Touch & Go

by Lisa Gardner

  Tessa nodded. “Of course, lifeline for any teenager. First instinct is parents. Second instinct is phone a friend. When in doubt, text.”

  The girl’s bedroom was a disaster. Upon closer inspection, Tessa could see that clothes hadn’t just been dropped on the floor, but flung around the room. Books, another table lamp, an alarm clock.

  The intruder must’ve been close, maybe right on her heels, chasing her into the room and apparently around the bed as she threw various items behind her, hoping to trip him up, as she scrambled to grab her cell.

  On the far side of the rumpled bed, Tessa spotted the dull brass letter opener, with a crystal handle. Chic-looking, she thought. Something bought to look classy on a desk, not necessarily to tear out an attacker’s jugular.

  “She made it all the way here,” Tessa murmured. Then took in the rest of the story. A broken lamp, a cracked laptop computer, a shattered snow globe. “Jesus, she must’ve put up a helluva fight.”

  “Don’t think she won,” Neil commented.

  “And I don’t like to think about what it might have cost her,” D.D. added more quietly.

  The blade of the letter opener was clean. Ashlyn had armed herself but not managed to retaliate.

  “I think it took two of them,” Neil said. “Kidnapper one had to yell for kidnapper two for backup. I think kidnapper two had the black-soled shoes, because there’s no scuff marks in the bathroom or the master bedroom. Just the staircase. Meaning kidnapper two made the scuff marks as he ran up the stairs into the bedroom as reinforcement.”

  Tessa nodded. Scuff marks were imperfect evidence, but on face value, that theory made sense.

  “Now, while my esteemed colleague”—Neil shot a glance at D.D., who was beaming proudly at her top pupil—“was letting private investigators into the house, I was calling Scampo, which is where the housekeeper said the Denbes went for dinner. We’ll pull security video footage, but a parking valet at the Liberty Hotel remembers fetching Justin Denbe’s vehicle around ten P.M. The Denbes are apparently regulars, not to mention Justin tips well, so they’re well-known by the staff. Given the five-minute drive time, that puts the Denbes entering the house anytime around ten fifteen, give or take.”

  “One of the first unanswered texts on Ashlyn’s phone is ten thirteen P.M.,” D.D. filled in.

  “Yep,” Neil agreed. “I’m thinking the kidnappers were in the house by then. At the very least, two of them were chasing Ashlyn around upstairs. Meaning at least one more had to be stationed by the front door, waiting for the happy couple. They walk in, he Tasers Justin Denbe, going after the most logical threat first. Get the husband down, the wife shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

  “He threw up?” Tessa asked with a frown.

  “No, the wife threw up.”

  “And you can tell…?”

  “Again, according to the waiter at Scampo, the husband ate. The wife, on the other hand, mostly drank. Wasn’t so steady on her feet by the time they left. The pool of vomit, if you noticed—”

  “Liquid. Which would be consistent with a woman who drank her dinner, instead of eating it,” Tessa filled in.

  “And there you have it,” Neil summarized. “Husband got Tasered, wife got ill, and teenage girl fought like a hellion, requiring not one, but two kidnappers to drag her out of her bedroom.”

  “So at least three guys.”

  “I wouldn’t take on Justin Denbe with only a single man in the foyer,” D.D. said.

  “Okay, four guys,” Tessa granted. “So, why do you think the entire family was taken?”

  Both Neil and D.D. stared at her, didn’t say a word.

  “Denbe Construction hasn’t received any ransom demands, nor contact by the kidnappers of any kind,” she supplied.

  D.D. arched a brow, then looked down, expression more subdued. Still, she and Neil didn’t say a word.

  Tessa knew what they were thinking. Maybe she didn’t have their years working homicide, but she did have eight weeks of intensive criminology training, courtesy of Northledge Investigations. Given their elite clientele, training had included two days on kidnapping 101, covering situations both foreign and domestic. First rule of ransom cases: Kidnappers will seek to establish immediate contact. Their motivation had nothing to do with a family’s peace of mind, or expediting law enforcement’s handling of the situation. More relevantly, abduction cases involved complicated logistics. First, the taking of the subjects. Next, the transporting and hiding of said subjects. Third, the ongoing care and feeding of subjects while waiting for demands to be met.

