of Dusty's head as Gregory stood anxiously behind the kitchen counter, taking long sips from a can of beer.
"We can't stay here. It would be stupid to stick around if we don't want to be caught. We already know what's coming," Melissa started, tears glazing her eyes as she bit down on her bottom lip to keep from actually crying. Jennifer would always be her daughter, regardless of the obstacles that stood in the way of their relationship. Melissa couldn't easily, if at all, drop someone she had formed an attached emotional bond with over a course of several years and her hope was that, in time, Jennifer might be able to return to her and realize, regardless of blood relation or lack thereof, Melissa was indeed her mother.
"There's nowhere to go and, quite frankly, I'm sick of running."
"What do you mean?"
"How could I not be making myself clear enough?" Gregory asked, his voice growing louder with each dose of frustration radiating through him. "Ever since we got Stephanie, we've been running from the law, hoping nobody would recognize her face and turn us in. We've dyed her hair and changed her name, and while I'll be the first to admit we had a hell of a good time parenting her, we didn't live through one day without looking over our shoulders at least once."
"It was worth it to have the daughter I always wanted," Melissa replied. "She grew up to be beautiful, smart, sweet, and every bit as great as I always knew she would be. I won't stop loving her just because she wants nothing to do with me anymore. No matter what, Jennifer is still my baby girl, and I'll always have her in my heart."
"I understand that, but I'm not running from this anymore. If the cops want to come and talk, they can do that, and I'll have to deal with whatever consequences stem from that. I'm done escaping responsibility for the part I played in kidnapping an innocent little girl."
"We're not kidnappers!" Melissa gasped, bringing her hand to her chest as Dusty peered up at the sudden loss of contact to her head.
"You may not like hearing that word, but that's exactly what we are. We took her from a store, and we can't hold it against her that she wants out and went to go find her real family. Hell, if I were in her place, I'd be out doing the same thing!"
"Keep your voice down," she hissed.
"I don't care anymore," Gregory extended his hands, crossing from behind the counter into the center of the kitchen. "I don't care who hears, because I'm done with this. If the cops come and ask if we kidnapped her, I'm telling them we did. I don't have the patience or the desire to keep this going any longer than it already has. I want Stephanie to respect me enough to be able to speak to me again someday, and that won't happen if I can't even take responsibility for my part in this. We abducted her, Melissa! Make peace with it and deal with the consequences that come."
Melissa's heart hollowed when she realized the only ally she had, had finally seen the error of his ways and drifted a distance from her. Gregory wasn't the man from 19 years ago who helped her in deciding on which child to lure away from their parents, and he was no longer the man who gave her suggestions on what color to dye their kidnapped child's hair or what to name her. He had left the dark side, and it now felt darker than ever, because she had nobody to rally her on and assure her that life would resume its calmness once the storm passed. Gregory was the first person willing to tell her they no longer had the comfort of hiding behind a wall of excuses for what they had done, and it was a stab wound to her gut to hear it aloud for the first time.
"I'm nothing without her. I lived for my daughter, and I have nothing if she's not in my life and isn't planning on coming back," Melissa stated, devoid of almost any emotion. Gregory took another sip of his beer and wiped the leftover remnants away from his mouth with the back of his hand before wiping that sloppily against his pants.
"Well, that's the reality, so take a big whiff," he shrugged.
Dusty made way for Melissa as she rose wordlessly from her chair, slipping a glass of cider off the table and downing the remainder of the liquid before carrying the glass out of the room with her. Gregory sighed and ran a hand over his face, knowing he had been more harsh with her than was necessary. There were other, more polite ways to drive his point home than to make her feel bad in the process, and that was the inspiration that lead him out of the room and carried him up the stairs, following the silent trail she left in her wake. When Gregory entered their upstairs bedroom, the bathroom light was the only illumination glowing from underneath the crack at the bottom of the door.
He turned the light on in the main room and went to the bathroom door, resting his back against the security of the wood, as he called through the divider, "I'm sorry for what I said down there, sweetheart. I stand behind the point I was making, but I should have been nicer to you and said it in a better way."
There were several seconds of silence and, in thinking Melissa was ignoring him, Gregory went to have a seat on the bed. He was in the process of lying back on the mattress when her defeated response cut through the air, "You were only telling the truth. Our lives are over, and the sooner I accept it, the better."
"No, they're not over," he corrected, lifting up on the palms of his hands. "We just have to own up to what we did and take our punishment. Then we can start rebuilding. For all we know, Stephanie won't even press charges against us."
"I can't do it anymore, Greg. It's over," Melissa said. He couldn't help but notice the finality not only in her words, but her tone, and the next sound emanating from her side of the door was enough to send a shiver down his spine and make every hair on his body stand at attention. The glass Melissa had carried up with her shattered against the tiled floor, and after he heard what sounded like Melissa sorting through the leftover fragments — all the while ignoring his pleas to open the door — he realized what he was up against.
