“I don’t care about any of that. I just want my little girl back. Besides, how can I even think about arguing with her when she’s right?”
Canfield shook her head and Bill thought she was going to try to press her point when she changed the direction of the conversation entirely. “We’re splitting up the investigative teams now,” she said. “The locals have been tasked with interviewing all of Carli’s schoolmates who were on the bus this afternoon to try to get a handle on this guy. Maybe he inadvertently let slip where he was taking her or made some other mistake we can use to our advantage.”
Bill nodded, glad to hear something, even for just a moment, to take his mind off Carli and the gruesome scenarios running rampant inside his tortured head. “Makes sense. And what are you going to do?”
Agent Canfield made a face. “I’m taking my people out to comb that poor bus driver’s property for evidence.”
That was two hours ago. Bill had walked back to his van and immediately called the office of his West Stockton store, putting assistant manager George Bentley in charge indefinitely. He had filled Bentley in on the situation and advised him he would not be returning to work for the foreseeable future. Then he called his other store and repeated the exercise with Stefanie Wilson, the manager of that location.
He couldn’t think about working while Carli was missing, but, until he could settle on a course of action, he felt caged, hemmed in.
The hot, dead air circulated listlessly through the apartment, affected only slightly by the single overmatched ceiling fan mounted in the living room. For the hundredth time, Bill considered how nice it would be to bring an air conditioner home from work and stick it in his window, but he had resisted doing that for the completely irrational reason that doing so would attach a permanence to this residence that he simply did not want to acknowledge. The idea that a man now well into his forties, a successful businessman at that—if you could consider the owner of two hardware stores barely avoiding bankruptcy to be successful—could live in such a bare-bones apartment was so depressing that Bill had been determined to avoid it at all costs.
The home he and Sandra had shared with Carli prior to the divorce was nowhere near as palatial as Howard Mitchell’s, but it had been warm and cozy, and comfortable. Three bedrooms, roomy kitchen, casual dining area, comfortable living room, and two-and-a-half baths. Nice. Nothing spectacular, but nice.
After Sandra left, Bill tried staying in the house for a while, but even though he had never considered himself to be any kind of sensitive soul, he quickly discovered the memories were too close and too overwhelming to allow him to stay. They smothered him. They were everywhere. Each square inch of the place reminded him of the life he had shared with Sandra and, of course, Carli back in happier days.
The weight of all those memories, plus the severely restricted cash flow from two barely sustainable businesses, convinced Bill Ferguson in short order that a change would do him good. He put the house on the market at a reasonable price and it sold quickly. His share of the profit from the sale went in the bank, and screw the IRS. They would tax the life out of the money in two years if he didn’t roll it into another home, Bill knew that, but he wanted to put it aside as a head start on paying for Carli’s college, which was coming up faster than he could believe.
Bill found this apartment after a brief search, and immediately rented it. It featured everything he was looking for in a residence—location. It was close to Carli. The building was ancient, with creaky stairs and cracked linoleum and crumbling plaster and undoubtedly substandard wiring, and Bill didn’t care about any of that. It was all irrelevant. The place was close to Carli, and that was good enough for him.
And now Carli was gone.
Bill sipped a soda, not because he was especially thirsty, but because he needed something to occupy his hands as he paced the kitchen floor, over and over, back and forth.
Carli was gone. It was his fault.
He had to do something. He looked at the clock. Five thirty a.m. Ten minutes had passed since he last checked the time. He was miserable.
He had to do something.
CHAPTER 33
CARLI SAT WITH HER right hand cuffed to the bed, trying to force cold, greasy, veggie pizza down her throat. She wasn’t hungry, but knew she should eat, if for no other reason than to keep up her strength. Her dad would be coming for her, of that she was certain, and she had to be prepared. Her kidnapper had confiscated her watch, so she had no idea what time it was. She slogged through the pizza and washed it down with water from a greasy plastic cup.
Carli guessed the kidnapper had been gone forty-five minutes to an hour before returning with their food. When he came back, he had been carrying a gigantic pizza box and a couple of paper plates, a big smile stretching his face. They had shared the pizza sitting shoulder to shoulder on the bed, awkward silences punctuating stilted conversation. The man didn’t seem to notice.
He hadn’t raised the subject of her “training” again, but Carli knew the time would come soon enough. She dreaded it, and tried her best to drag dinner out as long as possible. It wasn’t hard to do. Despite the fact her stomach was empty, she wasn’t hungry, and the thought of eating pizza made her want to gag. She managed to choke down most of one piece while her kidnapper wolfed down three or four.