She went away. Tamara started to straighten up, changed her mind, and sat on the floor with her back against the wall and her knees pulled up. Trailer in the woods, deer and elk around. That could be anywhere. Someplace isolated, for sure, where he could be alone with Lauren and show her his big surprise and they’d have “fun.” Warped son of a bitch.
But he’d had her more than twenty-four hours and he hadn’t done anything to her yet. Maybe he wasn’t a pedophile, maybe he’d snatched the kid for some other whacko reason. Maybe he really believed she was his daughter and he had no intention of hurting her. Yeah, and pigs can fly and world peace is coming next Tuesday. Gearing up to it, that was all. Or prolonging it, savoring what he planned to do.
What was she gonna do? What could she do? Try to reason with him, that was one thing. If he wasn’t so far gone he wouldn’t listen to reason. She could be pretty persuasive. Silver Tongue Tamara. Talk at him, lay on the jive, convince him to let the kid go, let both of them go, and then turn himself in so he can get some help More flying pigs.
Have to try, though. Must be some good in him, a side she could appeal to. Use soft rap on him, don’t show fear, and make real sure not to say or do anything to push his buttons.
The toilet flushed. Another running water sound-Lauren washing her hands. Kid was well behaved and had been raised right. Pretty soon the floorboards creaked as she came back to the closet.
“Lady? Tamara?”
She leaned forward. “Yeah, honey?”
“When he comes back, that man, will you tell him to take me home?”
“Sure I will.”
“Tell him I miss my mama and daddy. My real daddy.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you.” Then, “Is he gonna hurt you?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Don’t let him hurt me either, okay?”
Between her teeth: “Okay. You go on back to bed now, keep warm. And try not to cry anymore.”
“My mama says big girls don’t cry.”
“Your mama’s right,” she lied.
She sat in the new silence, shallow-breathing through her mouth. Working out what she’d say to Lemoyne when she saw him again-a way to occupy her mind so she wouldn’t be thinking and imagining too much. She got it pretty much straight, but after a while it didn’t matter much. So hot and airless in there it was like her brain was drying up, all the cells melting and oozing out with her sweat.
The little girl was quiet. Asleep now, maybe. Poor kid must be worn out. Being scared had a way of doing that to you, making you ache all over, so damn tired you could hardly keep your eyes open. Fear and quiet and not enough air and too much heat…
All of a sudden she was out of her doze, groggy for a few seconds and then with her senses sharply alert. Noises out there-key sounds, lock rattling. He was back.
She tried to stand up too fast. A cramp in her right calf kept her down until she twisted around and got her foot jammed up straight against the wall. The pain eased and she was able to lift up and catch hold of the clothes rod, haul herself upright. Sweat streamed on her skin; every part of her felt soggy, like she’d taken a sauna in her clothes.
He was in the room now. Lauren was awake, too, said something in a voice too low for Tamara to catch. He yelled at the child to shut up, go back to sleep, and the force of the words started her crying again.
Then he was at the closet door, rattling on the lock out there. Breathing hard, almost snorting like a bull in heat. He had trouble getting the lock open, swore at it, finally yanked it loose. Tamara pressed back against the wall as he tore the door open.
Oh, shit!
One look at him looming there against the light, all fire-eyed and smoke-dark, and the sweat on her turned to icy jelly.
14
Tamara didn’t show up for work on Wednesday morning.
The offices were locked when I got there a little before nine-thirty. My first thought was that she’d been there and had to go out for some reason, but if that had been the case she would’ve left a message on my desk and there was no message. None on the answering machine, either. In the five years we’d worked together, she had only missed a total of four days without advance notice-a three-day bout with the flu and an impacted tooth that had needed immediate attention. On both those occasions she’d notified me right away.
Illness or emergency, I thought, sudden and serious enough to prevent her from calling in. Either way it was cause for concern. I rang up her apartment in the Outer Sunset, counted off a dozen rings before I disconnected. Then I tried her cellphone number. Out of service.
Worrisome, but nothing to get alarmed about yet. For all I knew she was on her way in right now and the delay would turn out to be minor after all.
I did a little work, and some time passed, and when she still didn’t show up I stood again and went into her office. The paper file on George DeBrissac was on her desk. I read through it, and there was nothing there that rang any alarm bells. Simple, straightforward case of nonpayment of child support; by all indications DeBrissac seemed to be your average white-collar deadbeat dad. While I was poking around among the other files and papers on her desk-nothing unusual in them, either-I heard the outer door open. But it wasn’t Tamara. Jake Runyon. I motioned to him to join me in my office.
“What’s up?” he said. “Where’s Tamara?”
“Good question. No sign of her this morning, and no message.”
He digested that before he said, “Not like her.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“You try her cell phone?”
“Out of service. And no answer at her apartment.”
“Could be a combination of car trouble and a discharged cell.”
“Could be. But I keep thinking about that deadbeat dad surveillance she’s been on the past couple of nights.”
“One over in the East Bay?”
“San Leandro.”
“Pretty standard case, isn’t it?”
“Looks to be,” I said. “Subject has no criminal record and no apparent history of violence. If he had, I’d’ve talked her into letting you handle it. But there’s something else. Yesterday she started to tell me about something that happened Monday night, something she saw or thought she saw that bothered her enough to do some checking. That was as far as she got before the phone rang and we never did get back to it. She mention any of this to you?”
“No. Connected to the surveillance?”
“She didn’t say one way or the other. Could’ve happened while she was staked out in San Leandro, or before or afterward someplace else. There’s nothing on her desk that might help explain it.”
“Might be something on her computer,” Runyon said.
“Could you get in there and find it?”
“Well, I could try. But she has a security code, doesn’t she?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“If so, I won’t be able to get in without the password. I’m no expert.”
“Better not, then. She doesn’t like anybody messing with her computer. Hell, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here anyway. It’s only a little after ten-two hours late doesn’t make her a missing person.”
“Sure. She’ll probably show up any minute.”
