Maddox’s voice, filtered by both my laptop’s speaker and that of the cell in my hand, sounded thin, tinny. Alien.
“I have your newest patient here, Danny. Little Robbie Palermo. A paisan, eh? I wonder, did you ever discount your fee for fellow Italian-Americans? Nice branding opportunity you passed up there…”
I ignored him, an idea forming in my mind.
“Gloria,” I whispered, my voice muffled under the drone of Maddox’s ramblings. “Move away from the computer. Hurry!”
I could just make out her footsteps on the tile floor of my kitchen. At the same time, I heard Maddox ask where I was. That he needed to see me on my laptop screen.
“I have to find another way inside, Gloria,” I said. “You’ve got to buy me some time.”
“How, Danny? He’s going to want you to respond. It doesn’t work for him unless you do. Unless he sees you suffering.”
“That’s what I’m counting on. Close the laptop lid. Tell him I can’t deal with what he’s doing. Can’t watch.”
“But what if he—?”
“For Christ’s sake, Gloria, just do it!”
Without waiting for her reply, I walked back down the corridor, the same way I’d come. This time moving more slowly, looking for another opening. An access door. Anything.
Meanwhile, I heard Gloria’s footsteps coming over the cell. Heading back into the kitchen. Then a sudden click. She’d closed the lid of the laptop.
No sooner had she done so than I came upon a side door I’d missed on my way in. Thin and made of sheet metal, it had been hidden at first in the deep shadows crowding the dust-clouded corridor. I was just pulling it open when I heard Maddox explode in rage. Again, the journey from his camera mike to my computer speaker to the cell I was holding wrung the timbre from the growl of his words. But not the force of his anger.
“Goddam it, Danny, you gutless bastard! Now I can’t see you. Which means you can’t see the tableau I’ve constructed. It’s a thing of beauty. As pure as one of Plato’s Forms.”
I stepped through the metal door into another, smaller corridor, as dim and dust-shrouded as the first. But there was a difference. At the end of this dark passageway was a narrow stone staircase, leading up.
I made my way toward it. I also knew I had to keep Maddox talking. With the laptop lid closed, I counted on his assumption that I was still there, with Barnes and Gloria—a pretense I needed to keep up till I found Robbie.
“Bullshit, Maddox.” I shouted, both to infuriate him and, hopefully, to disguise the fact that I wasn’t inches away from my laptop speaker. “Like you know a fucking thing about beauty. Plato, my ass. If he were here, he’d spit in your eye.”
“You’re debating philosophy with me? Hilarious.”
Finally, I reached the concrete stairs and began to climb as quickly and silently as I could.
“You still there, Danny? The kid’s going to die either way, so why don’t you open the lid? I want to see your face when it happens. And I know you’ll want to see mine.”
By now, I’d reached the top of the steps, which opened onto another narrow passageway, wood-framed, cobwebbed.
Just then, I heard Gloria’s faint whisper. I’d pocketed the cell, which muffled the sound. I strained to hear her voice.
“Danny…Maddox has finished with the rope thing. He’s got the boy all trussed up, like some kind of marionette. Robbie’s right arm’s pointing at his head, the gun attached to his hand.”
Her voice cracked. “My God…now Maddox is backing away from the boy, holding on to the end of the cord. The other end’s tied to the trigger on the gun.”
I nodded without answering. Maddox was trying to duplicate, as much as possible, the image of Robbie shooting himself in the head. As Matthew had done. If Maddox himself did it, if it was his finger on the trigger, the effect would be ruined.
“I need another minute,” I whispered back to her. “Tell Barnes to yell at the prick.”
As I crossed this smaller, tunnel-like passage, I heard an angry burst of invective. Like the roar of a lion. Loud enough to be heard from the cell in my pocket. Lyle Barnes.
“Maddox, you crazy motherfucker, I can’t wait till we nail your sorry ass. When we find what dung-hole you’re hiding in, I’m gonna reach down your throat and pull your rancid guts out. You hear me, you delusional piece of shit?”
