Chapter 3

I should have listened to Mom and put on a coat this morning.

Grayson's thin gray sweatshirt, even with a sleeveless T-shirt underneath, did nothing to insulate him against the wet chill filling the car's dark trunk. Thanks to his long arms, he'd managed to wriggle his entire body between his bound wrists, bringing the zip tie in front of him. Curled into a tight ball, forehead pressed to his knees, he vacillated between pretending he was still asleep in his own bed and trying to determine where they were headed by the roughness of the road and the speed at which they traveled.

He'd lost all track of time. Had he been stuck in this foul-smelling enclosure for an hour or for just a few minutes? Would the driver, Brian—if that was really his name—find him alive when he finally stopped and opened his trunk, or would Grayson die of hypothermia?

I can't believe this is happening.

As reality crept over him, the gravity of his situation made him fight to break the restraints so he could potentially escape, but the plastic zip tie held tight.

"Dad? Help me! Tell me what to do!"

The memory of his father's face was still vivid. Jerry was a big guy, over six feet tall with light-brown hair and blue, blue eyes. Grayson could still feel his father's hands, heavy on his shoulders. He would look deep into Grayson's eyes and say things that stuck with him.

Listen up. Concentrate on staying warm. Pull your hood over your head.

Wow! The voice resonating inside his head and all around him sounded more real than his crazy situation. Grayson hastened to obey the words. Reaching over his shoulder with his bound arms, he clasped his hoodie and worked it over his head. His fingers were stiff and uncooperative. There was no string to tighten the hood around his face, but the cloth around his skull warmed his ears immediately.

"Dad, don't leave me. I'm scared." He spoke the words through teeth that chattered.

I'm right here with you, son. I won't leave.

Grayson burst into ragged sobs. A fog seemed to fill his mind.

He must have fallen asleep, for he came awake as sunlight shone through his eyelids. The realization that the car had stopped speared into his sluggish thoughts. But he couldn't get his lids to lift.

"Kid! Wake up!"

Brian was shaking him roughly, but the concern in his voice penetrated Grayson's awareness. Why would the man care whether he was dead or alive?—unless Brian was planning to ransom him for money. That was better than anything else he might be planning.

Grayson managed to slit his eyes open. His captor was bent over him, framed by hazy sunlight. "You good? Sorry, kid. I didn't realize it was so cold. Can't feel the cold, myself."

With gentler hands than before, he helped Grayson to clamber out of the trunk. His joints ached as he drew himself vertical, peering around. Dismay filled him as he took in nothing but open farmland in every direction, as far as the eye could see. A long dirt driveway had taken them off the main road to a small, dilapidated farmhouse with a sloping roof and a little window over the wide front porch. Its metal roof, the peeling off-white paint, and boarded-up windows gave it a dismal air.

The front porch sagged like the porch at his own house used to before Fitz fixed the pillars under it. The branches of an enormous tree—his mom would know what kind—towered over the house, nearly touching it.

Brian jerked Grayson up the steps, not seeming to notice or at least not commenting on the fact that his hands were now in front of him. His backpack was apparently still in the car.

"Come on in, though it won't be much warmer till I get the woodstove going."

"Where is this place?"

Brian cast him a scowl. "You don't need to know."

To Grayson it looked a lot like the flat farmland he'd stared at every summer on their way to vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Then again, a quarter of Virginia was comprised of farmland just as flat. He knew that much from a fourth-grade geography lesson.

The tilted porch boards groaned beneath their feet as Brian drew him up to the door. While he worked to unlock it, Grayson's gaze fell on the collection of empty beer cans piled into paper bags. At least Brian was recycling. Actually, he probably turned in the cans for money.

The door swung open with a moaning sound, and Brian pushed Grayson into the house ahead of him, shutting and locking them in. Grayson's first impression of the home was that it hadn't been lived in for many, many years. A staircase divided the dining room from the living room.

