No matter how desperately I wanted to get home, the doctor refused to release me until the next morning. The state trooper drove me back to Denver. My right wrist ached from the IV the doctor had given me. After two days without food, I should have been ravenous, but the shock of my emotions killed my appetite. I had to force myself to chew slowly on a banana and take small sips from a bottle of orange juice.
When we turned onto my street, I saw the maple trees in front of our Victorian, a van and a station wagon in our driveway, and a Denver police car at the curb. Farther along were other cars and two trucks from local TV stations.
Getting out of the cruiser, I recognized the female television reporter who stalked toward me, armed with a microphone, a cameraman behind her. Her male equivalent from a rival station wasn't far behind. Reporters scrambled from the other cars.
"How the hell did they find out?" I asked.
"Get in the house."
Holding out his arms, the state trooper formed a barrier while I limped across the lawn. The pants and shirt the doctor had lent me (my own had been rags) hung loosely on me, increasing my sense of frailty. I managed to get inside and shut the door, blocking the noise of the reporters shouting my name. But other voices replaced them. A police officer, several men in sport coats, and others holding lab equipment stood in the living room, talking to one another.
One of the men, heavyset, with a mustache, noticed me in the foyer and came over. "Mr. Denning?" The motion of nodding made me dizzy.
"I'm Lieutenant Webber. This is Sergeant Pendleton." He indicated a younger, thinner man, clean-shaven.
"We checked the attic, the basement, and the trees in back. There's no sign of your wife and son," Pendleton said.
For a moment, I didn't understand what the detective was talking about. The officers who'd entered the house the previous night had said that Kate and Jason weren't home. If Petey had taken them in Kate's Volvo, why would the police now have checked the attic and the… I felt sick when I realized that they'd been searching for well-hidden corpses.
"You don't look so good, Mr. Denning. You'd better sit down." Webber guided me into the living room, where the other men shifted to the side. "I'll get you some water."
Despite the fluids the doctor had given me, I still felt parched. When the detective came back with a full glass, I had a moment's disorientation, as if this were his home and I were a guest. I held the glass awkwardly between my bandaged hands and took a swallow. My stomach protested. I managed to ask, "You've no idea where my wife and son are?"
"Not yet," Webber said. "The state police relayed what you told them, but we need to ask you some questions." He looked at the scrapes on my face. "Do you feel strong enough to answer them?"
"The sooner I do, the sooner I'll get my family back." A look passed between them, which I understood only later- they weren't as confident as I was that I'd get my family back.
"It would help if…" Pendleton glanced at where my fingertips projected from the bandages on my hands. "We need to take your prints."
"Take my… But why would…"
"So we can separate yours from the man who kidnapped your family. Which bedroom was his?"
"Go to the left at the top of the stairs." I felt out of breath. "The room's at the end of the hall. On the right."
"That's the one with the baseball glove on the bed," Webber told a technician.
"Baseball glove?" I tensed. "On his bed?"
Pendleton frowned. "Yes. Is that important?"
"The glove was Petey's a long time ago."
"I don't understand."
"He's saying he doesn't want the damned.thing anymore. Because he's got something better."
"Slow down, Mr. Denning. We're not following you."
As a technician pressed my fingertips on an inky pad and then onto a sheet of paper that had a place for each digit, I tried as hard as I could to make them understand.
"Long-lost brother?"
"God help me, yes."
"But how did you know he really was your brother?"
"He told me things only my brother could have known."
The detectives gave each other that look again.
"What's wrong?"
"Just a thought," Webber said. "Maybe you heard what you wanted to hear. Some con men are good at making general statements sound specific. The people they're trying to fool fill in the gaps."
"No. I tested him. He got every detail right."
"They can be awfully clever."
"But it doesn't make sense. A con man's motive would have been robbery. All he'd have needed to do was wait until Kate and I went to work and Jason was at school. He'd have had all day to loot the house. He wouldn't have needed to try to kill me. That was personal. That was Petey getting even!"
Pendleton made a calming gesture. "We're just trying to get a sense of the man we're after."
"For God's sake, a con man wouldn't be stupid enough to add murder and kidnapping to a burglary charge."
"Unless he enjoyed violence."
The direct look Webber gave me was dizzying in its effect. All along, I'd worked to assure myself that Jason and Kate were alive. Now, for the first time, I admitted to myself that Jason might be dead in the mountains, that Kate's body might be lying in a ditch somewhere.
I almost threw up.
Pendleton seemed to sense my panicked thoughts. His tone suggested an attempt to distract me. "You don't happen to have a photograph of him, do you?"
"No."
"With the excitement of the homecoming, you didn't take any pictures?"
"No." I wanted to scream. If only I hadn't let a stranger into my house…
But he isn't a stranger, I tried to tell myself.
What the hell's the matter with you? I thought. After twenty-five years, Petey is a stranger!
"Mr. Denning?"
I looked over at Pendleton, realizing that he'd said my name several times in an effort to get my attention.
"If you're able, we'd like you to walk through the house and tell us if anything's missing."
"Whatever I have to do."
They handed me latex gloves and put on their own. Unsteady, I began in the downstairs rooms, and immediately I noticed that the silverware Kate had inherited from her grandmother was no longer on the sideboard in the dining room. A silver tea set was missing also. In the TV room, the DVD and videotape players were gone, along with an expensive audio/video receiver.
"He'd probably have taken the TV, too," I said bitterly, "except that it's forty-six inches and wouldn't fit in the Volvo. I don't understand why he didn't keep the Expedition. It's got more room. He could have stolen more things."
Webber looked uncomfortable. "We'll talk about it later. Finish checking the house."
The microwave and the Cuisinart food processor were missing from the kitchen. Numerous compact power tools were gone from the garage. My laptop computer wasn't in my office.
"What about firearms?" Pendleton asked. "Do you have any in the house? Did he take them?"
"No guns."
"Not even a hunting rifle?"
"No. I'm not a hunter."
I made my way upstairs and froze at the entrance to Jason's room, seeing his drawers pulled out, his clothes scattered on the floor. It took all my willpower to step inside and look around.
"My son saves his loose change in ajar on his desk," I said.
It wasn't there.
I had an even harder time going into the chaos of the master bedroom. Stepping over some of Kate's dresses on the floor, I stared toward the back of the walk-in closet. "Four suitcases are gone."
As the implication hit me, my knees weakened so much that I had to lean against the doorjamb.
