Taken

27

Nancie Stendahl

Stendahl lowered the windows on her rental car to let in the night-blooming jasmine. Nonstop D.C. to L.A., four hours in the air, hit the ground running, forty minutes later, here she was driving up Kenter Canyon in Brentwood, California. Home. Stendahl had come home because of a call she received from the chief of the Coachella Police Department four days earlier.

Nancie loved the drive up Kenter at night, when the smells of jasmine, fennel, and eucalyptus bloomed, and coyotes and deer might be framed by her headlights. The narrow street began on Sunset Boulevard, but climbed steeply through dense trees and affluent homes until star-field views of the city stretched south and east to the horizons. Nancie Stendahl had missed this drive since her transfer two years earlier to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms’s Washington headquarters, but she didn’t miss the crappy cell reception.

“Gonna lose you, Tone. I’m on my way up to Bonnie’s.”

“Can you hear me?”

“So far, but not for long.”

Assistant Deputy Director Nancie Stendahl represented the ATF on a congressional task force that included the FBI, ICE, DEA, and the state and local law enforcement agencies that lined the U.S.-Mexican border. This task force was charged with containing cartel gang activity on the Mexican side of the border. Tony Nakamura was her liaison officer with the committee. Normally, the Bureau would have provided a car to someone of Nancie’s rank, but this trip was personal.

Nakamura went on.

“I said, the senator’s chief bitched me out because you left town with the review coming up.”

“I’m available to the senator twenty-four/seven by phone.”

“Said that.”

“Tell them I’m on a fact-finding mission, and it’s necessary if they want a full report.”

She waited, but Nakamura was gone. Reception would return when she reached the ridge, but losing him was just as well. Her mind was on other things.

Nancie rounded a last curve by Hanley Park, and pulled up outside a sleek clean modern home with a breathtaking view of the Pacific. It had been her baby sister’s house, which Nancie inherited in trust when Bonnie and Mel were killed in a traffic accident on PCH. That was four years ago, when Nancie was between husbands, and serving as the Special Agent in Charge of the ATF’s Los Angeles Field Division. Now, four years later, with a new husband, a new job, and a new life in D.C., she returned as often as possible, but for reasons other than the house.

Nancie lifted her wheelie from the trunk, shouldered her purse, and went to the front door. The house appeared normal. The outside lights were on and the soft glow behind frosted sidelights told her the inside lights were also on, but these lights were on timers.

The alarm went crazy when she let herself in, blaring she had sixty seconds to turn it off before LAPD’s finest rolled out in force. Nancie keyed in the four-digit code (her nephew’s birth year) to shut off the alarm.

“Hey, buddy! You home? It’s Nancie!”

She followed the entry to the great room, which looked out on the glowing pool (also on timers) so still and clean it appeared to be filled with air, and called out again.

“Hey, dude!”

The house was neat, orderly, and clean. She was on her way to the bedrooms when her phone rang. She assumed it was Tony calling back, but saw the 760 area code. 760 was Palm Springs.

“Stendahl.”

“Ah, this is Sergeant Conner Hartley with the Palm Springs Police Department. I’m calling for, ah, Ms. Nancie Stendahl.”

“This is she.”

She didn’t recognize the voice, but this didn’t matter. She had received many calls from the desert during the past four days.

“Ah, Deputy Director Nancie Stendahl? With the ATF out of Washington?”

Like he couldn’t get his head around it.

“Assistant Deputy Director, Sergeant, but thanks for the promotion. Have you found my nephew?”

“Ah, no, ma’am, no, I’m sorry. My boss told me to call. He wants you to know we confirmed the Ford Mustang parts found in Coachella came off a vehicle registered to, ah-”

She finished it for him.

“The Arrowhead Trust, Nancie Stendahl and Jack Berman, trustees.”

“Ah, yes, ma’am. It was never reported stolen, not here, and not in L.A., either. We double-checked with LAPD and the L.A. Sheriffs, just in case it fell through the cracks, but it wasn’t reported.”

The Coachella Police and the Riverside County Sheriffs had busted a stolen car ring running a chop shop in Coachella, California, not far from Palm Springs. During the subsequent check of Vehicle Identification Numbers and part serial numbers, the investigators discovered the registered owner of a certain Mustang was something called the Arrowhead Trust, whose mailing address was ATF headquarters in Washington, D.C., in care of Assistant Deputy Director Nancie Stendahl. The chief of the Coachella police had immediately contacted her to ask if she still owned the car.

