chemotherapy to force the cancer into remission. The battle was proving particularly difficult today because it was completely incomprehensible to Elizabeth Brice how her daughter could have been abducted right from under her husband’s goddamn nose at a goddamn public park!
She had cursed her husband last night at the park, after panic had given way to rage. But first she had panicked and lost complete control, screaming, yelling, grabbing kids and parents-“Have you seen Grace? Have you seen Grace?”-running around in circles and shouting Grace’s name until her voice was hoarse. Then rage had taken its turn in the driver’s seat, and she had lashed out, first at John and then at Grace’s coach: “You pointed Grace out to the abductor? What kind of fucking idiot are you?”
Parents and police had searched the park until late in the night. When the FBI had arrived and assessed the chaotic search efforts, they declared the park a crime scene and ordered everyone out. The search had to be organized, they said. Evidence could be trampled. The park and woods were too vast and dense to thoroughly search at night, and if Grace hadn’t been found after eight hours of searching, she was no longer at the park. So Elizabeth had returned home, prayed in the shower, and dressed; she had been awake now for twenty-seven straight hours, wired on caffeine and adrenaline. She had trained her mind and body to function without sleep; it would catch up with her around the thirty-sixth hour when her mind would give way to her body’s physical exhaustion, and she would sleep. But not now. Not yet. Her body was tiring but her mind remained alert and angry: Damnit, how could John have let someone take her! She clenched her fist and hit the wall.
“Uh, you okay, Mrs. Brice?”
The doorbell rang again, and Elizabeth opened her eyes to a young cop holding a cup of coffee and a donut; he had white powder on his mouth and an indolent expression on his face, as if this were the start of another routine day of donuts and traffic stops. He was a fine example of small-town law enforcement and the reason she had demanded the FBI be called in immediately.
“Yes. But my daughter’s not. Go find her!”
The cop choked on his donut then turned and hurried away. She took several deep breaths to compose herself and then marched down the gallery, resolved thereafter not to act in public like other mothers of abducted children, slobbering pitifully on television and begging for the safe return of her child. Elizabeth Brice, Attorney-at- Law, would go on TV, but not to beg.
She arrived at the formal dining room for the third time that morning. Leaning over the dining table and studying a large map illuminated by the chandelier above were the Post Oak police chief and four uniformed officers. They didn’t notice her.
“A line search,” Chief Ryan was saying. “Start at the south end, proceed due north. Instruct your searchers to walk at arm’s length, slow, this ain’t no goddamn race. They see something, tell ’em to hold up their hands, don’t touch a fuckin’ thing. FBI boys’ll tag it and bag it.” Chief Ryan was stocky but paunchy, like an aging athlete. When he finally noticed Elizabeth standing in the door, he grimaced. “Pardon my French, Mrs. Brice.”
She held up an open palm. “Just find her.”
“Yes, ma’am. Oh, Mrs. Brice, we need clothing Gracie wore recently, something that’s not been washed. For the bloodhounds.” Elizabeth nodded. The chief again addressed his men: “Be in position at nine-thirty sharp. Bobby Joe’ll run the dogs in the woods first, while we walk the playing fields. Then we’ll search the woods again-maybe we’ll have better luck in daylight.”
Elizabeth turned to resume her pacing and came face to face with an earnest young woman wearing a blue nylon FBI jacket and holding a pen to a notepad. They had been introduced earlier, but Elizabeth could not recall the agent’s name.
“Mrs. Brice, what color, size, and brand of underwear was Gracie wearing?”
The agent asked the question as if asking whether she wanted cream in her coffee. Elizabeth clenched back her emotions.
“I don’t know. I left yesterday before she got up. I had a trial. My husband might know, ask him. He let someone take her.”
FBI Special Agent (on probation) Jan Jorgenson watched the victim’s mother march off down the fancy hallway; they called it a gallery. They don’t have galleries in Minnesota farmhouses.
Jan ducked into the kitchen, made sure she was alone, and pulled a protein bar from her waist pack; she hadn’t eaten since last night when the call had come and she didn’t do donuts. She had survived this long without food only because she had carbo loaded the past week for the marathon she was supposed to be running at that very moment. She took a big bite then jumped-someone had jabbed her hard in the back.
“Reach for the sky! ”
A kid’s voice trying to sound older. Jan turned and looked down on the Brice boy, the spitting image of the father. He was holding his right hand like it was a gun and grinning.
“I got that from Woody, in Toy Story.”
He laughed and ran off. She shook her head. His big sister was abducted, and he’s playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers or whatever his game was. The kid didn’t have a clue.
Jan ate the protein bar in four quick bites while watching the small TV on the counter; a reporter standing on the front lawn was saying, “Ransom. John Brice is soon to be a very wealthy man…”
Old news. Jan exited the kitchen, but she could still hear the reporter on the kitchen TV or on the TV in the next room or on other unseen TVs in rooms she passed, as if someone were deathly afraid of missing breaking news: “His company, BriceWare-dot-com, is going public next week, which is expected to make John Brice worth well over-”
Jan entered the study.
“ A billion dollars? ”
Special Agent Eugene Devereaux, the agent in charge, was interviewing the victim’s father. The father nodded blankly. Sitting slumped on the couch, he looked as if he would fall over from exhaustion if not for Agents Floyd and Randall sitting on either side of him like book ends. His curly black hair was a mess, his khakis and blue denim shirt were wrinkled and dirty, the knot of his yellow Mickey Mouse tie was pulled halfway down, and his face was drooped like a balloon after most of the air had leaked out. He appeared even thinner than the last time she had seen him. But what struck her was the incredible sadness in his eyes, brown eyes visible over black glasses sitting low on his nose, the eyes of a man suddenly lost and adrift in a harsh world. His slender fingers were kneading the tie like a rosary.
“She gave this tie to me,” he said to no one in particular.
A telephone attached to Bureau hardware sat on the coffee table in front of the father. An agent wearing headphones was testing the equipment that would record, trap, and trace the ransom call. If the call came. If the motive was money.
“A billion dollars,” Agent Devereaux repeated.
The father looked up at Devereaux and said in a barely audible voice: “He can have it all if he’ll let Gracie go.”
Agent Devereaux dropped his eyes and gave a sideways glance at the other agents. “Mr. Brice, is there any reason someone would want to hurt your family?”
Almost a whisper: “No.”
“Have any threats been made against you?”
“No.”
“Did you fire any employees recently?”
“No.”
“Do you suspect anyone?”
“No.”
“Did you notice any strangers in the neighborhood?”
“No. Those gates are supposed to keep bad people out.”
Agent Devereaux studied the father for a moment, obviously concluding that he was neither the abductor nor a source of information. Devereaux then turned to her.
“Yes, Agent Jorgenson?”
“Sir, I’m completing the detailed description of the victim’s clothing. The mother said Mr. Brice might have the information I need.”
Agent Devereaux nodded. “Proceed.”
