Long lost

1

Put myself in Petey's mind? Think like him? It was desperation, yes, but what was the alternative? At least it would be motion. It would keep me from losing my own mind.

I went to the street where Petey had first approached me outside my office-or what had used to be my office. The time was shortly after 2:00 p.m., as it had been exactly a year earlier. Petey had shouted my name from behind me, which meant that he'd been waiting to the left of the building's revolving door. I walked to a large concrete flower planter, where I guessed that he'd been resting his hips. I studied the front door, trying to put myself in his place. Why hadn't he gone into my office? As I leaned against the planter, feeling invisible to the passing crowd, I understood why he'd done it the way he had. In my office, he'd have been under my control, whereas on the sidewalk, yelling my name from behind me, he was in charge.

I recalled our initial conversation, this time from his perspective as he told me things that only my brother could have known, seeing my amazement, winning me over. I went to the delicatessen across the street, where our conversation had continued. I sat where he had sat. I imagined myself from his perspective as he continued to persuade me that my long-lost brother had finally returned. I went home and pretended to be him coming into my house, looking around, seeing all my possessions, the things that he'd never been able to have. Was it at this point that his plan had formed? I deserve this, not you, he would have thought. Picking up this and that object, he would have worked hard to conceal his anger. You ruined my life, and this is what you got for it, you bastard.

Kate would have been easy to look at: her long legs, her inviting waist. But what about Jason? What would Petey really have thought of him? A damned nuisance. Petey's background didn't leave room for paternal instinct. But Jason was part of what Petey would've had if I hadn't destroyed his life by sending him home from the baseball game. Jason went with the package, with the attractive wife and the big house, so Petey wanted him. Petey wanted everything that I had.

I recalled the dinner that Petey had eaten with us and how polite he'd been, helping to clean the dishes. Later, he'd played catch with Jason. He must have hated every second of it, just as he'd hated pretending to enjoy reminiscing about our childhood before I ruined his life. But the worst moment of all, the most hateful for him, would have been when I'd brought him the baseball glove that he'd dropped when the man and woman had grabbed him. He must have wanted to shove the damned glove down my throat.

I went to Petey's room. I lay on his bed. I stared up at the ceiling and discovered that I'd picked up the baseball glove and was slamming my fist into it again and again. He would have wanted a smoke, but he wouldn't have ruined his plan by lighting up in the house and annoying Kate. So he'd crept downstairs, through the French doors off the kitchen, into the moonlit backyard, where he'd sat angrily on a lounge chair and lit a cigarette. I remembered looking from our bedroom window and seeing him down there. I imagined him pretending not to notice when my face appeared. I put myself in his mind. What are you doing up there? he'd have thought. Screwing the wife, are you, bro? Enjoy it while you can. It'll soon be my turn.

2

The next morning, I went to the barbershop where I'd taken him. I sat in the chair, feeling the scissors against my head, imagining that he'd festered from the insult that I thought he looked like shit and I was going to make him presentable. Then I went to the Banana Republic where I'd bought him new clothes. Then the shoe store. Then the dentist, where I'd made him feel self-conscious about his chipped tooth, reinforcing his sense that I thought he looked like shit.

When I walked into the dentist's office, the receptionist glanced up in surprise. "We weren't expecting you today, Mr. Denning. We're just about to close for lunch. Is this an emergency?"

"No." Confused, I realized that I'd almost tricked myself into believing that I could truly repeat the pattern from a year ago. "I must have gotten my days mixed up. Sorry to have bothered you."

As I reached unsteadily for the doorknob, I remembered waiting in the reception area while Petey had gone in to have his teeth cleaned and the chip in his tooth smoothed away. I tried to project myself into Petey, to imagine him sitting angrily in the dentist's chair. Since he hadn't been to a dentist in years, he would have been nervous, tensing a little as the dentist came at him with…

"Actually, there might be a way you can help." My hand trembling, I released my grip on the doorknob and went over to the counter that separated the receptionist from the waiting area.

She looked at me expectantly.

"A year ago, I was in here with my brother." My heart pounded from the shock of the idea I'd just had.

"Yes, I remember. I'm terribly sorry about what happened to your wife and son."

"It's been a difficult time." I fought to keep my voice steady, to hold my emotions in check. "The thing is, I was wondering…" I held my breath. "Do you know if any X rays were taken of my brother's teeth?"

3

"There!" I told Gader. "This'll prove it!"

The somber man frowned at what I'd set on his desk. "Prove what?"

"That my brother and Lester Dant are the same man!"

"Are you still trying to-"

"My brother had dental X rays taken a couple of days before he kidnapped my wife and son. When I was a child, my parents made sure that Petey and I went to a dentist for regular checkups. Show these X rays to our family dentist back in Ohio. He can compare them to his records. He'll prove that the teeth belong to the same person."

