Authors: John Gilstrap
"Oh," she said, and cast her eyes downward. Okay, that was something that should have occurred to her all on her own. She knew, after all, what they were thinking about those names, and if she'd just-
"Don't worry about it, Sarah," Russell soothed. "You haven't hurt the investigation. You just made us realize that we're actually going to have to earn our salaries on this one. Really, it's not a big deal."
Russell had a nice smile. She hadn't noticed it before-certainly not in the early minutes of their time together this morning, when all she could see was one giant asshole-but now that she did, she found herself wondering if maybe he was really a nice guy. Could it be that he was actually trying to be nice? Not bad looking, either, with his high-and-tight sideburns and barely thinning light brown hair. She admired the way he seemed so determinedly unself-conscious. Everyone in authority had a role to play, she realized, and she liked the way he chose to play his hard professionalism without the bullshit that seemed to always come with the badge.
The meeting ended shortly thereafter, with the only remaining discussion being the rationality of trying to maintain a crime scene out here. In a perfect world, Russell would have loved to hermetically seal the entire area until after the arrests were made and the trials completed, but as a practical matter, that was never possible. The closest they could get on some cases was to keep a residence or an office sealed until they were 100 percent certain that every microscopic bit of evidence had been collected, but out here, where winds blew at random and rain fell whenever it wanted to, trying to preserve the crime scene in a pristine condition would have been a waste of time.
"I'm inclined to shut things down here," Russell said. "Henry? Any objections?"
Henry shook his head. "We might not have enough physical evidence to tell you where to look, but if you bring me a suspect, I got more than enough to either nail him or rule him out." And in the vast scheme of things, that was a hell of a lot more than they often had.
"Besides," Tim said, "once it gets dark, we're not going to be able to certify that the scene wasn't tampered with. Not if our bad guy gets himself a halfway decent lawyer, anyway."
Russell clapped his hands. "That's it, then. Our work here is done. Ranger Rodgers, you can have your park back."
"I appreciate that," she said.
"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for a very nice day's work. Henry, the instant you know any helpful details-"
"I'll get them to you, Russell. I haven't let you down yet, have I?"
Russell responded with a clap on the big man's shoulder and turned to Agent Burrows. "Timbo, I want you to make sure that the grave site or whatever the hell we're calling it-"
"Secondary crime scene."
"Right. I want you to make sure that the secondary crime scene is put back together. Fill in the hole with something. I don't want somebody falling in there and suing Uncle Sam, okay?"
Tim nodded.
"Oh, and make sure that everything we've done here is documented and assembled. Triple-check to make sure the chain-of-custody forms are filed exactly according to SOP. If I find a bad guy, I don't want it kicked because of something administrative."
Tim's face darkened. "I thought we were going to talk to that couple on the registration form."
Russell shook his head. "No, I'm going to talk to the couple on the registration form. You're staying here to make sure the scut work gets done."
APRIL SIMPSON STEPPED off the bus without even knowing where she was. Farther out in the suburbs, to be sure, but which one or which direction, she wasn't sure. She'd chosen this stop because of the shopping mall across the street, and because she felt that she needed to be with strangers for a while. She needed to be with people whose concerns today dealt with topics other than death and missing children. She needed to see that such a world still existed, because the one in which she really lived had begun to strangle her.
She needed to see a glimpse of sanity.
The weatherman had said that today would be warmer than yesterday, but it sure didn't feel that way. As she walked across the street, and then across the expansive parking lot, she drew her coat closer and tried to control the shivers that kept invading her spine.
He'll be okay, she told herself. Carlos promised. Nobody would be foolish enough to go against him. Not even Logan.
She'd given herself three hours to concentrate on thinking about nothing; three hours just to wander and pretend that everything was just as it was supposed to be. One of those hours had somehow already evaporated, and she'd need a second one to work her way back to the apartment, leaving her just sixty minutes to dream.
It was nearly three o'clock, and it occurred to her that she'd forgotten to call into work this morning. She was supposed to be running the lunch shift, too. No doubt there'd be hell to pay for that in the morning, but you know what? Right now, she didn't give a shit. The public could damn well make their own Quarter Pounders this afternoon.
He'll be fine, she told herself for the millionth time. I know he'll be just fine.
No matter where she looked, or what she forced herself to think about, all she could see was little Justin, cowering in a corner someplace, crying out for her, only to receive silence in return. Or worse yet, a smack or a kick.
The king of all drug dealers had given his word that her son would be returned to her unharmed. It had seemed like a victory at the time, but now that she thought about it, she wondered, where was the value in a promise from a thug? What would happen if Carlos made his pitch and Logan just told him to go to hell? Suppose he decided to kill Justin just for the hell of it-because April had had the balls to go and rat on him to Ortega? What would she do then? What would she be able to do?
Inside the mall, the heat had kicked in, making it ten degrees too warm. No one seemed to have told the furnace that it wasn't below freezing anymore. Given the hour of the day, April was surprised by the crowd, amazed by the numbers of shoppers with nothing else to do on a Monday afternoon. The pace seemed different, too. No one had that hard-core shopping stare that she always found so amusing to watch. These people-these ladies, really, because there wasn't a man in sight-seemed to be out for a carefree stroll, each of them with a little boy or a little girl in tow.
Everyone looked so happy. That was the hardest part. They looked so goddamned happy. They had their children in backpacks or in strollers or tethered to their sides by a tight handhold. Everyone was so normal. God, what she would do to change places with any one of them; to feel just the slightest trace of happiness somewhere inside her soul. What did these happy shoppers know about pain, anyway? They probably were afloat in money, wandering here through the mall in the middle of the day just looking for an excuse to spend some of it. They had smiling husbands toiling away at real jobs to provide for their families, and they'd never heard of the likes of Carlos Ortega or Patrick Logan. They didn't know what it was like to be abandoned by everyone and everything they had ever cared about.
