Vanished (20 page)

“Then video chat.”

“It’s called Skype, Dad.”

“Whatever,” said Mason, employing one of Jake’s favorite terms. “I’m not letting you fall into the same situation as Henley.”

“But Dad, I can’t walk around with a guard all my life!”

“It’s not for all your life. It’s just for a little while.”

“Until when?” the boy pleaded.

Mason understood. Jake felt he was being treated like a prisoner and a child.

Tough shit.

“Hopefully, not much longer. If this kidnapper is cocky enough to purposefully leave some of Henley’s clothes for us to find, then he’s going to trip himself up soon. The FBI is made up of a lot of really smart people. They’ll find him.”

Jake held his gaze, searching Mason’s eyes for the truth behind his statements. Mason projected as much confidence as he could toward his son.

“Are you sure, Dad?” Jake asked softly, his gaze still begging for assurance.

“I’m positive.”

Mason’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and Jake looked away, the intimacy of their moment destroyed. Mason glanced at his phone and didn’t recognize the number, but noticed it was similar to the numbers at his office.

“Callahan.”

“Detective Callahan? This is Derek Alward with Internal Affairs.”

Mason bit his tongue so he wouldn’t swear out loud. “I thought I might hear from you guys.” Jake went and sat on his bed. He watched Mason on the phone, not trying to hide that he was listening. His son’s eyes looked like they belonged to someone much older.

Am I treating him like a child?

“I’d like to set up an appointment for us to chat, Detective Callahan.”

Chat? Like on
Oprah
?

“Tomorrow is Christmas. It’s the one day I really don’t like to report downtown.”

Alward laughed like he’d never heard anything so amusing. “Neither do I. How about the day after?”

“Now, that’s not giving me much of a holiday,” Mason drawled, and Jake narrowed his eyes at him. “How about next Monday?”

Alward coughed. “We’d really like to chat with you sooner than that, Detective Callahan.”

Mason suddenly developed a strong dislike for the word “chat.” “Well, tell you what. I’ve been helping my family out because we’ve got a little girl missing. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. When we find the asshole who kidnapped her, then I’ll be available to
chat.
But right now, I’m a bit tied up. Merry Christmas.” He ended the call and turned his phone off.

“Who was that? A reporter?” Jake asked. “You only talk like that when you’re really pissed or think someone’s being an idiot.”

“Talk like what?”

“Real slow, as if you’re a hick.”

Mason thought about it. “I guess you’re right. He
was
being an idiot, and I was talking slower so he’d understand me.” He turned his focus back to his son and put Internal Affairs out of his head. “Why don’t you come back downstairs and have one of your mom’s cinnamon rolls? It’ll make her feel better.”

Jake made a face. “She’s turned the kitchen into a bakery. I’m sugared out.”

“Yeah, she does that.”

“Dad, tomorrow’s Christmas.”

“I know, son.”

“Henley’s present was in my suitcase. That pillow pet thing.” Jake looked about to cry. “I haven’t been able to go shopping and replace it. I don’t want her to think I didn’t get her anything.”

Mason pulled his son up off his bed and enveloped him in a deep hug.

He didn’t know what to say.

He had the wrong dream again. Wyatt hadn’t visited him in his dreams for a few nights, and usually his visits were calm and happy. He dreamed of his son at the playground near their first house or jumping the waves during a trip to the ocean. He enjoyed his nighttime visits from his boy. Except when they went back to the grocery store where his son had been viciously ripped from his life.

He abruptly sat up in bed, sweating, his heart trying to escape from his chest. He stood and paced the room, trying to slow his breathing, recognizing the panic attack. He’d learned to deal with them over the years, but some nights he wanted to climb out the window to find enough air to breathe. The bedroom walls seemed too close, and he strode to the bathroom for a drink of water. Under the harsh light of the bathroom, he leaned on his hands on the counter and stared into his bloodshot eyes, softly counting backward from fifty.

When he had the upper hand, he faced the dream and let it flow through him. This time the memories were under his control, and he could safely explore the familiar territory.