I'd assumed that Petey had ransacked the bureaus and closets because he was in a rush to find things to steal. Now, daring to hope, I took a closer look and realized that Kate's and Jason's clothes weren't just scattered-some of them were missing.
"If they're dead, he wouldn't have packed clothes for them," I told the detectives. "They're alive. They've got to be alive."
In a daze, I followed Webber's instructions and kept looking. Some of my clothes were gone, too. My emergency stash of five hundred dollars was no longer at the back of my underwear drawer. Kate's jewel box was missing, along with a gold Rolex that I wore on special occasions. None of it mattered; only Kate and Jason did.
Throughout, the technicians kept photographing the chaos in the bedrooms and checking for fingerprints. To get out of their way, the detectives took me downstairs. Again I had the sense that the house no longer belonged to me.
"Why the Volvo?" I managed to ask. My voice seemed to come from far away. "You said we'd talk about why he took it. The Expedition would have allowed him to steal more things."
"Yes." Pendleton spoke reluctantly. "But the Volvo has something that the four-wheel-drive vehicle doesn't."
"I don't know what you mean."
"A trunk."
"A…" Understanding forced me to sit.
"Maybe it isn't a good idea to go into the details."
"Tell me." My bandaged hands ached as I clutched the sides of the leather chair. "I need to know."
Webber glanced away, as if he couldn't bear to see my eyes. "The way it looks, he came back here with your son and then subdued your wife. We have to assume they were bound and gagged."
A rope seemed to cut into my wrists.
"He wouldn't have risked driving with them scrunched down in the backseat. Sooner or later, someone would have noticed," Pendleton said.
"So he put them in the…"
"With the garage door closed, nobody would have seen him do it."
"Jesus." Imagining the stench of gasoline and car exhaust, I felt nauseated. "How could they breathe?" I suddenly remembered Petey's haunted look when he'd described how the man and woman had forced him into a trunk.
A shrill beep startled me. Webber reached beneath his blazer and unhooked his cell phone from his belt. As he turned his back and walked toward the piano that Kate enjoyed playing, I barely heard his muted voice.
He put away the phone.
"Something?" I straightened, nervously hoping.
"The Volvo's been found. At a rest stop off Interstate Twenty-five."
"Kate and Jason? Are they-"
"Not with the car. He left the state. Wyoming troopers found the Volvo north of Casper."
"Wyoming?"
"For all he knew, he had plenty of time, and the Volvo wouldn't have been missed for several days," Webber said. "But suppose your wife was expected somewhere Saturday night, or suppose friends were going to arrive, and no matter what he did to persuade her, she wouldn't tell him about it?"
My skin turned cold at the thought of the pain Kate would have suffered.
"His best choice was to get your wife and son away before anyone suspected something was wrong," Webber said. "The nearest ATM for your bank has a record of a six-twenty-one p.m. withdrawal of five hundred dollars, the most that the machine is allowed to take from an account on any one day. The videotape shows a man making the withdrawal, but his head's bowed so his face is hidden."
Sweat chilled me when I realized that Petey had forced Kate to tell him our ATM number.
"It looks like he drove until nightfall, then used the cover of darkness to carjack another vehicle at the rest stop outside Casper. The likely target would have been someone traveling alone, but the driver wasn't found near the rest stop, so we assume that he or she is in the car with your wife and son. Until the driver's reported missing, we won't know what kind of car to search for."
"Three people trying to breathe in a trunk? Jesus."
Something in the detectives' eyes made me guess what they were thinking. As dangerous as Petey was, it might be only two people trying to breathe. He might not have let the driver live.
"Wyoming? But why in hell would he have gone to Wyoming?" At once, I remembered something Petey had said. "Montana."
"You sound like that means something to you," Pendleton said. "What are you getting at?"
"Montana's north of Wyoming."
They looked at me as if I was babbling.
"No, listen to me. My brother said that when he saw me on the CBS Sunday Morning show, he was having breakfast in Montana. In a diner in Butte. Maybe that's why he's heading north. Maybe something in Montana's drawing him back."
For the first time, Webber was animated. "Good." He hurriedly pulled out his phone. "I'll send descriptions of this guy, your wife, and your son to the Montana state police."
"We'll contact the Butte police department," Pendleton quickly added. "Maybe they know something about this guy. If he's been arrested, they'll have a photograph of him that we can circulate."
"Assuming he called himself Peter Denning up there." I stared dismally down at the floor.
"There are other ways to investigate. Kidnapping across state lines means the FBI will get involved. The feds will do their best to match the fingerprints we find with ones they have on file. If this guy ever used an alias, we have a good chance of learning what it is."
I tried hard to believe what they were saying.
"Have you a recent photograph of your wife and son?"
"On the mantel." I looked in that direction. The beaming faces of Kate and Jason made me heartsick. I'd taken the photograph myself. Normally, I hardly knew which button to press on a camera, but that day, I'd gotten lucky. We'd been to Copper Mountain skiing, although falling down was more what Kate and I had done. Jason had been a natural, however. He'd grinned all day. Despite our bruises, so had Kate and I. In the photo, Kate wore a red ski jacket, Jason a green one, the two of them holding their knitted ski caps, Kate's blond hair and Jason's sandy hair glinting in the sun, their cheeks glowing.
"We'll return it as soon as we have copies made," Pendleton said.
"Keep it as long as you have to." The truth was, I hated to part with it. The empty place on the mantel reinforced my hollowness. "Anything else-anything at all-just ask."
What they need more than anything, I thought, is for God to answer my prayers.
Throughout, the phone had rung frequently. I'd been vaguely aware that a policeman had answered it. Now he handed me a list of who'd called, mostly reporters wanting an interview-TV, radio. What had happened would be all over the state by evening.
"Jesus, Kate's parents." Hurrying, I left Webber and Pendleton in the living room. In the kitchen, my bandaged hand shook when I pressed numbers on the telephone.
"Hello?" an elderly man said.
"Ray…" I could hardly make my voice work. "Sit down. I'm afraid I've got bad news."
It made me sick to have to tell them, to hear their lives change in a minute. Neither of them was in good health. Even so, they immediately wanted to drive the three hundred miles from Du-rango through the mountains to Denver. I had a hard time convincing them to stay home. After all, what were they going to accomplish in Denver? Kate's father was breathing so fast that he sounded like he was going to have a heart attack.
