Heartwood (30 page)

The public outcry might have been touching if I wasn’t teetering on the precipice of a nervous breakdown. According to Stacy, the food trucks were inundated with customers asking how they could help, and both trucks were having a hard time keeping up with business. Stacy had put a picture of Molly and Logan from the Heartwood event on Wrapgasmic’s web page and social media sites. Several search parties were organized for areas near our house; when I heard that news, I locked myself in the bathroom for a couple of hours.

All of Austin seemed eager to help out. Citizens kept coming into Good Wood to ask Francis about donating money. We finally had to issue a statement asking people to donate to Molly’s favorite charity instead.

“Feeding people is what Molly does. It’s her calling. She believes in paying it forward.” The press release that my mother had crafted read. “We ask that you keep your eyes peeled and your hearts open. If anyone has any leads, please call the number below.”

After 48 hours, the story must have gotten a little too dusty. They paraded out Molly’s picture from the photo spread for the Chronicle way back when Wrapgasmic was featured. She hated that picture, and when David had used it as a mural in his Galveston location it had nearly broken down negotiations. Molly had finally decided to just go along with the photo, which had been reproduced into t-shirts and beer coozies. It made her look like a campy pin up and though it showcased her spunky good looks, in this context it gave off a seedy vibe, casting her in a poor light. Tamryn said that the use of it had a “blame the victim” feel.

Most recently, a local station had somehow gotten their hands on a picture of Molly holding Logan at our wedding. I wondered which one of our so-called friends or family had leaked that to them, but before I could get too excited about it, Tamryn pointed out that it was the most current picture of Logan we had and it might help find him.

All this and no leads. Not even a hint of where she was. That’s when the media turned on me. It shouldn’t have really taken me by surprise. I’d seen enough cop dramas to know the drill.

When Dr. Greene insisted on going along with my father and me, I refused. After a couple of minutes of arguing, I had to usher him to his car. I thanked him for his concern, but told him that he needed to just go home. There was nothing for him to do and I had no desire for him to see whatever activity my father was engaging in. Dad had always operated in the gray areas of the government, and it was one of the reasons I wanted no part of his legacy. Funny how I was willing to shed my principles—as easily as a sweater on a sweltering day—when Molly’s safety was at stake. The doctor left, and as I started to follow my father out of the house, I noticed Mason had arrived. He was standing in the entryway holding Eva, and she reached out her chubby little arms out for me.

“I think someone wants her daddy.” Mason’s even tone was refreshing. He looked more well rested then the rest of us, but I understood that he was distracting himself with his own kids. I knew his togetherness was an act, but I appreciated the performance. It was a relief not to have to take on the load of his grief in addition to my own.

“I’m on my way out.” I replied, but Eva started to cry alligator tears and I was powerless against her woeful expression. I took her from him, but motioned for him to follow me.

“I gotta go, baby girl.” I whispered to her. “Daddy’s going to go find mama.”

She gave a shuddering sigh and burrowed into me. I felt a squeeze to my already aching heart. I knew exactly how she felt.

The moment we stepped out onto the front stoop, cameras flashed everywhere like a lightning storm and people were yelling my name.

“Joe!” A woman yelled. “Any new leads?”

I put a protective hand on Eva’s ear to block her from the assault of noise. My father, who was already in his car, motioned for me to hurry.

Another reporter called. “Can we get a statement, Joe?”

“No comment.” Mason’s voice was authoritative and firm.

“Funny how bad things keep happening to your wives and children.” A man’s voice rang out over the crowd. Outraged, I froze in my tracks and scanned the crowd. I spotted the slimeball by his sneering grin. “Where are they, Joe?”

Mason tore off after him, and the sneer instantly transformed into abject terror as the reporter took off running with his camera guy right on his heels. A policeman climbed out of his car and stepped between Mason and them. Mason bellowed over the cop, who looked very much like he wished he could let him loose. “Get the hell out of here before I stick my boot up your ass!”

I was still reeling from his callous accusations. Eva looked up at me with wide, scared eyes and furiously sucked her thumb.

