Count to Three

by T. R. Ragan

  Her insides churned as she listened to all the sounds coming from the kitchen. The minutes ticked by, slowly. She kept reading her book, turning the pages without comprehension. Every so often she would look at the envelope, stare at it as if it were a snake that might strike at any moment.

  Regret had set in. She never should have attempted such a stunt. Not today. It was too soon, too risky. His mother would be visiting soon. She should have waited until the woman came and left.

  Too late now.

  He entered the room holding a tray and set it on the table next to the envelope. He took a seat next to her, so close she could smell the same sickly aftershave he always wore. He removed the book from her lap before handing her one of the plates from the tray. “Here. Eat. You’ll feel better afterward.”

  She took a bite, chewing slowly, her nerves making it difficult to eat.

  He gobbled down half of his sandwich. “Did you use your sketchbook to draw anything?”

  She shook her head.

  “So what did you do all day?”

  “I watched a little television and did some reading.”

  “What’s the book about?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a romance. Two people meeting and falling in love.”

  “Sort of like us.”

  She took another bite of her sandwich.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “I have something I want you to watch.” Gesturing toward the remote, he asked her to turn on the TV. She did as he asked, wondering what he was up to, since she noticed a sudden stiffness in his upper body as he fiddled with his phone.

  She saw him click on an app on his phone and then input a passcode.

  “There,” he said, prompting her to look at the TV screen.

  It was a black-and-white picture of the inside of his house. She recognized his front door and knew the video was taken recently because she could see the new latches. She thought it was a still image until she walked into view.

  The silence was maddening as they both watched her attempts to move toward the door and then hop backward out of harm’s way.

  Carlin fiddled with his phone. The screen flashed, went dark, before another camera view appeared showing her making her way into the family room, opening the sketch pad, and ripping out a page.

  “I thought you didn’t draw anything?”

  “A few doodles,” she said, feeling like she might be sick, praying the video would go black and it would only be a matter of convincing him she did nothing wrong. But the video clips didn’t end. They were never-ending, like her time in captivity. Cameras were hidden everywhere, tracking her every move. When they got to the part where she was on the floor, scrubbing it clean, he leaned over and picked up the envelope. He examined it closely, turning it this way and that, even went so far as to bring it to his nose and sniff.

  She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry.

  With a dramatic flourish, he ripped open the envelope and pulled out the statement. The note she’d written fell to his lap.

  “What is this, I wonder?”

  She said nothing.

  “Words,” he said.

  “It’s a mistake,” she told him. “I made a mistake. Please forgive me.”

  He seemed to contemplate her words. His face had not reddened as it did when he was angry. He unfolded the note and read it, placed it on the table. Very carefully, he removed the plate from her lap and put it back on the tray.

  “You want forgiveness?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Show me.” He took her hand and placed it on his crotch. “Show me how sorry you are.”

  The second he removed his hand from hers she snatched her hand back to her lap. He was gross. She was going to be sick.

  “Stand up and take off your dress. Maybe do a little dance for me. That would be a good start.”

  She couldn’t breathe. The thrashing sound of her heartbeat in her ears made it impossible to think. “I can’t.”

  “You mean you won’t.”

  “Please. I said I was sorry. I won’t ever betray you again. I swear.”

  He jumped to his feet, grabbed both her arms, and yanked her from the couch. She hit her head on the table on her way to the ground, knocking the tray to the floor.

  She screamed as he dragged her past the front entrance and down the hall to the same room he’d taken her into before. The room with the chair. The torture room.

  “No! Let me go!”

  He dropped her arms and gave her a swift kick to the stomach. “Shut up!”

  She grunted.

  When he turned away, she quickly belly crawled her way out of the room, making her way down the hallway, clawing and pushing with her good foot. If she could reach the bedroom, she could try to lock him out.

  “Not so fast, Ali.” He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her around and dragged her back to the room. Scooping her into his arms, he plopped her into the chair. She reached for him, clawed at his face, her jagged nails leaving trails of blood across his jaw.

  He punched her in the chest and then the gut, leaving her gasping for air as he reached for something on the metal tray beside him. She felt a pinch and then saw the syringe. Within seconds her head grew foggy and her vision blurred. She prayed she would pass out.

  He pulled the straps tight around her arms and legs, the leather digging into her flesh. After strapping down her head, he gave each strap a tug. He let his hand linger on her bandaged leg before he squeezed.

  She howled in pain, wishing he would kill her and be done with it.

  Again, he reached toward the worktable. This time he held up a drill for her to see. “My mom used to call me a jack-of-all-trades. I always wanted to be a dentist, but that would have taken so many years of hard work.” He shook his head. “I just couldn’t commit. And dental school doesn’t come cheap, you know.”

  “Please, Carlin,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “Give me one more chance.”

  “You were warned, Ali. No more chances. You could have had it all.” He held up a stainless steel utensil that was as long as a pencil and had two sharp ends. “I believe this is called a probe, which is fitting, don’t you think?” He set it down. Whistling while he worked, he used what looked like a shoehorn to pry her mouth apart so that he could insert a block to keep her mouth open. He hummed to himself as he tapped the metal end to her teeth and jabbed the sharp tip into her gums. “Oops!”

