Come and Get Me

by August Norman

  FROM MARY LUBBERS-GAFFNEY, DIRECTOR

  In response to this publication’s weekend coverage, representatives from both the Bloomington Police Department and the FBI Indianapolis field office have confirmed that journalist Caitlin Bergman, believed to be missing, has been located.

  Although the IDS works to ensure all stories adhere to the highest journalistic standards, this weekend’s coverage illustrated the danger of supposition and opinion in the digital age.

  Not a blatant apology, but Caitlin could imagine how Mary felt. She’d risked the career she loved by taking on the cops, lost, and had to reward them with a front-page victory lap. No doubt, Lakshmi had done the same. Caitlin wouldn’t let their sacrifice go without recognition.

  Tears were coming, but she wouldn’t fight them. She threw her head back, cried for her friend, for her pain, for years of silence. She’d look pathetic for the camera, but Embower’s gambit had only steeled her resolve.

  After twenty minutes of waterworks, she tossed the paper on the table and walked to the bookcase. She stared at the books, pulled a few, returned them, opted finally for the Riverside Shakespeare. She took her dinner and her hope to the couch.

  Don’t open the cover yet. Eat the food.

  Caitlin got the container’s chicken salad down, drank some water, then finally reached into William’s insides.

  Page 709, gone. Caitlin’s message, gone.

  She turned to 711, 713, 715, flipped the pages with her thumb, watched the words of the Bard pass by unaltered, 953, 1175, 1233.

  Near the end, her finger caught a dog-ear.

  Wedged between pages, she found five of the cutout words she’d used to make her message for Angela.

  Caitlin Bergman

  ready

  Angela

  Caitlin allowed herself a tiny smile, then wadded the words, dropped the ball into her salad, and scooped a forkful of lettuce and paper into her mouth.

  After dinner, she walked Shakespeare back to the shelf and found a play by Tennessee Williams she’d seen the day before, I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow. She folded the blue paper cover so the title displayed as Imagine Tomorrow and shoved it into Riverside like a bookmark.

  Maybe Embower’d seen the whole thing. Maybe not.

  Caitlin set the DVD case for Tommy Boy on the counter facing the camera and returned to the couch to finish her salad. Chris Farley didn’t appear on the TV for an hour. She sat back and enjoyed the movie.

  Whatever Embower’d been doing, he hadn’t checked on her until now.

  CHAPTER

  75

  THE NEXT MORNING, Mike studied the duplex from the passenger window of his rental. “Might be cameras. Keep driving.”

  Greenwood slowed but didn’t stop at Branford’s house. “Roman, people are gonna notice if this takes more than an hour.”

  “You’re not allowed to get breakfast with a friend?”

  “Sure I am.” Greenwood let out a chuckle. “Just not one of Caitlin’s friends. We didn’t even get breakfast.”

  “You didn’t have to say yes,” Mike said, his eyes on the property. “What’s down the road?”

  “Old quarry.”

  “Like the Flintstones?”

  Greenwood nodded. “Gotta turn around anyway. I’ll show you.”

  Mike used his side mirror to see the back of Branford’s garage. Decent siding, well-kept grass. “Shouldn’t a single acting professor be close enough to campus to let his good-looking students make some mistakes?”

  “He’s a teacher; maybe it’s all he can afford. This is stupid. I thought you had something to show me.”

  “I do,” Mike said. “I just haven’t seen it yet.”

  He turned and faced Greenwood. “Branford was the last person to see Caitlin.”

  “Except for the prison staff and Woods.”

  “Who hasn’t seen her in twenty years. Besides, Caitlin doesn’t wear lipstick.”

  The road ended at a high fence topped with razor wire. Greenwood stopped the car at the gate, shifted into reverse. “Not sure that will hold up against GPS, cell phone records, and security footage.”

  “She sure as shit isn’t five feet ten.”

  “Maybe she wore heels.”

  “Bullshit,” Mike said. “She wears black pumps or running shoes every day of the week, because she’s the kind of person who chases after a story. I thought you got to know her while she was in town.”

