Pray for the Innocent

by Alan Orloff

  “Will you?”

  “We’ll see when the time comes, but it’s not really my call now, is it? As for their mathematical model, I think it’s ridiculous. So back to our assumption: Locraft let you escape and is completely aware of our location. But he still can’t do anything to you—to us—until Dragunov calls back with the ransom details—or whatever it is he’s after. He’s planning to follow you right to Dragunov, then make his move.”

  “If you’re right, then what chance do we have?” King said, glancing around, wondering if Locraft’s men had already arrived and where they might be hiding.

  “Leave it to me,” Hemingway said. “Get your phone, and we’ll go in, have a cup of coffee in their little café, and wait until Dragunov calls.”

  “Who knows when he’s going to call?”

  “He said noon, but who knows? Kidnappers aren’t always the most reliable bunch, and Dragunov seems more unstable than most. Don’t worry—it’s a big store, maybe we can even do a little shopping. Have lunch. Have dinner. Midnight snack. Whatever.” Hemingway pointed at the big sign. “It’s open twenty-four hours, you know.”

  “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, what could be more fun than hanging out at the Super Sav-Mor all day?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Emily lay in her bed, worrying, not used to being awake at such an early hour. She’d slept fitfully, haunted by twisted dreams of neon-colored aliens and black-clad snipers, talking muskrats and whipped cream volcanoes. Ever since Professor King’s phone call the day before, she’d been out of sorts, and the uneasiness had evidently leaked into her subconscious, too. She’d spent most of the evening staring at her phone, willing it to ring, waiting for good news about his daughter—that she’d been found and that it had all been a mistake.

  No call had come.

  And when she’d tried phoning him, six or eight or ten times—she’d lost track—the call had rolled right into voice mail. Not a good sign. He would call her, wouldn’t he, if she’d been found?

  Of course he would.

  As her father used to say, worrying don’t feed the bulldog. She could either lie there in bed, agonizing, wallowing in anxiety, or she could get up and get going. More of her father’s words echoed in her head: if you weren’t part of the solution, you were part of the problem.

  Emily never wanted to be part of any problem.

  She threw off the covers and padded to the bathroom. After a glance in the mirror, she decided to skip a shower and—living dangerously—also passed on brushing her teeth. She pulled on some jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of a raised fist clutching a pen, above the caption Write On! Less than two minutes later, she roared through the kitchen, grabbed an Ener-Jee Bar for breakfast, and was out the door.

  Part of the solution.

  At the early hour, traffic was sparse, and Emily arrived at Amanda’s house in no time. She parked a block away, and despite the burning urge to get started, she waited in the car for ten minutes to make sure no evil minions—including Dragunov himself—were lurking. Satisfied she was alone, Emily calmly walked down the sidewalk and turned up Amanda’s driveway, then bolted around the house into the backyard.

  She’d left the back door unlocked when she’d fled yesterday, and she was inside in a flash. For a moment, she worried about the alarm, but when it didn’t go off, she realized no one had activated it. Or maybe it wouldn’t even go off unless the door had been locked first. She didn’t know much about burglar alarms, and frankly, as long as things were quiet, she didn’t care.

  “Hello,” she called out, just in case Amanda had eluded everyone looking for her and returned home. “Amanda? You here? It’s Emily, your father’s graduate assistant.”

  No one answered, and Emily’s heart sank, just a little lower, as she imagined Amanda bound and gagged in some dark basement, watching Dragunov sharpen a straight razor on a strop. She shook off that image, reminding herself why she was there and the premise she was clinging to: Amanda had not been kidnapped; she’d gone away somewhere, with someone, of her own accord. Emily had come over to figure out where that place and who that person might be.

  To think otherwise would negate her reason for being there. It would mean she was powerless to help. And Emily couldn’t bear not being in control.

  So her task was straightforward, if not simple. Find out where Amanda had gone, confirm it, and then notify Professor King so the authorities could stop wasting resources looking for her and redouble their efforts to find Dragunov.

