Текст книги "Taken"

Автор книги: Chris Jordan

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That results in a glare from Judge Mendez. “The victim is not a dog, Mr. Nichols, and murder is not homework.”

“I apologize, Your Honor. Poor choice of words. But the fact remains that the state has sufficient evidence to proceed to trial.”

Judge Mendez smiles faintly. “So you’d be ready for trial today, would you?”

“Excuse me, Your Honor?”

“It was a simple question, Mr. Nichols. If I scheduled this case for trial this very afternoon, would you be ready to proceed?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“So you want to arrest Mrs. Bickford now and then develop further evidence before proceeding to trial?”

“I wouldn’t put it quite that way, Your Honor. But the investigation is ongoing. We anticipate more evidence shortly.”

“That’s all you’ve got?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Thank you, Mr. Nichols. Ms. Savalo?”

“Your Honor, the defense has reached an understanding with the state. We will not appeal the arrest of my client on these charges at this time, if the state does not oppose my client being released on bond.”

“I see. And why would you do that, Ms. Savalo, considering the entirely circumstantial evidence thus far presented by Mr. Nichols?”

There’s a snapping noise as my attorney’s pricey shoe heel completely lets go, and in that instant she has to grab me to keep herself from falling.

“Shit!”

“Ms. Savalo, are you okay?”

Maria kicks off both shoes, grimaces. “I’m very sorry, Your Honor. I broke a heel on the way into court.”

“Are those Jimmy Choos, Ms. Savalo?”

“No, Your Honor. Blahniks.”

“Ouch,” says the judge. “My commiserations. And don’t bother trying to hide your bare feet. We’ll suspend proper dress rules just this once. Now, where were we?”

The court reporter reads back a few lines before the judge stops him. “Got it. Thanks. So I repeat, Ms. Savalo, why would you agree not to contest this charge, considering the entirely circumstantial evidence thus far presented by Mr. Nichols?”

Maria takes a deep breath before answering. “Because, Your Honor, it is absolutely critical that my client be able to continue searching for her missing son. Aside from anything else, he’s the key to the whole conspiracy. To this end, we have engaged a private investigator skilled in abduction cases. Mrs. Bickford is working closely with him, and we have developed evidence crucial to the defense. Evidence that could have been developed by the state or local police, but was not, because they failed to pursue other leads.”

“Mr. Nichols?”

“The investigation remains open, Your Honor. If evidence arises that justifies another line of investigations, then I’m confident it will be vigorously pursued.”

The judge taps a pen on her desk, seems to be mulling something over. “If I may ask you another question, Mr. Nichols.”

“Certainly, Your Honor. Ask away.”

“Do I detect a certain lack of enthusiasm from the prosecution?”

For the first time, Jared Nichols looks slightly taken aback. “I’m not sure what you mean, Your Honor.”

“From where I’m sitting, Mr. Nichols, it very much looks as if you’ve arraigned the defendant in response to pressure from the local police, or possibly from the news organizations, rather than from a sincere belief that you can win a conviction. Does that explain why you will not oppose bond?”

“Yes, Your Honor. I mean no, Your Honor. I mean we do not oppose because we don’t believe Mrs. Bickford to be a flight risk, or a further danger to the community.”

“Hmm. So that’s your story and you’re sticking to it?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Well, I’m not inclined to release the defendant on personal recognizance. Not for felony murder, however thin the evidence. Bond is therefore set at one hundred thousand dollars.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

Before standing up, the judge leans down from the bench with a word of advice. “Get busy,” she urges me. “Find your son.”

34 following mom

His fingers are bleeding but Tomas pays no heed. Wipes his hands on his shirt and concentrates on gripping his improvised screwdriver. He’s learned the trick of carefully backing out the screws that hold the plywood and he’s halfway done with the first sheet. The wood has warped away from the metal studs and he can see the pink of insulation stuffed behind it. He knows the pink stuff is itchy because once he made the mistake of lying down in a pile of it up in the attic. Thinking it looked soft, like cotton candy, and discovering that it itched like a thousand ant bites.

Mom put him in the shower, squirted shampoo all over him. What a goon. Himself, not Mom. She’d been concerned about his eyes, telling him the pink stuff was made of little bits of glass, and his eyes had stung, but that was from the shampoo.

No harm done, as it turned out. And right now he could care less about the itchy pink stuff. If it means he can get out, he’ll gladly burrow through the insulation and worry about washing it off later.

