The Lonely Mile(33)

Inside the air was palpably tense. To the left of the door, Sandra sat on the living room couch, weeping, a damp towel pressed to her forehead by her husband. A police officer stood nearby, uncomfortable and clearly unsure of what to do next. In the kitchen, Agent Canfield stood with a mobile phone pressed to her ear in the center of a cluster of officers and plainclothes people Bill assumed must be other FBI agents. He walked down the hallway, and no one paid him any attention.

Bill shouldered his way through the group of people surrounding Canfield. “What happened? Where’s Carli?”

Canfield mumbled something into her cell phone and snapped it shut. She turned her dark eyes on Bill, and he knew.

“Oh no,” he said.

“We’ll find her.”

“How did he get her?”

“He stole a school bus and impersonated the driver, drove it away from the school grounds filled with kids, then abducted Carli.”

Bill stared at her in disbelief. “He stole an entire school bus? Filled with kids? He was parked right outside her school? How is that even possible? Where is the real driver?”

“Slow down,” she said, holding up her hands. “We sent a squad car to the home of the bus driver a little while ago, so the officers should be reporting back soon, but beyond that, yes, it appears he waited outside the high school in the line of buses. After it was fully loaded, he simply drove away with the bus full of kids.”

“Is anyone else missing?”

“No. When he got about a mile away from the school, he pulled into a parking lot and took Carli off the bus at gunpoint. He hustled her into what we assume was a stolen vehicle and drove her away. No one else was hurt.”

“You! This is all your fault!”


Bill looked toward the sound of anguish and pain and saw Sandra standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. She held the damp towel in front of her with two hands like a weapon and stared accusingly at the knot of people in the center of the kitchen. Twin streaks of tears ran down her cheeks, and her face was flushed and angry. She advanced on him like an avenging angel.

“This is your fault,” she declared again with slightly less volume but even more conviction.

Agent Canfield turned and faced the distraught woman, prepared to take the onslaught. She stood tall, looking Sandra in the eyes as she approached. “I understand you’re upset,” she said. “So are we. We’re shocked that we didn’t see this coming. I never imagined this man would be so bold and break so completely out of the pattern he has established over nearly four years of kidnappings. But I promise you, Mrs. Mitchell, we will leave no stone unturned in the search for Carli. We are going to devote as much of our considerable resources as possible to this search and will not rest until we find your daughter.”

Sandra looked past the FBI agent as if she didn’t exist and trained her gaze on Bill. “This is your fault,” she said for the third time, her voice now low and cold and hard. “You had to be a hero. You had to interfere with that monster a few days ago at the rest area. You focused his attention on this family, and now my little girl is missing. She’s gone, Bill. She’s gone and this is all. Your. Fault. Working eighty hours a week and breaking this family apart, that wasn’t enough for you—oh, no. Now you’ve put our daughter in danger. That psychopath has her now. That monster wouldn’t have known she existed if it weren’t for you! What’s happened to her now? Has he hurt her? Raped her? Is she even still alive? What’s the poor girl going through now, Bill? I’ll never forgive you for this.” She hit him several times in the chest, then burst into tears again.

Bill stood mutely, shocked at her words. They were identical to the thoughts that had raced through his mind when Canfield told him something had happened to Carli. Sandra was right. It was his fault. He had no response to her onslaught because she was right.

Howard walked over and wrapped his arm protectively around his wife, steering her back into the living room. Bill watched their backs until they disappeared. What could he say? He had protected a stranger, a young girl who was now safe and sound in the arms of her parents, and, meanwhile, he had led the monster directly to the door of his own child. His own teenage daughter was now out there somewhere, lost and alone and afraid. Assuming she was even still alive.

Agent Canfield spoke softly, seemingly fearful she might disturb Sandra in the living room and provoke another ugly scene. “There is no evidence to support the notion that Carli is not still alive. We have every reason to believe he has not harmed her at all. We can get her back, Bill—you need to focus on that.”

Bill opened his mouth but didn’t get the chance to say anything, because Agent Canfield’s cell phone rang, the tone shrill and brittle-sounding, and somehow offensive in the live-wire tension of the kitchen. She flipped it open. “Go.” The person at the other end of the connection talked for maybe a minute and then she made a face and said, “Okay, keep me advised.”

The FBI agent flipped her phone shut and addressed not just Bill, but the entire roomful of law enforcement personnel. “That was one of the officers sent to the home of the school bus driver, Mrs. Leona Bengston. They found a significant spill of blood in her front yard and then located her after a short search. She’s dead. The suspect cut her throat, nearly decapitating her in the process, and then stuffed her body in the trunk of a stolen car before stealing her bus. We need to get this guy soon. He’s coming apart at the seams.”