Макс Коллинз - Road to Paradise

Pat squeezed his hand so hard it hurt. “What are we going to do ? Oh my God, Michael — what in hell can we do ?”

“I’m not sure.”

“That panic button!” Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. “We’ll call the federal panic button, and they’ll go get her!”

“We could do that. Are you prepared to move again?”

Pat, half out of the chair, froze. “What?”

“If I call our friend Assistant Director Shore, he’ll help us out — send marshals to Lake Tahoe to grab her up... if our assumption is right... but in any case, they will consider our cover blown.”

Still frozen, she asked, “So what?”

“So... it means another name change. Another move. Another city. Another new life — for all of us.”

She sat heavily down. Her eyes stared at nothing. “Oh, Christ... but what else can we do?”

“If we’re right about where Anna’s gone, we retrieve her. I’ll drive or fly back home, and get her. The prom isn’t till tomorrow night.”

Pat was looking at him now, guardedly hopeful. “We’ll go together?”

“No. I think... I think the first thing we do is call some people back home.”

Nodding decisively, Pat said, “I can do that.”

“No.” He held out a cautionary palm. “I don’t want those calls on our long-distance charges. Hell, for all I know, the feds have our phone tapped.”

Indignation tweaked her expression. “I thought we were the good guys!”

“No — we’re not the good guys, and we’re not the bad guys. We’re the poor bastards getting squeezed between... I’ll go to a phone booth, and call every neighbor back there I can think of, to see if anyone’s seen Anna.”

Nodding again, frantically, she said, “Start with the Grace house! She’s gone back to be with that Gary, I just know she has!”

He nodded, too, but slowly, reassuringly. “That’s where I’ll start. Can you think of anyone who lives next door to the Graces? Or even in their neighborhood?”

Her eyes tightened. “No... No, his family lives in Incline Village. That Pineview development, but I don’t know anybody there. Damn!”

He held his palm up again. “Pat, it’ll be all right. Do we have a picture of Anna since we moved here?”

Turning her head toward the hallway, she said, “There are some snapshots on her mirror, from when she and her wonderful-great-good-friend-that-little-bitch-of-a-brat Cindy went horseback riding.”

“Get me one, will you?”

“All right.” She stood, then hovered. “...What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to hit the bus stations, train depots, and the airport.”

“You make it sound like... like she’s a runaway.”

“She is, sort of. But just for the weekend, I think. This is just about prom.”

Again her eyes tightened, in confusion this time. “But didn’t Cindy drive her...?”

“We don’t know that. And that’s a long way to drive, whether Cindy’s along or not. The picture?”

“All right.”

Rising, he said, “I’ll be in my study.”

She eyed him with mild suspicion. “Doing what?”

“Getting something.”

“Getting what, Michael?”

“Pat — just fetch the picture, okay? And stay calm. Stay steady.”

She went off to Anna’s room, and he slipped into his study and from a locked desk drawer got the .45 automatic — the gun his father had taken on the road, the gun he had taken to Bataan, the gun he’d used as an Outfit enforcer — and slipped it in his waistband, in the small of his back, covering it. He wasn’t sure he would need it; he wasn’t even really sure why instinct said to take it with him.

But that’s what instinct said.

And he listened.

He’d just finished snugging the gun away when he heard Pat in the hall. Then she was standing framed in the doorway, holding up the snapshot.

“Everything else we have of Anna,” she said glumly, “didn’t make the trip from Crystal Bay.”

She stepped into the study, and he took the snapshot, dropped it into his suitcoat pocket, then wrapped her up in his arms and looked earnestly at her.

“Darling,” he said softly, “it’s going to be fine — she’s just a teenager who didn’t want to miss her senior prom. Can you blame her?”

Frustration and something like anger colored her face. “Doesn’t she know what she’s done? How she’s put us all at risk?”

“No. Like I said, she’s a teenager... And even when we get her back home, safe and sound, we may have to seriously consider telling Shore all about this.”

Alarm again widened the dark blue eyes. “You said bringing WITSEC in was dangerous ...”

“It may be more dangerous not t moving on to another identity. I’m going to want to talk to Anna and her boyfriend about just how much contact they’ve maintained, and how they did it. And then, remember... we have another option.”

Confusion tensed her forehead. “Which is what?”

“We still have our half-mil nest egg. We can start over like we were planning to, before WITSEC stepped in — a new life in Mexico or Brazil or some damn place. Without the federal safety net, but also without the federal hassle.”

Her eyes were so tight with thought, they were almost closed. “What will Anna think about that ?”

He smirked. “What does she think now?”

She fell into his arms and held on to him tight and shivered. “I want to go with you.”

“Back to Tahoe?”

“Everywhere — to the airport and—”

He held her away, just a little, and locked her eyes with his. “No, honey. You need to stay here. By the phone.”

She thought about that, then said, “You’re right.”

“Anna may call, or the Parhams may hear from Cindy, or Cindy may show up and—”

“You’re right. Go.” She managed a crinkly smile, somehow. “Get out of here and find our little girl... ya big lug.”

“I love it when you call me that.”

“Find our daughter.” The smile from a moment ago was ancient history. “I couldn’t take... Find her.”

He nodded, and then he kissed her lightly.

She clutched his face in one hand, roughly, in an almost accusatory fashion, and then kissed him — hard.

“I love you, Michael. You’ll come through for us. You always come through.”

“I love you, Patsy Ann,” he said, and kissed her.

And went off to find their daughter.

Michael started with the Greyhound Terminal on South Church, talking to every clerk and vendor and even a guy with a broom. The snapshot of Anna was fairly close up, and she was an attractive girl whose heart-shaped face, big dark eyes, and endless brown mane made her distinctive enough to be remembered. But no one did.

American Trailways on East Tenth drew the same disappointing results, though Michael did catch one slight break. The same clerks were working today, at both terminals, as had been on duty yesterday afternoon. Which was exactly when his daughter would have come around to buy a bus ticket (based on when Cindy’s parents saw the girls drive off in that red Mustang).

Otherwise, Michael would have had to spend much of the day tracking down off — duty bus-station tellers, all over Tucson.

The identical combination of good and bad luck awaited him at the Southern Pacific railroad station on East Toole: same clerks on duty as yesterday, none of whom recognized Anna’s picture. This was repeated at Tucson International, six miles from the city, out US 89, though it took a while — he had to query busy clerks at American Airlines, TWA, and half a dozen other lines major and minor.

From a pay phone at the airport, already pushing four p.m., he called the Parhams to see if they’d heard anything from their daughter, Cindy. They had not.