China Lake (35 page)

"What?"

‘‘There’s no record of its being interred anywhere in the Tri-Counties.’’

Nikki and I both gaped at him.

‘‘Ms. Delaney.’’

The FBI agents had come back inside. The older of the two was addressing me, a man with thinning hair and brown button eyes named DeKalb.

‘‘You say that last night your sister-in-law followed Paxton out the door. But by your account, at that point he was unarmed. She could have remained behind. ’’ He tilted his head. ‘‘Are you positive that she was acting under duress?’’

‘‘She went with him to protect Luke.’’

DeKalb looked briefly at his partner.

I said, ‘‘This isn’t a domestic dispute. Tabitha didn’t set it up.’’

‘‘Why else would the Remnant take the boy?’’

‘‘I don’t know. Tabitha said that Chenille Wyoming has . . .’’ The skin on my neck was creeping. ‘‘She has some kind of fascination with him.’’

DeKalb remained expressionless. I balled my fists and pressed them against my eyes to keep from crying. A moment later Nikki sat down next to me and slipped her arm around my shoulder.

She said, ‘‘It might have to do with Halloween.’’

‘‘What about it?’’ said DeKalb.

Ramseur said, ‘‘Miss Delaney’s been told that’s when the Remnant plans to launch some kind of attack.’’

DeKalb shifted his weight and said, ‘‘You know a tremendous amount about this group’s activities, ma’am.’’ His tone set off my inner alarms. ‘‘In fact, your family is seriously entwined with the Remnant, and has been involved in a number of violent acts, up to and including murder. Do you want to tell us what’s really going on?’’

I stood up. ‘‘What’s going on is that the Remnant is dangerous, and if just once any of you had stopped laughing at me or blaming me when I warned the authorities about them, Luke would be home safe right now.’’

His button eyes didn’t even blink. ‘‘The Bureau is involved now. Your best chance of getting him home safely is letting us handle it.’’

Ramseur nodded gravely. ‘‘We’ll find him, Miss Delaney.’’

Nikki said, ‘‘Damn straight you will.’’

I said, ‘‘You’d better get it in gear. Halloween’s five days away.’’

DeKalb buttoned his suit jacket, as though getting ready to leave. ‘‘There’s something else.’’

His partner gave me a heavy look. ‘‘It’s about your lawyer.’’

I felt my vision contracting around the edges.

Jesse had not come home the night before. He hadn’t stayed late at the office, or stopped to see friends after work. His family hadn’t heard from him. He wasn’t answering his cell phone. When I called, it just kept ringing.

DeKalb said, ‘‘That call I got was from the Highway Patrol. They found Mr. Blackburn’s car wrecked in a gully two miles from his house.’’

My vision started to tunnel, and lights danced in front of DeKalb’s face. I asked a big, dumb question. ‘‘Is Jesse okay?’’

‘‘There was no sign of him at the crash site.’’

‘‘He didn’t just walk away. He uses a wheelchair—’’

‘‘It was in the backseat,’’ the partner said.

DeKalb said, ‘‘There’s evidence that his car had been in a collision. It was forced off the road.’’

I felt Nikki’s hand taking hold of my arm. I said, ‘‘The Remnant took him.’’

‘‘We have to presume so.’’

I barely heard the knock at the door. But I sensed the agents’ abrupt alertness, DeKalb going to the door, escorting the messenger inside, taking an envelope from him. DeKalb examined the envelope, held it up, asked me if I recognized the sender. My eyes were swimming. It was from Jesse’s law firm. They all circled around me, waiting for me to open it, to see if it was a ransom note.

I pulled out a sheaf of court papers. Squeezed my eyes shut, shook my head, let them drop to the floor.

I said, ‘‘It’s the restraining order. It was issued this morning.’’

The guard opened the door and led Brian into the visitors’ room at the jail. When he saw me his eyes brightened for just a moment, before he saw that something was terribly wrong. I felt sick again.

I’d had to wait a whole day to get up to China Lake. By the time the FBI had finished with me it was late afternoon, too late to see Brian. I had phoned his criminal lawyer with the news about the kidnapping, but had told him that Brian had to hear it from me. Already, heading to the visitors’ room, I’d had to stop at the toilet to vomit.

He sat down behind the Plexiglas barrier. Alarm was tightening his face. He said, ‘‘Luke . . .’’

‘‘They’ve got him.’’

His face drained of blood. He looked at the bruises on my arms and around my throat. ‘‘Brief me.’’

I tried to speak in a level voice, couldn’t. ‘‘They broke into Jesse’s house.’’

