Dismember Page 18

  “Ma’am,” the stranger said, “I’m afraid—”

  Libby cut him off. “Give me Mike right now.” Her first thought was that both Mike and Trevor had been in a car accident. She’d hated that pickup of Mike’s since the day he bought it. It was untrustworthy, dangerous. If her website business had been any more lucrative, she’d have bought Mike a new vehicle herself and torched that truck until there was nothing left but a foul stench in the air and a mound of ashes on the ground.

  Although she hadn’t actually expected it, Mike’s voice came onto the line. “Lib?”

  “Mike. What’s going on?”

  “I was about to call you. You need to come up here,” he said.

  “Why? What’s happening?” A tear splashed against her wrist, and she realized she’d been crying.

  “It’s Trevor,” he said, and before he could go on, Libby dropped the phone and began pawing through her closet. She loosened the towel and let it drop to the floor, then stepped into a pair of panties and some jeans. She pulled on the first blouse she found.

  Trevor, she thought, wondering how much anguish a parent could possibly endure in any given day. She slipped on a pair of running shoes, skipped the socks. From the bed, she heard a squeaky voice. She hurried over and picked up the receiver.

  “I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” she said, knowing it was a forty-five minute drive. She hung up without waiting for a response and then ran.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  A deputy stood in the kitchen, peering at the broken glass like a mystic studying tea leaves, as if he thought he might divine some clue from the shape of the mess alone.

  A man in jeans and a t-shirt, who might have been a cop or a doctor or a lumberjack for all Mike knew, swabbed the knife wound in Mike’s hip. “You’re very lucky, Mr. Pullman,” he said in an almost nonexistent accent that might have been British or Irish. “Something like this could have been much more serious.”

  It’s just a booboo, Mike expected him to say, No big deal. Let’s get you a Big Bird band-aid.

  Mike sat on the couch with his pants around his ankles, his underwear pulled just beneath his thatch of pubic hair but still covering his penis and testicles. Barely. He looked at the third man across the room, the quiet, bearded deputy with the inch-long scar just beneath his eye who had answered the phone when Libby called. “Listen,” he said, “isn’t there something else we can be doing? I mean, that asshole’s got my son. We’re not gonna find him sitting around my living room playing doctor.”

  The man hovering over Mike’s lap huffed.

  Rather than answer Mike’s question, the bearded deputy, Willis, asked one of his own. “This man you say took your son, did he have a dog with him?”

  Mike shook his head, though not in answer to the question. “First of all, I don’t say he took my son, he did take him. They’re gone, and getting farther away every second. Did he have a dog? How the hell should I know? What kind of question is that? He had a knife and he had a foot the size of Texas. How’s that? Maybe if you get a sketch artist up here we can figure out what kind of sneakers he was wearing.”

  The bearded man stared through the living room window and never turned to Mike. “We think he might have had a dog,” he said to the window, “and if you would answer my questions, we’d be that much closer to finding your boy.” He seemed focused on something outside.

  Mike sighed and rubbed his face while the man on his knees before him continued his ministrations.

  “Okay,” he said after a minute. “I think I might have heard some barking, but I never saw a dog. I’m not even a hundred percent sure about the barking. With all the stabbing and kicks to the head, I might have been out of it a little.” Mike saw the deputy’s face reflected in the window, looking transparent, ghostly. The lawman smiled.

  “Of course, Mr. Pullman.”

  “What’s the deal with the dog?” Mike asked. “How does that help us?”

  Willis finally turned away from the window and came across the room. “Do you know a Bethany Winston?”

  “Beth—” Mike started and then nodded. “Yeah, I guess. She lives just down that way.” He gestured with his head. “Why? Did something happen?”

  Willis sat down on the edge of the coffee table, his holstered gun tapping against the tabletop and the leather of his utility belt creaking. “Bethany Winston was attacked earlier tonight,” he said simply and crossed his arms over his chest. “Guy stole her dog and cut her up a little.”

  “Cut…my God,” Mike said. “Is she okay?”

