The Abduction (17 page)

“Her body, it is very cold.”

“My daughter is not dead!”

Angelina opened her eyes to a woman she recognized from TV. The mother. She was very beautiful, even when angry, as now.

“No,
Señora
, she is not dead. She is cold. She is shivering.”

The mother rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake. We’d do better with a goddamn Ouija board. You’re just here for the reward.”

“No,
Señora
, I do not want your money. I am here because the girl is cold and because she calls out.”

The mother put her hands on her hips like Angelina’s Anglo landlord did when she was late with the rent money. “Really? And what does she call out for?”

“She calls out for someone named Ben.”

“Ben! Ben!”

Kate Brice is straining to see down the jetway at San Francisco International Airport; six-year-old John is standing next to her. It’s 1975 and Ben Brice is coming home. That damn war is finally over.

Passengers begin appearing in the jetway. Her eyes search the crowd for a green beret, but her mind is dreading a repeat of five years earlier in this same airport. They were walking down the concourse; Ben was wearing his uniform, pushing John in a stroller, and ignoring the whispered “baby killer” comments. A young man with long hair suddenly stepped in front of Ben and said, “My brother died in Vietnam because of officers like you!” Then he spat in Ben’s face. Ben grabbed the young man by the throat and pinned him to the wall, terrifying the young man but Kate more. She had never seen that Ben Brice before; his blue eyes were so dark. He could have easily killed the young man, and for a moment, she thought he would. Instead, the darkness dissipated; he wiped the spit from his face, released the frightened young man, and said, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

They had married three days after he graduated from the Academy. It was a fairy tale wedding in the West Point chapel; afterward, still wearing her white wedding dress, she was escorted by Lieutenant Ben Brice in his dress white uniform through the saber arch, an Army tradition. Her fairy tale marriage lasted exactly three weeks. Twenty-one days a married woman, her husband left her for Fort Bragg and Special Forces school. Ben Brice was going to war. He deployed the day after Thanksgiving 1968. She saw him off at the airport; she never saw that man again.

That damn war destroyed the fairy tale marriage she had dreamed of as a girl. She is praying for a fresh start today.

There!
She sees a green beret above a sea of heads … and now his face, tanned and angular, and so handsome. He sees her and smiles.

Ben turned back to her now: the same face, still tanned and angular, and still so handsome. But the smile was gone. He had been walking out to the pool house when she called to him. He came back to her, and they sat on the back porch.

“When will you leave?” she asked.

“When I know where she is.”

Kate studied her husband’s face. “Gracie?”

He nodded.

“You believe that psychic?”

He nodded again.

“Ben, that was odd that she knew your name, but—”

“She’s alive, Kate.”

She calls out for someone named Ben
, the psychic said. Why not me? Why not her mother?

But with Grace, it had always been Ben. And Elizabeth had always hated Ben Brice because he shared a bond with Grace that she did not. Now, sitting alone in her bedroom, her thoughts were not angry; her thoughts were of her father and the bond they had shared.

Her memories were of their time together.

Arthur Austin had been a lawyer, but he did not sell his life by the billable hour, so he had time for his daughter. During their last year together, when she was ten, he had taken her to at least one Mets’ game a week, often leaving the office early to make a weekday game. Mother wasn’t good in the heat, so it was just the two of them. She had been so proud to sit next to her handsome father in his suit and tie, his sharp features and head of thick black hair attracting the eyes of other women. But he belonged to her. Those were glorious days she thought would never end.

How could a thirty-five-year-old man be murdered?

She could still close her eyes and see him lying in the hospital bed at St. Mary’s Catholic Hospital, his eyes shut, the white sheets pulled up to his chin (to conceal his wounds, she realized years later), his skin pale and cold, and Mother saying it was time to say goodbye. But Elizabeth Austin, the good Catholic girl, had said, “No, God will save him.” She had knelt next to his bed and held his cold hand; she had prayed to God to save her father. But God had refused. He had ignored her prayers. He had forsaken her. “I will never forgive you,” she had said to God that day. And she never had.

She had missed her father terribly. But somehow she had gone on with her life, always thinking of everything they would never do together. That was before evil had come into her life. Afterward, she had been relieved her father hadn’t been there; it would have broken his heart to see what his happy ten-year-old daughter had become: a forty-year-old rage-filled lunatic forever haunted by her encounter with evil. Just as it was breaking her heart to imagine what her happy ten-year-old daughter would become—if she survived her encounter with evil.

What if she didn’t?

How could this child’s life story end this way? After the way her story had begun? She had given this child life, and this child had saved her life. How was she now supposed to go on with her life without this child? Without Grace? How was Elizabeth Brice supposed to get up one day—
when, next week or the week after?
—drive to the office, and again care about guilty clients? How was getting a rich white-collar criminal off supposed to fill the empty space inside her?

Her private phone line rang. It was her mother, offering to help in any way she could—which was in no way. It took only a few minutes of pleading to get her to stay in New York.

Mother had been only twenty-nine when Father had died. She had married him right out of high school, while he was in law school. He was her life. After his death, Mother had retreated into her own world, seldom leaving the house, helpless in a harsh world. For all intents and purposes, her mother had died with her father.

And Elizabeth Austin had grown up alone.

“I don’t want to be an only child.”

John squeezed Sam’s shoulder and fought back tears. He had come into Sam’s room to comfort his five-year-old son. Sam had finally begun to grasp the reality that he might never see Gracie again. As had his father.