  Basically, the longer the subjects were held, the more involved the logistics became. Meaning higher risk of discovery, exposure or the subject’s untimely death, screwing up proof of life and the ability to demand a major payoff. Given that this situation involved the abduction of an entire family, logistics would be significantly complicated. Two adults and one teenager to be handled, transported, managed.

  If this was a kidnapping for ransom situation, the kidnappers should be champing at the bit to make contact. Perhaps through a written note, neatly placed in front of the altar of the Denbes’ personal possessions. Or, a call easily placed to Denbe Construction’s main line. Or another call dialed straight into the home, to be picked up by the good detectives who were no doubt already working the scene.

  Except—Tessa glanced at her watch—it was now nearly 11:12 A.M. Meaning most likely, the Denbe family had been kidnapped over twelve hours ago.

  And they had yet to hear a thing.

  “I think,” Tessa said quietly, “I should take a look at the family computer now.”

  Chapter 7

  THE THREE MEN IN THE WHITE CARGO VAN SLEPT. The big man reclined the front seat, the second big man reclined the passenger’s seat, and the little guy sprawled in the back, his black duffel bag serving as a makeshift pillow. Not the most comfortable positions in the world, but they had each slept in worse. In ditches in faraway lands, lying straight as corpses, arms crossed over their chests while the hot desert sun beat against their closed eyelids. Under dense green leaves, curled up with their heads upon their knees as sheets of rain poured down from soaring jungle canopies and beat incessantly against the brims of their hats. In the vast cargo hold of military planes, seated ramrod straight, shoulder harnesses digging into their necks as turbulence bobbed their exhausted heads up and down, up and down, up and down, and still, no one cracked an eye.

  They were men who’d been trained to sleep when they were told and to wake when they were told. Mission first. Personal comfort second.

  Which made this brief respite an unexpected treat. Z had made the call. They’d been up for the past thirty-six hours, between preparation, travel time, then deployment. By definition, those hours had been long with significant events requiring the cover of night.

  Now, having successfully concluded the initial phase of operations, they were 80 percent of the way back to target, making good time, feeling comfortable with themselves, their progress, their objectives. Daylight was not an issue. At this point, they had traveled so far north, they were closer to the border of Canada than to Massachusetts. They had passed through mountains so tall and forests so wild that they had a greater chance of being spotted by a bear than a human being. Given that this far north, the bears were already holed up for the winter, they basically had minimal risk of encountering any life-forms at all.

  Z had debated making one of the others, Mick or, more likely, Radar, keep watch over their charges. But, freshly drugged, they had yet to stir. Which was just as well. Missions inevitably came with parameters and one of their first parameters was to minimize physical harm to the woman and the girl, especially during transport.

  Once at their destination, they would receive fresh instructions regarding the next phase of operations.

  At which point their charges might or might not become fair game.

  Whatever. It was not their place to reason why.

  They took a job. They exec
uted it at the highest standards of performance. Then, at least in this case, they would be paid such a fucking shitload of money, Radar personally planned on never working again. White sandy beaches, sweet rum drinks and large-breasted women. That was his near future. Hell, maybe he’d even marry one of the large-breasted women. Have a couple of babies and settle into paradise. Fish all day, have sex with his beautiful wife all night. Sounded like a plan to him.

  So when the van had first pulled over, tucking into an old campground, where it was quickly obscured by walls of dense evergreens, Radar had administered a fresh round of sedatives. For the sake of napping, fishing and large-breasted women everywhere, he’d given an extra-large dose.

  Radar had started packing up his gear, mentally skipping ahead to three hours’ sleep, when his internal sensor had once again begun to ping. The woman. Something about the woman.