"Stay put," I said. "All we can do now is wait." I had a terrible mental image of Kate's father rushing to get to Denver, losing control of his car, and plummeting down a gorge. "You can wait just as easily at home. I'll let you know the instant I learn anything."
Setting down the phone, I took a deep breath, then noticed Webber and Pendleton at the entrance to the kitchen.
"What?" I asked.
"We just got a call from the Wyoming state police," Webber said.
I braced myself.
"A woman from Casper's been reported missing. Saturday evening, she was en route from visiting her sister in Sheridan, which is about a hundred and fifty miles north of where she lives."
"You think my brother carjacked her?"
"The timing fits. Just after dark, she would have approached the rest stop where the Wyoming state police found your wife's Volvo. If the woman had to use the rest room…"
Inwardly, I flinched as I imagined Petey coming at the woman and how terrified she must have been.
"She was driving a 1994 Chevy Caprice," Pendleton said. "Apart from the fact that she was driving alone, her abductor probably singled her out because that type of car has a large trunk. He kept heading north. The Wyoming police gave the license number to the police in Montana, who found the Caprice at a rest stop on Interstate Ninety near Billings."
"Were my wife and son…"
"With the Caprice? No."
Something about Pendleton's tone made me suspicious. "What about the woman who owned it?"
He didn't answer.
"Tell me."
Pendleton glanced at Webber, who nodded as if giving permission.
"Her body was in the trunk."
"Dear God." I didn't want to know, and yet I couldn't stop from asking, "What did Petey do to her?"
"Tied her hands and covered her mouth with duct tape.
She"-Pendleton's voice dropped-"had asthma. She choked to death."
Thinking about the woman's desperate struggle to breathe, I could barely concentrate as Webber explained that Petey could have driven the Caprice from Casper, Wyoming, to Billings, Montana, that same night. He'd presumably carjacked another vehicle at the Billings rest stop. As the driver got out of the car to go to the bathroom, Petey would have lunged from the shadows.
I imagined how horrifying it would have been for Kate and Jason, pressed next to the dying woman in the dark, the air foul, feeling her thrash, hearing her muffled choking sounds, her frenzied movements, her strangled gasps slowing, getting weaker, stopping.
"It's never going to end," I managed to say.
"No, we could be close to boxing him in," Pendleton said. "You predicted right. He was headed to Montana. Probably back to Butte. Billings is on the interstate that leads there. The local police don't have any criminal record for someone named Peter Denning. But they're searching for a man who matches this guy's description, especially that scar on his chin. The driver of the most recent vehicle he carjacked will soon have somebody report him or her missing. Once the Butte police get the make and license number of the vehicle, they can narrow their search. Meanwhile, they're checking motels and any other places they can think of where your brother might be able to hide your wife and son. Butte's not a big city. Believe me, if he shows himself, he'll be spotted."
"But what if Petey senses the danger and leaves?"
"We thought of that. The Montana state police have unmarked cars along the interstate, watching for any white male in his thirties who's driving alone. As soon as the FBI processes his fingerprints, we'll have a better idea of who we're dealing with. The way he operates, he's had practice. He's probably got a criminal record, in which case the feds will come up with a recent mug shot we can distribute."
One of the callers on the list the policeman had handed me was from my office, so I had to phone and again explain what had happened. Saying it out loud reinforced the nightmare. Several times, I heard the buzz of call waiting. Twice, I switched to the incoming call in case it had something to do with Kate and Jason, but both times it was a journalist, and after that, I didn't pay attention to call waiting.
The moment I hung up, the phone rang again. We had caller ID, but most times I'd found it was useless, a lot of the calls listed as unknown caller or, in this case, blocked number. But I answered anyhow, and of course, it was another journalist; after that, I let the policeman answer the phone.
When the lab crew finally left, Webber, Pendleton, and everybody else going with them, the house had never felt so empty. My footsteps echoed off the hardwood floors as I went upstairs. Fingerprint powder smudged furniture, and clothes remained on the bedroom floors. I sat on Jason's bed, inhaling his boy smell. I went into the master bedroom, picked up one of Kate's blouses, and pressed it to my face.
I have no idea how long I remained there. The phone rang again. Ignoring it, I went into the bathroom, took off my borrowed clothes, and tried to take a bath without getting my bandaged hands and my stitched left forearm wet. Dirt and dried blood floated from me. Steam rose, but instead of the water's heat, what I felt was spreading pain as the effect of the pills the doctor had given me began to wear off. The extent of my bruises was appalling. I did my best to shave, then put on fresh clothes, but I begrudged their comfort, telling myself that I didn't deserve it, given the hell that Kate and Jason would be going through.
The doorbell rang. Limping, I needed extra time to get downstairs. Meanwhile, the bell rang again and then again. If this is a reporter…, I thought. When I opened the door, I saw a straight-backed man in a dark suit, with polished shoes and short, neat, slightly graying hair. His lean face was all business.
"Mr. Denning?"
Behind him, out on the street, a camera crew started forward.
"I'm not giving interviews." I stepped back to close the door.
"No, you don't understand. I'm FBI Special Agent John Gader." The man showed his ID. "I kept phoning, but no one answered, so I took a chance and drove over."
"I was… I didn't… Please, come in."
As the reporters neared the house, I shut the door and locked it.
Gader opened his briefcase and took out several small electronic devices. "These are voice-activated tape recorders." He linked one to the living room phone. "Is there a phone in the kitchen?"
He installed a recorder there also. "We'll deal with the rest of the house later. I've already obtained a court order to have your phone tapped and all calls traced, but it never hurts to have a backup system. If the man who took your wife and son phones to demand a ransom, we'll have a recording of it here, as well as through our intercept at the phone company."
"There won't be a ransom demand."
"You never know."
"I do know. My brother doesn't want money. He wants my wife and my son."
"Your brother?" Gader sounded as if he knew only the general parameters of the case.
So, yet again, I explained what had happened. Gader pulled out a pocket-size tape recorder and took notes as a backup. He assured me that the Bureau would give my case its full attention. After he left, it was as if he'd never been present.
Emptiness again enveloped me.
This can't have happened, I thought, straining to convince myself. I'm having a nightmare. I'll wake up soon. Kate and Jason will be back. Everything'll be perfect, the way it was.
But when I woke in the night, pain racking my body, I reached next to me and was confronted by the emptiness on Kate's side of the bed.
