“Anyone new around their place? A handyman, a landscaper?”
“No. Mark and Sharon have been talking about starting work on the pool they want to add to the house, but they haven’t done more than Mark developing the blueprint for it. Mark hired a couple new people at his office, and I think Sharon hired another nurse.”
Luke glanced over at Caroline. She’d about circled the top of her Styrofoam cup with fingernail marks, and the cup was going back around for a second circle of impressions. “You’ve got a good memory for details; it helps.”
“I don’t know how. I don’t know where they are.”
He didn’t know how to explain it, but he listened to her words and relaxed. She reacted to trouble as if she had an antenna tuned to it, and nothing in her memories concerned him. “Trouble tends to advertise itself. A normal routine is good news. If you’d said one of them had recently had a flat tire while the car was in a parking lot, or someone tried to break into one of their offices, I’d be worried.”
“I’m scared, Luke.” He covered her hand and just held it. She finally sighed. “I don’t do trouble very well.”
“We’ll find them.” Luke reached for his cell phone in his pocket and handed it to her. “Why don’t you call Mary Treemont and see if there have been any calls at the condominium. Check if she’s been able to figure out that hundred button remote control sufficiently to get her movie to play.”
Caroline accepted the phone. She looked relieved to have something to do. She punched in the numbers.
Luke watched the lanes of oncoming traffic flow by, listening to Caroline. She was trying so hard to stay hopeful and positive as she dealt with this, but it was like watching someone standing on a ladder realizing the rungs below them were breaking. She was scared.
And so was he.
It was wearing him out keeping the conversation going, to not let himself slip into the silence he preferred that would fill this car if Jackie were beside him and not Caroline. What do I think happened to them? I think they’re in real trouble. Two vehicles with a common destination did not disappear without a trace. However this ended, it was not going to be all good news.
I hope I’m simply being morbid without cause. Caroline would regather her hope this would work out soon and positively; he was already bracing himself to hear the worst. And the realization that he’d likely be the one breaking the terrible news to her was not something he wanted to dwell on.
Failure is not an option, Lord. I’ve spent my life trying to avoid a big failure, and it’s going to hit in my personal life and happen to my family—the one thing that the rest of my life hinges on. Seconds right now are clicking by painfully like the impact of a thousand fine cuts. I can handle a few shocks; I can’t handle a catastrophe.
He glanced at Caroline. And neither can she.
* * *
They stopped at each interchange along I-20, showing photos in the fast-food and sit-down restaurants. Luke made a point of showing each waitress a photo of Mark Falcon. His cousin made an impression with his good looks, and this was one evening Luke didn’t mind exploiting that fact.
He got two maybes and one proposition that if he was related she’d love to have his card. He gave the waitress his card and his partner’s number.
“It’s after eleven; where do we try next?” Caroline joined him back at the car, her hands around a super-size soda. She’d come back with candy bars and ice cream cones and big drinks.
Luke had figured out after the third stop that she felt compelled to buy something in exchange for a look at the photo. She’d go broke as a cop. But she had gotten one sympathetic manager to run back his security tape and show them the one car he remembered that matched Mark’s. It hadn’t been his, but it had been a hopeful moment in an otherwise too quiet night.
“I was thinking we’d show their pictures at the stops between Benton and Sandy Hill, but I think it might be better just to go to Mark and Sharon’s house and let you get a look around and maybe figure out what Benjamin is wearing.”
“It’s okay with me. What did you buy?”
He looked at the package in his hand and the seam he was wearing in the plastic. “Baseball cards. For Benjamin.”
Her smile made the seventy-nine cents plus tax worth a few more pennies.
“Let’s go to Sharon and Mark’s,” she agreed.
Chapter Seven
Luke turned on his high beams as he drove into the stretch of woods outside Benton near Mark and Sharon’s home. The country road was narrow. It was an accident waiting to happen as he passed yet another driveway he didn’t see until he was right on top of the roadside mailbox. “Benjamin knows these woods.”
“Like the back of his hand. Why?”
Luke slowed further, looking for the drive. “It just strikes me as an interesting place to hide and a great place to build that tree house. What do you remember about your conversation with Benjamin this afternoon?” He turned into Sharon and Mark’s driveway.
“He was worried about his baseball glove. He couldn’t remember where he had left it, and I told him I thought it was in the trunk of Sharon’s car. Benjamin said they were leaving the hospital, thought they would be an hour and a half. I said two hours was more likely . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Luke looked over at her shadowed profile. “What?”
“Benjamin dropped the phone. One of those midsentence cutoffs. A van had cut his mom off and he dropped the phone. I told him to tell his mom to drive carefully,” she whispered.
A van. For a moment Luke let himself be paranoid and hoped it hadn’t been a white van. He reached over and squeezed Caroline’s hand, to reassure her but also to comfort himself. All he needed was Frank Hardin somehow mixed up in what so far still looked like a difficult missing persons case. Caroline’s hand was cold, and he left his hand on hers for a moment to warm it.
