In the back window, through a crack in the closed blinds, he watched the snow falling through the orange illumination of a streetlamp, and his lips moved in prayer.
The knock finally came a few minutes after 3:00 a.m., and nothing timid about it—the forceful pounding of a fist against the door.
“Mitchell Griggs?”
Mitchell sat up in bed, eyes struggling to adjust in the darkness.
“Mr. Griggs?”
More pounding as his feet touched the carpet.
“Griggs!”
Mitchell made his way across dirty clothes and pizza boxes to the door, which he spoke through.
“Who is it?”
“Dennis James, Ouray County sheriff. Need to speak with you right now.”
“Little late, isn’t it?” He tried to make his voice sound light and unperturbed. “Maybe I could come by your office in the—”
“What part of right now went past you?”
Mitchell glanced up, saw the chain still locked. “What’s this about?” he asked.
“I think you know.”
“I’m sorry I don’t.”
“Six-year-old boy named Joel McIntosh went missing from the Antlers Motel this evening. Clerk saw him getting into a burgundy Jetta just like the one you drive.”
“Well, I’m sorry. He’s not here.”
“Then why don’t you open the door, let me confirm that so you can get back to sleep and we can quit wasting precious minutes trying to find this little boy.”
Mitchell glanced through the peephole, glimpsed the sheriff standing within a foot of the door under one of the globe lights that lit the second-floor walkway, his black parka dusted with snow, his wide-brimmed cowboy hat capped with a half-inch of powder.
Mitchell couldn’t nail down the sheriff’s age in the poor light—late sixties perhaps, seventy at most. He held the forend stock of a pump-action shotgun in his right hand.
“I’ve got two deputies out back on the hill behind your room if you’re thinking of—”
“I’m not.”
“Just tell me if you have the boy—”
A radio squeaked outside.
The sheriff spoke in low tones, then Mitchell heard the dissipation of footsteps.
A minute limped by before the sheriff’s voice passed faintly through the door again.
“You still there, Mitch?”
“Yeah.”
“If it’s all right with you, I’m gonna sit down. I been walking all over town since seven o’clock.”
The sheriff lowered out of sight, and through the peephole, Mitchell could only see torrents of snow dumping on the trees and houses and parked cars.
He eased down on the carpet and leaned against the door.
“I was just speaking with your wife. Lisa’s concerned for you, Mitch. Knows why you’re here.”
“She doesn’t know any—”
“And so do I. You may not know this, but I helped pull you and your son out of the car. Never forget it. Been what, about a year?”
“To the day.”
Drafts of frigid air swept under the door, Mitchell shivering, wishing he’d brought a blanket with him from the bed.
“Mitch, Lisa’s been trying to call you. You have your cell with you?”
“It’s turned off, on the bedside table.”
“Would you talk to her for me?”
“I don’t need to talk to her.”
“I think it might not be a bad—”
“I had a meeting the next morning in Durango. Had brought him along, ‘cause he’d never seen the Rockies. That storm came in overnight, and you know, I just…I almost waited. Almost decided to stay the day in Ouray, give the plows a chance to scrape the pass.”
“I got a boy of my own. He’s grown now, but I remember when he was your Alex’s age, can’t say I’d have survived if something like what happened to your son happened to him. You got a gun in there, Mitch?”
In the back of Mitchell’s throat welled a sharp, acidic tang, like tasting the connectors of a nine-volt battery, but all he said was, “Yeah.”
“Is the boy all right?”
Mitchell said nothing.
“Look, I know you’re hurting, but Joel McIntosh ain’t done a thing to deserve getting dragged into this. Boy’s probably terrified. You thought about that, or can you not see past your own—”
“Of course I’ve thought about it.”
“Then why don’t you send him on out, and you and me can keep talking.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I just…I can’t.”
Mitchell heard footsteps outside the door. He got up quickly, glanced through the peephole just in time to see the battering ram swing back.
He stumbled toward the bed as the door exploded off its hinges and slammed to the floor, two men standing in the threshold—the sheriff with the shotgun trained on him, a deputy with a flashlight and a handgun.
Mitchell shielded his eyes, specks of snow blowing in, luminescent where they passed through the LED beam, couldn’t see the man behind the light, but the sheriff’s eyes were hard and kind. He could tell this even though they lived in the shadow of a Stetson.
The sheriff said, “I don’t see the boy, Wade. Mitchell, let me see those hands.”
Mitchell took a deep, trembling breath.
“Come on, Mitch, let me see your hands.”
Mitchell shook his head.
“Goddamn, son, I won’t tell you—”
Mitchell swung his right arm behind his back, his fingers wrapping around the remote control jammed down his boxer shorts, the room fired into blue by the illumination of the television, the laugh track to Seinfeld blaring, Wade screaming the sheriff’s name as a greater light bloomed beside the lesser.
Sheriff James flicked the light, felt the breath leave him, blinking through the tears.
He leaned the shotgun against the wall and stepped inside the bathroom.
The cheap fiberglass of the tub had been lined with blankets and pillows, and the little boy was sitting up staring at the sheriff, orange earplugs protruding from his ears.
The sheriff knelt down, smiled at the boy, pulled out the earplugs.
“You okay, Joel?”
The boy said, “A noise woke me up.”
“Did he make you sleep in here?”
“Mitchell said if I was a good boy and kept my earplugs in and stayed in here all night, I could see my Daddy in the morning.”
“He did, huh?”
“Where’s my Daddy?”
“Down in the parking lot. We’ll take you to him, but I need to ask you something first.” The sheriff sat down on the cracked linoleum tile. “Did Mitchell hurt you?”
“No.”
“He didn’t touch you anywhere private or make you touch him?”
“No, we just sat on the bed and watched about spiders and stuff.”
“You mean on the TV?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s that?” The sheriff pointed to the notebook sitting on a pillow under the faucet.
“Mitchell said to give this to the people who came to get me.”
Wade walked into the bathroom, stood behind the sheriff as he lifted the spiral-bound notebook and opened the red cover to a page of handwriting in black ink.
“What is it?” Wade asked.
“It’s to his wife.”
“What’s it say?”
The sheriff closed the notebook. “I believe that’s some of her business.” He stood, faced his deputy, snow melting off his Stetson. “Get this boy wrapped up in some blankets and bring him down to his dad. I gotta go call Lisa Griggs.”
“Will do.”
“And Wade?”
“Yeah?”
“You throw a blanket over Mr. Griggs before you bring Joel out. Don’t want so much as a strand of hair visible. Shield the boy’s eyes if you have to, maybe even turn the lights out when you carry him through the room.”
The deputy shook his head. “What the hell was wrong with this man?”
“You got kids yet, Wade?”
“You know I don’t.”
“Well, just a heads up—if you ever do, this is how much they make you love them.”
BLAKE CROUCH is the author of DESERT PLACES, LOCKED DOORS, and ABANDON, which was an IndieBound Notable Selection last summer, all published by St. Martin's Press. His newest thriller, SNOWBOUND, also from St. Martin's, was released in June 2010. His short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Thriller 2, and other anthologies, including the new Shivers anthology from Cemetery Dance. In 2009, he co-wrote "Serial" with J.A. Konrath, which has been downloaded over 250,000 times and topped the Kindle bestseller list for 4 weeks. That story and DESERT PLACES have also been optioned for film. Blake lives in Durango, Colorado. His website is www.blakecrouch.com.