Captivated: A Colter Shaw Short Story

Captivated

A Colter Shaw Short Story

Jeffery Deaver

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Gunner Publications, LLC 2019

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Jeffery Deaver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2019 © ISBN: 9780008346898

Version: 2019-02-12

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Thursday, August 30

Friday, August 31

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Jeffery Deaver

About the Publisher

Thursday, August 30

“She’s been gone for a month. And two days.”

The man’s troubled expression suggested that he could easily have added the number of hours.

“No contact with you at all?”

“None.” The voice stumbled. He cleared his throat. “No, sir.”

The two men were sitting in an Asian fusion restaurant—self-billed as such, though to Colter Shaw it resembled any other Chinese place. He was having wonton soup, concocted with homemade chicken stock, Shaw believed. It was good. The man across from him in the booth was ringed by a parapet of bowls and plates—some tofu thing, sauces, soup, egg roll and rice. One of the lunchtime combos. The man had taken two bites of the rice and set down his chopsticks.

“I know—in my soul—I know she’s in danger. Somebody’s kidnapped her. We have to do something!” He tugged at the collar of his gray suit jacket. Brooks Brothers, Shaw had seen when the front flaps parted. The cuffs were frayed. Matthews’s shirt was white, the collar yellowing where it met his neck, and was a size too large. His tie was bold green and he sported a matching pocket square. A big gold ring encircled the middle finger of his right hand.

“You’ve gone to the police?” Shaw asked, his voice a monotone, in contrast to Ron Matthews’s oscillating timbre.

“Yes, of course. I called them a day after she didn’t come home. I was worried it was too soon. But the detective said there’s no waiting period or anything.”

In most states you can report somebody missing ten minutes after they don’t show up. But unless it’s a child or there’s evidence of a crime (the standard police term really is the quaintly Sherlockian “foul play”), the authorities don’t jump on board right away.

Matthews confirmed that this was true in his case. “They weren’t gung ho, you know. There are a lot of missing persons, he told me.”

Thousands upon thousands, Shaw knew.

“He asked—you’re probably going to ask me the same thing—if she’d been in touch with anybody. And, yeah, Evie called a friend the same day she was due home. She said she’d decided to travel for a while. She needed to get away. I had to be honest with the cop.”

Always a good plan.

Well, usually.

“But I think the kidnapper forced her to call her friend, to make sure the police weren’t involved. She didn’t call me because the kidnapper would think I’d know something was wrong. And I would. Evie and me, we have this …” Matthews ran his hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “I’d just know she was in trouble.”

Shaw took a sip of pungent Tsingtao beer. Another spoonful of soup.

Matthews had been sniping furtive glances at him since the businessman had joined Shaw here. He did so again, taking in Shaw’s short blond hair, lying close to the scalp, his broad but compact build, just shy of six feet. An oval face, complexion light. Eyes blue with gray influence. A few women had said he resembled this or that actor, usually some action-movie hero. Most of them he’d never heard of, since, growing up, he’d seen only two or three movies or TV shows a year—and then not until he was ten or eleven. Now, that sort of entertainment was not a major part of his life.

The clothing he now wore was his usual when on the job: jeans, dress shirt open at the collar—today’s was navy blue—and a dark-checkered sports coat. Respectful, to put offerors and witnesses at ease. On his feet, black Ecco slip-ons. Which were comfortable. And offered good traction. Just in case.

The businessman, of course, was interested in teasing more out of Colter Shaw than just his appearance. But all he got in this department, for the time being, was straight posture, constant eye contact, no smiles or frowns, no small talk, just undistracted attention to every word Matthews said. The message was the intended one: I’m listening and I’m taking the situation very seriously. Matthews seemed to relax into confidence. Like most offerors, he didn’t get that Shaw was sizing him up too.

Shaw asked, “Did she—Evelyn’s friend—tell you anything about where she went?”

“No. She said Evie’d called, and that was it. She didn’t pick up again when I called back, once or twice.”

Or dozens of times. Matthews would have called until the friend blocked his number.

“Tell me how she disappeared,” Shaw said. “Details.”

“Evie went to an artists’ retreat outside of Chicago—Schaumburg—last month. Weekend thing. She went to some retreat almost every month, all around the country.” His lips tightened. “Sunday night, she didn’t come home. She was supposed to but she didn’t.”

“She drove?”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve been married a year?”

“Thirteen months. Was our anniversary July tenth.”

