Daniel studied the gun on the floor. Flat and untouched, it remained menacing. Something like it had ended his father’s life. What had J Thiell meant to do with Alex’s life?
“Annabel told Emmie and me,” said Alex, “that you were going on Theodora’s show. Theodora wouldn’t have kept that a secret from Mr. Thiell! She was thrilled! It was such a coup! Theodora would even have told him that you expected to prove who the murderer was.” Wild-eyed, Alex looked briefly at Mr. Thiell and turned back to Daniel, as if Daniel’s opinion, and only Daniel’s, mattered now. “Mr. Thiell didn’t know you had the wrong person in mind, Daniel. He had no idea you were thinking of Hollings Jayquith. Of course he thought you were going to expose him … Mr. J Thiell!”
“Pathetic,” observed Mr. Thiell, looking detached, as if he had never held a gun on Alex, never thought him a threat.
“I wouldn’t put it past Mr. Thiell,” said Alex, “to lay out evidence so that you’ll be held responsible, Daniel, when Annabel is killed.”
“How absurd,” said Mr. Thiell. “Why would Daniel even care if Annabel were taken? How would a kidnapper ever imagine that Daniel Ransom could be involved with her?”
“I was at the wedding. At the reception. It was pretty clear to me how deeply they were involved.” Alex turned back to Daniel. “I think Mr. Thiell figured that taking Annabel would stop you from going on the show this week. And he was right. Meanwhile he’d have her killed and leave strings of evidence that you did it. If you murdered the billionaire’s beautiful daughter, you’d lose all credibility. You couldn’t convince America that the sky is blue, let alone that you know who murdered your father.”
“When Annabel is killed?” repeated Daniel.
“He has to get rid of her to make it work,” said Alex matter-of-factly. He had a brother who had been gotten rid of. To him it was simple logic. He said to Mr. Thiell, “I came to kill you. But not with a gun. Guns are too far away. Guns have little pieces of metal to do the work. I want you to admit it. Admit that you murdered my brother. Then I want to beat you to death. With my fists. I want to crush your skull myself.”
But the words were tired. The threats of a boy at the end of his rope. A boy too weary to carry them out.
If Alex is right, thought Daniel, Mr. Thiell’s money will protect him. We will never reach Mr. Thiell. We won’t even be able to get a court order to investigate a single wildlife preserve. Whatever Alex’s brother put on his disk, J Thiell will make sure it’s not admissible in court. But court is too far away to care about. We have to find Annabel. “Where is she?” he said to Mr. Thiell.
Mr. Thiell shook his head. “Daniel, Daniel. This is a very strung-out young man. Let’s not get distracted from the phone calls coming in. We have a kidnapper out there who is clearly going to want a ransom delivered. And only that kidnapper knows where Annabel is.”
Who do I believe? thought Daniel. He was unbearably tired. He thought he must look like Alex, who was quivering with emotional exhaustion. Having made the accusation he had so ferociously wanted to make, Alex was no longer ferocious at all.
But Mr. Thiell … he still looked ferocious.
Emmie said, “I know where Annabel is.”
Nineteen
THE FAT WOMAN COULD not have overheard Jade saying anything, because Jade had not said anything. Just breathed. It had been Mr. Jayquith who talked, who pleaded, who made offers. Jade could hear him in stereo, his shouts coming down the long, bare corridors of stone and through the telephone wire.
But the fat woman was in the Peach Room anyway, fat hands taking the little peach telephone that was Annabel’s private line out of Jade’s hands. “In your calculations,” said Mrs. Donavan to Jade, “you forgot that this is a security conscious house. Every aspect of this house is state-of-the-art. Including telephone security. Did you think you could use Annabel’s line to call the main number and we wouldn’t know?”
Jade said nothing. What was there to say? It had never crossed her mind that they would realize she was the caller. She had thought herself vanished and gone once she was out of sight and down the long halls.
“The numbers came up on the central computer screen. I had only to glance at it to see that the very phone call terrifying us was being made from our own building.”
