by L. A. Witt
“Brando said he was approached outside the courthouse.” Which was a ballsy move, and hopefully a bad one. “If we look up the date of his last probationary hearing, we might be able to pull the security camera footage from then and get a visual on the guy who hired him.”
“Maybe.” Paula sounded a little doubtful. “It depends on how far back his hearing was. They don’t keep that footage forever.”
“The real question,” Andreas broke in grimly, “is where they took my kids.”
“Brando says he doesn’t know. After they abandoned the sedan, he and Crane rode along in the back of the van. It had no windows. He said they got out just long enough to get paid and were driven back into town the same way. It was still too dark for him to get many details about the house.”
“I bet he’d remember something if I asked him a little more directly.”
“Oh, no.” Paula put down the phone and squared off with Andreas. “Don’t think I haven’t seen his neck—I recognize the shape of a hand, and you’re damn lucky he’s too scared out of his mind to even think about pressing charges, because—”
“Actually, that was me.” I smiled weakly when she turned her glare on me. “Sorry?”
“Darren, for Christ’s sake. Who ever thought Andreas would be the levelheaded one in your partnership?”
Andreas ignored the jab. “Is there GPS data on the phone? Can we use it to track down where they went?”
Paula sighed. “I thought of that, but no. He had it turned off for the job.”
The faint hope that had appeared on Andreas’s face drained away, leaving his jaw tight and his eyes unsettlingly bleak. “Then the original plan stands. We go find Weyland and see what he knows.” He threw his sandwich wrapper in the trash, then looked at me. “You done?”
“Yep.”
“Then let’s go.”
It was a half-hour drive to Weyland’s place, and Andreas spent most of it answering messages and fielding calls from his family. No, he didn’t have anything new to report yet. Yes, we were working a promising lead. No, he didn’t think it would help if her parents flew in. Yes, he’d found the food—thanks for that, Marcy. He sighed as he disconnected the last call.
“Her parents?” I asked quietly.
“If Marcy had her way, she’d call in every family member from Los Angeles to New York and have them come get underfoot in the name of ‘providing moral support.’”
“How big is her family?”
“She’s one of five. The kids have something like . . . twelve cousins on her side? Maybe thirteen?”
“Wow.” I couldn’t imagine having that many people in my life. It had always just been me, Asher, Mom, and Vic—and for a while, Melissa, Asher’s ex-wife. No aunts and uncles, no cousins, no grandparents. Mom had been an only child, and Vic hadn’t talked to his only sister for years—she lived in Hong Kong, apparently. “That sounds overwhelming.”
“It made every holiday into a circus, that’s for sure.”
“Do you miss it?” Jesus, why had I asked that? It was none of my business, and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to know the answer.
Andreas focused in on me, and I knew we’d gone from idle banter to something more serious. “Miss what, exactly?”
I shrugged. “You know, having that kind of . . . support, I guess. More people to rely on.”
“Not at all.”
He sounded sure. I glanced at him. “Really?”
“It’s not as nice as it’s made out to be. Everybody’s got an opinion on how you should be living your life, raising your kids, taking care of your house . . . Marcy was the one who left me, and her parents still refused to have anything to do with me for almost five years because, as they put it, ‘If I wasn’t a cop, she wouldn’t have had to leave.’”
I frowned. “How does that make sense?”
“It doesn’t. Family doesn’t have to make sense. They get to say shit and do shit that no one else ever would, and you have to take it because they’re family. Get mad and it creates a schism that no one wants to deal with. I’m lucky Marcy and I split when we did, honestly—the kids were mostly grown and we didn’t have to fight over custody.” He looked out the windshield and pointed. “There’s our building.”
Right. Back to work. I managed to park the car right in front of the place, a minor miracle considering all of the other vehicles vying for spots and the fact that the street was more pothole than pavement. We got out, and I didn’t have to be a detective to know that we’d already been identified. People walking along the sidewalk seemed to vanish, and by the time we were approaching the front door of the building, there was no one in sight.
“Not gonna get a lot of help here,” I commented as I opened the door for Andreas.
“As long as we don’t— Shit, there, he’s running!” Andreas pointed, and I looked down the first-floor hallway, where a familiar face had just turned and begun pounding his way up the stairs.
I thrust my keys at Andreas. “I’ll go after him, you stay with the car!” There was no way he could handle a chase right now.
