It’s Sunday evening, and Dee, Jesse, and Janelle have gone to a movie.
Dick stayed behind to finish his notes for the clinical trial. His tenure with Pentco ended Friday, but there are still a few protocols he wants to pass on to the chemist who is taking over the project. He offered to stay on, but Katz categorically declined.
“I would thank you for your service, Dr. Raynes, but I wouldn’t mean it. Enjoy your newfound wealth, and I hope to never see you again.”
He yawns and stretches his arms over his head. He and Janelle didn’t get back last night until after midnight, and this morning, Gus woke him at dawn to remind him it was time to go for their run.
He looks at the clock in the corner of his screen, surprised to see it’s nearly seven. His stomach rumbles, and he wonders where Cray is. Typically they eat dinner together around six thirty. Over the past month, Dick’s become accustomed to his routine.
He returns to his notes, and at seven fifteen, the screen opens, and Dick looks up to see Cray entering from the garage as he always does. But this time, he walks backward, dragging . . . no struggling . . . with something through the door.
Dick freezes, his eyes fixed on the screen as his throat closes and his brain seizes.
He leaps from his chair and races for the door.
From the prepaid cellphone he keeps in his glove box, he dials 9-1-1. The call might be traced back to him, but he doesn’t worry about that, no thought in his brain other than the ice-white panic that he won’t get there in time.
“2190 Solanto Drive in Lake Forest!” he barks when the operator answers.
“Sir, slow down. What’s your emergency?”
“A boy’s been abducted, and I believe he is going to be raped.”
He repeats the address, hangs up, and slams down on the accelerator. The Volvo groans in protest then reluctantly obeys, revving to sixty then seventy. He whips onto the on-ramp, then slams on the brakes, stopping an inch from the car in front of him.
The freeway is bumper-to-bumper traffic. He runs his hand hard through his hair, then pulls onto the shoulder and ekes his way to the next exit as horns blare.
He rides the off-ramp, then the on-ramp, then does it again, praying the seconds will help.
He gets stuck behind a big rig he can’t maneuver around, and his chest tightens as his fingers start to tingle. He can’t have a panic attack. Not now.
Sing. It’s a trick he learned in graduate school. Singing relaxes the larynx and opens the lungs.
The only song Dick can think of is “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” So, loud as he can, he belts it out, pushing the words through his constricted throat. He looks like a madman, but it works, his lungs opening and mercifully drawing air.
Finally he reaches the exit and races the remaining three blocks to Cray’s house. Grabbing Lucille from the trunk, he runs for the door. His only plan: Stop him!
Music blares from behind the wood as he hammers his fist against it. It’s the kind of noxious noise Jim and his friends listen to. “Justice is lost, justice is raped, justice is gone . . .”
He runs around the side of the garage and, using the barrel end of Lucille, breaks the glass of the door. His forearm tears on a shard as he reaches for the lock, but he barely notices as he turns the bolt and charges inside.
The music is deafening, the volume so loud he knows it’s to cover the screams. His momentum never slows as he scans the familiar interior, panic propeling him forward and down the hall where he saw Cray dragging the boy. Through an open door at the end, Cray stands naked in front of a bed, a large crucifix with Jesus draped on its transom tattooed on his enormous back.
Adrenaline makes Dick’s brain work faster, absorbing all the details at once. Two thin pale legs drape over the end of the mattress between Cray’s hairy ones. Cray’s hands move in circles in front of him in a bizarre dance that doesn’t match the music. His face is tilted toward the ceiling. The Mother Mary with a gold halo stares from the wall above the headrest. From somewhere beyond, incense burns.
Cray lifts his left arm, and Dick catches a glimpse of the boy—straight dark brown hair and duct tape over his mouth. He sees Dick, and his eyes widen. Cray, noticing, starts to turn.
All of it happens incredibly fast yet in time-warped slow motion. Lucille rising in Dick’s hands as he continues to charge. Cray’s arm swinging around as the bat comes down on his back and across the chest of Jesus.
Cray flails as he staggers to regain his balance, and the bat rises then smashes down again, this time with a sickening thud, a melon splitting open, as the wood strikes Cray’s head. He teeters, then falls, his hands shooting out to catch himself on the mattress on either side of the boy. His feet slip out from under him, and he collapses.
Dick steps forward to help pull the boy free, but at that exact moment, the music pauses, a breath between notes, and in that small rest, Dick hears the faint howl of sirens. Whirling, he races back the way he came, down the hall, through the living room, and past the kitchen to the garage.
He runs to his car, peels from the curb, then forces his foot to lighten its pressure on the gas. The first police car passes as he reaches the stop sign at the end of Cray’s street. Four more pass before he reaches the freeway.
It isn’t until he’s nearly home that he realizes he is bleeding. Body trembling, he looks down to see blood leaking from his forearm onto his pants. He pulls to the side of the road, takes off his dress shirt, and wraps it around the gash. Dropping his head to the steering wheel, he sucks air through his nose as his body continues to quake.
Things were starting to go so well.