David Silva - The Disappeared

That was enough for him.

He climbed out of the car and started across the street, tired of playing it safe and wasting his time. Odds were Richard Boyle had gathered up his kids and had checked out. It was that simple. Somehow he had gotten word and they had done a quick vanishing act. Heaven only knew how far they had traveled by now. Maybe all the way back to upper Oregon.

As Walt opened the side gate and made his way around back, he made a mental note to check the possibility that Boyle had taken the kids back to Oregon. People had a habit of tipping their hands, whether they were aware of it or not. That was by no means only true in poker. A tell was a tell, and upper Oregon was Boyle’s safe bet.

To Walt’s surprise, the sliding glass door opening to the back patio was slightly ajar. They had left in a hurry. He rolled open the screen door, which made an agonizing squeal, then slipped through the opening and into the house.

His eyes made an adjustment.

This appeared to be the family room. Linoleum floor. Sofa. Coffee table. Fireplace. He shuffled through the stack of T.V. Guides on the table, finding nothing of note, and wandered into the adjoining room, which turned out to be the kitchen.

It was darker here. Walt pulled a pen light out of his pocket and did a quick scan of the counter top. A stack of newspapers. A six-pack of Old Milwaukee. An overturned salt shaker. A toaster. Half a loaf of bread. An open jar of peanut butter. A sink full of dirty dishes. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but he noticed it now… the strong permeating odor of rotten food. Not only had they left in a hurry, they had left several days ago.

“Dandy,” he muttered. “Two days, three hundred miles, all for nothing.”

He turned off the pen light, returned it to his jacket pocket, and took advantage of the nearest light switch. It didn’t matter if the house was suddenly all lit up now, did it? Not unless you’re worried about alerting the neighbors. Which he wasn’t. Because he wasn’t planning on being here that long.

In the kids’ room, several of the dresser drawers had been pulled out, the clothes dumped in a pile on the bed and apparently sorted. It was much the same in the other bedroom, clothing strewed about on the floor and bed, closet doors open, a pair of tennis shoes left behind in the corner.

He picked up a matchbook from the dresser, tossed it aside, and wondered what had happened. How had Boyle been tipped? Walt sat on the edge of the bed, tapped the lamp shade with his index finger and watched the dust rise into the air like an angry swarm of bees.

He was going to have to start all over again.

From the beginning.

Social security numbers. Change of address requests. School transcripts.

“Christ.”

There was an old shirt lying on the nightstand at the base of the lamp. He tossed the shirt aside, pulled out the top drawer, and rummaged through the contents. A telephone book. Flashlight. A couple ball point pens. A cassette by the Crash Test Dummies. An old shoelace. Some paper clips. Another matchbook.

He slammed the drawer shut, then picked up a scratch pad that had been hiding under the old shirt. Someone had scribbled a note across the pad. The top page had been torn away, but underneath a faint impression had been left behind. He pulled the matchbook out of the drawer, struck a match, blew it out, and three matches later, he held the paper up to the lamp. Most of it was sadly unreadable, even after lightly brushing the match tips across the surface of the paper. But the last five letters came through remarkably clear, and Walt didn’t like what he saw.

The letters were: B-242.

Mrs. Knight, I don’t have much time… this is your son, Gabe… I’m fine, Mom… it’s not possible… Mrs. Knight, if you’ll step back into the house, please… run!… Teri, he would be almost twenty now… it’s him… I’m sorry, I’ve got to go out of town on business… let me run some tests and get back to you… I think they’re following us… are you okay, Gabe?… what now?… we sit and wait… you think someone’s in the apartment?… we’ve gotta get out of here!… run!… run!…

Teri opened her eyes with a start.

She shuddered, fingered the damp hair away from her face and sat up in the tub.

Run!…

Run!…

Gradually, the nightmare screams drifted away and she was left with the sound of water dripping off her hair into the bath, that sound and the sound of the television in the next room. They had checked into the motel late last night, and though she had slept well for the first time in several days, she had apparently drifted off while relaxing in the tub.

There was a knock at the bathroom door. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ll be out in a bit.”

Just a bit, she thought, letting her eyes close again and settling back into the water.

No one had followed them out of Walt’s apartment. Heaven only knew how they had tracked her there, but somehow they had and Walt’s interior had paid the price. She had tried to reach him last night, to warn him about the danger of showing up at home. The manager at the motel where Walt was staying took half-a-dozen frantic messages before he finally put his foot down on what he considered her “damn nuisance calls.” Still, he had promised Walt would get the message when he came in if she would just quit calling. Teri still hadn’t heard back, though. She imagined the manager had probably gotten some twisted satisfaction out of tossing out the messages. At least she hoped that was the reason that Walt hadn’t called.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Just checking.”

God, who was the child here? Last night it had all come home to roost—the car chase, Walt being out of town, finding the apartment trashed, all of it—and Teri had very nearly become hysterical. Inside the motel room, she had sunk to the floor and started crying. The boy had cried, too. But it had been a sympathy cry and before she had even realized what was happening, he was trying to comfort her, telling her that everything would be all right.

And maybe it would.

Maybe in the end everything would be all right.

Just like he said.

Teri opened her eyes again. Television voices were arguing in the next room, sounding similar to the voices that sometimes came from the other side of the post office boxes in the lobby where she worked. She flipped the drain release with her big toe, stood up, and pulled the white motel towel off the curtain rod.

She had awakened with a minor headache this morning. It had not grown any worse, and as she dressed, she began to feel confident that it wouldn’t spiral into a migraine like so many of them did. It had been three days since the boy had arrived, three days of being on the run, and three days without a migraine. Try to understand the logic in that.

The boy, who had been asleep when Teri had gone into the bathroom, was up and dressed and watching The Phil Donahue Show . He watched her as she crossed the room, a question forming at his lips.

Just don’t ask me what we’re going to do now, Teri thought.

“Mom?”

She sat on the edge of the bed, drying her hair with a towel, wishing she had a clean change of clothes, and dreading where this introductory question was going to lead. “Yeah, kiddo?”

“What about Dad?”

“What about him?”

“Where is he?”

She ran the towel through her hair one last time, then dropped her hands into her lap and looked at him. God, if he wasn’t Gabriel, then who in the hell was he? Even with the blue-green eyes he looked like Gabe. “Come here,” she said, patting a soft spot on the bed next to her.