Taken (21 page)

H
e’s not the one. That’s obvious to me the moment he opens the door. Too big, not the right age, and he doesn’t move like the man who abducted my son. And if there was any doubt, his voice confirms it. He’s not Bruce, not even close.

We’re in Sussex, which bills itself as “The Nicest Small Town In America.” No argument from me. It’s the sort of place I think of as Old Connecticut, far removed both in miles and mind-set from the towns and cities within commuting distance of New York. A quiet little riverfront village with a mix of lovingly restored colonial-era homes and a few quirky-looking buildings that had been patched together over the centuries, without help or guidance from
Architectural Digest.
That’s not to say that developers haven’t had their way here and there, among the slightly precious shops and inns, but I can’t imagine upscale destinations like Greenwich or Fairfax allowing a giant plastic groundhog to be featured in the main square. The locals apparently have great affection for Sussex Sam, and parade him around on Groundhog Day. It’s late in the month of June and Sussex Sam is still there in the square, wearing his jaunty plastic top hat and searching for his shadow.

A few crucial blocks from the waterfront, and thus far free from renovation, there stands a row of wooden, three-story tenement buildings, sheathed in dented aluminum siding. We’ve located Lieutenant Michael Vernon, U.S. Army (Ret.) on the third floor of the middle building, where he lives with his wife and son in a four-room apartment that smells of sour milk and boiled potatoes.

According to the information from Shane’s source at the Pentagon, Lieutenant Michael Vernon is forty-one years of age, but he looks ten years older, and his broad-shouldered, linebacker’s physique has sagged a bit over the years. Thinning red hair, close-cropped, and the kind of freckled skin that eventually shows serious sun damage. A big brawl of a man with forearms like Popeye. He’s not entirely clear on why we’ve sought him out, but seems glad to have company on a summer evening, and makes us welcome.

“Family Finders, huh? Yeah, I knew they went bankrupt or whatever. One time when things were bad Cathy and I talked to a lawyer about suing the bastards. Pardon me, miss. But you know what I mean. Anyhow, it was too late. Nobody left to sue.”

Shane and I have been offered seats on the plush green sofa, which is relatively new, unlike anything else in the apartment.

“Gift from my mother-in-law,” Lieutenant Vernon explains. “Couple months ago she plops down and a broken spring bites her in the butt. Next day a delivery truck pulls up. Hell, if I knew that’s all it took I’d have bitten her in the ass myself. Pardon me, miss. No offense intended.”

“None taken,” I respond.

His wife, Cathy, is a special-needs teacher at the local middle school, so he stays home to look after Mike Junior. “Not my idea to name him after me,” he says. “That was Cathy. You guys want some iced tea? ’Scuse my saying so, but it’s hot as a bitch in here.”

Iced tea would be great. There’s no air-conditioning and the windows are screwed shut because this is the third floor and Mike Junior has a habit of lurching out of open windows.

“He’s not really trying to jump,” Lieutenant Vernon explains. “He just sort of rocks forward, you know, like they do, and if he loses his balance, out he goes.”

The black-haired, olive-skinned boy has been relegated to his bedroom while Daddy talks with the nice man and woman. The handsome little boy went willingly enough—it’s obvious he enjoys pleasing his father—but every minute or so he makes a high-pitched shriek that startles all of us, even his father, who knows to expect it.

“He’s just playing. That’s the voice he uses when he’s playing with his toys. Tea okay? Good. Now, how can I help you?”

Shane explains that my son has been abducted, and that the kidnapping may have had something to do with Family Finders.

“Your kid got snatched? No shit. Sorry, Mrs.—what is it again? Brickyard?”

“Call me Kate,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about swearwords, Mr. Vernon. I’m not offended by salty language.”

That makes him chuckle. “Salty language? That’s the marines. I was army, we just plain cuss. Anyhow, Kate, you please call me Mike, okay? Around here they call me Big Mike so as not to confuse me with the boy, but just plain Mike is fine.”

“You were Special Forces?” Shane asks.

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“The tattoo.”

“Oh, yeah.” Big Mike glances at his massive forearm, as if he’d forgotten the image of the unsheathed dagger inked into his skin. “Ancient history now. I got out five years ago on a hardship, because of Mike Junior. Had him in a special-needs school for a while, but really it doesn’t work for him, having all those other kids around. With Little Mikey, you got to control his environment, make him feel safe and secure. Then he’s fine. Really, he’s a great kid.”

From the bedroom, the boy shrieks. I’ve begun to recognize that the shrieks do indeed have a playful quality. And I’ve decided that Big Mike Vernon is a thoroughly decent man for staying home with the boy, and for speaking about him with such obvious patience and affection.

“Maybe we could start at the beginning,” Shane suggests. “How did you establish contact with Family Finders?”

