David Baldacci - The Forgotten

“Not really sure yet. We’re just following up any lead that presents itself. Did either of them keep a journal?”

“A journal?” said Lynn. “I don’t think so, why?”

“Just asking. There might have been one missing from my aunt’s house.”

“So maybe if we had been here this wouldn’t have happened to them,” said Lynn slowly.

“Sweetie, we can’t beat ourselves up about that. We’d been planning that safari vacation for years.”

“You really can’t blame yourselves,” said Carson. “It’s just not worth it and they wouldn’t have wanted you to.”

Lynn blew her nose.

Puller said, “Your parents’ attorney wasn’t Griffin Mason by any chance?”

“No. They used my attorney,” answered Chuck.

“Good. I think Mason will be pretty busy from now on.”

They rose to leave.

Lynn put a hand on his arm. “If you find out anything, anything at all about who did this?”

“You’ll be the first ones I’ll tell,” replied Puller firmly.

Chuck shook their hands. “Best of luck to you.”

“God bless you,” added Lynn.

“I think we’ll need luck and blessings,” muttered Puller under his breath.

Puller sat in the Tahoe but didn’t start the engine.

Carson looked over at him. “Are we going to sit here and swelter or are you going to turn this sucker on?”

Puller turned the key and the engine caught. He put it in gear and pulled away.

“So what did that get us?” asked Carson as she put the AC vents full blast on them.

“Information. Even if the Storrows had found something out they might not have told anyone, other than my aunt.”

“You said she had put all these miles on her car, right?”

Puller turned to look at her as he hit the main street and sped up. “Right.”

“And you think she kept a journal?”

“Yes.”

“Well, maybe she found something out and told them, not the other way around. They might have been spotted or overheard. So they all had to die. Your aunt and then the Storrows. Or maybe the other way around. Or maybe simultaneously.”

“That makes sense,” said Puller.

“We generals sometimes do.”

“So the oil spot we found near that sulfur pit?”

“A truck or a car probably. But why there?” “Good place to do something clandestine,” he noted.

“Right, it stinks and you can’t use the beach.”

“But still, it would seem to be a nighttime endeavor.”

She nodded. “Yes, it would. So I guess I know what we’ll be doing tonight.”

“Yes, you do.”

“There is something unaccounted for,” she said.

“There are lots of things unaccounted for.”

“I’m talking about one in particular.”

“The two men in the sedan who can make the Pentagon tuck its tail between its legs and run off.”

“Exactly,” said Carson. “That has me worried.”

“All of it has me worried,” replied Puller.

He could hear the sounds of large doors being raised. He didn’t know exactly what the sounds represented, but they scared him. Everything and everyone here scared him.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and jerked. Then he turned to face him.

Diego stared at Mateo and Mateo stared back at Diego.

They were in a space about twenty feet square and steel bars kept them there. They were more precisely lying on the floor of the cage that had been their home for the last two days.

Mateo whispered, “I’m scared, Diego.”

Diego nodded and gripped the little boy’s hand.

Diego had gone to the duenos to see if they would protect him and his cousins from the three men who had beaten Isabel and Mateo. He had taken Mateo with him because there had been no one at his abuela ’s home to watch the little boy. And plus Diego did not think they would harm him with Mateo there.

He could not have been more wrong.

What had come next had been frighteningly chaotic.

Men had arrived.

Something had been given to Diego and Mateo to drink. The next thing he knew he was in this place. He didn’t know where this place was, or how he had gotten here.

He cupped Mateo’s ear with his hand and whispered back, “It will be okay.”

It was a lie, and from the look on Mateo’s face he knew it.

The light here was dim, so dim in fact as to make Diego queasy. Mateo had thrown up once, perhaps as an aftereffect of whatever had been slipped into their drinks.

They were not alone here. There were ten cages like the one they were in. And all of them were full. In Diego’s cage were ten other people. All adults, or close to it. They had segregated men from women.

Diego could make out some of these shapes in the weak light.

In his cage the men and teenage boys sat on their haunches, looking at the gap between their knees.

Hopeless. Beaten.

It was exactly how Diego felt.

He didn’t know for sure why he and Mateo had been taken.

In the back of his mind, however, he had heard the stories on the streets.

Secuestradores de personas.

Takers of people.

Diego never thought he would be taken.

He looked over at Mateo. He was only five. Little more than a baby. Why would they take Mateo? It made no sense.

A guard came by with a slender jug of water and a plate of bread and fruit. He passed them through a slot in the bars.

The biggest men in the cage grabbed at the plate and jug. They drank their fill and ate what they wanted and the leftovers were passed down. By the time the plate and jug got to Diego and Mateo there was barely a sip of water left, a few crumbs of bread, and a wedge of apple. He gave it all to Mateo, trying to ignore the thirst in his throat and the rumble in his belly.

He sat back up against the bars and stared down the line at the other cages. His gaze flitted to one that contained women. None looked older than thirty. Many were teenagers.

Diego could understand why they had been taken.

Putas , he thought. They would be worth a great deal of money.

His gaze ventured upward to the high ceiling of the place where exposed air ducts and electrical lines were revealed.

This was a warehouse of some kind, Diego had already deduced.

But where it was he had no idea. He had no idea if he was still in Paradise. Or even still in Florida.

He thought of his abuela and his eyes grew heavy with tears. He thought of Isabel wondering where they were and his eyes grew heavier still.

Then he thought of the big man who had asked him to find the two men in the car. He seemed interested in Diego. He had helped Isabel and Mateo. He could beat people up. He was big and strong. He had driven a fancy car. Perhaps he was rich. Maybe he would come and find them.

But Diego maintained this hopeful thought for barely a second. That was crazy, he told himself. The man would not come. No one would come.

He looked around at the other cages again.

This was obviously a big business. They were organized and had lots of money behind them. They took people and sold them all over the place; he just knew this to be true.

He looked at Mateo.

Would they sell them together? Or would Mateo go off alone?

Without me?

He knew Mateo would cry and cry. And maybe the secuestradores de personas would get angry and kill him to quiet him.

He reached out and gripped Mateo’s arm so tightly that the little boy let out a small gasp.

I will never let you go, Mateo , Diego promised himself.

The lights grew dimmer still. Diego looked around, fear gripping him.

All the other prisoners in the cages were doing the same thing, looking around, but also trying to shrink themselves so as not to draw attention.