“Bracken? No. Nothing.”

“You search his house?”

“Yeah. And his office. There was a cell number in his phone but it doesn’t connect.”

“You went to his office?”

“I didn’t find much. Just some files that didn’t lead anywhere.”

“Where are they?”

I nod toward the backseat. Dad reaches over for the bag and grunts when he tries to lift it.

“They’re on top,” I say, and a moment later he has them in his hands.

“Who the hell are these people?” he asks, opening the first couple of folders.

“Nobody,” I say. “Just files the probation officer had in his drawer.”

“So they’re clients he has. You went to his office and found his current work and nothing else.”

“I didn’t have time to keep looking.”

“You should have made the time. These are useless,” he says. “Some of these people don’t even have a record for armed robbery. What have we got here,” he says, thumbing through them, “we’ve got half a dozen armed holdups, an arson, a couple of rapists, a couple of drug traffickers, a kidnapper, a compulsive shoplifter—any of them could be part of this thing.”

“I know, Dad, I already know. Two men took Sam tonight, one of them I killed, the other one has her. Nat and Diana, they saw the other guy.”

“Have you showed the folders to them?”

“I can’t. The police are with them. Schroder was going to get them to check out some mug shots.”

“So maybe they have a name already. Maybe the police have already found Sam.”

“And maybe they haven’t.”

“Call them.”

“The police?”

“No, your in-laws. Maybe they’ve made an ID and can give us a name.”

“I’ve been trying.”

“Well, try again.”

I pull over. After ten rings I’m about to hang up when suddenly it’s picked up.

“Hello?”

“Nat?”

“Jesus, Eddie, where the hell are you?”

“I’m looking for Sam. Where the hell else would I be?”

“With your father? The police say you broke him out.”

“He’s helping.”

“He’s a monster.”

“So is the man who took Sam. Were you able to make an ID?”

“Not at first. The cops know who the bank robbers are but none of them took Sam. The detective who showed them to us brought back a new batch of photos. We picked him out right away, Edward. The police know who took Sam.”

“They have the name, but that’s not the same as having Sam, is it?”

“Well, no.”

“Then give me the name of the man who took her.”

“I don’t know, Eddie. I think the police are better equipped.”

“The police, if they find her, will put the man who took her in jail for five or ten years and then let him go. That what you want? Remember when you said you wished you could have time alone with the people who killed Jodie?”

“We only want Sam back safely.”

“Give me the name. I swear to you, Nat, I’m not going to do anything that puts her at risk.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“I deserve to know the name of the man who kidnapped my daughter, Nat. Jesus—she’s my daughter. My daughter!”

“Oliver Church,” he says, and I recognize the name. “That’s all I know. I don’t know any addresses or anything else.”

“Thank you,” I say, and I hang up.

“See, I knew they’d answer the phone,” Dad says. “I’m your good-luck charm.”

“Give me the folders.”

He hands them over. The fourth one in belongs to Oliver Church. Out of the list of crimes in the files, Oliver Church is the only one who has kidnapping and manslaughter next to his name, but there are no details of the crimes.

“Address won’t be current,” Dad says, “so no point in going to his house, and even if it is current he sure as hell won’t have taken Sam there.”

“You ever hear of him?”

“Never. Can’t your in-laws go online and find out about him?”

“They barely know what online means.”

“Well, there has to somebody you can ask.”

“Not really. What we need is a computer,” I say, looking out the windows, knowing that nine out of every ten houses out there has one. I think about all my conversations with Schroder, about my dad in jail, about the stabbing, about the ex-cop working for Schroder trying to solve part of the case.

The ex-cop.

Because Christchurch is clinging to the past, it’s still possible to pass an occasional phone booth, and I drive back toward town to find one. The Yellow Pages have been torn out, and so has the phone receiver, but the White Pages are still there and I use them to look up a name and address.

chapter fifty-three

All the lights are off inside the house, as they are in every other house in the street. The difference between this house and the others is the others all have a Christmasy look about them, lights and decorations in the window, oozing joy and peace to the world. This house is cold and certainly empty, and when I break a window and make my way inside it feels like my house, like something has been lost from this home the same way something was lost from mine.

I use the cell phone to create some light, then decide that it’s so late in the night I’d have to be really unlucky if somebody saw the lights burning, so I flick them on. I open up the back door for Dad and he comes inside.

It’s a three-bedroom home with one bedroom set up for a young girl, perhaps one similar to Sam’s age. The room hasn’t been slept in for a long time, and it’s far tidier than any young girl would ever leave it. There’s an office with not much in it, but it has a computer, and the remaining bedroom has a big bed with folded clothes lying on top.

“Who lives here?” Dad asks, looking at some of the photos. “You know this guy?”

“Not really,” I say.

“He seems familiar.”

“Maybe you’ve seen him around.”

“Only place I’ve been around lately is jail,” Dad says.

“And there’s your answer.”

The house belongs to Theodore Tate—the ex–police officer Schroder told me about a few times, the man in jail for drunk driving, the guy who figured out who stabbed my dad. There are other photos on the wall—a pretty woman and a young girl around Sam’s age. I wonder what happened to Tate’s family, and have a real bad feeling that somehow the virus got them the same way it got mine. Maybe Tate lost his wife and went seeking revenge in an attempt to save his daughter. Maybe when he gets out of jail he’ll keep on searching.

I go online and quickly scan the latest news reports. The name of the man I ran over this afternoon has been released—Adam Sinclair. There are already many details: a year or so ago there wouldn’t be any names released for at least a day, let alone facts, but these days you can see a dead body on the front page of the newspaper.

The reports spell out the events and are unusually accurate. They say two men tried to kill me; one of them was hit by a car when I fled the scene, and the second man then executed the first. The reports are unclear on why the men were after me—but hint at my involvement in the killing of Shane Kingsly. The phrase “revenge killing” shows up about five times—as my hypothetical reason for killing Shane Kingsly, and as their reason for trying to kill me. It’s the first time in twenty years that the media has guessed correctly what I might be capable of.

Tonight’s deaths are still too soon for there to be any details, plus it’s Christmas, so most of the reporters are doing society a favor and taking the night off. There’s only a vague outline with no names, stating that one of the two victims is a police officer. Bracken’s death is still too early to even get a mention.

I type Oliver Church’s name into the computer and a minute later we have his story.

Nine years ago Church kidnapped a six-year-old boy and tried to ransom him back to his parents, but he got busted when he went to pick up the money. Church took the child to an abandoned slaughterhouse north of the city. When he got caught, he wouldn’t give up the location of the child. He tried to make a deal to cut back jail time for the safety of the child. Lawyers came to the party, but by the time they struck a deal the child had died—combination of cold and hunger and everything else that happens when you tie a kid up and leave them in a place like that. Poor kid probably died of fright. That’s why it was manslaughter and not murder. Because of the deal he made, he only got six years. Didn’t matter that the boy had died: the deal was for the boy’s location, and since nothing specific was put in writing saying the boy had to be alive, nothing could be done to reverse the deal.