Riddle looked across the yard at the Binghams’ house. “I want to go back over there.”
Beto seemed intrigued, but Jared piped up: “They told us not to. The police said it was a crime scene.”
As Jared and Beto started to argue about what that meant, Riddle put his drawing pad down. “I’ll be right back.”
Riddle went to the kitchen. He’d seen the police officers hand Debbie Bell a piece of paper. He found what he was looking for on the counter. There were three telephone numbers with a single sentence. Riddle stared down and did his best to read the words.
Call Officer Dooley with questions or concerns.
At first it confused him. Why was a q just not a k? And why was a c sometimes an s?
But he got it. He read the line. He understood. Riddle felt the power of that comprehension surge through his body like an electric current.
And then underneath the sentence he saw in smaller print:
Roberto Moreno
He wondered why the officer had written that down. Riddle put the paper back on the counter and headed to the porch.
Riddle suddenly wanted to go to Beto’s house. He didn’t do much to explain why, but he had a feeling, and that was enough. Jared didn’t want to be left behind. “We’ve got to stick together. The burglar is still out there.”
Beto picked up his skateboard. “If he comes to our house, he’ll have to deal with my grandpa. He’s got bad knees, but he sleeps with a baseball bat by the bed. I wouldn’t want to mess with him.”
Beto’s family lived across town, and it took a while to get there because Riddle was a terrible skateboarder.
As they approached the small wooden house, the three boys were surprised to see a police car parked out front. Beto’s sunny disposition evaporated.
“What’s going on?”
Jared grabbed Beto’s sleeve. “Do you think the robber got into your place, too?”
The boys wordlessly headed across the thin strip of front lawn.
A sprinkler at the end of a gray hose was responsible for keeping the center of the grass green, but the perimeter was dry and turning brown.
Riddle stopped to look, mumbling to Jared, “They don’t have automatic irrigation. I like the pattern the sprinkler made.”
Jared didn’t say anything, but he wondered how Riddle noticed so much small stuff and why he cared.
Inside, the boys immediately recognized the two officers. They had been at the Binghams’.
The police were on the couch, but on the edge of the cushions as if at any moment they might spring into some kind of action. Beto’s grandfather, Felipe, was seated in a lounge chair.
“What’s going on?” Beto interrupted.
Before Felipe could answer, the taller of the two men stood up. “We had a few questions to ask Mr. Moreno.”
Beto looked at the officers. “What kind of questions?”
Beto’s grandfather’s voice sounded tired. “You boys go out back. I’m in the middle of something here.”
But Beto didn’t move. He was only ten years old, but suddenly he had the demeanor of a world-weary adult. He took a step toward the officers.
“He doesn’t have to answer anything. And you don’t have the right to even be here in our house without some kind of warrant.”
Jared and Riddle both stared. This was a side of Beto that they’d never seen. The happy-go-lucky kid was now as serious as a heart attack.
The policemen exchanged a look.
Beto’s grandfather reached out and put his hand on Beto’s shoulder. “Mijo, I’ve got this covered. Wait in the yard.”
But Beto wasn’t going to wait anywhere. His gaze returned to the police officers. “Why are you here? You think I told someone where that key was, don’t you? You think I gave someone that key?”
The room was quiet. Riddle looked from his friends to the law enforcement.
Beto seemed to have nailed it, because they weren’t denying anything.
And then suddenly Riddle found himself saying: “I think someone was watching the house. They saw us take the key and put it back.”
The larger of the two officers turned to Riddle. “Why would someone be watching you?”
Riddle answered: “That’s what crooks do.”
It was the most obvious statement in the world, but coming out of Riddle’s mouth in such a matter-of-fact way, it sounded profound.
Riddle continued. “You could see us from the street when we got the key.”
The two police officers didn’t acknowledge what he’d said.
Riddle’s head tilted to the side as he continued. “You should be asking who would want to come to the house? Why would someone be watching the neighbors? Or watching us? Who would that person be?”
And then Riddle suddenly felt sick to his stomach, because he was a person who saw the small things. All the details. And he hadn’t realized something until now.
It had been in the picture he’d drawn.
The large, empty box of saltine crackers. It had been left on the counter in the Binghams’ kitchen.
There were four sleeves of crackers in a box. And forty crackers in each sleeve.
How many people ate their way through that many saltines?
40
Sam drove Robb Ellis to his parents’ office building. It was midday, and his father’s car was gone from the parking lot, so Robb had Sam take the open space. They’d just be in and out.
Upstairs, Robb stood awkwardly in the doorway looking at Merle, who did the billing for his mother’s private investigation firm.
Robb called out, with just a little too much exuberance, “Hey, Merle.”
The accountant was always nice, but deep down, not really that deep, Robb felt like she hated him.
