Gone Missing: A gripping crime thriller that will have you hooked

by T. J. Brearton

  It was almost one in the afternoon. It had taken six hours to hike in, give or take. She was pushing it now. Every minute she dallied at the cabin increased her chances of running into darkness before she could escape the woods, if she was still going to do that.

  You should have left hours ago.

  -A fire is better. When you’re lost, they tell you to stay put anyway.

  David still smoked. He tried to conceal it but of course she knew he snuck them. There was probably a lighter stashed out on the back porch near wherever he hid the cigarettes.

  She searched every odd place in the cabin, any conceivable hiding spot. She checked for loose floorboards. She went out to the porch and dragged her fingers under the lip of the roof. Mouse shit and more cobwebs but no matches.

  It flashed through her mind that she could try friction, or a makeshift flint using rocks, but that would take a while and ensure she was staying here another night, not a savory prospect. What if she wound up unable to get a fire going after spending all this time? Then she would’ve just wasted a day, no matter what the experts supposedly said about staying put. She had to make a decision: commit to a fire, or hike out right now?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Katie’s husband hadn’t just stepped out for a cigarette. Cross found him in a smaller building on the property, digging out hiking gear. There was a growing pile which included Nalgene water bottles, boots, binoculars, a compass, a sleeping bag. He emerged from the building with another armload and spied Cross.

  “I’m not just sitting around anymore. I can’t do it. She’s out there.”

  “David—”

  “I’ll join the search in Bakers Mills. You saw the picture. She’s in the woods.”

  “Listen, we were hoping for a geotag on the photo they sent; no luck. But there was a timestamp. Very likely that shot was taken after the stop in Bakers Mills.”

  David stood, chest heaving from exertion, and dropped the supplies at his feet.

  Cross said, “You know, is this…? I think you need to consider what you’re doing, ask yourself what’s best for Katie…”

  David just stared.

  Cross started to speak again when David punched the door beside him, cracking it.

  “Ah! Goddammit! I can’t just sit here!”

  Cross held up his hands. “Please. Give me just five minutes. Five minutes, can you do that?”

  David regarded Cross with haunted eyes. Then he turned and disappeared into the dark building.

  Cross trotted back into the main house.

  Jean and Sybil Calumet were clearly fighting upstairs, their tense voices audible. Gloria was alone in the kitchen, talking on the phone, pacing, looking upset.

  The place had spun deeper into chaos.

  Cross looked through the front windows. More news vans had arrived, growing the media village at the foot of the hill. The troopers had their hands full keeping the eager reporters behind the police tape.

  “They want another statement,” Gates said, drifting close.

  “What do the feds say about press statements?”

  “Same as we thought: The abductors aren’t supposed to know anything. But I don’t think they were guessing about the FBI being here. They knew.”

  Cross looked at the dining room door. “Bouchard brought the agents in his own car, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay. So they’re monitoring the news. That could mean they’re in a town or something. Or one of them is. Or they’ve got internet, at least.”

  Gates led him to the next room, a study turned partly into a music studio. On the way they passed the staircase and heard the Calumets still arguing.

  She pulled the door to the study closed. “Or someone here is talking to them.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Can you be sure?”

  “No. But think of the sloppy mistakes the kidnappers have made. The baby rattle left behind – turns out it belonged to one of the Tremblay’s grandkids. It just fell out of the minivan, probably when they were trapping Katie in there. And the partial print. And sending a photo by phone. This is bush-league stuff.”

  “They’re smart enough to have set up a Swiss bank account, maybe even knowing the moves the feds would make. At least anticipating they’d get involved.”

  Cross fell silent, wondering how what he was about to ask next would go over. He looked at Gates levelly. “Listen, Brennan wants to go off and find her.”

  “Oh boy…”

  “He gave us some names, right? Where did we get?”

  Gates sat down in an elegant wing back chair and took out a small spiral-bound notebook from her pocket. She wet her finger and flipped through.

  “I found Henry Fellows, the ex-partner. He lives in White Plains; he runs a small business there. The ex-chef, Eric Dubois, is working at the Olive Garden in Manhattan. Kind of a step down.” She glanced up. “You seemed to think the Dubois thing had some legs.”

  Cross leaned against a massive electronic keyboard. The thing was so big you could stick a mast in the center and sail away to Bora Bora with it. “Maybe. Chefs are temperamental.” He smiled but she remained serious. He listened.

  “Lee Beck has got a pretty good thing going as an estate lawyer, putting together wills, that sort of thing. Maybe there’s resentment there from one of these people, or maybe Brennan is grasping at straws. His wife has been kidnapped; he’s desperate.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. So, look, you know what I want to do. I want to get back to Anderton Correctional and talk to Vickers’ former cellmates while we’re still waiting on the court order. The AW set me up time for us to interview them. If there’s any connection to one of these people, maybe it tumbles out.”

  “Good.”

  “And I want to take David Brennan with me.”

  She blinked. “You want to take him to Anderton with you?”

  “For the interviews. He may recognize a name, make a connection I don’t. He’ll feel like he’s doing something; maybe it will calm him down so we don’t have someone else go missing. And he’ll be with me – I can keep an eye on him.”

