The Girl Who Was Taken: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

The Abduction

Emerson Bay, North Carolina

August 20, 2016

11:22 p.m.

Darkness had forever been part of her life.

She looked for it and flirted with it. Became quaint with it and charmed it in a way foreign to most. Morbidly of late, she convinced herself about the joys of its company. That she preferred the blackness of death to the light of existence. Until tonight. Until she stood in front of an abyss that was dead and blank in a way she had never encountered, a night sky without stars. When Nicole Cutty found herself in this chasm between life and death, she chose life. And she ran like hell.

With no flashlight, the night blinded her as she broke through the front entrance. He was just an arm’s length behind, which caused adrenaline to flood her system and drive her for a few strides in the wrong direction until her eyes adjusted to the tarnished glow of the moon. Spotting her car, she reoriented herself and ran for it, fumbling with the handle until she ripped open the door. The keys hung from the ignition and Nicole cranked the engine, shifted into drive, and stepped on the accelerator. She gave the engine too much gas and nearly sideswiped the vehicle in front of her. Her headlights brought to life the ink-black night, and from the corner of her eye she saw a flash of color from his shirt as he appeared from around the hood of the parked car in front of her. She had no time to react. She felt the thud of impact and the awful rocking of the car’s suspension as the wheels absorbed the unevenness of his body before regaining traction on the gravel road. Her response came without thought. She pushed the accelerator to the floor and twisted a tight U-turn, then raced down the narrow road, leaving everything behind her.

Nicole jerked the wheel as she skidded onto the main highway, swaying in the driver’s seat as the fishtail settled and ignoring the speedometer as it climbed past eighty mph. She flexed her arm from where he’d grabbed her, a deep purple bruise already forming, while her eyes bounced from the windshield to the rearview mirror. Two miles went by before she eased off the gas pedal and the four-cylinder quieted down. Being free gave her no relief. Too much had happened to believe fleeing could make the problems of tonight disappear. She needed help.

As she turned onto the access road that led back to the beach, Nicole ticked off the people she couldn’t ask. Her brain worked that way, in the negative. Before deciding who could assist her, she mentally crossed off the people who would do her harm. Her parents were at the top of the list. The police, a close second. Her friends were possibilities, but they were soft and hysterical and Nicole knew they would panic before she explained even a fraction of what had transpired tonight. Her mind churned, ignoring the only real possibility until she had ruled out all others.

Nicole paused at the stop sign, rolled through it while she grabbed her phone. She needed her sister. Livia was older and smarter. Rational in a way Nicole was not. If Nicole dismissed the last stretch of their lives and ignored the distance between them, she knew she could trust Livia with her life. And even if she wasn’t sure about this, she had no other options.

She stuck the phone to her ear and listened to it ring while tears rolled down her cheeks. It was close to midnight. She was a block from the beach party.

Pick up, pick up, pick up. Please, Livia!

The Escape

Two Weeks Later

Emerson Bay Forest

September 3, 2016

11:54 p.m.

She pulled the burlap from her head and gasped for air. It took time for her eyes to adjust while amorphous shapes danced in her vision and the blackness faded. She listened for his presence but all she heard was the splattering rain outside. Dropping the burlap bag to the ground, she tiptoed to the bunker door. Surprised to see it opened a crack, she put her face to the crevice between the door and the frame and looked out into the dark forest as rain pelted the trees. She imagined a camera lens trained tightly on her eyeball as she peered through the splinter in the door, and then the camera’s focus backing out in a slow reverse zoom that captured first the door, then the bunker, then the trees, and eventually a satellite view of the entire forest. She felt small and weak from this mental picture of herself, all alone in a bunker sunk deep in the woods.

She questioned whether this was a test. If she pushed through the door and stepped into the woods, there was the chance he would be waiting for her. But if the open door and the moment free from her shackle were an oversight, it was his first misstep and the only opportunity she’d had in the last two weeks. This was the first moment she found herself untethered from the wall of her cellar.

With her hands trembling and still bound in front of her, she pushed open the door. The hinges creaked into the night before the slapping rain overwhelmed their whine. She waited a moment, held back by fear. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to think, tried to push away her grogginess brought on by the sedatives. The hours of darkness from the cellar came back to her and flashed in her mind like a lightning storm. So, too, did the promise she made to herself that if an opportunity for escape appeared, she’d take it. She decided days before that she’d rather die fighting for her freedom than walk like a lamb to the slaughter.

She took a hesitant step out of the bunker, into the thick and heavy rain that ran in cold streaks down her face. She took a moment to bathe in the downpour, to let the water clear the fogginess from her mind. Then, she ran.