"But a nine-year-old's teeth wouldn't be the same as those of a man in his thirties," Gader objected.

"Because he wouldn't have had all his permanent teeth by the time he disappeared? No. My dentist says that my brother would have had a few permanent teeth, and even if they changed over the years because of work done on them, the roots would have kept the same structure. What would it hurt you to look into it?"

Gader set down a thick file he'd been reading. "All right," he said impatiently. "To settle this once and for all. In Ohio, what was the name of your family dentist?"

"I… don't remember."

He looked more impatient.

"But Woodford wasn't a big town," I said. "There weren't many dentists. It shouldn't be hard to track down the one we went to."

"Assuming he's still in business. Assuming he kept records this long." Gader's phone rang. As he reached for it, he told me, "I'll get back to you."

"When?"

"Next week."

"But that isn't soon enough."

He didn't hear me. He was already speaking into the phone.

4

Saturday morning, I rose from Petey's bed, put camping gear in the Expedition, and packed sandwiches in a cooler. As much as possible, I did everything the same as a year earlier, and at nine, exactly when we'd set out the last time, I took Interstate 70 into the mountains. The peaks were still snowcapped, the same as they had been the previous June. Ignoring their beauty, as Petey would have, I worked to recall our conversation. I squirmed as I sensed a pattern: Almost every time Jason had said "Dad" and asked me something, Petey had answered first. He'd been practicing to take my place, getting used to being called "Dad."

When I headed north into the Arapaho National Forest, I imagined him hiding his anticipation. I reached the lake and stopped where the three of us had stopped the previous year. I looked at where Petey, Jason, and I had pitched our tent. I hiked around the lake to the stream that fed it, climbing the wooded slope to the gorge from which the stream thundered. All the while, I thought of him looking around for a spot to get rid of me and make it seem like an accident.

I climbed loose stones to the ridge above the gorge. I felt Petey's excitement when Jason went around the boulder to urinate. Now! Brad's back was exposed. "Dad!" No, the kid was returning too soon!

Unable to stop, I hurtled my goddamned brother into the gorge, then spun toward the kid, whose face was frozen in terror.

My mental image of Jason's fright shocked me into the present. Snapping from Petey's mind-set, I was nauseated from the darkness of pretending to be him. Despite a chill breeze, sweat soaked me. Working down the loose stones to the trail at the bottom of the ridge, I couldn't help wondering how Petey would have climbed down without falling, given that he had a frightened, struggling boy to contend with. Then I realized that there was only one way he could have done it. The answer made me sick as I imagined what it had been like to carry an unconscious boy through the trees and back to the Expedition.

Since the vehicle didn't have a trunk, Petey would have had to tie and gag Jason, putting him on the back floor, covering him with the tent. As Petey, I drove carefully home through the mountain passes, never exceeding the speed limit, lest a state trooper stop me and wonder about the squirming sounds beneath the tent in the back.

Arriving home, I drove into the garage and pressed the remote control. With a rumble, the door came down. As I got out of the car, I envisioned Kate coming into the garage from the kitchen. She'd have just gotten back from the all-day seminar she'd been conducting. The trim gray business suit she'd been wearing when we'd left that morning made her long blond hair more bright.

"How come you're back so soon?" She frowned. "Where are Brad and Jason?"

"We had an accident."

"An accident?"

He'd overpowered her, bound and gagged her, gone into the house, found her car keys, then put her and Jason in the Volvo's trunk. The car had a backseat that could be flipped down so the trunk could hold long objects, such as skis. He'd probably opened the seat partway to allow air to circulate into the trunk, using the numerous objects he'd looted from the house to keep the seat from opening completely and allowing Kate and Jason a way to escape. He'd hurriedly packed suitcases, making sure to take some of my clothes. After all, as long as he was replacing me, he might as well look like me.

Around 6:00 p.m., just as Petey had, I got in the Volvo, which the police had returned to me, and drove from the house. At 6:21, exactly when Petey had, keeping my head low from the camera as Petey had, I got money from the same ATM that he'd used. But as I headed north from Denver, following Interstate 25, I realized that, with all the objects Petey had stolen from me, the Volvo would have looked as if he were running an appliance store out of the car. Worried that a policeman might get suspicious, Petey would never have left Denver with all that stuff. He would have sold it as quickly as possible. But he was new in town. When would he have had time to find a fence? Rethinking the previous days, I suddenly remembered that, after the dentist, Petey had wanted some time alone in a park "to get my mind straight." The son of a bitch had used the afternoon to arrange to sell what he'd planned to steal from me.