He made the last curve in the driveway and the house appeared in the headlights. It was a spacious two story designed to accommodate friends and family for barbecues now and someday swim parties for the kids. It was a physical statement of permanence promised to both Sharon and Benjamin. Mark had cast the Falcon name around them.
The house was dark, not even a security light marked the perimeter. Luke knew it was misleading and that security here was solid. He pulled around to the back of the house and parked in the empty driveway. “Stay in the car while I glance around.”
He got out without waiting for a reply, knowing Caroline would do as he asked. A touch of the switch on the side of the garage and ground lights clicked on along the path of stepping stones to the house.
Luke walked to the dark house, opened the screen door, and unlocked the back door. Inside the house he studied the alarm system, typed in his own middle name, and the alarm system disarmed. He hadn’t expected Mark to read the manual and actually change the administrator code.
He stood motionless in the doorway listening, hearing nothing but the hum of the refrigerator and the faint click of the wall clock. He walked into the kitchen, his steps echoing on the hardwood floors and his hand touching the edge of the counter to orient himself. Sharon had left a stack of linen napkins on the table, and resting against the wall was Benjamin’s plastic bat.
Luke headed to the right, walking the hallway past Mark’s office, Sharon’s sitting room, a downstairs guest suite, and the living room. No signs of trouble, foul play, or burglary here . . . He hadn’t expected to see any. He went back the way he had come, turned on lights in the kitchen, and walked outside to get Caroline.
“What do you think, Luke?”
“That they came home, packed, and then left as planned for Atlanta.” He pushed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, enjoying the comfortable night air and wishing it wasn’t hiding tragedy. “When you get inside, I just want you to walk through the rooms and look around. In particular Benjamin’s. Tell me if you can figure out what he’s now wearing. The same for Sharon, see what she packed.”
&
nbsp; “I’ll try.”
Luke let her walk ahead of him, not wanting to interfere with what she might notice. He entered the study to check the answering machine. No messages. Papers were neat on the desk, what appeared to be yesterday’s mail from the postmarks was opened and sorted in the in-box. He didn’t see today’s mail. Sharon’s touch had placed a bowl of mints on the desk, fresh flowers, and a framed sketch of one of Mark’s best house designs.
Mark or Sharon would have left a message on this home machine for the other one if they were not together, for the messages could be retrieved remotely. He continued to hope they were together.
They had both been planning to travel I-20 to Atlanta. If Sharon got in trouble and Mark saw it and stopped to help her—it had to be that sequence since they knew Sharon had left first.
Come on, Mark, you’re good. You were already concerned about Sharon after last fall’s coincidences regarding Caroline, and you’ve always been alert to your own surroundings. You wouldn’t get taken by surprise easily. What happened? Where? He heard Caroline coming and relaxed with his hands in his back pockets again as he turned.
“Benjamin changed clothes when he got home. The shirt he wore to school, the pants, were beside his bed. The books and folders on the bed look like they came out of his backpack. I think his Braves shirt is gone, and I don’t see the display book of baseball cards he loves. I can’t tell what shoes he has on, and I think he may have taken a cap, but I’m at a loss for what he’s wearing.”
“Knowing he changed after school helps. What about Sharon?”
“She went shopping last week for this weekend, and I can guess at least two of the dinner outfits she took along. But she has too many clothes; I can’t suggest what she might be wearing now.”
“It was a long shot. There’s no sign of anything here that delayed them. I want you to log on to their computer and see what time the last e-mail was downloaded. They might have checked messages just before they left.”
She pulled out the chair at the desk. “I had hoped somehow there would be something here to suggest what might have changed their plans.”
“We’re going to find them, Caroline. Trust me on that.”
He didn’t have much to give her beyond his word, but she nodded, accepting it. She’d dig deep and find the stability she would need for this crisis. He was confident her faith would hold her together while they endured this night.
He wished his own faith had that same strength. There had been too many hard events over the years, too many times when he was like Peter walking on water, halfway across to Jesus on faith when a glance at reality made him sink. It was hard to trust God on a night like this, when he was all too aware of what might have happened. Caroline was going to weather this better than he would. She might be shaky at the start, but she’d finish in better shape.
Luke walked through the house to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. The clock clicked past midnight.
Too many dead people, Jesus. If I doubt during the next hours, please be merciful and remember You made me of dust, not steel. I was prepared for a holiday this weekend, not a storm. And this one is going to be vicious. I wasn’t ready.
When Caroline joined him, the coffee was almost ready, and he poured her the first cup. She sat at the kitchen table and swiped her hands across her eyes. “The last time they were online was this morning about 7:20. What are we going to do, Luke?”
He squeezed her shoulder. “Call in even more help. Pray.”
Her hand covered his and what nails she had left made an impression before she released his hand. Scared. He understood that emotion. He rubbed his thumb on her cheek, then gently tugged the braid she’d put in her hair. “Drink the coffee, we’ll be leaving shortly.” He stepped outside to make his calls.
