Gone Forever

by Scott Blade

  I remembered her name. She was the missing girl from Jill’s school. Jill was the girl who gave me a ride two days ago.

  Whoever was behind their disappearances had picked them because they were so good-looking, but I was sure this was information that the FBI and local sheriffs already had.

  However, if Deputy Gemson was any indication as to the performance of the local sheriff’s office, then I wasn’t surprised that they hadn’t found any of the girls yet.

  I thought about Faye’s possible connection to the missing girls. Perhaps, it was related or perhaps Chris was right about the rednecks. Or maybe she had left him. It happens.

  I switched my phone to standby and slipped it back into my pocket. Then I sat back and tried to pick up on any clues that I might have missed.

  There was an old guy seated across from me at the next booth. He wore a red trucker’s hat and blue overalls. He tilted a white coffee mug all the way back until the contents were emptied. Then he stood up and thanked Hazel and left money on the table.

  I watched him leave the diner and then I looked back at his table. He had left behind today’s newspaper. I had seen guys leave behind their newspapers before. They left them for the next reader like change left in one of those take-a-penny cups at the gas station. They just paid it forward.

  I scooted out of my booth and stood up and reached across the aisle. I swiped up the paper and began skimming through it. It was USA Today. No local stories would be in it, but it didn’t matter. I was interested in the cover story.

  There was a giant photo of a Mexican man. In large print above his picture it read:

  WHERE IS HE?

  The article was about Oskar Tega. The DEA was having a real problem finding him. They now believed that he had escaped by private jet. They thought he was in Cuba, but they hadn’t ruled out the possibility that he was still in the U.S.

  The article recapped how Tega had escaped capture and landed in a small town in Texas. One of his farms was located there. His men had stocked up on whatever kind of drugs he manufactured and then they burned the whole town to the ground. Some kind of scorched earth policy.

  That was when I noticed the sheriff’s deputies outside. Four men pulled up in three police cruisers. One of them was Deputy Gemson.

  They rolled up to the front of the diner. Light bars blared.

  The other patrons stared out of the diner windows. They didn’t react. No one knew what to do. Many of them had never seen the cops use their light bars before, not in this town.

  The Dodge Intrepids with the police package, a good deal. Finally they were getting their money’s worth.

  The cops jumped out of their cars and lined up behind them outside of the diner. They drew out their weapons and pointed them at the front doors.

  Two shotguns. They were Mossberg 590s. Both had pistol grips and both were deadly. Probably department issued. Not good for their target.

  The other two deputies, including Gemson, held out Glocks.

  I saw one of them get on his radio. There was some inaudible chatter and then the guys ran for the door. They had decent moves. Probably practiced at least once a week on their entries.

  One shotgun and one deputy with the Glock covered the front door; then Gemson and the other deputy ran around the building and out of sight. They went to cover the backdoor.

  In 17 seconds from start to finish they were in the diner and 16 and a half seconds before that I realized that they were there for me.

  I had spent my summers training with my Marine and sheriff mom and I knew the routine. I knew the score. These country boys were here for me, not a doubt in my mind. Gemson had not heeded my advice. Instead of going home and sleeping it off, he had gone and rounded up his cop buddies.

  I finished my milk and stood up. Hands raised.

  Gemson entered through the back with the deputy carrying the shotgun. The other two came in through the front at a nice fast speed, sweeping the room and scanning the other patrons, all of whom had dropped as low as they could. Most sank down in their seats. Hazel hid behind the counter. One guy from inside the kitchen door stuck his head out and pulled it right back in half the time that it had taken him to stick it out in the first place.

  The first deputy with the shotgun screamed at me to get down. He screamed it over and over.

  “GET DOWN! GET DOWN!”

  I stayed standing. I wasn’t going to get down. No way. I had just cleaned my clothes the night before and I wasn’t about to get them dirty on this floor. These guys could forget about that. So I stayed standing.

  Gemson eyeballed me and moseyed on over to me. I noticed immediately that he had listened to me, partially because he had gone home. That’s where he showered and changed his clothes before grabbing the cavalry because he didn’t stink of booze anymore. Probably hadn’t wanted them to notice it. It would’ve been harder to explain to his cop buddies that he was on the job, intoxicated. It would’ve made my defense more plausible.

  He got even closer. Too close. If I wanted to I could have lunged for him. I could’ve grabbed his Glock away and shot him in the chest before he knew it, before any of them knew it was happening.

  These other cops weren’t going to fire. Not in here. Too crowded. There were women and children present. Even if they did fire, I could’ve swiped the gun and ducked and rolled and gotten enough shots off to kill the one who had run in with Gemson.

  He’d be dead and I would’ve shot my way out the back, but I did nothing. I stood still with my hands up. Then I lowered them and reached them out in the universal symbol for cuff me.

  And Gemson did. He stepped up like a hero and slapped the cuffs on me—tight.

  He said, “I got ya, city boy.”

  I smiled for three reasons. First, he had cuffed me in the front. Rookie mistake. Second, he had gotten close enough that I could still have taken his weapon from him. The third thing I said out loud: “I’m not a city boy. I grew up in a town smaller than this, but you probably think that I’m from the city because I can read books and speak with big words.”

