The Hunted

14

Lauren awoke with a start, bolting up in bed as if a gunshot had been fired outside her window. The sun was just starting to bathe the sky in orange light, and the house was quiet. Tucker stood up and walked over to her side of the bed, placed his head on her hand, and waited for her attention.

Lauren realized she was wearing her clothing from last night. Last night… she tried to remember what had happened, where she was. She noticed the rough floral sheets, then thought of Deputy Matthews and Nick Bradley.

She swung her legs off the bed and headed downstairs, where she found Bradley lying on the couch, his shoes on the floor by the coffee table.

“Morning,” he said.

Lauren noticed his tired eyes and sat down on the chair beside the sofa. “You look like you got very little sleep.”

He managed a smile. “Less than that.” He moved his legs onto the floor and stood, stretching his body skyward. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. Since you didn’t want to leave your house, there was only one other alternative.”

“I can’t thank you enough. I remember Matthews leaving last night, but not much else.”

“I went into the kitchen to get your handgun, and you were out before I got back.” He reached into the waistband of his pants. “Speaking of which, here’s your Colt.”

Lauren looked at it a moment and hesitated, then took it.

“Be careful with it. It’s loaded.”

“I’m the one who loaded it.” She flipped the cylinder open, spun it, then clicked it shut. “I know how to handle it.”

“I can see that.” He reached over and began to put on his shoes. “Just remember, if you pull it out, you’re shooting to kill. Hesitate, and you’re giving your target a free shot at you. And I guarantee you he will be shooting to kill.”

Lauren nodded. “I know. My daddy used to tell me that. Actually, tell isn’t the right word. Ordered, or commanded, might be more accurate.”

“Sounds like he taught you right.” Bradley finished tying his left shoe, then arose. “Well, I’d better get to my office, start making some calls. Get the wheels in motion.” He regarded her haggard appearance for a second and hesitated. “Will you be okay by yourself? You can come with me to my office—”

“It’s broad daylight, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“You’ve got my number. Call me if anything doesn’t seem right to you. Anything, okay?”

She smiled. “Okay.”

“I’ll be back in the evening, say around six.”

“Thanks. For everything.”

Bradley headed toward the back door. “If I find out anything about Michael, I’ll call you. Otherwise, stay alert and be aware of your surroundings.”

After she heard the door close, the quiet of the house made her feel uneasy. She held the Colt in her hand and felt the weight of the weapon. Aiming it at the door, she lined up the sight with the knob.

“Shoot to kill,” she said.

Lauren spent the morning and early afternoon at the Neighborhood Watch Center, a makeshift room that had once been a sheriff’s department storage closet that Carla Mae had commandeered two years ago. It provided a base of operations for the organization, complete with its own phone line and answering machine, small roll top desk and chair.

Because of its cramped quarters, Lauren sat just outside the room. Throughout the day, she fielded calls providing leads and reported sightings of Michael that led nowhere. Finally, with her frustration building, she left the sheriff’s department and drove forty-five minutes to Sacramento. Though the ride was difficult for her, she divided the trip into manageable units with brief rest stops at a couple of freeway-accessible gas stations. With Elton John blaring from the speakers, she managed to maintain control over her anxieties.

Her first stop was the Cordova Shooting Center, where she polished her rusty skills. Lauren did well by all measures, except her own, which was nothing short of perfection. The target was ripped to shreds directly over the spot representing the heart, where her father had taught her to aim. But a number of other shots had missed their mark. If she had fifteen rounds and an ample amount of time to shoot at a still target, her assailant would be dead many times over. But if he was in motion, and she only had the six bullets she expected to have in her revolver, she could not be assured of disabling her enemy. And that bothered her.

But it didn’t bother her as much as having to rely on the weapon for her safety. She wished she could toss it in the river, put that part of her life behind her. But like a bad dream, it would not release its grip. The memories were too strong. She remembered the days when her father had taken her to the open field on the land they had owned in Wyoming. She was much too young to be handling a loaded pistol, but after the experience with the intruder, her father wanted to make sure she was prepared to defend herself. In an eerie way, he seemed to know that he was not going to be around in the coming years to look after her.

