Lisa Gardner - Gone

She went to work on Dougie’s bindings, moving to the bottom step. Her eyes were still adjusting to the gloom; the two high portals let in a distant glow, probably from an overhead patio light. It was enough to allow their prison landscape to transform from pitch black to shades of gray. Dougie’s shoes became a darker silhouette against a lighter backdrop. She fumbled around with her heavy fingers until she found the knot, picking and tugging away.

“You’re not very good at this,” Dougie said.

“I know.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Did you bring any food?” she asked him.

She could feel him scowl in the dark. “No.”

“Then we have nothing to eat.”

“He took my beetle,” Dougie said, and for the first time, sounded angry. “He stole my pet!”

“Dougie, you know how adults are always telling you not to hit? No biting, no scratching, you have to play nice?”

“Yeah.”

“This man is the exception. You get the chance, go after him with everything you’ve got.” The knot finally loosened. The cloth fell down and Dougie kicked his legs in triumph.

They had use of their feet, their eyes, their mouths. Not bad for a day’s work.

Rainie picked up the loose strips of cloth. She didn’t know how she would use them yet, but waste not, want not.

Now, in the dark, she could see Dougie bring his wrists to his mouth and start chewing at the zip ties. Theoretically speaking, it should be difficult to chew through the tough, plastic strap, but she didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm. She got up on her own, trying to walk off the strange sensations still ping-ponging up and down her side.

It felt good to take a real solid step. She felt strong, almost human. Aching head, ribs, and arms aside. Then her teeth started chattering again, reminding her of the numbing cold.

She gazed up the flight of stairs. She could see a glow of light underneath the door. So he was still awake, still moving, still doing whatever it was abductors did.

“Hey, buddy,” she told Dougie, “I have a plan.”

Tuesday, 10:03 p.m. PST

SHORTLY AFTER TEN, the task force dispersed. Shelly Atkins met separately with her deputies to coordinate sleeping shifts. The OSP detectives went in search of hotel rooms for themselves. People were tired and edgy, exhausted but wired. Everyone would try to grab at least a little shut-eye. Maybe half would succeed.

Quincy felt nearly giddy, in that strange euphoric state that preceded a body’s total physical collapse. In the good-news department, he didn’t have any tightness in his chest or fluttering in his stomach.

In the bad-news department, however, his mind was racing wildly, thoughts ricocheting between Dougie Jones’s troubled childhood, Luke Hayes’s suspicions, and the wisdom of involving his own daughter in the ransom drop. He thought of Astoria, and the way the entire task force worked so quietly, so seriously, and yet never saw anything that yielded results. He remembered walking into his house just last month, spotting Rainie reading in front of the fireplace, and stopping to admire the curve of her neck as she bent over her novel.

There were moments when Quincy wished he could stop time. He would like to reach out his hand like some great cosmic conductor, and say, Freeze. Let this moment linger. Please, for just a little while, let this moment last.

He would like to extend first thing in the morning, when he could watch Rainie sleep, her hair spilling across the pillows, the smudge of her eyelashes against her cheeks. Once awake, Rainie was all hard angles, fast steps, and jerky motions. She moved as she talked, moved as she ate, just moved, moved, moved. Of course, he admired her energy, her attitude, her lithe, catlike grace. But he preferred her in the morning. He liked knowing he was the only person who saw this Rainie, soft, still, vulnerable.

He felt ashamed now. As if all along he’d been sleeping with a woman, but never really seeing her. How much she hurt, how desperately she needed, how terribly their work was eroding her little by little, until she needed a pill to get through the day, and a drink to get through the night.

Underneath his shame, however, was a growing sense of fury. Because she was broken, and he couldn’t fix her, and that left him feeling so damn helpless, and so damn weak, which made him mad at Rainie all over again. Why couldn’t she be tougher, he-the trained professional-found himself thinking. Why the hell couldn’t she pull herself up by her own bootstraps?

He’d been at the crime scene, too. He’d had to look at the body of that little girl. And he’d seen Amanda and Kimberly and he’d felt what any father feels when he realizes he’s too late, that he can’t protect his little girl anymore, that no parent is as omnipotent as their child believes.

The world was filled with shit. And the only way Quincy knew how to deal with it was just keep shoveling. It’s what he did, and once upon a time, that’s what Rainie had done, too. They had been a team. They were supposed to make each other feel strong.

But his strength wasn’t enough for her. His love hadn’t been enough for her. He had held her every night, and she had broken anyway.

He could feel an unbearable pressure building in his head. And just for an instant, he wanted to open his mouth and scream.

Instead, he caught Kincaid’s gaze from across the table. Quincy got out his notes, straightened his tie, and prepared for what they had to do next.

Tuesday, 10:32 p.m. PST

“LET ME BE THE FIRST TO SAY, I know this is highly irregular,” Kincaid began. “Given the tight time constraints, however, Mr. Quincy and I both agreed it was most expedient to have him serve as a profiler for this case. Naturally, any good defense attorney will have issues with documents generated by the husband of the victim, but that doesn’t change the fact that we need an expert psychologist to devise strategy for tomorrow morning’s chat. Given his past experience with ransom cases, Mr. Quincy is qualified for that role, and better yet, he’s available.”

Kincaid gestured toward Quincy, who acknowledged the OSP detective’s underwhelming introduction with a slight nod of his head. “I’m touched.”

“You should be. Any minute now, the Tillamook County DA is going to catch wind of this meeting and come charging in here to chew off my head. Let’s enjoy the honeymoon while it lasts.”

Quincy nodded again and picked up his yellow legal pad. Sitting across from him were Kincaid, Candi, and Kimberly. Mac had moved out to the lobby, where he was using Kimberly’s laptop to research Lucas Bensen’s family-not that Quincy felt like volunteering that particular tidbit of information just yet.

Otherwise, there were no OSP detectives present, no members of the Bakersville Sheriff’s Department. The meeting was strictly for those who needed to know-Kincaid as the leader of the task force, Quincy as the psychological expert, Candi Rodriguez as the negotiator, and Kimberly as the officer who would be making the ransom drop. Kimberly and Kincaid each appeared suitably intent. Candi, on the other hand, looked like she might yawn at any moment.

“Profiling in ransom situations is a slightly different beast,” Quincy said by way of introduction. “In a traditional murder case, much of the psychological information is derived from the murder itself-key data points include how the victim was killed, condition of the body, placement of the body, probable method of abduction, profile of the victim, etc., etc. And generally, by the time someone such as myself has been called in, there are several crime scenes for analysis, meaning we have a lot of data for consideration. This case, on the other hand, provides only a limited amount of information. We have identified the victim, but not the means of abduction. We have a geographic location for the kidnapping, but no idea where the victim is being held, the condition she might be in. We don’t even have forensic evidence to help us understand the means of abduction, given the extreme weather conditions. What we do have is five separate communications from the subject, and that’s what I have used as the basis of my analysis.”