The Disappearance by J. F. Freedman Read Free Book Online Page A

front of the Lancasters’ house. Sheriff Williams is interviewed briefly: there are, as of now, no clues, and no one has been in touch with the family.
    Doug and Glenna watch the live feed via satellite from inside their house. Glenna is a wreck. She slept until one in the afternoon, by which time Doug had done whatever he could do at the station and had come home to be with her. She was going to need his physical presence as much as possible, that he knew.
    Fred Hampshire watches with them. He and Doug have to talk about this, formulate a strategy. Doug can’t sit by passively and wait for events to unfold, they both agree on that. He’s going to have to take some action, force the issue.
    There have been requests for interviews from the other networks, CNN, Turner Broadcasting, Fox, the New York Times , Los Angeles Times , Washington Post , as well as the supermarket muck-rakers. Hampshire issues a blanket statement to one and all: “No interviews, no intrusions on the family.” Earlier in the day he hired a security agency to keep everyone at bay.
    It’s getting dark. Husband, wife, and lawyer sit in the study. “What do you want to do?” Hampshire asks.
    “What can we do until someone calls and tells us what they want?” Glenna laments.
    Hampshire steeples his fingers. “What if whoever did it doesn’t call?”
    “Why wouldn’t they call?” she says, wild-eyed. “Isn’t that the point? To get money from us?”
    “The kidnapper might not want money,” Hampshire says somberly.
    The ramifications of that fall on her like a slab of concrete from twenty floors. “Oh, no!” she wails. “That can’t be!”
    “You have to face the possibility that whoever did this didn’t do it for money, Glenna,” he says. “There are a lot of fucked-up, crazy people out there. He might just have wandered in, seen her, and taken her.”
    She starts crying uncontrollably. Doug pulls her to him, squeezing her in a fierce embrace. “That’s theoretical, honey,” he says, trying to soothe her while shooting a murderous glance at Hampshire, “but it isn’t what happened. Somebody wants money. He knew who we were, and that we can pay whatever it takes.”
    “How do you know that?” she rasps hoarsely. “We don’t know who did this, so how do you know what he wants, whoever he is!”
    He holds on to his composure—he has to, he can’t handle his daughter being abducted and an out-of-control wife too, if he isn’t in control himself. “It’s a feeling, honey,” he says as gently as he can. “I have to go with my instincts, there’s nothing else I can do right now. Or you.”
    “Well, my instincts tell me something horrible has happened to her,” she cries. “That she’s somewhere out there in pain, waiting for us to come and rescue her. And we aren’t doing a goddamn thing about it !”

DAY THREE
    “G OOD EVENING. MY NAME is Doug Lancaster. I’m the owner of KNSB.”
    Doug is seated at the anchor desk staring into the camera, the TelePrompTer on top scrolling down. He’s in a dark business suit and has had makeup applied, something he’s never done before, even on the rare occasions when he has addressed a television audience, but another sleepless night, mostly spent holding his hysterical wife in his arms, has created monster raccoon rings under his eyes and given him an unhealthy pallor. For this presentation he wants to look healthy and in control, so he went with the pancake.
    “I am speaking to you tonight for a very personal reason.”
    It took an entire day to write this speech. Joe Allison and Jane Bluestine helped him, and Fred Hampshire vetted it to make sure Doug didn’t say anything of a legal nature that could come back to haunt him later. He practiced reading the speech off the TelePrompTer several times, to make sure it would go smoothly.
    Off to the side he can see himself in the monitor. Forcing himself not to look, so he won’t be more self-conscious than he already is, he draws