Fear Has a Name: A Novel (24 page)

But again the opportunities flew past. Before she knew it, Granger had paid, clasped her arm, and they were exiting through the sticker-filled glass doors. Her thoughts flipped to Jack and the pay phone. Granger hadn’t forgotten. He turned right out of the store, toward the phone.

But a man was standing there, bending over slightly, dialing or putting money in.

Granger stopped.

Pamela kept going, like a homing pigeon that would not be denied, but Granger’s arm locked down, hurting her.

“At the next stop.” He turned and headed for the Impala.

“Please, no.” She craned back toward the man on the phone but kept moving with Granger away from it. “I have to call now. I’ve been good. Please, wait.”

Granger continued walking, forcefully pulling her. “Get in my side.” He opened the driver’s door.

Pamela stopped and looked back. The man was still at the pay phone. She faced Granger, short of breath. “If you care for me at all, you’ll wait. Please.”

Granger’s tiny eyes shifted from her to the pay phone, then back to her. “He’s off.”

“Thank you!” She hurried toward it.

“Stop,” Granger grabbed her bicep.

“Ouch!”

His big head swiveled eighty degrees right, then left. “Keep your voice down!”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That hurt. And it scared me.”

“I’m sorry.” He was flustered and blinking. “I’m going with you.”

They walked quickly through the parking lot.

“Here.” Granger pulled his hand out of his pocket and opened it. There must’ve been twelve quarters there.

She looked at him and froze for a second. She hadn’t even thought of needing change. But he had. She put out both hands, tiny compared to his. “Thank you.”

He nodded.

She tried to recall exactly what he had told her she could say … that she was okay, and the more people who tried to find her—

Pamela stopped cold and almost got sick as her eyes fixed on the words scribbled on a small white piece of paper taped crookedly over the coin slot.

OUT OF ORDER.

32

Jack was home, and the house had never been quieter. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been there alone. Amid the late sun and shadows that fell long in the family room, he sat on the ottoman where Pam liked to spread out books or newspapers or knitting. He could hear the faint hum of a mower somewhere in the neighborhood—someone getting the grass cut before dark. How he wished his life were still that simple.

He had gotten home that afternoon from his meeting with Wendy and Archer and pounded out an updated story on Evan McDaniel, with volatile and incriminating references to Andrew Satterfield and his shady past at the church in Denver. He emailed copies of the story to Cecil and Derrick, suggesting that Derrick try to confirm the new information with several of Archer’s contacts in Denver.

Although Jack could not mention the photos of Evan and Sherry in the story or the pending blackmail, because he’d assured Sherry the information was off the record, he did subtly imply that Satterfield might be after Pastor Evan’s job. Jack realized there was much in the story that his editor might reject, but he’d written it as truthfully and powerfully as he could, sent it in, and left it at that. They could water it down if necessary.

Jack tried to reach Archer to let him know he was handing the story off to Derrick, but his call went to voice mail. He would try again later; right now he had more weighty issues to deal with—like finding his wife. Something was terribly wrong, so wrong it was sickening. Pam had not returned to her parents’ house in Cleveland Heights. Granger had not been apprehended. Those were the surreal facts. The room seemed to rotate like a spooky merry-go-round from the power of all the horrifying what-ifs.

He stood with force and crossed to the front door where that creep had broken in.

Calm down.

You don’t know anything’s wrong.

But if Pam were okay—if she were well, healthy, free—she would have been in touch with him long before now.

That was a fact.

Prayer crossed his mind, but he needed to
move
. He headed upstairs to the master bedroom, dug a small suitcase out of the closet, and opened it on the bed. He would let Tommy and Darlene know he was leaving, gas up, and head for Cleveland Heights. He could make contact with DeVry, Pam’s parents, and his folks on the way.

Hopefully, amid all that, he would hear from Pam and everything would be okay again. This would have all been just the beginning of a wicked dream, and things like cutting the grass before dark would once again top his list of priorities.

He gathered T-shirts, boxers, socks; set out his toilet kit and packed it with a razor, shaving cream, toothpaste—

His cell rang. It was Archer Pierce.

“Hey, Archer,” Jack answered.

“This Satterfield thing is turning into a powder keg, Jack.”

“What’s up now?” Jack went on packing with the phone to his ear.

“An anonymous source in Denver just told me the amounts of money Satterfield ripped off from the church there; we’re talking
major
funds,
major
scam artist.”