Brian shoved him onto a brocade-covered couch that faced a newer television set. Bookcases and little tables were positioned before all three windows, two of which were boarded up. A layer of dust filmed everything, and the ceramic pots on the tables clearly once had plants in them, but now held nothing but dried-up dirt.

"All are from dust, and to dust all return." The passage of Scripture that popped into Grayson's head made him shudder.

"Here." Brian pushed him down on the couch. It was so old Grayson could feel the springs give way beneath him as his captor tossed him a blanket that was moth eaten and stale smelling. "Keep warm with that while I heat up the house. And don't move." He pointed a threatening finger. "I'll shoot you in the back if I have to."

Alarm jangled at the threat, but as Brian knelt before the woodstove, Grayson saw nothing in his pocket that looked like a pistol. Then again, he might have an old shotgun lying around. Guns were a dime a dozen in America. Cameron's older brother had even offered to sell one of his to Grayson.

Watching Brian scrape the remnants of previous fires into a box, Grayson tried to read the letters tattooed on his hand and couldn't. He lifted his gaze to the man's scowl. Brian seemed preoccupied by what he'd done—or was that just wishful thinking?

Grayson remembered how his father had spoken to him in the trunk of the car. Dad? Are you still there?

The voice didn't answer. Grayson swallowed down his disappointment. He'd probably been hallucinating from the cold.

Brian rose with the box, pointed a warning finger at Grayson, then walked into what had to be the kitchen at the rear of the house. A second door opened as Brian stepped outside. He was back in the living room in less than a minute—too soon for Grayson to bolt out the front door, as his joints were still aching.

Brian carried an armload of firewood. He knelt before the stove a second time, fed it some kindling, lit it, then added the larger logs.

Grayson studied the man's profile in the flickering light. The worried grooves on his prominent forehead suggested he was a desperate man. And a desperate man was a dangerous man—how many times had Grayson heard his father say that?

"Do you have any water?" he asked as Brian closed the woodstove door. Dry heat had begun to radiate from it, chasing off the chill and making him realize he was parched.

His captor regarded him for the longest time. What was he thinking? Grayson wasn't sure he wanted to know. But then Brian stood with a grunt and went back into the kitchen. Grayson heard a refrigerator open, and his captor came back carrying a cold bottle of water.

"Here." He held it out to Grayson. "Can't drink from the faucet. The well water tastes like sea salt."

"Thanks." Grayson seized the information with gratitude. Then they probably were near the ocean. He twisted off the cap, then gulped down half the cold contents before he decided he'd better save the rest.

Brian went to peer out the front window as if expecting the police might show up any minute.

Regarding his captor's broad back, Grayson dared to imagine what was next. Brian had a plan, that much was certain. Grayson thought about his phone, lying out in the car and broadcasting his location, but only as long as the battery lasted. From what he knew of his phone, it would last almost forty-eight hours.

Had his mother realized he was missing yet? Had she called the cops?

Grayson gave a thought to Fitz, and bitter irony twisted through him. If his mother were still dating the FBI guy, the Feds would probably already be looking for him. But because of Grayson's attitude, his mom had given Fitz the boot. Now look who might pay the cost.

Brian wheeled suddenly from the window, bearing down on him. "Get up." He grabbed Grayson's arm and hauled him to his feet. So much for the softening Grayson had sensed in him earlier.

Grayson dropped the blanket but hung on to the water bottle. His heart pounded. "Where are we going?" Maybe Brian was going to kill him now.

"Upstairs."

That sounded better than immediate death, but the rickety old steps bowed beneath their combined weight as Brian propelled him up the stairs before him. The landing was lit by weak sunlight shining through the dust-smeared dormer overtop the porch.

Brian shoved him through the door facing the back of the house. "Use the toilet. It's the last chance you'll get for a while."

The door clicked shut behind him, and Grayson found himself alone in a small bathroom that had wooden siding about hip high and a single window over the tub. He stepped into the tub and looked out at the back of the house. If he jumped from here, he would land on concrete steps outside the kitchen.

