his efforts had had no discernible romantic effect. He should have taken Gracie’s advice, upgraded his graphics, dressed in cool clothes, gotten a stylish haircut, and ditched the glasses for laser eye surgery. She had said he’d be totally studly then. Which had sounded like a good thing.
If only being totally studly would have brought him Elizabeth’s love.
But he had lived for ten years without her love and without regret, from the moment he had first laid eyes on Gracie in the hospital nursery. It didn’t matter if he loved Elizabeth more than she loved him because Gracie’s love more than made up the difference. Now Gracie’s love was gone. And for the first time in ten years, he felt the difference, an emptiness inside him that no IPO could fill.
Someone sat down on the couch next to him and put a hand on him, over the blanket. He prayed it was Elizabeth, that she had come down to tell him that together they would survive without Gracie, to ask if she could lie next to him and hold him, to whisper that she loved him with all her heart.
Ben sat next to John on the couch, quietly so as not to wake him, and rested his hand on his only son. He recalled the day in 1969 they had brought John home, wrapped in an Army blanket and in desperate need of a father. But all he had gotten was a mother. A month later, Lieutenant Ben Brice had returned to Vietnam to free the oppressed.
He had failed.
By the time Ben had left Vietnam for good, John had already departed on his lifelong journey leading away from Ben Brice, two wounded souls fighting their own demons. Army life had been tough on John; he hadn’t fit in with the other Army brats on the bases where they had been stationed over the next decade as the Army tried to hide the most decorated soldier of the Vietnam War-tried to find a way to forget a war and its warriors. Ben would have left the Army, but he couldn’t; he needed twenty years of service to qualify for a pension to take care of his family. It wasn’t as if Colonel Ben Brice’s peculiar skills were in great demand in the private sector.
At least John’s life had become his own when he left Fort Bragg and North Carolina for Boston and MIT, a perfect score on the entrance exams and a full scholarship in his pocket, the same year that Ben had quietly retired. But Ben Brice’s life would never be his own; a warrior’s life is forever a chattel of war.
John turned over. His eyes expressed undeniable disappointment, as if Ben Brice were the last person on earth he wanted to see at that moment. Father and son regarded each other silently. Then John spoke.
“Why’d you come, Ben? I grew up without you. Only time you came home was to move us to another base, another school, another set of bullies to beat up the geek. And you didn’t save those people-you lost your great war. You were an American hero and what’d it get you? You live with a dog.” He sat up. “You weren’t there when I needed you. I don’t need you now.”
His son’s words hit Ben like a two-by-four across the face. He gritted his teeth to hold back his emotions.
“I know you don’t need me, son. I failed you, and for that I am sorry. Maybe one day you’ll find a way to forgive me.” He stood. “But this isn’t about us, John. This is about Gracie. She does need me, and I’m not going to fail her, too. I’m leaving for Idaho in the morning.”
“ Idaho? What’s in Idaho?”
“Gracie.”
“Ben-”
“She’s alive.”
“Jennings isn’t.”
Kate was standing at the door.
Mark Gimenez
The Abduction
7:47 A.M
The tires on the Lexus sedan screeched to an abrupt stop in the handicapped parking zone directly in front of the town hall. If any of the police officers standing on the sidewalk and watching in amazement had detained the woman wearing a nylon warm-up suit and sneakers and no makeup, her black hair pushed back behind her ears but otherwise untouched this morning, and asked her if she knew she was parked illegally, she could have said no and passed a polygraph.
The woman ran up the sidewalk and into the building and directly through the metal detectors without slowing, setting off loud alarms. The cop manning the security desk intercepted the woman, but once he recognized her, he retreated and followed at a respectful distance. She proceeded through the lobby and into the police chief’s office; the chief sat alone behind his desk.
“I want to see him,” the woman demanded.
The chief looked the woman up and down-she looked like hell-then he sighed and nodded slowly. He waved off the cop from the security desk. He stood and led the woman down halls and through secure doors and into the small jail; neither spoke a word as town personnel along the way recognized her but quickly averted their eyes from her. From the entrance to the jail corridor, the woman could see several police officers and FBI agents standing outside an open cell door; a photographer was snapping pictures from various angles. As the woman came closer, the photographer’s subject gradually came into view until it fully confronted her: Gary Jennings’s body, hanging limp from the sprinkler pipes.
The officers looked at the woman then at the chief for instructions. He gestured with his head; the officers parted and allowed the woman entry into the cell.
She stepped close to Jennings hanging there in his white underwear. His eyes were bulging, his face pale, and his bare legs bloated with blood. Staring up at the man who had abducted, raped, and killed her only daughter, the woman felt jealous. His demons were gone now. But hers had just set up shop. Because now she would never know. Elizabeth Brice punched the corpse, setting it to swinging gently.
“Damn you! You took her to the grave with you!”
“The cretin is dead?” Sam asked Kate through a mouthful of Cheerios.
“Yes.”
“Did the cops shoot him?”
“No. He… he just died.”
“So how’s he gonna let Gracie go if he’s dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he hide her somewhere?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he tie her up?”
“I don’t know.”
“When is she coming home?”
Kate went over to Sam at the table. She sat next to him and cupped his little face with her hands. How could she tell him that Gracie would never come home?
“Nanna, why are you crying?”
“Because I just don’t know about Gracie.”
Now Sam started crying.
“But you know she’s not dead or nothing, right? Right, Nanna?”
“I want to bury my daughter,” the mother said quietly.
FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux was sitting behind his desk in the command post; he was facing the victim’s family. The final family meeting was always difficult, particularly when the victim’s body hadn’t been found