She had never had to think more quickly. She had to redeem this. She had to come out a winner. She could not let Mrs. Donavan, who had sold her to the O’Keeffes, sell her out again. Think! thought Jade. Think! You got in the door, you can’t let them kick you out again! Turn this into something good or lose!
Mrs. Donavan gave her a shove and marched her back to Theodora and Hollings, who were hovering over the phone waiting for it to ring again. It gleamed like scarlet fingernail polish, full of the conversations it had heard. Theodora touched her hair as she waited. She was as slick as the phone itself.
“Excuse me,” said Mrs. Donavan woodenly. “This is your caller.” She put Jade in front of her like an exhibit.
Hollings and Theodora Jayquith straightened up. How thin they were: that rich kind of thin, people who had never been inside a kitchen, let alone rummaged for snack after snack.
“The heavy breathing,” said Mrs. Donavan, “was not a kidnapper. It was Jade using Annabel’s line. I suspect previously it was Jade using one of your New York studio lines.”
Horrified disbelief invaded Theodora’s showy features. “How could you do this, Jade?” she whispered. “It was evil. It was cruel. How could you even think of torturing us like this?”
Jade flung herself forward, hands on hips, eyes wide with rage, trembling. She had wanted to answer that question for so long. She could answer that question for days! “Don’t you dare blame anything on me, you hypocrite! How could you do this, is the question! You were too busy to bring up your own child. That’s your excuse, Theodora. Too busy. You weren’t too poor, you weren’t too sick, you weren’t too abused. You were just too busy. So if you don’t like the job the O’Keeffes did, too bad. It was your choice.”
Jade had never so totally resembled Theodora. She might be facing three enemies, stronger, bigger, wiser and more experienced, but she was not stopped, she was not even slowed down.
Hollings Jayquith was overcome by Jade’s resemblance to Theodora. She could have been the little sister with whom he had fought through childhood over who went first, who got the good swing or the last candy bar. His greatest rival, the one for whom he had built his empire, to show Theodora for once and for all who was first.
In spite of his fear and rage about Annabel, Hollings felt love for this girl who was his niece. And shame.
If he had listened to Annabel, none of this would have happened. But he had been entranced by Jade’s uncanny resemblance to Theodora. He had even been entranced by the fakery: the dyed contact lenses, the frosted hair. Theodora had created herself: chosen the blinding earrings, the great flat-brimmed hats, the shotgun laugh. Why should Jade not do the same? Create herself to shock an audience?
“Jade, you may have anything,” said Theodora. “Whatever money and home and future you want, it’s here. All that matters is Annabel.”
Hollings knew immediately the size of his sister’s tactical error. All that matters is Annabel? Jade wanted to be what mattered. It was why she had come.
Hatred swept visibly over Jade. “Your dear brother Hollings took Annabel himself, Theodora,” said Jade.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Theodora. “Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know, but I saw the chauffeur pack her clothes.”
“Jade,” said Theodora, “this is serious. Don’t lay blame on people who have been loyally employed here for more years than you’ve been alive. What really happened?”
“How would I know what really happened? You were being a jerk and I took advantage of it.”
“Jade!” said Hollings Jayquith. “No more lies. We have to know how deeply you are involved and what it is you’re involved in! Who took Annabel? Where is Annab
el? What is happening?”
“Either you took her, or she took herself,” said Jade.
They went on and on, spitting like cats.
Wasting the only thing they had left: time.
“His wedding gift to Venice,” said Emmie. She looked at Mr. Thiell with wrath. “How you must have laughed to yourself at the wedding, Mr. Thiell! There was Daniel Madison Ransom, drinking toasts with you, when you murdered his father. There was my sister, grateful for your splendid generosity, when that gift is going to be where Annabel dies!”
“What are you talking about?” shouted Daniel. He was so tired of half explanations and riddles! “Where is Annabel?”
