Lisa Gardner - Gone

They enter an enlarged space, open kitchen to the right, family room to the left. Still no sign of the body, but now the blood is everywhere. Dark streaks, looking almost like paint, spray across the walls, drip upon the floor. There are stains on the sofa, handprints on the chair.

Rainie has only ever seen one other scene this bad, and memory of that time makes her reach back and squeeze Quincy’s latex-covered hand. His grip is cool and strong within hers. He’s doing okay.

They turn toward the kitchen, where they can now see two detectives huddled in front of the stove.

“Starts here,” one was saying to the other. “She reaches in to get something in the fridge, and bam!”

“But how’d he get in?”

“Slider was forced. It’s a pretty cheap model, so it wasn’t too hard.”

“Breaks in, attacks the woman.”

“Breaks in and waits,” the first detective corrects. “No way she didn’t hear someone forcing that slider. My guess is he did it hours before. When, of course, is the million-dollar question. But the guy saw the place was empty and made his move. Maybe she arrived while he was still in the house, and that forced him to take cover, or maybe an ambush was his plan all along. Don’t know that one yet. But he broke in, then he took cover. That’s the only way you can explain her taking the time to tuck in the child.”

Child? Rainie stops in her tracks without even being aware she has done so. Now she can feel Quincy’s fingers grip her own.

“Okay, so he takes cover, waits for the kid to go to bed, and then…”

“Finds her in the kitchen.”

“Rams her head into the refrigerator.”

“And the carnage begins.”

“Probably, she never saw it coming,” said the first detective.

And the second detective said, “It’s more than you can say for the kid.”

Tuesday, 12:08 p.m. PST

JOLT. HARD SEARING PAIN to her hip. Rainie’s eyes flew open, saw only darkness, and she thought, finally, I’m dead.

New jolt. Harder. She could feel the entire vehicle buck beneath her, tires straining for footing. More sensations trickling in now, a jumble of impressions for her sightless eyes. Metal, hard against her cheek. Gasoline, astringent in her nostrils. Cotton, wadded into her mouth.

She tried to move her hands, couldn’t. The bindings were too tight. Her fingers tingled with the final death throes of sensation before her hands went totally numb. She checked her feet, found the same results.

The vehicle heaved again, throwing her bound body up toward the hatch. Her head came down first, pounding against something even harder and less giving. Tire jack, tool kit. The possibilities were endless. She didn’t even groan anymore. Just squeezed her eyes shut against the pain.

She was confused, more confused than she ought to be. In the clearer part of her brain she suspected drugs, but even that thought was hard to hold. She’d been in her car. White light. Then black. A sense of movement. A desire to kick her feet, struggle. Gun, she’d thought. Gun. Her hands had been too heavy. Couldn’t lift her arms.

Then for a while, she hadn’t thought of anything at all.

Now, mind straining toward consciousness, eyes frantic to see, the absolute darkness panicked her. She could feel the closed door of the trunk just inches from her face, hear the rain pounding on its lid. She was in a vehicle, being driven to God knows where, bound, gagged, helpless.

She tried to move her hands again. Tried to move her feet. And then all at once, she went a little nuts.

She beat at her steel tomb, whacking her head, smashing her nose. Still she writhed wildly. Carjackers didn’t truss people up like Thanksgiving turkeys. Mere purse snatchers wouldn’t bother drugging a woman unconscious. But she knew the kind of people who did. Rapists, killers, men who fed off a woman’s terror and agony.

Too many thoughts rushed into her head. Photos of women with hacked-off limbs. Audiotapes of poor girls who had accepted the ride with the wrong man, now begging for mercy while he did unspeakable things with pliers.

She needed her gun. She needed her hands. She did not want to die feeling so helpless.

She flailed again, flipping herself over, lashing out with her feet. Her thoughts came faster, clearer: Find the taillights and disable them, maybe get the attention of a nearby patrol officer. Or find the trunk latch and force it open, definitely shocking the driver behind her. There were options, there were always options, she just had to find them.

She could feel moisture trickling down her chin. Blood from her smashed nose. The gas fumes were making her nauseous, the darkness gathering once more on the fringes of her mind.

If she could just find the latch, just wiggle her fingers.

She heard a scraping from her waist. Her cell phone. She had her phone!

One quick twist, her cell phone rattled free. She wriggled after it, her fingers scampering around the tiny space. She could feel it slowing now, hear the squeal of brakes as the vehicle made a hard left.

Her fingers found a button. She held it down, and finally, after an eternity seemed to pass, she was rewarded with a voice. Kimberly.

Help, she tried to say. Help, she tried to scream.

But not a single sound emerged from her throat.

Even when she won, she lost. The connection broke. The car stopped. And Rainie slipped back into the abyss.

Saturday, four months ago, 9:58 a.m. PST

T HEY WERE STANDING at the funeral, trying to blend in with the other mourners while their gazes worked the crowd. It was a long shot, but one any trained investigator had to take. Some killers hit and run, but others liked to return to the scene of the crime. So they had detectives working the funeral and a surveillance system set up for the night.

In a case this public, this shocking, all budget requests were receiving green lights.

An older woman stood weeping in the front. The grandmother, flown in from Idaho. Her husband stood beside her, arms crossed in front, face impassive. He was being strong for his wife. Or maybe he was still stunned to realize that coffins came in sizes that small.

Rainie was supposed to work the crowd. Sort through the sea of hundreds of faces, an entire community, standing in a cemetery, shocked into unity and chilled to the bone.

She kept hearing the grandma’s keening wails. She kept seeing that small pair of pink-flowered panties, tossed aside on the floor.

“Urine,” Quincy had said quietly, inspecting the underpants. Because that’s what happened when a four-year-old girl woke up at night and saw a strange man standing in her doorway. That’s what happened when a four-year-old girl watched that man walk into her room.

“Mommy,” had she cried? Or had she never said anything at all?

The grandparents had chosen a tombstone with a baby angel carved on top, curled up in eternal sleep. Rainie stood at the monument long after the proceedings ended and the mourners departed.

“Do you believe in Heaven?” she asked Quincy softly.

“Sometimes.”

“Surely you must think about it? You’ve buried half your family, Quincy. If there’s no heaven, what do you have to look forward to?”

“I’m sorry you hurt,” he said quietly. It was really all he could say.

“God sucks. He’s fickle, He’s savage, like any child deserves such a thing-”

“Rainie-”

“The grandparents said she went to church. Shouldn’t that kind of thing help? This wasn’t a nonbeliever. This was a four-year-old girl who loved her mommy and believed in Christ. How can that not help?”