by Kim Hornsby
Keeping Kevin in the camera cross hairs, Tina looked up to check out the far end of the marina. It looked like a bazaar or craft fair was taking up most of the free pavement space. Was Jamey caught in that? Damn. His journey to the clock might be slow with the dense crowd. Leaning into the camera again, she noticed Kevin look at his watch. He seemed frustrated as he looked around the marina. Was he meeting someone? Rose and Wyatt? Who else would he be rendezvousing with in a foreign country? Kevin smoked weed, but she hoped he wasn’t trying to score some here in Mexico. Or maybe an arrest would be a good thing if he got caught.
After checking his phone again, Kevin turned to leave. “Oh no! Kevin no!” She started to phone Jamey but realized he hadn’t hung up the phone. Could he hear her? “Kevin is leaving,” she shouted. Kevin was now walking in the opposite direction from the crowded end of the marina. He moved quicker, like whoever he was meeting at the clock tower might be somewhere else. Like he had the place wrong and he needed to get to another location fast. Tina kept him in the camera lens, filming, and watching. He walked toward the road behind the marina and turned right at the sidewalk. “Come on, Jamey!” She waited for Kevin to materialize on the other side of the building. There was a clear view of the space between the white condo complex and the next building.
Kai was awake. He made little noises in the baby monitor that she had clipped on her pocket. These sounds were a prelude to his agitated wake-up cry. The muttering quickly turned to muffled fretting as Tina imagined him looking around for his mommy. He probably wondered where Obi was too. He’d been such a champion with all the strangeness of being on the run. Sleeping well, eating regularly.
Tina heard a muffled crash in the phone speaker and then Jamey’s voice. “Sorry, be right back...” What just happened on Jamey’s end?
Watching the building, there was no renewed sign of Kevin, Rose, or Wyatt. Tina scanned the area with the telephoto lens and made note of the traffic, hoping to see the familiar black truck drive off in a direction that would be easy for Jamey to follow in a taxi. In the monitor, Kai’s crying escalated. “Come on, Jamey,” she whispered, searching the Marina.
“Tina? Where is he?” Jamey’s voice broke through, sounding out of breath.
“He walked toward the main road beside the white apartment building, to the right of the clock, behind the restaurant. Maybe ninety seconds ago. He hasn’t shown up again.”
She heard thumping and breathing like Jamey was running—loud enough to be heard in the phone over Kai’s crying. Then Tina heard shouts in the phone. In the other room, Kai’s cry had an edge to it that made Tina wonder if his foot was stuck in a railing or if he’d climbed over the side of the crib and fallen. She’d heard tales of babies doing things like this. She could hardly stay watching the building while her baby was hysterical. “Mommy’s coming,” she shouted, inching from the viewpoint. Did she need to keep watching for a sign of Kevin or could she grab Kai, if she was quick? Then, she heard Jamey’s voice in the phone say, “Please man. I’ll go back. Swear I will. I’m looking for a child.”
Oh no! Had Jamey done something and the police thought he was running away from his crime?
The shouting was muffled now, like he’d stuck the phone in his pocket. “Jamey? Jamey?”
Kai was so agitated now that Tina had no choice but to go to him. Her breast pads were soaked through and a new thought had crept into her mother’s mind. Maybe he’d hurt himself, had his head stuck or couldn’t breathe. Flying through the door, she saw her poor little baby red-faced with tears staining his pudgy red cheeks. No foot stuck. No safety issue. Just terribly unhappy. Or maybe scared because this place was unfamiliar to his little memory. Her heart cringed and she scooped him up in her arms. “Oh Boo-Boo. Mommy’s here. Are you hungry?” Tina hugged him to her as she hurried back to the balcony. Settling in to a patio chair, she lifted her top, pulled aside her nursing bra and held Kai to the nipple. He latched on with a fierceness that made her cry out. Still no sign of Kevin out there.
“Tina? Where’d he go? Did we lose him?” Jamey’s voice shouted from her phone on the table.
She leaned over and spoke. “I never saw him again. I’m nursing Kai now. Kevin didn’t reappear.”