Nothing had changed.
As the days stretched on, the Butte police failed to catch Petey or find any sign of Kate and Jason. The Montana state troopers finally stopped watching the interstate.
"He isn't your brother."
"What?"
"The man who took your wife and son isn't Peter Denning," Gader said as he stood at my front door. "His name's Lester Dant."
I felt as if I'd been shoved. "You mean Petey used the name Lester Dant as an alias?"
"No. The other way around."
"For God's sake, what are you talking about?"
"The prints the crime-scene crew found in your house belong to a man named Lester Dant." Gader stepped inside. "Here's the file we have on him. Background. Social Security number. Criminal record."
Bewildered, I sat in the living room and stared at the photograph that came with the documents. Complete with chipped tooth and scarred chin, Petey's face confronted me from a mug shot that had been taken in Butte.
But the file identified the man as Lester Dant. He'd been born in Brockton, Indiana, a year before Petey was born. Over the years, he'd been arrested for, but never convicted of, auto theft, armed robbery, and manslaughter.
"Dant did time for extortion, drug dealing, and rape," Gader said. "It's a miracle he didn't kill you all in your sleep. See where the Butte police have a record on him? Lester Dant got in a bar fight and put a man in the emergency ward. He was released from jail a week before the CBS Sunday Morning broadcast you were on."
"But…" My sense of unreality intensified so much that the living room seemed to tilt. "How did he know so much about Petey?"
"They must have crossed paths," Gader said. "Maybe your brother saw the CBS Sunday Morning show and talked about it with some people he knew, including Dant. Later, in private, Dant got more specifics from him and decided to pay you a visit."
I raised my voice in dismay. "My brother hung around with people like Dant?"
"Maybe your brother had as rough a life as Dant claimed."
"But why in God's name didn't Petey come to see me himself?"
Gader stared at me, and I tensed with the realization that Dant might have killed Petey to prevent him from interfering.
"It doesn't make sense," I told Gader. "If Dant's this vicious, why would he have packed clothes for my son? Why would he have taken Jason along instead of…" The words caught in my throat.
"Killing him?" Gader looked uncomfortable. "I'm not sure that's a topic you want to get into."
"Let me decide that. Answer me."
Gader exhaled slowly. "It's probable that Dant took your son to put pressure on your wife. By threatening to hurt Jason, he could force your wife to submit to him."
I felt as if I'd been struck in the face. "No."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Denning. You asked me to be candid."
"Petey… Lester Dant…"
"Fingerprints don't lie."
"There's got to be a mistake. What Petey told me about when we were kids and how he was abducted-"
"What Dant told you. He probably kept buying your brother drinks to keep him talking, supplying details."
"But it all felt so real. I'm sure he was telling the truth."
"Listen, some of these con men are good-enough actors, they could have won Academy Awards if they'd gone straight."
"It's just that…"
"Everything was a lie. The name of the town in West Virginia where he told you he was held prisoner."
"Redemption."
"There's no such place."
"What?"
"Other parts of his story don't hold together, either. He told you he got the scar on his chin last summer when he fell off a ladder on a roofing project in Colorado Springs."
"That's right."
"Well, our agents showed Dant's photograph to all the roofing contractors in that area. Nobody recognized him. The same with the construction contractors. If somebody had gotten a two-inch gash on his face, they'd remember it, they say. It would have required stitches, but the hospitals in the area don't have any record of a construction worker coming in last summer with that kind of injury. However, the Colorado Springs police have a security-camera tape of a man who looks like Dant beating a clerk in a liquor store robbery. A police car chased his vehicle into the mountains. He may have gotten the injury to his face when his car skidded off a curve and tumbled into a draw. There was blood but no driver when officers climbed down to examine the wreckage."
Bitterness twisted my voice. "Yeah, Petey has a habit of vanishing."
"You mean Dant."
"Sure… Dant."
"We'll get him," Gader said. "The money he took from you won't last long. Eventually he'll have to steal again. One mistake. That's all he has to make, and we'll get him."
"Eventually." The word that Gader had used stuck in my throat. I tried not to think about what was happening to Kate and Jason.
So a man who was my brother or who wasn't my brother but who was pretending to be him had abducted my family and torn my world apart. He'd covered his trail by fooling me and the police into thinking he was going to Butte, Montana. Then he'd vanished off the face of the earth. No other motorists were reported missing for that time period, which meant that the police didn't have a license number and a description of a carjacked vehicle to focus their search. There were numerous reports of stolen cars. Hundreds in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. Thousands nationwide. But when any of these were located, Petey (I still couldn't bring myself to call him Dant) was never linked to them. Perhaps he'd switched license plates with another vehicle. The owner of the other vehicle might have taken quite a while to notice that the plates had been switched, by which time Petey might have stolen another car or switched plates again. Or perhaps Petey had taken the money he got for the things he stole from my house to buy an old car and then showed a fake ID to register the car under an alias that the police didn't know he had. Perhaps. Could have. Might have.
The local TV stations repeated the story. The networks picked it up, especially CBS, which included excerpts from the Sunday Morning segment that Kate, Jason, and I had been in. They emphasized the sick twist that a man who claimed to be my long-lost brother had vanished again, this time with my family. I got calls from men who claimed to have taken Kate and Jason. In graphic detail, they described the torture they inflicted. The police traced the calls, but nothing was learned, except that some people love to aggravate the suffering of others. Several of the callers were charged with obstructing the investigation, but none ever went to jail.
Despair and lack of sleep gave me headaches. I went through the motions of working, but my staff ran the business. I spent most of my time in a trance. As the search lost momentum, it became obvious that unless Petey-again I tried to substitute Dant's name, but I couldn't manage to do so-unless Petey stumbled into a policeman, he was never going to be found, especially if he grew a beard to cover the scar on his chin so his mug shot would no longer resemble him.
Blurred photos of Kate and Jason appeared on milk cartons and in mailers. Have you seen this woman and this boy? the caption read. But if I couldn't recognize the indistinct faces, I couldn't imagine anyone else being able to. I'd never paid attention to the faces on those milk cartons and those mailers when it was someone else's wife or child who was missing. How could I hope that anyone would pay attention when it was my wife and child who were missing?
Friends were supportive initially: phone calls of encouragement, invitations to dinner. But after a while, many wearied of my despair. Unable to come up with fresh expressions of sympathy, they kept their distance.
