Maura had no patience for the old man’s games. She set her elbows on the table and cocked her head at him. “You know where he is, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Say, have you got a cigarette? Lost my last one yesterday, during all that ruckus.”
Ruckus. Meaning the near escape. How angry was his father beneath the charm and polite words? Angry enough that he might let something slip? Roland wasn’t sure, but it was worth a shot.
“I heard about that. Sorry it didn’t work out,” Roland said with silky menace. “Seems like somebody warned the warden ahead of time.”
His father’s gaze landed on him, and the constant mask of affability slipped, just for a moment, just long enough for Roland to see that Crawly was indeed furious and he hadn’t known, up until that moment, that Roland had been the reason the escape plan had failed.
By the time he spoke, however, the man’s charm was back in full force. “I imagine I’ll breathe free air again soon enough. I try not to worry about these things,” he said to Maura, including her in the conversation.
“I’ll bet,” she said sarcastically.
Crawly leaned back on his chair legs, pressing his lips together as if considering some deep and complex equation. “So, you want to know where Keenan is? Maybe I’ll tell you.”
“Maybe you won’t,” Roland finished for him. “What’s the game, Father?”
His father spread his hands. Nothing up my sleeve. “No game. An even trade.”
Roland knew better than to even suggest such a thing. One, there was no such thing as an even trade with Crawly, and two, odds were that Crawly had already made a deal with one of the other agencies that had interviewed him since the escape yesterday.
“What do you want?” Maura asked, though she, too, sounded extremely doubtful that the man was serious. Her ring flashed in the dim light, and Roland saw Crawly’s attention sharpen on the diamond.
“Nothing much. A piece of truth, really; nothing that’ll cost you anything.”
“What kind of truth?” Roland put a restraining arm on Maura’s back, although he wasn’t sure if he was restraining her or himself. He wasn’t going to like this. He knew he wasn’t going to like it one bit.
His father grinned, revealing teeth that had lost a great deal of their pearly whiteness. “The painful kind.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Not Keenan’s location. ’Cause I don’t know that.”
“Don’t you?” Maura waved a hand to indicate the prison. “Clearly you’re communicating somehow.”
Crawly ran a tongue over his teeth. “Trust me, you want to hear what I have to tell you. I just hope it’s not too late.”
A feeling of dread, one that he was getting used to, crawled up Roland’s spine. “What truth do you want to hear, you bastard?”
Crawly made a clucking noise and leaned forward with his hands clasped together. “Watch your mouth, son. We’re in front of a lady.”
Seething, Roland waited, knowing that the sooner he stopped encouraging the old man, the sooner he would start talking. One of the fluorescent lights above their head buzzed intermittently, and there were water rings on the table. He wondered just how many times his father had freed himself from his restraints, how many times his jailers would realize that they were missing keys, wallets, cell phones. His father could not be trusted within easy reach of anyone.
“That’s a beautiful diamond you have there. Can I see it?” Crawly said to Maura.
“I don’t think so,” Roland replied for her.
Maura gave him a look but didn’t contradict him.
His father hooted. “Just what do you think I’d do with something like that in here? Ask my cellmate to marry me?”
“What ‘truth’ do you want?”
The old man stared at him for a moment, rubbing the graying stubble on his face. “What do I want? What do I want? True love, I think. Five minutes of true love with that little Chinese whore that used to work the docks.”
“That’s it.” Roland stood as if to leave, but Maura tugged him back down, giving him the “Sit down and shut up” look that he’d never gotten from a woman before in his life. He rather liked it.
“What do you mean ‘true love’?” Maura continued.
“Well, suppose I asked Roland here to make a choice between keeping you and finding Keenan. What would you choose, son? The lady or the tiger?”
Roland ignored the reference to the short story in which there was no ending, focusing instead on the hypothetical buried in the beginning of his father’s question. “Is that what you’re asking?”
“Or maybe I want to know about you, dear detective.” He made as if to lay a hand on top of Maura’s, but she pulled them away. His chains clinked against each other as he took her withdrawal in stride.
“What do you want to know about me?” She slid her hands into her lap, farther away from Crawly.
“All right. Here’s my question: Who do you love most in this world?”
At last, a real question. And directed at Maura. “Why do you want to know that?”
“Because I’m endlessly curious about people, darling, about their fears and foibles, if you will.”
“How will you know whether or not I’m lying?”
Crawly leaned back again, tapping the tips of his fingers together. “Ah, but Roland will tell you that I can read faces, bodies, eyes. That’s how you fool people, you see. You lie with your whole body, not just your words.”
“My niece,” she said, and looked at Roland. Her face remained calm, but beneath the table, she’d grabbed his thigh in a death grip.
“Even more than Roland?”
“Differently than Roland,” she said.
She loves me. Or was she just saying that to his father? Why say it at all then? Shut the fuck up and pay attention, Roland ordered himself.
“So if you were offered a choice: Your hunt for your brother’s killer or your niece’s life, which would you choose?”
Roland froze. Maddie. Had Keenan somehow gotten to Maddie without his realizing it?
