Lisa Gardner - Gone

“He’s under surveillance?”

“Not formally, but I got enough manpower to keep the guys swinging by. We can’t account for every second of his day, but we know large segments.”

“And today?”

“Just another day in the Duncan household.”

“And tonight?”

“I don’t have eyes on him tonight.” Sanders’s voice grew cautious. “Should I?”

“We have a situation developing,” Quincy said crisply. “Next communication with the subject is scheduled for ten a.m. If Duncan really is involved, that means he’d have some business to take care of tonight, or first thing in the morning. Meaning, it would be helpful to account for Duncan’s activities in the next twenty-four hours. Even if that meant only eliminating him as a suspect.”

“I could arrange it.”

“I would consider that a personal favor.”

“Well now, no getting mushy on me. But I gotta say, Quincy, I don’t get it. You think Duncan kidnapped a woman for money? Come on, you saw the crime scene. If Duncan can get a woman alone, it’s not money he has on his mind.”

Quincy should just say it. He didn’t know why he didn’t say it. But at that moment, sitting in the dark space of his study, his eyes on his daughter’s photo, he couldn’t form the sentence: Rainie is missing. He just didn’t have the strength anymore to hear those words out loud.

“Thank you,” Quincy said simply. He hung up the phone and sat alone in the dark.

Later, he made it to the bedroom, with the rumpled linens, the pile of Rainie’s cast-off clothes. He started in the corner and methodically tossed everything onto the bed. Old jeans, dirty underwear, used socks, he didn’t care. He covered the bed in Rainie’s laundry.

Then he stood in the doorway and started to strip. His damp jacket, his wrinkled shirt, his limp tie. He shed his investigator’s uniform piece by piece, until finally only the man remained. It was Quincy’s custom to throw his clothes into the hamper or return them to their hangers. Tonight, he left all the pieces as a chaotic pile, a lump of shed skin.

Then he crossed the room and crawled stark naked into the pile of Rainie’s clothes.

He rolled among the sheets. He felt the softness of cotton sweatshirts, flannel pajamas, satin underwear. His hand found the duvet, then he rolled himself up in a cocoon of fabric, desperate for the scent of his wife, for the feel of her pressed against his skin.

She was gone. Kidnapped, bound, disarmed, her hair hacked off and God knows what else. Alone in the silence of the room they once shared, Quincy could feel the enormity of it finally catch up with him. His mind was a jumbled collection of images-Rainie the first time she smiled for him, Rainie with a contented cat’s purr in the seconds after they’d made love. Rainie crying when he dropped down on one knee to propose to her. Rainie and the soft, mesmerized look in her eyes the day the photo came of their soon-to-be-adopted daughter.

Rainie happy, Rainie sad. Rainie furiously denying his accusation that she’d started drinking. Rainie looking so desolate as she stood by the window after one of her nightmares and he honored her privacy by pretending to sleep.

He was sorry for all of it now. He was sorry he gave her space. He was sorry he gave her time. He was sorry he didn’t lock her in this damn room with him and force her to tell every single thing that was on her mind.

He had loved her, he had worshipped her, and he had trusted her.

Now, in hindsight, he could see that it still hadn’t been enough.

Love did not fix all things. Love didn’t heal all wounds. Love did not guarantee that you would never feel alone.

He had her sweatshirt in his hands, the old blue FBI one she had commandeered from him to wear around the house. He held it up to his face. He inhaled deeply, still searching for her scent.

Then he marshaled all his strength. He channeled his focus, and he sent out, with all the willpower one man could muster: Rainie, please be safe.

But when he opened his eyes, the room was still dark, the air was still cold. And nothing on the bed could bring the feel of his wife back to him.

Wednesday, 12:03 a.m. PST

“SEE THAT LIGHT UP THERE? ” Rainie said to Dougie. “Let’s break it.”

“Break it?”

“Bust it to bits.”

“Okay,” Dougie said.

The light in question was two long fluorescent bulbs encased behind an open metal cage. It was mounted just above the basement door, dimly visible in the door’s glowing halo. Best Rainie could tell, it was the only light in the basement. Break it, and their abductor would have no choice but to join them in the gloom.

Rainie liked that idea. She wanted the man to descend those darkened stairs. She wanted to watch him bump around their damp, fetid prison, banging against the workbench, slipping on the wet cement floor. She wanted to reduce him to their level with a feral rage that made her impervious to the throbbing in her temples, the strange, painful currents running up and down her left side, and the pangs of hunger now cramping her belly.

One problem: They couldn’t reach the high-mounted light. One solution: Any old rock or piece of debris chucked through the metal grate would do. She and Dougie had skipped some stones in their day. She thought they could do it.

So she and Dougie started scouring the shallow puddles covering the floor. In Dougie’s world, looking for rocks was always a good idea.

Dougie had given up on his tied wrists. Chewing didn’t work and neither did sawing the plastic band ties against the corner of the wooden workbench. Instead, he worked like Rainie, back bent, hands dangling in front of him.

She could feel him shivering from the cold, and her own body responded with a teeth-rattling tremor. She couldn’t feel her fingers or toes anymore. Her nose had gone numb, and bit by bit, she was losing the rest of her face. Her core body temperature continued to drop. Dougie’s, too. Soon their legs would feel sluggish, their eyes heavy. It would be easy to just sit on the stairs, maybe curl up on the workbench.

Their overworked hearts would slow. Their systems would shut down, circulating less blood, pumping less oxygen, and that would be that. They would close their eyes and never have to worry about anything again.

It would be peaceful, Rainie found herself thinking, which only made her disgusted with herself. If she was going to die, she wanted a shot at taking Super Jerk with her. She stomped her feet, wiggled her fingers, then, purely on impulse, curled her arms in front of her and trumpeted like an elephant.

Dougie giggled.

So Rainie trumpeted again.

“I’m the elephant king!” Dougie shouted. He stampeded across the basement floor, splashing water and emitting a ferocious elephant roar. Rainie followed in his wake. They hit the wall, trumpeted together this time, then turned and ran the other way. Rainie’s lungs heaved. Her heart pounded. She felt the best she had in days.

They slowed, gasping for breath. Being an elephant was much harder than it looked, and it didn’t provide them with any ammunition. So they resumed running their fingers through the shallow pool covering the basement floor, searching for rocks.

“How’s your head?” Rainie asked, now that the moment felt right and Dougie seemed to hate her a little less.

Dougie merely shrugged. That was his answer to most things. On one of their outings, he’d fallen five feet while scrambling up a tree. Rainie had immediately run to him, expecting tears, or at least a bravely contained hiccup. Dougie had merely brushed himself off, the mud, the leaves, the blood, then returned to the tree. She’d watched him do the same thing on numerous other occasions.