Stolen

by James Hunt

  Lena Hayes stood in the kitchen, watching the scene unfold through her front windows. Her eyes drifted to the dirty boot prints on the polished wooden floor, each one tagged as evidence, which led through the living room and down the hallway to the bedrooms. To Kaley’s bedroom.

  “Mrs. Hayes?” The deputy with the notebook and taking her statement touched her on the elbow, and she jumped slightly, forgetting he was there.

  “What?” Lena asked.

  “I asked if you remember what your daughter was wearing when you left this morning.”

  Lena rubbed her forehead. “Um, she had on a light-blue dress. With, um”—she squinted her eyes shut, trying to remember, her voice quivering—“green tights.”

  The deputy nodded and scribbled the description down. “And do you have any family members in the area that may have taken her, or—”

  “That’s enough, Deputy.” Sheriff Jake Cooley placed his arm on the officer’s shoulder. “I’ve already filled out a description detail for the Amber Alert. Why don’t you go and help finish tagging evidence.” The deputy nodded and left. Jake tilted the tip of his cowboy hat up and reached for Lena’s hand. “How you doing?”

  Lena started to speak but stopped herself when she realized that the word that almost left her lips was “fine.” It was an engrained response that she’d forced herself to spew over the past few weeks—the past few years, if she was being honest. But right now, she was far from fine. “I don’t know.”

  Jake pulled her close, and she curled her arms up along his back and clutched his shoulders. “We’re gonna find her, Lena. I promise you that.”

  “Hey! Don’t touch that!” The angered boom echoed down the hall from the bedrooms. Lena was the first to move, and Jake wasn’t far behind.

  A cluster of forensic techs stood outside Kaley’s door, all of them with their gloved hands raised defensively in the air. “Mr. Hayes, we need to get in your daughter’s room.”

  Lena pushed them aside and saw her husband hovering over the coloring book and crayons that Kaley had left on the floor. His hand was clenched over one of the stuffed animals the techs had tried to bag for evidence. “Honey, we need to let them in.”

  “Give us a minute, guys.” Jake motioned the techs to hit the road, and he mouthed, “Let me know if you need me” to Lena as he left.

  Lena mouthed a silent thank you and then took a step forward and joined Mark on the edge of the bed, where he’d sat down. She placed her hand on his back and massaged the tense muscles along his neck. She placed her other hand on the stuffed elephant’s head, smiling. “This was her favorite.”

  Mark lowered his head, silent tears bursting from his eyes, and his face twisted into an ugly scrunch from grief. He leaned into Lena, and she held him, the two grasping on to one another, and the stuffed elephant hit the floor. The outburst only lasted a short while, and once finished, Mark lifted his head from her shoulder, wiping his eyes. “Why would anyone take her?”

  Lena shuddered. The past two years had garnered her more enemies than friends. She wasn’t sure if Kaley’s abduction was linked to the tension created from the bill. She hoped it wasn’t. Her family had been through enough since her inauguration. Both she and Mark had been attacked, her office in town had been shot up, and Gwen had suffered bullying at school. Gwen. Thank God she wasn’t at the house. If she hadn’t left, Lena would be missing two daughters instead of one. “Jake has every officer across three counties searching for her. With all those eyes someone will see something.”

  But even she wasn’t sure if all those eyes would be enough. The state was sparsely populated, and it wouldn’t be hard for whoever took Kaley to stay off the radar. “C’mon.” She held out her hand, and he reached for it, both of them leaving the room together.

  In the hallway, Mark pulled his hand back, rubbing the gold wedding band on his finger. “I’m gonna go take a walk out back.”

  “Okay.” As Lena watched Mark walk out the door she felt her fingers twitch. For her, idle hands were never good in times of stress. While Forensics flooded Kaley’s room she went to her own bedroom to assess the damage.