Her face had paled, but she met his father’s stare head on. “I would choose my niece,” she practically snarled. “What have you done?”
“Me?” Crawly said lazily. “I haven’t done anything.”
MAURA TRIED MADDIE’S cell phone again. Nothing. Damn it.
They’d left the prison as quickly as possible, but there was red tape, security checks, debriefings. It was an hour at least before they were on their way back to Roland’s house in Dover, the Wraith speeding along the highways.
“Call Gert back. She’s probably down by the skating rink.”
“She’s not there, Maura, he’s already looked.”
“Don’t you have security cameras? Have them look and find out where she went.”
“They’re checking them now.”
His voice was calm, too calm. No doubt for her benefit. She probably sounded like she was losing it. She’d never felt quite like this, not in all the time she was working as a detective. On cases, she was able to distance herself, at least a little, from what was going on, but with her niece, it just wasn’t possible.
Roland’s phone rang again, the number of the house phone appearing on screen. Roland answered using the car’s voice commands.
“This is Roland.”
“Roland, it’s Gert. She left the property with Justin an hour ago. They went out the back gate toward the storage garage, and the camera caught them riding snowmobiles west. She was carrying ice skates.”
“I told her not to go anywhere without a security escort. Justin knows better as well.”
“Yes, sir. Well, they are both teenagers.”
Roland glanced away from the road to look at Maura. Maddie wasn’t even a teenager. She was twelve, for God’s sake. She felt hollow, like someone had reached inside and ripped out all her internal organs. “Let’s hope that’s all this is. Have the security team sweep the
area. There should be GPS tracking on the snowmobiles. Get it pulled up, but in the meantime, focus on the frozen pond on the west end of the property. I don’t know how they know about it, but perhaps one of the servants mentioned it.”
“Maybe.” Gert sounded doubtful. “But why head out in the cold to a frozen pond when you have a perfectly good skating rink right here?”
“I don’t know. Keep me posted. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Roland ended the call and focused on the road. Maura clutched her phone in her hands and prayed, hoping that the phone would ring again and it would be Gert saying that the kids had been found, safe and sound.
But there was no such call, and when Roland pulled up to the security gate, the guard inside the small building was on his walkie-talking, speaking to someone.
“They found them, sir,” the guard said to Roland. “But you aren’t going to like it.”
Maura had never ridden on a snowmobile in her life, but she accepted the keys and helmet Roland handed her without hesitation. He showed her quickly that there was a radio inside the helmet she was wearing. Her father had followed them from the house, pumping his arms to keep up with them as they’d run to the storage shed.
“I called the police, but I don’t know anyone in Dover. Don’t know when they’ll be here or what they’ll do when they arrive.”
Roland handed her father a radio. “Here. Radio the man at the entrance to the property that the police are on their way. We’re also going to need the bomb squad, so call them back and see if they have one. If not, we’ll have to go farther afield.”
“Bomb squad,” her father repeated, his face pale.
Roland didn’t answer. Walking over to Maura, he helped her move the snowmobile over to the ramp that led away from the building.
“Follow me,” he ordered. “And when we get there, let me talk to him, okay?”
Maura nodded. She felt like if she said anything, she would lose it and run to the pond on foot.
“Get her back, Maura,” her father shouted as they started the engines. “You bring her back to us.”
Maura waved at him and gripped the handles as Roland took off in front of her in a spray of snow, his dark figure already blurring as he raced ahead. Gunning the engine, Maura followed him at a velocity that made her whole body shake.
Fifteen minutes later, they approached the lake, where Roland’s security was already gathered, one group having arrived by Jeep via a trail, and another group arriving by snowmobile. Dressed in dark-colored gear complete with flak jackets, they moved like an elite military unit, their movements coordinated and precise. She’d bet they were former military, likely SEALs, Mossad, MI5. She’d known they were on the property, but she hadn’t seen them until today.
Roland was already off his snowmobile when she pulled up, his helmet set aside, talking to the leader of his group. The man handed him a vest and an earpiece, and Roland was donning the garments as she joined their conversation.
“One kid is down by the side of the lake. Justin. Apparently, he tried to stop the girl from meeting with Garrett.”
Maura looked where the man pointed, horrified when she saw that the kid she presumed was Garrett Morris held her niece in the center of the ice, one arm around her neck while the other held something Maura couldn’t quite make out.
“Is that a gun?” she asked, amazed that her voice came out calm, steady.
“No, ma’am. Detonator.”
Maura let that bit of information settle inside her mind, but didn’t let herself feel anything. He could have been talking about the bus schedule, or a really interesting fact about the weather.
“What is he asking for?” Roland asked, lifting a pair of binoculars up to his eyes.
“He wants to talk to you,” the man said. “And the girl’s aunt. We could barely hear him above the wind, but he was pretty clear about us moving back. Wouldn’t let us get near the other kid, either. Threatened to detonate every time we tried to reason with him.”
Maura nodded. She wanted to be down there already. She wanted to see for herself that her niece was still alive and unharmed.
“Maura—” Roland began, but she cut him off.
