by James, Ed
Was that enough to make Chase abduct his nephew? Carter didn’t know. He’d seen much worse done for much less. “You felt betrayed.”
“Right. Jen was a therapist at our foundation. Might’ve treated your agent. Tyler, is it? But she couldn’t cope with what happened to Todd. To our unborn daughter. We never tried again, I just drank more and she took on more work at the foundation. Sitting on committees with Landon. Those two spent more and more time together. One day, they just… became an item. My brother seems like a douchebag, but beneath all that tech-bro bullshit, he can be a nice guy. Guess she saw my brother as a way out of her stress.” He scratched at his neck. “They fell in love and she left me.”
“When was this?”
“We divorced three years ago, but it took about eighteen months to get to that point. All that time I had to see him at foundation events and meetings. Knowing what he was doing with her.”
“Sounds like you’d have a strong motive for taking the baby.”
“What?”
Carter just shrugged.
“Look, I was with Landon when this was supposed to have happened.”
“But you yourself said Boris Zangiev had someone else do it. This blonde woman in the picture. Who is she?”
A bead of sweat trickled down Chase’s neck. He was quick to wipe it off, but it left a trail. “This has nothing to do with me!”
Carter just raised his eyebrows.
“Listen to me. I’m over what happened. I wish Landon and Jen all the best.”
“Sure?”
“Really! Why would I take their son? Despite everything that happened between me and Jen, I still love her and don’t want her going through this hell.”
“You put me on to Boris Zangiev to throw me off the scent? You working with him?”
“I have no idea who took Ky. I swear.”
The door opened and Tyler stood there, eyebrows raised. “Need a word, sir.” He nodded at Chase, then disappeared, leaving the door open.
Carter walked over to the door.
“When can I get out of here?”
“You’ll be in here a good while longer, I’m afraid.” Chase still had a good few yards of rope to hang himself with. Carter pushed out into the corridor. “Peterson, what’s up?”
“Thought you’d want to know—SPD just had a report of a blonde-haired woman with a baby acting strangely at a car rental place over on Bainbridge Island. And she might’ve stolen some guy’s pickup.”
Twenty-Six
CARTER
23:25
The freeway hurtles past and I’m sure eating up the miles, but what am I doing? I pass another pickup going slow, and pull back into the slow lane.
In the back seat, Ky is finally sleeping like a baby. So cute in that striped romper suit, pink and frilly. His head keeps raising up, then rocking back down.
Okay, he’s the reason I did this.
A horn honks, and the dude in the pickup is powering alongside me now. His ball cap is pulled tight, and he’s wearing plaid under navy overalls. Shouting something at me.
I flip him the bird and hit the gas, easing out in front of him to pass a bus. I hit the brake and pull back in.
But he isn’t giving up. He’s back alongside me, shouting and screaming and flipping me the bird. Who is this asshole?
I’ve got nowhere to go. A few cars are clustered up ahead. He’s jerking across the freeway toward me. Comes close to hitting me.
I pass a sign for Silverdale, indicating a gas station at the next exit.
I pull into the off-ramp and follow the road. The dude in the pickup is laughing and honking at me.
Sweet Jesus, that was close. All those months in Seattle and I’d forgotten how many jackasses there were out here.
The gas station isn’t one of those fancy joints with motels and a Starbucks, just a tiny store in the middle of nowhere. The road runs off toward the mall, but in the dark it’s too hard to see much of it.
I pull in at the parking lot around back and get out. It’s freezing cold now, the wind feeling like it’s coming from the north of Canada. Ky is still sleeping in the back seat. Poor thing has no idea what he’s been through, but he’s with me now and that’s all that matters.
The gas station only has one surveillance camera, pointing out front. Probably to stop people leaving without paying, but I haven’t left a trace yet, even with this stolen pickup.
I need to get out of here, but she told me to wait here. And I’m starving. Those vegan cookies have upset my guts big time. I need some potato chips or something. So I reach in back, pick up Ky in his new pink clothes, and carry him inside.
The dude at the register is watching TV, yawning into a fist. He looks super-baked, his pupils almost filling his whole eyes. His uniform is stained with pink gloop like he spilled his post-joint milkshake and couldn’t focus on cleaning it properly. He glances at me and yawns again.
I grab a big bag of chips and a bottle of mineral water, and take them up to the counter.
“That all, ma’am?”
“Um, yeah I think so.”
“You think so?” He giggles, high-pitched and way too loud. Guy is baked. “Two bucks, fifty-three cents.”
I reach into my wallet and pull out the notes but I don’t have any small change. So I give him a twenty and he stares at it like it’s Martian space money or something.
The TV news is playing above the counter. “Police are searching for a red Ford F150, possibly heading to Tacoma, Washington. The driver is believed to have abducted Ky Bartlett, the baby son of Landon Bartlett.”
How did they know so soon?
