Gone (15 page)

22

Tuesday, 8:20 p.m. PST

Q
UINCY SAT ALONE IN A CORNER
of the command center. He had a blanket on his lap, a mug of black coffee in his hands. In front of him, officers buzzed around the conference table with the brisk steps of people who had serious work to do and not nearly enough time to do it. Kincaid and Sheriff Atkins were in the middle of a heated debate, both looking tired and strained. Mac was talking on his cell phone, glancing from time to time in Quincy’s direction like the diligent baby-sitter he’d promised to be. Kimberly had been sent out on an errand at Quincy’s personal request; his daughter had departed only after wringing a blood oath from Mac that he wouldn’t let Quincy out of his sight.

When Mac glanced over for the third time, Quincy couldn’t resist raising a hand in acknowledgment.
Haven’t managed to croak yet. Please, carry on.

So this, he thought, was how it was going to feel one day when his workaholic daughter stuck him in an old folks’ home. He took another long sip of coffee and pretended his hand didn’t shake.

In contrast to his daughter’s opinion, he did not think he was going to drop dead just yet. No tightening of the chest, no tingling in the extremities, no cramping in his stomach. He was just tired. Bone-deep weary, hitting the stage that was officially beyond stress.

He didn’t only miss Rainie anymore. He didn’t just worry and wonder and ache. He could feel himself slowly but surely letting her go. Shutting down the small details—the flannel-gray color of her eyes, the quick, lithe way she crossed the room, a woman who made no effort at all to be sexy and thus captivated the attention of every male around.

First time he’d met Rainie, it had been professional. She’d been a deputy in Bakersville, serving as the primary officer on her first big case—a shooting at Bakersville’s K–8. The number one suspect was the sheriff’s son, which put the whole department, of course, under enormous pressure.

Quincy had come waltzing in—federal agent, expert on mass murderers, doing a special research project on school shootings—expecting to be welcomed with open arms. It was possible that he’d had an ego, even been quite full of himself.

Rainie had mocked his title, derided his credentials, and then said some pretty uncomplimentary things about his tie. And that had been it for SupSpAg Quincy. Other people fell in love over candlelight dinners or walks on the beach. Quincy fell in love sitting across the desk from a small-town deputy who liked to splinter number two pencils when feeling enraged.

He still gave her a box of pencils every Valentine’s Day. And she would laugh and spill them out on the table like a happy child.

“I don’t have to break pencils anymore,” she would tease him. “I’m married to the perfect man.”

The pencils would go atop her desk. Sooner or later, he’d find them in shattered bits all over the floor. Because that was marriage, a collection of all the little things outsiders would never understand. Number two pencils for her, Republican ties for him. She still had a weakness for Bon Jovi; he much preferred jazz.

They had their system. It wasn’t for everyone, but until recently, it had always worked for them.

Would she hate him when the end came? Would she blame him for failing his last case? Or would she understand? Everyone has to lose sometime, even Quantico’s former best of the best.

It was not the past that broke you, Quincy thought. It was the empty future, the endless string of days filled with none of the people who mattered most.

Mac came over. He hunched down in front of Quincy, hands clasped across his knees.

“Tell me about Astoria,” Mac commanded.

And much to his surprise, Quincy did.

Tuesday, 8:41 p.m. PST

T
HE HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR
arrived twenty minutes later. The conference room doors blew open. A strikingly gorgeous woman strode in. Kincaid looked up. Mac turned. So did most of the men in the room.

Candi with an “i” turned out to be a six-foot Hispanic woman with a wild mane of curly jet-black hair that added another two inches to her height. She wore slim-fitting jeans, a tight-fitting red shirt, and a short-cropped black leather jacket. Forget police work; she looked like she ought to be on a runway in Paris.

“Candi Rodriguez,” she announced by way of introduction. Then, without waiting for a reply, “Is this the phone? Have you tested the system, because let me tell you, these recorders never work as well as promised. I’m going to need an outline of everything we know about the subject at this time. Age, occupation, interests, ethnicity. If we know it—or suspect it—I want it in front of me in bullet-point form. I’m also going to require plenty of water and enough space to move around. I like to pace while I talk. It helps me think.”

