Lisa Gardner - Gone

Rainie shrugged. “You know that and I know that. But they don’t know that.”

He reached across the front seat, squeezed her hand. “You’re a very nice woman, Rainie Conner.”

“For a liar?” she asked lightly.

But he heard the catch in her voice as she turned away from him and started to cry.

Home was harder than Rainie thought it would be. She took her medication, roamed rooms that were supposed to make her feel comfortable, and waited to magically get on with her life. While she cycled back to a refrigerator that had been cleared of all booze. While she woke up in the middle of the night, sweat soaked and bursting with fear. While Quincy stared at her and told her he loved her, and she remembered again what it was like to be so loved and still feel all alone.

Kimberly was given a clean bill of health. She and Mac stayed the night, and for twenty-four hours the house was filled with talking and laughter once more. They played cards, talked shop.

Mac and Quincy stayed up late after the women had gone to bed. Mac had an idea for the Astoria case. Quincy thought it wasn’t half bad.

And then, before Mac went to bed: “How is she doing?” he asked, head nodding toward the master bedroom.

“Terrible,” Quincy said bluntly.

“Do you want us to stay?”

“It’s not the kind of thing where another person can make a difference.”

“That must really suck for you,” Mac said quietly.

And Quincy said the first words that came to mind: “Thank you.”

Quincy waited until the next morning, when Rainie had gone for a run, to give Abe Sanders a call. They had touched base briefly after Rainie had been recovered. Sanders’s suspect, Duncan, had magically reappeared later that night, only to disappear twice more since then. They had stepped up surveillance but were still hampered by lack of evidence. They had no basis for a warrant, no plausible reason to even stop the man for a search. But Duncan was up to something. Sanders felt fairly strongly the man had a new target.

Quincy passed along Mac’s idea. Sanders considered it. “Well, we’ve tried dumber tactics.”

“Let me know.”

Sanders hung up, Rainie returned from her run, and Quincy searched her things while she took her shower, looking for any sign of recently purchased beer.

This was what it meant to live with an alcoholic.

Then he went into his study and sat for a long time simply staring at the photo of his daughter.

He drove to Portland several times, visited Shelly in the hospital. She was the belle of the burn ward, entertaining nurses and patients alike with dirty jokes and stories of incompetent criminals. She seemed to look forward to Quincy’s visits, particularly as he always brought her chamomile tea.

She’d show off her most recent skin grafts. He’d nod somberly and try not to turn too many shades of green.

Shelly’s policing days were done. She was looking at one year at least of various surgeries and rehabilitative therapies. Her left foot was twisted. Her hip ruined. She was still one of the best-spirited people Quincy knew, and he often thought he felt more comfortable with her in the burn ward than with Rainie at home.

The fourth visit, she had good news.

“I’m going to Paris!” she announced.

“You’re going to Paris?”

“Yep. It’s always been a dream of mine. I mentioned it a few weeks ago when I did that crazy interview. Guess it twisted some soft sap’s heart. The sheriff’s department received an anonymous donation of an all-expense-paid trip to Paris for me. Soon as they get my burned ass out of this wheelchair, I’m on a plane.”

“The Left Bank will never be the same,” Quincy assured her.

“Sure you don’t know anything about the donation?” she quizzed.

“Absolutely not.”

She’d always been the smart one. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “I owe you one.”

Which, Quincy thought, looking at the long ropes of scar tissue twisting down her arms, was the saddest thing he’d ever heard.

Kincaid stopped by later in the day. Forensic experts had been going through Danicic’s computer. The reporter had truly enjoyed the written word. In addition to crafting long, rambling e-mails to himself, he had already started his autobiography, Life of a Hero.

From what they could piece together, Danicic had concocted his plan not for the ten grand, but to cast himself as the hero in a real-world drama that would catapult him to instant fame. Through his selfless efforts, he would single-handedly help police officers negotiate the rescue of two innocents. Tragically, the victims would already be dead by the time investigators arrived at the scene, cruelly locked up in the basement and left to drown. This would allow Danicic to appear mournful as he embarked on his nationwide media tour, cultivating a new personality as an expert on violent crime who would soon become a permanent fixture on the cable news channel of your choice. Basically, Danicic hadn’t been motivated by quick money. He’d been looking for a whole new lifestyle.

In the attic of his house, they found box after box of books. Case studies of violent offenders. Textbooks on police procedure and the latest forensic techniques. Printout after printout cataloguing famous kidnappers and where they had gone wrong. In many ways, the kidnappings had been his life’s work.

As for why Rainie and Dougie, Kincaid still wasn’t sure. Maybe they were back to Quincy’s point: A woman and small child seemed less threatening targets. Maybe it was opportunity, because Danicic had struck up a friendship with Dougie and quickly realized how easily the troubled boy could be manipulated. Maybe because Rainie’s spouse and occupation would lend the case that much more media interest.

They could only guess; Danicic wasn’t alive to tell them.

One week later, Quincy had a phone call out of the blue. Special Agent Glenda Rodman wanted to let him know that Andrew Bensen had been located in Canada, where he was seeking special status as a conscientious objector of the war. She thought Quincy would like to know.

And two days after that, Quincy finally got the call he’d been waiting for.

Afterward, he found Rainie outside, staring at the mountains, sipping a cup of tea with hands that still had a tendency to tremble.

“Let’s go,” he said, and headed for the car without another word.

Quincy was the one known for his silence. But in all the years he had spent with Rainie, he’d come to understand her quietness as well. The way she could sink deep within herself, shoulders hunched, chin down. The way she would stop making eye contact, her gaze going more and more to the grand outdoors, as if she would like to disappear into that towering bank of firs, as if she could will herself to cease to exist.

By the time they had arrived in Astoria, she was curled up in a ball, knees by her chin, arms around her legs for support. Her eyes had taken on a bruised, haunted look.

He wondered sometimes if this was how she had looked when her mother struck her. And sometimes, the image was too sharp in his head. A younger, more defenseless version of Rainie curled up on the floor. And an older, drunken version of Rainie, pounding away. Two sides of his wife. A past she was seeking to escape. A future she was desperate to avoid.

They arrived at the cemetery. Rainie knew where they were. She’d come here before with Quincy and, he would guess, many more times on her own.

She walked straight to the grave. Looked down at the stone angel. And then, as if unable to help herself, stroked the granite cheek with her fingers.

“Charles Duncan was arrested today,” Quincy said. “I wanted you-and them-to hear the news from me. Duncan confessed to killing Aurora and Jennifer Johnson. Sanders has a signed statement, as well as a confession on tape.”