A few remained loyal, though, and it was from my next-door neighbor, Phil Barrow, that I learned how things could get worse. I was listlessly raking dead leaves in my front yard, vaguely aware that autumn had once been my favorite time of year, frost in the air, wood smoke, the rattle of dead leaves, and now it meant nothing, when I happened to look up and see Phil hug his sweater tighter to his chest, then step off the sidewalk and approach me.
"How are you doing, Brad?"
Kate had once told me that no matter how shitty either of us felt, we should always answer "Never better."
Phil's shoulders moved up and down as if from a bitter chuckle. "Yeah, I can see that. You've been raking that same pile of leaves for about an hour."
"Neatness counts."
Phil looked down at his hands. "I don't know if I should tell you this."
"Oh?" I felt a cold breeze.
"Marge says I shouldn't upset you, but I figure you've got enough trouble without getting more trouble from the people who are supposed to be helping you."
The breeze got colder. "What are you talking about?"
"An FBI agent came to see me at work yesterday."
"John Gader?"
"Yeah, that was his name. He asked me if you and Kate got along. If there were a lot of family arguments. If you ever hit your son."
"What?"
"He wanted to know if you lost your temper when you drank. If you had a girlfriend."
"The FBI suspects me?"
"You son of a bitch."
Gader faltered when I stepped in front of his car in the parking garage of Denver's Federal Building. "Calm down."
"You think I killed my wife and son!"
"I gather that some of your friends told you I'd been asking them questions about you."
"Destroying my reputation is more like it!" Fists clenched, I stepped toward him.
"Take it easy," Gader said.
Its engine echoing, a car drove past in the garage, the driver frowning at us.
"This area has security cameras. It's patrolled," Gader said. "You don't even want to think about assaulting a federal agent on federal property."
"It'd be worth it!"
Gader held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not going to fight you. If you'll calm down and listen…"
Behind him, a door banged open. A guard stepped into the garage's harsh lights. His hand was on his holstered gun. "Is everything all right, Mr. Gader?"
"I'm not sure." Gader's lean face was stern. "Is everything all right, Mr. Denning?"
I squeezed my fists so tightly that my knuckles ached.
"If you go to prison, how's that going to help your wife and son?" Gader asked.
I trembled, feeling anger burn my face.
"Think about what your family needs," Gader said.
I relaxed my fists.
"It's going to be fine, Joe," Gader told the guard. "You can leave us now."
"I'll watch the monitor," the guard said.
"Good idea." Gader waited until the door rumbled shut.
"How could you possibly think I killed my wife and son?"
"It's a standard part of an investigation. When a family member's missing or killed, a lot of times the person responsible is another family member."
"Jesus, how could I have driven the Volvo to Wyoming, then stolen a car and abandoned it in Montana, and somehow have gotten back here to maroon myself in the mountains?"
"You could have if this guy Dant had been working for you."
The depth of Gader's suspicion shocked me. "Why would I have asked Petey to do that?"
"Dant. If you had money troubles and needed the payout from a life-insurance policy, or if you had a girlfriend who made your wife an inconvenience."
I clenched my fists again.
"But there weren't any unusual withdrawals from your bank accounts or your stock portfolio, and there wasn't a hint of scandal about your relations with your family. Besides, I couldn't figure out how you'd have crossed paths with Dant after he got out of jail in Butte and… Quit staring at me like that. The investigation wasn't going anywhere. I had to try a different approach."
"You son of a bitch, you made my friends think I'm responsible for my family's disappearance."
"It wasn't personal. I told you, I was following standard procedure. The point is, you came through the investigation perfectly. You're in the clear."
"Thanks. Thanks a fucking lot."
"You seem determined to avoid using Lester Dant's name," the psychiatrist said.
I didn't answer.
"The FBI did a thorough background check," the psychiatrist continued. "They proved that he's not your brother."
My chest was so tight that I could hardly get the words out. "They think Dant crossed paths with my brother and learned what had happened to him as a child. He decided to switch places with Petey, possibly killed him."
I stared out a window toward a pine tree.
"But you don't believe it," the psychiatrist said.
"I can't."
" 'Can't'?" The psychiatrist evaluated the word.
The tightness spread to my throat. "If I accepted that Dant kidnapped my wife and son, I'd have to admit that, given his profile, he'd have done whatever he wanted to them and…" I couldn't bring myself to say "killed them." I kept staring through the window toward the pine tree. "But if Petey was using Dant as an alias…" My voice broke. "If Petey took them, there's a good chance they're still alive."
The psychiatrist sat forward. "Why do you think that?"
"I've tried to put myself in his place." The tree became a blur. "I've done my best to imagine what Petey must have felt when he came into my house. My loving family, my comfortable surroundings. Petey wouldn't have wanted merely to kill me for destroying his life. He'd have wanted my life, the one I'd made for myself."
I forced myself to continue. "I've analyzed the moment when Petey pushed me into the gorge. I've relived it again and again. I think Petey's plan was to wait until Jason wasn't around and then kill me, making it look like an accident. Then he intended to sympathize with Kate and Jason, to make himself indispensable, and eventually to take my place. The only problem was, Jason saw him push me."
I took a deep breath. "So the plan was ruined. What was Petey going to do? Kill Jason? Make that death look like an accident also? Try to take my place with Kate? No. Jason was an essential part of what Petey wanted. Not just my wife but my family. Obviously, he couldn't live in my house then, not without Jason telling the police what he'd seen. But Petey could steal my family. He could hide them someplace and screw my wife whenever he wanted. He could force my son to treat him like a father." I squeezed the words out. "At least they'd be alive. If Petey and Dant are the same person. If Petey took them. But if Dant's who the FBI claims he is, if he isn't Petey, he probably killed Jason right away and hid his body in the mountains. Then he made the best of a failed plan by looting the house and forcing Kate to go someplace with him, probably the Montana mountains, where he could rape her as much as he wanted before he got bored with her and-" I stopped, unable to admit Kate might be dead.
The psychiatrist narrowed her eyes as if I'd just described hell. But whether it was the hell that Kate and Jason suffered or whether it was the hell of what she considered my delusional mind, I couldn't know.
As I swallowed another antidepression pill, I heard the doorbell ring. The FBI with news, I hoped.
But when I opened the door, I frowned at children in costumes on my porch. Trick-or-treaters. It was Halloween, but I hadn't been aware. I didn't have candy. Not that they cared. They stumbled back as if I was the one in a scary costume. When I tried to explain, they ran from the porch.
