Trapped (7 page)

thing at them—a gun, a weapon?—and there’s a sharp, nee-

dlelike pain in her abdomen, then darkness.

Not a bullet, something else. A powerful drug. Was that

the needle slamming into her abdomen? Is that what hap-

pened? Does that explain the vast numb tingling? The thick-

ness of her thoughts? The sensation that her mind has been

wrapped in a fluffy blanket?

Kelly’s experience with drugs is somewhat limited. Beer

and chronic at parties, and that one time she and Sierra

dropped Ecstasy at a warehouse rave in Long Beach. The X

was fun—she danced for hours and hours—but at the same

time a little scary because part of her kept chanting, “Three!

Four! MDMA, methylenedioxymethamphetamine!” She’d

made the mistake of looking up the drug’s chemical name on

the web, read what it did to the brain, the neurotransmitters,

and couldn’t quite shake the uneasy feeling that little bits of

her mind were frying like that stupid ad from the last century,

your brain on drugs, sizzling like an egg in a pan.

Whatever is causing this—it feels like her thoughts are

slurring—it isn’t like ecstasy or marijuana or alcohol. It’s

something much more powerful. So powerful it’s amazing

that her body continues to breathe—she can feel the air in

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her nose and throat, the gluey dryness of her mouth—and her

heart, yes, she can pick up on the slow thump of her pulse.

Much too slow to keep up with her jittery thoughts, the panic

that’s rising like a tide, or the burning sensation she’s just now

detected in her abdomen.

Seth, what about Seth? It was his plane, his flight plan,

his delivery. What went wrong?

What happened? Where is she? Is Seth okay or did they

kill him?—three lines of a chorus that slowly rises into a

scream of fear and confusion. She can’t make her mouth

work, so for now the scream stays inside her mind. Silently

screaming a heat-seeking name, over and over, endless loop.

MOMMY HELP ME PLEASE HELP ME MOMMY

PLEASE HELP HELP HELP MOMMY MOMMY

MOMMY HELP HELP HELP

Hot tears leak from her paralyzed eyes. She’s five again,

terrified beyond endurance, and she wants her mommy.

12. The Man Called Shane

It’s Fern who suggests trying the name on the card.

Having called for an update and gotten an earful—anxiety

makes me vent—Fern has agreed that the computer files are

vitally important.

“It’ll all be there,” she assures me. “These kids, they keep

everything in their e-mail and blogs, or on MySpace.”

“Kelly’s not on MySpace” is my instant retort.

“Really? How do you know?”

“She promised. We agreed it was too dangerous. All that

stuff in the news about perverts.”

Fern sighs, thinks I’m being ridiculous. Teens lie about ev-

erything, get over it. “Okay, fine, she’s the only girl in Valley

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Stream without a page on MySpace, whatever. What about

her e-mail? Her address book files? Whatever whippy snippy

thing the girls have going this week. You need to get in there.”

“I need help, Fern. And it has to be fast. Today.”

“Agreed. So call the consultant, see if he can recommend

an expert.”

“Consultant?”

“You said the cop gave you a card. So call. What can it

hurt? Takes you three minutes. Worst case, he can’t help. Best

case, he looks like Johnny Depp.”

“Fern!”

“Admit it, when Johnny D’s on the screen you are stuck

to the seat like a sticky bun.”

Swear on a Bible, if I was lying in the wreckage of a major

vehicular accident, gasoline leaking, wires sparking, Fern

could still make me laugh. After decades, all the way from

that first day in first grade, she knows where the laugh button

is, and when to push it. Plus she’s right, I have to stop letting

anxiety and panic get the best of me. I have to get my little

house in order for my daughter’s sake. Get on the horn, Jane,

start making some noise, get things rolling. The world is full

of computer geeks, I just have to find one who can get started

right now, no excuse, no delay. And if the old retired fogy

from the FBI can’t help with that, then he gets crossed off

the list of helpers, on to the next.

Randall Shane

Former Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Consultant, Special Cases

Special cases, what does that mean, exactly? Only one way

to find out. Punching in the number, I rehearse my opening

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gambit. Try to sound cool, calm and collected. All of which

vanishes the instant a thick male voice comes on the line.

“Shane.”

“Um, I need, ah, to speak to, ah, Randall, um, Shane?”

“This is he.” Sounding more than a little gruff. Like, get

on with it lady, what’s your problem?

“It’s about my daughter,” I blurt out. “She’s gone. Missing.”

His tone is no longer impatient. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”

“They gave me your card,” I tell him in a rush, clutching

the phone with both hands so it doesn’t slip out of my fingers.

“I don’t know the boy, isn’t that stupid? I mean I do know

his first name, it’s Seth. But not his last name, or where he

lives. Nothing! I never heard of him until yesterday and by

then it was too late. They can’t, the police, they need some-

where to start, I understand that, really I do, but I don’t know

anything and now she’s gone and she was supposed to call

and she did and she said she needed help and then the phone

got cut off and something really bad has happened I can feel

it in my bones a mother knows you know?”

“Okay,” says the voice. “Take a deep breath. Hold it for a

count of ten and then let it out slowly. Okay?”

“’Kay,” I manage.

“I’ll count. One. Two. Three…”

As he counts I can feel my heart slowing, and I’m thinking

he may be an old fogy, he might be a scam artist, but he’s got

a great voice and would be calming and reassuring even if he

was reading from the phone book. Or counting, for that

matter.

“Okay,” he says. “Good. Now, if you could tell me your

name.”

I tell him.

“Jane Garner, fine. Here’s how it works, Mrs. Garner. I’m

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going to ask you a few questions and then we’ll decide if I

can be of assistance, okay? We’ll start with the note your

daughter left. What exactly did it say?”

My brow furrows. “I mentioned the note?”