  The bed was flipped up against the wall. The oak dresser had been tossed to its side, with the drawers yanked out and smashed to pieces. Her clothes were strewn about the floor. The lamp was broken, the mirror shattered, and broken picture frames and jewelry littered the carpet. The only thing that hadn’t been moved was the gun safe in the closet, which was too heavy to be lifted by one person. It was as if a tornado had blown through, but the only thing it had taken was the only thing that mattered.

  Lena scratched the crook of her left arm, feeling the light bumps and permanent scars that rested just beneath the cloth of her blouse. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, ignoring the lumbering beast locked away in the cage of her mind, its hot breath tickling her repressed desires. It made her sick that even now her mind returned to that weakness.

  She bent over and picked a few pieces of clothes off the floor. She flipped the mattress down from the wall and piled the strewn clothes across it. When she fisted a cluster of socks she felt the hard, rounded edge of something inside.

  When Lena pulled out the heavy gold-plated coin, the rest of the clothes slowly spilled from her fingertips and back into the messy piles on the floor. It’d been ten years since she satisfied that itch, let the beast out of the cage to run free. Kaley wasn’t even born yet. Her oldest daughter, Gwen, had taken the brunt of that trauma, and though those days were long past, the nightmares kept those memories fresh.

  Lena had convinced herself that all of the late nights and missed weekends to work on her case against New Energy was her penance. She wanted to provide justice to the victims and their families, keep their community, and her family, safe. It could have easily been one of her own children in a hospital bed, fighting for their life while the New Energy executives used every legal loophole in the system to keep from footing the bill. But maybe even after all of those fights it still wasn’t enough to rid herself of the mistakes of her past. She just never thought this would be the price.

  “Lena.” Jake popped his head in the bedroom. “We found something.”

  Hope lifted her off the bed. As she rushed to the hallway she imagined Kaley sprinting through the living room. But when she stepped from her room the only thing she saw was a plastic bag that Jake clutched wearily. “What is it?” Lena felt her skin flush cold, and she shivered uncontrollably.

  “We found this on Deputy Keen’s body. It looks like it was left by the kidnapper.”

  With a shaking hand Lena grabbed the evidence from her brother’s fingertips and flipped it over in her palm so she could read the message written hastily on the strip of paper. The demand was short and simple. Kill the bill in thirty-six hours, or I kill the girl. She re-read it a few more times, the flood of anger thawing the icy grip of fear. By the time she lifted her head her cheeks were flushed red. “You know who did this, Jake.”

  Her brother was never much of a talker, but he shared the same stoic rage of their father when he was upset. The muscle along his jawline twitched as he ground his teeth. After a moment he turned to his deputies. “I want a unit over to New Energy’s headquarters, and I want a search warrant for the facility. Now!”

  The deputies scattered at his order, and Lena once again felt the twitch in her idle hands. She curled her fingers into fists and lowered her voice. “They don’t care about warrants.”

  “I can’t storm in there after what happened last night,” Jake said, though his tone wasn’t convincing. “Tensions are still high from the riots, and the last thing I need is a standoff between my deputies and a bunch of pissed-off oil workers. We’ve got a lot of eyes on us right now.”

  “I don’t give a shit about who’s watching us!” Lena dropped the whisper, and a few heads in the front of the house turned from the outburst. Jake reached for her arm, but she yanked it out of his grip. “They have my daughter.” She lifted the note and then f
lung it to the ground. “Who else wants the bill dead more than they do? You and I both know they’ll do whatever they have to do in order to win.”

  “Lena—”

  But before he finished she stormed back into her room. She flung away clothes, checked under sheets, and sifted through open drawers until she found Mark’s spare car keys. She smacked her shoulder into a few of the techs in the hallway on her way out.

  Jake’s footsteps followed her through the living room and out the door. The sedan’s lights flashed as Lena unlocked the car and ignored the awkward stares of the officers on the lawn. She climbed into the driver’s seat then locked the doors shut before Jake could open one.

  “Get out of the car, Lena.” Jake pounded on the window then screamed something at his deputies, which she didn’t hear over the engine as she floored the gas pedal.

  Tires kicked up and trailed dust down the dirt road. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Her idle hands needed something to do.

