Safe and Sound

by J. D. Rhoades

  He shrugged. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “I know, Jack,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m just on edge here.”

  “Yeah,” Keller said. “I don’t blame you.”

  They waited the next few minutes in silence. The digits on the clock seemed to take an eon to change. When it clicked over to ten, Marie made a small sound in her throat and looked at the phone. It remained silent.

  “Easy,” Keller said. “It’s not like you synchronized watches. And he may be trying to fuck with you. Make you wait. Just try to stay—”

  The phone rang. Marie crossed the room in a few strides and snatched it up. “Hello…Yes. He’s here.”

  She looked at Keller. “There’s an extension in the bedroom. He wants to talk to both of us at the same time.”

  Keller went into the bedroom, picked up the phone on the bedside table. “Keller,” he said.

  “You had a meeting set up for later today,” the voice said. Keller picked up on the accent right away. You hed a meeting sit up for lighter todye.

  “Yeah,” Keller said.

  “With the lawyer,” the voice said. “She won’t be able to make it, I’m afraid.”

  Keller felt a sinking feeling in his gut. He kept his voice calm. “And why is that?”

  “She’s a little under the weather right now,” the voice said. “And the boy will be joining her, unless you do as you’re told.”

  “What do you want?” Marie’s voice quavered on the other extension.

  “I want to have a meeting with the same people,” the voice said. “I want to straighten out some misunderstandings we’ve had.”

  “Like you had a disagreement with David Lundgren?” Keller said.

  There was a silence on the other end. “Poor David,” the man said. “If he’d just been honest with me, he could have saved himself a lot of pain. A. Lot. Of. Pain.” He spoke the last words with heavy and unmistakable emphasis. Then his tone turned businesslike. “I want to keep the same thing from happening again. But I don’t think my former partners trust me anymore.”

  “I wonder why,” Keller said.

  The man chuckled. “Well, you can help me fix that. They’ll show up and see you there. They trust you.”

  “They asked for Tammy Healy,” Marie said.

  “But they’ve never met Healy. They’ll think you’re her. They’ll give you the little girl, I’ll give you your boy, then my brus and I will have a chat and get everything straightened out. Everyone wins.”

  Except you’ll kill us all the minute you get the chance, Keller thought. The man on the other end sensed his hesitation. “Tune me grief,” he said harshly, “and that little boy will wake up to the longest and hardest day of his life. Also the last one. Unless I decide to take my time and get creative. Then his dying could take a lot longer.”

  “Okay,” Keller said. “How do we work this? Do we meet you somewhere?”

  “I know where the meeting place is,” the voice said. “I’ll see you all there. Don’t be late.” There was a click as he broke the connection.

  Keller hung up the phone. He walked back into the living room. Marie was standing there, the phone still in her hand. She was looking down at an object on the phone table. Keller walked over and looked down. There was a dimly glowing LED screen on the base of the phone. There was a name displayed in dark gray letters against the green background.

  “The caller ID says that that call came from Tammy Healy,” Marie said.

  “Healy’s dead,” Keller said. “He got the information he needed from her and then he killed her. He probably has her cell phone.”

  “What information?” Marie demanded. “What’s going on?”

  Keller told her about the phone call and the meeting that had been set up to return Alyssa Fedder. “Tammy was nervous. She didn’t want to go alone.”

  “And she trusted you,” Marie said. “And this,” she said slowly, “explains why one of the most expensive divorce lawyers in town is willing to take my case for peanuts. And to wait for the peanuts.”

  “It seemed like a reasonable trade,” Keller said.

  She didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then she turned away. “I guess I should thank you, Jack,” she said.

  “We’d better get going,” he said. “It’s a long drive.”

  “Where are we going?” Marie said.

  “The Blue Ridge Parkway. Near the Tennessee border.”

  Marie took a few moments to throw some clothes into a gym bag for Ben. “Put your weapon in there, too,” Keller said. “Just in case.”