  He’d studied her closer. Noticed that her face had lost some color, was covered in a faint sheen of sweat. Her eyes were not open. In fact, her eyelids appeared squeezed shut, twitching even, as her breathing accelerated rapidly.

  She didn’t look so good. Maybe from the sedative, though it was mild enough. He took her pulse, listened to her heart, then checked her temperature. Nothing. She just looked…wrong. Car sick? Flu? Shock?

  Maybe she was dreaming, he’d decided. Judging by her heart rate, not a nice kind of dream.

  And not his problem.

  Radar packed up his bag, climbed into the back and within minutes was out cold.

  Three men in a white cargo van, asleep.

  Then the first man opened his eyes, sat up in his seat, started the engine and turned back onto the winding mountain road.

  Eleven o’clock Saturday morning, one white cargo van headed due north.

  Chapter 8

  IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS, ever since That Day, I’d taken to avoiding sleep. There was a phase, maybe around the second or third month, where I was nearly phobic about evenings. If I just stayed awake, kept my eyes open, my body moving, somehow, I could keep tomorrow at bay. Because I didn’t want it to be tomorrow. Tomorrow was too scary a proposition. An unnamed deadline where I’d have to make major life decisions about my marriage, my family, my future. And maybe, tomorrow was just too sad. Tomorrow was loneliness and tenement housing units and Friday-night cockroach raids and every lesson I had learned in childhood and wanted so badly to leave behind.

  So for a while I didn’t sleep. I roamed the house. Ran my hand across the granite countertops in the kitchen, remembered the day Justin went with me to the quarry, where we gazed at slab after slab of natural stone. At the exact same moment, we’d both pointed to this one, then laughed like two schoolkids, giddy to discover we shared the same favorite color or pet or sports team.

  From the kitchen, I’d journey down to the wine cellar, housing bottles I’d meticulously researched and stocked to impress Justin, his business associates, even his crew. You’d be amazed how many drywallers, plumbers and other general contractors know their wines. With success, everyone cultivates tastes, until even the most rugged dirt hauler can appreciate a well-balanced Oregon Pinot Noir or a more robust Spanish red.

  Justin was sleeping in the basement apartment at that point. The au pair’s suite, people called it, except we’d never had a nanny, preferring to raise our daughter ourselves. The door was at the opposite end of the hall from the wine cellar. During my nightly roamings, I would stand in front of it, sheltered by the deep dark of a windowless basement. I would place my hand upon the warm wood and wonder if he was on the other side, actually asleep. Maybe he’d gone back to her. Or maybe, a thought so painful it bordered on nearly intoxicating, he’d brought her here.

  I didn’t open the door. Never knocked, never tried to peer beneath it. I would just stand there, thinking that at one time in our marriage that would’ve been enough. My mere presence would’ve spoken to him, beckoned him like a magnetic force, until he would’ve thrown open the door, grabbed me into his arms and kissed me hungrily.

  This is what eighteen years of marriage does to a couple. Minimizes the polar fields, mutes the laws of attraction. Until night after night, I could stand in a darkened hallway just eight feet from my husband, and he never felt a thing.

  Inevitably, I would return upstairs, arriving outside my daughter’s bedroom. Again, no knocking, no entering, no disturbing of a private space where I wasn’t wanted anymore. Instead, I would sit on the floor in the hallway, lean my head against the wall and picture the white-painted shelving unit positioned on the other side. Then, by heart, I would systematically catalog each item that had been placed there. Her ballerina music box from the first time we took her to see The Nutcracker. A jumbled pile of her most beloved childhood paperbacks, Where the Red Fern Grows, Little House on the Prairie, A Wrinkle in Time, placed haphazardly on top of her more neatly organized hardcovers such as the Harry Potter series and the Twilight saga.

  She’d gone through a horse-crazy phase, which would explain the herd of Breyer horses now relegated to the back corner of the lower shelf. Like her mother, she had an eye for beauty and an urge to create, hence the random collections of polished seashells and artfully strung sea glass she still added to each time we visited our second home on the Cape.

