The Never Game

by Jeffery Deaver

  The term was right out of Sherlock Holmes yet law enforcement around the country used it frequently. The phrase was a necessary marker in deciding how police would approach a missing-person situation. With an older teen and no evidence of abduction, the cops wouldn’t jump on board as they would with an obvious kidnapping. For the time being, they’d assume she was a runaway.

  Her disappearance, of course, could be both. More than a few young people had been seduced away from home willingly only to find that the seducer wasn’t exactly who they thought.

  Or her fate might be purely accidental, her body floating in the cold, notoriously unpredictable waters of the Pacific Ocean or in a car at the bottom of a ravine a hundred feet below sidewinding Highway 1.

  Shaw debated. His eyes were on the four hundred–odd sheets. “I’ll go meet with the father. What’s her name?”

  “Sophie Mulliner. He’s Frank.”

  “Mother?”

  “No indication.” Velma added, “I’ll send you the particulars.”

  He then asked, “Any mail?”

  She said, “Bills. Which I paid. Buncha coupons. Victoria’s Secret catalog.”

  Shaw had bought Margot a present two years ago; Victoria had decided his address was no secret and delivered it unto her mailing-list minions. He hadn’t thought about Margot for . . . Had it been a month? Maybe a couple of weeks. He said, “Pitch it.”

  “Can I keep it?” Teddy asked.

  A thud, and laughter. Another thud.

  Shaw thanked them and disconnected.

  He rebanded the sheaf of pages. One more look outside. No Rodent.

  Colter Shaw lifted open his laptop and read Velma’s email. He pulled up a map to see how long it would take to get to Silicon Valley.

  4.

  As it turned out, by the estimation of some, Colter Shaw was actually in Silicon Valley at that very moment.

  He’d learned that a number of people considered North Oakland and Berkeley to be within the nebulous boundaries of the mythical place. To them, Silicon Valley—apparently, “SV” to those in the know—embraced a wide swath from Berkeley on the east and San Francisco on the west all the way south to San Jose.

  The definition was largely, Shaw gathered, dependent on whether a company or individual wanted to be in Silicon Valley. And most everyone did.

  The loyalists, it seemed, defined the place as west of the Bay only, the epicenter being Stanford University in Palo Alto. The reward offeror’s home was near the school, in Mountain View. Shaw secured the vehicle’s interior for the drive, made sure his dirt bike was affixed to its frame on the rear and disconnected the hookups.

  He stopped by the cabin to break the news to Carole and a half hour later was cruising along the wide 280 freeway, with glimpses of the suburbia of Silicon Valley through the trees to his left and the lush hills of the Rancho Corral de Tierra and the placid Crystal Springs Reservoir to the west.

  This area was new to him. Shaw was born in Berkeley—twenty miles away—but he retained only tatters of memories from back then. When Colter was four, Ashton had moved the family to a huge spread a hundred miles east of Fresno, in the Sierra Nevada foothills—Ashton dubbed the property the “Compound” because he thought it sounded more forbidding than “Ranch” or “Farm.”

  At the GPS guide’s command, Shaw pulled off the freeway and made his way to the Westwinds RV Center, located in Los Altos Hills. He checked in. The soft-spoken manager was about sixty, trim, a former Navy man or Merchant Marine, if the tattoo of the anchor signified anything. He handed Shaw a map and, with a mechanical pencil, meticulously drew a line from the office to his hookup. Shaw’s space would be on Google Way, accessed via Yahoo Lane and PARC Road. The name of the last avenue Shaw didn’t get. He assumed it was computer-related.

  He found the spot, plugged in and, with his black leather computer bag over his shoulder, returned to the office, where he summoned an Uber to take him to the small Avis rental outfit in downtown Mountain View. He picked up a sedan, requesting any full-sized that was black or navy blue, his preferred shades. In his decade of seeking rewards he’d never once misrepresented himself as a police officer, but occasionally he let the impression stand. Driving a vehicle that might be taken for a detective’s undercover car occasionally loosened tongues.