Merle quickly hit one of the letters on her keyboard, and the screen switched from a photo album of Africa to a spreadsheet. “Hey, Bobby.”
He tried not to be irritated, because Merle knew that he’d changed from Bobby Ellis to Robb Ellis, but she couldn’t accept that. She was acting like she was family, because his family couldn’t be retrained in the name department.
Robb made a mental note to tell his mom that Merle was looking at her vacation pictures instead of balancing the books. He then stepped deeper inside the room, revealing Sam, who was behind him.
“This is Sam,” Robb muttered.
He would have offered more of an explanation, but Merle was smiling at Sam for real, not the fake way she smiled whenever he came in, and it totally bugged him.
Sam tried to look at ease. But even feeling panicked, he seemed more grounded than Robb Ellis, who was hardwired to be a nerve center.
“Nice to meet you!” Merle’s hands went to her thick mop of hair, and she ran her fingers through it like something sticky just dropped from the ceiling tiles. “Merle Kleingrove.”
Robb hadn’t seen this totally embarrassing side of the accountant before. He needed to stop it. “Sam and I are going to just hang out in the conference room.”
Merle nodded as if that were normal, even though Robb had never in his life brought someone to the office and gone into the conference room. The conference room was for clients.
Did Merle think Sam was some kind of client?
Merle stood up, revealing her stretchy aqua exercise pants. She’d been warned about that. Robb’s mother said there was nothing more unprofessional than people wearing exercise clothing in the workplace. “I can bring you donuts or coffee or—”
But Robb was already leading Sam down the hallway and no longer giving her the time of day.
Robb asked to speak to a level-two OnBoard technician.
It was critical, as he explained to Sam with his hand over the mouthpiece, to jump over the first-level people in any organization. And in the case of OnBoard, the first-level workers were really nothing more than phone operators.
Robb knew what he was doing, and in a matter of moments he had given the new person on the line a code, which indicat
ed he had some kind of law-enforcement clearance.
He was now waiting for the response.
Sam sat across from him, sending Emily one more text.
He kept hoping that she’d just answer her phone or send him a message, and all of this would be over.
It was more than likely that everything was going to be completely explainable, like Emily and Destiny had bumped into each other and decided to take a walk or get a smoothie, and then they had a flat tire or found a dog running loose.
Stuff like that happened. Not to him, but to everyone else.
To him, someone missing was really gone.
Because they had been taken.
Robb gestured to Sam that he needed paper and something to write with.
There was a yellow legal pad on a corner table, and Sam jumped for it just in time for Robb to say, “Milepost 182. Route 97.”
Sam watched, feeling powerless, as Robb continued. “Thank you. Yes. Will do.”
And then he hung up the phone, and suddenly his entire amped-up, boss-man attitude was gone. He tripped over his words as he said, “My car is over one hundred miles away from here!”
“Do you think it was stolen?”
“You mean by Destiny?”
“I don’t know.…”
“Well, it was stolen by somebody!”
Robb got to his feet. Destiny was his girlfriend. He’d spent the night at the motel. He’d paid for the place. He’d trusted her.
And now he realized that he’d been shot down by friendly fire. She had betrayed him.
He was learning the cruelest lesson of all this summer.
The worst enemy was always within the trusted circle.
Sometimes knowing the right people worked against you.
The city parking enforcement worker was writing up a ticket when the boys went out the back door. Robb Ellis’s parents made sure that the two spaces behind their building, which were, of course, on their property, were only for them.
Sam was driving the Bells’ third car, which was assumed to be a violator.
Robb took the ticket off the windshield. If he weren’t so upset about his stolen SUV, he might have tried to talk his way out of the situation.
But not now. He grumbled in Sam’s direction. “I’ll pay for it. I told you to park here.”
According to the Internet search, it was 102 miles to La Pine. They were, as Robb Ellis said, “in pursuit.” And because of that, Robb persuaded Sam to let him drive.
Sam was okay with that, because he had no intention of speeding, and Robb clearly didn’t have a problem right now with going over limits.
They pulled out of the alley behind the office, already moving too fast. As they merged onto the highway, eleven blocks later, Sam questioned whether they were doing the right thing. The speed limit was fifty-five in this section of the roadway, and he was already going seventy-five.
But Robb seemed to have an answer for everything. When Sam said that the last thing they needed was a speeding ticket, Robb assured him that he had an “in” with the state troopers.
Sam wasn’t so sure.
But everything now was about Emily.
She was in danger.
He had no idea exactly how, but he was pretty sure it was connected to him.
41
He would shoot her.
Not in the car, because Clarence wasn’t about to clean up the mess. The best thing would be to put a bullet through her head in the woods. Maybe with a river or a lake nearby.