Only trouble, he can’t get all the way up the plywood, to release the last few screws at the top. If he had a board or something, maybe he could pry it loose. But he doesn’t have a board, or anything to produce leverage. All he has is his own body. His bleeding hands, his skinny arms. His feet.

Feet.

Tomas lies down, back against the floor, and works his Nike into the gap where the plywood warps. It pinches his toes—hurts—but he ignores the pain and pushes harder, worming his foot farther into the gap. He can feel another board on the other side of the metal studs—a discouraging discovery—but decides not to think about how he’ll get through that. Enough to concentrate on his immediate task, using his legs to push the plywood away from the studs. Legs are way stronger than arms, that’s what Coach Corso says. It’s legs that make the swing, legs that enable a pitcher to throw a fastball. Legs that are going to help him escape.

When he’s halfway up to his hips, his foot encounters another metal stud. No surprise, he’s already backed out the screw, knows it had to be there. Turning sideways so he’s facing the wall, Tomas pushes with all his might. Using his hands to push against the wall and straightening his leg at the same time. Like doing a push-up, only sideways.

He can feel the plywood moving, bending away from the wall.

Harder. Push harder. Stinky Man is coming back. Stinky Man is going to get you.

Tomas groans, sweat popping out on his forehead, tears coming to his eyes. Stupid plywood! And then, suddenly, no pressure, and the plywood is moving, the upper screws pulling through, and he’s able to push with both knees. Aware of a great bend in the plywood, his arms shaking with the effort, until finally the whole sheet of plywood pops free of the studs, teeters on end and crashes to the floor behind him.

If he’d hit a home run, Tomas would have whooped and pumped his fist in the air. This is way better than a home run, but he knows he’s running out of time. So instead of celebrating he gets on his knees and uses both hands to burrow into the pink insulation, sending chunks of it flying over his head. Exposing the gray backing paper of the Sheetrock that forms the outer wall of his prison.

Not plywood, but Sheetrock. He recognizes it as the same stuff from the inside of his closet at home. It looks hard, but it’s not as strong as plywood, and he knows that, too.

Tomas starts clawing at the Sheetrock with his bleeding nails.

Dr. Stanley Munk is striding through the gleaming halls of his exclusive clinic when the cell phone in his Canali trouser pocket starts to vibrate. He considers not answering. He considers throwing the damn phone to the floor and crushing it underfoot. Instead, he ducks into his office, locks the door and flips open the phone.

“Yes.”

“Good afternoon, Doctor. How’s every little thing?”

Munk recognizes the voice of his oppressor. The fake cop or phony FBI agent or whatever he is. Paul Defield, if you can believe it. Man with the gun, and with the power to shatter his world. Also the man who can make everything better.

“Fuck you,” says Munk.

“I see you’ve recovered your sense of well-being. That’s good. I want you at the top of your game.”

Munk has been awaiting the call. Dreading it ever since Defield pressed the phone into his hands. “What you ask is impossible,” he says, repeating what he’s been rehearsing in his own mind for hours. “Can’t be done on short notice.”

“Oh, you can make it happen, Doctor,” the voice says, sounding oddly cheerful. “I checked the schedules for your surgical team.”

“How could you possibly—?” Munk stops himself. Of course, the spyware. The bastard not only knows about the laptop, about the perfect tens, he knows everything that happens in the clinic, and when. It makes Munk feel unclean, violated, and his burst of anger morphs into a cold, lingering fear. He has to find a way to get this man out of his life. Tells himself he’d cheerfully kill the son of a bitch, but Dr. Munk has never killed anyone. Not intentionally.

“The new patient will be delivered to you in Scarsdale tomorrow morning at 0600 hours,” says the cool, confident voice. “Six o’clock sharp, at the rear entrance. You will meet the ambulance yourself. You will not delegate the task, do you understand?”

“Listen to me,” Munk says, whispering fiercely as his eyes flick to the locked door. “What you ask can’t be done! It takes days to prep a patient for surgery like that. Dammit, we don’t even know the blood type.”

“Blood type is A negative,” responds the voice.

“It’s more than blood type. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Here’s what I know about your clinic, Dr. Munk, and what you can do on short notice, given the proper motivation. Two years ago you performed a similar procedure on a certain Arab gentleman, a member of the Saudi royal family. Do you recall the gentleman?”

“Yes,” Munk admits. “But that was different.”

“Not so different,” insists the voice. “His private air ambulance landed at JFK at 5:00 a.m. and was whisked through customs. By nine he was in surgery. It’s all in the files.”

