No Cry For Help (2 page)

Wallace glanced at his watch. Seven forty. The mall closed in just over an hour.

“I’ll wait outside,” he said.

Wallace exited the office and made his way back down the short hallway. He stood between the T-shirt and lingerie stores and watched the flow of traffic, hoping to see an embarrassed flash of ginger with a hurried bounce in its step.

It never came.

At ten minutes after eight, he returned to the security office.

“Can you page them again?” he asked.

Schulz seemed about to say something contrary, but the look on Wallace’s face made him swallow his words instead. The guard flicked the switch and broadcast the same message as before.

Wallace returned to his spot between the two stores. His head was like a lawn sprinkler, moving left to right and back again as he scanned the thinning crowd.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER
, he returned to the security office for a third time.

When he opened the door, he was older. A year for every footstep along the hall. Eyes red, irritated and moist. Fingernails chewed to the quick, near bleeding. The worry no longer churned, it was boiling, gushing through his veins like an injection of hydrochloric acid to burn his nerves raw.

“Page them again,” he said. His voice trembled, but only a fool would mistake it for weakness.

“Look,” said Schulz, “maybe they’ve gone home. You know? They were looking for you, you were looking for them. You missed each other and they
—”

“NO!” Wallace ground his teeth and his eyes darted quickly between the two guards, but he was no longer seeing them. “They would have waited.”

“Did you try calling them?” said the younger guard.

A violent hiss escaped Wallace’s clenched teeth as his breathing grew shallow and his tone went dangerously flat.

“We didn’t bring phones. We’re visiting from Canada. We haven’t even checked into the hotel yet. They would have waited. Page them again.”

Every word was uttered as a separate sound with barely controlled enunciation.

“Look,” said Schulz. “We’ve paged them twice and—”

Wallace’s balled fists slammed onto the desk with such force that everything on its surface jumped and something deep within the wood splintered with a loud
crack
.

The younger guard leapt out of his chair and backed up against the far wall. His face had gone shockingly pale and his fingers twitched spasmodically above the leather holster at his waist. He looked like a nervous young gunfighter suddenly called upon to draw against Doc Holliday. He had all the training, but no real-world experience.

Wallace’s eyes flicked to the ham hock-sized butt and menacing steel hammer of a large Smith & Wesson revolver nestled in the young man’s holster. It looked big enough to be used as a club, but at that particular moment, Wallace just didn’t give a damn.

“Page them again,” he demanded.

“OK, OK.” Schulz held up his hands to calm the situation. “I’ll page them.”

He issued the alert for the third time.

NOBODY RESPONDED.

At nine o’clock, the stores locked their doors and the mall began to empty.

Wallace stood in the Food Court and watched everyone leave. Couples, singles, a few families.

None of them belonged to him.

After the final customer had left, it was the store employees’ turn.

Wallace stood alone, watching them go, his heart sinking deeper with every passing face.

The mall was empty.

His family was gone.

CHAPTER 2

When the police arrived, Wallace explained his situation.

The uniformed officers listened.

Asked questions.

Told him to calm down when he grew irritated that
they weren’t doing anything
, and then radioed for a detective.

Two showed up.

“YOU’RE CANADIAN,”
said the first detective.

She was a hard-looking woman in a gunmetal gray pantsuit with short black hair in a Dorothy Hamill bob and a light olive complexion. She identified herself as Detective Stacey, stepping close to him, shaking his hand. Only later did Wallace realize she had actually wanted to look into his eyes and smell his breath; check for alcohol or the glassy signs of drug use.

“Yes,” said Wallace, “but my wife is a dual citizen. She was born here. Well, south of here. California.” He was rattled, babbling, trying to keep it together. Failing.

My family is missing, how does it matter what bloody nationality we are?

“Does your wife still have family there?” asked the detective. “In California?”

“What?” Wallace was confused by the question. “No. Her parents died when she was just a kid. She moved to Canada to live with an aunt when she was eight.”