“The people you busted at the chop shop say where they got my car?”

“Ah, well, that would be the Coachella detectives. They made the arrests. I wouldn’t know.”

“Are they still in Coachella’s custody?”

“Ah, well, I’ll have to check.”

She made her voice cool.

“Would you pass along my number, and ask your chief to phone me directly? I’d appreciate a call back tonight, regardless of the hour.”

“Ah, yes, ma’am.”

“One more thing. You checked my home in Palm Springs?”

The Arrowhead Trust owned the Kenter house, the Palm Springs house, and the remains of Bonnie and Mel’s estate, all held in trust for Jack, with Nancie as the trustee.

“Yes, ma’am. The chief sent a couple investigators. Everything looked all right.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. Please ask the chief to call.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She ended the call, and stared into the aqua-blue glow of the pool, wondering where Jack was and how his Mustang ended up in a chop shop without him reporting it stolen. She had been wondering these same things since the Coachella chief contacted her, and she liked none of the possible explanations. After the chief’s call, Nancie immediately phoned, texted, and emailed Jack, and had been trying him every day, but had heard nothing. A couple of ATF buddies from the L.A. office had driven up to the house, but reported nothing unusual.

Nancie Stendahl said, “Damnit, Jack.”

She dropped her purse on the couch, took off her suit coat, then pushed open the glass slider and went out to the pool.

Jack was a minor when Bonnie and Mel were killed. Her sister and brother-in-law had done all right, both being lawyers, having the Kenter house and a second home in Palm Springs. Then, on top of it, the insurance settlement from the drunk who killed them had been enormous. Nancie set up the trust with herself as trustee and Jack as both co-trustee and beneficiary. She had been between husbands and living alone, so she moved into the Kenter house as his guardian until he started USC, then came the promotion and the transfer to D.C. Financially, Jack was set for life, but now Jack was gone.

Nancie scrolled through her contact list, and called the Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Division. He answered immediately.

“Hey, JT. Is it too late?”

“Not for you, boss. Not ever. You here?”

“Up at Bonnie’s. Walked in five minutes ago.”

“No Jack?”

“Nada.”

John Taylor had been her A-SAC when Nancie ran the L.A. office. He was a sharp, tough agent with a stellar record and outstanding management skills. When she was promoted to Washington, JT rightfully took the reins.

“How can I help? You name it, you got it.”

“Coachella PD, Palm Springs PD, Riverside County Sheriffs. I want everything they have on the chop shop.”

“Done.”

She turned away from the pool, and moved back into the house.

“Set me up asap tomorrow morning with the investigating officers out there.”

“Will do.”

“Face time with the assholes they busted. Whoever made bond, I want them picked up.”

“Done. What else?”

She stopped in the living room. Clocked the cordless phone on the kitchen counter and the security monitor on the wall.

“I need an agent on my phone numbers. Jack’s cell, we have the two hard line numbers here in Brentwood, and the one hard line in Palm Springs. They’re in your files.”

“They’re in my phone. We’ll ID the incoming and outgoing calls for the past two weeks, and run off a list.”

“We have a video security system up here. It goes twenty-four/seven on a two-week wipe. I need a full two-week replay with stills of anyone entering or leaving the premises.”

“Can you access via the Internet?”

“Yeah. I’ll look up the codes.”

“Done deal. More?”

She turned back to the pool, and thought hard as she watched the aqua shimmer.

“No. No, that should do it for now. Thanks, JT.”

“When do you want to get started?”

“As soon as possible.”

“I’ll have Mo and Roach on your phones in two hours. Get me the access codes for your digital, they’ll run it from their laptops. Can’t find them, they’ll pull the hard drive there at your house. Just tell them when they get there.”

“Thanks, man.”

“We’ll find him, Nance. Trust me.”

“Always did. Always will.”

She ended the call, then walked through the house. Bonnie’s house. Her baby sister.

Nancie had wanted children, but was unable to conceive. She had doted on Jack, and loved him as fully as if he were her own. Maybe more. Nancie stood at the grave when Bonnie and Mel were buried, held Jack tight, and soaked him with her tears. She had silently promised Bonnie she would take care of their baby boy, forever and always, just as Bonnie would have done.

She had, until now.

“I’ll find him, Bon. You know I will.”