Feral (4 page)

W
hen Jared returned home from the hospital Anna was gone, and barely a week later their mail-order divorce ensued.
 
He didn't contest it, they had no children, and she wanted nothing from him. Even before Winter fired him she was the big breadwinner of the two.
 
He never had to face her in court; he filed the paperwork and it was over.
 
He hadn't heard from her since.

He never heard back from Lillian either.
 
The only lasting legacy from his fling with her, ironically enough, was the inability to fuck.

Lucky, Anna's pet name for
it
once upon a time, had unlearned all its best tricks.
 
No more
stand up
,
roll over
, or
shake hands
. All Lucky did now was play dead.
 
Nerve damage, mechanical failure, or good old-fashioned psychological scarring—it could have been any or all.
 
Either way, it came to the same thing.
 
No more roaming—Jared was one well-neutered dog.

Still, after almost a year of no boom-boom, his libido had not diminished.

As he returned home from the night shift at
Aljo
Security, he debated: start that paperback he'd been eyeballing for the past few weeks, one of Shannon's detective novels, or watch a skin flick.
 
By the time he walked through the front door of the house he now shared with his sister instead of his wife, he had settled on the skin flick.

All amorous thoughts vanished when he saw Shannon sitting, eyes wide and staring, in a chair in the middle of the living room.
 
Laid out on the old sofa before her was a girl of about nine, haggard and sleeping badly.
 
For a second Jared thought it was his dead niece, Alicia.

G
ordon Chambers slept, parked at a rest area along side of Washington 95.
 
His dreams were short little horror movies, punctuated by the sound of the occasional big rig and other infrequent night traffic.
 
Sleep came in bits and pieces, making the short rest stretch an eternity, and when the sun rose, he felt more drained than before.
 
He lay back in his Mazda's reclined seat for a while and watched the Cedar skyline through the car's bug-flecked windshield.
 
It shifted from violet, to orange, to powder blue.

Oregon was behind him now; Eugene, Salem, Portland, and The
Dalles
, all left in his proverbial dust.
 
Gordon had crossed The Columbia River in the black of night, scarcely aware in his exhaustion.
 
He'd fought sleep grimly since his last pit stop outside of Portland, almost running off the road minutes after crossing into Washington.
 
The decision to stop and rest was made grudgingly.

The rising sun slowly burned his lethargy away and the urgency of his trip returned.

He stepped out of his car, flinching at the bright flashes reflecting off its hood, and stretched as he walked to the restroom.
 
He peed, washed his hands, his face, then stuck his head under the running water.
 
The chill of the early June morning and the cold water did their job.
 
He pulled a comb quickly through his thinning blond hair, and with a grimace at his reflection decided he was as ready as he would ever be.

As he walked to his car a mini-van parked beside it and a family of five spilled from its open doors—a husband and wife, both older than him, and three children.
 
The youngest climbed clumsily from the side door; she could not have been over three.

Gordon stopped, eyes fixed on the toddler.
 
He watched her struggle for the ground.
 
She made small, aggravated sounds, and let out a shout of triumph when her feet found the blacktop.
 
He stood there, staring at her, and when her parents noticed him and exchanged anxious looks, he made himself get into the car and drive.

He drove for the next few hours with her bright face burned into his mind's eye.

H
e made another pit stop in Yakima—pumped gas, peed again, and drank more bad coffee.
 
He hadn't showered in two days; he felt like crap, looked worse, and his smell was wilting.
 
Outside, the morning air had abandoned its comfortable chill.
 
It was oppressive, heavy, so laden with moisture you could almost drink it.
 
By the time he made it to his car he was sweating.

One hundred and fifty miles to go.

On the highway again, Gordon let himself zone out.
 
He saw nothing but the blacktop.
 
Unaware, he began to rub at the long scar that ran from the top of his right cheekbone to his jaw.
 
He saw himself doing it in the rearview mirror and forced his hand back to the wheel.
 
It was an old scar, but deep—a jagged ashen line that roughened his profile, adding more years to his face than the three days of stubble he wore.
 
A woman he had dated many years ago said that the scar was sexy, that it made him look like a scrapper.
 
He had turned down her invitation to take her home that night, and had not called her again.

Gordon was all but blind to the world outside his own head, his thoughts centered on a daughter he hadn't seen in six years, and despite all his best efforts, would probably never see again.

A
mber had left him six years ago and taken his baby, his Charity, with her.

He had been hosting a masked Halloween party for his father, who was fighting his last round in a nasty game called heart disease.
 
Despite the old man's growing frailty and the certainty that that year's ball would be his last, or maybe because of that, he insisted on making it his biggest ever.

Each year, his father's Halloween parties were grander than the last, and surprisingly festive considering the caliber of snobs and blue bloods that made up the guest list.
 
Each year the alcohol flowed, fine and expensive food was eaten, and a darkly festive mood was maintained.

Amber, his wife of five years by then, stayed home sick, a touch of whatever bug had been going around, she had said.
 
She had canceled the baby-sitter so she could stay home with Charity.
 
When he left she was wrapped in a wool quilt on the sofa, reading a book about feminism in the nineties with their daughter dozing beside her.
 
On his return early the next morning they were both gone.

As it turned out she
had
been sick—sick of his snobbish family, sick of his old money (though not enough that she hadn't taken a good bit of it with her), and sick of his pretentious friends.
 
