“Find him, feed him, follow him. Don’t let him out of this house or your sight. Comprende? ”
“ Si, senora.” The Hispanic woman exited the entourage.
The mother, to the maid: “Sylvia, call the caterer. They can’t find my daughter on empty stomachs.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She was off before the words had died.
To the officer: “Get those people off my front lawn.”
“I’ll try, Mrs. Brice, but-”
“No buts. Do it. Shoot them if you have to.”
“Uh, yes, ma’am.” The young officer was no match for the mother; he surrendered, shaking his head.
As the mother came closer, Devereaux noticed her eyes, alert and focused, not the vacant, lost eyes he was accustomed to seeing on mothers of abducted children. Devereaux gave her a sincere nod-“ma’am”-as she passed him in the foyer. The morning after her daughter’s abduction and she was dressed for court and in control, barking out orders. Devereaux knew that this was her way of coping, acting as if she were still in control of her life. Of course, she wasn’t; her daughter’s life-and so her life-was now controlled by the abductor.
“She’s one tough broad,” Floyd said.
“She’ll need to be,” Devereaux said, “if the girl wasn’t taken for ransom.”
God, please let it be ransom.
Alone for the moment, Elizabeth Brice paused, leaned her head against the gallery wall, and closed her eyes. Her adrenaline was pumping at a verdict’s-about-to-be-read velocity, but she had no place to go this day, no guilty defendant’s case to plead, no prosecution witness to brutally cross-examine, no closing argument about truth and justice to make to a jury of good and gullible citizens. Nothing to do but pace the house and hope and pray. That morning, in the shower, she had said her first prayer in thirty years.
God, please let it be ransom.
She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. Her heart was beating like she had just put in an hour on the StairMaster. Her disciplined body had surrendered to fear, just as her equally disciplined mind had to anarchy, a mob of thoughts running wild through her head: Where was Grace? Was she dead? Was she alive? Who had her? What had he done to her? Did he want money? Why hadn’t a ransom call come yet? Did the FBI know what they were doing? Would she ever come home? Why me? Why my child? How could John have let someone take her? How?
Damn him!
She felt the rage rise within her, the rage that resided just below her surface, always ready to emerge and take control of any situation, the rage she fought to suppress every day of her life like a patient taking 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.