“My guess is, she’s at his next Thiell Wildlife Preserve. There’s an abandoned college up in the mountains. It shut down five years ago and they were never able to sell the campus. It’s remote and scenic but the roads in are narrow and treacherous and nobody would buy it. Venice thought it was beautiful, the last great space in the mountains. She and Michael went up there to crosscountry ski last winter. When Mr. Thiell asked Venice what she wanted for a wedding present, she said she wanted the old college to be made into a preserve.”
“Why would he put Annabel there?” said Daniel.
“He’ll detonate the buildings. That’s what he does. When they’re reduced to rubble, he covers them. Like any other landfill. The college is already fenced in. They’ll just beef up the fencing to keep people out. Not that anybody ever drove up there anyway.”
Detonate the buildings.
Beautiful soft Annabel, blown to smithereens.
Daniel stared at Mr. Thiell, trying to know what he could believe. Sweet Michael’s father did things like this? Was that possible? But he had been willing to believe the father of sweet Annabel did things like this. What was the truth? How would he ever know?
Mr. Thiell could not resist speaking. Every American has the right to remain silent, and silence is the most important thing of all. But silence does not boast; silence does not brag. And even the wisest criminal, like J Thiell, gets tired of silence.
“Actually,” said J Thiell, smiling, “it’s set on a timer.” He looked at his watch. “I believe you’re running out of time, Daniel.” He chuckled. “Or Annabel is.”
It was pointless to hope. The bulkhead doors were certainly, like the doors in the auditorium, chained and padlocked on the outside as well.
But she would try.
Annabel pushed through the hanging webs keeping her spread palms in front of her face. She could handle anything except spiderwebs on her face. She tripped on the steps up and fell painfully. Her cry of pain was swallowed by the basement.
Scrabbling forward, she found the steel bar that kept the bulkhead doors sealed. It was wrapped in wire. The only possible way out—and she would have to peel away the explosive to find out if it opened.
They ran for Emmie’s Bronco, Emmie carrying Mr. Thiell’s gun and the car keys. All three tried to get in the driver’s seat. Emmie didn’t argue. She held the upper hand at last. The boys backed off, Alex getting in the back, Daniel in the passenger seat.
Emmie had never actually driven there. But she knew where the turns were. “The question is, can we find Annabel? It was a college, Daniel. There are dorms and classrooms and science labs. An administration building, and a gym …”
They would have to push through the crunch of sightseers at the gate. Nose through the crowd hoping people would give way. They would certainly be followed by reporters. Daniel found it unbearable that a parade of cameras and curiosity would snake behind them.
Parked next to the Bronco, waiting in the courtyard, sat J Thiell’s men in the big silver Mercedes. As soon as we leave, thought Emmie, Mr. Thiell will come out, climb into the Mercedes, and they’ll follow us. If he’s the kind of man Alex says he is, the whole trunk of that car is probably filled with weapons. We’ll never save Annabel. They’ll get there when we do and we’ll all sit on the hillside together, and she’ll be fireworks in the sky.
Emmie had never driven in her life except carefully and cautiously. It was Venice who drove like a maniac. Venice’s Bronco. Her four-wheel drive. The one she planned to take out on the desert and up in the Canadian forests. Emmie had not even driven over; she’d let Alex take the wheel. Her fear of the huge high Bronco had been so great that even when she thought Alex had engineered the kidnapping of her best friend, she wanted him to drive!
When Emmie used to ride horseback with Annabel, they’d ride two abreast. Two horses took up as much room as a Bronco, didn’t they? Emmie gunned the engine and the Bronco spurted off the brick drive, right through the deep flower beds and over the lush green grass. Alex was practically thrown out of the backseat and Daniel grabbed both door and dash.
They flew into the forest on the riding trail and the Jayquith mansion disappeared from sight. “This is the way Annabel took when she ran after you!” yelled Emmie. She was gripping the wheel tightly. There was not, after all, quite enough room for the Bronco. Branches scraped and whapped against the windshield. Ditches the horses easily spanned caught the wheels and flung the three occupants into the air. Emmie landed with a jaw-breaking crunch. Twice they had to stop for Alex and Daniel to leap out and tow a fallen branch from the path. They hit a low-hanging branch with such force it took out one headlight and left a spray of red glass on the pristine forest path. The tire marks she left in the soft soil were raw and ugly.
