He sat down and looked at me. I was still on my stomach. Verne Dayton toyed with his hair a little, pushing back the strands, tucking the long sides behind his ears. His face was thin. Everything about him screamed yokel.
“You the one beat her up?” he said.
For a moment I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then I remembered that he’d seen Rachel’s injuries. “No.”
“That get you off, huh? Beating up a woman?”
“What did you do with her?”
He took out a revolver, opened the chamber, slid a bullet into it. He spun it to a close and pointed it at my knee. “Who sent you?”
“No one.”
“You want to get capped?”
I’d had enough. I rolled onto my back, waiting to hear him pull the trigger. But he didn’t shoot. He let me move, keeping the gun on me. I sat up and stared him down. That seemed to confuse him. He took a step back.
“Where’s my daughter?” I said.
“Huh?” He tilted his head. “You trying to be funny?”
I looked into his eyes and I saw it. This was no act. He had no idea what I was talking about.
“You come here with guns,” he said, his face reddening. “You want to kill me? My wife? My kids?” Verne raised the gun to my face. “Give me one good reason I don’t blow you both away and bury you in the woods?”
Kids. He said kids. Something about this whole setup suddenly wasn’t making sense. I decided to take a chance. “Listen to me,” I said. “My name is Marc Seidman. Eighteen months ago, my wife was murdered and my daughter abducted.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“Please, just let me explain.”
“Wait a second.” Verne’s eyes narrowed. He rubbed his chin. “I remember you. From the television. You were shot too, right?”
“Yes.”
“So why do you want to steal my guns?”
I closed my eyes. “I’m not here to steal your guns,” I said. “I’m here”—I wasn’t sure how to say this—“I’m here to find my daughter.”
It took this a second to register. Then his mouth dropped open. “You think I had something to do with that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You better start explaining.”
So I did. I told him all of it. The story sounded insane in my ears, but Verne listened. He gave me his full attention. Toward the end, I said, “The man who did this. Or was somehow involved. I don’t know anymore. We got his cell phone. He only had one incoming call. It came from here.”
Verne thought about it. “This man. What’s his name?”
“We don’t know.”
“I call a lot of people, Marc.”
“We know the call was made sometime last night.”
Verne shook his head. “Nope, no way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t home last night. I was on the road, making a delivery. I only got home about half an hour before you got here. Spotted you when Munch—that’s my dog—started the low growl. The bark, that don’t mean much. It’s the low growl tells me someone’s there.”
“Wait a second. No one was here last night?”
He shrugged. “Well, my wife and boys. But the boys are six and three. I don’t think they were calling anyone. And I know Kat. She wouldn’t be making any calls that late either.”
“Kat?” I said.
“My wife. Kat. It’s short for Katarina. She’s from Serbia.”
“Get you a beer, Marc?”
I surprised myself by saying, “That would be nice, Verne.”
Verne Dayton had cut off the plastic cuffs. I rubbed my wrists. Rachel was next to me. He hadn’t harmed her. He’d just wanted us separated, in part, he said, because he thought that I’d beaten her up and forced her to help me. Verne had a valuable gun collection—many of them still in working condition—and people were a little too interested in them. He’d figured that was the case with us.
“A Bud, okay?”
“Sure.”
“You, Rachel?”
“No thanks.”
“Soft drink? Some ice water maybe?”
“Water would be great, thanks.”
Verne smiled, which wasn’t the most pleasant sight. “No problem.” I rubbed my wrists again. He spotted it and grinned. “We used those in the Gulf War. Kept them Iraqis under control, I can tell you.”
He disappeared into the kitchen. I looked at Rachel. She shrugged. Verne came back with two Buds and a glass of water. He passed out the drinks. He raised the bottle for us to clink. I did. He sat down.
“I got two kids of my own. Boys. Verne Junior and Perry. If something ever happened to them . . .” Verne whistled low and shook his head. “I don’t know how you even get out of bed in the morning.”
“I think about finding her,” I said.
Verne nodded hard at that. “I can relate, I guess. Long as a man ain’t fooling himself, you know what I mean?” He looked over at Rachel. “You absolutely sure the phone number is mine?”
Rachel took out the cell phone. She pressed some digits and then showed him the small screen. Using his mouth, Verne extracted a Winston from the pack. He shook his head. “I don’t understand it.”
“We’re hoping your wife can help.”
He nodded slowly. “She wrote a note, says she went food shopping. Kat likes to do that early in the morning. At the twenty-four-hour A and P.” He stopped. I think Verne was torn here. He wanted to be able to help, but he didn’t want to hear that his wife had called a strange man at midnight. He raised his head. “Rachel, how about I get you some fresh bandages?”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Really, thank you.” She held the glass of water with both hands. “Verne, do you mind if I ask you how you and Katarina met?”
“Online,” he said. “You know, one of those Web sites for foreign brides. Cherry Orchid, it’s called. They used to call it mail order. I don’t think they do that anymore. Anyway, you go to the site. You look at these pictures of women from all over—Eastern Europe, Russia, the Philippines, wherever. They list measurements, a little bio, likes and dislikes, that kinda thing. You see one that strikes your fancy, you can buy her address. They got package deals too, if you want to write to more than one.”