by Alex Barclay
The Young and the Restless.
‘Ben is one of our finest UC graduates,’ said Gary.
‘Yup,’ said Ben. ‘Strictly deep cover in retirement homes …’
Ren laughed. He flashed a big smile her way.
‘I’m just passing through,’ said Ben. ‘I thought I’d catch up with Gary, say hi.’
‘Please, excuse me,’ said Ren, standing up, and moving around her desk. She pointed out the door. ‘I was on my way to the ladies room.’ She moved to walk past Ben and Gary.
‘This is SA Ren Bryce,’ said Gary.
Ren shook Ben’s hand. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.
Ben beamed. ‘You too,’ he said, keeping her hand in his grip.
Oh my God. Stop.
Ren glanced, panicked, toward Gary, but he had turned toward the hallway. Ren pulled Ben a little closer, and as she moved by his left ear, whispered. ‘I found your skull ring … it was in the shower tray.’ She slid her hand out of his. She walked to the ladies room.
Ben texted, All that soap …
She texted back:
Slippery …
He texted back:
When Wet …
6
Ren stood in the ladies room, sliding her belt out of her work pants. She stepped out of them and pulled on her jeans, tight and low-riding, cutting into the hip bones that had newly resurfaced.
She was aware that her brother, Matt, had fired something at her, and that it was trying to pierce some part of her. But she was too far away.
Go away, Matt. Go away.
She pulled off her white work shirt and skin-toned bra, and pushed them onto the pile in her locker. She grabbed the pink bra that matched her low-cut boy shorts, hooked it at the front, adjusted the contents, adjusted the straps. She pulled on a scoop-necked gray tank with black leather strips and small silver buckles on each shoulder. Her arms were leaner, the long muscles defined again. She could see veins. She applied more makeup: light base on sallow skin, extra liner, extra mascara, tan blush on cheeks that had hollowed under the bone.
Bones and veins, coming through. The surface.
Ren thought of the men who had gotten to know more. Paul Louderback, her former physical training instructor at Quantico. Her only unfinished business. It had been seventeen years since he first got inside her head. She was twenty years old, standing in boxing gloves in the gym at the Academy, knees bent, punching the focus pads he was holding up. His eyes were extraordinarily blue, sharp, intense. She missed a beat. He struck her hard on the side of the head.
‘Focus pads!’ he roared, ‘are for guess what?’
‘For focusing on,’ Ren had shouted back.
‘Then focus!’
‘Yes, sir.’ She punched. One, two.
‘And when you punch, you need to follow through! Punch like you’re aiming to go through the focus pads, or through the punchbag, or through the dirtbag!’
His eyes.
‘Follow through,’ he had roared. ‘You need to follow through!’
‘Yes, sir.’ One, two.
His eyes. Shit.
‘Focus pads!’ he roared again, ‘are for guess what?’
‘For focusing on,’ Ren had shouted back.
‘Then focus!’
‘Hard to do,’ Ren had told him months later. ‘When the instructor looks like—’
‘He wants to kiss you?’ said Paul.
But she had found out that Paul Louderback was married, and she wanted to grab those boxing gloves and use them on him again for not wearing a wedding band. So she had treated the ‘wants to kiss you’ like it had never been said. It was the first time, in words, he had made his feelings clear. For the seventeen years since it was hinted at in emails, and gifts, and rare phone calls that she knew were a secret from his wife. This simple contact meant that no matter who Ren was with, at times she would imagine what it would be like to walk down a beach or an aisle with Paul Louderback. But he had already done both with someone else, and Ren was no homewrecker, and no-one’s second best.
Just once they had dared to say more about what might have been, eighteen months earlier, in the shadow of Quandary Peak outside Breckenridge, in the aftermath of a murder investigation. Since then, there had been no contact. Paul Louderback had a life in D.C. with his wife and two daughters, and she had a life in Denver.
