Jeffery Deaver - The Never Game

Well, if the police weren’t going to search, he was. She’d—possibly—flung the phone, as a signal to alert passersby when someone called her.

Maybe she’d also scrawled something in the dirt, a name, part of a license plate number, before X got her. Or perhaps they’d grappled and she’d grabbed a tissue or pen or bit of cloth, rich with DNA or decorated with his fingerprints, tossing that too into the grass.

Shaw descended into the ravine. He walked on grass so he wouldn’t disturb any tracks left by the kidnapper in sand and soil.

Using the brown-smeared stone as a hub, Shaw walked in an ever-widening spiral, staring at the ground ahead of him. No footprints, no bits of cloth or tissue, no litter from pockets.

But then a glint of light caught his eye.

It came from above him—a service road on the crest of the hill. The flash now repeated. He thought: a car door opening and closing. If it was a door, it closed in compete silence.

Crouching, he moved closer. Through the breeze-waving trees, he could make out what might indeed have been a vehicle. With the glare it was impossible to tell. The light wavered—which might have been due to branches bending in the wind. Or because someone who’d exited the car had walked to the edge of the ridge and was looking down.

Was this a jogger stretching before a run, or someone pausing on a long drive home to pee?

Or was it X, spying on the man with a troubling interest in Sophie Mulliner’s disappearance?

Shaw started through the brush, keeping low, moving toward the base of the ravine, above which the car sat—if it was a car. The hill was quite steep. This was nothing to Shaw, who regularly ascended vertical rock faces, but the terrain was such that a climb would be noisy.

Tricky. Without being seen, he’d have to get almost to the top to be able to push aside the flora and snap a cell phone picture of the tag number of the jogger. Or pee-er. Or kidnapper.

Shaw got about twenty feet toward the base of the hill before he lost sight of the ridge, due to the angle. And it was then, hearing a snap of branch behind him, that he realized his mistake. He’d been concentrating so much on finding the quietest path ahead of him that he’d been ignoring his flank and rear.

Never forget there are three hundred and sixty degrees of threat around you …

Just as he turned, he saw the gun lifting toward the center of his chest and he heard a guttural growl from the hoodie-clad young man. “Don’t fucking move. Or you’re dead.”

Colter Shaw glanced at the attacker with irritation and muttered, “Quiet.”

His eyes returned to the access road above them.

“I’ll shoot,” called the young man. “I will!”

Shaw stepped forward fast and yanked the weapon away and tossed it into the grass.

“Ow, shit!”

Shaw whispered sternly, “I told you: Quiet! I mean it.” He pushed through a knotty growth of forsythia, trying to get a view of the road. From above came the sound of a car door slamming, an engine starting and a gravel-scattering getaway.

Shaw scrabbled up the incline as fast as he could. At the top, breathing hard, he scanned the road. Nothing but dust. He climbed back down to the ravine, where the young man was on his knees, patting the grass for the weapon.

“Leave it, Kyle,” Shaw muttered.

The kid froze. “You know me?”

He was Kyle Butler, Sophie’s ex-boyfriend. Shaw recognized him from his Facebook page.

Shaw had noted the pistol was a cheap pellet gun, a one-shot model whose projectiles couldn’t even break the skin. He picked up the toy and strode to a storm drain and pitched it in.

“Hey!”

“Kyle, somebody sees you with that and you get shot. Which entrance did you use to get into the park?”

The boy rose and stared, confused.

“Which entrance?” Shaw had learned that the quieter your voice, the more intimidating you were. He was very quiet now.

“Over there.” Nodding toward the sound of the motorbikes. The main entrance to the east. He swallowed. Butler’s hands rose fast, as if Shaw presently had a gun on him.

“You can lower your arms.”

He did so. Slowly.

“Did you see that car parked on the ridge?”

“What ridge?”

Shaw pointed to the access road.

“No, man. I didn’t. Really.”

Shaw looked him over, recalling: surfer dude. The boy had frothy blond hair, a navy-blue T-shirt under the black hoodie, black nylon workout pants. A handsome young man, though his eyes were a bit blank.

“Did Frank Mulliner tell you I was here?”

Another pause. What to say, what not to say? Finally: “Yeah. I called him after I got your message. He said you said you found her phone in the park.”

The excess of verbs in the last sentence explained a lot to Shaw. So, the lovesick boy had conjured up the idea that Shaw had kidnapped his former girlfriend to get the reward. He remembered that Butler’s job was bolting big speakers into Subarus and Civics and his passion was riding a piece of waxed wood on rollicking water. Shaw decided that the percentage likelihood of Kyle Butler being the kidnapper had dropped to nil.

But there was that related hypothesis. “Was Sophie ever with you when you scored weed, or coke, or whatever you do?”

“What’re you talking about?”

First things first.

“Kyle, does it make sense that I’d kidnap somebody hoping her father would post a reward? Wouldn’t I just ask for a ransom?”

He looked away. “I guess. Okay, man.”

The sound of the motorbikes rose and fell, buzz-sawing in the distance.

Butler continued: “I’m just … It’s all I can think about: Where is she? What’s happening to her? Will I ever see her again?” His voice choked.

“At any time was she with you when you scored?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”

He explained that a dealer might have been concerned that Sophie was a witness who could identify him.

“Oh God, no. The dudes I buy from? They’re not players. Just, like, students or board heads. You know, surfers. Not bangers from East Palo or Oakland.”

This seemed credible.

Shaw asked, “You have any idea who might’ve taken her? Her dad didn’t think she had any stalkers.”

“No …” The young man’s voice faded. His head was down, slowly shaking now. Shaw saw a glistening in his eyes. “It’s all my fault. Fuck.”

“Your fault?”

“Yeah, man. See, Wednesdays we always did things together. They were like our weekend, ’cause I had to work Saturday and Sunday. I’d go out and new-school—you know, trick surf at Half Moon or Maverick. Then I’d pick her up and we’d hang with friends or do dinner, a movie. If I hadn’t … If I hadn’t fucked up so bad, that’s what we would’ve done last Wednesday. And this never would’ve happened. All the weed. I got mean, I was a son of a bitch. I didn’t want to; it just happened. She’d had enough. She didn’t want to be with a loser.” He wiped his face angrily. “But I’m clean. Thirty-four days. And I’m switching majors. Engineering. Computers.”

So Kyle Butler was the knight coming to San Miguel Park with a BB gun to confront the dragon and rescue the damsel. He’d win her back.

Shaw looked toward the shoulder of Tamyen Road. Still no cops. He called the Task Force. Wiley was out. Standish was out.

“Find me a bag,” Shaw said to Butler.

“Bag?”

“Paper, plastic, anything. Look on the shoulder. I’ll look here.”

Butler climbed the hill to Tamyen Road and Shaw walked the trails, hoping for a trash can. He found none. Then he heard: “Got one!” Butler trotted down the hill. “By the side of the road.” He held up the white bag. “From Walgreens. Is that okay?”