Possession

by Rene Gutteridge

  The woods. They’d fled through the woods. Probably parked half a mile away.

  There was a convenience store, two of them, near where the woods ended and more commercial property started. Maybe someone would remember seeing them come out and get into a car or would have noticed a car parked at the curb.

  “. . . yeah, to get a few things, he said.”

  “Clothes, some food,” Vance said. He knew he had the right to be there. He was only charged. Not convicted. He figured the supervisor was probably telling the kid to go get the tag numbers off his vehicle.

  “All right, sir. . . . Yes . . . Thanks.” He hung up the phone and turned to Vance. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” he said, handing the wallet back. He eyed him, the nearby living room, then walked out the front door.

  Vance wanted to shout at this kid, tell him that he knew his wife was still alive and had probably gone through the back woods just recently. But he knew it was useless. He was their suspect. They weren’t going to look for anyone else.

  He watched through the window as the officer took out his pad and wrote down the tag numbers before climbing back into his squad car. So much for being inconspicuous.

  He then hurried through the house. Yeah, he needed clothes, but that wasn’t his concern. He wanted more clues. He went to their closet, grabbed a duffel bag, and stuffed a couple of pairs of jeans and some shirts in. Lindy’s clothes did not look like they’d been touched. So why had they been here? What would be the reason for returning?

  Something from the crime scene, maybe. Something Erin had left that would link her to it?

  What else? Money. Maybe she thought they had money stashed. They didn’t.

  Guns. Maybe Erin needed more weapons.

  He dug through the back of their walk-in closet to his gun safe. It was open, and the guns were gone, but there was a better chance that the police took them for their investigation to see if any of the guns matched the one used to kill Karen.

  His mind trailed back to the money again. He wondered if Lindy had her wallet with her when she was kidnapped. If not, maybe that’s why Erin had returned. She wanted credit cards. ATM cards. It would be a stupid move to use them. The police would be tracking those very things to search for Lindy and Conner.

  But if she was desperate enough for money . . .

  Lindy had become paranoid of a break-in at the house, so she’d been hiding her wallet various places. The last time she’d hidden it, he was pretty sure it was in the pantry. He hurried there and looked but found nothing. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but maybe it was something.

  He looked through everything in the bathroom to see if there was anything misplaced. Lindy’s toothbrush was there. Her hairbrush. Makeup.

  Vance sighed. There didn’t seem to be anything else to find. He walked out of the bathroom and stopped at Conner’s room. His books and toys were spilled across the empty room on the carpet. The tent was still erected.

  His heart ached to smell Conner’s little boy smell, a mix of sweat and warmth and sugar cereal. He missed his smile. His giggle. He gazed down at the small pile of books and toys and noticed Conner’s Etch A Sketch. How was he surviving without it? He was probably asking for it constantly, wherever he was.

  He knelt and picked up the Etch A Sketch. Tears trickled down his face, knowing how much his son was missing this toy. He studied the drawing, which filled up the entire gray window.

  There was writing at the top, sloppy but pretty good cursive for his age.

  Dad help.

  Vance peered harder at it. Was that what it said? Dad, help?

  He traced the lines of the drawing. He wasn’t sure what it was. There seemed to be a train or something and then a building.

  At the bottom right-hand corner were more words. Yucky hotel.

  Conner was trying to tell him they were at a hotel! A run-down one. But the train . . . ? Maybe it was a hotel by train tracks. A motel more likely. Vance studied the drawing. Yes, the doors were on the outside of the building that Conner drew.

  Vance took the Etch A Sketch, careful not to shake it, and grabbed his duffel bag. Back in his car, he reversed out of the driveway.

  He turned north. There were railroad tracks by the warehouse where he’d found Joe. He could follow those.

  He squeezed his hands together over the steering wheel, and he knew God had heard his desperate plea for help. He’d answered with an Etch A Sketch.

  32

  In his patrol days, Vance used to get a kind of high off the adrenaline surge while en route to a call. The siren wail against the city noise. The engine’s roar. Yet he glided effortlessly around cars, like wind around skyscrapers.

  But this was different. There was no high. The headache had returned with a vengeance. He could hardly see straight. He leaned forward on the steering wheel just so the white lines of the road would come into focus.

  The railroad spread for miles, but he had an extra clue. Yucky. That was probably the most important piece of the puzzle. He would be looking for a motel in a lower-income part of town.

  The sun was rising. Brilliant orange. And giving enough light to help him figure out where to start. He’d passed by a business district, a shopping district, and a lot of housing, but nowhere that seemed to be a place a motel might be located.

  A train passed him, its long trail of cars rumbling loudly in the quiet morning air. Normally it might be mesmerizing. He always liked trains. But not this morning. Its whistle sounded like a shrieking seagull.

  If he could just shake the headache.

  The bullet. Then the shattering glass.

  No . . .

  Stay here. Don’t . . . just don’t . . .

  He listened and the phantom sounds stopped. He diverted from the railroad. Nearby were slum houses, and he thought he might find motels nearer to the city. But his head hurt.