Then there were the men Ren had been with in the past ten years, since her mind was stamped with crazy: Vincent, everloving until she broke under the weight of his knowledge of her; Billy Waites, confidential informant, bright and brave, deep and tattooed, quietly concerned, secret. Then from the sawdust of the National Stock Show, came the extreme rider, riding fast toward her manic high, and roping her. Then a few more, scattered and grim, drawn to the same empty flame. Come to crazy: when Ren, fresh from sorrow, could feel her eyes dancing like fire, and her chest bursting with roving love, her glass and her wallet overflowing, her flesh showing, her smiles killing her jaw. Come to crazy. I’ll keep you up all night.
It would last for days, or weeks, or longer. If she was lucky – she thought – it would last for months. Her trickster mind would tell her that the high would never end: this time I promise, this time I promise. And then came the certain, slow, quicksand low: the knockdown, turnaround low. It would sidle up to her like a street-corner mime with an upright middle finger, rocking with silent laughter at the ridiculousness that it could still surprise. It would bring terrible things, silently. It carried thoughts with claws and teeth – thoughts that she may have fought before, and beaten. But her trickster mind would tell her that this low would never end: this time I promise, this time I promise.
‘Surpri-ise!’ it would mouth. ‘You fucking sucker.’ Rocking shoulders, silent laugh. ‘I. Always. Win.’
Ren leaned into the mirror, sliding red gloss across her lips with an upright middle finger.
Not this time, motherfucker. Not this time.
Erica Whaley leaned in and kissed her husband hard on the mouth, knocking his head back against the mirrored wall of the elevator. When it stopped on the third floor, she made a dash for the room. She went the wrong way, then spun around and, laughing, went back the right way. Mark moved slowly after her. He could not bear to be in the room with the sitter. As he came closer, he heard a terrible, agonizing scream. He ran through the open door.
‘Laurie,’ Erica was screaming. ‘Laurie!’
Little Leo was standing in the middle of the bedroom floor. He had wet his Spiderman pajamas.
‘What do you mean, Laurie?’ said Mark. ‘Where is she?’ He dashed past Erica into the kids’ bedroom. She followed him in. Her face was white.
‘She’s not here!’ screamed Erica. ‘Laurie’s gone.’
Mark Whaley shouted out his daughter’s name, pulling back the wardrobe doors, throwing himself onto the floor to check under the bed, running to the curtains, swinging them back and forth, as if his daughter would play a hiding game as her stepmother screamed. Maybe this is for attention, he thought. He ran back into Erica.
‘Where’s the sitter?’ he said.
Leo was now wailing, copying his parents. He plunged toward his father’s leg, and clung to it. In a trance, Mark bent down and picked him up, started patting his back, not even aware that Leo’s wet pajamas were soaking into his shirt. And still, Leo bawled.
‘I’m trying to think,’ Mark shouted. ‘Stop crying, Leo. For crying out loud!’
Leo cried harder, alarmed by the scene he had woken up to. ‘Laurie,’ he sobbed. ‘Laurie.’
‘Give him to me,’ said Erica.
Mark grabbed for the phone. He called reception. As he waited for them to pick up, he turned to Erica. ‘Call 911 from your cell phone,’ he shouted. ‘Call 911. And call Laurie’s cell.’
Jared Labati picked up the phone in reception. ‘Hey,’ he said, long and slow, as if he was talking to one of his best friends.
‘This is Mark Whaley, Room 304. My daughter is missing. My daughter’s
gone. Call 911. Call the police. Where’s the sitter? Did you see the sitter leave?’
Jared stammered, ‘Uh … your daughter’s gone? Where?’
‘Yes!’ shouted Mark. ‘She’s gone! She’s taken my daughter. I don’t know where.’
‘Who?’ said Jared. ‘Who’s taken your daughter?’
‘Jesus Christ, I don’t care, my daughter’s gone. Shut down the hotel. Now. And get the police here. Now.’ He slammed the phone down. ‘What a fucking idiot.’
Erica was still on the phone to 911. Mark started answering the dispatcher’s questions along with her. She held her hand over the receiver. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Stop! You’re confusing me.’
‘You’re too slow!’ he said.
He got his cell phone and dialed Laurie’s number.
‘It’s ringing,’ he said. ‘It’s ringing. OK. It’s ringing. That’s good. Come on, Laurie, pick up, pick up.’
