“Jesus,” he said. “Don’t be such a bitch. I came to see David. He in?”
“Right,” she said, taking her eyes away from him. “Yes. In there.” She indicated the doorway leading to David’s office. “Sorry about that just now. Things have been crazy around here.”
David was on the phone and motioned Owen to sit. The windowless space was crammed with piles of papers, invoices, order forms, and letters organized into three different piles.
“Right,” David was saying. “I need a little more time. I’ve been going through a lot around here. Ever read the paper?” He hung up and looked at Owen. “Jesus! Two minutes late and you’d think the bank would have to close down.”
“Idiots,” Owen said, concealing his surprise.
David relaxed a little. “Been a nightmare lately.”
Understatement on all fronts.
“How are you holding up?”
“I don’t know,” David said. “I don’t even know what to do anymore. Carole wants me to act one way. The police have nothing. I sit around here, because every time I go out on the floor, someone offers condolences for something that hasn’t happened.”
“I can’t imagine,” Owen said.
“No one can,” David said. “I couldn’t. You think you would feel a certain way if something really bad like this happened to you. But you really can’t fathom what to feel. You know what I mean?”
Owen didn’t, but he said he did. “Lots of forces at work,” he said. “In the end, it’s really only about getting your son back home. That’s all that matters.”
David put his elbows on the desk and rested his chin in his hands. “I think someone took Charlie,” he said. “I don’t think for one second that he fell in that goddamn river and drowned. He’s a smart boy. He knows that the water is dangerous.”
“A kidnapping, then?”
David shook his head. “No. I think a pervert took him. You saw that story in the paper, right?”
“The Ohio guy?” This was perfect, Owen thought. The guy was primed.
“Damn pervert out here on a vacation, on the goddamn prowl. A registered sex offender! This is what we get for being a tourist destination.”
Owen didn’t say anything. He let David rant.
“I bet half the people I serve here have been convicted of some goddamn crime.”
Still not a word.
“Owen? You all right?”
Owen pretended to snap back to the moment. “Yes, fine. Just thinking about something. Probably nothing.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know,” Owen said. “Probably nothing.”
David looked hard into Owen’s eyes. “You know something.”
“No. No, I don’t. I mean, when you said Ohio . . . my mind flashed on seeing Ohio plates at Columbia Park the morning Charlie went missing. I remember because we seldom see cars from the Midwest. Seems those folks vacation in Branson, Missouri, or places closer to home.”
David got up. “You sure? Did you notice anything else? The car?”
“No,” Owen said. “I was running, pretty much didn’t look up. Just saw the plate. It was Ohio. That’s for sure. Pretty weird, huh? Should I tell the police?”
“No,” he said. “They’ve pretty much ruled out the guy. Goddamn them. I just feel it in my bones that he’s the one that took my son.”
“What are you going to do?” Owen asked.
“Do?”
The two men locked eyes for a long moment, and then Owen shrugged. “If he’s the one.”
David picked up his keys, knocking over one of the three piles of envelopes. Owen could see PAST DUE stamped on several. Loan documents from Washington Federal had been shoved aside. Owen had thought that David and Carole had it all, but now he began to have doubts. She’d made a pile from her time at Google. The house. The cars. The Venetian glass collection. But that didn’t mean it would last forever. Maybe they really had nothing at all?
“I don’t know,” David continued. “The guy’s staying at the Pines. He might have stashed Charlie somewhere.” He rubbed his face, hard. “He’s the last straw. I swear to God he is.”
Five minutes later Amanda caught up with Owen on his way out of the restaurant. She looked anxious and scared at the same time.
“Did they find Charlie?” she asked.
Owen barely slowed. “Huh?” he asked.
She put out her hand to stop him, but he kept going.
“David went out of here like a bat out of hell,” she said. “What did you tell him? Is there news?”
“No,” Owen said. “No news.”
At least there wasn’t any just yet.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MISSING: EIGHTEEN DAYS
The Pines was one of the last places David Franklin ever thought he’d visit. Sex with some tourist who flirted with him at the restaurant? He’d do better than the Pines. Hell, just pull her into the pantry. He recalled the time that his server Carla had rubbed her ass against him—accidentally, she insisted—when she tried to wedge her way past her boss in the kitchen. Rudy, the cook, caught it and gave David the look, said something along the lines of “Why don’t you tap that?”
“Who says I haven’t?” David shot back, although he hadn’t.
Not yet.
“Everyone else has,” Rudy said, leering at Carla as she made her way out of the kitchen, arms loaded with plates of food for a noisy four-top in the front of the restaurant.
The truth was, David hadn’t even considered having sex with Carla before Rudy opened his flytrap. She was pretty and all. Cute figure. Wide-set eyes that literally smiled when she talked about the things that made her happy: her new car, her half-marathon finish in the top ten for her age group, the way she could defuse an unruly customer and still get a big tip.
To David’s way of thinking, Rudy’s comment was a challenge. David was like a compulsive gambler: any challenge fueled behavior over which he had no control.
Rudy said it. David acted on it.
A week or so later he and Carla messed around in the freezer. He pushed her against one of the lockers and the two hooked together like frozen Velcro. He told her she was sexy. She told him he was hot. She leaned into him and he acted as though she was the only thing he’d ever wanted. When the Velcro unsnapped, they stood there acknowledging almost at once that neither one of them really cared for the other.
Carla had thought she’d get a better shift, the one after eight, when the well-heeled tourists from California and Seattle got tipsy, ordered more alcohol than they should, and ran up a bar bill that always translated into the fattest tips of the night.
David had thought that by screwing Carla he’d feel like more of a stud. Now in his fifties, he felt those feelings beginning to wane unless injected with the excitement that comes with exploring a body firmer than his own. Carole had been sexually adventurous when she was with Google and needed to unwind fast: they’d made love on every form on transportation, including a helicopter and a snowmobile. Their lovemaking was rushed and exciting. When Charlie had arrived, and when the house in Bend was finally finished, Carole had all but cut him off. Certainly no more Adventureland. No more blow jobs in the car.