by Matt Lincoln
I didn’t register much of the drive from my cottage to Jack’s house, built in the long and narrow shotgun style popular in the city. One moment, I was slamming the car door shut, and the next, I was opening it again, stepping out onto a completely different street. There were no police cars on the scene yet, but all the lights in the house were on, the glow spilling out between the drawn curtains. There was a text from Lex on my phone that read, Five minutes.
I slammed my car door shut, and the sound was loud along the silent block. I couldn’t see many details through the dark, but it seemed like a nice neighborhood, the trees trimmed back from the road, the lawns neat and even. I bounded up the front steps to the porch and pounded on the door. I could hear the faint sound of conversation inside, but it cut off just as soon as I knocked. A few seconds later, Rachel swung the door open.
She looked absolutely wretched in the bright light streaming around her. She was dressed in a pair of pajama bottoms, slippers, and a work blazer, her hair loose to her shoulders, and her eyes were red from crying, those tiny blood vessels popped and leaking across the white. Her face was hollow, all vitality sucked from it in one foul instant. She seemed more apt to collapse to the ground than she was to remain upright.
“Jace,” she said, and as she stepped forward, I caught her in a hug. I held her as tightly as I could as she buried her face in my shoulder. Her whole body shook, ready to break apart at a moment’s notice.
“Hey,” I said, but that felt like such a banal thing to say, and I didn’t know what to follow it up with. “Lex and Cal will be here in five minutes.”
She nodded, still clinging to me for dear life, so I kept my arms around her, a physical reminder that she wasn’t alone. Jack appeared in the room behind her to see what was going on. He was also in pajamas, his feet bare, with a nasty bruise on his left cheek.
“Let’s step inside, yeah?” I suggested. We didn’t need any curious neighbors waking up and realizing that drama was going on next door.
Rachel released me, wiping at her eyes, and she stepped back so I could enter. The living room was small but cozy, with plump, well-used furniture and a large television mounted on the wall. I recognized Malia and Jack in the photographs scattered around the place, but Rachel was only in a few of them.
“Have you called the police?” I asked. I took Rachel’s elbow and guided her to the couch, sitting her down since she seemed to have lost awareness of her surroundings. I sat down beside her, and she kept a firm hold on my hand.
“I called them after I called her,” Jack answered. He still stood in the center of the floor, arms wrapped around himself, a lost and vacant look in his eyes. “They said they’d send someone over. I don’t know what’s taking so long.”
I motioned for him to sit as well, and, moving as if pulled along by a string, he lowered himself into the armchair just off the side of the couch.
“I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” I assured him.
“They won’t find him,” Jack continued dimly as if I hadn’t spoken. “He knocked me out. I don’t know how long…” He trailed off, choking on his words, and pressed his lips together until they turned white, trying to hold back a fresh wash of emotion.
“When Lex and Cal get here, you can walk us through what happened, okay? That way, you don’t have to go through it twice,” I suggested, and Jack nodded, his head bobbing like it was outside of his control.
We sat in silence. To speak of anything else would have been blasphemous. Instead, I held onto Rachel’s cold hand and tried to remind her that she wasn’t alone. She had gone somewhere else, though, retreated to a place in her mind that I couldn’t reach. Jack had a similar blank expression on his face, and so I sat on the couch with my hand in Rachel’s, feeling like I was sitting amongst ghosts, waiting to become one myself.
Someone knocked on the door, intruding on the crypt-like silence that had fallen across the house, and I jumped, jerking my hand in Rachel’s and pulling her up from her fugue. She blinked, brow creasing, and I patted the back of her hand.
“It’s the door,” I said softly. “I’ll get it.”
I gently extricated my fingers and stood, offering Rachel a smile that she didn’t see before I went to answer the door. Lex, Cal, and two uniformed officers stood outside. Lex and Cal looked about as bedraggled as I felt, having put on the first clothes they were able to lay their hands on, so Cal wore a pair of bright red jeans and a shirt that was buttoned up wrong, while Lex was simply in sweatpants and a tank top, a cardigan thrown over the top to give it some semblance of almost-professionalism.
