Page 31 of Wicked Games

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Thank you.” I pause. “Can you tell me about that day, Marcy? Once more and we can put it away.”

“I’ll never be able to do that. I have nightmares about it, Mr. Lockwood. What I could have done. It will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

“I understand.” It will haunt me too, that I was at work and didn’t need to be. “Please.”

She pauses, then says, “It was a normal day. Cold, as it is in February, but it was warmer than it had been and I thought it would be a good day to bring Theo to the park. He’d been restless, missing his friends, and I thought being around other children would be good for him.”

“Yes, I remember you saying that.” Because of Theo’s birthdate, he wasn’t old enough to go to kindergarten the previous fall, and instead of enrolling him in preschool, we asked Marcy to schedule playdates with the other kids in the neighborhood and to teach him his letters, numbers, and colors.

“A few of his friends were there playing, and I let him run off. I sat nearby and watched. Everything was normal, Mr. Lockwood.”

I try to picture the scene. Elmwood Park is a huge city park near the house. A few blocks away, Marcy and Theo had no trouble walking there. The playground is equipped with enormous play structures that have slides, wobbling bridges, and ladders. There’s also a separate piece that looks like a spider’s web that lets children climb pretty high up, but Theo was afraid of heights and wouldn’t go near it, even if I was there to catch him.

Next to the playground is a shelter that has bathrooms so they could stay as long as they liked, and near that, a warming house and skating rink that would have had ice that day. Beyond the playground there’s a wooded area and a man-made pond. It’s a beautiful park, and Theo and Marcy spent a lot of time there.

“And you said there was a hockey game at the rink that day.”

“Yes. It was President’s Day and the schools were out.”

“So the park was busier than usual.”

Marcy pauses. “You could say that, I suppose, but we’ve been there when daycares and schools have used the park as a field trip. Crowds weren’t new to us, Mr. Lockwood. Theo enjoyed having people around.”

Yes, he did. He took after Brooke that way, fed off the energy as most extroverts do. I don’t dislike people, but I prefer to be alone, with a friend, or in a small group, the hum that Brooke and Theo loved always draining me. I’d rather have a quiet evening at home than go to a party, and I think, looking back, I can admit now that maybe I should have dated Brooke longer before I asked her to marry me. I got caught up in the excitement of courting her, never understanding that our slight differences would turn into a source of conflict.

“Then what happened?”

“It was getting close to lunchtime, but he didn’t want to go. We decided a snack would do until he got cold enough he wanted to go home, and I was digging in his backpack for the peanut butter crackers he loved—” She stops and muffles a sob. “And when I looked up, a man dressed in black was throwing Theo into a van. They were speeding out of the parking lot before I could scream.”

“Looking back, did it seem like it was planned? Did you tell anyone you were bringing Theo to the park that day?”

“No. Only you and Mrs. Lockwood. I didn’t plan a playdate with any of the other nannies. It was a nice day and I took my chances some of the children from the neighborhood would be there, and they were.”

It’s the same story she told the police, over and over again, and for reasons I can’t explain, I’m disappointed. Maybe I was hoping after the shock wore off something would pop, but it was a normal day for Marcy and Theo. There were other children there whose parents aren’t quite as well off as Brooke and me but they certainly could have afforded a five-million-dollar ransom. We were the unlucky ones, caught up in a game we were never going to win.

“You were friends with the other nannies. Did you speak to anyone while Theo played?”

“Not to any of the nannies. They sat on the other side of the park and I chose a bench near the parking lot. We weren’t friends, Mr. Lockwood, work acquaintances at best, and sometimes we chose to keep to ourselves.”

I frown at the way she said that. “Not to any of the other nannies,” I repeat. “But you did talk to someone.”

“Yes, and I might have forgotten to say something because of, you know,” she says, embarrassed to admit how traumatized Theo’s abduction had made her, “but a woman sat next to me on the bench. I thought she was the mother of one of the boys playing hockey or had a child playing on the playground.”

“What did she look like? What did she say?” I ask, trying not to get my hopes up that this could be the break we need to find those assholes.

“She commented on the weather, how it was nice to see the sun shining. I agreed and said the fresh air perked the children up. She seemed nice enough, maybe a little distracted, but if she had a child on the playground or at the rink, she was probably just keeping an eye out.”

“That was all she said?”

“About the weather, yes.”

“Did she act like she knew who you were?”

“No, not at all. I don’t think she would have said anything else, but I complimented her clothes. She was wearing a lovely brown camel-hair coat and she said she bought it on clearance at Bloomingdale’s. She wore sunglasses the same color as her coat, but the sun was bright and I didn’t think it was strange. A hat and leather gloves. High-heeled boots that would have made walking around the park somewhat troublesome, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was sipping coffee or hot chocolate.”

“What did she do when Theo was taken?”