Jack nodded, processing that contention. Dad ran a hand over his face.
“I think Pat Corley might be involved.”
Dad stiffened. He cleared his throat.
“The bus driver?”
“He’s not in town, Dad. No one knows where he is. He was in the first Gulf War and then after that I guess he did special operations stuff.”
“And he’s got the tattoo,” said Sherman.
“Right. He’s got a tattoo on his back. It’s a grizzly bear. When I was being held, I mean I was out of it most of the time, but one of the times I was awake I heard someone say ‘Grizzly’ like it was a name.”
Jack looked like someone had plugged him in. He’d gone from sleep-deprived actor to Quantum the super spy in a matter of seconds.
“Who came up with this?” asked Dad.
“Me. Ruth. Sherman.”
“Honey, I know you want to find Maddy. So do I. But you can’t accuse people out of the blue...”
“I’m not accusing. I’m just saying he might be involved. I’m not saying he’s the guy, he’s the one, I’m positive so go sick Trent or Dina or whoever on the guy. I’m just saying…maybe.”
“Maybe you should tell the cops about Pat,” said Sherman.
“No,” snapped Dad. “Absolutely not.”
“Dad.”
“You shouldn’t even know about this.” He pointed at Sherman. His hand trembled. “We’re talking about my daughter’s life. Understand? My daughter’s life! We don’t know what these people want. What we need to do to make sure she gets home alive. You can’t say anything about this to the cops. To anyone! You understand me? Huh? Because I swear to god if she gets hurt, if they do something to her because of something you let slip, I will-“
His lips peeled back and twitched around the teeth and gums as he searched for the threat. It didn’t come. Not in words. His head vibrated, balanced on a neck displaying branching veins.
Sherman backed away, his hands up like he was trying to prove he wasn’t a threat.
As fast as he wound up, Dad deflated. He let his gaze drop to the ground and walked back towards the house, looking at none of us. He didn’t slam the door behind him. He walked inside and merged with the shadows.
Jack approached me. His face looked older shadowed by incoming beard. There was the slightest hint of a pimple coming in at the side of his mouth.
“Did this woman, this Ruth, have a theory as to why they’d take Maddy?”
“She didn’t.”
“I wish I could go back. Change her mind. Even though they said she needed to be the one to bring the money…It should’ve been me.”
“You didn’t know.”
“That’s not it. There are some times when even someone as ornery as your sister needs to be told what to do. I knew that. I just didn’t act like I should’ve. And I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m sorry. But I’m not giving up. I’m not going to rest until we have her back. I promise.”
His brow knotted up. His gaze shifted to the ground. While he served up self-recrimination, I looked back towards the house. Aster stood out on the back porch. She had a blanket wrapped around her arms. Our temperature at this time of day seemed plenty warm, but cooler than what her skinny frame was used to.
Sherman remained stunned by Dad getting in his face.
“You ok?” I asked.
He looked at me and shrugged.
The black helicopter brought Dina and Sam back shortly after sunset. Or Other Sam. I’d lost track of the differences between Sam and Other. Soon as they were clear, the chopper rose up into the air and headed west towards Florence Lancaster’s Sunnyside property.
The two briefly conferred with Jack and Dad and then got in the SUV and drove away. From the manner in which Jack’s shoulders drooped, I knew all I needed to about how productive the helicopter surveying had been.
I called Kitty and asked her if she was going to school tomorrow.
“I think so. My head’s better.” She laughed. “Unfortunately.”
“Do me a favor.”
“Sure.”
“Let me know who’s driving the bus.”
“You’re not going?”
“No.”
“Yeah. That makes sense,” she said. “But you want to know who’s driving?”
“Yes.”
“O-kaaay…”
“It relates back to what we talked about earlier today. That thing you can’t tell anyone about.”
“Right. Right. I won’t. I swear. Not even to Geoff.”
“Good. Thanks, Kitty.”
When I ate dinner Dad was nowhere to be found. He’d gotten in the car and driven away shortly after Dina and the other security person had left in their SUV.
Aster came into the kitchen, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, and told me Jack was in the guest room doing his meditation thing.
Her hair was frazzled. She kept stroking the touch screen on her iPad like it was a learned behavior, something that served to soothe her nerves. Her other hand served the skin around her fingernails up to her teeth. She gnawed compulsively, spitting out the tiny flecks of flesh like sunflower seed shells.
“Are you ok?” I asked. “Do you want me to make anything?”
Staring at the screen she said, “No. I’m fine. I’ve got Skittles.”
Finished washing my dishes I turned to head out of the kitchen.
Aster stared at me. With that long neck and the manner her hair rode her head she looked regal, she looked like some pretty spinster older sister that had never had much luck in love and instead buried herself in a job or in books.
“I had a dream earlier today,” she said. “I don’t normally remember my dreams, but I don’t usually dream during the day either so maybe that’s why I remember it. But I saw Maddy in the dream. She said she was all right. She said everything was happening for a reason, but it would all be all right. She said we’d see her soon. She promised.”
