Out of Range

by Hank Steinberg

  “You’re still there?”

  “Just got in the car,” Julie said on her Bluetooth. “We had an amazing time, didn’t we, kids?”

  Charlie heard Meagan and Ollie shouting joyfully in the background.

  “Oh, that’s great!” he said.

  “So how was your day?” Julie asked.

  “Fine. The usual. How soon before you’re home?”

  “Looks like traffic’s jammed on the 5.” Charlie heard a loud honk and then Julie shouted, “Oh, bloody hell!”

  Charlie felt his blood pressure rise. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just some a-hole driver.”

  Charlie stifled the urge to caution her and waited for her to make the next move.

  “Maybe I could speed things up going that fancy way you told me about,” she said.

  “It’s like six different freeways,” Charlie said. “Why don’t I stay on with you till you get to the 405?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me on the phone when I was driving,” she said.

  Charlie wasn’t just being paranoid. L.A.’s freeways were a maze that sometimes confused even people who had spent their lives in the city and Julie had a notoriously terrible sense of direction. Nevertheless, he forced himself to keep his voice calm. “I know what I said, but there’s a lot of merging. It would really be easier if—”

  “Fine, fine. I’m coming up on the 91 now. Is that what I’m taking?”

  “You want to get over to the right and take it west.”

  “Got it,” Julie said. “Looks a lot better here. What’s next?”

  Charlie stirred the sauce. Two minutes earlier it had smelled great. Now it seemed off, like he’d burned the garlic or something. “You’ll hit the 605 in about ten minutes.”

  “Stooooop it!” a high voice whined in the background.

  “Meagan, what happened? Ollie! Are you pinching your sister?”

  Shit. Charlie hoped Julie was paying attention to the road and not the kids.

  “Owww!”

  “Ollie! Answer me. Did you pinch your sister again?”

  “I don’t know,” came Ollie’s distant, sullen voice.

  “Meagan, stop kicking the seat!” Julie’s voice rose in Charlie’s ear as he gripped the phone tightly. “Meagan, honey! Stop it.”

  “She’s been doing this all week,” Charlie chimed in. “She’ll settle down after a—”

  “Sweetheart, it’s all right!” Julie called. “Tell Mommy what’s wrong.”

  “She’s turning all red, Mom!” Ollie shouted.

  “Okay, honey,” Julie said, raising her voice over the crying, “Mommy’s going to pull over now.”

  “Julie, don’t pull over on the side of the freeway!”

  “I’m not pulling off on the freeway,” she said testily. “There’s an exit. I’m going to jump off here and calm her down. I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a great—”

  The phone clicked dead.

  Charlie set it down gingerly on the counter.

  She would call back in five minutes.

  Chapter Six

  Charlie looked at the clock: 7:04 p.m.

  It had been thirty-one minutes. What could she possibly be doing? Why would she not have called him back yet?

  He wanted to believe this was just another case of his being wound too tight, but for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine any reason why Julie would hang out for half an hour on some dark exit off the freeway. As soon as Meagan calmed down—which shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes—she should have been on the road again.

  He picked up his phone and dialed her cell.

  “You’ve reached Julie Davis. Please leave a number.”

  He hung up without leaving a message and turned his attention to the television, trying to distract himself with the ninth inning of the Dodgers game. The Braves’ closer, a kid who looked like he was barely out of Little League, struck out the last three batters on eleven pitches, mowing them down with ninety-seven-mile-an-hour fastballs. He switched off the TV and looked at the clock: 7:11.

  Thirty-eight minutes.

  He went to the front door and scanned the street for Julie’s car. This was nonsensical, of course. There was no way she could be home by now.

  He called again. “You’ve reached Julie Davis. Please leave a—”

  Charlie went back inside to find the water boiling hard and the sauce bubbling on the stove. He turned down the flame and put the lid on the pot.

