The Watchers by Mark Andrew Olsen Page A

transformed into a schizophrenic and ran off in sheer insanity, rejecting all my attempts to help her, and who, if she isn’t a homeless junkie, is probably lying in a potter’s field cemetery.”
    Abigail dropped her head back on her neck in resignation. She let out a groan. Her father’s explanation had been a convincing one. Neither scenario of her mother’s fate seemed appropriate for contemplation by a young girl’s tender heart and soul.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have been so blunt.”
    â€œThanks,” she said, “but I did sort of provoke you. And so you’re saying you have no idea what’s actually happened to Mom?”
    A look of regret flashed briefly across his face. “Before I answer that, let me tell you something. I spent much of your childhood years doing everything imaginable to find your mother. I was on a first-name basis with the missing person’s coordinator of every state in the union. I hired so many investigators that I bet there’s not a shelter west of the Mississippi that hasn’t been visited by somebody on my payroll. I’ve personally driven every mile of the L.A. Basin’s freeways and homeless areas. No man alive could have tried harder than I did.”
    â€œI’m not calling you a failure, Dad. I’m just asking what you know.”
    â€œWell, I did find her, and she came home. For a while.”
    â€œOf course. When I was eight. I remember.”
    â€œBut I know something else still.”
    She grimaced this time. “Dad, I’m not sure I can survive any more surprises today.”
    â€œThen brace yourself, because this may be my last chance to tell you this. I’m pretty sure she was kidnapped and murdered.”
    This time Abigail did not utter a word in response. She did not even move a muscle to entice him into going further. She was incapable of either. Finally, however, it became obvious that he did not have the will to elaborate unless she provoked him.
    â€œDad? Are you going to explain?”
    He snapped back from some strange reverie and met her eyes. “It had something to do with these visions of hers. Many years later, after talking to several forensic psychologists, I became convinced that it wasn’t a mental illness at all.”
    Abby used the last of her strength to prop herself upright in bed and face him directly. “What do you think it was?”
    â€œI don’t know for certain. Some kind of strange gifting, I suppose. A variant of what psychics experience. The real ones, that is—if there is such a distinction.”
    â€œBut how did that lead to her being kidnapped?”
    He sat on the side of her bed and sandwiched her right hand between both of his.
    â€œBecause a lot of things don’t add up about the night she disappeared. I can’t go into all of it, but there seemed to be a forced entry. At first the detectives thought it was her breaking her way out of the house, but when my private investigators looked it over later, it was obvious someone had broken in. Someone very skillful, very adept at hiding his tracks. There was a scuff mark on a wall. Really—I don’t want to give you all the reasons. But suffice it to say, they add up in the dozens. And they haven’t faded over time. I think these strange sightings of your mother’s got her abducted and probably killed.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œAre you satisfied now? Do you feel any better?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œI didn’t think you would. That’s why I never told you. And why I didn’t want to tell you today.”
    She squeezed his hand tightly, because she had heard a rare quaver of emotion in his last few syllables. What would she do without him?
    He rose, gave her a weak smile, and walked out.
    Abigail sank back into the mattress and let the tears flow. She wasn’t sure why she’d held them