I drove to a rough section of town and imitated the transaction, filling the few minutes that it would have taken. Then I returned to the interstate, and this time, I felt invisible, one of countless vehicles on the road, nothing to make me conspicuous.

5

A road sign informed me that Casper, Wyoming, was 250 miles ahead. I set the Volvo's cruise control to make sure I stayed under the speed limit. When sunset approached and I put on my headlights, I felt even more inconspicuous, blending with thousands of other lights. I passed Cheyenne, Wyoming, able to distinguish little, except that its buildings seemed low and sprawling. Then, four hours after having left Denver, I approached the glow of Casper. For most of the drive, I'd sensed only flat land in the uninhabited darkness around me. Now the shadow of a mountain hulked on my left, blocking stars.

A few miles north of town, I saw a sign for the rest area. Traffic was sparse, most of the vehicles having driven into Casper. An arrow pointed toward a barely visible exit ramp. Following it off the interstate, I approached two squat brick buildings whose floodlights silhouetted three pickup trucks and a minivan.

But Petey would have needed more seclusion, so I took a gravel road that veered to the right from the pavement that led to the rest area. The floodlights at the buildings reached far enough to show picnic tables and stunted trees in back. Satisfying myself that no one had emerged from the rest rooms and seen what might have seemed unusual behavior, I reduced my headlights to parking lights and got just enough illumination to see a redwood-fenced area, behind which the tip of a Dumpster showed.

I parked behind the Dumpster, shut off my parking lights, and walked in front of the fence, verifying that no one, a state trooper, for example, had seen what I'd done and was coming to investigate. Confident that I was hidden, I unlocked the trunk.

What I imagined pushed me back. Kate and Jason on their sides. Squirming. Terrified. Duct tape pressed tightly across their mouths. Hands tied behind their backs. Ankles bound. Eyes so wide with fright that their whites were huge. Moans that were half apprehension, half pleas. The stench of bodily excretions, of carbon dioxide, of sweat and fear.

Petey would have taken off their gags and allowed them to catch their breath while he'd warned them not to scream. They'd have been too fear-weakened and groggy from the foul air in the trunk to manage much of an outburst. He'd have needed to lift them one at a time from the trunk, loosening their clothes so they could relieve themselves. That unpleasant intimacy would have tested his commitment to his new family. But his obligations were just beginning. For example, they'd have been terribly thirsty. Had he planned ahead and stopped at a fast-food place in Casper to get soft drinks, possibly french fries and hamburgers also? As he re-gagged them and put them back in the trunk, would he have said any reassuring words?

"I love you."

I shut the trunk. From the darkness behind the Dumpster, I stared toward the vehicles in front of the rest rooms. I walked in that direction, my footsteps crunching on pebbles. The floodlights at the two buildings made me feel naked the closer I came. By then, most of the vehicles had departed, leaving only a midsize sedan. I went into the men's room and found it empty. I stepped outside. Insects swarmed in the overhead light.

A woman left the other building, pulled keys from her purse, and approached the sedan. She didn't look in my direction. I imagined Petey starting to rush her, then pausing as headlights flashed past on the interstate, not a lot, but enough that there was never a gap, never a moment when somebody driving by wouldn't have seen a man attack a woman.

So Petey had waited for another opportunity, gone into the women's room, and subdued his victim there. He'd watched the interstate until there were just enough gaps between headlights that no one would see him in the few seconds that it took him to carry the unconscious woman around to the darkness. Behind the Dumpster, he'd tied and gagged her. Then he'd returned to the rest area, used the woman's key to start her car (a Caprice, the police had told me). He'd kept the headlights off and driven back to the darkness behind the fence, where he would have had to use a knife to make ventilation holes through the backseats into the Caprice's trunk before he transferred Kate and Jason into it.

But when he'd put the driver in the trunk with them, hadn't it worried him that there might not have been enough air for three people? Why had he risked suffocating Kate and Jason by putting the woman in the trunk with them? As it was, the woman had died. Why hadn't he killed her and hidden her body in the Dumpster? No one would have found her for quite a while, if ever. Again I felt Kate and Jason's horror as the asthmatic woman fought to breathe with the duct tape pressed over her mouth, her frenzied movements, her gagging sounds, her gradual stillness, the release of her bladder, probably her bowels. As the Caprice sped along the interstate, Kate and Jason would have been seized by the out-of-control fear that, if it had happened to the woman, it could happen to them.

The question kept nagging at me: Why hadn't Petey just killed her and hidden her body in the Dumpster? The only answer that made sense to me was that, no matter how indifferent Petey had felt toward the woman, he hadn't intended for her to die. Killing me was one thing. As far as Petey was concerned, I deserved to die for ruining his life. But this woman had merely happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the first indication of humanity that I'd detected in him. It gave me hope for Kate and Jason.

