A/N1: STOP! Before reading any further, it's time to let your preference be known. Do we continue forward in Canon where our evil Roselli may... or may not... be planning his return? Or do we return to AU, where Laura is flying across the Atlantic to reach the side of her Mr. Steele?
A/N2: I thought I uploaded chapters 33-36 ten days ago. Ooops! Tons of reading for hump day!
Chapter 33: Child Lost
October 22, 1994
Jessica peeked her head out of the elevator of the apartment building on Burton Way, and cautiously checked the hallway in both directions for any unwelcome witnesses. After confirming the coast was clear, she depressed the buttons on the elevator panel, assuring the lift would stop at every floor, buying her some time. Withdrawing the key to the apartment from her pocket, she checked the hall again then made a mad dash for the apartment door. Once she slipped safely inside, she closed the door, and, leaning her back against it, closed her eyes.
She was home. She was finally home.
"Mom? Pops?" she called out.
The house remained still around her. That wasn't exactly surprising as it seemed her entire life her Mom and Pops would head out to the Flea Market and Farmer's Market as soon as they were up and around on Saturday. Still, she looked in her parents' open bedroom, finding it empty, then checked the kitchen with the same result. Purely out of habit, she removed a glass from the familiar cabinet their cups and mugs were stored in, then tugged open the refrigerator door.
She'd been gone a month, and still her Mom was grocery shopping like she still lived there… or was coming home soon. Her three favorite beverages were where they always were: Cans of Coke and two large bottles of Sunny Delight on the bottom shelf of the fridge and bottles of Yoohoo in the door. In the deli meats drawer she found the Oscar Meyer Bologna and Kraft American cheese she favored, and in the freezer cartons of Bagel Bites – pepperoni, of course. A check of the cabinets revealed new jars of Jif peanut butter, Marshmallow fluff and an unopened bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
Pouring a glassful of Sunny D, Jessica's eyes wandered the kitchen, stilling when they reached the door. Approaching the jamb, she reverently traced the slash marks made by both pencil and marker across the years. She could measure nine years of her life by those marks, starting down there and stopping way up here, each line made by devoted parents that joyously chronicled each stage of her life.
She meandered through the living room, taking in the framed photographs that covered the walls there: Preschool graduation, a picture for every year in school, photos of family trips, holidays and her birthday. Her with a gap toothed smile, after losing her first tooth – a tooth that had flapped around in her mouth for days before her Pops convinced her to allow him to – painlessly – remove it. The first time she rode a two-wheeler, her Pops caught in the picture with a proud smile. She'd dumped the bike within seconds of that picture being snapped, both knees left dripping blood and stinging like all get out. Her Mom had cleaned and patched her up, then had sent her straight back out the door to try again. Her First Communion and Confirmation.
In was all there in living color - Her life, there on the walls: The life of Jessica Anna Sandberg Wright. Her life!... Not Lynn Marie Jefferson, whoever she was.
And this? she acknowledged as she entered a bedroom. This was her room, not that room at the other house: The room with walls painted the palest of yellows, with sketches of butterflies in gold frames on the wall, white eyelet comforter on the bed. This room with it's aqua colored walls, color block drapes, and matching comforter covering the sturdy wood bed. Here were her posters of Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Boyz II Men, tacked onto her walls. This was the bulletin board her Mom had made for her, covered now in photos of friends, movie and concert ticket stubs, and a postcard of Tahoe from when she and her family had vacationed there last year. There was the desk at which she'd done all her homework through elementary school and partway through middle school before the couch in front of the television had become her preferred place. And here? She belly flopped on her bed, and buried her face in the pillow, breathing deeply. Here was her bed, the scent of Tide and Downy lingering on the sheets, the pillow that was molded perfectly to her head and the stuffed bear she'd had since she was four, always waiting to offer comfort should she need him.
Sitting up, she worked her legs under comforter and sheet then gathered her bear in her arms and closed her eyes. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept soundly, let alone had slept the night through…
"I'm just saying, Ange, I don't think it would hurt for us to talk to someone," David argued vociferously as followed her into the apartment and closed the door behind them. "Look at you!" She'd easily lost ten pounds in the last month and once bright eyes were now dull, with dark circles beneath them from nights of pacing first a jail cell then the floors of this apartment.
"It's not just me," she answered wearily.
And it wasn't. Sleep was as elusive to him as it was to her, but rather than pacing the floors, he'd taken to parking himself in front of the television watching Nick-at-Night until the early morning hours, always with a tray of snacks nearby. An attempt to fill the nagging emptiness inside? Maybe. In a single month he'd gained what weight she'd lost.
