The Timer Game (16 page)

She’s gone! So try this on for size.

Alert the cops, and Katie dies.

I’m watching. You must track the clues.

A playful round of subterfuge.

“I’m calling the police.” Jeanne started down the hall for Grace’s bedroom.

“No!” Grace screamed. “God, no.”

Clue one: a fragrant posy in her glove

Will lead you to the one you love

But don’t delay. Your daughter’s gone!

The timer’s tripped. The game is on.

Grace thrust her hands through the quilt, searching. She felt it, a small, almost invisible wire leading off the bed and against the wall. She yanked. A timer flipped onto the bed.

It was a kitchen timer, white, with a small rounded face. Twenty minutes marked, the rest of the timer painted enamel red. Blood red.

Ticking.

Oh, God. Twenty minutes. Someone had taken Katie and now Grace had twenty minutes to figure it out. To save her.

Chapter 17

Saturday, 1:24 p.m
.

Katie was gone.

In one instant, Grace had dropped into a spiraling free-fall that blasted apart her contained world, her schedules, her sense of order.

Katie was gone. Her mind was fighting it. It was too big.

Twenty minutes.
Fragrant posy in her glove.

Grace looked around the bedroom, dazed. A current rippled up her body, suddenly shocking her into moving. She yanked open Katie’s closet, pawing through clothes.

“What are you looking for?” Jeanne cried. “Katie? You think maybe she’s here in the—”

“Her T-ball glove. That’s the only glove that’s hers. Check the family room.”

Jeanne started down the stairs, her cane clanging on the steps, while Grace checked under Katie’s bed, the clothes hamper, her bookshelf, sweeping aside the Beanie Bears, scattering books, displacing trophies, sifting through shoes and puzzles and dolls. Where had she seen it last? The glove was everywhere, nowhere.

She could hear Jeanne moving through the family room, tearing apart cushions and pushing aside books, but the sounds were far away, unreal.

“It isn’t here,” Jeanne called.

“Look everywhere, every room. And the trunk, the car trunk. Her T-ball bag’s there.”

Grace moved into the hallway and shoved her hands under the sheets and towels in the linen closet. Nothing. Panic flooded her on the heels of shock, and she ran down the hall to her bedroom and checked under the bed, between the sheets, in the closet. She pushed her hands through folded sweaters but found only the familiar enamel box. She moved into her own small bathroom and yanked back the shower curtain, checking the cabinet under the sink. Sweat trickled down the small of her back.

How many minutes had gone by? There was another room upstairs, her brother Andy’s old bedroom, crammed with boxes she’d never managed to unpack, wrapping paper, projects started and stopped—a room fit for
Clean Sweep
—Marcie always joked. She inched between the canyons of boxes and made it all the way to the small window, finding only dead flies and a spiderweb. No glove.

She rechecked the timer in Katie’s room. Seven and a half minutes had slid by and now her hands were starting to shake. She made herself slow her thinking. Where else upstairs hadn’t she checked?

Katie’s bathroom. She opened the cabinet under the sink. A stray barrette and an abandoned Barbie town house were squeezed into the space, along with cleaning products, extra rolls of toilet paper. Grace ripped aside the shower curtain and there it was.

Katie’s softball glove sat on the porcelain curve of the tub under the faucet, and nestled in the socket, a sweet-smelling bright yellow flower with five petals. There was nothing else.

She snatched up the glove and flower and ran back into Katie’s bedroom, picking up the timer. “I found it.” Her voice was still shaky and she cleared her throat and tried again, shouting it.

She carried it carefully down the stairs, balancing against the wall so she wouldn’t fall. The trembling had spread down her legs now and she made her way carefully into the kitchen where Jeanne sat doubled over in a chair, a hand to her face.

Eight minutes gone. Twelve minutes left. Until what? What would happen to Katie if Grace couldn’t figure this out? Jeanne stared at her, dazed. Grace put the glove and timer on the table.

“You know flowers,” Grace spoke slowly. “What kind of flower is this?”

Jeanne frowned. It was clear she wasn’t tracking and Grace felt her panic rise.

No time. “Come on, Jeanne, you took that night class. I’ve seen your garden. Buttercups, daffodils, daisies—the middle parts. What else is yellow?”

