Snatched by Pete Hautman

off chance she was sitting in the kitchen, he circled their split-level house and entered through the basement door. He could claim he had been home all the time. She might believe him.
    He entered quietly and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t hear any conversation. More importantly he didn’t hear the radio or the TV. His mother was a news addict. She had to know what was going on in the world all the time.
    Brian walked up the stairs that ended in the kitchen. His father was hunched over the kitchen counter. A loaf of bread and a can of tuna sat at the end of the counter. In front of his father were four piles of cards. His father was playing bridge.
    Most people played bridge with other people, but his father had devised a way that he could play it with himself. When Brian had asked him why he didn’t play with other people, his dad told him it was just too much trouble. He could play for hours.
    “Hey, Dad,” Brian said.
    His father lifted his head and smiled as if he had just woken up from a pleasant dream. “Brian, where have you been?”
    “Around.”
    “I see. I thought maybe you’d left. Are you hungry, son?”
    Brian liked it when his dad called him son. “Is Mom coming home for dinner or not?”
    “She called again. She thought she’d swing by and eat with us, but then she’s going to have to go back to work tonight.”
    Brian looked at the bread and tuna on the counter. “Tuna melts?”
    “Yes. Just let me finish this hand. . . .”
    Brian took over the sandwich-making process. He made the tuna salad with lots of finely chopped dill pickles. He lined up three pieces of bread on a cookie sheet, slathered on the tuna salad, and completely covered that with thinly sliced cheese.
    “Dad, why would someone abduct a teenage girl?”
    “I won,” his father declared and slid all the cards back together. “Abduct a girl? Oh yes, your classmate.”
    “Yeah. What would be their motive?”
    His father took only a moment to think and then he said, “Well, it could be for money, of course. Kidnapping for ransom is not unknown. There are also a number of mental aberrations that might lead to such antisocial behaviors. Early childhood trauma, brain tumor, social marginalization caused by political or cultural pressures, certain chemical imbalances in the brain leading to . . .”
    Brian was often impressed by his father’s ability to take a simple question and make it incredibly complicated. He decided to interrupt.
    “But what is the most likely reason?”
    Bruce Bain stopped talking and thought for a moment. “I believe that most child abductions occur when a parent abducts his or her own child.”
    “But why?”
    “Often it is a couple who divorce, and the court gives custody to one parent, and then the other parent abducts the child. It must be terrible for the child.”
    “Do you think Alicia Camden’s real father might have kidnapped her?”
    “Without more facts, I would not care to speculate.”
    “What about being kidnapped by an ex-boyfriend? Does that ever happen?”
    “Where human relations are concerned, particularly jealousy, almost anything is possible.”
    The front door banged open and his mother walked in the door shaking water off her umbrella.
    “Hullo, dear,” said Mr. Bain. “Is it raining out?”
    “No,” said Mrs. Bain. “It’s pouring.”
    Brian turned on the grill and put the sandwiches under the broiler. When he turned back, his mother was smiling at him.
    “You made dinner?” she asked.
    “No big deal.”
    She messed up his hair and kissed him on the cheek. “Mom!” he protested—but actually he was glad she wasn’t still mad at him.
    “You’re a good kid,” she said. “Give me a second to wash up and put on a different pair of shoes. These things are killing me.”
    When they all sat down at the kitchen counter with the tuna melts perfectly melted, Brian brought up the topic of Alicia’s abduction. “Have you found out anything?”
    “We