“Use your imagination, Henri. Surprise us.”
They would pay more, of course, for additional contracted services, and after a while the prospect of more money softened the edges of Henri’s bad mood without touching the core of his contempt for the Peepers.
They wanted more?
So be it.
By the time his second cup of coffee was finished, he had mapped out a new plan. He dug a wireless phone out of his pocket and began making calls.
Chapter 9
THAT NIGHT SNOW FELL LIGHTLY on Levon and Barbara McDaniels’s house in Cascade Township, a wooded suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Inside their efficient but cozy three-bedroom brick home, the two boys slept deeply under their quilts.
Down the hall, Levon and Barbara lay back-to-back, soles touching across the invisible divide of their Sleep Number bed, their twenty-five-year connection seemingly unbroken even in sleep.
Barbara’s night table was stacked with magazines and half-read paperbacks, folders of tests and memos, a crowd of vitamin supplements around her bottle of green tea. Don’t worry about it, Levon, and please don’t touch anything. I know where everything is.
Levon’s nightstand favored his left brain to Barb’s right: his neat stack of annual reports, annotated copy of Against All Reason, pen and notepad, and a platoon of electronics — phones, laptop, weather clock — all lined up four inches from the table’s edge, plugged into a power strip behind the lamp.
The snowfall had wrapped the house in a white silence — and then a ringing phone jarred Levon awake. His heartbeat boomed, and his mind reeled in instant panic. What was happening?
Again the phone rang, and this time Levon made a grab for the landline.
He glanced at the clock, which read 3:14 a.m., and wondered who the hell would be calling at this hour. And then he knew. It was Kim. She was five hours behind them. He figured she’d gotten that mixed up somehow.
“Kim? Honey?” Levon said into the mouthpiece.
“Kim is gone,” said the male voice in Levon’s ear.
Levon’s chest tightened, and he couldn’t catch his breath. Was he having a heart attack? “Sorry? What did you say?”
Barb sat up in bed, turned on the light.
“Levon?” she said. “What is it?”
Levon held up a hand. Give me a second. “Who is this?” he asked, rubbing his chest to ease the pain.
“I only have a minute, so listen carefully. I’m calling from Hawaii. Kim’s disappeared. She’s fallen into bad hands.”
Levon’s fear filled him from scalp to toes with a cold terror. He clung to the phone, hearing the echo of the man’s voice: “She’s fallen into bad hands.”
It made no sense.
“I don’t get you. Is she hurt?”
No answer.
“Hello?”
“Are you listening to what I’m saying, Mr. McDaniels?”
“Yes. Who is this speaking, please?”
“I can only tell you once.”
Levon pulled at the neck of his T-shirt, trying to decide what to think. Was the man a liar, or telling the truth? He knew his name, phone number, that Kim was in Hawaii. How did he know all that?
Barb was asking him, “What’s happening? Levon, is this about Kim?”
“Kim didn’t show up at the shoot yesterday morning,” said the caller. “The magazine is keeping it quiet. Crossing their fingers. Hoping she’ll come back.”
“Have the police been called? Has someone called the police?”
“I’m hanging up now,” said the caller. “But if I were you, I’d get on the next plane to Maui. You and Barbara.”
“Wait! Please, wait. How do you know she’s missing?”
“Because I did it, sir. I saw her. I liked her. I took her. Have a nice day.”
Chapter 10
“WHAT DO YOU WANT? Tell me what you want!”
There was a click in Levon’s ear followed by a dial tone. He toggled the directory button, read “Unknown” where there should have been a caller ID.
Barb was pulling at his arm. “Levon! Tell me! What’s happened?”
Barb liked to say that she was the flamethrower in the family and that he was the fireman — and those roles had become fixed over time. So Levon began to tell Barb what the caller had said, strained the fear out of his voice, kept to the facts.
Barb’s face reflected the terror leaping inside his own mind like a bonfire. Her voice came through to him as if from a far distance. “Did you believe him? Did he say where she was? Did he say what happened? My God, what are we talking about?”