“Do you have a photo?”

“Of my wife?”

The detective chewed a wad of greenish gum and seemed disinterested to the point of insulting.

Wallace found himself fighting a reflex to raise his voice. From the moment he lost patience with the uniformed patrol, he had seen the cold calculations flow like ice water behind their eyes. He saw the same gears churning inside the two detectives when they took over.

A man ditched at the shopping mall by his wife and kids. Obviously, he must be an abusive asshole who had beaten her one too many times. She had simply taken the opportunity of a shopping trip to run away.

This kind of thing didn’t happen to happy, loving couples, right?

Wallace wanted to scream that they had it all wrong, that he had never, could never, raise his hand to his family. But he felt powerless. If he showed his anger, they would only interpret that as proof he had done exactly what they already suspected him of.

“I don’t carry a wallet,” said Wallace in answer to the detective’s question. When you sit on your ass all day at work, a wallet was not your friend. “But I have all our passports in the van. We needed them to cross the border.”

Detective Stacey turned to her partner. Detective Paul Petersen was a slim-built man with a hawkish nose and unusually bright hazelnut eyes. In his early thirties, the end-of-shift shadow showed he shaved his head for vanity. Otherwise he might be mistaken for a tonsured monk. The only stubble was on the sides.

“Go with him to the vehicle.” Detective Stacey snapped her vile-looking gum. “I’ll see what security has to say.”

WALLACE’S GREEN
minivan stood alone in the emptiness of the parking lot. A seven-year-old Dodge Caravan with British Columbia license plates and a cracked rear bumper from the time Alicia had accidentally backed into a light pole at the boys’ school.

Wallace dug out his keys and hit the remote button on the fob to disengage the locks. The van beeped and flashed its lights in compliance.

“The passports are in the glovebox,” he said.

The detective yawned and scratched his cheek as Wallace slid into the passenger seat and opened the small compartment in the dash. He reached in and pulled out a plastic Ziploc bag.

Instantly, he knew something was wrong.

Instead of four passports, there was only one.

He quickly opened the bag and yanked out the lone booklet. When he flipped it open, his own horrid mugshot stared back at him.

This wasn’t possible.

He returned to the glovebox and pulled everything out. There wasn’t much. Two roadmaps, registration and insurance papers, some extra fuses, an expired McDonald’s gift certificate from the previous Halloween, and a Dollar Store plastic tire gauge.

“Is there a problem?” asked the detective.

Wallace turned to him, his face a blanched mask of disbelief.

“They’re gone,” he croaked. “The passports are gone.”

The detective narrowed his eyes and pointed at Wallace’s lap.

“What’s that then?”

Wallace glanced down at the slim black-jacketed book.

“That’s mine,” he said. “But Alicia’s and Fred’s and Alex’s . . .” He couldn’t finish.

The detective frowned and moved around the van. He peered through the back window at the cargo space behind the middle seat. The rear seat had been folded flat to make room for luggage.

“You all just have the one bag?” he asked.

Wallace scrambled out of the passenger seat and moved to the large sliding door in the van’s side. He threw it open with such force it nearly jumped its tracks.

Their luggage was missing, too.

Before they left home, Alicia had packed a backpack for each of the boys so they could pitch in and carry their own clothing. She also liked to have her own suitcase, a small hard-sided model to make sure her clothes didn’t get wrinkled. Wallace usually just tossed underwear, socks, bathing suit and an extra shirt into whatever duffel Alicia left out for him.

The only piece of luggage remaining in the back of the van belonged to him.

The detective eyed Wallace with renewed suspicion.

“Their luggage was here,” said Wallace. He knew he sounded desperate, but what else could he say?

“Uh-huh.”

“Somebody must have stolen it.”

“But left behind
your
bag and
your
passport?” The detective struggled not to roll his eyes.

Wallace snapped. “FUCK!”

He slammed the van door closed with enough force to rattle the window and spun on the detective. The muscles in his neck bulged from the strain and his face flushed crimson as a flood of adrenaline made his blood pressure shoot off the charts.