Because I stole his pickup, that’s how. Acted like a dumb-ass. Jeez.
The cashier finishes counting, but he’s so stoned his movements are like half-speed. He looks at the screen, then at Ky.
I point at the TV, then hug him tight in the papoose. “I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be parted from my Kayla.”
“Sure are some sick people out there in the world.” He frowns at the change drawer. How hard is counting out a ten, a five, two singles, and forty-seven cents? “Dang, I lost count again.”
Outside, another car pulls up and a guy hops out and grabs the pump.
The cashier hits a button to let the gas flow, then goes back to his counting.
“You know, give me the ten and the five, then put the rest in the goodwill tin.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
He seems to take a week to give me the change, like he’s being swindled or something.
“Thanks.” I snatch it out of his grasp and set off out of the store.
The other car’s a cab, and the guy looks fried. Thinning hair that should’ve been shaved off years ago. He barely notices me as I shuffle past, heading over to the stolen pickup. I open the back door, then shove all the stuff from Walmart into a single bag, leaving those cookies behind.
A flash of light and something cold digs into my back. A knife? An arm around my chest and rancid breath over my shoulder. “Get in the car.”
Twenty-Seven
CARTER
23:25
Carter stepped out of the helicopter and dashed over to the waiting Suburban, the flashing lights reflecting in the damp asphalt. He got in the back and leaned between the seats. Didn’t recognize either agent—one male, one female. “Let’s go.”
“Sure thing.” The male agent stuck the car in drive and set off out of the parking lot as the chopper took off.
Carter got out his cell and searched through the contacts, then hit dial.
Ringtone. Then voicemail.
“Peterson, it’s Carter. Call me.” He hit the red button and sat back, watching the road whiz past. He still couldn’t follow the logic, but assuming it was their woman, she must’ve caught the ferry to Bainbridge. Meaning it either wasn’t Marie Edwards who took Ky, or she’d passed him on to a lookalike.
Hard to escape the feeling it was all slipping through his finger
s.
Carter had to brace as the driver swung a tight turn around a garbage truck hissing and beeping on the quiet street.
“Sorry about that.” The driver kept looking at Carter. Seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place him. “Agent Doug Hopewell, sir. I loved that seminar you gave on child abductions last month. Real inspiring.”
Carter flashed a smile at him. “What you guys doing over here?”
“Tyler Peterson asked us to check the ferries. So me and Lucy here—that’s Agent Lucy Yang, sir—we caught wind of a lead about an hour and a half ago, so we came over. Lucky we were in the vicinity.”
Carter felt himself sigh. “Tyler didn’t pass that on to me.”
“It was a dud. Some woman on the ferry.”
“And yet we got a sighting of someone in the car rental place?”
“They’re not connected, sir.” Hopewell seemed sure of that.
Up ahead, two police cruisers sat outside the car rental place, three beat cops making busy work. Only one doing anything useful was a female officer taking the statement from the woman behind the counter.
Carter hopped down from the Suburban and leaned back in. “Can you get these guys doing something useful?”
Hopewell let his belt ride up. “Sure thing, sir.”
Carter strolled over to the office, a flash of his badge enough to get the cops to go back to chatting. Not for long, as the two local agents sidled up to them, showing their badges.
Inside, it looked like the female officer was wrapping things up. Officer C. Cho. Late twenties maybe, her dyed-blonde hair wrapped up in a bun. She looked around at Carter as he stepped in, then gave one last smile at the attendant and came over to him. “Carter, right?”
“Right. You want to update me?”
Cho thumbed behind her at the attendant. “This woman came in, carrying her kid in her arms in, like, a shawl? Not anything suitable. Said she’d had her car stolen, hence needing some wheels.”
“Say where she was going?”
“Nope, said she was going to return it here. Needed it four days. Then, when the attendant here asked for ID, this woman started acting crazy. Said she was going easy on her.”
“When was this?”
“Hour, hour and a half ago?”
“So why the delay in calling it in?”
“Her cell was charging out back, so she only saw the Amber Alert like an hour later, but she called it in right away.”
“She give any idea what happened to her?”
“There’s some surveillance video, but it’s not great.”
Carter couldn’t see any surveillance cameras. Had to be some, though.
Cho pulled something up on her issued laptop. “Here we go.” She hit play.
The parking lot outside. Slim and young, so it could be the same woman from the other video. On the screen, she was standing around, looking lost and confused. Hard to figure out much more given how bad the video was. He just had to assume it was their abductor, and that the baby was Ky.
“You got any idea where she went next?”
“Well, yeah. She stole this guy’s pickup. Ford F150. Red.”
“You got a trace on it yet?”
“No, sir. I called an FBI agent, Tyler Peterson? He added it to the Amber Alert, sir.”
“Okay, you’ve done great.” Carter flashed her a smile and walked off, letting her get back to the attendant. He got out his cell and hit dial on the last number.