  Straightforward, if not simple.

  She and Professor King had searched the house for obvious clues as to Amanda’s whereabouts and hadn’t come up with anything, but they hadn’t had time to do a more thorough job. She bounded upstairs to go through Amanda’s bedroom with the proverbial fine-tooth comb.

  She stopped at the threshold. Decorated in pink and gray, it was a feminine room, but not overly so. A few pieces of artwork hung on the walls: a flock of birds in flight, a tropical beach featuring a few palm trees, a sunrise over a mountaintop. Peaceful scenes. On her dresser, next to a couple of jewelry boxes, was a single stuffed animal—a black-and-white Snoopy wearing a tiny red baseball cap.

  Aside from those touches, it didn’t reveal much about Amanda’s personality.

  Emily drifted into the adjoining bathroom, feeling more like a voyeur with every step. It was one thing searching the house with Amanda’s father when he was convinced she’d been kidnapped. It was another thing altogether to be snooping through someone’s personal stuff—someone you’d met only twice, in passing—without her knowledge, when you were operating under the assumption she’d just left for a spontaneous getaway without telling anybody.

  Emily almost turned and ran. But she owed it to Professor King to allay his fears if she possibly could, no matter how ooky prowling through Amanda’s stuff might feel.

  Amanda’s bathroom was a lot neater than the bathroom in Emily’s apartment. Of course, Amanda didn’t have to share it with anyone. Missy, in the master bedroom, had her own bathroom, but Emily had to share hers with Jeri. And Jeri seemed to require every hair product and skin cream known to women—as well as some known only to men.

  Emily reached up to open the medicine cabinet but paused, fingering the edge of the mirrored door. Was it really necessary to see what prescriptions Amanda was taking? Would that help her quest?

  She couldn’t imagine how, so she left the bathroom, feeling at least a little better about her intrusion. And, she promised, she would apologize to Amanda when she saw her, hopefully sooner rather than later.

  Emily ran her hand along the top of Amanda’s dresser, contemplating opening the drawers to search inside. Here, the decision to pry or not to pry wasn’t as clear-cut. She knew sometimes people hid things in the backs of the drawers, under clothes. Things like diaries or love letters or other things. Some private, some embarrassing. That ooky feeling hit her again.

  She skipped over the dresser and headed for the large walk-in closet but stopped. This wasn’t about Emily and her comfort level. This was about finding Amanda. She’d just have to get past her discomfort, push through. She sucked in a deep breath—and another—then opened the top dresser drawer.

  Panties. T-shirts. Socks. Something green poked out from underneath a pair of pink panties. With two fingers, Emily extracted it. A journal with a mint-green cover. Emily took it and sat on the side of the bed, opening it with a slightly trembling hand. Please don’t let it be something really embarrassing.

  She got her wish; the first page she’d opened to had a drawing of a willow tree. And a damn good drawing, too. Amanda had some serious artistic talent.

  Emily flipped through the journal, admiring more pencil drawings. Plants of all sorts seemed to captivate her attention. There were a lot of sketches of flowers and trees and vines.

  But not a single word. Not a single cl
ue as to her whereabouts. No boyfriend’s name—or girlfriend’s, for that matter. No receipt for a plane ticket tucked between the pages. Just pictures of nature.

  She slapped the book closed. For a moment, she had thought she might have found a source of clues. Crap!

  If Amanda kept a journal of drawings, it was logical to assume she kept a diary as well. Emily rummaged through the rest of the dresser, but her search proved fruitless—all clothes.

  Her gaze settled on the nightstand. With another mumbled apology into the ether to the missing Amanda, she searched the drawers there, looking for a current diary or journal.

  Candles. Matches. A crossword puzzle book. A Bible. ChapStick. Nail clippers. All types of mundane items, but no diary.

  Next stop, the walk-in closet. Emily wandered in, amazed by the number of dresses hanging there. And shoes. And coats. Emily owned about twenty pieces of clothing, most of which were T-shirts with sayings that tickled her fancy. Maybe one day, when she wasn’t a starving grad student, she’d get a better wardrobe. Of course, if things went according to plan after she graduated, she’d be a starving writer, at least until she hit the bestseller list.