“Did you hear that?” I asked my dad, who had jumped out of the vehicle when Mason had sprung into action.

“It was only a matter of time before someone went there.” He replied. “Take Eva back inside. We have to go.”

As we drove in the direction of downtown, I wracked my brain for a proper way to express my gratitude to this man who’d become a stranger to me. He deserved my thanks, but I had no framework for how to give it to him. We’d been sparring for so long that I had no idea how to have a normal conversation with the man, let alone a decidedly abnormal one like this one was sure to be.

Ever since I was a kid, I understood that my old man was a powerful guy. In high school, I got glimpses of that power when he made problems disappear. When I was fifteen, I got busted driving drunk and without a license to boot. I know...not my finest hour. The cops had me dead to rights. Then I called my dad. Ten minutes later, the cops drove me home and handed over all the evidence to my father’s assistant.

Looking back, I’m still stunned at how completely he fixed it. In retrospect, it might explain why some of the cops seemed to have it out for me when I was an adult. Irony had snuck in and sucker-punched me. Dad’s power and connections, which were once reasons for so much contempt, might now be my light at the end of the tunnel. I dared to hope he’d be my family’s salvation.

A few blocks down the street from my shop, there was a new high rise under construction. The ground floor looked finished on the outside, but it was all exposed metal beams and hanging construction lights on the inside. That is until you turned left into an interior room with no windows.

Plywood walls divided this space that filled almost half the remaining floor. Solid wooden tables and desk chairs were to the left. The entire wall was filled with giant flat screen monitors. Everything from computer code to video footage was playing across them. A huge conference table was directly ahead and to the right was a giant black metal storage cage.

Dad led me over to the people working at the monitors and introduced me to his staff, three young men, none of which looked old enough to shave. Zip, Crypt and Phantom. Their nicknames were laughable, but their fingers flew across the keyboards in a blur. They talked back and forth in a strange stilted version of English. I didn’t understand half of what they said.

Dad then took me over to the cage and introduced me to a few of his security people. Two of them, Dibbs and Cantel, I remembered from his days in office. The rest had to be good if they were working for my father. The leader of “Alpha Team” (as my father referred to the collection of assembled men) was a salt and pepper haired, heavily-muscled man that introduced himself as Seth, no last name.

Seth unlocked the cage and gave me the nickel tour. It contained a small arsenal. A heavy collection of Glock handguns, a few boxes of grenades that he called ‘Flash bangs’, and beyond those were heavy shotguns, sniper rifles and racks of Kevlar body armor. My eyes traveled the room, scrutinizing the inventory and trying to piece together what it all meant.

I returned to find my father at the conference table with Dibbs and Cantel. Dad waved me to a chair and motioned for Dibbs to continue.

“As I was saying sir, the tech group found footage showing the car moving east out of town. We lose them exiting 30 at the intersection of Hwy 969.” I couldn’t stop myself from interrupting.

“The feds told me that they couldn’t find any traffic cam footage. How the hell did you get that video?” Cantel gave Dad a weighty look and after a slight nod from my father, he turned to me.

“Mr. Jenson, the authorities have restrictions. They lack talent as well as having hardware as old as you are. Our team bypasses the illegalities, and our equipment is top notch. Our people have programs they’ve written that search out the information that we need. The feds can’t touch what we can do.”

“So are you telling me we are at a dead end?” My father’s voice was level and clipped, not a good tone to be on the receiving end of.

“No sir,” Dibbs responded. “The area that they were headed into is sparsely populated. With the travel time we are working with, based on the issuing of the A.P.B., it gives us a much smaller area to search. The techs are adding the new information into their software search. They hope to have something for us soon.”

“Very well. Keep us apprised.” The two men walked away toward the tech group and another man brought over a carafe of coffee and two mugs. A moment later he returned with a plate of baked goods. One whiff and I was fighting back tears. Of course it was from Sweetish Hill; it was the best bakery on this side of town. The intense memories of Molly that a simple apple fitter evoked had me turning away in my seat to hide the welling tears from my father.

