He understood the urgency. The stolen car had been reported half an hour ago, which meant that, even if they were headed to the right house, the madman had at least half an hour to take out his frustrations on Emily. The thought of Emily suffering even a few minutes of his rage was more than Walter could bear.
But, still, he shouldn’t be driving like this. The past week had overloaded his nervous system to the point where he could feel the connections overheating and flashing into flame. His brain was dealing with pain signals from nearly every corner of his body, creating a current overload that had squeezed his throat shut and set up trembles in his hands and fingers. It took all his concentration just to hold the car in a straight line. The high-G lane changes were pushing him to the edge of his physical endurance.
If it were the right van, then they had the name of the registered owner. But it wasn’t certain that the van was anything more than legal transportation for an all-day shopper. And if the van had been stolen, then they might be racing toward nothing more dramatic than a woman who would be happy to get her car back. But, despite the odds, they had to act. None of them could stand another second of sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for reports from the local police, or the results of credit card checks to confirm that someone named Lipton had actually been shopping at the mall.
Up ahead, Walter saw the car zigzag to the right and then peel off into an exit lane. He checked his own spacing and then followed onto the access road. He knew the area well, his own home being just one exit farther and then a few miles to the north. But as they turned left over the highway and headed south, he was unsure of the immediate surroundings. This was a commercial area, sprinkled with light industry, that was outside the perimeter of his country club set. He had generally driven around it rather than through it.
Helen pulled up to the curb and Walter screeched to a stop behind her. When he walked up close to the two detectives, he was aghast to find each of them checking a pistol. “You wait right here,” Andrew Hogan ordered. Walter nodded. There was nothing in his makeup that yearned for a gunfight.
He watched Helen dart across the street and move briskly down the other side. Andrew waited for a few moments and then began easing along the street on his side. Helen passed the target address, an attached wood-frame house, and then cut back across the street. As she was stepping up on the rotted wooden porch, Andrew was pressed flat against the building, where he could see through the window and spot whoever came to answer the door.
There was the sound of Helen’s knocking and moments later, Walter saw the door open. Helen lingered a moment, apparently in conversation with someone inside. Andrew left his post by the ground floor window and came around to the porch where he joined her. The conversation went on for another minute, with Hogan taking out a pad and writing notes. Then the two detectives came down the steps and walked quickly toward their parked cars.
“We’re late,” Hogan said.
“He got away?” Childs demanded.
“No, moved out two weeks ago. Rita Lipton lived her for a few months. She moved out without saying where she was going.”
“Christ,” Walter cursed.
“Walter, that house belongs to a social services charity, the Urban Shelter. You remember that was the same outfit that your first messenger had worked for.”
Walter tried to remember. The night when he had found the man waiting in his living room seemed a century ago.
“You were on the board of that outfit,” Helen Restivo joined in. “That was the only link we could find between you and the messenger.”
Walter nodded slowly. “That’s right,” he allowed. “Emily did volunteer work for the Urban Shelter. I was more of a figurehead than a worker.”
“I want you to do something for me,” Andrew said to Walter. “I want you to get together with your daughter. She’s been searching through Emily’s papers for the names of everyone connected with that group. Correspondence, membership lists, programs she was involved in. Go over the records with Amanda. Look for anything that rings a bell. Anything!”
Andrew looked incredulous. He thought that Amanda had been going through Emily’s files simply to embarrass him. He had no idea that she was working with Andrew Hogan. “But Amanda isn’t …” he started to argue.
“Do it, Walter. This is too much of a coincidence for me to swallow. First, the guy with the ransom note worked there. Then, the two guys who took her out of the shower were defended by the shelter. And now the one who comes to pick up the ransom was living in housing paid for by the shelter. That has to be the connection.
“Okay … okay,” Walter agreed.
“Helen and I are going down to their offices to get someone to let us in. We want to see if anyone knows Rita Lipton. Maybe her new address is on file.”
“That could take hours,” Walter protested. “Isn’t there some faster way to find her?”
“We’ll try everything we can think of,” Hogan assured. “And you do everything you can to find those records.”
Mike stepped off the bus just a few streets from Rita’s old house, the one that the agency had provided while she was working on his release from an assault charge, but he turned in the opposite direction to begin walking to his new address. They had moved the day that the down payment for “minding the lady” had appeared in his mailbox. Rita had known that the old house wouldn’t work. They had needed a place with a sealed-off section if they were going to make the lady comfortable and still be damn sure that she wasn’t going to get away. He had never figured that the more remote location would be a problem. They had Rita’s van, which had been her home from time to time, and there was plenty of money for gasoline.
But now the van was gone, all because that son of a bitch had brought the cops back again. And he was walking because he didn’t want to ditch the stolen car anywhere near his new home. His temper flared with each step he took. Instead of picking up the $50,000 he had been counting on, he had lost the van that he and Rita needed. He had to take the bus with all the damn deadbeats and now he had to walk like some kind of fucking drifter. It was all that bastard’s fault. He had warned him not to call the cops. He had told him exactly what was going to happen to his wife’s ass if he tried any of his dumb tricks.
