Gone in a Flash

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  Willis was on his cell phone before Luna got the car started. ‘Meet us at the BCR police station,’ he said to his son and hung up.

  I had Alicia in my arms in the back seat, stroking her hair. ‘I was so worried,’ I said.

  ‘I know, Mom.’

  Willis turned around in his seat. ‘We both were,’ he said.

  Alicia reached out for his outstretched hand. ‘I know you were, Dad. I know that.’

  He squeezed her hand and I could see a tear in his eye. ‘Never forget it,’ he said. ‘Ever.’

  ‘Never ever,’ Alicia said and squeezed back.

  We waited for less than fifteen minutes and heard the squad car coming miles off, sirens blazing away.

  Once the patrol person got there, Luna said, ‘No siren going back. Speed limit, got that, Rookie?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ the fresh-faced former boy scout said.

  It took about twenty minutes to get back to BCR and to the police station. Like everything else in Black Cat Ridge, the police station had been part of The Plan. Although it took a couple of years to get it built and running, the urgent care area had been set out in the original town plans. Several acres earmarked for police, fire, and ambulance. It was all up and running now and close to the White Rock shopping center so, ta-da, it was all made of white rock, fitting the locale beautifully, with as few trees slaughtered as possible.

  Inside, the waiting area had comfortable seating, good lighting, and piped-in music. There was reading material – Ladies Home Journal, Time, and Men’s Health. It was more like an upscale doctor’s office than a police station. There was even a little sliding glass window, behind which sat what in a doctor’s office would have been the receptionist, but instead of scrubs, this young woman was wearing the black and gold uniform of the Black Cat Ridge Police. (The high-school teams’ colors are also black and gold. Coincidence? In a place called Black Cat Ridge? Hardly. And yes, the football team is called the Alley Cats.)

  There was a door to the left and a door to the right. The young cop led us through the door to the left. We went down a hall and ended up in what looked like a boardroom. Polished hardwood floors and table, twelve chairs, whiteboard, chalkboard, and a large flat-screen TV. He told us to take a seat and we did, then he said, ‘I’ll go get the chief.’

  There was a large window that looked out onto the hall, and we watched as he started down the hall, then stopped. Turning, he pointed toward the room we were in. Then we saw them – our kids – Graham in the lead.

  Seeing Graham, Alicia stood up and ran to the door, just as he ran to the door. The two stopped for half a minute, staring at each other, then they embraced. I was hoping they’d hold off a couple of years, but I still couldn’t help crying at the beauty of it.

  Mr Brown slammed his fist down on the steering wheel, making Mr Jones jump in his seat. They were in a fairly old Toyota Celica, old enough anyway to be able to hot-wire. Mr Brown had insisted that Mr Jones steal the car out of the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Codderville, but since Mr Jones did not know the intricacies of hot-wiring, Mr Brown was forced to get out and do it himself. It was at this point that he first wished he hadn’t hit Mr Smith so hard as to cause his death. He was sure Mr Smith would have known how to hot-wire a car.

  They were parked across the street from the house where the brown-haired girl lived, and where the flash drive presumably still resided – upstairs in her room next to her computer.

  ‘All the cars are still there!’ Mr Brown yelled.

  ‘Oh, no! That’s not all of ’em,’ Mr Jones said. ‘That minivan is the girls’ – the brown-haired girl and her two sisters – and that little sporty car, that’s the mom’s, and the dad has a really cool truck but it’s in the gar—’

  ‘Shut up,’ Mr Brown said quietly.

  ‘—age,’ Mr Jones finished.

  Mr Brown was down with the fact that he was going to have to kill Mr Jones. Either now or, if he behaved, later. But Mr Brown was fearful that Mr Jones did not know how to behave.

  ‘And that boy, he had another car, like this one—’ Mr Jones started.

  Mr Brown drew his arm back and was about to cold-cock Mr Jones when he wondered what the tinsel strength of the Toyota’s side windows might be. He didn’t want Mr Jones dead now, like Mr Smith. Instead of hitting Mr Jones and knocking his head into the side window, causing yet another death by window, Mr Brown got out of the car.

  ‘You got a gun?’ he asked Mr Jones, who got out on his side.

  ‘Yeah, sure do,’ he said, drawing it out of his pocket.

