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

by T. J. Brearton

  “You should, Janice. When you applied here, did you use your married name or your maiden name? What do the paychecks say?”

  She set down the next candle slowly. He watched the way her shoulders drew together. “You going through my trash?”

  Cross stood, cautious. “My angle is about kidnapping, and how risky it is, how often it fails. My article is about why anyone would attempt it.”

  “I don’t care about your article,” she said, but she didn’t budge.

  “Like, in this case,” he went on, taking a step closer. “It all went downhill. Troy Vickers, kidnapper number one – dead. Johnny Montgomery, kidnapper number two, also dead.”

  He let this sink in.

  She performed well even under the immense burden of this information, he thought. No names had been released yet – the press didn’t know; she likely didn’t either. Maybe she’d been worried, suspicious, but this was confirmation.

  At last she turned to look at him, candlelight reflected in her eyes. If she was nervous, she contained it well.

  He drove the point home: “Kidnapper number three, we’re pretty sure she works at a restaurant owned by Gloria Calumet. The victim’s sister.”

  Janice slowly set the tray containing the last three candles down on the table in front of her. She untied the black apron covering her black slacks and set it beside the tray. Then she turned and started walking through the tables, toward the kitchen.

  Cross pulled his badge.

  There was more commotion from the kitchen. This time when the chef bellowed, someone shot back, “Keep quiet.” It was enough that the sophisticated couple in the corner booth looked around, worried.

  Janice was moving more quickly now.

  A man in an apron stepped out of the swinging doors, looking angry about something unrelated.

  The man quickly forgot his troubles and seemed to assess what was going on. He saw Janice coming; his eyes flitted to Cross.

  Cross held the badge high. “Don’t let her go in there, please!”

  Janice turned away from the man and headed for the entrance. Cross changed course and wound through the tables after her.

  “Janice?” The blonde waitress looked perplexed.

  “It’s alright,” Cross assured the staff and guests. The kitchen crew crowded in the doorway behind the man in the apron, looking out with wide eyes.

  Janice jerked into a run, slipping past the tables closest to the door, knocking a couple chairs to the ground as she left.

  Cross scrambled out the door after her and burst out onto the sidewalk, just in time to see her running across the busy street.

  Cross weaved through four lanes of fast-moving traffic. A bus slowed and blocked his view of Janice.

  When he saw her again, she was turning down 7th, a narrower street less congested with traffic. She was incredibly fast, a real sprinter, and he was afraid he was going to lose her as he darted around a trio of kids on skateboards and a woman pushing a giant stroller.

  Janice crossed the road again. He followed. Where was she going? Subway? There was nothing close. Just running blind?

  She threw a look back at him and they locked eyes. She pumped her arms and legs but he was starting to gain on her. When she ducked into an alley, he was just a few yards behind.

  The alley hosted a dumpster and a fire escape with the stairs retracted. It dead-ended. Nowhere to go.

  Janice leapt for the fire escape and managed to grab hold of the rusted iron. She swung with its momentum, then hoisted herself up.

  Cross reached her and jumped, his fingertips grazing her shoe at the last second.

  Janice got to her feet on the first level just as an NYPD cop skidded into view at the mouth of the alley. “Hey!” the cop yelled.

  Cross jumped for the stairs but it was no use. He had a load of adrenaline blasting through his system but he just didn’t have the spring that Janice Montgomery had, and he only came away with a handful of rusty flakes.

  She kept moving up the escape. She was either going to break into someone’s apartment or take the stairs to the roof.

  The local cop came running up. Cross intercepted him and gave a hasty, winded explanation about what was happening.

  The cop got on his radio and broadcasted for backup, giving his location.

  A window broke. It was hard to see Janice anymore through all the metal, but she’d gone into one of the top-floor apartments. Bits of glass sprinkled down.

  “I’ll go front door,” Cross said. He pointed to the NYPD cop. “Back door, if there is one.”

  Cross returned to the street, thinking that if he got this close to Janice and lost her, it would be very bad.

  Jean Calumet may have been dirty – he may have been unable to pay the ransom because his fortune was partly fraudulent and existed mostly on paper. And David might’ve been paid hush money for things he’d seen while working for Calumet. But it all boiled down to a woman who worked for Gloria, believed the family had money, and convinced her husband and his jailhouse friend to kidnap Katie, who lived close to where Johnny Montgomery owned a house upstate. They might’ve even pulled it off, but in the end it was Jean Calumet’s false fortune and Johnny Montgomery’s greed which had screwed everything up.

  Cross faced the entrance of the building with Janice possibly inside.

  8544 7th Avenue, a residence with a glass front door, a vestibule filled with a bank of mailboxes, another interior glass door beyond. He had no key, no way in, and she had no way out.

  Another one of the NYPD foot patrol came running up, his face beet-red.

  His radio crackled. He held it out for Cross to hear. “Back entrance covered. No sign of her.”

  “Now it’s a waiting game,” the cop said, breathing hard.

  But Cross didn’t think so. Janice might hurt someone in there. He walked up to the apartment buzzers and started pressing buttons. He’d seen it in a movie once – a guy just hit a bunch of buttons and someone, perhaps expecting a visitor, buzzed the door.

