Sara's Game Read online

  A warm breeze blew strands of hair into Sara’s face. She brushed them away, tucking them behind her ear, waiting on Mrs. Bennett to process the information.

  Mrs. Bennett’s mouth tried to produce a response, but no words came out. Lips and jaw and tongue working overtime, producing nothing. She’d gotten stuck in an infinite loop, the same kind of bug in a programmer’s code that left a game character repeating the same action over and over.

  Sara fidgeted. Every second wasted was another second gone from the fading three-hour time period that had, by now, worked its way down to less than two. But the truth was that she had no idea what to do next, where to go, whom to call. Talking to the police would be a step forward, but what then? Would they take her down to the station to answer questions, offer her a cup of coffee and an empty room? What good would that do?

  She could call the phone tree set up by all the parents in their neighborhood. Tell them to keep an eye out in case the kids showed up there, by some miracle. Lacey and Callie had gotten in trouble twice for switching classes. They often wore the same outfits just to be mischievous. They were clever little pranksters...something they had inherited from their father. Was it possible they’d concocted a scheme to ditch school on the last day? Could Jacob have overheard them and decided he wanted to play their game, too?

  Stop grasping. They wouldn’t dare pull a stunt like that. Would they? I mean, really? Would they?

  The hamster wheel caught traction inside Mrs. Bennett’s head. She said, “But who would leave that note?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “We have to call the police, right now.”

  “I made Dave do it. They should be here soon.”

  “Good. Good,” she said. She reached up, pinched the bridge of her nose. “We should’ve done it sooner.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “No, it’s my responsibility. We should’ve called as soon as I put everybody inside on lockdown. But—but I didn’t want to worry you. And I was being stupid and too pigheaded, trying to protect my own reputation. Not on my watch, right?”

  Part of Sara wanted to say, Damn right, it was on your watch, but the other part, the half that realized that it wasn’t Mrs. Bennett’s fault, said, “Don’t blame yourself, blame the asshole who took them.”

  “I should’ve been more proactive,” she said. Mrs. Bennett looked toward the back of the school, pointed. “The police are here. You go, we’ll keep looking. And tell them they can find me back here when they’re ready. I’m going to take full responsibility.” She gave Sara another hug.

  “That’s not necess—”

  “I won’t be able to look at myself in the mirror. It’s okay, Sara, really. Go on now. He’s waving you over. Use my office if you need it.”

  Chapter 4

  Sara

  “Mrs. Winthrop—”

  “Sara’s fine,” she said. “Two less syllables.” She gave a nervous chuckle and then regretted saying it. There wasn’t time for meaningless comments that required explanation. She’d been using the aside to dispense with formalities and as a conversation starter for years, and it was a hard habit to break.

  Don’t ask what it means...just get to the questions.

  The real meaning behind it was a running joke between her and Brian that had never gone away, even in her life without him. They’d had an argument one night, about a week after they were married, over the most efficient way to load the dishwasher. It’d escalated into a notch below a screaming match. Brian had said, ‘Efficiency is the soul of wit, Sara,’ and she’d replied, ‘It’s brevity, ding-dong. Brevity is the soul of wit, and it’s more efficient, because it’s two less syllables.’

  From that day on, whenever an impending disagreement was about to get out of hand, one of them would say, ‘Two less syllables,’ and it would diffuse the situation.

  Detective Jonathan Johnson grinned at her and scribbled something on his notepad. “I know we’re in a hurry here, but if it makes you more comfortable, you can call me ‘DJ.’ You know, for Detective Johnson. Or JonJon, if you’re a four-year-old boy, like my nephew.”

  “That helps,” she lied.

  “I don’t know why I tell people—”

  Sara interrupted. “Can we get started? Sorry, I’m sure it’s—time is sort of...” Anxious, she rubbed her damp palms on her pants.

  His cheeks took on a light shade of pink. “Of course, of course.”

  They sat across from each other in Mrs. Bennett’s office, uncomfortably perched on the straight-backed, hard-as-a-church-pew chairs used by parents, or unruly students as they were dealt their punishments.

  Detective Johnson, DJ, was younger than she had expected. Younger than she’d hoped for, and she wondered how recently he’d been promoted to his position. With her children gone, her world exploding around her, she wanted the best. Someone with experience. Someone with more successful cases filed away in the ‘Solved’ drawer than ones gone cold. She wanted her own Dream Team with Michael and Magic and Larry.

  Instead, sitting opposite of her was a mid-thirties guy who looked like he might have earned his detective’s badge within the last six months.

  Christ, they sent a Boy Scout to look for my kids. Unbelievable.

  DJ leaned forward. “What’re your children’s names?”

  “Lacey and Callie. They’re twins. Ten years old. And then Jacob. He’s five.”

  “Okay,” he said, taking notes. “To the best of your knowledge, when did your children go missing, Sara?”

  “Best guess, around nine o’clock this morning, based on what the principals told me. You have someone at Whitetree, don’t you?” She squirmed in her seat, feeling guilty that she couldn’t be in both places at the same time.

