Alex (34 page)
Get the fucking gun!
Kelly's eyes locked on him, the phone still cradled to her ear.
She nodded.
Her mouth formed the word,
"Okay."
"Mr. Smith?" she shouted, loudly enough to be heard, and beckoned Ian her way.
Fuck all that!
Get the gun!
Do what you fucking came here for!
SHE KIDNAPPED YOUR SON!
"Mr. Smith?" she repeated when he didn't move.
She stepped toward him, holding out her hand; when he refused it, her brow tightened.
"Wendy told me you were looking for me.
I'm Kelly Baker?"
He lunged forward, grabbed her around the neck and bore her to the ground.
Choked until her face turned blue, then black.
Roared and screamed, smashed her face with his forehead.
Except he didn't.
"Did you...?" Ian started, but he had no idea how to finish that sentence.
"Did you... was there a Leroy Eston that worked here?"
Her face soured immediately.
She inched backward, as if the very mention of the man's name made Ian repulsive.
"There
was
," she said.
"I thought this was about some kind of publicity piece?"
"Did you..." he started again.
He couldn't keep those two words off his tongue.
"Were you two friends?"
She narrowed her eyes.
"What does that - ?
God,
no.
The man was disgusting."
She's lying.
You're going to let her lie her way out of this?
But she didn't seem to be lying.
Her tight shoulders, her slitted eyes - every muscle in her body seemed to convey loathing.
He got a sudden image of a late night at the garage.
Eston tried to force himself on her, and she screamed, and kicked him, and got away.
He had no idea if it was real or not, but it
felt
right.
He couldn't meet her eyes.
He looked past them, to the station behind her, and saw a picture taped to the side of the monitor.
Kelly was pushing a little girl in a swing, both of them grinning hugely.
She has a daughter.
No one with a daughter could have done it.
No one.
"Mr. Smith?" she asked.
"If you have questions about Leroy, you should probably talk to Doug.
He's -"
"No," Ian said.
"No, that's okay."
His knees quivered.
As he turned away they nearly spilled him to the floor.
"Thanks," he said over his shoulder, and fled.
He drove two blocks and pulled over, his hands shaking and his stomach in revolt.
She has a daughter!
Jesus Christ, she has a daughter!
You could have made an orphan!
What the fuck are you doing out here?
On the passenger seat, Mowsalot crouched, grinning.
Ian glanced at the rearview mirror, panting and sweating, on the verge of hyperventilation.
He expected to see the police, but there was nothing.
You could have killed an innocent woman!
You were ready to do it!
Jesus Christ,
Ian!
He started to reach for the gun, thinking to throw it into the street, but his hands were quivering too hard to get a grip on the glove compartment latch.
What the fuck are you doing?
he demanded of himself again, but there was no answer.
Nothing made any sense.
He was driving around
Prior
Lake
, a city he had never visited before in his life, with a gun in the glove box, looking for someone to kill.
That's what he was doing.
"Alex!" he called, and craned his head to look in the rear seats.
"Alex!
Where are you?"
There were Burger King bags and old pop cans on the floor, discarded junk mail scattered across the seats.
No car seat.
No smiling little boy, no blue eyes.
"
Alex!
" The demand scraped from Ian's throat in a choking wheeze.
"Answer me!
Where the hell are you?"
His eyes darted to the passenger seat, and again to the rear.
Nothing.
"Dammit, Alex,
please
!
I am here because of you!
You sent me here!
It was hard enough losing you, but you are the one who came back, made me go through all this...
shit!
Now you fucking tell me!
Enough fucking around!
Tell me what I'm doing here!"
He waited for maybe half a second.
"
God dammit, Alex, I almost killed a woman!
I almost killed a little girl's mom!
"
A man had stepped out of a little cafe.
He peered towards Ian's car, brows knitted, and Ian slapped his mouth shut.
Shut up.
Shut up.
He's not coming.
People can see you.
Go home.
Just go home.
He put the car in gear and peeled away, shooting up to fifty miles per hour on the little, urban street.
He hardly slowed down for the next turn.
His tires squealed as he angled around, heading back toward 13.
The speed helped to calm him, to give him something else to focus on.
Get home.
It's over.
He's gone.
Go home.
13 north was just ahead, and he could take it back to
Hopkins
.
The last place Eston had worked was in New Prague, though, and that was south.
Ian turned south.
This time, he skipped the front desk and walked straight in through the garage.
He saw a pair of guys talking in the corner and said, "Hey, is Curtis here?"