“All he said is she’s gone…”
“She never goes anywhere without her cell,” Barb said, starting now to gasp for breath, her asthma kicking in.
Levon bolted out of bed, knocked things off Barb’s night table, spilling pills and papers all over the carpet. He picked the inhaler out of the jumble, handed it to Barb, watched her take in a long pull.
Tears ran down her face.
He reached out his arms for her, and she went to him, cried into his chest, “Please… just call her.”
Levon snatched the phone off the blanket, punched in Kim’s number, counted out the interminable rings, two, then three, looking at the clock, doing the math. It was just after ten at night in Hawaii.
Then Kim’s voice was in his ear.
“Kim!” he shouted.
Barb clapped her hands over her face in relief — but Levon realized his mistake.
“It’s only a message,” he said to Barb, hearing Kim’s recorded voice. “Leave your name and number and I’ll call you back. Byeeee.”
“Kim, it’s Dad. Are you okay? We’d like to hear from you. Don’t worry about the time. Just call. Everybody here is fine. Love you, honey. Dad.”
Barb was crying. “Oh, my God, Oh, my God,” she repeated as she balled up the comforter, pressing it to her face.
“We don’t know anything, Barb,” he said. “He could be some moron with a sick sense of humor —”
“Oh, God, Levon. Try her hotel room.”
Sitting at the edge of the bed, staring down at the nubby carpet between his feet, Levon called information. He jotted down the number, disconnected the line, then dialed the Wailea Princess in Maui.
When the operator came on, he asked for Kim McDaniels, got five distant rings in a room four thousand miles away, and then a machine answered. “Please leave a message for the occupant of Room Three-fourteen. Or press zero for the operator.”
Levon’s chest pains were back and he was short of breath. He said into the mouthpiece, “Kim, call Mom and Dad. It’s important.” He stabbed the 0 button until the lilting voice of the hotel operator came back on the line.
He asked the operator to ring Carol Sweeney’s room, the booker from the modeling agency, who’d accompanied Kim to Hawaii and was supposed to be there as her chaperone.
There was no answer in Carol’s room, either. Levon left a message: “Carol, this is Levon McDaniels, Kim’s dad. Please call when you get this. Don’t worry about the time. We’re up. Here’s my cell phone number…”
Then he got the operator again.
“We need help,” he said. “Please connect me to the manager. This is an emergency.”
Chapter 11
LEVON MCDANIELS WAS SQUARE-JAWED, just over six feet, a muscular 165 pounds. He had always been known as a straight shooter, decisive, thoughtful, a good leader, but sitting in his red boxers, holding a dinky cordless phone that didn’t connect to Kim — he felt nauseated and powerless.
As he waited for hotel security to go to Kim’s room and report back to the manager, Levon’s imagination fired off images of his daughter, hurt, or the captive of some freaking maniac who was planning God only knew what.
Time passed, probably only a few minutes, but Levon imagined himself rocketing across the Pacific Ocean, bounding up the stairs of the hotel, and kicking open Kim’s door. Seeing her peacefully asleep, her phone switched off.
“Mr. McDaniels, Security is on the other line. The bed is still made up. Your daughter’s belongings look undisturbed. Would you like us to notify the police?”
“Yes. Right away. Thank you. Could you say and spell your name for me?”
Levon booked a room, then phoned United Airlines, kept pressing zeros until he got a human voice.
Beside him, Barb’s breathing was wet, her cheeks shining with tears. Her graying braid was coming undone as she repeatedly pushed her fingers through it. Barb’s suffering was right out in the open, and she didn’t know any other way. You always knew how she felt and where you stood with Barb.
“The more I think about it,” she said, her voice coming between jerky sobs, “the more I think it’s a lie. If he took her… he’d want money, and he didn’t ask for that, Levon. So… why would he call us?”
“I just don’t know, Barb. It doesn’t make sense to me either.”
“What time is it there?”
“Ten thirty p.m.”