  Forty-three minutes. Maybe Meagan had peed on herself and needed to be changed? Maybe Ollie had to go to the bathroom? Maybe Julie needed to fill her tank? Could any or all of that eat up forty-three minutes?

  He called her again. Straight to voice mail.

  He checked his texts and emails. Nothing.

  He paced. He compulsively straightened up the kitchen and den.

  Fifty-one minutes.

  He grabbed his laptop, logged on to MapQuest and found a detailed map of Anaheim. She’d gotten on the 91 West and then what? How long had they been on the phone before she jumped off the exit? Two minutes, maybe three? He double-clicked on the map, zooming in for more detail.

  If his calculations were correct, she would have gotten off at either Pioneer or Norwalk Avenue. A quick search found him the two closest hospitals. Norwalk Community to the east, St. John’s to the north.

  He dialed St. John’s first. An automated answering service greeted him. It was another three minutes before someone in the emergency room answered.

  “My name’s Charlie Davis. I’m calling to see if . . .” He trailed off for a second. Just articulating the words was giving him a knot in his stomach. “I’m calling to see if my wife or children were admitted there in the last hour.”

  “Their names please?” answered the nurse matter-of-factly. Charlie thought he could hear her clicking away at a computer.

  “Julie Davis, that’s my wife. Oliver and Meagan are my children. They’re six and three.”

  “One moment please.”

  Muzak. Bad elevator Beatles.

  Charlie glanced at the clock again: 7:33.

  The nurse came back on the line, more quickly than Charlie would have expected. “I’m sorry, sir. No Julie Davis. No Oliver or Meagan.”

  “Okay,” Charlie sighed. “Thank you.”

  As he hung up the phone, he wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or more worried.

  He quickly called Norwalk Community and got the same result. No Julie. No Oliver. No Meagan.

  Seven thirty-seven. Over an hour.

  He tried to tell himself that her BlackBerry must have run out of power, but that didn’t make any sense. She had a charger built into her glove compartment. And even if she had somehow lost her phone when she got out of the car, she would have borrowed someone else’s. Or used a pay phone. She said she would call back in five minutes. And she had to know that he’d be concerned. No matter how irritated or frustrated she was with him, this would not be the tactic, to punish him like this. That would be cruel. And there wasn’t a cruel bone in Julie’s body.

  The kitchen clock ticked to 7:42.

  He turned off the flame and looked at his keys on the granite countertop.

  He knew what he was thinking was crazy, that he was allowing himself to succumb to his greatest, most irrational fears. But what good was he doing anyone here? Sitting around his kitchen?

  He grabbed the keys and ran out to his Pathfinder. Ten minutes later he was speeding down the 405.

  Chapter Seven

  An airplane glided gently over the horizon, headed for a safe touchdown at LAX as Charlie barreled toward the 105 at eighty-six miles an hour. He’d been in such a hurry as he bolted out of the house that he hadn’t taken the time to punch his desti
nation into his navigation system, so there were no computerized predictions as to his time of arrival, but he calculated that at this rate he’d be approaching Pioneer Avenue in about half an hour.

  He tried to convince himself that it wouldn’t come to that. That he’d surely hear from Julie before then. She’d call and he’d have to turn around. Meet them at home. Explain why the kids’ favorite dinner had gotten so cold and caked. This whole episode would simply be an embarrassing admission that he was holding on too tight, that he needed to let go.

  He dialed Julie again.

  “You’ve reached—”

  He hung up and merged onto the 105, heading east.

  The mini-malls whizzed by as he veered onto the 605 South. Only a mile and a half to the 91. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard: 8:08. Nearly an hour and a half since she’d pulled off the road.

  He called her cell one more time. Straight to voice mail.

  He tried the home line. Just in case. No answer.

  Streaking down the 91 now. Almost there. It was either Pioneer or Norwalk. He felt confident about that. Pioneer Avenue was first and he took it.

