by James, Ed
“Pot, kettle. You took Ky from his crib.”
“This is like completely different.”
“You committed a serious crime, Kaitlyn. You’ll face twenty years inside. Maybe more.”
“How long has she been on the run?”
“She had to disappear last year.” Chase gripped the wheel tight. “She’s been working freelance to help to pay for herself. Done some stuff remotely for me. She worked for a PI firm in Seattle. Lownds and Karevoll—they do stuff for rich assholes like my brother. She specialized in computer stuff. Some high-end hacker, like Kevin Mitnick on steroids.”
“She seems to be able to do a lot more than computer stuff.”
“Yeah, well, she had to learn some new tricks recently to survive.”
“So I need to get that good to survive?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Kaitlyn. You’re a sweet kid, but you’re just a kid. I’ve helped you, she’s helped you, but you can’t expect to be able to run and hide, and look after him. This is the right thing to do.”
“I am his mother.”
“No, Kaitlyn. Look, I know you think you’re Ky’s mother, but you brought Jennifer’s egg to term. It wasn’t yours. You grew attached, that’s understandable. You’ll do anything to protect him. I get all of that, but you need to return him and you need to go on the run.”
She locked eyes with Chase in the rearview. “Okay. I’ll return him.”
“That’s the right decision.”
“What’s your plan? Take him to the FBI?”
“We could, but I was thinking that driving up to their home with Ky, me acting the hero, would work better.”
“They’ll arrest you. Question you. Have you got the answers?”
Chase knew he didn’t. “It’ll buy you time to go on the run. Take this car, and get the hell out of this state.” He looked at her in the rearview. “You got a better idea?”
“Maybe.”
Fifty-Nine
CARTER
13:56
Carter sat next to the bed. The window looked out across downtown Seattle, over the Sound to Bremerton. The ER over there wasn’t equipped to deal with a patient in Duke’s condition.
Duke kept coughing. Hard, harsh. Guy sure seemed like he didn’t have long left. He sucked on his oxygen mask and shuffled in the hospital bed. The machines beeped and wheezed around him. The small portable stereo was playing Springsteen. Not Carter’s favorite record of his, but not his worst by a long stretch.
Carter had his cell phone out and started it recording. Ideally, this would be in the Field Office or a police station, but it was better than nothing. He leaned forward and made eye contact. “Mr. Stretton, I need your help in finding Kaitlyn.”
“Told you.” Duke sucked in oxygen. “She was getting a prescription filled, but she never came back. I drove down there to see if she’d gotten on the ferry. She has…” Another racking cough. “She has a history of running off. Kept slipping off after school. Going to the movies, the arcade, hanging out with older boys. You name it, she put us through it. You got any kids?”
Carter let him have his diversion, hoping it’d buy some truth, some answers. “A girl. Four.”
“Wait till she’s a teenager.”
Carter smiled.
“Don’t get me wrong, Kaitlyn was a bright kid. Beverley tried to get through to her, but she was willful. They both are. I managed to get her to open up, and she bucked up her ideas. But then she ran off to go to college…”
“Not many kids run off to go to college, least not nowadays.”
“I know, right?” Duke took a puff of oxygen. “Kaitlyn got the grades, but she wanted to do some fancy course in the city. Biotech, something like that.” He waved to the window, just a couple of buildings away from the university campus. “Her mother didn’t think it was right for her. Hard to disagree. Beverley wanted her to do law. I said it was Kaitlyn’s choice, but Beverley’s a strong-minded woman. They both are.”
Carter left him space. The tune ended, but was followed by a wall of synthesizer and drums.
“Kaitlyn found trouble in the city. Money, was all I could get out of her. Wouldn’t tell us what or how much or who she owed it to, just that she dropped out of college. It breaks my heart seeing her fail like that. She’s been under our roof since last Tuesday.”
And there it was. The offered alibi. Always suspicious. Carter nudged the music volume down a notch. “Sir, we believe she abducted a baby.”
