Deadlock

by Robert Liparulo

  “I need to make one long-distance call,” he told the clerk.

  “Can’t, man.”

  “Just one. It’s a matter of life and death. Really.”

  An irritating tone sounded through the handset.

  “I mean, you can’t,” the clerk said. “That phone doesn’t allow long distance.”

  “Oh, come on!” Hutch hung up. “Where . . . uh . . .” He ran for the door.

  “Got another twenty?” the clerk said.

  “What?” Hutched whipped it out.

  The clerk rolled his eyes. He pulled a cell phone from the same pocket into which the first twenty had gone. They made the swap. Hutch began dialing, then stopped. He told the clerk, “Don’t say anything, and I’ll mail it back to you with a hundred bucks. I promise.”

  The guy’s face expressed utter bafflement. It changed to alarm. “Hey—”

  “I’m sorry,” Hutch said, pushing through the door. “Hundred bucks! Promise!”

  “No way, dude! Come back!”

  As Hutch squealed away, the clerk ran after him through the parking lot. In the rearview, he watched the guy give up.

  He dialed Larry’s home number. It rang, then rolled him into voice mail. He disconnected and punched in Larry’s cell number. Voice mail again. “Larry, I . . .” He groaned. “This is Hutch. I’ll call you back. Be by your phone. It’s important.”

  He dialed his own voice mail numbers. No messages at home or work.

  As much as he didn’t want to call the only other person who could help if she would—a big if—he couldn’t wait for Larry. He needed that ticket. He dialed Janet’s number. She picked up on the second ring.

  “Janet, I wouldn’t normally—”

  “Where are my kids!” Janet demanded.

  “They’re my kids too.” Knee-jerk response. Habit. Something about her voice did that to him.

  “Where are they? I’m on my way to your house because I got a call from the police. The cops are there, but you’re not, and neither are Macie and Logan.”

  “Did you talk to Detective Tierno? What happened?”

  “That’s her. Tierno. She said there’d been an ‘incident’ at your house. What is that, an ‘incident’? I called Logan’s phone. Hutch, Detective Tierno answered.”

  “I know,” Hutch said.

  Janet’s voice had cracked. Tears were a couple syllables away.

  “You’re supposed to have them, Hutch. What’s going on?”

  As Hutch filtered through possible responses, weighing each against the consequences of telling her too much, Janet continued.

  “Hutch.” Her voice had softened. “Just tell me they’re all right. Please.”

  “They’re with Laura, hon—Janet.” He guessed that was habit too; especially when he sensed a bit of softness in her, something he’d forgotten she was capable of. “They’re fine.”

  “Laura?” The harshness had returned. “What are they doing with her?”

  “I’ll explain when I see you. But, listen, I need you to do me a really big favor.”

  Long pause. “What?”

  “I’m stuck in Seattle and—”

  “Seattle? Are you there with her? Are Macie, Logan, and . . . and . . .”

  “Dillon,” Hutch said. She knew his name. “No, they’re not with me. I got called away on business, but now I can’t get home.”

  “Why not? You drive to the airport, get on a plane, and voilà, you’re here. It’s that simple, Hutch.”

  Hutch closed his eyes, as disgusted with himself as she knew he would be. He said, “I’m out of money.”

  “Didn’t you buy a round-trip?”

  “I can’t use it, because of what’s happening. I have to buy a new ticket.”

  “That’s what credit cards are for.”

  “I’ve tapped ’em out.”

  Silence. Hutch waited.

  “So you want money?”

  “I got the ticket on hold. Just call in with your credit card number.”

  No response.

  “Janet?”

  “A commercial flight, right? You’re not thinking about chartering a plane, are you?”

  A chartered flight! Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Janet, you’re a genius. I’m sure Seattle has dozens of private—”

  “No, Hutch,” she said. “That’s why you’re broke. You think like that.”

  “Janet, no, really . . . I have to get back fast. It’s life and death.”