  The young detective scribbled again on his notepad. “We do, we do. And they’re in good hands over there with Detective Barker. He’s been doing this longer—”

  “And you’ve been doing it...how long?” Her heartbeat eased up at the thought of someone with experience, but she couldn’t resist asking.

  DJ smiled like he knew the question was coming. No doubt he’d gotten it before. “I know I look like I just started shaving yesterday,” he said, “but I’ve been in Missing Persons for five years. All with Detective Barker. People call him Bloodhound, so you can trust me—”

  “Did you have more questions, Detective?” Sara scooted forward to the edge of her seat. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but my kids? Your questions?”

  “Definitely. I’m in as much of a hurry as you are, so we’ll get through these double-time, okay?”

  “Yes, sorry, go on.”

  DJ cycled through the standard inquiries about how they had gone missing, had they ever run away before, any friends or immediate family who might be involved, any babysitters with less-than-stellar pasts, any enemies she might have, any strange vehicles in the neighborhood. She answered them all, being as detailed as possible, and before she could mention the cryptic note, the next question had more of an effect on her than she anticipated.

  “And their father? Where is he?”

  “Gone,” was all she could manage.

  “Gone? As in, out of the picture gone, you’re divorced gone...deceased gone?” He added the last bit with some trepidation.

  “I guess not talking about it isn’t an option, huh?”

  “If you think he could be a person of interest, we need those details so we can explore every possible alternative.”

  Before she could realize how ridiculous the notion might be, the possibility of Brian being involved popped into her head.

  Brian? No way...Brian?

  “He wouldn’t,” she said.

  “Ma’am?”

  She didn’t hear the confused question. What if it is Brian? They never found his body and people thought they saw him... Could he be involved? Could he have come back and picked the kids up? Is he on his way to the house right now, hoping to surprise me? God, that would be a cruel way to mak
e an entrance. And after so long. I’ll kick his ass back to wherever he’s been, if that’s the case.

  “Sara?”

  “What?” Her eyes refocused, drawing her back to the present.

  “Everything okay?”

  “What—what was your question?”

  “Your husband?”

  “Right, right. Brian,” she said, taking another couple of seconds to process, then added, “He couldn’t be involved, Detective. He’s been missing for two years.”

  “Missing? Do we have a file on him?”

  “Two years ago, he left for the gym one morning and never came back. You guys found his car in a grocery store parking lot across from Hollywood Bowl. Said there weren’t any signs of foul play, no blood, no strange DNA. No leads whatsoever. He just vanished.”

  “I remember that case. That was your husband?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “I feel like I’m doing nothing but apologizing, but I’m sorry to hear that.” DJ took the opportunity to scribble on his notepad again. Cleared his throat. “I’ll take a look at the files later, but right now, we really need to focus—”

  A knock at the door interrupted him. “Come in,” he said.

  The door opened just far enough for Dave to poke his head inside. “There’s a pho—”

  Sara blurted out, “Did you find him?”

  Dave shook his head. “Phone call for you on line two, Mrs. Winthrop.”

  “For me? Who is it?”

  “Didn’t say. Some woman. Said she needed to speak to you. You can pick it up there at Mrs. Bennett’s desk.”

  Sara exchanged puzzled looks with the detective. “Should I answer it?”

  “Yes ma’am. Could be good news.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She stood up, rushed over to the desk. “Hello, this is Sara Winthrop.”

  The voice on the other end of the line wasn’t female. It was deep. Electronic. Synthesized.

  It said, “The game begins now. You have twenty minutes to get to the Rose Gardens. Alone. Park. Leave your keys in the ignition and the van running. Leave all personal belongings in it. You will be given further instructions. Don’t tell the police where you’re going. If you need proof that this is real, pay attention.”

  She almost fainted when she heard the single-word scream that followed.

  In her van, driving, it played over and over in her mind.

  “Mommy!”

  The ensuing silence had signaled the end, and the beginning.

  Sara had recognized Lacey’s voice. She and Callie both sounded so much alike on the phone, but Lacey’s voice was one note higher than her sister’s. She was terrified, and in pain.

  All of her children’s voices took on a distinct tone whenever they were hurt. Call it a mother’s bond, but she was able to tell the difference between the yelp of a stubbed toe and the wail of a broken arm across all three of them. Lacey’s scream lay somewhere in between.

  Sara’s remorse bulged underneath the surface like a volcano moments before eruption.

  She drove hard, taking every shortcut she could think of, dodging traffic, ducking across parking lots to avoid stoplights and long lines. She eased up on the gas pedal when she crossed paths with a police cruiser, and then floored it again when it was out of sight. She cursed the lack of acceleration in the hybrid, damning the peer pressure from her friends to go green.

  Conservation had nothing to do with her circumstances, she knew, but she had to have some outlet for her rage or she risked exploding right there in her seat. With no idea as to who was behind this stupid game, she had nothing to focus her outbursts on, so taking it out on something she was aware of would have to suffice. For now.

  At that point, she wasn’t beyond choking the life out of whoever was doing this, but until that chance presented itself, cursing the environmentally conscious would suffice.

