Текст книги "Missing You"

Автор книги: Harlan Coben

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter 37

Why did you leave me?”

Jeff winced as though the five words had formed a cocked fist. For some reason, Kat reached across the table and took his hand in hers. He welcomed it. There was no jolt when they touched, no huge spark or grandiose physical current. There was comfort. There was, oddly enough, familiarity. There was the feeling that despite everything, despite the years and heartache and lives lived, that this was somehow right.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I don’t want an apology.”

“I know.”

He threaded his fingers in hers. They sat there, holding hands. Kat didn’t press it. She let it happen. She didn’t fight it. She embraced the connection with this man who had shattered her heart, when she knew she should have pushed it away.

“It was a long time ago,” Jeff said.

“Eighteen years.”

“Right.”

Kat tilted her head. “It seem that long ago to you?”

“No,” he said.

They sat there some more. The skies had cleared. The sun shone down upon them. Kat almost asked if he remembered their weekend in Amagansett, but what was the point? This was dumb, sitting with this man who gave her a ring and then a pink slip, and yet for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel the fool about him. She could be projecting. She could be deluding herself. She knew the dangers of trusting instinct over evidence.

But she felt loved.

“You’re in hiding,” she said.

He didn’t reply.

“Are you in the Witness Protection Program or something?”

“No.”

“So what, then?”

“I needed a change, Kat.”

“You got into a bar fight in Cincinnati,” she said.

A small smile came to his face. “You know about that, huh?”

“I do. It happened not long after we broke up.”

“The beginning of my self-destructive period.”

“And sometime after the fight, you changed your name.”

Jeff stared down, as though noticing for the first time that they were holding hands. “Why does this feel so natural?” he asked.

“What happened, Jeff?”

“Like I said, I needed a change.”

“You’re not going to tell me?” She felt herself start welling up. “So I, what, just get up and leave now? I drive back to New York City and we forget all this and never see each other again?”

He kept his eyes on her hands. “I love you, Kat.”

“I love you too.”

Foolish. Dumb. Crazy. Honest.

When he looked up at her, when their eyes met, Kat felt her world crash down on her once again.

“But we don’t get to go back,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way.”

Her cell phone buzzed yet again. Kat had been ignoring it, but now Jeff gently pulled his hand away from hers. The spell, if that was what you’d call it, broke. Coldness spread up her abandoned hand and up her arm.

She checked the caller ID. It was Chaz. She stepped away from the picnic table and brought the phone to her ear. She cleared her throat and said, “Hello?”

“Martha Paquet just sent her sister an e-mail.”

“What?”

“She said all is okay. She and her boyfriend ended up at another inn and they’re having a great time.”

“I’m with her supposed boyfriend right now. It’s all a catfish.”

“What?”

She explained about the use of the faux Ron Kochman. She left out the part about Ron being Jeff and her connection to him. It wasn’t so much embarrassment anymore as much as not wanting to muddy the water.

“So what the hell is going on, Kat?” Chaz asked.

“Something really, really bad. Have you spoken to the feds yet?”

“I did, but I mean, they just sort of go silent on me. Maybe this catfish thing will help move things along, but right now, there is almost no proof of a crime. People do this all the time.”

“Do what all the time?”

“Have you watched the Catfish TV show? People set up fake accounts on these websites all the time. They use photos from someone who is hotter-looking. To break the ice. Pisses me off, you know? Chicks are always talking about how all they care about is personality, but then, bam, they fall for the cutie too. That might be all this is, Kat.”

Kat frowned. “And what, Chaz—this ugly guy or girl ends up getting them to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars to Swiss bank accounts?”

“Martha’s money hasn’t been touched.”

“Not yet anyway. Chaz, listen to me. I need you to look for any missing adults over the last few months. Maybe they were reported, maybe they just claimed to run off with a lover. There wouldn’t be major attention because there would be texts or e-mails or whatever, just like with these three. But cross-reference any kind of concern with singles websites.”