The forest was dark and the rain torrent. With tape binding her wrists, she tried to deflect the branches that whipped her face. She stumbled on a log and fell into the slippery leaves before forcing herself up again. She had counted the days and thought she’d been missing for twelve. Maybe thirteen. Stuck in a dark cellar where her captor stowed her and fed her, she may have missed a day when fatigue sent her into a long stretch of sleep. Tonight, he moved her to the forest. Dread had overwhelmed her as she bounced in the trunk, and a nauseous feeling told her the end was near. But now freedom was in front of her; somewhere beyond this forest and the rain and this night, she might find her way home.

She ran blindly, taking erratic turns that stole from her all sense of direction. Finally, she heard the roar of a semi truck as its wheels splashed through the wet pavement. Breathing heavily, she sprinted toward the noise and up an embankment that led to the two-lane highway. In the distance, the truck’s red taillights sped on, fading with each second.

She stumbled into the middle of the road and on wobbly legs chased the lights as though she might catch them. The rain pelted her face and matted her hair and drenched her ratty clothing. Barefoot, she continued in a push-slap, push-slap gait brought on by the deep gash on her right foot—suffered during her frantic march through the forest—which trickled a crooked line of blood behind her that the storm worked to erase. Driven by panic that he would come from the forest, she willed herself on with the sensation that he was near, ready to fast-step behind her and pull the sack over her head and bring her back to the cellar with no windows.

Dehydrated and hallucinating, she thought her eyes were deceiving her when she saw it. A tiny white light far off in the distance. She staggered toward it until the light splintered in two and grew in size. She stayed in the middle of the road and waved her bound hands over her head.

The car slowed as it approached, flashed its high beams to illuminate her standing in the road in wet clothes and no shoes, with scratches covering her face and blood dripping down her neck to dye her T-shirt red.

The car stopped, wipers throwing water to each side. The driver’s door opened. Are you okay? the man yelled over the roar of the storm.

I need help, she said.

They were the first words she’d spoken in days, her voice raspy and dry. The rain, she finally noticed, tasted wonderful.

The man walked closer, recognized her. Good God. The whole state’s been looking for you. He took her under his arm and led her to the car, carefully seating her in the front passenger seat.

Go! she said. He’s coming, I know it.

The man raced around to the other side, shifting the car into drive before his door was closed. He dialed 911 as he sped along Highway 57.

Where’s your friend? he asked.

The girl looked at him. Who?

Nicole Cutty. The other girl who was taken.

The Book Tour

Twelve Months Later

New York

September 2017

8:32 a.m.

Megan McDonald sat spine-straight in the chair and watched Dante Campbell read through interview notes without a hitch while a stylist dabbed her nose with a powdered brush, and general chaos occurred around her as producers shouted orders and lighting changes and the time remaining in commercial break. The shoulder shrugs and the deep breaths had done nothing useful, and had actually caused a knot to form in her trapezius, which was starting to spasm. Megan startled, a quick flinch, when a different makeup artist touched her cheek with a brush.

Sorry, sweetheart. You’re too shiny. Close.

Megan closed her eyes while the woman ran a brush over her face. A voice off in the darkness, beyond the television cameras, began counting down. Her mouth went cotton-dry and a noticeable tremor took control of her hands. The makeup people melted away and suddenly it was just Megan sitting in the bright lights across from Dante Campbell.

Five, four, three, two . . . you’re live,

Megan stuffed her shaking hands under her thighs. Dante Campbell stared into the camera and spoke in the practiced pitch and varied cadence perfected by morning-show hosts, among which her show was the top rated.

"We all know the harrowing story of Megan McDonald. The all-American girl, daughter of Emerson Bay’s sheriff, who was abducted in the summer of 2016. One year later, Megan is out now with her book, Missing, the true-story account of her abduction and courageous escape. Dante Campbell pulled her gaze from the camera and smiled at her guest. Megan, welcome to the show."

Megan took a hard swallow of dry nothingness that nearly made her choke. Thank you, she said.

The country and, of course, Emerson Bay has wanted to hear your story for more than a year. What inspired you to finally share it?

Since booking this interview, Megan struggled with the answers she would give. She couldn’t tell the great Dante Campbell the truth—that writing the book was the simplest way to tame her mother’s sorrow and buy some breathing room. It was a way to get her mother, neurotic with worry and angst, off her back for a few months.

It was just time, Megan said, deciding finally on the answers that would best get her out of the bright lights. I needed to process everything before I was ready to tell people about it. I’ve had a chance to do that, and now I’m ready to tell my story.

