True Blend (17 page)

“V-3,” she says to Grace when she notices the square sign mounted high on a lamppost. She bends forward to see her daughter’s face, hoping her words are an invisible lifeline. They keep coming, her words, one on top of the other, to keep Grace from going under. “It’s busy here. We have to remember that Mommy parked in row V-3, halfway up.” She approaches the entrance door, just to the right of the row in which she parked. “V-3, V-3,” she repeats, committing it to memory.

*  *  *

George is in two places at once. He ties on his black apron and stands in front of the meat grinder at The Main Course. The beef has to be ground first, while the machine is still cold. He knows this without thinking. Bits of bone have a tendency to break warm gears or chip warm knives. But today his heart isn’t in preparing the comfort foods for his clientele in this small plaza of shops. Because part of him is still sitting in Detective Hayes’ office, where he had been summoned before work, glancing at the shoulder holster holding the detective’s department-issued firearm. Could George have used the gun he had held? Should he have turned it on Reid and put a stop to that whole day? Brought it to an end with a bullet?

He maneuvers the meat into the grinder. The sound of Dean’s voice talking with lunch customers up front reaches him the same way Detective Hayes’ message on his voicemail did, asking him to stop in before work. “Coffee?” Hayes asked when George sat earlier in the wooden chair beside the desk. George waved him off. What he’d like to do is wave his whole life off. Just take enough of the damn money and go. Pack a bag, board a plane and disappear into the skies, leaving the mess of his life in the white vapor trail behind the jet, evaporating with each passing day. But he can’t. He won’t leave Amy behind, alone.

Curls of meat exit the chopper as he continues to feed in more.

“The FBI completed an analysis of the psychological profiles of our suspects. Our intention now is to mesh different angles of thinking with the profiles. It’s a method of drawing out their identities and estimating their movements following the crime.”

“Okay. Makes sense,” George answered, resting an arm on the desktop and studying the detective’s face. Hayes was clean-shaven, his light brown hair combed back and his heavyset frame in pretty good shape. The casual clothes and composure indicated a learned patience. But his holster fit as well as his shirt, leaving George no doubt that Hayes knew precisely the quickest route to slipping his weapon from its place and aiming it at someone’s head. He must have spent days at target practices during his years on the force. Maneuvers had been mastered, situations predicted. George had lifted the forty-five from his dresser drawer last night after bringing Amy home, laid it on his kitchen table and familiarized himself with its eight-round magazine, its rounded trigger guard, its four-inch barrel.

Did he fit the psychological profile? Did the profile suggest that the suspect never once pulled a gun trigger? That the suspect protected the life of a child? That the suspect just last night aimed the loaded gun at his reflection to try to feel what Amy had felt? Until he saw his father looking back at him in shame? He removes the overflowing plate of ground beef now and starts on a second round.

“One scenario we’ve devised is that every single aspect of that day was painstakingly planned to manipulate our thinking and investigating. It isn’t pure dumb luck that left us with a cold trail. And if this idea holds any water, then you are clearly part of the plan, George. They would have observed you recently and specifically selected you as their accomplice, if you will, without your knowledge.”

George eases up on the pressure when the meat starts to back up. Damn right it was without his knowledge. Would that count for anything, if he started talking right then and there? If he came clean with the detective? If he drove him to his home, released the latch behind the kitchen tiles, pulled out the hidden safe, separated the zippers on the duffel bags and opened the flaps to banded stacks of currency, the scent of ink and paper rising to meet them?

“They knew there was a dragnet in place searching for them and couldn’t risk losing four million by accidentally handing the girl over to an undercover guy in a parking lot. They insured that bankroll with total premeditated control. Nothing was left to chance—not their freedom, not the welfare of the child. Her wellbeing was put into a familiar, upstanding citizen’s hands to ensure no assault or murder charges. Your hands.”

George spoons the two full plates of ground beef into a display tray, pressing the edges with the spoon back. “Got it. They researched me and trusted I’d take care of her.”

“In which case, you would have been tailed that entire day. They couldn’t lose you before finishing the crime as planned. And that explains why they held the kid so long. That unaccounted-for block of time’s been a thorn in my side. But they were waiting for
you
to get back from the casino.”