Answered this time. “Sir, I’ve been—”
“It’s fine, Tyler. I’m at the car rental place right now. Need an update on the plates on that F150.”
“Okay, well I’ve followed it over to a Walmart in Poulsbo.”
* * *
23:30
The Walmart staff room was middle-of-the-night quiet. It overlooked the store from above—rows and rows of products, pretty much every single one had a cage poking up as someone restocked overnight.
The door opened and a local cop walked in, Officer H. Zielemann. Big guy, late thirties, thick moustache; he had the look of an ex-soldier, but also a seasoned cop. “Over here.” He led a woman over to Carter. “Keisha, this man is with the FBI. You need me to hang around?”
Keisha nodded. Seemed scared out of her wits.
“Hi, Keisha. So you’re a cleaner here?”
“Right.”
“And you know we’re looking for Ky Bartlett, right?”
“Right. Look, I helped this girl change the kid’s diaper.” She had a deep voice. “She didn’t have any idea what she was doing. I mean, the poor baby was covered in doo-doo.”
“This is the same woman—”
Keisha pointed at Zielemann. “He showed me a photo and yes, it’s her. It’s your girl.”
“And the baby?”
“A boy.”
“Definitely?”
“You think I don’t know the difference? I raised three kids.” She paused, frowning. “God damn, now I think about it, she put girl’s clothes on a boy.”
“Go on?”
“She’d bought all this stuff from the store, but she took off blue sleepers and put on this kinda dress thing. Pink. I mean, definitely old-school girl’s clothes.”
Carter gave her a smile and motioned for Zielemann to step away.
He got it right away, leaning down to smile at Keisha. “We’ll be right back, okay?” He followed Carter over. “What’s your take on that?”
“Seems legit.”
Carter couldn’t disagree. “Okay, can you get me the security video from the store?”
“What for?”
“Need to run it against the facial recognition database.”
“Will do.” Zielemann got out his cell phone and started a call.
Carter gave him some space and looked over at Keisha. She seemed broken up that she’d let the woman go. That she’d even helped her get away with it.
Zielemann reappeared, eyes wide. “Just had a report on that pickup at a gas station near Silverdale.”
Twenty-Eight
KAITLYN
23:31
The knife is touching my skin. He’s pierced my hoodie and my shirt, almost pierced my skin. “Shut up!” He reaches around to open the driver door. “Get in the truck, you dumb bitch.”
“Okay, okay!” I walk around the side of the pickup, holding Ky close to me. He’s awake, a slightly puzzled look on his face.
“Is he really yours?” And I see his face. It’s Keegan.
“She’s my daughter. Beverley!”
“Just get in.”
There’s no arguing with this guy. I get back in on the driver side, brushing Ky’s soft hair. “It’s okay.”
The passenger door opens, springs squeak and the knife returns to my side. “I followed you all this way after I helped you? Nobody steals from me, you stupid bitch. Now drive.”
“Where are we going?”
“A cop station. You’re that chick on the news. And you’re going to pay for stealing my ride.”
“That’s not me! Please, I just need to get home with my baby.”
“No. You’re all over the news. That’s not your kid. I’m taking you to a police station. You can’t do this to people.”
“I can pay you.”
“I don’t want money. I want justice.”
“What does that mean?”
He smacks me with the back of his hand and my cheekbone cracks off the window.
Stars flash around my vision.
He lashes out with the knife, but he’s not cutting me. He’s… He’s hacking at my hair, sawing at it until he’s got a lock of it. Sick bastard. “Now, drive!”
“I need to put him in the baby seat.”
“I’m doing it. No funny business. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He takes the keys out, then takes Ky off me and gets back out.
I watch him go around and buckle Ky into the seat.
How the hell did he find me?
He gets back in and buc
kles his own seatbelt, both hands occupied. I casually reach up to adjust the mirror, then drive my fist into his crotch, and he squeals. Another punch and he drops the knife into the footwell.
I reach for it and pick it up. “Stop!”
He grips my wrist tight, trying to get the knife off of me, but I push forward and the knife grazes his cheek.
I dive back against the door and hold the knife in both hands. “Stop!”
He sits back, mirroring me, but with his palms up. “Okay. Let’s be cool.”
“Stay perfectly still. Keys.”
He hands them over. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” I press the knife against his ear and reach over with my free hand to fumble at his belt, managing to undo it.
“What are you doing?”
I tug at it, tearing it through the loops until I’ve wrapped the leather around my left fist. “Now, pull down your jeans.”
“Are you serious?”
“I’ve cut you once with the knife. I’ll do it again.”
“Shit.” He pulls down his pants until they’re around his ankles.
“Open the door.”
He does.
“Now get out.”
He steps down and I smack his skull with the knife’s pommel. He goes down hard on the asphalt.