The Shadow Tracer

by Mg Gardiner

  Amelia Winston was reading a news article on her phone. She checked her watch. It had been four minutes since Sarah Keller left for the women’s room.

  The social worker gestured to the police officers. “Come with me.”

  When she pushed on the bathroom door it barely budged. She stepped back and one of the officers put his shoulder against it. From inside came an almighty clatter.

  “Trash can’s blocking it.”

  He goaded it open. Winston and Dryden followed him in. They saw the open window.

  Dryden said, “She split? You must be kidding.”

  In the doorway the ER nurse appeared, out of breath. “The little girl. She’s gone.”

  Winston said, “What?”

  “I can’t find her—or the woman with the dreadlocks.”

  They rushed back to the hall. Dryden said, “Why wasn’t somebody watching them?”

  The cop turned to Winston. “Ma’am, is this a law enforcement matter?”

  “Yes. Find them.” Winston scrolled again through the article on her phone. Her stomach churned. “Sarah Keller may be a kidnapper.”

  Dryden said, “Are you serious?”

  Grimly, Winston scrolled through the article. “The woman named in the microchip as the child’s mother, Bethany Keller Worthe—I can’t find that exact name online. But Bethany Keller died five years ago. Her body was found in the burned-out remains of an arson fire at her house. Her boyfriend and her infant daughter disappeared and have never been found.”

  Dryden said, “Until today, you mean.”

  One of the cops said, “Keller.”

  “Sarah is Bethany’s sister.” Winston looked up from the article. “I think she killed her and stole her baby for herself.”

  8

  Sarah raced down a back road along a barbed-wire fence surrounding a field dotted with grazing cattle. She glanced at the dashboard clock. By now the hospital had to know that she and Zoe were gone. The cops were probably after her already.

  She needed to dump this truck sooner rather than later. She needed to keep Zoe out of sight. She felt, for a fearsome second, a bottomless despondency.

  She parked and cut through a stand of redbud trees with pink blossoms turning to green leaf. The air hung thick around her. The alley behind her house was empty. She slipped through the back gate and in the kitchen door.

  Inside, the house was cool and still. From Zoe’s closet she got the go-bag, the ever-ready backpack packed with clothes. She grabbed Zoe’s favorite stuffed animal, Mr. Mousie, and jammed him in a side pocket. Down the hall in her room she slung her own go-bag across her shoulders, grabbed her laptop, and swept toiletries into her messenger bag.

  Outside the front window, a police car cruised by the house. She stepped back into the shadows until it passed from view.

  They weren’t there for her. Not yet. The police didn’t know she lived here.

  She rented this place from a retired couple who were currently touring Canada in an RV. But her official street address was an office in a half-deserted strip mall five miles away. She had convinced the property management company to let her rent one room there—a room with a mail slot—for fifty bucks a month. That ghost address was listed on her driver’s license, truck registration, and Zoe’s school forms. The police would find it soon, and when they did, they’d hunt for her all the harder. She couldn’t linger.

  From the bookshelf she took her copy of The Great Gatsby. She opened it to check on the photos stashed inside.

  They were old and fading. Her and Beth as kids, with their mother at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. Her and Beth on the beach at Half Moon Bay as teenagers, rough surf behind them, hair flying in the wind. And the ancient black and white photo, curling at the edges, of family she had never known and still couldn’t identify. Europe, 1930s. It was the photo her mother had given her the day she died, the photo from before the war.

  She slid them into the messenger bag. The photos were the only way she could hold onto Beth anymore. And they were all she could show Zoe, her only way to bring to life the mother Zoe didn’t even know about. Her throat tightened. When she exhaled, the sound startled her. The house was so quiet.

  So quiet. The house seemed too hushed.

  She’d thought the same thing when she got into Beth’s house that day and called her name and heard nothing, no voices, no music, just an oppressive hush that presaged disaster. So quiet. Until she reached the kitchen and found her, Beth barefooted on a snowy day, her blond hair tumbling wildly from a long braid, her eyes round with despair. Then there was no more air, only Sarah trying not to scream.