“Fuck you, old man,” Maddox shouted. “I wasn’t talking to you, anyway. Danny? Danny, are you there?”
“I’m right here, Maddox.” Shouting. Cell still in my pocket. “Do what you’re gonna do, but I won’t watch.”
“I know you’re just stalling for time, Rinaldi!” Maddox was livid with frustration. “But it won’t work. Open the goddam lid and watch the kid shoot himself. Or I’ll wake his ass up, I swear! You hear me?”
By now, I’d slipped through an opening at the end of the passageway, finding myself on a kind of catwalk with wire mesh bending below my feet.
“The little bastard’s still out of it, Danny. But I promise I’ll wake him up. Let him see he’s about to die…”
I was moving in a crouch along the catwalk, until I came to a shadowed corner thick with dust and the smell of rotten wood and masonry. I approached and realized it was the remains of a broader, wood-planked overhang below which sprawled a huge, obviously long-abandoned storage facility.
I made the turn and stepped carefully onto the splintered wood, then peered over the edge. On the concrete floor below me were two large klieg lights, positioned on either side of a video camera attached to a tripod. The blazing light cast Robbie in an unearthly glow, his slender body bound to a folding chair. His eyes were closed, his limbs unmoving—except for his right arm, suspended by ropes and hanging perpendicular to his head. The thin white arm swayed ever so slightly in the web of ropes, causing the revolver tied to his hand to tap its barrel lightly against the side of his head.
I almost cried out, but stifled it. Because now, as Maddox spoke, his voice wasn’t just coming through the cell phone in my pocket. I was hearing it in person.
Kneeling, I risked thrusting my head farther past the edge of the overhang. At last, from this angle, I could see him. Maddox, in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, stood about six feet to the left of Robbie, the end of the cord in his fist.
Seeing Maddox in the hoodie brought an instant stab of pain. A searing recollection of that night. Barbara’s screams, the roar of gunshots, the spray of blood…
I took a couple quick breaths to center myself. To focus.
Now I saw that Maddox had set up the camera at a good enough distance that it could record both his position and that of his victim. Maddox may have wanted to replicate the scenario of a boy shooting himself with a gun, but he also wanted his viewer—me—to see who’d really pulled the trigger.
“This is your last warning!” He pointed with his free hand at the camera, still unaware that I was directly above him. “Open up the laptop and watch Robbie die. Quick and painless. At least it’s humane.”
I readied myself, hands gripping the jagged wooden edge of the overhang, muscles tensing.
“Or else I wake the kid up, shove the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. Think what his parents’ll save on braces for the little shit.”
In the space of a few moments, I assessed my moves. I knew I couldn’t risk trying to tackle Maddox from above. Not with his hand holding fast to his end of the cord. If he fell, or was knocked off-balance, the cord would jerk back, pulling the trigger on the gun tied to Robbie’s hand.
So, gathering myself, I moved to my left, three long strides past where Maddox stood below. And jumped.
My bones rattled as my feet hit the concrete, breath pushed out of me. Still moving, I fell into a roll.
Behind me, I heard Maddox gasp, momentarily stunned. But I didn’t turn to see him. Instead, coming out of the ro
ll, I ran toward Robbie, my hands outstretched.
I knew I had only seconds before Maddox would yank on that cord. Fire the gun.
With a hoarse cry, I lunged at Robbie and wrapped my arms around him. Bringing us both crashing to the floor in a twisted tangle of ropes, as the gun discharged. The bullet whistled past us, pinging off the leg of one of the tripods.
Shielding Robbie with my body, I craned my neck around in time to see Maddox, eyes black with rage, glaring at me. The muscles in his powerful neck taut and thick as bridge cables.
For the first time, I was face-to-face with Sebastian Maddox. Just six feet away from the man who’d killed my wife.