"Which is why I said us," he returned. "We lost a child, damn it! Our only child! We're grieving, just as if Jess had died, and I don't—"
"Don't say that!" she demanded hoarsely. Tears welled in her eyes and overflowed. "Jessie's not dead. She's alive, but we can't see her, or touch her, or hold her…" Her words broke off in sobs.
"You scared the hell out of me last night, Ange. You could have died." In an attempt to sleep she'd combined a double dose of the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed her with half a bottle of scotch. When he'd arrived home from work, she'd barely been conscious.
"I don't want to talk about this," she cried, waving her hands frantically as she fled the kitchen, making a beeline for Jessica's room – the only place she could feel close to her daughter since—
She jerked to a stop, convinced the loss of her daughter had finally been too much and her mind had snapped. Tentatively, she approached the bed and sitting down carefully on the edge, reached out and stroked a hand over the girl's hair, a sob bursting past her lips when the girl lying there turned out to be very real and not a figment of her imagination.
Jessica's eyes fluttered open.
"Mom!" she cried out, lurching upwards and throwing herself into Angela's arms, her frame quaking from the force of her anguish. "Mom!" Her fingers dug into Angela's back painfully, bruising the flesh, but Angela was mindless to anything but comforting her daughter. Gathering her tighter, they shed a torrent of tears together.
"Let me look at you," Angela finally insisted, leaning back and brushing Jessica's tear dampened hair back from her face. The desolation in her daughter's eyes had her drawing the girl back into a hug. "Oh, baby, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I never meant—"
"Ange—"
Much like his wife before him, David was so stunned by what he was seeing that he stumbled to a stop.
"Jess?"
"Pops!" Rushing to the side of the bed, he dropped to his knees and enveloped both wife and daughter in his arms. A minute ticked by, then David was the first to speak.
"Jess, what are you doing here?" he asked, sitting back on his haunches. "Do you know how much trouble your Mom and me will be in if someone finds out you're here?"
"I hate it there," Jessie sobbed, wrapping her arms tighter around Angela and burying her face in the woman's shoulder. "Don't make go back. Please… Please?" she begged. Angela stroked Jessie's back trying to soothe her.
"Oh, baby, you know if we didn't have to we wouldn't, but you heard what the police and the court said." It tore Angela's heart in two having to say those words. Desperate, she turned to David. "We could leave. Just pack a couple changes of clothes and leave, right now. We could disappear." Jessica lifted her head to look at her father with hope shining in her eyes. David pushed to his feet and dragged both hands down his face from forehead to chin in frustration.
"This isn't the movies, Ange. People can't just disappear. You need money, fake I.D.'s, who knows what else, but I know we have none of those things just laying around here. We'd be caught in no time and then what? Jess goes back to the Jefferson's and we're going to jail." He shook his head adamantly. "No, no more. Too many people have been hurt already. We gotta do this right. Maybe get a loan or something and try to get at least some visitation."
"The Jefferson's will never let it happen! You know that!" Angela rebutted.
"Can you blame them?" he shouted. "You kidnapped their kid! Look at what we're going through and we know Jessie's alive!" Angela gasped at the accusation, true though it might be. Jessie's tears started anew.
"You're going to make me go back, aren't you?!" she cried out, turning back into Angela's arms for comfort. Her despair broke him, and for the first time since she'd been ripped out of their home, his shoulders shook and tears flowed.
"Do you think that's what I want?" he choked. "You're my little girl." The sight of her father crying, the first time she'd ever witnessed him do so, saw Jessica tearing herself out of Angela's arms then standing and flinging herself into David's.
"I'm sorry, Pops, I'm sorry," she apologized through her own tears.
"No, I'm sorry," Angela interjected. "If hadn't done what I did, none of this would be happening." She swiped at the wetness on her face, as a determined look replaced her grief. Standing she went to David and Jessica. "But even knowing what happens, I'd do it all again so that we could have these last twelve years." Jessica stepped out of her father's embrace and stood at his side. Angela quickly stepped close, cupping her daughter's cheeks in her palms, and wiping at the tears with her thumbs. "I love you as much as if I had carried you under my heart for nine months. You saved my life, Jessie. You gave me a reason to get up each morning. I have never been so proud of or have loved anyone as much as I love you." She narrowed her eyes. "I would do it all again," she vowed with determination, "No matter how selfish that is."