He could have left the Volvo behind the Dumpster, where it might not have been discovered for days. Instead, he'd gone to the trouble of moving the Volvo to the front of the rest rooms, where it would be in plain sight. Because he wanted it to be found soon. He wanted it to point the way north, just as abandoning the Caprice outside Billings, Montana, made it seem that he was heading toward Butte. He'd been thinking with frightening control.

6

I drove back to the interstate. A road sign indicated that Billings, Montana, was 250 miles away. My eyelids felt heavy. But I had to keep moving. I had to complete Petey's escape.

Had he slept along the way? Doing that certainly tempted me. But I was afraid that if I steered off the interstate and found a secluded spot-a camping area, for example-where I could get a few hours' sleep, I wouldn't waken until daylight. In Petey's case, the Caprice might have been reported by then. He had to get to Billings. Imitating him, I kept driving.

I played the radio loud. In the middle of the night, it was hard to find a station. The ones I did find broadcast mostly evangelists riddled with static.

A mountain range stretched from north to south on my left. Moonlight glowed off the snowy peaks. My eyelids weakened. To stay awake, I bit my lips. I dug my fingernails into my palms. Interstate 25 became 90. I passed Sheridan, Wyoming, and entered Montana. The signs changed character: Lodge Grass; Custer Battlefield National Monument; Crow Agency… At Hardin, the interstate veered west. Meanwhile, as the miles accumulated, I imagined that Petey would have worried that his captives weren't getting enough air. He'd have stopped periodically on deserted roads to check on them. It pained me to think of Kate's and Jason's frightened eyes peering desperately up at him. They flinched when he reached in to touch their brows to calm them. As for the Caprice's driver, he barely looked at her.

When I finally read a sign for Billings, I was troubled that the distance between Casper and Billings should have taken me only four hours, but with frequent stops, pretending to check on my captives, I'd taken ninety minutes longer than I should have.

Even so, it was still dark when I came to the rest stop on the other side of Billings. A sign called it a scenic vista, but with the moon having set, I had only a vague sense of mountains to the north and south. Two vehicles were parked at the rest rooms: a pickup truck and a sedan. Here, too, a service road led behind the buildings. I parked in the darkness. Adrenaline overcame my exhaustion as I got out of the car. The air was surprisingly cold. Two men in cowboy hats came out of one of the concrete-block buildings. I waited while they got in the pickup truck and drove away. At this predawn hour, there was almost no traffic on the interstate. I walked quickly toward the rest rooms and listened for activity in either one. If I heard voices, if there was more than one person, I'd wait for a better opportunity. But if there was only one set of footsteps…

At that hour, few women felt safe to drive alone. I assumed that the victim would have been male. Use a tire iron to knock him unconscious in the men's room. Drag him into the darkness. Take his car to the back. Put Kate, Jason, and the driver into its trunk.

Would it have been at this point that Petey had discovered that the owner of the Caprice had choked to death from the duct tape over her mouth? He wouldn't have been overwhelmed with sorrow. He'd given her a chance. As far as he was concerned, it wasn't his fault. The penalty for kidnapping was the same as for murder, so with nothing to lose, instead of trying to hide her body, he'd left it with the Caprice. Then he'd gotten into its replacement and driven onto the interstate. But instead of continuing toward Butte, where he wanted the police to think he was going, he'd taken the next exit ramp, crossed the overpass, and reaccessed the interstate, reversing direction, heading back toward Billings.

I kept after him. By then, it was dawn. I saw mountains, ranches, and oil refineries. Crossing the Yellowstone River, I no longer had the police report to guide me. Petey had been as tired as I was. Where the hell had he gone next?

7

The interstate forked. I had to choose-take 94 northeast through Montana, way up into North Dakota, or else retrace 90 south into Wyoming. I chose the latter. I didn't fool myself that intuitively I was doing what Petey had. My decision was totally arbitrary.

But as tired as I was, if I didn't soon find a place to sleep, I knew I'd have an accident. Petey must have felt the same. Even charged with adrenaline, he couldn't have kept going much longer. For certain, he wouldn't have dared risk an accident. He didn't have a driver's license, and the car wasn't registered to him. A state trooper questioning him would eventually have gotten suspicious enough to look in the trunk. Meanwhile, as the sun got higher, warming the car's interior, I imagined how hot the trunk would have gotten. No matter how many ventilation holes Petey had made, Kate, Jason, and the car's owner would have roasted in that confined space, the sun's heat turning the trunk into an oven, the air getting thicker, smothering. If Petey was going to keep them alive in the trunk, he had to rest by day and drive by night.