“So you said when you had a gun in my face.” Duke grinned, but his thin skin just made it seem sinister. “She told me that baby is hers.”
“So there was one at the house?”
Duke took another puff of oxygen.
“It’s a federal crime. And for conspirators who cover up what she’s done. People like yourself.”
Duke reached up to scratch at his beard. Didn’t say anything.
“Sir, I’ve been doing this job for a few years now. Hunting down child abductors. You wouldn’t believe the number of times the abductor is a parent. Usually a husband who disagrees with a judge’s decision over access, thinks they can take the law into their own hands. That kind of thing. It’s understandable in a way. Sympathetic. Every one of them had a reason, at least in their own heads. People are human and love makes them choose the bad option sometimes. But when I catch them, it’s twenty years inside. Minimum. No parole.”
“And you think that’s right?”
“Not for me to say. My job is to find the kids and reunite them with their parents. This case… It’s different, I’ll give you that, but it’s still the same crime. The same sentence.”
Duke flashed his eyebrows. “That doesn’t seem to sit right with you.”
“It’s hard sometimes, I’ll give you that. There are times when a child’s abducted from a bad situation, say where a child has been neglected or abused. It those cases, it’s never reported quickly enough, and it never ends well.”
“Sounds like you’re talking from experience.”
“Like I said, I’ve been doing this job a few years now.”
“I meant personal experience. This happen to someone you know?”
Carter tried to grin it away, but he felt that familiar tingle in his spine. “Happened to me.” He let the breath out real slow. “When I was a kid. My father… He brought me over here from England.” He tasted bile in his throat. “But he’s got cancer.”
“Just like me.” Duke took another suck of oxygen. “Guys in my situation, we want to make peace with the world, not war. You, the ones left behind, you get to choose which you want. Can you bring yourself to forgive your father for everything he’s done?”
Carter stared him down. “What do you have to be forgiven for?”
Duke pressed his fingers together. “Me and Beverley were high school sweethearts. Never quite got it together, you know? Then I enlisted, served in Iraq and other hot places. Next thing I know, I’m back here on Thanksgiving, and she’s married with some other guy’s kid growing in her belly. Broke my heart.”
“Must’ve been tough.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Duke coughed into his fist. “I took a job as a nurse in the hospital in town. Tough gig for a man back then. One day, I go in for my breakfast to this diner just down the block, gave the order to the owner, but it was Beverley who brought out my eggs and bacon. That was even harder than that first Thanksgiving. Man, she looked tired and unhappy. But I kept going in there, same thing every day. Bacon, eggs, coffee. Free refill.” He tried to lean forward again, but didn’t seem to have the energy. “Then I started noticing the bruises. Kaitlyn’s father, Thomas Presswood Jr., he was a real son of a bitch. I tried to get her to leave him, but she wouldn’t. It wasn’t for me, you understand, but for Beverley, for Kaitlyn. She wanted to stay together with him for Kaitlyn’s sake. She didn’t want her kid to grow up without a father, unlike her.” He snorted. “Biggest crock of horseshit you ever heard. Couldn’t see t
hat no father is better than one who beats the crap out of your mom when he’s wasted. Or one that’ll start knocking Kaitlyn around when he gets a taste for it. Sure you’ve seen it?”
Carter gave a nod.
“So one day, I sit down in my usual seat at the counter before my shift, only Beverley wasn’t there to pour my coffee and take my order. So I asked this other waitress, friend of Beverley’s, and it took me a while to get the details out of her. Turns out the son of a bitch knocked the crap out of her. Hospitalized her. I worked maternity, but I knew the sister in the ICU. She let me see Beverley. She was in a coma. Good prognosis, but still… A coma. And that son of a bitch… it was all because of some bet on the Super Bowl. Lost a hundred bucks, so he took it out on his wife. And I’m standing there, watching her breathing on a ventilator and I’m thinking, how far will he take it next time? Maybe I’ll be standing in a funeral home, looking at her body and thinking I should’ve done something.”