“We lost him. God damn it!” Jamey hung up abruptly, then called back to say he was going to check out the area. “Call if you see him. Keep watching!”
Almost an hour later Jamey walked out to the balcony while his son was playing with a toy on Tina’s lap. Hearing his father made Kai look up, all smiley-faced.
“What happened down there?” she asked.
“I knocked over someone’s knitting stand, and her grandsons took off after me, thinking I stole some knitting.” He reached for the baby. “Hello Kai Kai.”
Tina handed Jamey a thin blanket, just in case Kai spit up on his Daddy’s shoulder. “Did you ever see Kevin?”
“No. No I did not.” His voice was pinched, clipped. “And after I convinced these guys to come look with me, I had to go back to fix Grannie’s table and booth.”
Jamey kissed his son’s head. “At least we know that Kevin is in the area.”
Tina scanned the marina with the camera’s zoom.
“I can’t believe after looking for two days, he turned up and we didn’t get him.” Jamey sounded pissed. “Our big hope, down the drain.”
She was disappointed too, but Jamey’s reaction was something more.
“And I can’t believe that you left your post to get Kai when he woke. I mean come on, Tina.” The look on his face was unfamiliar to her. He wasn’t just mad. He was furious, and it was with her.
She felt like he’d slapped her face. “Kai was screaming. I let him cry for a while. Honestly I did. When I finally went to get him he was hysterical. I thought he might be hurt.”
“In a crib?” He looked at her reproachfully. “Looks like he’s okay now.” His tone implied he didn’t believe her. Didn’t he think she took this seriously? Kai had Jamey’s T-shirt fumbling the edge in his fingers. “Tina, Wyatt has been abducted. I think Kai can scream for five minutes.” Jamey’s mouth was set in a hard line, and for the first time in their marriage, he was so mad at her he looked like he might spit.
“I have put Wyatt’s needs first. I’m here, aren’t I? I’ve been watching the marina for hours and hours, trying to amuse a six-month-old baby on my lap while on a stakeout. Every chance I get I try to pull in something. Every time I’m tired, I hope for a premonition. I’m trying to find Wyatt too.” She took a deep breath. If anyone knew what it felt like when a child died, it was her. Her twin brother was only four when he drowned, and that was something she lived with every day. She calmed her voice to speak rationally. “You don’t know what it feels like as a mother, Jamey. I didn’t rush off to get Kai. I left him until I thought I’d explode with worry. Until I realized that this was a different sort of a cry. It sounded like our baby was hurt. I read about these babies that have a rat in the crib or get their heads stuck and I made a decision based on the fact that I didn’t see Kevin out there anymore. It isn’t like I left while I was tracking him in the camera. And I didn’t know what was going on with you. For all I knew, you were wrestling with Kevin, not grandsons of some knitter.” Her heart was thumping hard. She got it. They were both disappointed. More than that. They’d let down everyone by not being able to follow Kevin.
Jamey handed the baby back to Tina. “I’m going to look at the footage,” he said, taking the camera and tripod inside the condo. “But if there’s nothing on there, we might be dead in the water, Tina.” There was no mistaking the tone of his voice that was full of both disappointment and fury at her.
Or at himself.
***
Jamey still felt like throwing something against the wall and watching it smash. They’d seen Kevin and lost him yesterday. The film footage showed nothing after Kevin walked around the corner of the building. He didn’t reappear, not that Jamey could see, but then part of the building overlapped anothe
r building and Kevin could’ve headed away from the marina and remained undetected for several blocks. The truck didn’t appear in the ten minutes of film after they lost him. Hearing Kai crying and Tina fretting about going to him, reminded him over and over that if she’d stayed to watch, maybe something out of the camera’s eye would’ve presented itself. She’d told him that it only took twenty seconds to grab Kai, but those were precious seconds. Kevin might have walked out of the camera’s range behind the apartment buildings. Tina had kept filming but the camera was focused on the spot where Kevin disappeared along the sidewalk. Shit. A lot could have happened in that short amount of time, including Kevin showing up right below them off their third floor balcony.