  ‘Put that goddam thing back, you idiot!’ Mr Brown hissed. ‘God only knows who’s watching! But keep your hand near it. We break down the back door and rush in and kill anybody standing in our way.’

  ‘But, Mr Brown, these are like, you know, innocent people,’ Mr Jones said.

  ‘If they’re so goddam innocent, why do they have the flash drive and we don’t?’ Mr Brown countered.

  Mr Jones couldn’t answer that so he let it go. Instead, he went in another direction. ‘What about that police lady who lives next door?’

  Mr Brown stopped in his tracks. ‘Do you see her car?’

  ‘No, but I didn’t see her car when she stopped me and Mr Smith that time either,’ Mr Jones said.

  ‘Which house?’ Mr Brown inquired.

  ‘That one,’ Mr Jones said, pointing at Elena Luna’s house, which shared its driveway with the Pugh house. Mr Jones had never worked with Mr Brown (or whatever his real name was) before, and he was coming to the conclusion that he wouldn’t work with him again. He seemed even more temperamental than Mr Smith, and that was saying a lot.

  Mr Brown squared his shoulders. ‘She comes out, we kill her,’ he said, his voice much steadier than his insides. Mr Brown was not thrilled with the prospect of killing a cop. As a matter of fact, Mr Brown wasn’t thrilled about killing anybody at all, but he was even less thrilled about being killed himself. And that’s what was going to happen if he didn’t get back to Houston with that flash drive.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to Mr Jones as he headed across the street. They walked up the driveway, unaccosted by the cop who lived next door. They went up to the back door and found it unlocked. They walked in. There was no one in the kitchen or the big room with the large flat-screen TV. Mr Brown and Mr Jones looked at each other.

  ‘This place is empty,’ Mr Brown said. ‘I can feel it. You know how you feel if someone else is in a room with you?’

  Mr Jones said, ‘No.’

  ‘It was a rhetorical question, dumbass. I’m just saying, this place is empty.’ They both stood in the same spot right inside the back door. Neither moved.

  ‘You sure about that?’ Mr Jones asked.

  ‘I’m positive,’ Mr Brown said, and finally took another step into the room. And another. ‘Where’s the staircase?’ he asked.

  ‘Toward the front of the house,’ Mr Jones answered.

  ‘Show me,’ Mr Brown said.

  ‘Uh uh,’ Mr Jones said, shaking his head. ‘I’m not going first! You go first!’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ Mr Brown muttered, and went to a doorway toward the front of the house. A hallway lead straight to the front door, with a formal dining room on the right, with an arch into a formal living room. On the left of the hallway was the wall that supported the staircase that came straight down toward the front door, but curved toward the living room for the last three steps.

  ‘See the way the staircase curves before the front door?’ Mr Jones asked.

  ‘Yeah, so what?’ Mr Brown replied, heading for said staircase.

  ‘That’s fung shia,’ Mr Jones said, oblivious to his mistake. ‘If the builder hadn’t turned the stairs like that, all the luck in the house would have gone right out the front door!’ Mr Jones smiled brightly at his companion.

  Mr Brown stopped on the third step and stared down at Mr Jones. ‘You know, you’re a real piece of work, Mr Jones,’ he said.

  Stil
l smiling brightly, Mr Jones said, ‘Thank you, Mr Brown.’

  Heading back up the stairs, Mr Brown said, ‘It ain’t a compliment, dumbass.’

  As Mr Brown resumed his upward trajectory, the house phone began to ring, stopping him in his tracks, as it did Mr Jones. Both stood on the stairs and listened to see if anyone would answer it. There was an audible click after the third ring. Then a voice said, ‘You’ve reached the Pugh family. We’re not answering the phone at the moment because we’re having more fun playing without you. So leave a message if you want to join in.’

  Then another voice said, ‘I still say that’s a rude message! Look, something funny is going on here and I need to talk to you about it. I found something I shouldn’t have found.’ Then there was a click, as if the old lady, because the voice was definitely that of an old lady, had hung up.

  Mr Brown flung himself around to stare at Mr Jones, almost losing his balance. ‘Who the fuck was that? And what does she know?’

  Mr Jones’s eyes were huge. ‘I don’t know! You think she found the flash drive?’

