Chapter Twenty-One – A Revelation
The room was empty. The bed was made, the toys were all placed on the shelves, and judging by the way that everything was still in its place the girl who had lived in this room had left without a fight. The only sign that anyone had been in the room at all was a teddy bear under the bed. Alex had thrown herself to the floor to look underneath it, just in case, even though she knew there was no longer a child here…
It looked like the teddy bear was meant for the child to sleep with at night. However, this child seemed to have refused to cuddle with the toy. And Alex knew then for sure – Rebecca had been here.
It's only one night Rebecca," Alex said.
The stubborn four-year-old shook her head in response.
"Why don't you pick a different bear, just for tonight?" Bobby suggested. "We'll go and get Wrinkles tomorrow."
"No, I need Wrinkles!" Rebecca cried.
"Wrinkles is at Grandma's house," Alex reminded her. "We'll get him tomorrow."
"I want him now!" Rebecca insisted.
"Well he's not here," Alex said irritably. "It's night time now, we're not going back to Grandma's until tomorrow."
Bobby reached over to select a bear from her shelf. It was a definite favourite, sitting in a place of honor front and center. It was wearing a police uniform – one of their daughter's favourites because it reminded her of her parents. "Here, Becky," he said. "Why don't you cuddle with Officer Ted tonight?"
"But I need Wrinkles at night!" Rebecca wailed. "Only Wrinkles!"
"Officer Ted will keep you safe at night," Alex coaxed. The tag hanging from the bear's ear proclaimed: 'Officer Ted E. Bear – One of New York's finest!'
Rebecca looked up at her parents with her bottom lip quivering. "Please can we get Wrinkles?"
Bobby looked between Rebecca and Alex. "Oh no," Alex said. "We are not driving across town at bedtime. Besides, I don't know if Grandma is even awake anymore."
Clearly knowing which parent she would have a better chance of convincing, Rebecca climbed onto Bobby's lap. "Please, Daddy?" she begged.
Again Bobby looked to Alex. Knowing she was fighting a losing battle now, she relented. "Fine," she sighed. "Daddy will go and Wrinkles if you are a good girl and get into bed right now."
Rebecca launched herself into her bed. "Here, why don't you cuddle with a different toy until I come back with Wrinkles," Bobby suggested. He picked a stuffed cat up off of her floor and tucked it in next to her.
Rebecca shook her head. "I don't want another toy. I want only Wrinkles." She shoved the stuffed cat back out onto the floor.
Bobby and Alex left the room. "You try and sleep now, Becky," Bobby told her. "I'll tuck Wrinkles in with you when I get back."
"You know she'll be asleep anyway by the time you get back?" Alex whispered.
"You think so?" Bobby asked.
Alex glanced through the crack between the door and the doorframe. Rebecca was lying sideways in her bed with her head hanging over the edge and her feet in the air. She was trying to keep herself awake until her Daddy returned with Wrinkles.
"Right," Alex said, smiling. "She's your daughter."
"Do you think she gets that from me?" he asked. "Liking things to be the same every night, yes; the stubbornness…" he let his sentence trail away and shrugged, grinning at her.
"Oh go and get Wrinkles," Alex said good-naturedly, swatting his arm lightly at the same time. "I don't want her to be awake for longer than necessary. As for Rebecca's stubbornness, why don't we just agree that she got that from both of us?"
In response, Bobby flashed her his trademark Bobby grin: head turned down, eyes glancing up with a quick smile before he looked down again. He left to go and get Wrinkles for their daughter.
The bear under the bed had been rejected because Rebecca would only sleep with Wrinkles at night. She would rather have no toy at night than a different one.
So Rebecca had been here – but Alex was too late. She was too late to rescue her daughter again, just like that horrible day nearly four months previously. She stood back up on shaky legs, trying to push away the mother in her and instead focus on the cop. Maybe there were still girls in the other rooms.
She burst out of Rebecca's room and proceeded to the next door. The nametag on this door read: Willow. There was no point in opening that one. Alex knew what had happened to Willow.
The next door had the name Emma on it. Alex threw open the door, hardly daring to hope that there was anyone left at this point. She was shocked as a pair of wide green eyes locked with hers. The girl's mouth was open in a silent scream of fright.
"It's alright," Alex said quickly. "It's okay honey, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a police officer, Emma. My name is Alex."
"You're a police officer? Like my Daddy?" Emma asked hopefully.
"Yes, like your Daddy," Alex assured her.
"I miss Mommy and Daddy," Emma wailed. "I want to go home!"
"I know you do, Emma," Alex said. "And I want to make sure you get home to your Mommy and Daddy. But right now, I need you to be really brave. Can you do that?"
Emma nodded. "Okay, come here," Alex said. Emma walked over to her. "I need to look for the other girls here, okay?" Alex asked. "You can wait right here in the hallway, and call me if you get scared, okay?"
"I'm not supposed to leave my room," Emma said fearfully. "If they catch me, I'll get in trouble!"
"It's okay, no one is going to get you in trouble," Alex reassured her. "If anyone sees you, they'll blame me because I told you to leave. They won't get angry with you."
"Okay," Emma whispered. She followed Alex out of the room, glancing around nervously. She let out a frightened whimper when she saw the two figures moving down the hallway. "Alex, Mr. Waverly is gonna be mad!" she turned to run back into her room.
"No it's okay, Emma!' Alex assured her. "It's okay because the lady with him is my friend Carolyn, and she's not going to let him get you in trouble."
Emma seemed slightly reassured with Alex's words, and the fact that Waverly was in handcuffs. "Okay," she said.
