It’s all so infuriating. And so … bizarre.
Why did they make me rush home to meet a timeline that didn’t exist? Why did they make me wait all night before contacting me? And why do they want me to run all over town now, doing this—whatever the hellthisis?—chasing down the answer to some middle-school riddle in order to save my wife? I don’t have the slightest clue. All I know is that from the moment they took her, I haven’t had a second to catch my breath.
I pause and take another drink of coffee. It’s almost 10:00 a.m. and I’m already on my fourth cup of the morning despite my sour stomach. I need the caffeine. It’s all I can do to focus with how frazzled I feel, how strung-out. That, and the images of Avery won’t stop flashing through my head every ten seconds. Her fist-blackened eye. Her swollen, distended lip. The way her head wobbled when she spoke, like it carried too much weight for her neck. And now, on top of all of that, I’m supposed to solve some fucking riddle in order to save her?
“Goddammit!”
I slam my fist on the table and send my coffee mug crashing to the floor. When it shatters, I don’t bother cleaning it up. I have to figurethis thing out. Ihaveto. I don’t have a choice. I close my eyes and try to slow my pulse, then summon the words.Kingdom of tar, kingdom of tar.Of all the clues, it’s the clearest. But if it’s not a highway or a street, then what can it possibly be? A parking lot? And if it is that,whichparking lot? One that belongs to a store? There aren’t thousands of stores in Durango but there are enough that I’ll never be able to figure out the right one by noon. No way in hell. If it even is a parking lot.
Play it out. Narrow it down.
I grind my teeth. I might as well. I don’t have a better lead at the moment. There’s The Home Depot off River Road and the T.J. Maxx off Camino Del Rio. There’s the mall, which is essentially one big parking lot. There are the downtown tourist traps. All the souvenir shops packed with T-shirts and trinkets and toys. There are dozens of restaurants. Fucking hell, I have no idea. My mind returns to the final line.But still your weeping is all I hear.Something about it feels personal. It’s written like it’s something that will happen to me. Or something that did. But what that is, I have no idea.
Until I do.
It strikes like a bolt of lightning, so clear, I don’t know how I missed it before.Here you fall.As a kid, an elderly man ran me over while backing out in a Walmart parking lot. He came stumbling out of his boat of a sedan, burbling apologies, telling me he’d checked his mirror twice.You sure came outta nowhere!I didn’t hear a word he said. I was too busy writhing on the ground with a broken arm. It took six weeks to heal and robbed me of the rest of my little league season.
It has to be it. Ithasto. Whoever wrote this knows me somehow. It means this abduction is personal—that either Avery or I have done something to someone. Exactly what, I don’t know. But it would explain why they still have my wife despite taking all of our money. And that chills me to my core. It means there’s a deeper meaning to all of this and I have to keep playing along, dancing like a monkey, until I find out exactly what it is. But I’ll do it. I’ll dance forever if that’s whatit takes to keep my wife and child alive.
The sky crackles blue above me as I sweep my gaze over the “kingdom of tar.” And a kingdom it is. The Walmart parking lot stretches far and wide all around me. I don’t know where to go even though I’m early—a full ten minutes ahead of the high noon deadline. Unless I’m wrong. What if I somehow misinterpreted the clues and I should be somewhere else right now?
What if I’ve already cost Avery her life?
“Stop it!” I hiss so loud that a gray-haired woman shoots me a disapproving look as she passes. I ignore her and keep hawk-eying the parking lot. This is the place. I’m certain of it. At this point, I don’t have a better guess, anyway. My certainty fades when noon hits without incident and then ratchets toward panic when five more minutes slide past.
12:05.
12:08.
12:13.
What the fuck?I can’t help the thought. Maybe I misread the clues after all. Maybe I’m not in the right spot. I’ve been standing by my car in clear view—a black Acura sedan I picked up a year ago on sale from a dealership in Denver—so my location should be obvious. I left the Yukon at home. Who it actually belongs to is anybody’s guess. I tore through it this morning, searched the glove box and all the compartments and found nothing. Which means it’s probably stolen. Continuing to drive it would be foolish. But is that the car they’re looking for? Is that why no one has approached me yet? I check my watch for the thousandth time. It’s now 12:17 and I feel like I’m about to slide out of my skin.
“Are you Grant Wilson?”
I spin around so fast I nearly fall. There’s a kid standing behindme, maybe fifteen years old, with black hair curling out from beneath a red and blue NHRA racing cap. He’s wearing the same slightly bored expression as the courier from yesterday, holding something I recognize—something that makes every hair on my body stand on end.
Another manila envelope.
“Yeah,” I manage to choke out. “That’s me.”
“This is for you.” He raises the envelope, and I snatch it from his hand so fast it nearly leaves a burn mark on his palm.
“Who gave you this?” I ask.
The kid shrugs. “I don’t know. Some guy.”
He moves to leave, but I’m on him before he can, seizing his arm and yanking him back. “What does he look like?”
The boy’s eyes go wide, his gaze on my hand gripping his wrist.
“What does he look like?” I snarl again.
“I don’t know, man. Like any other guy. Let go of me.”
“Think,” I growl, tightening my grip instead. “It’s important.”
“He had blue eyes, okay? He gave me twenty bucks to give this to you. Shit! Let me go already!”