Big Mike shrugs. “Cathy wanted a baby, that’s how it started. We’d been hitched for what, five years, and no luck. Something about her plumbing. ’Scuse me, Kate. Woman troubles. Anyhow, I was fine with that, but she wasn’t. Really wanted to have a baby, it was all she thought about, raising a kid. Army isn’t real big on fertility therapy because it’s so costly, but what they had we tried. Didn’t work. We talked about adopting and that seemed like a good idea, so we put ourselves on the list with our church organization, you know? Only there aren’t a lot of babies up for free adoption. Couple years went by. Then I’m on this temporary assignment and there’s a guy in the unit, a captain, he’s a pretty good guy and it turns out we both married Connecticut girls, so we had that general connection. Turns out and he and his wife have just adopted the cutest little baby boy you ever saw. So I ask him how he did it and he told me about Family Finders, up there in Pawtucket. Said all it took was cold hard cash. Not a lot of paperwork and no long waiting lists, if you didn’t mind adopting a brown-skinned baby.”

“What did they tell you about your son’s background?” I ask. “Anything about his birth parents?”

“Nah, not really. That’s supposed to be a secret, unless the birth mother wants to make contact. Which they assured me she wouldn’t do. And it’s not like we wanted the mother coming in a month later, taking him back.”

“No,” I agree. “Of course not.”

“Just between us chickens, I formed the impression the mother might have been a prostitute. Cathy didn’t pick that up—didn’t want to think about it—but I been stationed in places not a whole lot different than San Juan. Young women, girls, they get roped into the life because they’re poor, it don’t mean they’re bad people. Anyhow, the main thing you worry about with a baby from a situation like that is if the mother passes on a disease. Syphilis or HIV or whatever. But Mikey was clean. Whatever’s wrong, it’s not something they can find in his blood. Not that it would have mattered, long run.”

“Why is that?” Shane wants to know.

“You adopt a kid, he’s yours, for better or worse. You don’t give him back because he’s not perfect.”

“No.”

“I’m not saying we didn’t freak out when we realized something was wrong with Mikey. But by then he was part of the family. So you deal with it. You do whatever is necessary.”

“Of course. Did this fellow officer, did his son have problems, too?”

Big Mike slowly shakes his head. “Nope. They lucked out. Kid was perfect, far as I know. Smart and healthy and, you know, a normal kind of kid. ’Course, I haven’t seen them in years, not since I left active service.”

“But the child was adopted through the same agency?”

“Yep. That’s how we got onto it. Cathy had ten grand from her dead aunt, and that’s exactly how much they charged. The captain, I think he paid a little more.”

“Could you tell us how to get in touch with the captain, if we have any further questions?”

“I can tell you his name,” Big Mike says. “Cutter. Captain Stephen Cutter. ’Course, he might have been promoted since then. Maybe he made colonel. Guy was smart, a real brain.”

Shane flips open his notebook, grunts, and uses his thumb to indicate one of the names he’d scrawled down.
Captain S. Cutter, 23 Crestview, New London
.

“The captain have a tattoo?” Shane wants to know.

Big Mike has to think about it. “Good possibility. Most of the officers got ’em, in those units. Unit cohesion and all that good stuff.”

“He built like you?” Shane asks.

Mike grins. “Nah. Not many are. No real advantage to being a big guy in Special Ops. Harder to be stealthy, sneak up on the enemy. The cap, he’s about average size. And like I say, a real smart guy, too, which I guess is why he made captain.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Vernon. You’ve been a big help.”

“Can’t see why. How’s this all connected to Family Finders, anyhow?”

“We’re not sure,” says Shane.

“But you think it was an army guy grabbed him, huh? That’s why the question about the tattoo?”

“We’re not sure. Just running down leads.”

“’Cause the cap, he’s not the type to be stealing kids, my opinion. Very stable guy, devoted to his family and all. His wife now, that’s another matter.”

Shane instantly perks up, as do I.

“How so?”

Mike taps his big, freckled forehead. “Poor woman is a little off. The cap was always very protective of her, but you pick up on things like that.”

“You think she has mental problems?”

He shrugs. “Just off, someways. Real nervous and flighty in this dreamy sort of way. Never let the kid out of her sight, I’ll tell you that, like maybe he’d vanish if she couldn’t see him for even a minute.” He notes my crestfallen expression and adds, “Sorry, miss. No offense.”

At the door he says, “I’d walk you down, but Mikey, he gets upset if you leave him alone. Likes to know there’s someone in the house.”

“We’ll be fine.”

He hesitates, looks worried. “You know what? Probably I shouldn’t have mentioned about the wife being a little off. Everybody’s got their own problems. So if you see the cap, you just tell him Big Mike says hello, okay?”

