boy like Skip was able to identify as an owl.
Stiff-jointed, bruised, and sore, his hips and head aching and his bladder all but bursting, Skip had to beg his captor to let him take a piss. The man-presumably Luke Sweet-had untied Skip’s wrists and ankles but left the rubber sack covering his head, then led him outside to pee against what Skip guessed, from the hollow spattering sound, was probably the side of a wooden building.
Back inside, lying on his left side with his wrists and ankles bound again, Skip had heard the rasp of a disposable cigarette lighter; seconds later, the funky, leafy scent of pot smoke had been so strong he could smell it through the rubber sack. “Listen, Luke,” he’d said, raising his unsupported head, “you’ve got this all wrong. I’m on
“My name,” the other man had replied, “is Asmador.”
“Okay, Luke, Asmador, whatever you want to call yourself, all I’m saying is, your grandparents asked me to find you before the cops did, and bring you to Meadows Road so you could get some treatment. Otherwise you’d have gotten thrown into Juvie, or maybe even done hard time if they decided to try you as an adult. I thought I was doing you a favor-I had no way of knowing they were going to keep you there all those years.”
The only response had been the hiss of a deep, long toke, followed by a spate of coughing. Skip’s instinct, or compulsion, had been to talk on despite the absence of feedback, if only to keep the darkness at bay. And the withdrawal symptoms: going from eight Norco tablets a day down to zero without tapering off first was going to be like hitting the brakes at a hundred miles an hour without a seat belt-helloooo, windshield! “I swear, Luke-”
“Asmador,” the other man had hissed again, between tokes.
“Sorry, Asmador. I swear, even if you did blow the place up, your secret’s safe with me. I mean, I saw them beat you up when you first got there, and God knows what they’ve put you through since. In my book, they deserved whatever they got.”
No answer. Skip had tried another approach. “Hey, what do you say you take this bag off my head? Just for a couple minutes-I promise I won’t peek. It’s just that it’s getting kind of hard to breathe under here. Okay, Luke? I mean, Asmador?”
But by then Sweet had been snoring stertorously-he’d either fallen asleep or was feigning it. Skip had sighed, rolled onto his back, and closed his eyes, intending to rest for a few minutes and let his head clear while he worked out his next move.
The next thing he knew, it was morning. Birds were singing, a faint glow of daylight had crept in under the neck of the rubber sack, Skip’s head was pounding, and the old familiar pain in his lower back and hips had turned feral, like a family pet gone rabid. Rolling onto his right side for relief, Skip felt something in his right front pants pocket digging painfully into his right thigh.
Something hard.
Something like a cell phone.
3
Pender used his cell phone to call 911. He was waiting outside Epstein’s door with his badge case clipped to the breast pocket of his sport jacket and his badge hanging in plain sight when the first cruiser arrived. The rest was attitude-he treated the responding officers as if they’d been dispatched to
Pender maintained control of the scene until a pair of veteran SFPD homicide detectives arrived in an unmarked car. Their initial assumption was that the missing man had shot his cleaning lady and fled; it took Pender a good deal of effort to convince the locals that they were dealing instead with a homicide-kidnapping case involving a serial offender.
Pender’s next move was to give the San Francisco detectives the names of their counterparts in Santa Cruz and Monterey. When he’d finished doing that, his job as liaison support was over. Or so Steve McDougal informed him via his cell phone a few minutes later.
“You don’t understand, Steve,” said Pender, who had stepped off the curb and was now performing a primitive cell phone reception dance in the middle of Francisco Street, shuffling around in circles holding the phone to one ear and sticking his forefinger in the other. “Epstein was
“What’s this
“All right,
“Ed.”
“No way I’m-”
“Ed?”
“Walking away from-”
“Ed!”
“What?”
“I want you on the next available commercial flight home. You’re a fifty-year-old liaison support specialist, not a case agent, not a field agent. If field assistance is requested, the Bureau has field offices and resident agencies from one end of California to the other, and if any liaising needs to be done, you can do it from here as easily as you can from there, with considerably less damage to my budget.”
“What if I pay my own expenses? It’s already Friday-what do you care where I spend the weekend?”
There was no immediate response. Pender wasn’t sure whether McDougal had been struck dumb, or if they’d lost the connection-either way, he decided to take the silence for permission. “Thanks, Steve, you won’t regret it,” he said, and hurriedly pushed the End Call button.
4
“Luke?” you call. “You there, Luke?”
No response. You lie still, holding your breath and listening intently for the faintest rustle to betray the other man’s presence. Then when you’re sure you’re alone-or as sure as you can be: there’s always the possibility Sweet is also lying still and holding
Somehow you manage to slide both hands into your pocket, but not far enough to reach the phone, which is jammed into the very bottom of the pocket, just out of reach of your yearning fingertips. So you stretch and strain and arch your spine backward and your shoulder blades downward, fighting for one…last…crucial…mini…micro… millimeter…
There! Got it!
Now bring your thumbs into play…trying to flip the phone open…can’t quite…almost there-
Calm down, wait for the cramp to pass, try again. Work your thumbs up, up…force them into the gap…try to leverage the-
Okay, okay, don’t panic. Slight adjustment necessary. Plan B: instead of working the trousers
