Before the Fall(71)

“Well, I can’t just sit here.”

He caught up to her at the door, grabbed her wrist.

“It’s not—” he said, “she didn’t wander off. She’s two. Someone climbed up to her window and took her. Why? For money.”

“No.”

“But first,” he said, “first they took Frankie.”

She leaned against the wall, her head spinning.

“What are you—”

He put his hands on her, not in a rough way, but firmly, to let her know she was still connected to the earth, to him.

“Frankie knows us. She knows our routines, our finances—or at least a general sense of our finances—she knows which room Rachel sleeps in. Everything. They took Frankie so she could give them Rachel.”

Maggie went over and sat down on the sofa, purse still on her arm.

“Unless she’s working with them,” said David.

Maggie shook her head, shock calming her, making her limbs feel like seaweed floating on the waves.

“She’s not. She’s twenty-two. She goes to night school.”

“Maybe she needs money.”

“David,” said Maggie, looking at him. “She’s not helping them. Not on purpose.”

They thought about this, what it might take to compel a conscientious young woman to give up a sleeping toddler placed in her charge.

Forty-five minutes later, they heard car tires on the driveway. David went outside to meet them. He came back in with six men. They were clearly armed and had what could only be described as a military demeanor. One of the men wore a suit. He was olive-skinned, graying at the temples.

“Mrs. Bateman,” he said. “I’m Mick Daniels. These men are here for your protection and to help me ascertain the facts.”

“I had a dream,” she found herself telling him.

“Honey,” said David.

“About the Montauk Monster. That it was sliding up the side of our house.”

Mick nodded. If he found this odd at all, he didn’t say so.

“You were sleeping,” he told her, “but some part of you heard something. It’s genetic training. An animal memory of spending a few hundred thousand years as prey.”

He had them show him their bedroom and then Rachel’s room, had them retrace their steps. Meanwhile, two of his men examined the perimeter. Another two set up a command center in the living room, bringing in laptops, telephones, and printers.

They met up again with the full group ten minutes later.

“A single set of footprints,” they were told by a black man working a piece of bubble gum, “and two deeper marks directly under the window. We think that’s from the ladder. Tracks lead to a smaller structure on the property, then disappear. We found a ladder inside. Extendable. Tall enough to reach the second floor, I think.”

“So he didn’t bring his own ladder,” said Mick, “he used one that was already here. Which means he knew it was here.”

“We had a rain gutter fall last weekend,” said David. “The landlord came and put it up, used a ladder. Not sure where he got it, but he drove up in a sedan, so he didn’t bring it with him.”

“We’ll look at the landlord,” said Mick.

“No visible tire marks on the road,” said a second man, holding a rifle. “Nothing fresh, at least. No sense of which direction he or they may have taken.”

“I’m sorry,” said Maggie, “but who are you people? Somebody took my baby. We need to call the police.”

“Mrs. Bateman,” said Mick.

“Stop calling me that,” she said back.

“I’m sorry, what would you like me to call you?”

“No. Just—will somebody please tell me what’s happening?”

“Ma’am,” Mick said, “I am a paid security consultant for the biggest private security firm in the world. Your husband’s employer retained my services at no cost to you. I served eight years with the Navy SEALs, and eight more with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’ve worked three hundred kidnapping cases with a very high rate of success. There is a formula at work here. As soon as we figure it out, I promise you we will call the FBI, but not as helpless bystanders. My job is to control the situation from now until we get your daughter back.”

“And can you do that?” Maggie said, as if from another dimension. “Get her back?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Mick. “I can.”





Chapter 26


Blanco



It’s the white walls that wake him. Not just in the bedroom; the whole apartment is embossed in pure ivory—walls, floors, furniture. Scott lies there, eyes open, heart beating fast. To sleep in white limbo, like a new soul suspended in ether waiting for a door to open, for the bureaucratic check box of body assignment, praying breathlessly for the invention of color, can drive a man mad apparently. Scott tosses and turns under white sheets on white pillows, his bed frame painted the color of eggs. At two fifteen a.m. he throws off the covers and puts his feet on the floor. Traffic sounds creep through the double-pane windows. He is sweating from the exertion of forcing himself to stay in bed, and he can feel his heart beating through the walls of his rib cage.

He goes to the kitchen, and considers making coffee, but it feels wrong somehow. Night is night and morning is morning and to confuse the two can lead to lingering displacement. A man out of time, phase-shifted, drinking bourbon for breakfast. There is an itch behind Scott’s eyes. He goes into the living room, finds a credenza, opens all the drawers. In the bathroom he finds six tubes of lipstick. In the kitchen he finds a black Sharpie and two Hi-Liters (pink and yellow). There are beets in the fridge, frazzled and fat, and he takes them out and puts a pot of water on the stove to boil.