  He sneered and said, “Ya under arrest, boy. Silence is one of ya rights and I suggest ya exercise it.”

  Silence was something that I was good at. So I stayed quiet.

  Chapter 20

  Gemson made sure that he drove me. I sat in the back of his car, handcuffed in the front. He talked the whole time, but I didn’t listen. I thought about Matlind. He wouldn’t be okay on his own. I had to get out of this somehow.

  Always try to find the good in any situation; that was my motto, one of them, and that was what I did. I was detained by the police, but they had zero on me. Witnesses would’ve sworn to that. Of course the only one that I knew by name was Sheldon, but how hard would she have been to find? Probably not hard at all. Even if I hadn’t known that she worked at the Eckhart Clinic, I still bet that she was easy to find, probably the easiest resident.

  In this town, how many other women would have looked as good as her? One? Two? I’d bet more like zero. No way would anyone have mistaken her. The men here would’ve been able to identify her by a sketch if it was drawn by a third grader. No one was going to not know who she was. Her statement would put me in the clear of whatever bogus charges that Gemson had dreamed up.

  We got to the stationhouse. It was in the Public Safety Building that I had seen yesterday.

  Gemson turned off the light bar as we pulled into the parking lot. He parked the car and got out. He waited for the other three cops to pull up and then he got me out.

  The four cops took me into the building. Each had one hand on me. My arms. My back. Restraining my movements. Wise choice.

  The inside of the station was a ghost town. Their dispatch center must’ve been in another part of the building because there were no employees there except for the cops who had brought me in.

  One of the other deputies said, “Step this way.”

  I followed his instructions. After they saw that I was complying, th
ey took their hands off me.

  Gemson and one of the other deputies went into another room, while the two remaining cops took me into a back room and fingerprinted and booked me. I ended up in a holding cell in less than 15 minutes. I would have been impressed except that these guys had nothing else to do.

  I was their top priority. I was their only priority.

  I waited for another 20 minutes before I met with the sheriff.

  I sat on the rear bench in my cell. No bed. Just a hard bench that thrust out from the wall.

  I stared through the cell bars. It looked like I hadn’t taken my eyes off the wall across from my cell, but really I was imagining Chris and Faye Matlind, a newlywed couple that took a detour through Mississippi and ended up in a peculiar, small town that held hatred for people who were different.

  I hadn’t personally witnessed any mistreatment, not like Matlind had described, but I couldn’t justify the fact that there were no minorities here except for Maria. However, she worked late nights when the town was asleep and she probably stayed indoors when they were all awake. Most people probably didn’t known that she lived here.

  If the rednecks were guilty of abducting Matlind’s wife, perhaps they didn’t know about Maria either or perhaps she was too visible, didn’t make for an ideal target.

  Suddenly, I heard a noise. Down the hallway from my cell, there was a thick, metal door, painted white to match the walls. The door creaked open and a man nearing 60 entered. He had deep blue eyes and slicked-back white hair. He limped slightly, not enough to require a cane, but enough to slow him down in a foot chase.

  He walked slowly over to my cell and then he stopped out in front of it.

  He said, “Son, I’m the county sheriff. My name is Ty Grady. You can call me Ty. I don’t mind.”

  I stayed quiet.

  He said, “The law says that you are innocent until a judge says otherwise. So until he says otherwise, then we can be on a first name basis. Right?”

  I stayed quiet.

  He said, “Exercising your right to remain silent? Well that’s okay. It is your right.”

  I nodded.

  He said, “Stand up, son, so I can get a good look at you.”

  I remained seated for a moment. Then I decided that cooperating might get me out faster, maybe even today if I was lucky. So I stood up and walked closer to the bars.

  Grady backed away after he saw me stand up.

  Behind that were my ice-blue eyes like a wolf’s.

  I had been told a few times in my life by girls that I had nice blue eyes. They had used the word “nice.” but that wasn’t the only image that my eyes projected. My ice-blue eyes could also be terrifying. Right then, that’s what they were. I had been born with the ability to stare a man down with an ice-cold stare.

  Sheriff Grady felt that cold stare. It burned him like dry ice.

  He was a veteran sheriff, probably had seen it all, but now he was trembling. It was only slight, but it was there.

  He said, “So you aren’t going to talk. And that’s fine. Like I said before, that’s your right under the law, but just because you are going to be silent doesn’t mean that you can’t listen.

  “Your name is Cameron Reacher. That’s what your driver’s license says.”

  I stayed quiet.

  He said, “Do you have parents? They should be notified that we have you in custody.”

  I stayed quiet.

  “Cameron, this will go a lot better on you if you cooperate at least some.”

  I paused for a second and thought about it. I decided that I needed this to go faster, so I said, “Reacher.”

  He said, “Pardon?”

  “My name is Reacher. No one calls me Cameron.”

  “Reacher? Last name. Like in the military?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you have parents?”

  “I had a mother.”

  “Had?”