Because the Denver detectives had said that duct tape had covered the dead woman's mouth, I presumed that Petey had done the same to Kate, Jason, and the man whose car he'd stolen. I took my right hand off the steering wheel and pressed it over my mouth, forcing myself to breathe only through my nose. Spring allergies had caused mucus to partially block my nostrils. My chest heaved. I couldn't seem to get enough air. I had to concentrate to control my heartbeat, to inhale and exhale slowly. I couldn't bear the thought of breathing self-consciously, of taking in a minimum of air for what felt like forever in a hot, closed space.

Definitely, no one in the trunk would have had a chance of surviving unless Petey drove only when it was cooler-at night. But where could he have stopped? A motel would have been dangerously public. But what about a camping area? Tourist season was only beginning. Petey might have been able to find a wooded area that didn't have visitors. Listening for the approach of vehicles, he could have risked letting his prisoners out of the trunk. If there was a stream where they could clean themselves, so much the better.

He'd have needed to get food again. At the next exit, I saw a McDonald's, went to the drive-through lane, and ordered an Egg McMuffin, coffee, and orange juice. While I waited behind other cars, I frowned at my beard-stubbled image in the rearview mirror. But the beard stubble wasn't what bothered me. I'd been trying to imitate Petey's thoughts, and I'd forgotten one of the most important things about him: the scar on his chin. It would have attracted attention. I pulled a pen from my shirt pocket and drew a line where Petey's scar would have been. I wanted to know what it felt like to have people staring at my chin.

When I paid for my food, the woman behind the counter pointed toward the ink mark. "Mister, you've got-"

"Yeah, I know," I said. "I can't seem to get the darned thing off."

I'd intended to ask her if there were nearby camping areas, but feeling conspicuous, I paid for my food and drove away. Squinting from the glare of the morning sun, I decided to let my beard keep growing and hide the streak on my chin.

A likely place for a campground would be along a river, so when I crossed the Bighorn, I took the first exit. There, I debated whether to follow the river north or south. A sign indicated that south would take me to the Crow Indian Reservation. That didn't sound like a place where I'd be invisible, so I headed north.

Traffic was sparse. The land was fenced. In a while, I came to a dirt road that took me to the left, toward the river. It soon curved to the right to parallel the river, although bushes and trees along the bank prevented me from seeing the water. A weed-overgrown lane went into the trees. I drove down it, parked behind the trees, walked to the road, and satisfied myself that the car was hidden.

I had no illusions that this was the spot where Petey had stopped, but logic suggested that it was similar. Petey would have ignored the car's owner while he tried to reassure Kate and Jason, saying that he wouldn't hurt them unless they forced him to, that if they did what they were told, there wouldn't be trouble. He would have kept one of them in the trunk while he let the other bathe, making sure that a rope was tied to one and then the other's waist to prevent them from trying to run. He would have allowed them to change clothes. He would have studied them while they ate their fast-food breakfast.

"I'll take care of you."

They wouldn't have known what to make of that.

As frightened as Kate was, she'd have had all night to analyze the danger they were in. She'd have already decided that their only chance was for her to use her stress-management skills to try to keep him calm. "Thanks for the food."

"You like it?"

Despite their fear, Kate and Jason would have been so hungry that they'd have gulped their hamburgers.

"I said, Do you like it?"

"Yes," Kate would have answered quickly.

"It isn't much, but it's better than nothing."

Was there a threat in the way he said it, that if they gave him trouble, he could make sure that was exactly what they got: nothing? Kate would have taken another deep swallow from her soft drink, knowing that it wouldn't be enough to replenish her fluids. She'd have brushed her tangled hair from her face, aware that she had to try to look as presentable as possible. Make Petey think of you as a human being, not an object. Thank him for courtesies he showed. Behave as if the situation were normal. Make him want to go through efforts for you so he can get the gratification of being appreciated.

But what about Jason? As young as he was, lacking Kate's training, he'd have been nearly out of his mind with terror. Gagged, Kate wouldn't have been able to talk to him in the trunk. She couldn't have coached him. She had to depend on giving him significant looks and hoping that he'd understand her motives, that he'd follow her lead.

"What are you going to do with us?" she'd have asked when the time seemed right.

"I told you, I'm going to take care of you." "But why did-" "We're a family."

"Family?" Don't react. Make even the outrageous seem normal. "Brad had an accident." "What?"

"He fell off a cliff. I'm taking his place."

Kate's stomach would have plummeted as if she had fallen from a cliff.

"I'm your husband. Jason, you're my son." Fighting to keep tears from swelling into her eyes, Kate would have echoed Petey's earlier words, reinforcing their import. "Take care of us."