She was pacing now. The rest of the room remained staring, mouths agape.

Quincy took another sip of coffee. He wondered what Kimberly would do if she were here right now. Shoot first, question later? Or maybe simply tackle the larger, more exotic alpha female to the floor? Men could always arrange for a quick game of hoops, or perhaps a drinking contest in the local bar. With women, it was always much more complicated.

“What?” Candi with an “i” demanded in clear exasperation. “I was told to hustle, clock ticking, yada, yada, yada. Why the hell do you think I just blew through the mountains at ninety miles per hour? I’m here. Let’s move.”

Kincaid finally cleared his throat. “Sergeant Detective Kincaid,” he introduced himself. “There’s been some new developments.”

“Got a handout?”

“We haven’t had time to write a report.”

“Well then, you’d better start talking, Sergeant Kincaid, because I sure as hell can’t read your mind.”

Quincy took another sip of coffee, mostly to hide his grin.

Kincaid ran through the wrap-up. The botched attempt to delay the ransom drop via an article in the newspaper. The subsequent note left by the abductor on the windshield of a local reporter’s car.

Officers had immediately followed up with Laura and Stanley Carpenter, Dougie Jones’s foster parents. Laura had last seen the boy at four thirty, when he came inside demanding a soda. No one had seen Dougie since. Local deputies were now combing the woods. It was their second search operation in fifteen hours, and they were pretty sure the results would be the same.

“So he now has custody of a woman and a child?” Candi summarized.

“That’s our current assumption.”

“And what’s the relationship between Lorraine Conner and Douglas Jones?”

“Rainie,” Quincy spoke up. “Rainie and Dougie. If you use their full names, he’ll know you’re an outsider.”

Candi shot him a look. “And you are?”

“The estranged husband.”

Kincaid’s turn to receive an arched brow. “You’re letting him hang out in the command center?” the negotiator asked.

“Hell, half the time I let him run the case. He’s a profiler, retired FBI.”

“Well damn, this really is a party. What else don’t I know yet?”

“Rainie was serving as Dougie’s advocate,” Quincy spoke up. “She’s been working with the boy for the past two months, visiting with him at least once or twice a week.”

“And who would know this?” Candi with an “i” was no dumb bunny.

“Anyone involved in the situation—the local court officers, social services, friends and family of the Carpenters. Then again, given how people like to talk, that probably means most of the town.”

“So he’s a local?”

Kincaid opened his mouth, already frowning, but at the last minute, seemed to change his mind. He still didn’t agree with Quincy on this point, but perhaps was coming around.

“Yes,” Quincy said firmly. “I believe he is a local.”

“So it’s personal?”

“The abductor has a relationship with Rainie and/or Dougie,” Quincy replied. “It remains a possibility, however, that the relationship is one-sided.”

Candi frowned. “Stalker?”

“That’s my guess. Rainie is private. Her circle of friends is small and loyal. I doubt one of them would turn on her. It’s quite possible, however, that someone on the outer fringes, a face that for her is only part of the visual landscape of her day, has taken a greater interest.”

Kincaid made a noise in the back of his throat. The sergeant was more hesitant to fully abandon the theory of a stranger-to-stranger crime. Quincy, however, had no doubt in his mind. The subject had taken Rainie’s gun. Then he had cut off her hair. Finally, he had abducted Dougie Jones. A total stranger would never have known three such perfect ways to hurt her.

He glanced discreetly at his watch. Kimberly should be at her destination now. Good.

“So we’re talking someone local who knows the victims,” Candi said. “That brings us down to what, three, four thousand suspects?”

Shelly Atkins finally spoke up. “Hey, I can do you better than that. I got a list.”

“Really?”

“Prepared by one aspiring felon to rat out the others,” the sheriff admitted. “But I think we can use it.”

“Absolutely. I need to know something unique about every name on that list. Something personal, that’s not common knowledge. In official negotiationspeak, we call that bait.”