  Now she hoisted her gear and hurried to the kitchen. At the back door she paused. This was just a little place on a quiet road, where the oaks dropped acorns on the roof on windy mornings and the cicadas droned like an electric symphony on summer nights. It was a place with a tire swing and Zoe’s Big Wheel and her finger paintings stuck to the fridge with alphabet magnets. It was a bolt-hole that had become a home. It was about to be gone, maybe for good. The rent was paid for the next month. Sarah couldn’t think about what would happen after that. She simply had to get through the next hour. And the one after that.

  She left as silently as she’d come in. Ninety seconds later she was in her truck, raising red dust as she floored it toward Route 66.

  9

  There. Stop. That’s her.”

  In the Security office at St. Anthony, Derek Dryden pointed at the screen. “That’s Sarah Keller, in the Nissan truck.”

  Crowded in the office, Dryden, Amelia Winston, and the uniformed cops had been joined by police detective Fred Dos Santos. The hospital’s CCTV surveillance cameras had not picked up Danisha Helms leaving the premises with Zoe Keller, but now they had video of Sarah Keller behind the wheel.

  Dos Santos leaned toward the screen. The truck’s license plate was readable. He smoothed his goatee. “I’ll need a copy of the video.”

  Dryden said, “What’s next?”

  “We’ll put out a BOLO.”

  Dos Santos called it in: Be on the lookout for a late-model Nissan pickup. Driver wanted for questioning in relation to a possible kidnapping. Caucasian female, late twenties or early thirties, approximately five-foot-six, brown hair, brown eyes. May be in the company of a five-year-old girl, Zoe Keller aka Zoe Skye Worthe.

  They’d already run Sarah Keller’s name for wants and warrants and come up empty. They had little to go on, aside from the weird microchip, the news article the social worker had found online—and the fact that, confronted with these things, Sarah Keller had fled, and her friend had disappeared from the hospital with the child.

  The five-year-old article was the most damning piece of information. Fire had consumed the cabin south of San Francisco where Bethany Keller’s body was found and no usable forensic evidence had been obtained: no fibers, no fingerprints, no extraneous DNA. The article did not list Bethany Keller’s cause of death. Her boyfriend, the article said, “could not be reached for comment.”

  But the fire was arson, and Dos Santos suspected the same thing as the social worker: Sarah Keller was responsible.

  He looked at the screen. “We’ll find her.”

  Sarah coasted down the hill and pulled off the road at Arcadia Lake. In the late-morning sunshine, white cumulus puffed in the sky. Gravel crunched beneath the truck’s tires. Danisha’s red Dodge Ram pickup was already there. When Sarah parked, Zoe hopped down from the cab and skipped toward her.

  Sarah got out and scooped her into her arms. “How you feeling, munchkin?”

  “The scrapes all sting.”

  “Bummer.” She smoothed Zoe’s hair off her forehead. “You okay?”

  Zoe considered it for a moment. She nodded.

  “Good.” Sarah kissed her forehead. “I love you.”

  Zoe put her arms around Sarah’s neck and squeezed. Danisha sauntered over.

  Sarah said, “Thank you. You don’t know how much.”

  Dani
sha crossed her arms. “Happy to help. Want to tell me what we’re doing here? ’Cause this doesn’t look like a picnic.”

  Sarah set Zoe down. “Why don’t you get your things from Danisha’s truck?”

  Zoe skipped back and clambered into the cab. She looked steady and sturdy and unperturbed by everything that had happened in the last two hours. Sarah wondered how long that would last.

  To Danisha she said, “You’ve done nothing wrong, and nothing illegal.”

  Danisha’s expression was astringent. “And the cops at the hospital?”

  Sarah felt caught. If she divulged one detail the rest might be discovered, but leaving Danisha in the dark would be a betrayal.

  “It’s about Zoe’s father. His family. I’ve been hiding from them,” she said. “I need to get Zoe out of sight. A shitstorm is about to erupt.”

  “Was your breakup that bad?”

