My Soul to Keep (34 page)

If I hadn’t met Joe Riley in radiology that day, I wouldn’t have believed her. But when the answers don’t come, I’ve learned, I’m almost always asking the wrong questions. And every last one of my questions about Joe Riley had led me to a dead end.

As I thought back on it, the new questions began to emerge. How did Joe Riley know what test Christine was having? He never asked. But he described the chest x-ray in detail. And how did he know my little easy-peasy-I-have-to-sneezy thing? It’s not like it’s caught on in the national lexicon or anything. I made it up. About three minutes before I met him.

Why wasn’t he registered for tests at Parkland Hospital? Did his records disappear? Dogged as I am, I’d have run around that tree forever, busting a lung tracking down someone who might not even exist. At least, not in the flesh.

Last but not least, how on earth could Brigid have picked that name out of the blue? It wasn’t possible.

And then there was the ankh on a chain around his neck.

I fingered the ankh Brigid had given me and stared at the road, my truck rumbling toward home on the hot, black, asphalt highway, my thoughts tumbling around like lottery balls in my head. If only the numbers would settle into place. I felt certain they would eventually. But it had been a full week since Nicholas had disappeared. Seven long,
excruciating days. I couldn’t stand thinking what might be happening to him.

I picked up the phone and started dialing, unable to tolerate the silence in the cab. I called Maria first, then Liz, then Martinez, on down the line. No one picked up. I dialed the main number for the DPD and asked for Ybarra. He was out too. It rattled me that they were all unavailable at the same time. Something was going on.

I was just crossing the Texas state line when my phone rang at last. It was Liz.

“Where is everybody?” I asked. “I’ve been calling and calling.”

“Christine and I are back in the emergency room. I can’t speak for anyone else.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I were.”

“What’s going on?”

“Christine passed out again. Out cold.”

“Was it the same thing?”

“More or less. We were at the pool at the hotel. She was just sitting in her pool chair doing nothing—not swimming or anything—and down she went. I called 911, and now we’re back at Children’s.”

“Are they admitting her? Is she okay?”

“We’re waiting to hear. I think they’re just going to change her asthma meds.”

“Did it happen suddenly? Or was there some sort of buildup?”

“She talked all morning about having a stomachache. She said it was like something was flying around in her tummy. Then she just started getting clammy and cold, and before I knew it, she was hyperventilating and gasping for breath.”

“Did her heart rate go up?”

“I didn’t check, but I’d bet on it. I know mine did.”

“That’s a panic attack. Same progression of symptoms Nicholas has.”

“I wondered,” she said. “I’ve never seen a panic attack before.”

My stomach turned, a flood of nausea washing over me.

“Something’s happening to Nicholas,” I said. The stripes zipping by on the asphalt seemed to speed up as my vision blurred. The cab felt cold suddenly. “Has Christine said anything about him today, Liz?”

“She dreamed last night he was back in the sandy space—the trunk, I guess. Maybe they’re moving him.”

“Could mean the cops are getting close.” I fought to clear my head. “Maybe they’re scaring the guy. Have you talked to Martinez or Maria?”

“Nope.”

“I called Enrique, but he didn’t pick up. What about Maria? Have you seen her? Did she come to the ER when you guys got there?”

“She’s off today. We were planning to meet for lunch. I was going to call her after I called you. Where are you, anyway?”

“Driving back from Shreveport, Louisiana.”

“What on earth …”

I told her about Brigid and the blog and about Anael and Joe Riley.

“So the guy who was so sweet to Christine in x-ray …” The question lingered unfinished between us. It seemed too ridiculous to say out loud.

“I guess so, yeah. I checked with Parkland. They have no record of anyone named Joe Riley in that day. Inpatient or out.”

“And Christine asked if God sent him?”

“Yep. He told her she didn’t need to be afraid of anything.”

Liz sighed. “Let’s hope he’s as accurate as Earl is.”

“Call me if you hear anything.”

“Likewise.”

I drove for a while longer, then spotted a Starbucks and pulled over to splash some water on my face, scrub my hands with my recently purchased Phisoderm, and get something to drink. Another double-shot latte might well kill me, I was so overloaded on caffeine, but I didn’t think I could stay awake without it. I ordered a turkey sandwich and a sugar cookie too, just to hedge against caffeine-induced heart arrhythmia.

I people-watched as I ate, impressed by the astonishing variety of
individuals parading through the place—a small-town Starbucks on I-20. I drank my coffee and wondered about their stories.

How did God keep track of it all? Was there a logarithm on a blackboard somewhere, a theorem to prove? Had Peter Terry deciphered it? Or did they all have access?

I made it back to my house by midafternoon and collapsed in the sunshine on my front porch, rocking back and forth in the swing as the lottery balls continued to bounce around in my head.

When I’d recovered from my drive, I started making phone calls again. I hated feeling disconnected from everyone. It amplified my mania to somewhere between hysteria and full-on panic.

Maria was the first one I reached.

“Did you hear Christine had another attack?” she asked.

“You talked to Liz.”

“We had lunch.”

“So they made it.”

“We were late going, but by the time they got through Emergency, they were ready for something to eat.”

“They didn’t admit her to the hospital?”

“There’s really not much they can do at this point.”

“Liz said they were going to change her meds.”

“There’s no point,” Maria said. “It’s not asthma.”

“I know it’s not.” I heard her sniffle. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer. I could hear the wet, drippy sounds people make when they’re crying.

“Something’s happening to him, Dylan.” She blew her nose.

“I know. Did Christine say anything else about him?”

“She just seemed agitated and afraid. We couldn’t settle her down at lunch. She wouldn’t eat anything.”

“Have you talked to Enrique?”