Munk sinks into his custom-built ergonomic chair. Eight grand and it feels like a chunk of lumpy ice under his buttocks. Cold sweat runs from under his arms, soaking his shirt. He feels like puking, and forces himself to swallow the gorge rising. He remembers the Saudi prince vividly, and the enormous fee paid by his grateful family.

“A million bucks,” says the voice. “Not bad for a day’s work. I don’t blame you for not declaring a nice tidy sum like that, or keeping most of it secret from your partners. They have any idea what a deceptive bastard you are? Any idea what you’re doing when you go to Thailand twice a year?”

The doctor feels his stomach slip away, as if he’s just gone over the top of a particularly steep roller coaster. A roller coaster with no bottom, no end in sight.

“You still there?” the voice wants to know. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Who are you?” Munk asks. “Who are you, really? And how do you know these things?”

“My sources are not your concern. Your only concern is the surgery you’ll be performing tomorrow.”

“We had full medical records on the prince,” Munk protests. “We knew exactly what to expect. This is different.”

“My son comes with full medical records, too,” says the voice. “You’ll have them tomorrow morning. The driver will hand you a file. It’s all there. Everything you require.”

“You’re insane.”

The voice chuckles, very intimate, as if he’s right there in the room with Munk. “Maybe I am,” he says. “That doesn’t change what will happen if you don’t do exactly as I say. We have a deal, Dr. Munk. A deal that keeps you out of jail. A deal that keeps your ugly little secret. As soon as we conclude this discussion, you will put your surgical team on alert. Tell them it’s another celebrity. The son of a politician or a movie star. Another Saudi prince, if you like. Very hush-hush. Use your imagination.”

“They’ll never believe me.”

“Of course they will,” says the voice. “You’re a really good liar, Dr. Munk. World-class. Make them believe.”

35 when the dark lightning strikes

Our first big break comes at five after two in the afternoon. Connie has helped me raise the ten grand for the bail bondsman and now we’re back at my dingy motel to pick up the rental. Shane looks almost as discouraged as I feel. The inquiry into the adoption records has been a bust and he’s about to tell me how bad it is when his cell phone chirps.

He glances at the incoming number. “I have to take this call in private,” he explains, somber-faced.

I offer to leave the room, but he waves me off, and a moment later he’s outside. I can see him through the window, holding the phone to his ear with one hand while he extracts pen and notebook from his shirt pocket. The fact that he’s avoiding eye contact is more than a little disturbing. Is this more bad news on the way, is that why he doesn’t want me to overhear the conversation?

Maybe the worst has happened. Maybe the state police have found a body. Maria would surely contact him first, let him break the bad news.

It’s a fairly mild day for late June, but the room suddenly feels claustrophobic and it’s all I can do not to open the door and bolt.

Please, God, don’t let this be when the black lightning strikes.

When Shane finally slips back into the room my heart is pounding so hard it makes my ribs hurt. But his eyes are crinkled up in a slow smile, so it can’t be the news I’ve been dreading. Something else has happened, and he’s quick to let me know, sensing my anxiety.

“My contact at the Pentagon came through,” he announces, holding up his notebook. “We’ve got a list of Army Special Operation Forces personnel in the area, active and inactive, and several of them fit the general description.”

I’d forgotten to breathe, and take a deep, shuddering lungful. The air burns, but it feels oh so good.

Reading from his notes, Shane begins to go into detail.

“There are five men within the thirty-five-to-forty age group who would be likely to wear the unsheathed-dagger tattoo,” he says. “No specific confirms on the tats, unfortunately. Not yet anyhow. But get this, one of the guys has a ten-year-old son. An adopted son with medical problems. We’ll start with him.”

One minute later we’re back on the road, heading north.

Cutter is starting to think that following Mrs. Bickford is a waste of time. Time that’s rapidly expiring, and that is starting to feel like small bubbles in his blood, spurring him on. Fortunately they’re all heading in the same direction—north on 95—and since Cutter doesn’t want to exceed the speed limit in his stolen Cadillac, he might as well remain behind his quarry, keeping an interval of five or six vehicles between them, for at least another few exits.

He assumes they’re heading to Pawtucket, to check out the adoption records. Which will prove to be another dead end for Supermom and her faithful sidekick.

So far as Cutter has been able to determine, all the bases had been covered. Assuming he hasn’t left behind any DNA or prints—and he’s one hundred percent certain he has not—there’s no way a solo investigator will be able to identify him as the culprit. Planning and execution have been meticulous. He’s used all of his skills, his training, his battlefield-honed instincts, and now he’s less than twenty-four hours from completion.

