Hellbox

13

JAKE RUNYON

He was at Bryn’s, playing a science fiction video game with Bobby while she cooked dinner, when the call came in on his cell.

Nice little domestic scene, the sort he’d missed out on all his life. He and Andrea had fought most of the short time they were together, usually over her drinking, and Joshua had been a toddler when he’d left them and filed for divorce. Plenty of good evenings with Colleen over the twenty years they’d been married, but it’d been just the two of them-she hadn’t been able to conceive a child. These recent get-togethers with Bryn and Bobby were comfortable enough, but they were infrequent and had a temporary feel. He wasn’t married to her, or living with her, and the boy was her son, not his. But that was only part of the reason.

Since a family court judge had reversed the earlier court decision manipulated by her lawyer ex and awarded her primary custody, her focus was all on Bobby. On re-cementing a bond two years broken by her stroke, the messy divorce that followed, and severely restricted visiting privileges. The boy was what she lived for, always had been. Now that she had him back, she no longer needed Runyon to lean on; they saw each other half as often as they had before Bobby came to live with her three weeks out of every four. She seemed to want him in her son’s life-Bobby liked him, and they got along fine-but as a friend, not a father figure. And with restrictions.

He wasn’t allowed to spend the night when Bobby was in the house. The boy was nearly ten and no stranger to adult intimacy-most of the time he’d lived with his father, Robert Darby had had an out-of-wedlock, live-in affair with a woman named Francine Whalen-but Bryn felt a mother should set a better example, especially while Bobby was still healing from the effects of the physical abuse Whalen had inflicted on him, the woman’s violent murder and its aftermath. He had no problem with that. Sex was not a central part of their relationship; from the beginning, the connection between them had been built on loneliness and their damage control service to each other. Still, it added to his sense of being an outsider.

For a while, he’d thought that the kind of dependence they’d shared might eventually evolve into something more. But it was unlikely that either of them would ever be ready for that kind of commitment. What they had was still viable, so it would be status quo for a while yet; sooner or later, though, it would morph into a more casual friendship, one that would remain supportive, but no longer intimate. There’d be some sadness when that happened, but no regrets. His mental health was much improved from their time together, and so was Bryn’s. You couldn’t ask more than that from any relationship.

When his cell vibrated, Runyon left Bobby’s room and stepped into the hall to answer it. Figured to be Tamara, who seemed always to be working late these days, with some sort of agency business. No. The screen showed him Bill’s name. Back early from his vacation? No on that, too.

“Jake, how heavy is your caseload? Working on anything that can’t be put on hold or turned over to Alex?”

The sound of his voice, as much as the abrupt questions, put Runyon on alert. Tense, with a strong emotional undercurrent.

“Nothing pressing,” he said. “Why? Something wrong?”

“It’s Kerry. She’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“Since yesterday afternoon. Went out for a walk somewhere while I was off trout fishing, didn’t come back. Nobody’s seen her since.”

“Christ. You’re still up in… where is it?”

“Green Valley, in the Sierras. I got the local sheriff ’s deputy to put out a BOLO alert last night, and a search team in a section of woods where I found her sun hat this morning. No sign of her.”

“Lost? Some kind of accident?”

“That’s what I thought at first. Now… I’m afraid it might be something worse.”

“Worse?”

“I think she might’ve stumbled into a situation.”

“What kind of situation?”

“You know what kind. Wrong place at the wrong time. Damn world’s full of predators, even in remote places like this.”

Torn-out words that tightened Runyon’s fingers around the phone. He didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say except to ask for details, and Bill would provide those when he was ready.

“The deputy, Broxmeyer, doesn’t agree with me,” Bill said. “Doesn’t have enough manpower for an investigation even he did. Jake… I’m about half out of my head here, and I can’t handle this alone. I need your help.”

“You’ve got it. I can leave right away…”

“No need for that. Three-hour drive to Green Valley, and I wouldn’t be in any shape for talking by the time you got here. Half dead on my feet right now. Get some sleep yourself, come up early in the morning, we’ll start fresh.”

“How early do you want me there? Seven, eight?”

“Make it eight,” Bill said. “Little town at the south end of the valley, Six Pines… coffee shop called the Green Valley Cafe on the main drag. I’ll meet you there. Easier to find than the place where we’re staying, and I’ll need to get out of here in the morning anyway.”

“Right. Does Tamara know yet?”

“No. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“I can call her, fill her in-”

“Better if she hears it from me. I want her to compile a list of known sex offenders and violent felons living in this general area, recent unsolved rapes and missing persons cases involving women. Broxmeyer won’t do it, doesn’t think it’s necessary. I’ll have her call with any hot leads, e-mail the rest of what she gets to you. Bring your laptop along-Kerry left hers at home.”

Runyon said okay, but he wouldn’t need it; the agency had bought him an iPhone a while back and he could use it to access his e-mail. “Anything else?”

“Not until you get here. Thanks, Jake.”

Runyon started to say “We’ll find her,” but there was no benefit in offering up hollow reassurances. He settled for, “Eight o’clock, Green Valley Cafe,” and let Bill break the connection.

He went down the hall, through the dining room into the kitchen. Bryn was at the sink draining pasta into a colander; steam plastered wisps of her ash blonde hair to her forehead, dampened the lower edges of the scarf she wore tied under her chin to hide the crippled left side of her face. The only time she removed the scarf in his presence was under the cover of darkness. He’d had only one clear look at the stroke damage, and that was on the night they’d met, when a couple of rowdy teenage idiots yanked her scarf off in a Safeway parking lot. As far as he knew, she’d never allowed Bobby or anyone other than her doctor to see it, either.

