Every Fear

by Rick Mofina

  The alert was also flashed over electronic highway signs and was sent out by e-mails, faxes, and voice and text messages to websites, municipal, county, and state government transportation agencies, and to the fleets of private companies who participated in the alert system.

  The alert did not stop within Washington’s borders. It was also carried under agreement in the same manner in Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.

  “The alert is going to reach millions of people, Grace, it’s going to boost our chances,” Perelli said.

  She didn’t answer. She was watching the TV suspended from the ceiling in the hospital lounge, a few steps from the intensive care unit where Maria Colson had just come out of surgery.

  The grim-faced surgeon had informed investigators that it would be several hours before there was any chance of her regaining consciousness.

  Even if she did recover, could she tell me anything that would help—anything that would solve her own murder? Grace’s fingertips touched the microcassette recorder in her pocket as she braced for a dying declaration.

  Have we done everything? Are we missing anything? Grace wasn’t one-hundred-percent certain. And there was that guy from the Mirror. She found his card. Jason Wade. He was right on the money, the way he’d found Lani Tychina. He was a good reporter. And she was a good detective.

  So why was she doubting herself?

  Maybe it was because she was worried the choices she’d made in her life were the wrong ones. Maybe she was tired of coming home to an empty apartment, tired of feeling that she was missing something.

  The air in the room was oppressive with antiseptic smells. Maria’s aunt and uncle talked softly in a far corner. As the clock over the nurses’ station swept time forward, Grace took stock of the cheerless walls, the drab vinyl couches, the outdated copies of Newsweek and People, and a well-thumbed King James edition of the Bible.

  This wasn’t a waiting room, this was a terminal where hope confronted death; where frightened families pleaded with God and where a lonely Homicide detective and her partner awaited the outcome.

  Perelli rubbed his tired eyes. For his part, he acknowledged he didn’t know everything about Grace. Could you ever know all that a person carried in their heart? But what he knew of her, he knew well and her second-guessing was evident to him. He took her aside, speaking quietly. “We’re doing all we can. We’re doing it right. The alert will help us.”

  She looked at him and nodded.

  In the corner, Maria Colson’s sixty-two-year-old aunt, a retired secretary for Boeing, whispered prayers. They floated down the corridor, into the dimly lit room where her niece was fighting for her life. At that moment, the only other person with Maria was the intensive care nurse who was keeping vigil, watching the equipment monitoring Maria’s heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing.

  The room was bathed with the light of the muted television located in the high corner. The nurse had insisted it be left on for Maria, believing that if the young mother could subconsciously absorb the information on the massive search for her baby boy, it could help her.

  Not long after the alert was broadcast, WKKR went to a live news report on the abduction. David Troy described the incident as the screen then showed the Seattle Mirror’s website with a story by Jason Wade accompanied by a large photo of Maria and Dylan together. A heartbreakingly beautiful picture, the nurse thought just as Maria’s monitor ponged and her hand clenched.

  Good Lord.

  Maria remained unconscious. It was likely a coincidental muscle reflex. But the nurse believed, as she did with the many life-and-death cases she’d had on her floor, that Maria knew.

  She must see her baby up there. Feel him up there, the nurse thought.

  As the alert continued crawling across the bottom of the screen, the nurse turned to the window and the city beyond it.

  Where was Dylan?

  9

  Several miles south of where Maria Colson lay in the hospital, Everett Sinclair was seething on the forty-fifth floor of the Bank of America building.

  Three hours since the goddammed idiot in the van had side-swiped his Mercedes 450SL and his rage had not subsided.

  No way.

  The more he dwelled on it, the more it angered him. The scratches defacing his prized Benz sickened him. The deep gouges were wounds in the beautiful Jasper Blue finish.

  And he couldn’t bear to look at the stains on his suit. The new charcoal gray number he’d bought last month in San Francisco. Italian cut, woven wool, with pleated pants. Perfectly tailored. Nine hundred dollars.

  Ruined.

  Like his day.

  This day of all days, when he was scheduled to make his presentation to the meeting. The entire board. It meant his shot at VP. If he got it, he’d be the youngest executive manager to sit in the chair.

  “Your star’s rising, Ev. This should be a slam dunk,” Hadley assured him.

  Dammit.

  Set the fender bender aside, Sinclair told himself. But he couldn’t. It was an affront and he couldn’t stop replaying it.

  As usual, that morning he’d rolled out of the cobblestone drive of his big colonial in Sunset Hills, with its view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. He’d left early enough to make his appointment with his accountant and leave plenty of time to get to the office and prepare. He had his briefcase open on the passenger seat and was glancing at his presentation at red lights, while he took hits of coffee.

  He was in Ballard somewhere near Leary and 17th, reading, when the light had changed. A horn sounded behind him, he waved, signaling an apology for what? Being two seconds too slow in responding to the green. Then an engine growled, tires squealed, something blurred and he felt a scrape as the idiot behind him suddenly cut ahead of him, grazing his Benz, forcing him to stand on his brakes.