Between now and then he’ll do whatever has to be done to keep the enterprise on track. Kill, maim and terrorize as necessary. As he sees it, the primary challenge is managing the surgeon, Stanley Munk. At this point, control of Munk is strictly a psychological operation, and psych-ops are always dicey and unpredictable. At present Munk is cooperating, but that could change, and if it does, Cutter has to be ready. If threatening to expose the good doctor isn’t enough, he’ll find another way. Take Munk’s latest trophy wife hostage, if necessary. But abductions are inherently risky, requiring complicated logistics and timing and he hopes it won’t come to that.

Cutter doesn’t think of himself as a kidnapper. In his mind kidnappers are vile monsters, damaging children for money or depraved physical pleasures. His appropriation of Tomas is completely different, and necessary. The choice had been clear. He had to take Mrs. Bickford’s son so that his own son might live. And if that means his soul is damned to hell, so be it.

His foot knows something is wrong before he does. Why has he jammed on the brakes? Because five cars ahead, Mrs. Bickford has done the unthinkable. She’s supposed to be going to Pawtucket—he’d been absolutely certain that’s where she was heading—but instead she’s put her blinker on and is edging into the right-hand lane for the exit to Route 9, just south of New London.

The fact explodes like shrapnel in his hyperactive mind. Something is wrong, and for the first time in weeks, he has no idea what it means.

Our first stop is in Sussex, and as we wend our way up Route 9, Shane is explaining what happened to the adoption records.

“According to the Rhode Island attorney general’s office, Family Finders was a shady outfit, licensed but not always compliant with state laws on the adoption process,” he begins.

“We had no idea,” I tell him. “Ted would have told me if there was something wrong.”

“He couldn’t have known. It was a very slick operation. Their fees were anywhere from ten to fifty grand, depending on the client. They squeezed out as much as they could, apparently, after checking the financial statements that adoptive parents have to file. They were in the baby-selling business, plain and simple.”

Shane speaks in a just-the-facts-ma’am voice, but each word pounds into my head like an ice-cold spike.

“Are you saying Tommy’s birth mother might really be alive?”

He studies me with concern. “It’s possible. My best guess is that Bruce has his own agenda, but there could be birth parents involved. We might never know for sure because the records were destroyed in a fire six weeks ago.”

“What happened?”

“After Family Finders went out of business, the files were in file boxes in the basement at the county records office. Six weeks ago somebody doused the files with lighter fluid. That’s as much as the arson squad was able to determine. And the one employee at Family Finders who might know died at about the same time. Fell from a ladder, supposedly.”

“It was him,” I say. “Had to be Bruce.”

Shane agrees. “He found something, doesn’t want anybody else to know what it is.”

“I’m not sure it really matters now,” I say. “Not when we show up at his front door.”

36 tenpins in heaven

He’s not the one. That’s obvious to me the moment he opens the door. Too big, not the right age, and he doesn’t move like the man who abducted my son. And if there was any doubt, his voice confirms it. He’s not Bruce, not even close.

We’re in Sussex, which bills itself as “The Nicest Small Town In America.” No argument from me. It’s the sort of place I think of as Old Connecticut, far removed both in miles and mind-set from the towns and cities within commuting distance of New York. A quiet little riverfront village with a mix of lovingly restored colonial-era homes and a few quirky-looking buildings that had been patched together over the centuries, without help or guidance from Architectural Digest. That’s not to say that developers haven’t had their way here and there, among the slightly precious shops and inns, but I can’t imagine upscale destinations like Greenwich or Fairfax allowing a giant plastic groundhog to be featured in the main square. The locals apparently have great affection for Sussex Sam, and parade him around on Groundhog Day. It’s late in the month of June and Sussex Sam is still there in the square, wearing his jaunty plastic top hat and searching for his shadow.

A few crucial blocks from the waterfront, and thus far free from renovation, there stands a row of wooden, three-story tenement buildings, sheathed in dented aluminum siding. We’ve located Lieutenant Michael Vernon, U.S. Army (Ret.) on the third floor of the middle building, where he lives with his wife and son in a four-room apartment that smells of sour milk and boiled potatoes.

According to the information from Shane’s source at the Pentagon, Lieutenant Michael Vernon is forty-one years of age, but he looks ten years older, and his broad-shouldered, linebacker’s physique has sagged a bit over the years. Thinning red hair, close-cropped, and the kind of freckled skin that eventually shows serious sun damage. A big brawl of a man with forearms like Popeye. He’s not entirely clear on why we’ve sought him out, but seems glad to have company on a summer evening, and makes us welcome.

