Captivated: A Colter Shaw Short Story. Jeffery Deaver

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      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.