‘‘Jesse swore that they didn’t know where he lived.’’

‘‘They didn’t.’’

‘‘They fucking well did.’’

‘‘Brian—’’

‘‘What did he do, draw them a map?’’ His fingers pressed down on the countertop, white as bone.

‘‘No. Jesse’s missing, Bri. The police think the Remnant ran him off the road. They got his wallet; his driver’s license has his address on it, and . . .’’ My voice broke. I couldn’t manage to tell him the rest: The police had found blood in the car. They thought Jesse was dead.

He stared at me. His jaw muscles flexed. ‘‘Continue. ’’

I ran the back of my hand across my eyes. Breathed out. ‘‘You want to yell at me? Go ahead, do it. I love you, Brian, and I’ll die for Luke. So go on and give it to me with both barrels, and then let me go try to find him.’’

I could see his pulse jumping in his neck. He said, ‘‘Just tell me.’’

‘‘Tabitha’s left the church. She came to me for help.’’ I told him her story, told him she believed in his innocence, told him how the Remnant had attacked the house. Told him that we almost made it out. My voice cracked again. ‘‘Tabitha did a brave thing, Bri. She went with them, and she didn’t have to.’’

‘‘She was trying to protect Luke?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

He looked down at the frayed cuff of his orange jail coveralls. His hand, still pressed tightly against the countertop, was twitching. ‘‘Maybe she can find an opportunity to escape with him.’’

‘‘Maybe she can.’’

Quiet hung over us, a comment on long odds.

I told him about the FBI, and that the authorities had issued a statewide BOLO—Be on the Lookout. He said, ‘‘And what do you plan to do?’’

‘‘I’m going out to Angels’ Landing. The police say it’s deserted, but maybe I can spot something they’ve overlooked.’’

‘‘Don’t go alone. Take Marc Dupree with you.’’ His flying comrade.

Behind him, the door rattled open and the guard stepped in. Said, ‘‘Time’s up.’’

Brian drew his twitching hand into a fist. He stood up, but didn’t turn to leave. Slowly he leaned close to the Plexiglas, close enough that I could hear him when he whispered.

He said, ‘‘You should have taken the gun when I offered it to you.’’

The Explorer roared through the dazzling afternoon sunlight as I sped away from the jail. The road stretched ahead of me like an arrow through the heat. I was exhausted, fried, and trying to outrun the overwhelming sense of shame I felt for failing to protect Luke. But it hit me again, right in the chest: despair. I thought about Luke and my throat constricted. Where was he? What must he be feeling? Terror, abandonment?

And Jesse. In my mind I saw his blue eyes and wicked grin, felt his arms encircling me. Jesus. God. Merciful One, Immanence, Ancient of Days, Still Small Voice in the Wind. Don’t play dice. Be there. Be true. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, forgive me for the last words I spoke to Jesse, and let him be alive.

Looking down at the speedometer, I saw that I was going seventy on city streets. I pulled to the side of the road, stopped, and let my hands drop from the wheel. After a minute I turned off the engine. The wind buffeted the car, raising sand, hazing the distant mountains with a Sahara sheen. Above, an F/A-18 ripped the sky.

I got out my cell phone and called Marc Dupree, but he wasn’t home. His wife said he was at the base, and would be back around dinnertime.

I couldn’t wait that long. I had to check out Angels’ Landing, and Brian was right: I shouldn’t go alone. The memory of Ice Paxton aiming the shotgun spread through me like a stain. But the police weren’t about to accompany me. I opened the glove compartment and scrounged around for the scrap of paper that Garrett Holt, U.S. Navy, at your service, had given me with his phone number.

If he thought it was a first date, he was in for a rude awakening.

About half an hour later, the guard at the jail surprised Brian by unlocking his cell and saying, ‘‘Visitor, Delaney.’’ Brian wondered why I had come back so soon.

But it wasn’t me. Brian stepped into the visitors’ area and saw two people sitting beyond the Plexiglas, a woman and a man. He stopped in the doorway. The guard looked at him.

On the visitors’ side, her lips pinched white, sat Tabitha. Next to her, his face shaded under the brim of a cap logoed with ED’S FEED & AMMO, was Ice Paxton.

He tipped his head and said, ‘‘Afternoon, Commander. ’’

Garrett Holt met me at a gas station on a fringe of empty highway south of China Lake. He climbed out of his Jeep as calm as a windless day, cocksure and concerned. He wore civvies—jeans and a polo shirt— and was chewing gum, his square jaw flexing. His green eyes and terrier demeanor struck me as alert, almost apprehensive.