“He’s here with me.”

“Put him on.”

The phone changed hands, and Martinez said hello.

“Is there any news at all?” I asked. “Anything on the car?”

“We’ve tracked down every white Ford Fairlane of any model year registered in the DFW area. They’re checking them out now.”

“What about Phoenix? Are you doing the same thing there?”

“They’re working on it.”

“How many Fairlanes are there in Dallas?”

“Seventeen.”

“Any of the owners have criminal records?”

He sighed. “Why don’t you just apply for my job?”

“Well?”

“Two.”

“Where?”

“One in Mesquite. One over off Harry Hines.”

“Where off Harry Hines?”

A long pause. “Near the hospital.”

“So the kidnapper may have known Nicholas.”

Another pause. “Possibly.”

“Or Maria.”

“Possibly.”

“Address?”

“None of your business.”

“Please? I just want to know. I swear I won’t go over there.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Is anyone over there looking for the car?”

“What do you think?”

“They’re there now, aren’t they?”

“What do you think?”

“Great. Maybe we’re getting close. Are you going over?”

“Ybarra is on it, Dylan. We’ve got cops crawling all over that neighborhood. If he’s there, we’re going to find him. Today.” He must have known what I was thinking. “You stay away from there.”

“What are you talking about? I’m not going to—”

“I mean it. If we’re closing in on this guy, we don’t need you nosing around and tipping him off.”

“Understood.”

“You stay put. I’m not kidding.”

“I get it, Martinez. Don’t worry. I’ll stay out of it.”

We hung up.

I paced around on the porch for a while, then walked the yard and checked my snake traps, which of course were all empty. As the sun began to slip behind my sycamore tree, I went inside, poured myself a glass of David’s favorite New Zealand Sauvignon blanc, and fired up my computer.

It took me awhile to find Gordon Pryne’s blog. There was another Gordon Pryne, a landscape photographer in Maine, whose listings occupied the first five pages of Google hits. I weeded through those, then found my way to a little four-pager at JusticeForGordon.com. It didn’t have quite the traffic or Web prominence that John Mulvaney’s did. The home page was one of Gordon Pryne’s mug shots—not a particularly inviting image. It was a young version of him, not the ragged, dried-up man I knew. But he was clearly a dangerous sort. Scrawny neck, that wild shock of hair, bad skin, angry green eyes the color of pond water. Whoever was managing his blog wasn’t exactly focusing on design, marketing, or PR.

I scanned the site, which was similar to the other prisoner sites I’d seen. Proclamations of innocence, tirades against the American justice system. There were none of the background photos like John’s site had—no baby pictures or hometown references. But there was a message board.

I clicked on the message board, made up an e-mail address and a screen name, and logged in as a new member. Apparently Gordon’s brother was the Webmaster.

There was lots of back and forth about court dates. Some notes about Pryne’s mother’s impending death. She wanted to see her son out of jail before she died.

“Fat chance,” I said out loud.

I scanned the message page, but there was nothing of note. A few conversations between buddies of Pryne’s who were in and out of jail.
One thread about a package delivery. One thread about a bank deposit—I guess Pryne conducted some business with friends via the message board.

Back to the home page, perusing the site for the flowery language Brigid had referred to. I finally found it in one of the innocence rants: “Gordon Pryne is not the criminal you have seen in the papers. He is a family man, innocent and clean as the driven snow.”

A family man? Who made up that drivel? The only child I knew of was Nicholas. And Nicholas was the product of a violent rape, the same crime for which Pryne was serving his current stretch of time.

Disgusted, I left the site and did a search for the online records of sex offenders registered in Texas. The zip codes near the hospital were pocked with them, which was no surprise. Parkland is in the barrio on the west side of town, not far from all those seedy strip joints on Harry Hines. I was willing to bet that half the men in that zip code had done jail time for something. Pryne had lived in that zip code, come to think of it. At a dump near Northwest Highway and Harry Hines called the Circle Inn.

I printed out the map, yanking it out of the printer and staring at the little yellow stars pinpointing the spots. They all centered around the intersection of Northwest Highway and Harry Hines. Not far from the house where the Fairlane plates had been stolen.

I felt my heart jump. Martinez had said they were over there right now looking for the Fairlane. We were close. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name.

I looked around the room. “You’re going down, you know that?” I said to the ether. “We’re going to snatch that little boy right back out of your filthy white hands and take him home to his mother where he belongs.”

The clock buzzed to a stop.

I
SAT THERE TAPPING
the tabletop for a solid hour trying to figure out what to do next. What I wanted to do was get in my truck and drive over to Harry Hines and join the hunt. But Martinez was right. I couldn’t go over there. Armed men were combing the neighborhood looking for a kidnapper. Any interference could turn out to be disastrous. But I couldn’t just sit on my hands, either. I finally grabbed my keys and headed that direction.

I stopped down the street from the first address I’d printed out, looking up and down the road to get my bearings. I backed my truck into an alley and checked out the neighborhood. Mostly postwar-era houses with siding in various states of disrepair and sparse, unkempt lawns. Almost every block, though, had some holdout who tended rosebushes, watered the lawn, or placed a pot of flowers on the porch. You had to admire the determination.

There weren’t many people out at this time of the evening. Yellow light shone through windows up and down the street. Blue TV screens flickered in living rooms. The neighborhood looked completely normal. You’d never know all those cops were there. Wherever they were, they were discreet.

I don’t know what I was hoping to see. Some guy walking down the street wearing a sandwich board that said, “Shoot me, I’m the kidnapper”? After a few minutes, I started up the truck and threw the transmission into gear. I pulled into the street and began passing liquor stores, gas stations, convenience stores.