Lisa Gardner - Gone

He still gave her a box of pencils every Valentine’s Day. And she would laugh and spill them out on the table like a happy child.

“I don’t have to break pencils anymore,” she would tease him. “I’m married to the perfect man.”

The pencils would go atop her desk. Sooner or later, he’d find them in shattered bits all over the floor. Because that was marriage, a collection of all the little things outsiders would never understand. Number two pencils for her, Republican ties for him. She still had a weakness for Bon Jovi; he much preferred jazz.

They had their system. It wasn’t for everyone, but until recently, it had always worked for them.

Would she hate him when the end came? Would she blame him for failing his last case? Or would she understand? Everyone has to lose sometime, even Quantico’s former best of the best.

It was not the past that broke you, Quincy thought. It was the empty future, the endless string of days filled with none of the people who mattered most.

Mac came over. He hunched down in front of Quincy, hands clasped across his knees.

“Tell me about Astoria,” Mac commanded.

And much to his surprise, Quincy did.

Tuesday, 8:41 p.m. PST

THE HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR arrived twenty minutes later. The conference room doors blew open. A strikingly gorgeous woman strode in. Kincaid looked up. Mac turned. So did most of the men in the room.

Candi with an “i” turned out to be a six-foot Hispanic woman with a wild mane of curly jet-black hair that added another two inches to her height. She wore slim-fitting jeans, a tight-fitting red shirt, and a short-cropped black leather jacket. Forget police work; she looked like she ought to be on a runway in Paris.

“Candi Rodriguez,” she announced by way of introduction. Then, without waiting for a reply, “Is this the phone? Have you tested the system, because let me tell you, these recorders never work as well as promised. I’m going to need an outline of everything we know about the subject at this time. Age, occupation, interests, ethnicity. If we know it-or suspect it-I want it in front of me in bullet-point form. I’m also going to require plenty of water and enough space to move around. I like to pace while I talk. It helps me think.”

She was pacing now. The rest of the room remained staring, mouths agape.

Quincy took another sip of coffee. He wondered what Kimberly would do if she were here right now. Shoot first, question later? Or maybe simply tackle the larger, more exotic alpha female to the floor? Men could always arrange for a quick game of hoops, or perhaps a drinking contest in the local bar. With women, it was always much more complicated.

“What?” Candi with an “i” demanded in clear exasperation. “I was told to hustle, clock ticking, yada, yada, yada. Why the hell do you think I just blew through the mountains at ninety miles per hour? I’m here. Let’s move.”

Kincaid finally cleared his throat. “Sergeant Detective Kincaid,” he introduced himself. “There’s been some new developments.”

“Got a handout?”

“We haven’t had time to write a report.”

“Well then, you’d better start talking, Sergeant Kincaid, because I sure as hell can’t read your mind.”

Quincy took another sip of coffee, mostly to hide his grin.

Kincaid ran through the wrap-up. The botched attempt to delay the ransom drop via an article in the newspaper. The subsequent note left by the abductor on the windshield of a local reporter’s car.

Officers had immediately followed up with Laura and Stanley Carpenter, Dougie Jones’s foster parents. Laura had last seen the boy at four thirty, when he came inside demanding a soda. No one had seen Dougie since. Local deputies were now combing the woods. It was their second search operation in fifteen hours, and they were pretty sure the results would be the same.

“So he now has custody of a woman and a child?” Candi summarized.

“That’s our current assumption.”

“And what’s the relationship between Lorraine Conner and Douglas Jones?”

“Rainie,” Quincy spoke up. “Rainie and Dougie. If you use their full names, he’ll know you’re an outsider.”

Candi shot him a look. “And you are?”

“The estranged husband.”

Kincaid’s turn to receive an arched brow. “You’re letting him hang out in the command center?” the negotiator asked.

“Hell, half the time I let him run the case. He’s a profiler, retired FBI.”

“Well damn, this really is a party. What else don’t I know yet?”

“Rainie was serving as Dougie’s advocate,” Quincy spoke up. “She’s been working with the boy for the past two months, visiting with him at least once or twice a week.”

“And who would know this?” Candi with an “i” was no dumb bunny.

“Anyone involved in the situation-the local court officers, social services, friends and family of the Carpenters. Then again, given how people like to talk, that probably means most of the town.”

“So he’s a local?”

Kincaid opened his mouth, already frowning, but at the last minute, seemed to change his mind. He still didn’t agree with Quincy on this point, but perhaps was coming around.

“Yes,” Quincy said firmly. “I believe he is a local.”

“So it’s personal?”

“The abductor has a relationship with Rainie and/or Dougie,” Quincy replied. “It remains a possibility, however, that the relationship is one-sided.”

Candi frowned. “Stalker?”

“That’s my guess. Rainie is private. Her circle of friends is small and loyal. I doubt one of them would turn on her. It’s quite possible, however, that someone on the outer fringes, a face that for her is only part of the visual landscape of her day, has taken a greater interest.”

Kincaid made a noise in the back of his throat. The sergeant was more hesitant to fully abandon the theory of a stranger-to-stranger crime. Quincy, however, had no doubt in his mind. The subject had taken Rainie’s gun. Then he had cut off her hair. Finally, he had abducted Dougie Jones. A total stranger would never have known three such perfect ways to hurt her.

He glanced discreetly at his watch. Kimberly should be at her destination now. Good.

“So we’re talking someone local who knows the victims,” Candi said. “That brings us down to what, three, four thousand suspects?”

Shelly Atkins finally spoke up. “Hey, I can do you better than that. I got a list.”

“Really?”

“Prepared by one aspiring felon to rat out the others,” the sheriff admitted. “But I think we can use it.”

“Absolutely. I need to know something unique about every name on that list. Something personal, that’s not common knowledge. In official negotiationspeak, we call that bait.”

“If the caller reacts-”

“Then your list might be better than you think, Sheriff.”

Shelly appeared genuinely impressed. She gave a small grunt of acknowledgment; maybe there was more to Candi with an “i” than big hair after all.

“You’re assuming you get to speak with the subject,” Quincy said mildly. “He’s not due to call until ten tomorrow morning, and then it’s time for immediate lights, camera, action. He calls this phone, and directs a female officer to the ransom drop. I don’t think that would be the time to renegotiate the deal.”

“You don’t think I can do the ransom drop?”

“I think my daughter’s doing the ransom drop.”

“Your daughter?” A fresh look to Kincaid.

The sergeant shrugged. “Current FBI.”

“She a negotiator?”

“She’s quick on her feet,” Quincy said.

“But is she a negotiator?”

“She’s taken classes.”

Candi with an “i” rolled her eyes. “I tell you what, proud papa. Your daughter can be the body, but I’m still the mouthpiece. You people have had all day to do it your way, and may I be the first to say ‘Wow, what a fuckup.’”