He became aware of a song playing in the room next door, a song he vaguely knew, one that Laurie had loaded onto Erica’s iPod, but he knew it wasn’t the iPod, it was the phone, and as he walked into the bedroom, there it was, flashing on the floor of the bedroom: Laurie’s little pink cell phone. He ended his call, picked up her phone and brought it into Erica.
‘I’m going to check the other rooms, I’ll check the other rooms, stay here, in case she …’ He ran from the room and down the hallway, hammering on every door, shouting for Laurie.
‘My daughter’s missing!’ he shouted. ‘My daughter’s gone! She’s eleven years old, blonde hair, blue eyes, seventy pounds, wearing … wearing … pajamas! Pajamas with … pink pajamas … with Jesus … just pink!’
Doors started to open along the hallway.
‘Anyone!’ said Mark. ‘Anyone! Has anyone seen her? Everyone, my daughter’s missing! She was here just a half hour ago. I just checked on her. On the sitter. There was a sitter. Blonde hair. Five two … sixteen years old.’
Jesus, she was sixteen years old, he thought.
7
Ren Bryce woke up with Ben Rader behind her, his thick arm wrapped around her waist. He pulled her closer to him, and kissed her shoulder, then her neck. He leaned into her ear, and spoke very quietly, telling her what he was guessing she wanted. As she backed up against him, his hand moved up her body, stayed longer than she could handle, then slid all the way down. She was barely awake as she moved on top of him. He sat up to meet her. He slid them both to the edge of the bed. Every movement he made was rock solid. Ren was looking into the mirrored wardrobe door, where she could watch him, and his bare muscular torso, and his white-knuckle grip on her hips.
And the award for outstanding performance by a male in a leading role goes to …
Her cell phone rang. No. No.
‘No,’ said Ben.
‘No,’ said Ren.
Ren glanced down at the screen. Shit.
‘I have to,’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’ She grabbed the phone. Remove the sex from your voice. ‘Well, hi, High Sheriff.’
‘Special greetings, Special Agent.’ Sheriff Bob Gage was the Summit County Sheriff, two counties west of Denver.
‘It’s late, it’s early,’ said Ren, ‘and there is a grim tone to your voice.’
‘There are grim happenings in Breckenridge,’ said Bob. ‘I’m just about to call your boss to get your Safe Street asses over here.’
‘What’s going down?’ said Ren.
‘Missing child, missing sitter,’ said Bob.
‘Missing from where?’ said Ren.
Ben lifted Ren onto the bed beside him. She wrapped a sheet around herself.
‘They disappeared from their room in a brand-spanking new hotel,’ said Bob. ‘The Merlin Lodge & Spa. Or maybe the sitter took the little girl. Or maybe they were both abducted. The sitter is sixteen years old, and the girl is eleven. The parents were down in the restaurant, the stepmother was drunk, got through a couple bottles of champagne on her own. They were seen arguing at the table.’
‘And the father?’ said Ren.
‘He’s a mess. This was the first time he was allowed overnight parenting time. I can’t get a handle on him, though.’
‘Allowed by whom?’ said Ren.
‘A judge,’ said Bob. ‘Don’t you hate that legal bullshit “parenting time”? Isn’t the whole time “parenting time”? It bugs me. Anyway, he’s got two kids. The girl, from his first marriage, and a three-year-old boy with his current wife – the drunk one. The ex-wife is the primary care parent, she wanted him nowhere near his daughter, but eventually a judge over-rode her wishes, had sympathy for the guy – he had turned his life around. His “parenting time” increased. And the latest development was that he could take her overnight.’
Ren sucked in a breath. ‘What do you mean “turned his life around”? What kind of guy are we talking about here?’
‘He’s a recovering alcoholic,’ said Bob. ‘He’s no low-life. He’s a big shot in a pharmaceuticals company in Denver. The CFO. What’s that – Chief Financial Officer?’
‘Yup,’ said Ren. ‘What about the ex-wife? Have you spoken with her? Could she have taken her daughter to get back at him, to prove a point?’ She paused. ‘But, then, where did the sitter come into it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bob. ‘We haven’t spoken to the ex-wife yet. The sitter’s a local kid, pretty blonde, good-girl type. She’s with an agency that’s on call at the hotel. The hotel’s only open a couple weeks. Just get your ass here, we’ll talk more.’
