by Dan Ames
As Molly neared the information booth, she saw the woman look up at her as she approached. At the same time, Molly heard an echoing ring, coming just a moment after the one she heard from the earpiece of her own phone.
Molly walked faster toward the information booth and the echoing ring, her heart in her mouth.
The woman behind the information desk looked up as Molly reached her. The woman, who wearing a name badge emblazed with the mall’s logo and the name Kate, reached down and picked something up. She held it out toward Molly with a look of confusion in her eyes.
The object in the woman’s hand was ringing.
Molly looked at it.
It was her daughter’s phone.
5
Locust Springs, Colorado
Locust Springs Deputy Sheriff Windsor Smith felt the pastrami on pumpernickel sandwich from Janet’s Deli surge toward his mouth. He turned away from the sight in front of him, staggered a few steps into a patch of long meadow grass, and parted ways with Janet’s Wednesday Special.
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and walked unsteadily back to the scene that had prompted the call from the hikers to the local police.
Deputy Smith had seen bodies before. The first one had been at a seminar on autopsies in Denver, where he’d ended up sleeping with the instructor, a hot forensics expert from Los Angeles with tan skin and jumbo knockers. Actually, he’d ended up studying her body much more than the one she’d dissected in class.
The other dead body he’d seen was a vagrant who’d fallen asleep on the railroad tracks and had been splattered a hundred feet in every good goddamned direction.
But this, this Deputy Smith hadn’t been ready for.
First off, it was clearly the remains of a child. The size of the limbs, the shreds of clothing, and a pair of shoes, all made it fairly plain to Deputy Smith that this was a young person.
But there were other things that disturbed Deputy Smith. And even though he had flunked the final sheriff’s exam three times before passing, and had barley survived the academy’s classes, he was confident enough with his intellect to determine a few things.
Animals had clearly gotten to the body. Things were chewed, and shredded, and pulled apart. There were coyote tracks around the body, a few bird tracks, probably eagles, and smaller prints of maybe a fox or two.
But the body was broken. That was the best way Deputy Smith could put it. Limbs were snapped. The neck, or what was left of it, looked like it was cracked in a ninety-degree break.
Smith turned away again from the scene and looked out over the sloping valley toward the mountains beyond. The air was crisp and clean, and he breathed deeply of the pure stuff, trying to rid his mind of the images.
Still, he was here to do a job, and he tried to focus on what he’d seen, without noticing the gore.
Even though the skull was intact, Smith was pretty sure several teeth were missing from the remains. He was fairly confident in his assessment that the child had been severely beaten. Maybe some of it happened from the animals, and maybe even the elements had caused some damage. But the other condition issues were hard to explain.
Smith didn’t know the technical details that would probably make figuring out exactly what happened here a little bit easier. Maybe he would have if he had listened to the forensic expert at the seminar instead of fantasizing about her melons.
But the last detail, well, that was obvious even to him.
The body was more or less intact, with two legs, each having feet attached in little black Nike tennis shoes.
But another item, nearly twenty feet back, sticking partially from the ground couldn’t be denied.
It was a child’s leg.
This foot, however, was encased in a pink sandal.
Smith closed his eyes and felt the rest of his sandwich start to break for the surface as he realized what this meant.
There was at least one more body.
6
Washington, D.C.
Everything about him was ordinary.
His clothes.
His looks.
His speech.
Even his meal, in this case a Turkey and Swiss sandwich hold the pickle, with a bag of baked potato chips and a Diet Coke.
He sat at a small table by the window with his meal in front of him and his phone off to the left. But he wasn’t interested in his phone, or his meal. He only put his phone on the table because nearly everyone else who ate alone made themselves busy with a phone. It was their way of saying that even though they were eating by themselves, they had a very busy, active life, as represented by the energetic use of the phone.
He was also oblivious to the food on the table in front of him. He would probably eat a little just for appearance sake, but ordinarily he would never eat in a place like this.
What did hold a great amount of interest for him, however, was the building across the street.
The one bearing the name of J. Edgar Hoover.
If ever a building represented the activities taking place inside it, the FBI building was it. Huge, faceless, ugly, and intrusive.
The Washington streets were busy around him with office workers scurrying to and from their places of employment. Seeking nourishment in the form of restaurant fare, or a breath of fresh air before returning to their stale offices with bad lighting and nonstop noise.
The man finally deigned to take a bite of his sandwich and chewed, added a potato chip, and washed it down with a sip of Diet Coke.
It was a mechanical process and the man barely registered any flavor in the food he consumed.
Although it was nice enough outside, he had never felt entirely comfortable out of doors. He supposed it had to do with vulnerability, but his preferred locale was in his home office, behind a bank of computers.
Across the street, a panel van pulled up to the gate of the FBI building. Inside the security booth, someone leaned out and accepted the driver’s credentials. Moments later, that person handed the items back to the driver and the van pulled into the parking structure of the massive building.