  The exit ramp spilled almost directly into a Mobil station, but Julie would have been coming from the other direction and he had to retrace the steps she would have taken. He turned left and crossed under the freeway. There was a Denny’s on his left, right next to the Quality Inn. Eyeing the northbound ramp, he saw that Julie’s easiest course of action would be to drive directly into the 76 station. He pulled in, looking around for her Prius. Across the street was a Chevron. Beyond that, an El Pollo Loco. A busy area. And still quite a bit of activity at 8:14.

  Charlie got out of his vehicle, eyes darting around. No sign of them anywhere. He whipped out his phone as he entered the mini-mart.

  “Have you seen these people?” he asked the attendant, showing a photo of his family on the tiny screen. “Did they come in here tonight?”

  The customers ahead of him glanced backward: who the hell do you think you are? Charlie ignored them.

  “Tonight! Within the last couple of hours. Were they here?”

  A disinterested shrug was all he got.

  Charlie barreled out the door and rushed to the Chevron, gazing down the dimly lit residential street as he crossed it.

  Again, no sign of them. He looked for an attendant but here the mini-mart was already closed. Self-serve only.

  Back on the 91, Charlie headed for Norwalk Boulevard. If there was no sign of them here, he had no idea what his next move would be. He pulled off the freeway, once again crossing under the overpass, once again attempting to retrace what might have been her steps. At the stop sign, he looked in both directions. But there was no need. Right in front of him was the only feature of the exit that Julie would have paid any attention to—a lone gas station. He crossed the road and pulled in.

  Unlike Pioneer Avenue, Norwalk was quiet. Eerily quiet. Across the small street was a plumbing-supply office. Down the road, a drab industrial office complex lay partially hidden behind a row of scruffy trees. At this time of day, everyone would be long gone. As he stood there, the wispy wind shuddering against him, watching the cars cruise by on the freeway overpass, he suddenly noticed a gas nozzle dangling off its holster, dripping fuel onto the pavement.

  He walked toward it, noting the way it was splayed out in a serpentine figure. Something about that felt ominous. Next to the rubbery tube was a small lump of gray on the ground. He approached it with growing anticipation as he realized what it was . . .

  Donald Duck.

  A brand-new Donald Duck, the fuzzy material soft and clean, a tag on the bottom from a Disneyland gift shop.

  Adrenaline coursed through Charlie’s body. For a moment, he felt exultant. But then a thought struck him with a sudden gloomy force: the doll could have fallen out of the car innocently enough, but the flailing gas nozzle right next to it . . . together the evidence spelled trouble.

  Charlie scanned the area. There was no one here. No Prius parked behind the building, no—

  Suddenly, he heard the high-pitched wail of an approaching siren.

  The first black-and-white whizzed by at what Charlie figured had to be seventy miles an hour. Four seconds later, another one followed. Then another.

  Everything in Charlie’s bones told him these cops were headed for his family.

  He sprinted back to his car and tore out onto Norwalk. The black-and-whites had a sizable lead on him and Charlie pushed the pedal all the way to the floor, the needle creeping toward eighty.

  A half mile later, the lights in front of him slowed and turned left onto a residential street.

  He followed. Two streets down, another left turn. Then a right. Then another left, past a yellow sign: dead end.

  Charlie watched the squad car slow at the end of the cul-de-sac, trying unsuccessfully to turn off the terrifying thoughts that were buzzing through his brain. There were five other squad cars already here, red and blue lights puncturing the soft night sky.

  They surrounded a gray Prius.

  Chapter Eight

  Charlie felt an inarticulate howl erupt from his chest as he slammed his car to a halt in the middle of the cul-de-sac. He tried to think of a benign explanation for the scene unfolding in front of him. But you didn’t send a half-dozen police cars to a lonely residential neighborhood just because some nice lady had taken a wrong turn and blown a head gasket.

  Charlie bolted out of his SUV and rushed toward the knot of policemen surrounding Julie’s car.

  “Let me see them!” he shouted. “Where are they? Let me see them!”

