The fluorescent lights in the hospital examination room hummed, adding an eerie atmosphere to the room. They rescued three females and one male from the mine. They were dirty, cold, and still shaking with fear. Shock settled in quickly and it didn’t seem like it was going to be easy to relieve.
It wasn’t a case of hypothermia or even the fright of a car accident. Those were sudden and painful but didn’t hold the same horror that these four had experienced.
Jenna Bean was eighteen and the smallest of the four. She had green eyes and short brown hair that looked like it had been recently trimmed. Wayne smiled as he sat down in the chair next to her. A female officer and support worker sat with him and assured Jenna that she was safe and far from the reach of the men who held her captive.
She clawed at the light gray blanket that was wrapped around her shoulders and pulled it tight. Her nails were chewed down to the skin, and her hands shook even though the room was ten degrees warmer than when they first arrived.
“Jenna, my name’s Wayne Burgess,” Wayne’s voice was soft, and he spoke slowly. As eager as he was to capture the men responsible, he was more interested in putting Jenna and the others at ease. He explained who he was and what the purpose of the task force was. He wanted her to know the number of people he had managed to save and return to their families or to the safety and care of organizations that were funded to protect victims such as herself. Most importantly, he wanted to let her know she was safe.
He also shared with her the number of people they were unable to rescue and the urgency in capturing and stopping the men who abducted her. It was important that if she remembered anything about the men who abducted her, that she let him know.
Jenna didn’t seem interested in any of the information that Wayne was eager to share.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jenna buried her face in the blanket. “Please don’t make me.” Her words were low, muffled, and pleading.
She was terrified and didn’t want to remember the horror of what she had been through, at least not yet.
“Is there anyone we can call for you?” Wayne remembered the information she gave the first emergency officer who questioned her. “You said your family lives in Calgary.”
Jenna’s head, still buried in the blanket and shielded from view, bobbed up and down. “My mom and dad.”
“I’ll call them myself and let them know you’re safe,” Wayne promised. “Until then, let the nurse and doctor examine you.”
Jenna dropped her hands and the blanket fell away from her face. Her eyes flooded with tears and as they fell, they ran traces through the dirt and silt that coated her cheeks. Wayne noticed a thin track of freckles roll over the apple of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose as she sobbed, and Wayne swallowed back his own tears that threatened to come.
“What if they’re mad and don’t want to see me?” A stressed and worried look crossed Jenna’s face, concerned that her parents would be too angry at her for running away to forgive her.
“I can promise you that this will be the best news they receive.”
Wayne left Jenna with the nurse, who warmed her with a fresh blanket and the offer of some food.
Ella Logan’s eyes glared at Wayne the entire time he spoke with Jenna, and he could feel them burn into the side of his face. He walked across the room and sat down next to her, where she, too, was being comforted by a nurse and a crisis worker.
Ella pushed the nurse’s hand away and motioned for Wayne to sit in the chair across from her. She was more eager to speak with Wayne, and he sensed her anger was slightly stronger than her fear. Either shock hadn’t set in yet, or Ella was a deeper kind of strong. One Wayne rarely saw in someone so young. Ella was abducted eight months ago after a man befriended her while she was living on the street in Vancouver.
“He pretended to be a runaway too,” Ella scoffed at the memory of her abductor, who pretended to be a friend.
He convinced Ella to travel with him to Toronto, where he said he had a cousin who could get them work in a hotel. “You know, one of the fancy one’s downtown on the water. He said they also had staff accommodations in the basement.”
“What was his name? What can you tell me about him?” Wayne asked patiently, while another officer transcribed every response to his questions.
“I always just called him Jay,” Ella explained. “He never told me what his real name was, and to be honest, you got used to keeping a lot to yourself living on the street. You learned everyone had their own story, and you respected their privacy.”
Wayne listened while Ella described the abusive house she escaped from and how she found relative safety and security under the Burrard Street bridge. She described a community that looked out for one another and although it wasn’t a perfect situation, she never had experienced the betrayal she received from Jay. Ella had no interest in returning home (the word itself made her laugh) and she eagerly accepted the offer to be enrolled in a program that helped kids like her get off the street. However, she worried that because of her age, that she wouldn’t be accepted.