"Then let me stay," Jessie pleaded again.
"I can't," Angela cried out with anguish. "I can't! As much as I want us together, I can't. They won't let you stay here and if we did run away I'd be robbing you of everything you deserve: Your friends, homecoming…" she stroked a hand over Jessica's hair "…prom, going to college. If I love you, I can't want anything less than everything for you."
"Don't do this!" She stomped a foot and turned beseeching eyes on her father. "Pops, please, pleasepleasepleaseplease don't make me go back. Please."
It would prove to be the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life to date. Squaring his shoulders, shoving down his emotions, and giving her the I'm-done-discussing-this-you'll-do-as-told fathers everywhere have bestowed upon the children, told her firmly:
"Give your Mom a hug goodbye. I'll drive you back and drop you at the corner from the house."
Jessica looked back-and-forth between her parents, then her face turned to stone.
"I hate you both," she whispered, then stomped to her bed, grabbed her stuffed bear off of it, and stormed out of the room.
"I love you, Jessie!" Angela called after her, her voice cracking.
"But you don't want me!" Jessica yelled back.
It was the last words David and Angela would hear their daughter say to them.
On the drive back to the Jefferson's, David tried to coax her into talking with him, begged her to try to understand. In the end, when he slowed the car next to the curb at the corner of the Jefferson's street, she threw open the door and ran…
Jessica slipped though the white vinyl fence gate, into the backyard, then scrambled up into the treehouse – a place she'd sought refuge on more than one occasion since being forced to come here. Folding herself into the corner of the small structure, she dragged her knees up to her chest and clutched the stuffed bear to her. Her last hope had been dashed and she had no idea what to do. She didn't belong anywhere anymore, not at this house and not at the one she'd just come from. She had no one she could go to that would take her in, either their parents would send her back or it would be one of the first places someone would look for her.
She didn't belong here, but there was nowhere else. She'd have to find some way to survive until she could leave and no one could drag her back.
She rocked in the corner for an hour – maybe far longer – searching for the wherewithal to walk through those doors as though nothing was wrong, while trying to fight off the feeling the everything was closing in on her. She may have stayed longer had her 'brother' Josh's head not preceded the rest of him through the trap door.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, no malice in his voice, only curiosity.
"I'll leave," she volunteered hastily and scrambled towards the door.
"You don't have to. It's cool with me if you want to hang," he offered.
"No thanks." Josh was nice enough but she felt no link to him, like she should – he was just more proof of how she didn't belong. Her toes found purchase on the ladder beneath her.
"Mom's freaking," Josh forewarned.
It was a friendly warning, but one that nonetheless made her blood run cold. Barbara was constantly on her, suffocating her, demanding to know where she was every second of every day, preferring Jessie never left her sight at all. She was shocked there weren't bars on her bedroom windows and doors, to keep her imprisoned. Actually, that wasn't true. The truth was, she was amazed Barb didn't sit in the chair in the corner of her bedroom all night long just staring at her, didn't stand outside of the shower while she bathed herself… that she didn't find a way to sit next to her in her classes every day!
"What else is new?" she replied, crossly, then quickly climbed down the ladder.
She paused to the side of the sliding glass doors that led into the great room and peeked into the house. Finding kitchen and family room empty, she quietly slid the door open, then shut it just as silently behind her. A quick escape up the back stairs and soon she was safely behind the closed door of her room. Not her, Jessie, but her Lynnee.
Crossing the room, avoiding the bed, she curled up in the window seat, holding her bear close.
She, Jessie, hated everything about this room from the pale yellow on the walls – 'You're favorite color, Lynnee' Barb had proclaimed – to the frippery of the comforter, the lamps, pictures and drapes. Lynnee might have liked yellow – Jessie's second most least liked color and all the boring frills. She, Jessie, liked bright and bold colors that made you feel alive and vibrant and young. She liked posters on the walls, a lava lamp on her bedside table, a large pink furry rug on her floor and the stickers she'd plastered over her desk drawers when she was six.
She liked her own clothes: Shortalls with one strap hanging down, worn with a long-sleeved lightweight T and a plaid shirt tied around her waist; jeans with a t-shirt emblazoned with her favorite band name and a pair of 'shit kicker' boots; and plaid skirts worn with a complementary black short sleeve sweater and black knee socks. Her clothes had always been a reflection of who she was and how she was feeling. A little rebellious? T-shirt, jeans and boots it was to be. A little flirtatious? The plaid skirt ensemble. Just hanging out? There were the shortalls.