Then it hit him. When Kevin rounded the building near the clock, maybe he’d walked into the building and that’s why he disappeared. Maybe Kevin, Rose, and Wyatt were in a condo in the white building. Why hadn’t he thought of that before?
“Tina?” He shouted from the balcony. He needed to get over there, check the underground parking, and look for the truck.
“Shhh.” She appeared from the bedroom, all sleepy-eyed. She’d been lying down with the baby while Jamey was on watch. Her eyes widened. “See something?”
“Can you watch now? I’m going over to that building.” He nodded across the marina, “I’m going to look in the parking lot for the truck.” Now that he had a new idea, he felt bad about taking this out on Tina.
The underground parking for the white building was gated and locked but Jamey knew how to break into all kinds of locks. What former cop or soldier hadn’t learned a few things like that? Soon he was inside the door to the garage and walking the rows, scanning the vast cavern of a parking lot for the black truck. At this hour of the day there were lots of empty spaces. Damn. Kevin, Rose, and Wyatt could be gone for the day. Coming up empty, he vowed to return later tonight, maybe check the other garages along the marina. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Walking out through the metal door, he squinted into the bright midafternoon sunshine. Like Afghanistan, he was temporarily blinded when he first went outside.
The squeal of tires on the street in front of him made him shade his eyes from the direct sun. And there it was. Kevin’s truck was less than fifty feet away, frantically turning around to get out of this dead end road. Kevin was at the wheel having obviously recognized Jamey coming out of the parking garage. Jamey ran towards the truck as it turned. Rose’s face at the passenger window was haunting as she screamed something inside the truck. Was Wyatt in the back seat of the cab wondering what was going on?
“Kevin! Just a minute, Kevin.” Jamey took off running at full speed down the center of the street after the truck heading towards the stop sign at the corner. They’d have to turn right, towards town. Jamey cut the corner in hopes of catching up. They had to hit a stoplight at some point. He was grateful that he’d kept up his fitness regime when he left Afghanistan. But the truck did not stop at the ALTO sign on the corner. It spun around to the right and took off. Jamey had a good chance of catching up if he cut across a few lawns. Then what? Get in the cab and wrestle Kevin to stop? Throw everyone out except Wyatt? He’d face that when and if he could get in the truck bed. The truck turned again and Jamey almost groaned to see what was ahead. The street was long and straight and his lead dropped back to four car lengths, then five, six, and more. He’d never catch them like this.
Then, Wyatt’s little face appeared at the back window. His blonde head was visible even though Jamey couldn’t see the look on the boy’s face. Jamey ran faster. At the stoplight, the truck sped around to the right, ignoring the law, and Jamey scanned the area to try to second guess where they were headed. He cut through a parking lot, watching Kevin’s truck turn the opposite way even though it looked like the slower route by car. Jamey needed a car, or a cab, but luck wasn’t with him. There were no cabs in sight. Jamey flagged down a red sedan and begged the driver to help him. “My child has been stolen!” he said in broken Spanish. The middle-aged woman looked frightened and rolled up the window. He tried to flag down another car, but it didn’t stop. The third vehicle was a dirty pickup truck and the blonde driver told him in English to hop in.
He did.
“Which way? And who’re we chasing?” the twenty-something guy asked.
“Left at the corner. Black truck, about a minute ahead of us. They have my friends’ kid.”
They took the corner fast and sped up to fifty on the main thoroughfare. Jamey searched every side street for the truck. “Thanks, Man. This guy recognized me and took off.”
“You a bounty hunter?”
“No. I wish I was about now.” Jamey’s intuition told him nothing as they sped along, but then, in an agitated situation like this, it often let him down. He wished he had Tina with him. Her intuition was good too. Sometimes stronger than his in an emergency. She picked up on the second ring. “I saw the truck, three minutes ago. They recognized me and took off. Now I’m looking for them. I flagged someone down. Can you get anything?”
“Oh God. Okay. Wait.” There was a pause while Jamey covered the mouthpiece and spoke to the driver.
“Thanks, Man. We’ve been looking for days.”
“Is that it?” The driver asked pointing.
Ahead was an old black truck parked on a side street, not Kevin’s, and Jamey shook his head. “Nope. It’s a new truck. Double cab. Dodge.”
