Lisa Gardner - Gone

Kincaid had found a spiral notepad. He thrust it across the desk, where it slid to a stop in front of Quincy.

But Quincy couldn’t write. His fingers wouldn’t hold the pen, his hand wouldn’t scrawl across the page. He was shaking. He’d never seen his hand tremble so much, not in all of these years. And then he suffered a surreal moment, where he stood outside his body, staring back down at this scene, and what he saw was a hand, old, thickened, soon to be age-spotted, grasping ineffectively at a pen.

He felt powerless. His wife was kidnapped, and for a heart-stopping moment, he didn’t know what to do.

Kincaid took the notepad away from Quincy. There was more sympathy in the sergeant’s eyes than Quincy was prepared to accept.

“You talk,” Kincaid said. “I’ll write.”

Quincy started from the beginning. There wasn’t much to document after all. A disguised voice on Rainie’s phone, ordering Quincy to read the morning paper and claiming to desire fame, fortune, and apple pie. Four lines spoken, a total of thirty-two words.

They started with the first instruction: You must read the morning paper.

“Local,” Kincaid declared.

“What? The call? It wasn’t a good signal, but that would put the caller anywhere in the coastal range. And pulling the records won’t help-it’ll just list a call placed to my phone.”

“No, no, not the call, the paper. Otherwise he’d say ‘morning papers, ’ plural. But he kept saying ‘ paper. ’ That’s specific. I’m guessing the Bakersville Daily Sun. ”

“Ah, the Daily Oxymoron,” Quincy muttered. “We don’t get it delivered. But…” He thought about it. “We should be able to find something online.”

“Screw that, we’re going straight to the source.”

“You have a contact?”

“Better. I have a public information officer. He can get straight through to the owner if we have to.” Kincaid pulled out his cell phone and punched two buttons. Seconds later he was talking to a Lieutenant Mosley, and a few seconds after that, he was gesturing frantically for the return of the spiral notepad.

“Is there a return address? When was it postmarked? No, no, no, I don’t want it handled! Listen, I’m sending over two scientists from the Portland lab right away, along with Latent Prints. Anyone who’s touched that letter needs to be sequestered now; I don’t care if they own the damn paper. We’re on our way.”

Kincaid flipped his phone shut and headed immediately for the door. The sergeant was already at a half-jog; Quincy quickly picked up the pace.

“What is it? What did he say?”

“Ransom note. Op-ed editor of the Bakersville Daily Sun just notified our PIO twenty minutes ago. They found a note in this morning’s mail. Says a woman has been kidnapped, and if anyone wants to see her alive again, it will cost ten thousand dollars cash.”

“Who sent it?”

“Not clear.”

“When?”

“Postmarked yesterday.”

“But that’s not possible.” They were at the car. Kincaid jumped in on the driver’s side, Quincy rounded the front.

“It is and isn’t,” Kincaid said, already firing up the Chevy. “It’s not possible that the man had kidnapped your wife yesterday afternoon. But then the ransom note didn’t mention a specific name, or provide a description.”

“Stranger to stranger,” Quincy filled in. “The guy didn’t know who he was taking. He just knew he was taking someone.”

“Exactly. Crime of opportunity.”

“Against a trained member of law enforcement?”

“Maybe he got lucky. Or maybe… We don’t know how he chose his target yet. Maybe,” Kincaid’s voice was quiet, “he started at a bar.”

Quincy didn’t say anything. Kincaid headed down the steep driveway at an unhealthy pace. Quincy grabbed the dash.

“Listen,” Kincaid was saying. “A letter’s a good sign. Guy’s making contact and every contact provides an opportunity. We started with the phone call to you. Now we’ve got an envelope, a letter, and a postmark all worth analyzing. All we need is a little saliva to seal the envelope, and we got DNA. A postmark close to home, and we have geography. Add the handwriting sample and we’ve nailed a suspect. This is a good thing.”

“I want the letter sent to the FBI lab.”

“Don’t piss me off.”

“Sergeant, with all due respect-”

“Our Questioned Documents unit is very good, thanks.”

“The bureau’s is better.”

“The bureau’s lab is all the way across country. We’d lose a day just in transport. My guys can handle the letter just fine, and they can get started this afternoon. You do understand the need for speed.”

“It’s always a matter of minutes,” Quincy said curtly. His gaze had gone out the window. “Always.”

“You ever work with a local you thought had brains?”

“Only the one I married.”

Kincaid arched a brow. He was still driving too fast, cutting S-curves and swinging around traffic. It was obvious to Quincy that the sergeant had once been a big fan of Starsky and Hutch.

“Give me thirty minutes,” Kincaid said abruptly, “and I think you’ll change your tune.”

“You can find my wife in half an hour?”

“No, but I can find out if the author of the note actually took her.”

“How?”

“The letter included a map. Follow the directions to the scavenger hunt and discover proof of life. Guy’s reaching out, Mr. Profiler Man, and we’re going to nail him for it.”

“I’m going with you,” Quincy said immediately.

Kincaid finally flashed him a grin. “Somehow, I never doubted that.”

Tuesday, 8:33 a.m. PST

DOWNTOWN BAKERSVILLE, OREGON, wasn’t much-a four-block Main Street that housed a variety of family businesses, most of them struggling now that Wal-Mart had built on the outskirts. The Elks still maintained a lodge, which was actually an old bowling alley, painted bright blue. Then there was the corner florist, the Ham ’n Eggs diner three doors down from that, an office supply store, an undersized JC Penney’s. The businesses existed to serve the locals; most of the summer tourists passed straight through from the beaches in the south to the Tillamook Cheese Factory in the north.

Quincy couldn’t remember the last time he’d come into the town, but Kincaid seemed to know his way around. The sergeant swerved around one corner, made a hard right on the next. All the while he was working his cell phone. Calls for a detective to head straight for the Daily Sun and secure that note. Calls to his lieutenant, requesting more manpower. Calls for the crime lab and Latent Prints to get their butts to the coast. Then a call in to Sheriff Atkins, still conducting the search.

Finally, Kincaid had the public information officer back on the phone, getting the lowdown on people and titles at the Daily Sun .

Policing was management. It was throwing a million balls into the air, and keeping them all going without ever stepping out of bounds or disobeying the rules. It had been a long time since Quincy had been in the thick of it, working a fast-breaking case. He could feel the adrenaline rush whooshing up his spine, the unmistakable tingle of excitement, and it left him feeling vaguely guilty. His wife had been abducted. Surely it shouldn’t feel like the good old days.

Kincaid slapped shut his phone. A two-story cement structure had just appeared on their left, a seventies-issue office building, all flat roof and boxy angles. Kincaid careened into the parking lot and wedged the Chevy between two SUVs. Welcome to the Daily Sun.

“I talk,” Kincaid said as he bounded out of the car. “You listen.”