by James, Ed
But they’re all in waist sizes.
Goddamn it, they’re adult diapers.
And there’s no sign of where the baby ones are. I’m starting to sweat as I walk around.
Where the hell is all the baby stuff?
I walk back toward the entrance and realize I’m starving, so I chuck a pack of these crazy vegan protein cookies in my basket, not exactly easy with Ky clinging on, then walk on through the store.
The music switches to that old Britney song. Toxic? Know how she feels.
A wall of tires next to the gun counter. Sporting rifles and ammo locked away in a glass cabinet. Some pistols too. What I wouldn’t give for one just now.
Behind me, an entire aisle of Lego. Harry Potter, Avengers, Ninjago.
Where are the baby diapers?
“Jennifer.”
I should ask. But I can’t. I have to do this on my own. I have to be able to—
“Jennifer!” Keegan is holding up his own basket. Filled with diapers and baby wipes and like a ton of stuff. “You okay?”
“Sorry, I’m stressed out of my mind. This place is way too big.”
“For real.” He rests the basket on the floor and holds up what looks like a bag, wrapped in clear plastic. “Wasn’t sure what kind of carrier you preferred, so I grabbed both types. Kind of a papoose man, myself.”
I could kiss him. “Thanks, I’ll just go pay for—”
“Already done.”
“How much?”
“Don’t mention it.” He shrugs. “Thought you could use some help.”
“I can’t keep asking you to—”
“How about you pay for the gas?”
“Deal.” I spot the signs for the family restroom. “Back in a second. Je— Beverley needs changing.”
“See you out front, okay?”
“Okay.” I dump my basket and take the stuff to the back. The staff entrance is just next to it, with a group of employees hanging out, shooting the breeze. There’s a wall of honor by the bathroom, a list of servicemen and women who worked there. I dip my head as I pass.
I open the restroom door and Ky chooses that moment to start screaming again. Gets us a concerned look from the two female staff members. Inside, the faucet is spraying water. I turn it off and catch my sorry-ass face in the giant mirror over the sink.
What am I doing?
Ky’s scream wrenches me from my daydream.
What I’m doing is looking after this little guy.
The baby change facility is a low fold-away bench halfway up the wall. I rest him on it, but I have no idea what the hell to do next.
I open up his diaper and it’s a complete mess in there. I can barely look at it. And the smell? I do everything I can to stop myself from vomiting.
Ky’s screams are even louder now. Like someone’s drilling at my skull.
What do I do?
I spread out some tissues and try to take his diaper away from him, but he’s wriggling and getting the mess everywhere, and I don’t know what to do, and he’s screaming louder, and the skin on his ass is red, and I think I might be shouting, and—
A knock on the door. “Ma’am, are you okay?” It’s a woman’s voice. Friendly, calming.
I take another look at Ky. I need help. So I go over to the door and open it to a crack.
It’s a cleaner, smiling. “Ma’am, you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure? Because someone was shouting in here.”
I’m crying. Didn’t even realize. Hot tears burning my cheeks. “No. I need help. I can’t do this on my own.”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” She rubs my arms. “You mind if I come in?”
“No.” I step aside.
She walks in. “Hey, little guy.” She looks at me, and maybe there’s sympathy in her eyes. “You new to this, huh?” She doesn’t seem to be judging me.
What do I tell her? I need to spin something. “I just got out of the hospital. Been in since he was born. Caesarian, but my stitches are infected and he had this cough, and my husband left me and…”
Her face shifts, a flash of rage. “What kind of asshole leaves his wife just after his baby’s born?”
“I know. Came right out the blue.”
“Okay, let me help out. Well, everything’s here. That’s a good start.” She tugs out some baby wipes and starts cleaning him. “Don’t worry about all this mess, cleaning was overdue anyhow. You doing okay?”
I stare up at the ceiling, then realize she’s talking to me. “No, I’m not.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Some asshole stole my car. Took all our stuff. I had all the baby gear in there. Diapers and wipes and a stroller, and my scars are aching.” I wipe away my tears. “I just need to get home.”