The song ended and an up-tempo rocker kicked in, jarring with Duke’s tale.
“So I called in sick that day, and went around to check on Kaitlyn. She opened up, confirmed to me that it was actually her father who did it. She was the one who called the cops. Seven years old. Imagine seeing that? Imagine having to protect your mom from your pop like that?” Duke tapped his finger in time to the music. “Thing is, her father was a cop and they weren’t going to prosecute him. Gave him a warning. And I… I didn’t want that son of a bitch looking after Kaitlyn on his own until her mother was discharged from the hospital. Could be weeks, given the state she was in. So I went to have a word with him, but finding the guy was tough. Took all my wiles to track him down. Found the son of a bitch in this dive bar in town. Place is now one of those hipster tap bars you’d get down in Portland…”
“What did you do?”
“Thomas had worked the night shift and went there for an early morning drink before he headed home. When I found him, his fists were still red from what he did to her the night before. He was falling-over drunk, and this is like noon. He threatened me, but the bartender kicked his ass out of there. So I drove to his home, and told Kaitlyn to wait in my truck. Parked it around the block, where he’d never find her. Told her to sit tight. She understood, sat there listening to the radio. Wisest kid I ever met. So I waited for him outside. He turned up, screaming for Beverley. I knew I needed to send him a message. So I went inside and sat him down, had this little chat, like you and me just now. But would he listen?”
Carter raised an eyebrow as a question.
“That dude never listened to anyone. Not to his wife’s screaming, or to the other cops warning him to stop it. Certainly not to me. I had some bourbon in my pickup, and I’d brought it inside, opened it up and poured him some. Pretty soon, he’d drank half the pint and he was out of it, asleep in his chair. I lit a cigarette, put it between his lips while he snored. Cheap bastard didn’t pay for fire-safe seats. Place burned down. He wouldn’t have been aware of much, which is a pity in a way. But I took Kaitlyn to the cop station, said I found her walking the street. They took her to the girl’s aunt. God rest her soul, lost her to cancer last summer. Weeks later, Beverley woke up and she thanked me.”
“She never knew?”
“Nope. We were engaged six months later. Tried for kids of our own, but it wasn’t in our stars. Couldn’t afford to pay for a surrogate.” Duke laughed, bitter and hard, and it turned into another rasping cough. “We talked about adopting, but Kaitlyn was hard enough to raise. Kid goes through what she did… And I loved her like she was my own daughter.”
“She ever have any idea?”
“Very wise kid. Good head on her shoulders. Of course she knew. But she knew her father was evil, knew he had to pay.”
Carter sat back and tried to process it. It was an obvious ploy and he’d fallen for it. No matter the truth behind it, Duke was buying time. For what, he didn’t know. Escape, probably. And he couldn’t stop himself from listening. “You know I have to pass this to police for processing, right? Given your condition, I doubt they’ll do anything with it.”
Duke stared at the floor. “There’s another thing I haven’t told Beverley. She thinks I’m stage three and that there’s still hope for me. I’m late stage four and I’ve got weeks left if I’m lucky, days probably. Hell, the way I feel, what I’ve been pushing myself through today, I’ll be lucky if it’s hours. The doc’s running some tests now and… Listen, Kaitlyn’s a good kid. Please go easy on her.”
“She bought a ferry ticket to Seattle. You know why.” A statement, not a question.
Duke shrugged his shoulders. Even that act seemed to push him too far. He coughed, long and hard, then took a long suck on his oxygen. “I dropped her at the ferry because she needed to get back to the city. Last time she left, it wasn’t so good for her mother. I wanted to give her a proper send off, to let her know she can return any time. There’s not long left for me, but I want to make sure Beverley and Kaitlyn are there for each other.”
“Listen to me. Whatever Kaitlyn told you, that baby isn’t hers. She brought it to term, sure, but Ky is the product of Jennifer Bartlett’s egg and Landon Bartlett’s sperm.”
Duke stared hard at him, his eyes watering. “Jesus.”