Most of all, she was sick of him.

At first he was shocked, theirs had been a pleasant arrangement, stable and beneficial, and they had made a beautiful couple.
 
She was poor, with a truant father and a worthless lush of a mother, but she was smart, ambitious, and stunningly gorgeous.
 
He was young, educated, well-bred, with above-average looks, and he was rich.

She should have been content
, he had thought bitterly.
 
She had it all, anything she could have wanted out of life
.
 
All she had to do was keep playing the part.

She should have been content
.

Then he understood.
 
He had been an idiot, a selfish, pretentious idiot.
 
She would never be content as his trophy wife, and though he had always been faithful and had always assured her of her equality in the marriage, in his family, and in his life, that is what she was.
 
The fact that he
had
to reassure her of those things proved that they were a lie.
 
There was a dignity in her contrary to her humble background that would never allow that.

After he was finished feeling foolish, he felt sad.
 
She may have been a showpiece, barely more than a juicy piece of well-mannered eye candy, but he missed her.

And he missed Charity.

It was clear she didn't plan to come back, so he hired the best private investigator he could find to track her down.
 
He would never be able to get her back, he knew that like he knew the earth was round and the sky was blue, but he would damn well have his daughter back.
 
His mother had faded slowly during his childhood, eaten away by the stomach cancer that had taken her when he was eleven, and his father had died shortly after that last fateful Halloween.
 
His baby, his Charity, was all he had left.

Amber had been resourceful, though, and would not be found.
 
Not until she was dead and couldn't run anymore.
 
She had changed her name to Sandra Monroe and moved from city to city, state to state, taking part-time jobs to preserve her pilfered nest egg.

His private investigator had found her in Chicago, and by the time Gordon arrived she was already in the morgue.

Charity was gone.

Amber's had been the last in a series of murders in the Chicago area.
 
The victims were always the parents, or a single parent, of one or more children, and always found brutally slain.
 
The killer never left a clue, a print, clothing fiber, a drop of his or her own blood, nothing.
 
The children were never found.

The killer had moved on.
 
When a similar killing spree started up in Texas, Gordon went south.

He followed the bloody trail for three years; through Texas, Arizona, Maine, New York, and Oregon.
 
Now Washington State.
 
He was early this time.
 
There were only two murders and three missing children so far.
 
There would be more, many more, and when the killer struck again he would be near.
 
Though he knew his chances of finding Charity were slim, he had to be there.
 
He had to try.

If he didn't find her, maybe he would find the killer.
 
At this point he would take whatever he could get, reunion or revenge.

Gordon entered Riverside, the site of the latest murder, but continued east through the south side's industrial area, passing Feral Park on his way out of town.
 
His first stop was Normal Hills, the site of Washington's first murder.

There was someone in Normal Hills he needed to see.

He reached down for the cell phone clipped to his belt, thinking to give that someone a call, then changed his mind.
 
There was no need to bother him just yet; they would meet soon enough.

T
he morning was bright and hot, too hot for June.
 
The Snake River flowed past Main Street and Maney Park like a slow liquid sapphire.
 
It was just past ten; by noon the air would be shimmering with heat.
 
The ground was still moist with the morning dew but would be parched again by noon.
  
Dust would rise with the temperature, riding the warm breeze through town like a plague.

The mill on the north side of the river was a blur of activity, the log yard crawling with trucks and loaders, a constant source of white noise.
 
The shore was a wall of stone and thistles, embraced by a bed of driftwood and flotsam.

The south shore was clean, picturesque, a mostly untouched natural shoreline fortified with hanging willows and brush.
 
On the west end of town Maney Park faced the river, providing several small barbecue pits, a gazebo, a restroom, and a concrete footpath that stretched to the east end of town, a median between the tall wind teased Willows and Main Street.

Gordon drove another block to Little's Café on the corner of Fourth Street and pulled to the curb, killing the engine.
 
His supply of Twinkies and convenience store burritos was gone, but he was still hungry.
 
Time for something with a little more substance.

Gordon's supply of ready cash was nearly gone as well, and most places
 
this far west wouldn't accept a New Hampshire check unless it was at gunpoint.
 
He had to be careful with what cash he had left until he could find an ATM , and he was sure there wouldn't be one in this little town.

The inside of Little's Café was as he had envisioned it: dim, rustic, faded and worn around the edges.
 
There was a half-circle counter lined with red upholstered stools.
 
The dark wood surface of the bar was a display of hometown pride, with a picture of the latest Normal Hills varsity football team left of the cash register, and a framed Normal Hills chamber of Commerce certificate on the right.
 
Three men sat at the counter eating their breakfast solemnly.
  
A few more sat at round oak tables scattered around the country-style dining area.
 
They watched Gordon as he made his way to the table in the farthest, darkest corner.
 
Gordon didn't like being watched.
 
He took a seat with his back to the wall and waited.
 
The others quickly rediscovered their breakfasts, and he breathed a little easier with their eyes turned away from him.
 
Charles Davis, his roving PI, wasn't there yet, but Gordon didn't worry.
 
Charles said to meet him at ten-thirty, and it was just past ten.
 
He would be there at ten-thirty on the nose.
 
Gordon unfolded the menu and browsed while he waited.