A banging on the door had him wheeling toward the toilet.

"Don't dawdle."

Quick to obey, Grayson stepped over to the rust-stained toilet bowl, unzipped his pants, and looked around while emptying his bladder. Behind him stood a stained porcelain sink and a speckled mirror that reflected his frightened expression.

Look for a weapon.

His father's voice sounded again in his head. Grayson gasped and quickly zipped up his pants. There were no sharp implements anywhere.

A pounding on the door startled him. "Time's up."

He flushed the toilet. "I have to wash my hands." Twisting on the faucet, he eyed the brackets holding the mirror to the wall. If he got the mirror off he could break it into shards to be used as weapons.

The door opened abruptly. Brian stepped inside, twisted off the faucet, and dragged Grayson back onto the landing. "Germs are your least concern, boy." He drew him toward the door that put them directly over the living room.

As it swung open, Grayson balked to see the only window straight ahead of him was boarded up. The sunlight framing it gave just enough light for him to tell the room was wide with a low, sloped ceiling and a wooden floor. The twin bed and dresser were the only furnishings.

Grayson sensed what was coming. "I don't want to be in here."

"Nobody asked you, kid. Sometimes we get what we don't want in life."

Brian shoved him hard toward the bed. Taking a seat on the lumpy mattress, Grayson discovered it was covered by a faded quilt that smelled no better than the blanket downstairs.

Brian had backed hastily out of the room, then shut the door behind him. It gave a click, locked from the outside.

As soon as his steps sounded on the stairs, Grayson crossed to the door to check the lock. His hands closed around a doorknob that was sturdy and felt brand new. It didn't so much as jiggle. His knees started to jitter as a fresh wave of fear rose inside him. Brian had clearly planned this ahead of time. Backing to the bed, Grayson sat back down, shivering and thinking.

His mother would tell him to pray. He'd grown up believing God really loved him. But why would a loving God do this to him or to his mother?

"Father, please help me." He spoke as much to his heavenly father as to his earthly one.

An answer to his prayer seemed to come about an hour later when the front door slammed and the whole house shuddered.

Brian had stepped outside. When the old Buick started up with a roar, conflicting emotions filled Grayson. On one hand, his cell phone was still under Brian's car seat, meaning nobody was coming here to free Grayson. On the other, now was the perfect time to attempt his escape.

* * *

"You're sure he's not hanging out with a friend?"

Faith drew a steadying breath. The Suffolk County police detective on the other end of the phone wasn't taking the situation seriously.

"I'm positive." She implemented the voice her twin sister used in a classroom full of first graders. "We are new to the area, and my son's only friend called me from school asking where he was. You can track him down using his cell phone. He had that with him."

A skeptical pause followed her request. "Are you divorced, ma'am? Sometimes the father gets tired of only seein' his kid every other weekend and decides to pick him up."

Faith heard a distinct popping sound, almost like someone had clapped their hands right next to her ear. "His father is dead, sir. What's more, I think I'm talking to the wrong people."

Without further explanation, she hung up on the detective and dialed Jerry's old work number still programmed into her phone. Jerry still had dozens of friends in the state police force. They would take her seriously.

* * *

Brian needed a drink, something stronger than the beer in his fridge. Nor could he just sit around the house all afternoon, thinking, What now?

He'd been planning to nab Saunders' kid for so long, he could scarcely wrap his head around the fact that he'd gone and done it. Reality was terrifying. He had to take the edge off his fear.

Where was the rage, the grief, and the bitterness that had motivated him in the first place? Brian wrung the steering wheel beneath his hands as he flew down Route 168 toward the North Carolina border. According to the terms of his parole, he was never supposed to leave the state. But the liquor store in Moyock was closer to his house than the one in Virginia. And no one would ever know, especially since the surveillance camera in the store was all for show, according to its owner.