“And you’re so far out of your depth, huh?”
“Right. I don’t even know what to think.”
She stuffs something in the trash and she laughs, all bitter. “Happened to me, you know? Third kid. Daryl found some skank over in Bellevue. Of course this was years ago, when Bellevue wasn’t what it is today. And do my kids even speak to me anymore? Hell, no.” She finishes taping up the new diaper. “Well, this one’s good to go.”
“Thank you so much. I can’t—”
“Just do me a favor.” She holds him, but doesn’t pass him over. “Take good care of him, okay?”
I take hold of Ky with a broad smile. “Sure.”
* * *
22:25
I walk outside with Ky strapped to me, looking right up at me, hiding under the little hood. The papoose Keegan bought is super cool, pushes us close together.
Keegan is over by the car, talking on his cell.
I stop dead. Is he calling the cops?
Then he smiles at me, holds up his thumb. He’s ended the call by the time I’m over there. He opens the back door of the pickup and loads my stuff in. “I bought you those cookies.” He shows me a bag with some fruit and snacks, and a six-pack of Reuben’s Crikey IPA. “My favorite tipple.”
“Oh my god, thank you.” I take some of the pre-mixed baby formula and get in front. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“Don’t sweat it. Happy to help. Found this in the back. It’s my daughter’s from way back when.” He plugs the bottle into a USB warmer attached to his dash. “Be about a minute heating up.”
We wait there, listening to this old Creed track playing on the radio, Keegan’s thumbs drumming the wheel.
But I’m really uneasy at being a sitting target like this. The feds can’t track me, and I don’t even know if they’re on to me, but… Something doesn’t feel right.
The bottle’s red light turns green and I ease it out. Feels nice and warm. Not too hot. Real Goldilocks temperature.
Ky guzzles it down like Keegan will that IPA when he gets home. “He loves it.”
“Good.” Keegan sticks the car in gear and trundles through the parking lot. “So where am I dropping you?”
“Shit, don’t we need gas?”
Keegan clicks his fingers. “You’re as smart a cookie as those ones I bought you.” He pulls up at a pump and gets out, his window down so he can keep talking to me. “You know, I worked over in England for a couple years. The have these pay at the pump things. You pay, fill, then get a receipt. I hear they got them on the East Coast and in Canada. It’s like the one thing they do better than here.”
Ky twists his mouth away like he’s had enough, so I set the bottle down in the cupholder. Give him a minute, see if he wants more.
I let out a deep breath and listen to the drone of the gas filling the tank. Starting to feel better. Got out of Seattle in one piece. More than half the way home.
The gas stops and Keegan grins with his thumbs up. “Hey, you want anything from the store?”
I give him two fifties from my stash. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“The deal was I paid for the gas. Do you mind doing it for me? She’s just gone to s
leep.”
“Sure.” Keegan takes one of the fifties and passes me the key. “You need anything from inside? A soda, potato chips maybe?”
“I’m fine.” I hold up a cookie packet. “Got these.”
“Watch what you’re doing with them, they give me… Just be careful!” He laughs. “Line up some tunes, would you?” He drums on the door and sets off toward the cashier.
I ease Ky out of his harness and put him back in his seat. The key’s in the ignition, so I turn it on and start scanning the stations.
Keegan is in the line inside, drumming with his hands on his jeans. He seems like a grunge guy, so I skip through the pop stations, and know exactly where the right rock station is. It’s playing the end of that last Sidewalk tune, “Spin the Bottle.”
God, I used to love them, but now… It sounds pretty racist. White dudes doing reggae always does.
“Cole Delaney and his band Sidewalk there. Gone but not forgotten. A couple of ex-members are coming in to do a session this coming Tuesday with their new band, The Lost Islanders. I’ll play their new track at the top of the hour, but first, here’s Ruth with the news.”