The lights of the grocery store had been ultrabright. He and Wyatt had made a late-afternoon trip for last-minute items for Christmas Eve. His wife wanted more whipping cream and a particular dessert wine.

He grabbed the whipping cream and stopped in the wine aisle.

“Dad, can I go look at the magazines?” Wyatt asked, bouncing from foot to foot. Kent nodded and let him go, not taking his gaze from the labels of wine bottles.

“I’ll come find you when I’m ready to go,” he tossed after his twelve-year-old, not looking to see if the boy heard him. He scanned the labels, looking for the brand his wife wanted. Spotting it, he grabbed two bottles and wished they were cold. Perhaps he could find a cold one in the refrigerated area. He tucked the bottles under his arm and continued to browse, smiling at the wines that had humorous labels.

Christmas music played over the loudspeakers, and wine-bottle-shaped stockings hung along the wine aisle, tempting buyers to dress up their bottles before giving them as gifts. He touched one, wondering if he should grab it to gift a bottle to his boss.

A woman screamed, and Kent froze.

Jesus Christ. She sounded like she’d been murdered.

“Wyatt?” Kent said. Ice shot up his spine as he glanced around for his son.

Magazines.

He spun on a foot and headed out of the wine aisle. Male shouts made his feet move faster. Another woman screamed, and he started to jog. “Wyatt?” he shouted. He ran across the back end of the aisles, glancing down each one to find the books and magazines. More shouting sent his heart rate escalating. “Wyatt!” he shouted again.

He slid to a stop at the end of an aisle. Magazines.

No Wyatt.

He swallowed hard. Maybe he was looking at the magazines by the check stands.

He ran down the magazine aisle to the front of the store and scanned the check stands. Employees and shoppers were gathered at the front of one aisle. A male employee ran past him, his face alarmed.

“What’s going on?” Kent asked. The man didn’t stop or answer. He shoved a key in an office door and vanished inside.

People had abandoned their shopping carts, blocking the wide front aisle between the check stands and store aisles. In the crowd, women pressed their hands over their mouths. A few men stood at the front of the group, talking to whoever was down the aisle, their hands making calming gestures. Kent pushed through the crowd and looked down the freezer aisle.

A homeless-looking man had his arm wrapped around Wyatt’s shoulders, clasping him to the front of his body.

His knife’s blade dug into Wyatt’s throat.

Kent saw blood.

Wyatt’s wide gaze met Kent’s. “Dad!” he shrieked. The man tightened his arm and pressed harder with his knife. Kent watched blood flow from under his son’s jaw and run down the man’s arm. The man’s hair was long and greasy, his clothes dirty and his shoes torn and ragged. The stink of his body odor and fear filled the aisle. The man’s crazy eyes sought out Kent’s.

Kent stepped forward out of the group, and a man grabbed his arm. “Careful, look.” The shopper pointed past Wyatt at a male shopper propped up against a freezer case fifteen feet behind the knife-man. A smeared trail of blood led from the shopper back to the knife-man and Wyatt. The shopper had a hand clasped over his shoulder, blood oozing heavily between his fingers.

“He tried to pull the boy away,” the man said in a low voice to Kent. “The crazy guy slashed at his chest and was going for his face when he ducked out of the way and fell.” The injured shopper was very pale, and Kent estimated him to be in his seventies. Probably someone who shouldn’t be losing blood so quickly.

Kent stared at his son. Wyatt’s eyes were wide and terrified, pleading with Kent to get him away. His captor scanned the crowd of shoppers, yelling at them to keep back. Kent had no doubt that the man would slash Wyatt’s neck if he wished to.

“I saw the demon!” the knife-man screamed at the people staring at him. Every few seconds he glanced back at the shopper on the floor. Knife-man’s feet wouldn’t hold still, and his arm slid up to trap Wyatt by the throat. “The demon is in his eyes! He lives in his soul!”

Kent pulled his arm out of the other shopper’s grip and took a half step closer.

“Don’t move!” the knife-man shrieked at him. He pulled the knife from Wyatt’s neck and pointed it at Kent. “He has to die!”