“No, Roland. I’m going down there. You’re not going to stop me.”
He stared at her, and she knew what he was thinking, that he could force her to stay, either by incapacitating her himself or by having one of the security members do it. But it would cost him. He was too smart not to know what would happen if he pulled a stunt like that.
“All right. Hanover, get her a vest and an earpiece.”
“Yes, sir.” The man replied immediately, but he looked at her doubtfully. “The vest is going to be big, sir.”
“It’ll have to do,” Roland replied.
Maura knew what Bert would say to her right now. He’d tell her to wait for the cops to get there, SWAT, a hostage negotiator, but she also knew that the likelihood that they would arrive in time was slim, especially with the snow falling the way it was. It was even colder on the ice, where the kid held a detonator clenched in his fist.
“Why would she go with him? We told her that he’d been taking pictures of her for the man who killed her father. What was she thinking?”
“I don’t know,” Roland said, his voice level. “Maybe she thought she loved him. Maybe she thought she could change him.”
Maura heard the edge in his voice and knew that he was thinking of himself. “She’s not that stupid, but maybe she thought that she could catch him.”
He paused, thinking about that. “Like niece, like aunt.”
“Maybe,” Maura said, swallowing. “What are we going to do?”
“Take the vest and earpiece and put on some ski goggles. We’ll go talk to him. In the meantime, we have three snipers in ghillie suits preparing to take a shot.”
“A shot? On that ice? With him holding Maddie like that? I don’t think so.”
He gripped her arms and pulled her close, until their noses were almost touching. His breath frosted in the air in front of her. “Please trust me, Maura.”
Looking into those lake-blue eyes that she knew so well, Maura surrendered, giving him the trust he craved along with the love that she held for him. “All right. All right, I trust you.”
“Good,” he said, nodding behind her. “Suit up.”
Roland didn’t know what Garrett Morris could possibly want from him and Maura, but he suspected that it was nothing good. Likely Keenan had sent the boy to die and take Maura’s niece with him. He’d bet anything that in addition to the detonator the kid was holding, he was also transmitting video from somewhere on his person or in a nearby tree. The only way there was a signal way out here was if the kid had hacked into the house Wi-Fi somehow, which Roland thought unlikely, or he was using a cell signal, in which case he would be pinging the nearest cell tower.
Taking out his phone, he called Milton.
“Milton, listen, it’s an emergency. Hack into the cell tower nearest the west side of my house in Dover and track all the video transmissions that are going out. It’ll be a constant data stream.”
“Roland, what—”
“No questions, just do it,” he ordered and ended the call, then turned back to his head of security. “Hanover, I need a signal jammer in case Keenan tries to remote-detonate.”
“Already on it, boss.” He handed a small black controller over to Roland.
“I thought you had one of those on your phone,” Maura said as she stepped up beside him, dressed in a vest that was a little too big, but it covered her chest, and ski goggles that dominated her face.
“I was lying about that,” he said without apology. “Ready?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding, her lips pressed together grimly. “Let’s go.”
They walked down to the edge of the lake, snow swirling around them as the wind kicked up, gusting strongly enough that Maura stumbled. Roland caught her arm, helping her through the drifts, hoping that when t
hey reached the dark shape that was Justin Robbins, they’d find him alive.
A few minutes later, Maura was going to her knees beside the boy, pulling off her gloves to check for a pulse.
“He’s alive,” she said into the earpiece. “But he’s bleeding from somewhere.”
“Don’t touch him,” a faint voice sounded from over the wind and snow. “Move him and I kill us both.”
Standing, Maura replaced her gloves. “We’re going to have to go out on the ice.”
Roland nodded. “It should be frozen thick enough for our weight.”
“Let’s hope so,” she murmured.
They stepped out onto the ice together and walked slowly toward where the boy was holding Maddie. It felt like forever, each slow step seeming to make the two figures in the distance retreat into a haze of shifting snow, but then they were within a few feet of the kid, and Maura could see effect the cold was having on her niece. Instead of the wide-eyed fear she expected, Maddie’s eyes looked drowsy, her nose and cheeks reddened, but there were frozen tears tracks on her face, and her lower lip quivered.
Garrett Morris wasn’t faring much better. His blond hair was crusted with snow, and his lashes seemed to be stuck together.
“Garrett,” Roland said in a soft voice that was nevertheless loud enough to be heard above the weather. “We’re here. Can you tell us what you want?”
The boy’s teeth were chattering. “I was just supposed to get you out here. So he could see your faces.”
“Keenan?”
The boy nodded. “And then I’m supposed to release this.” He waved the detonator in his hand, but the motion was stiff, jerky.
“I have a better idea,” Roland suggested. “Why don’t you give that to me, and we’ll all go back to the house where it’s warm. We’ll have some cocoa and sit by the fire.”
From the look on the kid’s face, there was nothing he wanted more than to be warm, but it was also clear that he wasn’t going to give in to that desire. Whatever sway Keenan Shy held over him, it was stronger.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I have to do it.”
Lie in the Moment Page 23