  His briefcase toppled; he fumbled his commuter mug and the lid came off, splashing scorching hot coffee on his lap, his papers, his car’s leather interior. Dumbstruck, he glanced around. No one saw anything. If they did, they didn’t care. He erupted with anger, smashing his foot on the accelerator.

  His Mercedes roared with righteous wrath as he pursued the bastard. One block, two, three, four. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he narrowed the distance to the bastard’s rear bumper. He’d come within inches when he was suddenly staring into the horrified face of a cyclist. Brakes screeched as the acrid smell of burning rubber brought the Mercedes to a safe halt and Sinclair to his senses.

  “Everett?”

  Sinclair looked around the boardroom, at the massive mahogany table, the twenty-odd members in the high-backed chairs, the huge screen displaying his presentation, and the question in Hadley’s face.

  “The situation at our cross-border operation in Detroit, Everett?” Hadley repeated, “Your presentation touched onto our status there, which suggests a remedy.”

  “Yes.” Sinclair lowered his head to feign serious consideration, doodling with his pen on the paper in his leather-bound briefing book. He noticed a coffee splotch from the incident. “I am confident we can address Detroit effectively by using our plant across the Detroit River in Windsor, as I outlined in the memo I sent out this week. If Detroit’s on board with applying the El Paso scenario in Windsor, we can proceed.”

  Hadley’s nod contained the right measure of approval. Then, while he took the Detroit issue around the table and across the country to the executives participating on the conference call, Sinclair resumed his private battle.

  He’d abandoned chasing the jerk who’d hit his car. Kept his appointment with his accountant to hide away more assets in his numbered account in Aruba before he filed on his cheating whore wife. Parked his car, got to his office, changed into the wrinkled navy suit he’d kept in his closet, reproduced his presentation, and got on with business. During that short time, he’d set his fury aside, like a loaded gun, which he intended to use when he had a free moment.

  There wo
uld be a reckoning. The son of a bitch would pay.

  Sinclair studied his notes in his briefing book. Knowledge is power, he thought, as he circled the information he’d captured from the battlefield.

  A red Chrysler minivan.

  “Can you hear me, Everett?” the chief of operations at the Detroit plant said. “I acted on your memo immediately. We absolutely agree with your assessment.”

  “Wonderful, Jim. We’re all on the same page.”

  A question hung in the air.

  “Everett.” The chief’s long-distance voice filled the board-room. “Are you in a position to do it? The sooner you get to Detroit-Windsor and approve the redesign the sooner we can start production. We’ve got three full shifts ready to go 24-7 once you green-light us. We can start ahead of schedule, thanks to your assessment.”

  An advanced startup impressed the board members. They murmured and nodded.

  “I could be there the day after tomorrow,” Sinclair said.

  “How about today, after this meeting?” Hadley said.

  “Today?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I still have the Tokyo project to send off.”

  “Langston will babysit Tokyo, Everett. Detroit’s a fifty-million-dollar contract. Early production positions us to triple the commitment over the next two years. We’re talking two hundred million. I think we’d do well to maintain the momentum you’ve built.”

  “Understood.”

  Hadley pressed a button on his console. “Gloria?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get Ellen to make travel arrangements to get Everett Sinclair on the next flight to Detroit. I’m dispatching him immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay,” Hadley said to the group. “That’s it for today. Thank you.”

  Sinclair exited the room through a flurry of backslapping and attaboys. Hadley was dead-on. His star was rising.

  While packing in his office, he glanced at his stained Italian suit and his anger bubbled. He went to the large window, looked down over Seattle, and thought for a moment before he went through his briefing book for his notes on Detroit. He stopped when he came to the page with the information he had on the asshole.

  He powered up his laptop to download files for his trip, paused, then included the material from his camera phone. Pictures he’d taken. Evidence. The stains on his suit. The damage to his Mercedes 450SL.

  The rear of the Chrysler and its license.

  You will rue the day you fucked with Everett Sinclair.

  Collecting his computer bag and the small toiletry kit from his office washroom, Sinclair headed down the hall to the office of Ellen Gorman, who handled executive travel arrangements.

  “Hi, Ev, got everything right here,” she said, putting papers into an envelope. “Your plane leaves in two hours for Chicago, where you connect to Detroit. The car’s waiting for you downstairs.”

  “Thanks, Ellen.”

  Gorman’s attention went back to the muted TV she had under her desk. Long ago Hadley insisted she have one on all the time to alert him to any breaking news that might impact the company. Sinclair knew she watched daytime talk shows.

  “That’s sad.” Gorman did not take her eyes from the set.

  “What’s sad?” Sinclair asked. Not that he cared. He couldn’t see or hear her TV He was checking his travel envelope and the Detroit and Windsor reports he needed to read.

  “It’s one of those emergency alerts.”

  Sinclair grunted as Gorman watched the ribbon of information on Dylan Colson’s abduction crawl across the bottom of her screen.

  “A baby boy was abducted after his mother was run over this morning.”