  “She died. She was also a sheriff.”

  He looked at me with renewed interest.

  He asked, “A sheriff? What was her name?”

  I said, “Deveraux.”

  His jaw dropped. He said, “Deveraux? I know...”

  Then he stopped talking. He waited and then he said, “I knew your ma. She’s passed on?”

  I nodded.

  His jaw closed and he said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I saw her about two years ago at a conference in Tupelo. Very good woman. I didn’t know that she had a son.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, that might give you a little more lenience with the judge. I believe that he met your ma once.”

  I stayed quiet.

  He said, “Do you know why you’re here?”

  Still quiet.

  He said, “Assault.”

  I grinned and then I said, “Your deputy started it.”

  Grady looked confused and then he asked, “Deputy?”

  I said, “Yeah. From earlier today. Your deputy picked the wrong man to mess with and I wouldn’t call it assault. Maybe his feelings got hurt, but I didn’t hurt anything else. Not that I hadn’t wanted to.”

  He said, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, son.”

  I said nothing more.

  He paused and shrugged and then he said, “I’m talking about the three guys from your motel room last night. You sent two of them to the clinic.”

  Chapter 21

  Ty Grady was a well-spoken man for a country sheriff, at least he was better spoken than his deputies seemed to be, but not as well as my mom had been. I suspected that he had been educated somewhere else and moved here.

  Grady was not a common Mississippi name.

  He wore an official county sheriff department’s jacket even though it was May, like a symbol of his profession. On his belt he had an old web holster with a Glock 22 in it. All I could see was the butt of the gun. It glimmered black in the dim lights. It looked well maintained, well oiled and shined.

  He said, “Those boys say that you attacked them.”

  I said, “I attacked three armed men?”

  He asked, “They were armed?”

  I said, “One had a Louisville slugger.”

  “A baseball bat? You took on three heavyset guys, put two in the clinic, and one had a baseball bat?”

  I said, “That’s about the sum of it. Except I didn’t attack them.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. They attacked my neighbor at the motel. The guy in room 13. You should check on him.”

  “Yeah? Why is that?”

  “His wife is missing. She was abducted and those guys had something to do with it.”

  He said, “Those boys didn’t abduct anyone.”

  I said, “They were trying to abduct him.”

  He said, “They never mentioned anything about a motel room. They said that you attacked them in the parking lot.”

  “They must be confused. Maybe when they fell on their baseball bat. Either way, I never attacked anyone.”

  He nodded and then said, “Well you’re here for the day and night. The judge will hear your case in the morning.

  “He’s on the lake today. Will be the whole day I’m afraid.”

  I said, “Grady.”

  He leaned in close to the bars.

  I said, “You need to check on Chris Matlind, the guy in room 13 at the motel. He’ll be in my room today. Room 14. His wife is missing and he is scared. He thinks that the whole town is in on it. Claims that no one will help him. Not even you.”

  “That guy that you’re talking about never came here with any wife. We investigated and questioned him and multiple eyewitnesses. No one saw any wife or any other woman with him.”

  I said, “Sheriff. She is a young black woman. Could be that the rednecks took her because of it or it could be that her disappearance has something to do with all of those missing girls, like she is the latest victim. Might be that those rednecks that you’re protecting are into more than you think.”

&nbs
p; He said, “Those boys might be into making moonshine and stockpiling illegal guns. Maybe even cooking meth, but that’s the extent of it. They’d never hurt anyone.”

  He turned to walk away.

  He stopped, didn’t turn back, but said, “I don’t give a shit if anyone is black or purple. No one here has taken her because she isn’t real. Period.”

  He continued walking. He made it halfway down the corridor.

  I said, “Grady, my mom was a sheriff. I know the cop life. It’s your duty to check on every crime that is reported to you. No matter how much you don’t believe it. I’m telling you that Matlind is telling the truth. I saw it in his eyes. That guy lost someone and she might still be here and she might still be alive.”

  He stopped, but never turned around. He said over his shoulder, “I will personally go by and talk with him.”

  He turned and walked down the hall and was lost to sight.

  Chapter 22

  I wasn’t familiar with prisons. I had never seen the inside of one except in the movies. I was familiar with holding cells.

  Four walls, a cot or bench, a toilet, and bars or a heavy door, that was all there was to it.

  I guessed that I was lucky to have my own cell.

  My mother had taught me a lot about the way of Marines.

  She had said, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

  Marines never stopped being Marines, even after they left the Corps. That was one of their crazy things, like a code, and my mom was no exception. She ran my life like a Marine. Up at the same time, lights out at the same time and just because she was gone most of the time investigating crimes didn’t mean that the routine stopped. For my whole life she worked as a sheriff. When I was old enough she’d take me out on patrol with her. Some people thought that this was an irregular parenting practice, but I loved it.

  To her I was a Reacher and it was in my blood to learn these things.

  Another lesson that she had taught me was to sleep when you can because you never know when the next chance will be.

  Sitting in jail and worrying about my situation wasn’t going to help Matlind and it certainly wasn’t going to help find Faye. Waste of energy.