“Yellow,” Jeanne repeated. Grace wanted to scream. The timer clicked. Eleven minutes left. “Flower.”

“Yes. Flower. It means something. Is there anything about this one—how many petals it has—five, Jeanne, it has five petals, or the color, bright, bright yellow, not pale…”

Grace was reaching and she knew it.

Jeanne flicked a glance at the flower Grace held in front of her. “I don’t have this one in my garden.” Jeanne’s voice was detached, polite, and Grace knew she had slipped into shock.

“Yes. But maybe you’ve seen it before or—just what else is yellow, Jeanne? Maybe something you’ve only heard about.”

A long moment went by and Grace wondered if she should get in the car and race to a nursery. The closest one was Walter Anderson’s on Midway. With the traffic, would she get there in time? And if she didn’t, what would happen to Katie?

“It could be woodbine.” Jeanne’s voice was strained.

“Good, good, Jeanne. What else? What can you tell me about woodbine.”

Jeanne licked her lips. Her eyes looked glassy. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

“Woodbine,” Grace said again, her voice steady. She crouched down and clamped her hands on Jeanne’s arms. Jeanne shook as if she’d been hot-wired. Grace searched her eyes. “What can you tell me about woodbine?”

“Carolina wild woodbine,” Jeanne said softly, her eyes locking on to Grace’s.

“That’s right. What about it?”

It was as if Jeanne were on a tape delay, as if the shock of finding Katie missing had seriously jarred the fragile mechanism that received messages, and now Jeanne had to decode them and translate them back before speaking.

“Grows naturally in the South, all the way into Mexico down into Guatemala.” Jeanne sucked in her cheeks with the effort of remembering.

“It grows in the south,” Grace repeated, unable to keep the pressure out of her voice. “How about here? Does it grow here in San Diego?”

Jeanne nodded, voice almost inaudible. “Not usually, but it can. Needs good water, soil. A climber.”

A climber. What did climbing have to do with Katie? Katie climbed like every kid. Across jungle bars. Into forts. Up trees. Was it the tree in their backyard? She had climbed that tree up to the fort just a few hours earlier. Grabbed the prize, the chocolate coins.

“I’ll be right back.” Grace dropped the flower on the table. She’d relocked the sliding glass door after getting the bike and now she unlocked it and climbed up the pepper tree.

Dust motes spiraled in a lazy pattern through open wooden slats. Nothing there but stray crumpled gold wrappers left behind from the party.

And then Grace knew time was running out and the air left her body and into the stillness, terror galloped on metal hooves.

“It’s poison, I just remembered.” Jeanne stood at the bottom of the pepper tree, leaning on her cane.

“How much time do we have left?” Grace was climbing down, tearing a hole in her pants as she scraped her knee on a sharp branch. Jeanne shook her head. Grace ran past her into the house. Five minutes left, that was it.

“It’s a powerful spinal depressant. It slows the respiration. It can kill you.” Jeanne stood in the kitchen archway, her eyes staring and wide.

Grace snapped a look at her, shocked. Was this what had happened to Katie?

“Where’s the phone?” She was going to have to call the police. Jeanne had upturned the cookbooks on the kitchen counter and Grace pawed through them, following the phone cord. “It’s like paralysis,” Jeanne said, adding abruptly, “And, and, it has another name.”

“What other name?” Grace shoved aside books and found the phone.

Jeanne blinked, the word slow, forming her lips around it, expelling breath, as if all those steps were suddenly painfully complex, out of reach.

Grace dialed 911.

Jeanne’s eyes cleared. She smiled expectantly, the good pupil with the winning answer. “Jasmine.”

“Jasmine.”

“Yes. Another name for Carolina woodbine is jasmine.”

Grace put down the phone.

Chapter 18

Saturday, 1:41 p.m.

“Could you look it up, Mr. Esguio, in your records?”

Grace shifted the phone to her other ear and changed lanes. Saturday-afternoon traffic stalled her at a light on Scott Street. She could lose Katie because of a light.

“For you, Grace, anything.”

Green. She willed the car in front of her to move forward through the intersection. A crosswalk of kids stopped her. She could hear Esguio snuffling, shifting papers. On the car seat next to her, the timer clicked toward the red line. Three minutes left, that was all.

