He looked at his phone, hoping Erin would call.
He wished he had a dog.
He poured himself more coffee. Then poured it out before drinking it. The jitters he did not need.
Gadge Garner called him back.
“Can we meet?” Dylan asked.
Garner said. “When?”
“Yesterday.”
“For that I’ll have to move some things around.”
“ASAP. And I’ll pay for your time.”
A short pause.
Garner said, “I can change an appointment and be at your place at two o’clock. Will that do?”
“I guess it’ll have to.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It is.”
“I’ll be there at one,” Garner said.
And he was.
Speaking quickly, it took Dylan fifteen minutes to lay out all that had happened. Gadge Garner took it in, then asked for a blank piece of paper and a pen. He put the paper on the coffee table between them.
Garner said, “So we have two people in on this, which makes it both more dangerous and more open to solution.”
“Explain that,” Dylan said.
“The nature of a conspiracy, and the reason it’s a crime in and of itself, is that two or more minds that get together to do harm generate an evil that is greater than its individual parts. But it also increases the chances of a reveal. Each part has a weakness. We’ve just got to find them.”
“How do you do that?”
Garner tapped his head, then his heart. “Think and feel. Get into their heads, but also their motives.”
Dylan nodded.
Garner turned the blank sheet of paper to landscape and drew a stick figure in the upper left quadrant. In the upper right quadrant he drew another stick figure, then put a dress on it and long hair.
“Not politically correct,” Garner said, “but for our purposes this is a man and a woman. The guy calls himself Phroso. Why the phony name?”
Dylan said, “To hide.”
“That’s the obvious answer. What else?”
“To fool people.”
Garner nodded. “What else?”
Dylan thought a moment, then shook his head.
“To send a message,” Garner said. “To play a game.”
“Phroso told Erin he was good at games.”
“And Tabitha. She told you something about her name.”
“She claimed it was because her mother liked that old TV show called Bewitched.”
“And who was she bewitching?”
“Me.”
Gadge Garner drew a crude broomstick under the woman figure. “This woman thought she could cast a spell on you, and she did, right?”
“Big time.”
“Sociopathy 101.”
“Is there a 201?”
“Yeah, it’s the transition class into psychopathy. How to make plans, intricate, and bring them off. Pass that class and you can move on to 301.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“Sadism. Pleasure, often sexual, in the pain of others. Which brings us to our fella.”
Garner drew a circle around the guy stick figure.
“Mr. Phroso,” Garner said. “He was probably born a sadist. And capable of kidnapping a child and doing what that movie was about.”
“But what about Tabitha?”
“I’m thinking that Phroso and Tabitha were working you together. Then they had a falling out, and that was the end for our gal.”
He put a large X over the female drawing.
“Now we have two other dead bodies,” Garner said. In the lower left of the page he drew a horizontal stick figure, with little x’s for eyes and a sad mouth. He did the same on the lower right.
“These two are connected to your wife,” Garner said. “This guy is the wild man at the pay phone who got shot by a long-range rifle. This other guy is the man your wife was dating.”
“She said she wasn’t, technically,” Dylan said, feeling it was important to make that distinction. “He was pursuing her.”
“And now he’s dead. Why this poor fella? Because of the romance element. Phroso didn’t like it. I think he’s obsessed with Erin, and has been for a long time. Can you think of anybody in her past who might fit this profile?”
Dylan shook his head.
“Think harder,” Garner said
87
Erin woke up, covered in sweat.
How long had she been out?
She was still in the seat, still constrained. Every muscle in her body ached. Her neck was in a vice.
Must have passed out.
Trying to get the seat to move, yes, that was it.
She pushed with her feet and her thighs burned.
And there was no progress.
All that effort, and she must have passed out.
Despair had claws, and they were dug into her insides, ripping.
Help me, help me, help me.
She heard the door open.
88
“Let’s go back fifteen years,” Gadge Garner said. “Is there anyone you can think of among your friends who was into movies?”
Dylan thought about it. “There was one couple, Tap and Chuck Loessing.”
“Tap?”
“A nickname. Her real name was Pat. We used to go to the movies with them. Chuck and I liked the summer action movies. But to pay for our sins we had to go to chick flicks.”
“They were good friends?”
“Very good. But they moved to North Carolina before Kyle was taken.”
“Go back a little further then,” Garner said.
“Before Erin and I were married I went to see some movies with a high school friend of mine, Marcus. He actually went into the film business, or tried to.”
“Tried?”
“As a screenwriter. I still hear from him on my birthday.”
“High school, huh? Anybody else from those days?”
“I was more into sports in high school, so I …”
“What is it?”
Dylan stood and walked a few paces, lost in a memory.
“What’ve you got?” Garner said.
“I’m just remembering a guy in high school. He ran a film club. A weird kid …”
“Go on.”