  On his mission over the past couple of days, Shaw had ridden his Yamaha dirt bike between Carole’s RV park and Berkeley. He would ride the bike any chance he got, though only on personal business or, of course, for the joy of it. On a job he always rented a sedan or, if the terrain required, an SUV. Driving a rattling motorbike when meeting offerors, witnesses or the police would raise concerns about how professional he was. And while a thirty-foot RV was fine for highways, it was too cumbersome for tooling about congested neighborhoods.

  He set the GPS to the reward offeror’s house in Mountain View and pulled into the busy suburban traffic.

  So, this was the heart of SV, the Olympus of high technology. The place didn’t glisten the way you might expect, at least along Shaw’s route. No quirky glass offices, marble mansions or herds of slinky Mercedeses, Maseratis, Beemers, Porsches. Here was a diorama of the 1970s: pleasant single-family homes, mostly ranch-style, with minuscule yards, apartment buildings that were tidy but could use a coat of paint or re-siding, mile after mile of strip malls, two- and three-story office structures. No high-rises—perhaps out of fear of earthquakes? The San Andreas Fault was directly underneath.

  Silicon Valley might have been Cary, North Carolina, or Plano, Texas, or Fairfax County, Virginia—or another California valley, San Fernando, three hundred miles south and tethered to SV by the utilitarian Highway 101. This was one thing about midwifing technology, Shaw supposed: it all happens inside. Driving through Hibbing, Minnesota, you’d see the mile-deep crimson-colored iron mine. Or Gary, Indiana, the fortresses of steel mills. There were no scars of geography, no unique superstructures to define Silicon Valley.

  In ten minutes he was approaching Frank Mulliner’s house on Alta Vista Drive. The ranch wasn’t designed by cookie cutter, though it had the same feel as the other houses on this lengthy block. Inexpensive, with wood or vinyl siding, three concrete steps to the front door, wrought-iron railings. The fancier homes had bay windows. They were all bordered by a parking strip, sidewalk and front yard. Some grass was green, some the color of straw. A number of homeowners had given up on lawns and hardscaped with pebbles and sand and low succulents.

  Shaw pulled up to the pale green house, noting the FORECLOSURE SALE sign on the adjoining property. Mulliner’s house was also on the market.

  Knocking on the door, Shaw waited only a moment before it opened, revealing a stocky, balding man of fifty or so, wearing gray slacks and an open-collar blue dress shirt. On his feet were loafers but no socks.

  “Frank Mulliner?”

  The man’s red-rimmed eyes glanced quickly at Shaw’s clothes, the short blond hair, the sober demeanor—he rarely smiled. The bereft father would be thinking this was a detective come to deliver bad news, so Shaw introduced himself quickly.

  “Oh, you’re . . . You called. The reward.”

  “That’s right.”

  The man’s hand was chill when the two gripped palms.

  With a look around the neighborhood, he nodded Shaw in.

  Shaw learned a lot about offerors—and the viability, and legitimacy, of the reward—by seeing their living spaces. He met with them in their homes if possible. Offices, if not. This gave him insights about the potential business relationship and how serious were the circumstances giving rise to the reward. Here, the smell of sour food was detectable. The tables and furniture were cluttered with bills and mail folders and tools and retail flyers. In the living room were piles of clothing. This suggested that even though Sophie had been missing for only a few days, the man was very distraught.

  The shabbiness of the p
lace was also of note. The walls and molding were scuffed, in need of painting and proper repair; the coffee table had a broken leg splinted with duct tape painted to mimic the oak color. Water stains speckled the ceiling and there was a hole above one window where a curtain rod had pulled away from the Sheetrock. This meant the ten thousand cash he was offering was hard to come by.

  The two men took seats on saggy furniture encased in slack gold slipcovers. The lamps were mismatched. And the big-screen TV was not so big by today’s standards.

  Shaw asked, “Have you heard anything more? From the police? Sophie’s friends?”

  “Nothing. And her mother hasn’t heard anything. She lives out of state.”

  “Is she on her way?”

  Mulliner was silent. “She’s not coming.” The man’s round jaw tightened and he wiped at what remained of his brown hair. “Not yet.” He scanned Shaw closely. “You a private eye or something?”