  11

  35 Hours Left

  Ken Lang leaned back in his chair, his dark-brown eyes glued to the speaker on his phone. The blue-checkered tie he wore drifted lazily to the right. He drummed the tips of his fingers together in the air, his elbows on the armrests of the chair, his shoulders tucked high next to his ears, offering the illusion that he had no neck.

  “We hired you to do one thing, Lang, and you failed miserably.” Mr. Alwitz’s voice resonated in the room. The phone on the desk sat next to the morning newspaper, where the front headline read, “Hayes Passes Bill, Riots Ensue.”

  Ken leaned forward, straightening out his back and running a hand over his slicked-back jet-black hair. “The win was by the smallest of margins. And we can spin the town riots in our favor. We’ll attack Hayes’s leadership. If we can convince enough representatives that they’ll have the same riots in their towns if it passes, we can kill it in the state assembly.” Ken shifted his eyes from the phone to Scott Ambers, who sat in the corner of the room, away from the conversation, on his own phone call.

  “If we attack her, we run the risk of turning her into a martyr. It’ll only garner her more support.” Alwitz let out a grizzled breath. “Did we pull the article for today?”

  “Yes, I cut it last night after she confessed to her old addiction.” Ken cast an uneasy eye back toward Scott. “Are you sure it’s best to talk about such things over an open line?” He paused, and Scott finally looked over. “I just want to make sure we only have people on these calls that absolutely need to be here.”

  “We want Scott there, Ken. Think of him as a second pair of eyes. An applicable hand for our thoughts.”

  They don’t trust me. Ken’s resume told the story of a shark that could smell blood in the water sixty miles away. But the gap in employment over the past three years raised eyebrows. So did the torched bridges he left smoldering when he’d thought he’d left the “consultant” business for good. “Still, I think it’s best—”

  “Where are we at with our”—Alwitz paused—“alternative course of action?”

  Scott hung up his cell phone and rose from his chair in the corner and walked leisurely over to Ken’s desk. Unlike Ken, he wore jeans instead of dress pants, no tie, and his broad shoulders stretched his sports jacket. His hands were weathered and tan, and his face looked like a misshapen potato. “The wheels have been set in motion.”

  Ten years working in the lobbyist and consulting arena for some of the world’s most powerful companies had provided Ken with some very thick skin. But when Scott Ambers spoke, a crawl went up his spine. He cleared his throat. “I’m still not sure this is best for our goal. There are a lot of working parts involved, and it’ll only be a matter of—”

  “If you had just killed the bill in the first place like we hired you to do, then we wouldn’t be in this position at all!” The anger lingered through the pause that followed, and Alwtiz changed subjects quickly. “What are we going to do about Reese Coleman’s body?”

  Ken leaned back into his chair and crossed his arms while Scott took the lead. “We’re cooperating with local officials. There’s video of someone dumping the body on our property. Shouldn’t be anything to worry about.”

  “And we’re certain Coleman didn’t know anything?” The first hint of fear edged Mr. Alwitz’s voice. “Nothing that can be traced back to us?”

  “No.” Scott knuckled the table, hunching over and rounding his large shoulders. “But I’ll need a replacement for him.”

  “Take Lang.”

  Ken quickly straightened out in the chair. “You didn’t hire me to run errands. I’m better off here handling the situation with the bill.”

  “You’re better off where we tell you you’re better off. We hired you to do whatever it takes, Ken. And if that means getting out of the office and getting your hands dirty, then that’s what you’re going to do. Or do we need to cancel the check we sent you?”

  Color drained from Ken’s face. The one reason he returned to the art of back-door deals, shady characters, and a broken moral compass summed up in one sentence. “No. That won’t be necessary.”

  “Good. Scott will fill you in on the details after the press conference.” The call ended.

  Ken glanced over to his new handler, unsure of what additional responsibilities he’d just inherited. But Scott simply said he’d return in an hour and that Ken needed to change. The door slammed shut, rattling the walls on his way out. Ken unbuttoned his top collar and removed his tie, tossing it on the desk. He reached for a picture of a woman and boy framed in silver. He traced their faces then set the picture down and removed his wedding ring. He didn’t want them to be a part of the road he was about to walk down.