Petey probably wouldn't have been familiar with the term "the Stockholm principle," but he was a skillful-enough manipulator that he would have understood it. After a period of time, captives grow weary of their roller-coaster emotions. Grateful to be shown small kindnesses, they tend to accept their situation and to bond with their captors.

That would have been Petey's hope. But of course he wasn't accustomed to providing for a wife and son. The breakfast would have quickly disappeared, and then there'd have been the problem of what to do about lunch and supper. Petey wouldn't have thought that far ahead, but even if he had, how was he going to keep hamburgers and fries from spoiling, and what about a way to reheat them? He needed to buy a cooler, a camping stove, pots and pans and… What had started as an urge to take my place suddenly didn't have the gratification it had promised. Everything was getting too complicated. Why not admit that he'd made a mistake and chuck the whole business? Why not do what he wanted with Kate and Jason, kill them and the driver in the trunk, hide their bodies, drive into the nearest big town, abandon the car, buy a bus ticket, and adios?

The thought made me shudder. No, that's how Lester Dant would have acted, I tried to assure myself. Lester Dant would have killed Jason right away, then driven Kate to a secret spot and dumped her body down a ravine when he got tired of abusing her. He certainly wouldn't have taken the time and the risk to lay a false trail all the way to Montana. That only made sense if Petey had abducted them, if he was determined to take over my life and make Kate and Jason his family.

But his patience would have been sorely tested. The only way he could have felt at ease enough to go to sleep was by putting Kate and Jason back into the trunk so they wouldn't try to escape while he was dozing. The shade of the trees would have prevented the trunk from becoming lethally hot. Still, Petey would have had no idea how long he might sleep. He'd have loved eight hours. Even with numerous ventilation holes, Kate, Jason, and the man whose car he'd stolen probably wouldn't have been able to survive that long in the trunk without the lid being opened periodically to vent carbon dioxide. Two people, though, would have a chance. There'd have been one-third more air for them if…

That's when I knew that Petey had deliberately killed the second driver, whereas the first death had been an accident.

Sleep. I could barely keep awake. But as I opened a back door, staring at my suitcase, knapsack, laptop computer, and printer, I realized that I was going to have to put them in the front seat so I could stretch out in the back. It would have annoyed Petey to move his four suitcases. Another complication. Another nuisance. In addition, I was going to have to disable the car's interior light so I could leave a back door open and stretch my legs while I slept-to prevent the car's battery from dying. One more damned thing to do.

No, this wouldn't have been at all like what Petey had wanted.

8

The sound of a passing vehicle startled me awake. I sat up sharply. Before I checked my watch, the angle of the sun told me that the time was late afternoon. Out of sight from the trees, the vehicle kept bumping along the dirt road. My mouth felt pasty as I got out of the backseat and peered through the trees, seeing that the vehicle was a pickup truck, a rancher in a hurry to get somewhere. My back was sore.

Thus Petey's nervous schedule would have resumed: checking on his captives, lifting them out so they could relieve themselves and wash their faces in the river. At some point, he would have had to take care of himself. His clothes would have felt grimy. Probably he changed them for some of the clothes that he'd stolen from me. Perhaps he'd felt angry as the rumblings in his stomach told him that he had to start thinking about getting more food for everybody. He couldn't go on like this. Either he had to find a place in which to settle or he would have to kill Kate and Jason for creating his problems.

No! The only way I could shove that mind-threatening thought away was by imagining how Kate and Jason might have reacted to Petey's growing impatience. Kate's training would have told her that she had to accommodate Petey as best she could, to make things less complicated for him, to ease the strain he felt.

"I can try to wash these dirty clothes in the river. Tie me to a tree and watch me on the bank. That way, you'll be sure I can't run away. What about these suitcases you moved to the front? Why don't I return them to where they were? There's a lot of housekeeping I can take care of."

Jason might have caught on by then. He might have understood what Kate was doing and tried his best to appear the obedient son. Reinforce Petey's fantasies. Make him believe that his risk and effort were worthwhile. That was the only way they were going to stay alive. In a way, it was the captives trying to make the captor fall into the Stockholm syndrome.

Petey would have been too close to where he'd abandoned the Caprice. The new vehicle he was driving would soon have been reported missing. Maybe it had license plates from several states away, suggesting that the driver had a distance to go before arriving home and wouldn't be reported missing until at least the end of the day. All the same, Petey wouldn't have been able to depend on that. He needed to get on the move. But he didn't dare show the car until darkness made him invisible. That meant waiting to get food for Kate and Jason. But it also meant that Kate and Jason had more time to talk with him, a chance to try to bond with him, to personalize themselves, so that killing them wouldn't be easy.

