Count to Three

by T. R. Ragan

  Dani lifted a brow. “More than we had a few days ago. What was the driver wearing?”

  “A blue jumpsuit, you know, like mechanics and painters wear.”

  “What did he say about the logo?”

  “He said it was a bunch of squiggly lines and may have had an initial or two.”

  “Don’t worry about Ethan,” Dani said. “He’ll come around. You’re doing a good job.”

  “Thanks,” Quinn said.

  “You might be interested to know I did some research on Ethan and his mom. His dad took off when Ethan was two. His mom was doing drugs at the time, so after his father disappeared, Ethan was placed in foster care. For a couple of years he was passed around, but his mom cleaned up her act and Ethan got to go home.”

  “At least he has a mom,” Quinn said.

  “Nine months ago,” Dani continued without responding to her comment, “Ethan’s mom was arrested again. This time for selling drugs. Instead of serving time, maybe because it was cannabis she’d been selling, the judge went easy on her and ordered her to wear an ankle monitor. That might be why she didn’t want Ethan to talk to the police. She’s scared.”

  Quinn’s shoulders sank. “I’ve been too hard on him, haven’t I?” Before Dani could answer, she said, “It’s easy to forget he’s twelve instead of twenty.”

  “Agreed,” Dani said. “His childhood has forced him to grow up fast.” Ethan and Quinn had that in common. After being abandoned by her mother and losing her father soon after, Quinn had had to decide whether those events would break her or make her stronger. She’d chosen the latter.

  As Quinn shuffled papers on her desk, she said, “This case has given me a new appreciation for what you do.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Until now, I’ve done more paperwork than anything else. But these last few days have made me realize that searching for someone really is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Clichéd, but true. Ali Cross could be anywhere.”

  Dani nodded.

  “I can’t stop thinking about Ali, wondering what she might be going through,” Quinn said. “If someone ever managed to get me in their car and hold me against my will, I would do anything to get away, even if it meant putting myself in harm’s way.”

  “Thinking about being in a dangerous situation and actually being in one are two very different things,” Dani said. “When we are threatened, our survival instincts are triggered. The will to live is strong.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” After a quiet moment passed, Quinn told Dani one of her theories about how the person who took Ali Cross could have been delivering something to one of the stores near the area where Ethan said she was taken. She also mentioned how Ethan was almost hit by a car but couldn’t recall the color, make, or model of the vehicle. “I’m starting to feel stuck,” Quinn said. “What do you do when you run out of ideas on where to go next?”

  “You find someone to talk to,” Dani said.

  “Who?”

  “Why don’t we start with Ali Cross’s mother?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me knocking on anyone’s doors.”

  “Not without me,” Dani said, popping to her feet. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  It was nearing two o’clock in the afternoon when Quinn and Dani arrived at the two-story home where Ali Cross lived with her mother and younger sister. When Mary Cross answered the door, Dani thought she looked like a clone of her seventeen-year-old daughter.

  Mary was slender with shimmering red hair that fell to her shoulders in thick waves. Dark shadows circled her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept since her daughter went missing.

  Dani stood beside Quinn and introduced them as private investigators, then asked if it would be possible for them to have a chat about her daughter Ali.

  Mary’s brows shot upward. “Have you located my daughter?”

  “Afraid not,” Dani said. “But it has been brought to our attention that she may not be a runaway as reported.”

  “Why haven’t the police informed me?” Mary asked. “If you’re private investigators, who hired you?”

  “A twelve-year-old boy named Ethan Grant,” Dani said.

  “I heard about the boy,” Mary said. “Detective Hank Davine with the Sacramento Police Department told me they followed up and found no new leads.”

  “Ethan Grant is adamant about what he saw,” Quinn said, “and upset because he believes authorities failed to take him seriously after reporting her as a runaway.”

  “Mom,” a young girl said from inside the house. “Let them inside.”

