Secret Witness

by Jessica Andersen

  “Fine. Just as long as he catches sight of Bott, too.”

  Sturgeon cocked an eyebrow and slid his mint from his left cheek to his right. “You think either Bott is going to show?”

  Reid shook his head. “Nah. I think they’re holed up tight, trying to decide what the hell to do next. We should’ve had a demand called in to the house by now.” And that, more than anything, worried Reid to death. What if they hadn’t called for ransom because they had nothing to trade?

  No. Jilly was alive. He could feel it. He just hoped she stayed that way long enough to get found.

  “The officers in Patriot haven’t heard a peep,” Sturgeon said unnecessarily. He glanced down at the street, then back to Reid. “You sure you want to walk away after we find Jilly and get the Botts?”

  The change of subject was not welcome.

  Reid bared his teeth. “Mind your own business, Sturgeon. Just because the white picket fence and water-park thing works for you doesn’t mean it works for cops in general.”

  “Who says it works?” Sturgeon asked as he unwrapped another mint and popped it home. “A marriage doesn’t run itself and it’s a damn bit of effort to keep it on track, especially when you go to work and see the things we see.”

  It was the first time Sturgeon had ever admitted to Reid that he felt the job, too. He always seemed untouched by the mayhem. Unperturbed by the atrocity. Reid shrugged. “Then why do it?” He meant the family, not the job, and Sturgeon understood. The job was a given for both of them.

  “Because for all the work, going home to Jen at the end of a filthy day is a damn sight better than going home to a cat and a house full of dead silk plants.”

  The phone rang and Reid almost jumped out of his skin. Sturgeon was closest, so he answered it. Nodded once. Smiled grimly.

  He folded the phone and handed Reid his suit coat. “They just called her house with a demand.”

  “Which was?”

  Sturgeon paused in the act of gathering his index cards. “We were right. They want Steph, too. Or rather he does.” Talking with Derek Bott’s lawyer and a few acquaintances from the neighborhood had told them that Derek Bott was typical lowlife, but that his brother Dwayne was different.

  The locals didn’t have anything bad to say out loud about Dwayne. Their eyes said it for them.

  Dwayne was scary bad. And he had Jilly.

  Reid snarled as they jogged to the elevators. “Give me some good news, why don’t you?”

  Sturgeon grinned and stabbed the down button. “We got a trace.”

  WHEN SHE HIT the pavement outside the Genetic Research Building, Steph was surprised that she didn’t see anyone she knew—until she remembered it was Sunday. How could it be Sunday? The weekend was such a normal thing that it seemed it shouldn’t have come when so many things were topsy-turvy in her world.

  “Ma’am? Are you okay?” The young officer hovered at her elbow, and Steph noticed the looks she was getting from the passing tourists. They were probably wondering what she’d done wrong.

  Then again, she was still trying to figure out the same thing.

  She brushed him off and started to walk, not being at all particular about the direction. She just needed to walk. She needed to do something, anything, other than sit in the computer room for one more minute breathing the same air as Detective Reid Peters.

  Coward. He was a coward for turning away from what they could have together. She ground her teeth and concentrated on the anger, since it was easier than thinking about Jilly as she stalked along the Chinatown streets, shadowed by a rookie who looked barely past puberty.

  Caught up in her fury, she walked faster.

  “Ma’am?” The rookie’s voice interrupted. “We should turn back now. We’re getting out of Chinatown and I don’t want to get in trouble with Detective Peters.” The kid said Reid’s name as if he was a god, and it irked Steph so much she didn’t admit that they’d already walked farther than she’d intended.

  “So go back yourself if the umbilical cord doesn’t stretch into the Theater District.” She knew it was mean, but she was feeling mean, and because of it she ducked into the next crummy alley she saw, scowling as the officer swore and followed.

  Then she slowed, ashamed. When O’Connell caught up, she shrugged. “Sorry about that. I just…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Never mind. We can go back whenever you want.”

