Out of the Black (9 page)

I was alone.

“Where the hell are you? How do you—”

“Mr. Caine, I’m going to make this simple.”

“How the fuck do you know my name?”

The old man stopped, sighed, then spoke slowly, as if talking to a child. “There are two hundred fifty-three Chevy cargo vans registered in the metro area. Out of those, only thirty-six are white. Of those thirty-six, the light pointed asi b thirty-three are registered to private shuttle services or rental companies. That leaves three privately owned.”

“You guessed?”

“I don’t guess.”

“Then, how?”

The old man paused. “Out of those three, Mr. Caine, yours is the only one not currently parked at your house.”

Silence.

It took a moment for the words to sink in. When they did, the panic I’d been fighting back broke and ripped through me.

My house.

There were no words.

The snow covering the highway was gray and cut through by black tire lines stretching out into darkness. There were hidden patches of ice along the road, and each time I hit one, the van would shift and my heart would climb higher into my throat.

I didn’t slow down.

I reached for the phone on the passenger seat and called home. It was the third time I’d tried, and the result was the same.

No answer.

I dropped the phone back on the seat and squeezed the steering wheel so tight my fingers ached. I could feel the tension clawing its way up my spine and worming its way into my brain, making it impossible to think clearly. Once again I tried to tell myself that everything was okay, but the closer I got to home, the less I believed it was true.

When I pulled off the highway and turned onto my street, I could see my house at the end of the block, dark and still. I parked out front and grabbed Jay’s gun from the glove compartment then ran up came around the corner, AK. It wasto the front door.

It was locked.

I stepped back and flipped through my keys. My hands were shaking, and it took a minute to find the right one. Once I did, I unlocked the door and went inside.

“Anna?”

The house was dark except for the shadows thrown by the streetlights outside. I hit the switch on the wall, but nothing happened.

The power was out.

Cut?

“Carrie?”

Something moved in the next room. I lifted the gun and followed the sound through the living room to the kitchen.

Carrie was lying on the floor. There was duct tape covering her mouth, and her hands were crossed and bound against her chest. Her eyes were red and swollen, and there was a dark line of dried blood under her nose, running over the tape.

She stared at me, eyes wide, not seeing.

I knelt next to her and pulled the tape from her mouth. She took in several desperate breaths, each one broken by sobs. I grabbed her shoulders and tried to steady her, then I reached up and took her face in my hands.

“Where’s Anna?”

Carrie’s lips were trembling. She shook her head, said, “I’m so sorry, Matt. I’m so sorry.”

“Where is she?” I asked her again, trying my best to keep my voice calm.

Carrie looked up at me, and I saw something change in her eyes. Then the tears came, harder now, running down her cheeks, falling silently into her lap.

I pushed myself up, but my legs felt weak.

I backed out of the kitchen and started toward Anna’s room. I could see the shadowed outline of her doorway at the end of the hallway, and I ran down, moving on instinct.

Her door was wide open, and there was a soft, wintry-gray glow leaking in from the windows and casting a half light over the room. I stopped in the doorway and let my eyes adjust to the light, but I already knew.

She was gone.

I stood there, scanning the room from one side to the other, not willing to believe. I could feel the tears pressing behind my eyes, but I held them back.

I didn’t want to cry.

I wanted to scream.

The air in the hall felt thin, and the floor started to shift under me. I reached out and put a hand against the doorjamb to steady myself, then I stepped into the room.

The carpet sank wet under my feet.

I looked down.

There was a thick, dark stain spreading out from the doorway into the center of Anna’s room. I bent down, slow, and touched it. My fingers came back wet and sticky.

“Oh, God.”

This time, the panic screamed up out of the black, and I had no chance of stopping it. I tore through the room, searching closets, checking under the bed, finding nothing.

The room spun.

I sank to my knees at the edge of her bed, staring at the dark stain on the carpet, trying to think. I told myself to focus, but my mind was reeling under a jumble of thoughts, all of them bad, and I couldn’t slow them down no matter how hard I tried.

I heard Carrie crying in the kitchen, and I pushed myself up off the floor, never taking my eyes off the wet stain on the carpet.

I moved toward the doorway and stopped.

The door was open into the room, and I could see Anna’s handwritten signs taped on the outside. But there was something different about them.

I stepped closer and noticed a dark spot on one of the signs. It was small, wet, and about half the size of a dime. I reached out and pulled the door closed. It was heavier than normal, and I saw why.

Something was pinned to the other side.

At first, I couldn’t tell what it was, just a dark shadow hung at eye level. Then I saw the two white spots.

The same but different.

Like snowflakes.

I felt my breath catch, and I stepped back.

The knife was heavy, serrated, and buried to the hilt between Dash’s ribs. His head hung loose, his eyes were wide, and his teeth were bared and bloody. There was a long, dark trail under him that ran the length of the door and pooled on the carpet below.

I didn’t it out easy.

The old man answered on the third ring.

I started yelling. “If you hurt her, I’ll—”

He cut me off. “In one hour, you will deliver my wife to me in Pella Valley.”