  “But…,” Marie started. Then she fell silent. She went into the bedroom. When she came out, her face was grim. “Got it,” she said. They heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway.

  Keller went to the window and looked out. “Damn it,” he muttered. “It’s Wilcox.”

  “What the hell does he want?” Marie asked.

  There was a knock at the door. They looked at each other. “Both our cars are in the driveway,” Marie said. “It’s no use pretending we’re not home.”

  “Fuck,” Keller growled. He went to the door and opened it. “You’re up early,” he said to Wilcox. He didn’t stand aside to let the CID man in.

  “You’re probably going to have a lot more company pretty soon,” Wilcox said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tamara Healy was murdered last night. The local cops are just finishing up at the scene. I imagine they’ll want to talk to the two of you.”

  Marie came to stand behind Keller. “What happened to her?” she asked.

  Wilcox looked at her evenly. “You’re saying you don’t know anything about it?”

  “Neither of us is saying anything,” Keller said, “without a lawyer. She’s just asking.”

  Wilcox spoke slowly, unemotionally, his eyes gauging their reactions. “Healy was in her office,” he said. “Some unknown person or persons entered by picking the backdoor lock. They nailed her wrists to her own desk. Then they tortured her with a lit cigarette, possibly for several hours, before shooting her in the head.”

  Keller looked at Marie. She had gone white, her hand covering her mouth. He looked back at Wilcox. “Any suspects?”

  Wilcox shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. They just let me know about it because it might intersect the Lundgren investigation.”

  “Well, thanks for the heads-up,” Keller said. He made as if to close the door. Wilcox blocked the closing door with his foot. “You folks going somewhere?” he said.

  Keller looked back at Marie. She was holding the gym bag. She glanced down at it, then back up, a look of guilt on her face.

  “I think you two need to stay right here,” Wilcox said firmly. He pushed against the door. Keller pushed back.

  “You need to leave,” Marie said, her voice cracking with strain.

  “What’s in the bag, Ms. Jones?” Wilcox demanded.

  With a sob, Marie stuck her hand inside the bag. Wilcox went into his coat and swiftly drew his own weapon. He stepped back, holding the pistol in front of him, moving it back and forth from Keller to Marie. “Take your hand out of the bag,” he commanded, “and put it on the floor. Now!” He barked the last word.

  A tear ran down Marie’s face as she dropped the bag. “Please,” she begged, “just let us go. It’s important.”

  “No one goes anywhere,” Wilcox said, “until I find out what’s going on. Hands on top of your heads. Both of you.” They complied. “Back away from the door, Keller,” Wilcox said. “You too, Jones. Leave the bag on the floor.”

  They complied slowly, Marie moving like a sleepwalker.

  Wilcox came into the house. “Back against that wall,” he said.

  Keller calculated his chances of getting the gun away from Wilcox. Not good. He joined Marie against the wall.

  Never taking his eyes from them, Wilcox walked to the bag. He was crouching down to pick it up when the soft burr of a cell phone sounded at his belt. Without taking
the gun off Keller and Marie, he straightened up, pulled the phone out and flipped it open. “Wilcox,” he snapped. A look of shock crossed his face. The gun never wavered, however. “What?” Wilcox said. “How do you…They…” His face became angry. “Like hell,” he snarled. He listened for another few seconds, then shut the phone with a savage gesture. He stared at them for a few seconds, his face expressionless. Then he lowered the pistol and slid it inside his coat.

  “We’ve just gotten a new lead in the case,” he said. “I need to get back. Sorry to bother you.” He stepped back through the open door and pulled it shut.

  They stood for a moment, totally dumbfounded. “What the hell just happened?” Marie said.

  “You think they got the guy?” Keller said.

  “If they did…then maybe they have Ben.”

  “Why wouldn’t he just say that, then?”

  Marie shook her head. “What do we do now?” she said.