She did not slow down for anything and burst out of the forest on her own road, as Annabel had only that morning, took a left, and headed for the highway. If the silver Mercedes tried to follow them, the low heavy body would get hung up on the first bump and only a tow truck would get it out. And if J Thiell went by normal routes, they were miles ahead of him; he had to go all the way around.
Little twigs of evergreens had caught in cracks of the Bronco. They looked decorated for a camouflage exercise.
Emmie was having fun.
She had loathed Venice for being so daredevil and athletic but it came to Emmie that what she really loathed was that Venice, by virtue of being older, got there first. How many years Emmie had wasted trying to be the opposite of Venice. How many years Venice had had more fun!
Fun …
Annabel’s being blown up was not fun. Venice and Michael finding out that Michael’s father was a murderer was not going to be fun, either.
Venice had meant her wedding vow. For better or for worse. It would get much worse very quickly. But Venice would stay with Michael, and it is easier to face anything when you are a pair. Michael’s profile was not worldwide, like Daniel’s. It hardly existed. J Thiell never discussed his son, and nobody knew who he was.
Michael will get through it, thought Emmie. Venice will get through it. The question is, will Annabel?
Stars lay in the sky like sequins sewn on velvet. The night sky was a designer dress for a beautiful woman.
A nearly full moon cast a pale, pale light in the dark, dark shadows of the mountains and trees.
Emmie turned sharply to the right and up a very steep hill. A faded college sign had fallen off its post and lay tilted on the grass.
At the top of the hill, the thick evergreens that tightened around the lane burst apart. Below, in a small valley lay the campus. In the moonlight it had charm, quietly awaiting the return of its students. Dorms in which nobody slept on the beds, classrooms in which nobody dreamed, labs in which nobody learned.
The fresh steel of fencing put up around every Thiell Wildlife Preserve glittered out in the grass. Vicious curls of wire had not yet been attached, but lay in packages on the meadow.
The Bronco, however, could not go through. The gate was padlocked.
The boys vaulted out, attacking the gate, shouting Annabel’s name.
But the gate was solidly fastened and Annabel did not shout back.
The silver Mercedes crawled up behind them.
The campus lay in silence before them, awaiting its death.
And
in which building Annabel lay, nobody knew.
Twenty
ALEX AND DANIEL WERE long gone. An eight-foot chain-link fence was nothing. Up and over they went, racing across the bumpy grass, splitting up, Alex heading toward one end of the campus and Daniel toward the other, screaming, “Annabel! Annabel!”
Emmie stayed with the Bronco. Her first thought was that she would drive around the fence to pick them up wherever they came out. But the bumper of the heavy Mercedes pinned her neatly to the fence. The headlights illuminated Emmie briefly and then went out.
She was not, surprisingly, afraid of Mr. Thiell. She did not believe that he would hurt his son’s new sister-in-law. But she did not get out of the Bronco, either. She locked the doors as he was getting out of the Mercedes and rolled her window down only an inch.
“Emmie, Emmie,” said Mr. Thiell. “A terrible misunderstanding. You must signal your friends to come back. The buildings are wired. Timers are set. Poor Daniel and his confused young companion will be hurt.”
The cries of “Annabel! Annabel!” echoed in the dark.
But even if they heard her answer, how could they release her? Buildings about to be blown up are sealed tight. Otherwise some curious ten-year-old boy exploring might be there at the crucial moment.
In his hand Mr. Thiell held a small black object, rather like a television remote control. He was smiling.
It’s the detonator, thought Emmie. When Daniel and Alex are close enough to the buildings, he’ll touch the right combination. Boom. They’re dead. Like a kid’s game. Bang. You’re dead. But it won’t be a game. This man whose specialty is games—whole cities and casinos—he himself does not play games.
“Get out of the Bronco, Emmie,” said Mr. Thiell pleasantly. “Or I’ll have to touch the controls.”
Annabel left the bulkhead door open.
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