  “Appreciate it.” The fair-haired rookie gestured her to the other end of the alley, which opened onto an off-off Washington Street side road that Steph rarely ventured down. There were smaller theaters with tired-looking signs and burned-out bulbs mixed in amongst greasy gray doors that led to the apartment buildings lurking high above the street.

  Steph and her shadow walked quickly toward the end of the road, where they could see the welcome Kneeland Street cross traffic. It was amazing that they were only a few blocks from both Patriot and Boston General, yet the light seemed to have been sucked away from the street, leaving it drab and lifeless.

  They passed a small crowd milling outside a theater. The sagging wooden marquee that arched above the door and sprawled across the building next door advertised a matinee of a “New Smash Hit” Steph had never heard of. She was just letting O’Connell drag her past the crowd when the doors were thrown open and music spilled out onto the street.

  She gasped.

  It was Jilly’s song.

  The notes were so simple that a child could whistle them. A child had whistled them. And how could she have learned them when she’d never been here before? Steph stopped dead, losing the melody when the small crowd of ticket holders surged through the tired doors and disappeared.

  “Ma’am? Ms. Alberts? We need to keep moving. This isn’t the safest part of town.” O’Connell was practically dancing in his urgency, but Steph shook her head.

  “No, you don’t understand. That song…” She gestured toward the “New Smash Hit” sign.

  “Pretty awful, I agree. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the show pushing out its rivals on the main drag. Shall we go?”

  She spun and headed for the theater. “My daughter has been whistling that song for three days now. Ever since she was taken the first time.”

  He might be a rookie, but O’Connell was neither dumb nor as pliable as he seemed. Steph made it only a few steps into the street when he grabbed her by the arm, swung her into a busted-out doorway and blocked her with his body, swearing as he fumbled for his radio. When Steph tried to push past him and reach the street again, he barked, “Stay!”

  She subsided. “I’m not a dog. And who do you think you are, anyway?”

  He scowled. “The rookie whose butt is on the line if anything happens to you or your daughter.” When she continued to struggle, he softened his tone but not his hold on her arm. “Think for a minute, Ms. Alberts. If your daughter was kept in or near that theater—because we can assume that terrible music isn’t being played anywhere else in the city—then how are you helping things by crashing in there right now?”

  Seeing reason where she didn’t want to, Steph nodded curtly. “Then you go in and get her.”

  “Why don’t we both stay here and wait for backup? Or better yet, since a uniform huddled in a doorway isn’t exactly normal for this neighborhood, why don’t we keep walking right around the block?”

  While he called in a report, Steph had to admit the logic of the plan. She didn’t like it, but he was right.

  “Ready?” O’Connell, towheaded and earnest, took her arm, ushered her out of the doorway and started marching her toward Kneeland Street, careful to keep his body between her and the street.

  The first bullet caught him high on the shoulder.

  The first of the shrill childish screams turned Steph’s guts to water as the officer fell.

  And without thinking, she ran across the street toward her daughter.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Christ. Can’t we get a bulldozer out here or something?�
� Reid complained as Sturgeon blipped the siren and leaned on the horn. Cars were snarled all around them, trying and failing to find a way around the fresh collision that stretched across Kneeland Street just before the Theater District. “There’s nowhere for them to go except onto the sidewalks.” And he’d swear that the cab involved in the accident up ahead was the same one he’d watched have a fender bender not a half hour earlier.

  “The other unit’s stuck on the far side of Theater, and some of their boys are meeting us at the trace address. They’ll keep it quiet until we get there. We’ve got time. Bott wouldn’t have called to arrange the exchange if they didn’t have her.”

  But the words rang false. Sturgeon and Reid both knew that plenty of kidnappers collected on dead bodies. And the very thought of Stephanie exchanging herself for her daughter was enough to make him want to shoot something.

  Or someone. Dwayne Bott would do nicely.

  The radio on the dash spluttered to life and Reid’s chest tightened when he heard O’Connell’s voice. His whole body began to tingle. To itch, right above his heart. Then he understood the transmission and his heart stopped.