  “I was never with her father. Ever. I adopted Zoe.”

  Danisha’s lips parted in surprise.

  “Zoe’s birth mother was my sister, Beth.” Her head throbbed. “But she died when Zoe was six weeks old. Now I’m Zoe’s mom, and I’m all she has.”

  Danisha took her hand. “But why …”

  “Because nobody knows she’s with me.”

  Almost nobody. An image brushed past her memory, of the man in the forest, stepping into her path from the trees. Dark-eyed, well-armed. Lawless.

  Danisha said, “Her father—”

  “Beth’s boyfriend. They broke up three weeks after Zoe was born.”

  “Does he want custody? Is he stalking you?”

  “His family does. Dani, they microchipped Zoe for identification.”

  Danisha was tougher than baling wire. And she was speechless.

  “I can’t stay here. If I do, the cops might arrest me. Then Child Protective Services would take Zoe to foster care. The authorities would look for relatives to take her while they sort this mess out, and they’d start with the name on the microchip. It’s not her name—Keller is on her birth certificate, but they’d go searching for family …” She breathed. “They’d contact people who should never lay eyes on her, much less hands on her.”

  Beyond them, past rolling green countryside, the lake was glassy blue. Danisha’s face was half-shaded by her straw cowboy hat.

  “Why is this so tangled? Can’t you show the authorities the adoption paperwork?” she said.

  “There is none.”

  Danisha, to her credit, didn’t flinch.

  In the truck, Zoe was bouncing on the front seat. Sarah said, “Beth had no will, no guardianship plan. But she put Zoe in my care.”

  “Then why …”

  “It’s a nightmare. Her father’s family …” Her face heated. “They’re dangerous. They killed Beth. And if they find out Zoe’s alive and I have her, they’ll kill me and take her.”

  Danisha grasped her hand. “God, Sarah. What are you going to do?”

  Sarah breathed. “Run.”

  “Honey, no.”

  “Yes. And now.”

  “There has to be another way. Let’s call A.J. He can go with you to the police and explain.”

  A. J. Chivers was DHL’s attorney. He was a plainspoken and shrewd lawyer. But Sarah shook her head. “I will not go to the cops.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because law enforcement didn’t protect Beth. I can’t count on them to protect her child.”

  At that, Danisha stiffened.

  Sarah felt the panic rising again. “I can’t risk staying here. If Nolan’s family gets Zoe, they’ll destroy her.”

  “Who are these people?”

  “Look up the name Worthe online. It’ll explain.”

  “More than you have time to tell?”

  “More than I can bear to talk about,” Sarah said. “I gotta go.”

  Sarah grabbed Danisha and hugged her hard. Danisha inhaled as if she were fighting back tears. That nearly made Sarah lose it.

  Sarah said, “If the cops come calling, tell them everything. Be honest. It won’t hurt me, and it’ll help you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bye bye, job. Bye bye, hope. She broke from the embrace and walked toward her pickup.

  Danisha said, “Wait.”

  She dug in her pocket and pulled out the keys to her truck. She tossed them to Sarah. “Take it.”

  “Dani …”

  “It’s a company vehicle. And until you come back, I consider you to be on company time. So don’t scratch it.”

  Sarah clutched the keys. “Thank you.”

  “Get it in gear, Keller. I will be royally pissed off if you get arrested and I have to bail your ass out of jail.”

  “If the cops catch me driving your truck—”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I never do.” She whistled at the truck. “Zoe. Buckle up.”

  10

  Sarah gunned Danisha’s truck up the hill, past farmhouses and pastures and gullies dense with oaks. The engine was big, responsive, and reassuringly loud.

  So quiet. The house seemed too hushed.

  It got to her, even now—the way that muted stillness could open to chaos; how she had walked into a world of shadows and fire through a silent door.

  That day, she’d spent the morning finishing a project, packing up her desk, writing a memo so the team at Past Link Software could keep up with her work while she was away. Ahead lay three months on the road, freedom, adventure. She was so stoked that she practically bounced around the office waving her arms overhead like a Muppet. She almost missed the call.

