Snatched (7 page)

Roni stopped the car in front of Brian’s house. The rain was coming down harder, and every few strokes of the windshield wipers brought another rumble of thunder.

Brian said, “We didn’t find Alicia. But we know from that photo that Driftwood Doug has some connection with Bloodwater House.”

“That doesn’t mean he snatched Alicia.”

“Maybe not,” Brian said. “But it must mean
something.
”

 

 

Brian was pretty sure he had beat his mother home, but he knew enough not to come sauntering in the front door. Just on the off chance she was sitting in the kitchen, he circled their split-level house and entered through the basement door. He could claim he had been home all the time. She might believe him.

He entered quietly and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t hear any conversation. More importantly he didn’t hear the radio or the TV. His mother was a news addict. She had to know what was going on in the world all the time.

Brian walked up the stairs that ended in the kitchen. His father was hunched over the kitchen counter. A loaf of bread and a can of tuna sat at the end of the counter. In front of his father were four piles of cards. His father was playing bridge.

Most people played bridge with other people, but his father had devised a way that he could play it with himself. When Brian had asked him why he didn’t play with other people, his dad told him it was just too much trouble. He could play for hours.

“Hey, Dad,” Brian said.

His father lifted his head and smiled as if he had just woken up from a pleasant dream. “Brian, where have you been?”

“Around.”

“I see. I thought maybe you’d left. Are you hungry, son?”

Brian liked it when his dad called him son. “Is Mom coming home for dinner or not?”

“She called again. She thought she’d swing by and eat with us, but then she’s going to have to go back to work tonight.”

Brian looked at the bread and tuna on the counter. “Tuna melts?”

“Yes. Just let me finish this hand. . . .”

Brian took over the sandwich-making process. He made the tuna salad with lots of finely chopped dill pickles. He lined up three pieces of bread on a cookie sheet, slathered on the tuna salad, and completely covered that with thinly sliced cheese.

“Dad, why would someone abduct a teenage girl?”

“I won,” his father declared and slid all the cards back together. “Abduct a girl? Oh yes, your classmate.”

“Yeah. What would be their motive?”

His father took only a moment to think and then he said, “Well, it could be for money, of course. Kidnapping for ransom is not unknown. There are also a number of mental aberrations that might lead to such antisocial behaviors. Early childhood trauma, brain tumor, social marginalization caused by political or cultural pressures, certain chemical imbalances in the brain leading to . . .”

Brian was often impressed by his father’s ability to take a simple question and make it incredibly complicated. He decided to interrupt.

“But what is the most likely reason?”

Bruce Bain stopped talking and thought for a moment. “I believe that most child abductions occur when a parent abducts his or her own child.”

“But why?”

“Often it is a couple who divorce, and the court gives custody to one parent, and then the other parent abducts the child. It must be terrible for the child.”

“Do you think Alicia Camden’s real father might have kidnapped her?”

“Without more facts, I would not care to speculate.”

“What about being kidnapped by an ex-boyfriend? Does that ever happen?”

“Where human relations are concerned, particularly jealousy, almost anything is possible.”

The front door banged open and his mother walked in the door shaking water off her umbrella.

“Hullo, dear,” said Mr. Bain. “Is it raining out?”

“No,” said Mrs. Bain. “It’s pouring.”

Brian turned on the grill and put the sandwiches under the broiler. When he turned back, his mother was smiling at him.

“You made dinner?” she asked.

“No big deal.”

She messed up his hair and kissed him on the cheek. “Mom!” he protested—but actually he was glad she wasn’t still mad at him.

“You’re a good kid,” she said. “Give me a second to wash up and put on a different pair of shoes. These things are killing me.”

When they all sat down at the kitchen counter with the tuna melts perfectly melted, Brian brought up the topic of Alicia’s abduction. “Have you found out anything?”

“We have some ideas, but we haven’t yet located Alicia,” she said, taking a careful bite of her tuna melt. She could never wait until it had cooled off. “Hot,” she mumbled, waving her hand in front of her mouth.

“Do you have any ideas about the motive?”

“Well, keep in mind that we aren’t absolutely certain she has been abducted. She may have gone with someone willingly. We are considering every possibility.”

“But suppose she
was
abducted. Why would someone do that?”

“That’s easy,” said Mrs. Bain. “It usually comes down to love, money, or revenge. By the way, what on earth were you doing at the Thorns’ today?”

“Ted’s a friend of mine. We did that science project together, remember?”

“Oh yes . . . the potato gun.”

“Dad says that most kidnappings are parents snatching their own kids.”

“That’s true, but that usually involves younger children. Why? Did Ted say something about his father?”

“You mean Mr. Thorn?”

“No, his real father.” His mother caught herself. “I mean his biological father.”

“He mentioned him. He lives in Mankato. They hardly ever see him. Is he a suspect?”

“The Mankato police have been trying to locate him.”

“He’s missing, too?”

“According to his neighbor, he left on a fishing trip. I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

“So why do you think he did it? Love, money, or revenge?”

“I didn’t say he did anything. We just want to talk to him.” Mrs. Bain took another bite of her sandwich and chewed, giving Brian a suspicious look. After she had swallowed she said, “Why so many questions? Are you up to something, Brian?”

“No! Nothing!”

“I see,” she said dryly. “How unusual.”