George still wavers between the two places at once. He takes the grinder apart and washes each piece with soap and hot water before setting them out to air dry. The knife and plate stay together because they wear to fit each other during grinder use and can’t be interchanged with others. This, too, he knows without thinking. His movements are rote, including the visual inspection ensuring no food is drying on the surfaces, so rote his mind is still in Detective Hayes’ office.

“So I’m looking for your itinerary,” Hayes said. “Start to finish. I know you came from the casino, but I need exact times, names of who accompanied you, any stops along the way for coffee, food, the tables you played, who you talked to, ETAs, ETDs.”

George sets a thinner plate and knife on the grinder and tightens the adjustment ring. He needs to prepare breadcrumbs for the cranberry herb stuffing. It didn’t take him long to relinquish Nate’s, Steve’s and Craig’s names. Normal. That’s what he told the detective. It was a normal day, four friends spending it at the casino.

He picks up a knife, hacks a chunk of bread off a day-old loaf and feeds it slowly into the chopper. Too much at once will jam the gears. He knows that, too, without thinking.

One more thing he knows: Distractions cause accidents while working the knives—he’s got the scars to prove it. So with worries about Amy coming at him from one direction, and the authorities from another, and his brother from a third, he knows to stay away from the combination of razor-sharp boning knives and slippery sinew and bones. Instead he sticks with the breaded stuffing, leaving the chicken thighs for Dean to debone.

All while picturing Detective Hayes picking up the phone, calling the casino and requesting the surveillance video, completely unaware that he is hot on the right trail.

*  *  *

“Will this be on your credit card?”

“No. Cash today.” Amy sets a royal blue tankini and a pair of tropical flip-flops on the counter.

“It’s going to be a nice weekend for the beach,” the sales associate, Susan, says.

“I know, we can’t wait to get there.” Grace sits in the stroller, stretching and pressing against the safety strap, restless after an hour of trying on swimsuits and cover-ups. And Amy’s glad. Any expression of emotion, including agitation, is welcome. Grace twists back and looks up at her as she pulls her wallet from her handbag.

“Don’t you love this style?” Susan folds the swimsuit into white tissue paper and slips it into a shopping bag, then counts back the change. “And remember to bring sunscreen, too!”

Amy agrees and loops the shopping bag handle over the stroller handle. When she approaches the Exit door near the Children’s Department, she hears a voice calling out
Miss! Oh Miss?
and turns to see Susan hurrying over.

“I’m so glad I caught you.” She waves Bear in front of her. “Look who was on the floor near the rack of flip-flops,” she says, placing Bear in Grace’s open arms.

“What do we say to the nice lady?” Amy asks, bending forward to coax words from Grace’s lips.
Come on
, her mind pleads.
You know this one. Say it
, she thinks as Grace buries her face in the stuffed animal’s fur. “Thank you. We say thank you, Grace.”

“That’s okay.” Susan smiles at Grace. “You hold him close now.”

Outside, Amy reaches into her purse for her aviators. “V-3,” she says, slipping on the glasses and lowering the stroller onto the pavement. The parking lot is still busy with shoppers rushing in on their lunch hour and the strangers pass close, walking with clipped steps, keeping her vigilant. She walks half the length of parking row V-3 before slowing to a stop. Her maroon SUV is nowhere in sight, not in the spaces ahead, not behind her. With her flustered turning around, one of the shopping bags slips from the stroller handle, spilling onto the pavement. She bends over to scoop the flip-flops back in and upon straightening, feels lightheaded. She tips her head into her hand, then backtracks a few car-lengths to get a clear view of the large square sign mounted on the lamppost.

“V-3,” she reads aloud, squinting back down the long row of parked vehicles. Every space is taken. It just doesn’t make sense. Double-checking the store entrance doors to be sure they are the same ones they entered through earlier, she wheels Grace through them again, back into the store, circles around and exits once more.

“Well this is ridiculous,” she says. “I must have walked right past it.” Again she steps into the parking lot and walks the entire length of the row of vehicles. There are no maroon SUVs parked in row V-3. Can someone have stolen hers? At the end of the row, she cuts a sharp right into row V-4 and examines the cars packed tight into each space. Maybe the sun is playing tricks on her. By the time she tips the stroller up onto the sidewalk, her heart is pounding and her face is flush with perspiration. Grace squirms in the stroller, stretches her legs out straight and sinks down low in the seat, thumping her Velcro sandals on the sidewalk in a one-two beat.