“You think there are more victims?”

“I do.”

“Okay, I get it,” he said. “But I don’t know if the feds will.”

Chaz had a point. “Maybe you can set up a meet,” Kat said. “Call Mike Keiser. He’s the ADIC in New York. We may be able to do better face-to-face.”

“So you’re coming back to the city now?”

Kat looked behind her. Jeff was standing. He wore denim jeans and a fitted black T-shirt. All of this—sights, sound, emotions, whatever—was almost too much to take in at once. The rush was overwhelming to the point of threatening.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll leave now.”

 • • •

They didn’t bother with good-byes or promises or hugs. They had said what they wanted to say, Kat guessed. It felt like enough and yet more incomplete than ever. She had come here hoping for answers, and as is the way of the world, she was leaving with even more questions.

Jeff walked her to the car. He made a face when he saw the fly-yellow Ferrari, and despite everything, Kat actually laughed.

“This yours?” Jeff asked.

“What if I said yes?”

“I would wonder if you grew a very small penis since we were last together.”

She couldn’t help herself. She threw her arms around him hard. He stumbled back for a second, got his footing, and hugged her back. She put her face against his chest and sobbed. His big hand cupped the back of her head and pulled her closer. He squeezed his eyes shut. They both just held on, changing their grips, pulling each other closer and with more desperation, until finally Kat pushed away all at once and, without another word, got into the car and drove away. She didn’t look back. She didn’t check the rearview mirror.

Kat drove the next thirty miles in a fog, obeying the GPS as though she were the machine, not it. When she had her bearings, she made herself concentrate on the case, only the case. She thought about all she had learned—about the catfishing and the money transfers and the e-mails and the stolen license plate and the phone calls.

Panic began to harden in her chest.

This couldn’t wait for a face-to-face.

She started making pleading phone calls, working connections, until she reached Mike Keiser, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI. “What can I do for you, Detective? We’re working an incident that took place at LaGuardia Airport this morning. I also have two drugs busts going down. It’s a busy day.”

“I appreciate that, sir, but I have a case involving at least three missing people across at least three states. One is from Massachusetts, one from Connecticut, one from Pennsylvania. I think there may be many more victims that we don’t know about yet. Have you been briefed on any of this?”

“I have. In fact, I know your partner, Detective Faircloth, has been trying to set up a meeting with us, but we’re really crazed with this LaGuardia situation. It may involve national security.”

“If these people are being held against their will—”

“Which you have no proof of. In fact, hasn’t each of your supposed victims been in touch with family or friends?”

“None is currently answering their phones. I suspect that the e-mails and calls are being coerced.”

“Based on?”

“Look at the whole picture,” Kat said.

“Make it fast, Detective.”

“Start with the two women. They both have an online relationship with the same guy—”

“Who isn’t really the guy.”

“Right.”

“Someone else was just using his pictures.”

“Right.”

“Which I gather is not uncommon.”

“It’s not. But the rest is. Both of these women go away with this same guy about a week apart.”

“You don’t know it’s the same guy.”

“Pardon?”

“Several guys could be using the same fake profile.”

Kat hadn’t thought of that. “Even if that were the case, neither woman is back from her trip.”

“Which also isn’t surprising. One had extended her trip. The other just left, what, yesterday?”

“Sir, one of the women transferred a ton of cash and is supposedly moving to Costa Rica or something, I don’t know.”

“But she called her son?”

“Yes, but—”

“You think the call was coerced.”

“I do. We also have to look at the case of Gerard Remington. He started an online relationship and now he’s gone too. He also transferred money to that Swiss account.”

“So what exactly do you think is going on here, Detective?”

“I think someone is preying on people, maybe a lot of people. We’ve stumbled across three possible victims. I think there are more. I think someone lures them away with promises of a vacation with a potential life partner. He grabs them and gets them somehow to cooperate. So far, none of them have come back. Gerard Remington has been off the grid for weeks.”