"Time to process and to heal, I’m sure," Dante Campbell added.

Of course, Megan thought. Because, after all, it had been a whole year, and certainly such a time frame was sufficient to heal. Surely, a full year would make her complete again. Because, if Megan didn’t come across as healed and happy and recovered, Dante Campbell—queen of morning television—would look wicked while drilling her for details. Please, Megan thought, tell your audience again how mended and restored I am.

That too, yes, Megan said.

I’m sure something like this takes a long time to get over, and in some ways documenting the events in your book was therapeutic.

Megan stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She had many adjectives to describe the process that created her book. Therapeutic was not one of them.

It was. Megan smiled with her lips pressed together. It was her new smile, the best she could do and so different from the beaming pictures she saw the other day when she paged through her senior yearbook. Back then, her smile was wide, with straight, bright teeth filling the space between her curved lips. She tried at first, but it was too hard to fake that big smile so she came up with this new one. Lips together, edges turned up. Happy. People were buying it.

What can people expect from reading your book?

Megan wasn’t completely sure, since she hadn’t written much of it—that distinction went to her shrink, who snagged a byline on the cover.

It, uh, you know, covers the night it happened.

The night you were abducted, Dante clarified.

Yes. And the two weeks I spent in captivity. A lot of it is stuff in my head that I thought about while being held. About where I was kept, and all my failed attempts to get away. And then about the night I, you know, ran out of the forest.

The night you escaped.

Megan hesitated. Yes. The book documents my escape. The thin smile again. And a whole chapter about Mr. Steinman.

Dante Campbell also smiled. Her voice was soft. The man who found you on Highway Fifty-Seven.

Yes. He’s my hero. My dad’s hero, too.

I bet. We had Mr. Steinman on the show, not long after your ordeal.

I saw, and I was happy that he got the recognition he deserves. He saved my life that night.

Indeed. Dante looked down at her notes before smiling again. It’s no secret the country has fallen in love with you. So many people want to know how you’re doing and what’s next for you. Will they get any of that from the book? About your plans for the future?

Megan pulled her hand from under her thigh and rotated it in the air to help her think. There’s a lot about what’s happened since that night, yes.

With you and your family?

Yes.

And with the ongoing investigation?

As much as we know about it, yes.

How difficult is it for you to know your abductor is still out there?

It’s hard, but I know the police are doing everything they can to find him. Megan made a mental note to thank her dad for that answer. He fed it to her the night before.

Before this all happened, you were on your way to Duke University. We’re all curious to know if that is still an option for you.

Megan rubbed her tongue around the inside of her sandpaper lips. Um, I took a year off after this happened. I was trying for this fall but that didn’t work out. I just . . . couldn’t get things organized in time.

It has to be hard, of course, to get back to normal. But I understand the university has extended an open invitation for whenever you’re ready?

Megan had long since stopped questioning people’s fascinations with her abduction, and the public’s unquenchable thirst for the morbid details of her captivity. And now, their lust for her to proceed as though nothing happened. She stopped questioning all of these things when she finally understood the reasoning behind them. She knew attending Duke University and carrying on a normal life would allow all those who feasted on the morose details of her ordeal to feel good about themselves. Her normalness was their escape from sin. Otherwise, how could they or Dante Campbell yearn so badly to hear the disturbing details of Megan’s abduction if she were still reeling from that event? If she were a broken girl whose life was a wreck and would never be the same, their vigor for her story would simply be unacceptable. They couldn’t allow themselves to be so attracted to her narrative if it ended any way but beautifully. If she were healed, however, if she were moving on with her new, therapeutic book and taking a shiny seat in the freshman class at Duke University, and if she were a success . . . well, then they all could burrow like maggots into the meaty flesh of her disturbing story and fly away clean and pearly as though no metamorphosis had occurred.

Megan McDonald needed to be a success story. It was as simple as that.

Yes, Megan finally said. Duke has given me many options for next semester or even next year.

Dante Campbell smiled again, her eyes soft. Well, I know you’ve been through a lot, and you are an inspiration to survivors of abduction everywhere. And we know this book will certainly be a beacon of hope for them. Would you come back and talk to us again sometime? Give us an update?

Of course. Thin smile.

Megan McDonald. Good luck to you.

Thank you.

After repeating where Missing could be purchased, Ms. Campbell sent things off to commercial break and the studio was again loud with voices from the dark area behind the cameras.

You did really well, Dante Campbell said.

You never asked about Nicole.

It was just a timing thing, hon. We were running late. But we’ll put a link about Nicole up on the website.

