always capture the public’s undivided attention. FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux had investigated one hundred twenty-seven such cases. Consequently, he was accustomed to the media events child abductions inevitably became.
But this case was different. Maybe it was because Gracie was a rich white blonde girl who lived in a mansion with murals on the ceiling; maybe it was because her father’s face was on the cover of Fortune magazine; or maybe it was just a slow news cycle. But this case was fast moving beyond anything he had previously experienced. There was an energy in the air, building with each passing hour without Gracie’s recovery, along with the number of people on the front lawn of the Brice mansion, where Devereaux now stood on this sunny Sunday afternoon. He was flanked by the local mayor and police chief and facing microphones clumped together on a stand, TV cameras, reporters, and beyond them, in the street, the residents of Briarwyck Farms. They had posted missing child fliers with Gracie’s image on every car, printed Gracie tee shirts, tied pink ribbons to car antennae, mailboxes, and trees, and pinned a Gracie button on every shirt and lapel.
There was a time when media briefings made Devereaux feel important, a black agent born in the Louisiana backwoods directing a major FBI case; now these briefings just made him tired. He stepped forward.
“I’m FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux. The FBI is involved in this case at the request of Chief Ryan. Unless the victim is transported across state lines, jurisdiction is solely local. But we have offered our resources to assist Chief Ryan and his investigation.”
Devereaux always maintained the pretense that the locals were in charge of the case. They were legally, but not actually. Locals like Chief Ryan understood that they didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of finding an abducted child without the FBI-and they didn’t mind sharing the failure with the Feds when the child’s body was found.
“The status of our investigation of the abduction of Gracie Ann Brice is as follows: Gracie has been missing for forty-two hours. She was taken from Briarwyck Farms Park here in Post Oak at approximately six P.M. Friday by a white male, twenty to thirty years old, six foot, two hundred pounds, blond hair, wearing a black cap and a plaid shirt. An artist’s sketch of the suspect has been distributed to the media. We are pursuing two parallel investigative tracks: the first is to find Gracie, and that is our primary consideration; the second is to identify and locate possible suspects, starting with registered sex offenders. We urge any citizen who may have seen Gracie or the suspect or who has any information to please contact our hot-line number on the missing child fliers. We need your help. Questions?”
Devereaux pointed to the first reporter.
“Agent Devereaux, do you suspect family involvement?”
“No.”
“Have they taken polygraphs?”
“Not yet.”
The next reporter: “Can you confirm that Gracie’s shorts were found at the park?”
“Blue soccer shorts and a single white soccer shoe were found. We believe them to be Gracie’s.”
And the next, not waiting to be acknowledged: “Do you have any leads?”
“We’re taking calls, reviewing videotapes of the soccer games Friday night, developing a profile of the abductor-”
From the crowd: “Forty-two hours and all you’ve got is a blond man in a black cap?”
Devereaux sighed and felt tired. “Yes.”
Shouted from the back: “Was Gracie sexually assaulted?”
That was the question they always asked. Why? Why did they want to know whether a little ten-year-old girl was raped? What the hell do they think a sexual predator did with her, take her to dinner and a goddamn movie? They know damn well what he did to her, but they wanted him to say it, to provide the fear factor sound bite for the evening news teaser-fear causes more viewers to tune in. But he never played their game. Even if he knew, which he didn’t, at least it wasn’t confirmed, FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux would never tell. Not until the body was located. Until he knew for sure the child was dead.
Gracie Ann Brice deserved that much.
A mile away, Ben Brice stood in the middle of soccer field no. 2, a solitary figure in the vast, vacant park. He had come out before the FBI reopened the park for that night’s candlelight vigil to retrace Gracie’s last known movements Friday afternoon; he had to be where she had been.
He had to know.
If not for ransom, why would someone take Gracie? For sex? Ben Brice had seen the evil in man, so that was a possibility. Perhaps even a probability. But not a certainty, as the FBI seemed to have concluded. Sexual predators work alone, Agent Devereaux had said. But the blond man in a black cap hadn’t been alone; two men had been here at her game.
Ben first had to learn how Gracie had been taken. He now walked toward the low bleachers. According to John, Gracie’s game had ended and she had come to him about here. Ben stopped. The other parents had been in the bleachers and the two men just behind. John had spoken with Gracie, then she and the other girls had gone to the concession stand. John had watched them all the way to the building.
Ben walked that way.
Children abducted by strangers have a life expectancy of three hours, that TV report had said. When Gracie had walked this way Friday night, not forty-eight hours ago, had she only three hours of life left? Something inside Ben said no. Maybe it was the strange way their lives were bonded together: he knew that if Gracie were dead, he surely would be as well. Maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to accept the idea that he would never see her again.
Or maybe, just maybe, she was still alive.
When he was almost to the concession stand, Ben stopped and turned back, just as Gracie had when she had waved to John: an innocent little girl waving to her father, unaware she was walking into an ambush. Ben checked the compass on his watch to get his bearings. He was now facing due south toward the distant soccer and softball fields and the homes that bordered the park beyond the tall brick wall. To the east were tennis courts and the wall bordering that side of the park. To the west was the parking lot a good hundred meters away, too far to drag an abducted child through a crowd of people. The brick walls bordered the south and east sides of the park and the parking lot the west; none were likely escape routes for the abductor. That left only the northern route.
Through the woods.
Ben walked around to the rear of the concession stand. The backside of the building was a solid brick facade with a single service door and no windows. A small clearing separated the building from the woods. Ben got down on his hands and knees and examined the ground. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers through the blades of grass like a blind man reading Braille. And he knew.
The abductor had grabbed her right here.
But how had he gotten her back here alone? And how had he kept her quiet?
Ben stood and walked into the woods. Yesterday, he had been running and his mind had been clouded with fear and thoughts from the past, so he had not focused on his surroundings. Now he stepped slowly; his eyes searched the ground, the underbrush, and the trees for any sign of Gracie. His skills came back to him without conscious recall.
Less than ten meters into the woods, a shiny object highlighted by the sunlight through the canopy caught Ben’s eye. He squatted, moved several leaves, and picked up the object between his thumb and forefinger. He placed it in the palm of his left hand: a silver star attached to a broken silver chain. He recalled the day he had taken Gracie to the silversmith shop in Taos to have this star put on this chain. The proprietor had examined the star and said, “This here’s the real thing.” Gracie had said she would wear it always.
Ben stood, slipped the star and chain into his shirt pocket, and snapped the flap button. He continued deeper into the woods. He soon arrived at the location where her shorts and shoe had been found; yellow crime-scene tape was wrapped around the trees guarding the little clearing.
The abductor had grabbed Gracie behind the concession stand and taken her through the woods to this position. He had stopped here to… Ben fought back his emotions and focused. The abductor had left her shorts and shoe here and had… what? Taken her to his vehicle?
Ben walked through the woods to the nearby road, climbed the low embankment, and stood on the rock shoulder. The road was old, and the asphalt surface was potholed; there were only two narrow lanes, barely wide