“And you think—”

“I hope he’s alive, but I’m not optimistic.”

“You really believe that these people have all been, what, kidnapped?”

“I do. Whoever is behind this has been smart and careful. He’s stolen license plates. With one exception, none of these three has used their credit cards or ATM charges or anything else we can trace. They just vanish.”

She waited.

“Look, I have to go into a meeting on this LaGuardia mess, but okay, yeah, this doesn’t pass the smell test. Right now, I don’t have a ton of manpower, but we’ll get on it. You gave us the three names. We will put a watch on their accounts, run their credit cards, check phone records. I’ll get a subpoena for this singles website and see what they can tell us about who put up the profile pages. I don’t know if that will give us anything or not. Criminals use anonymous VPNs all the time. I’ll also see if we can get that singles site to put up some kind of warning on their home page, but since it will hurt their bottom line, I doubt they will want to cooperate. We can also see if Treasury can go after the money trail. Two SARs were issued, right? That should be enough to get the ball rolling on that end too.”

Kat listened to ADIC Keiser continue to go down his checklist and came to a horrible, awful conclusion:

It wouldn’t do any good.

Whoever was behind this had been efficient. He had even gone so far as to steal a license plate from another Lincoln Town Car. So yes, the feds would work the case, even though it couldn’t yet be a priority. Maybe, if they got lucky, they’d find something.

Eventually.

But what else could she do?

When ADIC Keiser finished, he said, “Detective? I need to go now.”

“I appreciate your believing me,” Kat said.

“Sadly, I think I do believe you,” he said, “but I hope to hell you’re wrong about all this.”

“Me too.”

They hung up. Kat had one more card to play. She called Brandon.

“Where are you?” she asked him.

“I’m still in Manhattan.”

“I found the guy your mother supposedly went away with.”

“What?”

“I think you were right from the start. I think something bad has happened to your mother.”

“But I spoke to her,” Brandon said. “She would have told me if something was wrong.”

“Not if she felt it would put her—or you—in danger.”

“You think that’s what happened?”

There was no reason to sugarcoat it anymore. “Yeah, Brandon, I do.”

“Oh God.”

“The FBI is looking into it now. They will go through every legal channel they can to find out what happened.” She repeated the word that she had emphasized. “Legal.”

“Kat?”

“Yes?”

“Is that your way of asking me to break in to the website again?”

Screw the fancy talk. “Yes.”

“Okay, I’m at a coffee shop not far from your house. I’m going to need more privacy and a stronger Wi-Fi.”

“Do you want to use my apartment?”

“Yeah, that’ll work.”

“I’ll call and tell the doorman to let you in. I’m on my way too. Call me if you find anything—who put up the profiles, if they put up any other profiles, who else they’ve contacted, anything. Get your friends to help, whatever. We need to know everything.”

“On it.”

She hung up, called her doorman, hit the accelerator, though she felt as if she were rushing to nowhere. Panic was beginning to creep in and take hold. The more she learned, the more helpless she felt. Professionally and personally.

When the phone sounded again, the caller ID read BLOCKED.

Kat picked it up. “Hello?”

“This is Leslie.”

Cozone’s thin man. Even his phone voice had a creepy smile. “What is it?” she asked.

“I found Sugar.”

Chapter 38

Juicehead was getting closer.

From her spot behind the boulder, Dana Phelps searched for some kind of weapon. A rock maybe. A fallen branch. Something. She started digging her hands around the dirt near her, finding nothing more lethal than pebbles, and twigs too flimsy for a bird’s nest.

“Dana?”

The timbre of his shout told her that he was closing the gap in a hurry. Weapon, weapon. Still nothing. She wondered about the pebbles. Maybe she could mix them with the dirt and then fling it in his face, hitting his eyes, blinding him for a second or two and then . . .

Then what?