Mike stumbled on pavement that was heaved up six inches above the curb level. “Son of a bitch,” he snapped. His shoes were scuffed and covered with dust. His teeth began to grind and his fists tightened in a spasm of rage. He’d take a belt to the bitch. And he’d make a recording so that Walter Childs would hear every lash and the screams that would follow. Maybe he’d never see his wife again, but he’d know exactly how she died. He’d spend the rest of his life wishing he’d done what he was told. This was going to be one tape that the smart-ass son of a bitch was never goin’ to be able to forget.
Walter stepped wearily into the kitchen where he found Amanda and Alex waiting anxiously. He simply shook his head slowly, his defeated expression all the information they needed. Amanda put her arms around him and hugged him. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered in his ear.
Over her shoulder, Walter spotted the courier package resting on the end table in the family room. He broke free from his daughter. “When did this come in?”
“This morning. It was in the mailbox,” Alex answered.
Walter began ripping the tab. “You should have opened it,” he said.
“But it was just something from your office,” Amanda responded.
He paused for an instant. She was right. The sender’s address was his own office. His was the name that had authorized the delivery. He pulled the envelope open and took out a sheet of paper. His dark expression brightened as he read:
Now you know what it feels like to screw up the one chance you had to rescue your wife. Her blood, and there will be blood, is on your hands.
Her death agony starts Monday morning at 9:00 A.M. your time unless our courier leaves the Fassen Bank, in Zurich, with $100 million at 9:00 A.M. Zu
rich time. If the money is safe in our hands at noon, Zurich, your wife will be set free at 9:00 A.M. New York time.
We are very close to you, and will know instantly if you inform your security officer or notify the police.
The note was signed with a routing number and bank account number.
Walter smiled as he read it and passed it to Alex. Amanda stepped close so that she could read over Alex’s shoulder.
“These are the people who are behind your mother’s kidnapping,” Walter told his children. “These are the ones who have the power to order her set free.”
“What about the people you were dealing with today?” Alex asked.
Walter remembered that the man who was actually holding Emily had fled from the shopping mall without his money. He could only hope that his threats of cutting her to pieces hadn’t been real and that he could still save his wife. He had been given another chance. Despite all of Andrew Hogan’s screw-ups, he still might come out ahead.
“Can you do this? Can you do what they’re asking?” Amanda wanted to know.
Walter knew that there was still a chance that Hogan and his lady detective might be able to rescue Emily. “If I have to, I can do it,” he answered.
Emily could feel her heart begin to pound the instant that Mike slammed the upstairs door. “We’ve been fucked over!” he screamed to Rita and then followed his greeting with a stream of obscenities. Emily could hear Rita trying to calm him down, reminding him that he had gotten away, and that he obviously hadn’t been followed. Their voices dropped to a conversational level and Emily couldn’t make out the words. But suddenly Rita became agitated.
“You left the car?” she asked in disbelief. “You left it right there in the mall?”
“I had no choice. That’s where the police were staked out. I couldn’t go back there.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she said. “Oh, Jesus.”
Mike snapped at her. “Will you knock it off! It’s only a car. I can get us another one tonight.”
“Damm it, Mike! You and I are all over that car. Our prints are on the wheel and the door handles. My registration is in the glove compartment. Your court papers are probably still under the seat. Don’t you understand? If they find that car, they find us.”
There was a moment of silence and then Mike asked in a chastened voice, “Okay, so what do we do now?”
“We get our asses out of here.”
“What about the bitch downstairs? What are we going to do with her?”
“Leave her where she is,” Rita answered. “The best thing we can do is put a couple of time zones between her and us.”
“No fucking way.” Mike roared. “She can identify us.”
Rita’s response was sarcastically logical. “Honey, if they already have our fingerprints, my registration, and your court papers, how much do you think anything she tells them is going to add. They know who we are.”
“Yeah, but none of that stuff counts as much as an eyewitness. And besides, I owe her. Her and her double-crossing husband. I promised him a piece of her and I always keep my promises.”
“Don’t be such a thug! Use your head! We’ve got things we have to do!”
“I’m not leaving her to pick me out of a lineup.”
“Okay, okay! But first we’ve got to pick up a car and get ourselves some plane tickets.” Their voices dropped off to a conspiratorial level.
Emily shuddered. She had played it wrong from the beginning. Now she realized that she should have broken out as soon as she had her chance. She had been too careful in working the headboard. It had taken much longer than it should. She had tried to handicap the risks, deciding to wait out the day and make her move when they were both asleep. But now they wouldn’t be sleeping.
If they just left her behind, she could break free at her leisure. But she knew that before they left, she would have to face one more meeting with Mike. She could picture him standing over her, his eyes dancing with delight and his mouth pulled into a mocking sneer. There would be no point in begging. That was what the sadistic son of a bitch wanted. She began to plan how she was going to struggle with her arms chained above her head.