“They didn’t leave me!” He was gasping, his words barely coherent. “Something has happened. You need to believe me.”

The detective took a backwards step and held up one hand. His other hand drifted down to the weapon on his hip.

“Let’s just take it easy,” he said. “No one’s accusing you of anything. We’re still investigating. OK?”

Wallace couldn’t speak. His breathing was out of control. A sharp pain stabbed into his chest, and then he bent over and vomited on the ground.

The detective jumped back in disgust. He lifted his radio and called for a uniformed officer.

“Let’s talk about this inside.” His hand stayed close to his weapon.

Wallace clutched the side of the van and struggled to breathe as his stomach dry-heaved.

CHAPTER 3

Inside the mall’s compact security office, Detective Stacey listened to her partner’s report. After he was done, she told Wallace to sit in the chair facing her.

Detective Petersen rested his hip on the nearby wooden desk, while the uniformed officer who had helped escort Wallace in from the parking lot took up residence in the doorway. The two security guards had vacated the smaller office to take up residence in the adjoining room. They were scanning through surveillance footage on the monitors, but so far hadn’t turned up anything out of the ordinary.

“You know how this looks, right?” said Detective Stacey. “You’ve got quite the temper.”

Wallace sighed. His throat was raw, but he believed his panic was under control. All he felt now was a cold, aching dread.

He cleared his throat. “I know you think I had something to do with this, but I didn’t. I don’t know how to prove it to you, but my family really is missing. They’re in trouble and I need you to help me find them.”

Stacey scratched her nose and snapped her gum.

“You said you crossed the border today?” she said.

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“Just after two. We had a late start.”

“We could check that,” said Petersen.

Stacey turned to her partner and raised one eyebrow. “You still dating that blond hunk at Border Patrol?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it dating,” said Petersen dryly. His lips curved in a smile.

“He working tonight?”

Petersen nodded.

“Call him,” said Stacey. “Ask for a favor.”

As Petersen flipped open his cellphone and stepped into the hallway, Stacey turned her attention back to Wallace.

“Every vehicle that crosses the border is automatically photographed at Customs,” she said. “Our tax dollars at work. If we can get proof that you’re not bullshitting us—”

“I’m not,” said Wallace.

“Good,” said Stacey.

She turned her head and spat a wad of spent gum into a nearby trashcan. Before it finished bouncing off the sides, she had replaced it with a fresh piece. It was small and square with a white candy shell. She didn’t bother to share.

Petersen stepped back into the room.

“Ten minutes,” he said.

Fifteen minutes later, the detective’s cellphone rang. Petersen answered and listened.

“We have email here?” he asked.

Schulz cleared his throat and entered from the adjoining room. He pointed at a small monitor, mouse and keyboard sitting off to one side of the P.A. system.

“We have email on the company computer,” he said.

Stacey snapped her gum and told Schulz to give her partner the address.

Two minutes later, the computer’s Inbox showed the arrival of a new message with an attached file.

Stacey clicked on a tiny paperclip icon and waited while a new window opened and the enclosed image filled the screen.

The photo was large and the detective had to scroll down to see the central part of the image.

Wallace stood to look over her shoulder.

His breath caught in his throat.

This wasn’t possible.

The photo showed Wallace in the driver’s seat of the van. The passenger seat beside him was empty and nobody occupied either of the seats behind.

Except for Wallace, the van was empty.

WALLACE STAGGERED
away from the computer and collided with the desk.

What was happening? How? Why?

He couldn’t make sense of it
.

Detective Stacey read aloud the message attached to the photo.

“Lone driver. Identified by Canadian passport as Wallace Gordon Carver. Crossed Peace Arch border at 14:22 today. Zero passengers. Border Patrol have no record of Alicia, Alex or Fred Carver entering the United States of America.”

Wallace’s mind reeled.

Photographs don’t lie.

But this one did.

It had to.