By the time we get downstairs the sky has clouded over, looks like thunderstorms rolling in from the west.

“Next stop New London?” I ask Shane.

“Absolutely. We’ll cruise by, see if anybody’s home,” he says. “Interesting, that part about the wife. This could be the one.”

“I’ll know him when I see him up close, when I hear his voice. I realize that now.”

“Good,” he says. “I’ve got a strong feeling that things are starting to break our way, Kate.”

“You know what? Me, too. For the first time in days I really feel good about this. We’re going to find Tommy.”

Shane takes my hand, gives it a reassuring squeeze. “The next few hours are going to be crucial. I want you to be very, very careful. This man, whoever he turns out to be, he won’t hesitate to kill.”

“I’ll be careful. You be careful, too.”

“Always,” he says with a grin. “That’s my motto.”

I’m thinking that I’ve known Randall Shane for less than a week, but already we’re so comfortable in each other’s company that it’s like we’re old friends. Is it because we’ve been thrown together under incredible stress and pressure, or is there something else going on?

A voice hails us from the doorway to the apartment building. Big Mike Vernon stands on the steps with his son, who clings to his hand. “Mikey decided he wanted to say goodbye to the nice lady,” he explains.

The boy shrieks gleefully, then buries his face in his father’s ample midriff, as if hiding from the world.

We wave and turn away. Spatters of cool rain hit my face, and thunder rumbles in the distance.

“God is bowling,” I say. “Tenpins in heaven.”

“What?”

“My mother used to say that.”

“Uh-huh. We need the rain, I guess.”

We’re crossing the street when a car pulls out from the curb. I’m not really paying attention, other than to note that it’s silver or gray, and looks like a new model. Shane, however, is alert, and that’s the only reason I’m alive, because when the car suddenly accelerates with a screech of rubber, he scoops me up in his long, strong arms, and flings me out of the way.

I land on my back and get the wind knocked out of me, and sense the
whoosh
of the tires just missing my head. But there’s a horrible sound of flesh on metal, and then Shane is flying over the hood, spinning through the air, and he comes to earth with a sickening crunch, headfirst.

Behind me, Mike is shouting, but I’m not really paying attention. All I can think about is Randall Shane, and the blood, and the way he lies as still as death.

F
our miles from the scene of the hit-and-run, with sirens keening in the distance, Cutter pulls into the breakdown lane, opens the door and pukes his guts out, spattering the pavement. Not because he’s revolted by what he’s done—assault with a motor vehicle is a whole lot less visceral than slitting an enemy’s throat—but because he lost control of the situation. Because he allowed himself to react without thinking.

He’d been parked there at the curb, engine quietly ticking over, debating whether or not to be on his way. So far as he was aware, no one in Sussex had any connection to him. Whoever Supermom was visiting up there, it was not likely to be anyone who could point her in the right direction. She and her hired hand were spinning their wheels. Maybe the tall, lanky dude was intentionally running up the bill, taking her on wild-goose chases for billable hours. Wouldn’t be the first time that lawyers and private dicks conspired to strip a client of assets.

Almost made him feel sorry for the lady.

And then, incredibly, just as Mrs. Bickford and company were about to leave, a familiar figure had appeared in the entrance of the tenement building. It took precisely one heartbeat for Cutter to recognize Big Mike Vernon—hadn’t seen the guy in eight years—and to understand with sickening finality that all his elegant survival plans had just been blown sky high.

If they knew enough to seek out and question Mike, then they were already onto him, or soon would be.

In that moment he simply reacted, pedal to the metal. He’d felt the collision, seen the investigator airborne, flying over the fender, but was less certain about the woman. Maybe he’d hit her, maybe not. Didn’t dare turn around and attempt to finish the job, not with Big Mike present and screaming for the cops. The guy looked huge and slow, but the glacial appearance was deceptive. When he had to move, Mike was more than capable. Best to flee the scene before the cavalry arrived.

Not that killing Mrs. Bickford would put the cork back in the bottle anyhow. The knowledge was out there, no doubt already passed on to lawyers and prosecutors and various law enforcement agencies. He had to face the fact that for all his elaborate precautions, he’d somehow been identified, that cops would be looking for him in the next few hours. So, a major alteration in the plans. The surgery would proceed, of course—there was no turning back from that—but he had to stop entertaining the notion that he’d be able to return to his life as a devoted father, that they’d all live happily ever after, he and Lyla and Jesse.

Wasn’t going to happen. The ever-after was already here.

You’re a dead man,
he tells himself.
Deal with it
.

After rinsing out his mouth with a bottle of warm springwater, Cutter takes a deep breath and carefully maneuvers the Caddy back into traffic. Have to ditch the vehicle at the first opportunity. But not before he returns to the boatyard. Not before he prepares Mrs. Bickford’s boy for what must come.

