You'll Thank Me for This Nina Siegal (red white and royal blue hardcover .txt) 📖

could start running again. Then she looked around and saw a tree that was wide enough for her to hide behind, and she scrambled over to it, hoping that Martijn was far enough behind her that he wouldn’t get here for a while—maybe until the police got there—and at least the tree might conceal her if he did.

The last thing she had heard her mother say before the phone flew out of her hand was “I’m coming, Karin.”

Chapter 32Memory

By this time, it had become a circus in the parking lot. Cop cars, the Amber Alert team, the Scout program leaders, and broadcast news vans from the early morning news crews of the local and national TV stations were all clustered near the gates. The reporters had been instructed by the police to stay well away from the parents for now, but they were hovering, ready to pounce, microphones in hand and video cameras on shoulders, as soon as they got the word.

Grace had run back to Detective van Dijk’s car when Karin had managed to get a call out to her, and Detective van Dijk sat beside her as she screamed into the phone, trying to hear her daughter. Karin had bravely managed to keep the line open just long enough for the location to be traced by the cooperating phone company. They knew where they were. They just had to go get them.

Even before the line went dead, Detective van Dijk had received the location from the trackers, then relayed that information to all units and called out the police helicopter from nearby Arnhem. Grace was still screaming when he put a hand on her arm to comfort her. “You did good,” he said. “We’re going to get her back now.” And he put his car into gear.

The car rumbled across the gravel and then spun out a little as they reached the dirt road. Grace was a wreck. She could not believe that her suspicions had been confirmed—Martijn, her husband, the man she had married, had done all this. He had hurt her, he had hurt children, and now he had kidnapped Karin and maybe at this very moment was hurting her too. Her head felt like it was about to explode with fear. She sat at the edge of her seat as Detective van Dijk drove and just screamed, “Faster! Faster!”

She glanced behind the car just long enough to see that they were being followed. At least a half dozen news vans were behind them, getting ready to capture this whole thing as it unfolded. How could she have let this happen? What had she done?

Detective van Dijk swerved onto a narrow dirt road that went directly through the woods; it looked barely wide enough for a car. They crushed patches of heath and drove through sand, over hills, and just barely beneath trees. It had to be against the park rules to drive here, but she was grateful. He was leaving some of the news vans in the dust.

“We’ll be there soon,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

But she did worry. All she could do was worry. Every second that passed felt like an unbearable eternity. “I’ll try to call him again,” she said. “Try to convince him…”

She dialed Martijn’s number, assuming he would not pick up, but he did. The phone rang just three times, and then he was there.

“Hello, Grace.” She heard his voice, the voice she had spoken to so many times over the last few years, when he had been her closest confidant. He had always had a surprisingly gentle voice, soft and low and kind. Who was this man she had thought she knew? That she didn’t know at all? “Thank you for calling. You helped me locate the phone.”

Oh shit, she thought. “Where’s Karin?”

“That’s a good question,” he said with a chilling level of calm. “I seem to have lost her. She seems to have gotten away.”

Detective van Dijk looked over at her, silently nodding. “Keep him talking,” he whispered.

“What is this all about, Martijn? I don’t understand. Why would you hurt little girls? Why would you try to kidnap Karin?”

“Oh, I had no intention of kidnapping Karin,” he said, still surprisingly calm. “I like Karin. I don’t want to harm anyone. I think the other girls must be okay, aren’t they?”

“Other girls? What did you do to them? Where are they?”

“I’m guessing they’re lying down in the grass, having a little nap, after they got a bump on the head,” he said, as if he were telling a fairy tale. “You know I don’t hurt little girls, Grace. I’m not a violent person.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Okay, well, I hurt you this morning, and I’m sorry for that, but you know you make me so angry,” he said. “You really provoke me. I didn’t mean to push you.”

Grace swallowed hard. She knew that arguing with him at this point would not help at all. “What did you do to Karin? Where is she now?”

“Like I said, I lost her. She was supposed to lead me to the place where Pieter hid something from me, but we never got there. It’s a pity, really,” he added. “If she’d only helped me to find it, this would be all over right now. I would be gone, and she would be fine.”

“What is it that you need to find, Martijn?” she asked.

That was when he hung up.

Chapter 33Hiding

Karin’s legs were starting to cramp because she had them pulled so close to her body, up against the tree. Was Martijn even chasing her now? She didn’t know, and wasn’t going to look back to find out.

Maybe he had found the little box in her jacket pocket by now and was satisfied. She should have told him she had it. She should have just given it to him. Maybe then he would’ve just left. She hoped, she prayed, that he was somewhere out there, far away from here, and not coming anywhere near the forest.