  Stephanie was in the Theater District. She was across the street from the apartment building where Derek and Dwayne Bott were holding Jilly.

  Hell.

  He was out of the car in an instant, heard Sturgeon yelling his name but he didn’t turn back as he lit out at a dead run toward the accident. The cross street O’Connell had named was two blocks up.

  He didn’t see the rookie and redheaded woman emerge to circle around the block as they had planned. Didn’t see the backup in place. He didn’t see anything. He cursed, leapt over a tangled piece of taxicab and sprinted for the Theater District, praying he wouldn’t be too late.

  NOT HEARING Jilly screaming any more, but still feeling the awful wails deep within her bones, Steph crept up the sagging stairs and wondered what the hell she was doing. Backup. She should be waiting for backup. For the police. For Reid.

  No. She wouldn’t think of him now. And she wouldn’t wait. Jilly needed her.

  The stairwell was quiet, but muffled noises filtered in from one landing above her. She’d seen movement from the third floor just before Officer O’Connell had fallen. She thought he was alive. She knew she should have stayed with him, but nothing was more important than getting Jilly back.

  Nothing.

  Her purse bumped against her side as Steph eased her way up the last set of stairs and wished she had a weapon. She thought of her pepper spray, fumbled the silver canister free and left the purse behind as she stepped into the second-floor hallway. Voices rose from an open door on the left.

  “I can’t believe you shot the cop. Jesus, Dwayne. Like we’re not in enough trouble already? What the hell were you thinking?” The voice was almost cracking with stress, but Steph thought it could have been the voice of her threatening caller.

  “First off, we’re in trouble because of you, brother, and don’t you forget it. And besides, we’ve got a plan, remember?” This voice, too, could have been that of Steph’s caller.

  She supposed that in a way they both were. Easing one foot in front of the other, she eased down the hallway until she was just outside the door.

  “I don’t understand why we can’t just leave. We should just get out of here like Sinclair said to do.” Though the voices were superficially identical, the whiny, stressed undertones told Steph that it was the first speaker, Derek. She hoped they kept talking.

  “Not without the woman. She owes me.” This voice was cold. Unyielding. Deadly.

  Dwayne.

  Steph felt a shiver crawl up her back at the inflection and very much wanted to curl up in a ball until it all went away. But she couldn’t. Jilly was in there, and she wasn’t going to let her daughter down again.

  “And the kid?”

  “She’s not important. We’ll kill her on our way out and dump her in the Charles. No need to leave anything behind.”

  She must’ve made a noise at that, because there was a sudden silence from within the room. A shuffling. Not willing to wait for them to come find her, she stepped into the sagging doorway, grappling with a half-formed, half-baked plan that wasn’t much of a plan at all. The pepper spray was tucked into her waistband at the small of her back like she’d seen Reid do with his gun. It gave her a small sense of security.

  Very small.

  “You!” One of the men spluttered, and the faint whine identified him as Derek even as his spitting image smiled cruelly and said, “So, you’ve decided to join us, have you?” from across the room. “Clever girl.”

  Dwayne walked toward her on long, powerful legs. His thick dark hair looked oily, and his mouth was twisted in a mocking line.

  Fear shivered through Stephanie, but she held herself still as he twisted a lock of her hair between his fingers and smiled. “What are you doing here, Stephanie?” He’d never said her name before. Now, it sent tarantulas of dread spreading through her body until she thought she might faint. No. She mustn’t. She had to get to Jilly. “Come to say you’re sorry for not following instructions the first time? Come to make it up to my brother and me?” Dwayne licked his lips suggestively and rubbed that lock of her hair against his cheek.

  Steph shuddered and didn’t bother to hide it. “I came to get my daughter.”

  She wasn’t surprised when they laughed.

  “Why would we give away our little girl? She’s pretty.” Dwayne licked his lips. “And Derek likes them young.” Another, bigger shudder worked its way through Steph and she bit her lip to keep from screaming.

  “I want to see my daughter.”

