John Gilstrap - Threat warning

Now that he wasn’t moving, the nighttime noises seemed louder to him, but because his ordeal was about to end, they seemed less frightening. Fear, he realized, had the same effect on you as heavy exercise. It was exhausting. Hope-which he guessed was the right word for the opposite of fear-brought lightness. It felt good to rescue someone you loved.

He was surprised how quickly the police car got there. The guy must have either been around the corner or driven a million miles an hour. Ryan saw him first as approaching headlights. It could have been anyone, and that twisty feeling returned to his gut. But when the blue light bar painted the night, he nearly cheered out loud.

He started to run out of his hiding place, but just as he was rising, he thought better of it. This was a time to be very, very careful.

Let’s see what the cop does.

After the light bar came on, and the vehicle stopped, Ryan saw the interior light come on, and then a guy in regular clothes stepped out of the driver’s door and stood. It was hard to tell at this distance, but he looked big as he stepped around the front of the vehicle, shielding his eyes from his own lights. When the lights were behind him-when he was looking in Ryan’s general direction-he stopped and planted his fists on his hips, like the Jolly Green Giant in a suit.

“Ryan Nasbe?” he whisper-yelled. “Are you here?”

That was it. The man knew his name and he drove a police car. That was all Ryan needed. He rose to his full height and held up his hand, as if being called on in class. “Right here,” he said. He spoke in his normal voice, but in the silence of the night, it sounded more like a shout.

The cop’s gaze came closer, but he still didn’t see. “You can come out now, son.”

Noise didn’t matter anymore. Ryan allowed his feet to drag through the dried leaves, and he didn’t cringe a bit when his foot broke a stick. It was difficult to fight the desire to run, but he worried that it would look, you know, too babyish.

“Are you Ryan?” the cop asked. He spoke in regular tones, too, and absent the whisper, his voice sounded like one that should do movie trailers. It had that deep, gravelly quality.

“Yes, sir.” He kept his stride even as he walked a direct line toward the man.

“Well, you are a man of your word, Mr. Ryan Nasbe,” the cop said. “You said you were going to be in the woods, and you are, by God, in the woods.” He leaned on those last words, and then laughed as if he’d told himself a joke.

As Ryan closed to within a few yards, the cop raised his hand, and a bright flashlight beam nailed him in the eyes. He recoiled and raised his hands as shields. “Jesus, Mister.”

The light shifted down a little. Concentrating more on his chest than his face. “Sorry about that. I just wanted to see what you look like.” He held out a friendly hand. “Kendig Neen,” he said. “I’m the sheriff of Maddox County.”

Ryan hesitated, though he didn’t know why. His warning radar had picked up something that wasn’t right. “How come you’re not in a uniform?” he asked.

He laughed again. “You’re lucky I’m not in pajamas,” he said. “You know what time it is? Cops have to sleep, too, you know. I got the call, and these were the best duds I could find. That okay with you?”

Ryan found himself nodding without really intending to. “Sure,” he said. He accepted the handshake.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Everything about Sheriff Neen was big, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that his handshake hurt. It just went on a little too long. “You’ve got to be freezing. Let’s get in the car and have a chat.”

“We need to get my mom,” Ryan said. “She’s in a basement just down this road.” He dislodged his hand from the sheriff’s grip so he could point with it.

“Yet another reason to get in the car,” the sheriff said.

Venice rested the phone on its cradle. “Well, there you go,” she said. “No such call ever happened.”

Jonathan wished he was surprised, but he’d been listening to her end of the conversation. “That’s it? Just didn’t happen?”

“Exactly. You heard me on the phone with her. I had to soft-pedal a little around the whole illegal eavesdropping thing, but I asked her about a missing-person report, and she said that they’d received no such report. Those were her words, actually. ‘We’ve received no such report.’”

Jonathan scowled. “Theories?”

“How sure are you that it’s the right Maddox County?” Gail asked. “Are there any others within a reasonable drive of Alexandria?”

It took Venice ten seconds and a few keystrokes to do the Google search. “No other Maddox County in the whole U.S. of A,” she proclaimed.

“And we’re all sure we heard the operator answer, ‘Maddox County,’ right?” Jonathan asked.

They both nodded, and Venice added, “I’ll go so far as to say I think I just talked to the same lady that Ryan did.” She checked her notes. “Her name is Phelps.” She tapped her keyboard again, but this time it appeared to be a more complicated challenge, eating up the better part of a whole minute. “Stacy Phelps,” Venice announced. “Average grades in high school, no college. She-”

Beyond the glass windows of the War Room, the door to the cave burst open and Boxers strode into the outer office. He wore a long black topcoat over a black turtleneck with a black watch cap pulled down to his eyebrows. No one said anything until he rounded the corner and stormed into the War Room.

“God damn, this had better be good,” he said.

“What’s with the outfit?” Jonathan teased. “We interrupt you in the middle of a burglary?”

Gail and Venice both chuckled.

“Snigger away,” Boxers said. He peeled off the overcoat and revealed a tailored black suit. He looked very Hollywood-or at least like the man who ate Hollywood. “I was on a date.”

The words hung in the air like a cloud.

“What are those looks?” Boxers asked, noting their expressions of

… shock? “I go on dates just like everyone else.”

Jonathan let it go. “We intercepted a call from the Nasbe boy,” he explained. It took a few minutes to catch him up on the essentials. “Venice was about to give us details on the dispatcher who took the call.”

With that, the floor returned to Venice. She squinted as she read from her computer screen, scrolling and clicking with the mouse as she summarized. “Stacy Phelps attended John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Maddox County, followed by Oliver Wendell Holmes Intermediate School and then graduated seven years ago from Maddox County High School.”

She paused as she clicked and typed and switched to a new database. “Looks like she worked at McDonald’s for a couple of years. No, wait, that was in high school. Right, and then six months after high school she started work for the sheriff’s department at eight twenty-five an hour. She started as an assistant clerk, then progressed to clerk, and then senior clerk.”

Jonathan smiled as Venice clicked through to another page. This was Venice self-actualized. She loved nothing more than tickling restricted databases and then showing off by spouting ridiculous levels of detail. He’d let her run for a little longer, but if she didn’t get on point soon, he was going to have to interrupt.

She continued, “Three years ago, she was promoted to dispatcher, at which she’s making fifteen thirty-eight an hour.” Venice looked up. “Pretty good career track in just a couple of years.”

“Are you going to get to anything useful?” Boxers asked. His bullshit tolerance was considerably smaller than Jonathan’s, and given the circumstances, his reservoir was about empty. “Tonight, I mean. You know, within the next hour or two.”