She felt her body’s regurgitation process gearing up again.
Seven mornings ago, Elizabeth had gotten dressed in this bathroom in her best closing argument outfit; that day had begun like any other day but had ended with Grace gone from her life. How can that be? How can life turn on us in a split second? How can life be so unfair? Harsh? Cruel? Evil? She had asked herself those same questions ten years ago. She had no answers then; she had no answers now. But back then, she had Grace. Now Grace was gone.
“I’m going.”
John was standing in the doorway. She knew he wanted her to go to him and embrace him and say “I love you” to him. He needed her to, and she wanted to. She tried to push herself up from the floor, but she hadn’t the strength. He started to walk away.
“John, I…”
He turned back. She had never been able to give voice to those words. And she could not now. Evil had taken that kind of love from her life. John walked out of sight.
She leaned over the toilet and vomited again.
Ben and Kate walked out of the pool house to find John standing next to a shiny red Range Rover. He was wearing sneakers, jeans, and an MIT sweatshirt. He appeared not a day older than the day he had left for college.
“I’m going with you, Ben.”
Ben reached out and squeezed his son’s shoulder. “I understand your wanting to, son, but this isn’t your kind of work.”
Ben turned away, but John grabbed his arm. “I know that, Ben. This is man’s work, and I’m not much of a man. But Gracie’s my daughter. And if she is alive, I want her back.”
Ben started to order John to stay home, but he saw in John’s eyes the same truth he felt in his heart: finding Gracie was life or death, for her and for him.
“All right, son. We’ll do this together.”
Ben walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle. Kate went to John and embraced him. “Be careful,” she said. Then, in a lower voice she must have thought Ben couldn’t hear, she said, “Do exactly what Ben tells you to do, and we might get Gracie back. This is what he knows.”
The landscape below was bleak and endless. It was Thursday and they were somewhere over West Texas. The plan was to fly to Albuquerque, drive to Ben’s cabin outside Taos, pick up his gear-the kind you can’t take on a plane, he had said-and drive nonstop to Idaho Falls to talk to Clayton Lee Tucker, the last person who had seen Gracie alive.
Ben’s hands were folded in his lap, his eyes were closed, and his breathing was steady and slow. The flight attendant raised her eyebrows at John when Ben failed to respond to her offer of coffee, tea, or juice.
“Coffee, black, for both of us,” John said to her.
He lowered Ben’s tray then his. The flight attendant placed cups of coffee on their trays. John drank his coffee, assuming they would fly in silence; but Ben opened his eyes and spoke.
“Thanks for letting Gracie visit me. She told me Elizabeth was against it but you stood up to her.”
It was, in fact, the only time John R. Brice had ever stood up to his wife.
“Last time I saw her,” Ben said, “we drove down to Santa Fe to deliver a table. When we got there, I took the table into the gallery. She stayed outside to check out the Indians selling their products on the Plaza. When I came back out, she was on the other side standing next to this old Navajo like they’re best friends.” A slight smile. “She was wearing a tribal headdress. She smiled and waved at me. I’ll never forget her face that day.” Ben turned to John; his eyes were wet. “Do you remember the last time you saw her face?”
John leaned back in his seat. He did remember.
Gracie yanks Brenda and Sally to an abrupt halt. It’s suddenly very important that she turn and look back for Dad. That same bad feeling has come over her again, like a nightmare while she’s still awake. The feeling that something really awful is about to happen to her. The same feeling she has experienced for more than a week now, always when she is outside on the playground during recess or at soccer practice or on the way home from school. Like someone is watching her. Waiting for her.
Her entire body is covered with goose bumps.
The sun is in her eyes; she squints. She spots her dad, looking back at her from soccer field no. 2. Usually, when the bad feeling overcame her, she would get close to a grownup and the feeling would leave. But not today. Not now. She wants desperately to run back to her dad.
“Come on, Gracie,” Brenda says, tugging at her arm. “There won’t be any banana snow cones left if we don’t hurry.”
She decides she’s just being a silly girl, something Mom always said was not allowed in her house. She’s in the middle of a big crowd at the park after a soccer game. The bad feeling can’t get her here. She is safe. She smiles and waves at Dad. He waves back with the cell phone. The goose bumps are gone.
They arrive at the concession stand. Holding hands, they weave their way through the crowd of kids and grownups. Sally gets her snow cone first then Brenda orders hers.
“Panty check!”
Gracie whirls around to the snot standing five feet away and taunting her with no adult supervision. Way stupid. The snot realizes her mistake. Her eyes drop to Gracie’s hands, now Ms. Fist and her twin sister. The sneer leaves her face and is replaced by fear. The snot starts to back away, then she runs, but Gracie has her by the hair before they’re behind the concession stand, alone, no big-mouthed butthead jerk football dad to save her now. Ms. Fist, meet the snot’s nose. The snot collapses to the ground like a bunch of pixie sticks.
What a wimp! And she’s eleven!
The snot cups her nose and starts crying like a baby. She looks up at Gracie; her eyes are wide with fear. But her eyes aren’t on Gracie, her fear not of Gracie, but of The goose bumps are back. The bad feeling is back. It’s all over Gracie now, smothering her like a thick blanket on a hot day. It’s behind her. It’s breathing on her. She turns to face it.
Something wet covers her face. She tries to fight it off, but she smells something funny. Every nerve in her body starts tingling and now she’s dizzy; her arms lose all strength, her legs go limp, her eyes want to close. She’s floating now, a gentle bounce. No, she’s not floating; she’s being carried. She hears crunching below her, like someone stepping on dried leaves.
The bad feeling is taking her through the woods.
Gracie’s mind is fading to black; she fights hard to think of something to save herself. She thinks of Ben. She calls out to him, but no words come out of her mouth.
Ben.
With her last ounce of strength and willpower, Gracie reaches up, grabs her necklace, and yanks hard. Her arm drops. Her hand releases the necklace. Ben’s Silver Star.
Save me, Ben…
… A hard bounce startles her awake, but she can barely force her eyes open, just enough to see that wherever she is, it is dark. She hears the drone of a car engine and feels the rumbling of tires against the road beneath her.
The bad feeling is taking her far, far away.
Her eyelids outweigh her will. She can no longer hold them open. She drifts off into that murky world again…
… And coming alive now. But she is groggy, like she can’t wake up all the way. She hears voices. She smells cigarette smoke and fast food and body odor. Her stomach feels really queasy, like she might barf. Her mouth is dry, but she does not lick her lips. She does not move any part of her body. Instead, she opens her eyes to slits.
It’s morning. She’s in a car, wrapped in a scratchy green blanket and lying across the back seat. Up front are two men. The driver has blond hair under a black cap; he’s wearing a plaid shirt. The other man is bigger with a flattop, like Ms. Blake, the P.E. instructor, except his hair is gray. His left arm is slung over the seat back. It’s a very big arm. With something on it she has seen before.