  He pulled over. The entire road was blurry. His phone rang as he parked against a curb and closed his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Joan. Where are you?”

  Vance paused. He was unsure how much to tell Joan. She was known to overreact, like calling the police at the wrong time. “Following a lead.”

  “Please tell me you’ve found something substantial.”

  “I have.”

  “What’s wrong? You sound different.”

  “My head . . . it’s killing me.”

  “Migraine. Possibly a cluster headache. Did you take those pills I gave you?”

  “Yes.” He was tired of lies. But he could live with it if he didn’t have to hear his mother-in-law gripe at him.

  “Vance? Vance!”

  “What?”

  “Vance, what happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been saying your name over and over. You weren’t responding to me.”

  Vance blinked. She had? He thought they’d just been in a conversation. Had he blacked out?

  “I’m here. I think the phone is getting bad reception.” But he was shaken. He’d lost a small chunk of time.

  “I’m going to see about getting you some migraine medication.”

  “Okay. That would be good.” Even talking was excruciating. But he couldn’t stop looking for them. He knew he wouldn’t stop, not to go all the way back and get some meds.

  The migraine would lift. It always did. But usually he had to sleep for a while. “Have you heard from Harmon?”

  “Yes. He got word of a woman and child up north. They’d stopped at a convenience store off the highway. They fit the description of Lindy and Conner, though the cashier was pretty vague about the details of what they were wearing. Harmon thought it was worth checking out.”

  “All right,” Vance said, though he wished he had Harmon nearby. They could cover more ground that way. “Have him call me as soon as he can, okay?”

  “Certainly. And please call me when you have more information.”

  Vance hung up and gripped the steering wheel, resting his forehead a
gainst it. He closed his eyes and it offered temporary relief. But not enough. The pain was nearly unbearable.

  He sat up a little and tried to open his eyes, focus on the road. Finally everything stopped spinning, though nothing came into focus easily. But he had to press forward.

  He pulled away from the curb and prayed for relief.

  * * *

  Lindy tried again for sleep, but she was often yanked away by fear like a kite that couldn’t be reeled in. Conner was sleeping soundly when Erin rose from the chair she’d fallen asleep in.

  Sometime before dawn, she’d finally stopped her babbling. The entire kidnapping incident had been terrifying, but what Lindy saw out in the woods scared her the most. Erin was losing control. She wasn’t thinking clearly, and the underlying rage that Lindy thought was there all along finally reared its ugly head. Lindy still couldn’t believe she’d slapped Conner. Her little boy’s cheek burned pink from it. Her own shoulder ached from being pulled off the ground.

  Lindy pretended to be asleep but carefully watched Erin move around the room. She was busy, but Lindy couldn’t really figure out with what. She was on her computer, then would write something down, then would get something out of her duffel bag.

  She walked over to Lindy’s bed and stood above her. Even with her eyes closed, Lindy could feel her shadow crossing the bed as she blocked the dawning light.

  “Get up.”

  Lindy opened her eyes. Erin unlocked her hand and threw the cuffs on the bed. Her demeanor was different, like the subtle change of the air right before a storm arrives. But her expression remained neutral. “Sit up. We’ve got to get prepared.”

  Lindy obeyed, though her body ached from fatigue and from being pummeled. Erin took her laptop off the table and brought it over to the bed. She pulled up a chair, then glanced around Lindy at Conner. It was all Lindy could do not to shove her.

  “I’d like to only have to say this once,” Erin said, her voice quiet. “And I’m saying it now so I don’t have to say it with him awake. I think you will appreciate that gesture.”

  Lindy nodded, trying to be as compliant as possible.

  “If you don’t do exactly as I say, you’re never going to see your little boy again.”

  Those words caused tears to gather in Lindy’s eyes. She pressed the back of her hand against her cheek, trying to stop them. She gazed at Erin, trying to find an ounce of humanity in her. “Erin,” she whispered, “I know you’re desperate. I get that. But I can’t see you deliberately killing a child. I know there was the accident, but that wasn’t your fault . . .” Lindy tried not to look away, though that lie stung all the way up her throat. Of course it was her fault. But if she could just get Erin to see this in a different way. “Look at that little boy over there,” she continued, still wiping the tears. “You’re telling me that you’re going to kill him? You are actually going to do that?”

  Erin stared at Conner for a long time, then with one shift of the eyes was staring at Lindy. “Who said anything about killing him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not going to kill him,” she said, her mouth curving into an unsettling smile. “I’m going to take him.”

  Lindy lost her breath. “What?”

  “With me. To Mexico or South America or wherever it is I decide to go. You’ll never be able to find me, Lindy. Or him.” She fingered the sleeve of her shirt. “It would be horribly ironic, me raising Vance’s child, acquiring his greatest possession.”

  Conner stirred.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “There is a bank about eight blocks from here. It’s been robbed twice in the last twenty-four months.” Erin pulled the laptop closer, brought up a picture of it. “It’s in a poor neighborhood, so it probably can’t afford a security guard. And if it does have one, they’ll bring him in during high-traffic times, like in the afternoon or on the first or fifteenth, when many people get paid. It’s also close to the highway and far from the police station. This is our target.” She tapped her finger against the screen of the laptop.