The whole plan was moronic. Dana may have been able to temporarily escape using the element of surprise. She may have been able to put some distance between them because of some fortuitous blend of lifelong training and adrenaline. But when she stopped and looked at it now, he had a gun and size and strength. He was well fed and healthy while she had been locked underground for she had no idea how long.

She had no chance.

What did Dana have on her side in this David and Goliath battle? Not even a slingshot. The only thing she maybe had was, again, the element of surprise. She was ducking behind this boulder. He would be passing by it any minute now. She could leap out, catching him off guard. She would go for the eyes and the balls and attack with the ferocity only someone fighting for her life could muster.

But did that even sound feasible anymore?

No, not really.

She could hear that he had slowed his pace. His steps were more deliberate now. Terrific. Even the element of surprise was gone.

So what did she have left?

Nothing.

Exhaustion emanated from every part of her body. Part of her wanted to just stay here, on the ground, and get it over with. Let him do what he wanted. He could kill her right away. Probably would. Or he could bring her back to that barn and do whatever monstrous thing he had been planning in hopes of extracting information relating to that police detective Titus had asked about.

Dana hadn’t been lying. She had no idea who Kat Donovan was, but that didn’t really seem to matter to Titus and Juicehead. Pathos never entered the equation with these two. She was less than an animal (witness Juicehead’s dog) to them. She was something inanimate, something lifeless, like this boulder, an object to be removed or bulldozed or broken into bits, depending on their want or convenience. It would be one thing if they were simply cruel or sadistic. What they were, though, was something worse.

They were completely pragmatic.

Juicehead’s steps closed in on her. Dana tried to adjust her body, tried to find a way to pounce when he passed, but her muscles wouldn’t obey. She tried to find hope in the fact that this Kat woman had spooked Titus.

Titus was worried about her.

Dana could hear it in his voice, in his questions, in his leaving her in the hands of Juicehead. Dana remembered seeing him rush out the door and drive away.

How worried was he?

Was Detective Kat Donavan, with the sweet, open face Dana had seen on that computer screen, onto him? Was she right now on her way to rescue Dana?

Juicehead was fewer than ten steps away.

Didn’t matter. Dana had nothing left. Her foot ached. Her head thrummed. She had no weapon, no strength, no experience.

Five steps away.

It was now or never.

Mere seconds until he reached her . . .

Dana closed her eyes and chose . . . never.

She ducked low and covered her head and said a silent prayer. Juicehead stopped at the boulder. Dana’s head was down, her face almost buried in the dirt. She braced for the blow.

But it never came.

Juicehead started up again, pushing his way through the branches. He hadn’t seen her. Dana didn’t move. She lay still as that boulder. She couldn’t say how long. Five minutes. Maybe ten. When she risked a look, Juicehead was nowhere in sight.

Change of plans.

Dana started heading back toward the farmhouse.

 • • •

Cozone’s man Leslie had given Kat the address of a town house on the corner of Lorimer and Noble streets in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, near the Union Baptist Church. The neighborhood was redbrick and concrete stoops. She drove past a broken-down building with a temporary sign reading HAWAIIAN TANNING SALON and couldn’t imagine any odder juxtaposition than a Hawaiian tan and Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

There were no free parking spaces, so she stuck the fly-yellow Ferrari in front of a fire hydrant. She climbed the stoop. A plastic name tape reading A. PARKER was peeling off by the second-floor buzzer. Kat pushed it, heard the sound, and waited.

A black man with a shaved head trudged down the stairs and opened the door. He wore work gloves and blue coveralls with a cable company logo. A yellow hard hat was tucked under his left arm. He stood in the doorway and said, “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Sugar,” she said.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “And you are?”

“My name is Kat Donovan.”

The man stood there and studied her.

“What do you want with Sugar?” he asked.

“It’s about my father.”

“What about him?”

“Sugar used to know him. I just need to ask her a few questions.”