* * *
Luke stopped pacing to lean against his car fender. “Jackie, we’re at Sharon and Mark’s house now. It looks like Sharon and Benjamin came home, Benjamin changed out of school clothes, they packed, and they left. There’s no sign of trouble. And no word from Mark.”
“I could understand one of their cars disappearing, but both?”
Luke sighed. “This was planned. Well planned.” And with that part of his hope died—that this would have a swift ending, that it would turn out okay, that somehow he’d be able to be Caroline’s white knight and solve this. Really bad news was coming. Luke adjusted because he had to.
“I left the packet of photos with your name on it on the counter by the phone at the condo. Start calling in every favor you think either one of us is owed. Get the photos ready to hit the early morning newscasts. I want Benton, Sandy Hill, and Atlanta saturated with news and flyers by dawn. You can start running a tab against my personal credit cards; they should hold out until dawn when I can call and bump up the credit lines. If you have an idea that you think will work, don’t ask, just run with it.”
“I’ll get it started. Do you want me to handle the media interviews?”
“Please. Caroline can’t handle it, and I don’t have the patience for it. I’ll call security at Mark’s condo and let them know anyone you want to bring up—cops or television crews—are to be cleared in. Sharon’s too trusting; someone could have gotten to her. And if they then went after Mark . . .”
“You’re jumping to worst case,” Jackie said softly.
“Worst case, they are already dead. I can work with anything better than that. The cops haven’t been able to find either car. I’ll need helicopters ready to go up at first light with heat detection gear. The woods around here are thick. Find me a good profiler who can look this over.”
“Headquarters is going to appoint another agent to run the case.”
“I know. Get Henry James in the loop. He’s the best in the division for missing persons cases. The Atlanta SAC owes me; he’ll let Henry take it.” Luke tried to think through threads they could work. “The last call Caroline had with Benjamin, he dropped the phone. He said someone in a van cut off his mom as she left the clinic parking lot. Get security to pull all the tapes for the hospital’s and the clinic’s parking lots. There’s a chance Sharon was tailed. Mark was going to the bank and to fill up the car with gas. There should be security tapes at both places.”
“Luke, this will get worked as a possible kidnapping.”
“I can only hope it’s a move for money.” If this was someone thinking a person’s life and a sum of money could equate, Luke might get them back. “Tell Henry to put taps and recorders on all the family phone lines, including my home phone and Caroline’s. I’ll keep my second phone line free if you need to forward a call.”
He looked at his watch. They needed to check the clinic tonight, which meant waking someone up. “Change of subject: Has there been anything on Frank Hardin?”
“A decent lead by a trucker had him heading west.”
“He did whatever job he came to do.”
“It looks that way.”
“Any more bodies show up?” Luke shoved a hand through his hair. “No, don’t answer that. I’m pushing the edge of morbid tonight. I’ll call at the bottom of the hour. I’m taking Caroline by the medical clinic and Mark’s office. We’ll be back at her place before the first newscasts announce that family is missing. I want Caroline to have a few minutes in familiar surroundings before that hits her.”
“Hang in there, Luke. We’ll find them.”
“I just hope it’s soon.”
Luke hung up the phone.
How many of them have I already lost, Lord? One? Two? All three? It’s been seven hours. The odds are already against us. Why did this have to touch the entire family? Benjamin’s just a boy.
Of all people to end up in trouble, it shouldn’t be Mark, Sharon, and Benjamin. Trouble should have come after him. Had someone who wanted to get to him come crashing through his family to make a point? Luke did his best to keep public knowledge about his family to a minimum, but it was out there.
The back door opened. Caroline ba
cked out of the door, balancing two mugs in her hands and using her foot to ease the screen door closed. She saw he was off the phone and gave a fast smile that came and went as she walked over to join him. She offered him one of the mugs of coffee. “Black.”
“Thanks.” He was grateful for the warmth.
“What now, Luke?”
“I want you to show me around where Sharon works, where you dropped off Benjamin, what you know of her routine when she normally leaves to drive home. They appear to have gotten to the house, but if someone followed them— I want to figure out how hard that might be to do.”
Caroline took the words better than he expected, her attention shifting to the night sky and then back to him. They wouldn’t find her family tonight. “It’s going to be okay,” he said softly, not sure how he could back up that promise but feeling it had to be given, for his own sake as much as hers.
“Benjamin hates sleeping without a night-light.”
He felt his throat choke up. “He’s a tough kid, Caroline.”
He finished the coffee, then squeezed her shoulder and nodded toward the car. “I’ll lock up the house and set the alarm. Give me a minute.”
Chapter Eight
The building manager unlocked the doors to the medical clinic. “I gave the security tapes to the sheriff’s deputy; I hope that was okay.”
“It’s fine,” Luke reassured him. “They’re reviewing the tapes now. I appreciate your meeting us here this time of night.”
“The idea that something happened to the doctor—” The man shook his head. He turned on lights for the reception area. “Building security walked through the clinic with the deputy. They found nothing out of place. As far as we can determine, Dr. Falcon left the premises around 4 p.m., and nothing indicates she returned.”
“Does the receptionist keep a call log?”
“Yes.”
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