“Where the fuck is my daughter?”

“You will drive her to the west side of town, past the railroad tracks, where you will find a two-bay car wash next to a white grain silo. You will park the lightin">okke on the south side and wait there until I arrive.”

“Where is she?”

“Once my wife has been returned, and I am satisfied she has not been harmed, I will release your daughter.”

“No,” I said. “We do it at the same time. Your wife for my daughter.”

“This is not a negotiation, Mr. Caine. My wife will be returned unharmed, and only then will I release your daughter.” He paused. “Failure to follow my instructions to the letter will lead to unthinkable consequences. Do you believe me?”

I didn’t say anything right away, but something in his voice sent a flood of terror rolling through every part of me, making it hard to breathe.

“I believe you,” I said.

“Then you have one hour.”

The line clicked, went dead.

I hung up and slid the phone back into my pocket. Then I reached down and picked up the photo of Anna. There was blood on the front, and I wiped it away with my thumb.

Once again, I felt the tears press behind my eyes.

This time, I let them come.

Carrie watched me as I cut the tape away from her hands. When I finished, she eased herself up and leaned forward, bracing herself against the counter.

I touched her shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

Carrie turned and faced me, her eyes sharp. “Where were you?”

“I—”

“What did you do?”

I shook my head and started to answer, but before I could, Carrie slapped me.

“What did you do?”

She hit me again, but this time I was ready. I grabbed her wrist and stepped behind her, wrapping my arms around hers, holding her still. I could feel her shoulders shake, then there were tears, welling up from some dark place deep inside.

I held her tighter and told her it was okay, that I was going to get Anna back, no matter what.

I told her she had to trust me.

Eventually, the tears stopped, and I felt her fight against my grip. When I let her go, she pushed away from me and sat
at the kitchen table with her hands between her knees, rocking back and forth on the chair.

I asked her if she was okay.

“We can’t call the police, can we?”

I shook my head. “No.”

Carrie stared at me, then down at her hands. “Who were they, Matt?”

I thought about it for a moment, but I didn’t have an answer, and I didn’t know what to say. In the end, I told her the truth.

“I have no idea.”

Pella Valley was almost thirty miles outside the city. Traffic on the highway was light, but it was still going to be close. If I was going to get there on time, I needed to hurry.

When I got to the river, I turned up the gravel road and followed my headlights through a shatter of snow Xbp.to the warehouse. I parked out front and ran inside.

The woman watched me as I came in.

I ignored her and went straight for Jay. His skin had turned a rough, grayish blue, and both his eyes were now half-open, clouded and empty.

I tried not to look at him.

I opened his jacket and searched his pockets for the keys to the handcuffs. I found half a pack of American Spirit cigarettes and his black Zippo lighter, but I didn’t find his keys.

“Goddamn it.”

I started patting him down. I felt the keys in his front pockets, and I took them out and flipped through them as I walked over to where the woman was sitting.

“I’m taking you home.”

The woman didn’t say anything.

I found the right key and unlocked the cuff from around the pipe. “Do you need anything?”

She stared at me, her eyes moving between mine. “A cigarette?”

I started to tell her I didn’t smoke, then I remembered the pack in Jay’s jacket. I walked back and took the cigarettes and the lighter from his pocket. There was a piece of yellow legal paper stuck under the pack’s cellophane wrapper. I took it out and unfolded it.

The page was covered with notes, all in Jay’s scratched handwriting, mostly street names, times, andp class="inden

The city lights faded behind us, leaving only trees and long, empty fields covered in white.

Neither of us spoke.

All the light over AK. It was I could think about was Anna. I tried to focus on seeing her again, and not on what was happening to her, or where she might be. I couldn’t think about any of that until I had her back with me and I knew she was safe.

Then I’d think about all of it.

We were still several miles outside Pella Valley when the silence got to be too much. I could feel my thoughts spinning away from me, and I had to do something to refocus and settle my mind, so I started talking.

Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.

At first, I asked her about her husband. I wanted to know all about him, and how he did what he did, but she didn’t answer me, and I didn’t press.

Instead, I tried to explain why I did what I did. I wanted her to know that this wasn’t who I was, but I didn’t know where to start. So I started at the beginning.

I told her about Beth.

I told her how we’d met, where we were married, and how we’d found out she was pregnant two days before I was deployed. I told her how I’d thought about Beth every day and night while I was gone.

Then I told her about Anna, how she was born while I was in Afghanistan, and how I’d missed the first two years of her life. I told her how my daughter didn’t know me when I came home, but that it was okay because I barely knew myself.

The woman listened without saying a word, but it didn’t matter. Talking helped keep my mind off Anna and what I’d brought into our lives. I didn’t want a conversation. I wanted a confession.

Then I told her about the accident.

This time, she turned and looked at me as I spoke.

“I went in to identify her body, but there was never any doubt. They warned me about the injuries, but I had to see her.” I hesitated. “When I left, they handed me a small envelope with her wedding ring inside and told me I should focus my energy on my daughter. So that’s what I did.”