J. Gonzalez - They

“What do you think I’m gonna tell them? I’m gonna tell them somebody broke into my house and kidnapped my wife!”

“Sure,” Frank said, on a roll now. “And you won’t say anything about us, right?”

“I’m not going to say anything about us.”

“And what’s going to happen if they get a detective that’s got half a brain, they’re eventually going to connect you with me and that’s going to lead them to what happened in Pennsylvania. And then what are you going to tell them?”

“I’ll figure that out if it happens,” Mike said. He slumped back in his seat, wearing a mask of defeat.

“Bullshit,” Frank said, leaning forward. “You’re gonna think about this now . You’re gonna come up with something more solid than that, because you are not gonna implicate me in this at all.”

Mike turned to him, the spark of anger still in his eyes. “Changing your mind then?”

“No. I don’t want you to go to the cops, but I can’t stop you, either.” Truth was, the more Frank talked and bluffed, the more he was putting himself in Mike’s shoes. If it were Brandy and his kids that had come up missing, he would want to call the police too. “If you go to the cops you don’t know me, and we’ve never met each other. You go to the cops and I am fucking out of here, you got me? I’ve not only never seen you, I’m not only over-the-hills-and-far-away, I don’t even fucking exist.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be too hard to fake,” Mike said. “They’ve got everything. There’s nothing at the house that’s going to lead to you, and even phone records aren’t going to turn anything up. I was careful of that.”

Frank regarded Mike for a moment, his demeanor cracking. The more he thought about it, the better calling the police was starting to sound. Worst-case scenario: even if they were caught for the fiasco in Lititz, maybe they could plead self-defense and expose these bastards. In the meantime, while Mike was contacting the police, Frank could contact Billy Grecko and turn what was left of their investigation over to him. Hopefully it would be enough for Billy to go to his FBI contact with.

That wouldn’t be enough, though. In fact, their best plan of action was to avoid the police. And Frank had to convince Mike that avoiding the police was the best course of action.

“You’re still going to need some kind of alibi,” Frank said, thinking out loud. “The police are going to want to know why you waited until today to call them.”

Mike glanced at him, looking wary. “Yeah, I suppose they are.”

“Let’s think about this a minute,” Frank said, forcing himself to stay calm and focused on the matter at hand. “If you’re going to contact the police, we still need each other. We also need to move the investigation into Billy’s hands. You got me?”

Mike nodded. “Yeah.”

“Here’s why going to the police would be a bad idea,” Frank said. “If you had booked our tickets under your name we could have come up with an excuse for you being out there pretty easily. Because we can’t do that, every other excuse you give them, like deciding you wanted to go camping or you took a drive out into the desert, are going to be suspect. How often do your kids drop in to see you or call?”

“Sometimes we can go a whole week without hearing from my son Jimmy,” Mike said. “My other son, Brad, lives up in Lake Tahoe. He calls about once a week. He usually calls on weekends.”

“When is the last time you saw Jimmy?” Frank asked.

Mike shrugged. “Four, maybe five days ago.”

“If Jimmy had decided to call or drop by between then and now, the cops would already be trying to get a hold of you. In fact, it’s very likely they would consider you a suspect in your wife’s disappearance should your kids get the police involved. Had the police shown up at your house before you got home, you’d probably be in an interrogation room now being grilled as a suspect in your wife’s disappearance and probable murder.”

Mike gasped at this obvious realization. Frank pressed on. “But your kids haven’t been in touch recently. Therefore, it’s possible we have anywhere from a few hours to a few more days before they do decide to call or drop by. We need to make the most of it.”

“But how?” Mike moaned. He buried his face in his hands, the frustration painfully obvious to Frank.

“That depends on where we want to go with this,” Frank said. “They’ve made their move, but they don’t hold all the cards. At least not yet. We have documents on my hard drive. My suggestion is we deliver my laptop to your friend Billy pronto and have him turn it over to his FBI contact.”

“But what if Carol is still alive? What if they’re holding her somewhere?

“Do you really think they would keep her alive?”

Mike’s face brimmed with tears. “What if they go after one of my kids… or my granddaughter…”

“Gimme their numbers,” Frank said. “I can check into that quite easily.”

“How?”

“Leave it to me.” Frank pulled a scrap of paper and a pen from the compartment between the front bucket seats. Mike rattled off two sets of phone numbers for his adult children, both work and home. Frank jotted them down. “Do either of them have Caller ID?”

“I don’t know,” Mike said. He looked haunted. Defeated. “Maybe.”

Frank’s mind was racing. “Let’s find a phone booth. It’ll be better if I place those calls from someplace anonymous. Once I can verify they’re safe, we need to deliver my laptop to Billy and then you and I really need to disappear.”

“Yeah.” Mike’s face was worn. It looked like he’d aged ten years.

Without another word, Frank waited until it was safe, then he pulled back onto the road and headed for a convenience store in search of a phone booth to place the calls.

“DID YOU TALK to them? Are they safe?”

Those were the first words out of Mike when Frank returned to the car. He climbed in and shut the door. Mike immediately began to pepper him with more questions. “You talked to them, right? What did you say? How did you—”

Frank cut him off. “I called Jimmy and your daughter-in-law at work and got their voice mails. I was able to zero out and get a secretary, who told me they were in meetings. So they’re safe.”

“What about Kimberly?” Kimberly was Mike’s granddaughter.

“I called the day care. Cathy dropped Kimberly off this morning. I assume Kimberly, Jimmy, and you and Carol are the only ones who have the authority to pick her up?”

“Yes!” Mike nodded. At the news that Cathy had dropped Kimberly off this morning, Mike looked visibly relieved. “What about Brad?”

“I was able to talk to him,” Frank said. “The minute I verified it was him, I told him I was a telemarketer trying to sell him insurance and he hung up on me.”

Mike rubbed his face. He still looked worried, still appeared scared, but hearing the news that his sons and granddaughter were safe had taken the bulk of the worry out of his mind. “So what do we do now?”

“I tried calling Jimmy and Cathy on their cell phones but my calls went straight to voice mail. Cathy must have a busy schedule. Her secretary said she had a meeting, then had to leave early to take Kimberly to a pediatrician appointment at ten o’clock. She must have left early for that because when I called the day care, they told me Cathy had already picked her up.”

“At least she’s safe,” Mike said. He looked at Frank. “I’m tired and I’m hungry. I know this sounds horrible, but I need something in my stomach. I’m fucking starving.”

Frank started the car. “Let’s grab a quick bite to eat and some coffee. We can lay out a plan over breakfast.”