  “This is my daughter Gracie,” Mary Cross explained before reluctantly opening the door wide enough so they could enter. She led them to the living room and gestured for them to have a seat.

  Mary sat on a cushioned chair while Quinn and Dani sat on the edge of the sofa. Gracie stood behind her mother.

  “I’ve spent three days with Ethan,” Quinn said. “He is very confident about what he saw.”

  Mary frowned. “I don’t understand. If there is no evidence, how can he possibly help?”

  “Every day,” Quinn went on, “he recalls something new. For instance, he’s certain the man responsible for your daughter’s disappearance was wearing blue coveralls and driving a white cargo van.”

  Mary shifted in her seat. “The police convinced me she ran away. She’s done it before.”

  “When?” Dani asked.

  Mary appeared to be doing the math in her head.

  “Eighteen months ago,” Gracie answered for her mom.

  “That’s right,” Mary agreed. “It was a difficult time. I contacted the police and filled out a report. I couldn’t eat or sleep. Two days later, she came home. Apparently she had been at a friend’s house whose parents were gone for the weekend.”

  Gracie rubbed her mom’s back, then rested her hand on Mary’s shoulder.

  Mary released a shaky breath. “Ali and I don’t always see eye to eye. I tend to be a little hard on her, but I love my daughter.”

  “Ali promised us she would never run away again,” Gracie said. “And we believed her. I still don’t think she ran away. She wouldn’t do that to us after all the stress it caused the first time.”

  Mary blindly reached over her shoulder and covered Gracie’s hand with hers. “This time, when Ali didn’t return home after school, Gracie called me at work. I’m a nurse at Mercy General Hospital. She was crying and worried.”

  Gracie nodded. “Thirty minutes before calling Mom, I had texted Ali, and she said she would be home in a few minutes.”

  Dani looked at Mary. “What did you do?”

  “I left work early, came home, and started calling Ali’s friends. Nobody knew where she was. I went to the house of the same friend she had stayed with the first time she ran off. Her mom felt bad and invited Gracie and me inside, even took us into her daughter’s room to have a look around. When we returned home, we made dinner, but neither of us could eat. After twenty-four hours had passed with no sign of Ali, I called the police. For the first few days, I would say investigators took Ali’s disappearance seriously. But that all changed once they found out Ali and I had argued the morning she disappeared.”

  “Was that unusual?” Dani asked. “For the two of you?”

  “Not really. On a scale of one to ten,” Mary said, “this argument was definitely a ten, but—”

  “She wouldn’t have left us—not again,” Gracie cut in, her chin jutting out as if she were angry at the thought of it.

  “She’s right.” Mary straightened her spine. “Would it be possible for me to talk to the boy who saw Ali that day?”

  “I’ll text him and set up a meeting,” Quinn said. “Does that sound good?”

  Mary nodded. “Thank you.”

  “I have a few more questions, if you don’t mind,” Quinn said.

  “That’s fine.”

  “Does Ali have a boyfriend?”

  “Dylan Rushdan,” Gracie said.

  “Wel
l,” Mary quickly countered, “I wouldn’t call him a boyfriend.”

  Gracie made a Mom-doesn’t-know-anything face. “I saw them kissing.”

  Mary looked over her shoulder at her daughter. “Ali told me they were friends and she wasn’t interested in getting involved with anyone so soon before leaving for college.”

  Gracie didn’t look convinced.

  “Have you talked to Dylan?” Dani asked.

  Mary nodded. “I called him the same day Ali didn’t come home. He said he hadn’t seen or talked to Ali in a few days.”

  “If you could write down his name and number, we could talk to him,” Quinn said, pulling a notebook and pen from her shirt pocket and handing them to Mary.

  Mary scrolled through her phone to find Dylan Rushdan’s number and wrote it down, along with her own name and number so Quinn could call her to set up a meeting with Ethan.

  “What about Ali’s teachers?” Dani asked. “Have you talked to them?”

