She started it up.
“Wait,” Nash said.
Pietra turned. “Shouldn’t we hurry?”
“Stay calm.”
He thought a moment.
“What is it?”
“I will drive the van,” he said. “I want you to take her vehicle.”
“What? Why?”
“Because if we leave it here, they will realize that this is where she was grabbed. If we move her car, we may be able to confuse them.”
He tossed her the keys. Then he used the plastic cuffs to tie Reba down. He jammed a cloth in her mouth. She started to struggle.
He cupped her delicate, pretty face in both hands, almost as though he were about to kiss her.
“If you escape,” he said, staring into those doll-like eyes, “I will grab Jamie instead. And it will be bad. Do you understand?”
The sound of her child’s name froze Reba.
Nash moved to the front seat. To Pietra he said, “Just follow me. Drive normally.”
And they started on their way.
MIKE tried to relax with his iPod. Aside from hockey, he had no other outlet. Nothing truly relaxed him. He liked family, he liked work, he liked hockey. Hockey would only last so much longer. The years were catching up. Hard thing to admit. A lot of his job was standing in an operating room for hours at a stretch. In the past, hockey had helped keep him in shape. It probably was still good for the cardio, but his body was taking a beating. His joints ached. The muscle pulls and minor sprains came in greater frequency and extended their stays.
For the first time Mike felt on the downside of life’s roller coaster- the back nine of life, as his golfer friends put it. You know it, of course. When you hit thirty-five or forty, you know on one level that you are no longer the physical specimen you once were. But denial is a pretty powerful thing. Now, at the tender of age of forty-six, he knew that no matter what he did, the slide would not only continue but accelerate.
Cheerful thought.
The minutes passed slowly. He did not bother calling Adam’s phone anymore. He would get the messages or not. On his iPod, Mat Kearney was asking the appropriate musical question, “Where we gonna go from here?” He tried to close his eyes, vanish in the music, but it wouldn’t happen. He started pacing. That didn’t do it. He considered driving around the block on a search, but that seemed stupid. He eyed his hockey stick. Maybe shooting on the goal outside would help.
His cell phone rang. He grabbed it without checking the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Any word?”
It was Mo.
“No.”
“I’ll come over.”
“Go to the game.”
“Nah.”
“Mo-”
“I’ll give the tickets to another friend.”
“You don’t have another friend.”
“Well, that’s true,” Mo said.
“Look, let’s give him another half hour. Leave the tickets at Will Call.”
Mo didn’t reply.
“Mo?”
“How badly do you want to find him?”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember when I asked to look at your cell phone?”
“Yes.”
“Your model comes with a GPS.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“GPS. It stands for Global Positioning System.”
“I know what it stands for, Mo. What are you talking about with my cell phone?”
“A lot of the new phones come with GPS chips built in.”
“Like when they do that triangulation on TV with cell towers?”
“No. That’s TV. That’s also old technology. It started a few years ago with something called a SIDSA Personal Locator. It was mostly used for Alzheimer’s patients. You put it in the guy’s pocket and it was maybe the size of a pack of playing cards and if he wandered off, you could find him. Then uFindKid started doing the same thing with kids’ cell phones. Now it’s built into almost every phone by every phone company.”
“There’s a GPS in Adam’s phone?”
“Yours too, yes. I can give you the Web address. You go on, you pay the fee with a credit card. You click on and you’ll see a map like on any GPS locator-like on MapQuest-with street names and everything. It will tell you exactly where the phone is.”
Mike said nothing.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I’m on it.”
Mike hung up. He hopped online and pulled up the Web address for his cell carrier. He put in the phone number, provided a password. He found the GPS program, clicked the hyperlink and a bunch of options popped up. You could get a month of GPS service for $49.99, six months for $129.99, or a full year for $199.99. Mike was actually dumb enough to start considering the alternatives, automatically calculating what would be the best deal, and then he shook his head and clicked monthly. He didn’t want to think about still doing this a year from now, even if it was a much better value.
It took a few more minutes for the approval to go through and then there was another list of options. Mike clicked on the map. The entire USA appeared with a dot in his home state of New Jersey. Gee, that was helpful. He clicked the ZOOM icon, a magnifying glass, and slowly and almost dramatically, the map started to move in, first to the region, then the state, then the city and finally, right down to the street.
The GPS locator placed a big red dot right on a street not far from where Mike now sat. There was a box that read CLOSEST ADDRESS. Mike clicked it, but he really didn’t need to. He knew the address already.
Adam was at the Huffs’ house.
13
NINE P.M. Darkness had fallen over the Huff house.
Mike pulled up to the curb across the street. There were lights on inside. Two cars were in the driveway. He thought about how to play this. He stayed in the car and once again tried Adam’s phone. No answer. The Huffs’ phone number was unlisted, probably because Daniel Huff was a cop. Mike didn’t have the son, DJ’s, cell phone.
There was really no choice.
He tried to think about how he could explain his being here without tipping his hand. He couldn’t really think of one.
So now what?
He considered heading home. The boy was underage. Drinking was dangerous, yes, but hadn’t Mike done likewise when he was a kid? There had been beers in the woods. There had been shot parties at Pepe Feldman’s house. He and his friends weren’t heavily into the dope scene, but he had hung out at his buddy Weed’s house-clue for parents: If your kid is nicknamed “Weed,” it probably has little to do with legitimate gardening-when his folks were out of town.
Mike had found his way back. Would he have grown up better adjusted if his parents just barged in like this?
Mike looked at the door. Maybe he should just wait. Maybe he should let him drink, party, whatever, and stay out here and then when he came out, Mike could watch him, make sure he was okay. That way he wouldn’t embarrass him or lose his son’s trust.
What trust?
Adam had left his sister alone. Adam refused to return his calls. And worse-on Mike’s end-he was already spying like mad. He and Tia watched his computer. They eavesdropped in the most invasive way possible.
He remembered the Ben Folds song. “If you can’t trust, you can’t be trusted.”
He was still debating how to play it when the Huffs’ front door opened. Mike started to slide down in his seat, which truly felt foolish. But it wasn’t any of the kids he saw leaving the house. It was Captain Daniel Huff of the Livingston police force.
The father who was supposed to be away.
Mike was not sure how to handle this. But it really didn’t matter much. Daniel Huff paced with purpose. He paced on a straight line toward Mike. There was no hesitation. Huff had a destination in mind.
Mike’s car.
Mike sat up. Daniel Huff met his eye. He did not wave or smile; he didn’t frown or look apprehensive either. It might have been Mike’s knowledge of Huff’s occupation, but he looked to Mike very much like a cop who’d pulled him over and was keeping his face neutral so that maybe you’d just admit you’d been speeding or had a stash of drugs in the trunk.