Sad but true. The boy has to be sacrificed. Tomas will be sedated—Cutter doesn’t wish to cause him any discomfort—and then at the appropriate moment an ice pick will render him brain dead, and he will begin the short journey to the end of his life.

When Ted passed away I was sitting in the hospital cafeteria, sipping a cup of coffee, munching on a chocolate-chip cookie and mindlessly watching CNN. Talking heads jabbering about politics or crime or maybe something inane, who knew, since the volume was blessedly down. And I was having trouble holding a coherent thought in my head, not having slept in more than twenty-four hours. Ted had been through about four crash codes in that time period, but when I’d left him he’d been resting peacefully, and it was my intention to return to his bedside and stay with him for however long it took, days or weeks, it didn’t matter. That’s what I tried to tell myself. The truth is that knowing he was dying didn’t mean I was ready for it to actually happen. Just as I hadn’t been willing to accept that his form of lymphoma was a death sentence.

At first I’d wanted him home, made comfortable with hospice care, so it would happen in familiar surroundings, but he’d said no. Afraid of spooking Tommy by letting death into house. If the boy were older and could comprehend what was going on, maybe, but how would a child react at four? Why risk inflicting more trauma than necessary? Ted wanted Tommy to remember him alive and happy, not in pain and dying. Best to stay under medical supervision, where they knew what to do, how to cope with the terminal cases.

Trouble was,
I
didn’t know how to cope. And to this day I’m convinced that Ted chose his moment, sending me away for coffee and a cookie while he prepared to leave his poor, ruined body.

Randall Shane is different, but somehow the same. Not a husband or a lover, but most definitely a friend. And here I am, keeping vigil, at least for a few precious minutes.

“Mrs. Brickyard?”

It feels silly and a bit stupid answering to the wrong name—must have been Mike Vernon’s doing, as they loaded Shane into the ambulance—but I can’t bring myself to correct the E.R. doctor, just in case he’s been tuned in to the local news.

The man in the white coat looks a bit like Doogie Howser, M.D., but he’s all business, with none of Doogie’s sympathetic bedside manner. Only on TV, I guess. Impossible to say what he’s about to impart, as his expression gives nothing away.

“I’m Dr. Vance,” he announces, then checks his notes before continuing. “Mr. Shane is badly concussed, as we assumed.”

“He’s alive?”

“The patient hasn’t regained consciousness, but vital signs are stable for the moment. Head injuries, these first few hours, are crucial. We’ll be monitoring his condition, ready to intervene if his brain swells.”

“The way he hit, I thought sure he broke his neck.”

“X-rays showed no serious damage to the spinal column,” the doctor says, ticking off the injury list. “Most of his ribs are broken. Various scrapes and cuts. Let me see…his kidneys may be bruised. He sustained a hairline skull fracture that may eventually require surgery. We’ll make that decision later. Are you next of kin, by any chance?” he asks, indicating his medical notes.

“There are no next of kin, as far as know.” I fumble in my purse for Mario Savalo’s business card and give him her number, which he dutifully writes down.

“And Ms. Savalo would be?”

“His employer. May I see him?”

“If you like. I must warn you, Mr. Shane is nonresponsive. What we’d expect at this juncture, with a severe blow to the cranium. Oh. The police are on the way. They’ll want to interview you about the accident. I understand it was a hit-and-run.”

“Yes, it was. I’ll be in the ICU if anybody needs me. Thank you, Dr. Vance.”

He nods, walks away, on to the next patient.

Shane is barely recognizable. Every aspect of his face is swollen and misshapen, including his ears, scrapped raw on the pavement and now tinted with green antiseptic. I’d been expecting to see his poor head swaddled in bandages, but the ICU nurse explains that it’s best to leave the scalp stitches exposed for the time being. The hair has been shaved away around the scalp wound, making it look even more vulnerable.

“He’s breathing on his own,” I observe.

“Mr. Shane is getting oxygen,” the nurse says. “That little tube in his nose.”

“But no respirator.”

“Not unless he needs it.”

“That’s a good sign, no respirator.”

“Very good,” agrees the nurse.

I slip my hand into his, give it a squeeze, hoping for some sort of instinctive response. His hand is cool, dry, and does not respond.

“That doesn’t mean anything one way or the other,” the nurse says, trying to be helpful. “Think of him as being deeply asleep.”

“He’d like that,” I say.

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind. His belongings?”

“In the plastic bag, hanging from the bed.”

Shane’s notes are spattered with blood but legible.

“I’ll give these to the police,” I explain. “It may help.”

Then I kiss his swollen lips and leave.

I’m lying about the police. My son is still out there. I can’t risk being detained. I can’t even wait to see if Randall Shane is going to live, but as I hurry from the hospital I know one thing for sure. He’d understand.