  “Whose life and death?” Shrill again. “Logan and Macie’s?”

  “I just . . .” He slammed on the brakes to avoid running a red light. “Look, let me just look into it, see how much—”

  “Do you want me to buy the commercial ticket or not?”

  “I’d rather you—”

  “So you don’t,” she said.

  He remembered conversations like this when they were married. He recognized the tone, like an iron spike driven into granite. She wasn’t going to budge. He sighed. “I do . . . please.”

  “Let me pull over.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Hutch.”

  He wanted to remind her that it was she who had left him, but he guessed now wouldn’t be the time. He realized he didn’t know how to get to the airport. He tucked the phone into his shoulder and punched at the GPS.

  “Give me what you got,” Janet said.

  After he did, he added, “And, Janet, I need you to keep this between us. Don’t tell the cops. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Hutch, I don’t like this.”

  “Believe me, I don’t either. But if they pick me up at the airport, I won’t be able to get to Laura. It’ll delay getting the kids.”

  She breathed heavily into the phone.

  Hutch said, “I realize it’s weird and scary. But, please, Janet, you have to trust me.”

  “Trust you? You left our kids with a stranger, and now they’re gone. You’re a grown man and you’re broke. You’re telling me I can’t tell the police where you are.”

  She liked lists, particularly when they enumerated his faults. He knew she could go on and on.

  “Let’s not do this now, okay? I’m on my way to the airport. Will you get me the ticket? You have to do it now.”

  More silence then: “Yes.” She hung up.

  Hutch navigated the van onto I-405. He dialed Larry’s number again. When his friend answered, Hutch said, “Larry, thank God.”

  “Hutch,” Larry said. “Just got out of the movies. You know that new one with Matt Damon? It’s—”

  “Larry, stop. I have to talk to you.”

  “You still in Washington? What’s going on?”

  “You don’t know?” It didn’t seem possible that the whole world wasn’t aware of what had been happening to him in the last few hours. It also meant Laura hadn’t reached him. “They haven’t called you yet. They will.”

  “Who?”

  “Cops,” Hutch said. He went on to give Larry the movie-trailer version of events. He ended with: “I thought Laura would have called you.”

  “I’ve been out. You can’t call her?”

  “She was using Logan’s phone,” Hutch said. “Some detective has it now.” He pushed away the image that put in his head: not of a found phone, but of a battered and bloody one at the scene of an accident.

  Larry said, “She may have tried to call me at work. I haven’t checked my messages there. What about your voice mail?”

  “Nothing, even the work number. I always have messages there.”

  “Cops probably picked them up already.”

  “Don’t they need a court order?”

  “Technically,” Larry said. “But, Hutch, four dead cops? Procedures fly out the window when it’s their own. What do you want me to do?”

  “Check to see if Laura called. Try to reach her, somehow. Make sure she and the kids are all right.” He thought it through. “I need to meet her someplace when I come in.”


  “Where?”

  “Let’s see, how about . . . wait a minute. Larry, is there any chance someone’s listening?”

  “What, like a bug?”

  “Or some kind of remote listening device. What do they call those things, parabolic shotguns? Something like that. Page knows we talk. He contacted you to get me out here.”

  “Now you’re being paranoid.”

  Hutch laughed. “Don’t you think I have reason to be?”

  “All right,” Larry said. “I’ll call you back from a pay phone.”

  “Not in the Post building . . . or near your house.”

  It was Larry’s turn to laugh. It sounded as pathetic as Hutch’s had. “What’s your number?”

  “Uh . . . ” He looked at the phone. Nothing.

  “You don’t know your number?”

  “It’s new. Didn’t it come through on caller ID?”

  “It said blocked.”

  “It’s always something. Always.”

  “You don’t have a place the kids would know to go?”

  “Janet’s,” Hutch said, “but I don’t want them going someplace Page knows about.”

  “Someplace you’ve prearranged for emergencies? Hutch, I’d think you of all people . . .”