  “Detective Davine assured me he talked to anyone who might have had contact with Ali at school, including her teachers. She attended all of her classes that day, which is not surprising since she’s always been academically inclined. She’s an A student.”

  “What about extracurricular activities?” Dani asked. “Sports, music, dance—that sort of thing?”

  Mary shook her head. “None of that. Books and art. She loves to paint. Would you like to see her room where some of her work is displayed?”

  Quinn stood. “I would like that.”

  Mary led the way and everyone followed her to Ali’s bedroom. The room was neat and tidy with a double-size bed adorned with a fluffy white comforter and downy pillows. On the bedside table was a glass lamp with stacked crystal spheres. Across the way was a taller dresser and silver-framed mirror. White gauzy curtains covered a large window.

  Everything was white except for Ali’s artwork, displayed on the wall opposite the window. Canvases of all sizes. Abstract landscapes with bold and vibrant colors.

  “These are beautiful,” Dani said.

  Quinn appeared to be mesmerized by the different lines and various colors that gave the illusion of plants and vines. One of the paintings had a moon as a centerpiece, so realistic it looked like Ali Cross had taken a photo instead of painted a picture.

  When Dani turned back toward Mary Cross, she noticed she was crying. Instinctively, she put her arms around the woman and tried to comfort her. She knew firsthand the excruciating pain Mary must be feeling. Not even time would heal the hole in her heart. Not until the numbness wore off would guilt set in, because any mother who had lost their child, no matter the circumstances, knew that a parent’s job was to protect their child and keep them safe.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The first thing Carlin Reed did upon awaking the next morning was head into the room downstairs that he used as his office. He locked the door behind him, a habit he couldn’t seem to break, always afraid his mom would show up and barge right in like she used to do.

  As he sat at his desk and waited for his computer to boot up, he thought about good old Mom. She’d been a loving and beautiful mom. When he was a young boy, she would give him a bath every night before bed, taking her time washing him, her soapy hands caressing every part of his young body. He didn’t mind because it made her happy. On Sundays she bathed him early in the morning, dressed him in a suit and tie, rubbed gel in his hair, and combed it back just so. She loved showing off her son at church. When he was especially well behaved, she would say, Close your eyes and count to three, and when he opened his eyes, she would give him a treat, usually something sweet.

  As he grew older, things changed between the two of them. Their relationship took a turn for the worse when he was ten and he told her he could wash himself. She wouldn’t hear of it. In fact, she removed the locks from every door in the house, making sure he had no privacy. When she bathed him, she would yank and pull instead of caress. By the time he turned thirteen, she was climbing into the bathtub with him, doing things to his body that he knew weren’t right. If he angered her, she would make him close his eyes as she counted to three. And when he opened his eyes, instead of sweets, she would show him some new crazy gadget. Kinky toys, she liked to call the objects she used on him, or sometimes the other way around.

  His computer screen lit up before his mind took him too far down the scary, dark hole that was his childhood. He pushed his fingers through his hair, then stretched, trying to get the crick out of his neck. He hadn’t slept well. All he could think about was the boy Ali said had witnessed her abduction.

  Crazy talk. Nobody had been around; he was sure of it. If her story were true, he would have seen the kid.

  He drummed his fingers impatiently on the top of his desk. The Wi-Fi in this place sucked. The clear quartz crystal sitting on the edge of his desk caught his attention and made him think of his last girlfriend. What he’d told Ali about his ex-girlfriend wasn’t exactly true.

  Gretchen Myles had turned out to be a whack job; that much was clear. But that’s not how things started out. He’d met her when he got his hair cut at a salon. She was the new girl in town, and he came to find out she’d never cut hair before. And it showed. Not only had the hair on one side of his head ended up shorter than the other, but she’d also cut his ear. Snipped a sliver of his earlobe right off.