  “Sarah, thank God. Can you come get me and Zoe?”

  Her sister’s voice had sounded faint, and not just from the poor signal.

  “Beth, what’s wrong?”

  “… car won’t start. Please—I don’t want to stay here. I’m scared.”

  By then Sarah was moving toward the door. “What’s going on? Is it—”

  “Them.”

  That was when she broke into a run.

  Now, from the back seat of Danisha’s truck, she heard a little voice. “Mommy?”

  Sarah eyed Zoe in the mirror. “What, honey?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  She handed a bottle of water over her shoulder. “This will hold you.”

  “When we go home I want chocolate milk.”

  “We’re going out for lunch.”

  “Chuck E. Cheese?”

  “Afraid not.” She would cross the threshold at Chuck E. Cheese when the rivers ran with blood and frogs rained from the sky. So, maybe tonight.

  She doubted the Worthes knew she was in Oklahoma City. She wasn’t even certain they knew she existed. But she had to assume they did—that Beth had told them she had a sister; that they were already hunting for her.

  “I’m coming, Beth. What’s the matter?”

  She had raced out of the parking lot in Cupertino, shouting as she drove. Cold rain was spitting down.

  “Something … shit. Something happened in Arizona,” Beth said.

  “I thought the trip out there put an end to everything. You said—closure, you said.”

  “I meant for it to …” Beth’s voice broke. “That family’s a freak show. I mean scary bad. Nolan never told me. They believe men and women …” The sound faded to a hiss and returned. “… Sarah, I want to get out of here.”

  “You didn’t let Nolan come back, did you?”

  “He came by to talk. But no. No way.”

  Dammit, Beth. “I’m coming.”

  “I keep seeing an SUV drive past.”

  Sarah’s heart began to drum. “You mean they’re watching?”

  “Could be.”

  “Get out of the house. Take Zoe and get the hell out.”

  Beth’s voice sharpened. “Where, the woods—with a baby? It’s snowing.”

&n
bsp; “Then call the cops.”

  “Absolutely not. They’ll only make things worse.”

  Then, she hadn’t understood. Now, gunning the truck toward Edmond, she understood all too well. It didn’t matter whether the Worthes had known Beth had a sister. By nightfall, the police would let everybody know.

  Scary bad. This morning, she had been given an x-ray view of what that meant. Zoe Skye Worthe.

  No way. Not then, not now, not ever. Nolan Worthe may have fathered her, but Zoe was a Keller.

  But Sarah knew the Worthe clan saw it differently. They were the ones who had microchipped Zoe. They had claimed her.

  Throat dry, she pulled in at the Mail Box Store, got Zoe out of the truck, and headed inside.

  She didn’t use P.O. boxes, because the Patriot Act required her to provide the Postal Service with two forms of ID and her real home address. Besides, as a skip tracer, she often tracked down deadbeats through P.O. boxes. People invariably rented boxes in the ZIP code where they lived—and with a ZIP code she could search for phone, utility, or cable TV accounts, and pin down an address. Then the skip was done. Roasted.

  But in four years of skip tracing Sarah had not found anybody who hid behind a series of commercial mail agency drop boxes. She’d never managed to charm a skip’s home address from the manager of a mailbox store. And what worked for sneaks worked for her.

  From the box she retrieved the two manila envelopes she’d stashed here. One contained five prepaid credit cards. The other contained three prepaid cell phones. She stuck them in her messenger bag.

  This box was her main drop. She had two other boxes in OKC, set up to forward mail and packages in a daisy chain to this one. The box was paid up through the end of the year—a heavy bit of insurance that had just paid off.

  Holding Zoe’s hand, she walked out. The young man behind the counter was busy sealing a package with strapping tape. “You have a nice day, ma’am.”

  “You too.”

  Zoe gave him a little wave. “Bye.”

  He smiled. “Bye, sweetie.”

  Sarah counted that as planting a marker, one that would start pinging like a beacon before the day was out.