Dylan spun around. He was short of breath. His eyes met Garner’s.
Garner said, “Spill it. Now.”
As if from a distance, Dylan said, “He showed silent movies. One of them was The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
“That’s a Lon Chaney!”
“He’s also a kid I cold-cocked because I caught him putting his hands on Erin’s breast. That got us both suspended, and he never came back.”
“Keep going with this.”
Dylan ran his hand over his head, trying to coax out the thoughts. “Everybody called him Weezer. As near as I can remember, he didn’t have many friends. He ate lunch with the outsiders, you know what I mean?”
“Do you remember his real name?”
“Petrie.”
“You have your high school yearbooks?”
“There,” Dylan said, pointing to the photos of the juniors. The picture in the yearbook showed a thin-faced, unsmiling boy in a T-shirt, his dark hair uncombed. His eyes reflected aggression, as if he wanted to spit at the photographer. The caption was: Thomas J. Petrie.
“How long after high school did you marry Erin?” Garner asked.
“It was ten years. I ran into her one day and we started talking, then dated.”
“And Kyle came along when?”
“One year after we were married.”
“And he was five when he was kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a whole lot that could have happened in between,” Garner said. “Any other pictures of him in here?”
“There was a club.” Dylan flipped the pages, got to the clubs section of the yearbook. He found it. “Physics Club.”
He pointed at the pho
to of four students—three boys, one girl—posing in front of a white board covered with math equations. The names were underneath the photo: Tom Petrie, Terri Boyce, Derek Leake, Jerrod Forman.
“Fun looking bunch,” Garner said.
“So what can you find out about Petrie?” Dylan asked.
Garner made a typing motion with his fingers. “I’ll work my magic.”
89
“This wasn’t the way I had it planned,” he said. “But I can adjust.”
“It was him,” Erin said. “It was Kyle.”
“Of course it was. Did you think I was lying to you?”
He was behind her still. She had no idea how much time had passed.
“He hit you,” Erin said.
“Jimmy has a temper,” he said. “He’s gonna pay for that.”
“What do you mean?” She was amazed at how powerful her mother’s protection instinct flamed inside her now.
“I’ve got such a headache. He almost sent me to the moon.”
“Where is Kyle?” Erin said.
“Jimmy.”
“No.”
“He’ll be around later,” Petrie said.
“Later? What do you—?”
“Keep your voice down, will you? My head is cracking.”
“Tell me who you are, why you’ve done this. What do you want from me?”
“You know what?” he said. “I think the time is right.”
And then he came around into her line of sight, and sat down in the seat next to her.
His face was angular—sharp lines and tight skin. Rat-like. His eyes were a deep brown, alert and penetrating, eyes made for peeping through bedroom windows at night. His close-cropped black hair had sprinkles of gray in it. Dressed in a clean white shirt and dress slacks, he looked like he was interviewing for a job.
“Hello, Erin,” he said.
“Do I … know you?”
He nodded. “We went to high school together. For a time, at least.”
She shook her head, trying to envision his face younger. But nothing clicked.
“I once made a humble attempt to let you know how I felt about you,” he said. “But you took it the wrong way, and your boyfriend at the time, with your help, got me kicked out of school.”
With a rush of memory, it all came back.
“Weezer,” she said.
His jaw clenched. “Don’t ever use that name with me, understand?”
Erin said nothing.
He took a handful of her hair and gently pulled her head back.
“Do you understand?”
“Whatever,” she said.
He let her go, and smiled. “I’ll accept that, because I’m that way. You will call me Tom.”
“Thomas Jefferson Petrie,” she said.
“At your service.”
“How did you … what is all this?”
“I’m going to tell you. The whole story. It isn’t any good without you knowing the whole story. But first we have to arrange the players.”
He held something up. A phone.
Her phone.
“I’m giving your ex a call,” he said. “I want him to know that you’re safe and sound, and that your son is really alive. You have one line to speak, and this is the line: Dylan, it’s true. That’s all. Think you can remember it?”
“What is this leading to?”
“That’s not the correct answer. The correct answer is, yes, I can remember it. Here’s the thing, if you don’t say that line your son is going to die and you will be kept alive, knowing you’ll never see him again. So I think you see the importance of this. Right?”
She paused, then made herself nod.
“Okay,” Thomas Jefferson Petrie said. “Here we go.”
He thumbed the phone and put it to his ear.
90
Erin was calling. Dylan grabbed it.
“Erin, where are you?”
“Hello, pal.”
A man’s voice?
“Who is this?” Dylan said, and the moment he said it, knew who it was.
“Erin is fine, just fine,” the voice said. “But she won’t be unless you do exactly what I tell you. Is there anybody with you right now?”
Dylan hesitated.
The voice said, “I’ll take that as a yes. You have one chance at this. If you bring anybody in, you will never see your son or your ex-wife again. I’m arranging a reunion.”
