Chris Jordan - Torn

“Yeah, okay. Wait for you at the airport.”

“Good, great. Gotta go. We’re boarding. I’ll see you in less than two hours.”

Taking unnecessary risks is not my thing. Never has been. Bungee jumping, skydiving, extreme sports, that’s not me. My idea of danger is taking a chance on a new furniture polish. But there’s no way I’m going to let Mr. Paranoid walk away. This might be a waste of time, in fact probably is. I know that. Maybe the guy saw another kid who reminded him of Noah, an honest mistake. Maybe he’s off his medication. Maybe he’s scheming to collect a reward. Maybe he’s one of those sickos who gets his kicks messing with worried parents. Whatever, I’m going to find out. Because it’s also possible that he’s the key, that something he witnessed will lead to my son.

How can a mother not take that risk?

My destination, the Budget Rental lot, is on the loop at Airport Road, within sight of the terminal complex. Plenty of lights blazing, but to tell the truth, it feels way more remote than I expected. When I pull up to the rear of the lot as instructed, my little Subaru wagon shivers, buffeted by great blasts of wind from the runways and open fields.

Wind from the north we usually blame on Canada. This is from the east, so I guess Vermont must be at fault. Or maybe Albany. Whatever, I wish it would stop. Surely no one will be wandering around in weather like this, not even Mr. Paranoid. Peering through the slightly blurred windshield, all I can make out are bright security lights, stark shadows, and row upon row of partially frosted vehicles. Small, vivid whirlwinds of snow dancing like tight-hipped ballerinas through the lanes between cars, then suddenly collapsing, as if exhausted by the cold, sucked back into the earth.

He’s not going to show, whoever he is. Something spooked him. Come as soon as you can, he’d said, as if he’d be there, regardless. As if he worked here. Doing what? The exit barrier is automatic, and if there’s someone manning the return booth, no more than a cubicle, he’s keeping out of sight, below the window line. Asleep perhaps?

Should I honk the horn, announce myself?

Inches from my head, a frozen claw rakes ice from the side window. My heart clenches as I jerk around to see a ski-masked face studying me up close, eyes watering.

Not a claw, but a plastic ice scraper. He gestures with the scraper, wanting me to lower the window.

Mr. Paranoid.

I lower the window a few inches, right hand in the pocket of my parka, clutching the canister of pepper spray.

“Haley Corbin?” he asks.

A boy’s voice, younger in person. He peels up the ski mask, his breath steaming. A bony, feral-looking face, bad skin, uneven gaps in his teeth. High school or there-abouts-under twenty for sure. The puffs of steam carry the smell of cigarettes and beer.

Mr. Paranoid is drinking on the job. Maybe to calm his nerves-he’s a jittery little guy, dancing beside my car.

“In the van,” he says, gesturing with the plastic scraper as if it’s a light saber. “We’ll talk there. Not out here.”

Looking around, very furtive, so nervous and flighty I have to remind myself that he could be a threat. He might smite me with the little scraper, breathe toxic fumes at me, gnaw at me with his brittle teeth.

Okay, he looks harmless, more scared of me than I of him, but my hand stays on the pepper spray.

“Keeping the windshields clear, that’s my job,” he says, suddenly chatty as we squeak through the cold snow. Leading me toward a white Budget Rental van, motor running, windshield steamed. “Every vehicle comes with a scraper, but sometimes that ain’t enough. So we got, you know, deicing spray and stuff.”

“Like the airlines.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Like that.”

“What’s your name?”

“Um, I, ah, rather not say. No names, okay?”

“You know mine.”

“Yeah.”

I stop a yard from the van, holding my ground. Hand still in my parka, but ready. “I’m not getting in there with you,” I announce. “What if you decide to drive way?”

“Why would I do that?” he asks, sounding stunned by the idea.

“What do you know about Noah?” I demand. “What did you see? Did you see my little boy?”

His hands start waving around his head, as if he’s being assaulted by bees. “No! Not out here!” he cautions. “Inside. You can sit in the driver’s seat. Take the keys if you want, I ain’t drivin’ you nowhere.”

He stamps around the van, gets into the passenger seat, slams the door. I tap at the window. He shakes his head, points at the driver’s side.

I slip inside, holding the spray canister in my lap. He stares at the dashboard, his bony face all knotted up, as if he’s tasting something unpleasantly sour.

“Okay, here I am, like you wanted. So what about my little boy? What did you see?”

Mr. Paranoid turns to me, his expression still nervous but now also sorrowful.

“Sorry,” he says plaintively. “I really needed the money.”

Before I can react, something rises behind me.

A strong hand clamps a wet rag to my face.

Dizzy, swirling. Fumes in my eyes.

I’m screaming into the rag when the darkness pulls me down, into the cold, into the black.

Randall Shane cools his heels in a small, windowless room deep inside the airport terminal. The room is furnished with a small laminated table, three molded plastic chairs, and way too much incandescent lighting. The bilious green walls can’t be an accident. Probably some Homeland Security consultant with a theory about color-induced confessions. Sick-making color schemes being about as effective, in Shane’s not-so-humble opinion, as blasting loud music at suspects. Turn down the Snoop Dogg, I surrender! Right. Tell it to the Branch Davidians.

An hour creeps by, ever so slowly. Deprived of his cell, laptop, and notes-all connection to the outside world-he has nothing to occupy his thoughts but an examination of what has transpired since his plane touched down. Whatever mistakes or errors in judgment he may have made, beginning with his decision to go to Washington when, in hindsight, he should have been looking out for the lady. His thoughts keep roving back to that awful moment of tightly controlled panic when he realizes that his worst fears have come to pass: his client is nowhere to be found, not in the airport or vicinity, not at her home. Haley Corbin is gone. First her husband, then her son, now her.

A burly, sour-faced man enters holding two steaming Starbucks cups. He kicks the door shut behind him. “Hey, Randy, thought you might want a coffee.”

“Randy?” says Shane, lifting an eyebrow.

“Just trying to be friendly.”

“Ah,” says Shane without inflection. “That explains it. You were just being friendly when you locked the door.”

Preston Chumley, a forty-four-year-old senior investigator with the New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigations, feigns an innocent look. “The door was locked? My apologies. That was an oversight. You’re not being detained. You’re not under arrest.”

“I’m also not a suspect,” Shane points out. “The sooner you confirm that to your own satisfaction, the sooner you can concentrate on finding Mrs. Corbin.”

“Thanks for the advice. We’re doing our best, in our simple, bumbling way.”

Shane sighs, studying the man, decides his eyes are too close together, that’s the problem. Makes it hard for him to see the obvious. Plus his beefy neck bulges over his collar, causing him to resemble a pale, overstuffed sausage. Maybe it’s the too-tight clothing-your basic cheap plainclothes suit-that makes him irritable and suspicious. Why else detain the very man who reports a woman missing?