Vanished (3 page)

She had texted him that morning, wanting him to walk the
bike path with her. Now, she had typed. A G-BY PICNIC.

IMPOSSIBLE, he typed back. GROUNDED.

And it had been impossible until she'd cooked up the
McDonald's story and got someone to impersonate Mr. Wakefield. Jasmine knew how to make things happen.

As she walked toward him, Ben shivered. Even in this heat
Jasmine wore her dark curls down instead of in a ponytail or
piled on her head. Maybe that was for the better. Something
about seeing the sweat running down the back of her neck
made his knees wobble.

Her lips were full and her cheeks round with a dimple on
the left side. Her skin was nut-brown from the sun. Her orange
tube top showed off the gold heart in her belly button, and her
short shorts barely covered her backside. She carried a knapsack on one shoulder, its weight pulling her off center.

Ben wore jean shorts and a white tee under his Celtics
shirt. Better to be a dork than show off his chicken chest and
stringy arms.

"`Sup?" he said, trying to sound smooth. No manual existed
for street slang. Either you knew it or you were a loser. Ben had no illusions about which category he fit. Was it possible jasmine
had seen past the glasses and scrawny build? Could she actually
like him?

She slipped her knapsack onto his left shoulder. "Nice day
for a picnic."

"So we really are having a picnic?" He had assumed she was
kidding, that she needed his help on legal stuff. Her mother
didn't speak a word of English and depended on jasmine to
decipher the Section 8 and MassHealth paperwork. Jasmineand a whole bunch of other kids-depended on him to navigate
them through the tricky waters of government services.

His mother called it his ministry, but Ben knew it for what
it really was. A way to buy safety and acceptance on the mean
streets of the Flats.

Jasmine smiled, crinkling her eyes at the corners. "Of course
it's a picnic. You and me. You're the man, so you get to carry
the knapsack."

Yes, I finally am the man, Ben wanted to bellow. "Where
are we going?"

"The Circle."

From the outside, the Circle looked beautiful. The bushes
formed a natural canopy, hiding the chain link and razor wire
protecting the cement blockhouse with its access stairwell to
the tunnels far below. During the day, only squirrels or the
Quanta engineers went into those bushes. At night, the junkies
and prostitutes took over the area. Not Ben's first choice as a
picnic grove.

"We should go over to Hubbard Park."

"Too far."

"It's only a half mile past the Circle. We could sit in the
grass next to the water. Stick our toes in." The image of her
bare feet in the water made it hard for him to breathe. What
a total dork he was.

Jasmine pulled away. "Did I say I wanted to go to Hubbard?
I told you, I need to go to the Circle."

"Need to?"

She snuggled back against him. "Need to because I want to. I
go up there all the time."

He stiffened. "With whom?"

"Why do you do that?"

"What?"

Jasmine wrinkled her nose. "Say whom instead of who."

"It's proper English," Ben said.

"It marks you. You live in the Flats like the rest of us, but up
here..." She danced her fingers across his forehead. "Up here
you live in Geeksville."

"Where else would I live?" he asked, annoyed. "I am a
geek."

"But you're my geek. And I'll prove it to you once we get
to the Circle."

"What's in the knapsack, Jazz?"

"Stuff for the picnic, Benjie." She insisted on calling him
that, even though his name was Benedict, not Benjamin. But
that movie dog is so cute, she'd say, and ruffle his hair.

He wasn't feeling so cute right about now. A queasy dread
replaced the heat in Ben's belly. "Stuff? Like what, exactly?"

"Um ... OK. Peanut butter and jelly. That's what."

Ben slipped the knapsack off his shoulder and fumbled for
the zipper. "I'm hungry. Maybe I'll have some right now."

Jasmine lifted the pack back onto his shoulders and slipped
her arm between the straps and his chest, effectively locking the
pack in place. "Chill, baby. We'll dig in up at the Circle."

A kid whizzed by on a bike and hooted at them, "Get a
room, suckers."

Other than that, the bike path was silent. The trees planted
on either side were still too new to cast much shade. Even so,
this was a place where a guy could disconnect from the Flats for a mile or so. Pretend that the paved path would take him
to a still place where the breezes ran cool. A quiet place where
pretty girls didn't lug drugs and pretend they were peanut
butter and jelly.

"You're using me as your mule," Ben whispered.

"You watch too much TV." Jasmine tossed her head, her
hair catching sunlight. The dimple where her collarbones met
looked impossibly soft.

"Answer me. Are there drugs in here?"

Jasmine sighed dramatically. "Look, man. This is no big deal.
Some dude is paying me a couple hundred to drop the knapsack off at the Circle, that's all. Happens every day. And don't
pretend you don't know that."

"No. No way." Ben tried to jerk away. Her hand through the
straps held him fast.

"Please, Benjie, I gotta do this. I owe some people."

"Fine. Do what you have to. Just leave me out of it."

Tears welled in her eyes. "I need you."

Ben scanned the path, worried one of the bike cops would
come by. "Why?"

"Because I'm sixteen. There's paper on me."

Possession of pot, she had told him a few weeks back. A
talking-to from the judge and probation. Small potatoes for kids
from the Flats, but things had a way of adding up. "Why me?"

"Because you're fifteen and clean. Something goes wrong,
nothing sticks to you."

His stomach churned. "Is something going to go wrong?"

"It's a dumb knapsack. We leave it and book out of there.
That simple."

"I don't know, jazz. Sounds too easy."

"These people I owe? Bad news, Benjie. If I can't pay them
back in money, they're gonna take it another way. You wouldn't
want that to happen to me, would you?"

"No, of course not." The thought of jasmine being treated
like that almost brought Ben to his knees.

"We'll drop this off and go on to Hubbard. I'll thank you
properly when we get there."

"Who hired you to do this?"