  “No. I earn rewards that citizens or the police’ve offered.”

  He seemed to digest this. “For a living.”

  “Correct.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  Shaw gave him the pitch. True, he didn’t need to win Mulliner over, as a PI seeking a new client might. But if he were going to look for Sophie, he needed information. And that meant cooperation. “I’ve got years of experience doing this. I’ve helped find dozens of missing persons. I’ll investigate and try to get information that’ll lead to Sophie. As soon as I do, I tell you and the police. I don’t rescue people or talk them into coming home if they’re runaways.”

  While this last sentence was not entirely accurate, Shaw felt it important to make clear exactly what he was providing. He preferred to mention rules rather than exceptions.

  “If that information leads to her you pay me the reward. Right now, we’ll talk some. If you don’t like what you hear or see, you tell me and I won’t pursue it. If there’s something I don’t like, I walk away.”

  “Far as I’m concerned, I’m sold.” The man’s voice choked. “You seem okay to me. You talk straight, you’re calm. Not, I don’t know, not like a bounty hunter on TV. Anything you can do to find Fee. Please.”

  “Fee.”

  “Her nickname. So-fee. What she called herself when she was a baby.” He controlled the tears, though just.

  “Has anybody else approached you for the reward?”

  “I got plenty of calls or emails. Most of ’em anonymous. They said they’d seen her or knew what had happened. All it took was a few questions and I could tell they didn’t have anything. They just wanted the money. Somebody mentioned aliens in a spaceship. Somebody said a Russian sex-trafficking ring.”

  “Most people who contact you’ll be that way. Looking for a fast buck. Anybody who knows her’ll help you out for free. There’s an off chance that you’ll be contacted by somebody connected with the kidnapper—if there is a kidnapper—or by somebody who spotted her on the street. So listen to all the calls and read all the emails. Might be something helpful.

  “Now, finding her is our only goal. It might take a lot of people providing information to piece her whereabouts together. Five percent here. Ten there. How that reward gets split up is between me and the other parties. You won’t be out more than the ten.

  “One more thing: I don’t take a reward for recovery, only rescue.”

  The man didn’t respond to this. He was kneading a bright orange golf ball. After a moment he said, “They make these things so you can play in the winter. Somebody gave me a box of them.” He looked up at Shaw’s unresponsive eyes. “It never snows here. Do you golf? Do you want some?”

  “Mr. Mulliner, we should move fast.”

  “Frank.”

  “Fast,” Shaw repeated.

  The man inhaled. “Please. Help her. Find Fee for me.”

  “First: Are you sure she didn’t run off?”

  “Absolutely positive.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Luka. That’s how.”

  5.

  Shaw was sitting hunched over the wounded coffee table.

  Before him was a thirty-two-page, 5-by-7-inch notebook of blank, unlined pages. In his hand was a Delta Titanio Galassia fountain pen, black with three orange rings toward the nib. Occasionally people gave him a look: Pretentious, aren’t we? But Shaw was a relentless scribe and the Italian pen—not cheap, at two hundred and fifty dollars, yet hardly a luxury—was far easier on the muscles than a ballpoint or even a rollerball. It was the best tool for the job.

  Shaw and Mulliner were not alone. Sitting beside Shaw and breathing heavily on his thigh was the reason that father was sure daughter had not run away: Luka.

  A well-behaved white standard poodle.

  “Fee wouldn’t leave Luka. Impossible. If she’d run off, she would’ve taken him. Or at least called to see how he was.”

  There’d been dogs on the Compound, pointers for pointing, retrievers for retrieving—and all of them for barking like mad if the uninvited arrived. Colter and Russell took their father’s view that the animals were employees. Their younger sister, Dorion, on the other hand, would bewilder the animals by dressing them up in clothing she herself had stitched and she let them sleep in bed with her. Shaw now accepted Luka’s presence here as evidence, though not proof, that the young woman had not run off.

  Colter Shaw asked about the details of Sophie’s disappearance, what the police had said when Mulliner called, about family and friends.