  She tasted blood.

  The lines in his forehead deepened. “Bad news, Ali. It looks like you’re going to need a root canal. The problem is, I don’t have any Novocain.”

  His eyes danced, and his body shook with excitement. What made a human being torture someone and take pleasure from the act? For the first time since she’d been held captive, she wondered what had happened to him to make him this way.

  As soon as he walked to the other side of the room, she tried to wriggle her arms free, but it was no use. Her lips trembled as she watched him fiddle with a stool before rolling it her way. He sat. “Much better. My back was getting sore.”

  Her inability to speak coherently, now that the block had been inserted, prevented her from pleading and begging for him to stop. Her heart hammered against her chest. Her arms and legs shook.

  He grabbed hold of a drill, brought it close to her ear so that she heard the buzz, buzz, buzz as he used the foot pedal to turn it on and off. And then he brought the drill to her wide-open mouth and got started.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  For the first time since being attacked, Dani returned to the office. She entered with her arm held straight ahead, a can of pepper spray in her grasp and her thumb on the nozzle as she walked past her desk, making her way to the kitchen.

  From the looks of things, someone had cleaned up the place. When she went to open the door to the basement, she hesitated, relieved to find a dark, empty space. The stairs were solid beneath her feet as she made her way down to the basement
to make sure nobody was hiding out.

  Back on the main floor, she didn’t like the rock-hard feeling in her stomach or the way she subconsciously held her breath as she took a seat at her desk, fearing someone might pop out at any moment.

  A few minutes passed before she powered on her computer. Once the screen brightened, she searched social media sites to see if Frank Petri had a presence. Nothing turned up on Instagram or Twitter, but when she logged on to Facebook and typed his name into the browser, she hit the jackpot. Frank’s picture had recently been updated. He was sitting on a bench under the shade of a willow tree, his dog, Sadie, at his side. She scrolled through his posts. His wife had passed away unexpectedly six months ago.

  Dani looked at her calendar, taking note that two months after his wife died, Cameron Bennington had begun to notice strange things happening inside her home.

  Dani grabbed a pad of paper and wrote down his birthdate. When people like Frank shared their private information with friends and family, they were also sharing it with hackers and scammers and people like her who needed information. Once that material was out there, there was no reeling it back in.

  By the time she was finished, she knew Frank Petri as well as she knew most acquaintances. But she still needed an address. And to get that, she would need to use one of her pay databases. The more information she could gather on Frank Petri, the better. A social security number was always ideal as far as collecting information, especially when looking for someone with a common surname like Brown or Smith. But in Frank Petri’s case Dani could only type his name, date of birth, and the Sacramento region and hope for a match.

  The pinwheel spun while the machine worked its magic. Seconds later, she had an address. Next, using a new tab, she opened Google Maps, entered Frank’s address, and asked for directions to Cameron Bennington’s home address.

  Interesting, but not too surprising, Frank Petri lived two blocks away from Cameron.

  Now that she knew where he lived and had an idea of who Frank Petri was, she thought about what might be the best way to handle the man. Without proof of him entering and exiting Cameron’s house, no arrest would be possible. And without consequences for his actions, there would be no reason for Frank Petri to stop what he was doing.

  She could contact Detective Whitton, who might be able to bring him in for questioning, but not much more than that.

  Her phone vibrated. It was Quinn.

  “Ethan is missing!” Quinn said when she picked up the call.

  “Hold on,” Dani said. “Take a breath and tell me why you think he’s missing.”

  “We spent all morning posting flyers in Midtown. Once we were nearly done, I told him to wait while I backtracked to get my car. When I returned, he was gone. I’ve tried to call him multiple times, but his phone has been shut off.”

  That same feeling she’d had when she went to the school to pick up Tinsley and discovered she was gone swept over Dani—a surreal, out-of-body experience as fear took over. Don’t go there, she told herself. Stay calm. Ethan is tough, street smart. “It’s okay,” Dani said. “Ethan probably got bored, started checking out a few stores. Where are you now?”

  “On my way to the office.”

  “That’s where I’m at,” Dani told her. “Let’s talk when you get here.”

  While she waited for Quinn to arrive, Dani searched for Ethan’s home phone number. She’d already done some research on Ethan, and it didn’t take long to find what she was looking for. She called the number, and after a good amount of ringing, there was a beep. Dani left her name and number, told Ethan’s mom she wanted to make sure Ethan had made it home. She left her name and number and asked her to call.

  Quinn walked through the door minutes later, her face flushed, and dropped into the chair in front of Dani’s desk.

  “Do you need some water?”

  “No,” Quinn said. “I just need to find Ethan.”

  “Tell me again what happened.”

  Quinn told her everything, starting with the moment she picked up Ethan that morning. When she got to the part where she had dropped her purse and Ethan saw the way the sun reflected off her keys, reminding him of what he’d seen in the back of the van when Ali was abducted, Dani’s stomach clenched.