  Cross looked at the closed door to the study, thinking how stiff and tight-lipped David and Gloria were around the Calumets. “Plus, whatever this family has going on – we separate them, maybe we’ll learn more.”

  “Justin, we don’t want him to know every detail of what and how we’re investigating. His deposition describes him waking up, seeing his wife’s text. She’s the only one who could corroborate where he was in the twenty-four hours prior to that – and she’s been abducted.”

  “Besides one disorderly conduct fifteen years ago, and some speeding tickets, he’s never been arrested. We’ve got nothing, no reason to suspect him. If he’s acting, Dana, he’s a master. The guy is a wreck.”

  “He could be a wreck for any number of reasons. He could have been forced into something that—”

  Cross was shaking his head. “I think he’s legit.”

  “My point is, we don’t know anything.”

  “You’re right. We don’t. But let me take him. He’s not going to do anything with me there. Otherwise, he’s going to run off after his wife.”

  “You know we can’t let him do that. If it comes to that, we’ll have to arrest him.”

  “Exactly. And then what? He’ll be in our custody anyway.”

  She thought about it, shaking her head and staring at the floor. “Okay. I’ll clear it with BCI.” She started for the door and stopped. “But this is on you, okay? And you can tell Brennan that the troopers are all on the lookout in Bakers Mills and searchers covering miles of woods. We’re not just twiddling our thumbs.”

  “I told him. But they’re not there. They switched vehicles. I’m more sure of it all the time.”

  “Then where the hell did they go? Okay, you’ve got Katie Calumet, someone fairly recognizable – certainly now that she’s all over the news. Where do you take her
?”

  “Someplace remote.”

  “Well,” she said, glancing out the window, “this is the Adirondacks. We’ve got millions of acres of ‘remote.’”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Carson hadn’t moved from the rocks, where he lay on his stomach, head twisted to the side.

  His breathing seemed less labored and he was babbling. As Katie approached, she thought he was in some kind of euphoria. A stage just preceding death, perhaps.

  “We used to drive into the Bronx when we were just kids and we’d score dime bags on Fordham Road. My parents put me in a religious school for acting and we’d sing Jesus songs.”

  When she was within a few feet, his wild eyes focused on her.

  “What kind of parents do that to a kid?”

  He began to sob again. He mashed his face into the rock and cried, the words mostly unintelligible. More about his family. About the first girl he’d raped. Blood spurted from his nose.

  Katie felt cold inside. She still hated Carson. He’d done terrible things to her. To other people.

  “It’s alright, Troy.”

  He looked up at the sound of his name, his eyes wet and shot through with a filigree of burst capillaries. He was just about the most pathetic thing she’d ever seen, his body shattered, the life draining out of him. His blood was drying, staining the rocks black. Except for what still seeped from his nose and dribbled from his mouth.

  Katie turned her head at the sound of a crow cawing from the branches of a large evergreen.

  “I’m sorry,” he moaned. “Katie, I’m sooorrreeee.”

  It was becoming unbearable. Compassion or no.

  “Kill me,” he said. His eyes went wider, darting around, and he tried to lift himself up with his one good arm. “Katie. Take that hatchet and kill me.”

  She considered it. She’d already psyched herself up and thought she just might. But now, this close to him, imagining herself driving the sharp, heavy wedge into Troy’s skull – it just wasn’t in her.

  Instead, she lay the blanket she’d brought down from the cabin over him.

  He moaned as she did, resting his head again, resigned, realizing his death would be more painful and slow than a mercy killing. He mumbled and apologized some more, but his voice was failing, his train of thought off the rails.

  Troy talked about his parents like he’d regressed to childhood. His tone took on a petulant quality, and then he growled with anger as he disparaged his father. “Fucking asshole never loved anyone but himself.”

  Katie listened, her hand lightly touching Carson’s back, and she looked up at the sky.

  “Who hired you, Troy?”

  “He hit me. I never listened and so he just fuckin hit me. My mother watched. She was weak. He was the boss. She was too…” His words trailed off into something unintelligible.

  “Troy? Who hired you? Was it a man named Henry Fellows?”

  She couldn’t understand his response. He seemed to have lost the power of speech at last. She repositioned so she was on her knees and leaned her head down.

  His breath was sour. “Leno.”

  “What’s Leno’s real name?”

  The light was fading from his eyes. He could no longer focus on her but stared into some middle distance.

  “Where am I?” she asked. “You said ‘black.’ Black what?”

  His body jerked, as if with intense hiccups, and he stilled. He drew another breath, then another. His lips moved, but no words came out.

  Then he was dead.

  Carson – Troy – was no longer there. Just his body, broken and befouled, lying on the rocks.

  She started going through his pockets. She held her breath, avoiding the stench. Her hand became wet with his urine and blood.

  She diverted her mind, wondering where he’d gone, where his soul, if he had such a thing, had traveled.

  She didn’t necessarily believe in hell. But she hadn’t ruled out some other trajectory for the energy that once animated a person.

  It had to go somewhere.

