Seize the Night

we had crossed, I could see no sign of the creeping gargoyle that I had glimpsed on the east side of Highway 1.
    Nonetheless, I felt as though I were being watched.
    I concealed my bike on the ground, behind a snarl of driftwood that had gotten its teeth into a few dead tumbleweeds.
    After tucking the flashlight under my belt, at the small of my back, I drew the Glock from my holster. It is a safe-action pistol with only internal safety devices, no little levers that need thumbing to ready the gun for use.
    This weapon has saved my life more than once, yet although it's a reassurance to me, I am not entirely comfortable with it. I suspect I'll never be able to handle it with complete ease. The weight and design of the piece have nothing to do with my aversion to the feel of it, this is a superb handgun. As a boy roaming the town at night, however, I was subjected to some memorable verbal and physical abuse from bullies—mostly kids but also some adults old enough to know better—and although their harassment motivated me to learn how to defend myself and taught me never to let an injustice pass without a firm response, these experiences also instilled in me a loathing of violence as an easy solution. To protect myself and those I love, I will use lethal force when I must, but I'll never enjoy it.
    With Orson at my side, I approached the Suburban. No driver or passenger waited inside. The hood was still warm with engine heat, the truck had been parked here only minutes.
    Footprints led from the driver's door around to the front door on the passenger's side. From there, they continued toward the nearby fence.
    They appeared to be similar—if not identical—to the prints in the planting bed under Jimmy Wing's bedroom window.
    The silver-coin moon was rolling slowly toward the dark purse of the western horizon, but its glow remained bright enough to allow me to read the license plate on the back of the vehicle. I quickly memorized the number.
    I found where a bolt cutter had been used to breach the chain-link fence. Evidently, this was accomplished some time ago, before the most recent rain, because the water-smoothed silt was not heavily disturbed, as it would have been by someone doing all that work.
    Several culverts also link Moonlight Bay to Wyvern. Usually, when I explore the former army base, I enter by one of those more discreet passages, where I have used my own bolt cutter.
    On this river-spanning fence—as elsewhere along the entire perimeter and throughout the sprawling grounds of Wyvern—a sign with red and black lettering warned that although this facility had been shut down at the recommendation of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, as a consequence of the end of the Cold War, trespassers would nevertheless be prosecuted, fined, and possibly imprisoned under a list of relevant federal statutes so long that it occupied the bottom third of the notice. The tone of the warning was stern, uncompromising, but I wasn't deterred by it. Politicians also promise us peace, perpetual prosperity, meaning, and justice. If their promises are ever fulfilled, perhaps then I'll have more respect for their threats.
    Here, at the fence, the kidnapper's tracks were not the only marks in the riverbed. The gloom prevented me from positively identifying the new impressions.
    I risked using the flashlight. Hooding it with one hand, I flicked it on for only a second or two, which was long enough for me to figure out what had happened here.
    Although the breach in the fence apparently had been made well ahead of time, in preparation for the crime, the kidnapper had not left a gaping hole. He'd created a less obvious pass-through, and tonight he had needed only to pull the loosely hanging flap of chain-link out of his way. To free both hands for this task, he had put down his captive, ensuring against an escape attempt either by paralyzing Jimmy with vicious threats or by tethering the boy.
    The second set of tracks was considerably smaller than the first.
    And shoeless. These were the prints of a child who had been snatched barefoot from his bed.
    In my mind's eye, I saw Lilly's anguished face. Her husband, Benjamin Wing, a power-company lineman, had been electrocuted almost three years ago in a work-related accident. He'd been a big, merry-eyed guy, half Cherokee, so full of life that it had seemed as if he would never run short of it, and his death had stunned everyone. As strong as Lilly was, she might be