Besides, crossing the border was nothing compared to kidnapping. If Brian was caught for that, he'd get thirty years for violating his probation, just like he'd gotten ten years for violating his previous probation. It never paid to get in trouble again.

The cycle had started when he was a teen. Selling his ADHD medication to college students had gotten him two misdemeanors and six months in jail. Once your name was in the system, the punishments got longer—hence the ten years he'd served for simply selling a semiautomatic weapon to the wrong person. Heck, Brian would probably get thirty years or more for kidnapping a cop's kid—even if he didn't kill him. Thirty more years in the pen would probably do him in.

Regret tightened a noose around Brian's throat. Every day for ten years he had dreamed about teaching Saunders what it felt like to be betrayed by a friend. To lose everything. He had planned, when he got out of prison, to do to Jerry what that man had done to him.

His plan had started unraveling when he found out Saunders was dead. What was the point of punishing the man if he wasn't alive to fret and suffer? Still, Brian had been nurturing his vengeance for so long, he'd decided to go through with it.

Then there was the kid himself. Grayson didn't cry or whine. He'd been smart enough to move his zip-tied hands to the front of his body. When Brian opened the trunk and saw him curled up in there, blue with cold, he'd been horrified, thinking he'd killed him on accident. Imagine how it was going to feel to kill him on purpose.

Turning into the strip mall where the liquor store was located, Brian bought cigarettes and the biggest bottle of cheap whisky he could find, intending to watch TV and drink until his doubts went away. Back in his car, he set the bottle on the seat next to him and tore the cellophane off the box of cigarettes. He shook out a cig and put it to his lips. Taking the lighter from his pocket, he flicked it and sent it tumbling by accident between his seat and the console.

Cursing, Brian dug a hand into the crevice, but the lighter had fallen out of reach. With a growl of frustration, he climbed out of his car and hauled open the door behind his. As he bent down to feel under his seat for the lighter, his hand curled around an unfamiliar object.

Surprise, then shock, reverberated down his spine as he stared at what was obviously a cell phone, turned on with plenty of battery left. The unlit cigarette fell from his lips as his jaw went slack. The kid had lied to him! What's more, he'd cleverly hidden his phone beneath Brian's seat.

Brian turned hot, then cold. He jerked his head up, half-expecting the police to swarm toward him right here in the parking lot. The phone would lead them straight to him.

He had to get rid of it, along with the backpack that was still on his front seat. First things first, though. After powering down the phone, Brian dropped it onto the cement slab and stomped it with his heel. The gratifying crack made him smash it again, then grind it with the heel of his boot while glancing nervously at the camera inside the liquor store.

The owner better not have fixed it without telling him. Just to be safe, he'd better not toss the phone into the bin close to the building. Picking up the battered device, careful not to get glass in his skin, he got back into his car, then cursed as he realized he had yet to recover his lighter. All in good time. He had to ditch the evidence first.

A short distance up the highway, Brian slowed his speed and dropped two tires onto the shoulder while lowering his passenger window. Then he hurled the cell phone into a thicket, followed by the lightweight backpack, which fell just short of the bushes.

Should he get out of the car and toss it farther in? A car was coming up the road behind him. Nah, nobody was gonna notice it peeking out of the tall stalks of dead grass.

Punching the accelerator, Brian spun up gravel as he fishtailed back into the slow lane. Anger burned in him over the kid's sneakiness. Young Grayson had deceived him. Like father like son.

Jerry Saunders had come into Brian's secondhand gun shop, declaring he was new to the area. They'd bonded over their common interest in firearms. Brian hadn't had any idea his new friend was an undercover state police officer checking to see if the gun store owner abided by state laws and did his due diligence running background checks.

A decade-long bitterness gnawed at Brian anew. So maybe Saunders wasn't alive to suffer the way he had suffered. But the only way to be free of the canker eating away at him was to go through with his original plan.

One bullet to the back of his head. The kid would never feel it. But the score would be even—a life for a life.