“Not exactly. You mentioned a promise to call. I assumed

that promise was in the form of a note, but I suppose it could

have been a voice mail.”

“It was a note,” I tell him. “I’ve got it right here.”

As I read him Kelly’s note, part of me concludes that

we’ve been in conversation for, at best, a few minutes, and

already he’s established that he’s paying attention. Listening.

Which is not what I carried away from my conversation with

Jay Berg, the Nassau County detective, who let me run on

more out of professional politeness than actual interest. As

far as Berg had been concerned, my daughter took off with

a guy, end of story. Whereas Mr. Shane seems to be taking

me seriously. Or at least taking the situation seriously.

“Okay,” he says. “Got it.”

I can hear him taking notes, the mouse squeak of a felt-tip

pen. He reads it back, and I agree he’s got it, word for word.

“Now the call,” he says, “As best you can remember.”

“‘Mom, I need your help, please call.’”

“That’s it?”

“Last word was cut off.”

“And what was her tone? Excited, worried?”

“She was whispering. Like she’d didn’t want anyone to

hear. Whispering and worried and maybe a little afraid.”

“Please call as in ‘please call back,’ or ‘please call for help.’”

I think about it, Kelly’s voice replaying in my head. “Not

please call back. It was like she had a lot to say and had to

tell me in as few words as possible. So it was more like

‘please call for help.’”

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Chris Jordan

“Or please call someone specific?”

“Maybe.” I rack my brains, reliving the call, but that’s all

I get, a maybe.

“You mentioned computer files.”

I must have, but have no recollection. Unless, of course,

he’s a mind reader. “That’s why I called. To see if you know

anyone who can get into protected files.”

“How protected?” he wants to know.

“I don’t know her password.”

“So not necessarily encrypted? Just password protected?”

“I’m not really sure. All I know is I can’t into the files. So,

do you know anyone who can?”

The man called Shane chuckles, warming my ear.

He says, “Matter of fact, I do.”

13. Bingo He Says

Two hours later, Randall Shane arrives in a gleaming black

Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows. Is it a cop car thing,

or a retired FBI thing, or does he moonlight as a chauffeur?

Or does he just prefer a car the size of a boat? As it pulls into

my driveway, the big Lincoln looks like it could eat my little

Mercedes wagon and spit out the chrome.

Standing in the open door—I’ve been chewing my nails and

watching the street for at least an hour—I give a wave of

greeting as Mr. Shane unfolds himself from the driver’s seat.

He nods in my direction—right place, obviously—and pops

the trunk lid with his key. Retrieves a bulky briefcase and a

laptop, secures the trunk, and strides up the walkway, all

business.

There’s a lot of him. Very tall, six feet four or five. Wide

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shoulders, long muscular arms, and a purposeful, no-

nonsense way of walking. Not a walk exactly, certainly not

a strut—more of a march. Fern’s joke comes to mind—can’t

think of anyone who looks less like Johnny Depp. He could

put Johnny Depp in his pocket and still have room for lint.

No, there’s nothing wistful or soft or feminine about Randall

Shane. More the Liam Neeson type, if you have to pick an

actor. He’s all angles, with a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper

goatee that gives him a long, slightly gaunt face. Deep-set,

utterly serious sky-blue eyes that are already studying me.

Age, somewhere in his forties. Surely not old enough to be

retired, and obviously not the elderly gent I’d been expect-

ing, even if he does drive a car associated with seniors.

His attire is less formal than I expected. Crisply pressed

khaki trousers, a lime-green Polo shirt with a soft rolled

collar, brown leather Top-Siders. On someone else it might

be a preppy look. Not on Shane. On him it looks like some-

thing an NFL linebacker would wear on his day off.

“Mrs. Garner?” he asks, with a slight, wary smile. Nice,

even teeth.

“Jane, please. Come in, come in. This is very kind of you.”

“We’ll see,” he says, ducking slightly as he eases into the

foyer. “No promises.”

“Understood. I’ll pay for your time, whatever happens.”

He shrugs, as if indifferent to the notion of payment.

Towering over me in the little foyer, smelling faintly of Ivory

soap and something like cedar. Manly cedar, though, not the

perfumed version.

“Show me to her room,” he says.

“This way. Up the stairs and to the left.”

“No calls?”

I shake my head. No calls, no contact. My frantic calls

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are still going directly to voice mail, and my daughter is

still in the wind.

The summer days are long, so there’s plenty of light in the

sky, but early evening has arrived, and as we traipse up the

stairs, the host in me automatically offers this stranger some-

thing to eat.

“Not right now,” he says, pushing open the door to

Kelly’s bedroom. A step inside and he stops, checking out

the walls, furnishings. The place is girly-girl, teenage

girly-girl, but very clean and organized because Kelly is a

neat freak.

“Did you tidy up?” he wants to know.

“She keeps it this way.”

He nods to himself, as if registering a fact to be filed away.

Sets his briefcase on the floor, his laptop on her desk, and

then turns to look at me. More of a quick study than a look.

“You didn’t have supper,” he says. A statement of fact.

“Not hungry.”

“Okay.” He nods to himself, registering another fact. “Do

you drink tea?”

What’s this about? I’m thinking, but admit that some-

times I do, in fact, drink tea.

“Good. Then I suggest you make yourself a mug of strong,

hot tea. Put sugar in it, for energy. Eat two pieces of toast,

you’ll be able to hold that much down.”

“What?” I say, thinking he’s been here less than a minute,

already he’s telling me when and what to eat.

“You look like you’re about to faint, Mrs. Garner. Time

and efficiency are very important at this juncture, and I need

you to be conscious and thinking coherently. In a crisis like

this, many parents tend to fall apart. We don’t have that

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luxury. Tea, toast. Stay downstairs. I’ll let you know if I need