“If the caller reacts—”

“Then your list might be better than you think, Sheriff.”

Shelly appeared genuinely impressed. She gave a small grunt of acknowledgment; maybe there was more to Candi with an “i” than big hair after all.

“You’re assuming you get to speak with the subject,” Quincy said mildly. “He’s not due to call until ten tomorrow morning, and then it’s time for immediate lights, camera, action. He calls this phone, and directs a female officer to the ransom drop. I don’t think that would be the time to renegotiate the deal.”

“You don’t think I can do the ransom drop?”

“I think my daughter’s doing the ransom drop.”

“Your daughter?” A fresh look to Kincaid.

The sergeant shrugged. “Current FBI.”

“She a negotiator?”

“She’s quick on her feet,” Quincy said.

“But is she a negotiator?”

“She’s taken classes.”

Candi with an “i” rolled her eyes. “I tell you what, proud papa. Your daughter can be the body, but I’m still the mouthpiece. You people have had all day to do it your way, and may I be the first to say ‘Wow, what a fuckup.’”

Kincaid started to protest; Quincy, too. Candi simply raised her hand and silenced them both. “In less than twenty-four hours, you have not only failed to negotiate the release of the first hostage, but you have provoked the kidnapping of a second. Now, maybe you guys didn’t go to the same police academy I did, but we consider that a real bad day. But hey, at least you got one thing right.”

“We called you?” Kincaid said dryly.

She flashed him a stunning smile. “Absolutely right, Sergeant. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna get some water.”

Candi with an “i” sauntered from the room, leaving a sea of dazed silence in her wake. Mac was the first to recover.

“Twenty bucks says Kimberly kicks her ass by five p.m. to- morrow.”

The officers gathered round. No one could pass up that kind of action.

23

Tuesday, 7:53 p.m. PST

H
E WAS ALREADY OUT
on the covered porch when she pulled up; he’d probably heard her rental car whining furiously as it climbed the drive. The rain poured off the pitched roof of the porch, cutting a deep trench into the sodden ground. Luke Hayes didn’t seem to notice. He stood at the top of the steps in a short-sleeved polo shirt, toned arms crossed over a toned chest, seemingly impervious to the elements. After all these years, Kimberly thought, the former Bakersville sheriff still knew how to make an impression.

She took her time getting out of the car. She was already cold, wet, and muddy. Slogging through five more feet of washed-out driveway hardly mattered. She didn’t know how to handle this conversation, however, and picking her way precariously through the muck bought her precious minutes to collect herself.

No doubt about it, her heels were ruined. Probably her pants, too. After this, she’d have to go to Wal-Mart for new clothes. Given her penchant for Ann Taylor, Mac would die laughing. She didn’t care. At this point, warm and dry were her only requirements for apparel. Please just let her find something that was warm and dry.

“Hey,” Luke called out as a greeting.

“Hey yourself.” Kimberly had known Luke for nearly a decade. He was an old friend of Rainie’s and had once helped save Quincy’s life. Under the heading of things she’d never tell her father, Kimberly used to have the biggest schoolgirl crush on the man. Oh, the nights she’d gone to sleep dreaming about those cool blue eyes, that hard muscled body, those rough callused hands. No doubt about it, Luke Hayes had a way with women.

She really did not want to have this conversation.

He pushed away from the railing. “Come in, hon. I just put on a pot of coffee.”

“Sure you don’t mind? I’m soaked to the bone and covered in mud . . .”

“And here I thought you’d jump at the chance to inspect my home.” Luke held the door open, his expression somber. “Come inside, Kimberly. Have some coffee.”

Her face flushed. She followed Luke into his house. It was a small, two-bedroom ranch, featuring a large common room and a tiny kitchen. Good house for a single guy. Surprisingly clean, but also filled with the signs of someone recently divorced—the ratty furniture picked up from a buddy’s garage. A kitchen stocked primarily with paper products. No pictures on the wall, no personality in the room.

