Bringing Maddie Home(32)
Author: Janice Kay Johnson

A split second later, his mind had jumped sideways. Damn it, I should have cut out soon enough to drive Nell to her parents’.

She should be safe enough. Hardly anyone knew she was staying with him.

Duane did.

He was staring blankly at the monitor again. Colin groaned, squeezed the bridge of his nose until the cartilage protested, then closed the calendar and logged off the computer. Enough, damn it! There was nothing he could accomplish now that couldn’t wait until morning.

He’d phone Nell and insist she not start home until he was there to follow her.

He tried to call during his walk down to the parking lot. Again as he drove through downtown, clogged with tourists trying to find parking. Voice mail each time. She’d probably put her purse with her phone somewhere she couldn’t hear it.

But then his rang. Was that the Dubeaus’ number? He pulled to the curb and answered.

“McAllister?” It was Marc. “We expected Maddie for dinner and are concerned because she hasn’t showed up. She’s not that late, but… Do you know where she is?”

His blood ran cold. His gaze flicked to the dashboard clock—6:11 p.m. Late enough that she should have called.

“No,” he said. “I’ll find out and call you. Let me know if you hear from her in the meantime.”

He ended the call without waiting for protest or comment. Except for the few blocks closest to her old home, he was driving the same route Nell would have. If her car had broken down…

Why wouldn’t she have called either her parents or him?

Don’t think that way.

He’d spotted no small red car before he reached his own driveway. He turned, wound through the trees—and there her car was, in its usual spot. He wanted to be relieved, would have been if lights had been on in her apartment or his house. But both were dark.

Something on the pavement beside her car glinted in his headlights. Colin slammed on his brakes and leaped out. The motion-activated light came on, and he was already swearing viciously when he crouched to pick up Nell’s keys.

* * *

NELL MIGHT ALREADY be dead. If she weren’t, she would be soon if he didn’t find her quickly.

Colin shoved his fear down deep and capped it. She needed him to think calmly and logically, not to let his emotions make him act stupidly.

His first call was to Duane.

“Where am I?” Duane sounded surprised. “Portland. I left this morning, plan to come back tomorrow night. Do you need me? What’s up?”

“Maddie’s missing.”

“Jesus. How? When?”

Colin explained.

“It won’t take me ten minutes to throw everything in the car,” Duane said, sounding stricken. “I’ll start out right now.”

“Thanks,” Colin said, hating the sickening certainty that sat on his shoulders like some grotesque horror with razor-sharp teeth.

The first thing he was going to do was have Nell’s cell phone traced—and Duane’s.

It took almost no time for Nell’s phone to be traced to River Park.

The location filled Colin with dread. It wasn’t chance. She was supposed to have died there. He mobilized a search team. Officers with flashlights fanned out, each in a carefully laid out section of a grid, all of them knowing it was quite possibly her body they were looking for.

It didn’t take any special intuition to know where he was going to look first. Colin set out down the same path he’d followed that night twelve years ago. Tonight was bitterly cold, and the park nowhere near as quiet as it was then. The thrashing to each side and an occasional call gave away the clumsy presence of the searchers. Flashlight beams glanced off tree trunks and crisscrossed.

With each step, he swept his light in a careful arc, determined to miss nothing. He couldn’t let himself think about what it might illuminate. They’d gotten here fast. She might still be alive.

He hadn’t gone ten feet when he saw something. A heap of cloth. Sick with apprehension, he pushed aside stiff branches of snowberry and saw the cloth amidst low-growing ceanothus, just as Maddie’s small, whisker-faced coin wallet had been. But this—

Colin crouched. It was her handbag. Swearing, he swung his flashlight beam in increasingly frantic circles. He yelled for help. Picked up her bag and groped in it, his fingers closing on her phone.

He stood and stared back toward the road. Somebody could have pulled over, maybe gotten out, maybe not, and given the handbag a good heave. Sent a message, and eliminated the threat her phone represented all at the same time.