  She took the Burnside Bridge and glanced down at the minivan’s clock.

  Ten minutes left. I’ll never make it.

  She wondered what Detective Johnson must be thinking or doing after her frenzied dash out of the office. She’d slammed down the receiver, the flush in her cheeks and flared nostrils revealing that the call wasn’t the good news she’d been hoping for.

  Before he’d been able to ask, she’d said, “I have to go. Do not follow me. But here’s your first clue.” She’d fished the note out of her purse and shoved it into his hands. “Find out where that came from. I’ll call you when I can.”

  He’d tried to protest, but his words got lost in the rush of wind at her back.

  And now, making her way across the bridge, she wished she’d had time to give him more information, to tell him what the voice had said, and to work out a plan so she wouldn’t be driving into whatever was waiting for her in the Rose Gardens without backup.

  Playing this so-called game on her own.

  Sara thought about calling Miss Willow, just to hear a comforting voice, but there was no sense in frightening her and risk giving out too much information. But the voice had only said, “Don’t tell the police.” Should she risk letting someone else know?

  No, not yet. Who knows what they’d do to the kids if they found out.

  They.

  Plural. Definitely more than just the person on the phone, given the timed coordination. Which meant she was up against a group of people. She could handle one person if she got the chance. Possibly.

  Sara played it out in her mind. A well-placed kick to the balls, or a forehead to the bridge of a nose, pouncing on him with a knee across his Adam’s Apple, all of her weight pressing down. It was feasible. But a group of people? No way. She imagined standing in a circle, surrounded. Imagined throwing a punch at the nearest person and then getting swarmed by a hive of vicious, grinning henchman.

  She took the exit ramp and passed a young woman, bouncing lightly by on a mid-morning run.

  A woman.

  Why did the fact that it was a woman jogging by click in her subconscious? What was the trigger, and why did it seem important?

  Dave said a woman was on the line for me.

  Some woman.

  She had forgotten that particular detail in her rush to get moving. But was it a decoy? Had they used the voice synthesizer to disguise the person’s real voice as a woman’s? If it was a woman, that narrowed the list of possibilities by half.

  The kids’ pamphlets said kidnappers were likely male, friends or family, and she definitely didn’t know any women capable of something like this.

  She had no family in the area. They were all back in Virginia. Brian had come from a small clan of Winthrops in Washington. His parents had passed. His sister lived in Des Moines. The rest of the aunts (and uncles and female cousins) stayed in the near-perpetual drizzle of Seattle. Her friends were sweethearts with children of their own. Her assistant Shelley, her coworkers, and all the rest of the women at LightPulse were good-natured and friendly. And she hadn’t gotten a hint of resentment from any of them when she had been promoted to Vice President over some of the more seasoned employees. What would be their motivation?

  It couldn’t be anyone she knew, could it?

  Behind closed doors, Sara...

  No. It wasn’t possible. Nobody close. It had to be a stranger. Had to.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  She drove up Knob Hill toward the Rose Gardens, getting closer and closer, rifling through the possibilities, checking off each woman she knew, dismissing them all for different reasons. Most would be at work, leading busy lives. Some were stay-at-home moms keeping control of toddler-induced bedlam with no time to plan a coordinated kidnapping.

  That wouldn’t stop any of them from making a phone call, but none of them have a reason. Not a single one of them would have any reason to do this...would they?

  Chapter 5

  Sara

  Sara arrived at the Rose Gardens with a minute remaining on her deadline. She found a parking spot, got out, and left the keys in the ignitio
n with the minivan running, as instructed.

  She stood with her arms crossed, taking in the surroundings. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but it seemed like the right thing to do. She’d only been there once before, twelve years ago.

  It was on her first date with Brian, and they’d come up here after lunch and a matinee showing of Gladiator.

  It was also the place where they had shared their first kiss. If Brian did have anything to do with this, it would be an appropriate spot.

  She shoved the thought away.

  Creating red herrings for herself would only increase her tension, and she had to keep a clear head for what was coming.

  In front of her, rose upon rose upon rose drank in the sunlight. Such a happy, peaceful existence they had, with nothing to do but sit around all day and be admired.

  Thousands of cars flocked here each month to admire the amazing expanse of flowers, and today was no different. The tourist season had the entire area full and the place was flooded with visitors wearing sandals over knee-high black socks and pink plastic sun visors. Milling about with their oohs and aahs, taking happy family photographs on their happy family vacations.

  It was easy to be jealous.

  Why such a crowded place? They wouldn’t do anything here with so many people watching, would they?

  She didn’t have to wait long for her answer.

  A white sedan with heavily tinted windows stopped in front of her. A tall man wearing a black ski mask, jeans, and a green hoodie leapt out, took two steps toward her, and thrust a piece of paper in her hand. He towered over her, but she caught a glimpse of piercing blue eyes in their fleeting connection.

  Then, as the white sedan pulled away, he moved past Sara and climbed into her minivan. The entire exchange lasted less than five seconds, and the likelihood of someone noticing a masked man was minimal.