20 Questions

“Did you kill anyone?” That was the first question Sam asked me on this last road trip.
We’ve been moving every four to ten months for over ten years now. She never asks why we just up and move with no forewarning, why she can’t say goodbye to friends, if she’s lucky enough to make a friend, or why she’s the only kid who, at almost sixteen, has never been allowed to go on Facebook. Sam’s seen me wipe down and bleach everything in sight before a move, and even watched me clean or replace perfectly good light bulbs before we leave for a new place.
I was happy not having to answer any questions, because I always believed the truth would hurt her more than the ten years I’ve been keeping her in the dark.
But that first question was a real eye opener. Of all of the questions she could ask, Sam asked me, “Did you kill anyone?” and after that she asked, “Are you my mom?”
I realized then that the wall I built to protect her was also standing tall and thick between us. Sam deserved to know why I did some of the crazy things I did, but I wasn’t ready to give up too much too soon.
When Sam was little, we played a lot of games on our long road trips; a favorite was ‘20 Questions’. But now that she was older, the game would be used to bring us closer. And so it was that I agreed to answer one difficult question per day with a yes or no answer to see where it would lead us.

As the questions are asked and answered, the wall Mary built starts to crumble and sheds a new light on the dark secrets she’s managed to hide.
20 Questions is a story that unfolds in two parallel tales. The first is of Mary and Sam. The second is of Jack, the FBI’s lead agent on the Whitney kidnapping case, as he befriends Patty Whitney, Mary’s mother- in-law, friend, and accomplice.