“Phone?” Shaw asked.

“Not in service.”

Shaw asked, “Private eye?”

“Cost me more than I could afford, got me zip.”

With a few exceptions, PIs were great for background security checks and poring over computer records to see if your fiancée had ever poisoned a prior husband or misbehaved more than one usually misbehaves in Cabo. The “investigation” part of the job title—as in, pounding pavement—usually wasn’t a stellar performance.

That explained why, two weeks ago, Matthews had posted a reward—$10,000—in an Indianapolis newspaper and online for information about Evelyn Fontaine’s whereabouts. Shaw’s business associates in Florida had spotted the announcement and relayed the info to Shaw, who happened to be in Chicago finishing another job.

The $10K wasn’t much for a missing spouse believed to have been kidnapped. But for Shaw, the reward was never about the money; it was a flag flying over a problem that, so far, no one else had been able to solve. The sort he lived for.

Colter Shaw was restless in mind as well as restless in body.

He now asked the standard question: Had anyone else been in touch about the reward? Yes, Matthews said. Some people had contacted him but it was clear they had no helpful information and were simply hoping for a windfall. There’d been no calls in the past week.

This was a pattern Shaw had seen again and again.

Matthews now opened his wallet and slipped out a picture. Shaw had already seen some shots online but this was a far better image: a well-done formal portrait that depicted a woman in her late twenties with a long, sweeping neck and an angular face. Fragile in some ways, confident in others. She was more striking than beautiful. Her dark blond hair was piled high atop her head in carefully plotted disarray. Her eyes were blue but toward the violet end of the spectrum, and her smile was mysterious. Given her profession, Shaw wondered if the crafted crescent lips were an unconscious homage to the Mona Lisa—or, perhaps, a very conscious one.

Shaw nodded to the expensive Mercedes-AMG that Matthews had arrived in. “I looked you up. You own an industrial equipment dealership. How wealthy are you?”

Matthews blinked.

“I need to know if you’re a ransom target.”

Usually such demands come early in a disappearance. But not always.

“Maybe a year or so ago I was. But it’s been tough lately. With all the tariffs and trade wars, our revenues have dropped like a rock. The car’s leased and I’m looking at another operating loan. I could probably scrape together a million. You think that’s it? Somebody after money?”

Shaw kept his eyes on Matthews. “I don’t. And you don’t either.”

He’d finally formed an opinion about Ronald Matthews and Evelyn Fontaine. Matthews’s story didn’t quite add up; his eyes were evasive and he was emotional when he shouldn’t’ve been.

The businessman looked down. His chopsticks were no longer utensils but instead had become fidget sticks. He twirled one between the blunt thumb and the equally blunt index finger of his right hand.

“It’s not quite what I was telling you. Which I guess you picked up on. I just wanted somebody to get fired up enough to find her. I thought if you believed she’d been kidnapped, you’d really get on board.” A wan smile. “I’m a salesman by trade. We spin stories to close the deal.”

“What do you really think happened?”

“I haven’t been the best husband. Oh, not like that. I’m not abusive or anything. I’ve got a temper—my employees’ll tell you that. But I never shouted. Never hurt her. Wouldn’t even think of it. Ever. What I did was, I wasn’t honest with Evie.”

“Go on.”

“We met at a gala for the art museum in town. I was a benefactor, she was a volunteer. She came up to me and was all What’s a handsome guy like you doing in an old folks’ home like this? Because, yeah, everybody else was about eighty. We hooked up and started dating. It was so good. Great, at first. She was smart. Funny. And so beautiful. And the … between us … You know …” His voice faded.

Shaw knew he was seeking a euphemism for their fine times in bed. He knew too Matthews would never finish the sentence.

“She was so captivating …” A sigh. “I was, like, hypnotized. Naturally, I’d go to gallery openings and museums with her. I’d send her off to Paris or Florence so she could paint where all the famous painters from the past had. I’d go meet her and she was all Monet painted here, Gauguin painted there. But the fact is, I don’t get art, frankly.” Then in a whisper, as if she might actually hear: “I don’t even like it. I was involved in the museum for the tax write-offs. I could fake it for only so long and then started coming up with excuses for not going with her. It got worse when I had to work nights and weekends to keep the company afloat.

“I’m going crazy, Colter, I miss her so much. I’ve lost twenty pounds this last month.” He tapped his ring. “I had to move it to this finger. It kept falling off.”