“Does anyone know this besides you?”

Jack just couldn’t pack with one hand. He stopped over the bathroom sink to focus.

“I don’t think so,” Archer said. “This whole thing’s gone under the radar. I’m talking with my station manager now about doing Satterfield as a whole sidebar to the McDaniel story. I’m ready to go with it, if they let me.”

“Great job,” Jack said. “Listen, Archer, I’ve got a favor to ask. I’m in the middle of a family emergency and am going to be out of pocket.”

“Wow. I’m sorry. Okay …”

“After we met, I updated my latest story with a lot of the new info from you and sent it to my editor, Cecil Barton, and another reporter, Derrick Whittaker. Can I have them keep in touch with you on this thing?”

“Sure, give ’em my cell.”

“I’ll do it. Thanks, man. I owe you.”

“There’ll be more coming out of the church in Denver,” Archer said. “People are starting to talk; they want justice. If it heats up like I think it’s going to, Satterfield’s gonna be facing serious charges.”

“Okay, man. Derrick will be calling you on all that.”

“No problem,” Archer said. “I hope everything works out for you.”

After ending the call, Jack went on stuffing hairbrush, toothbrush, mouthwash, and other familiar items into the toilet kit, sure he was forgetting things. He made a mental note to call Cecil to give him Archer’s cell number.

He threw a travel clock into the suitcase, flip-flops … what else did he need?

The ping of the doorbell echoed through the still house.

What now?

He hurried to the steps, quickly got down to the foyer, and peered through the slats. Officer DeVry stood in uniform with his back to the door, hat in his right hand.

Jack’s heart lurched.

“Officer DeVry.” He opened the door and stepped out. “What’s going on?”

DeVry turned to face him, but the expression on his face was sober, emotionless, unfamiliar.

“Cleveland Heights PD was called to Granger Meade’s childhood home this afternoon by Granger’s father,” DeVry said.

Jack’s insides twisted.

“I hate to tell you this, Jack, but a red Honda Accord registered to your wife was found down an embankment along the driveway; she has not been found. We think Granger’s abducted her. We’ve—”

“Wait, wait.” Everything spun. “Pam’s car, at his house?”

DeVry nodded. “The father says Granger showed up there this afternoon. Local PD had stopped earlier in the day to warn the parents he was wanted and might be in the area. When he showed up, the dad phoned it in.”

“Wait, what was Pam’s car doing there? What about the girls?”

As the reality of each bad scenario became worse, Jack’s brain wigged out. He turned, entered the house. He had to get his things and get up there.

“Jack.” DeVry’s voice came from behind, then a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Jack, calm down. Your girls are fine. They’re still at Pam’s parents’ house; they’re all fine.”

“Pam never got back there?”

“No, Jack.”

“Do they know? My girls?”

“I don’t think the girls know,” DeVry said. “When I called to check on them, I spoke to Pamela’s mother, Margaret. I did tell her what was going on. She … well, she broke down. Her husband had to take the call.”

Jack almost collapsed. He gripped the back of the couch, nodded, and breathed, just focusing on deep breaths, getting air to the brain, lungs.

“What was Pam doing at that house?” He realized he was hoarse, almost whispering.

“No idea.”

“Was there any sign of injury at her car?” He was thinking blood.

“No,” DeVry said. “Nothing to indicate she was hurt.”

“How’d her car get down there?”

“Well, it was dented—”

“This keeps getting worse,” Jack snapped. “Just spill it!!”

“This isn’t easy, Jack. I’m getting there, okay? I’m not going to hide anything from you. The car tracks indicate she tried to get back up the embankment several times. They think she might have just barely made it back up when Granger came down the driveway and bumped her right front quarter panel, sending her back down.”

Jack’s face whooshed like an inferno. “Then what?”

“It looks as though Granger went down the embankment on foot and forced her to go with him, in his car.”

Jack gave a cry as he swirled and smashed the wall, just beneath a mirror, with a crushing right fist. A fissure of pain sizzled up the top of his wrist. He covered it with his other hand and turned away. “Why?” he yelled to God. “Why would you do this?”

“Jack.” DeVry’s voice came near. “We’ve got nationwide alerts out. We’re gonna find them.”

Jack ripped around, still sheltering his aching right wrist and arm. “You’ve been saying that for how long?” he screamed and distanced himself again. “What did we do to deserve this? What did we
do
?”