One of them, a greying, reed-thin man who was easily in his early sixties, pointed a greasy finger toward the back corner.
Ian followed his gesture and saw a large, balding man behind a desk.
"Thanks."
Ian's heart began thrumming nervously as he walked to the back of the room, memories of his encounter with Kelly Baker flashing in his mind.
He tried to get around them by focusing on the man sitting at the desk: middle-aged, fat, with a flushed red face and fingers like sausages.
How do you get that fat working in a garage?
he wondered.
Curtis must have been a manager, sitting in a chair, for a long time.
"Curtis?" Ian asked, and the larger man blew out a breath.
"Yeah."
"Hi, my name is Ian Jones."
Ian held out a hand; Curtis took it.
"I'm with the Shakopee Sentinel.
Could I talk to you for just a few minutes?"
Curtis sighed again, his eyes squinting toward the monitor on his desk.
"I'm really kind of busy here, Mr. Jones.
Could you - ?"
"Five minutes.
I swear.
I would come back another time, but my schedule has me out of town for the next two weeks."
Curtis gave him a look that said,
What does that have to do with me?
"I'm doing a story on Leroy Eston, the man who kidnapped Alex Colmes earlier this year.
They found him up in Shakopee, by O'Dowd?"
The other man's face changed from mild affront to caution.
"Shit," he said.
"That was five years ago Leroy worked here.
I didn't know anything about him."
"But you remember him, then?"
Curtis scoffed.
"Barely.
He was an asshole, that's about all I remember. Always late.
Always getting into fights with the other guys.
I wasn't surprised at all to hear about what happened.
That guy was a real piece of shit.
Ten miles of bad road."
"Yeah," Ian said.
"Listen, I'm actually trying to find out if there was a woman he would hang around with - a girlfriend, or a sister, maybe?
Someone named Kelly?"
"Kelly?" Curtis barked, as if the name were preposterous.
"No, I don't remember anything like that."
This was the last place on Ian's list.
Curtis' denial hit him like a punch to the gut.
He bit his lip, trying not to scream or cry.
"Are you sure?" he asked, feeling like a beggar.
"Yeah, I - Ed!
Hey, Ed!"
He threw out an imperious arm, beckoned for the older man Ian had seen earlier.
Ed walked over; he had remarkable posture and speed for a man of his age.
"Yeah, boss," he said flatly.
"You remember Leroy Eston?"
Ed's eyes smoldered.
"'Course I remember Leroy Eston."
"You remember if he had a girlfriend, or anything?"
"Or a sister?" Ian put in.
Ed barked a humorless laugh.
"A girlfriend?
That guy?"
Curtis shook his head.
"That's what I said, too."
He looked back to Ian.
"Sorry.
If you don't mind, I really have to get back to -"
"Someone named Kelly," Ian pressed.
"Anything, a picture, or someone he might have just mentioned once -"
"Look," Curtis said, at the same time Ed answered, "
Kelly.
You talking about that Kelton guy?"
"Oh!" Curtis said.
"
Kelton.
What was his first name?
That jaggoff friend of his, he tried to get him a job here.
What was it?"
Ian felt dizzy.
He put a hand on the desk to keep himself steady.
"Kelton?" he repeated, trying to keep up.
"Yeah," Ed said.
"Can't remember his first name.
He'd drop by here like he owned the place.
Skinny guy.
He and Leroy would go around back and toke up on his lunch break, like they didn't think anyone knew.
Didn't Leroy call him Kelly sometimes?"
"That's -" Ian put a hand to his temple, trying to calm his breathing, his spinning head.
"That's got to be it.
Do you know his first name, or how I might get ahold of him?"
"That had to be six years ago, now," Ed grunted.
"I doubt he even knew the guy anymore, Leroy didn't seem like the kinda guy to keep friends around."
"He tried to get him a job here," Curtis said again, nodding.
"Shit, I bet you..."
He pivoted his chair toward an ancient metal file cabinet, ran his fingers down the drawers.
Ian watched, tense, quiet, as Curtis backed up to the second drawer, labeled "Apps", and thumbed through the files.
"There!" Curtis announced, tearing out a thin folder.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
"'Tim Kelton'.
April 2004.
I knew he'd tried to get a job from me."
He scoffed.
"What a joke!
I was about ready to fire Leroy, and he tries to get his loser friend in here."
He was grinning.
"'Tim Kelton,'" Ian repeated, disbelieving.
"Did he leave you an address, or a phone number, or anything?"
"Well, I can't give you that, you know."
"Right."
Ian's heart thundered in his ears.
