The Bear

by Dustin Stevens

  “Right,” Wyatt said. “Which means you saw that reservation land butts up to almost fifteen miles from where we’re now standing?”

  Already with a faint inkling of where the man was going, Reed only nodded.

  “Do you have any idea how many Native American women go missing over there every year?”

  Knowing the question was rhetorical, that Wyatt was clearly building to something, Reed remained silent, allowing him to get to it.

  “How few are ever found, alive or dead? How many news articles have been written about it and campaign speeches delivered on it?

  “End of the day, nothing ever changes. It’s a jurisdictional nightmare, and it gives Ecklund a perfect excuse to hide behind to keep us out of things.”

  Having met the man that morning, Reed wasn’t surprised. Avoiding higher-end crimes and tougher cases meant the department record – and by extension, his personal record – remained untarnished.

  Repugnant, and unethical as hell, but not surprising.

  And far from the first such incident Reed had encountered, his currently being sidelined arguably an extension of the same thought process.

  “Now we have one here,” Wyatt said. “One of our own.”

  The words were flowing faster, verging on becoming a bit preachy, though Reed said nothing. He knew the feeling of personal responsibility that a case could bring with it, having been pulled into a few of his own over the years.

  “Pride isn’t an issue,” Wyatt said. “I read about what happened with that girl in the coffin and how you handled it. Right now, I could sure use your help.”

  Handfuls of questions continued to float across Reed’s mind, things as disparate as how they would get around Ecklund to wondering if he even wanted to take part in such a thing.

  “What if I told you we just got lucky that night?” Reed asked instead.

  “Yeah, well, I could use some of that right now, too.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The initial wave had passed. The fog of whatever drugs had been given to her had lifted, the first shock of waking up in a strange place in the rearview.

  Gone, too, was the overwhelming sorrow that had immediately filled her, reducing her to nothing more than babbling. Dropping onto her side in the center of the bed, Serena Gipson had allowed herself to meld into the soft mattress. She’d made no effort to fight the emotion that had come bubbling out of her, crying until she felt parched. Until her cheeks were coated with dry tears, the salt on her cheeks combining with the swelling in her left temple, making it feel as if her skin no longer fit her face.

  In their place were the beginnings of anger and confusion, a healthy dollop of panic mixed in.

  Together, the resulting chemical elixir that formed was enough to draw her upright from the bed. With clearer eyes, she was able to fully assess her environment, taking in those things she hadn’t been able to see upon first waking.

  Things like the toilet protruding from the wall just off the foot of the bed. Made from polished stainless steel, it appeared to have been purchased directly from a penitentiary supply store. Void of a lid, it was all a single piece with nothing but a rim for her to sit on.

  On the floor beside it rested a single roll of tissue paper, single ply, enough to last for a couple of days at the very most.

  In and of itself, that would be enough to be cause for alarm, adding to the impression that she was being held captive.

  Coupled with the shackle fitted around her ankle, it threatened to again put her into a state of hysteria.

  Made of steel, the coupling was snapped into place just above the protrusion of her ankle bone. Loose enough that it didn’t bite into her, but firm enough that it was clear the item was not merely meant for decoration. A thin layer of loop carpet had been placed on the inside of it, keeping the metal from touching her skin directly.

  Snaking away from the side of it, disappearing beneath the blanket at the foot of the bed and lying coiled across the floor, was a matching steel chain. Constructed of links an inch-and-a-half in diameter, it was arranged in a lazy spool, a silver river lying atop the plain wood floor.

  Ending abruptly beneath the toilet, the chain seemed to be anchored directly into the wall, swallowed up by the yellow wallpaper.

  Sitting on the bed, staring down at it, Serena tasted bile rise in the back of her throat. Thick enough to engage her gag reflex, she felt her entire body rasp, threatening to expel anything that might still be lingering in her system.

  Not that there was any way to know what that might be. The haze that had gripped her upon waking proved she’d been under some form of sedation, though what type and for how long, she couldn’t be certain.

  Even the amount of time that had passed since she awoke was impossible to know. With no windows to the outside world, no clocks anywhere, she was in a timeless environment, the lights overhead burning at the same wattage for every minute that she had been in the room.

  Just as she had no doubt they would do for the foreseeable future.

  All of which again combined to pull back the same three feelings that seemed to be lingering just beneath the surface.

  Anger.

  Confusion.

  Panic.

  This couldn’t be real. None of it. Things like this didn’t happen. Not in Warner, the town so sleepy it was almost comatose.

  Not to her, a basic twenty-five-year-old, trying to work and go to school and help out with her family.

  She had plans. She was going to finish her nursing degree at CSC before heading up to Muskogee to work at one of the bigger hospitals in the area. She’d be close enough that she could still tend to things at home while the kids went through high school, and then it was off to Tulsa or OKC. Perhaps Dallas.

  Maybe she’d even look into one of those traveling nursing programs they were always advertising and would go off to some far-flung corner of the country, giving an entirely new life a try for a while.

  Anything.

  Anything but this.