  Writing in tiny, elegant script, perfectly horizontal on the unlined paper, Shaw set down all that was potentially helpful, ignoring the extraneous. Then, having exhausted his questions, he let the man talk. He usually got his most important information this way, finding nuggets in the rambling.

  Mulliner stepped into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a handful of scraps of paper and Post-it notes containing names and numbers and addresses—in two handwritings. His and Sophie’s, he confirmed. Friends’ numbers, appointments, work and class schedules. Shaw transcribed the information. If it came to the police, Mulliner should have the originals.

  Sophie’s father had done a good job looking for his daughter. He’d put up scores of MISSING flyers. He’d contacted Sophie’s boss at the software company where she worked part-time, a half dozen of her professors at the college she attended and her sports coach. He spoke to a handful of her friends, though the list was short.

  “Haven’t been the best of fathers,” Mulliner admitted with a downcast gaze. “Sophie’s mother lives out of state, like I said. I’m working a couple of jobs. It’s all on me. I don’t get to her events or games—she plays lacrosse—like I should.” He waved a hand around the unkempt house. “She doesn’t have parties here. You can see why. I don’t have time to clean. And paying for a service? Forget it.”

  Shaw made a note of the lacrosse. The young woman could run and she’d have muscle. A competitive streak too.

  Sophie’d fight—if she had the chance to fight.

  “Does she often stay at friends’ houses?”

  “Not much now. That was a high school thing. Sometimes. But she always calls.” Mulliner blinked. “I didn’t offer you anything. I’m sorry. Coffee? Water?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  Mulliner, like most people, couldn’t keep his eyes off the scripty words Shaw jotted quickly in navy-blue ink.

  “Your teachers taught you that? In school?”

  “Yes.”

  In a way.

  A search of her room revealed nothing helpful. It was filled with computer books, circuit boards, closetsful of outfits, makeup, concert posters, a tree for jewelry. Typical for her age. Shaw noted she was an artist, and a good one. Watercolor landscapes, bold and colorful, sat in a pile on a dresser, the paper curled from drying off the easel.

  Mulliner had said she’d taken her l
aptop and phone with her, which Shaw had expected but was disappointed that she didn’t have a second computer to browse through, though that was usually not particularly helpful. You rarely found an entry: Brunch on Sunday, then I’m going to run away because I hate my effing parents.

  And you never have to search very hard to find the suicide note.

  Shaw asked for some pictures of the young woman, in different outfits and taken from different angles. He produced ten good ones.

  Mulliner sat but Shaw remained standing. Without looking through his notebook, he said, “She left at four in the afternoon, on Wednesday, two days ago, after she got home from school. Then went out for the bike ride at five-thirty and never came home. You posted an announcement of the reward early Thursday morning.”

  Mulliner acknowledged the timing with a tilt of his head.

  “It’s rare to offer a reward that soon after a disappearance—absent foul play.”

  “I was just . . . you know. It was devastating. I was so worried.”

  “I need to know everything, Frank.” Shaw’s blue eyes were focused on the offeror’s.

  Mulliner’s right thumb and forefinger were kneading the orange golf ball again. His eyes were on the Post-it notes on the coffee table. He gathered them, ordered them, then stopped. “We had a fight, Fee and I. Wednesday. After she came home. A big fight.”

  “Tell me.” Shaw spoke in a softer voice than a moment ago. He now sat.

  “I did something stupid. I listed the house Wednesday and told the broker to hold off putting up the For Sale sign until I could tell Fee. The Realtor did anyway and a friend up the street saw it and called her. Fuck. I should’ve thought better.” His damp eyes looked up. “I tried everything to avoid moving. I’m working those two jobs. I borrowed money from my ex’s new husband. Think about that. I did everything I could but I just can’t afford to stay. It was our family house! Fee grew up in it, and I’m going to lose it. The taxes here in the county? Jesus, crushing. I found a new place in Gilroy, south of here. A long way south. It’s all I can afford. Sophie’s commute to the college and her job’ll be two hours. She won’t see her friends much.”