Gone

CHAPTER 16

Tuesday, 3:32 p.m. PST

KIMBERLY PARKED HER CAR, looked around, then sighed heavily. The rain had finally subsided to a light mist but there was no getting around it; she was about to ruin her favorite pair of shoes.

Kimberly’s slim-fitting black slacks and tailored silk top had made perfect sense for a seventy-degree day in Atlanta, Georgia. Bad news about dashing to the airport, however, was there’d been no time to stop by her house. Instead, she’d grabbed her emergency duffel bag from the trunk of her car. It contained one FBI-issue navy blue windbreaker, one change of underwear, toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, and deodorant. That was it.

In other words, no boots appropriate for slogging through a fifty-foot stretch of mud. No casual clothes more suited for approaching a small child. No sweater to protect her arms from the raw chill. She could try the windbreaker, but given the subject’s reported dislike of law enforcement, it probably wasn’t best to arrive in a jacket emblazoned FBI.

Nope, she was overdressed in nice slacks, nice shirt, and a positively killer pair of heels. And now she was going to suffer. God, you had to love this job.

She opened the door of her rental car and stepped out into the muddy driveway. Her heel promptly sank down two inches. She pulled it out, and the mud made a giant sucking sound.

She tried a second step, hell-bent on her efforts, and nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice suddenly spoke from the woods.

“Those shoes are pretty.”

Kimberly turned toward the sound, precariously balanced with one foot sunken forward, one foot sunken back. She saw a young boy peering at her from beneath a towering fir tree. He had large brown eyes, nearly too big for his face. The rest of him was thin and scrawny, his blue sweatshirt and mud-splattered jeans nearly hanging off his frame.

At her look, he shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. He’d obviously been outside awhile. His sweatshirt appeared soaked, his wet hair formed dark spikes against his forehead. He had a smear of mud across one cheek and pine needles stuck to his clothes. He didn’t seem to notice, however, just kept staring at her.

“These shoes,” Kimberly said at last, “ arepretty. Pretty worthless.” She grimaced, pulled up her front foot a second time, and earned a fresh round of protest from the muck. Screw it. She slid off both shoes, dangling them from her hand, and proceeded toward the boy barefoot. The mud oozed between her toes, kind of reminding her of this one time in Virginia… Best not to think of it.

She slogged forward and the boy started to giggle.

“Don’t tell me you never walked barefoot in the mud,” Kimberly said. “And splashed in puddles? Oh, you haven’t lived until you’ve marched barefoot in the rain.”

Dougie Jones, she presumed, took her bait. He knelt down, working eagerly on the laces of his filthy tennis shoes. He had thin, fast-moving fingers. They struggled, however, with the rain-soaked knots, giving Kimberly time to approach.

“Would you like some help?” she asked him.

Wordlessly, Dougie stuck out a foot.

With her outfit well beyond ruined already, Kimberly squatted down in the dirt and went to work on the boy’s laces. “Other foot.”

He complied. She got both shoes off, then Dougie eagerly stripped off his socks. They were cheap white athletic socks, the kind with colored bands around the top. The heels were threadbare, the toes stained the color of nicotine. Something about their pitiful state made Kimberly sad. It didn’t seem like it should be too much to buy a boy a new pair of socks.

“You’re Dougie Jones, aren’t you?”

The boy nodded distractedly.

“Hi,” she said softly. “My name is Kimberly.”

Dougie didn’t seem to care. He planted his feet in the mire. He wiggled his toes, watching the muck ooze around each little piggy.

“I like beetles,” Dougie said. “Want to see one?”

He reached into his pocket. Being a trained FBI agent, Kimberly managed not to scream as the boy pulled a giant black bug out of his pants and plopped it down on her arm. The bug was huge. And fast. It scurried right up her shoulder to her wet, streaming hair.

“That’s a fine bug,” Kimberly said faintly, holding perfectly still. Dougie remained staring at her, watching, waiting, testing.

The beetle arrived at her neck. Before she gave in to impulse and opened fire on the insect, Kimberly grabbed it in her left hand. Sticky legs promptly flailed frantically against her fist. She dropped the beetle back to earth.

“It’s a beautiful beetle, Dougie,” Kimberly said. “But it doesn’t belong in your pocket. Beetles belong outside in the woods. It’ll die in captivity.”

Dougie looked her in the eye. Then he raised his bare foot and squashed his pet into the mud. He stood on top of the beetle for a long time, staring at Kimberly with big, emotionless eyes.

Kimberly had a sudden insight into why Rainie might have started to drink.

“Why are you standing on the beetle, Dougie?” Kimberly asked quietly.

“Because I want to.”

“The beetle might die.”

The boy shrugged.

“If you don’t care about that beetle, Dougie, who will?”

Dougie frowned, seeming caught off guard by that question. He raised his foot, almost curiously. The beetle churned around in the empty footprint, still seeking some means of escape.

Dougie watched the beetle for a long time. Kimberly remained squatting beside the boy, shoulder to shoulder, in the mud.

