David Silva - The Disappeared

“A few more hours,” Walt said. “And they just might have gotten away with it.

Walt had been right.

They might have gotten away with it.

They had done an amazing job of putting things back in order. The window had been replaced. The doors were locked. The lights were all off. The sliding glass door in the family room was back on its track, the glass replaced. And the items Teri and the boy had knocked off the desk upstairs had all been returned – though not quite in perfect order. The phone was left sitting at the front of the desk instead of at the back, where she usually kept it, and the stapler was on the wrong side. But those were little things. No one else would have noticed.

As they toured the house, Teri couldn’t help but think how lucky it was that she had gone to Walt instead of the police. If they had responded at all, which was by no means a certainty; they wouldn’t have spent two minutes here before deciding it was another one of her false alarms. Where was the break-in? Why were the doors locked? The lights off? And even if they had stumbled across the fresh window putty, they would have suspected her first. She had seen that look of suspicion before. Too many times before.

Walt spent some extra time going through the office upstairs, while Teri fixed the boy some hot chocolate in the kitchen. By the time he showed up downstairs again, they were sitting at the counter, the boy sipping his drink, Teri fascinated by how pristine everything appeared after what had gone on here, and wondering what else might be in store for them.

“Anything?” she asked as he leaned against the corner.

“You’ve got the cleanest windows in the neighborhood,” he said flatly. “Probably the cleanest windows in the whole damn state.”

“No prints, huh?”

“Well, I didn’t really expect to find any.”

“Want some hot chocolate?”

“No.” He shook his head and seemed to follow his thoughts off into a wonderland of their own. Always thinking, this man. Always trying to catch an angle.

“So what now?”

“I think you better stay with me tonight.”

“Why? You think they’ll be back?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t bet against it.”

Teri sighed and thought back through everything that had happened tonight. She wouldn’t want to bet against it, either. When she closed her eyes, she still had a vivid picture of Mitch standing over her, the scar over his eye a reminder of the man beneath the suit and the polite manner of speech. She didn’t want to bet against anything he might do. It was too dangerous. Simple as that.

She sighed again, and this time glanced down at the boy drinking his chocolate milk. “Some adventure we’ve got ourselves into, huh?”

“Why are they bothering us ?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s something we’re going to have to talk about,” Walt said, making it clear that he preferred to talk about it sometime outside of the boy’s presence.

“Sure.” She went to the nearest kitchen drawer, pulled out a paper napkin, and set it on the counter in front of the boy, who had distinguished himself with a thin, rather attractive chocolate mustache. “Use it.”

“Or lose it,” he giggled.

“No. You use it or I’ll use it for you.”

He giggled some more.

“I see you found yourself some shoes,” Walt said.

“Yeah.” She glanced down at her feet. She was wearing a pair of sandals, which tended to go easy on her feet after a long day of standing at the post office. They felt especially good after having gone barefoot half the night. “And guess what else I came across?”

“What?”

“The shoe I lost.”

“The one he pulled off your foot?”

“Yeah. It was back in the closet. Not quite where it was supposed to be, but close enough considering it was guess work.”

“Why don’t you show me.”

Apparently what he was hoping was that he might find a print on the back of the shoe, where the man had tried to hold on. The shoe was a vinyl pump, the first lucky break. Walt said the vinyl should hold a good print if they hadn’t cleaned it off. And that turned out to be the second lucky break.

She watched him go through the process of using the flashlight at various angles again. Then, for the first time, he opened the small rectangular box he had been carrying with him. He took out a brush, twisted it in the air until the bristles fluffed, and dipped it into a small vial of powder. He brushed both sides of the shoe, near the back, and gradually two sets of prints became visible.

“Got ’em,” she said optimistically.

“Well, we’ve got something.”

Walt covered the print on the left side with tape, pressed down meticulously, then pulled the tape up in a single, smooth motion. To Teri’s eye it looked like a beautiful print. He transferred it to a 3x5 card, then took two other prints on the other side. There were three altogether, though two of the prints appeared to be smudged and run together.

“Well, at least it’s something.”

He didn’t hold out much hope that anything would come of them. Chances were the prints belonged to a technician. Or if not a technician, then they might even be her own prints. Just to compare, he took samples from her and the boy.

“Guess that’s about all we can do here tonight,” he said, closing up the kit. “You and the kid might want to grab a few things to bring along since we don’t know where this thing is going. For now, at least, you better stay with me.”

For now? Teri thought.

How long did he think this was going to go on?

Walt cleared the stack of newspapers off the kitchen table and piled them in the corner of the living room, out of the way. “Sorry for the mess. A bachelor’s life, you know.”

“Actually, I half-expected to be wading through clothes on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink. This is nicer than I keep my place.”

“Sundays are my cleaning days. By the end of the week, it’ll take a forklift to get around in here.”

It was nearly three o’clock in the morning now. Condensation had formed in the corners of the living room window, where the cold was hovering in wait. Walt had set up an air mattress and a sleeping bag in the other room for the boy, who had almost immediately fallen off to sleep. Teri wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to sleep again. Whenever she closed her eyes, she found herself staring at that ugly jagged scar again. It gave her the creeps.

She sat in the nearest chair.

“Can I get you anything?” Walt asked. He seemed ill at ease, having his place invaded like this, though Teri suspected he wouldn’t have had it any other way. “Coffee? Diet Coke? Water? Anything?”

“No, I’m fine. Really.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“All right.” He sat down across the table from her. “Quite a day, huh?”

“I’m not keeping you up, am I?”

“No, not at all.”

“Because if I am—”

“You aren’t. Honest.”

“Well, it’s really nice of you to put us up.”

“Glad to do it.” He pulled the fingerprint cards out of his shirt pocket and tossed them on the table. Time to get down to business, Teri supposed. “So what can you tell me about tonight?”

“Not much.”

“How about the boy? What time did he show up?”

“A little after eight, I think.”

“And the woman you said he was with – what was her name?”

“Miss Churchill.”

Walt climbed out of his chair and rummaged around in a drawer in the kitchen until he came up with a pencil and a pad. “That’s the way she introduced herself? As Miss Churchill?”