Bill Leary turned off the court lights and sauntered down the tiled hallway to the men’s locker room, wiping his face with a sweat-soaked towel. The last of the club members had left and the day’s schedule of lessons was over. Now came the demeaning part of his job when he was more janitor than tennis professional, responsible for shutting down the air conditioning, locking all the doors, and turning out all the lights.
He pushed the swinging door open and stopped short when he found the room in darkness. His hand slid along the inside wall feeling for the light switch. At that instant, a fist fired out of the darkness and exploded against the side of his face. Leary pitched sideways, crashing against one of the metal lockers and setting it vibrating like a snare drum. Then he dropped to the floor.
He never lost consciousness, so he felt the stabbing pain in his cheek and the rush of blood that flooded across his face. He was blinded by the flash when the lights were turned back on and took him a second to fill in the features of the shape that was standing above him. It was a young man in his mid-twenties, about Billy’s size, and probably a gym rat judging by the oversize proportions of his arms and shoulders. He was wearing tan slacks and a striped dress shirt with the collar open and the sleeves turned up.
“What the fuck?” was the best he could manage. The side of his face was swelling already.
“Emily Childs sends her regards,” the young man said, and then he aimed a soccer kick between Billy’s splayed-out legs, directly into his groin. The pain sent streaks of color through his already clouded vision. He wanted to scream, but there was no air in his lungs. Billy rolled onto his side like a doomed ship getting ready to sink. It was a full minute before he could manage a sound. “Who are you?”
“Alex Childs. You’ve been blackmailing my mother.”
It would be another minute before he could speak the words that would deny the charge. Instead, he shook his head.
Alex sat down comfortably on the bench above the writhing form. “I need some answers,” he said, as if he were addressing a business meeting. He planted his foot firmly on Billy’s neck. “I’m going to break some bones if I don’t get them.” He waited patiently until the pain dimmed a bit in the tennis coach’s eyes. Then he asked, “Why was my mother paying you a thousand a week?”
“A week? Nothing like that,” he answered between gasps.
“My sister went through my mother’s papers. There’s a check to you every week. Most of them are for a thousand dollars. What was she paying you for?”
“Tennis lessons,” Billy said, each word dripping with pain.
Alex’s foot got heavier. “Ten thousand dollars worth of tennis lessons? She’d have won Wimbledon.” His voice became more threatening. “What did you have on her?”
“I swear. We were working a couple of hours every day.”
“You’re lying,” Alex said. He began to stand up slowly. Leary could feel his tongue being squeezed. He waved his arm in surrender and Alex eased back on the pressure.
“Christ, let me talk,” he said.
“That’s why I’m here,” Alex answered. “Just don’t talk about a thousand dollars a week for tennis lessons.”
Billy got a hand under his body and slowly raised himself to a sitting position. He picked up the towel and blotted the blood on his cheek. He tried to stand.
“Stay right there,” Alex threatened.
“Christ, you broke my jaw. I have to get to the hospital.”
“After we talk. After you tell me where my mother is?”
“I told the police. I have no idea. I was shocked when they told me she had been kidnapped.”
“You were in her bedroom when she was taken.”
“No! After! After she was taken. The place was a mess. She was already gone.”
“What were you doing in her bedroom?”
>
Billy hesitated. He didn’t want to say anything to anger his attacker. “We had … an appointment. She had just lost a match she should have won. She …”
“You’re not going to say ‘tennis lesson,’ ” Alex threatened. Leary’s eyes rolled hopelessly. “She wanted to win … she couldn’t stand losing.”
He looked suspicious, but he didn’t react violently, so the tennis pro went on. “I got to the house and nobody was there. So I waited at the tennis court. When she didn’t show up I thought something might have happened to her. I called into the house and when I didn’t get an answer, I began looking around.”
“In her bedroom?”
“Just upstairs. Her bedroom door was open and I could see there had been some kind of a struggle. I thought someone might have hurt her. But I couldn’t find her. There was just blood and the place was in shambles.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I don’t know. I guess I panicked. I thought I’d better get the hell out of there.”
“Why, if you were just there to give her a tennis lesson?”
“You know. I mean, how would it look? Me in her bedroom?”
Alex’s fist tightened. “It would look as if you came to pick up your blackmail check and she told you she wasn’t going to be paying you anymore.”
Billy was frantic. “What in hell would I be blackmailing her with?”
“I think you conned her into sleeping with you. Isn’t that it?”
Leary thought quickly. Emily’s son had put it into words. Maybe he wasn’t totally offended by the idea. And he had to say something credible. Alex’s knuckles were showing like cast iron through his skin. Billy nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted. “We had a … relationship.”
“And you were charging her a thousand a week to keep it quiet,” Alex added instantly. “She knew if she didn’t pay, you’d tell my father.”
Billy shook his head. “Jesus, no. Nothing like that …”
The Trophy Wife Page 23