  He knew what Larry meant. In Canada, Dillon had known exactly where his mother would look for him. It’s what had saved them. So when Hutch had returned home, why hadn’t he made contingency plans with his family?

  He said, “I know, Larry. I screwed up. I—” The phone clicked. The screen said, “Incoming call,” followed by a number. He told Larry to hold on and clicked the answer button.

  “Dude, that is so uncool.” The clerk.

  “What’s your cell phone number?”

  “What? Are you kidding me? Bring it back now, okay? No harm, no foul, no cops.”

  “I can scroll through the menus and find the number,” Hutch told him. “Save me the trouble, and I’ll throw another hundred bucks in when I send it back.”

  “You stole my phone!”

  “I told you I’ll send it back. With a hundred, two if you tell me the number.”

  “You don’t have it, man. I heard you on the phone. You couldn’t pay for a plane ticket. I saw the crappy van you got.”

  “I have the cash. Come on.”

  The kid thought about it. Finally he rattled off a number. “But I’m telling you—”

  Hutch clicked back over to Larry. He gave him the number. “Call me back. Fast.”

  He dialed his own mobile number. Maybe Julian knew something or could convince his father to talk to Hutch. It rang until Hutch’s voice mail kicked in. He disconnected and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Bound at his wrists and ankles, the man in the SUV’s cargo area was going crazy.

  Not a man, Laura corrected herself, a boy. But it didn’t make watching him any easier.

  He kicked at the rear seat backs, cracked his head into the glass, and thrashed around like a movie vampire dragged into the sun. Most unsettling were the noises he made. He would utter animal grunts as he rolled and jerked himself into one position or another. Next came the screams; shrieks, really: inhuman and insane. After thirty or forty seconds he’d collapse, hyperventilating. Slowly, he’d start to moan, low and sad.

  Macie had first noticed him beginning to stir. Before Laura could pull over, the stranger lunged at the girl. She screamed and pulled away, scrambling into the front seats. Laura had taken the next exit and stopped at the end of a dark off-ramp. Now the three of them were crowded into the front seats. Laura was turned in her seat, holding the machine gun like a bat, stock pointed at the boy. Macie and Dillon had turned around in the passenger seat and were leaning back against the dash. Macie was crying. Dillon held his arm around her, but judging by his facial expression, his emotional state wasn’t much better.

  “What’s wrong with him, Mom?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. She was too intent on a change she had detected in the soldier’s behavior. His tantrum was subsiding.

  The moaning grew quieter, then faded altogether. His breathing slowed. He raised his head—just to where his eyes could appraise them over the seat back. He said, “Are you real?”

  Laura and Dillon exchanged a glance.

  Laura said, “What’s wrong with you?”

  His head disappeared. He began to sob. “Are . . . you . . . real?”

  “We’re real,” Macie said. “So are you.”

  He sat up and propped his back against the rear hatch. He sniffed, ran the back of one hand across his nose. Only then did he seem to notice the zip ties binding his wrists. He noticed the one around his ankles as well. To Laura, he said, “Did I hurt you?”

  “I think you were going to. The other soldiers did.” She rubbed her throat, still sore.

  He stared at her.

  Dillon said, “What’s your name?”

  “Michael . . . I think . . . I think . . .” He began rocking forward, moaning. With a screeching yell, he shoved himself off the floor.

  Macie screamed as he lurched toward the front of the car, obviously intending to get over the seat backs. His head hit the ceiling, and he dropped onto a headrest and rolled back into the cargo area. Screaming, he kicked the seat back. It canted forward with a crack. He turned and kicked the plastic panel below the window. His foot nailed the FOR SALE sign taped to the side glass. The window shattered, bowing out.

  “Mom?” Dillon said.

  She leaned into the passenger footwell and grabbed the machine gun. She opened her door and climbed out.

  “Mom, no!” Dillon said. He reached for her, but she slammed the door. The door opened, and he hopped out. “Mom, don’t!” He was crying.

