You'll Thank Me for This by Nina Siegal (top novels txt) 📗

detective told him that he was receiving a briefing, which might help them understand the situation better, and asked the dad to wait nearby if he could. With a huff, the father agreed.

“I told you we should have given her that watch with the GPS tracking device for her birthday,” Margot’s mother said, pulling him away from the officers. “She would have liked it and worn it all the time. It’s also a digital watch. Then we’d just know where she is.”

“She would have had to leave it at home for this trip anyway,” he responded. “They weren’t allowed to bring any digital technology at all.”

“We could have also put one of those little GPS trackers in her shoes,” she added, as if she hadn’t registered his objection. “She wouldn’t even have noticed that, and I bet that wasn’t off-limits.”

“Sanne, I object to the notion of tracking our daughter’s movements like she’s cattle,” the father said decisively. “Childhood should be childhood. Nobody had to know where I was at every moment when I was a kid. We just got to run around free, like kids. Parents didn’t go to pieces if we didn’t show up at home immediately.” Now he glanced in Grace’s direction, nodding in acknowledgment, as if he hadn’t seen her there before.

Maaike, who was still at Grace’s side, volunteered helpfully, “We grew up in a different world, didn’t we? It was so much freer and safer then. We were lucky.”

Sanne responded to both Maaike and her husband, “Well, that’s only because we just didn’t know that all the priests were molesting children and all these pedophiles were out there selling kiddie porn and all that kind of thing. Who knows if kids were really safer? I think we were just ignorant of all the ways children could be put in danger.”

The father sighed, exasperated, and walked off, announcing, “I’m going to see if I can find out anything.”

“I’m sorry that my husband is taking this attitude,” Sanne said to Grace and Maaike after he was out of earshot. “I think it’s totally appropriate that you called the police. It’s almost morning and the kids haven’t been in touch with anyone for hours. I do hope it’s nothing, though; I hope they are just fooling around, trying to frighten us all. And we can all go home soon and get some rest.”

Then Grace’s phone was ringing again. Grace saw that it was Rutger.

“Some progress,” he said when she clicked on to the call. “Riekje found Lotte, and they are both here now, back at camp. Lotte has been hurt. She’s got an injury to her head, and we don’t know how she got it. But she’s conscious and she was able to walk here with Riekje, and they are both safe now. Riekje had somehow lost her cell phone. That’s why she didn’t call. Lotte is getting looked at by one of the police officers who just showed up at the camp.”

“Thank God,” said Grace. “Did Lotte say anything about Karin?”

“She said she was with Karin after Dirk and Margot took off on their own; they were walking together and then she felt something hit her from behind. At first she thought it was Karin playing around, but then she turned around and didn’t see Karin anywhere. She did see someone’s feet. That’s all she saw before she went unconscious, she said. Then she couldn’t remember anything after that.”

“Oh Jesus,” said Grace. “Does she have a concussion?”

Margot’s mother gasped on hearing this. Grace pulled the phone closer to her ear and cupped her hand over her mouth.

“Riekje is with her, and they are talking to the police now,” continued Rutger. “An ambulance is on its way. I’m pretty sure they will take her to the hospital from here. She says that she is only feeling dizzy, which is a good sign. But she must have been unconscious for a while.”

“Did she say anything else about the feet she saw? Were they Karin’s?”

“No, no. She said it wasn’t Karin. She said she thinks it was an adult’s feet, not a child’s.”

“An adult’s feet…” Grace pushed further. “Did she think it was a man or a woman?”

“I’ll see if I can ask her,” said Rutger. “I’m trying not to put pressure on her right now, because she’s hurt, and I think the police will ask the questions, do the investigating. But I’ll try to find out what I can find out. Look,” he added, “we’re three out of six now, which is a good sign. We’ll find the others, I’m sure.”

Grace’s mind began to reel, and she walked away from Maaike and Margot’s mother. She felt suddenly light-headed, as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff. In this heightened state, her brain started to try to pull all the strands of the narrative together, like a spider building a web in reverse. All the information she had gathered today started to connect: Martijn’s aggression toward her, the documents she’d found in his office, Karin’s shirt, Karin’s disappearance. The fact that Martijn didn’t answer his phone, after all this time, when all this was happening. She couldn’t figure out how it all connected, but she knew it must. There were just too many parts that seemed to point somehow to the same thing.

“Wait,” Grace said to Rutger. “Ask her, ask Lotte, if you can, if she can remember the color of the person’s shoes. Were they bright blue hiking boots? Ask her: bright blue hiking boots?”

Chapter 29The Box

“There may be somebody there. But I took care of most of them,” said Martijn. “Margot and Dirk helped me out a bit by splitting off from the group early on. I only had to take care of Lotte.”

“‘Take care of’?” Karin asked. “What does that mean? Where is she? Did you hurt her? Is she dead?”

“Not dead,” he said. “I’m pretty sure she’s not dead.”

“Pretty sure?” Karin started to breathe more shallowly. If he had her father killed…if he