Dismember

TWENTY-FIVE

Libby raced the Honda down Mike’s driveway; it kicked up gravel and slid across the loose rocks for almost two feet after she finally applied the brakes. The car skidded to a stop beside and slightly behind a Ford Explorer emblazoned with the county name and the sheriff’s department’s emblem. Just one cruiser, no ambulances or fire trucks or any of that, but one was enough to mean something had happened.

Libby slipped the car into park, pulled the keys from the ignition, and threw open her door so quickly she felt like she’d done all three things simultaneously. Halfway to the house, she noticed she’d left her headlights on and didn’t bother to go back. She had to get into the house, had to know what had happened to her baby.

Her hair had dried funnily on the trip up, and it blew unevenly around her head, most of it on her left side and the top, only a few strands on the right and across her face. There was still beer on her breath, though the adrenaline pumping through her body seemed to have cancelled out the alcohol’s effect. She smelled the lingering bath salts on her skin and in her hair, but another smell hid just beneath, the smell of sweat and panic.

On the porch, she didn’t bother knocking or ringing the doorbell but simply let herself in through the front door as if it were her own house and she had every right to do so—which in her mind, she did, given the circumstances.

First she noticed the uniform: brown pants, khaki shirt, tie and hat to match the trousers, utility belt with holstered gun. The guy was Indiana Jones without the leather jacket or whip. At least outfit-wise he was. His face was bearded and scarred and a little pudgy.

“Ms. Pullman?”

Libby nodded and hurried into the room. Mike sat on the sofa beside a second deputy who held a pad of paper and a pen. The two of them looked up at her, and then Mike stood.

His face was puffed and bruised, especially around his chin. He looked like he’d been in a barroom brawl.

“What is it?” Libby asked him. “Where’s Trevor? What happened to your face?”

Mike looked like he wanted to hug her, but she hoped he wouldn’t. She’d had enough undesired physical attention today. Right now, she needed facts, not hugs.

Mike stayed at the couch, maybe seeing something in her eyes or her stance that told him to keep his distance. He said, “He, uh…Trevor’s—”

“Your son has been abducted,” the bearded deputy said from behind her.

Libby turned to him. “What do you mean? Like by aliens?” It was a stupid question, and she hadn’t meant to ask it. She was barely thinking.

The deputy smiled just a little, though he obviously tried not to, and said, “No, not by aliens. Your son has been kidnapped.” He added, “By a man.”

Libby stared at him. Somehow, she hadn’t expected this. She’d thought Trevor had been the victim of some kind of accident, a fire, a brain aneurysm, maybe a bad fall. She’d never considered kidnapping.

“What man?” she said and turned to Mike. “Who was it? Why would somebody take Trevor?”

Mike shook his head. “I don’t know who it was or why he did it. He had another boy too, and a dog. You know Beth Winston?”

Libby shook her head.

“Well, she’s the neighbor girl downhill a ways. Apparently this same guy attacked her and stole her dog.”

“What? He…why would he do that? Who’s the other boy?” she asked the room in general.

The smaller deputy on the couch said, “We’re not sure yet. From what the Winston girl and your hu…ex-husband have told us, we suspect he might have been another kidnap.”

Libby moved to the coffee table and plopped down on the edge of it, her hair flapping against her neck. “I can’t believe this.”

“Ms. Pullman,” said the bearded deputy whose name tag Libby had not yet bothered to read, “I know this is all a little much, but I have a couple of questions to ask you.”

“Me?” Libby looked at his name tag now. It read L. Willis. “What kinds of questions?”

Rather than answer, Willis said, “Have you been seeing anyone recently, Ms. Pullman?”

Libby gawked at him. “Have I…no, I haven’t. What’s that matter?”

“No one?” Willis asked. “No regular boyfriend?”

Libby thought of Marshall, who was most definitely not a regular boyfriend, who had started as a pity date and turned out to be a lecher. “No,” she told Willis. “There hasn’t been anyone since—” She trailed off and didn’t look at Mike.