Tina spoke. “I’m not getting anything, but I can head over to the building and see if I pick up something.”
He told her the route the truck had taken and hung up.
After a half hour of driving around, the guy at the wheel, whose name was Butch, said he had to get to work.
“I really appreciate you trying to help me.”
“I hope you find the kid.”
Jamey took Butch’s business card for renting windsurfing gear at the Marriott Hotel, and promised to let him know when they found Wyatt.
“You should call the policia,” Butch said as Jamey stepped onto the sidewalk in front of an electronic store in the Marina.
“I will. Thanks.” Carrie didn’t want the police involved, but maybe it was time.
Chapter 6
When Milton called that night, Jamey had already thought about what to say if his superior officer accused him of jumping his dream about having cancer. Play stupid. They were never in Milton’s dream. But instead of using any of the rehearsed banter, the conversation went a completely different way. Before Milton got in much more than a hello, Jamey spoke.
“Milton. You’re sick. You have lung cancer, did you know?” Jamey had realized in a split second that he could reveal this because of his intuition. It didn’t have to include a dream jump.
“Pretty sure you’re right.”
“Which means you haven’t gone to a doctor yet?” Jamey said.
“Right again.”
“Time is important. I can feel that.”
“Freud, I run a fucking psychic unit. You think I haven’t been warned about this by every Forcer here?”
“Just wanted to make sure you knew.” Okay, he’d done his part. Tina would be proud of him.
“The reason I called is to tell you that I’ll be in Seattle next week and I need to see you.”
“I told you, I’m in Mexico. I’m chasing a child abductor. I won’t be back unless we find the kid.”
Milton paused and Jamey had a flash of something sinister. A kid was abducted long ago. Someone Milton knew. The little girl died. Was it Milton’s kid?
“You’re chasing a child abductor?” Milton sounded more interested in this news than anything Jamey had ever said to him before. “Are you closing in?”
“We’re trying.”
“You and Tina?’
“Me and the kid’s family.” Milton didn’t need to know anything about Tina being with him. “The child is my godson. Only seven years old. I’m in Puerto Vallarta. Ask around with the Forcers, if you can. See if anyone can get a feel for somethin
g and let me know, will you?”
“Hang on. A Forcer just walked in.” Milton spoke to someone, then was back on the line. “If you want to talk to my latest recruit, he says he’ll see if he can get anything.”
So it was true what Milton said in the dream. He had new people. Maybe people who were more reliable than Jamey, seeing he only had intuition to offer. “Put him on.”
“What’s the kid’s full name?” a husky voice asked.
“Wyatt Christopher Humphries.” Jamey looked at Tina who had just walked in with a freshly bathed baby in her arms.
The person on the end of the phone line took a deep breath, and then let it out with a long hum. Finally, he spoke in a high voice. “Curly hair. Skinny. Big smile.” He hummed again. “He’s with his father.”
“That’s right. His birthfather.” So far, Jamey wasn’t impressed.
The man cleared his throat. “I see sailboats in the distance. Sunshine.” He made a clicking sound like he had a Tourette’s thing going on. “You’re close. The boy was near you recently but now he’s not.” He hummed for another few seconds. “I see tragedy if you don’t act quickly.” He made the clicking noise again, cleared his throat, and he guessed the phone was passing to Milton.
Milton came back on the line. “That’s it. Think it will help?”
“I don’t know.” Tragedy? Shit. What did that mean? If this guy was right, Jamey was now impressed that Milton’s new guy saw a marina. Not if tragedy was up ahead. “Do you know what kind of tragedy?”
He asked the new recruit and then spoke. “Negative. No information on that.” Milton sounded invested in Jamey’s mission and Jamey was confused.
“How do we avoid tragedy?” This was useless.
“Keep looking, follow every lead, Freud.” Milton’s voice sounded softer than usual. Maybe Milton lost a child to murder. That’s the feeling he was getting from the man on the other end of the phone call. “I’ll take his advice, if you take my advice. Go see the Doctor. Get treatment. You’ll probably save your life. And don’t tell me that it’s your time to go because that’s bullshit.”