  “Will be,” Willis said. “She said the guy had a boy with him; little boy about her age.”

  The second deputy came in from the kitchen, looking unsatisfied, thumbs tucked into his belt and chewing at his bottom lip.

  Mike said, “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. Skinny kid, maybe eleven years old. He attacked the guy in my bedroom. I don’t think he was exactly here voluntarily.”

  “No,” said the deputy.

  The doctor, if he was one, poked at Mike, who hissed. “Easy,” he said. He turned back to Willis. “So what? You’re saying there’s two kidnapped kids?”

  The lip-chewing deputy, whose name Mike had already forgotten, opened his mouth to say something, but Willis held up a hand to him. “I’m not saying anything,” Willis said to Mike, “but that’s one possibility.”

  Mike didn’t want to ask about the other possibilities—he could figure those out for himself—but he did say, “Isn’t there something else we could be doing right now? If he’s out there, if my son is with that lunatic and there’s another boy with him, shouldn’t we be doing something?”

  “Trust me,” the deputy said, “we’re doing everything we can.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Libby raced the Honda down Mike’s driveway; it kicked up gravel and slid across the loose rocks for almost two feet after she finally applied the brakes. The car skidded to a stop beside and slightly behind a Ford Explorer emblazoned with the county name and the sheriff’s department’s emblem. Just one cruiser, no ambulances or fire trucks or any of that, but one was enough to mean something had happened.

  Libby slipped the car into park, pulled the keys from the ignition, and threw open her door so quickly she felt like she’d done all three things simultaneously. Halfway to the house, she noticed she’d left her headlights on and didn’t bother to go back. She had to get into the house, had to know what had happened to her baby.

  Her hair had dried funnily on the trip up, and it blew unevenly around her head, most of it on her left side and the top, only a few strands on the right and across her face. There was still beer on her breath, though the adrenaline pumping through her body seemed to have cancelled out the alcohol’s effect. She smelled the lingering bath salts on her skin and in her hair, but another smell hid just beneath, the smell of sweat and panic.

  On the porch, she didn’t bother knocking or ringing the doorbell but simply let herself in through the front door as if it were her own house and she had every right to do so—which in her mind, she did, given the circumstances.

  First she noticed the uniform: brown pants, khaki shirt, tie and hat to match the trousers, utility belt with holstered gun. The guy was Indiana Jones without the leather jacket or whip. At least outfit-wise he was. His face was bearded and scarred and a little pudgy.

  “Ms. Pullman?”

  Libby nodded and hurried into the room. Mike sat on the sofa beside a second deputy who held a pad of paper and a pen. The two of them looked up at her, and then Mike stood.

  His face was puffed and bruised, especially around his chin. He looked like he’d been in a barroom brawl.

  “What is it?” Libby asked him. “Where’s Trevor? What happened to your face?”

  Mike looked like he wanted to hug her, but she hoped he wouldn’t. She’d had enough undesired physical attention today. Right now, she needed facts, not hugs.

  Mike stayed at the couch, maybe seeing something in her eyes or her sta
nce that told him to keep his distance. He said, “He, uh…Trevor’s—”

  “Your son has been abducted,” the bearded deputy said from behind her.

  Libby turned to him. “What do you mean? Like by aliens?” It was a stupid question, and she hadn’t meant to ask it. She was barely thinking.

  The deputy smiled just a little, though he obviously tried not to, and said, “No, not by aliens. Your son has been kidnapped.” He added, “By a man.”

  Libby stared at him. Somehow, she hadn’t expected this. She’d thought Trevor had been the victim of some kind of accident, a fire, a brain aneurysm, maybe a bad fall. She’d never considered kidnapping.

  “What man?” she said and turned to Mike. “Who was it? Why would somebody take Trevor?”

  Mike shook his head. “I don’t know who it was or why he did it. He had another boy too, and a dog. You know Beth Winston?”

  Libby shook her head.

  “Well, she’s the neighbor girl downhill a ways. Apparently this same guy attacked her and stole her dog.”