If he tied a brick or a rock around her body, and if she stayed under long enough, he could get lucky and no one would ever find her.
He liked that.
If she was out in the wild long enough, she’d be scavenged by animals. A coyote or a red fox or two would do a good job on her carcass. Especially in the summertime.
Just the hint of a smile appeared on his face as he thought of the family, for the rest of their lives, waiting for her to come home.
Now that was torture.
Every ring of a phone or knock on the door could be a flicker of hope.
He hated that word.
Hope.
It was so overused and so full of crap.
It rhymed with dope and grope and rope. All better words, because those things were real.
They had pain.
Emily didn’t know anymore if it was just in her mind.
Bobby Ellis’s car.
Destiny behind the wheel.
That just didn’t make sense.
But what did right now?
The buzzing had gotten so loud that she was hearing things and seeing things.
Her eyes were dry. She realized that she’d been staring straight ahead, barely moving, for so long that it was difficult to even blink.
She forced herself back into her own body.
And realized that breathing was as important as anything right now.
On the east side of the interstate, up ahead, Clarence saw a sign.
It indicated that there was a rest stop in five miles. But a highway department overlay that was made out of some kind of netting said Closed for Maintenance.
He had to go to the bathroom. He was getting hungry. And his hacked-off foot hurt. He needed to pop more of the pain pills that he’d pocketed from the medicine chest in the house with the fish tank.
But most of all, he needed to get rid of her.
She was limiting his options.
She needed to be “closed for maintenance.”
But at a rest stop?
So public. Too many variables.
He could just pull over at a random exit and get off and find some place that was isolated.
But thinking it through, he realized it didn’t need to be remote enough for him to shoot her. Just enough out of the way to get her into the trunk.
He’d have done that to begin with, except that if anyone had spotted a teenage girl climbing into the trunk of a car in such a nice neighborhood, they’d think it was strange.
But now, in the middle of nowhere, he could lock her in the back and take his time deciding where to pull the trigger. If she somehow suffocated while trapped there—all the better.
A closed rest stop could be just what he was looking for.
He glanced over at the passenger seat.
She was different now than before. She was sitting up straighter and paying attention in a new way.
Had she seen something that he’d missed?
Not likely.
He took in a lot more detail than most people.
So he felt certain that she’d be no match for him in that arena.
Destiny saw the sign for the rest stop, but she didn’t think anything of it because there was some kind of plastic covering that said it was closed.
Was he turning off?
Now this was a problem.
Should she follow?
She didn’t have time to weigh her options.
She just put her foot on the brake.
He’s going to a rest stop.
But the sign said it’s closed.
There are cones but not a barrier.
And he’s going around them.
What does he know about this place?
Has he traveled this far to come here? Is someone waiting for him there?
They were pulling off the highway.
Did he have to use a bathroom?
She did. Would he let Emily do that?
If he didn’t, would she just pee right there in the car seat?
Would he kill her in a closed rest stop?
Tall trees made the area impossible to see from the highway.
It was private.
And it was officially closed.
It was now the scariest thing she had ever seen.
He was slowing down.
Up ahead, across the empty parking lot, was a single big rig truck.
On a grassy area nearby was a brown-painted cinder-block structure.
Bathrooms.
Emily did a mental inventory:
Three metal drum trash cans.
Two picnic tables.
A carved map of Oregon on a wooden sign.
A list of rules on the side of the cinder-block bathroom building.
A large pile of sand.
A large pile of gravel.
A pyramid of new cinder blocks.
A stack of blinking highway marker signs.
A blue tarp next to the signs.
That was it. No highway workers. No state vehicles.
From a distance it didn’t look like anyone was in the big rig. So was the driver inside the bathrooms?
Would he come out?
Could he save her?
As they got closer, she saw a wooden barrier in front of the entrance to the cinder-block building. A sign read: Bathrooms Not in Service.
Emily curled and uncurled her toes.
An empty parking lot.
A closed cinder-block bathroom building.
A big rig.
And the Monster.
Clarence drove past the obvious parking spots, the ones right in front of the cinder-block bathroom structure. He maneuvered to the edge of the lot to a place in the corner under the cover of a row of large pine trees.
The area screamed privacy.
If the big rig hadn’t been there, he could just take the girl out into the woods right there and finish her.
He couldn’t see a driver in the truck, but still. He wouldn’t risk it.
He slid the Honda into the parking space, and then just before he could even cut the engine, another car came into view. A black SUV appeared, coming around the curve into the rest stop.
What was that about?
Couldn’t the driver read the sign?
This rest stop is closed!
What was wrong with people?
Clarence stared at the SUV. It was moving slowly.
Too slowly, he thought. Maybe engine trouble. The glare on the windshield of the SUV made it impossible to see the person behind the wheel.
Clarence kept the motor running.