  She continued deeper into the closet. Against the back wall, a tower of boxes rose to the ceiling. Some were labeled with their contents—old bracelets, ceramic pigs, stuff from sophomore year—but many were just shoeboxes labeled with nothing more than the brand name on the end of the box.

  About ten were just marked “Keepsakes.”

  Could there be something stowed away that would shed light on Amanda’s whereabouts? Doubtful. Emily realized the long odds of her task, but what was the alternative? Give up? Sit back and do nothing? She’d already entered Amanda’s world without permission. If she kept on snooping and found nothing, what was the harm?

  And if she did happen to hit the lottery and find something useful—the name of a spa Amanda had always wanted to visit or a picture of a boyfriend suddenly back on the scene—that led to finding Amanda, then she’d be helping Professor King immensely.

  Emily pressed on. Afraid of what she might find.

  More afraid of finding nothing.

  #

  King followed Hemingway into the Super Sav-Mor, and he was surprised by how many shoppers there were, given the still-early hour. Instead of entering the main part of the vast shopping area, they made a right turn just inside the doors. Along the front of the store was a row of small boutique shops: an optical department, a portrait studio, a florist, a pizza place, an ice cream shop, a bank, and a coffee shop. One-stop shopping for all your daily needs.

  Right now, they needed coffee.

  With the bugged phone in King’s pocket, they remained silent as they entered Cuppa Joe’s. Hemingway gestured for King to take a seat, and he went to the counter and grabbed two paper menus. He returned to the table, flipped the menus over, and jotted down a message with a pen he’d taken from his pocket. When he finished, he turned it around and showed King.

  Follow my lead. Don’t say where we are or that we know they’re listening in.

  King nodded.

  Hemingway took the note back, appended another sentence.

  And order coffee.

  They got up and ordered coffee and two ratty-looking doughnuts from the lady behind the counter. Both ordered large, black, no sugar. It was going to be one of those days. When they returned to the table, they each took a long sip before Hemingway began.

  “When Dragunov calls, put it on speaker. Try to get him to tell you where he is now. And ask to speak to Amanda.”

  “You think she’s okay, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely. It’s Dragunov’s only bargaining chip. She’s fine.”

  “Okay.” King couldn’t think of anything else to say. Writing dialogue for his characters was a lot easier than thinking on the fly. With a book, you had plenty of opportunity to keep rewriting until you got it right. Now, the pressure was on not to screw it up by saying something inappropriate.

  “After we find out the details, we’ll call Colonel Locraft and see if we can persuade him to allow the exchange. If he says okay, then we’ll bring him on board. We could use his expertise.” Hemingway shook his head while he said it, although King already knew the lie was intended to keep Locraft feeling as if he were still “in the loop.”

  “Sure. Having the colonel involved would be good. He’s a good man, isn’t he?”

  Hemingway rolled his eyes. “We’ve got some time before he calls. Why don’t we finish our coffee, then we can walk around a bit. Stretch our legs.”

  “Sure,” King said.

  As they finished their coffees, the conversation devolved into idle chitchat. King struggled to keep his tone matter-of-fact, and it took a considerable amount of energy to quell his growing anxiety. His sleep-deprived state wasn’t helping. When they were through, Hemingway wrote a message on the back of another menu.

  I’ll get us new prepaid phones—they might come in handy. You get us some different clothes to wear. Meet back here at 11:40. If you spot anyone who looks suspicious, don’t panic. If they try anything, it won’t be until after Dragunov calls.

  King nodded, and the two men headed off to the main shopping area of the store, each grabbing a handbasket. On the left side of the central aisle was the electronics department. Hemingway peeled off, and King watched him disappear against a backdrop of TVs lined up on a wall, reminiscent of the one in Locraft’s lair. Here, though, the screens showed Raiders of the Lost Ark. Where was Harrison Ford when you really needed him?

