this high-tech company looked more like the cafeteria during lunch at his daughter’s high school. And the father looked more like a skinny teenager than the chief executive officer of a company worth billions.
At the CUSTOMER SERVICE desk a young receptionist with purple hair and narrow black-framed glasses stood abruptly when she saw the father; her neon-red shirt did not cover her navel, which was pierced with a silver ring. She stepped to the father and put her head in his chest, then she wrapped her arms around him. The father patted her stiffly.
“Oh, Kahuna,” she said softly. She released the father and wiped her eyes. “How could he hurt her? He seemed like a righteous dude. I mean, he was here yesterday, like he hadn’t done anything.” She shook her head. “The real world is too random.” She bit her pierced lower lip. “I’ll really miss her.”
The father nodded and said in almost a whisper, “Terri, tell everyone the IPO will go forward tomorrow. They deserve it.”
Terri nodded. “Okay, Boss. But just so you know-the IPO’s cool and all, but we’re here because of you. You’re the man.”
The father sighed and stared off into space for a moment. Then he said, “Yeah… I’m the man. Where’s Jennings’s cube?”
The young woman checked her computer screen. “Cookies and Crackers, cube twenty-three.”
Devereaux and his agents followed the father toward the PHARMACY sign and past the VIDEO section where a collection of foosball, air hockey tables, and road racing simulators stood, an exercise room, a coffee stand, an open area with a regulation basketball hoop, and a dozen soda and snack machines standing along the wall like suspects in a lineup. A young Hispanic male with platinum-blond hair was banging on the side of a Red Bull vending machine. The father stopped so they stopped.
“The dang thing stole my money again!” He glanced up at the father. “Oh, sorry, Boss. I mean, not about this, but, uh, you know, about…”
The father eyed the young man, then he stared down the machine like Devereaux’s daughter stared down the goal before attempting a free throw. Then he suddenly swung his right foot up in some kind of karate kick and drove the heel of his shoe into the side of the machine: BAMM! The machine rocked back and forth, settled, and spat out two cans of Red Bull.
The Hispanic man grinned broadly, grabbed the two cans, and said, “Cool. A freebie.” Then to the father: “You da man.”
He held his fist out to the father. They bumped fists like the pro athletes do, then the Hispanic man walked off in one direction and they walked off in the opposite direction. They turned up an aisle marked Cookies and Crackers. Chairs in the cubicles swiveled away from computer screens as they walked past; behind them, heads poked out from the cubicles.
They arrived at cubicle twenty-three, a small crowded space, maybe six feet by six feet; two adults could not occupy the cubicle simultaneously because most of the space was taken up by a computer perched on a slim table, a few drawers, and boxes stacked on the floor. The walls of the cubicle were covered with yellow stickums, company memos, and pictures of Jennings and his wife smiling, kissing, and hugging-and one of Jennings patting her swollen belly. He did not appear to be a psychological time bomb. He was wearing a black baseball cap in one photo.
“Stevens,” Devereaux said, “you take the cubicle. Find out if Jennings contacted Gracie through his computer or accessed child porn sites from here, then box up his personal belongings.” To the father: “Personnel files.”
The father silently led Devereaux and Jorgenson toward the DAIRY section of the company.
Elizabeth pointed the remote at the TV and increased the volume. The reporter was saying, “A convicted sex offender sits in jail this Tuesday night, arrested in the early morning hours for the abduction of Gracie Ann Brice last Friday. Gary Jennings worked for the victim’s father, where he apparently became acquainted with Gracie. He made nine calls to Gracie in the week preceding her abduction. Gracie’s jersey was found in his truck, along with child pornography. Although not confirmed, sources tell us that traces of blood were also found in his truck. DNA tests are underway to determine if it is in fact Gracie’s. Jennings will be charged with kidnapping, murder, and possession of child pornography. While this community holds out hope, authorities concede privately that Gracie Ann Brice is presumed dead.”
She’s alive.
Their bond was unbroken.
She had come to him. She was showing him the way. She’s up north, where it’s cold. Where there’s snow on the ground. Where the trees stand tall.
But where up north?
Ben had found the weather channel on the pool house TV. The entire northern part of the country was under a blanket of snow from a late spring snowstorm. Was Gracie in Washington or Montana or Minnesota or Michigan or Maine? He didn’t have time to cover three thousand miles. He needed to be pointed in the right direction.
Ben was hoping the FBI’s computer printout of leads would do just that. After returning from the police station, he had spent the rest of the day reading 3,316 lead sheets for sightings of blonde girls. None sounded promising. All were in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New and Old Mexico, where there was no snow on the ground in early April and nowhere near timber country. Ben turned the page to sighting number 3,317: Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Clayton Lee Tucker had just about gotten the wheel bearings back in when the phone rang. Well, it was just going to have to ring. It did. Ten, fifteen, twenty times-whoever it was, they weren’t going away.
He was working late, as usual. Since the wife had died, he didn’t have much else to do. The phone kept ringing. Hell, some old lady might be broken down somewhere. Clayton Lee Tucker had never failed to help a little old lady broken down in his part of Idaho.
Clayton slowly pushed his seventy-five-year-old body up off the cold concrete floor, looked around for a rag, gave up, and wiped his greasy hands on the legs of his insulated overalls. He limped the twenty feet from the repair bay to the desk inside the shop; his arthritis was inflamed by the cold. He picked up the phone.
“Gas station.”
“Is Clayton Lee Tucker available?”
“You got him.”
“Mr. Tucker, I’m calling about the girl.”
“Hold on a minute, let me wipe some of this grease off.”
Clayton set the phone down on the desk and stepped over to the wash bin. He squirted the industrial- strength cleaner on his cracked hands and washed them under the running water. After fifty years of fixing cars, his hands looked like road maps; the black grease filled every wrinkle line. They would never come clean. He wiped his hands dry and picked up the phone again.
“Sorry about that. You with the FBI?”
“No, sir. I’m the girl’s grandfather. Ben Brice.”
“Got three grandkids of my own, that’s why I called the FBI number.”
“You saw the girl Sunday, with two men?”
“Yep, they come dragging in here, maybe eight, eight-thirty, leaking oil like a busted pipeline. I’m the only fool open on Sunday night. Got nothing better to do, I guess.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Yellow hair, ratty, short-thought she was a boy at first, but she was too pretty to be a boy. And she was wearing pink.”
“Why do you think it was her?”
“Seen her picture, online.”
“Did you call because of the reward?”
“I don’t want your money, Ben. I called ’cause the girl looked like the picture and ’cause she looked scared
