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One Baggie containing 6 extra rounds of ammunition
Hertz Ford Taurus, California registration ZHG128, parked 1/2 block away from James Chilton's house
One bottle orange-flavored Vitamin Water, half full
One rental agreement, Hertz, naming Gregory Schaeffer as lessee
One McDonald's Big Mac wrapper
One map of Monterey County, provided by Hertz, no marked locations (infrared analysis negative)
Five empty coffee cups, 7-Eleven. Only Schaeffer's fingerprints
Dance read the list twice. She couldn't be upset at the job Crime Scene had done. It was perfectly acceptable. Yet it offered no clues whatsoever as to where Travis Brigham was being held. Or where his body was buried.
Her eyes slipped out the window, and settled on the thick, barky knot, the point where two independent trees became one, then continued their separate journey toward the sky.
Oh, Travis, Kathryn Dance thought.
Unable to resist the thought that she'd let him down.
Unable, finally, to resist the tears.
Chapter 41
TRAVIS BRIGHAM WOKE up, peed in the bucket beside the bed and washed his hands with bottled water. He adjusted the chain connecting the shackle around his ankle to a heavy bolt in the wall.
Thought once again of that stupid movie, Saw, where two men had been chained to a wall, just like this, and could escape only by sawing their legs off.
He drank some Vitamin Water, ate some granola bars and returned to his mental investigation. Trying to piece together what had happened to him, why he'd ended up here.
And who was the man who'd done this terrible thing?
He recalled the other day, those police or agents at the house. His father being a dick, his mother being all weepy-eyed and weak. Travis had grabbed his uniform and his bike and headed for his sucky job. He'd wheeled the bike a short way into the woods behind his house and then just lost it. He'd dropped his bike and sat down beside the huge oak tree and started crying his head off.
Hopeless! Everybody hated him.
Then, wiping his nose as he sat beneath the oak, a favorite spot--it reminded him of a place in Aetheria--he'd heard footsteps behind him, moving fast.
Before he could turn toward the sound, his vision went all yellow and every muscle in his body contracted at once, from neck to toe. His breath went away and he passed out. And then he woke up here in the basement, with a headache that wouldn't stop. Somebody'd hit him with a Taser, he knew. He'd seen how they work on YouTube.
The Big Fear turned out to be a false alarm. Feeling carefully--down his pants, behind--he realized nobody'd done anything to him--not that way. Though it made him all the more uneasy. Rape would've made some sense. But this . . . just being kidnapped, held here like in some kind of Stephen King story? What the hell was going on?
Travis now sat up on the cheap folding bed that shook every time he moved. He looked around his prison once more, the filthy basement. The place stank of mold and oil. He surveyed the food and drink left for him: mostly chips and packaged crackers and Oscar Mayer snack boxes--ham or turkey. Red Bull and Vitamin Water and Coke to drink.
A nightmare. Everything about his life this month was an unbearable nightmare.
Starting with the graduation party at that house in the hills off Highway 1. He'd only gone because some of the girls said Caitlin was hoping he'd be there. No, she really, really is! So he'd hitched all the way down the highway, past Garrapata State Park.
Then he walked inside, and to his horror he'd seen only the kewl people, none of the slackers or gamers. The Miley Cyrus crowd.
And worse, Caitlin looked at him like she didn't even recognize him. The girls who'd told him to come were giggling, along with their jock boyfriends. And everybody else was staring at him, wondering what the hell a geek like Travis Brigham was doing there.
It was all a setup, just to make fun of him.
Pure fucking hell.
But he wouldn't turn around and run. No way. He'd hung around, looked over the million CDs the family had, flipped through some channels, ate kick-ass food. Finally, sad and embarrassed, he'd decided, it was time to head back, wondering if he'd get a ride that time of night, near midnight. He'd seen Caitlin, wasted on tequila, pissed about Mike D'Angelo and Bri leaving together. She was fumbling for her keys and muttering about following the two of them and . . . well, she didn't know what.
