Gone Missing: A gripping crime thriller that will have you hooked

by T. J. Brearton

  Cross put his hands on his hips and surveyed the scene. Farrington had set out a couple of cones. The good news was the park was away from the main roads. It was still early, just before nine, and a Monday. School wasn’t in, so no kids were likely to have come through. Workers in the area came down to have their lunch, but that was a ways off.

  “So, what do we do?” Brennan was growing more frantic by the second. He was a big man, over six feet, two hundred pounds. He wore his blond hair back in a man-bun, but his beard was threaded with gray – Cross thought he was forty or forty-five.

  Cross didn’t know much about the couple, only that they had some money, either on her side or his, or both. Rumor was they divided their time between Hazleton and New York City, where they also had a home.

  “You’ve tried to contact her, obviously.”

  “About 100 times. Nothing. When I send a text, I don’t get that little notification – ‘delivered’ – you know what I mean? And calls go straight to voice mail. So her phone is switched off, or…”

  “Can I see your phone? Show me that text.”

  “Yeah, yes. Sure.” He thumbed the screen then handed over the phone.

  On my run. A baby is crying near the park. Just checking it out. Call the cops if you don’t hear from me lol.

  “And you were pretty sure she meant this park?” Cross asked.

  Brennan scowled. “Well, yeah.”

  “Not the baseball park or anything like that.”

  “Like I said, she has one of three runs she takes; she’s pretty routinized. But they all come right by here. It’s the way back to our house, unless she wants to turn around and go back.”

  “I understand. But she could start in one of two directions, right? We’re fairly close to your house. She could come by here first or wind up here near the end of her run.”

  “Yeah, sure. But she usually winds up here. Sometimes she takes a little break…”

  “Who else would know about her running habits?”

  Brennan gave him a sharp look. Then he softened with a sigh. “She’s probably told Gloria. Her sister.”

  “Gloria live around here?”

  “No, no. She’s down in Brooklyn. Their parents are in Manhattan. That’s it. That’s the whole family. But, I mean, people see her. She’s been running up here for two years, so…”

  “Okay. And no way this is a prank or anything? She’s not having you on? It’s not your birthday or anything…”

  “No, absolutely not. Nothing like that. Katie wouldn’t do that. I mean she’s got a sense of humor, but, no.”

  “And you guys are doing alright?”

  Brennan narrowed his eyes, defensive again. “What do you mean?”

  “Getting along. Your… you know, ah, relationship.”

  “We’re fine. I know what you’re doing – Katie wouldn’t run off. Ever. We’re solid. Even if we’re having a… We always work it out. We’ve got a strong marriage.”

  Cross nodded and Brennan looked away, gazing over the river. He bit at his lower lip.

  His hands were shaking.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Cross said.

  Brennan didn’t look convinced.

  Regardless of the man’s insistence, Cross had to decide how seriously to take the possible disappearance.

  He still had Brennan’s phone. They were going to need to look at it some more, but right now Brennan would consider it his lifeline to Katie, and so Cross handed it back. “Just hang tight for a minute.”

  He walked to Farrington.

  The trooper had placed a dozen small cones around and was tying crime scene tape to a tree, getting ready to spool it out. “You want me to secure it, right?”

  An area marked with cones and tape was going to draw onlookers and the press. On the other hand, if something untoward had happened to Katie Calumet, it was a necessary precaution to protect the integrity of the scene. “Yeah, go ahead.”

  Cross looked at the rattle lying in the dirt between the grass and blacktop. Maybe Katie had heard something and run off into the woods. He’d had a baby raccoon or porcupine in the woods outside his house before. Temporarily abandoned by a foraging mother, the baby animal’s cries sounded eerily like a human’s. Maybe Katie had seen the rattle left behind by someone, heard an animal, then run off into the woods, fallen, struck her head. It wasn’t a big area, probably less than two acres. A quick search could resolve the question.

  His gaze shifted to the tire tracks. People parked down here all the time; the tracks meant little. But together with the rattle lying beside them, the text message, the distressed husband…

  Farrington stretched the tape across the narrow blacktop lane that led to the footbridge, Cross moving beside him.

  “Do me a favor, trooper – when you’re done, let’s see if we have a tire tracks specialist on call. Or at least a CST trained in tire casting. If not, we’ll have to recall someone.”

  “Got it.”

  Cross ran a hand over his face. Something in his gut said to act fast. Or maybe it was the hangover, still sitting just behind his eyes. He needed to call his supervisor.

  Chapter Three

  Katie didn’t dare move. Didn’t want him to hit her again.

  She’d lain still as he’d groped her, found the phone in her pocket. Then he’d ripped off the back plate and pulled out the battery.

  Through the panic and the pain bleating in her temple, Katie had tracked the van’s movement. She’d thought they’d made a left turn out of Footbridge Lane.

  When they’d stopped again a minute later, they’d turned right. That would have put them on 9, a main route.

  Then they had driven without stopping or turning for about ten minutes. Hard to be sure. But the final turn felt like a left. If her sense of direction was accurate, it put them on a path toward the interstate.