  Greenwood looked away. “Yeah, we worked together.”

  “Yeah, I heard what you did together.” Mike noticed three “No Trespassing” signs and two cameras. “What’s with all the security?”

  “A lot of the old quarries fill up with water. Kids go swimming. Once a year, someone breaks a neck or a leg, has to be medivaced out. Hole back there is deep, but dangerous. No easy way to climb out once you get in the water.”

  Mike smiled. “So you’ve totally gone swimming in that thing?”

  Greenwood drove back toward the house. “Just one of the reasons I’m lucky to be alive.”

  Mike bumped his armrest with the back of his hand. “I owe the woman, Greenwood. I know this shit doesn’t make sense, but I’m not ready to see what everybody wants me to see, not when it feels so wrong.”

  He groaned. “I guess all I have to show you right now is that I’m serious about this.”

  Both men stared at Branford’s house as they passed.

  Greenwood finally nodded his head. “Okay, Roman. You find anything besides uneven makeup, I’ll come running, Chief Renton be damned. One more thing—”

  “Don’t do anything illegal?”

  “Didn’t think I had to say that, but yeah, don’t. I was going to say that this rental might not be the best tail car.”

  “Two-door, salmon-colored Korean jobs aren’t the shit in rural Indiana?”

  Greenwood laughed. “Locals are partial to old American pickups. My father-in-law’s Chevy is parked in the lot of his nursing home. He keeps it there just to look at, but he won’t miss it—and he owes Caitlin Bergman in a big way.”

  CHAPTER

  76

  EMBOWER LOOKED AT the forecast: showers off and on all day. Not a great morning to bike to campus. He checked the video feeds. Outside, rain fell in steady sheets. Inside, Caitlin looked content at her bedroom table, breakfast nearly finished. He opened his spreadsheet, made a note under favorite meals.

  2 eggs scrambled, maple bacon, avocado, potatoes, salsa.

  He scrolled through the tabs, clicked on “Compliance,” started typing.

  DAY 7—NIGHT. Newspaper had desired effect. No resistance after playroom time. Has fallen into habitual pattern for transition between playroom and bedroom. First compliance benchmark met much earlier than with Angel.

  DAY 8—MORNING. Gave her alarm clock. Seemed grateful. Left her with promise of quality time after third class. If alarm clock undamaged, consider surprising with laptop again. Rain in forecast. 75% chance, three sources. Shouldn’t result in flooding, but watch rest of week.

  He saved the document, opened another, scanned through the “Compliance” tab.

  DAY 27—NIGHT. Consensual, reciprocated sex.

  He skipped the details, looked to the end of the entry.

  Escape attempt.

  It made sense in hindsight. His Angel lived a sexual life and knew the power of sharing her gift. She’d tried to manipulate him. He’d mistaken the action for acceptance and had had to punish her.

  Would Bergman make the same attempt?

  He typed one more note.

  The Writer doesn’t understand yet. Take no chances.

  He noticed the time. 9:26 AM.

  “Shit.”

  Time for Branford to go to work.

  * * *

  The rain worsened. His tires spun when they met the asphalt.

  He wasn’t the only one fighting the weather. A quarter of a mile from his place, a beat-up red and white pickup shot mud into the air pulling into traffic.

  Fi
fteen minutes later, he stopped at the four-way intersection near the theater department, let undergrads with umbrellas pass, wondered if Caitlin would use the treadmill he’d bought for Paige. He wanted her healthy but wasn’t sure he should encourage her to run.

  A horn honked. He looked up, saw the red and white pickup still behind him, the male driver pointing toward the intersection.

  Embower turned and parked. The truck sped away in the opposite direction.

  Ten minutes later, Professor Branford had his students in a circle, giving one another warm-up massages. After two hours, he stepped out the front door to a dry but still ominous sky. He wanted to spend the hour between classes monitoring his collection, but a lighting designer needed to talk about the summer schedule over lunch at the student union.