Alicia felt like throwing up. Was it possible to get seasick on a river? Another gust of wind sent the boat rocking. She imagined the boat tearing loose from its moorings and traveling down the Mississippi River, all the way to New Or-leans. She’d always wanted to go there. She imagined herself floating gently through the Mississippi bayous listening to the sound of Cajun music.

When she was in a tough spot, Alicia could always get away. For as long as she could remember, she had been able to escape to fantasies in her imagination. Maybe that’s how she had survived the last few months without going completely crazy.

A wave slammed against the side of the boat, reminding her where she was.

It was getting dark outside. She hadn’t eaten in hours, not since she’d finished her Snickers bar. She tried to persuade herself that might be good. She was always trying to lose weight. Still, her stomach felt like there was a small rat gnawing away at the inside of it.

She couldn’t think about that. Hunger was the least of her problems. Instead, she imagined herself at the home-coming dance. She saw herself spinning across the dance floor in the perfect dress, black, spaghetti straps, fitting her to a T.

A huge gust of wind grabbed at the boat, tipping it almost on its side. She heard the sharp snap of a rope breaking, and then another, and suddenly the boat was spinning and rocking crazily, and the dress flew from her thoughts, and the dance floor vanished.

Roni stared at the big bloody brick squatting in the middle of the table.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Nick said. “Sit down. We’re ready to eat.”

Roni took her seat at the kitchen table, looking warily at what she feared was her dinner. Nick sat down across from her and used a bread knife to cut a thick slice of the catsup-topped meat loaf.

“You were gone a long time,” Nick said. “You must have gotten on well with Alicia.”

One of the things that amazed Roni about her mother was her eternal optimism. She always thought the best of people. In many ways, this worked to her mother’s advantage—people often behaved better than usual because she expected them to.

“Actually, I never saw her,” she said as her mother deposited a thick slab of gray matter onto Roni’s plate.

“Oh? What have you been doing?”

“When I got to Alicia’s there were cops all over the place, but no Alicia.” Roni paused, letting the suspense build for a couple of seconds. “They think maybe she got abducted.”

“Abducted?” Nick dropped the slice of meat loaf she was moving toward her own plate. It hit the table with a thud. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Some guy grabbed her while she was waiting outside the hospital. Her mom’s freaking.”

“I imagine she is! A kidnapping in Bloodwater!” She shook her head and made a second attempt to load the slice of meat loaf onto her plate. “The mayor will be apoplectic.”

Roni stuck her fork into the meat loaf and sawed off a chunk with her knife.

“Mom, is this one of your
special
recipes?”

“It’s low fat, dear. I made it with extra-lean organic beef, soy flour, fat-free yogurt, and bulgur wheat. Remember, you said you wanted to lose a few pounds.”

Roni sampled a small piece. Half a minute later she was still chewing. How tragic that a cow had died to make something so inedible.

“Interesting texture,” she mumbled. She would definitely lose weight trying to eat this concoction. She could feel the calories burning off as she tried to chew a second piece.

“How awful!” Nick said.

At first Roni thought that her mother meant the meat loaf, but Nick was back on the subject of Alicia.

“That poor family has been under so much stress lately. And now this!”

Sometimes it seemed as if her mother knew every single person in this town of thirty thousand people—not only knew them, but knew who they were related to and who they knew and how they knew who they knew.

“What kind of stress?” Roni asked.

“That house, Bloodwater House . . . Arnold Thorn had such good intentions. He wanted to turn it into a showcase. He took out building permits for some major renovations, but they just haven’t been able to find the financing.”

“I thought they were rich.”

“Not rich enough, apparently. That old house is a money pit.”

Roni thought of the photo they had seen on Driftwood Doug’s boat. “Who owned Bloodwater House before the Thorns?”

“Oh, it’s gone through many, many owners. No one stays for long. That house has been nothing but trouble for everyone who has owned it. Let’s see . . . when I first started working for the mayor it was owned by a man named Campbell. He had it for less than a year and then he disappeared. Ran away from some gambling debts, I heard. No one has heard from him since. The bank took over the property and sold it to Douglas and Cecilia Unger, a nice young couple. That house bankrupted them, and poor Cecilia committed suicide. She hanged herself to death from that awful iron fence.”

“What happened to the husband?”

“Obviously he couldn’t live there anymore. He simply walked away from it, and the bank took over the property again. It sat vacant for years before Arnold Thorn came along and bought it.”

Nick took a bite of meat loaf, chewed on it for a while, and swallowed. Roni watched the lump work its way slowly down her mother’s throat.

“It’s a little chewy,” Nick said.

“It doesn’t actually
taste
all that bad,” Roni offered.

Nick pushed her plate away. “How do you feel about ordering a pizza?”

 

After the two of them had put away an entire pepperoni and green olive pizza, Roni helped Nick clean the kitchen. The meat loaf went straight into the trash.

“Maybe next time I’ll skip the soy flour,” Nick said.

“How about next time we skip straight to the pizza,” Roni suggested.

Nick laughed.

One thing about her mom, Roni thought. She had a sense of humor.

When they were done cleaning up, Roni went up to her room and turned on her laptop. Technically, under the terms of her punishment, she was supposed to use her computer for homework only. But
technically,
she had once read, bumble-bees should not be able to fly. She signed on and opened up her mail program. Only one message.

Roni smiled at the e-mail message on her laptop. How had he found her e-mail address? She burped pepperoni and green olive pizza and typed in a reply.

The reply came back almost immediately.