He said, ‘‘We have to stop meeting like this.’’

‘‘This won’t be fun, Garrett.’’

‘‘I’ll be the judge of that.’’

‘‘A few nights ago one of these people aimed a shotgun at me from three feet away.’’

He tipped his head toward the Jeep. ‘‘I have a deer rifle. A Winchester.’’

‘‘You’re sure?’’

He was evaluating me, trying, perhaps, to assess my nerve. ‘‘These people have your nephew, right? The child of a fellow officer. Let’s go.’’

My heart started pounding again. I unrolled a USGS map across the Explorer’s hood, showed him how we were going into Angels’ Landing the back way, off-road, up an arroyo. We’d walk the last part.

He examined the map, and me again, and couldn’t resist. ‘‘I don’t see a boyfriend here today, so . . . I presume that’s good news for me.’’

I rolled up the map. ‘‘The Remnant ambushed my boyfriend. The police think they killed him.’’

He took it quietly. Put on a pair of sunglasses. ‘‘Then let’s light ’em up.’’

Brian stood in the doorway to the visitors’ area, feeling coiled, senses pinging. He knew I hadn’t seen Paxton come into the jail, hadn’t been able to warn anyone. Paxton was too shrewd to let that happen. Behind him the guard coughed. Brian realized he could turn around, tell him, and bring down an immediate armed response. He could rescue Tabitha. She was staring at him, her pupils pinprick-tight with fear. He could get her back right then. He knew it might be his only chance. And he knew what would happen if he did. He told me afterward, countless times. He would never see Luke again.

Brian sat down. The guard said fifteen minutes, and the door clanged shut.

Paxton said, ‘‘Wise choice.’’

‘‘Where’s my son?’’

‘‘Time’s short, so listen up.’’

Brian turned to Tabitha. ‘‘Is Luke okay?’’

Paxton said, ‘‘Tell him to shut that mouth of his, Tabitha.’’

Only her lips moved.
Do it.

Brian saw live-wire intensity in her eyes, but fragility on the rest of her face. Her lip was split, and a bruise colored one cheek.

He said, ‘‘Did he hurt you?’’

She started to nod but Paxton reached up and wound his fingers into her hair, holding her head still.

He said, ‘‘Discipline is for our good, that we may share God’s holiness.’’

Brian looked at him. ‘‘You’re a dead man.’’

‘‘Zip your pecker back inside that dirty orange jumpsuit. ‘Without chastisement, then are ye bastards.’ ’’ He let go of Tabitha’s hair. ‘‘Hebrews twelve.’’

Brian closed his mouth and slowed his breathing, letting Paxton take his silence for compliance. In his peripheral vision he saw the closed-circuit TV camera in the corner. The China Lake Police Department had received the BOLO. He wondered if they had given it to the jail. Did they have photos of Paxton or Tabitha? Were they even monitoring the camera?

Paxton spoke quietly. ‘‘Tabitha’s having trouble cleansing herself of the pollution called
you
. That’s a shame, ’cause if I can disinfect her of this . . .
fungus
, she’ll make me a fine wife. Look at her, strong legs and a young womb—put some meat on them bones and she could nurse up a storm. I figure she could bear me eight, nine babies.’’ He leaned forward. ‘‘There’s even hope for the one you got her with if I give him the right guidance.’’

‘‘Shove it up your ass.’’

Paxton adjusted his hat. ‘‘What an arrogant attitude. But pride does go before a fall, and you are definitely fallen. Look around. Them’s bars on the door, Top Gun.’’

Brian thought, Never let ’em see you sweat. No matter what.

‘‘Bait me all you want,’’ Brian said. ‘‘You’re a tin soldier who terrorizes women and children to make himself feel powerful. I can take it all day from a creep like you. So you can insult me, or you can tell me why you’re here.’’

Paxton sucked his teeth. He slowly twisted his head. Several vertebrae popped.

‘‘You want your boy back? Here it is,’’ he said. ‘‘You’re gonna get us a jet.’’

Twenty miles down the highway I turned onto an unpaved track and headed into the desert. I kept the pedal depressed, clattering over the terrain. Garrett asked what we were going to be looking for, and I told him, ‘‘Anything the police missed. Something I recognize that they didn’t know was important.’’ Low hills rose ahead, and I turned up the arroyo that led close to Angels’ Landing. The dry riverbed was narrow, sandy, and rock-strewn. I urged the Explorer forward until the gully steepened too precipitously to go on.