  ‘Fuck!’ Mr Brown swore, flung himself back around, and raced up the stairs.

  There was a lot of hugging going on, then Chief Donaldson came in and my kids settled down, Graham and Alicia sitting side by side, holding hands, I presumed. We were definitely going to have to have a talk.

  ‘Glad to see you back, Ms Brooks,’ he said to Alicia.

  ‘Glad to be back, Chief,’ Alicia said, smiling at him. For a girl who’d been held hostage overnight, she looked pretty good. Her color was bright and her eyes sparkled and, even with uncombed hair and still wearing her shorty nightgown from the night before (although covered now by a BCR police sweatshirt), she looked as fresh as a daisy. I think all that might have more to do with my son than her return to the arms of her family. If you know what I mean.

  ‘We’re gonna need to go over everything that happened from last night on,’ the chief said. ‘It might get pretty dull for the rest of you,’ he said, looking at Willis and me. ‘I’d advise y’all to go on home and I’ll call you when she’s ready to be picked up. Y’all can get her some clothes and bring ’em back then.’

  ‘We’re not leaving,’ Willis told him and I nodded my head in agreement.

  Graham reached in his pocket and got his car keys, which he tossed to Megan. ‘Y’all go back to the house and get her stuff. We’ll wait here,’ he said, and the authority in my son’s voice gave me a chill. God, he was so grown up!

  Without a word, my girls got up, went to their sister and hugged her, then were out the door on their brother’s errand.

  ‘So,’ the chief said. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I woke up and saw two men in my bedroom. I started to scream, but one of them, I think it was Mr Jones, put his hand over my mouth …’

  ‘Which one’s her room?’ Mr Brown asked Mr Jones.

  ‘That one,’ Mr Jones said, pointing at the end of the hall to the left. ‘Should we check the other rooms?’

  ‘Nobody’s here,’ Mr Brown said. ‘Trust me.’

  Mr Jones shrugged, wondering if he should trust the man who killed Mr Smith. Mr Smith could be quite irksome, Mr Jones thought, but certainly not enough to kill him. Unless he tried shooting Mr Brown in the foot like he’d done to Mr Jones. Mr Jones looked down at Mr Brown’s feet. He could see no damage. Looking at his own, his white sock was still quite visible in the toe of his black motorcycle boot. He was still miffed about that. Those boots were leather and had cost over fifty dollars. And it wasn’t like Mr Jones was made of money. Hell, if he was made of money he wouldn’t be here in this house trying to steal something from a sweet teenaged girl’s room. He wouldn’t have been involved in this at all! If he was made out of money. And this, of course, made Mr Jones wonder how a person could be made out of money in the first place.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Mr Brown said, breaking into Mr Jones’s reverie.

  ‘Huh?’ Mr Jones said.

  ‘Shit,’ Mr Brown said under his breath, and opened the door to the brown-haired girl’s room.

  The first thing he noticed was that it was a mess. Bed clothes scattered hither and yon, desk chair turned over, bedside lamp on the floor. ‘You and Smith do this when you abducted her?’

  ‘Couldn’t be helped,’ Mr Jones said.

  Mr Brown went to the desk and saw the flash drive sitting at the base of the computer stand. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  The girls got in Graham’s car, Megan in the driver’s side. ‘Oh, shit,’ she said. ‘I forgot! It’s a stick!’

  ‘Uh oh,’ Bess said, staring at the gear shift. ‘Do you know how to do this?’

  ‘No! Do you?’

  ‘No,’ Bess answered.

  The two girls looked at each other. Finally, Megan said, ‘We can’t go back in there without Alicia’s clothes. So what do we do?’

  ‘I’ve watched Mom with her Audi,’ Bess said. ‘Let me try.’

  The girls got out and switched places. Bess got in and pulled the car seat up as close as she could get it. ‘OK,’ she said, and turned the key in the ignition. It sputtered and failed. ‘Oh, wait!’ she said. ‘Maybe it has to be in neutral.’ She pushed in the clutch and wiggled the gearshift to the neutral position, then turned the key. The engine sprang to life. ‘What’s first gear?’ she asked her sister.