Neither one of us moved, as though frozen. Then, rousing myself, I scrambled for the gun, still tied to Robbie’s hand, tangled in the ropes. If I could just wrest it free…
Maddox saw what I was doing. Without a word, he threw down the cord, turned, and ran off, disappearing within seconds into the deep darkness beyond the sizzling klieg lights, leaving behind only the echo of his running footsteps on concrete, followed by the hollow, metallic sound of a door closing.
l l l l l
Though we’d hit the floor hard, Robbie was still unconscious, but his breathing was regular, and he seemed otherwise unhurt.
As carefully as possible I extricated him from the tangle of ropes, pulling his limp arms and legs free. Then I untied the still-warm revolver from his hand and slipped it into my pocket.
Finally I lifted Robbie up, cradling him in both arms, and walked us slowly out of the room. I made my way through the same phalanx of shadows into which Maddox had disappeared and came to the door I’d been unable to open. As I guessed, he’d locked it from the inside after bringing Robbie in here.
Now unlocked, it opened easily to my kick and I carried Robbie down the corridor and through the exterior door. Outside, the overhead lamp offered a feeble light against the cold, flooding darkness, but it was enough to see that the Heywood woman’s van was gone. I had no doubt Maddox would abandon it once he’d gotten far enough away from the Strip.
I opened my Mustang and buckled Robbie into the passenger seat. As I pulled out of the produce yard, I placed Gloria’s cell in the hands-free socket and hit re-dial.
She spoke before I could.
“We saw it, Danny. All of it.” An undisguised relief in her voice. “Thank God Robbie’s okay.”
“Is the camera still rolling?”
“No. Your laptop screen just went blank. The camera must’ve been set to shut itself off after a given time. The last thing we saw was Maddox running out of frame.”
“He got back to the van and took off. If he hasn’t ditched it somewhere by now, he will soon.”
Her tone sharpened. “You know, you took a helluva chance in there going for Robbie the way you did.”
“I didn’t see any other way. But I know I got lucky.”
“Yeah, well…” A meaningful pause. “That’s the thing about luck, Danny. Sooner or later it runs out.”
Chapter Eighteen
Robbie was just coming around as I carried him up the steps to the front porch of his house. Lights were on inside, and a Lexus was in the driveway. It looked like his parents were home.
I lay him on the porch and walked quickly and quietly back to where I’d parked across the street. I got behind the wheel and waited, engine and lights off, for Robbie to wake to full consciousness. The porch light was bright enough for me to see him pretty clearly.
In another few minutes, I saw him wobble to his feet, rub his eyes, and look around. Confusion clouded his features. Until, finally registering where he was, he rang the doorbell.
Suddenly the door flew open and a woman bent to scoop him up in her arms. It was Mrs. Palermo. Sobbing, frantic, clutching her son to her breast. Right behind her in the doorway was a man I took to be Robbie’s father. I’d never met him before.
After they’d bustled their son inside and closed the door, I put the Mustang in gear and pulled away from the curb. As I headed for town, and home, I tried to order my thoughts.
From all appearances, it looked as if Robbie had been unconscious from the moment Maddox injected him with the paralytic. Probably right before or right after he’d thrown Benjamin Heywood out of the van. Which meant that Robbie would have no memory of being taken to the warehouse and bound to the chair, a gun tied to his hand. Nor would he remember his rescue, and our drive back to his house.
Not that the experience wouldn’t be upsetting, or even re-traumatizing, but having been spared the memory of his close brush with death—especially its planned replication of the way his friend Matthew had perished—I believed it was possible the psychological effects on the boy would be diminished.
At the moment, there was no way to know. Driving across the bridge under a too-bright moon, I realized that whatever lay ahead for Robbie, his journey toward some kind of emotional equilibrium had just been made much more difficult.
l l l l l
I’d no sooner pulled into my driveway when Gloria came out of the front door, peering at me in the porch light.
“My God, look at you. You’re all banged up.”
“I’ll live. Tell me, what’s happening?”
“It’s all over the news.” We headed back inside. “Just breaking.”
