Mark Gimenez - The Abduction

She’s alive.

Their bond was unbroken.

She had come to him. She was showing him the way. She’s up north, where it’s cold. Where there’s snow on the ground. Where the trees stand tall.

But where up north?

Ben had found the weather channel on the pool house TV. The entire northern part of the country was under a blanket of snow from a late spring snowstorm. Was Gracie in Washington or Montana or Minnesota or Michigan or Maine? He didn’t have time to cover three thousand miles. He needed to be pointed in the right direction.

Ben was hoping the FBI’s computer printout of leads would do just that. After returning from the police station, he had spent the rest of the day reading 3,316 lead sheets for sightings of blonde girls. None sounded promising. All were in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New and Old Mexico, where there was no snow on the ground in early April and nowhere near timber country. Ben turned the page to sighting number 3,317: Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Clayton Lee Tucker had just about gotten the wheel bearings back in when the phone rang. Well, it was just going to have to ring. It did. Ten, fifteen, twenty times-whoever it was, they weren’t going away.

He was working late, as usual. Since the wife had died, he didn’t have much else to do. The phone kept ringing. Hell, some old lady might be broken down somewhere. Clayton Lee Tucker had never failed to help a little old lady broken down in his part of Idaho.

Clayton slowly pushed his seventy-five-year-old body up off the cold concrete floor, looked around for a rag, gave up, and wiped his greasy hands on the legs of his insulated overalls. He limped the twenty feet from the repair bay to the desk inside the shop; his arthritis was inflamed by the cold. He picked up the phone.

“Gas station.”

“Is Clayton Lee Tucker available?”

“You got him.”

“Mr. Tucker, I’m calling about the girl.”

“Hold on a minute, let me wipe some of this grease off.”

Clayton set the phone down on the desk and stepped over to the wash bin. He squirted the industrial-strength cleaner on his cracked hands and washed them under the running water. After fifty years of fixing cars, his hands looked like road maps; the black grease filled every wrinkle line. They would never come clean. He wiped his hands dry and picked up the phone again.

“Sorry about that. You with the FBI?”

“No, sir. I’m the girl’s grandfather. Ben Brice.”

“Got three grandkids of my own, that’s why I called the FBI number.”

“You saw the girl Sunday, with two men?”

“Yep, they come dragging in here, maybe eight, eight-thirty, leaking oil like a busted pipeline. I’m the only fool open on Sunday night. Got nothing better to do, I guess.”

“Can you describe her?”

“Yellow hair, ratty, short-thought she was a boy at first, but she was too pretty to be a boy. And she was wearing pink.”

“Why do you think it was her?”

“Seen her picture, online.”

“Did you call because of the reward?”

“I don’t want your money, Ben. I called ’cause the girl looked like the picture and ’cause she looked scared and cold.”

“What’s your weather like?”

“Colder’n a well-digger’s ass. Up in the panhandle, they got upwards of three foot of snow.”

“What kind of vehicle were they driving?”

“Blazer, ’90 model, four-wheel drive, 350 V-8, white, dirty. They were on the road a while, said they was heading north. They were in a big hurry, wanted me to work through the night. I told ’em, you can’t hurry a ring job. Finished up last night, Monday, about nine, got it running pretty good. I ain’t got no help, so that’s the best I could do. Big man, he picked it up first thing this morning. Paid cash. After they left, I was checking my Schwab account and I saw an Amber Alert on my homepage, with her picture. That’s when I called.”

“Can you describe the two men?”

“Didn’t get a good look at the driver. He stayed in the car with the girl.”

“The other man, what about him?”

“Looked like that California governor, Arnold Schwarzenberger, real muscled-up fella. Crew cut, fatigues, Army boots, short gray hair. We see them types every now and then, militia boys wanna play GI Joe.”

“Did you get a license number?”

“No. But they was Idaho plates.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, I ain’t much at reading lips, but I’d swear she said help me.”

“Mr. Tucker, do they grow Christmas trees in northern Idaho?”

“Biggest industry up there.”

“Mr. Tucker, I appreciate your time… How did you know the second man was muscled-up?”

Clayton chuckled. “Hell, it’s about fifteen degrees outside, and he ain’t wearing nothin’ but a black tee shirt.”

“His arms were bare?”

“Yep… had the damnedest tattoo I’ve ever seen.”

John was eating dinner with a spoon: a dozen Oreo cookies crushed in milk. It was his favorite meal, but he didn’t taste anything.

Because he was no longer living. He was just going through the motions of life, like one of those creations in the MIT Humanoid Robotics Laboratory. All day, he had engaged in what appeared to be human activities-eating, walking, taking the FBI to the office-but they weren’t. There was no conscious human thought behind his actions.

His only thoughts were of Gracie.

He spat a mouthful of the mushy Oreos into the kitchen sink, a black blob of nothing. Like his life.

“You want refried beans with that?”

Coach Wally was working the late Tuesday shift in the drive-through window at the Taco House out on the interstate. He stood in the small booth, taking orders from motorists hungry for a quick burrito, chalupa, or taco, bagging the orders, making change, and asking each customer the same question: You want refried beans with that?

Over the intercom: “No!”

Into the intercom: “That’ll be seven-twenty-three. Please drive up to the window.”

Wally Fagan clicked off the intercom’s transmit button, grabbed a bag, and went back to the kitchen.

“Hey, Wally, you da mon, mon!” Juaquin Jaramillo, the night cook, said. “Puttin’ that kid fucker in jail, that’s real good, mon.”

Juaquin gestured at Wally with a large spoon dripping refried beans on the cement floor.

“Mon, some mu’fucka wanna try an’ stick his dick in one a my girls …”

Juaquin continued his nonstop rant, which came out in a kind of rap rhythm, as he scooped refried beans onto two flour tortillas, dropped a handful of grated cheddar cheese on top of each, folded the bottoms, rolled them into neat burritos, then wrapped them in the Taco House trademark serving paper.

“… make a fuckin’ burrito outta it, pour some chili over it, feed it to my dog, mon.”

Juaquin thought that was real funny.

“Ya understan’ what I’m sayin’, mon?”

Wally nodded at Juaquin, then he filled the bag with the two bean-and-cheese burritos, chips and salsa, and two Dr Peppers. He returned to the drive-through booth and reached out the window for the customer’s money; he handed the change back to the customers, a man at the wheel and a woman passenger leaning over and looking up at him.

“You’re Gracie’s coach, right?”

Wally nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good job, getting that pervert off our streets,” she said.

The man gave him a thumbs up.

Wally held out their bag of food. They took it, waved, and drove off; they had taped Gracie’s missing-child flier to the rear window. Wally gave them a weak wave. He felt slightly nauseous and not because he had eaten three of Juaquin’s burritos for dinner-because his gut was stewing with doubt. Something wasn’t right about Gary Jennings. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.