Mark Gimenez - The Abduction

Ben walked that way.

Children abducted by strangers have a life expectancy of three hours, that TV report had said. When Gracie had walked this way Friday night, not forty-eight hours ago, had she only three hours of life left? Something inside Ben said no. Maybe it was the strange way their lives were bonded together: he knew that if Gracie were dead, he surely would be as well. Maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to accept the idea that he would never see her again.

Or maybe, just maybe, she was still alive.

When he was almost to the concession stand, Ben stopped and turned back, just as Gracie had when she had waved to John: an innocent little girl waving to her father, unaware she was walking into an ambush. Ben checked the compass on his watch to get his bearings. He was now facing due south toward the distant soccer and softball fields and the homes that bordered the park beyond the tall brick wall. To the east were tennis courts and the wall bordering that side of the park. To the west was the parking lot a good hundred meters away, too far to drag an abducted child through a crowd of people. The brick walls bordered the south and east sides of the park and the parking lot the west; none were likely escape routes for the abductor. That left only the northern route.

Through the woods.

Ben walked around to the rear of the concession stand. The backside of the building was a solid brick facade with a single service door and no windows. A small clearing separated the building from the woods. Ben got down on his hands and knees and examined the ground. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers through the blades of grass like a blind man reading Braille. And he knew.

The abductor had grabbed her right here.

But how had he gotten her back here alone? And how had he kept her quiet?

Ben stood and walked into the woods. Yesterday, he had been running and his mind had been clouded with fear and thoughts from the past, so he had not focused on his surroundings. Now he stepped slowly; his eyes searched the ground, the underbrush, and the trees for any sign of Gracie. His skills came back to him without conscious recall.

Less than ten meters into the woods, a shiny object highlighted by the sunlight through the canopy caught Ben’s eye. He squatted, moved several leaves, and picked up the object between his thumb and forefinger. He placed it in the palm of his left hand: a silver star attached to a broken silver chain. He recalled the day he had taken Gracie to the silversmith shop in Taos to have this star put on this chain. The proprietor had examined the star and said, “This here’s the real thing.” Gracie had said she would wear it always.

Ben stood, slipped the star and chain into his shirt pocket, and snapped the flap button. He continued deeper into the woods. He soon arrived at the location where her shorts and shoe had been found; yellow crime-scene tape was wrapped around the trees guarding the little clearing.

The abductor had grabbed Gracie behind the concession stand and taken her through the woods to this position. He had stopped here to… Ben fought back his emotions and focused. The abductor had left her shorts and shoe here and had… what? Taken her to his vehicle?

Ben walked through the woods to the nearby road, climbed the low embankment, and stood on the rock shoulder. The road was old, and the asphalt surface was potholed; there were only two narrow lanes, barely wide enough for two cars to pass. It was not a major traffic route.

Did the abductor leave his vehicle here while he went to Gracie’s game? Or did the other man on the tape drive the vehicle to this position while the abductor grabbed Gracie and carried her through the woods? Were they working together?

Ben started to climb down, but he stopped; the shoulder was standing room only, too narrow to park a vehicle without blocking the road. He knelt and examined the shoulder where a car might have pulled over and waited for the abductor to arrive with Gracie. He noticed a rock that glistened. He touched his finger to the shiny rock; it was wet. He put his finger to his nose and sniffed.

Oil.

Little Johnny Brice can taste his own blood that is flowing from his nose and mouth. He is curled up in a fetal position on the ground; his arms are wrapped around his head; he is crying. This is the worst beating yet, and it isn’t over. Luther Ray is sitting astride him, hitting and taunting, taunting and hitting; his fists feel like iron hammers each time they impact John’s body. Little Johnny Brice is praying to God to let him die so the pain will stop.

John opened his eyes. The carpet beneath his face was wet. He was curled up in a fetal position on the floor of his walk-in closet. He had given his shirt to the FBI then come upstairs to clean up. He had showered and come into his closet to dress. But the images of Gracie and the abductor had returned, and he had started crying again. He could not stop thinking of her pain.

Please, God, let her pain stop.

Kate found John sitting alone in his closet, just as she had found him sitting alone in his room so many times as a boy. Back then, he’d been hurt by the bullies; today, he’d been hurt by his wife. It had been bad back then; it was worse today.

She sat down on the floor next to him. She put her arm around him, and he laid his head in her lap, just as he had so many times. She stroked his hair as she had back then, and she said the same words.

“John, try to have faith. You’ve got to trust that there’s a reason for this, that there’s a reason for everything that happens to us in life, even the bad things. God has-”

John’s head lifted, and he sat up abruptly.

“No, Mom, you’re wrong! You were wrong back then and you’re wrong now! There was no reason for my getting beat up by those bullies, and there’s no reason for Gracie getting kidnapped by some sick pervert. There’s no reason, no plan, no purpose, no grand scheme to all this-it wasn’t meant to be! It’s just random acts of violence. Mean people doing bad things. You go to Mass and you believe all that shit Father Randy says-and that’s all it is, Mom. Shit!”

John stood and walked out. Kate Brice covered her face and cried because she could not help her son now, just as she could not help him back then.

FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux was back in the command post examining the blow-ups of the two men from the videotape and the big man’s tattoo. The large room was quiet-which was exactly wrong. Forty-three hours after an abduction, the phones should be ringing off the hook with hot tips. But the phones were silent.

Where the hell were the calls?

Devereaux removed his reading glasses, closed his eyes, and rubbed his face. When he opened his eyes, Agent Jorgenson was walking his way. She had a muscular build and short brown hair. She was wearing a blue nylon FBI jacket, jeans, and sneakers and carrying brown folders under her arm. He liked Jorgenson. She reminded him of his daughter; she had the same athletic bounce in her step and the same intellectual curiosity. She wanted to learn. She was still in her one-year probationary appointment, but she had already grasped an understanding of the job; it wasn’t about the glory of solving a high-profile case or the ego of apprehending a Most Wanted or Washington’s public relations obsession. It was about the victim. The job was always and only about the victim.

“Why’s it so dead?” Agent Jorgenson said when she arrived; she plopped down in a chair. “Is this normal?”

“No.”

“It’s like she just disappeared.”

“A ten-year-old girl doesn’t just disappear.”

“What are her chances-that she’s still alive?”

“Not good. Statistically, no chance at all.”