This was merely a way station, a place for a guy to catch his breath and wonder what to do next.

Luke poured her some coffee. The paper cup was hot to the touch, so he layered it inside another cup before deciding it would do. “Cream or sugar, or are you like your old man?”

“I prefer it black,” she admitted with a smile.

Luke smiled back. Closing in on forty, he was still a handsome guy. Startlingly bright blue eyes bracketed by laugh lines. Trim muscular build. Hard chiseled face.

Rainie had once described Luke as the anchor of the Bakersville Sheriff’s Department. She could be intense and moody, prone to small fits of rage. Luke, on the other hand, could stare down the devil himself. It was something in the way he moved, something about the quiet calm of his gaze. He always seemed in control, even when, they all realized now, he wasn’t.

“Nice place,” she said at last.

“I hate it.”

“Well, a can of paint certainly wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’m a log cabin guy. I spent four years building our home. She always told me it was too manly. ’Course she kept it in the divorce.”

“She” was Deanna Winters, a former dispatch worker for the sheriff’s department. She and Luke had wed two years ago, finally ending Luke’s reign as the town’s most eligible bachelor. Ten months ago, Luke had caught Deanna
in
flagrante delicto
with one of his deputies. He’d thrown them both out of the house. Literally. Tossed them out of the front door stark naked. The theatrics had only grown uglier from there.

Luke sued for divorce. Deanna slapped him with allegations of spousal abuse. He claimed she’d been unfaithful from the very beginning. She countered he had, “with knowledge and foresight,” withheld the information that he was sterile, thereby deliberately denying her children.

Given the amount of public attention, Luke had stepped down from his position as sheriff. Deanna promptly went crying to a judge that he was trying to reduce his income to cheat her out of her rightful amount of alimony.

Kimberly didn’t know all the details, but in a battle of spite and wills, Luke seemed to cave first. He got his divorce. Deanna got everything he ever owned. At least, people liked to murmur behind their backs, there hadn’t been any children.

“We could go into the family room,” Luke offered now, “but I should warn you up front, the sofa has no springs and the recliner cripples grown men.”

“So what, you sit on the floor?”

“I pace. I find as long as I keep moving, I’m less likely to break things.”

Kimberly arched a brow. Luke shrugged, took his coffee and walked into the family room.

“You’re here about Rainie,” he said, his back to her.

“Yes.”

“Quincy wants to know if I’m involved.”

“He wondered if you had heard anything—”

“Bullshit. Quincy’s a suspicious bastard. Always has been, always will be. Given his line of work, I can’t really blame him.” Luke took a seat on the edge of the coffee table. “But he’s wrong about Rainie and me.”

“Why is he wrong, Luke?”

“We were never involved, never even thought about it. We’re close, of course, but not in that kind of way. She’s more like the sister I never had.”

“The divorce has been hard,” Kimberly murmured.

“Tell me about it.”

“Deanna wiped you out.”

“I see the gossips are as busy as ever. What? I hit a little financial hardship so I decided to kidnap a fellow cop? Tell your father that’s paranoid thinking even from him. I married the wrong kind of woman. That doesn’t mean I’m the wrong kind of man.”

Kimberly finally crossed to him. She squatted down so she could study Luke eye to eye. Up close, she could see the fresh lines creasing his face, the unhealthy pallor that came from too many sleepless nights. He was a man who was hurting. But his head was up, his shoulders square.

“I’m very sorry,” she said quietly.

He shrugged. “Aren’t we all.”

“Luke, did you know Rainie had been drinking?”

“Yeah, yeah I did.” Luke sighed, sipped coffee. “I called Quincy about the DUI. What I didn’t tell him was that it was her second. I buried the first, hoping she’d clean up her act. Then, when she proved me wrong . . . I did what I always knew I should’ve done the first time around. She hasn’t spoken to me since.”

“Oh, Luke.”

“Rainie’s strong. She’ll find her way back. ’Least that’s what I like to tell myself.”