His knees almost buckled. And yet, he didn’t recognize relief in the stinging pain. She wasn’t here, thank God. Thank God.

But she could be anywhere in the vast empty country comprising forests and high mountain desert that stretched in every direction from Angel Butte. They might never even find her body.

* * *

SHE AWAKENED TO darkness, pain and nausea.

One of her recurrent nightmares always began the same way. But this didn’t feel right. Nell struggled to understand why, and finally did. In dreams, the physical sensations were never so real. The sharp edge of metal beneath her hip, that roiling nausea with the taste of bile.

And, oh, her head hurt.

Panic welled up, momentarily paralyzing her as she panted for breath. This had to be her greatest terror, to be trapped in the trunk of a car, knowing when it was opened she’d be facing her death personified.

Breathe, she ordered herself. Slowly. In. Out.

Somehow she kept the nausea at bay as she tried to think. Why would she feel so awful?

The surface beneath her was vibrating and her heart clenched with fear. This was real. She had to be in the trunk of a car again. She groped above her and found the angular metal lid she’d expected. And beneath her was slick plastic, but when she pulled it toward her, her hand found—yes, there was a semistiff, carpeted surface. Underneath that was the rounding of a spare tire. Also underneath it was whatever sharp thing was poking her. A tire iron? Maybe.

Using touch seemed to clear the mists from her mind. Duane.

I’d rather you come with me. Nasty, sneering, revealing anger and even hate.

He had called her angel. As if a door had opened, she did remember. Her beloved uncle, whom she’d loved as a child, but who didn’t seem to recognize she was growing up when she reached puberty. He kept taking her for overnights to his house, insisting she get in her nightgown and cuddle with him while they watched a movie. Then he’d give her a massage, and ask her to give him one. Tickle her, his hand sliding to places that made her painfully self-conscious.

She’d tried talking to her parents.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” her father snapped before telling her he was busy.

Mom froze her with one look instead. “Do you know how lucky you are to have family, including an uncle who loves you so much? How can you possibly imply there’s anything wrong with that?”

She was never allowed to make excuses when he offered to take her. His touches, his kisses, grew more and more sexual. She had pretended none of it was happening. He didn’t just press my hand to him there…. Rubbing it up and down, as if absentmindedly, except it wasn’t, because he was swollen and hard. She worked hard at turning her mind to something else. Recite poetry, or think about the last time she’d spent the night at Hailey’s and how silly they’d been. Yes, that was when she’d learned to go away in her head.

Curled into a ball in the trunk of the car, her body flushed with horror at the memory.

And Beck. She remembered him, too, a friend until the end. He’d treated her almost like a little sister. He’d known something was wrong, and teased and begged and waited patiently until she told him. His face had darkened, his hands knotting into fists.

“Run away,” he told her. “I’ll help you. You can come and live here, at the Hales’.”

She had been so tempted.

But he scared her, too, when he said, “We could get married when you’re a little older. I’d keep you safe. Kissing and all that stuff can be nice, Maddie. I promise. It’s not like what he’s doing to you.”

And he’d coaxed her, saying, “Let me kiss you. I’ll show you.”

Stiff with apprehension, she had wanted to say no, but she liked Beck so much. He was the only person she could really talk to. And he was cute. So…maybe it wouldn’t be the same.

It wasn’t. She’d liked it.

But…that was when the terrible something happened.

The first terrible something.

* * *

HIS PHONE RANG. Marc Dubeau again. Colin didn’t let him speak.

“We found Maddie’s purse. It was thrown into the park, not far from where she was attacked the night she disappeared.”

“But she’s not there?” Her father’s voice was stark with fear, enough that Colin felt sure the man did love his daughter even if it were in a limited way.

“No.” Another call was coming in. “I’ve got to go, Marc—”

“No, listen,” her father said, his voice threaded with urgency. “I keep thinking about something Maddie said back then.”

Standing beside his SUV, unaware of the cold, Colin stared into the greater darkness of the park. “What was it?”

