Page 86 of Stolen Ones

She paused and looked from Kim to Bryant and back again.

‘I’m sorry, you must think I’m awful. I haven’t cried yet. I don’t understand why not.’

‘Please don’t apologise, Mrs Walters. Your brain is dealing with many emotions. It’ll process them one at a time. The tears will come and then you can begin to grieve.’

She nodded.

‘Mrs Walters, can you tell us what happened that day, at the park?’ Kim asked.

‘Not sure how much it matters now but of course. It was a weekday and I’d had to take the day off work at short notice. It was the school holidays and my childcare arrangements for that day had fallen through. There were quite a few other kids there, but I didn’t really know anyone. I only looked away for a minute. I was an accountant, and Paul was an account executive for a petrol company. We were both ambitious. I wanted it all and I ended up with nothing.’

Kim waited.

‘I never went back to work,’ she said, regretfully. ‘I couldn’t face it. Felt too guilty and too angry.’

‘About what?’

‘My boss hadn’t been thrilled with my last-minute request for time off. I took a work call and got caught up with trying to resolve whatever problem it was. I was distracted and took my eye off my child. It seemed like just a minute, but when I finished the call and looked around, she was gone.’

‘One parent thought she’d seen Lexi heading off towards the ducks. I searched every inch of that park, but I knew she was gone and that it was my fault.’

Sadness filled her eyes as she stared off into the distance, reliving the whole event.

‘Mrs Walters…’

‘Please don’t waste your breath, Inspector; when I say I looked away for a minute, I’m trying to excuse myself in your eyes. It was probably closer to ten or fifteen. I resented being at the park. I wanted to be at work. Of course, it wasn’t until we lost her that we both realised we hadn’t made enough time for our child.’

Kim appreciated the woman’s candour but still felt she was being too hard on herself.

Bryant leaned forward. ‘You can’t blame yourself, Mrs Walters. You didn’t ask anyone to take your child. Lexi should have been safe at the park. The person who took her is to blame, not you.’

The woman offered him a look that said she was grateful for the sentiment, but she would stick with the feelings that had kept her company for decades.

She continued. ‘A massive search was arranged. Less people turned up each day. Contact with the police got less and less. They assured us that the case would remain open and that any fresh leads would be followed up. Then everyone went on with their lives except for us. We waited and hoped and waited.’

She sighed. ‘The news you bring me is in many ways a relief. There’s no more waiting and no more imagining the pain she might be going through. In the years since, with trafficking becoming more common, my nightmares turned to visions of Lexi being abused and trapped and beaten and—’

Kim held up her hand as the woman’s eyes began to redden. This conversation was no longer in the abstract. It was real and the emotion was coming.

‘Mrs Walters, your daughter was alive for only one year after she was taken.’

The tears were rolling openly over her cheeks now.

‘Oh my God, you have no idea how much it means to hear that my baby didn’t suffer for years and—’

‘Mrs Walters, there are no wounds to her body to indicate prolonged suffering, but the full circumstances of her abduction are not yet clear.’

‘Oh, thank God,’ she said as the tears now came thick and fast.

Kim took a moment to consider what it was about Lexi that had attracted him. Kim had seen the missing person’s photo. Lexi had been a beautiful child, but there was something more at play here.

Suzie had been enduring a miserable home life as her parents had contemplated divorce. Libby had been abused by her uncle. Melody was an invisible child, wanted by no one. So why Lexi?

The word neglect shot into her mind.

In his own sick, distorted view, the man had thought he was doing them all a favour.

Fifty-Two