“Who else knows that code?” the male cop demanded. “Who besides the people you mentioned?”
“I—my cousin knew it.” I could hardly get the words out. “I let her use my machine one night when she lost her Internet access.”
“Is she in this picture?” the woman asked.
I froze the image on the screen. A professional might be able to decode race or sex from these grainy pictures, but I couldn’t make them out. I shrugged helplessly.
I called Petra’s cellphone but only got her voice mail. I tried the Krumas campaign, but they’d shut down for the night.
The cops sprang into action, calling codes in—44, 273, 60—possible kidnapping, possible assault, possible aggravated burglary. The possibilities were endless and chilling. Squad and tac cars began pouring in while I made the hardest of all the phone calls: the one to my uncle Peter and his wife, Rachel, to tell them their oldest child had disappeared.
2
WILD PARENT
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?” PETER GRABBED MY shoulders and shook me.
“Let go!” I snapped. “This isn’t the way—”
“Answer me, damn you!” He was hoarse, his face swollen with fury.
I tried twisting from his grasp—I didn’t want to fight him—but he dug his hands deeper into my back. I kicked him on the shin, hard. He yelped, more from surprise than pain. His hold on me loosened, and I backed away. He lunged for me, but I ducked and moved farther back, rubbing my shoulders. My uncle was almost seventy, but his fingers still held the strength he’d gotten on the slaughterhouse floor in his teens.
The two dogs were making ominous noises in the back of their throats. Still gasping for breath, I put a hand on their shoulders: Easy, Mitch. Easy, Peppy. Sit. They had caught my anxiety and were yawning and mewling in worry.
“There’s no call for you to carry on like that.” Mr. Contreras had risen to his feet when Peter attacked me. He was an old man himself, close to ninety, but he was ready to fling himself into battle. “Vic here would never put your gal in harm’s way. You can take it from me.”
Considering that Mr. Contreras had flung accusations of his own at me when I reported Petra’s disappearance, I was grateful that he was willing to support me in front of her parents.
“You, whoever you are, mind your own damned business.” My uncle was happy to have a fresh target to attack.
“Peter, yelling, this anger, it isn’t going to help.”
Rachel spoke from the shadows behind the piano. Peter and Mr. Contreras and I were all startled. In the rage of the moment, we’d forgotten my aunt was there.
When I finally tracked her and Peter down the previous night, they were at a campsite in the Laurentian Mountains with their four younger daughters. It was Peter’s secretary in Kansas City who got me the relevant phone numbers and arranged for the corporate jet to fly into Quebec City to pick up the family. Peter and Rachel drove all night to get to the airport. Ashland Meat’s jet dropped Rachel and Peter at O’Hare and went on to Kansas City with the other daughters, where they would stay with Rachel’s mother.
“Petra was pretty nervous the last few days,” I said to Rachel. “She said nothing was bothering her, but I’m thinking now maybe this was weighing on her, this plan to let these thugs into my office.”
“Damn you,” Peter roared. “Petra does not know thugs. You do. You’re the one fucking around with the Anacondas, going out to Stateville to see Johnny Merton behind bars.”
“How do you know about Merton?” I was startled.
Rachel gave a strained, apologetic smile. “Petra and I talk every day, sometimes three times a day. She told us about your meetings with this man in prison. It was interesting news to her.”
“And I heard about it from Harvey, too,” Peter snapped. “He says Vic here disobeyed a direct order from a local judge to stop looking into the affairs of these old gangbangers.”
If I hadn’t been so distraught myself, I would have laughed. “Disobeyed a direct order? I’m not in the Army, Peter. That judge used to be my boss at the PD. He’s afraid I’m going to make him look bad because he did a terrible job on an old case involving one of Johnny Merton’s street soldiers.”
“So what if he did? One less gang member on the street for any reason is all to the good.”
“But, Vic, how can you be sure it was Petra in your office last night?” Rachel said.
She’d asked the question before, but she was so worried she kept forgetting the answer. I explained again about finding her daughter’s bracelet outside the back door.
“And, yes, it could have belonged to someone else, but I don’t think so.”