“I didn’t take her seriously. After she disappeared… But, damn it, he was so upset, I couldn’t believe—”

Colin had to unclench his jaw. “Tell me.”

“It was Duane. She’d always loved him, but something changed. She quit wanting to go with him. She said—” His voice broke.

Colin felt as if his skin had been peeled away, leaving his nerve endings raw. How could he not have guessed sooner? Duane had tried so damn hard not to encounter Nell. The way she’d withdrawn even at the idea of him. More when he actually arrived.

When I let the son of a bitch hug her, right in front of me.

“She said he kept touching her. I thought…I thought Duane just didn’t want to let himself recognize that she was growing up. That maybe he was being insensitive. And you saw him!” His voice rose. “He was so desperate to find her.”

“He was,” Colin said harshly. “Because he’d lost her. Finding her was life or death for him. He didn’t even have to pretend.”

There was quiet for a moment. “You really think?”

“I think.” Choking on his rage, he ended the call. If only her father had said something back then. Said something since she’d come home. He’d known how vulnerable she was, stripped of memory.

Marc Dubeau had felt so guilty, he hadn’t wanted to believe.

He’d kept his mouth shut, but he hadn’t invited his brother-in-law to his home to see Maddie after she returned, Colin realized. It wasn’t only chance that Nell hadn’t seen Duane until Colin himself had committed the catastrophic mistake of bringing the two face-to-face while giving Duane reason to suspect where she was living.

Where she could be found and grabbed, in a horrific replay of the night she had saved herself.

And through his smug belief that he’d known what he was doing, that he could keep her safe, Colin was responsible for her coming home in the first place.

So I could feel good about finding her, he thought, sickened.

He circled the 4Runner and got in. It wasn’t too late. He couldn’t let himself give in to the fear that he and Marc were both wrong.

He had one chance to rescue Nell. Only one. He was throwing the dice, believing his friend and mentor was a monster. If they found Duane, and he had nothing to do with Nell’s disappearance…

Colin held on to the steering wheel so hard it creaked. It was all that kept him from being swept away by the vicious, dark current of despair.

Finally, he was able to loosen his fingers and reach again for his phone. Go to “missed calls.” Hit “reply.”

* * *

BY SCRUNCHING HERSELF into the back of the trunk, Nell managed to pry up a corner of the mat. The ripping sound of velcro parting made her cringe, but the car didn’t slow. She stuck her hand blindly into the hole. Almost immediately she felt a smooth surface that, when she wrapped her fingers around it, felt like…a can? Pop or beer, maybe? But it was too lightweight and yet didn’t have the give of an empty aluminum can. Exploring, she discovered one end had a nozzle. Oh. She carried one of those in the trunk of her own car, to add air to a low tire.

She set it aside and kept groping. She’d just gripped hard metal when she caught the flash of red from taillights. Unable to brace herself in time, she was abruptly flung to one side, banging her head.

Her eyes burned with tears. The ride, she realized immediately, was rougher. The driver had turned off a main road. Earlier, she’d heard passing cars, but now there was only silence except for the rumble of the engine. Her sense of desperation increased.

Nell levered herself back to where she could reach the hole. Had to pull up the carpet again. This time, she closed her fingers right away on what felt like metal pipe. With tugging and maneuvering, she pulled the tire iron out.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Then, despite the pounding in her head, she tried to reason out whether it would be better to pretend to be unconscious and let her assailant pull her out of the trunk…or to surprise him immediately by swinging the tire iron.

The car braked and came to a stop, but although she froze in dread, the engine remained running. The car door opened; were those footsteps she heard? A second person joining the first? Or…? No, the driver had gotten out. Now she heard him returning, getting back in. Had he picked something up? Dropped something off? All she knew was that the door slammed, and the car started forward again.

He opened a garage door—

No, she’d have heard the rumble of it on its tracks.

A gate?

She didn’t have long.

* * *

“WHY DON’T YOU answer your phone?” snapped Jeremy Bronecki, the department’s electronics whizz.

“I had another call.”