  Lindy studied the picture. It was a simple, free-standing building that looked newer than some of what she’d been able to observe nearby.

  “We’re going to wait until some of the morning traffic has subsided. Once people are at work, around nine thirty, we’ll strike.”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing, Erin.”

  “You’re going to learn. Fast. Basically,” she said, “the people behind that counter have to believe that you’re willing to shoot them for what they have in their trays.”

  “I can’t shoot anybody . . .”

  Erin glanced at Conner, then back at Lindy. “I’m certain you’ll do what you have to do to get your boy back.” She rose and went to her duffel bag, pulling out a gun and a ski mask. “This is a Glock.” She lifted it.

  Lindy nodded, wide-eyed, but she already knew that.

  “I’m going to teach you how to use this, so pay attention.”

  Lindy watched, but she already knew that too.

  * * *

  His stomach grumbled with hunger, then swirled with nausea. Any need his body felt was canceled out by utter desperation. If he had to run faster, he would. If he had to lift the heaviest object, he could. But this . . . chasing after a ghost . . . was unbearable. He was grasping at thin air. There seemed to be nothing he could do to speed things along.

  Vance ignored two calls from Joan. He had nothing to report. As he drove up and down streets, gazing at every building, he felt sorrow for the fact that even the police wouldn’t help him. If he had their resources, he knew he could find them. Probably within fifteen minutes.

  But it was just him.

  Yucky hotel.

  He pictured Conner in the room, turning the Etch A Sketch knobs, not giving up hope that his daddy would find him.

  Tears streamed down his face, causing an already-blurry road to fade like a watercolor. And his skull felt like it was being crushed by a vise.

  But he drove. And he drove.

  And then . . .

  A motel.

  It sat close to the road with a circular, covered drive. Tattered vinyl, green and scalloped, hung over it, probably fancy in better times.

  The front doors were glass, dirty as if they’d not been cleaned for years. There were a few rooms facing the road, but it looked like most were on the side and back.

  Vance turned in and parked in one of the spaces. He tucked his gun into his waistband and slowly got out, taking in everything. Only two other cars were parked in the front. He studied them. Nothing stood out to him.

  There were two breezeways, one on each side of the motel. He took the one on the right. The sidewalks were cracked and weed infested. The breezeway led to the center courtyard, which featured an empty pool with chairs and tables still around it. Dusty umbrellas. Overgrown grass snaked through a small white fence.

  He searched the doors of the rooms, looking for movement. All was quiet, as if hardly anyone was here.

  He walked through another breezeway that led to the back of the hotel. As he rounded the corner, he lurched to a stop.

  The red car. Karen’s red car.

  The police most likely didn’t even have a record for her driving that car if it had been stolen and retagged. He slowly walked toward the parking lot so he could get a good view of the rooms. There was nothing to hide behind. He had to hope that he would be graced with the element of surprise. But first he had to figure out which room they were in.

  Hope drifted around him like the faint scent of wildflowers. But then a stench.

  “Draw your gun, Graegan.”

  Vance squeezed his eyes shut, willing Doug to go.

  “Your gun, Graegan. This isn’t a shopping trip. She’s dangerous.”

  “I know. . . .” Vance put his hand on his gun, trying to ignore Doug and the vicious, stabbing pain through his head.

  “Hello, sir.”

  Vance turned at the sound of a woma
n’s voice. Hispanic. Pushing a cart filled with towels and cleaning supplies. He withdrew his hand.

  She gave him a pleasant smile. “Can I help you with something?” Her accent was thick but easy to understand.

  “Ignore her,” Doug’s voice said. “She’s not real.”

  Vance glanced around but didn’t see Doug nearby. He swallowed. She looked real. If he could just reach out and touch her.

  “I’m looking for my sister,” Vance said—barely audible, he knew.

  “Excuse me, sir? Speak up, please.”

  “My sister. I am looking for her.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “Short blonde hair. Thin and kind of tall.”

  “I have seen a woman like that. I believe she is in room 288. On the second floor.” She nodded as she pulled out a rag. “Yes, I believe that is correct. She has not wanted maid service for the entire time.”

  “Thank you,” Vance said.

  “She is strange, your sister. Sad eyes. Very sad eyes.”

  Vance nodded, and then the woman disappeared into a nearby room to clean.

  “You don’t believe me. Is that it?”

  Vance turned. There he was, with his hands in his pockets and his shirtsleeves rolled up. That’s how he always used to stand at a crime scene. It could be the bloodiest, most horrific scene imaginable, and Doug would stand casually over it like he was observing Bermuda grass.

  “You have to leave,” Vance whispered.

  “I’m here to help you. You shouldn’t have talked to that woman.”

  “I found out where they are. Right up there.”

  “You have a plan?”

  Maybe if Vance ignored him, he would go away. He drew his gun, looked to see if anyone else was nearby, and then climbed the metal stairs.

  Behind him, he heard Doug’s footsteps.

  He didn’t have a clue what he was going to do. But surprise was going to be to his advantage.