“Please, I need to find Ky. I need to return him to his parents.”
“Kaitlyn was going to run off.” Duke sank his head back into the pillow. “I told her to keep the kid, to run off. Thought it was doing the right thing. But if it’s not hers, if it’s…”
Carter stared at him. A dying man, desperate to make peace, not war. “Where could she have gone?”
“You’ve lost her.”
Sixty
KAITLYN
14:33
A block from Landon’s house and we can’t get any farther. Not exactly roadblocks, but the cops are out, still canvassing, still pulling over passing cars.
“What now?”
Chase is silent for a few seconds. “I’ve got this.” He hangs a left and climbs the slight hill, letting me see across the gray lake, then he takes a right onto the street above their home and pulls in. “I’m going to cause a distraction, okay? You need to sneak inside and return him.”
“What?” There’s a light on in the house down below, but I can’t see a way in without having to get past the cops. “How am I going to do that?”
“You did it before.”
“There were no cops here.”
“I’m going to clear the place. Just be ready.” He passes me a cell phone. “When it’s done, get out and call Layla on this. Okay?”
A man in the house on the left peers out of his window at us. I lean over and give Chase a kiss, acting like we’re a couple making out. The dude draws his curtains, but there’s a smile on his face.
“Okay.” I open the door and get out onto the street in silence, then open the back door. The last time I’ll unbuckle Ky from his seat, the last time I’ll take him in my arms. Being his mother. I nudge the door shut and stand there, holding him, basking in his smell, his warmth. “Thanks, Chase.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“No, I mean it. You’re making me do the right thing here.”
“I said, don’t mention it.”
“Okay, I won’t then.” I set off along the street, holding Ky against me. The wall backs onto their yard from above, covered in ivy. I stop and try to find the exact spot. There. I brush the foliage aside and reveal a narrow wooden door.
A squawk of police siren. Can’t tell where it’s coming from.
Back down the street, the guy from earlier is looking out again.
Another whoop, definitely from down below. A cruiser has pulled over a car.
Chase’s car.
I need to move.
I get the key out of my pocket and unlock the door, then push it wide open. A clump of dust falls down as I walk through, brushing the ivy out of the way, and I carry Ky into their yard again. I shut the door, hidden again under the fake ivy
.
We’re above the house, just by the patio where I used to have my breakfast most mornings in the summer. I had no idea there was a door there until Landon pointed it out to me. The patio is still slick with rain, so I take the steps real slow, keeping a tight hold of Ky and gripping the slimy railing, and stop near the house.
Jennifer is in the kitchen, sipping white wine from a tall glass. Landon is with her, looking seriously pissed. They’re not talking, just being. Coping with what I’ve done to them.
I doubt either of them thinks about what they’ve done to me.
Two cops stand in the courtyard out front, chatting and joking like there’s not a full-scale federal investigation underway.
I hang back in the shadows. “I’ll miss you, my baby boy.” My tears fall on Ky’s head and I kiss them away, tasting all salty.
This is tearing me apart. I can’t just put him back in his crib, can I?
Never seeing him again…
Shouldn’t have come back, shouldn’t have tried this. I can still walk off, take him back through Landon’s secret door, then follow Duke’s plan. Go inland, Montana or Idaho. Somewhere I don’t know, somewhere nobody knows me.
On the street below, Chase gets out of the car. The two local cops swarm him and Chase shouts something I don’t catch. He interlaces his fingers, then goes down to his knees.
My breath mists in the air. Ky gurgles in his papoose, kicks out at me.
The front door opens and Landon storms out. “Bro, what the hell?”
Jennifer appears behind him, without her wine glass, following Landon but at a distance.
This is it.
Hugging Ky tight, I slide over to the kitchen door at the side, then listen hard. No sounds from inside, not even Landon’s constant wall of background music. So I sneak in, and carry Ky through the kitchen as quiet as I can.
In the hallway, the front door hangs open.
Ky lets out a tiny scream. I freeze. Stop breathing.