“She probably went for a ride with some cute guy. Got a flat tire. Couldn’t get a cell phone signal, something like that. She’s probably all worked up about missing the shoot. You know how she is. She’s probably stuck somewhere and furious with herself.”
Levon had held back the truly terrifying part of the phone call. He hadn’t told Barb that the caller had said that Kim had fallen into “bad hands.” How would that help Barb? He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“We have to keep our heads on straight,” he said.
Barb nodded. “Absolutely. Oh, we’re going over there, Levon. But Kim is going to be as mad as bees that you told the hotel to call the police. Watch out when Kim’s mad.”
Levon smiled.
“I’ll shower after you,” Barb said.
Levon came out of the bathroom five minutes later, shaven, his damp brown hair standing up around the bald spot at the back. He tried to picture the Wailea Princess as he dressed, saw frozen postcard images of honeymooners walking the beach at sunset. He thought of never seeing Kim again, and a knifing terror cut through him.
Please, God, oh, please, don’t let anything happen to Kim.
Barb showered quickly, dressed in a blue sweater, gray slacks, flat shoes. Her expression was wide-eyed shock, but she was past the hysteria, her excellent mind in gear.
“I packed underwear and toothbrushes and that’s all, Levon. We’ll get what we need in Maui.”
It was 3:45 in Cascade Township. Less than an hour had passed since the anonymous phone call had cracked open the night and spilled the McDanielses out into a terrifying unknown.
“You call Cissy,” Barb said. “I’ll wake the kids.”
Chapter 12
BARBARA SIGHED UNDER HER BREATH, then turned up the dimmer, gradually lighting the boys’ room. Greg groaned, pulled the Spider-Man quilt over his head, but Johnny sat straight up, his fourteen-year-old face alert to something different, new, and maybe exciting.
Barb shook Greg’s shoulder gently. “Sweetie, wake up now.”
“Mommmmm, nooooo.”
Barb peeled down her younger son’s blanket, explained to both boys a version of the story that she halfway believed. That she and Dad were going to Hawaii to visit Kim.
Her sons became attentive immediately, bombarding Barb with questions until Levon walked in, his face taut, and Greg, seeing that, shouted, “Dad! What’s goin’ on?”
Barb swooped Greg into her arms, said that everything was fine, that Aunt Cissy and Uncle Dave were waiting for them, that they could be asleep again in fifteen minutes. They could stay in their pj’s but they had to put on shoes and coats.
Johnny pleaded to come with them to Hawaii, made a case involving jet skis and snorkeling, but Barb, holding back tears, said “not this time” and busied herself with socks and shoes and toothbrushes and Game Boys.
“You’re not telling us something, Mom. It’s still dark!”
“There’s no time to go into it, Johnny. Everything’s okay. We’ve just — gotta catch a plane.”
Ten minutes later, five blocks away, Christine and David waited outside their front door as the arctic air sweeping across Lake Michigan put down a fine white powder over their lawn.
Levon watched Cissy run down the steps to meet their car as it turned in at the driveway. Cissy was two years younger than Barb, with the same heart-shaped face, and Levon saw Kim in her features, too.
Cissy reached out and enfolded the kids as they dashed toward her. She lifted her arms and took in Barb and Levon, as Barb said, “I forwarded our phone to yours, Cis. In case you get a call.” Barb didn’t want to spell it out in front of the boys. She wasn’t sure Cis got it yet either.
“Call me between planes,” Cis said.
Dave held out an envelope to Levon. “Here’s some cash, about a thousand. No, no, take it. You could need it when you get there. Cabs and whatever. Levon, take it.”
Fierce hugs were exchanged and wishes for a safe flight and love-you’s rang out loudly in the morning stillness. When Cissy and David’s front door closed, Levon told Barb to strap in.
He backed the Suburban out of the drive, then turned onto Burkett Road, heading toward Gerald R. Ford International Airport, ramping the car up to ninety on the straightaway.
“Slow down, Levon.”
“Okay.”
But he kept his foot on the gas, driving fast into the star field of snow that somehow kept his mind balanced on the brink of terror rather than letting it topple into the abyss.