  “Get back in, Dillon,” she said firmly. She glanced through the rear window, saw Michael on his back, kicking the headrest. She opened the hatch.

  Michael stopped screaming to scowl at her. Yelling again, he kicked off the seat back, propelling himself out of the vehicle. He tumbled over the bumper and fell onto the gravelly asphalt. He spun to swing his tied feet at Laura’s legs.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Dillon yelled behind her.

  For the second time that night, she brought the weapon down on his head. This time, however, he only screamed louder and thrashed more wildly. She smacked the gun into his forehead. He stopped moving.

  “Did you . . .” Dillon said, stepping up beside her. “Did you kill him?”

  She squatted and pressed her fingers into Michael’s neck. “He’s alive,” she said. She stood and put her arm around her son. “I just knocked him out again. He could have hurt us, and himself. Help me get him back into the cargo area.”

  They hoisted him up, pushed him in, and closed the hatch.

  Dillon sniffed. “I thought you were going to . . .”

  “I know,” Laura said. “I’m sorry.” She led him back to the driver’s door.

  “I don’t want to sit in the backseat,” Macie said.

  “I will,” volunteered Dillon.

  “No,” Laura told him. “The both of you sit up here awhile, okay?”

  “It’s too crowded,” Dillon said. “We got all this other stuff.” He indicated the weapons and other items they’d taken from the boy.

  “Put it in the back,” Laura said. “Not the bow and arrow.”

  “Not the gun,” Dillon added.

  In the front, the XTerra had two bucket seats and a center console. With the stuff Laura didn’t want within reach of Michael, there wasn’t enough room for everyone.

  She said, “Okay, hold on a second.” She returned to the rear and opened the hatch. She pulled the coil of zip ties from her pocket and made a chain of about three feet. She fastened one end to Michael’s wrist restraints and the other to a metal loop mounted to the floor. She shut the hatch and returned to the driver’s seat.

  “You can sit in the backseat now, Macie,” she said. “It’s safe.”

  Macie cons
idered it, then shook her head.

  “You can lie down, go to sleep.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’ll do it,” Dillon said. He moved the bow and arrow to the floor behind the front seats. He climbed over Macie and slipped over the console. He sprawled out on the leather bench. He said, “Wake me when we get there.”

  Back in Silverthorne, Laura had tried to get her act together. She had filled the tank, using the cash she had found on the soldier . . . Michael. She had called Larry’s number at the Denver Post and left a message. Then she had shut herself in the bathroom and wept. After washing up, she had mulled over their situation. Almost broke, unable to reach Hutch, unwilling to seek help until she knew what was happening.

  Logan gone. Logan gone. Logan gone.

  She needed Hutch, and he needed to know about his son. Their best chance to find him, she decided, was at the airport. So she had pulled the XTerra onto eastbound I-70, heading back toward Denver. That was thirty minutes ago.

  “You got it,” Laura told Dillon.

  “I don’t want to miss anything,” he said.

  “You won’t, sweetheart.”

  But she hoped he did. She hoped he missed a lot of what she feared was heading toward them.

  Hutch was pulling in to the airport when Larry called back. Hutch told him, “Hold on.” He leaned out his window and pushed the button for a parking stub, raising the barrier in front of him. “Did she call?”

  “She left a message on my work line,” Larry said. “She sounded crazy out of her mind. Hutch—”

  “Did she say where she was? I’m hoping she got somewhere safe, where she can stay.”

  “She didn’t say. If you’re right about Page bugging the lines, good thing she didn’t.”

  “She’s a smart lady,” Hutch said. “She wouldn’t want to leave it on voice mail. So nothing about a phone? If she was able to—”

  “Hutch,” Larry interrupted. “They have Logan.”

  Hutch’s heart fell out of his chest. “No . . .”

  “She said she had Macie and Dillon,” Larry said, “but they took Logan. She didn’t know what to do. She said she’d call back, but I didn’t get any more messages.”