Wayne smiled and told her to let him worry about that. “I’ll make sure you have a spot.”
He watched Ella take in everything happening around her. She was full of a blend of fury, hope, fear, and grace and Wayne realized he’d never seen anyone who seemed so young before. Even though she was almost twenty years old.
“Did you get them?” Ella asked.
Wayne shook his head, “They left the island before we got there.”
Wayne left Ella when the nurse returned to clean a few minor cuts she received on the edge of her arm.
He glanced around the room and noticed the doctor was stitching a cut on the teen boy’s hand and Wayne moved toward the last of the three girls they had saved. Amy Hanover was the oldest of the four victims rescued from the mine. Wayne couldn’t tell if the side of her face was bruised or smudged with dirt from the cave. As he sat down next to her, he thought it might be a bit of both.
The fear he saw in her eyes when they collided in the mine’s tunnel was replaced with the questions she needed to have answered. Where was she? Where was she going to go? But the first question on her lips was the last one Ella asked.
“Did you get them?”
“No, I’m sorry, we didn’t,” Amy let out a sigh and leaned back in her seat. A nurse struggled to rest an ice pack on Amy’s shoulder after she said she hurt it in a struggle. Amy raised her hand and brushed her hair away from her face. “Do you have any idea who they were?”
“I was hoping you could give me some idea. Is there anything you remember about your abductors?”
The vague descriptions of the two men would apply to most men in their twenties or thirties. Amy met her abductor nine months earlier when she answered an ad for a modeling job. She was living just outside of Toronto and moved into the city to strike out on her own and she applied for the job. At twenty-two, she believed it would be the last time she’d have the opportunity.
“They promised me a modeling job with a fashion manufacturer in Asia. He gave me a contract to sign and everything. It looked so official,” Amy wiped tears from the edge of her eyes. “I feel so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid, Amy,” Wayne said. “The blame lies solely with the two men who took advantage of you. You’re the victim here.”
Amy continued with her explanation. She had arrived in Toronto and along with reserving a hotel room, gave her a new set of clothes and a wallet full of cash. When she woke up in the morning, she was in the back of a truck.
Amy covered her face with her hands, “I don’t want to talk about what they did, please.”
“There will be people who you can speak with, Amy. People who can help you get through this. But for now, I just need to know if you remember names or overheard anything that may tell me where we can find the men who took you.”
Amy shook her head and then closed her eyes.
Wayne thanked Amy and then moved over to speak with Russell Becker. He was sitting with his hand wrapped in a thick white gauze bandage, staring at Wayne and eager to speak with him.
“Russell, how are you doing?” Wayne pointed to his hand.
“Not too bad,” he wiggled his hand in the air. “And call me Russ, no one ever calls me Russell.”
Russ was seventeen and the youngest of the group. Some small-time dealers lured him off the street and offered a job to sell drugs to kids in the city.
“They were pushing pills, pot, just small stuff. But things got sketchy when that Jay guy started coming around.”
“Jay? The shorter one with the light brown hair?” Wayne asked.
Russ nodded. “He tried to pretend he was cool and even pretended to understand me, but he had no idea.”
Russ said he grew up in an average, middle-class home and had gone to one of the best schools in Victoria. However, even after receiving an early acceptance to a university in the U.S., his teachers still worked against him and were making it difficult to graduate with the marks he needed. The racism he had experienced reared its ugly head when he was within reach of grasping the golden ring he had always strived for. A student had accused him of cheating on his final exams and with no proof, he was given an automatic fail and lost his place at the university. Instead of supporting him, his parents said he brought shame to their family.
In a mix of anger and embarrassment, Russ ran away and found himself on the street. It was only a short time later that he was lured into selling drugs, and when he tried to break out of it and go back home, that’s when he was abducted.
When Wayne had finished questioning everyone, he left the four survivors under the protection of the hospital staff where they’d have a warm bed, clean clothes, and care until they could find a safe place to live. Whether it was their family’s home or elsewhere.
Wayne emerged from the hospital and darkness had settled over Lake Pines. Clouds clogged the sky, and the wind rustled through the trees. His eyes rested on the faded lights of the small town and their reflection on the water and he knew, when this was over, he’d be returning home to Lake Pines.