Safe and Sound (3 page)

“You’re a lawyer,” he said.

She gave a short laugh. “I thought Miss Jones was the detective,” she said.

Keller began to feel a vague sense of unease. He looked at Marie and cocked an eyebrow.

“Ms. Healy…” Marie began.

“Tammy,” the woman broke in.

Marie forced a smile. “Tammy has a client who’s involved in a custody dispute.”

Keller tried not to grimace. He knew Marie hated domestic cases. He didn’t blame her. They usually involved surveillance of husbands or wives suspected of fooling around. The suspicions proved true with depressing regularity.

“I’ll wait in the lobby,” Keller said.

“Pull the door shut as you leave, will you?” Marie said.

Keller did so. He took a seat at the empty reception desk. He looked around for something to read. There was nothing. Then Keller realized that he could hear the conversation on the other side of the cheap paneling almost as clearly as if he were in the same room.

“Problem is,” Healy was saying, “Dad’s run off with the kid.”

Keller grimaced. He didn’t really want to hear this. He got up and went to the window. No good. He could still hear the voices.

“Did you call the police?” Marie was saying.

“No,” Healy said. “Dad made his move before there was a custody order. With no court order, either parent has a right to the kid. No court order, no crime.”

“So get a court order.”

“We got one. But we can’t get it served. We’re not really sure where Dad is, either.”

“I can run a skip trace on him,” Marie said.

“Well, that’s where it gets a little complicated,” Healy said. “This guy isn’t your standard anything, Ms. Jones. He’s in the military, for one thing.”

“I can contact his unit…or is he AWOL?”

“No,” Healy said, “he’s not AWOL. At least as far as we know. But the Army won’t tell us anything. They act like he doesn’t exist.”

That got Keller’s attention. His pacing had brought him back to the office door. He knocked, then entered.

Marie looked up at him. “We should have sprung for the thicker paneling,”

Keller said. “I can hear every word you’re saying in here.”

Healy gave a sharp laugh. “Well, you might as well sit in, then.” A flash of annoyance crossed Marie’s face and Keller took the other client chair.

“So you know this guy’s military,” Keller said, “but no one will tell you anything about him. That can only mean one thing. He’s Special Ops, isn’t he?”

Healy nodded. “Delta.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” Keller said. “You won’t find him. It’s like pulling teeth to even get the Army to acknowledge there is such a thing as Delta, let alone tell you where any of their people are.”

“That’s where I was hoping Ms. Jones could help,”

Healy said. “And maybe you could as well. Scott McCaskill tells me you’re pretty good at finding people.”

Keller shook his head. “I bring in bail jumpers,” he said, “not commandos.”

“You’ve been in the military,” Healy said. “You speak the language. You know your way around.”

Keller snorted. “Scott obviously hasn’t told you everything,” he said. “I didn’t exactly leave the Army on the best of terms.”

“So you don’t want to help?” Healy said.

Keller looked at Marie. She refused to meet his eyes. The words he was about to say died in his throat. He had promised to be there for her. He had promised not to let his own demons drive them apart. He turned to Healy.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good.” Healy stood up and handed a file across the desk to Marie. “I’ll tell the client to call you,” she said.

She held out her hand. Keller stood up and took it. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Keller,” she said. She closed the door as she walked out.

Keller turned to Marie. “I can try calling—”

“Jack,” she interrupted, “what the hell are you doing?” Her voice was low and furious.

“Whoa,” Keller said. He held up his hands in a warding gesture. “If you don’t want my help, just say so.”

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “You don’t think I can handle it on my own?”

“I know you can,” Keller said. “It was Healy who brought it up. And she played me pretty well to get me to agree.”

“She’s a lawyer,” Marie said absently. “It’s what they do.” She rubbed her hands over her face and sighed. “Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little…I don’t know, I’m trying to figure out where we are right now.”

“You’re not the only one,” Keller said.

She laughed.

“So you’re taking this one?” Keller said.

Marie spread her hands. “What am I supposed to do?” she said. “I’m trying to get a business off the ground, Jack,” she said. “I’ve got a kid of my own to feed and an ex who’s three months behind on his child support. I can’t turn down work.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll lend a hand.”

She stood up, slowly, grimacing slightly. She had been shot in the abdomen by the last person she had tried to apprehend, and the wound still pained her. She limped slightly as she came around the desk. “Thanks, Jack,” she murmured as she came into his arms. She nestled the top of her head beneath his chin. “I don’t have any more appointments today,” she said softly, “and Ben’s at day care till five. No one’s at the house.”

“And that means?” Keller said.

She poked him hard in the ribs and laughed. “You know damn well what it means, Jack Keller.”

“I’ll drive,” he said.

She laughed and gave him a squeeze. Then her face turned serious again. “Did you think it was going to be this hard?” she said.

“What?”

“Being together. You and me.”

He tucked her head back under his chin and stroked her light brown hair. “I didn’t think at all about it,” he said. “It just kind of happened.”

Her voice against his chest was muffled, but he could still hear the tension in it. “So is it worth it?”

He kissed the top of her head. “Yeah.”

***

DeGroot was frustrated. He sat down in a wooden chair in front of his subject and took off his surgical mask and goggles. The subject was presumably HIV negative, but one never knew. He wiped a spatter of blood from the goggles with a towel.

He realized now that he had made a mistake. He had tried to rush things, instead of going by the book. He should have known better. Through a dozen wars, across Africa and Asia, he had perfected the craft of extracting information. Physical interrogation should start with small indignities: a cuff, a slap, denial of food or sleep. Then the pressure should be ratcheted up in small increments, between periods where the subject is left alone to consider the next level, his imagination becoming the interrogator’s ally as he worries and wonders how bad it could get. The extreme methods should be saved for the last resort. But DeGroot had let the time pressure get to him. He wondered briefly if his earlier speech to the subject had been a bit of denial on his part, wondered if he was becoming one of those people who enjoyed inflicting pain.