"Some guy named Luther." Jasmine tugged at him. "Come on,
we gotta walk or someone will think we're up to something."

"How'd you meet up with this Luther?"

"Cannon hooked us up."
"

"Cannon? You're trusting some dude Cannon knows?"

I thought you was tight with him."

"Doesn't mean I trust his judgment," Ben said. "He keeps
some sketchy company."

"Which is why he does good business." Jasmine shimmied
her hips. "All about the connections, baby."

"I don't know..."

"Can't you just man up, Benjie? For me?"

A real man would demand she go to the cops. But if this
Luther was a heavyweight, Cannon, Jasmine, and Ben would
all end up with lead in their heads. Even if the dude was a
small-money, it would come back on Cannon and jasmine in a
bad way. Who was this Luther anyway? Cannon always threw
names around, but he'd never mentioned this one.

"I swear you'll be safe. Except..." Jasmine brushed his lips
with hers. "...from me."

Ben's blood went from zero to exponential in an instant. He
couldn't think past why not. This was his last day here. Why not
make it something he'd remember for a long time?

HESE SECRET SERVICE GUYS MUST TRAIN LIKE MOUNTAIN
goats, Logan thought.

He cycled the paths at least once every shift and
walked the rest of the time. Without Kimmie to rush home
to after work, he was in the gym every evening. Taking his
frustration out on the bag, pounding his fists on leather
instead of Carlton Reynolds's face.

Hiking up North Spire Boulevard, he poured sweat while
Pappas wasn't even breathing hard. It was midmorning, but the
sun blazed beyond hot. The dog days of August had emptied the
area of traffic, folks taking seriously the weatherman's admonition to go to the beach.

Too hot for trouble-just how Logan liked it. He stopped,
uncorked his water bottle. "Thought you were interested in the
Circle. What are we doing up here?"

Pappas wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Perspective. We have satellite imagery, of course, but nothing
beats eyeballing a location. Tell me what I'm looking at."

Though they had walked only half a mile, the steepness of
North Spire yielded a good view of the two bike paths and their
intersection in the rotary. In the Circle, a mass of lofty rhododendrons and azaleas hid the access stairway to the trains.

All that leafy cover gave Logan the creeps. Let the
muckety-mucks from Quanta crawl in under those branches
and drag out some meth head who'd OD'd or some drunk who'd passed out in his own vomit. They'd be paving the
whole thing over the next day.

Logan pointed to his left. "Down there to the east and southeast are the Flats. Triple deckers, strip malls, some warehouses,
a couple old factories. The free clinic."

"Typical old Northeast city."

"You could say that."

Logan gazed at the clinic, thinking about Kaya de los Santos
packing up to leave Barcester. She'd be missed in the Flats.
Framingham was three towns over-she had promised to come
back every Thursday for the divorce support group. But those
kinds of promises were seldom kept.

"Over there?" Pappas pointed at the only high-rise in the
vista.

"That's the John F. Kennedy public housing. Everyone calls it
the Tower. The place has its own security and crawls with narcs.
Even your ATF guys go under on occasion, but..."

"Nothing seems to work."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't need to."

Logan bristled. "For all the lowlifes, there're ten times as
many good people in the Flats. They lead honest lives and raise
their kids to do the same."

Pappas raised his hands in appeasement. "Hey, man. I'm not
here to judge."

Logan clenched his fist, startled by the rush of anger that
made him want to punch out the guy. Not here to judge-that
was a lie. Pappas's presence in Barcester meant the Flats had
already been judged as dangerous. Just for being what it was
and who its people were.

Just as Logan had been judged.

Two weeks ago a technician had swabbed the inside of his
mouth. He had been assigned a number, and his anonymous sample sent to some distant lab, along with the slime from Carlton
Reynolds's mouth and a sample from Kimmie and Hilary.

Logan had been unraveled and inspected at the deepest part
of his being, all the way down to the level of his DNA. Judged
and found lacking.

Today Carlton Reynolds would receive his own letter, special
delivery and signature required. Would he be thrilled if his
letter read positive for paternity, or was Kimmie just the price of
admission to Hilary Sousa Logan? A judge had granted Hilary
temporary custody, ruling that a stay-at-home mother-even
staying in someone else's home-could provide a more stable
environment than a hardworking cop.

"You OK?" Pappas said.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You're flushed, that's all."

"It's steamin' hot out here."

Pappas nodded at the rocky cliffs that bordered North Spire.
"What's up there?"

"The Ledges. Highest spot in this part of the state. The only
idiots that venture to the top are rock climbers. Further up the
Boulevard is the airport. The runways take off over the cliffs.
Kinda dicey if you ask me, but we've never had a crash."

Pappas scanned the area, snapping photos and speaking
into a tiny recorder on his wrist. Logan suppressed the urge
to pat the small gun and notepad in his back pocket. Talk
about a dinosaur.

"Over there? That's quite a contrast." Pappas pointed northwest at the stately homes nestled under leafy oak canopies.

"That's Walden Estates. A gated community. Less than a mile
from the Flats, but it might as well be a million."

Kimmie was there now, behind the high walls that set
Walden apart from-and above-Barcester. It had taken every
ounce of Logan's strength to say good-bye to her this morning. Reynolds's restraining order against him meant Logan's mother
had to drive Kimmie back and forth for their weekend visits.

Must be nice to be able to buy a judge with a packet of lies
and a bigger packet of promises. Guy's a cop. Quick temper,
quick with the fists. He's made threats.

Logan was lucky to even have a job after Reynolds's attorney
got done with the accusations. He probably would be on desk
duty if anyone else on the force wanted the substation job.

Ma said Kimmie had run to Marita with a big hug. Great
that she had a connection with her nanny, though why Hilary
needed one when she didn't work was just another thorn in
his side.