The way she said it, it was like she wanted to hear it, more than she needed to say it. The kitchen could’ve been completely empty and she still would’ve served up the same words. When I walked past her and gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulders she’d already returned to looking at the tablet’s glowing screen, a smile on her face like we were only minutes away from Maddy’s return.
Just after 10 pm Sherman called my phone.
“Pat’s still not back. No Jeep.”
“No lights on?”
“In the house?”
“Yeah.”
“No lights on.”
“Shit.”
“Yep.”
“Where are you?”
“Across the street from his house.”
“When do you have to be home?”
“I told my mom I was with you. She’s kind of flexible with when I have to be home if I’m busy holding the hand of a kidnapping victim.”
“Right.”
Dad had come home a little after 9. He’d told me to please apologize to Sherman for flying off the handle earlier. He knew they hadn’t unearthed any information from the helicopter fly over, but tomorrow might be different. He seemed chipper. I asked him if he was going to work Monday. He said he should. Carla had called and bugged him about taking care of me, but he’d softened her take on how fragile I was. That’s where he’d gone, he said. Into town. Defusing Carla. I told him I wanted to stay home tomorrow. He thought that was a good idea. Let people calm down some from everything that had happened.
When I brought up my dad Sherman said, “I thought he was going to kick my ass.”
“So did I. It’d probably be good for you.”
“You’re still just pissed about SharDi.”
“And I always will be.”
“Even if I saved you from the kidnappers? If I risked my life and all, got shot at and shit, you’d still be pissed abo
ut SharDi?”
“Yep.”
He sighed. “Wow.”
“Sorry. It’s like radiation. It takes a long time for the radiation signature to decay once you’ve been exposed.”
“So it takes a long time for the SharDi exposure to decay, too, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“Ok. I did get Tasered.”
“I know. Doesn’t change where your hands were on her body.”
“Harsh. Very, very harsh.”
We were quiet. I wished he were there, in my bedroom. We’d fallen asleep together a few times. Nothing had ever happened, nothing serious, no swapping of body fluids, much as he’d like, much as I’d thought about it. There were more people in the house than normal, but even so, it felt empty. A little Sherman for cuddling purposes sounded like a remedy for the long night ahead.
When he called an hour later he apologized if he’d woken me up. I didn’t tell him I was wide-awake. I didn’t want him to worry.
The last report of the evening was the same as that prior.
No signs of Pat Corley.
Chapter 39
I took a flashlight, but I didn’t turn it on until I was down in the draw. The still, silent house quickly receded behind me, finally vanishing up top of the hill.
It was nearly 1 a.m. when I snuck out. I knew where all the potential squeaky floorboards were and avoided stepping on them.
I wore a sweatshirt and jeans and sneakers. I’d paused in the kitchen and again on the back porch and waited for sign I’d woken someone. Dad continued sleeping on the couch. Aster and Jack in their respective rooms. The guard was down at the end of the driveway, a dark shape walking back and forth.
Somewhere coyotes called one another under the quarter moon. Soon as I stepped off the last step of the back porch I sprinted across the backyard and headed for the field and the back way towards Uncle Bob’s.
That sound. The struggling puttering engine sound. I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was like hearing someone say ‘Grizzly’. I was sure of it, as sure of it as though I’d heard a recording of it, not just what bobbed up from memory.
There were other reasons.
I’d looked at Facebook. And seen something that didn’t make sense.
I had over nine hundred messages from people congratulating me on being freed from the kidnappers. I didn’t know most of the people. Of course I didn’t. That was the magic of the Internet. Someone half the world away could contact you whether you wanted them to or not.
I’d clicked on Carla’s message (she had me in her prayers). The link took me to her Facebook page. I’d added her as a ‘Friend’ awhile back. She was one of those people that would be offended if you didn’t add her.
She had an update – time stamped just 3 hours ago or 10 p.m.
“Back from Pendleton – FINALLY!!! Roadwork on a Sunday???”
Dad had said he’d gone to see her. Talked to her at her house.
The prior Facebook message said it had been sent from her phone.
“A sea of taillights on a Sunday night. Lord give me the strength to not lose my mind:)”
Dad had said he’d gone to see Carla in town.
He couldn’t see her in town if she was stuck in traffic on the highway in Oregon, a good 50 miles away from Eaton.
I didn’t know what to make of that. How to process that.
And then I started thinking about Uncle Bob coming over to talk to Dad about the renters at the Winks place.
How pissed Dad seemed.
And the sound of the truck as Uncle Bob left our house.
Dad had lied about seeing Carla.
Dad had screamed at Sherman.
And he’d seemed so defensive of Pat Corley. So sure we were in the wrong.
I had to stop about halfway, right in Mr. Slaybaugh’s field, incoming wheat silvered by the moon, swaying in the trickle of breeze, and take in air. This was bumpier ground than a course for long distance running. I shrugged out of the sweatshirt and bunched it up in my fist and then kept on running. I only stumbled a few times. There were a few patches of field thick with gopher holes and rain caused depressions, but using the flashlight I managed to avoid them.
As soon as I came out on Jennings at that corner east of Uncle Bob’s I started walking rather than running. As the blood rushing in my ears ceased the silence of the countryside rose up in prominence.
