Lisa Gardner - Gone

“I need to talk to her.”

“She is receiving immediate medical attention. The second she is stabilized, I’m sure you can give her a call.”

“She’s my daughter!”

“Quincy…” For a moment, the phone was simply silent, Kincaid searching for words that didn’t exist. “She did good today.”

Quincy bowed his head, squeezed the bridge of his nose. “She’s always done good,” he whispered.

“The guy rigged the drop box somehow. Lined the upper level of the lighthouse with explosives maybe-we don’t really know yet. The minute the weight of all that money hit the bottom of the box… She never really had a chance. If not for Shelly charging into the inferno…”

“Shelly? Sheriff Atkins?”

“Yeah, Shelly is who dragged her out-”

“I’m sorry,” Quincy said, a little bewildered now. “Somehow I assumed it had been Mac.”

“No, he was in the surveillance vehicle. It was Shelly who was backup. From what I understand, she went straight into the lighthouse and dragged Kimberly back out through the flames. Sounds like it was quite a feat.”

“Is she okay?” Quincy asked sharply.

Silence.

“Kincaid?”

“They’re medevacing her to St. Vincent’s in Portland,” Kincaid replied quietly. “It… it doesn’t sound good.”

And then it was Quincy’s turn to say nothing at all. First Detective Grove, then Sheriff Atkins and his own daughter. And for what?

“Any word from Danicic?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

Kincaid said, “None at all.”

Wednesday, 1:20 p.m. PST

IN THE SPACE OF FIFTEEN MINUTES, Mac felt as if he’d aged fifty years. Kimberly’s throat had been seared by the fire, swelling shut and blocking her airway. The medics had had to tube her at the scene, not something Mac ever wanted to see again.

At least the medics seemed pleased with her progress once they got her intubated. Her color improved; her chest rose and fell rhythmically. She appeared to be merely sleeping, if not for the singed ends of her hair, the black, sooty look of her clothes, the scent of seared meat.

She looked a lot better than Shelly Atkins.

The sheriff’s reddened flesh had already started to blister by the time the EMTs had arrived, her arms and legs swelling up grotesquely. Shelly had had the foresight to tie her shirt around her face. Her shoulders and arms, however…

Mac had only read of such things. Never seen them firsthand. The smell alone roiled the stomach, made him want to turn and retch. Mitchell had turned green immediately. But the deputy had held his own.

As they scrambled with the first-aid kit. As they tried to cover the most severe burns with pathetically few patches of sterile gauze. As Shelly went into shock from the pain and stress, right about the same time Mac had realized Kimberly had stopped breathing.

He had never been so happy to see an emergency vehicle in his life. Grateful to the point of humbleness. Desperate to the point of tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he tried to report what happened, what Kimberly needed, what Shelly needed, until the EMTs simply shouldered him and Mitchell aside and went to work with ten times the competence and ten times the gear, and Mac and Mitchell stood there, dazed and confused, as they tried to tell each other it would be all right.

Kimberly disappeared into the ambulance just as the chopper arrived for Shelly. Mac and Mitchell helped load the sheriff into the chopper. Then it was gone and Kimberly was gone and they were both reporting in the best they could.

All in all, it probably took twenty minutes. The longest twenty minutes of Mac’s life. And he didn’t even get to go with Kimberly. He wasn’t family. Just the man who loved her.

Which left him standing outside the battered surveillance vehicle, thinking of the ring. He wished she was wearing it now, maybe on a chain around her neck. If not for her, then for him, so he could see it, and know that she had said yes and told him that she loved him. That they had been happy, right before this.

He finally climbed into the van. Mitchell got in behind him. With nothing left to do, Mac crawled into the driver’s seat, started putting the vehicle into gear.

And Mitchell said, “Holy shit! Look at this!”

Wednesday, 1:22 p.m. PST

RAINIE DIALED QUINCY ’S CELL PHONE. She clutched the receiver against her cheek. She held her breath when she heard his phone ring, a strange fluttering in her stomach, like a schoolgirl calling for a date. Wondering if he would answer. Wondering what she would say.

“Quincy,” he said, and for a moment, she was so overwhelmed, she couldn’t speak.

“Who is this?” he asked sharply.

Rainie started to cry.

“Rainie? Oh my God, Rainie!” There was the sound of squealing. Then cursing. She had caught him driving. Now he was obviously wrestling his car to the side of the road.

“Don’t hang up,” he was yelling. “Don’t hang up, just tell me where you are. I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming,” and in his voice, she heard all the desperation she’d felt for the past few days.

She cried harder, huge, hoarse sobs that pounded against her ribs and exacerbated the pain in her head. The emotion felt as if it would tear her body apart, become the final blow to her battered frame. But she couldn’t stop sobbing. She rocked back and forth, clutching the phone against her mouth and frantically gasping out the only words that mattered: “I… love… you.”

“I love you, too. And I’m sorry, Rainie. I’m sorry for… everything.” And then, even more urgently, “Rainie, where are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Rainie…”

“I don’t know! It’s a house. With a basement. And it’s flooded and we’re cold and Dougie’s not doing so well and I’m not doing so well. I need my medication. My head hurts so bad and I know I should’ve told you-”

“The Paxil. We found out. We’ll bring it. Help me, Rainie. Help me find you.”

“It’s dark,” she whispered. “So dark. The windows, the walls. I think he painted everything black.”

“How long did it take you to get there? Do you remember the drive?”

“I don’t know. I think he drugged me. A dirt road, I would guess. But I smelled the ocean. Maybe someplace near the water?”

“Do you know who took you, Rainie?”

“White light.”

“He blinded you?”

“Yes. And now we live in the dark.”

“Do you know where the man is right now?” Quincy asked crisply.

“I have no idea.”

“All right. Stay on the line, Rainie. Don’t you dare hang up. I’m going to find a way to trace this call.”

But just then Rainie did hear a noise. The scrape of a key in a lock. Then the sound of a front door crashing open.

“Honey,” the man called out cheerfully. “I’m home! And boy, did I bring home the bacon today!”

“Uh-oh,” Rainie whispered.

And Quincy said, “Danicic?”

Wednesday, 1:25 p.m. PST

“IGOTTA GO, ” Rainie whispered to Quincy, and without waiting for a reply, tucked the phone under the bed, receiver lying next to it. She would have to trust Quincy to trace the call. She would have to trust herself to keep her and Dougie alive until he got there.

She heard sloshing, wet footsteps as the kidnapper splashed through the family room, headed for the kitchen. He was still whistling tunelessly, oblivious to their escape.

In the good-news department, Rainie had a knife and the element of surprise. In the bad-news department, he had a Taser and was much more physically fit. She had taken him on twice now and lost. Given her deteriorated condition, she saw no reason to expect that equation to change.