Like the room was hers, so too were the clothes hanging in the closet. She, Jessie, hadn't been permitted to take any of her belongings with her when she'd been forced from her home. Instead, the following day, she'd been dragged to the mall, but not to the stores she favored like Hot Topics, Merry Go Round, Gadzooks and Miller's Outpost. No, she'd found herself in County Seat, Casual Corner and The Gap, where armfuls of pastel polos, oxfords, and a dozen different styles of varying shades of tan slacks were thrust upon her. Contrary to what Beverly Hills 90210 portrayed, all teens in the Los Angeles era did not run around the city in muted, preppy, soulless clothing.
She'd refused to wear them. Instead, day-after-day tugging on the jeans and t-shirt she'd arrived in – until Barb had seen to it that those had disappeared from the dryer… and from anywhere in the house.
She, Jessie, was being erased one color, one piece of clothing at a time.
She jumped, then eased herself closer to the window when the door to her bedroom was flung open.
"Where have you been?" Barb demanded to know. She'd been frantic when Lynnee had disappeared from the house that morning. She couldn't bear to let her daughter out of her sight, the hours she spent at school akin to torture. She knew better than anyone, after all, what can happen when you take your eyes off your child, if only for a minute.
"I just went for a walk," Jessie offered, sullenly, then turned her head to look out the window.
"What have I told you about just taking off like that? Do you have any idea how worried I was?" Barb persisted.
"I just went for a walk," Jessie repeated, not even turning her head to look at Barb this time.
"That's not how we do things around here," Barb fussed. "In this home, we tell people where we are going, with who, and how long we'll be gone." At the window, Jessie's shoulders lifted and fell on a forlorn sigh. "Are you listening to me?" Barb waited for several ticks of the second hand for an answer. When her daughter remained silent, she grew more frustrated. "Lynn Marie Jefferson, are you—"
"That's not my name," Jessica murmured, pressing herself more firmly to the window, unconsciously trying to put more space between herself and the woman she viewed not as her mother, but her tormenter. Barbara's face blanched in response.
"What did you say?" The events over the last month and this morning conspired to give Jessie a voice she hadn't been able to find during her captivity. Turning she faced Barb.
"I said… My… name… is… not… Lynn Marie Jefferson!" She emphasized each word, becoming more upset with each passing word. "I am not Lynn Marie Jefferson," she screamed. "This is not my house! This is not my room! These are not my clothes! You are not my mother and this is not my life!" Her younger 'sister,' Katie, came bounding into the room before she was finished.
"Shut up!" she screamed at Jessica. "Shut-up-shut-up-shut-up-shut-up! I'm sick of you! You're ruining everybody's life and all you can do is feel sorry for yourself! Poor Lynnee," she shouted, mockingly, "Boo-hoo-hoo. I was stupid enough to get kidnapped! Everyone wants me! It's so hard to be Lynnee!"
"I'm not Lynnee!" Jessica screamed back.
"Yes! You are!" Barb protested, moving towards Jessica with her arms open. "You're my baby girl, my firstborn. You—"
"No! I'm not! I'm not!" She jerked away when Barb drew too near and moved across the room, putting as much distance between her and Barb as she could. "I'm Jessica Anna Sandberg Wright. My parents are Angela and David Wright." Her head swung towards Katie. "I'm an only child and don't have a bitch for—"
"Lynnee!" Barb shouted before she could finish that thought aloud. Jessica's foot stomped on the floor.
"Don't call me that!" she yelled.
"What's going on in here?" Josh demanded to know as he ran into the room.
"I am Jessica! Jessica!" the girl continued. "Lynnee is dead!"
So horrified by the last words Jessie shouted was Barb, that she would swear she'd blacked out temporarily.
"Barbie, have you lost your mind?" Josh shouted. A hard blink and Barbara looked around with some confusion, although the stinging of her hand, the way her daughter covered a cheek with both hands, the look of utter betrayal in Jessica's eyes and Josh's hand clamped around her wrist told enough of the tale.
"Oh, God, Lynnee!" Barb rushed forward to embrace Jessica, but the girl shook her head adamantly then ran out of the room. "Lynnee!" She hurried to give chase, only to find her arm firmly shackled by a hand, again.
"For God's sake, give her some time," Josh insisted, rigidly. "Katie, go and find something to do," he instructed their middle child in almost the same breath.
"Let me go," Barb commanded, trying to wrench her arm free, as Katie ran from the room much as Jessica had before her.