Amy wheels over to a wooden bench and unbuckles her daughter, sitting her on the bench while stacking the two shopping bags and Bear into the stroller seat. Grace slips off the bench, reaches her hands up on the stroller handles and starts to push it. Its wheels waggle sideways before straightening.

“Grace! Hold Mommy’s hand!” Amy lifts one of Grace’s small hands from the stroller and folds her own hand over it. Together they maneuver the stroller up row V-3 once more. Now her mouth has gone dry and she blinks her vision back into focus. “Calm down,” she tells herself. They can’t be victims of yet another crime; it’s just implausible. Grace pulls her hand away right as she turns to scan the cars in the adjacent rows, and just as suddenly the vehicles melt into the color of gray, dissolving into one large pool of gritty pavement until no cars remain. Only the armored truck. Her hand feels painfully empty again, trying to squeeze her fingers around her daughter’s fist. When she spins around, the gunman climbs the steps into the armored vehicle, her daughter’s shoe in his pocket. They have the truck, for God’s sake. Why can’t he relinquish her daughter and leave? Why does it have to come to this? The ground slowly comes up to cradle her as she sinks into a crouch, the warm pavement turning liquid, swallowing her legs. She drops her head low.

“Please.” The whispered plea begs for her daughter while from behind sunglasses, her eyes watch the armored truck. A voice reaches her ears; its deep inflections sound distant. Muffled, as though on the other side of a mask.

“Excuse me,” it calls out, drawing nearer. His shadow falls on her and she flinches. “Are you okay?” he asks, extending a hand down.

Amy raises her eyes and sees Grace in the arms of a stranger. He has taken off his hideous hosiery mask and returned her daughter. She knew all along that he was good; she heard it in his voice.

“Grace,” she says through tears, taking the stranger’s hand and pulling herself to her feet. He has gotten her daughter off the armored truck.

“I saw her wander off with the stroller when you lost your balance. She could’ve gotten hurt.”

Amy takes a breath, letting oxygen reach deep into her lungs. The stroller. Shopping bags spill from the seat. She nearly loses her balance with the realization they are at the mall. “Thank you,” she says to the man. Does he hear her heart slamming inside her? “I just got really dizzy suddenly,” she lies. “The sun’s so bright.”

“Maybe you need to sit down?” he asks as he places Grace into her arms.

She notices it right away and is stricken with sadness. Grace’s body has gone limp. She shut down in fear when a man’s arms lifted her up. Amy hugs her close and gently rubs her back.

“There’s a bench near the door.” The man lifts the stroller with one hand and takes Amy’s arm with the other, walking them slowly through the parking lot.

And all the while she knows. Her car is gone. There’s no sense in looking further. She hears a noise and embraces Grace’s head to her neck. “Mumumum” comes softly to her ear.

“Can I call someone for you?” the stranger asks. He is in his forties and dressed in a business suit, apparently on his lunch hour. “You probably shouldn’t be driving.”

Amy sits on the bench, the warm sun causing her to perspire even more. Does she look the mess she feels? “Thank you. I’ll be fine.” When the man pauses, watching her cautiously, she insists. “Really. I’m feeling better now.” She reaches for her cell phone in her purse. “I’ll call a friend to help me.”

“Okay then.” He glances at his watch. “I’ll wait to be sure they can come for you,” he says and Amy can’t argue as he stands beside the bench keeping an eye on Grace.

With her daughter slack in her lap, one arm cradles her while with the other, her fingers carefully press the correct digits she had programmed into her cell weeks ago. She waits through three rings, shifting Grace and imagining George’s shop. Imagining the sun shining through the windows, a few people sitting at the small tables with a roast beef sandwich. Imagining the sound of the telephone lost in the sound of Sinatra. She closes her eyes and sees George, with his dark hair and white shirt, setting down a sharp silver boning knife, wiping his hands on his black apron before picking up the telephone. Finally she hears his voice. A beat of silence passes as she collects herself, strokes Grace’s hair and takes a breath.