Билл Пронзини - In an Evil Time

Not a good profile, McCone said, but not necessarily an alarming one, either. The only documented violence in her background had been directed at her, not by her toward someone else. Even as unstable as she apparently was, she might not be capable of an act of overt violence against another person. Putting the best possible spin on it for their benefit, Hollis thought bleakly.

Drinks. Dinner. Talk. Two games of Monopoly that they all played more or less by rote. Early to bed and eyes wide open in the dark as usual. Long, dull, stressful day. Good because nothing had happened, bad because it meant they would have to do it all over again tomorrow and God knew how many days after that.

Saturday Morning

The weather turned clear again, windy but warmish. Kenny was in a tantrumy mood, and the combination of that and the paint smell from the living room drove Hollis outside shortly after breakfast. He didn’t feel much like puttering in the garden. Or doing anything else, for that matter, but busy work would keep his body if not his mind occupied. The garden shed drew him. Its door had warped and needed planing and weather-stripping; he’d meant to do the repairs in the spring, hadn’t gotten around to it with all the upheaval since then. This seemed as good a time as any for the task.

He got his tools, removed the door, set about shaving the bottom. The effort tired him more quickly than he cared to admit. He kept at it at a dogged but slower pace until the door fit the frame without sticking when he rehung it. He took it down again to add the weather stripping.

Cassie came out a few minutes past ten, saw the sweat on his face — he was working in the direct sun now — and warned him against overdoing it. He grumbled a reply; he was not up to being mothered this morning.

She said, “We need some things from Safeway. Angela and Kenny are going with me.”

“All right.”

“After lunch I thought we could all drive to Santa Rosa, look at furniture and carpeting for the living room. It’ll give us something to do.”

“All right.”

He finished the door, rehung it again, and decided he’d done a decent job. He still wasn’t ready to go in and rest; he fiddled around inside the shed, rearranging things. He was done with that and on his way to the garage, to see what kind of chore he could find to do in there, when he heard the phone ring.

His first thought was that it might be Sharon McCone with news. He hurried inside, snagged the receiver on the kitchen extension on the fifth or sixth ring.

“Jack!” Cassie, her voice octaves higher than normal. Calling on her cell phone: the background was staticky. And there were other sounds, too... sobbing? “Oh, God, something terrible... Safeway, the parking lot...”

The sweat on him had turned icy; nerve endings contracted and wired him so tight his body thrummed. “What happened? Burke?”

“She was right there, but we never saw her until it was too late. She had a gun, it all happened so fast, I couldn’t... We tried to catch her, but she’s gone, I don’t know where. The police... we’re on our way there now...”

“For God’s sake, slow down, you’re not making sense. What did Burke do?”

Ragged, hissing breath.

“Kenny... she took Kenny!”

The police station was on North Main, not far from the Safeway where they regularly shopped. He reached it in less than ten minutes, driving as fast as he dared on city streets. The waiting room was empty; he rushed ahead to the bulletproof Plexiglas wall that bisected most of the anteroom, gripped the edge of the counter in front of the speaker opening.

“My name is Hollis, Jack Hollis,” he said to the uniformed cop on the desk. “My wife and daughter—”

“Yes, right, they’re here. Mrs. Hollis is with Lieutenant Davidson, your daughter’s resting in the women’s lounge.”

“My grandson... any word?”

“Not yet.” The cop’s tone was sympathetic. He was a few years older than Hollis, probably had grandchildren of his own. “We’ve got an APB out on the car — not just Paloma County, all of northern California. We’ll find them.”

When? How soon?

“I’d like to see my daughter.”

“Right away. She’s been asking for you.”

The cop buzzed him in, led him back to the women’s lounge. Angela was lying on a couch in there, a policewoman watching over her. She said, “Oh, Daddy!” when she saw him, and struggled to a sitting position. Tear tracks, stained black with mascara, covered her face; her eyes were enormous, too much white showing, not quite focused. The sick, impotent rage in him was close to unbearable now. She was trying to get up; he went to her, kissed her, murmured words that even to him sounded empty, and made her lie back again. When he glanced at the policewoman, she mouthed the words “Paramedics are on the way.”

“Why?” Angela said in a choked voice. “Why would she kidnap Kenny?”

“I don’t know, baby.”

“What if she hurts him? He’s so little...”

“She won’t hurt him.” Wanting to believe it so desperately, he repeated the words. “She won’t hurt him.”

“They have to bring him back safe. They have to!”

“They will.”

She made a little sobbing, hiccuping sound. “Ryan,” she said. “Does he know?”

“Not yet. I’ll call him right away.”

“Tell him to hurry. Tell him... Kenny...”

It was too painful being in there with her. He felt awkward and helpless, not worth a damn to her or to himself. He left her with the policewoman, asked the desk cop for the use of a phone, called the Gugliotta ranch, and broke the news to Pierce. The kid wasted no time with questions; he said, “I’ll be there as fast as I can,” and broke the connection.

The paramedics had arrived; he saw them go into the women’s lounge. A few seconds after that a gray-haired cop in uniform appeared. Lieutenant Max Davidson — Hollis knew him slightly from Rotary meetings. Davidson shook his hand with professional gravity, reiterated that everything possible was being done to find Hollis’s grandson, and then ushered him down a hallway to a private office where Cassie was waiting. He let Hollis go in alone, shut the door after him to give them privacy.

When he embraced her she clung to him fiercely, with such strength he felt her fingers digging deep into his flesh. Gently he stood her off at arm’s length so he could look at her. Pale, shaken, but in rigid control.

“I’m okay,” she said. “But Angela...”

“I know, I just saw her. Shock. Paramedics are here, they’ll give her something.”

“She won’t go to the hospital.”

“No. And they won’t force her to.”

Cassie pulled on her lower lip, pinching it hard enough to turn it white. “It’s our fault, Jack. We should’ve known that crazy bitch would go after Kenny.”

“How could we know?”

“We should’ve been more careful, taken better precautions.”

Hindsight, the great teacher. Nobody’s ever completely safe. You can’t live in a vacuum . Hollow clichés. He said, “Yes,” and nodded like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

“She won’t hurt him. I keep telling myself she wouldn’t go that far.”

“No.” She might. We both know she might . “Hold him for a day or two, then let him go.”

“Angela won’t be able to stand that kind of waiting.”

“She won’t have to. They’ll find him.”

“The FBI? Have they been notified yet?”

“I don’t know, I’ll ask Davidson. How much did you tell him about Burke?”

“Everything we know.”

“Give him McCone’s name?”

“Yes.”

“She may have found out by now where Burke’s been living. That has to be where she’s taking Kenny.”