Chris Jordan - Torn

“I do appreciate it,” says Shane.

“Figured you for a fake,” Chumley continues, pulling the words out as if they’re as deeply imbedded as bullets. “Feds say you’re not…my mistake.”

“Not a problem. What did you find?”

Chumley heaves a deep sigh, nods at the surveillance screens. “The vic’s vehicle. Ground level in the long-term parking garage. Empty.”

“You conduct a search?”

“Not without a warrant, no. But we did a thorough visual. It’s a wagon, fully visible, no place to hide a body, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Shane admits, the clench in his belly relaxing somewhat. “You get her on film, parking the car?”

“No film,” says Chumley, a little huffy. “This is a fully digital operation.”

Shane waits. Film is just a figure of speech, and Chumley knows it.

“Not her,” the inspector finally explains, words thick in his throat. “The kid who parked it.”

Shane is instantly fully alert, blood humming. “Show me,” he says.

Chumley cues up the MPEGs, indicates that Shane can run the little joystick if he so desires. The first segment, four seconds or so in duration, is from the automatic ticket dispenser at the south entrance to the long-term parking garage, across the street from the terminal. As the driver runs down the window he averts his head. Down jacket with the hood up, total concealment of the face. Shane gets the same youthful impression Chumley mentioned, but all he can really identify with any certainty is the slim hand plucking the ticket from the dispenser.

“Caucasian.”

“White guy, yeah.”

“He knows about the cameras.”

“Anybody who pays attention knows about the cameras. We don’t hide ’em.”

“Maybe he’s an employee.”

“Maybe.”

Shane takes his time, plays the file through in slo-mo, and then one frame at a time. Nothing pops. Nobody in the background behind the driver. Passenger seat appears to be empty. No indication Haley Corbin is on board. No revealing reflections in any surface, glass or mirror. He scrolls forward to the next file segment. The main feature, fourteen seconds in duration. Opens as Mrs. Corbin’s Subaru wagon wheels into a compact car slot. Seen from the rear at a distance that takes in the entire row of cars. The Subaru door opens almost instantly, but the driver has trouble exiting the vehicle because he’s parked too close to the next car.

Drumroll, Shane thinks, expecting the panicked driver to do something stupid. But what he does is smart, in that situation. He backs out of the door butt first. Obviously keenly aware of camera placement, because not only is he backing out, he’s using his left hand to hold the hood in place. Manages to keep his head fully averted from the camera.

“Watch for it,” Chumley cautions.

In that instant a gust of wind invades the parking garage and blows back the hood. For a moment the young man remains frozen, as if uncertain of what to do, but it doesn’t matter: he’s wearing a ski mask. Once free of the car, the masked and hooded man quickly vanishes into the shadows, out of camera range.

“Hood and mask,” says Chumley. “That’s a perp wears rubbers over his boots. Mr. Careful.”

Mr. Paranoid, Shane thinks as he plays the little movie to death, but again nothing pops.

“What is with the way he walks?”

“Hip-hop,” says Chumley. “Lots of white boys adopt the hip-hop walk.”

“That explains it,” says Shane with a nod. “Like he’s a little bouncy. I assumed it was nerves, but you’re right. He moves like a rapper.”

“Very common,” says Chumley, sounding pleased with himself. “Half the kids in Rochester, the white kids, I mean, they stroll like Kanye.”

“Who?”

“You never heard of Kanye West?”

“If I did, I forgot.”

“Yeah, well.”

“I’m more Van Morrison, J. J. Cale, Bonnie Raitt,” Shane explains. “Although I do like a couple of Amy Wine-house songs. That old R & B feel, you know?”

“Not exactly. I got a fifteen-year-old thinks Kanye is God. That’s why I know.”

“Okay then,” Shane says, getting back to it. “We both agree he’s young, twenty-five or under, white, probably likes hip-hop. That about it?”

“He didn’t steal the car,” Chumley points out, sounding a defensive note even as he posits a worthwhile statement. “Means he was part of it.”

“The probable abduction of Haley Corbin?”

“What I said. He comes upon an abandoned car, he’s got a couple of options-report it or steal it. Putting the vehicle out of plain sight by hiding it in a parking garage, that’s more like he’s following orders.”

“Part of a conspiracy.”

“I hate that word. The grassy knoll and all that shit.”

“A small, contained criminal conspiracy to abduct a woman. She’s lured to a particular destination, probably the car-rental lot she mentioned, they grab her and get rid of her car. Wouldn’t take more than two or three people if they were well organized.”

“Conspiracy in the legal sense.”

“Exactly,” says Shane. “You, me, and our buddy Kanye agree to rob a bank. That’s conspiracy, agreed?”

“Sure, yeah. So who took her, if indeed she got snatched?”

Shane thinks carefully, decides not to share more than necessary. Not at this juncture, and not with S.I. Chumley. “Unknown. She believed she was meeting with someone who had information about her son.”

Chumley has recovered enough to look Shane in the eye. “This is the fatality in Humble, right? The school?”

“Mrs. Corbin believes that her son survived the explosion.”

Chumley’s jowls tremble as he clears his throat. “She did, huh? What do you think?”

Shane’s smile is tight, giving nothing away. “I think Mrs. Corbin is missing.”

I wake up weeping because in my dream Noah is curled up next to me and I’m stroking his hair and want the dream never to end.

The sense of aching loss feels as if it will stop my heart.

I had him back! Spooning his little body against mine as we did when his father died, both of us seeking the welcome amnesia of sleep. Part of me knew it could not last, that waking would make him vanish. But it seemed so real. He was there. I smelled his hair. Felt his pulse beating in time with my own.

Losing a child is like losing a limb. You know the limb is gone but when you close your eyes you can still feel it. The connection remains intact, nerves to brain, blood to heart, soul to soul. And so I remain curled in a fetal position, clenching my eyes shut, willing him back to me. Just for a moment, God. Just long enough to sense his warmth.

After a while the weeping slowly fades and I realize that my eyes are no longer closed. And yet somehow the darkness remains. A darkness darker than sleep. A darkness pressing me from all sides.

My hands fly out, connecting with a hard, plastic surface.

The Budget Rental van, the jittery boy saying he was sorry, he needed the money. Something rising from behind, the wet rag over my mouth. It comes back all at once, like a punch to the guts: I’ve been abducted.

Kicking out, or trying to, I discover why I’m in the fetal position, curled up knees to chest: there’s not room enough to stretch my legs out. Breathing deep, forcing calmness, I use my hands and feet to find the limits of my confinement and discover that I’m surrounded by heavy plastic, the surface riddled with holes. Vent holes. There’s a slippery steel grate just beyond the top of my head and some sort of padded rug under me.

I know what this is. A dog crate. One of those big plastic things. My friend Helen has a big, honey-colored Lab who prefers to sleep in his kennel. Raised that way from a puppy, he thinks the kennel is his den, feels safe inside it.