  At the time, he’d figured it was the best thing that had ever happened to him because she’d quickly ushered him into the back room and tended to his wound. She kept touching his arm, her breasts pushing against him as she held a clean cloth to his ear to stop the bleeding. She kept telling him how sorry she was. She’d felt so bad that he’d been able to convince her to go out with him. On their first date he’d taken her to the movies. He’d been too nervous to put his arm around her, but they’d shared a big tub of popcorn and he’d made sure to reach for more popcorn every time she did so that his fingers would brush against hers. He’d tried to get her to go to dinner afterward, but she had said her parents would worry and insisted he take her home, which he had done.

  After that first date, he could tell she was playing hard to get because for two weeks straight she kept coming up with excuses. As a last resort, he texted her and told her his ear had gotten infected and he hadn’t been able to work because of the pain and he might have to talk to her boss about paying for his doctor’s appointments and missed work unless she agreed to another date.

  It had worked.

  Instead of letting him pick her up at her house, though, she’d met him a few blocks from where she lived. She was a little strange that way. Whatever. This time he’d surprised her. Instead of taking her to Zócalo on Capitol Avenue as promised, he’d brought her to his house, where he’d cooked her fresh lobster and made a delicious salad with toasty croutons. She didn’t relax until she finished the martini he made for her. Once she started talking, it was all about the house. She couldn’t get over the fact that it was his, which wasn’t the whole truth. The house belonged to his mother, who at the time happened to be traveling the world after finally retiring from her banking job.

  Gretchen gobbled down her lobster in record time. Didn’t touch the salad and declined a second drink. He didn’t realize how nervous he was until he carried their plates from the table to the kitchen. While he cleaned up, she walked around the house, admiring the decor. He found her in the living room brushing her hand over one of his mother’s favorite pieces, an antique bergère chair. That’s when he spit it out, telling her what he’d been dying to all night, that the house would be hers too, if she agreed to marry him. Without hesitating, he pulled a black velvet ring box from his pocket, got down on bended knee, and recited a poem he’d written about all the reasons he loved her.

  The moment was still ingrained in his head.

  He’d never forget it.

  She put a hand over her mouth so all he could see were her big round eyes looking down at him. A tiny noise escaped from beneath her dainty hand. At firs
t he’d thought she was crying from happiness, but apparently she’d been laughing so hard her eyes watered because the second her hand dropped away from her mouth, she’d let out an unladylike, rip-roaring howl.

  She was laughing at him, taking him straight back to grammar school, when girls and boys alike tripped him in the hallway, then pointed and laughed.

  This time was different, though. He was older and wiser, and he did what he wished he’d done to those kids in school. He came to his feet and punched her in the mouth.

  He’d never punched anyone in his life, but that didn’t stop him from bending his knees slightly, tucking his thumb over his four other fingers, drawing back his elbow, and taking a jab, his fist hitting her squarely on the mouth.

  Boom!

  She staggered backward, collapsing to the floor, her buttocks hitting hard. He heard a crack and figured she might have fractured her tailbone. This time both of her hands went to her mouth, where blood streamed through her fingers. “My teeth,” she said. “You knocked out my teeth.”

  She was right. Her front teeth were gone.

  He stood there, waiting to see how the whole thing would play out, suddenly unsure about what he’d done. He remembered feeling a bit of regret mixed with pleasure. He knew he should’ve said he was sorry, but the words stuck in his throat. “You never should have laughed at me,” he finally managed. “You’re not going to tell your friends, are you?”

  Her eyes widened. She pushed herself to her feet, holding on to the wall for support, the blood on her hands spreading across the paint. “My friends have no idea I’m here,” she said over her shoulder, the pronunciation of her words thrown off due to her missing teeth, making her sound sort of silly.

  “In fact,” she went on, “my friends have no idea you exist. I only went to the movie with you because I felt bad about your ear. But then you threatened to get me fired, so I had no choice but to come tonight.”

  Blood was smeared across her jaw and neck. She looked at the floor near her feet, spotted a tooth, and picked it up. Holding it up so he could see, she said, “You’re in big trouble. You will pay for this.”