  “Hello?” Serena ventured, her voice sounding like little more than a croak. Passing up through her parched windpipe, the word was barely recognizable, a rasp that burned the length of her throat.

  Swallowing hard, Serena felt moisture pool at the underside of her eyes. “Hello?” she called a second time, this one louder than the first. “Is anybody there?”

  Shifting her body to the side, Serena swung her legs from the bed. With each movement, the chain attached to her uncoiled, the sound of the metal rattling especially pronounced in the quiet of the room.

  Again, she felt her bottom lip quiver, tears catching on her eyelashes, threatening to stream south at any moment.

  “Anybody?” she called. “Can somebody hear me?”

  The boards beneath her bare toes felt warm as she did so, the heat radiating up, traveling through the soles of her feet. Not once did they creak as she placed her full weight down, stepping away from the bed for the first time.

  Making it no further than a few inches, her head spun, the world seeming to tilt on an axis. Bending at the waist, she dropped her upper body forward, pressing her palms into the soft bedding, using it for balance.

  In that position, she took in deep breaths, blinking hard, willing the moment to pass.

  And she was still in that same position as the door beside her burst open. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that Serena couldn’t help but recoil, faltering under her own bodyweight, her knees crumpling beneath her. As she hit the floor hard, the tears she’d been fighting to keep in finally fell, cleaving fresh tracks across her skin as she stared up at the man before her.

  Taking a step forward, he settled his gaze on her, a thin smile gracing his features.

  “’Bout time you woke up.”

  Chapter Twenty

  There was a time in the not-too-distant past when stopping in the middle of a workday would be sacrilege for the Mattox family. Spearheaded by Rhett’s inability to sit still for even a moment when thing
s still needed to be finished, the standing advice from both Reed and his mother was to fuel up in the morning and then try not to think about it for the rest of the day.

  And if it couldn’t be avoided, just work faster.

  Creeping up on the start of his seventh decade, Reed’s father had peeled back from such a stance. Almost a full year into retirement, no longer did he feel the need to be operating at a breakneck pace, today’s leftovers merely providing a full schedule for tomorrow.

  And so on, for as long as it took.

  Grouped around the glass top table on the rear deck, the trio sat with plates of cold cut sandwiches and chips on their laps. Resting atop the table were tubs of potato salad and baked beans, a jar of kosher spears to the side.

  All the trimmings for a meal that required zero actual kitchen prep, they stared out across the back meadow, watching as Billie worked her way through the fresh grass clippings. Head down, she swung her nose to either side, taking in the host of new scents, imprinting them into her memory.

  The first time in weeks Reed had seen her in such a position, he couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t a coincidence, coming on the heels of his discussion a few minutes before.

  “What did he want?” Rhett asked, finally voicing the question Reed was sure both his parents had harbored since the instant Wyatt left.

  If not before.

  Watching Billie for another moment, Reed lowered his gaze to his plate. He considered the food before him, his appetite all but gone just a few bites into his sandwich.

  “My help.”

  In his periphery, he could see both his parents turn his way. Sandwich halfway to her face, Cheryl said, “I thought you went down this morning to give a statement?”

  “I did,” Reed replied. “He wasn’t asking for my help as a witness.”

  “As a detective,” his father finished, already putting together where Reed was taking things.

  Glancing his way, Reed nodded, his jaw set.

  These past few weeks he’d wanted so badly to get the call from Grimes saying he was able to go back to work. Never before had the farmhouse he lived in looked better, every home improvement project he’d been putting off knocked out in record time. Both his personal truck and department-issue sedan had been cleaned and waxed. He’d read the full scouting report on the incoming Sooners football recruits twice over.

  All of which had occupied the hours, but not his mind.

  Work was what he did. It was how he marked his place in the world, knew he was having a positive impact, no matter how small it sometimes seemed.

  Downtime didn’t suit him. He preferred to be active. He knew Billie felt the same way.

  He just wasn’t sure that this was the answer.

  “How did he know you’re a detective?” Cheryl asked.

  “I told him last night,” Reed replied. “When I first heard the girl scream, Billie and I both gave chase.”

  Rocking her head back in understanding, Cheryl said, “And then he went and checked you out?”

  Reed felt his eyebrows lift. “Apparently.”

  Exactly what the man might have found, Reed didn’t pretend to know. There was no doubt several of his cases had been pretty high-profile, though what type of coverage they might have received could vary widely.

  What some people had seen as a spectacular effort, the brass downtown had determined worthy of administrative leave, after all.

  “They know anything at all yet?” his father asked.

  “Just her name,” Reed said. “Serena Gipson. Local girl, twenty-five.”

  “He want Billie to help, too?” his mother asked.

  “I think that was just assumed by both of us,” Reed said. “No way I’d even consider it without her.”

  In the last fifteen hours, he’d played out the steps he would pursue in the case several times over in his mind. From where he’d go to who he’d talk to.

  Each time, it was done with a certain level of detachment, like watching a television show and superimposing the two of them into the action.

  Suddenly, even considering it felt extremely real, illuminating the steep uphill climb they were facing, none greater than the fact that a better part of a day had already passed.