  “Please step back, sir.”

  Charlie sensed someone to his left and managed to focus on a trim young cop but it wasn’t until she was wrapping her arms around him that he even realized it was a woman.

  “Sir! You have to—”

  “I have to see them!”

  “Do you live here, sir?”

  “No, I—”

  “Then you need to stay back.”

  He was nearly dragging the small police officer off her feet.

  “Assistance!” she shouted. “Goddamnit, I need assistance now!”

  Charlie kept plowing forward as blue uniforms rapidly converged on him.

  “Get his arms! Get his arms!”

  But Charlie was not going to be stopped. Because he’d seen something that breathed hope into him for the first time since he’d hit the freeway . . .

  It was the hair. The auburn hair of a tiny girl.

  Clinging to the neck of a large African-American policeman, she was rubbing her eyes with her chubby fist. A motion he had seen a thousand times.

  “That’s my daughter!” Charlie shouted as two more cops slammed into him, pinning him against one of the squad cars. They grunted and cursed, heaving on him as he struggled. Charlie fought back, blinded by the red and blue flashing lights.

  “That’s my daughter!”

  They pinned his face against a squad car and he felt the cold steel of cuffs touching his wrists.

  “Daddy, Daddy!” he heard Meagan squeal.

  Then an authoritative, booming voice over hers. “Let him go! I said let the man go!”

  Charlie felt three sets of hands release him. As he righted himself and regained his vision, he saw that the booming voice belonged to the big black cop. “Let him see his girl.”

  “Sorry, sir,” the female cop said. “We thought—”

  Charlie didn’t care what she thought. He pushed through the knot of policemen and weaved toward Meagan.

  “Daddy!”

  He grabbed her from the sergeant, holding her tight, his mind jumping rapid fire to the next question: Ollie and Julie. Ollie and Julie?

  He ran toward Julie’s car, his daughter’s legs bouncing against his ribs.

  “Daddydaddydadd
y!”

  The Prius was parked ten yards from the wall at the end of the cul-de-sac. No crumpled fenders, no buckled doors, no obvious damage. Charlie’s heartbeat began to slow. There’d been no accident. And it occurred to him that there were no paramedics or ambulances here. That had to be a good sign.

  Then he saw them, poking out into the street. A pair of Nike sneakers. Red and black. Size nine, boys’. Above the sneakers was a pair of knees, the left one covered by a Band-Aid with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it. Ollie’s face was blocked by the hood of the Prius, but Charlie was quite sure now that he must be all right.

  Maybe the car had just broken down. Maybe Julie had taken a wrong turn and gotten lost and maybe the head gasket had blown. Maybe her phone had stopped working when the car died and she’d freaked out a little, scaring the neighbors, who’d called 911. Maybe it was a slow day for the cops in Norwalk. Maybe . . .

  Charlie felt a burst of elation as he rounded the front of Julie’s car and saw Ollie looking up at him. The boy was holding the hand of a tall, beefy man in a blue LAPD uniform.

  Then Charlie saw the tears. Streaming down Ollie’s face. But it was the eyes that arrested him. Pure terror. Whatever had just happened here, it wasn’t a blown head gasket or a wrong turn.

  That was when Charlie noticed the broken glass next to the car. The driver’s-side window had been shattered.

  “Who are you, sir?” asked one of the cops.

  “Dad!” Ollie whimpered, reaching toward Charlie.

  A cold sensation clamped around Charlie’s chest as he grabbed his son.

  “I’m their father,” Charlie whispered. “I’m their father.” Then his eyes found the big policeman’s face. The officer looked at Charlie with the cool, contained expression of a man who knew how to keep his distance from other people’s pain.

  Charlie’s pulse roared in his ears as the question barely escaped his mouth:

  “Where’s my wife?”

  Chapter Nine

  The central bureau of the LAPD was a windowless bunker of a building with an unattractive mural painted on the front.