Lisa Gardner - Gone

“Rainie-”

“I mean it, Quincy. Heaven’s just our futile attempt to pretend we’re better than animals. But we’re not. We’re born into this world like animals, and we die like animals. Some of us take a long time to get there, and some of us are slaughtered in our sleep. It’s stupid and senseless and this poor little girl, Quincy. Her mother fought for her so hard and yet… Oh God, Quincy. Oh God…”

“We’ll find who did this. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again-”

“She was a four-year-old child, Quincy! She didn’t want justice. She wanted to live.”

He tried to take her hand, but Rainie pulled away.

Tuesday, 12:17 p.m. PST

ADOOR OPENED, SLAMMED SHUT. The noise woke her, jerked her out of one dark place and into another. A second creak of metal and the trunk must have been opened, because suddenly, she could feel the rain on her blindfolded face.

Fight, she thought dimly, struggling to regain her earlier clarity. Kick legs, punch hands. She couldn’t pull herself together. The gas fumes had permeated her brain, leaving her in a dense fog where the only thing she wanted to do was throw up.

She lay curled in the car, passive deadweight.

“I’m going to loosen your bindings,” a male voice said calmly. “If you do what I say, everything will be fine. Struggle, and I’ll kill you. Understand?”

Her assent was implied; with the gag in her mouth, they both knew she couldn’t answer.

She felt hands move in front of her. The man’s fingers were rough and not particularly nimble; he struggled with his own knots.

Kick him, she thought again. But still her body wouldn’t respond to her brain.

He slapped her hands. A sharp pain raged up her forearms, blood-starved nerve endings protesting their abrupt return to life. He shook out her fingers and they struggled to obey. He already controlled more of her body than she did.

“This is a pen. Take it.” He folded her right fingers around the cool metal cylinder. “This is a pad of paper. Take it.” He thrust the paper into her left hand and again, her fingers found life in his orders.

“Now write. Exactly what I tell you. Word for word. Obey, and you can have some water. Disobey, and I will kill you. Understand?”

This time, she managed to nod. The motion pleased her somehow; it was the first one she’d managed on her own.

He dictated. She wrote. Not too many words, in the end. The date. The time. Where to go, what instructions to receive.

She was abducted. He wanted ransom. For some reason, that made her giggle, and that made him mad.

“What’s so funny?” he demanded. “What’s wrong with you?” When he got angry, his voice got higher, sounded younger.

“Are you making fun of me?”

And that made her laugh harder. Laugh as tears leaked from her eyes and soaked into the blindfold. Which made her aware of a few more things. Such as it was still raining and that if she strained her ears, she could hear the sound of the ocean, breaking against the shore.

He whipped the pen and paper away from her now. Jerked her wrists together at her waist, wrapped them this time with a zip tie.

“I hold your life in my hands, you stupid bitch. Make fun of me, and I’ll throw you outta the car right now and let your body roll right down the cliff. Now whaddaya think of that?”

She thought it didn’t matter. He’d managed to kidnap the one woman in the world who didn’t care if she lived or died. And now what was he going to do? Ransom her back to the only family she had-a husband who had left her? When the lucky tree had come calling, this man had clearly been out to lunch.

“Poor stupid bastard,” she murmured around the wad of cotton in her mouth.

The man’s demeanor suddenly changed. He leaned down, his face mere inches from hers. She could practically feel his smile by her ear. “Oh, don’t worry about me, Rainie Conner. Think I’m young, think I’m stupid? Think I have no idea who I’m holding in my hands? This is just the beginning of our relationship. You’re going to do every single thing I ask. Or someone quite close to you is dead.”

He shoved her back into the trunk. The metal door clanged down, the scent of gasoline filled her nostrils.

Rainie lay in the dark. She didn’t think of Astoria anymore. She didn’t think of her situation. She didn’t even think of Quincy. She just wished she had a beer.

Tuesday, 1:43 p.m. PST

THE MINUTE THE JET ’S WHEELS hit the ground at Portland International Airport, Kimberly was digging for her cell phone. The flight attendant caught the motion, took a disapproving step forward, then saw Kimberly’s expression and did an abrupt about-face. Mac chuckled. Kimberly hit speed dial for her father.

Quincy answered on the first chime.

“We’re at PDX,” Kimberly reported. “You?”

“Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.”

“You’re going fishing?”

“Setting up central command in their conference room. Apparently, they have more space.”

Kimberly absorbed that news-that the situation had evolved to setting up headquarters for a task force-and asked more quietly, “Rainie?”

“Appears to be an abduction-for-ransom situation, possibly a crime of opportunity.” Her father’s voice was eerily calm. “The local paper received a note this morning. Following its instructions, we discovered proof of life, as well as further instructions for the money drop.”

“Proof of life?” Kimberly wasn’t sure she wanted to know. The plane had just arrived at its gate. Mac sprang up, grabbing their bags from the overhead bins. He muscled his way down the aisle, Kimberly hot on his heels.

“Her gun,” Quincy reported on the other end of the phone.

“Okay.” No fingers or other extremities, which was what Kimberly feared. Her father had probably thought the same. “How are you doing?”

“Busy.”

“And the officer in charge?”

“Sergeant Detective Carlton Kincaid, OSP. Seems competent.”

“Wow.” Kimberly turned to Mac. “My father just rated a member of the state police competent.”

“Must be the grief talking,” Mac said. “Or that detective’s a rocket scientist.”

The plane’s door finally pushed open; Kimberly and Mac stepped out onto the jetway.

“So where’s Oregon Fish and Wildlife?” Kimberly needed to know.

“Third Street, by the fairgrounds.”

“We’ll be there in an hour.”

“Good. Next contact is two hours twenty.”

Tuesday, 1:52 p.m. PST

THE OREGON FISH AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT in Bakersville seemed to be a fairly new building. Very outdoorsy. Big open lobby with giant exposed beams. An entire wall of windows, looking over verdant pastureland, framed by the coastal range. Quincy’s first thought was that Rainie would like the place. His second was that he’d work a lot better if he didn’t have a giant elk head watching his every move. Then there was the otter. Stuffed, mounted on a log, peering at him through dark, marble eyes.

Roadkill, one of the wildlife officers had proudly proclaimed. Real nice specimen. Amazing to find the otter in such great shape.

That simply made Quincy wonder what else the man had in his freezer, and given Quincy’s line of work, that thought wasn’t very comforting.

The front doors of the building swung open. An older, solidly built woman marched in, wearing the tan uniform of the Bakersville Sheriff’s Department. Wide-brimmed hat pulled low over her eyes, black utility belt slung around her waist. She moved toward Quincy without hesitation and grabbed his hand in a startlingly firm handshake.

“Sheriff Shelly Atkins. Good to meet you. Sorry about the circumstances.”