“Thanks for coming,” I said to the two of them and then addressed the uniformed officers. “We’re with MBLIS, and…” I patted down my pockets and frowned. “Well, I forgot to grab my badge in my haste to get over here, but I’m sure Barrett’s mentioned us.”
The officer on the right, a young woman with orange hair, nodded while her partner, whose nose was just a bit too large for his face, looked more confused.
“We’ll take care of things here,” I continued. “If you could sweep the area, say in a three-block area, we’d be very appreciative.”
“You got it,” the redhead said, and I smiled at her in thanks. I didn’t want too many people crowded in the house while Jack told his tale. The three of us were already pushing it.
As the officers backed off the porch and started down the sidewalk, I let Lex and Cal into the house and shut us in once again. Rachel and Jack were in the same positions I left them in. Rachel stared at her hands where they lay limply in her lap, and Jack had his fingers wrapped around the ends of the armrests, his knuckles white with tension.
“I’ll put a kettle on,” Lex decided after she took one look at the two of them, and then she disappeared into the kitchen. Cal clutched their camera bag to their chest as they followed me toward the couch, and they looked vaguely sick with the weight of what was happening. It hit differently when it was someone you knew.
“Jack,” I said, drawing the man’s attention to my voice. His eyes locked on my face, but it didn’t seem like he really saw me. “Can you walk us through what happened?”
Jack nodded and then took a deep breath, settling back into his body and the room and the situation. He looked like he regretted it, but he didn’t let himself drift away again, his grip on the armrests tightening even further to act as an anchor.
“I was asleep,” he began. “We both were—Malia and me. I’m a light sleeper, though, and something woke me up. I don’t really know what it was. A sound maybe or a change in the air pressure. I was thirsty, so I got up to go to the kitchen for a glass of water.” Jack spoke each sentence like an entity to be exorcised from his body, his voice as hollow as his face. “The front door was open. Wide-open. A breeze came through. I remember that so vividly. The brush of the wind on my face followed by the sick realization that someone was in my house. I think I sensed movement or something behind me because I turned, and…” His voice broke, crashing against his next thought, and he shuddered to a stop, unable to breathe. Lex appeared from the kitchen and silently set steaming mugs down where Jack and Rachel could reach them before she sat in the empty armchair across the coffee table from Jack.
Rachel moved for the first time since I’d led her to the couch. She stood abruptly and took three sharp steps to Jack’s side, kneeling down beside his chair and taking his hand in hers. She rubbed her thumb up and down his knuckles, a quiet reassurance. Jack stiffened for a moment but then relaxed and allowed her to continue on. It was still another minute before he spoke again.
“There was a man behind me. He was tall and broad, and he had a mask over his face. I didn’t know what to do. We were frozen for a moment, staring at each other. I don’t think he expected anyone to be awake. Who would? It was late, after all.” Jack let out a bitter little laugh, though in response to what, I wasn’t sure. “I acted first. I jumped at him. I don’t know why I did that. I should have run. I should have gotten Malia and carried he
r the hell out of there, and maybe that’s what I was trying to do, but he was between me and her room, and so I leapt, and it was all I could think to do.”
After so many short, staccato sentences, his words began to pour from him faster and faster, a torrent that he couldn’t wait to get out, that was going to choke him if he left it inside him for any longer.
“I didn’t get very far. He hit me with something. I don’t know what. I just know that there was a sharp pain across my face,” he touched the bruise on his cheek gently and winced, “and then I was falling, and everything was going wobbly and black and…” Jack shuddered from the memory and squeezed his eyes shut as Rachel continued her thumb’s rhythmic stroke against his knuckles. “When I woke up, the front door was closed and locked like nothing had happened, but Malia… Malia was gone.” He barely got the final sentence out, and then he broke completely, hunching over so that his head pressed into his knees as his shoulders shook with great sobs. Rachel began to rub his back, her own eyes pressed shut as tears slipped from beneath her lashes.