He stared at the gaudy piece of jewelry—a class ring, it seemed.

“Salesman, I was saying? Well, you can’t seal the deal if you don’t give your buyer what you told him you would. I didn’t give Evie what I promised.” His voice cracked. A deep breath wheezed between his narrow lips. He masked blotting away a tear by scratching his nose. “I want a chance to pitch my case again. I can sell myself, I can sell our marriage. I know I can.”

Colter Shaw had seen many an offeror break down in front of him. Rewards are offered when a portion of the heart has vanished and there’s absolutely no balm for the pain except replacing the missing piece.

“I should’ve told you all that up front.”

In his decade of making his living seeking rewards Shaw had learned that how offerors described a situation was sometimes very different from what that situation actually was. He’d become a savvy interpreter and didn’t take such fabrication—sometimes intended, sometimes not—personally.

“I’ll help you,” Shaw said.

Matthews smiled once more, deeper this time, with appreciation. “Thank you. Now, what’s the arrangement?”

“I’ll ask you some questions and then try to find Evelyn. That’s it.”

He seemed confused, then asked, “Expenses?”

“No expenses. That comes out of my pocket. If I find her you pay me the ten K. If I don’t I swallow the costs. If a neighbor calls you and tells you where she is, even if I’m on my way to her hotel room, it’s his money.”

The nature of seeking rewards. Financial risks … as well as, often, physical risks.

“Well, okay. Now, questions?”

From his computer bag, sitting next to him, Shaw removed a five-by-seven bound notebook of thirty-two blank, unlined pages. From his inside sports coat pocket he retrieved a Delta Titanio Galassia fountain pen, black with three orange rings around the barrel, and uncapped it.

He opened to the first page and for the next fifteen minutes Shaw asked, and Matthews answered, dozens of questions, the responses recorded in elegant script as small as the tracks of a sparrow, the words perfectly horizontal despite the absence of lines on the paper. Matthews stared at the man’s handwriting. Many people commented on it. He didn’t.

Finally, Shaw believed he had enough to get started. Matthews rose, shook Shaw’s hand, more warmly than when they’d met. He began to speak, but emotion again intruded and he inhaled deeply, a hedge against tears. “Please. Help me, if you can.” He hurried out the door, climbed into the sleek black Mercedes, and a moment later the car sped out of view.

Colter Shaw had driven to Indianapolis in his thirty-foot Cambria Winnebago camper, in which he’d clocked 132,000 miles in the past year and half. He didn’t care for hotels and he hated to fly. The camper was perfect for both transportation and as living quarters. The boatlike vehicle, however, was cumbersome for tooling about town during an investigation itself, and his get-around wheels—a Yamaha YZ450FX dirt bike—made a questionable impression on offerors and disinclined potential interviewees from agreeing to talk to him.

Avis and Hertz were the solution and on jobs he rented a lot of unassuming sedans. Rearview cameras, satellite radios, good mileage. He’d also found people tended to trust you when you showed up in a Ford Escape or a Kia.

After leaving the restaurant, he found a trailer court with inexpensive hookups and clean showers, then he Ubered to a nearby Avis, where he collected a Toyota sedan.

He returned to the court and parked beside the Winnebago. In the RV he printed out the emails of material Matthews had promised to send: a list of Fontaine’s family members, friends, acquaintances and coworkers; galleries where her work was on display and/or for sale; and Matthews’s own phone and travel records around the time that his wife disappeared, the days before and after. The man hadn’t been offended that Shaw considered him a suspect, which was standard operating procedure on a missing spouse job; several times husbands had offered substantial rewards, to flag their innocence, when they themselves had dispatched their wives.

Shaw then called his own private investigator. Mack—an exception to the caveat about the limitations on permissible PI behavior—would conduct criminal background and weapons records checks on both principals in the job. Some of this information wasn’t in the public domain but Mack was unique in the world of private investigation: what was unavailable to most was rarely unavailable to Mack.

Shaw himself followed up on Matthews’s whereabouts on the days around the time Fontaine disappeared, after the workshop in Schaumburg. The records tentatively confirmed that Matthews was in Indianapolis on those days. And while that wasn’t conclusive, for the time being he ebbed as a suspect.

Shaw turned again to the entries in his notebook.

Date: August 30

Offeror: Ronald Matthews, 52, resident of Indiana, 2094 Shady Grove Lane, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Missing individual: Evelyn Maude Fontaine, 29, resident of Indiana, wife of 13 months.