He looked over her head and then down the block. He spotted the yellow Ferrari. She wondered whether he too would make a comment. He didn’t. He looked the other way.

“Pardon me, Mister . . . ?”

“Parker,” the man said. “Anthony Parker.”

He glanced to his left again, but didn’t really seem to be checking the street so much as buying time. He seemed uncertain what to do.

“I’m here alone,” Kat said, trying to reassure him.

“I can see that.”

“And I don’t want to cause any trouble. I just need to ask Sugar some questions.”

His eyes rested on hers. He managed a smile. “Come on inside.”

Parker opened the door all the way and held it for her. She stepped into the front foyer and pointed up the stairs.

“Second floor?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Is Sugar up there?”

“She will be.”

“When?”

“Right behind you,” Anthony Parker said. “I’m Sugar.”

 • • •

Dana had to move slowly.

Two other men had joined the search. One had a rifle. One had a handgun. They were communicating with Reynaldo via some kind of hands-free mobile phone or walkie-talkie. They swept back and forth, preventing her from making a straight line back to the farmhouse. Often, she had to stay perfectly still for minutes at a time.

In a very odd way, it was almost as though being buried underground had helped train her for this. Every part of her body ached, but she ignored it. She was too tired to cry. She thought about hiding out here, finding a covered spot and just staying put in the hopes that someone would come and rescue her.

But that wouldn’t work.

For one thing, she needed sustenance. She had been dehydrated before all this started. Now it was getting worse. For another, the three men after her kept crisscrossing the woods, keeping her on the move. One of the men had been so close to her at one point that she could overhear Juicehead say, “If she’s out that far, she’ll die before she ever gets back.”

It was a clue. Don’t keep running in that direction away from the farm. There was nothing for her out that way. So what to do?

She had no choice. She had to get back to the farmhouse.

So for the last . . . she had no idea how long; time had become irrelevant—Dana kept on the move, moving a yard or two at a time. She stayed low. She didn’t have a compass, but she thought she still knew the general direction. She had run out here in pretty much a straight line. The return was more a zigzag.

The woods were thick, making her rely more on sound sometimes than sight, but finally, up ahead, she thought that she saw a clearing.

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Dana commando-crawled toward it, moving with everything she had, which wasn’t all that much. It wouldn’t do—commando crawling was simply too exhausting. She risked getting to her feet, her head reeling from the blood rush, but every time her foot touched down on the dirt, a fresh jolt of agony rushed up her leg. She got back down and tried all fours.

It was slower going.

Five, maybe ten minutes later, she broke through the last line of trees and reached the farmhouse clearing.

So now what?

She had somehow managed to come back to exactly the place she had entered the woods. Up ahead of her was the back of that barn. To the right stood the farmhouse. She had to move. Staying where she was left her too exposed.

She made a dash for the barn.

With death so close behind her, Dana figured that she’d be able to push past the pain in her foot. But that wasn’t working. The daggers turned her sprint turn into a spastic one-legged hop. Her joints ached. Her muscles tightened.

Still, if she stopped, she would die. A simple equation when you thought of it that way.

She half fell against the side of the barn, pressing her body tight against the wall as though that might make her invisible.

So far, she was in the clear.

Okay, good. No one had spotted her yet. That was the key. Next step?

Get help.

How?

She thought about running down the drive. That had to lead to an exit, right? But she had no idea how far it was, and worse, it was wide open. She would be spotted and picked off easily.

Still, it was an option.

Dana craned her neck, trying to see to the end of the road. It was too far away.

So now what?

She had two choices. One, run down the road. Take your chances that way. Two, hide someplace. Hope someone comes to rescue her or maybe she could sneak out under nightfall.

She couldn’t think straight. Hiding till nightfall seemed somewhat feasible, but she couldn’t count on anything approaching an immediate rescue. Her tired, confused brain added up the pros and cons and reached a conclusion: Making a run for it was the best of a lot of bad options. No, she had no idea how far it was to the road. No, she didn’t know how close any other people or traffic were.