  “What? He…why would he do that? Who’s the other boy?” she asked the room in general.

  The smaller deputy on the couch said, “We’re not sure yet. From what the Winston girl and your hu…ex-husband have told us, we suspect he might have been another kidnap.”

  Libby moved to the coffee table and plopped down on the edge of it, her hair flapping against her neck. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Ms. Pullman,” said the bearded deputy whose name tag Libby had not yet bothered to read, “I know this is all a little much, but I have a couple of questions to ask you.”

  “Me?” Libby looked at his name tag now. It read L. Willis. “What kinds of questions?”

  Rather than answer, Willis said, “Have you been seeing anyone recently, Ms. Pullman?”

  Libby gawked at him. “Have I…no, I haven’t. What’s that matter?”

  “No one?” Willis asked. “No regular boyfriend?”

  Libby thought of Marshall, who was most definitely not a regular boyfriend, who had started as a pity date and turned out to be a lecher. “No,” she told Willis. “There hasn’t been anyone since—” She trailed off and didn’t look at Mike.

  “I see,” said Willis. “I only ask because sometimes, when there are divorced parents involved, a kidnapped child turns up with one of the two of them.”

  “You think I have him?” Libby leaned to get up from the coffee table, but Mike put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  “Hold on a second,” he said. “I told you who took him. It was this guy with the boy.”

  Willis ignored Mike. To Libby, he said, “You never mentioned something to, say, a friend? Maybe that you wished you saw more of your boy? Or that you didn’t like him being up here.”

  Libby didn’t appreciate the way he’d said the word friend, wasn’t sure what, if anything, he was implying. “No.” She looked at the other deputy, who was writing on his pad again. “No, I never said anything like that.” Her fists clenched, and she forced her fingers to loosen.

  “You don’t wish you saw more of your boy?” Willis asked.

  “Well, of course I do. You’re twisting this all around. I love Trevor, but Mike is a good daddy to him, and I’d never try to take him away from here.”

  Willis nodded. “Okay.” He turned to Mike, his attitude changing so suddenly he seemed to be a different person. He said, “We’ve got additional units heading up right now. They’ll search the woods around your property and between here and the Winston’s place. But I have to be honest with you both. Until this guy calls, there’s not a lot more we can do.”

  “Calls?” Mike said. “What do you mean? Why would he call?”

  “Ransom,” said Willis. “We should assume he might call wanting money.”

  “We don’t have any money,” Libby said.

  “And even if we did,” Mike added, “I don’t think he wants it. If he wanted a ransom, he wouldn’t have tried to kill me.”

  “What?” Libby spun toward him.

  Mike said, “I…got stabbed.”

  Libby stared.

  “It’s nothing bad,” he said quickly. “Doctor fixed me up right here, didn’t have to take me to the hospital or anything, just told me to watch it for infection.”

  Libby’s head suddenly overflowed with questions. The first one to spill out was, “What doctor?”

  “He’s gone,” Mike answered, and Libby could tell from the tone of his voice that he’d explain it all to her later, that they had more important things to discuss now.

  “Well, then, you’re right,” said Libby. “He doesn’t want money.”

  “We don’t know that,” Willis added. “And if this isn’t a ransom situation, we’re going to have a tougher time finding Trevor. We’ll do what we can, of course. Prints, blood work, all that, and we’ll get you down to the station tomorrow to look through some mug shots,” he said to Mike. “Of course, this could end up in the hands of the state police, or with the feds if we find out Trevor’s out of the state. Things could still get a lot messier. Best thing we can do right now is wait and see what happens.”

  “That’s it?” Libby looked from man to man to man, saving Deputy Willis for last. “Can’t we bring in the dogs? Something like that?”

  “The sheriff’s department doesn’t have any dogs. By the time we could coordinate with the police to get some up here, it’d be too late. It’s probably too late already. Our guy didn’t go far on foot, probably had transportation waiting somewhere nearby. I’d guess he was already on the road by the time you got to your phone,” he said and looked at Mike. “To get a search party up here would take hours and be more expensive than it was worth. We’d barely be getting here ourselves if we hadn’t already been practically next door.”

