They Disappeared

36

Manhattan, New York City

What am I missing?

Jeff drew his face to within inches of the flat-screen TV in his hotel room. He examined the millions of tiny pixels that formed the three pictures of Sarah in torment as he’d fought to free her from her captors.

But he no longer saw his wife, himself or the kidnappers.

He saw nothing but liquid crystals rotating polarized light.

It had been more than three hours since he’d started working with Detective Lucy Chu, the forensic artist, and some thirty-four hours since Sarah and Cole were stolen. Events bled into one another, with this morning’s call from the kidnappers leading to his failed rescue bid, the hospital, the press conference and now his work with Chu.

In all that time, he’d barely slept.

Jeff blinked several times and rubbed his face.

Chu and Ortiz traded glances.

“Maybe you should knock off for a bit?” Ortiz said.

“I had her in my arms,” Jeff said to the TV. “I had the door open.”

“Jeff,” Chu said. “You should take a break while I work on images.”

“I was so close to getting her back.”

“Let’s get out of the hotel,” Ortiz said. “So you can clear your head.”

“We have to find a detail, a lead,” Jeff told the TV.

“Come on, Jeff, let’s go out for a bit.” Ortiz took his arm gently but he shook her off.

“No! Did you hear me? I can’t! I don’t even know if Cole’s alive!”

In the tense silence he saw the two detectives looking at him with pity and concern, the way sane people look at someone who is losing their hold on reality. Through his anguished exhaustion Jeff recognized this and after a long moment said, “All right, I’ll go out by myself.”

“I have to go with you,” Ortiz said.

“No.” He collected his cell phone and room key. “I’ll go alone.”

“That’s not possible,” Ortiz said.

“Am I under arrest?”

“Of course not.” Ortiz handed him a Yankees cap and dark glasses. “Here, people might recognize you after the press coverage. Your face is out there.”

Jeff stared at her.

“You guys are pissed at me. You don’t trust me.”

“Jeff, it’s for your safety, in case contact is made again,” Ortiz said.

He glanced around the room.

Cordelli had left after his call. Brewer and Klaver were following leads.

“All right,” Jeff said, “there’s a place I need to go.”

Over twenty city, state and federal police agencies were working on the case, Ortiz told Jeff on the way to her unmarked car.

“There was a case meeting at the FBI’s office downtown. People from D.C. were on the call.”

Jeff looked at her.

“Washington? Do they know what the toy airplane has to do with all this, can you tell me?”

“No, because I don’t know. All I can tell you is that everyone’s looking at all angles of the murder case and the abductions-” she nodded to a helicopter and a passing motorcade “-because of the UN meeting going on in town right now. And, at last count, we’re following sixty tips called in since the press conference.”

“Sixty?”

“A handful could be credible leads. Everyone’s going flat out, Jeff.” They’d reached the car parked near the hotel entrance. “Where did you want to go?”

“Central Park.”

“That’s not far, which entrance?”

“South.”

“What’s in Central Park?”

“Hope.”

As they drove across midtown, Jeff scoured vehicles and faces in the street for Sarah, for Cole, for the kidnappers.

“You know, anyone would have done what I did, Juanita. They would’ve gone out on their own if it meant getting their family back.”

She looked at him, at his face laced with cuts, scrapes. He looked as if he’d been at the losing end of a brawl. He was beat up physically, emotionally, but he was not defeated and she admired that about him.

“I know, Jeff.”

“I remember seeing a picture of a little girl on your desk,” he said. “You have kids?”

“Our daughter, Lucy, is six.”

“Tell me about her?”

Ortiz’s face softened into a smile.

“She’s perfect. She’s everything to us and I would die without her.”

Jeff nodded, narrowing his eyes as he searched the streets for a way out of his nightmare.

“Tell me about Cole, Jeff?”

“He’s my buddy. He has a heart of gold. When-” Jeff swallowed. “When Lee Ann was born all he wanted to do was hold her and look after her. You know what he did before we brought her home from the hospital? He took his favorite old toys, lined them up in her nursery, to welcome her and watch over her.”

Jeff shook his head, glowing at the memory, then his face slowly darkened.

“I’ve got to find them, Juanita.”

Central Park gave Jeff sanctuary from his nightmare.

Here, the boiling chaos of the city melted into the peace of the creeks, waterfalls, vast green expanses and sheltering trees.

Central Park was an island of calm.

Jeff and Ortiz found a bench near the Gapstow Bridge at the northeast end of the Pond.

“This is where Sarah and I met, really got to know each other,” Jeff said. “We went to the same high school and I sort of knew her. I liked her and thought she was nice but she was dating a farm kid on the basketball team. Then we came to New York City on a school trip, about fifty students.

“We were in the park, around here, and Sarah was off by herself crying. She looked so sad and alone. I’d learned that her boyfriend had broken up with her and all I could think was who would be dumb enough to break the heart of such an angel. So I started talking to her. I told her not to worry, that what happened was the best thing because I was going to marry her one day and we would have the greatest life and come back here with our kids and tell them about it and laugh at the day her idiot boyfriend broke her heart.”

Ortiz smiled.

Breezes fingered through the trees and Jeff looked up.

“Lee Ann’s death undid us. We came here a broken family and I wanted to smash what was left. Sarah wanted to save it. But by the time I realized she was right, she and Cole were gone.”

Jeff leaned forward and cupped his battered face in his hands.

“I can’t stop believing that this is my fault.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Ortiz said.

“It started here. I’m the one who wanted to come back here. I’m the one who let Lee Ann slip away from us. I’m the one who wanted to destroy what was left of our family. I had Sarah in my arms this morning, now she’s gone again. And I don’t know where Cole is.”

They sat without speaking for a long stretch. Jeff’s knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the bench and the muscles in his jaw bunched as his anguish turned to rage.

“If those fuckers harm my family, I will find them and I will kill them.”

Ortiz said nothing and they sat there watching the wind ripple the glass surface of the water.