“They’re losing the priest over at Saint Agnes, best one we ever had. A real shame. He brought up the numbers and the place was packed, and not just on feast days, either, and you know what it boils down to, Grace? Politics.”

He sighed. In the background, she heard the whine of his fax machine. When the last of the kids reached the curb, Grace tapped the gas and the car shot forward.

“They figure, let’s put him into some parish that’s hurting, watch him work miracles. Oh, here we go. Yeah, it’s Jasmine, like the flower. I always thought it was Jazz, that’s what everybody called her, but her given name’s Jasmine. Is it important?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” She started to click off.

“Wait. Wait. Hold it. Grace?”

“Still here.”

“Just got a fax, strangest thing. Only has your name, a smiley face, a picture of a—I don’t know, looks like a nail or something.”

A spike. The Spikeman was trying to tell her she’d passed the first deadline.

“Anything else?”

“A clock, looks like. Give me a minute here.”

“Is there a fax number showing where it originated?”

“What? Oh. Looks like one of those mailbox places. Over in Hillcrest, Office On The Go. Want the phone number there?”

She scribbled it on a gas receipt as she waited to turn left onto Nimitz and then right onto Rosecrans. The new NTC subdivision, built out of the former Naval Training Center, rose in sandstone-colored blocks, with porches and balconies and neat lawns, but it created enormous traffic jams and now she was going to pay for it. She missed the light and groaned.

“Oh, yeah, had it sideways. Hands set at three.”

Grace glanced at the dash: 1:47. Just over an hour to figure out the next step.

“Grace, whatever you’re doing, confession will clear it right up.”

She had the urge to laugh. “I’ll remember that.”

She clicked off. She needed backup. Now.
Alert the cops, and Katie dies.
Paul wasn’t a cop. He was a nonsworn. Worked the crime lab. Would the Spikeman get that as a legitimate distinction? She had to act fast if she was going to find Katie. The more time that went by, the longer the odds of ever seeing her daughter alive again. She tried Paul’s cell.

Pick up pick up pick up alert the cops, and—

“Collins.” He sounded out of breath.

“Paul, I don’t have much time. Katie’s in trouble.”

“Trouble. What kind of trouble?”

His voice dropped out. She had a call coming in. “Hold on, Paul. Have to get rid of this.” She clicked over. “Hello?” Her voice was cautious.

The voice was mechanically distorted but there was no mistaking the rage. “Do you think I’m stupid? Don’t ever try that again. She’s nothing to me, understand? Nothing. If you try that again, she’s dead.”

He clicked off before she could speak.

“Hello?” It was Paul’s voice. “Hello?”

She felt sucker punched, kicked so hard the breath left her body. The Spikeman knew somehow what she was doing. Who she called.

She folded her phone off, changed lanes, and sped up.

__

Grace yanked open the door to the halfway house without knocking. A startled group of clients looked up from the kitchen table where they were preparing sandwiches. There were four of them, all marked with the unmistakable stamp of suffering. The women shrank back in alarm but the man waved his peanut butter knife and took a step toward her menacingly. He had concave cheeks and a hunted look in his hazel eyes.

“Back!” he cried. “Stay back.”

“Do you know where Jazz is? Jasmine? Is she upstairs? I need to find her.”

She had to pass them to get to the stairs and the man took a step forward, barring her way. “Not here,” he said distinctly. “Not here.”

Next to the stairs there was an open door that led down into the basement. A bright yellow light spilled up the stairs. A door opened in the basement and the familiar figure of the caretaker came into view. She glared up the stairs at Grace. Grace stepped back into the living room and held her ground.

“You. Get the hell out of here.” Opal pounded up the stairs and slammed the door shut behind her. “Who in the hell do you think you are? Coming in here again after what you did. This is a law-abiding place. With clients who want to be left alone.”

Grace raised her voice. “Anybody know where Jazz is? It’s important.”

“Don’t talk to them,” Opal commanded. “Don’t talk to her, people.”

A thin-haired woman looked timidly at Grace, and then at Opal. She closed her mouth.

“I’m calling the cops.” Opal moved toward the phone. The clients huddled together, alarmed. Afraid, Grace realized. Just like she was.

Alert the cops, and Katie dies
. “God no, please, leave the cops out of it. I don’t want any trouble. I need your help. My little girl is missing.” Something in her voice must have communicated the desperation she was feeling.