  “Let me get this straight,” Dani said. “Before you left Ethan to get your car, the plan was for you to pick him up and drive to the shopping center where Ethan had seen Ali pushed into the van. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe that’s where Ethan went.”

  A frown creased Quinn’s brow. “But why wouldn’t he answer his phone?”

  “Maybe it ran out of juice.” As Dani came to her feet, she told Quinn that she’d left a message with Ethan’s mom. Certainly if Ethan wasn’t home when she finished cleaning houses, she would return Dani’s call.

  As they drove, Quinn updated Dani on her visit to Grayson Electric and her talk with the owner of Green Haven Construction. Unless Ed Hoffman called her back with information, number one and number four would have to be crossed off their list.

  It didn’t take long to get where they were going. Quinn pointed out the spot behind the tiny shopping center where Ethan had seen Ali disappear. After Dani parked, they both stepped out. The extreme dryness and heat sucked the moisture from Dani’s skin as she walked to the front of the car where Quinn was waiting.

  “I’ll check the sandwich shop, the hair salon, and the florist,” Quinn said.

  Dani did a double take. There was something different about Quinn. The hair was the same. No makeup, jeans, and a black V-neck T-shirt emblazoned with the words BE KIND—all the same. But the confidence was new. She seemed focused, decisive, and composed.

  Quinn gestured to another group of retail shops close by. “You can start over there.” She used a tissue to wipe sweat from her face. “While we’re looking for Ethan, we might as well ask the shop owners if they have used a locksmith in the past two months. Meet me back here when you’re done.”

  Dani wasn’t used to taking direction, but she headed off just the same, wishing she’d worn a hat to protect her from the sun. She started with the antique shop, as advised. Bells chimed when she walked in, and the smell of musty cloth and dust greeted her.

  She wove her way between narrow aisles crowded with glass display cases and tables loaded with jewelry and vintage glassware. A beautiful grandfather clock caught her eye. The place was big on wartime paraphernalia—everything you could ever want.

  But no Ethan.

  She smiled at the woman behind the register, wondered how she moved around without knocking something over. “Hi. My name is Dani, and I’m looking for a twelve-year-old boy.”

  When the woman shook her head, the long crystal earrings moved with her. “It’s been slow,” the woman said. “I would have seen him. Sorry.”

  “I’m also looking for a man—”

  “Aren’t we all, honey. Aren’t we all.”

  Dani smiled. “He’s a locksmith, and I heard he did some work for one of the businesses in this shopping center. I was hoping maybe you would know who might have been in need of that kind of work. Maybe a new shop owner?”

  “Sorry. I wish I could help you, but I don’t know of anyone who used a locksmith.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Dani said. “I love your store. I’ll have to come back when I have more time.”

  The woman wasn’t paying her any mind. She’d probably heard it all before, customers who promised to come back but never did.

  Dani stepped outside. It was too hot to be picky about which store she walked into next, so she chose the closest one and stepped inside. There were three customers waiting at the cash register, so she got in line.

  It was one of those places where people traded their used clothes for cash or other used clothes. She’d never been to one before. She found herself wondering if this was the type of store Tinsley would have enjoyed. She always loved playing dress-up. The more frills and lace and color,
the better. Dani pulled out her phone and checked to see if there were any messages from Detective Whitton about Rebecca Carr. Nothing yet.

  Sweat trickled down the back of Dani’s neck by the time the woman with long, straight white-gray hair waved her forward. Her name tag said HEATHER.

  “I don’t have any clothes to trade,” Dani explained, “just a quick question. I’m looking for a particular tradesman who might have been in the area, and I was wondering if you guys might have used a locksmith recently.”

  Heather turned toward another staff member working in the back and called out to her. “Hey, Sheila! Did we have any locks in the past month that needed to be fixed or replaced around here?”

  “Not that I know of,” Sheila responded.

  Heather shrugged. “Sorry.”

  Dani thanked her and left the store. The pet shop next door resulted in more of the same. Nobody knew anything about a locksmith, and Ethan was nowhere to be seen. The temperature outside had risen another five degrees, at least. She could see heat waves coming off the asphalt.

  “Dani!” Quinn was walking her way. “Any luck?”

  “Not so far. How about you?”

  She shook her head. “What are we going to do about Ethan?”

  “We’ll drive to his home and see if he’s there. If not, we go back to the office and regroup.”

  “I feel like I’ve wasted so much time,” Quinn said. “Three steps forward, five steps backward. I’m supposed to find people, not lose them. If something happened to Ethan, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”

  Dani wanted to wrap her arms around Quinn and tell her everything would be okay, that no matter what happened it wasn’t her fault, chin up and all that good stuff, but she knew Quinn would take it as a sign of weakness on her part. Quinn needed a win like an alcoholic needed a shot of vodka. Although she’d never said the words outright, Quinn had gotten into this business because she thought that if she could help find missing people, maybe she could reunite families and friends and take away their pain, and hopefully some of her pain too. “Come on,” Dani offered, instead of the well-intended-but-hollow, pump-her-up, feel-good speech. “Let’s get out of this heat.”