“Do you have any idea what might have happened last night? Who might have grabbed her?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since Shelly Atkins called. Sure, we have some boys around here who aren’t adverse to underhanded ways of earning a buck. But kidnapping and ransom . . . That’s a serious crime. Involves planning, logistics, face time with the victim. Frankly, most of our boys are too lazy. They’d rather plant a few ‘medicinal herbs’ in the woods or start a lab on the farm. And as for the violent ones, I hate to say it, but that’s why they have wives.” Luke grimaced. Kimberly could read his thoughts. The world was filled with sons of bitches, and here he was, basically a good man, only to find himself dumped on by his wife. “Do you know where she was last seen?” he asked.

“Not yet. We’re working on it, of course.”

“If it was a bar . . .”

“No telling who she might have met, including someone from out of town,” Kimberly filled in for him.

“Exactly. Of course, Rainie liked to drive, especially when she was upset. Maybe she didn’t go anyplace at all. In which case . . .”

“We’re back to it could be anyone.” Kimberly stood, stretching out her legs. “I’ll be honest, Luke, we don’t think it was a stranger-to-stranger crime.”

Luke frowned, rising off the coffee table, staring at her curiously. “But I thought, when Shelly called . . . She said the note had been mailed before the actual abduction, that the man basically committed to grabbing a female before he ever snagged Rainie.”

“That was how things looked in the beginning. But we’ve had some new developments since then. The UNSUB has grabbed a second person—”

“Who?”

“Dougie Jones.”

“Dougie Jones?”

“Now how many out-of-towners could make that connection? And he delivered a particularly personal token with the news.”

Kimberly watched Luke steel himself, stomach muscles tightening, jaw clenching, as if preparing for a blow. If he was acting, then he was very, very good.

She said, “The UNSUB cut off Rainie’s hair.”

“No!”

Kimberly nodded thoughtfully. “If this guy’s watched too many movies, you’d think he’d go for a finger, or maybe an ear. Hair is almost too innocuous. Except . . .”

“Rainie has the most beautiful hair,” Luke filled in softly.

“Her one vanity. It seems like a particularly intimate thing to do.”

“Ah, Jesus.” Luke sat down again, hard, on the edge of the table. Coffee sloshed over the edge of his cup, splattering his jeans. He didn’t seem to notice. “So you’re searching for a man, probably local. Somebody who’s looking to make a quick buck—”

“Not necessarily. Quincy thinks the ransom may be incidental. The UNSUB’s goal isn’t a conclusion—receiving money—but the process itself and the feeling of control it gives him over Rainie and the task force.”

Luke closed his eyes. He sighed heavily, and when he opened his eyes again, he looked to Kimberly as if he’d aged years. “Then Quincy is missing the obvious.”

“The obvious?”

“You’re looking for a man who knows Rainie. Someone with a personal reason to hurt her and the Bakersville Sheriff’s Department.”

“The sheriff’s department?”

“Oh yeah, most definitely. You’ve been looking at recent changes in Rainie’s life, the most obvious being that she’s resumed drinking. And that’s diverted your attention, had you looking at seedy bars and drunken strangers. But what’s the other major change? Rainie and Quincy returned to Bakersville. Rainie came home and now she’s in trouble.”

Kimberly shook her head. “I still don’t get it.”

“Didn’t she ever tell you she killed a man?” Luke’s tone was even.

“Oh no . . .”

“Lucas Bensen was listed as missing for nearly fifteen years. It was only eight years ago that Rainie confessed to killing him when she was sixteen and burying his body. The case officially went to trial, and Rainie was found innocent due to the mitigating circumstances—Lucas had raped Rainie, then shot her mother when she tried to intervene. Naturally, next time Rainie saw Lucas looming outside her door, she shot first and questioned later.”

“I’ve heard the story. It’s still not something that’s easy for her to talk about.”

“Point is, Rainie confessed, Rainie produced the body, then Rainie left town.”

“You think now that she’s returned, Lucas has risen from his grave?”

He looked at her curiously. “Not Lucas, of course. But didn’t Rainie ever tell you? The man had a son.”