Alex turned to enter the next room. She didn't know how much time they had left, but she was guessing that they were cutting it close. The next nametag said that the girl inside was named Taylor.
A girl with long inky curls was sitting on the bed in the room. She had no aversion to the teddy bear she had been given, and was holding it tightly in both arms. Unlike Emma, she did not seem shocked or frightened to see Alex. She looked relatively calm, and looked Alex over with curiosity rather than fear. "Who're you?" she asked.
"My name is Alex," she answered. "I'm a police officer. My friend Carolyn and I are here to take you back to your parents."
"Really?" she asked, her eyes shining with wonder. "They said that this was my home now. They said I was never going back."
Alex took Taylor's hand in her own. "They were wrong," she said. Taylor climbed off of the bed and followed Alex back into the hallway.
"Emma!" Taylor exclaimed when she reached the hallway. "We're going home!" She then caught sight of Waverly and Carolyn. "You were wrong," she informed Waverly in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. He didn't reply; he was still whimpering at the idea of going to jail.
Alex entered the next room, Giselle's room. The girl turned sharply to look at Alex, her blonde ponytail whipping through the air from the speed at which she turned her head. "My name is Alex," Alex repeated. "I'm a police officer, and I'm going to get you out of here."
Unlike the other girls Giselle did not seem to be pleased by this news. Instead, she looked over Alex appraisingly. "You don't look like a police officer," she said. Giselle's father had been particularly protective of his little girl after his wife died. He had taught Giselle to be less trusting than most other five-year-olds, and had also taught her safety precautions and how to analyze situations.
"Do you have a badge?" Giselle asked. "My Dad says that police officers have badges." He had also told her to never believe that someone was a police officer unless they showed her a badge. Her father had even taught her the general idea of what one looked like, to try and protect his daughter from being tricked.
"You're a very smart girl," Alex said. "I don't have mine with me, but will my friend's be okay?" Having heard the exchange, Carolyn handed her badge to Alex when she re-entered the hallway. Alex went back and held the badge out to Giselle.
Giselle turned it over in her hands, examining it critically. "It looks real," she said finally. Her father had warned her about looking at badges, but she had never been warned about whether or not to trust people claiming to be police when she had already been kidnapped. She decided that seeing the badge from one of the women was good enough, and joined the other two girls, Carolyn, and Waverly in the hall.
There was only one door left, but Alex knew they had to hurry. Only Laura remained in her room. Alex opened it, and saw the little girl had fallen asleep on the floor. Laura was only three years old, and still napped during the afternoon.
Alex picked the sleeping child up, deciding that being quick was more important than trying to reason with a just woken toddler. There weren't any doors left – all of the girls were safe as soon as they got out of the building… all of them except Rebecca.
"We have to go quickly now," Alex told the girls. Laura remained asleep in her arms. Alex took Emma's hand again, as she seemed the most afraid. Giselle and Taylor were more confident; they followed Carolyn and Waverly back towards the stairs.
"Alex?" Giselle asked. "Are Willow and Becky gonna go back to their families now too?"
Alex's heart raced at these words. "What happened to them?" she asked. "Do you know where they went?"
"No," Taylor replied. "They were just gone."
"Mr. Waverly said they had been adopted," Giselle added.
Alex's thoughts raced at this proclamation. Someone in the group had Rebecca? But who? It wasn't someone that she and Bobby knew, or they would have found out by now. Then she remembered what Dan had said, that someone here knew who she and Bobby were. Had they adopted Rebecca to keep her from them? Or had the excuse of Rebecca being adopted been a lie, when in reality she was –
Alex would not even allow herself to think it. It was too painful, too impossibly cruel, to have found Willow, Emma, Taylor, Giselle, and Laura, but to have lost Rebecca forever.
Carolyn also wanted to question Waverly, but she knew they had to first focus on getting the girls out. They had no idea if other people would soon be coming to Waverly's aid.
The group of seven entered the stairwell and left through the fire exit in order to avoid re-entering the lobby. The fire alarm began to ring shrilly, causing the girls to cover their ears and Laura to wake up crying. People were streaming out of the building. The group wouldn't remain unnoticed for long.
Alex cuddled Laura, who was completely disoriented and still crying. Carolyn slammed Waverly into the wall of the building, ignoring his gasp of pain and surprise.
"What happened to Rebecca?" Carolyn demanded. "Where is she?"
"I won't tell you!" Waverly squealed. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
Alex passed Laura to Carolyn wordlessly. She seized Waverly's head and pressed his face against the wall. She might have smashed it into the wall, if it hadn't been for the girls watching what she was doing with wide eyes.
"Tell me what happened to Rebecca!" she demanded.
"I don't know any Rebecca," Waverly tried to deny. Alex ground his face into the wall more in response. "Ouch, you're hurting me!"
"Then don't lie to me!" Alex snarled. "Her name was there on the door! I know she was here, tell me what happened to her!"
The desperation in her voice made him pause. A police officer would be interested in finding all of the girls of course, but she sounded like she was on the verge of hysteria, desperate to find Rebecca specifically. "Why do you care?" Waverly asked slowly.
"Why do I care?" Alex screeched. She seemed to be beyond the ability to form a coherent sentence. And all of the pieces fell into place in Waverly's mind.
"Oh no," he muttered to himself. "Oh no, no, no." She was determined to find Rebecca. And he still remembered Patrick's request when he was adopting Willow… "I'd prefer a brunette, if possible. Brown eyes, like my wife."
Willow had matched the description, but so did Rebecca. She had brown eyes like Patrick's wife… remarkably like his wife – identical, in fact.
"My God," Waverly muttered faintly. "You're Rebecca's mother."