“I don’t want her room or her stuff,” Sam said. “I just want her to come back. I miss her.” He wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve. “That guy on TV, he said she’s probably dead.”

“She’s not dead,” John said, trying to sound convincing.
“She’ll be back soon, buddy.”

“But you don’t know that for a fact, do you?”

“Huh? Well, no, Sam, I don’t know that for a fact.”

“So you’re just saying that to make me feel better ’cause I’m just a stupid kid.”

John beheld his kindergartner son, indisputable evidence that cloning works.

“Sam, A, you’ve got a one-sixty IQ, so you’re not stupid, and B, I’m saying that because I believe Gracie will come home.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you believe she’ll come home?”

Cripes, Sam was like Microsoft after a competitor!

“Uh, well, because I have faith.”

“In God?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s it.”

“So you believe in God?”

John hesitated. Fact is, he wasn’t sure he did believe in God. As a kid, Little Johnny Brice had often begged God to save him from the bullies’ beatings, but God never did. And John R. Brice hadn’t spent much adult time thinking about God, what with getting the Ph.D., hacking code for a killer app, and now working the IPO. And he went to church with the kids only because Mom would be disappointed in him if he didn’t. A week ago, if Sam had asked such a question, he would have automatically clicked into avoidance mode and responded to Sam like a big brother: “Hey, buddy, God is one of those deep philosophical choices that each humanoid must make for himself or herself, kind of like whether to go Windows or Mac. But look, man, don’t worry about that serious stuff now, wait till you’re older, you know, after your own IPO. Hey, let’s go to the kitchen and get down on some Rocky Road ice cream, dude.”

And that was the role he had played all these years for the kids, which was, in fact, the role he preferred: big brother, pal, buddy. Nothing more had been required of him. And besides, with Elizabeth around, the man-of-the-house role had already been taken.

But now, looking into Sam’s eyes, he could see that Sam needed something more from him. At the office, John was the Big Kahuna because he always had the answers to the toughest technical queries posed by his employees. But their questions paled next to Sam’s: Is there a God? The answer couldn’t be found in the online Help menu. John wanted to say,
Shit, dude, I don’t have a freaking clue!
But his five-year-old son didn’t need the big brother mode; he needed the mature adult fatherly mode. So John lied.

“Of course I believe in God.”

“But you don’t know if there really is a God, do you? I mean, like, you don’t have any evidence that proves He exists beyond a reasonable doubt, right?”

“No.”

“But you believe God is real?”

“Yes.” The second lie required less consideration.

“So you believe Gracie’s coming home because you believe in God and God takes care of kids, right?”

“That’s right.” No consideration at all.

“See, that’s why I decided God is bogus.”

“Sam, don’t say that. God’s not bogus.”

“Well, if God is spending so dang much time taking care of Gracie now, why’d he let that cretin take her in the first place?”

John gave up. “I don’t know, Sam.”

Sam frowned and said, “You think that cretin wants more than twenty-five million bucks to let her go?”

“I … I don’t know.”

Sam stared up at John for a moment, then said, “Your face looks better. From when Mom smacked you.”

“Please take the money.”

Elizabeth touched the image on the computer screen and gently traced the outline of her daughter’s face. She had logged onto the FBI’s website, the
Kidnapped and Missing Persons Investigations
page at www.fbi.gov/mostwant/kidnap/kidmiss.htm. Two columns of pictures and names of children abducted in Saginaw, Texas; Deltona, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Oregon City, Oregon; Jackson, Tennessee; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Chicago, Illinois; San Luis Obispo, California; Las Vegas, Nevada.

Where in America are children safe?

She clicked on the image of her daughter. She saw the same photo of Grace enlarged on a page that read:

http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/kidnap/brice.htm

KIDNAPPING

Post Oak, Texas

GRACIE ANN BRICE

DESCRIPTION

Age: 10

Place of Birth: Dallas, Texas

Sex: Female

Height: 4’6”

Weight: 80 pounds

Hair: Short Blonde

Eyes: Blue

Race: White

THE DETAILS

 
Gracie Ann Brice was kidnapped after her soccer game at approximately 6:00
P.M.
on Friday, April 7, at Briarwyck Farms Park in Post Oak, Texas. She was last seen wearing a soccer uniform, gold jersey with “Tornadoes” on the front and a number 9 on the back, and blue shorts, blue socks, and white Lotto soccer shoes, and a silver necklace with a silver star. Gracie may be in the company of a white male, 20 to 30 years, 200 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes, wearing a black baseball cap and a plaid shirt. He asked for Gracie by name at the park.

REMARKS

 
Gracie Ann Brice has a muscular build, light complexion, and short hair. Her elbows may have recent abrasions.

REWARD

 
The parents of Gracie Ann Brice are offering a reward of $25 million for information leading to her recovery. Individuals with information concerning this case should take no action themselves, but instead immediately contact the nearest FBI Office or local law enforcement agency. For any possible sighting outside the United States, contact the nearest United States Embassy or Consulate.

Elizabeth grabbed both sides of the monitor and put her face against her daughter’s image.

“Take the money! Let her go! Please!”

A child abducted by a stranger warrants a featured slot on the network morning shows and a mention on the evening news. But when the victim’s mother puts a $25 million bounty on the abductor’s head, dead or alive, that’s lead story news.