  Or, she could be completely off. Lying sideways between the second and third rows of seats, perpendicular to the movement of the vehicle, it would’ve been easy to confuse her directions.

  Breathe, she told herself. Breathe.

  Twenty minutes of driving so far, at least, and no one had talked since telling her to lie the fuck down and don’t move after hitting her on the head and taking her phone.

  She risked a look from the floor, glimpsing the profile of the man beside her who was facing away, his hand on her knees. He wore a camouflage balaclava mask. She thought there were only two men – one driving, the other in the back with her – but she didn’t know for sure.

  They made another turn. It sounded like the engine was really working, the vehicle gaining speed.

  As if merging with faster traffic.

  She was right, and the thought of the interstate triggered a wave of fear.

  The man turned to her, holding up another phone. Only his eyes were visible, but Katie thought he was smiling.

  He tapped on the touchscreen and Katie heard a familiar sound – the baby’s cries which had baited her. They sounded canned but still realistic.

  “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Knock it off,” said the driver.

  The man tapped the screen again and the shrill cries stopped. “It’s an app.” He stared down at her, his eyes glinting in the dark.

  “Carson,” the driver barked. “Get up here.”

  Carson, the man in the mask, flicked a glance up front then stared down at Katie again. “I’ll be right back. I don’t have to tell you again to lie there and be still, right?”

  Katie said nothing. Carson took it as her agreement. He moved out of her sight.

  The driver spoke to Carson in low, urgent tones. Too quiet for Katie to hear over the roar of the road beneath her and the sound of the engine.

  Carson. Obviously not his real name, unless they were complete morons.

  She thought about the sliding door.

  The door was probably locked. Even if it wasn’t, a jump from a moving vehicle at this speed would either kill her or maim her for life.


  She thought about banging on the windows, trying to summon help from a nearby driver.

  Just as futile. The windows had been tinted. Even if someone was close enough, they likely wouldn’t hear or see her.

  The final option was to somehow subdue both men and take control of the vehicle.

  It was probably the craziest of the three ideas, fueled by the adrenaline surging through her. She felt just angry and crazy enough to give it a try, but decided she’d have a better chance of surviving if she bided her time.

  Carson came back and took his seat. The two middle seats were separate from one another, and the kind that could swivel. The rear seat was a bench.

  Carson rotated around and put his feet up on the bench seat so that his legs were suspended above her. He had a bag of popcorn and started munching it as he stared out the back window, shoving the food up under his mask.

  She glimpsed his beard-stubbled chin.

  Her heart was racing, her body trembling all over, and her head ached. She couldn’t overtake the men physically, or escape the moving van, but she could get information. “What do you want?”

  Carson continued staring out the back window for a moment. “I want peace on Earth. That’s what I want.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  The driver yelled, “Quiet back there!”

  “See?” Carson said. “Leno says we have to be quiet.”

  Leno, Katie thought. Carson and Leno. The names of former Tonight Show hosts. For some reason, thinking about this made Katie nauseous and she turned her head to the side and gagged.

  “She’s gonna blow!” Carson yelled.

  “What?!”

  “She’s gonna puke, man.”

  “She pukes, you fuckin feed it back to her,” Leno said.

  Katie kept gagging, but nothing was coming up, mercifully. Normally before a run she’d have something, if just a banana, but this morning she’d gone without.

  She dry-heaved, tasting bile in her mouth, and she spit, despite the driver’s nasty ideas.

  Carson took his legs down and leaned over her. “Come on now, Katie. Don’t do that. Here, you want a snack?”

  He thrust the bag at her, popcorn crumbs tumbling, landing on her face. The spasms stopped and she rolled her head and faced upward again, taking deep breaths, crossing her arms over her breasts and stomach.

  “No, thank you,” she said between gasps for air.

  “Suit yourself.” Carson resumed his position. He started humming, still stuffing in the popcorn. The sound of his crunching was loud and Katie’s stomach rolled with nausea again, clenching, but she forced herself not to gag. Tears slipped down her temples and pooled in her ears.

  “What are you eating back there?” Leno called.

  “I found it in the van.”

  “Well, take the fucking bag with you when we go.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Carson said. “Some people, Katie. Ya know?”

  Katie, she thought. They know my name.

  Chapter Four

  David Brennan looked out the window of Cross’s vehicle, wringing his hands together. “This is good.” He was watching the searchers arrive. “I was worried about that twenty-four hours thing.”

  “That’s mostly BS,” Cross said, studying Brennan. “If someone is missing, they’re missing. What was this morning like?”

  “What was it like?”

  “When Katie left for her run.”

  “I was sleeping.”

  “And everything is okay with you two?”

  Brennan looked at Cross. “You already asked me.”

  “Okay. You’re not fighting or anything. How about – is she under any sort of stress?”

  “Under stress?” Brennan’s forehead knotted and the tension grew palpable. “Everyone’s under stress.” He stared out the window again.

  George Regan, a volunteer fireman on the search and rescue committee, was talking to a group of troopers and deputies in the safe area outside the cones, pointing at the river and the woods beyond the park.

  “They’re not going to find anything,” Brennan said. “I was already out there. I walked the trails. She’s not there. Somebody took her.”