And with that, Dante Campbell was up and past her, offering a gentle pat on Megan’s shoulder. Megan nodded, alone in the studio chair. This, too, she understood. Today’s interview could only include the pretty details. The inspiring parts. The heroic escape and the bright future and the girls who were sure to be helped by the book. This morning’s interview was a conclusion to the Megan McDonald drama and it had to end with success. It could include none of the ugly elements that still lingered about that summer. Especially about Nicole.

Nicole Cutty was gone. Nicole Cutty was not a success story.

PART I

A life might end, but sometimes their case lives forever.

—Gerald Colt, MD

CHAPTER 1

September 2017

Twelve Months Since Megan’s Escape

Why forensic pathology?

It was a question asked of Livia Cutty at each of her fellowship interviews. Generic answers might have included the desire to help families find closure, the love of science, and the craving to tackle the challenge of finding answers where others see questions.

These were fine answers and likely given by many of her colleagues who were now in fellowship spots just like her own. But Livia’s response, she was certain, was unlike any of her peers’. There was a reason Livia Cutty was so sought-after. An explanation for why she was accepted by every program to which she had applied. She had the grades in medical school and the achievements in residency. She was published and came with sterling recommendations from her residency chairs. But these accolades alone did not set her apart; many of her colleagues possessed similar résumés. There was something else about Livia Cutty. She had a story.

My sister went missing last year, Livia said at each interview. "I chose forensics because someday my parents and I will get a call that her body has been found. We will have many questions about what happened to her. About who took her, and what they did to her. I want those questions answered by someone who cares. By someone with compassion. By someone with the skill to read the story my sister’s body will tell. Through my training, I want to be that person. When a body comes to me with questions surrounding it, I want to answer those questions for the family with the same care, compassion, and expertise I hope to receive someday from whoever calls me about my sister."

As the offers came in, Livia considered her options. The more she thought, the more obvious her choice became. Raleigh, North Carolina, was close to where she grew up in Emerson Bay. It was a prestigious and well-funded program, and it was run by Dr. Gerald Colt, widely considered in the world of forensics as a pioneer. Livia was happy to be part of his team.

The other draw, although she tortured herself when she considered it, was that with the promise of performing 250 to 300 autopsies during her year of fellowship training, Livia knew it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that a jogger somewhere might stumble over a shallow grave and find the remains of her sister. Every time a Jane Doe rolled into the morgue, Livia wondered if it was Nicole. Unzipping the black vinyl bag and taking a fast glance at the body was all it usually took to dispel her fear. In her two months at the OCME, many Jane Does had entered her morgue, but none left under the same anonymous name. They had all been identified, and none as her sister. Livia knew she might spend her entire career waiting for Nicole to arrive in her morgue, but that day would stay somewhere in the ether of the future. A moment suspended in time that Livia would chase but never catch.

Capturing that moment, though, was less important than the chase. For Livia, perusing a fictitious time in the future was just enough to lessen her regret. Soften the edges so she could live with herself. The hunt gave her a sense of purpose. Allowed Livia the feeling that she was doing something for her younger sister, since God knew she hadn’t done enough for Nicole when her efforts could have been noticed. Vivid dreams of her cell phone occupied Livia’s nights, bright and glowing and carrying Nicole’s name as it buzzed and chimed.

Livia held her phone while it rang that night but had decided not to answer it. Midnight on a Saturday was never a good time to talk with Nicole, and Livia had decided that night to avoid the drama waiting on the other end of the call. Now, Livia would live without knowing if taking that call the night Nicole disappeared would have made any difference for her younger sister.

So, imagining a time in the future where Livia might find redemption, where she might help her sister by using whatever gifts her hands and mind possessed, was the fuel needed to get through life.

* * *

After morning rounds with Dr. Colt and the other fellows, Livia settled into the single autopsy assigned to her for the day. A straightforward junkie who died of an overdose. The body lay on Livia’s table, intubation tubes spilling from his gaping mouth where paramedics tried to save him. Dr. Colt required forty-five minutes to complete a routine autopsy, which ODs were considered. Two months into her fellowship, Livia had brought her times down from more than two hours to an hour and a half. Progress was all Dr. Colt asked from his fellows, and Livia Cutty was making it.

Today, it took one hour twenty-two minutes to perform the external and internal examination of the overdose in front of her, determining the cause of death to be cardiac arrest due to acute opiate intoxication. Manner of death: accident.

Livia was wrapping up paperwork in the fellows’ office when Dr. Colt knocked on the open door.

How was your morning?

Heroin overdose, unremarkable, Livia said from behind her desk.

Time?