"No!" he shot back. "I'm done keeping my mouth shut!" He flung her arm away, but bodily blocked the exit from the room. "It's time to start asking yourself, Barbie, if it's worth destroying her just so you can have her, because I've gotta tell you: I don't think I can watch her suffer much longer."
With that Josh stormed from the room towards the master bedroom while Barb raced out behind him, turning in the opposite direction to find Lynnee…
By ten-thirty that evening, the tension that had been building in the Jefferson household over the last month erupted. Lynnee had neither returned home nor had been heard from. Barb hurled accusations at Josh, convinced that had he not blocked her pursuit of their daughter, she would be here, safe. He, on the other hand, accused her of being so overbearing and inflexible that she'd chased Lynnee away. Their frustration only continued to mount as they searched Lynnee's room for any clues as to where she might have gone.
"She's been here a month and there's not a trace of her in this room," he observed. "It's sterile. What does that tell you?"
"So she's a tidy kid. What's your point?" Barb glowered.
"No one is this 'tidy,'" he refuted. "There's not a single thing in this room that belongs to her. There's no books, no pictures, no notebooks with drawings—"
"What's your point?" she snapped, as she went through the dresser drawers.
"You check into a hotel room and within an hour you've spread out across it," he elaborated with irritation. In his view, you'd have to be completely blind not to understand. "You've hung up clothes you don't want to risk wrinkling; razor, shaving cream, make up and hairspray are scattered over the bathroom counter; a jacket or clothes you've change out of are slung over a chair… Look around, Barb! This room is the same as it was a year ago except the clothes you bought her are hung in the closet or folded in drawers – and it would be my guess that you did those things. The only sign anyone exists in this room is her backpack sitting on the desk chair and that old bear on the window seat." He waved an arm in the general direction of the window, drawing Barb's eyes in that direction. "She is completely disconnected from this room, this house… and from us!" Standing, Barb moved quickly across the room and yanked the stuffed animal up and examined it: Worn, a bit tattered and clearly well-loved, it wasn't something Lynnee had recently bought and it hadn't arrived with her. She strode to the bedroom door
"Joshy, Katie, come here, please," she called down the hallway towards their bedrooms.
"What are you doing?" Josh asked with exasperation. "We agreed to keep them out of this." Ignoring him, she waited until their youngest two offspring appeared in the doorway, then held up the bear.
"Do either of you have any idea where this came from?"
"Who cares?" Katie sniped with a roll of her eyes.
"Katie, just answer the damned question," Josh reprimanded.
"No, I don't know, okay? God, why are you guys are making yourself crazy. She hates it here and she hates us!"
"No, she doesn't," Barb denied.
"Yes, she does Mom!"
"Katie, that's enough," Josh ordered, wearily.
"She had the bear when I found her in the treehouse earlier," Joshy announced.
"When was that? Before or after our… after she got upset and left?" Barb questioned.
"After she disappeared this morning." Barb's face drained of color when she put it together.
"She went there," she noted, in a dazed voice.
"Kids, go to your rooms," Josh ordered, as Barb pushed past them out of the room, then took off in pursuit of their mother. "Barb, what are you doing?!"
"I'm calling the cops," she replied, her fury painted on her face as she grabbed the portable phone off Josh's bedside table. "The Wrights were ordered to have no contact with Lynnee. I want them arrest—" He grabbed the phone from her hand.
"We're not calling the police!" he insisted.
"Yes, I am!" she countered trying to grab the phone back.
"No! You aren't! It's time to stop this madness and if you won't, I will," he insisted as he dialed a trio of digits into the phone. "I'm calling the Wrights. If she's not with them, then I'm going to ask them over to help."
"No, you're not!" she rejected, frantically grabbing for the phone. "They kidnapped our baby!"
"Yes, she did! But in case you haven't noticed it, Barb, she's not ours anymore! How many different ways does she have to show and tell you?" he shouted. The truth of that statement devastated him, but it was the harsh reality of where they were. He forced himself to speak calmly when the operator answered, spinning away from Barb when she tried to grab the phone again. "I need the number for David and Angela Wright on Burton Way—"
"Then I'm calling the detective agency I used to find her," she shouted as she made a last, desperate grab for the phone.
"Fine!" he snapped, to the sound of the keys tapping coming through the phone, "But we're not calling the police unless it's a last resort!"…
Which is how an intrepid detective duo were ripped from their warm bed, late on a Saturday evening…