His hand came onto my shoulder and he sat silently with me until I got my shit together. Pushing the tray hard enough to send the pastries spinning to the far side of the table I grabbed the carafe. Pouring us cups of coffee gave me time to focus.

This was getting beyond hard. Sitting here...pretending like I wasn’t coming apart at the seams. Holding myself in check when all I wanted to do was tear the world apart to find Molly and Logan. The fact that I could do nothing while they were in that psycho’s hands was tearing my heart out a hunk at a time.

Taking a few deep breaths, I watched the steam rising up from my cup until my heart rate returned to a reasonable level. The entire time dad sat staring at his coffee cup. As uncomfortable as he was with displays of emotion from me, this equated to a herculean effort.

“So what do we do now?” I said it softly, trying to keep the rage and pain I was feeling out of my voice. He started to answer then gave a heavy sigh.

“We wait, son. It’s infuriating, but I have to give them the space they need to do their job. If you want to go check on Eva, I can call you when something comes up.”

I shook my head, and the tension in my jaw made it throb.

“She’s in good hands right now. I need to do
something
.” The last word came out in a mixture of anger and sorrow. Dad put his arm around me and gave me a quick squeeze. Standing he cleared his throat.

“I’m going to make a few calls.” He walked toward the tech group. Pausing, he turned back to me. “We’ll find her, son.”

I gave him a curt nod and he looked like he wanted to say more. After a moment, he turned away and kept walking.

I lowered my head in my hands. Horrible thoughts were coursing through my brain just barely outside my mind’s eyes. A moment of inactivity and I was afraid they would all come rushing forward. I couldn’t allow that to happen. If I let myself think about what that crazy bastard could be doing...

Jumping out of my chair, I started pacing. I wasn’t going anywhere but I had to do something to keep the thoughts at bay. It was on my third circuit of the room that I noticed a pile of file folders on a far table between the tech area and the conference table.

The names on the folders were obscure. Subject 18. S.O.I. M...something about that folder caught my attention. Flipping the front open, I saw a black and white picture of Molly staring back at me. As I flipped through the pages, I felt my barely contained fury overflowing.

“What the fuck is
this
?” The bellow made the techs jump and a few of the security guys put their hands instinctively on their guns. My father looked up sharply from his phone and quickly hung up. Moving over to me, he saw the folder I was looking at and his lips pursed.

“It’s background I had collected on your wife back when the two of you started dating. Subject 18 Subject Of Interest Molly.” The matter of fact way that he said it did little to curb my anger.

“And what the hell are you doing running a check on Molly?” My father stood his ground and met my eye.

“Protecting my son.” The fierce way that he said it took the wind out of my sails. “Joe...I knew nothing about this girl. All I knew was that you’d been through hell. If I had done the same thing with Jessica, you might have been spared a lot of heartache.”

Of all the things he could have said to me, nothing was more surprising. I’d assumed he wanted to make sure Molly wasn’t a gold digger. Or a drug addict. Or just an embarrassment to him in some way. Instead? He was looking out for me.

Dropping the file, I gestured to the rest of the folders on the table.

“Anything else I should know about?” He stepped over and pulled three files out of the pile.

“This one is background on your therapist, Dr. Greene. Quite a fellow. Did you know he was Magna Cum Laude? This one is on your employee, Francis. Quite the story there. He should write his autobiography. And this last one is on that boy, Nick.” He shook his head as if Nick was a problem child. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure that out. When he noticed my disapproving expression, he looked completely unapologetic.

“No real surprises on any of them. Obviously, Molly was clean. She’s an open book or I would have mentioned something to you. Based on our current situation you might want to have a look at her file. There’s a lot of information in there about her time with Draven Cirone.”

My eyebrow lifted and I open the file. I dropped into a chair and started reading. It was sickening to see the details of Molly’s life spelled out in black and white. They’d dug up all manner of public, and in some cases private, records. There were stories she’d told me about, and there were many details she’d never mentioned. A copy of an emergency room visit for her wrist sat next to copies of emails between her and Dan confessing her growing fear of Draven.