I ran up the stairs after Weyland. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear his footsteps a flight above me. He went up and up, and I was momentarily grateful I’d been spending so much extra time on the treadmill lately—there was a stitch in my lung and side where I’d been stabbed, but it wasn’t unbearable. I wouldn’t be able to keep this pace up forever, but for now I could stay with him. “Marcus Weyland! Stop!”
He didn’t stop, but he did turn down the third-floor hallway. I followed him, dodging bags of trash that lined the hall and narrowly missing getting smacked in the face with an opening door. “Oh, sorry, Officer!” Yeah, I could tell she was really sorry—sorry she hadn’t connected with my nose. I didn’t stop, just kept running for the end of the hall, where I would finally have him cornered—
Only no, because he jumped—jumped—through the open window and onto the fire escape, and started heading up again. “Shit,” I muttered breathlessly. I didn’t jump onto the fire escape—it was already shaking under the force of Weyland’s activity, and I didn’t want to push the rickety thing too hard. I climbed out and began to follow him up.
The fire escape let out onto the roof, which was covered with old, patchy tar and broken glass. Weyland was already on the far side of the roof, looking at me with something like frustration. “Don’t you fucking pigs know when to quit?”
“We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t decided to become a kidnapper,” I shouted back. “You’re under arrest, Marcus. Don’t make this hard. The more you can tell us about the job you just pulled, the easier things are going to go for you.”
“Bullshit!” He turned and stepped up onto the ledge of the roof. My mouth went dry.
“Marcus.” I held up my hands placatingly, keeping them far away from my gun. “Marcus, c’mon, don’t do this. You don’t have to jump.” If he did, we’d lose our best lead to finding the kids.
He scoffed. “What, you think I’m suicidal? I ain’t that afraid of you, cop.” He smirked. “But that don’t mean I’m not gonna jump, either.”
He turned and leaped in a single, smooth motion.
I raced over the edge of the roof, my heart in my throat, only to see—
Weyland, clinging to the fire escape one building over. He’d managed to grab onto it with both hands, and as I watched, he swung a leg over the rail and hoisted himself up. “See you later, Officer!” he said with a grin, then started running down it.
I wasn’t about to try to make the same jump. It was ten feet away, and I didn’t know if my arm would support me. There was another fire escape on the corner of this building, though, close enough that I could keep an eye on him as he descended if I hurried the hell up. I ran to it, swung over the edge of the roof, and headed down as fast as I could. The metal creaked and groaned under my weight, and after a floor and a half of descent, one of the anchors holding the fire escape to the brick siding broke away as I rounded a corner, send
ing the whole thing lurching. I clutched at the rail and held still until I was sure it wasn’t going to tip, then kept running. I couldn’t afford to be cautious right now. I couldn’t let Weyland get away.
He had a head start on me that should have given him a significant advantage, but his fire escape was more cluttered than mine, so we hit the ground at almost exactly the same time. He swore and sprinted for the end of the alley between the two buildings, dodging around dumpsters and kicking disintegrating cardboard boxes into my path. I skirted them as best I could, ran right through them when I wasn’t able to dodge, but the gap between us was widening and there was nothing I could do to stop it apart from shooting, and it wasn’t like I could just shoot him in the back. We were fucked.
Weyland got to the end of the alley, ran out into the street with a triumphant whoop—
And promptly bounced against the hood of my car. He fell off it with a groan and was immediately knocked to the ground as Andreas rather forcefully opened his door into Weyland’s legs.
“Marcus Weyland.” Andreas got out of the car with surprising grace, given the cast, and pulled out his cuffs. “You have the right to remain silent.” He tossed me the cuffs as I arrived, panting, and then he leaned in closer to our groaning perp. “But I suggest you don’t if you know what’s good for you.” He continued reading Weyland his Miranda rights as I tried to catch my breath.
“How . . . did you . . .”
“I used my eyes. Rooftop chases aren’t exactly subtle. After I saw him jump, it was just a matter of timing.” He straightened up with a wince, and I finally got my ass back into gear and moved forward to get Weyland to his feet and into the back of the car. Andreas handed me the keys. “You drive now, Usain Bolt. I need to have a talk with Mr. Weyland.”
“I ain’t telling you nothing! Get me a lawyer!”
“No?” Andreas turned a dead-eyed stare on Weyland, who blanched. “Let’s test that theory.”
I got into the driver’s seat, and Andreas got into the back. He got right to the point. “Do you know what happens in prison to men who’ve murdered children?”
“Fuck you, I haven’t killed anyone!”