The man in the deli continued to watch, occasionally munching on a chip and taking a sip of Diet Coke.
He wished he had something better to eat, because he was hungry. His workout this morning had been intense, and he had nothing for breakfast but a protein shake. This lunch would not satisfy him.
Then again, he was never satisfied.
The closest he’d ever come to being truly satisfied was during the six months he’d recently spent in Thailand. It had been an intoxicating time as his dark obsessions grew and blossomed, along with the ease of being able to slake those thirsts.
You could buy anything, or anyone, in Thailand.
And he had.
Nothing was off-limits over there, and everything was available if you had the money. Thankfully, he had plenty of money, and plenty of ideas. It had been fascinating to occasionally watch from outside of himself, as his creativity grew and his appetite for sexual perversion increased exponentially. It was as if his true self had been dormant and the climate in Thailand had brought it out of hibernation.
But the sense that his dark thirsts had been fully satisfied did not last long. As soon as was on a plane back to the U.S. he’d felt that gnawing restlessness that never went away.
Although he didn’t clearly articulate it in his thoughts, a part of him understood that sex was vital to his being. The darker and more disturbing it was, the more he enjoyed it.
But he was a man of many hungers.
And it had been on that plane ride back that he first had an idea that rocked him to his core. An idea that combined his one great need, sex, with one of his most powerful, and unfulfilled, quests.
Now, he looked up again at the J. Edgar Hoover building.
He felt himself getting aroused and his face betrayed him by allowing a small smile.
This was going to be one of his greatest endeavors, one that combined both of his most cherished passio
ns.
Sex.
And revenge.
7
Des Moines, Iowa
The tears came and went. And then they came and went again. And again.
Molly Spencer could not grasp the idea that Rebecca was gone. Every young woman’s voice she heard sounded like Rebecca’s. Every laugh. Every shout. Every cell phone ring, Molly thought might be her daughter.
But it never was.
As the Des Moines cops talked to her about what had happened, she kept looking over their shoulders every time a young girl with dark hair walked past. Each time, she felt a knife stab her in the heart when the face she saw in no way resembled Rebecca’s.
The police were trying to help. A stocky detective in an ugly blue suit had been dispatched once they’d heard her last name. But just like the patrol officers who had first responded, he had also given her the twenty-four-hour speech, about how they really couldn’t start expending resources until then. After all, they said, Rebecca could have just gone off with friends or something.
But Molly knew that wasn’t true. She knew it in the deepest, truest chords of her heart. Rebecca was her first child, the oldest, and was born with an innate sense of responsibility. Even when she was a little girl, if Molly told her to go to bed at eight o’clock, Rebecca would go to bed at that time, no questions asked. Which isn’t to say that she was a patsy. No, Rebecca was a strong, intelligent, independent girl. But she was conscientious and there was no way on God’s green Earth that she would have just left the mall without saying a word to her mother. No way. No how. Never.
Molly had immediately called her husband, and he was on his way. Things would happen once Archibald Spencer arrived, Molly knew. He was that kind of man.
But until he got here, Molly was alone. And as the tears burst from her eyes again, she came face to face with what she knew was the absolute, undeniable truth.
Rebecca had been taken.
STOCKING THE SHELVES
8
Silicon Valley, California
It was good to be the boss. He’d finished his last meeting of the day, and it wasn’t even five o’clock. But he’d told his secretary to hold all of his calls, went in and shut and locked the door to his office, poured himself some scotch in the thick, square glass that was his favorite. It was actually a double, but because the glass was so big, and made of such heavy leaded glass, it looked like a normal drink.
And then he fired up his computer.
His name was Bernard Evans and his company was called Burn. He’d started the company in his efficiency apartment in Westwood with nothing but some used computers linked together with Kleenex and spit, and built it into one of the most innovative, and profitable, tech companies in the world. Burn specialized in the development and implementation of applications, or apps, primarily for the financial industry.
The company had done quite well, and now Bernard Evans was worth nearly a billion dollars. In fact, he had slowly been extricating himself from the day-to-day operations of Burn, and turning them over to his protégé, Reese Stocker. Stocker was incredibly bright, but he didn’t have Evans’ creativity. Which was perfect, because all of the ideas were in place, now it was a matter of just keeping the machine running, and Stocker was perfect for that.
And although Evans himself had the intelligence and experience to develop a bulletproof security system for his own computer, he had hired an outside consultant to set up his personal Internet usage at the office. He had a different IT department that monitored his employees, but his system was totally separate. After the consultant had put the basics in place, Evans rewrote the code for all of the access doors so that only he had access. And then he put in a whole slew of extras that made his online presence completely invisible. But more importantly, untraceable.
He took a long drink of the scotch, felt its warm waterfall of pleasantness tumble through his soul. Christ, he loved good scotch. He caught his reflection in the wall of glass that provided his view of the Pacific Ocean and part of the Santa Monica mountains. Wavy salt-and-pepper hair, an angular face and pale blue eyes. He looked like the wealthy tech exec he really was.