I closed the door and shut off the light. Peering out a darkened window, I saw other costumed children, and as I hoped, they passed the house. I couldn't help remembering that Halloween was one of Jason's favorite holidays. How he'd loved to dress up as a space monster or a mad scientist. How I had loved to go out with him. But that wasn't going to happen now. It made me angry that I'd frightened the children. Was my face that twisted with loss? Were my eyes that dark with insanity?
The vial of pills remained in my hand. Cursing, I threw it across the living room. Depression gave way to fury. What was it that Petey had said when he'd first approached me and I'd thought that he was a fake, when I'd told him to get away before I beat the shit out of him? "Brad, you'd have a harder time outfighting me than when we were kids." We'll see, I thought. In that moment, as I heard someone on the street shout to warn children away from my porch, I vowed to stop waiting for the police and the FBI to do something. I had to stop hoping that something would happen. I had to make something happen.
"A theory of substitution?" Gader asked.
"Yes." I was so distraught that I stood in front of his desk instead of sitting. "We know that Petey lied."
"Dant."
"But what if the reason he was so convincing is that he based his lies on the truth? He was in Butte and Colorado Springs at the times he said, after all. He just wasn't doing what he claimed."
"What's that got to do with this theory of-"
"You told me that West Virginia doesn't have a town called Redemption."
"That's correct."
"But what about the rest of the country? Is there a town called Redemption anywhere? Or what about towns in West Virginia whose names have a religious connotation similar to Redemption?"
Gader thought about it. "Possibly. It would help Dant to keep his stories straight."
"Could you check?"
Gader leaned back in his chair. His thin face looked even thinner from weariness. "I'll try. The Bureau has me working double time on…" He pointed toward a thick stack of documents on his desk. "What difference would it make? All that stuff Dant said about his past was a lie to make you sympathize with him."
"But what if it was only partly a lie?"
"It still won't help us find your wife and son. Every lead's been followed. The task force has been disbanded. All we can do is wait for Dant to surface."
"Petey." I strained to keep control. "Damn it, doesn't anything you learn about him take you one step closer to understanding his patterns and where he might go?"
"Sure," Gader said. "Of course." He stood and walked me to his frosted-glass door. "The theory of substitution," he said without conviction. "Certainly. I'll definitely do some checking. By all means, if you think of anything else, just let me know."
"Mr. Payne will see you now," the receptionist said.
I set down the three-month-old Newsweek, which might as well have been up-to-date, given how little I'd paid attention to what was happening in the world. Crossing the small waiting area, I entered an office that was spacious by comparison, although in my own company it would have been considered tiny.
It was austere: a wooden chair, a desk, a computer, another chair. And a fish tank into which a portly, bespectacled man tapped grains of food. His white hair contrasted with the healthy ruddiness of his cheeks. His sport coat was off. He wore yellow suspenders over a blue shirt.
"How are you this afternoon, Mr. Denning?" "Not very good, I'm afraid. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here." Payne nodded, his puffy chin bobbing slightly. "It's for sure nobody comes to me with happy news. I used to internalize it all. At the end of the day, I'd be a wreck. But then I remembered the fish tank in my dentist's office and how it calmed me before I went in to have my teeth drilled. These are just garden-variety goldfish. I don't know if they help my clients, but they do wonders for me.
Would you believe that I used to be a hundred-and-forty-pound bundle of anxiety? But ever since I got these fish, I've"-he spread his arms to his girth-"blossomed."
I had to smile a little.
"That's the spirit, Mr. Denning." Payne set down the box of fish food and eased into the chair behind his desk. "Would you like some coffee? A soft drink?"
I shook my head no.
He laced his fingers over his ample stomach and gave me the most sympathetic look I'd ever experienced. "Then tell me how I can help you."
Haltingly, I explained about Kate and Jason.
Payne nodded. "I read about it in the newspapers and saw the stories on television. A terrible thing."
"My attorney says you're the best private investigator in Denver."
"Maybe he doesn't know a lot of private investigators."
"He says you used to be with the FBI. He says you tracked down a serial killer."
"That's right."
"He says you predicted where a team of interstate bank robbers was going to hit next."
"True."
"And when they were going to do it. He also says you blocked a domestic-terrorist attempt to-"
"But that was only on the weekends."
The joke caught me unprepared.
"Please. All that flattery just makes my cheeks get redder," Payne said. "I was part of a team. We each did our share."
"My attorney says that you did more than your share."
"Did he also tell you that it cost me my first marriage, not to mention a bullet in my knee that forced me to leave the Bureau? I finally got the wisdom to stop having undue expectations of myself. You shouldn't have undue expectations either, Mr. Denning. I'm good, but only because I often see patterns others don't. For something like this, it's important to your emotional health that you don't count on the impossible."
With nowhere else to turn, I swallowed my disappointment. "Fair enough."
"So let me ask you again: How do you think I can help you?"
"The FBI and the police have given up." I tried to keep my voice steady. "It's been six months. I heard somewhere that in missing persons' cases, the more time drags on, the less chance there is of finding the people who are missing." I could barely add, "Finding them alive at least."
"It depends. Every case is different. Statistics are a record of the past, not a prediction of the future."
"In other words, you've got an open mind. You're exactly the person I need. Name any fee you want. Money isn't an issue."
"Money isn't an issue with me, either. I charge the same fee to everyone," Payne said. "But what do you expect I can do that the police and the FBI couldn't?"
"At the moment, they're not doing anything."
"Possibly because there isn't anything to be learned."
"I refuse to believe that."
"Understandably." Payne spread his hands. "But you have to realize that I can't duplicate the resources available to the FBI."
"Of course not. You can listen to new ideas, though. You can… I don't think I've made myself clear. I don't want to hire you just to continue the investigation."
"Oh?" Payne looked mystified. "Then what do you want?"
"I want you to teach me so I can continue the investigation."
"I need a handgun," I said.
"What kind?" The clerk had a beard and a pony tail.
"Whatever's the most powerful and shoots the most bullets."
"Rounds," the clerk said.
"Excuse me?"
"They're not called bullets. They're called rounds. The bullet's the part that blows away from the casing and hits the target."
"Fine. Whatever shoots the most rounds."
"Is this for target shooting or home defense? The reason I ask is, some people believe a shotgun's the best way to deal with a burglar."