  Keller thought for a minute. “Only safe thing to do is keep the appointment until we hear something definite. I’ll call Angela from the road and ask her if she can find out what’s going on.” He picked the bag up off the floor. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Blue Ridge Parkway winds for nearly five hundred miles along the crests of the Southern Appalachian Mountains in western Virginia and North Carolina. It passes through no towns. It was built as a scenic route, so it is mostly tourists who drive slowly along its narrow roadway and gaze wide-eyed at the ever-changing panoramas that explode into the eye seemingly around every curve. The heaviest traffic is in the fall, when the dying of the leaves turns the hills ablaze with oranges, reds, and yellows, like the final defiant flare of stars as they expire into the cold and dark of winter. In spring and early summer, flowers cover the upland meadows: rhododendron, Queen Anne’s lace, mountain laurel. There are also plants with odd and evocative names: witch hobble, Solomon’s seal, Dutchman’s-breeches. Now, in midsummer, most of the flowers had gone, their short lives given to the task of fertilization and reproduction. Now the views were of mile after mile of rugged mountains, like titanic knees propped up under blankets of hardwood forest, the green of the trees turned to a sapphire by the ever-present haze.

  Night comes early to the Parkway, even in summer, as the evening sun slips behind the shoulders of the mountains. As the views fall into shadow, the tourists descend the long exits off the Parkway, heading for restaurant meals and motel beds in the old towns nestled in the valleys that live by their trade. In the gathering gloom, Keller and Marie saw almost no other vehicles as they made their way up the Parkway. Marie had to strain to make out the wooden mile markers that ticked off the approach to their destination. Their ears popped with the changes in altitude as they went up and over the ridges and down into the saddlebacks between them.

  “I can’t see shit,” Marie muttered. She leaned forward and peered out the windshield.

  They had said little on the long drive from Fayetteville. Marie had huddled in the passenger seat, her arms crossed across her chest, wrapped around her anxiety. Keller had struggled to find words to reassure her, but anything he considered sounded empty and foolish. They were there because it was their only chance, and that chance wasn’t much.

  Every few miles, where the views were particularly striking, the Park Service had built overlooks. Some were just tiny spaces where one or two cars could park and their drivers could get out to admire the scenery. Some were larger, with space for a dozen or more cars, and equipped with picnic tables and the beginnings of trails for hikers. Most of the overlooks were deserted; there was little to see. The valleys were in shadow, with only the tallest peaks catching the last of the summer sun. It was as if the darkness was rising like a tide, up from the lowlands, to drown the peaks in night.

  They passed an overlook on their left. There was a single vehicle parked there. No one was outside to watch the stars come out. It was the only vehicle they had seen in the last fifteen minutes. Marie looked back at the vehicle as they passed, turning around in the seat to watch. “That could be him,” she said.

  “Or the people we came to meet,” said Keller. “Is he starting up?”

  She craned to look harder. They went around a curve and the vehicle disappeared. She slumped back in the seat.

  “Probably some guy taking a leak in the woods,” she muttered.

  “Just a couple more miles,” Keller said. They passed a brown wooden sign made to look rustic. PINEY POINT OVERLOOK, the sign said. 1.5 MILES.

  “That’s the one,” Keller said.

  “You think they’re already there?”

  Keller shrugged. “Don’t think too much about what might happen,” he said. “Imagination can hang you up in a situation like this.”

  She caught a glimpse of his face in the dim light of the dashboard. There was a look there she’d seen before, a hardening of the muscles around the jaw, a tightness about the eyes. She felt a chill go up her back. There was no mercy in that look. There was no trace of the man she loved there.

  Someone is going to die. The thought came unbidden to her. She shook her head as if to deny it, but it came back almost immediately. When he gets that look, someone is going to die, the voice insisted. He turned to look at her and she almost flinched, praying that that look wouldn’t be turned on her.

  But when he looked at her, it was with concern in his eyes. “Stay with me, Marie,” he said softly. “Keep it together.” He turned back to the road. She put a hand on his biceps. “Thanks for coming, Jack,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here for me.”

