And don’t try to convince him that his delusions are unfounded. “Do you mind if I take a shower now?” she asked.
“No, no. Go ahead.”
She got out of bed and walked through the open doorway to the bathroom. She knew what would be next.
Dodd waited until he heard the water running.
Then he peeled off his clothes, and, fully aroused, he followed her into the shower.
Erin was waiting for him.
Give in. But never give up.
CHAPTER 35
About an hour after Erin announced her pregnancy to the world, Kylie and I drove to the mobile incident command post outside Jamie Gibbs’s residence to wait for Bobby Dodd’s next move.
Cops have a dark sense of humor, and it wasn’t long before someone pulled together an impromptu What Time Will the Kidnapper Call? pool, ten bucks for a half-hour box. I, of course, didn’t buy in. It doesn’t look good when a detective being cross-examined by the defense has to admit he had money riding on how the case would play out. But I had a theory—he’d call in the middle of the night, when Jamie might be at his most vulnerable.
I was wrong. Kylie and I caught a few hours’ sleep in shifts, and when I woke up at eight a.m., Dodd still hadn’t called. I rang upstairs and asked how Jamie was handling the wait.
“He’s crawling the walls, Zach,” Detective Koprowski said. “The proof-of-life video is on YouTube, and he keeps going back to the site to see how many people have watched it so far.”
“How many?”
“Nineteen million views last time I looked. The number would be a lot lower if they didn’t count how many times Gibbs watched it.”
Two million YouTube views later, Jamie’s home phone rang.
“Incoming on his landline,” the tech in the command center said.
I called upstairs to Koprowski. “Does Jamie recognize the number?”
“No.”
“Tell him to pick it up.”
Jamie took the call. “Hello.”
“Jamie…” It was Erin. “Sweetheart, I’m scared.”
“Are you okay?”
“Jamie, I’m locked up. He has a knife in his hand. How can I be okay?”
“I mean, has he hurt you? Has he touched you?”
A whimper. But no response.
“Shit,” Kylie said. “Bad sign.”
“Erin?” Jamie said. “Are you there? Has he touched you?”
“I’m here. He’s treated me okay, but I want to come ho—”
Silence.
“Erin? Erin?” The fear and desperation in Gibbs’s voice was palpable. “Please…Erin?”
I looked at the tech to see if we’d been disconnected. He shook his head. The abrupt silence on the other end was all part of the psychological warfare. Ten seconds passed before Dodd broke it.
“Time is running out, Jamie. You got your video. You got your phone call. Are you going to pay or do I have to start sending you body parts?”
“I’ll pay. I swear.”
“Twenty-five million. I’ve got a bank routing number. You do this right, and she’ll be home in time for dinner.”
“It’s not that easy,” Gibbs said. “I just don’t have that kind of money.”
“Get it.”
“I will. I called my mother, but—”
“No buts! I don’t want excuses. I want my money. Now!”
“I’m trying. I left messages. She just hasn’t called me back yet.”
“I’m trying. I left messages. She just hasn’t called me back yet,” Dodd said in a high-pitched nasal voice. “Your wife is listening to this, Jamie. You should see the look on her face.”
“Tell her I’m sorry. As soon as my mother knows about the baby, I’m sure she’ll help.”
“Listen, asshole,” Dodd said, “your mother knows about the baby. By now, the whole damn world knows about the baby.”
“You’re right. I know she’ll come up with the money. All I need is a little time to convince her.”
“You better convince her fast, because a little time is all you’re going to get—very little. You tell her that the longer she makes me wait, the angrier I get. And if she ever wants to see this baby, she better cough up the money, or she’s going to force me to do something I don’t want to do.”
The phone went dead.
“Disconnect,” the tech said.
A second phone on his console rang. “Hold on. It’s Benny with a trace.” He scribbled something on a piece of paper. “It’s a number right here in the city. Let me see who it belongs to.”
Kylie picked up the paper as he typed the number into the system.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “I know the number.”
We all looked at her.
“The son of a bitch routed the call through my cell phone.”
CHAPTER 36
Less than forty-eight hours after her wedding, Mrs. Jamie Gibbs picked up her coffee mug, flung it at the stone fireplace, and cursed out her new husband. “Asshole,” she screamed as glass shards scattered across the living-room rug.
“Hey,” Bobby said. “Take it easy. It’s the maid’s day off.”
She wheeled around and gave him the finger. “That hag has half a billion dollars, but she hates me so much that she won’t pay a nickel to save her own grandchild.”
“I guess you picked the wrong mother-in-law. Don’t worry. Jamie will come up with the money.”
“Jamie? I’m more pissed at him than I am at her.”
Dodd grinned. “So then I guess the honeymoon is over.”
“Screw you,” she said, both middle fingers in the air this time. “Jamie is a people pleaser. He’ll tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear. He’s really good at making promises. But ask me if he delivers.”
“I’m gathering he doesn’t.”
“Not when he has to go through her. He’s like an indentured servant. You heard what he said. She just hasn’t called me back yet. What man waits for a return phone call when his wife’s life is on the line? Why isn’t he pounding on Veronica’s front door with a baseball bat demanding that she help?”