"How about one of those?"
"A revolver? It only shoots six. These semiautomatics shoot more. But you'll need to decide which caliber you want: nine-millimeter or forty-five."
"Which is the biggest?"
"The forty-five."
"I'll take it."
"Just so you know your options, biggest isn't always best. The forty-five holds seven rounds in the magazine and one in the firing chamber. But this nine-millimeter over here holds ten rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. A lot of power with eight rounds, versus somewhat less power but eleven rounds."
"How much less power?"
"With the nine-millimeter? Let's put it this way, it gets the job done. Actually, the only reason the magazine in this nine-millimeter holds only ten rounds is that in the mid-1990s, Congress passed an anti-assault weapon law that limits the capacity of handgun magazines. But before the law…"
"Yes?"
"There's a gun show in town Saturday. I'll introduce you to a friend who's willing to sell a prelaw Beretta nine-millimeter that holds fifteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber."
"That's a lot."
"You bet. Don't misunderstand. There's nothing illegal about him selling the weapon. The law only forbids manufacturing or importing magazines that hold more than ten rounds. But because my friend bought his before the law was enacted, it's legal. That model doesn't come on the market often, so I expect you'll have to pay extra."
"Naturally."
"But after that…" The clerk looked uncomfortable.
"After that?"
"No offense. You're obviously new to this. So you don't shoot your foot off, you might want to take some lessons."
In the darkness beyond my window, the first snowstorm of the season gusted, but I hardly paid attention, too busy using Internet addresses that Payne had given me: sites that he said the FBI favored for researching places. Next to my new laptop computer, I had dictionaries and thesauruses to help me find words associated with redemption. Most weren't promising. I couldn't imagine anyone calling a place Atonement, Propitiation, Mediation, Intercession, or Judgment, for example. As it turned out, a village in Utah was called Judgment.
On the wall to my right, I'd attached a large map of the United States. Periodically, I got up and stuck a labeled thumbtack where a place's name had a religious connotation. After several hours, there were tacks all over the country, but no pattern. None was in Montana. I was beginning to understand why Gader hadn't wanted to investigate my theory.
My discouragement increased when I suddenly realized how many places had been named after saints. More thumbtacks got added to the map. I soon didn't have any more.
"How does a person create a false identity?"
Payne considered my question while tapping fish food into the tank. His chair creaked when he settled his weight into it. "The way it used to be done, first you pick a city where you've never lived."
"Why?"
"To prevent your real identity and your assumed one from contaminating each other. If you were raised in Cleveland, you don't want the character you're creating to have come from there, too. Otherwise, someone investigating your new identity might go there, show your photograph around, and find someone who remembers you under your real name."
I nodded.
"So you go to a different part of the country. But avoid small communities where everybody knows everybody else and can tell an investigator immediately whether someone who looks like you ever came from there. Pick a city; there's less continuity; memories are shorter. Let's say you choose Los Angeles or Seattle. Go to the public library there and read newspapers that came out a few years after you were born. You're looking for disasters-house fires, car accidents, that sort of thing-in which entire families were killed. That detail's important because you don't want anyone left alive to be able to contradict your story. Study the obituaries of the victims. You're looking for an ethnically compatible male child who, if he had lived, would be the same age you are now."
"And then?"
"Let's say the victim you choose to impersonate was named Robert Keegan. His obituary will probably tell you where he was born. You send away for a copy of his birth certificate. Not a big deal. People lose copies of their birth certificates all the time. Public-record offices are used to that kind of request."
"But…" I frowned. "If Robert Keegan died, won't there be a note about it on his birth certificate, some kind of cross-reference?"
"Not in the days before computers became an essential part of our society," Payne said. "The year that you were born, information wasn't exchanged efficiently. The authorities would send you the copy of Robert Keegan's birth certificate without giving it another thought. Wait awhile so that a further inquiry about Robert Keegan won't attract attention. Then contact the hall of records for a copy of Robert Keegan's death certificate. The reason I mentioned Los Angeles and Seattle earlier is that the states of California and Washington put Social Security numbers on their death certificates. Many parents apply to get a Social Security number for their children while they're filling out birth certificate forms in the hospital, so the odds are Keegan had one, even though he died young. With his birth certificate and his Social Security number, you can get a driver's license, a passport, and any other major identification that you need. You can get a job, pay taxes, and open a bank account. In short, you can assume his identity." Payne gave me a long look. "But we're not talking about you."
"No, we're talking about my brother. If Lester Dant were dead, could Petey have assumed his identity the way you just explained?"
Payne kept studying me. "Before your brother was first arrested, photographed, fingerprinted, and booked as Lester Dant? Theoretically."
"Then I'm not crazy." I let out a long breath. "Petey and Dant could be the same person. Dant could be Petey's alias."
"But it didn't happen," Payne said.
"What?"
"Your brother didn't assume Lester Dant's identity."
"How can you be so damned sure?"
"Because earlier this morning, I paid a visit to Gader. We knew each other when I was with the Bureau. For old times' sake, I asked to be allowed to review Dant's file."
I felt uneasy about what Payne was leading up to.
"The file was very revealing," Payne said. "You were so insistent that your brother and Dant were the same man, Gader had Dant's background double-checked. There's no death certificate anywhere. Moreover, Dant didn't even apply for a Social Security number until he was a teenager. The signature on the application is consistent with the signatures Dant had to give at the various times he was arrested. Dant and your brother are two different people."
"No."
"It's the truth," Payne said.
"That means my wife and son are dead!"
"Not necessarily. Without evidence to the contrary, there's always a reason to hope."
"Without their corpses, you mean."
Payne didn't reply for a moment. "I'm sorry, Mr. Denning."
I stared toward the fish tank. "You didn't see the look in Petey's eyes when he told me about the goldfish that he and I had buried in the backyard and how the neighbor's cat dug it up. He didn't say it as if he were remembering something he'd heard. His eyes had the clarity of someone who'd been there. That was Petey talking to me."
"Perhaps. But I haven't the faintest idea how you can prove it." "I will." I stood. "Believe me, somehow I will." "Before you go, I've been meaning to ask you something." I stopped at the doorway and looked back at him. "From my years with the Bureau, my nose is sensitive to the smell of cordite. That smell is on my right hand from when we shook hands when you came in. Have you been using firearms, Mr. Denning?"
"Ready on the firing line!" the female instructor barked.
