Thomas Sniegoski - Where Angels Fear to Tread

“So you’ve moved here from Florida?”

“Not permanently,” she quickly corrected. “I hate the cold, but I heard the best doctors are here, so I didn’t really have a choice. As soon as they figure out what’s wrong with Zoe, we’ll go right back home.”

Remy nodded, taking a drink of his coffee. “Your daughter is sick then?”

Deryn stared down into the contents of her mug. “The doctors in Florida say she’s probably autistic,” she explained quietly, then looked up at Remy. “But Carl wanted to be sure, and he said the best doctors are here. He’s from here originally.”

“Where were you taking her?”

“Franciscan Hospital for Children.” She stopped, reaching down into her bag and removing a pack of cigarettes. Without even asking Remy if it was okay, she placed one between her lips and lit it with a disposable lighter.

“I can’t believe how fucking stupid I was,” she said, dropping the lighter and package of smokes back into her bag. “Oh, is this all right?” she asked, suddenly conscious of what she was doing.

“It’s fine,” Remy said, not wanting to upset her. They were finally getting someplace, and he didn’t want to cancel the momentum. “Why do you say you were stupid?”

“Because I trusted him,” she said angrily. “I let my guard down.” Deryn feverishly puffed on the cigarette, forming a toxic cloud around her head in the too-warm office. “I wasn’t feeling well, so I stayed at the hotel and let Carl take Zoe to an appointment. And that’s the last time I saw them. It’s been six days.” Deryn choked back a sob, bringing a hand to her mouth.

“There hasn’t been any contact with Carl since he took Zoe?” Remy asked.

“No,” she said miserably, finishing the smoke and dropping the butt into her coffee mug where it hissed faintly.

“Have you contacted the police?”

“Yes, once I realized what the son of a bitch had done. There’s a warrant out for his arrest.”

“And you have no idea where he might have taken your daughter?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

Remy stood and grabbed his mug. “Would you like another cup? I can rinse yours out.”

“No, no thanks,” she said with a nervous shake of her head. “I’m good.”

Remy refilled his cup and returned to his desk. “So tell me about your relationship with Carl,” he began. “Was it an amicable split or. .”

“We only stayed together as long as we did because of Zoe,” Deryn explained. “We thought a baby would help us, but with her being different and all. .” Her voice trailed off and she looked as though she had the weight of the world upon her shoulders.

“Does Carl have any history of violence?” Remy asked. “He wouldn’t want to cause Zoe any harm, would he?”

“Oh no,” she said quickly. “Carl really is basically a good guy. We both had kind of screwed-up childhoods, but we managed to get beyond that. We were good parents, Mr. Chandler.”

“Except that Carl has taken your daughter.”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “But maybe if I had paid better attention, this could all have been avoided.”

“Ms. York, you can’t beat yourself up about—”

“I need to show you something, Mr. Chandler,” Deryn interrupted, pulling her bag up onto her lap.

Remy leaned forward, curious, as she withdrew a handful of folded pieces of construction paper from inside the bag. Carefully she unfolded them, looking at each before handing them to Remy.

He looked at the first. It was obviously a child’s drawing, done in crayon, crudely depicting a little girl and a man leaving what appeared to be a hospital. The next picture was of the same girl and man, only they were in a car. The man was in the front seat, driving, while the child stared out the back window, yellow circles beneath her eyes—probably falling tears, Remy guessed.

“Zoe did these?” he asked, looking up at Deryn.

She nodded. “About three weeks ago.”

He was looking at the drawing again when the woman’s words permeated his brain. “Three weeks ago?” he repeated. “So your husband must have been preparing her for this?” He waited as Deryn shook her head no.

“She drew those pictures without any knowledge of what her father was going to do,” the woman explained. “But she knew he was going to take her, Mr. Chandler, just like she knew I would be coming to see you.”

Deryn leaned forward and handed him one last drawing.

Remy’s eyes widened in surprise as he studied it. Zoe had drawn a childlike depiction of the front entrance to his brownstone, a person standing in front with a black dog on a leash. He was certain the person was himself—the feathered wings were a dead giveaway—and, moreover, floating in the air, written in a small child’s handwriting, were his address and telephone number.

Mathias stopped the Range Rover halfway down the dirt path, just close enough to see the bungalow ahead.

Poole had eventually proven his worth, using information he derived by touching the Vietnamese vessel, as well as extensive maps of the entire world. According to the Hound, Delilah’s prize would be found here, in Palatka, Florida, of all places.

It wasn’t exactly a place that Mathias imagined finding an object that could quite easily change the course of the world, but perhaps that was the point—no ancient temples surrounded by worshippers ready to die in its defense; instead, a run-down bungalow in the backwaters of Florida.

Ingenious.

He removed the Glock pistol from the holster underneath his arm and chambered a round.

“Are we ready?” he asked the other four men on his team.

They grunted their responses as each prepared his own weapons. Febonio, Yelverton, and Wallace, in the backseat, put rounds in the chambers of their hand weapons, while Cole, in the front passenger seat, flipped off the safety of his Mac 10 semiautomatic machine gun.

Mathias hoped it would be enough. They had no idea what they were walking into.

“Let’s go,” he said, turning off the engine and stepping out into the tropical heat.

Mathias led the way up the rocky dirt path. A mutt tied to a rusting swing in a backyard overrun with weeds began to bark ferociously at their approach, and Mathias was tempted to put a bullet in the mangy beast. But they had to appear harmless; no sense in alerting those inside of potential danger.

As they neared the falling-down porch, he motioned his men to step back out of the line of sight and walked up the four cracked concrete steps to the front door. He could hear the sounds of a television from inside.

He took a quick glance over his shoulder to be sure his team was in position, then rapped loudly on the dented, rusted aluminum door.

Mathias waited, listening to the sounds from inside. The volume on the television went down, and that was his cue to knock again.

Now he could hear muffled voices coming from inside—a man, a woman, and at least one child. The door suddenly opened a crack, and half a face peered out, glaring at him over a short length of chain.

“Yeah?”

Mathias could smell the stink of beer wafting from the man’s breath. “Hi,” he said with his biggest, fakest, nice-guy smile. “Is this thirty-seven Nautical Way?” he asked, reading from a wrinkled piece of scrap paper he pulled from his jacket pocket.

“Who wants to know?” the man asked.

He could hear the woman in the background whispering. A child started to cry, and she instantly barked for it to shut up.

A mother after his own heart.

“I’m from Destination Delivery, and I have a certified letter for thirty-seven Nautical,” Mathias said, pretending to reach inside his jacket for the envelope.