  Sure enough: “Who is it?”

  “Police. Open up.”

  “Oh, gimme a break,” the voice said.

  No buzzer.

  Cross pressed all the buttons again.

  The voice came over, “You better knock it off or I’m gonna—”

  They were cut off when the door buzzed open. Someone else had seen fit to open up.

  Cross barged in and opened the next door before the buzzer quit.

  He was inside. A wide hallway, several first-floor apartments, the stairs straight ahead, going up to the left.

  There were five floors, according to the apartment numbers. Janice had gone in either the fourth or fifth. Cross got moving again, bounded up the stairs. He was tired from chasing her, but he felt good. He took the steps two at a time until he came round to the third floor and slowed down, listening.

  A TV prattled away inside someone’s apartment. The hallway reeked of cooking – a war of smells that didn’t complement one another but formed a kind of food miasma. It was hot, too, the sweat running down his back, soaking his shirt.

  He slipped his gun out. Third time now in his career he’d pulled his piece.

  He thought of his daughters, said a small prayer. Then he heard a door open on the floor above him, the snick of the latch as it reengaged the housing.

  Someone had just stepped out of an apartment.

  Footsteps toward the stairs. Cross was on the landing between the third and fourth floors. Now he backed down a little so he was on the lower half of the stairs. He watched as someone stepped into view.

  Running sneakers, not wait staff dress shoes.

  He relaxed as the person casually descended. She stopped and sucked in a breath when she saw Cross, even though he’d pointed his gun down. A middle-aged woman wearing yoga clothes.

  Cross showed his badge then held a finger to his lips and jerked his head, signaling that she keep going down the stairs.

  She did, passing him with the
whites of her eyes glowing in fear, and then she moved faster.

  He continued up to the fourth floor.

  More muffled sounds of apartment life; someone laughing.

  A dog started barking – one of those little yappers, like a Yorkshire terrier.

  Janice. Where are you?

  Hiding. Maybe she’d gotten lucky and the apartment she’d broken into was unoccupied.

  Cross oriented himself – to his left were the units which overlooked the alley. The fire escape had been almost at the very back. That meant apartment 4A, maybe 4B or C. Those were behind him.

  He turned around.

  Moving against the wall, he slid along until he came to 4C, and listened.

  Nothing from inside, no giveaway. She could be in one of the three units or she might’ve reached the floor above him. At least from this vantage he had the stairs in view if she came down from the top floor.

  The only remaining option was the roof. From there, he didn’t know. Maybe other buildings abutted. Certainly the alleyway side was a no-go – even a track star couldn’t jump that far from roof to roof.

  He was almost positive this wasn’t her building. For one thing, it was in too pricey a neighborhood for a waitress. For another, she hadn’t exactly used a damned key.

  Still, she could have a friend who lived here, even an accomplice. She might not have chosen the building at random.

  The sweat dripped from his face and landed on the marble floor. He breathed and renewed his grip on the gun.

  NYPD was creeping up the stairs. Two new faces, guys different from the ones he’d met so far. More backup had arrived.

  Cross pointed to each of the doors, and the cops nodded. Then he pointed at the ceiling. They understood, and one of them continued up to the top floor.

  The little dog kept barking. It sounded like it was inside one of the three end-apartments nearest to him. He moved to 4B, and the barking got louder. Either the terrier sensed someone outside in the hallway, or it didn’t like an intruder in there with it.

  Then the dog fell silent.

  Cross snapped his fingers. The remaining cop came closer.

  Cross stepped back from the door and kicked it.

  The door didn’t budge. Damn these Brooklyn brownstones, solid as shit.

  He heard thumping, steps from inside the unit. Now both Cross and the cop kicked at the door, over and over, until it splintered around the deadbolt.

  The door gave way and swung inward.

  Straight ahead was a broken window overlooking the fire escape.

  Cross rushed in, his heart rocketing in his chest, the NYPD cop right behind him.

  Cross searched the living room first, gloomy in the failing light of day, then turned down a short hallway which fed a couple more rooms – he passed a bathroom, headed for probably a bedroom, door closed.

  “She threw the dog out the window,” the cop said.

  Cross kicked the bedroom door.

  Janice chucked something at him. He tried to duck the object, but it hit his head. Cross went down.

  She charged past as he clutched for her legs, tripping her. She fell into the hallway, screaming, clawing at the carpet, trying to get away.

  The NYPD cop showed up and pounced on her. Cross scrambled to his feet.

  Janice thrashed beneath the city cop. Cross felt blood running from the gash on the side of his head. The thick ceramic ashtray she’d hit him with lay broken in two on the hallway floor.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” he said to Janice Montgomery, and she screamed again.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  It had been a week since Brooklyn, and the maple leaves along the main road through Hazleton were turning red.

  Cross was driving, David Brennan beside him, coming back from David’s interview with NBC Nightly News at an affiliate station in Plattsburgh.

  Cross slowed for David’s driveway, glad to see no one loitering at the gate.