Kent’s heart almost stopped. “He’s just a boy. He’s not a demon.”

“He is evil!” the knife-man shouted. “I’ve seen it!” He brought the knife back to Wyatt’s jawline.

“Someone went to call the police,” the man next to him said in a low voice. “We need to keep him distracted until they get here.”

Sweat pooled under Kent’s armpits. What could he do?

Wyatt’s lips moved, but Kent couldn’t make out the words. His boy was terrified.

“That’s not how you kill a demon,” Kent stated. “You need a priest to do it.”

“I am a priest!” the knife-man yelled. “God has commanded me to find and destroy his demons.” The homeless man’s eyes were wide with several levels of insanity.

Kent couldn’t reason with crazy.

Notes of “Silent Night” filled the grocery store, the utter wrongness of it sweeping through Kent. “You can’t kill a demon the night before Christmas,” he pleaded. “It doesn’t work.”

The knife-man blinked at him.

He’d gotten through to him.

“Put down the knife. The boy isn’t a demon. He’s a child.” Kent took another half step closer and held his hand out to the homeless man. A good twenty feet separated him from the two.

“Get back,” the knife-man shrieked. His limbs tensed as he gripped Wyatt tighter.

Kent stopped moving and slowly lowered his arm.

“Shoppers, for your safety, please leave the store,” came a voice over the loudspeaker.

The knife-man cowered behind Wyatt and scanned the ceiling of the grocery store. “Go away! Get back! Don’t speak to me!”

“Attention shoppers, please leave the building.”

“Shut up!” the knife-man screamed at the ceiling. “You can’t see me!”

“Oh my God,” breathed the man next to Kent. “He’s on drugs.”

Kent didn’t care if the man was on drugs or simply nuts. He had to get Wyatt away before he cut him deeper. So far, Wyatt’s cut didn’t seem to be too bad. The knife-man had smeared the blood on Wyatt’s face with his jerky movements, covering his cheek with red.

A murmur of voices behind him made him glance over his shoulder. The crowd of shoppers had diminished to himself and three other men. Two Oregon State patrol officers had stepped inside the store and were talking to an employee. The employee pointed toward Kent and the group, speaking frantically as the officers nodded, assessing the situation.

“Tell them not to use the loudspeaker anymore,” the man next to him said to one of the others, who nodded and darted away.

Good idea.

“I need you guys to leave the store,” said a cop behind them.

Kent shook his head without looking back. “That’s my son. I’m not leaving.”

“Stay away!” Knife-man pointed his knife at the new arrivals. “I hate cops!”

“Hey, Jerry,” said one of the cops in a soothing voice. “I thought you weren’t supposed to come in this store anymore.”

Kent breathed easier. The cops had dealt with the knife-man before.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Jerry yelled at the group. He jerked Wyatt’s head, causing the boy to cry out and Kent to gasp.

“Now Jerry,” continued the cop in the same voice. “That’s a good kid you’ve got there. You don’t want to hurt him. He’s got Christmas presents to open tomorrow.”

“He’s a demon!” shrieked Jerry. His wild gaze went from the still-bleeding shopper on the floor to the cops, then to Kent. His eyes darted madly, no rhythm to their movements.

“Holy shit,” murmured the other cop. “I’ve never seen him this bad.”

Kent glanced at the two cops, noticing that the other male shoppers had backed off. “He on something or just crazy?” The cops looked too young.

The one who’d been speaking shook his head. “Definitely mental issues, but something’s different tonight. We’ve taken him in several times, but usually he’s pretty harmless.”

“He ever hurt anyone?” Kent said quietly, looking back to his son.
Besides my son and the old man on the floor?

“I don’t think so,” said the first cop. “He turned up around here about eighteen months ago. We’ve been dealing with him ever since.”

“He’s never pulled anything like this,” said the second cop. Both cops had one hand close to their weapons, but they hadn’t drawn them. “We’ve got backup coming with a mental-health counselor. Just keep him talking. See if he’ll put down the knife.”