“I see,” said Willis. “I only ask because sometimes, when there are divorced parents involved, a kidnapped child turns up with one of the two of them.”

“You think I have him?” Libby leaned to get up from the coffee table, but Mike put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

“Hold on a second,” he said. “I told you who took him. It was this guy with the boy.”

Willis ignored Mike. To Libby, he said, “You never mentioned something to, say, a friend? Maybe that you wished you saw more of your boy? Or that you didn’t like him being up here.”

Libby didn’t appreciate the way he’d said the word friend, wasn’t sure what, if anything, he was implying. “No.” She looked at the other deputy, who was writing on his pad again. “No, I never said anything like that.” Her fists clenched, and she forced her fingers to loosen.

“You don’t wish you saw more of your boy?” Willis asked.

“Well, of course I do. You’re twisting this all around. I love Trevor, but Mike is a good daddy to him, and I’d never try to take him away from here.”

Willis nodded. “Okay.” He turned to Mike, his attitude changing so suddenly he seemed to be a different person. He said, “We’ve got additional units heading up right now. They’ll search the woods around your property and between here and the Winston’s place. But I have to be honest with you both. Until this guy calls, there’s not a lot more we can do.”

“Calls?” Mike said. “What do you mean? Why would he call?”

“Ransom,” said Willis. “We should assume he might call wanting money.”

“We don’t have any money,” Libby said.

“And even if we did,” Mike added, “I don’t think he wants it. If he wanted a ransom, he wouldn’t have tried to kill me.”

“What?” Libby spun toward him.

Mike said, “I…got stabbed.”

Libby stared.

“It’s nothing bad,” he said quickly. “Doctor fixed me up right here, didn’t have to take me to the hospital or anything, just told me to watch it for infection.”

Libby’s head suddenly overflowed with questions. The first one to spill out was, “What doctor?”

“He’s gone,” Mike answered, and Libby could tell from the tone of his voice that he’d explain it all to her later, that they had more important things to discuss now.

“Well, then, you’re right,” said Libby. “He doesn’t want money.”

“We don’t know that,” Willis added. “And if this isn’t a ransom situation, we’re going to have a tougher time finding Trevor. We’ll do what we can, of course. Prints, blood work, all that, and we’ll get you down to the station tomorrow to look through some mug shots,” he said to Mike. “Of course, this could end up in the hands of the state police, or with the feds if we find out Trevor’s out of the state. Things could still get a lot messier. Best thing we can do right now is wait and see what happens.”

“That’s it?” Libby looked from man to man to man, saving Deputy Willis for last. “Can’t we bring in the dogs? Something like that?”

“The sheriff’s department doesn’t have any dogs. By the time we could coordinate with the police to get some up here, it’d be too late. It’s probably too late already. Our guy didn’t go far on foot, probably had transportation waiting somewhere nearby. I’d guess he was already on the road by the time you got to your phone,” he said and looked at Mike. “To get a search party up here would take hours and be more expensive than it was worth. We’d barely be getting here ourselves if we hadn’t already been practically next door.”

“That’s reassuring,” said Libby.

Willis said, “That’s just the truth. We’ve got a lot of area to cover up here and not a lot of deputies to cover it. It’s better for everyone if we keep things realistic. But I promise you I will personally do everything in my power to make sure we bring your son back. Okay?”

Libby wondered if Mike felt as helpless as she did. Trevor was gone. Again. And this time they wouldn’t find him in the restroom. If Libby had believed in fate, she might have thought she was meant to lose Trevor today. Except she didn’t, and fate hadn’t stabbed Mike and cut up a little girl and stolen two boys.

“Once we’ve finished collecting our evidence and gone,” said Willis, “I’d suggest you two get some sleep. For the next couple of days, you’re going to need all the rest you can get.”

Yeah right. You think I can curl up and take a nap while my baby is missing?

Mike returned to his seat on the sofa and fingered his bruised face. After eight years of marriage, Libby had learned to read his body language and often knew his thoughts without him saying a word. Right now, she guessed he was wondering the same thing she was: while they waited, what might be happening to their son?