  Before Cross could respond, another state police investigator knocked on his window. He rolled it down.

  “Hey,” said Investigator Dana Gates. “How’s it going?” She flicked a look past Cross at David Brennan.

  “Good,” Cross said.

  “Can I talk to you a minute?”

  Cross turned to Brennan. “Can you sit tight for a minute, David? Just one minute, okay? This is my supervisor.”

  He stepped out and squared up with her. Gates was in her early forties, with high cheekbones and a short, dark haircut. Small, faint scars on her face, one just beneath her eye. “I get the sense things are a little hot in there,” she said.

  “He’s torqued-up, yeah.” Cross looked at the park while he spoke. “We’re gonna deploy this attempt-to-locate… What about trampling trace evidence in the woods?”

  “They know the drill. They’ll mark anything they find, call out. It’s good you cordoned off the shoulder. I called Bouchard to get the green light on CST and we’ve recalled Scott Fleming to go over the tire tracks.”

  Her gaze fell on the baby rattle, now sitting in the dirt surrounded by four sticks, which were wrapped with caution tape. Like a bizarre mini crime scene that made Cross’s stomach feel cold to look at.

  “Brennan thinks she was taken.”

  “Is he… Do you think he’s…?”

  “I think he’s on the level. They’ve been married for five years. I plan to pull his sheet, if there is one.”

  “Alright. I’m going to work the attempt-to-locate since we’re a little understaffed at the moment. You stick with Brennan, okay? Get the personal info on Katie Calumet.”

  “I can do that.”

  “And… you know.”

  “Yeah. I’ll keep him calm.”

  She hurried off to join the team about to comb through the woods.

  He got back into the car and asked Brennan, “Why do you think Katie might have been abducted? Have you gotten any threats, anything like that?”

  Brennan shook his head. “No. But someone might take Katie for the obvious reasons. My wife has money.”

  “I don’t know her, personally. I don’t know her background, I’m sorry.”

  Brennan sighed and looked away from the search party disappearing through the trees. “Katie’s family owns a restaurant chain. Several high-end, five-star restaurants. They have other investments, too. She’s worth quite a bit.”

  It seemed to pain Brennan to talk about it. He wrung his hands as he stared down at them.

  “Who would know that?” Cross asked.

  “Who would know? I mean, everybody, I guess. Except you, apparently.”

  Cross let the remark slide, and a moment later Brennan apologized. “This is really hard,” he said.

  “I know. It’s okay.”

  “Are you married?”

  “Separated.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “I understand that a lot of people must be familiar with Katie’s family, and their business. But can you think of anyone who stands out? Maybe someone who’s brought it up before, maybe inappropriately or something? Or anyone you can think of who envies her. Openly, or even privately; someone you might suspect…”

  Brennan was already shaking his head. “Everybody likes Katie. She has money but she’s never acted like it. She works hard, she gives back to her community. She volunteers, she’s on several boards, she works with Paul Smith’s College getting school kids out there for nature walks at the VIC.” Brennan gave Cross a heart-rending look, his eyes welling up. “She didn’t ask for it, you know? We get what we get with family.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Cross said. “And what about her family – they get along?”

  Something passed over Brennan’s features, just a flicker. “They’re like any fami
ly, I guess. People are different, but they’re still family.”

  It was a cryptic remark, but Cross caught the gist of it. In his own family there were differences in religion, politics, and income, but they all gathered together around the Thanksgiving table and tried to make it work. Sometimes, it did.

  “Okay, David. Here’s what’s next: I’m going to have Trooper Farrington take your statement, okay? We just need to get it all down on paper, now, while things are fresh. Things can get hazy with time, you know what I mean? Just tell the trooper what you’ve told me already, you know, you woke up, you got the text…”

  “It was the text that woke me up.”

  “Okay. So the incoming text wakes you up…”

  “Then I got up, did some normal stuff, went to the bathroom, and about twenty minutes later, I dunno, a half an hour, she wasn’t back. She should’ve been back.” He picked up the cell phone on his lap and stared at it. “So I texted her and asked her if she was going to want breakfast. No answer. I waited, I guess, another ten minutes and said, ‘You there?’ I got nothing. I waited about five more minutes, then I got in the car and drove down here.”

  “What were you thinking? I mean, was it unusual for Katie to talk about—”

  Another scowl. “No – Katie’s that type to jump in if something’s wrong. I thought – when she didn’t text back, when she wasn’t home – maybe she was having a problem.”

  “You mean problem with someone she encountered?”

  “Or a physical problem. I mean, I didn’t think about that yet – someone she encountered. Not until I got here, saw the rattle, thought about the thing with hearing the baby.”

  “When you say physical problem, though – like, a cramped muscle or something?”

  Brennan didn’t take his eyes off the phone. He scrolled through the messages as he spoke. “She gets tachycardia.”

  “And that’s, ah—”

  “Irregular heartbeats; rapid heartbeats. She was a smoker for like fifteen years. We quit together a couple years ago and she started exercising more, jogging. But the heart thing runs in her family. Like I said, we don’t get to choose, right?”