Sam sighed. “Well, I wish he’d shit or get off the pot.”
“Sam!” Kate said.
Sam shrugged. “Yeah, then Dad can write a check and Gracie can come home.”
“Our town’s a damn safe place to call home!”
Across town, Police Chief Paul Ryan was standing in the mayor’s office, looking at the mayor’s broad back, and listening to the mayor’s whiny voice as His Honor pleaded with a Dallas newspaper reporter not to write a negative story about Post Oak, Texas. But as if his mind were repeatedly pressing the ALT CH button on the remote control, his thoughts kept switching back and forth between dark images of a little girl he didn’t know lying dead somewhere and the bald back of the mayor’s head, wondering how much hair spray it took to keep his comb-over in place. Paul Ryan never trusted men who combed over.
The mayor never came in on a Sunday and never early on any day of the week. But this Sunday, Ryan had arrived at seven and been immediately summoned to the mayor’s office. He knew the mayor would not be pleased, what with the town just getting over the heroin OD at the high school, and now this. Bad for business, heroin in the high school and kidnappings at the park. And the mayor was all about business.
Theirs was a tenuous relationship at best. Ryan was a holdover from the old days, back before the Dallas developers had discovered their sleepy little town forty miles north of the city and had bought up the open land he used to hunt as a kid and carved it up into exclusive gated communities promising peace and prosperity, bait to Boomers fleeing the ills of urban life. And the Boomers had come, arriving in their Beemers and Lexuses and Hummers like fire ants in the backyard-one day they’re not even here, the next day they’ve taken over the goddamned place. Ten years ago this had been a farming community with a land bank and a feed store; today it had a Victoria’s Secret and a Starbucks.
Paul Ryan hated the Boomers.
But the mayor had welcomed them with open arms. Because the mayor owned the land, or damn near most of it, inherited from his daddy or acquired at foreclosure for pennies on the dollar during the drought years when the farmers couldn’t keep up their payments to the bank, which the mayor and his daddy before him owned. Paul Ryan’s father had committed suicide less than a year after the mayor’s father foreclosed the farm.
Paul sighed. The mayor was a short, pudgy bastard who couldn’t even make the high school football team that Paul Ryan had starred on. But now, just like the mayor’s daddy had held the note on the Ryan family farm, the mayor held the note on Paul Ryan’s career, a career he could foreclose at any time: the town charter expressly stated that the police chief served at the pleasure of the mayor. And the mayor was not pleased. He hung up the phone and glared at Ryan.
“Paul, why the hell did you bring in the FBI?”
“To find the girl! The Feds got more experience and a helluva lot more resources than we got.”
“Yeah, but they don’t got jurisdiction!”
“FBI helps local police in all child abductions. They bring a lot to the table, Mayor.”
“They bring the media to my town!” The mayor pointed a fat finger at Ryan. “Paul, you either find that girl alive or you find her dead, but I want her found, I want someone arrested, I want this deal closed in forty-eight hours or you’ll be a goddamn security guard at the Wal-Mart!”
FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux dodged the little Brice boy as he entered the kitchen for a cup of coffee. He knew the caffeine would only inflame his prostate, but a little girl was missing and he needed a shot of caffeine to get sharp. He had gone to the motel at midnight and just returned with an empty gut. He would normally lose ten pounds over the course of an abduction investigation. Hell of a way to diet.
Devereaux was about to walk out when the grandmother shoved a plate of food at him. The smell reminded him of his own grandmother’s breakfasts back on the farm in Louisiana. He figured it was better to eat her food than donuts all day. So he sat across the breakfast table from the grandfather; they acknowledged each other with grim nods. The grandfather’s hands exhibited the morning tremors of an alcoholic. After Devereaux had eaten half his stack of pancakes in silence, the grandfather said, “Why would he leave her shorts in the woods?”
Devereaux was trying to think of an appropriate answer other than because he’s a sick bastard when the father rushed through the kitchen looking like he had just rolled out of bed; his black glasses were riding low and lopsided on his face, one side of his curly hair was pressed flat, the other side was standing on end, and he was still wearing the same dirty clothes. He exited through the back door without a word. Minutes later, the father returned and walked directly over to Devereaux; he held out a camcorder like the one Devereaux had given the wife for Christmas.
“I forgot,” he said.
“Forgot what, Mr. Brice?”
“I taped Gracie’s game.”
She was Michael Jordan in soccer shorts.
The other girls seemed like typical ten-year-olds, awkward, plodding, stumbling at times, while Gracie seemed… well, graceful, elegant even, her gait smooth and rhythmic, gliding down the field in her white shoes, then a sudden burst of speed propelling her past the defenders, all the while making the white ball seem like a puppet on a string, dancing in front of her, now to her side, then abruptly racing ahead on her unspoken command. And she owned her opponents equally, moving them about like pawns on a chessboard, a slight shoulder fake sending the defender charging one way only to watch helplessly as Gracie spun off in the opposite direction, where the ball was somehow waiting. Natural athletes always made it look easy. Gracie Ann Brice was a natural athlete.
Watching the victim running up and down the field on the videotape-her smile, her spirit, her soccer skills-FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux wanted to find this girl alive so much it hurt. The victim was not that photograph distributed to the media; she was a real live little girl who only two days before had not a care in the world, smiling and laughing and playing soccer. And play she could. As his daughter would say, Gracie’s got game.
She had captivated her audience.
Four FBI agents, the father, and the grandparents stood facing the nine-foot-wide projector screen built into the wall of the media room, hypnotized by the victim’s image and all too aware that they were likely watching the last moments of her life. The tape was playing with remarkable clarity-Agent Stevens, who was manning the camcorder connected to the TV, had said something about it being recorded in “high def”-and had captured the sights and sounds of the game: the girls playing, a referee’s whistle, background noises, then suddenly a loud cheer and “Run, Gracie, run!” and the father’s voice: “Lou, I’m hard-core about thirty bucks a share!”
The camera abruptly swung from the field to the crowded parking lot in the distance and just as abruptly back to the field, creating a stream of blurred images. The victim appeared in frame again, up close, making a face at the camera as she ran past. Devereaux couldn’t help but smile. She then booted the ball across the field-“Go, Tornadoes!”-and the camera angle dropped precipitously, as if the operator had lost all strength in his arm; a pair of black penny loafers over white socks filled the screen. Devereaux glanced over at the father; he was still wearing the same shoes and socks. He had filmed his own feet. On the tape now, the father’s voice again: “Lou, if I had e- mail capacity at this soccer field, I’d beam Harvey a freaking shitogram!”
Back on the screen, another violent camera spasm and a close-up of a big white belly escaping from under a gold jersey and a booming voice that Devereaux recognized as the coach’s-“Gracie, stop her!” Abruptly back to the field: Gracie was running full speed then sliding, feet first, and kicking the ball away from an opponent trying to score, an incredible play… now the blue sky, then suddenly Gracie again, kicking the ball in front of her, racing down the field past her opponents-“Go, Gracie! Score, Gracie!”-to the goal, about to score, pulling her leg back, and… now the father’s shoes again. The room audibly deflated; Agent Jorgenson had damn near kicked Devereaux trying to score the goal for Gracie. On the tape, loud cheers erupted in the background… now the setting sun… and parents standing in the bleachers… and back on the soccer game… and the tape suddenly went silent.
“Did we lose audio?” Devereaux said to Agent Stevens.
“Don’t think so,” Stevens said, checking the connection.
“Increase the volume, run the tape back.”