The uninjured side of her mouth curved in a smile. “Dinner’s almost ready. There’s a bottle of red wine on the counter.”

He said, “No wine for me tonight. I’m going to have to eat and run.”

“Oh? Why?”

He told her why. “I’m driving up there early tomorrow. Don’t know when I’ll be back-I’ll call you.”

“God, I hope she’s okay.”

“So do I.”

“Poor Bill. He must be frantic.”

Frantic was the word for it. He knew too damn well what Bill was going through. Kerry was the love of the man’s life. Her breast cancer diagnosis and the long months of treatment, and now this. If he lost her, it’d be as if part of him had been ripped out, leaving a bloody, gaping wound-the same as it had been for Runyon when the cancer tore Colleen, the love of his life, away from him.

But all he said was “He is,” and moved to help her get dinner on the table.

He was up and on the road at five o’clock. Early riser anyway, and six hours’ sleep was all he ever needed. A three-hour drive was nothing to him; he’d logged thousands of miles in the Ford since moving to the Bay Area, using up downtime and familiarizing himself with his new home turf. Driving satisfied his restless need for movement, activity; the longer he was behind the wheel, the better for him. When he stepped out of the car after a long drive, he was calm, focused, ready for whatever needed to be done.

Getting out of the city was no problem because he was traveling against the flow of early commute traffic on the Bay Bridge, and except for a quick stop in Vacaville for gas, he made good time on Highway 80 all the way to Sacramento. Middle of the commute rush there; he crawled for a while through the city and its eastern outskirts. But once he was on 50 passing through the long stretch of suburban towns, traffic thinned down considerably, and he was able to hold his speed at a steady ten miles per hour over the limit all the way to the turnoff that led him to Green Valley.

A two-lane county road took him on a winding route through a couple of hamlets at the northern end of the valley. Nice enough area, he supposed. Scenic. Good spot for a vacation or a second home. But a bad place for a missing-person hunt, with all the pine and fir woods. That was as much notice as he took of the surroundings. Colleen had had a keen awareness of the environment, talked him into periodic trips to wilderness regions in Washington and Oregon, and some of her enthusiasm had rubbed off on him to the point where he looked forward to those getaways with her. But after her death, he’d lost interest. Rural settings, urban and suburban places… they were all the same to him then and now, colorless, devoid of any real distinction. Bay Area neighborhoods, roads, landmarks had all been filed away in a corner of his mind, but only for necessary business-related purposes. Until he was given specific reference points within a locale like Green Valley, the surroundings registered as little more than visual blips.

It was ten minutes shy of eight o’clock when he reached Six Pines. The Green Valley Cafe was easy to spot: painted bright green with a big sign, in the second block on the main drag. Bill was already there; his car was parked out front. The cafe was moderately crowded with breakfast trade, but Runyon spotted him at once, bent over a cup of coffee in a corner booth at the rear.

Bill’s head jerked up when Runyon slid in opposite; he’d been lost inside himself. “Jake,” he said in a scratchy voice. “Good.”

“Still no word?”

“No. I’d’ve called you.”

“You holding up okay?”

“So far. Didn’t sleep much last night.”

Runyon hadn’t needed to be told. Bill was a robust man, vigorous for his age, but the strain had had a corrosive effect on him already. Runyon had never thought of him as old, but he looked old now in the bright cafe lights. Faint grayish tinge to his skin, eyes muddy from lack of sleep, the lines in his cheeks and around his mouth deep-cut, as if by the same razor that had made a couple of scabbed-over nicks on his chin. The kind of face that had stared back from the mirror at Runyon in the weeks and months after he buried Colleen.

“How long’s it been since you ate anything?”

“What? Oh. Part of a sandwich last night.”

“Good idea if we have some breakfast while we talk.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Long day ahead. Make yourself sick if you don’t eat.”

“… Okay. You’re right.”

Runyon summoned the waitress, ordered scrambled eggs and toast for both of them, and a cup of tea for himself. When they were alone again, Bill said, “Kerry and I ate here on Sunday. Sunday. Seems like weeks ago.”

Nothing to say to that.

“Nice little town. Nice peaceful valley. We liked it so much we were thinking of making an offer on the place we’re staying. Jesus.”

Or to that. Runyon said, “Let’s talk about what happened. Fill me in on the details.”

Bill sipped a little coffee, began to talk in that low, scratchy voice. It took a while, with Runyon interrupting now and then to ask questions and the arrival of their breakfast.

“So now you see why I’m so damn scared.”

“Yeah, I see.”

“Broxmeyer thinks I’m overreacting, jumping to conclusions. I wish to God he was right, Jake, but he’s not. Somebody took Kerry, somebody’s holding her somewhere.”

Runyon said nothing, just nodded.

“Wherever she is, she’s alive,” Bill said. “I’m sure of that. I’d know it if she wasn’t.”

Hope and bravado talking, but that was all right. If the man let himself believe otherwise, he’d be a basket case by now. Runyon nodded again.

Bill grimaced at what was left on his plate, pushed it away, then ran hooked fingers over his face in a kind of self-punishing massage. “I keep thinking whatever happened, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t left her alone all day, I’d’ve been with her up on that logging trail.”

“Would you? You like hiking in the woods?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t have felt like it yesterday. Maybe she’d have gone by herself anyway.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Why beat yourself up? You’re not to blame for circumstances beyond your control.”

Wry mouth. “Standard message to a worried or grieving client. But all right. I know it’s true, I just have to wrap my head around it.”

Runyon said, “This logging road where the vehicle was parked and you found Kerry’s hat. How far from the place where you’re staying?”

“Half a mile or so.”

“And how far from here?”

“About three miles up-valley.”

“Let’s go take a look at it.”