“Family Finders, huh? Yeah, I knew they went bankrupt or whatever. One time when things were bad Cathy and I talked to a lawyer about suing the bastards. Pardon me, miss. But you know what I mean. Anyhow, it was too late. Nobody left to sue.”

Shane and I have been offered seats on the plush green sofa, which is relatively new, unlike anything else in the apartment.

“Gift from my mother-in-law,” Lieutenant Vernon explains. “Couple months ago she plops down and a broken spring bites her in the butt. Next day a delivery truck pulls up. Hell, if I knew that’s all it took I’d have bitten her in the ass myself. Pardon me, miss. No offense intended.”

“None taken,” I respond.

His wife, Cathy, is a special-needs teacher at the local middle school, so he stays home to look after Mike Junior. “Not my idea to name him after me,” he says. “That was Cathy. You guys want some iced tea? ’Scuse my saying so, but it’s hot as a bitch in here.”

Iced tea would be great. There’s no air-conditioning and the windows are screwed shut because this is the third floor and Mike Junior has a habit of lurching out of open windows.

“He’s not really trying to jump,” Lieutenant Vernon explains. “He just sort of rocks forward, you know, like they do, and if he loses his balance, out he goes.”

The black-haired, olive-skinned boy has been relegated to his bedroom while Daddy talks with the nice man and woman. The handsome little boy went willingly enough—it’s obvious he enjoys pleasing his father—but every minute or so he makes a high-pitched shriek that startles all of us, even his father, who knows to expect it.

“He’s just playing. That’s the voice he uses when he’s playing with his toys. Tea okay? Good. Now, how can I help you?”

Shane explains that my son has been abducted, and that the kidnapping may have had something to do with Family Finders.

“Your kid got snatched? No shit. Sorry, Mrs.—what is it again? Brickyard?”

“Call me Kate,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about swearwords, Mr. Vernon. I’m not offended by salty language.”

That makes him chuckle. “Salty language? That’s the marines. I was army, we just plain cuss. Anyhow, Kate, you please call me Mike, okay? Around here they call me Big Mike so as not to confuse me with the boy, but just plain Mike is fine.”

“You were Special Forces?” Shane asks.

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

“The tattoo.”

“Oh, yeah.” Big Mike glances at his massive forearm, as if he’d forgotten the image of the unsheathed dagger inked into his skin. “Ancient history now. I got out five years ago on a hardship, because of Mike Junior. Had him in a special-needs school for a while, but really it doesn’t work for him, having all those other kids around. With Little Mikey, you got to control his environment, make him feel safe and secure. Then he’s fine. Really, he’s a great kid.”

From the bedroom, the boy shrieks. I’ve begun to recognize that the shrieks do indeed have a playful quality. And I’ve decided that Big Mike Vernon is a thoroughly decent man for staying home with the boy, and for speaking about him with such obvious patience and affection.

“Maybe we could start at the beginning,” Shane suggests. “How did you establish contact with Family Finders?”

Big Mike shrugs. “Cathy wanted a baby, that’s how it started. We’d been hitched for what, five years, and no luck. Something about her plumbing. ’Scuse me, Kate. Woman troubles. Anyhow, I was fine with that, but she wasn’t. Really wanted to have a baby, it was all she thought about, raising a kid. Army isn’t real big on fertility therapy because it’s so costly, but what they had we tried. Didn’t work. We talked about adopting and that seemed like a good idea, so we put ourselves on the list with our church organization, you know? Only there aren’t a lot of babies up for free adoption. Couple years went by. Then I’m on this temporary assignment and there’s a guy in the unit, a captain, he’s a pretty good guy and it turns out we both married Connecticut girls, so we had that general connection. Turns out and he and his wife have just adopted the cutest little baby boy you ever saw. So I ask him how he did it and he told me about Family Finders, up there in Pawtucket. Said all it took was cold hard cash. Not a lot of paperwork and no long waiting lists, if you didn’t mind adopting a brown-skinned baby.”

“What did they tell you about your son’s background?” I ask. “Anything about his birth parents?”

“Nah, not really. That’s supposed to be a secret, unless the birth mother wants to make contact. Which they assured me she wouldn’t do. And it’s not like we wanted the mother coming in a month later, taking him back.”

“No,” I agree. “Of course not.”