  “But you are considering it?” Rhett asked.

  Also not lost on Reed was the fact that he had made the trip to help his parents move. Thus far, they had gotten him to fill the gas cans and knock out some yardwork, though a great deal remained to be done.

  “I didn’t seek this out,” Reed said, his voice a bit detached as he continued to stare out. His vision blurred as he thought on things, trying to put them into order.

  He wasn’t lying when he told Wyatt the prospect of trading his own mess in Columbus for one here in Warner wasn’t appealing in the slightest.

  But he had always known such administrative pissing matches existed, and he had always gone to work just the same. Not for them, or to even feed his own ego, but for people like Della Snow, who he pulled out of that coffin a month earlier.

  And for Serena Gipson, the young woman he saw striding across the parking lot the night before. Walking with purpose, she no doubt had a life filled with people she needed to get home to and tasks she needed to complete.

  She wasn’t just a statistic. She was a person, one he had come into personal contact with, no matter how brief.

  “You never do,” his mother said, a tinge of wariness in her tone, perfectly aligning with the very thought Reed had had as he watched Wyatt drive away.

  Blinking himself out of his trance, Reed asked, “So, you guys wouldn’t be disappointed if I was considering it?”

  Barely a moment passed before Rhett replied, “We’d be disappointed if you weren’t.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After Reed stepped inside from the back deck, the first call he made was to Captain Grimes in Columbus. In the name of full transparency, he explained exactly what had happened – both with Ecklund and later with Wyatt – before asking if he would be crossing any unspoken barriers by lending a hand.

  Whether he would or wouldn’t, Grimes didn’t commit to entirely, the various aspects of Reed’s situation too many to try and unpack on a brief call.

  Neither one of them had any clue why he had really been placed on leave as it was.

  A few minutes of back-and-forth left them both with the understanding that if he was to help, it would be best for all parties if Reed was to stay as invisible as possible. That meant remaining out of whatever Ecklund was trying to do and keeping away from any potential media coverage that might somehow make it back to Ohio.

  Otherwise, Grimes would do what he could to run interference.

  The second call Reed made was to Wyatt, telling him to meet at Serena Gipson’s home in one hour and to drive his pickup and wear street clothes.

  Surprise and confusion both seemed to be present as the man accepted the instructions, Reed signing off before any further conversation was exchanged.

  A quick shower and change of his own and fifty minutes later, Reed found himself sitting in front of a single-level brick ranch three blocks from the Sinclair Station. Parked along the curb in front of the home, he was positioned facing west. Fifteen feet in front of him, the continuation of the same alley he’d been in the night before ran alongside Gipson’s home.

  If forced to guess, he would imagine that it stretched clear to the edge of town. Taking a moment on the way in to make a quick lap, he knew there were three more blocks of residential housing much like the one he was currently parked on before urban gave way to agricultural.

  From there, the world extended for miles in shades of green or tan, reaching all the way to Muskogee, or Kansas, or maybe even Canada.

  Lifting his gaze from the street outside, Reed settled his focus on the rearview mirror. Perched in the divot for the rear passenger seat rested Billie, her body drawn upright, balanced on her front paws. Ears erect, she met his gaze, the same bit of anticipation he felt seem
ing to emanate from her.

  “You ready to go to work?”

  Ears twitching just slightly, Billie met his gaze, blinking only once.

  Things weren’t exactly the way Reed and Billie were used to. The SUV was bigger than their sedan, and it didn’t have a GPS mounted to the front dash or a radio connecting them to the precinct above the console. Reed was without his gun or badge, and instead of the dual lead lines that he normally used for working with Billie, all he had was the standard leash he’d brought along for the airport.

  None of those things were insurmountable deficits, though.

  They hadn’t planned for this, but they would make the best of it.

  Four minutes before the hour Reed had requested was up, the same black Ranger that had been in his driveway earlier in the day pulled up behind him. Coming to a stop a few feet from his bumper, he watched as Wyatt climbed out and walked forward, pulling the passenger side door open and sliding inside.

  Still dressed in denim and flannel, his badge and his cellphone were clipped on his hip.

  No weapon of any kind.

  Slamming the door shut, Wyatt said, “Didn’t think I’d hear back from you so fast, if at all.”

  Dipping his chin an inch, Reed said, “By my count, we’ve already lost sixteen hours. You might not have worked many kidnappings, but I’m sure you’re familiar with the time window we’ve got.”

  “First forty-eight,” Wyatt replied.

  If even that, though Reed opted against saying as much.

  “Alright, so walk me through what you’ve got so far,” Reed said.

  “There isn’t much,” Wyatt said. Glancing over, he shook his head, adding, “Ecklund is slow playing the damn thing. Says we can’t consider it a missing persons case until at least Friday.”

  Depending when on Friday, that would put them at a minimum of thirty-six hours out. Long enough for someone to drive to either coast or even out of the country from their current central location.

  And for sure long enough to ensure Serena Gipson was never heard from again, if that was the abductor’s intention.