“Thanks, Dwayne.” A real Midwest drawl, like she’s some farmer’s daughter. “FBI agents and Seattle Police are hunting for Ky Bartlett, the baby son of local financier Landon Bartlett and his wife, Jennifer.”
My blood runs cold.
“Landon is the CEO of the Bartlett Foundation, who tonight announced plans to open a cancer center in downtown Seattle. Special Agent in Charge Karen Nguyen had this to say.”
Inside, Keegan takes his cap off as he moves up in the line. A few other cars out here, so that figures.
Noise fills the radio station, like they were outside somewhere. “We are urgently seeking a blonde-haired white female. Late teens, early twenties, name presently unknown, but last seen in downtown Seattle around the Greyhound bus station on Royal Brougham Way. If you have any information at this time, please call 911. Thank you.”
Keegan’s staring right at me from inside. If the radio’s playing in there, he just heard the same thing. Heard my description. Clueless dumb-ass blonde with baby. Two plus two, man.
What do I do?
What can I do?
“In other news, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella today announced—”
I snap off the radio and shift over to the driver’s side.
Keegan bursts out of the station, running toward me. I twist the key and stick it in drive. He grabs at the door handle, but I’m off before he can get to me.
I shoot off toward the freeway south. In a stolen car. I tug on the seatbelt and watch him disappear in the rearview.
What the hell am I doing?
On top of child abduction, I’ve stolen a car from someone who showed me charity? This is what it’s going to be like, isn’t it? Running, fighting everyone.
Where can I go to escape this now?
I take a deep breath. How screwed am I?
I’m probably driving toward a roadblock or something.
But I see the cell phone on the passenger seat. There’s something stuck to the back of the packet, something I didn’t see before.
I pull in at the next exit and check it. A printed note, stuck down with a thin roll of tape:
CALL THIS.
I tear open the packet and power up the cell, then type in the number and hit dial. It rings and I wait, frowning and sweating.
“Are you in trouble?” A woman’s voice, sounds like she’s driving. It’s her. My savior.
“I’m in deep shit.”
“You’re in Poulsbo?”
I gasp. “You can track me?”
“That cell phone. What’s your situation?”
“This guy helped me and I panicked and I stole his car.”
She sighs down the line. “Okay, I can meet you.”
I put the car in drive and cut back onto the freeway. “Thank you.”
“There’s a gas station in Silverdale, just where the highway splits. I’ll be an hour. Wait for me.” And she’s gone.
Twenty-Five
CARTER
22:30
Carter didn’t know what to think anymore. He was so tired. A full shift and then this. On top of Bill’s bullshit. “You were talking about Boris Zangiev.”
Chase looked around the interrogation room, eyebrows twitching. “Have you found Ky?”
“Not yet. But I spoke to your friend Boris.” Carter watched each micro-gesture, trying to pick out the truth. If Chase even knew what the truth was. But nothing seemed to spark at the mention of that name. “He swears blind that he isn’t involved in this. Tight alibi too.”
A chunk of empty space, but Chase didn’t fill it.
“How well do you know him?”
“Well enough to know I shouldn’t trust him.” Chase sat forward, teeth bared. “When I started out, I had all these plans to grow my company, plans that needed more money than I had. And he’s the only guy who would give me it.”
“So you’re in debt to him?”
“No. I paid him back, plus interest, then never heard from him again until tonight.”
“He says Marcus Edwards was visiting Landon to get your brother to sign a contract.”
“What kind of contract?”
“Mr. Zangiev said it was about providing security for the opening of your foundation’s cancer center.”
“That’s what they were discussing?” Chase swallowed hard a few times, muttered something Carter couldn’t catch, then rubbed at his neck. “I made a mistake.”
“Excuse me? You made me visit Zangiev, and it’s a mistake?”
“Look, Landon was being secretive and it pissed me off. That’s why we fought like a pair of asshole kids. I wanted to know what was going on. Heck, I’ve never even met my nephew, but if Zangiev was involved, I wanted you to know, so you could rescue him. But Zangiev didn’t do this.”