Melissa was planning on bringing her pain to an end.
A permanent one.
The extreme dazzle of police car lights just wasn't impressive the way it was in action movies. Stephanie sat huddled in the security of the bushes, clamping her hand over her mouth in paranoia that the cops standing yards away might be able to hear her breathing and find her. She lost track of how long it had been since she broke the glass in the front window of Titan Towers, but whatever the duration that lapsed, it had been lengthy enough time to give the cops a chance to respond to the alarm, which was still whistling into the night and serving as a major distraction. If Stephanie hadn't been so sidetracked with thoughts of her family showing up, she might have been annoyed enough to show herself and demand they cut the darn thing off.
As police surveyed the lot and began taking pictures of the damage, Stephanie lost hope her family was coming. A long enough while had passed that they should have been there by now, but it was ignorant for her to think they would stop what they were doing on Christmas evening just to come check on a building they had more than enough money to have repaired by morning. Of course the cops would be the ones to show up in their places, assess the damage, write up a report, and deliver the information to the McMahons in the morning. Her one great idea had blown up right in her own face, and she was as defeated as she'd been in a long time, as she let out a low moan and dropped onto her bottom in a patch of partially frozen grass.
Had Stephanie been a crier, she would have turned the waterworks on that instant, but she prided herself on being stronger than to succumb to common emotion, so she held it together and inwardly planned her next course of action. She could try hitchhiking once the cops left, to see if anyone would take pity on her and allow her to spend a night on their couch. All she needed was a few hours of sleep to gather herself before she could set off the next morning in search of her family once more. With her luck, it wouldn't be until the end of the holiday, when normal business hours resumed, that she would be able to see them at Titan. Even then, reaching the McMahons was only half the battle.
The bulk of her responsibility would rely in convincing them she was exactly who she claimed to be and, while her possession of the news clippings regarding her kidnappings would help, there was still the obstacle of showing tangible proof of her relation to them. She hardly had time to consider exactly what that meant before another car door was slamming shut and a booming voice was demanding to know what was going on. It wasn't until she was able to make out the conversation that Stephanie realized someone had finally put an end to the terribly deafening yelp of the security alarms. She lifted up to a kneeling position, peeking over the coverage of the plants as she watched the newest person on the scene saunter up to the building, seeking a flashlight from one of the cops as he assessed the damage.
The men in uniform had slipped inside long before to make sure the perpetrator wasn't anywhere in the building and had deemed it safe mere minutes after their initial arrival. This new man, however, wasn't a cop, and had arrived in a dark SUV that was carrying at least three other occupants, all of whom had vacated the car and were coming up behind him. There was no denying or mistaking who they were, as their interest in what happened could only mean one thing. If they weren't cops, they had to be the only other people who would be so personally invested in the act of vandalism that had been committed against the building — they were the McMahons.
The gamut of emotions she had been put through during the past 48 hours came out in the form of a strangled cry — some odd mixture of a gasp, guffaw, and a wretched sob, all fusing together to form a single sound. Her long-lost family was only footsteps away from her, the parents and brother she had always wanted to know but never had, and she couldn't take even a second longer of being away from them. Though the situation was a tad tricky because she had to be able to get around the cops to reach them, the fighter in her didn't much care any longer. Picking up her purse and tossing it over her shoulder and making sure her phone and the news clippings were still tucked away neatly inside, Stephanie left the safety of her hiding place.
Her sneakers slapped loudly against the slick pavement of the parking lot as she sprinted towards her parents.
Christmas couldn't have come sooner for Chris, as he was long overdue for a visit to his father's house anyway. They rarely got to see each other during the year, between all the traveling and work appearances Chris was required to make throughout the United States and beyond, so he always made the extra effort to spend any and all holidays with family. He had gone to visit his cousins earlier, but when they all decided to bust out the hard alcohol, Chris passed on it so he could be home with his dad and they could catch up on all they had missed out on in each other's lives for the past few months. They were in the middle of discussing one of Chris's recent wrestling matches, while a rerun of the Christmas parade from earlier that day played in the background, until the shrill ring of Chris's cell phone sliced through the air and interrupted their thoughts.
"Sorry, Dad, hold on one quick sec," Chris requested. He grabbed his phone and picked it up after the second ring. "Hello?"
"Hey, bro, turn on the news right now. You're not gonna believe this shit!" Dean Malenko said, sounding as frantic as he ever heard him. Chris diligently picked up the remote and did as was told, but just as he suspected, nothing noteworthy was taking place on their news channels. Considering Dean was still in the United States, he was viewing news that wasn't being projected to Canada, so Chris was left in the dark.
"I just turned it to the news, but I'm up in Winnipeg right now, so I can't see what you're seeing down there in the States. What's going on?" Chris wondered, his voice hitching on the final syllable. Whatever it was must have been a big enough deal for Dean to feel the need to call him in the middle of holiday, and especially so late into the evening, so it was unlikely to be good news.
