Lisa Gardner - Gone

And that had made him stare at the purple suit and wonder how it would burn.

“Stanley beats me,” Dougie said.

And that changed everything.

The lady in the purple suit brought him another lady, who wore jeans. Her name was Rainie and she was his advocate. That meant she worked for him, she told him. It was her job to assess what was going on, to determine if there really were issues in the household. If so, she would help him defend his rights. If not, she was supposed to help mediate a solution between him and his new foster parents, who, according to her, weren’t ready to give up on him just yet, even though Dougie needed, in the words of Stanley, a “massive attitude adjustment.”

At least Rainie wasn’t so bad. She liked to be outside, too, and she didn’t make him talk a lot, particularly about his feelings, which was nice. Dougie didn’t have many feelings that didn’t involve fire, and deep down inside, even he understood that made him a freak.

Now he ripped back more bark. A big, hairy beetle came racing out, and Dougie chased it with his stick. It was fast. He was faster.

“Dougie.”

The voice came from behind him. Dougie turned. His second mom was standing a careful distance away. She wore a faded gray sweatshirt, her arms folded around her for warmth. She looked tired and unhappy. She always looked tired and unhappy.

“Come inside for breakfast, Dougie.”

“I already ate.” He opened his mouth, revealing a feast of three beetles.

“Dougie…”

She stared at him, he stared at her. One of the beetle’s legs moved between his lips. He used his index finger to shove it back in.

“Have you seen Rainie today?” his second mom asked abruptly.

“What?”

Her voice grew impatient. She was already moving away from him and his beetle-churning cheeks.

“Have you seen your advocate, Rainie Conner, today? Did she stop by, maybe call?”

“No.”

“All right. That’s all I needed to know.”

“Are they looking for her?”

His second mom stopped. “What do you mean, Dougie?”

“Are they looking for her? Is she missing?”

“Do you know something, Dougie? Is there something you need to tell me?”

“I hope she’s dead,” he said simply, then turned back to the log and prodded another beetle from its rotten depths. “She lied to me. And liars get what they deserve.”

Tuesday, 10:42 a.m. PST

THE RAIN WAS FINALLY RELENTING. Driving down Highway 101, Quincy watched the misty clouds ease their grip on the coastal range, allowing dark green peaks to appear here and there amid the gloom.

Rainie loved these mountains. She had grown up here, in the shadow of the towering Douglas firs, within whisper distance of the rocky coast. She believed the outdoors should be awe inspiring, a presence grand enough to make mere mortals shake in their boots. When Rainie was happy, she went outside. When she was nervous, she went outside. When she was excited, fearful, stressed, or content, she always went outside.

When Rainie was depressed, Quincy had learned the hard way, she stayed curled up inside her darkened bedroom.

Kincaid put his right blinker on. The detective was finally driving at less than the speed of light, lost in his own thoughts.

With the arrival of the note, the case had finally taken shape and Kincaid appeared to be settling in. He had an adversary. He had claim of a crime. He also had a note, which generated a slew of tangible leads and logical tasks. Kincaid could now work his phone like a general marshaling his troops for war.

In contrast, Quincy could feel himself slowly start to disintegrate. He was an investigator well versed in crime. He was also a man who knew, better than most, that bad things could happen to you. And yet still, up until this point, the night had contained a surreal feel. Rainie was tough. Rainie was capable. He worried about her drinking and he worried about her state of mind. But he’d never honestly worried that an outsider might cause her physical harm.

And now, this was one of those times when Quincy wished he’d never become a profiler. He wished he might be an engineer, or a high school math teacher, or even a dairy farmer. Because then he could be just a man, an anxious husband. And he could console himself with the fact that he did have ten thousand dollars and he would gladly pay ten times that amount to have Rainie safe in his arms.

He could tell himself everything was going to be all right. He could assure himself this was just a small, strange interlude, and in only a matter of hours, he would see his wife again.

He wouldn’t have to know so many statistics, such as that the majority of ransom cases ending with the kidnapped victim being discovered dead.

Kincaid made the turn. In front of them, the Tillamook Air Museum finally loomed into view.

Under normal conditions, it would be hard to miss the air museum. Housed in an old World War II blimp hangar, it had the distinction of being the largest wooden structure in the entire world. It soared over fifteen stories high and engulfed a whopping seven acres. The museum’s collection of thirty different warplanes barely made a dent in the dark, cavernous space.

He and Rainie had toured it once. At the end, Rainie had turned, regarded him thoughtfully, and said, “You know, this would be a great place to hide a body.”

The blimp hangar was part of a Naval Air Station. Though NAS Tillamook was decommissioned in ’48, it still had the look and feel of a Navy space. Low, sprawling buildings to house officers, men. Vast tracts of land for various training exercises. A maze of roads looping in and around the compound.

In addition to the air museum, a plane charter company had taken up residence. Then there was the neighboring prison, its walls topped by guard towers and rolls of barbed wire.

It was a busy area, but not too busy. Given the tourist traffic to the museum, a stranger wouldn’t be out of place. Even after hours, Quincy would bet any man could travel the grounds unquestioned as long as he looked like he knew what he was doing. In other words, it was the perfect place for an illicit rendezvous.

Following the map, they took a hard right before hitting the museum. That took them straight to a small cemetery, plopped in the middle of open pastureland.

“It’s the Catholic cemetery,” Kincaid remarked as he parked the car and they both climbed out. “Maybe your UNSUB’s got issues.”

“Don’t we all?” Quincy murmured, and crossed to study the map.

It took a moment to orient the crude drawing to the space. A road had been sketched into the left side of the map, a small bush toward the back. It was a rough system. Nothing appeared to scale, and given the lack of trees or shrubs on the grounds, none of the landmarks appeared particularly distinct.

“Well, I can tell you one thing,” Kincaid said after a moment. “The UNSUB clearly failed art class.”

“I think the trick is not to try too hard. Treat the landmarks like points on a compass. We want the bushes to be south of us, the trees to the left. If we stand that way…”

“X doesn’t mark the spot,” Kincaid filled in. “But a cross does.”

“Let’s go.”

The five-foot gray granite cross was pockmarked with age and green-tinged from decades of rain. Moss had sprung up on the edges. Ferns sprouted along the base. The tombstone maintained a certain timeless dignity, however. The last sentinel of an entire family, it maintained its watch over four generations.

Ashes to ashes, Quincy thought, dust to dust.

“I don’t see anything,” Kincaid said. “Do you?”

Quincy shook his head, still circling. The family plot was old and appeared undisturbed. No fresh flowers, no churned earth. He frowned, backed up, frowned again.