  Megan shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

  Bess found a gear and then let the clutch slowly rise as she gave the car gas. The car died. ‘I don’t think that was first.’ Bess put the gearshift back in neutral, started the car again, then once again attempted the clutch/gas routine. Again the engine died. Twice more and the car began to move. Both girls were so surprised and so thrilled that Bess removed her foot too quickly from the clutch, the car shot forward, and the engine died.

  They finally made it to the house, turned off Graham’s engine, and sat in their seats, Bess breathing hard, as if she’d pushed the car the entire way there and, truthfully, she felt she had.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Megan said.

  ‘About driving stick? I hate it!’ Bess said.

  ‘No! About Graham and Alicia!’

  Bess laughed. ‘I think those two were the only ones who didn’t know it was mutual.’

  ‘You think Mom and Dad knew?’ Megan asked.

  ‘Yes. Don’t you?’

  Megan shrugged. ‘I dunno. You think it will last? I mean, is she going to become our sister-in-law? Maybe it’s a good thing Mom and Dad never legally adopted her.’

  Bess shrugged. ‘With Graham off at college, I just don’t know.’

  Megan let out a snort. ‘Ha! He’s not going back.’

  ‘Says who?’ Bess demanded.

  ‘Says me, that’s who!’

  ‘You’re wrong. There’s no way he’d stiff Mom and Dad like that!’

  ‘Betja,’ Megan said.

  ‘Bet me what? And it can’t be money. That’s gambling,’ Bess said.

  ‘You know, your goody-two-shoeness is tiresome,’ Megan said. ‘How about dishes for a month?’

  ‘Make it two months!’ Bess said and the two shook on it, then headed out of the car and upstairs to get Alicia some clothes. Alicia’s room was a mess and Bess set about straightening it. ‘Are you gonna help?’ she asked her sister indignantly.

  ‘Alicia should clean up her own room! I have to clean mine myself.’

  ‘Ha! You’ve never cleaned your room in your whole life! That’s why no one goes in there except you! We’re afraid we’d get lost!’ Bess said. ‘Besides, Alicia’s room is never a mess. This happened when those men took her.’

  Both girls stopped for a minute and looked around. ‘Jeez,’ Megan finally said. ‘How sick would that be? Wake up to someone in your room and then they drag you out?’ She shuddered and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Not noticing what Megan was doing, Bess ended up in the same position, arms across her chest, just thinking about the scen
e. Finally, she shook herself. ‘Let’s clean it up. There’s no way she should come home to this.’

  ‘Right,’ Megan said, and actually began to make things right.

  All in all, it took them forty-five minutes to go the two miles to their house, go in and get Alicia’s clothes, straighten her room, and go the two miles back to the station. Most of that time was spent on the road.

  ‘But I do know what this is about, sorta,’ Alicia said to her audience.

  Luna, who had joined us late, said, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That satchel, Mom, that you gave me? There was something in the lining. I cut it out and it was a flash drive—’ She looked around at nothing but blank stares, mine included. I’d heard the phrase, but I didn’t know what it meant. I know very few things about computers: how to turn them on, how to turn them off, how to get a Windows screen, and how to retrieve email. I don’t peruse Facebook. I don’t Twitter. I don’t Snipe or Snope or whatever. I don’t have a website, and I’m not even sure what one is. I write romance novels. My editor emails me changes. I email them back. That is my entire source of knowledge about a computer.

  Graham said, ‘It’s a doohickey you stick in a port – a hole in the computer – that has information on it. Usually a download from another computer. That means—’

  ‘I think we all understand download, son,’ said the chief, ‘but thanks for the mini-lesson. So, Ms Brooks, what was on that flash thing?’

  ‘Flash drive. And I don’t know. The sketch artist showed up and I just left it on my desk, and then forgot about it, what with all that was going on.’

  ‘So it’s still there?’ the chief asked. ‘In your room?’

  ‘I don’t know. That Mr Brown person kinda worked it out. That it was on my desk. They may be going to the house—’

  Willis and I both jumped up. ‘The girls!’ we said in unison.

  We were answered by voices from the doorway. ‘What about us?’ Bess said, and, ‘You talking about us?’ Megan said.

  Willis and I sank back in our seats. ‘Took you long enough,’ Graham said.

  ‘You know we don’t drive stick!’ Megan said.