"You know the back story about Vince McMahon and his daughter, right?"
"Uh, I've overheard some guys talk about it, but I don't know the details. His daughter went missing when she was really little, right?"
"Yeah, she did, but there's some crazy stuff going down tonight."
"Shit, man, what happened?" Chris asked for a second time.
Dean took a deep breath and rushed into it, "There was a break-in at Titan Towers tonight, so all the cops swarmed the place, and the McMahons showed up when they were contacted by the police about it. I guess they went to see how bad the damage was."
"Hold on, when was this?" Chris cut in.
"Like, just a little bit ago. It was maybe about 30 minutes ago that the McMahons showed up, according to the news. Anyways, supposedly this girl comes running up on the scene and claims she's Vince's and Linda's kidnapped daughter from years ago. It's all over the news, and they're saying she's in police custody for questioning. The word is the McMahons followed her in their car to the police station, so they must think she's the real deal if they're taking the time to be bothered with it."
"Holy shit, dude, I don't even know what to say," Chris covered his mouth, feeling his father's eyes boring into his side profile as he tried to figure out what was going on. While he didn't care to be selfish, Chris's first thought was about the meeting he was supposed to be having with Vince about a job with the company. He didn't want it to be canceled in light of the events of that evening, but then he had to stop himself and realize he was being a self-centered jackass for worrying about his job instead of realizing Vince had much bigger fish to fry. "Where did the girl come from?"
"That's what they don't know. The police are reviewing surveillance tapes from the cameras trained outside Titan tonight, but they say she just came running up out of nowhere. This is one of the craziest things that's ever happened, and, I mean, we don't even normally get attention from the mainstream media in the wrestling world, but every news station is picking up on this. It's the breaking news story on, like, every channel there is," Dean explained. "When were you s'pposed to be meeting with Vince? I forgot."
"In like a week's time, but don't go spreading that around all over the place. I don't want Bischoff to know about it unless Vince actually signs me," Chris said before adding, "but now I don't know if Vince is even going to be able to honor our meeting. He might have to move it to a later date if this turns out to really be his missing daughter."
"We'll see, but, yeah, this stuff is insane. I'm gonna go watch some more of the news, but I'll keep you posted if you want me to. Just stay by your phone, and I'll call with updates as they come."
"I'd actually like it if you did that since I can't see the news from here. Thanks, man."
"You're welcome. We'll talk soon."
"We will. See ya," Chris said, ending the call and placing his phone back down on the table. For at least a full minute after hanging up, he sat in a trance-like daze on the couch until Ted reached over and patted his leg, asking what was wrong. "You'll never believe this, Dad."
"Try me," Ted challenged.
"You know how Vince McMahon's daughter went missing years back and has pretty much been presumed dead?"
"Yeah, I vaguely remember hearing about her."
"Well, Dean just called and said they think they found the girl. It's all over the news, and he says she was taken to the police station to be questioned and the McMahons are going with her. We think there's a good chance it's actually her, since Vince probably wouldn't bother going to the police station if he knew she was a fraud."
"That sounds pretty out-there. How did the McMahons even come upon this girl?"
"I guess Titan Towers was broken into, from what Dean told me, so maybe she broke in and they found her that way...but, no, that doesn't make sense, because he said she ran up on the scene out of nowhere," Chris frowned as he attempted to sort through his jumbled thoughts. "I guess I don't really know, exactly, but whatever she had to say must have been serious if it was convincing enough for the McMahons to believe her."
"How old is she now? It's been a long time since she was taken, hasn't it?"
"Yeah," Chris squinted off in the distance as he mulled over his father's question. "I think she's roughly my age, but I'm not too positive. If I had to guess, I would say she's in her early or mid twenties by now, but I seriously don't know. The only information I've ever heard on what happened to her always came through the grapevine, when I overheard the other guys discussing it."
"Let's hope it's her, at least for the sake of the McMahons. I can't imagine how painful it would be for them to get their hopes up only to find out it's some crazy imposter or something," Ted responded.
"Yeah, I know. Hopefully it's really her."
Back in Stamford, Stephanie was settled in the backseat of a police cruiser as she was driven to a nearby police station so she could give an accurate account of her harrowing escape. In another vehicle, pacing them several feet from behind, Linda sat weeping into her hands, Shane reaching up from the backseat to clasp her shoulder as a signal to remind her they were all in it together. Vince drove in silence, saying a silent prayer the young woman who had run to him so desperately only minutes before was the daughter he had been hoping would return for years on end. Several states over in Minnesota, Gregory was crying tears of a very different kind, as he comforted Melissa's parents while she was loaded into the back of the ambulance parked in front of their home.
December 25, 1998 had been a day doomed to end in tragedy.
Still, even the darkest of clouds had their silver lining.