Petey brought out the rope and the duct tape.

"I need to ask you to do something," Kate said.

Petey tied her hands behind her back.

"Please, listen," Kate said. "I understand why you need to put the duct tape over our mouths. You're afraid we'll yell and make somebody call the police."

Petey tied her feet.

"Please," Kate said. "It's almost impossible to breathe when the trunk gets hot. When you press the duct tape across our mouths, I'm begging you to…"

Petey tore off a section of tape.

"Please. It won't threaten you if you cut a small hole where our lips are. We still won't be able to yell. But we'll be able to breathe better."

Petey stared at her.

"You promised you'd take care of us," Kate said. "What good are we to you if we're dead?"

Petey's harsh eyes were filled with suspicion. He pressed the tape over her mouth and set her in the trunk. He did the same to Jason. Kate looked beseechingly up at Petey, who reached to close the trunk, paused, then pulled out a knife and slit the duct tape over their lips.

I hoped. But when darkness finally came and I returned to the interstate, I couldn't repress my unease that I was totally wrong about my reenactment of what had happened. In Wyoming, I came to another fork in the interstate. My palms broke out in a sweat as I tried to decide what to do next. I could retrace my route on 25, eventually returning to Denver, or I could veer east on the continuation of 90, heading into the Black Hills of South Dakota. I couldn't imagine Petey returning to Denver. But the Black Hills would surely have appealed to him. Plenty of places in which to hide.

9

Footsteps paused outside the entrance to the men's room. This was at a rest area in South Dakota, shortly after three in the morning. In the harsh overhead light, I stood at a urinal. At that quiet hour, sounds were magnified. That was probably the only reason I noticed the footsteps approaching. Waiting for them to resume, I looked over my shoulder, past the toilet stalls, toward the door on my right. The place had the chill of concrete after the heat of the day had faded.

I waited for the door to swing open. The silence beyond it grew. Still peering over my shoulder, I zipped up my pants. I went over to the sink and washed my hands, fixing my gaze on the mirror before me, which gave a direct view of the door. There weren't any paper towels, only one of those power dryers that force warm air over wet hands. They sound like a jet engine. Needing to hear everything, I didn't press its button.

As my fingers tingled from the water on them, I stared toward the door. The silence beyond it persisted. It's only a tired driver who pulled into the rest area, I thought. He didn't need to relieve himself, just to stretch his legs. He's standing out there, enjoying the stars.

And if I'm wrong?

I told myself I was overreacting. After all, I didn't have any firm reason to believe that someone was out there waiting to surprise me when I opened the door. But I'd been in the foulness of Petey's mind for so long, imitating his movements, re-creating his logic, stalking rest areas, that I couldn't subdue the suspicion. My imagination was so primed that I could feel the danger out there as if it were seeping through the wall.

When I'd parked outside, mine had been the only vehicle, an attraction to a predator. He was listening for voices, for more than one set of footsteps, wanting to make sure I was alone. Hearing only me, he'd soon push the door open. I thought of the pistol in the suitcase in my car and cursed myself for being a fool. What good was learning how to use it if I put it where I couldn't get it if I needed the damned thing?

My legs were feathery. I trembled. No! I thought. What if I'd tracked down Petey? What if he was outside that door?

I pushed the button on the hand dryer. Its harsh roar obscured my footsteps as I shifted toward the back of the door. Braced against the wall, I felt a spurt of fear in my stomach as the door swung open.

A man in his mid-twenties, wearing cowboy boots, jeans, and a cowboy hat came quickly in, holding a tire iron. The door swung shut behind him as he stopped at the sight of the empty rest room. Puzzled, he stared at the roaring hand dryer. He peered toward the toilet stalls.

Abruptly he saw my reflection in the mirror over the sink. He tried to turn. I was already rushing, slamming his back with such force that he hurtled forward, his mustached face hitting the mirror, smashing it into shards. Blood streaked the mirror as I grabbed him by the back of his collar and his thick belt, ramming him toward the hand dryer, driving his head against it so powerfully that the nozzle on the fan broke off. The dryer kept roaring as I backed him up and drove his head against it even harder. Blood sprayed from the force of the unshielded fan. The tire iron fell from his hand, clanging on the concrete floor. I slammed his head once more and dropped him. He lay like a pile of old clothes. Eyes shut, he moaned. Except for the rise and fall of his chest, he barely moved.

My stomach was on fire. The anger that had brought me close to killing him frightened me. But the emotion that primarily seized me, making me want to shout, was that I'd won.

10

"Federal Bureau of Investigation," the receptionist said.