One twenty-two.

Dr. Colt pouted his lower lip. Two months in, that’s good. Better than any of the other fellows.

You said it wasn’t a competition.

It’s not, Dr. Colt said. But so far, you’re winning. Can you handle a double today?

Supervising physicians routinely performed multiple autopsies in a day, and all the fellows would be expected to increase their caseloads once they brought their times down and got the hang of the overwhelming paperwork that went along with each body. With her fellowship running twelve months—from July to July—working five days a week, with stretches of time away from the autopsy suite observing other subspecialties, two weeks dedicated to ride-alongs with the medicolegal investigators, plus days spent in court or participating in mock trials with law students, Livia knew that to reach the magic number of 250 autopsies the program promised, she would eventually have to log more than a single case each day.

Of course, she said without hesitation.

Good. We’ve got a floater coming in. Couple of fishermen found the body out by the flats this morning.

I’ll finish my paperwork and get on it as soon as it comes in.

You’ll present your findings at afternoon rounds, Dr. Colt said. He pulled a small notepad from his breast pocket and jotted a reminder as he walked out of her office.

CHAPTER 2

The body arrived at one p.m., which gave Livia two hours to perform the autopsy, clean up, and gather her notes before three o’clock rounds. Afternoon rounds were the bewitching event each day, when the fellows presented the day’s cases to the staff at the OCME. The audience included Dr. Colt and the other attending MEs under whom the fellows were training, the subspecialists in pathology who assisted in nearly every case, visiting medical students, and pathology residents. On a given afternoon, thirty people stared at Livia as she presented.

If fellows were confused about the details of the cases they were presenting, it was painfully obvious and very unpleasant. There was no faking it. Hiding was impossible when you were in the cage, as was termed the presentation room where afternoon rounds took place. Surrounded by ugly metal chain link that belonged in someone’s 1970s backyard, the cage was a feared place for all new fellows. Standing in front of the large crowd was meant to be stressful and challenging. It was also, throughout the course of the year, supposed to get easier.

Don’t worry, one graduating fellow told Livia when they swapped spots in July. The cage is a place you’ll hate at first, but later love. It grows on you.

After two months on the job, the love affair had yet to blossom.

Livia finished her paperwork on the heroin overdose and headed back to the autopsy suite. She gowned up in a disposable blue surgical smock over her scrubs, triple-gloved her hands, and pulled a full shield over her face as the investigators rolled the gurney through the back door of the morgue and parked it next to Livia’s autopsy table. In a sterile operating room, the surgical dressings were meant to protect the patient from the doctor. In the morgue, the opposite was true. Cotton, latex, and plastic were all that stood between Livia and whatever disease and decay waited inside the bodies she dissected.

With one at the head and the other at the feet, the two scene investigators lifted the body—zipped in the standard black vinyl—onto the autopsy table. Livia approached as the investigators gave the scene details to her—male floater discovered by fisherman at just past seven a.m. Advanced decomposition, and an obvious broken leg from wherever he’d jumped.

How far is the closest bridge from where the body was found? Livia asked.

Six miles, Kent Chapple, one of the scene investigators, said.

That’s a long way to float.

He’s ripe enough to suggest a long swim, Kent said. Colt’s giving this to you, huh?

Water leaked from the body bag and dripped through the holes of Livia’s table, collecting in the basin below. A body pulled from salt water was never a pretty sight. Jumpers usually die on impact, and eventually sink. They were termed floaters only after the body began the decaying process where intestinal bacteria fester and eat away the insides, releasing noxious gases captured within the abdominal cavity that, literally, raise the dead. This process could take hours to days, and the longer the body sat underwater before floating to the surface, the worse condition it was in when it finally arrived at the morgue.

Livia smiled from behind her clear plastic face shield. Lucky me.

She slid the zipper down and watched as Kent and his partner slipped the bag gently away. She saw immediately the body was badly decomposed, worse than any floater she’d seen before. Much of the epidermis was missing and, in some areas, the full thickness of the integumentary system gone entirely with only muscle and tendon and bone visible.

The investigators took their dripping body bag and placed it on the gurney.

Good luck, Kent said.

Livia waved her hand but kept her gaze on the body.

I see it every year, Doc, Kent said at the door. "Around September it starts. They break you in with drunks and overdoses. Then the ugly ones come. Decomps and kids. Doesn’t let up until January or so. Colt does it to all the fellows to find out what you’re made of. You’ll get some juicy homicides eventually. I know that’s what you’re all after. A nice gunshot wound or strangulation. But you’ll have to wait until winter. Deal with the messy ones first.