“The agency sent you,” Dougie told her.

“No.”

Dougie frowned. “The agency sent you,” he repeated, more firmly now. “Are you taking me away? Because I don’t mind. We can go. Just go. Where is the lady in the purple suit?”

“Dougie, I’m a friend of Rainie’s. I came here looking for Rainie.”

Dougie scowled. His shoulders hunched, he turned away from Kimberly. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“She drinks, you know.”

“Rainie drinks?”

“Yes.”

“You saw her drinking?”

“No.” He sounded matter-of-fact. “But I know. She says she wants to help me. She says she’s my friend. But she’s a drunk. I know these things.”

“I see. Did you know, Dougie, that Rainie is missing?”

He shrugged.

“That’s sad for me. I’m Rainie’s friend and I would like to find her.”

Dougie looked at her. “You’re stupid.”

The vehemence in his words caught her off guard. Kimberly leaned back, almost lost her balance, and had to catch herself with a hand in the mud. “Why do you say that?”

But Dougie wouldn’t answer her. His lower lip jutted out, trembling. He grabbed the beetle again, and this time stuck it in his mouth. His right cheek bulged, then his left, as the beetle continued its frantic fight for life.

Kimberly wasn’t sure what to do anymore. The interrogation trainers at the Academy had definitely never met the likes of Dougie Jones.

She picked up a stick. She started tracing pictures in the mud; it seemed better than staring at Dougie’s plump, churning cheeks.

“When I was younger,” she said quietly, “older than you, but still too young, my older sister died. Then, a year later, my mother died. She was murdered actually, in her own home, by the same man who killed my sister. He chased my mother from room to room with a knife. I looked up the story in the news. I saw photos of the crime scene.”

Kimberly drew another picture. She wasn’t much of an artist. She started out with a square, then turned it into a crude house. The front door was too small, the windows too big. She tried to draw a tree in front, but it quickly overshadowed the tiny house, giving the drawing an ominous flair. She knew children who had been victimized often drew dark, scary pictures. It was her past. Maybe it was Dougie’s, too.

“That same man, that killer, he tried to get to me next. I ran. I flew all the way from New York to Portland, Oregon, hoping to get away. But the man chased me, Dougie. He found me. He held a gun to my head. He described to me exactly how he was going to kill me, and in my own mind, I already saw myself dead.”

Kimberly finally looked up. Dougie was staring at her, enraptured.

“It’s hard to lose your mom,” she whispered. “It makes you alone in the world. Alone is scary. Alone is not knowing what’s going to happen next. Alone is having no one to help you. Do you know why I’m still alive, Dougie? Do you know why that man didn’t kill me?”

Slowly, Dougie shook his head.

“Rainie,” Kimberly said simply. “She interceded, she kept him talking, got him distracted. And that bought us time. In the end, he was the one who was shot, not me. Rainie saved my life, Dougie. That’s why she’s my friend.”

Dougie took the stick from her. He scratched out the crude drawing, working on it until nothing was left but waterlogged dirt. Then he opened his mouth and removed the beetle, holding it between his forefinger and thumb. The beetle’s legs were still kicking. Dougie watched it squirm.

“Friends aren’t perfect,” Kimberly said. “Friends make mistakes. I bet you know a lot of people who’ve made mistakes, Dougie. I bet you know a lot of people who have disappointed you. I wish I could tell you it won’t happen again, but mistakes are part of life.”

“Stanley beats me,” Dougie said abruptly.

“And Stanley is…?”

“My foster dad. He beats me. I told the lady in purple and she told Rainie. Rainie’s supposed to stop Stanley, but she didn’t.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Dougie. Has Stanley hit you recently?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a bruise?”

Dougie shook his head. “You can hurt little boys without leaving a bruise. Stanley knows that.”

In spite of herself, Kimberly felt a chill. She looked at the house, set thirty yards back. The covered porch shadowed the windows. Giant fir trees cast the entire structure into deeper gloom. The house was small and dark, American Gothic. Kimberly certainly wouldn’t want to live there.

“Dougie, has Stanley mentioned Rainie’s name? Did he tell you she was missing?”

“I don’t talk to Stanley.”

“Have you ever seen him and Rainie fight?”

Dougie thinned his lips. He finally released the beetle. It went scurrying madly for the nearest rock.

“Maybe they fought recently?” Kimberly pressed. “Did Stanley ever threaten to hit Rainie?”

“Rainie was supposed to see me Thursday,” Dougie said. “She never came. She went to a bar.”

“Who told you that, Dougie? How do you know Rainie went to a bar?”

The boy refused to answer again, his lips set in a hard line, his chin coming up defiantly. But Kimberly thought she knew the answer this time. The boy had been right; Stanley knew how to hurt without ever leaving a mark.

“Dougie,” Kimberly said quietly. “One last time: Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

“I hope Rainie dies,” Dougie said, then he ran to a small rock, scooped up the beetle, and went racing back into the woods.