Cal, Lex, and I stayed quiet for a few minutes, giving them as much privacy as we could as they grieved together. I looked down at my hands, and in my mind’s eye, it was my parents weeping for a version of me that came home in a box. My mother especially hadn’t wanted me to join the FBI and watching Rachel and Jack hold each other, I felt that old wiggle of guilt over causing my family such worry.
“Do you remember what time you woke up? And what time you regained consciousness?” I asked quietly, hoping my words would break gently into the circle of their grief.
Rachel drew her hand away from Jack’s back as he sat up, breathing heavily as tears ran freely from his eyes. “It was maybe a quarter to three when I woke up on the floor,” he answered slowly. “I saw the clock in Malia’s room. I don’t know what time it was when he knocked me out.”
So we didn’t know what kind of head-start Ward had. I was willing to guess that it was at least an hour. It was interesting that he’d locked the door behind him. Jack had already seen him in the house, so it wasn’t like he was hiding his presence. Was it a holdover of the plan he had crafted before being disturbed by a thirsty Jack Harrison or was it some kind of perverse joke?
“Do you mind if we take a look around?” I said, and Jack shook his head, unable to get any more words out.
I wasn’t sure if we should leave Rachel and Jack all alone in the living room, but they had retreated back into themselves, and I thought they probably wouldn’t even notice if we were there. So I motioned for Cal and Lex to stand and follow me toward the narrow hall that led out of the living room. We moved quietly, our steps light so that the wooden floor wouldn’t creak and disturb the silent pair. All three doors were open, one leading to a bathroom, and the first on the left showing a room that had to be Jack’s, the comforter a solid, dark color, one of the dresser drawers open and spilling a long sleeve shirt down the front.
That left the final door at the back of the hall. Cal, Lex, and I stopped three feet down the corridor and looked at each other. None of us wanted to be the first one into the room, and we were all waiting for someone else to take that leap. I took the initiative after a few beats of awkward silence, shouldering my way to the front of the group and striding down the hall, trying to pretend like this was just another case and that the missing child was not someone I gave candy to and played cards with barely a week ago.
I entered Malia’s room. There were stuffed animals strewn across the unmade bed, several of them tossed carelessly to the floor, lying face down as if unable to bear whatever violence had happened in here. Her dresser had flowers painted across the front and a line of plastic dinosaurs marching along the top, and her small vanity mirror was almost completely obscured by photographs of Malia with her parents and other small children, all grinning gap-toothed grins at the camera. I tried not to look at them too hard, hanging onto my professional detachment by the slimmest of threads.
Cal flicked on the light, startling me, and the three of us crowded further into the room. It certainly looked like Malia had been dragged from the bed with the blankets thrown about in disarray and a pillow on the ground, and I wondered if she’d been awake and struggling or still heavy with sleep. Surely, she would have heard the thump of her father hitting the ground. Had Ward drugged her first? We needed to speak with the neighbors, but surely someone would have come forward if they’d heard a child screaming.
“And we’re sure it’s Ward?” Lex said quietly from behind me, and I turned to face her, having just had that same thought. “I mean, obviously, he’s the most obvious subject, but is there anyone else it could be?”
“It’s a fair question,” I agreed. “But one that I think we can put to rest. The timing is just too close to overlook.”
“So then the question is, why?” Lex asked. Cal was poking around the bed, blue latex gloves covering their hands as they lifted the covers and moved some stuffed animals, searching for clues.
“Revenge?” I suggested. “Rachel was part of the team that put him away.”
“Then why not go after one of the higher-ups like Amherst?” Lex pointed out.
“Maybe he is, and we haven’t heard about it yet. Or he will,” I countered.