  “No problem,” he said.

  As they came around a sharp curve, they saw the overlook. It was one of the bigger ones, with a parking lot on one side that could hold a dozen cars. There was a waist-high stone wall to keep the sightseer from tumbling over the sheer slope that fell away from the side of the parking lot. On the other side of the road was a smaller lot at the edge of a heavily forested slope. Marie could make out a few picnic tables just beneath the overhang of the trees. There was a large wooden signboard near the tables, with some sort of map fastened to it. The only vehicle in the lot was a Jeep Cherokee parked at the last space in the row. As instructed, Keller pulled the Crown Victoria into the space on the opposite end of the parking lot. He killed the lights, then the engine.

  They waited.

  Across the parking lot, they saw the glow of the Jeep’s interior light come on. Marie caught a glimpse of a dark-haired man behind the wheel. A figure exited the other side of the Jeep. A tall man and a child came around the front. In the dimness, Marie could just make out that both man and child had blond hair. Keller opened his door and Marie did the same. They got out and stood by the Crown Vic.

  “Jack,” Marie said in a low whisper, “where is he? Where’s the man that called—”

  “Are you Ms. Healy?” the tall man called out.

  “Yeah,” Marie called back. She was amazed that her voice didn’t shake. The tall man bent and said something to the child. She looked up at him and said something back, just below the threshold of Marie’s hearing. The man bent down and took the girl in his arms. They hugged for a moment, then the man stood up. He spoke again, and the child started walking toward them. She was holding something in her arms. A stuffed animal.

  Out of the darkness, around the curve, there was a sudden blaze of headlights and the roar of an engine.

  ***

  And there they are, DeGroot thought with satisfaction. Right on time. He turned sharply into the parking area, his wheels squealing on the pavement. In the cone of his headlights, he saw the little girl’s face turned toward him, her mouth open in surprise. She dropped something she had been holding in her arms and made as if to bolt back toward the Jeep. He turned the wheel slightly and cut her off. Like a rabbit caught on the highway, she reversed course and headed back the way she was going originally.

  He skidded to a stop in the middle of the lot, between the two groups. The little girl was
running toward the woman, her arms flailing in panic. The woman had crouched down, her arms out to catch the girl, when DeGroot came to a stop. He already had both windows open and the stubby little submachine gun pointed out the window at the woman and the girl. “All right,” he called out. “Let’s all be calm.” He was holding the gun in his right hand, across his body, so there was a moment’s awkwardness as he reached with his left to turn the car engine off. In the sudden silence, all he could hear at first was the sobbing of the little girl as she buried her face in the woman’s arms. There was a tall blond man standing beside her, not moving. “You must be Keller,” DeGroot called. “Step away from the car. Hands where I can see them.” The man complied, more slowly than DeGroot would have liked. DeGroot cursed under his breath. The situation was hard enough to control right now without this fellow being difficult. He briefly considered shooting Keller. The more people there were, the more variables there were to deal with. He considered for a moment, then discarded the idea. Things were still too unpredictable for that. “Powell?” he called out. He didn’t take his eyes off Keller. “You’re there?”

  “I’m here, DeGroot,” he heard Powell reply.

  “You see where I’ve got the gun pointed?”

  “Yeah.” His voice was calm. Good. He was staying professional. You never knew when an American was going to try something idiotic. “Riggio’s with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, why don’t we get everybody together over by the front of Mr. Keller’s vehicle with their hands up. You, too, Keller. And Ms. Jones.” Marie picked the little girl up in her arms and they moved to the front of the big car.

  DeGroot kept the barrel of the gun pointed at them. He stole a glance back at the Jeep. Powell and Riggio were walking slowly, their hands up, their eyes locked on him. He opened the car door with his left hand and slid out. In a moment, all of the targets were in his field of fire. He let out the breath he had been holding. Things would be easier to control now.

  “Lekker,” he said. “In a moment, I’ll be sending Keller, Miss Jones, and this pretty little girl off—”