  Reporters had been hounding Cross from as far away as Pennsylvania, calling him daily, asking about David once they’d sucked every last drop from the Janice Montgomery arrest. News vans could be seen outside David and Katie’s gate as recently as the day before, but they were gone now, their thunder stolen by the interview, drawn off by other scents.

  Including the sensational story developing around Jean-Baptiste Calumet, and the breaking news of his federal indictment.

  Which meant they’d be back for David before long – as soon as they caught wind he was involved.

  Cross turned into the driveway; David hopped out of the car and opened up the gate.

  He had been out in the woods more consecutive days than any other searcher, including DEC and law enforcement.

  Eleven days.

  The feds had been itching to talk to him. There had even been rumors of a team prepared to go in and extract him like a fugitive.

  Cross had convinced them otherwise. Finished with the week’s worth of paperwork and internal investigations on the Connolly-Montgomery arrest, he’d driven down to Speculator and paid a visit to incident command.

  There he’d contacted David via sat phone and talked him into coming out, giving the NBC interview to satisfy the media, and lawyering-up for a chat with the FBI.

  When the helicopter flew David out of the wilderness, he was rank, gaunt, but completely energetic. He had a mostly-gray beard and looked leaner than when Cross had first met him.

  As soon as he was done with the feds, though, David planned on going right back into the woods.

  Cross hoped it all worked out for him. He pulled through the gate; David closed it up then jumped back in the car for the ride up the hill to the house.

  Cross pulled up in front of the main entrance.

  “Thanks for everything,” David said, getting out.

  “You going to be okay?”

  David draped a hand on the open door. “Yeah. Glo should be getting here any minute. We’re going to cook a nice meal.”

  “Good,” Cross said. “You deserve it. No one’s worked as hard as you.”

  David looked away then smiled wanly and shut the door. His wife would have no nice meal tonight, no warm bed to sleep in.

  And things were not looking good. Despite the determination of her husband, Katie’s chances of surviving this one were getting slimmer every day. Dr. What’s-His-Face on the TV had been right.

  A couple of the nights had dipped down into the thirties in the mountains, but that wasn’t the worst of it. It was hard to imagine a water supply that would’ve lasted her this long. She had to have been drinking from creeks, lakes. Giardiasis was a likely problem, an intestinal infection caused by a microscopic parasite often present in those bodies of water. Even boiling didn’t always get rid of it.

  If she had it, she could be suffering abdominal cramps, bloating, nausea, diarrhea. Dehydration was almost certain.

  Plus, she had heart trouble. And there was a high probability she’d sustained injuries from all she’d been through.

  Unless she was hunting, food would be scarce. There were wild berries available, some edible plants, but she’d have to know which ones and where to find them.

  Investigators at both cabins had deduced how much Katie would have brought with her on her attempt to hike out, and it hadn’t amounted to much – just a few days’ worth, well-rationed.

  And it was too easy to get turned around in all those woods.

  Over hundreds of square miles, dozens of campfires had been spotted, but most were along the main trails, which teemed with touring hikers as “leaf-peeper” season ramped up. Helicopter search crews repeatedly hovered over individuals only to verify they were hiking or camping. A prop plane pilot had spotted something reflective on the ground, circled, but come up empty.

  The area would stay active like this from now until late October. In addition to the search for Katie, forest rangers and backcountry caretakers were working overtime just to keep all that activity under control. Two other peopl
e had gone missing since the search for Katie had gotten underway, but both had been found not far from the groomed trails.

  Cross watched David walk into the house and then turned around, drove back down the driveway.

  He passed Gloria on the way out, waved. She smiled and waved back. Katie’s sister had been tied up all week, like Cross, dealing with the fallout from Janice Connolly.

  Gloria was shouldering a terrible sense of responsibility, Cross knew. She blamed herself for Katie’s disappearance. It was someone who had been working for her for a year, right under her nose, who’d orchestrated her sister’s kidnapping. Janice had gleaned bits and pieces on Katie by listening to Gloria: where she lived, what she was like, right down to her propensity for morning runs. Aside from being surreal, and frustrating, it had shredded Gloria with guilt.

  When Cross got back home, he opted for a glass of water rather than a beer. He’d been trying to drink less over the past week, keeping his head on straight for the marathon that had been wrapping up the kidnapping case, at least on his end. Bouchard was happy with how things had turned out for the department, and at least that was something.

  Cross had also been talking with Marty almost every day, and that was something, too.

  It was mid-week, and in two days, he’d get his daughters for the weekend. He couldn’t wait to see them again.

  That night he turned on the news and watched the broadcast of David’s interview with Channel 5.

  David had dressed in a dark blue chambray work shirt. His face was tanned from many days outside.

  He was calm and direct.

  The interviewer asked, “What do you think your wife, Katie, is thinking right now? What is she feeling?”

  “She’s feeling determined. She’s thinking she can do it, she can get herself out.”

  “Does she have any experience with the woods?”

  “Some. She’s organized nature walks for children. She loves animals. She’s an avid runner, hiker. She’s got a lot of energy.”

  “What would you want to say to her right now, if you could communicate to her?”

  David’s eyes became glassy, and he pressed his lips together. Then he steadied and answered, “I’d tell her I believe in her. I support her. And that I won’t give up.”