LITMIR.BIZ

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that this low would never end: this time I promise, this time I promise.

      ‘Surpri-ise!’ it would mouth. ‘You fucking sucker.’ Rocking shoulders, silent laugh. ‘I. Always. Win.’

      Ren leaned into the mirror, sliding red gloss across her lips with an upright middle finger.

       Not this time, motherfucker. Not this time.

      Erica Whaley leaned in and kissed her husband hard on the mouth, knocking his head back against the mirrored wall of the elevator. When it stopped on the third floor, she made a dash for the room. She went the wrong way, then spun around and, laughing, went back the right way. Mark moved slowly after her. He could not bear to be in the room with the sitter. As he came closer, he heard a terrible, agonizing scream. He ran through the open door.

      ‘Laurie,’ Erica was screaming. ‘Laurie!’

      Little Leo was standing in the middle of the bedroom floor. He had wet his Spiderman pajamas.

      ‘What do you mean, Laurie?’ said Mark. ‘Where is she?’ He dashed past Erica into the kids’ bedroom. She followed him in. Her face was white.

      ‘She’s not here!’ screamed Erica. ‘Laurie’s gone.’

      Mark Whaley shouted out his daughter’s name, pulling back the wardrobe doors, throwing himself onto the floor to check under the bed, running to the curtains, swinging them back and forth, as if his daughter would play a hiding game as her stepmother screamed. Maybe this is for attention, he thought. He ran back into Erica.

      ‘Where’s the sitter?’ he said.

      Leo was now wailing, copying his parents. He plunged toward his father’s leg, and clung to it. In a trance, Mark bent down and picked him up, started patting his back, not even aware that Leo’s wet pajamas were soaking into his shirt. And still, Leo bawled.

      ‘I’m trying to think,’ Mark shouted. ‘Stop crying, Leo. For crying out loud!’

      Leo cried harder, alarmed by the scene he had woken up to. ‘Laurie,’ he sobbed. ‘Laurie.’

      ‘Give him to me,’ said Erica.

      Mark grabbed for the phone. He called reception. As he waited for them to pick up, he turned to Erica. ‘Call 911 from your cell phone,’ he shouted. ‘Call 911. And call Laurie’s cell.’

      Jared Labati picked up the phone in reception. ‘Hey,’ he said, long and slow, as if he was talking to one of his best friends.

      ‘This is Mark Whaley, Room 304. My daughter is missing. My daughter’s gone. Call 911. Call the police. Where’s the sitter? Did you see the sitter leave?’

      Jared stammered, ‘Uh … your daughter’s gone? Where?’

      ‘Yes!’ shouted Mark. ‘She’s gone! She’s taken my daughter. I don’t know where.’

      ‘Who?’ said Jared. ‘Who’s taken your daughter?’

      ‘Jesus Christ, I don’t care, my daughter’s gone. Shut down the hotel. Now. And get the police here. Now.’ He slammed the phone down. ‘What a fucking idiot.’

      Erica was still on the phone to 911. Mark started answering the dispatcher’s questions along with her. She held her hand over the receiver. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Stop! You’re confusing me.’

      ‘You’re too slow!’ he said.

      He got his cell phone and dialed Laurie’s number.

      ‘It’s ringing,’ he said. ‘It’s ringing. OK. It’s ringing. That’s good. Come on, Laurie, pick up, pick up.’

      He became aware of a song playing in the room next door, a song he vaguely knew, one that Laurie had loaded onto Erica’s iPod, but he knew it wasn’t the iPod, it was the phone, and as he walked into the bedroom, there it was, flashing on the floor of the bedroom: Laurie’s little pink cell phone. He ended his call, picked up her phone and brought it into Erica.

      ‘I’m going to check the other rooms, I’ll check the other rooms, stay here, in case she …’ He ran from the room and down the hallway, hammering on every door, shouting for Laurie.

      ‘My daughter’s missing!’ he shouted. ‘My daughter’s gone! She’s eleven years old, blonde hair, blue eyes, seventy pounds, wearing … wearing … pajamas! Pajamas with … pink pajamas … with Jesus … just pink!’

      Doors started to open along the hallway.

      ‘Anyone!’ said Mark. ‘Anyone! Has anyone seen her? Everyone, my daughter’s missing! She was here just a half hour ago. I just checked on her. On the sitter. There was a sitter. Blonde hair. Five two … sixteen years old.’

       Jesus, she was sixteen years old, he thought.

      7

      Ren Bryce woke up with Ben Rader behind her, his thick arm wrapped around her waist. He pulled her closer to him, and kissed her shoulder, then her neck. He leaned into her ear, and spoke very quietly, telling her what he was guessing she wanted. As she backed up against him, his hand moved up her body, stayed longer than she could handle, then slid all the way down. She was barely awake as she moved on top of him. He sat up to meet her. He slid them both to the edge of the bed. Every movement he made was rock solid. Ren was looking into the mirrored wardrobe door, where she could watch him, and his bare muscular torso, and his white-knuckle grip on her hips.

       And the award for outstanding performance by a male in a leading role goes to …

      Her cell phone rang. No. No.

      ‘No,’ said Ben.

      ‘No,’ said Ren.

      Ren glanced down at the screen. Shit.

      ‘I have to,’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’ She grabbed the phone. Remove the sex from your voice. ‘Well, hi, High Sheriff.’

      ‘Special greetings, Special Agent.’ Sheriff Bob Gage was the Summit County Sheriff, two counties west of Denver.

      ‘It’s late, it’s early,’ said Ren, ‘and there is a grim tone to your voice.’

      ‘There are grim happenings in Breckenridge,’ said Bob. ‘I’m just about to call your boss to get your Safe Street asses over here.’

      ‘What’s going down?’ said Ren.

      ‘Missing child, missing sitter,’ said Bob.

      ‘Missing from where?’ said Ren.

      Ben lifted Ren onto the bed beside him. She wrapped a sheet around herself.

      ‘They disappeared from their room in a brand-spanking new hotel,’ said Bob. ‘The Merlin Lodge & Spa. Or maybe the sitter took the little girl. Or maybe they were both abducted. The sitter is sixteen years old, and the girl is eleven. The parents were down in the restaurant, the stepmother was drunk, got through a couple bottles of champagne on her own. They were seen arguing at the table.’

      ‘And the father?’ said Ren.

      ‘He’s a mess. This was the first time he was allowed overnight parenting time. I can’t get a handle on him, though.’

      ‘Allowed by whom?’ said Ren.

      ‘A judge,’ said Bob. ‘Don’t you hate that legal bullshit “parenting time”? Isn’t the whole time “parenting time”? It bugs me. Anyway, he’s got two kids. The girl, from his first marriage, and a three-year-old boy with his current wife – the drunk one. The ex-wife is the primary care parent, she wanted him nowhere near his daughter, but eventually a judge over-rode her wishes, had sympathy for the guy – he had turned his life around. His “parenting time” increased. And the latest development was that he could take her overnight.’

      Ren

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