Mark Gimenez - The Abduction

“John,” she said through clenched teeth, the rage making a move to escape the darkness, “it damn well better be ransom. Because if it’s not-”

“Eliza-”

She slapped him again.

“Goddamn you! You let him take her!”

“Mrs. Brice,” Agent Devereaux said, “this won’t help.”

It was helping her. Elizabeth raised her hand again, but a black hand grabbed her wrist. The rage turned on Agent Devereaux.

“Let-me-go.”

The phone rang. Agent Devereaux released her and sat next to John. The agent wearing headphones activated the recorder then nodded at Agent Devereaux. The phone rang again.

“Mr. Brice,” Agent Devereaux said.

John remained in the same position she had left him: his hands still cupping his face to block her blows and crying and saying softly, “I’m sorry.”

The phone rang again.

“Mr. Brice, can you take the call?”

Her husband didn’t move. Elizabeth thought, Utterly useless in a fight, then she thrust her hand out to Agent Devereaux.

“Give it to me.”

Agent Devereaux lifted the phone off the receiver and handed it to her. The tape was running. She put the phone to her ear.

“Elizabeth Brice.”

A child’s voice came across. “Can Sam play?”

“ What? No, Sam can’t play today!”

The agents exhaled and rolled their eyes in unison. Elizabeth handed the phone to Agent Devereaux and sighed; the child’s voice had given her pause. Her anger spent, the rage retreated like a tornado into the dark sky and she now gazed down upon the destruction left behind-her husband still sobbing and his face red and welted-and the slightest twinge of remorse tried to ignite her conscience. But she stomped it out like a discarded cigarette.

It’s his damn fault! He let someone take her!

Her respiration spiked. One last glare at her utterly useless husband, then she marched out of the study and down the gallery and was crossing the foyer when the doorbell rang again. She stopped, yanked the front door open, and stared at the man standing on her porch. Anyone who knew his life would have expected a bigger man, a harder looking man. But there he stood, perhaps an artist who painted the West and dressed the part, wearing rugged Santa Fe-style attire that looked so phony on the models in the Neiman Marcus catalog but seemed born to his lean frame with his chiseled facial features and ruddy skin, the ragged blond hair framing his tanned face and setting off the most brilliant blue eyes imaginable. Remarkably handsome for a sixty-year-old man, he could be a middle-aged movie star. Instead, he was a drunk.

Elizabeth Brice turned and walked away from her father-in-law.

Ben Brice stepped inside his son’s home and into the middle of a busy intersection. He quickly retreated as uniformed police and FBI agents and a maid talking into a portable phone and his grandson in a baseball uniform pursued by a young Hispanic woman- “ Senor Sam, the oatmeal, it is ready!”-raced past him.

Beneath his feet was a polished hardwood floor; above his head was a lighted dome painted with a mural. A wide gallery extended off the entry into both wings of the residence. A sweeping staircase rose in front of him to a second-floor landing. Beyond the stairs was a living area with a two-story-tall bank of windows looking out onto a brilliant blue pool with a waterfall. Gracie had said her new home had cost $3 million. At the time, he thought she had to be mistaken; but now, looking around, Ben could believe this place cost every bit of $3 million, maybe more. Which was good: his son could afford the ransom.

Ben had not spoken to John in five years, when he had last come to Dallas for Sam’s birth. He almost didn’t recognize the slight young man who had wandered aimlessly into the foyer and who now found himself caught in the middle of a fast-moving stream of bodies like a bug in a whirlpool; he looked defeated and lost, like the senile World War Two vets at the VA hospital, a blank face in a world no longer recognizable. Ben dropped the duffel bag, stepped over to his son, and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“John.” A stiff shake. “John.”

His son regarded Ben as he would a complete stranger and said, “You think it’s ransom?”

“John, it’s me… Ben.”

John pushed his glasses up and blinked hard. “ Ben? What are you doing… How did you… Who called you?”

“You should have, son.”

A voice from above: “I did.”

She had left him right after Gracie was born, determined that her only granddaughter would not be raised by a nanny. Ben had figured it was just an excuse, not that he blamed her; if he could have, he would have left himself a long time ago. She had made regular visits back at first, but the time between visits grew longer and longer. Five years ago her visits had stopped altogether, when she had two grandchildren to raise.

Now, seeing her at the top of the stairs, her red hair and fair complexion glowing in the light of the dome-still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen-the love that Ben Brice had tried to drown in whiskey along with the pain returned with such force he thought his knees might buckle; instead, tears came to his eyes- she was still wearing her wedding ring. A devout Irish Catholic, she would never divorce her husband but could no longer live with a drunk; a devout drunk, he would never love another woman but could not live without a drink.

She descended the stairs, and Ben could tell that she had cried through the night. He knew because he had caused this woman to cry through many nights. Not that he had ever touched her in anger. Ben Brice was not a mean drunk. He was a silent one. The more he drank, the deeper inside himself he burrowed, battling the demons within and leaving his wife to cry herself to sleep. His soul was stained with her tears. Five years since he had seen her, touched her, held her, he ached to hold her now; but he stood paralyzed, like a buck private facing a four-star general.

She knew.

She came to him and buried her face in his chest. Ben pulled her tight and breathed in her scent as if for the first time. And for a brief moment, it was thirty-eight years earlier when the world still made sense. She sighed deeply, almost a cry, and he felt her slim body sag slightly.

“Oh, Ben. What if he hurts her?”

“We’ll get her back, Kate. We’ll pay the ransom and get her back.”

They stood holding each other as strangers and thirty-eight years of their lives rushed past-the good times, the bad times, and more bad times. Ben had always held onto the good times to get through the bad times; she had lost her grip ten years ago. Standing there, they didn’t have to say what they both knew: no time would be as bad as this time.

“Grandpa!”

Ben looked down at his grandson clutching his legs. The Hispanic woman arrived in a rush and out of breath.

“ Senor Sam, the oatmeal, you must eat.”

From below: “I don’t want no stinkin’ oatmeal!”

Ben Brice embraced his family. Except John. He was gone.

“What the hell’s he doing here?”

Elizabeth ambushed her husband as soon as he set foot in the kitchen; he flinched and his hands flew up to his face then fell once he realized she wasn’t going to slap him again.

“I don’t want that drunk in my house!”

John did not respond. Instead, he wandered into the butler’s pantry, as if hunting for a place to hide. She stared after her husband and shook her head: utterly useless in a fight.

“Mrs. Brice.”

Agent Devereaux was at the kitchen door.

Ben was standing at the staircase with his family and the young Hispanic woman when a middle-aged FBI agent appeared with Elizabeth. Ben looked at her and she looked away.