“I’ll call the bank when we change planes in L.A.,” Levon said. “Talk to Bill Macchio, get a loan started against the house in case we need cash.”
He saw tears dropping from Barb’s face into her lap, heard the click of her fingernails tapping on her BlackBerry, sending text messages to everyone in the family, to her friends, to her job. To Kim.
Barb called Kim’s cell phone again as Levon parked the car, held up the phone so Levon could hear the mechanical voice saying, “The mailbox belonging to — Kim McDaniels — is full. No messages can be left at this time.”
Chapter 13
THE MCDANIELSES HOPSCOTCHED by air from Grand Rapids to Chicago and from there to their wait-listed flight to Los Angeles, which connected just in time to their flight to Honolulu. Once in Honolulu, they ran through the airport, tickets and IDs in their hands, making Island Air’s turbo prop plane. They were the last people on, settling into their bulkhead seats before the doors to the puddle jumper closed with a startling bang.
They were now only forty minutes from Maui.
Only forty minutes from Kim.
Since leaving Grand Rapids, Barbara and Levon had slept in snatches. So much time had elapsed since the phone call that it was starting to feel unreal.
They now spun the idea that after Kim had given them hell for coming there, they’d be laughing about all of this, showing off a snapshot of Kim with that “oh, please” look on her face and standing between her parents, all of them wearing leis, typical happy tourists in Hawaii.
And then they’d swing back to their fear.
Where was Kim? Why couldn’t they reach her? Why was there no return call from her on their home phone or Levon’s cell?
As the airplane sailed above the clouds, Barb said, “I’ve been thinking about the bike.”
Levon nodded, took her hand.
What they called “the bike” had started with another terrible phone call, seven years ago, this time from the police. Kim had been fourteen. She’d been riding her bike after school, wearing a muffler around her neck. The end of the scarf, whipping back behind her, got wrapped around the rear wheel, choking Kim, pulling her off the bike and hurling her onto the roadside.
A woman driving along saw the bike in the road, pulled up, and found Kim lying up against a tree, unconscious. That woman, Anne Clohessy, had called 911, and when the ambulance came, the EMTs couldn’t get Kim to come back to consciousness.
Her brain had been deprived of oxygen,
the doctors said. She was in a coma. The hospital’s posturing told Barb that it might be irreversible.
By the time Levon had been reached at the office, Kim had been medevaced to a trauma unit in Chicago. He and Barb had driven three hours, got to the hospital, and found their daughter in intensive care, groggy but awake, a terrible bruise around her neck, as blue as the scarf that nearly killed her.
But she was alive. She wasn’t back to a hundred percent yet, but she’d be fine.
“It was weird inside my head,” Kimmy had said then. “It was like dreaming, only much more real. I heard Father Marty talking to me like he was sitting on the end of the bed.”
“What did he say, sweetheart?” Barb had asked.
“He said, ‘I’m glad you were baptized, Kim.’ ”
Now Levon took off his glasses, dried his eyes with the back of his hand. Barb passed him a tissue, saying, “I know, sweetie, I know.”
This is how they wanted to find Kim now. Fine. Levon gave Barb a crooked smile, both of them thinking how the story in the Chicago Trib had called her “Miracle Girl,” and sometimes they still called her that.
Miracle Girl who got onto the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Miracle Girl who was accepted into Columbia premed. Miracle Girl who’d been picked for the Sporting Life swimsuit shoot, the odds a million to one against her.
Levon thought, What kind of miracle was that?
Chapter 14
BARB TWISTED a tissue into a knot, and she said to Levon, “I should never have made such a fuss about that modeling agency.”
“She wanted to do it, Barb. It’s no one’s fault. She’s always been her own person.”
Barb took Kimmy’s picture from her purse, a five-by-seven headshot of eighteen-year-old Kim, taken for that agency in Chicago. Levon looked at the picture of Kim wearing a low-cut black sweater, her blond hair falling below her shoulders, the kind of radiant beauty that gave men ideas.