“Just between us chickens, I formed the impression the mother might have been a prostitute. Cathy didn’t pick that up—didn’t want to think about it—but I been stationed in places not a whole lot different than San Juan. Young women, girls, they get roped into the life because they’re poor, it don’t mean they’re bad people. Anyhow, the main thing you worry about with a baby from a situation like that is if the mother passes on a disease. Syphilis or HIV or whatever. But Mikey was clean. Whatever’s wrong, it’s not something they can find in his blood. Not that it would have mattered, long run.”

“Why is that?” Shane wants to know.

“You adopt a kid, he’s yours, for better or worse. You don’t give him back because he’s not perfect.”

“No.”

“I’m not saying we didn’t freak out when we realized something was wrong with Mikey. But by then he was part of the family. So you deal with it. You do whatever is necessary.”

“Of course. Did this fellow officer, did his son have problems, too?”

Big Mike slowly shakes his head. “Nope. They lucked out. Kid was perfect, far as I know. Smart and healthy and, you know, a normal kind of kid. ’Course, I haven’t seen them in years, not since I left active service.”

“But the child was adopted through the same agency?”

“Yep. That’s how we got onto it. Cathy had ten grand from her dead aunt, and that’s exactly how much they charged. The captain, I think he paid a little more.”

“Could you tell us how to get in touch with the captain, if we have any further questions?”

“I can tell you his name,” Big Mike says. “Cutter. Captain Stephen Cutter. ’Course, he might have been promoted since then. Maybe he made colonel. Guy was smart, a real brain.”

Shane flips open his notebook, grunts, and uses his thumb to indicate one of the names he’d scrawled down. Captain S. Cutter, 23 Crestview, New London.

“The captain have a tattoo?” Shane wants to know.

Big Mike has to think about it. “Good possibility. Most of the officers got ’em, in those units. Unit cohesion and all that good stuff.”

“He built like you?” Shane asks.

Mike grins. “Nah. Not many are. No real advantage to being a big guy in Special Ops. Harder to be stealthy, sneak up on the enemy. The cap, he’s about average size. And like I say, a real smart guy, too, which I guess is why he made captain.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Vernon. You’ve been a big help.”

“Can’t see why. How’s this all connected to Family Finders, anyhow?”

“We’re not sure,” says Shane.

“But you think it was an army guy grabbed him, huh? That’s why the question about the tattoo?”

“We’re not sure. Just running down leads.”

“’Cause the cap, he’s not the type to be stealing kids, my opinion. Very stable guy, devoted to his family and all. His wife now, that’s another matter.”

Shane instantly perks up, as do I.

“How so?”

Mike taps his big, freckled forehead. “Poor woman is a little off. The cap was always very protective of her, but you pick up on things like that.”

“You think she has mental problems?”

He shrugs. “Just off, someways. Real nervous and flighty in this dreamy sort of way. Never let the kid out of her sight, I’ll tell you that, like maybe he’d vanish if she couldn’t see him for even a minute.” He notes my crestfallen expression and adds, “Sorry, miss. No offense.”

At the door he says, “I’d walk you down, but Mikey, he gets upset if you leave him alone. Likes to know there’s someone in the house.”

“We’ll be fine.”

He hesitates, looks worried. “You know what? Probably I shouldn’t have mentioned about the wife being a little off. Everybody’s got their own problems. So if you see the cap, you just tell him Big Mike says hello, okay?”

By the time we get downstairs the sky has clouded over, looks like thunderstorms rolling in from the west.

“Next stop New London?” I ask Shane.

“Absolutely. We’ll cruise by, see if anybody’s home,” he says. “Interesting, that part about the wife. This could be the one.”

“I’ll know him when I see him up close, when I hear his voice. I realize that now.”

“Good,” he says. “I’ve got a strong feeling that things are starting to break our way, Kate.”

“You know what? Me, too. For the first time in days I really feel good about this. We’re going to find Tommy.”

Shane takes my hand, gives it a reassuring squeeze. “The next few hours are going to be crucial. I want you to be very, very careful. This man, whoever he turns out to be, he won’t hesitate to kill.”

“I’ll be careful. You be careful, too.”

“Always,” he says with a grin. “That’s my motto.”

I’m thinking that I’ve known Randall Shane for less than a week, but already we’re so comfortable in each other’s company that it’s like we’re old friends. Is it because we’ve been thrown together under incredible stress and pressure, or is there something else going on?

A voice hails us from the doorway to the apartment building. Big Mike Vernon stands on the steps with his son, who clings to his hand. “Mikey decided he wanted to say goodbye to the nice lady,” he explains.