She recalled one day in particular when she was having difficulty hitting the beer can target. “When it counts,” he had told her, “you’ll get the job done, sweet thing. You’ll be in control, you’ll know how to handle the weapon. All you’ve got to do is keep calm. And shoot to kill… because your enemy won’t be showing you no mercy, that much I guarantee you. Trust your daddy on that.”

Lauren realized she was sitting in her car, staring ahead at nothing in particular. The memory of her father’s voice was soothing, almost cathartic for her. She started the engine and headed back to the freeway. Fifteen minutes down the road, she arrived at the California Department of Justice building, a sprawling, modern facility that housed a horde of agencies with more than two thousand employees. She parked in the visitors’ lot in the back and pulled her raincoat tight across her body as the brisk winter wind blew hard against her face.

A moment later, the guard in the large bulletproof security booth was regarding her driver’s license. “You say you’ve got a three o’clock with someone in Missing Persons?”

Lauren nodded. “Ilene Mara.”

The guard lifted a phone and spoke into the receiver in a muffled tone that Lauren could barely hear. He hung up and handed her a card to fill out.

“Give this back to me when you’re done,” he said. “I’ll have someone escort you to Missing Persons.”

Lauren slid the completed form back through an opening in the thick glass and waited as the man read it over, filed it in a slot, and handed her a red visitor’s pass. She glanced up at the black-and-white video monitors that lined the wall behind the guard. They displayed views of the vast parking lot as well as various landmarks in the building.

Just then, a buzzer sounded and the metal door to the left of the security station snapped open with an electronic click. “Mrs. Chambers, I’ll take you back to see Ms. Mara now.” A young man in his late twenties with a prominently displayed identification placard clipped to his shirt was standing in the doorway.

With her escort, Lauren walked the halls of the building, noticing the photos and artifacts that were displayed in glass enclosures depicting important triumphs in law enforcement.

They took the stairs up to the third floor and entered the Missing/Unidentified Persons Department, where the escort introduced Lauren to a lady standing nearby.

“You’re here for Ilene?” the woman asked.

Lauren nodded. “I’m a little early.”

“Have a seat, I’ll let her know you’re here.”

Lauren’s gaze immediately took in the harried activity of the large room. Telephones rang, intercoms buzzed, voices murmured. She dabbed at her clammy forehead, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Shutting out her surroundings, she gathered herself and then opened her eyes. Mazes of cubicles filled the entire suite, the kind that can be rearranged easily and quickly depending on need. Judging by the intense wear marks in the carpet lining the aisles, however, the cubicles had not been moved since the building had been built.

On the far wall was a huge white board — at least twenty feet across — filled with names, physical descriptions, and places and times the missing persons were last seen. Although she could not make out much from this distance, she hoped Michael’s information was on the list.

“Hi, I’m Ilene Mara.”

Lauren turned and faced the short, gaunt woman, who was smiling. Shaking hands, Lauren was surprised by the woman’s firm grip. “Lauren Chambers. I really appreciate your meeting me on such short notice.”

“Oh,” Ilene said with a wave of a hand, “short notice is the credo around here. Time isn’t just money, it’s lives.”

Lauren felt a little uncomfortable with that comment, as it sounded like a sales pitch used on a promotional brochure.

A few seconds later they had made their way to Ilene’s cubicle. On the material-covered, five-foot high walls were photos of different sizes and quality, some studio-produced and some family snapshots. Photos of people. Children, women, men. Smiling photos of individuals Lauren knew were missing. Many of whom were probably dead.

“Well, Mrs. Chambers—”

“Please, call me Lauren.”

“All right, Lauren. I have your husband’s file right here. Deputy Vork forwarded it to us yesterday.” Ilene moved the file over so that Lauren could see it. Lauren scanned the report, which contained the information she had provided on the questionnaire, as well as the notes Vork had made following their meeting.

Lauren sighed. “So what do I do now?”

“Well, there’s not much for you to do. It’s in our hands now, ours and the law enforcement community’s.”

“And what are you doing about it?”