  Sinclair wasn’t listening. He was checking his reports, estimating if he’d have enough time to absorb them all, just as details and vehicle description flowed across Gorman’s TV None of the information reached Sinclair as he flipped through his travel arrangements. For a moment his thoughts shifted to how lucky he’d been not to have hit the cyclist. Moreover, Sinclair congratulated himself for nailing the info he needed to find the bastard who’d wronged him.

  This is not over.

  He tapped his bag.

  “Thanks, Ellen, I’m off.”

  “We also booked you a room in Detroit and one on the Canadian side in Windsor. Good luck, Ev.”

  Gorman continued watching the reports on Dylan Colson, shaking her head.

  10

  “This will be difficult to watch.”

  FBI Special Agent Kirk Dupree slammed the hardware store security tape into the Colsons’ big home system, which occupied one side of the living room. The sixty-inch screen gave the images such force Lee drew back.

  The wheels of Dylan’s stroller.

  Maria’s sneakers.

  The van, as white shoes emerged from it. Someone scurried to Dylan’s stroller, then scurried back to the van.

  They had just stolen his son.

  His breathing quickened. This can’t be.

  Only last night, he’d sat in this room in front of this TV holding Dylan in his arms. The little guy sucked happily on a warm bottle of formula. He’d felt so good in his cotton jumper; the one dotted with little elephants and giraffes. He’d smelled so sweet. And his eyes; his eyes were shining up at him like shooting stars.

  Was that to be his last memory?

  He thought of Maria. How he’d kissed her in the darkness after getting out of bed at midnight to take the tanker call near Jackson Park.

  Had he told her that he loved her?

  The scenes flitted before him on the big screen.

  Maria’s sneakers as she rushed from the store to climb onto the van. The van lurched. The upper part of the screen blurred and Maria’s head smashed to the street.

  His insides twisted. The saliva in his mouth evaporated.

  His wife was dying in the street and he was unable to do anything.

  Dylan’s stroller toppled, its wheels spun in a final chorus to the destruction of his world. The last images of his wife and son.

  The FBI replayed the tape. Again and again, until Lee’s thoughts became jumbled. Blood thundered in his ears as if he were underwater thrashing to the surface. He had nothing to grip but the arms of his chair. There was nothing to silence the typhoon of anguish as it began hurling blame.

  What the hell was Maria thinking, leaving Dylan outside the store?

  God, no. I take that back. I’m so sorry, Maria. Forgive me. Please.

  A bolt of self-reproach hit Lee hard.

  It was his fault.

  He was supposed to protect his family. He’d gone out in the night to help strangers. Why wasn’t he there to protect Maria and Dylan?

  Why?

  Lee drove his fingers into the chair’s fabric until he seized a moment of clarity. He should be with his wife. “I’m going back to the hospital now, I need to be with Maria.”

  “We know, Lee.” Detective Grace Garner had arrived from the hospital moments earlier. “Maria’s aunt and uncle are with her. Her condition’s unchanged. We need your help here, then we’ll take you to her.”

  “Have another look at the tape,” Dupree said. “Do you know this van? It’s a red Chrysler Town and Country. A witness told us that the rear has a custom-painted mural showing the sun and trees. You’re a tow truck operator, you know vehicles. From what you see, do you recognize this van?”

  “No. How many times do I have to tell you? How many times do I have to see this tape? Why are you certain I should know who did this?”

  “I’m not. But there’s always the chance that the person behind it has had contact with you, or your family, in some small way. Maybe a seemingly innocuous way. This happened too fast to be random.”

  “They were stalking us?”

  “That’s one scenario. We’re looking at others.”

  Lee took stock of the living room and the adjoining dining room with the large oak table, a wedding gift from Maria’s aunt. FBI age
nts had transformed it into a command desk with TVs to monitor news reports. They also had Global Positioning Satellite hardware, satellite phones, printers, laptop computers, and more phones with special lines in case Dylan’s abductors called with demands.

  Nothing so far.

  Throughout the house, more somber-faced agents wearing white latex gloves were searching everything, their voices low, creating a funereal air. The FBI was also screening calls from the press, friends, and well-wishers, while outside, uniformed Seattle police officers kept neighbors and reporters from approaching the door. Lee plunged his haggard face into his hands as Dupree glanced at his watch then resumed his questions.

  “Does Dylan have any medical conditions, or require any special medication?”

  “No, but I’ve given you his doctor’s number.”

  “Do you know anyone who wanted children but can’t have them, or anyone who recently lost a child?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anyone who paid unusual attention to Dylan? Anyone who made you and your wife uneasy?”

  “No.”

  “Any recent altercations with anyone? Anyone who threatened you or Maria in any way?”

  “No.”

  “Any strange visitors at your door that she may have mentioned?”

  Lee shook his head.

  “Anyone lost looking for directions, hang-up calls, anything?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “You use a babysitter?”

  “No. Only family.”

  “Did Maria take prenatal classes?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’d like a contact name.”

  “It’s in her address book, in her purse.” Lee indicated the dining room.

  “Do you know anyone with a grudge against you, your family, the company you work for?” Dupree asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you or your wife use drugs, or gamble? Do you have any outstanding debts to anyone for drugs, gambling, anything like that? Anything illegal?”