  “That’s reassuring,” said Libby.

  Willis said, “That’s just the truth. We’ve got a lot of area to cover up here and not a lot of deputies to cover it. It’s better for everyone if we keep things realistic. But I promise you I will personally do everything in my power to make sure we bring your son back. Okay?”

  Libby wondered if Mike felt as helpless as she did. Trevor was gone. Again. And this time they wouldn’t find him in the restroom. If Libby had believed in fate, she might have thought she was meant to lose Trevor today. Except she didn’t, and fate hadn’t stabbed Mike and cut up a little girl and stolen two boys.

  “Once we’ve finished collecting our evidence and gone,” said Willis, “I’d suggest you two get some sleep. For the next couple of days, you’re going to need all the rest you can get.”

  Yeah right. You think I can curl up and take a nap while my baby is missing?

  Mike returned to his seat on the sofa and fingered his bruised face. After eight years of marriage, Libby had learned to read his body language and often knew his thoughts without him saying a word. Right now, she guessed he was wondering the same thing she was: while they waited, what might be happening to their son?

  TWENTY-SIX

  In the back of the bouncing truck, Trevor lay against the whining dog, facing the other boy, Zach.

  “Where’s he taking us?” Trevor asked.

  Zach shook his head. He didn’t know.

  “How long has he had you?”

  Zach said, “Just since today. I was at home this morning.”

  Trevor held the shirtsleeve to his forehead, trying to keep the button on the cuff from pressing into his wound. The dog’s tail wagged against his bare legs, his fur warm but the breeze from the movement chilly.

  “How did he catch me? Did you see?” The last thing Trevor remembered was hiding in Daddy’s workshop. He’d decided to run for the house, get to his daddy so they could fight off the bad guy together. But one second he’d started to run and the next he’d found himself in the back of the truck with a dog and a boy he’d never seen before.

  Zach looked at him a long time, so long Trevor thought he either didn’t know or didn’t want to
answer, and finally he said, “He ran after you. He caught you and spun you around and busted you on the head with some stick.”

  Trevor said, “He musta busted me good.” He shifted the pad a little and pressed down hard again.

  “Yeah,” said the other boy.

  The truck slowed, and Trevor heard the blinker. He tried to sit up, to see what lay ahead, but the motion of the turn sent him tumbling back to the truck’s bed before he could get his head up more than just a little.

  Zach had something small and plastic in his hand. Trevor had only just noticed. “What’s that?”

  Zach had been staring intently at the thing. Now he looked up at Trevor. “My mom’s cell phone,” he said. “But there’s no service. I’ve been checking it every once in a while. No luck so far.” He pushed on one of the phone’s buttons until it beeped, then flipped the thing shut and shoved it in his pocket. “Dang it.”

  “Maybe later,” Trevor said.

  Zach only shook his head.

  Trevor tried to think of something else to say. “What’s the doggy’s name?” he finally asked, shivering from the breeze blowing across the open top of the truck bed and down among the three of them.

  “He calls him Manny,” said Zach, “but I don’t think that’s really his name.”

  “Why not?”

  Zach shrugged. “He calls me Georgie. He said I used to be Zach but now I’m Georgie. He’s crazy.”

  Trevor nodded. He turned onto his other side and petted the dog’s head. Slow, friendly petting. The doggy accepted it with another wag of his tail and leaned over to lick Trevor on his ear.

  “Good doggy,” Trevor said and smiled. Behind him, Zach said something he couldn’t hear. He flipped over again. “What?”

  “—said maybe we should try and jump out,” Zach repeated, the words gobbled up by the sound of the truck only a little this time.

  Trevor shook his head. “We’d get killed,” he said. “For sure. I saw this movie once where a guy tried to jump out of a car to save himself but he got killed instead.” He continued shaking his head. “Plus, what about the doggy?”