  Her hand closed on the book of matches in one of his cargo pockets. Her heart pounding with relief, she pulled it out. Generic, white covering. Twenty matches left inside, give or take.

  She stowed them in her zip pocket and climbed away. Before leaving Carson once and for all, she took a final look back.

  The profundity of feelings conjured memories of her mother. Sounds, mostly, that Monica Calumet had made – singing, laughter. The way she’d smelled. The way she’d looked in the casket, when Katie was sixteen. It hadn’t looked like her mother there, laid out in the satin lining, the white lace of the dress high around her neck. It had looked like someone had made a statue and placed it there, and her real mother was somewhere else.

  Katie began the climb back to the clearing. She gathered some fir boughs along the way that had been shaken loose by recent storms – anything wet she could put in the wood stove to create thicker plumes of smoke.

  Back in the cabin, she started the fire by shredding the six-pack carrier and applying kindling. Once it was going, she made herself another meal, forced it down. She added the wood from the pile nearby. She then used the outhouse (a wretched place, listing to one side, the boards rotting) and got ready for the next step.

  Gathering rocks from the high grass and around the perimeter was tough with her bad hand and sprained finger, but she selected those at least as big as a volleyball and arranged them in the center of the clearing. She spent a good deal of time tamping down the grass so that the rocks would be visible from above.

  As she worked, she imagined what people might think, watching her. Maybe it was the way Carson thought. Like life was really a movie, and the audience was judging every moment.

  She should have left already!

  -No, no, this is smart. When you’re lost in the woods it’s better to stay where you are.

  Bullshit. Run, girl, run!

  She wasn’t running, though. At least, not yet. Her body still ached everywhere, and she’d only just stopped bleeding. Her wrists were actually the worst – possibly getting infected, the gauze coming loose by the time she’d finished with the rocks – her arms sore and sprained finger throbbing despite being ginger about it.

  She’d tried to put away the experience with Carson. The molestations, the brutal assaults, watching him die. Tried to push it all off a mental edge, the way Carson had gone off the edge.

  It left a void.

  The void sucked in a darkness, inky-black like the shroud, where things lurked unseen.

  Drawing closer.

  Causing her to think terrible thoughts. Like she was never going to make it out of this.

  Like she should just end it herself.

  Even if she did make it out, she’d never be the same. She’d want to see around every corner. She’d shrink from human touch. Maybe even her husband’s.

  The cabin was too hot with the wood stove cranked, so she lay down in the grass near the letters she’d spelled out.

  SOS

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  David Brennan stared out the car window in a daze. Cross switched on the wipers as a light rain began to fall.

  They drove north along the interstate toward Anderton Correctional.

  It hadn’t taken much convincing to get David along. He seemed ready to do whatever it took to get Katie back.

  Cross asked, “What’s going on with your family?”

  David sighed, said nothing for a moment. Then, “Jean made some bad investments. He’s hurting. Sybil started to take over. She fired their financial manager, hired a new firm.”

  “Who’s the former manager?”

  “A guy named Perry Swan. But no suspicion there. He and Jean still play tennis; they’re friends.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. In fact, I’m surprised Perry hasn’t shown up yet. He and Sybil aren’t the best of pals, but he loves those two. Katie and Gloria, I mean.”

  “How about
Gloria? Tell me about her.”

  David batted at his pockets. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Go ahead. I’ll take one, too.”

  They lit up and David went on. “Gloria’s got that younger sibling thing. You know, a bit enabled, a bit babied. Her father gave her a lot of money to get her business going in Brooklyn. She’s got a restaurant there of her own, and a whole foods store.”

  “How does she do?”

  “She does alright. She’s had a little scandal, though.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s been resolved, I think. She had a couple health code violations.”

  “Bad? Like, forcing her to shut down?” Cross was reminded of Gloria pacing around on the phone, looking distraught.

  “No, I mean, she’s in the clear. I don’t know, exactly.”

  “Is she married?”

  “She was close, then she called it off. I think Gloria’s scared of commitment. Maybe it… I don’t know. But so she… How do I put it? She’s always a bit embarrassed around her parents. Does that make sense? Alone, maybe she feels accomplished. But being with them, they’re a reminder of how she’s gotten help.”

  “It makes sense.” Cross flicked ash out the open window and felt drops of rain sneaking in. “How about you and Katie’s parents?”

  “Yeah, so, you know. We’re good. They were skeptical of me at first – her father was; Sybil wasn’t on the scene yet – because of how much older I am. I don’t see them much. This is the first time we’ve been together since last Christmas. I mean, all of us. Katie went down earlier this year and spent a week. They have a place in Dobbs Ferry, near the restaurant, right on the water. And they have a huge apartment in Manhattan. But I think they’ve listed the apartment.”

  “Because of the financial troubles, you mean? They’re looking to sell.”

  “Yeah. That apartment is worth something astronomical.”

  “Penthouse on the Upper East Side, I can imagine. But you think they’re hurting now, enough so that 20 million might be an unreachable goal?”

  Just hearing and saying these numbers aloud, Cross felt surreal. He’d made 72,000 the previous year, after taxes. Marty did a bit better, and for a time they’d been comfortable.