“Why did you marry him?” Bobby said.
She plopped down on the sofa and gave him the finger yet again, but this time she didn’t put any heart into it.
“Come on, Erin,” Bobby said, trying to keep it playful. “Everybody knows why you married him. He’s rich. No shame in that.”
“He’s not rich. She is. He may be heir to the throne but as long as she’s the queen, all he gets is an allowance.” She picked up the Daily News and waved it in his face. “Millions of people are praying for me, but not Veronica Gibbs. She’s praying that you kill me.”
“You know I’m not going to hurt you,” Bobby said.
“You say that now. But what happens tomorrow or the next day or the day after that when you finally realize Jamie can’t come up with the money?” She put her hands to her face and started to sob.
Bobby leaned over and tried to put his arm around her, but she shrugged him off. “Don’t touch me,” she said. She stood up and stormed off to her room.
Bobby didn’t know what to say. The two of them had had such a great morning. It was like a dream come true. First the sex in the shower, then they got dressed and had breakfast together. She passed on the croissants, but he’d stocked the fridge with yogurt, and even though he’d bought the wrong kind, it couldn’t have been that bad, because she ate the whole thing.
Then he made a fresh pot of strong hot coffee, because he could tell she didn’t like the stuff he’d brought from the deli. After that they went to the living room, read the papers, and he told her what she could and could not say when they made the phone call.
It all went well until Jamie dropped the bomb and told them that half a day after the proof-of-life video went live, Veronica Gibbs had not lifted a finger to do anything to help her unborn grandchild.
Erin was right. Veronica was a tight-fisted bitch, but Jamie was the real
roadblock. He had no balls.
It was a problem Bobby hadn’t planned on, and he wasn’t sure how to solve it.
He reached inside his shirt, tugged at the chain around his neck, pulled out the .357 Magnum bullet, and closed his eyes.
The answer would come.
CHAPTER 37
Spending half my waking life with my ex-girlfriend can be a double-edged sword.
On the upside, I get to be with her, work with her, eat with her, laugh with her, argue with her, and occasionally I get to bail her out of a jam or be a shoulder for her to lean on. It’s like being married, only without the sex, the in-laws, or the mortgage.
Kylie had summed it all up yesterday morning: You’re not just my partner, Zach. You’re my rock. You’re my best friend.
I was her best friend. And she was definitely mine. That was the good part. The downside was that when you’re in close quarters with someone for hours on end it’s impossible to escape her private life. Even when you’re trying hard to avoid it.
I knew Cheryl’s cousin Shane would be calling Kylie, and I was hoping it would be when we were off duty or at least when we were in the office, so I could walk out of the room.
No such luck. We were on the Sixty-Fifth Street transverse on our way back to the precinct. Kylie was driving when her phone rang. She checked the caller ID, shrugged, plugged in an earbud, and took the call.
“This is Detective MacDonald. Who’s this?” A beat, then: “Oh, Cheryl warned me you might call.” She laughed. The “warned me” bit must have gone over well with him. “I didn’t recognize the phone number,” she said. “Where’s area code 832?”
Houston. He just moved from there.
“How do you like New York?” she asked.
I picked up my phone and started scrolling through my e-mails. I hadn’t wanted to be around when Shane called, but now that I was a captive audience, the best I could do was shift my body to look like I wasn’t interested while my ears homed in on every word.
“No, really, you’re not interrupting anything,” she said. “My partner and I are just driving back to the office. Oh, right…of course you know him—Zach. He had dinner at your place a few nights ago. He says you’re a pretty decent cook.”
She looked over at me to see if I’d react to hearing my name, but I was tapping away furiously, a man hell-bent on responding to an e-mail.
The call didn’t last more than a few minutes, but I recognized the dance. It was that giddy first-time meet-and-greet before there was any drama, any craziness, any baggage.
I remembered back when I was in Shane’s shoes. It was my first day at the academy. I was sizing up the other recruits when the door opened, and Kylie MacDonald breezed in—blond, tan, with the face of an angel and the body of a sinner.
Heads turned. Conversations stopped. Testosterone surged.
“Excuse me while I go introduce myself to my new partner,” one guy said, heading straight toward her. Half a dozen others followed. Not me. I decided that this girl knew she was a magnet, and she’d flirt with the herd but wonder about the guy who showed no interest.
It was my first bit of profiling as a wannabe cop, and I was spot-on. A week later she came up to me after class and introduced herself.
And that’s where Mr. Shane Talbot was right now—that first conversation, the banter light and playful, the possibilities endless.
Laugh it up, I thought as she cracked up at something he said. If sparks fly, and their relationship goes somewhere, so be it. The irony of it all was that I’d be the one who got the credit for suggesting that the two of them should meet.
Kylie hung up the phone and, still smiling, exited the transverse at Fifth Avenue and headed for the precinct a few blocks away.
She didn’t look over at me to tell me who’d called.
And I, of course, didn’t ask.
CHAPTER 38
Danny Corcoran was waiting for us back at the station. He looked like he hadn’t slept since we’d assigned him to work with Detectives Moss and Devereaux on the phony-ambulance home invasions.