• EF: Employed part-time as professor of sketching and painting technique, Indiana Concord College for the Arts, Indianapolis. Fine artist

• EF has passport but no overseas contacts; out-of-country travel unlikely.

• EF’s sister is in Dayton, Ohio, but the two are not close. Sister claims EF has not contacted her re disappearance.

• EF’s funds: unknown. She sells paintings occasionally, though doesn’t make much. Some income from teaching. RM gives her money but less in the past year, owing to financial difficulties. Probably not a large amount saved up.

• Website/Facebook/Twitter: minimal personal posting. Mostly about her paintings, links to galleries that carry her work. No internet activity since disappearance.

• No ransom demands. For-profit abduction unlikely, owing to RM’s company’s financial difficulties.

• EF and RM, former members of Charter Lane Country Club, 10334 Hunter Grove Road, Indianapolis. Quit two months ago to save money.

• EF and RM, members of Fitness Plus Health Club, 494 Akron Avenue West, Indianapolis.

• RM married previously, divorced ten years ago. Ended amicably. Ex lives in San Diego. They haven’t been in touch for several years.

• EF never married previously. Lived with three different men over the course of ten years, each for about eighteen to twenty-four months. Amicable breakups.

• No reports of stalkers.

• EF owns late-model Jeep Cherokee, gold. Indiana license HNC877.

• No known extramarital affairs on the part of either EF or RM.

• Weapon in house: Glock 9mm. Accounted for. EF did not take with her. (Mack will verify weapons status.) RM has Concealed Carry Permit.

• EF—no criminal history. (Mack will verify.)

• RM—no criminal history, no domestic abuse complaints. (Mack will verify.)

• Credit cards in EF’s own name, RM has no access to recent purchase data.

• Was at Artists in the Prairie retreat August 1–3, Schaumburg, IL. Organizer confirms she attended and left after last lecture. No knowledge of where she went.

• EF’s phone out of service.

• EF—no history of emotional/mental problems. No self-harm/suicidal incidents.

• No other serious reward seekers have approached RM.

• RM states he was in Indianapolis day before, day of, and day after EF’s disappearance. Records tentatively confirm.

• RM to provide list of EF’s friends and acquaintances, as well as galleries EF has connection to.

Has supplied.

Shaw put the notebook aside to take Mack’s call. The PI reported that that, yes, Matthews had a concealed carry permit, and only one weapon was registered in his name, the Glock he told Shaw about. Fontaine had no concealed carry or weapons registered to her.

Matthews had a clean record and no domestic abuse complaints or restraining orders against him, as he’d reported.

Evelyn Fontaine had no adult run-ins with the law but did have two juvie incidents, shoplifting, at ages fourteen and fifteen. The first was dismissed after the owner of the art store involved withdrew the complaint. The second went forward but was knocked down to supervised release after she told the prosecutor she’d stolen the paints and brushes to do paintings to sell at street fairs to supplement the family’s income; her father, an alcoholic and drug abuser, in and out of trouble with the law, could never hold down a job.

Shaw recalled Matthews frowning, offended, at the question of whether his wife had ever been arrested. Given that the incidents were fifteen years old and trivial, Shaw decided he had no reason to tell him.

Shaw worked his way from the camper’s narrow banquette, then boiled water and brewed a cup of Santa Bárbara, Honduras, coffee, added a splash of milk and sat back down. He sipped the coffee slowly, considering strategic choices in his search for Evelyn Fontaine.

When Colter Shaw was four years old his father abruptly moved his wife and three children from the San Francisco area to an enclave in the wilds of eastern California. The alternative upbringing that ensued offered some advantages for the boy. The homeschooling—by parents who’d been respected professors at a prestigious university—gave him a fine education without the dreaded routine and confinement of the classroom. The scenery was spectacular. The endless work required to survive on the thousand rugged acres guaranteed that Colter’s restlessness remained at bay.

The flight to the Compound, as it was named by Ashton and Mary Shaw, was more complicated than your typical NPR-subscribing urban couple’s shucking off of society. An aura of threat motivated the move—a threat that might have been real or might have been a hatchling of Ashton’s brilliant but paranoid mind. Years later Shaw realized that the man was essentially an off-the-grid survivalist, less cranked than most but constantly suspicious of outsiders, and a drillmaster when teaching the children how to protect themselves in all circumstances.

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