Max

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Kate isn’t here. And the waiter locked the door behind me: she didn’t go back inside. I scan the street, the intersection—no sign of her.

“Kate?”

No answer.

I bang on the door. Fucking busboy—I can see him in there, policing up the salt shakers. Pretending he can’t hear me—“Hey! Got an emergency out here!”

“What’s the problem?”

I whirl. There’s a man leaning on the bricks, finishing a smoke. Guess he’ll have to do. “Did you see a woman around here?—tall, dark hair, late twenties?”

He butts out his cigarette. “Sure. She was having a seizure. Falling all over the place. Her boyfriend took her home.”

A seizure? Kate? “Her boyfriend?”

“Pale and skinny, dressed like Don Draper?”

Wes. Damn it. Here. What was I thinking, letting her out of my sight? “Which way did they go?”

“Uh, uptown? Maybe two minutes ago? Is there a problem?”

“Forget it.” I’m already on the move, scrambling into my car. Uptown—fine. They can’t have gotten far. I swing onto Park Avenue, tires squealing. Traffic’s heavy for this time of night: cars and taxicabs, a lumbering bus, all honking furiously as I weave in and out. I lean across the passenger seat to peer into this window and that: nothing. No Wes. No Kate. Where would he take her? If I were Wes, where would I go?

I’m on a fool’s errand: I don’t even know what he’s driving. He could’ve turned off anywhere by now, looped around—I should pull over and call the cops. But Wes could be halfway to Jersey in the time it’d take to explain the situation.

“Fuck me.” I tear through a light after a speeding green Civic. Not them. Too many shit drivers in New York. Where—where... The Plaza? Too obvious. But he must have a room somewhere. Whatever he did to give Kate a seizure, he’d need a safe place to take her afterward. Not the airport, nowhere public...so where?

I pull up alongside a blue sedan. The driver flips me off—some old guy. Not Wes.

He must’ve rented a place. Somewhere downmarket, no doorman. No one to see him smuggling a victim inside. That could be anywhere—anywhere but here. Anywhere but here. Crap. I’m never going to catch him like this.

I pull over. Dial Carson. He picks up on the first ring. “What? I’m at work.”

“Wes snatched Kate.”

“Jesus.” I hear muttering on the other end. Shuffling footsteps. The flapping of kitchen doors, the kind that swing both ways.

“Carson!”

“I’m here—keep your pants on. You call the cops?”

“Yeah. No. I’m about to. I need, uh—” What? Fuck. I called him for a reason. “You guys used to hang out—did he mention an apartment in the city? Somewhere he stays when he’s in town?”

“No apartment. But he stays at LaGuardia—there’s a Best Western there. Pretends he’s at the Plaza, but I’ve seen the keycards in his wallet.”

“Okay. Thanks.” A white car sails by and I whip my head around instinctively, catching a glimpse of gray hair. “Shit. I can’t—if you think of anywhere he’d go—”

“Yeah. I’ll call you.”

I resist the temptation to beat my head against the steering wheel. It’s too late. She’s gone. I could chase cars all night and be no closer to finding her, and where would he take her? Somewhere abandoned, unguarded? A junkyard? A construction site? Or somewhere private, somewhere he could—he could—

I beat my fists on the wheel, shouting as the horn blares.

Time to call the cops, for better or worse.