Without giving DeVry a chance to reply, Jack stormed out the back door and cried out in anguish to the heavens.

Evan had driven and parked at various nondescript spots around the small town of Fort Prince, snoozing, moving the car each time he awoke, watching evening turn to night. His heart was as black as the streets beyond his window.

He was parked diagonally on the town square in front of a sandwich shop that had closed hours ago. The bus station was a five-minute walk. He would leave the car there and head for the station in another ten minutes, no longer caring if his vehicle was found soon or not. That would get him to the station about thirty minutes before the bus left for south Florida and the place where things had always been right with the world. It would be the last place he would ever see.

What had happened to him?

Who had he become?

He sat there, useless and pitiful, so unlike what he used to be even five years ago. Back then, his care and concern for others had brought him such joy and contentment—and he had been able to help so many people. Now the rug had been pulled out from under him. His church was in a hopeless downward spiral. Satterfield had done irreparable damage. At least two of his elders were crooks, and he couldn’t fix it or save them. He and Sherry had gotten way too close. And he knew if he even tried to go back and raise his boys, it would be a disaster.

The life had been sucked out of him.

The only thing that mattered was disappearing.

The dim, yellowish light from the street lamps filtered into the car. The baggie and many pills and orange plastic bottles shined back up at him from the passenger seat.

You got burned out. The ministry took its toll. You were spending more time helping other people—strangers, in many cases—than loving your own wife and boys.

When he finally refused to get out of bed one morning, Wendy had insisted he go for a physical. His doctor, after performing a battery of tests, announced Evan was struggling from a combination of stress and depression; he suggested an antidepressant. “Why not?” Wendy had said. But something in Evan had told him not to get going on them, to try to work through it. After three weeks fighting that battle, he had never felt so sad and hopeless. He called his doctor and asked him to phone in the prescription.

Years and several different prescriptions later, there he sat, nothing more than a dismal blob, a sack of potatoes, a hypocrite who had ruined the lives of a woman who had dedicated her life to him and three fine boys who would each deal with his demons as they became men.

What was most depressing, most sickening of all was that he was the pastor. He was supposed to be the spiritual one, the one nearest to God, the one guiding others through their minefield of problems. Little did they know, Evan faced a bomb-riddled battlefield of his own. His failure and depression became an enormous secret, an albatross that wore him to the bone. He had become vulnerable and weak. A failure before God and his congregation.

He reached around to the floor of the backseat and hoisted the duffel bag into his lap. Undoing the zipper, he reached in and found the cold steel of the semiautomatic. He got it out and held it in front of him in both hands, as if it were a valuable artifact.

Would he be able to do it?

He’d always believed it was deeply sad and disturbing when people took their own lives. He’d thought it a selfish and cowardly act. Who was anyone to declare when his or her life would start or end? That was up to God.

Yet now, sitting there with the reality of it—the possibility of it—resting in his hands, he understood with clarity why a person would end his own life.

Hopelessness, that’s why. Utter, bleak despair.

If God was still listening to him at all, if he would look down on the situation and grant one last request, Evan would ask that he spare Wendy and the boys from ever hearing of the cabin in Springfield and what he was sure would become his supposed “affair” with Sherry Pendergrass.

Lightning illuminated a gray sky whose ceiling was low and packed with thick, menacing clouds. Evan braced for the thunder, which jolted him when it cracked loud and long, making the car shimmy. No rain on the windshield yet.

Time to roll.

He took the keys out of the ignition and removed the silver keychain with “#1 DAD” engraved on it—the boys had given it to him one Father’s Day. He slipped it into his pocket. He removed the car’s remote so he would be able to lock the car then placed the rest of the keys in the glove compartment.

Evan got out of the car. There was no one around. The night was thick with humidity, and a stiff wind assured him rain was coming. He leaned in for the duffel and hesitated as he examined the bag of pills.

He left them, got out, threw the duffel over his shoulder, slammed the door, and locked it. Turning to the sidewalk, he lost his balance but steadied himself. Noticing a large metal grate on the ground by the curb, he stepped over it, stopped, held the remote in front of him and dropped it clanging through the grate into the dark sewer system below.

No turning back now.

Another fissure of lightning ripped open the sky. Thunder boomed. One by one, raindrops snapped at the sidewalk and pelted his head and shoulders.