Dylan was tempted to throw the name at him—Petrie. But he was too gripped with cold and furious dread to try it.
“It’s going to happen tonight,” the voice said. “You’ll all get together. But only on my terms. Don’t talk. And don’t try anything high tech, like triangulating this phone. I am always one step ahead of you. And just to prove it, I want you to hear from the woman herself. She’s going to tell you whether I have your son and can deliver him to you. Are you ready, pal?”
Looking over at Garner, who was listening intently, Dylan said nothing. He turned his back and walked toward his front window.
“I need to hear you say yes,” the voice said.
“Yes,” Dylan said, trying to make it sound innocuous.
“All right,” the voice said. “Here’s your ex-wife.”
A couple of seconds later, Dylan heard Erin say, “Dylan, it’s true.”
Then the voice again. “There you have it. Now for the benefit of anybody who’s there, say, I’m glad to hear it.”
No way around it. Dylan said, “I’m glad to hear it.”
“At six o’clock I want you to be at the 7-Eleven on Newhall Ranch Road in Santa Clarita. Don’t miss it. Park and get out of your car and stand under the blue handicapped parking sign. You’ll hear from me. And it won’t be from this phone. Which is my way of telling you not to get cute. Bye, pal.”
The call cut.
Dylan looked at the phone like it was a foreign object.
“Anything important?” Gadge Garner said.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” Dylan said. He tossed the phone a couple of inches in the air, caught it, put it in his pocket.
Garner said, “Your nonchalance is a tell.”
“Excuse me?”
“It means you’re not telling me something.”
Dylan said, “You don’t have to know everything.”
“It’s something bad,” Garner said.
“Look, thanks. For everything.”
“That’s sounds like the old brush.”
“Please! Enough.”
“It was Petrie.”
“Don’t.”
“He wants you to meet him.”
“Stop.”
“Don’t do it.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
Garner said, “He told you to go to a place and wait, didn’t he?”
“I don’t want to go into it.”
“He’s got all the leverage,” Garner said.
“You don’t have to tell me that,” Dylan said.
“I’ll follow you.”
“No.”
“Don’t do this alone.”
“I have to.”
Garner looked at him a long moment, as if he were gauging Dylan’s resoluteness. Dylan didn’t have to fake it.
“All right, then listen,” Garner said. “I doubt I’ll be able to track you. He’ll use burner phones himself to contact you, and when you get to the place he’s going to get you out of your car and into another vehicle.”
Dylan looked at the clock. 3:27. Considering commuter traffic, he needed to get going.
“He will take your phone and either chuck it or randomize it.”
“What’s that?”
“Attach it to a random car. Has he asked you to meet him at a place with a lot of in-and-out traffic flow, like a convenience store?”
“You’re very good,” Dylan said.
“I know that,” Garner said. “So is he. You know what this could lead to, right?”
“I may not make it.”
“You d
on’t need to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” Dylan said. “I failed my son once. I’m not going to fail my wife. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try.”
“Wait one second,” Garner said, and charged out of the room.
My wife.
That’s how he’d said it. That’s how he’d meant it.
And about the dying, too. He was amazed at how ready he was if it came to that.
A minute later Garner came back in the room holding something in his hand.
“This is a knife,” Garner said, opening up a triangular blade on a curved handle. “Cops like it. It’s quick, easy, close-quarters. Pistol grip. Don’t stab with it. Slice and dice and gut. Do crisscross with it.”
Garner demonstrated by whipping his hand in an X pattern through the air.
“No mercy,” he said. He closed the blade, knelt, pulled up Dylan’s pant leg and slipped the knife into his sock.
“Really?” Dylan said.
“Really,” Garner said.
“Won’t he pat me down or something?”
“This spot an amateur usually misses,” Gadge Garner said. “And what’s the worst thing that can happen? He takes it. That’ll just make him feel even more superior. Which is what you want. Keep him that way as long as possible. And if there’s any way you can contact me, do it.”
“Where will you be?”
“Right here,” Garner said. “I’ve still got some work to do.”
91
Petrie said, “I wanted your ex to be here. I was going to give you the whole story together. Now I have to do it another way. But we’ll have plenty of time to work this all out. Years.”
“Never,” Erin said.
“Ever hear about Stockholm Syndrome? It’s what I used on your boy. Masterful. It works, it really does. I should get a certificate or something.”
The cuffs on her wrists jangled, and Erin realized it was not because she had intentionally moved. Her limbs were shuddering on their own.
“So just to let you know, we’ll have years together, and you will come to appreciate all this.” He sat again in the seat next to her. “The massive amounts of money I’ve made because I’m smarter than anyone else, especially those buffoons in the meth trade. That was years ago, but the money is fully laundered and at my disposal. I can buy and sell people, Erin. Never thought I’d be able to do that, did you?”
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