“Maybe I’m gettin’ bossies in my old age,” he said out loud to the subject in the chair. The word was slang for bosbevok—“bush crazy.” “Maybe it’s time to retire, eh, boet?” The man didn’t answer. His head still hung forward slackly so that DeGroot couldn’t see his face. A drop of blood fell from his face to join the pool on the chair between his legs.

DeGroot picked up the galvanized steel bucket beside his own chair. It was empty. He sighed. Besides the dodgy electrical wiring, the running water in the safe house was a meager trickle of rust-stained water from the faucets.

He would have to revive the subject with water from the ancient pump outside. As he stood up, his cell phone rang. He muttered under his breath and answered it. “Go,” was all he said.

The voice on the other end was agitated. “We still haven’t found Dave,” he said.

The Afrikaner looked at the man in the chair. “Keep looking,” he said. He turned away. “Do you have his key?”

The brief pause was all the answer he needed. DeGroot cursed under his breath. “No,” the voice said. “We figured he had it with him.”

“BOBBYYYYY!” the man in the chair bellowed. “MIIIIIIKE! HELP MEEEEEE!”

DeGroot looked up in shock. The subject was awake, struggling against his bonds and yelling at the top of his lungs.

DeGroot heard a confused “Dave? Was that Dave?” before he swore and snapped the phone shut. He advanced on the man in the chair, his arm poised for a backhand blow. He stopped short. Lundgren was smiling at him through his mouthful of broken teeth. His one remaining eye glittered with triumph. “Psych,” he whispered. “Psyched you out, you fucker.”

“Clever boet,” the Afrikaner said. He knew the school-boy taunt was designed to make him lose his temper. It worked. He drew his gun and shot Lundgren in the head.

CHAPTER THREE

Carly Fedder was not taking the disappearance of her daughter well. Her eyes were red from crying, and her hands shook as she lit a cigarette. It was the third one Marie had seen her light since she and Keller had arrived.

They were seated in the living room of her two-bedroom apartment. Carly Fedder lived in one of the cookie-cutter apartment complexes that were expanding outward into the rural areas surrounding the growing city of Fayetteville.

“The son of a bitch,” she said. She took a deep, angry drag on the cigarette. She was slim, blond, and blue-eyed. She looked like a high school cheerleader who had managed to keep her figure, but fatigue had worn furrows in the corners of her mouth and eyes.

“Mrs. Fedder—” Marie began.

“It’s Ms.,” the woman interrupted. “We were never married.” She took another drag.

Marie tried to ignore the anger that hung in the air like the smoke from the cigarette. “How do you know David Lundgren took your daughter?”

She looked at Marie as if the question was idiotic. “Because he told me he was going to take her. He said he wasn’t going to wait for the courts.”

“What did he mean by that?” Marie asked.

Carly didn’t answer. Instead she looked at Keller and said, “What’s he doing here?”

Keller stared back. He kept all expression from his face. He decided to let Marie answer.

“Mr. Keller is a friend of mine,” Marie said. “He’s helping me. He has some…military experience.”

“Great,” Carly snapped. “One of them.” She turned to Marie as if Keller had ceased to exist. “What if I don’t want him along?”

“Suits the shit out of me,” Keller said as he stood up. “I only came along as a favor to Ms. Jones.”

Carly’s laugh was nasty. She addressed Marie again. “Oh, now I get it,” she said. “I’ll bet you’ve got him jumping through hoops right now, honey. But when you run out of tricks, he’ll leave. They all do.”

Keller gritted his teeth. “I’ll be in the car.” He was almost to the door before he heard a small voice behind him. “I’m sorry.”

He stopped and turned. Carly was turned toward him, but her eyes were cast down to the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said again. She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. There was something contrived, almost theatrical, about it, as if she had studied the signs of contrition and was putting them on.

“I’m not the only one you need to apologize to,” Keller said. He jerked his chin at Marie.

She turned to Marie. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “I’m just really wound up about this.” She smiled. “Tammy said you’re a mother. You understand, don’t you?”

Marie gave a different smile back, the smile of one being polite to someone she’d rather be strangling. “Sure,” she said. “And the sooner we get to work, the sooner we get your daughter back. Have you got any pictures of her?”

Carly leaped up. “Of course,” she said, too brightly. She walked over to the television, where a small forest of framed pictures covered the top. She picked one out and handed it, frame and all, to Marie. “That’s her,” she said. “That’s Alyssa.”

Marie studied it for a moment, then handed it to Keller.

It was a standard portrait photograph, the kind available in department stores across the country. The girl in the photo appeared to be about five years old. Like her mother, she was blond and blue-eyed. What ever the photographer had been waving off camera to make the little girl smile, it had obviously delighted her. Her face was scrunched up in the expression of pure, spontaneous joy that adults lose along the way and never seem to regain.

“Pretty,” Keller said.

“She’s my life,” Carly said. Again, the words sounded as if they were being read off a script. But the tears that followed seemed real enough. “Find her. Please, please find her.”

“We’ll try, ma’am,” Marie said. It was a voice Keller hadn’t heard from her since she left the police force, a voice of competence and reassurance. “Tell me about Alyssa’s father,” Marie went on.

“What about him?”

“Where you met, for one thing.”

Carly took a tissue out of a nearly empty box on the coffee table and blew her nose. “I was waitressing at Bennigan’s. He and some of his buddies came in one night. We got to talking. He was young, good-looking, built…” She shrugged. “We hit it off.”