Lyle Barnes was standing by the sofa in the front room, TV remote in hand, watching the local news report. Gloria and I joined him.
According to the on-screen anchor, the police were investigating an attempted kidnapping this evening of two adolescent boys. After Mrs. Dorothy Heywood returned home from dropping her son and a friend off at a gaming store in Penn Hills, a male suspect approached and struck her with the butt of a gun. Leaving her unconscious on her driveway, he then used her white van to return to the store and pick up the boys. For some reason, the kidnapper soon released Mrs. Heywood’s son, Benjamin, but kept his friend, a boy whose identity the police were, for now, refusing to disclose.
“A wise move,” I said aloud. “Given Robbie’s likely inability to recall anything about what happened to him, the cops will want to investigate further before releasing his name. Standard procedure. In case of possible sexual abuse.”
“Poor kid.” Barnes shook his head. “They’ll probably ask to do a rape kit. Like a twelve-year-old boy wants somebody poking around in his ass.”
The report went on to say that Benjamin Heywood could offer little in the way of a description of the suspect—just that he was a big man and wore a hooded jacket. Benjamin did claim that he’d been helped by a passing stranger—“a real nice man”—after he’d been ejected from the van, but couldn’t recall anything about him, other than that he had a beard.
This brought a chortle from Barnes.
“You’d make a shitty criminal, Doc. A beard always sticks out to a victim as a distinguishing feature.”
As for the second boy, the one held by the kidnapper, the anchor reported that he appeared unhurt, but had no memory of what transpired. He recalled seeing right away that the person driving the van wasn’t Mrs. Heywood, but some man in a hoodie. Then, according to the boy, the man jabbed him with a hypodermic needle. It was the last thing he remembered before waking up on his front porch, with no idea how he’d gotten there.
“Good thing, too,” Gloria said to me. “Keeps you out of the loop entirely.”
I nodded, as the anchor ended his report.
“The police are unwilling to speculate this early in their investigation as to the sequence of events,” the anchor said coolly. “However, sources close to the Department believe that it’s possible the kidnapped boy somehow managed to escape his captor, though he’s unable to recall doing so. Or perhaps the suspect lost his nerve at some point after snatching the boy and decided to dump him somewhere. After which, still dazed from the drug he’d been given, the victim simply walked home. On insti
nct.”
The segment ended with the station displaying a phone number on the screen, with the anchor stating that the police were asking for the public’s help in finding the suspect.
Barnes snorted and clicked off the TV.
“Lotsa luck. With the description the kids gave them, the cops don’t have squat. And they won’t find any forensics in the Heywood woman’s van, either. Maddox is too goddam careful to have left his prints. Or anything else, for that matter.”
“Which may not be a bad thing,” I said. “This way, what’s happening between Maddox and me stays contained. Just something between him and me. If it turned into a full-blown police manhunt, there’s no telling how Maddox would respond. How many people he’d be willing to kill before getting taken down.”
Gloria hadn’t said anything during this exchange, her gaze averted. Finally she turned to me.
“I don’t know, Danny. As a sworn law enforcement officer, I’m uncomfortable keeping our knowledge of Maddox to ourselves. Especially after what he’s done so far. The people he’s hurt or killed. Not to mention that it could end my career. Hell, I could wind up in jail.”
An awkward moment of silence followed. Then Gloria stepped away from Barnes and me, arms folded, as though we were now in two different camps. And maybe we were.
Barnes spoke first. “Look, Agent Reese, I understand what you’re saying. But I think our hands are tied here. Maddox is running this game. At least till we track him down.”
“I know, but—”
I moved toward her, hands outspread.
“I realize this puts you in a difficult position, Gloria. And I get it. But let me ask you one question: Do you believe Sebastian Maddox will kill more people if we alert the police? Or the Bureau? Innocent people…?”
Her eyes, dark and penetrating, met my own. Then, after a long moment, she let out a breath.
“Yes,” she said simply. “I believe he will.”
Head Wounds Page 12