  Mid-walk, Branford paused to greet two of his students and noticed a man behind him. Over six feet tall, broad shoulders stretching the corners of a lightweight rain jacket, his dark sunglasses and fifties buzz cut made him look like Central Casting’s impression of a soldier or a cop.

  “No,” Branford said, his attention back on his students, “I will not be bringing a date to the drama prom. Will you, Tammy?”

  He listened politely to sophomore Tammy’s plan for the theater department’s year-end banquet, but something flashed in his mind. He’d read Caitlin’s book eight times. How had she described Mike “Babyface” Roman?

  A cop built on the frame of a marine, grown from a Boy Scout.

  He glanced back to where he’d seen the muscular anomaly.

  Gone.

  Branford excused himself, met his associate for lunch, and saw no further sign of the man. The only thing he noticed after his second class was the arrival of another thunderstorm. His last class finished at five, but the rain did not. He spent the drive home wondering if the new drain in Caitlin’s room would prevent a repeat of the Paige debacle.

  He’d given his Barbie a lamp, which she’d plugged into the jack under her bed. After a week of nonstop storms, groundwater snuck in where the wall met the floor. Paige took advantage of that opportunity.

  Caitlin had neither lamp nor outlet, and her drugstore alarm clock ran on a double A battery.

  You’re worrying about nothing. Worst-case scenario, you gas her, let her wait out the storm in the playroom.

  Despite the urge to run across the field to the farmhouse, he parked in the Branford garage, went in the house, and loaded up the live feed on his computer. Caitlin shifted in the chair like she couldn’t get comfortable, a paperback open on the table. Her hair looked messy, but the floor looked dry.

  Embower exhaled, sat back. Still, something was wrong. Not in the collection, but there in Branford’s house.

  Smells fresh.

  He switched his camera feed, checked the driveway and front door. Nothing unusual. He got up, walked the first floor. The dining room he never used felt colder than the rest of the house. He pulled back a curtain, found one of the windows open half an inch.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d opened that or any other window in the house.

  He went back to his laptop, rewound the day’s footage, saw nothing at the front door, nothing at the driveway.

  He went outside, walked the backyard. The dining room window wasn’t high off the ground, but Embower didn’t see any footprints or sign of forced entry.

  You’re being paranoid. Remember the tornados in March? You opened the windows to depressurize the house.

  He felt better, but not good enough. Something pink caught his eye where his land met the quarry’s fence. He walked over, picked a soggy plastic bag from the weeds. Inside, two more bags, both muddy, and wads of paper towels. He looked back at the stretch of grass from the fence to his back window and saw faint depressions in the grass every three feet. Someone had covered their shoes to avoid leaving discernible footprints.

  “Shit,” he said, ran back inside.

  He’d checked the feed from the Branford house, not the farmhouse. He scrolled through the second-story camera’s feed, stopped the time line at 1:45 PM, almost halfway into his second class. A big man in a rain jacket ran from behind the garage to the dining room windows, two bright pink plastic bags over his shoes.

  Embower thought back through the day.

  This man knew I was in class because he followed me to work.

  “The truck.”

  He returned to the Branford feed. Earlier, he’d looked for someone coming up the driveway. This time, he kept his eyes on the road. At 1:12, the red and white pickup passed the house going toward the quarry. At 1:56, the same truck went the other way. Embower loaded the front-door feed again but watched the interior in front of the staircase this time. 1:38. A dark shadow walked from the foyer onto the staircase. Halfway to the landing, his face passed the camera.

  This idiot thinks he’s smart. He has no idea who he’s messing with.

  Embower picked up his phone, dialed the Bloomington Police Department. “Someone broke into my house, and I can identify him.”

  CHAPTER

  77

  AT BREAKFAST, HE’D told her he’d be gone all day. Caitlin had been working since nine AM, starting with the handcuff slot in the door. The wad of toilet paper she’d wedged in the corner of the sliding panel wouldn’t stop the slot from functioning, but the extra half inch of space might let some fresh air in, or Embower’s gas out. Next she attacked his airborne delivery method; the overhead fan. The camera over the bed tilted down, so he could see toward the fan, though not the ceiling unit itself. Any move she made in that direction would have to look natural, or at least motivated.

