Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10) - Lisa Gardner Page 0,20
for Victim Assistance. A lot of his cases involve high-level executives kidnapped in various far-flung countries. Samuel’s job is to help the families understand the process, from the law enforcement steps involved in locating the evildoers to what it might be like when their loved one finally returns home. He also works with the victim him- or herself. Among other things, he generates a “strategy for reentry.” It’s to help guide both the family and the victim as they transition back to the real world.
Eight years ago, I had no idea such plans existed. Eight years ago, I didn’t understand that anyone would need a ten-point plan for reentering the “real world.”
Final step of being a victim specialist: supporting the family and victim through what can be a very long legal process, where they will still be asked to make statements, revisit statements, testify in this hearing, testify in that hearing. Part of the FBI’s impetus for creating the OVA is the modern trend of high-profile crimes (say, a five-year abduction case) and mass-casualty events (shootings, bombings, arson) that can take years to wind through the legal system.
See, one day, you’re a normal person with an ordinary family. Then, in a single instant, you’re not. You’re a young girl, waking up in a coffin-sized box. You’re a mom, back on her farm in Maine, getting a call from her daughter’s friends, asking if maybe her daughter has unexpectedly returned home from Florida.
It begins. The onslaught of local, state, federal investigators. The media camped out in the front yard. Maybe even taunting postcards from the predator himself, stoking fears, inflicting fresh terrors.
My mom had to learn how to work national media. Samuel is one of the people who prepared her. What to wear, what to say, the necessity of humanizing her daughter to an unknown kidnapper in order to increase the chances of his keeping me alive. My brother, Darwin, returned home from college to run the social media campaign. Again, with Samuel’s guidance. Posting pictures from my childhood. Quotes from friends. I don’t know how they did it, to tell you the truth. It’s one of those things we still never discuss. I don’t describe my time with Jacob, because I don’t want to hurt them. And they don’t mention the four hundred and seventy-two days they lived in constant fear of letting me down or maybe, through their own inexperience, making it easier for my captor to kill me.
Samuel helped them. I know that. And some kind of relationship was forged between him and my mother. They left it alone for years. Samuel’s doing, my guess, given the man has the emotional core of carved granite.
But my own plan for reentry was much shorter than many. Dead Jacob meant no trial. Samuel checked up on me for a good year after I came home. Made sure I understood the resources available to me, prodded me to utilize all my “tools,” as he liked to put it. He should’ve cut me off ages ago. I’m six years back to the real world, hundreds of pages, at least, beyond my “strategy for reentry” plan. But Samuel has always taken my calls, and this morning, when I reached him nearly hysterical, he never even batted an eye.
So here we are again. All these years later, and still about to hash out the same old story.
“Have a seat,” Samuel tells me, having met me in the lobby of the FBI building and escorted me upstairs. His office isn’t huge, but he does have windows, which I guess makes him a feebie of distinction.
I can’t sit. I pace. Five feet this way, three feet that way. He really needs a bigger office.
I left D.D. at the courthouse. She’s not happy with me, having wanted to accompany me on this visit. But we both knew that was never going to happen. I might be her CI, but I still live by my rules. Besides, her crankiness is nothing new to me.
“I want to read the file,” I say now, cutting straight to the chase. “The FBI must have a file on Jacob. I want to see it. Every word.”
“Have a seat,” Samuel says again.
“Is he a suspect in other crimes, murders, disappearances? I talked about the things I saw—I told you. But I was only with him for a year. And we both know, there’s no way I was his first victim. He’d been busy way before me.”