Part 5
The county clinic treated their dehydration and cleared them to leave near dawn. Before Alex went to the motel, he called Greg Hall, his security director, from the sheriff’s office. “Preserve Sloan’s access logs and every company record the police request,” he said. “Don’t confront him. Don’t move money.” Then he gave Investigator Avery the phone.
Nora slept at Ann Mercer’s house. At breakfast Ann set the container marked NORA beside her bowl without comment. Alex came only when Dana scheduled him, sat where Ann could see both of them, and left when the visit ended.
The shelter-care hearing was held by video two days later. A court-appointed guardian ad litem sat beside Nora. The judge confirmed that search-and-rescue had found Grandpa Mick, that no father appeared on Nora’s records, and that her mother had not yet been located.
Alex’s lawyer began to describe his house. The judge stopped him. Alex was not a licensed foster parent, and this hearing was not a shortcut around that fact. Nora would remain in state custody with Ann while the department searched for family and assessed every other option.
When the judge asked Nora whether she wanted continued contact, she said yes. Dana was authorized to arrange supervised visits; Ann could end one at any time. Alex thanked the judge once and did not ask when Nora could move.
For the next eight weeks, Nora slept in Ann’s spare room. Alex drove to Clear Fork for library trips, clinic appointments, and suppers at Ann’s kitchen table. Sometimes Dana watched. Sometimes Ann did. Once Nora ended a visit after ten minutes because Alex’s aftershave smelled like the motel hallway where police had questioned him. He went back to his car without asking for an explanation.
The next Saturday he arrived without aftershave. He and Nora shelled peas on Ann’s porch while Steve repaired a screen. Nothing important was said. At four, Alex washed his bowl and left.
The department required fingerprints, state and federal record checks, references, foster-parent training, and a home study. The first inspection failed because prescription medicine was unlocked and a basement window would not open. Alex fixed both problems himself. The second inspection passed.
Nora met alone with a trauma counselor, Dr. Lena Morris. On a sheet of paper Dr. Morris drew two columns labeled MOUNTAIN and TUESDAY. Under the first Nora listed water, rope, dogs, cave, river. Under the second she listed peas, a late library book, and Alex losing at checkers without claiming he had meant to. Dr. Morris folded the page and put it in Nora’s file.
The evaluator asked Alex whether gratitude, guilt, or the kidnapping was driving his application. “Some of each, probably,” he said. Dana looked up from her notes. Alex did not revise the answer.
No relative was found. Notices and database searches produced no current address for Nora’s mother. Ann remained willing to keep her. Dana made Nora repeat that option in her own words before the next hearing.
At the eight-week review, the department recommended a thirty-day trial placement in the Coeur d’Alene house, now approved as a foster home for Nora, with weekly visits, therapy, school assessment, and private calls to Ann and Dana. The guardian ad litem agreed. Dr. Morris reported that Nora could describe reasons to go and reasons to stay.
The judge spoke with Nora alone, then brought everyone back. “If you change your mind during the trial, where can you go?”
“Back to Ann while you decide again.”
“And if Mr. Warren tells you that leaving would hurt him?”
Nora looked across the table. “Then I call Dana.”
The judge turned to Alex. “Do you understand that answer?”
“Yes.” His right hand worried the pale groove left by the rope. “She gets the number and the ride.”
The judge authorized the supervised trial placement. After the screen went dark, Dana asked whether Nora wanted to move that afternoon or the next day.
“Tomorrow,” Nora said. “Ann made stew.”
The black SUV arrived in the morning with Greg and a child safety seat. Alex had wanted to bring his sedan; Dana had rejected it because the rear belt stuck. He showed Nora the repaired belt before anyone loaded her cedar box.
Coeur d’Alene rose around her in glass, traffic, signs, and more people than she had imagined could want to be in one place. Alex’s foster-approved house stood on a quiet edge of town, a cedar-sided bungalow with two bedrooms and a backyard of orderly fruit trees.
“The forest looks combed,” Nora said.
“It probably pays taxes too,” Greg murmured.
Nora’s room had pale walls, an empty bookcase, and a window facing a maple. She walked its perimeter before setting the cedar box on the sill. A flashlight waited in the nightstand, Dana’s number sat on the dresser, and the bathroom door locked from the inside. Alex stayed in the hall while she checked.
The shower frightened her more than the cave. Alex explained the taps through the nearly closed door and made the water run cold, then warm, so she could hear the difference. That night she asked him to leave her bedroom door open.
“Can I call you something besides Mr. Warren?”
“You’ve been calling me Alex.”
“That sounds like the police. Alec?”
He went still for half a beat. “My mother used to call me that.”
“Is it all right?”
“Yes.”
After Nora went quiet, Alex sat in the living room and called Valerie. Nora heard an apology for the hour, then a request to see Ryan. Alex did not say that being kidnapped should change Ryan’s answer.
Greg called the next morning while Nora learned the electric range. “Sloan tried to wire a large payment offshore,” he said. “The bank held it. Avery has the warrant process underway, and the call records link one contractor to Sloan.” Alex told Greg to keep the company cooperating and hung up before the eggs burned.
Nora’s follow-up exam found that she was underweight and low in several vitamins but otherwise healthy. Alex’s chart listed heavy bruising, a sprained ankle, rope injuries, and no fractures. Dr. Morris remained Nora’s counselor because the choice had been Dana’s, not Alex’s.
At the mall Nora rejected slogans and shoes she could not run in. A navy dress embroidered with silver stars stopped her. “Grandpa knew all the constellations,” she said. They bought the dress, practical clothes, boots, a backpack, pencils, and three books Nora chose herself.
The doorbell rang after supper. Ryan Warren came in taller than Alex, with the same gray eyes and none of his father’s caution. He looked at Nora, the new books, and the star dress folded over a chair.
“So this is real,” he said.
“Hello,” Nora offered.
“Hi.” Ryan shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “Dad says you saved him.”
“He helped too.”
Alex nodded toward the kitchen. “Ryan, can we talk?”
“Now you want to.” Ryan gave a short laugh. “You disappear for five days, come back with a kid, and suddenly you know how to be a father?”
“No.”
“This isn’t about you,” Ryan said to Nora. “But he doesn’t get to build a new family and call the old one a scheduling problem.”
Alex took that without looking away. He went into the kitchen, and Ryan followed, leaving the door partly open. Nora sat with a book in her lap and heard a chair scrape.
Ryan asked, “What makes you think this time will be different?”
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