Evans’ computer finished firing up and when he saw the screen, his heart jumped a beat.
The icon was staring back at him.
It was animated with photo realistic quality: a young, scantily clad woman walking across his computer screen holding up a sign like the women between rounds of a boxing match. The sign read: OPEN FOR BUSINESS.
Evans felt an immediate stirring in his loins as hot blood coursed through his body. He stood, took his glass, drained it, and refilled it. He walked around his office, trying to get in control, torn between wallowing in the pleasure to come, and wanting to have some control. Gratification was always more powerful after it had been repeatedly delayed. Wasn’t it Freud who said that? Evans wondered.
When he felt he’d proven some restraint, he sat back down and clicked on the woman.
And went breathless as the swirling desire of his deepest fantasies suddenly came to life.
9
Des Moines, Iowa
The Spencer home sat high on a hill overlooking Des Moines. It was a sprawling Tudor made of stone and wood, with immaculate landscaping and a wide, expansive yard. The estate bespoke of wealth, power and influence.
In the circular driveway, two patrol cars sat with their engines idling, while two unmarked Crown Victorias were parked along the street.
The police cars bookended a black limousine that was double parked in front of a towering wooden front door that featured black, wrought iron hardware.
Inside the home, there were detectives from the Des Moines police department, FBI agents from the Bureau’s office in Omaha, Nebraska. Their office’s jurisdiction included Iowa, and several members of Senator Archibald Spencer’s team.
The Senator stood in the middle of the great room, his suit jacket off, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his sleeves rolled up.
“I goddamn know about the twenty-four-hour rule as much as you do,” he barked at the lead FBI agent who had just mentioned the need to find Rebecca within twenty-four hours. “Don’t fucking tell me about that shit. Fucking find her.”
Archibald Spencer was a man of angles. He had broad shoulders that were so perfectly square his fraternity brothers used to joke that he would make a perfect coat hanger. His thin face was hatchet-like, with broad cheekbones that narrowed to a sharply pointed chin. With his height, at least six inches over six feet, his presence was imposing, and when he wanted it to be, menacing.
The senator looked over at the couch where his wife sat.
Their family doctor had given her a dose of Valium which she’d washed down with a gulp of wine. Now, she was alternating between bouts of sobbing and dazed periods of silence.
The FBI’s hostage negotiator had arrived fifteen minutes earlier and now sat on one of the Spencer’s dining room chairs that he had turned around to face the living room.
“When do they usually call?” the Senator asked him.
“Usually within hours of the abduction,” he said. The negotiator’s name was Sherman and he spoke with a steady, even voice. “But no two abductions ever go the same way.”
“That’s fucking great,” Spencer said.
He went into the kitchen, got a glass and poured himself a stiff shot of Irish whiskey. Spencer took the drink, went into his library and shut and locked the door.
From his pocket he took a cell phone, thumbed through his contact list until he found the name he wanted.
He sank into the brown leather chair behind his immense mahogany desk. He pressed the phone icon on the screen and put it to his ear.
While it rang, he looked at the wall of photos opposite his desk. Presidents, politicians, celebrities.
None of them could help him now, the useless bastards.
Spencer knew the fucking twenty-four-hour rule, all right. That something like eighty percent of all child abductions e
nded with the victim killed in the first twenty-four hours. He thought he’d read that it was actually far worse. That something like seventy-five percent of abducted kids are killed within three hours of their capture.
For that reason, he needed someone who could work fast and smart.
Someone who was the absolute best at this sort of thing. And someone he knew personally.
A voice on the other end of the line spoke.
Spencer let out a long breath.
“Mack, it’s me,” he said.
10
Estero, Florida
Mack steered the boat into the hoist’s cradle, shifted the engine into neutral and shut it off. He caught the nearest post with his right hand to hold the boat steady and then thumbed the power button to raise the hoist.
The hoist locked into place and Mack hooked up the freshwater hose to the engine to clean out the saltwater, drained the livewells and lifted the coolers from the boat and placed them onto the dock. He clambered out of the boat onto the dock, and slid the cooler with the fish over to the cleaning shelf. He quickly filleted the tuna, rinsed everything off and fed the scraps to a pelican who had flown in, landed, and was waiting patiently in the middle of the river. Mack put the filleted tuna back in the cooler and carried the cooler to the house.
Mack’s home was quintessential Florida – a three-story structure with the first level being primarily the pool, garage, an outdoor kitchen and a sitting area. The second floor was the main living space, with a wide open lanai that offered sweeping views of the Estero River.
The outdoor areas of the first and second level were screened in and there was many a night when Mack sat on the second floor lanai, overlooking the river, with a beer in hand. He loved to listen to the river as it gently made its way out to the Gulf.