Flesh

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Jake drove past the elementary school where Kimmy would be attending kindergarten next fall if…don’t think it, he warned himself. To die before she even…

Stop!

He rubbed his forehead. He felt so damn tired. If only he could somehow make all this go away.

When they’d met briefly at headquarters to organize the search, the other six men had all been full of assurances but their eyes gave them away. They expected the worst, and except for Barney they didn’t even know the true scope of the danger.

Jake saw a blonde girl on a swing of the school playground. His heart lurched. He hit the brake.

From this distance, the girl looked a lot like Kimmy. A man was standing behind the swing, pushing her. She wore blue jeans and a white T-shirt. Kimmy was supposed to be dressed in a pink blouse and a green skirt.

But Jake remembered a news story about a girl who’d disappeared in a shopping mall. Her mother alerted security. The mall exits were immediately sealed. And the girl was recognized by her mother when the abductors tried to take her past the guards. Only she no longer looked like a girl. After grabbing her, the two men had rushed her into a rest room, thrown her dress into a waste bin, put her into jeans and a boy’s shirt, cut her hair short, and put a ball cap on her head.

The guy pushing the girl on the swing…

Is her father, Jake thought.

Maybe, maybe not.

She was about Kimmy’s size, with pale skin and hair that looked almost white.

The man pushed her higher and higher. When she flew forward, her hair streamed behind her. When she swung back, it blew across her face.

Watching the man and girl, desperately hoping, Jake slowly cruised to the next street. He turned left. He was closer now, and she still might be Kimmy.

Don’t kid yourself, he thought.

At the next street, he turned left again. The swing set was ahead, just beyond the sidewalk and behind a chain link fence. Jake could only see the back of the girl.

Please.

He drove past the swings. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the girl surge forward, down and up. As the hair blew away from her face, Jake’s hopes fell apart.

He sped away.

Okay, it wasn’t Kimmy. But I’ll find her. I will. Or one of us will. Including Harold and Barney, eight men were searching for her.

One of us…

Where are you, honey? Where?

Jake was at least a mile from the house. Surely, she wouldn’t have wandered this far. But he had been up and down every street and alley, working his way outward in an ever widening circle.

A long time has gone by. She certainly could have come this far.

He turned down an alley that ran through the center of the block. Near the far end of the alley, a red Pinto pulled over to the side. A lanky man in a plaid shirt climbed out. His hand went to his face, and he tugged on his long nose.

The man was far away and out of uniform, but the nosepull gave him away. Mike Felson.

Of course, Jake thought. I’m in Mike’s search sector.

Mike didn’t seem to spot the cruiser.

He walked toward the closed door of a garage and past the garage and lifted the lid of a trash barrel. He peered into the barrel. He put the lid down, stepped to the next trash can, and took off its lid.

Jake groaned. Hugging his belly, he pushed his forehead hard against the upper rim of the steering wheel. He couldn’t stop groaning. He raised his head a few inches and pounded it down on the wheel. Then he did it again.