“Did Landon tell you anything he’s not telling me?”
“My brother’s a stubborn asshole. He wouldn’t even tell me if his son’s—” Chase gritted his teeth. “Well.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“It’s…” Chase stared up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry for wasting your time. I acted in the best interests of my nephew.”
“But you have wasted time. A lot of it. I have sixty federal agents out trying to find your nephew, plus three times as many cops. And you’re playing games with me, Chase. You want to tell me what’s really going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.” Chase slackened off his collar. His white shirt was soaked with sweat. “Landon and I don’t get along.”
“That’s obvious from you two trying to kill each other earlier. You want to tell me why?”
“You might just see a pair of entitled assholes.”
“I see what I see.”
“When our folks died, Landon used his inheritance to expand the family business.”
“Venture capital, right?”
“Right. And he did well, grew it like crazy and sold his firm last year. Made a ton of money for it. You’ve seen his house, right?”
“So you’re jealous?”
“A bit.” Chase laughed, bitter and hollow. “I wasted my money on a tech start-up. Started as a social network, then we pivoted a few times. It became an app for firms like Uber and Lyft to get better driver navigation, then it became a stupid VR helmet. You know that phrase, ‘throwing good money after bad’? Well, I acted like I hadn’t. The business had been failing for years, with no direction or plan, and I just kept digging deeper and deeper, tossing more cash onto the dumpster fire. And I needed to get out. But to get out, I needed money, bad, so I went to my brother,” he snarled the word, “but he didn’t help. Said his hands were tied. Ended up selling to GrayBox last year.”
“The defense contractor?”
“Sure. You know Richard Olson?”
“We’ve had dealings. Think I’ve seen that helmet in action once.”
“Well,
Richard paid his money; it’s his problem now.”
“You sound angry about it.”
“Because he paid a lot less than I put in. Richard paid ten million bucks. Can you believe it?”
“I can’t even imagine one million.”
“Well, it’s a kick in the face considering the amount of time and work we put into it. Not to mention money. Lost over twenty million bucks.”
“And your brother could’ve backed you?”
“Right. At the time, I could’ve made that company big. Back then, that helmet was hot, but now everyone has a VR helmet out. Sony, HTC, Valve, Samsung, you name it. Facebook bought Oculus a few years back. Paid billions, and our product could’ve been at least as good. But he didn’t back me.”
The kind of man Chase Bartlett was, they spend their whole lives lying. Hard to pick out which lies to focus on. “Sounds like a solid motive to me. Revenge.”
“You’re serious?”
“Don’t doubt it. You lost billions because of your brother, so you abducted his kid.”
“This is bullshit.”
“You haven’t been completely honest with me here today.” Carter sat back and shut up.
Didn’t take long for Chase to crack. “What about?”
“Zangiev gave me some information that I need to investigate. An additional factor that adds to the motive. How your ex-wife had an affair with your brother.”
Chase sat back in his chair. “Man…” Eyes shut, he nodded, then opened them to stare hard at Carter for a good number of clicks. He sat forward and reached for the cup of water, tipping it back in one go and wiping his mouth. “It’s a long story.”
“Sooner you start, the better.”
Chase played with the empty cup, spinning it around in his fingers and inspecting the clear plastic.
“Will tearing your fingernails off speed this up?”
Chase smirked. “I had a ton of stress at work, burning the candle at both ends, working stupid hours. All that jazz. And drinking. Started with a whiskey to take the edge off, you know? Pretty soon, it was a bottle a night.” He set the cup down. “Our son, Todd, he just turned three.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “One night, Jen picked me up from work. She was driving and… this car…” He covered his mouth with a fist. “Todd died.” He clawed at his hair. “Jen was pregnant at the time. She miscarried. We lost two kids that night. I lost my marriage. The lowest point in my life. And I just gave up. Tried to sell my business, to get out of it, but nobody was buying. It still kept on rolling, sucking me deeper under. And a few months later, I heard Jen was having an affair with Landon. I found them in a hotel. My own brother.”