"Special Agent Gader, please." I gripped my cell phone so tightly that my fingers ached.

It was nine in the morning. Sunlight glinted off a secluded lake surrounded by lumpy bluffs studded with pine trees. The ridges were dark gray stone, making it clear how the Black Hills had gotten their name. I'd reached this area before dawn, but when I'd noticed that the map indicated only barren open land beyond them, I'd decided that Petey would have stopped earlier than he'd planned, going to ground for the day.

The beauty of the lake looked odd to me. After what had happened at the rest area, I felt as if I'd stepped into an alternate reality.

"Agent Gader is out of town on an assignment."

I picked up a rock. Frustration made me hurl it at the lake.

"May I ask who's calling?" the woman asked.

"Brad Denning. I-"

"Agent Gader mentioned that you'd be contacting him. He said that he'd spoken to Mr. Payne about the matter you were interested in, and if you'd talk to-"

I broke the connection.

11

"I guess you haven't been back to Woodford in a while," Payne said.

Pressing the cell phone to my ear, I walked close to the lake. Its cool air drifted over me. My beard stubble scraped against my hand. I worked to calm myself. "Not since my mother and I moved away when I was a kid."

"How big was it then?"

"Not very. About ten thousand people."

"A one-factory town," Payne said.

"That's right. My dad was a foreman." I suddenly missed him so much. "How did you know?"

"Because Gader says the factory shut down and went to Mexico ten years ago. Now Woodford's a bedroom community for Columbus, and its population has doubled to twenty thousand. There are several dentists, but none of them ever heard of the Denning family."

The air at the lake became colder. "But surely they know the dentists who worked there before them."

"Nope. Gader says you don't remember the name of the dentist you went to or his address."

My head throbbed. "It was too long ago."

"Then it's a dead end. Gader says he's sorry."

"Yeah, I bet."

"He says if you're relying on dental records to prove that Lester Dant is really your brother using an alias, you're setting yourself up for a big disappointment. Anyway, how's that going to help find your family?"

"I don't know, but I can think of words that are a whole lot stronger than disappointment."

The cell phone's reception became staticky.

"Where are you calling from?" Payne asked.

"South Dakota."

"Nice there?"

"I didn't come for the scenery," I said.

"Well, as long as you're determined to be on the road, do you want some advice?"

"Provided it's not Take it easy and get some rest.'"

"No, something else. This might surprise you," Payne said. "It'll sound like encouragement."

"Then go ahead and surprise me."

"Until I put on all this weight and I got to relying on the Internet," Payne said, "I was a hands-on kind of investigator. That's why I noticed things others didn't. When there's time, nothing beats going to the places and people you want to know about."

" 'When there's time.'"

"Which you seem to have plenty of."

"You're suggesting that if I'm determined to find that dentist, I should do it myself?"

"More or less."

"You're right-it does sound like encouragement. Why the change?"

"Because I'm worried about you."

The reception became staticky again. I listened hard.

"I'm afraid, if you don't satisfy yourself one hundred percent that you've done everything you can, if you lose hope…"

I strained to hear, but the static became worse.

"… you'll destroy yourself."

"I'll get back to you later in the week," I said.

"What? I can't hear you."

I broke the connection.

12

As I imagined spending days in secluded places asleep in the back of the car, using my nights to drive as far as I could, I knew that Petey wouldn't have tolerated that routine much longer. The one thing that would have kept him motivated was his discovery- from the widespread news reports on the car radio a couple of days later (the media really loved the story)-that I hadn't died in the mountains. He wouldn't have told Kate and Jason that I was alive, of course. But his secret would have given him resolve, imagining how my fear and longing for my family made me suffer. No crowing midnight phone calls to me, no gleeful postcards, nothing with an inadvertent clue that might have led the police to him. Only taunting, gloating silence.

But, damn it, where would he have taken them? I thought about the South Dakota badlands ahead. In the old days, rustlers used to hide in the maze of sun-scorched canyons, the environment so hellish that posses wouldn't go in after them. It was too desperate a choice, even for Petey. After the badlands, there were hundreds of miles of flat grassland, hardly a tree anywhere, everything exposed. But Petey wouldn't have tolerated being in the open. Hide in plain sight? I doubted it. He wouldn't have felt protected without the shelter of hills and woods.

So had he found a place in the Black Hills? A deserted cabin maybe, or a…

I'd come as far as intuition could take me. A dead end, just as Gader had said that the idea about the dentist was a dead end.

The dentist. "Nothing beats going to the places and people you want to know about," Payne had said.

Yes.

After sleeping in the back of the car until sundown, I set out toward where I now realized my route had already been taking me, toward where everything had started so long ago.

Toward Petey's lost youth.