Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Alissa

Iwoke up to a flood of messages from my support group. They were all cheering that I’d gotten rid of Alan. But all I could feel was exhaustion.

Lorelei:Hey there. Good to hear you dumped that guy. I couldn’t believe some of the things he thought he could say to you.

That just made me smirk, I texted back.

Me:My mother would have probably put your jaw on the floor. She was a real master of saying audaciously mean crap.Most of it was ironically Jesus-flavored.

Lorelei: LOL, my aunt is that exact way. Nobody in the family talks to her after the last election. She just went off the deep end with all that stuff.

Me: I was gone way before that. I don’t even want to think about my parents under the influence of the red hat crowd.

When I got no immediate response, I got myself cleaned up and made a fresh mug of tea. Outside, the ice had gone blinding in the winter sun, icicles dripped from every overhang as it all melted and refroze. A rippled sheet of ice slid off a rooftop across the street as I watched, shattering with a noise that made passersby jump.

Finally, Lorelei got back to me. I didn’t know if I should ask this or not, but if your parents were abusive…is there any chance they could have grabbed your kid?

I winced, digging the heel of my hand against my temple. That got brought up pretty early in the investigation. They even got a search warrant for my parents’ house. I’d been no-contact for years, and that was how they found out they have a grandchild.

Lorelei: Ouch. Well, they’re lucky they got to find out at all.And the father?

Me: I used a donor.

A lie, but a necessary one. I didn’t know how to tell her about that one-night stand with Dimitri, or how much I wish he’d made any effort to stay in touch.

But he’d warned me from the beginning that he wasn’t the kind of man who could make commitments. His job got in the way, he’d claimed. He’d been upfront about this being something casual, temporary, and not repeated.

And yet I’d kept his baby, and I still missed him even though I’d only known him for an evening.

Now, I had to miss them both.

Lorelie: Damn. Not much chance the guy went and grabbed her then.

Me: No.They checked all my exes too, just in case. Friends, the landlord, and neighbors. Said it was routine. But they came up with nothing.

Lorelei: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t quiz you on this stuff. I just notice how often cops around here seem to overlook the obvious.

Me:It’s okay. The truth is I’m starting to think about crowdfunding some help paying for a private investigator.

Lorelei: Hey, that’s a good idea. I’d be all in on helping you. I know a lot of people in the group would. George has some crowdfunding experience, just send him a text.

That made me smile a little. I hated to have to beg for financial aid from strangers, but with the police on the brink of giving up, it looked like my only choice.

Me:Okay. I’ll text him later today, once I get some work done and figure some things out.

It might not have been the ideal solution. In a better world, I wouldn’t have to crowdfund my justice. But I had to live and operate in this one. Besides, there had to be more people out there like the ones in my support group. People who would give a damn about a stolen child who still needed to be found.

I made myself a sandwich and took it with me over to my desk. With all the drama today, I would have to cram a lot of work into a few hours. But once that was done, I had a new project to give me some hope.

Mommy’s not giving up, baby. This thing with Alan and the cops is just a setback. I’ll find you. I promise.

***

It was so much easier to work now that I had a glimmer of hope and an idea of what to do. I wished I hadn’t wasted so much time relying on the system to do its job. But when all of this had happened, I’d still had faith in the police, the legal system, in the possibility of getting justice and getting my baby back alive if I just played by the rules like a good civilian.

Now, almost a year later I wondered how I could have been so naive.

But regrets would only drag me down. I had a plan now, and as soon as I was done with four hours of accounting and another two hours cleaning the laundry room, I could set it in motion.

After talking to George, I started setting up my fundraising site. Writing down the whole history again hurt. How Michelle had been kidnapped. How the search had gone. How the police were giving up. How I couldn’t afford to. All I wanted was enough money to cover a private investigator and any associated fees. I just wanted my baby back. I knew doing this was risky, George had warned me that sometimes appeals like this dragged all the crazies out of the woodwork, but after eleven months with no leads I was prepared to filter out the crackpots if it would help me find my daughter.

I checked everything twice, hit submit, and got myself a mug of chamomile tea while I waited for the page to go live. Finally, after a few long minutes, I was satisfied that everything was posted properly, and all my information was correct. Sighing with relief, I closed my laptop and finished my tea. Now all I had to do was promote the page on social media and pray that it attracted the attention of enough sympathetic people willing to donate.

I was so worn out that just going from my couch to my bed seemed to drain the last of my energy. I didn’t bother to change, just kicked off my shoes and crawled under the covers. I didn’t care that it was still early, the breakup with Alan and the effort of mentally having to go through all the pain of losing Michelle, setting up that page had taken what resources I had left.

As I drifted off, I found myself once again thinking about Dimitri and our one amazing night together. I wondered where he was and what he was doing. If he was with anyone…and if he ever thought of me.

I knew so precious little about my daughter’s father. He had engineered our encounter that way, we were ships passing in the night, no phone numbers exchanged. I had never done anything like that before or since, and though I didn’t regret it, I did regret that he had no way of knowing he was a dad.

And I still couldn’t help but wonder if he would help me if he was around and knew that our little girl had been stolen.