  King continued down the main aisle until he found Men’s Wear. He wore a pair of khakis and a blue button-down shirt, so he opted to switch things up with a pair of weathered jeans and a T-shirt with the name of some heavy metal band on the front. He’d like to see the look on Amanda’s face when she saw him, the aging hipster. He also picked out a new outfit for Hemingway, going more for a surfer look—board shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He found a couple of hats to complete their looks—a Virginia Tech baseball cap for him and a big panama hat for Hemingway.

  In the Men’s Accessories department, he tossed two pairs of sunglasses into his basket. When they’d changed, they might not be styling, but at least they wouldn’t be so obvious to Locraft’s men.

  So far, there’d been no sign of anyone on their tails, and it wouldn’t be hard to spot them in the Super Sav-Mor, where a military man would stand out like the King of England dining at Burger King. There really was no reason for any of Locraft’s men to enter the store—after talking to Dragunov, he and Hemingway would have to leave sometime. Locraft’s men could just wait in the parking lot to nab them.

  Less of a scene, too.

  Hemingway must have also figured that out. When King had asked him what they were going to do about being followed, Hemingway had said to leave it to him. Warning bells rang in King’s head, and he returned to an earlier worry. What if this entire thing was a setup between Locraft, Hemingway, and Gosberg? Telling him Gosberg was dead? Then Gosberg calling and saying he was alive, to gain King’s trust? And Locraft letting him escape? Hell, what if they’d even lied about Dragunov taking Amanda? What if they’d taken her?

  They’d all lied to him from the beginning, hadn’t they? What if they’d created this elaborate ruse to ensure King’s cooperation? Some kind of over-the-top good cop, bad cop thing.

  Or maybe they’d wanted him out of the way, at some podunk Super Sav-Mor, while something important happened a hundred miles away.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  King glanced around, wildly, convinced they’d somehow been able to read his mind and the game was now up, that a cadre of Locraft’s men would burst out of their hiding places to subdue him. The only person within sight was an old lady pushing a shopping cart full of cat food.

  He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes until he was to meet Hemingway. He needed a few more things. First stop was Hardware, where he snagged a roll of duct tape, forgoing the brightly colored varieties for old-fas
hioned silver. Then he headed to Sporting Goods. A grizzled man with a huge beer gut stood behind the gun counter, flipping through the pages of a magazine with bloated, grimy fingers.

  “Excuse me,” King said.

  “Yes?” the man answered, barely looking up. “Help you?”

  “I’d like a hunting knife.”

  With a sigh, the man closed his magazine and shoved it aside on the display counter, then pointed down into the case at about twenty knives of various sizes and shapes. “You’ve come to the right place. What do you need one for?”

  King stared at the clerk. Was having an acceptable reason a requirement for purchasing a knife? “I . . . for camping.”

  The man eyed him funny. “Camping, huh? Folding or fixed blade?”

  King shrugged and gave the knives under the glass a cursory look, eyes settling on a shiny model at the far right, the one with the biggest blade. Did size matter in knives? “Let me see that one.”

  “Yeah, that’ll do.” The clerk unlocked the case and withdrew the knife. He set it on the counter with a clink.

  King picked it up. It seemed well balanced and fit in his hand nicely. He rubbed the blade with his thumb. Sharp. Or sharp enough, anyway. It wasn’t like he was going to be cutting thin slices of cheese for a cocktail party. As long as it could pierce a man’s chest or slice his throat without too much difficulty, he was all set. What else did he care about?

  Under the watchful eye of the clerk, he folded it and unfolded it a couple of times, hefted it, turned it over in his hands, like he was running the knife through some sort of performance test. Back when he was writing his Nick Nolan books, he’d spend hours researching weapons—all sorts of guns and explosives and other high-tech gear. Comparing their technical attributes, worrying about an extra few grams here, a few centimeters there. Expounding about the virtues of one type of handgrip over another. As if he knew what he was talking about. As if any of it really mattered.