‘I’m on my way.’ Ren hung up.
Ben Rader was in the bathroom.
‘Do not reveal yourself until I’m gone,’ Ren shouted. She started to gather up her clothes. ‘I won’t be responsible … or professional … or …’
The door opened and Ben Rader walked in, naked and smiling, toward her. ‘Seriously …’ he said.
You wonderful man.
I-70 was eerily quiet, stretching out in front of Ren like a road to nowhere. She turned on the radio, turned it off, picked up her iPod, threw it down, looked at herself in the mirror, thought of Ben Rader, smiled, then reached for her cell phone. Her hand hovered over speed dial number three – Janine Hooks, her friend of four months, and the entire workforce of the Jefferson County Cold Case Unit, based in Golden, fifteen miles outside Denver. Janine had short brown hair, a wide mouth with full lips, and prominent, pretty teeth. She was small and boyish, and weighed no more than one hundred pounds. Ren worried that she was anorexic.
Ren and Janine had met over a cold case linked to Helen Wheeler’s murder, and came to blows over it when Billy Waites, Ren’s confidential-informant ex, broke into Janine’s office to steal a file. Yet, from this betrayal came a close, fast friendship, and the understanding that it had all been for the greater good. Ren’s only regret was that she hadn’t met Janine Hooks years ago.
Ren hit three on speed dial.
‘Wow,’ said Janine, ‘three thirty a.m. is always such a good time for me.’
‘I’m driving by yo’ house,’ said Ren. ‘And test-driving my new hands-free. You can still like a guy who makes a Bon Jovi reference … right?’
‘You can like him even more,’ said Janine. ‘What was the reference?’ Ren knew the facial expression Janine would now have – frowny, chin out, head a little tilted. When Janine Hooks listened, she listened.
‘Slippery When Wet,’ said Ren.
‘Album number three, 1986,’ said Janine.
‘I love Bon Jovi fans!’ said Ren.
‘Who is this man?’ said Janine. ‘I was wondering where you had disappeared to.’
‘Special – very special – Agent Ben Rader. Michael J. Fox gene, goes undercover with the underage. A man with a Major in minors …’
‘And …’ said Janine.
‘Well … he is … amazing,’ said Ren.
‘Oh, God,’ said Janine. ‘I just got the Slippery When Wet. No more details. Please.’
‘Oh my God, I didn’t mean it like that,’ said
Ren. ‘It was soap.’
‘Aren’t you guys not meant to date other agents?’ said Janine.
They both laughed.
‘Gary would go apeshit, though,’ said Ren.
‘He sure would,’ said Janine.
‘In defense of myself and hot agent, neither of us knew we were FBI Agents at the time of meeting,’ said Ren.
‘What?’ said Janine.
‘That’s the funny thing,’ said Ren. ‘We met in Gaffney’s because Gary had recommended it to him. I was there because that’s where Safe Streets goes. I don’t like men liking me for my job, Ben doesn’t like women liking him for his job. So a lot of agents lie when they go out. And, he does not look like an agent, and he didn’t think I did. And, part of undercover training is literally to go into a bar, and get as much information as you can out of someone—’
‘Therefore, would you not be immune to someone doing it to you?’ said Janine.
‘That was the other funny thing,’ said Ren. ‘We are. So neither of us really got anywhere. We kind of bonded over the fact that we were both being shady. I mean, I made up a pretty decent background, and so did he, but our hearts weren’t really in it.’
‘So, the foundation for this amazing new relationship is your shared gift for lying?’ said Janine.
Pause. ‘You don’t have to put it like that.’
‘Even if that’s the way it is,’ said Janine.
‘He’s got other gifts …’ said Ren.
‘So I gathered,’ said Janine. ‘Let’s take that as a given from now on.’
‘I’m just excited,’ said Ren.
‘Maybe it’s just me, but how could you trust a man like that?’ said Janine.
‘I don’t need to trust him,’ said Ren. ‘I just need to trust that he’ll show up for … dates. Which he has. And hey, I’m trustworthy. Just because I lie for work sometimes … ’
‘True. I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Janine. ‘So where are you going at this hour of the night? Or where are you coming from?’