“We could use some good news,” Kylie said.
“The governor, the mayor, and the PC all think you’re the lead dogs on this investigation,” Corcoran said, “and so far they have no idea that you haven’t done jackshit.”
“Anything else?”
“For one thing, I’m cleaning up on overtime. Also, we might have found a connection between the two cases, but we have nothing solid as of yet.”
“Walk us through it.”
“The MO is identical for both robberies, so we’ve been looking for the nexus between them,” Corcoran said. “Find a common thread, and we might be able to tie it to the perps.
“We started with the two buildings, one on the East Side, one on the West. Different owners, different management companies, different staff. No connection. Then we looked at who from the outside was getting inside—exterminators, window washers, dog walkers, cable guys—but there’s no overlap. In fact, with these two old ladies, not many people gain entry at all. The staff intercepts all deliveries, and they’re happy to do it because the families take good care of them, not just at Christmas but all year round.”
“How about the nurses?” I asked.
“Same thing,” Corcoran said. “They come from two different agencies that aren’t connected to each other. Neither woman has worked for the other one’s agency, they’ve never worked together, don’t live in the same neighborhood, weren’t born in the same country, and don’t go to the same church.”
“Get to the part where you may have found a connection.”
“You know the old saying ‘Follow the money’?” Corcoran said. “These private agencies are staffed with people who are trained to vet the nurses, interface with the clients, plus do a whole bunch of other crap related to the day-to-day operation. What the agencies hate doing is medical billing, so most of them farm it out. The accounts for both of our victims are handled by the same company: ZSK Medical Billing on East Seventy-Ninth Street.”
“What does ZSK know about Mrs. Lowenthal and Aunt Bunny?” Kylie said.
“I can’t answer that just yet, but I can tell you what they know in general. They handle the billing for twenty-six different nursing agencies, so they have records for tens of thousands of clients. They know which ones are covered by insurance, because those companies cover part of the bill and the clients are only responsible for the balance. But in some cases, the clients pay it all out of pocket, and let me tell you, those pockets have to be deep. Bunny Ogden’s family is shelling out over a quarter of a million dollars a year for nurses, and Mrs. Lowenthal has more medical issues, so her family pays even more.”
“You think someone at the billing company is targeting the obviously wealthy victims?” I asked.
“Look, Zach,” Danny said, “these guys didn’t come racing up to random buildings and ask the doormen who’s old, rich, and sick. They knew exactly where to hit, and they made off with a fortune both times. That takes planning. That takes insider information. And right now, ZSK feels like their most likely source.”
“How many people work at ZSK?”
“A hundred and forty-three. I got that from the COO, but that’s all I’m going to get without a court order. He won’t give me a list of the employees’ names or tell me which ones have access to the client database unless I get a subpoena. And he definitely won’t tell me what information they have on the two victims without written consent from the families that pay the freight.”
“It sounds promising,” Kylie said. “What about the bogus ambulances?”
“It’s probably the same ambulance. None have been reported missing, but it’s not hard to get your hands on one that’s been retired. We think they dress it up with a new name and a new logo each time they go on a run. We could alert doormen in the city to look out for NYCC Senior Care and Morningside Medical, but they’re more likely to just slap on another decal.”
“What abo
ut alerting the doormen to be suspicious of any ambulance that shows up?” Kylie said.
“Fat chance getting that past zone captain St. Claire. He made it clear that we are forbidden to tip off a single building employee to the possibility that an ambulance that shows up at their door might not be legitimate. Ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine percent of these emergency calls will be real emergencies, and St. Claire said if one doorman stops one paramedic for one minute and that causes one person to die, we can all look for new careers.”
“Good job, Danny,” I said.
“Ditto,” Kylie said. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t do all the heavy lifting,” Corcoran said. “Moss and Devereaux from the Two Oh put in just as many hours.”
“Well, tell them we both said—” Kylie stopped and looked up. Cheryl was walking toward us. “Keep us posted,” Kylie said. “I’ve got to run.” She left me standing there with Corcoran and hustled down the hall to talk to Cheryl.
“What’s going on with those two?” Danny asked.
I shook my head. “You don’t want to know.”
At this point, neither did I.
CHAPTER 39
Detective Rich Koprowski pulled up to the hydrant on the corner of Ninety-Second and Park. “This is your office?” he said, looking up at the towering red-brick building. “I didn’t think any of these Park Avenue co-ops were zoned for commercial.”
“They’re not,” Jamie said, “but it takes more than a zoning law to stop my mother from getting what she wants.” He opened the car door. “Thanks for the ride. See you later.”
“I’d be more comfortable going up there with you.”
“Not a chance. I’m blindsiding my mother, so unless you have a trick for getting her to part with twenty-five million, you can leave. I’ll find a ride home.”
“I’m your ride. Here’s my cell number,” Koprowski said, handing Jamie his card. “I’ll wait right here.”
Jamie pocketed the card, marched past the doorman, strode into the elevator, and stared straight ahead as he rode up to the penthouse. He’d squared off with his mother before, and he had a perfect record: It never went well. Ever.
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