But she couldn’t just stay here and wait for Juicehead to come back.

She had gone only about ten yards toward the road when the front door of the farmhouse opened. The computer guy with the knit cap, tinted glasses, and wild shirt stepped onto the porch. Dana hopped to the left and dove headfirst into the barn. She scrambled on all fours toward the metal tool table. The rope—the one Juicehead had planned to tie her with—was still on the floor.

She waited to see if the computer guy came into the barn. He didn’t. Time passed. She had to risk it. This “hiding” spot was too exposed. She slowly crawled out from under the table. Tools were hung on the wall in front of her. There were several saws, a wooden mallet, a sander.

And an axe.

Dana tried to stand up. Whoa, the head rush again. She started to black out, forcing her to take a knee.

Slow down. Steady.

Running down that road wasn’t feeling like much of an option anymore.

Deep breaths.

She had to move. Juicehead and his friends would be coming back soon. Dana struggled to her feet and reached for the axe. She pulled it off the wall. It was heavier than she thought, almost knocking her back to the floor. She regained her balance and gripped the axe with two hands.

It felt good.

So now what?

She took a peek out the barn door. The computer guy was smoking a cigarette near the drive.

Running was definitely out.

So what was option two again? Hiding, right?

She took a look behind her. There was no decent place in the barn to hide. Her best bet, she realized, was to get to the farmhouse. She looked toward the back. The kitchen, she knew, was there.

Kitchen. Food.

Just the thought of that—of getting food in her belly—made her dizzy.

But more than that, there was a computer in the farmhouse. A phone too.

A way to get help.

The guy with the knit hat still had his back to her. There wouldn’t be a better chance. Keeping one eye on him, Dana crept toward the kitchen door of the farmhouse. She was completely exposed now, tiptoeing at a spot about halfway between the barn and the back of the house, when the guy with the knit hat dropped the butt of his cigarette onto the ground, stomped on it, and turned toward her.

Dana lowered her head and sprinted with all she had to the back of the house.

 • • •

Titus waited in the car near the corner of Columbus Avenue. He didn’t like being back in the city, even though the ritzy Upper West Side had about as much to do with his old life as a vagrant has to do with a hedge fund manager. It was almost as if something were drawing him back to the life Titus had neatly put behind him.

He didn’t want to be here.

Clem Sison crossed the street and slid back into the driver’s seat. “Donovan’s not home.”

Clem had gone into Kat Donovan’s building with a “package” that needed her signature. The doorman had informed him that she wasn’t home right now. Clem thanked him and said that he’d return.

Titus didn’t like staying away from the farm any longer than necessary. He considered heading back and leaving Clem behind to make the grab, but Clem wouldn’t be able to handle this alone. He was muscle, good with a gun and taking orders and not much else.

So what now?

Titus plucked at his lip and considered his options. His eyes were still locked on the front of Kat Donovan’s building, when he saw something that stunned him.

Brandon Phelps was walking through the door.

What the . . . ?

But hold on, maybe this explained everything. Had Brandon Phelps initiated all this? Was the problem here Kat Donovan or Brandon Phelps—or both? Brandon Phelps, Titus knew, had been something of an issue from the start. The mama’s boy had sent dozens of homesick e-mails and texts. Now all of a sudden, here he is with Kat Donovan, an NYPD cop. Titus ran the scenarios through his head.

Had Kat Donovan been onto Titus earlier than he’d suspected?

Could that be? Could Kat have been pretending to be Ron Kochman’s ex to draw him out in some way? Had Brandon gone to Kat—or had Kat gone to Brandon?

Did it even matter?

Titus’s mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that it was Reynaldo.

“Hello?”

“We have a problem,” Reynaldo said.

Titus’s jaw clenched. “What is it?”

“Number Six is on the run.”