“Or he wants something from Rachel,” Cal said from underneath the bed, voice muffled as their feet bumped against the floor.
“But what?” Lex asked.
None of us had an answer for that.
“Find anything?” I said to Cal.
They sneezed. “Nothing but a new allergy.” Cal wriggled out from beneath the bed, and I offered them a hand up. They brushed the dust from the front of their shirt and sneezed again. “I’m going to go dust door knobs for fingerprints.” Tucking their camera back in its bag, they pulled out their fingerprint kit and squeezed past us out into the hall, leaving Lex and me alone in Malia’s room.
I took another look around. Not too long ago, there had been a girl happily asleep in that bed, and now she was gone, and I felt like something should be broken—a shattered vase or a toppled photograph, but there was nothing except the jumbled blankets and the fallen pillow.
“What kind of person involves a child like this?” I asked Lex, but she could only shake her head.
I gently closed the door behind us when we left the bedroom, and then we rejoined Rachel and Jack in the living room. Cal was bent over by the front door, dusting a brush along the knob, and Barrett was there as well, shoulders stooped and a hat in his hands as he spoke to Rachel. He noticed our approach and nodded in hello. I held out my hand for him to shake.
“Barrett, what are you doing here?” I asked.
“The case got dropped on my desk,” he explained. “Officer Sharp called me when you dropped my name. I was already awake. Insomnia. Rachel told me what happened. Terrible business. Have you found anything?”
“Not yet,” I said sourly. “You know about Simon Ward?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “You’ll have to contact that U.S. Marshal and let her know what’s happened. I’ll admit, this one is a bit out of my league. I usually solve murders. I’ve never dealt with an escaped convict before. It’s a lot. I welcome your help on this one.” Barrett rubbed at the back of his head, sighing. As always, he looked tired, but it went a bit deeper this time, that same heaviness we were all feeling.
I clapped him on the shoulder to show my support. “Does the NOPD have any safe houses? We should send Jack and Rachel there just in case Ward tries to come after them, too.”
At that, animation flashed across Rachel’s features for the first time since I’d arrived on her doorstep, and she shoved herself in between Barrett and me, glaring into my face as she clenched her fists at her sides.
“No,” she snapped, the word so bitter and hard it seemed to push me back. “No. I will not hide away in some safe house. Not while my daughter is out there. I will be a part of this investigation. I will find that slimy snake of a man and make him pay.”
/> “Are you sure that’s wise?” I asked quietly, referring to her participation in the case. Her desire for revenge against Ward was a discussion for another day.
“I’m your boss,” she demanded. “I’ll decide what’s best.”
“Okay. If you’re sure,” I agreed. I couldn’t argue with that, no matter how much I might want to. It was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, her anger and her grief would blind her and make her more apt to do something ill-advised, but on the other hand, she needed this lest she go crazy with worry and inactivity.
She nodded firmly, her eyes still bright with tears and her bottom lip trembling.
“If it weren't for your job, this wouldn’t have happened,” Jack murmured from behind us. I didn’t think he had meant for us to hear it or that he had even meant to say it, but Rachel’s back stiffened, and she spun toward him like she was standing on a rotating table, body barely moving as she pivoted.
“What did you say?” she asked, and Lex immediately jumped between them.
“Okay,” she interrupted, hands spread in a gesture asking for peace. “It’s been a long night, and we’re all tired. Jack, how about you go with Barrett and pack a bag so you can take you to the safe house. Rachel--”
“No, I want to hear what he has to say,” Rachel interrupted. She tried to push past Lex to get at Jack, but Lex stuck out her arm and held her back. “How is this my fault?”
Jack stood up from the armchair, unfurling himself like a sail along a mast. He was easily the tallest in the room, though his hunched shoulders and sunken cheeks didn’t give him much of an air of threat. “I told you your job wasn’t good for Malia. You wouldn’t listen.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know this would happen?” Rachel yelled, barely restrained by Lex’s arm across her chest.