Wandering the wide avenues of this indoor palace of a mall, past the Macy's and the Neiman Marcus and the Bloomingdale's, April realized she wasn't welcome here. She'd caught the sidewards glances from a few of the shoppers, and at first she hadn't quite known how to interpret them. Then, in a flash of realization, she was able to read their minds just as clearly as if they had been speaking directly to her.
April Simpson represented a part of the world that these ladies with their $100 slacks and $1,000 baubles couldn't possibly understand-a world they wanted to know nothing about. April remembered those days from her own youth, back when things were secure and bills were paid on time and the worst problems she faced on any given day had nothing to do with survival but only with shades of lipstick. Back in those days, success had nothing to do with luck or with social positioning. Success was what happened when you kept your head down and worked hard for long hours.
April watched these pretty, rich ladies and their babies and somehow knew that they'd blame all of this on her. They'd all assume that she'd been a bad mother; that she'd somehow brought this misfortune onto herself. Their assumptions would make them feel better about the thousands of dollars they spent on jewelry every year while giving maybe $100 to charities that helped people like her get a leg up on life.
These people didn't want her here because she represented all the things that made them uncomfortable. None of this would happen to them. They didn't live in neighbourhoods where life was so cheap. They didn't hang out with the likes of Carlos Ortega, and they didn't allow people like William into their lives-people who stole money from other people on the street, and tried to take their two-year-old sons on outings to the local bar.
I had no choice! April's mind screamed. But suppose she had known that Justin would be taken from her one day at gunpoint. Would she have been able to find another option then?
You bet your ass.
She knew the risks of her neighbourhood; they frightened her every day of her life, but she lived with it anyway. Marrying William had been an act of pure panic. In her haste to find somebody who could take the edge off the fear that came with her pregnancy, she'd chosen him as the simplest solution. But in choosing that safety, she'd knowingly put herself-and her innocent child-in the path of unspeakable dangers.
As she passed in front of a fancy cookie shop-Jesus Christ, $1.50 for one cookie!-she crossed gazes with a little boy in a stroller. He was the same size and coloring and bone structure as Justin, and he smiled as she stared. She smiled, too, but something in her expression sparked a panicked response in the boy's mother, who obviously felt something in the air and whirled to face April.
"Can I help you?" the woman said, sounding anything but helpful. She moved quickly to position herself between her son and this unshowered, frazzled woman in front of her.
April kept the odd, crooked smile, her forehead wrinkling against the pressure of tears behind her eyes. "I was just admiring your son." She'd meant it to sound friendly and easygoing, but the words came out laced with desperation. "He's beautiful."
"Go admire someone else," the woman snapped. Her tone was angry but her eyes showed fear. With that, she quickly wheeled her little boy away. When he turned to wave good-bye, the mother snapped at him to face forward.
That's when she saw that the little boy was Justin. The stranger was taking her baby away!
"Wait!" she yelled, and the woman started to run. "No, wait!" April hurried to catch up, but the woman just moved faster. This wasn't possible. It just wasn't possible. Why would that woman have her little baby? Was she the kidnapper? Surely not.
Off to her right, another woman came out of the BabyGap store, an overstuffed plastic bag in one hand, and then, there he was again, gripping her other hand. The two kidnappers had traded off somehow, and now Justin was with this other woman, who looked much younger than the first, but equally well-dressed. April pulled up short and gasped loudly enough to make the lady with the bag look around.
"Are you all right?" the woman asked.
Suddenly, April couldn't get enough air. All right? Was this woman nuts? She has my baby, for God's sake! April wanted to scream out; to get the attention of every person in the mall, but all that would come out of her throat was a tiny squeak.
And there was Justin! Again. Not with the bag woman, but with someone else down the hallway. Somehow, they had exchanged him off again. What the hell was happening?
"Oh, Christ," April breathed. "Oh, my dear sweet Jesus Christ." Justin was everywhere! And not just one at a time, either! He was back there at the cookie shop again! And over there in the stupid-looking fake park they'd constructed in the middle of the mall! Everywhere.
The woman with the bag moved forward and took April's elbow. She said something that April couldn't understand, and she knew that such an approach by a kidnapper should frighten her. It should scare the living shit right out of her. But she didn't feel frightened. She didn't feel anything, in fact.
The lady helped her across the shiny tile hallway, over toward an oak-colored park bench. April didn't feel her feet hitting the floor, but rather felt as if she were floating across the mall. Someone told her to put her head down between her knees, and the very thought of it made her want to laugh. She did it, though, and a moment later, the world started to make sense again. Colors returned to normal, and the sounds all around her started to have real form and meaning.
"Are you all right?" someone said.
April looked up, and there was the lady with the BabyGap bag. Next to her stood a frightened little boy who really looked nothing at all like her Justin.
April didn't know what to say. She should never have come here. She should have gone right home after visiting Carlos Ortega-gone home and waited by the phone; waited for some sign that everything would be normal again. She was just one phone call away from the greatest celebration of her life.
And one phone call away from a tragedy she couldn't bear to consider.
"Is something wrong?" the woman asked, confused.
"You have no idea," April responded, but the irony in her voice came out as sarcasm, and the woman took offence, clutching her son by his arm as if he'd done something wrong, and rushing off into the crowd, leaving April on the bench by herself, alone with her fears of going mad.