Approaching Uncle Bob’s place I wished I’d sent Sherman a message. Let him know what I was up to.
Uncle Bob had a gun just like Dad. A rifle and maybe more.
The lights in Uncle Bob’s house were off. The garage with the two bays dark, too.
Loose gravel crunched underfoot. In the quiet it sounded loud as glass breaking. Walking down the slight slope towards the garage I’d halt every few steps and listen for any answering noise like I could hear the bed springs squeak, Uncle Bob rolling out of bed, stabbing his feet into slippers, and reaching for a rifle on the rack bolted to his bedroom wall.
Both trucks were parked outside the garage. The old blue truck, nose pointed towards the garage. The beater with the muffler issue had its front bumper pointed towards West Jennings. Staring at it, I kept moving forward, and froze when a motion sensor went off and bright white light flooded the lot. In the aftermath it took a moment before I could breathe. The light was high and bright and the things visible seemed somehow derelict of color and the shadows deep and foreboding like if you passed over them or walked into them you’d never find your way out.
A shape slung low to the ground shot out from the direction of the house, slid to a halt ten feet from me, and head lowered, began growling contemptuously.
From this shape, that sound, and that display of aggression seemed as foreign as having seen Dad scream at Sherman.
It took a moment before spit formed in my mouth.
“Mojo,” I said. “Moj. Silly girl.” I knelt and put my hand out. For a moment I wondered if I’d even be able to get that hand up and try and protect my throat should she lunge from her position. My imagination allowed for thinking of the flashlight rolling around gravel spattered in blood freed from my throat.
With a squeak, Mojo waddled towards me, and snuffled my feet and my hands. Happy panting dog sound came from her as my hand sunk into her white and black speckled fur.
I whispered, “Good girl. Good Moj. You were going to eat me, weren’t you? Eat your Aunt Lucy.”
She buried her muzzle in the crook of my arm. Then just as quick pulled away and darted off into the shadows as though she’d heard a whistle sound from their depths.
The door on the far right side of the garage was locked. I paused and wondered if I shouldn’t try and get inside the cab of the truck Uncle Bob had been driving. Look for clues. Like my missing bracelet was just lying right on top of the dashboard, glistening in the moonlight. I was betting both truck doors were locked and if not, the hinges scream would result in a light coming on inside Uncle Bob’s house.
I turned the corner and started down the rear of the garage, flashlight illuminating my path.
The amount of walking space was sparse, bordered on one side by the back of the garage and on the other by coils of wire, stacks of fence posts and rebar, burn barrels, rail road ties, and bricks.
I heard something shifting around inside the stables back of the house. I’d probably woken up the horses we’d ridden Friday morning. A million years ago.
I pressed my face against the window in the back of the shop. Half the window was obscured by the supply shelf shoved flush against the shop’s back wall. My view into the shop lost to boxes and plastic tubs containing nails or other supplies.
From where I stood, flashlight aimed inside, I could see a vehicle inside the shop.
A single blind eye stared back at me, seeming to hang suspended in the air.
The white walls,
the rim on a spare tire, the spare tire mounted on the back of a somewhat familiar red Jeep.
Chapter 40
A door slammed. Someone had come out from Uncle Bob’s house.
I fumbled with the flashlight like I’d suddenly slipped on a pair of giant goofy clown gloves prior to trying to shut it off. Light extinguished I froze in place. My heart thumping, wondering if the flashlight beam had been visible from Uncle Bob’s vantage point.
Or Pat Corley’s.
Footsteps mashed into gravel and then came to a halt.
In the quiet I could hear someone talking to Mojo. Maybe they’d trained Mojo. Now she was a killing machine. At the speaking of a single word her programming would kick in and she’d seek me out, her loving memories of me buried beneath a new initiative, an efficient, fur covered killing machine.
Someone burped. Moments later it was followed by the sound of gravel being walked over, but the sound moved away from my position, back towards the house.
The yawn of hinges sounded a second time followed closely by the sharp thud of a door banging against its doorframe.
I knelt, set down the flashlight, and took out my phone.
I thought if I spoke I’d be found. I imagined Pat was here. He’d snuck out on Uncle Bob’s heel and stayed in place outside the house once Uncle Bob went inside. Pat was just waiting for me to make any sound at all, and before I could react, he’d be on me, gun to my head, hand around my throat. That’s what they’d trained him to do.
I texted Sherman. Pat Corley’s Jeep at Uncle Bob’s!
I realized I hadn’t killed the ring tone. Swearing, suddenly outfitted with those clown gloves again, I fumbled around with the phone until I shut the ring tone off and set it to vibrate. I stared at the phone, waiting for vibration, for Sherman to get back to me, but he was asleep. If I wanted him awake I should’ve called him hours before I left the house.
When I stood up I remembered something from a while back. Being here, daylight, Dad with me, Uncle Bob getting something out of the shop, the locked shop, and talking at us, and at the door, not getting a key from his pocket, but reaching up and sliding a key from the top of the doorframe. The spare key.