  The top of her dresser held two vintage china dolls, one brought back by Justin from Paris, another she and I had found together at an antiques store. Both had been expensive, and once, both had been treasured. Now, their sightless blue eyes, glossy ringlet hair and frothy lace dresses served as makeshift jewelry stands for piles of beaded bracelets and long snarls of nearly forgotten gold necklaces. More piles of silk-wrapped hair bands and decorative hair clips adorned their feet.

  Sometimes, when I entered the chaos of my daughter’s room, I wanted to toss a match. Scorched-earth policy and all that. Other times, I wanted to take a photo, draw a map, to somehow immortalize this complex web of toddler dreams, young girl obsessions and teenage desires.

  In the dark of the night, however, I simply sat and named each treasured item over and over again. It became my rosary. A way to try to convince myself the past eighteen years had had some value, some worth. That I had given love and that I had been loved. That it hadn’t all been a lie.

  As for the rest of the days, months, weeks currently unfolding ahead of me… I tried to tell myself I had not become the clichéd middle-aged woman, abandoned by her cheating husband, alienated by her teenage daughter, until she now existed as a mere shadow in her own life, with no identity or purpose of her own.

  I was strong. Independent. An artist, for God’s sake.

  Then I would get up and wander out to the rooftop patio. Where I would stand in the faint ambience of city lights, my arms wrapped tightly around my body for warmth, taking step after step closer to the edge…

  I never managed to stay awake an entire night.

  Five thirty A.M. was probably the longest I made it. Then, I’d find myself curled up once more on top of the king-size bed in the master suite. And I’d watch the dawn break, tomorrow forcing itself upon me after all. Until I closed my eyes and succumbed to a future that happened whether I wanted it to or not.

  It was during the second month of forced sleep deprivation that I opened my medicine cabinet and found myself staring at a bottle of painkillers. Justin’s prescription, from when he hurt his back the prior year. He hadn’t liked the Vicodin. Couldn’t afford to feel that fuzzy at work. Besides, as he put it bluntly, the constipation was a bitch.

  It turns out, walking all night will not keep the future at bay.

  But the right narcotic can dull the edges, steal the brightness from the sun itself. Until you don’t have to care if your husband is sleeping in the basement beneath you, or your teenage daughter has locked herself in a time capsule down the hall, or that this house is too large and this bed too big and your entire life just too lonely.

  Painkiller, the prescription promised.

  And for a while, at least, it worked.r />
  Chapter 9

  WALKING INTO THE THIRD-STORY STUDY, Tessa immediately recognized the detective sitting at the computer as the final member of D.D.’s three-man squad. An older guy, heavyset, four kids was her memory. Phil, that was it. He’d been at her house, too, that day. Then again, most of the Boston police and Massachusetts state cops had been.

  Apparently, he remembered her, too, because the moment he spotted her, his features fell into the perfectly schooled expression of a seasoned detective, seething on the inside.

  She figured two could play at that game.

  “My turn,” she announced crisply, heading toward the computer.

  He didn’t address her, turning his attention to Neil and D.D. instead.

  “It’s okay,” Neil, the lead officer, proclaimed. “The owner of the house, Denbe Construction, hired her to assess the situation.”

  Tessa could tell Phil got the nuances of that statement loud and clear, because a vein throbbed in his forehead. If Denbe Construction owned the house, then in theory, Denbe Construction owned the contents of the house, including the computer, which this fine Boston detective had been searching without permission.

  “File a missing person’s report?” Phil asked Tessa, voice curt.

  “Based on what I’ve seen here, I’m sure that will be the company’s next move.”

  Another investigative quandary. For the police to become involved in a missing person’s case, a third party must first file a report. Even then, the standard threshold was that the family hadn’t been seen for at least twenty-four hours.

  Meaning at this stage of the game, without a report filed, without twenty-four hours having passed, D.D.’s squad was stuck responding to a call, but not yet handling a case.

  “Any contact…?” Phil again, voice less certain, more searching.

  “From the family, no.”