  The phone rang, and he answered. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Lang, we have a problem outside.”

  The engine’s roar hummed through Lena’s body. Her arms were straight and stiff against the steering wheel. The speedometer tipped ninety, and the tires chewed up the pavement quickly and spit it back at the squad cars that followed her. Their lights had flashed in her rearview since she left the house. In the very back of the convoy, a few of the news vans that were parked on the highway near the dirt-road entrance to her property followed as well.

  Flames burst from the gas runoff on the horizon. It was a constant sight, polluting not just the air, but the scenery as well. A few more miles, and she saw the cluster of white portables that made up the sleeping barracks for the workers who pulled multi-day shifts and the handful of office workers the company kept on site. But amongst the dozens of workers there was only one man she wanted to find.

  Lena turned off the paved road and slowed her speed over the loose gravel, dirt, and grass that comprised the makeshift roads of New Energy’s property. Dirty, oil-smeared faces stared at her under hardhats as she passed, the caravan that followed her grabbing the majority of the attention.

  A cloud of dust engulfed the car as Lena slammed on the brakes, sliding forward a few feet before finally coming to a stop. She flung the seat belt aside and jumped out of the car as the police vehicles parked close behind.

  The door to Ken’s portable flung open, and Lena watched his mouth slowly drop at the sight of the police and news crews.

  “Where is she?” The vein along Lena’s neck pulsed, and the dirt that the vehicles kicked up clung to the sweat on her chest and face. She ignored the police’s commands behind her as well as the confused questions from the gathering crowd of oil workers. “What did you do with my daughter?”

  Ken held out his hands. “Mrs. Hayes, I didn’t have anything to do with—”

  Lena leapt the small staircase and socked him in the jaw, knocking him off-balance. The strike triggered the officers into action as they rushed to stop her. “I know you took her! I know it was you!” Her fist ached, but she managed to land two more strikes, one in his stomach and the other on his arm, before Ken snatched her by the wrists and flung her against the portable wall.

  A light flash
of color dripped from Ken’s lip against the smooth tan of his skin. “I didn’t touch your daughter!”

  Three officers stormed up the small steps to the platform where Lena and Ken fought, and peeled them apart. But even in retreat she continued to fight, slamming her elbows into the chests of the officers as they carried her away. “I know it was you! I know it was you!” She felt her lips and tongue mouthing the words, but the shrill cries were from a voice she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t until Jake gripped her by the shoulders that she finally calmed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jake turned around to the reporters and cameramen piling out of the news vans, rushing toward the scene. “Get them back!” He pulled Lena away from the chaos and shoved her behind the cover of his truck.

  Lena’s heart beat wildly, and she took deep, heaving gasps of air. “I know he’s behind it, Jake. You saw the note. It has to be him.” She watched Ken rubbing his jaw by two deputies.

  “Even if he did, what would this accomplish? Huh? Christ, Lena!” Jake kicked the tire of his truck and paced back and forth in quick circles. “You want to give them more fuel for the fire?”

  Lena frowned. She’d known her brother longer than anyone, and it wasn’t like him to back down from a fight. “What is wrong with you?” She tried to hide the hint of disgust in her voice but did a poor job. “You know what these people have already done to our family. You know what they’re doing to our town. To your county. You’re just going to let it happen?”

  Jake’s nostrils flared, his eyes wild but focused on her own. “Don’t put that on me. You know I’ve done everything I can to help. You don’t have any right to say that! None.”

  Lena deflated, the adrenaline subsiding and the aches and pains of the altercation starting to set in. She leaned back against the warm metal of the truck. He was right. He’d proven his loyalty to her time and again. After her failed third attempt at getting clean, Jake was the only one left who picked up the phone. Whatever was holding him back now, she didn’t have the right to question. “I have to do something, Jake. I can’t just sit around and wait.”