When someone you love vanishes without a trace, how far would you go to get them back? For ex-FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, it’s the beginning of his worst nightmare: a car abandoned on a desolate stretch of Oregon highway, engine running, purse on the driver’s seat. And his estranged wife, Rainie Conner, gone, leaving no clue to her fate. Did one of the ghosts from Rainie’s troubled past finally catch up with her? Or could her disappearance be the result of one of the cases they’d been working–a particularly vicious double homicide or the possible abuse of a deeply disturbed child Rainie took too close to heart?

1


Tuesday, 12:24 a.m. PST

SHE IS DREAMING AGAIN. She doesn't want to. She wrestles with the sheets, tosses her head, tries to keep the dream version of herself from walking up those stairs, from opening that door, from entering the gloom.

She wakes up stuffing the scream back into her throat, eyes bulging and still seeing things she doesn't want to see. Reality returns in slow degrees, as she registers the gray-washed walls, the dark-eyed windows, the empty side of the bed.

She heads for the bathroom, sticking her head under the faucet and gulping mouthfuls of lukewarm water. She can still hear the rain thundering outside. It seems like it has been raining forever this November, but maybe that's only her state of mind.

She goes into the kitchen. Note's still on the table. Seven days later, she doesn't read it anymore, but can't quite bring herself to throw it away.

Refrigerator inventory time: yogurt, tuna fish, pineapple, eggs. She grabs the eggs, then realizes they expired two weeks ago.

Screw it, she goes back to bed.

Same dream, same images, same visceral scream.

One a.m., she gets up for good. She showers, scrounges for clean clothes, then stares at her gaunt reflection in the mirror.

"How do you spell fuckup? R-A-I-N-I-E."

She goes for a drive.


Tuesday, 2:47 a.m. PST


"BABY'S CRYING," he mumbled.

"Wake up."

"Mmmm, honey, it's your turn to get the kid."

"Carl, for God's sake. It's the phone, not the baby, and it's for you. Snap out of it."

Carlton Kincaid's wife, Tina, elbowed him in the ribs. Then she tossed him the phone and burrowed back under the covers, pulling the down comforter over her mocha-colored head. Tina wasn't a middle-of-the-night sort of person.

Unfortunately, neither was Kincaid. Sergeant Detective, Major Crimes, Portland office of the Oregon State Police, he was supposed to be prepared for these sort of calls. Sound intelligent. Commanding even. Kincaid hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in nearly eight months now, however, and was feeling it. He stared sulkily at the phone, and thought it had better be damn good.

Kincaid sat up straight and attempted to sound chipper. "Hell-oh."
A trooper was on the other end of the line. Had gotten called out by a local deputy to the scene of an abandoned vehicle on the side of a rural road in Tillamook County. So far no sign of the owner at the vehicle's site or at the owner's legal address.

Kincaid had one question. "Is the vehicle on public or private property?"

"Dunno."

"Well, figure it out, 'cause if it's private, we're gonna need consent to search the grounds. You'll also need to contact the local DA for a warrant to search the vehicle. So get the DA rolling, buckle up the scene, and I'll be there in"--Kincaid glanced at his watch-- "fifty-five minutes."

"Yes, sir."

The trooper hung up; Kincaid got moving. Kincaid had been with the OSP for the past twelve years. He'd started as a trooper, spent some time on a gang task force, then transferred to Major Crimes. Along the way, he'd acquired a beautiful wife, a big black mutt, and as of eight months ago, a bouncing baby boy. Life was going according to plan, if you included in that plan that neither he nor his wife had slept or chewed their food in over half a year.

Kids kept you hopping. So did Major Crimes.

He could hear the rain coming down in sheets off the roof. What a bitch of a night to be pulled out of bed. He kept two changes of clothes in the trunk of his take-home car. Night like this, that'd get him through the first half hour. Shit. He looked back at...

"Gardner keeps the suspense cranked high."