  The plan was simple. She would do whatever it took to keep Jilly alive until Reid came for them. And he would come. She knew it. She trusted him. Whether he was the job or the man, he was Reid, and he’d rescue them.

  She only hoped he made it in time.

  “Of course you want to see your daughter, Stephanie.” Dwayne snapped his fingers. “Search her and put her in with the kid.” He walked to the window and idly picked up a rifle that had been leaning against the wall. “Take a moment to say goodbye to her, okay? Sinclair Jr. should be out back any minute with the car. We’ll just slip through the theater and poof,” he snapped his fingers, “we’ll be gone.”

  Steph whimpered and his eyes slid over to her. “How would you like to be Mrs. Bott? There won’t be any ceremony, of course, but I think you’ll do quite nicely for the both of us.”

  Tears stung her eyes but she held them in check as she thought furiously. She sucked her stomach in and felt the pepper spray slide out of her waistband and drop into her jeans where it wedged down low. Derek liked little girls. Maybe he wouldn’t search her too carefully.

  “Let me see my daughter and I’ll be whatever you want.”

  “Don’t worry. You will anyway,” Dwayne said, and motioned for his brother to take her away. As she was dragged through a door between the faded couch and the chipped, yellowed kitchen, she saw Dwayne shoulder the rifle and squeeze off a few rounds down into the street, and she shut her eyes at the reports.

  Reid. O’Connell.

  Jilly.

  Steph felt her heart try to beat its way out of her chest when she saw the little girl curled up high in a corner of the bed, weeping soundlessly. She barely felt Derek’s bruising hands on her body as he gave her a disinterested, sloppy search and missed the pepper spray wedged in her jeans.

  “Jilly!”

  The little form uncurled instantly and sprang at Steph, wailing, “Mama!”

  Steph gathered her daughter up, shaking almost as hard as Jilly was, and hugged her, whispering that she loved her, that she was safe now, that everything was going to be okay.

  Then she heard the door shut and the key turn in the lock. And the crack of the high-powered rifle and the men’s cheer, and Dwayne’s voice calling, “Hey Stephanie! I just got myself a cop. I think he’s a friend of yours.” A flurry of rifle shots.

&nb
sp; She buried her face in Jilly’s hair.

  Reid.

  He wasn’t coming for them. Maybe he couldn’t. She’d deal with that later.

  Right now she needed to get Jilly to safety.

  SLIPPING ALONG the edges of one of the shabbiest roads in the Theater District, Reid saw a man crouched down in the shadows of a doorway opposite the building where the trace had identified an apartment on the third floor. The number was registered to Dwayne Tobb, which Reid thought was an unimaginative alias.

  Unfortunately, it had been effective. It hadn’t popped up on any of their searches.

  “It’s me,” the figure hissed, and Reid lowered his weapon and joined O’Connell. The officer was alone. And bleeding. “Get down, he’s shooting out the window.”

  Having already heard the report over the radio, Reid merely crouched down beside the rookie. “Where’s Steph?” He would’ve grabbed the rookie and shaken him for letting her run into danger, but he saw the red leaking between O’Connell’s fingers from a wound in his upper chest. He heard the wet, sucking breaths that spoke of a collapsing lung and saw another wound high on his thigh.

  There was a crack and both men ducked as a bullet whistled past the bare shelter of the doorway and smacked into rotting wooden frame at eye level. The shot was followed by several more, and Reid felt one crease his upper arm.

  He shrank farther into the alcove and clapped a hand to the shallow gash. “Where is she?” he repeated to the rookie, whose eyes were starting to roll.

  “She went in, Detective. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop her. He started shooting and the kid screamed…I couldn’t stop her. I’m sorry.”

  The fear congealed, cold and hard and greedy in Reid’s gut and the rage flared until he had to stop himself from shaking the rookie until his teeth rattled and his other lung collapsed. He resisted the need to yell that O’Connell shouldn’t have let her walk this way, especially shouldn’t have let her take this street. That he should’ve gotten her away the moment she heard the music, that he should’ve dragged her to safety even after he was shot.