  For half an hour, Caitlin went stir-crazy, starting on the bed. She stood on the sheets, walked back and forth, then hopped down and paced around the table. Then she climbed up the chair to the tabletop, running her hands through her hair, reaching up, touching the ceiling. She hopped down, walked toward the bed, then the door, then climbed back on the table with items from the storage shelves tucked into her pajamas. More crazy arms, more why-God-whys toward the ceiling, her hands working off-camera. After five more trips spread over an hour, she’d done all she could to the fan. Every action in the five hours since had focused on loosening the drain cover with her foot while appearing to read.

  She poured the last bottle of Sprite under the table and checked the alarm clock.

  5:42 PM.

  She pushed the ball of her foot against the drain. The carbonation bubbled around her toes in the half inch of standing liquid.

  Two hours back, she’d felt her first wiggle. She shifted her focus from clogging the drain to getting the cover off its mount. Now she felt the metal disc slide back and forth, maybe a quarter of an inch worth of give.

  The groove of the metal bit into her skin. Her left foot bled freely. She switched feet. The fizzle stopped, she didn’t.

  She’d done all she could from above the table. But if Embower checked the camera, he’d see her crawl under the table, come running. She had to take the chance. He said he’d be back for dinner. Either way, he’d come soon.

  She knocked the remains of her paperback onto the floor, went down after it, reaching into the puddle of garbage and blood. She wrapped her fingertips around the cover’s edge, and pulled. The cover slid to one side, the anchor bolts below straining against the weakened limestone. She put both hands around the loose edge, pulled again.

  Her right hand slipped. “Holy shit,” she said, clutching her fingers. The nail from her middle finger floated in the mélange.

  She grabbed the cover again, pulled back, and screamed.

  Something gave. She fell backward. The cover and its two screws, anchor bolts and all, dripped the stink of cola onto her face.

  She tucked the rounded metal under her shirt, crawled out from under the table.

  If Embower was watching, she’d hear the fan motor. A minute passed on the alarm clock. Nothing happened. She climbed onto the bed and tucked her new weapon under the sheets.

 
Another minute passed. Then ten, then twenty.

  At 6:22, Caitlin knew what was wrong. Not only had Embower not seen her with the drain cover, he didn’t know the drain had backed up. The pool she’d made didn’t show past the table, and she’d used every bit of liquid in the room.

  He would come with dinner and have her put her hands through to be cuffed.

  “Shit.”

  She looked at the crates near the door. Nothing left but the camp toilet.

  “Shit,” she repeated, smiling.

  She got herself to the toilet, flipped the lid up and peed. But instead of putting the lid down, she pulled the open toilet onto its side, then climbed onto the bed as the dark blue mix of treatment chemical and fecal matter spread across the floor.

  CHAPTER

  78

  MIKE PACED IN his hotel room, phone in hand. “I know the story got you in trouble, Lakshmi, but Caitlin needs your help.”

  The Anjale girl sounded seconds away from a hang-up. “Call Greenwood if it’s so bloody important.”

  “Can’t reach him.”

  She gave a frustrated laugh. “Welcome to my world.”

  “You know Branford, Lakshmi. You partied with him.”

  “Like twice,” she said, “and always at Angela’s place.”

  “You’ve got to know something about him or his business that will tell us more. There’s no way he lives in that house.”

  “How can you tell?”

  Mike laughed. “Nothing in his laundry baskets, nothing in the washer and dryer, and both bathrooms were stocked with brand-new rolls of toilet paper.”

  Someone knocked on Mike’s door, three firm raps. A gruff female voice followed. “Mike Roman. BPD.”

  “Lakshmi, I gotta go. I’m getting arrested.”

  “You’re what?”

  “Do what you want, but remember—whatever I’m up against, Caitlin’s dealing with worse, and she wouldn’t have been involved if you hadn’t asked her for help.”

  He switched the phone to speaker, placed it on a table, and opened the door to the female detective who had given him the cigarette.