“Report of your husband’s disappearance has been entered into CLETS, an electronic database information system that extends from one tip of California to the other. Anytime someone fitting your husband’s description is stopped by law enforcement personnel, we get notified. Your report is also sent to the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Every night this report is compared against unidentified — deceased reports that come in from coroners across the country. If we get a hit — I mean, a match, we compare the unidentified person with the missing person information we have — by looking at scars, teeth impressions, fingerprints—”

“But that’s after someone’s dead,” Lauren said, fighting back a knot in her throat. “What do you do while they’re alive?”

“That’s mostly the job of law enforcement. You should be sure to tell them everything you possibly know about your husband, who he might have had disagreements with, where he might go, that sort of thing. It’s important to be thorough.”

Lauren glanced at the photos hanging behind Ilene. “That doesn’t seem like it’s enough.”

“The CLETS system, the electronic database, really does work. Very well, in fact.”

“But what if he’s not in California anymore? Does this electronic system work if he’s found in another state? The last place he was, at least that I know of, was Colorado.”

Ilene Mara paused, looked down at the ground. “No. No, it doesn’t.”

“Why isn’t it linked up with other states’ databases?”

“No other state has a method of identifying adult missing persons. There are no central repositories. In New York, for instance, if they can’t ID you in one county, and you’re missing in an adjacent county, your body sits in a morgue until you’re lucky enough to be identified.”

“My God, who set up such an inept system?”

“It’s not as easy to link things as you might think. California went to some extraordinary lengths and expense in setting up CLETS. But if you consider that there are one hundred and seventy thousand missing person reports each year in California alone, you can see why.”

Lauren fell silent, the magnitude of what she was up against suddenly hitting her. Just then, Ilene’s phone rang.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

While Ilene spoke, Lauren again looked at the photos pinned to the walls of the cubicle. She knew that for each one of the pictures, for each one of the smiling faces, there was a story. Some horrible story as to why that person was missing. Some horrible nightmare as to why he or she was never going to return home again.

“Lauren?” Ilene had hung up the phone and was facing her again.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m sorry, I was just… thinking.”

“I realize this is hard on you. But you have to think about your husband, make sure you’ve told the police everything. I have an obligation to tell you that a majority of the time when a husband takes off, it’s of his own free will.”

Lauren looked away. “So I’ve been told.”

Ilene leaned forward, placed a hand atop Lauren’s. “It’s also possible, since we’re discussing all the possibilities, that he was arrested for something in another state, and he’s too embarrassed to call home.”

“Arrested for what?”

“We’ve had a number of men who get involved with a prostitute and are arrested in the sweep—”

“My husband, with a prostitute?” Lauren laughed. “If you knew Michael, you’d realize how funny that is.”

Ilene’s phone rang again, and she apologized, then snatched it up. She placed the caller on hold and turned back to face Lauren. “I’ve got to take this. But I want you to know you can call me at any time if you’ve thought of any new information.”

Lauren nodded, then stood up. “Thanks.”

“One last thing. Though the natural reaction is denial, it’s important for you to at least acknowledge that there could be foul play involved here. Your husband could’ve had some kind of argument or problem with someone you don’t even know about.”

As Ilene said this, Lauren thought about the person who had been in her house.

“Point is, your safety could also become an issue.”

Ilene paused for a moment, then placed a hand on Lauren’s left forearm. “Are you okay?”

Lauren, who had been staring off into the distance, focused her gaze on Ilene. “Everything’s fine. I’m just a little overwhelmed by all this.”

“Perfectly understandable.” A back-ring sounded, reminding Ilene someone was on hold. “Until we can be sure of the reason for Michael’s disappearance, I’d recommend you take all reasonable safety precautions. Lock your doors and don’t go out alone at night, unless absolutely necessary.”

Lauren’s eyes landed on the photos in the cubicle. “Michael’s going to end up like one of the people in those pictures, isn’t he?”

“I certainly hope so. Those are the ones we’ve found.”

Lauren managed a half smile. It felt good to have hope. “Thanks for your help.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Ilene turned to pick up the phone and paused. “Please be careful, Lauren.”