Т Паркер - Where Serpents Lie

“You’ll have to talk to Mr. Rudker.”

“We think he takes them to his house.”

“ What? ”

“We think The Horridus takes the girls to his house to do his thing. If we’re right, and I think we are, that’s where he is right now. At home. With an abducted five-year-old girl who may or may not come out of this alive. I can make a match in ten minutes, Marcine. With your list. I can get cops to his residence in about another five, maybe less. Without the list, I may as well cruise the Caribbean. There’s a window open now, and it’s going to slam shut fast. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“Call Mr. Rudker. Please. I’ll write down his number for you. Oh... oh... shit. He’s... he’s actually in the Caribbean. We’re opening an office in Miami and he’s... vacationing.”

“I see,” I said quietly. I let the reverberations of owner-founder James Rudker’s Caribbean vacation sound their irony into Marcine Browne’s heart. She looked at me angrily, then down at her desk.

“Ms. Browne, I can make this easy for you. Or, you can do it the hard way. You can look into yourself and ask yourself what the right thing is. Then do it.”

“Go ahead. Get a court order,” she snapped. “Why didn’t you just get it before you came here?”

“No court order. That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what?”

“Mr. Rudker doesn’t want it known that Bright Tomorrows may have cooperated in a kidnapping investigation involving one of its members. That’s understandable. But how would he like it being known that Bright Tomorrows refused to cooperate in a kidnapping investigation involving one of its members? And what if that refusal came at a time when this... animal... could have been identified and arrested, and his third victim set free?”

She nodded. “That would be a shitty thing to do to us, mister.”

“I’ll do it.”

She glared at me. “I absolutely detest being manipulated by someone.”

“Maybe you’ll thank me someday.”

She looked at me with a final beam of resentment in her eyes, but I watched it dissolve into absolute capitulation. “Abby Elder’s girl?”

“Abby Elder’s girl.”

“I signed her up myself. Oh... damn. ”

“Go get the list.”

She shook her head and stared down at her desk again. “I could strangle y—”

“— Go! ”

I pulled the same stunt on Dawn Christie and it worked. She still had a baleful stare as I left her office and jogged to my car. I threw open the sheets and started looking. There were 486 names on the Bright Tomorrows sheets, and 293 on Dawn Christie’s. They were both in alphabetical order. My eyes swam. The first thing I did was check the ten qualifying home sellers against both lists. Nothing. I looked for Steven Wicks, the reptile dealer. Not there. I tried Gary Cross, who was selling his red Chrysler van because it used too much gas. Nothing. The next thing I did was turn on the air conditioner and aim the vents straight at my face.

Aarhaus, Blake. ..

No.

Aaron, Richard. ..

No.

Aaron, Steven...

No.

Too slow. Too slow!

I set the light up on the hood and slammed the car into gear. I needed help and if I drove like a demon I knew I could make the twenty-minute drive in fifteen.

I did.

I ran past Shopping Carter without stopping, took the concrete steps two at a time and used the stairs instead of the elevator. I got Louis by the sleeve of his coat and almost yanked him off his chair. I sat him down at my desk with the Christie list and explained the drill. Twenty minutes later we had our answer.

I didn’t like it so we ran through it again. Every friggin’ name, one at a time. And the answer came up the same: Nothing.

“So he’s using another name,” said Louis.

I didn’t answer. I just saw that faint outline of red on everything I looked at. It’s like looking through red lenses for a second. I kicked the lower drawer of my file cabinet, a sheet of metal already crumpled by dents. I mean big dents, authentically pissed-off, hard-as-you-can-kick-the-bastard dents. The thing won’t lock or even close right anymore.

“Why don’t you call CNB, get it on TV?” someone piped from over the room divider.

“Go piss up a rope,” I said.

“Love you, too, Terry.”

I put my hand on Louis’s shoulder. He was unbothered by my outburst, having seen enough of them to know how routine and fleeting they are. He just looked at the file cabinet, shook his head and stared down again at the list “I wouldn’t join two services and use the same name,” he said. “Especially if I joined them for the reason we think. No way. I’d want to be at least two different guys. I’d want to be as many guys as I could be.”

I knew he was right.

“This doesn’t mean we’re on the wrong track, Terry. I’m smelling the same thing you are. It just means we gotta dig him out.”

Ishmael walked into our area and gave me an utterly disdainful look. Pathos, with an undercurrent of triumph, and his usual dose of loathing. The look I gave him back was probably full of the same. He looked at my wreck of a file cabinet, then at me.

“A hiker found the girl off the Ortega Highway, way out in the sticks,” he said. “She’s with deputies at the Capo substation. She’s alive. Unharmed, they think. But definitely alive. Somehow, she saw through the hood. Claims she did. Says she knows what he looks like.”

An hour later — almost one o’clock — I got to talk to Brittany Elder at the substation. Her mother was already there. In a back office Brittany slumped liked a creature without bones into Abby’s lap. The girl’s eyes were dull and unfocused and there was a wide pink strip of inflamed skin across her mouth and cheeks where the tape had been. She hardly moved. Two dark eyes looked at the present but saw only the past. She had dirt on her dress and scuffs on her knees. On a desk in one corner of the office sat a white net robe and a black velvet hood, each bagged as evidence. I smiled at Abby Elder and she looked at me like I was an insane stranger. I wrote on a notepad:

CAN I ASK HER SOME QUESTIONS NOW? YOU

CAN STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE. THE SOONER

SHE TALKS THE BETTER SHE’LL BE. DON’T

ANSWER. JUST NOD IF IT’S OKAY TO TRY.

I walked over and angled the notepad up so Abby could see it but Brittany wouldn’t.

Abby nodded.

I cheerfully asked Louis, Johnny and the other deputies to leave the room. Johnny shut the door with perfect pitch: slowly, firmly, quietly.

“Well, Brittany,” I said, “I’m glad you’re doing all right. Your mom was just about sick with worry. I was, too. When my son was your age all I did was worry about him.”

Abby cocked an eye up at me. She was petting Brittany’s hair. I’d never mentioned my son to her, and I must have struck her as the childless type. I don’t know. She looked a little surprised.

“My name’s Terry, by the way. Your mom called me when she couldn’t find you. It’s my job to look for lost people sometimes. So, well... I’m just really glad you’re here. You did my job for me. You made me look good. So thanks.”

She stared into space, unblinking, her fists balled up by her chin, her mother’s arms around her.

“Brittany, you want a Coke or something?”

She shook her head.

Contact.

“Abby?”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

I lifted my eyebrows and nodded encouragingly.

“You know, I really would love a Coke.”

“Me too,” I said. “So, one for you, and I guess I’ll have one. That’s two.”