about to walk right past him. Without consciously deciding, he did.
“Gee, Mrs. Brice, I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”
She turned on him in a heartbeat: “I had a trial, okay!”
Jesus! Her response so startled Wally, he almost squeezed the snow right out of his cone. He immediately regretted not letting her walk on by.
Now that he had interrupted her journey, she took the time to look him over: the high-topped Reeboks, the blue coach’s shorts stretched tight around his considerable belly and the gold jersey that didn’t completely cover it, the Texas Rangers baseball cap on backward, the heart tattoo on his left arm, and the cherry snow cone juice dripping down his chin.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
That hurt. Wally wiped his sticky hand on his jersey before extending it to her. She had a very firm grip.
“Coach Wally… I coach Gracie’s team.”
“Oh.”
No apology. She was staring at her hand; the sticky had rubbed off. She was apparently trying to decide whether to wipe her hand on her skirt; she said, “Well, Wally, I had an important case go to the jury today, so I was late for Grace’s game.”
“No, ma’am, I meant because of, uh… you know… your mother.”
She looked up from her hand and frowned. “My mother? What about my mother?”
“Oh, my gosh, don’t you know?”
“Know what? ”
Not even his executive experience as a night manager at the Taco House out on the interstate had prepared Wally Fagan to deliver this kind of news. But he had opened his big mouth too far to shut up now.
“Mrs. Brice, your mother had a stroke.”
She recoiled. “A stroke? When? ”
“Uh, today, I guess. She’s in the hospital.”
She appeared confused. She pointed back toward the field. Wally looked that way; a man was sitting alone in the bleachers.
“My husband didn’t say my mother had a stroke.”
“Gracie’s dad was at the game?”
She was now looking at Wally like he was a complete idiot.
“He’s sitting right over there in the goddamn stands!”
Now Wally was confused; he removed his cap and scratched his burr-cut head. He kept his hair cut short because that way he didn’t sweat as much under the hair net at work.
“You’re not looking for Gracie, are you?”
She exhaled loud enough for him to hear. “I didn’t come for the snow cones, Wally.”
“But… but she’s… she’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“To the hospital, to see your mother.”
“My mother lives in New York!”
“But your brother said your mother had a stroke and he came to take Gracie to the hos-”
The woman lunged at Wally and grabbed his jersey, her eyes and face suddenly wild like an animal; she clawed so close he could feel her hot breath on his face when she screamed.
“I don’t have a brother!”
Wally was so scared he felt a drop of pee drip out. He dropped his snow cone. The wild woman released him and ran toward the concession stand screaming her daughter’s name.
“Gra-cie!”
Police Chief Paul Ryan’s voice mixed with the other voices coming from all around him in the dark, the voices of cops and civilians searching the woods bordering the park for the missing girl, and he thought, Kids don’t get abducted in Post Oak, Texas!
“Gra-cie!”
When he had gotten the call, Ryan figured a rich Briarwyck Farms soccer mom was throwing another conniption fit, as they often did over their very special children. His wife, a teacher over at the elementary school, called it the Baby Jesus Syndrome, every rich mom thinking her spoiled little brat’s the second coming. He had no doubt the mom would get a call on her cell phone and learn the girl had gone home with a friend, and the mom wouldn’t say “I’m sorry” or nothing, she’d just wave and climb into her SUV and drive off for the post-game pizza party over at Angelo’s, figuring the police department was her private security force to call out anytime she wanted. But when he had arrived on scene and talked to the girl’s coach, Paul Ryan knew immediately that this was a real abduction: a blond man in a black cap had asked for the girl by name.
“Gra-cie!”
All Ryan could see were the five feet of trees and ground cover in front of him illuminated by his Mag flashlight as he advanced deeper into the dark woods.
He hears the others around him, but all he sees now is a vague vision of trees and vines and undergrowth, dense and impenetrable-a jungle. He’s fighting his way through a jungle on a dark night. He hears a child’s distant cry. He picks up his pace, but it’s like trying to run through molasses. He’s got to hurry, something terrible is about to happen, is happening. He hears more cries. He’s drenched in sweat now as he struggles onward through the steamy jungle. Vines strangle him, branches slash his face and arms, undergrowth grabs his boots, the cries grow louder, his breath comes faster, his heart pounds harder against his chest wall — and he suddenly stumbles out of the darkness and into the light. Fires light a hamlet, straw huts burn, and flames spit out of rifle muzzles. He hears the BOOM BOOM BOOM of high-powered weapons, people screaming, pigs squealing, and water buffaloes grunting. He smells the stench of burning animal flesh. He sees women and children being dragged out of their hiding places and thrown into the dirt, the blaze of their burning homes illuminating their terrified faces, their Asian features so delicate and desperate. He watches them being herded up and driven forward down a dirt path, carrying babies wailing in the night and begging for mercy “NO! NO! NO! NO VC! NO VC!”
A young girl, a fragile china doll stripped of her clothes and innocence, stumbles along, desperate to escape the savagery suffocating her, pushed forward by big hands connected to big arms. Terror seizes her face because she’s heard stories about what these men do to pretty young girls like her. She searches for sympathy in the hard faces, and she finds it in his. She turns to him, silently pleading for help. He knows he must save her to save himself: her life and his soul hang in the balance as she falls face down in the dirt. A big hand grabs at her, but he shoves it away and gently lifts her delicate arm. He hears her sobbing voice in her native tongue: “Save me. Please save me.” The china doll turns her face up to him, in slow-motion she turns into the light, and he sees her face, the face of Gracie.
Ben Brice screamed himself awake and sprang to a sitting position in bed, gasping for air. His heart was beating rapidly, his chest and face and hair were matted with sweat, and his ears were ringing. The phone was ringing. He reached for the phone and knocked over the empty whiskey bottle. He put the phone to his ear and spoke.
“What happened to Gracie?”
DAY TWO
Dawn was breaking when Ben parked the old Jeep, grabbed the duffel bag from the passenger’s seat, and double-timed into the Albuquerque airport terminal. His head throbbed with each jarring step. Skiers heading home after the season’s last runs already crowded the gates early on a Saturday morning. He located an arrival/departure