We straightened.
"Ready on the right!"
We checked in that direction.
"Ready on the left!"
Through safety glasses, we checked in that direction, making sure that nobody was doing anything careless.
"One," the instructor yelled, "grip your holstered weapon! Two, draw and aim from the waist! Three, raise your weapon to your line of sight! Four, press the trigger!"
Eight almost-simultaneous shots filled the long, narrow indoor shooting range. They echoed off the concrete walls, my protective earphones making the reports sound oddly distant.
Although the instructor was directly behind me, she too sounded muffled. "Aim to the right of the target! To the left!"
We obeyed, not firing, but checking for other targets, which she'd warned could pop up at any time.
"Weapon to your waist! Secure it!"
As one, the eight of us completed the sequence and took our hands from our holstered firearms.
The range became silent.
"Not bad," she said. "Let's see if anybody hit anything."
Each of us stood in a slot, with a ledge in front for ammunition and spare magazines. A button to the left engaged a motorized pulley that brought in the targets.
The instructor studied the results. "Okay. Nobody hit the bull's-eye, but I don't expect you to at this point. At least none of you missed the target completely. Denning, you hit closest, but you're still a little high and to the left. Practice more dry-firing at home. Stop twisting your wrist when you press the trigger."
She went on to correct the other students. We put masking tape over the holes in our targets, touched a button that returned the targets to the end of the gallery, and straightened when she shouted, "Ready on the firing line!"
I went to a fitness center every day. I'd never been in top physical condition, but since Petey had taken Kate and Jason, I'd fallen apart. A junk-food diet in combination with too much alcohol and no activity had caused me to put on twenty pounds. No longer. I hired a trainer. Knowing that I had to start slowly, I was nonetheless impatient to get on with it. I progressed from thirty to sixty minutes a day on the machines. I started jogging, at first at the center's indoor track and then outside in the cold. One mile. Two. Five. I lost the weight I'd put on. Fat became muscle.
I took self-defense classes. Angle. Force. Mass. Architect's language. I no longer pretended to try to work. As far as I was concerned, I had only one job, so I disbanded my company, giving my employees a generous severance package. When I wasn't preparing myself by shooting and physical training, I spent my time searching the Internet, using other Web addresses that Payne had given me.
In my former life, I'd always been too busy to explore the Internet. Now I was amazed at how much information I could obtain, provided that, thanks to Payne, I knew where to look. I found Lester Dant's birth information, which was exactly as the FBI had indicated: He'd definitely been born in Brockton, Indiana, on April 24, a year before Petey had been born. I searched the databases for every state in the union but couldn't find corresponding death information about Lester Dant. Without proof that Petey had assumed Dant's identity, I grudgingly tested the FBI's theory that Dant had assumed Petey's identity, but no matter how far I spread my search, I couldn't find any proof that Petey had died, and, if he had, whether he'd been murdered.
Thanksgiving (the holiday's name made me bitter) had passed. Kate's parents had asked me to spend it with them. I'd refused, hardly in a social mood. But then I'd thought that they were as desolate as I was and we might as well try to console one another. The three of us drank some wine and watched football in the kitchen while we made the dinner, but I never managed a holiday spirit, constantly worrying that the Denver police or Gader and Payne had mislaid the phone number I'd given them in case Kate and Jason were found while I was away.
For Christmas, Kate's parents came to visit. But as soon as I saw Kate's father, I wished that I'd saved them the trouble and gone to them. I could barely conceal my dismay at how this once tall, robust man had been so stooped by his heart condition, aggravated by worry. As hard as we tried to be festive, we kept remembering former, better Christmases, like when I'd been dating Kate in college and I'd realized I was making progress when she'd invited me to spend Christmas with her and her parents.
Of the many difficult things about the season, choosing the tree had been especially hard for me because Kate and Jason had always joined me-a big family event. As soon as we'd gotten home with it, we'd always begun putting on the decorations, often not finishing until after dark. This time, every bulb that I'd put on the tree racked me with greater loss. Normally, there'd have been plenty of presents under the tree, but this year, Kate's parents and I had agreed not to exchange gifts. After all, there was only one thing we wanted, and it couldn't be put under a tree. As usual, Kate's mother made eggnog. It was as delicious as every other year, but I could hardly get it down. A few days later, they went back to Durango. Kate's father felt so poorly that her mother had to drive.
Phil Barrow invited me next door for a New Year's Eve party. I did my best to be sociable, but for me, the holiday was a wake. I went home an hour before the countdown at midnight. As hard as I tried, I couldn't remember what Kate and Jason sounded like.
Spring came.
May.
June.
They'd been gone a year.
"I'm leaving town," I told Payne.
"Yes, sometimes it's a good idea to get away from bad memories," he said.
"I was hoping that you wouldn't mind if I had my mail forwarded to you."
"Sure," Payne said. "No problem."
"I've asked the police and the FBI to leave messages with you in case they learn something new."
Payne nodded. "I'll phone you the second I hear anything. Just give me the number where you'll be and-"
"At the moment, that's a little uncertain. I'll have to phone you."
"You don't know where you're going?"
"Not exactly."
"But you don't just board a plane without having a reservation to someplace."
"I'm not going on a plane. I thought I'd simply get in my car and drive. See the country. Go wherever the roads take me."
Payne's eyes narrowed. "Who are you kidding?"
"I don't understand."
"Go wherever the roads take you? Give me a break. You're up to something. What is it?"
"I told you. I just need to get away."
"You worry me."
I avoided his gaze and looked at the fish tank.
"Don't tell me-you're going out there to try to find him," Payne said.
I kept looking at the fish tank.
"How the hell do you figure to do it?" Payne demanded. "It's impossible. You don't have a chance."
At last, I looked back at him. "I've done everything else I can think of."
"Without any leads? It's for damn sure you'll be going where the roads take you. All you'll do is wander."
"But I do have leads," I insisted.
Payne leaned his ample body forward. "Tell me."
"It's hard to explain."
"Give it a try."
"Petey wanted to take my place."
"And?" Payne looked baffled.
"Now I'm going to do it in the reverse. I'm going to take Petey's place."
"What?"
"I'm going to put myself in his mind. I'm going to think like him. I'm going to become him."
"Jesus," Payne whispered.
"After all, we're brothers."
"Mr. Denning…"
"Yes?"
"I'm as sorry for you as it's possible to be. God help you."