“Answer my question, Marcus. Do you know what happens to child-killers in prison?” Andreas paused, but there was no answer. “It’s ugly. Real ugly. A guy like you, somebody who thinks he’s smart, somebody who convinces his little friends to go along with his get-rich-quick scheme—you’ll figure it out real fast, once word gets out what you were a party to.”
“Ain’t nobody dead, man, it was just—”
“You took my baby,” Andreas said simply, dispassionately. It made hearing it even worse, somehow. “She’s four, almost five. You took her, and you gave her to people you don’t know, who are doing God knows what to her, and we’ve heard nothing from them. There hasn’t been a request for a ransom, or an offer to trade. Nothing but silence. So if she dies? If they kill her? You’re a murderer, just as much as they are. And if that happens, I give you a month, tops, before someone carves your crime out of your hide and leaves you as a warning to the other inmates in the hole we’re going to stick you in. Your only chance for clemency is giving us the information we need to find her before anything unforgiveable happens.”
Weyland didn’t say anything, just stared at Andreas like he couldn’t comprehend the words coming out of his mouth. I drove slowly, splitting my attention between the road and the backseat. “I don’t . . . I . . . Look, man, it was just business!”
“Uh-huh.” Andreas nodded. “And it’ll be just business when you wind up on the wrong end of a shiv too. Because even if you give me the information that could help, and it’s too late? You’ll still be on the hook, Marcus. But if you tell me where you took my kids, and we’re able to save them?” He sat back. “Then the situation changes for the better for you. And that’s the only advantage you’re going to have, after leading us on that little chase.”
“I . . . uh.” His hands jerked like he wanted to lift them. “Shit. Uh . . . okay. Okay, look, I can give you an address, but that’s all I’ve got, okay? We didn’t do names, we didn’t do numbers. They paid us in cash and said when we were done, we were fuckin’ done, so whatever they got goin’ on in that house, it has nothing to do with me or my guys.”
“Where’s the house?”
He rattled off an address with a street name that sounded vaguely familiar. I took the nearest turn that would lead us back toward the power plant before calling Paula. “We found Weyland,” I said as soon as she picked up. “He gave us the last known location of the kidnappers and Andreas’s kids.”
“Give it to me, I’ll get our people moving.” I passed it on. “Good, okay. We’ll get there as soon as we can. Don’t go in without backup, Darren! Tell Andreas that too!”
“Got it.” I hung up and glanced over my shoulder. “You have to tell me how to find this place.”
Andreas looked up from his phone. “We’re less than ten minutes out. We’ll probably get there first.”
“Are we waiting for backup?”
“Hell no.”
“Crazy.” Weyland looked between the two of us with wide eyes. “You fools are crazy. Let me the fuck out, man, I don’t wanna get myself shot because you’re feeling impatient!”
“If you try to get out of this car, I’ll shoot you myself,” Andreas said.
The ride was tense. The smokestack of the distant plant got bigger and bigger, and before long I was turning down a gravel road into what looked like farming country. The address was the third house on the left, a big white-sided place with a wraparound porch. It looked downright homey, but as I got out of the car, the scent of swamp was redolent in the air. There were no other vehicles around that I could see, but that didn’t mean anything.
I locked the car after Andreas got out—childproof locks for the win, Weyland wouldn’t be going anywhere unless he broke the glass—and pulled out my gun. “How do you want to do this?”
“Fast.” He’d pared down to one crutch so his dominant hand was free, and even though it had to be agonizing, his face showed no signs of pain. “Don’t bother knocking, just get through the front door and head straight for the basement. I’ll cover you.”
“Got it.” I walked up to the front door, checking the windows on either side as I went for movement. Nothing. I tried the doorknob, and was surprised when it easily turned under my hand. That was a bad sign. Either they weren’t here, or . . . or there was nothing left to protect.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I slammed the door open and rushed inside, looking for the entry to the— Basement, just off the kitchen, there it was. I ran down the stairs, my legs shaking so hard that I almost fell at the halfway point, kicked open the door at the bottom, and emerged into a concrete-floored basement that was—
Empty. Completely empty except for some water bottles, granola bar wrappers, and a feathery purple barrette. I leaned against the wall and let the warring relief and disappointment I felt break over me. Fuck. Fuck, we were so close. They’d been here, Casey and Emily had probably been here just hours ago, and now . . .
Andreas appeared beside me. In the distance I could hear sirens approaching, but the only thing I could focus on right now was him. He looked around, and I heard his teeth grind before he limped over to the corner and picked up the barrette. He held it like it was made of ice, so fragile it would break with the slightest hint of pressure, and I knew that his composure was holding by less than a thread.
Another dead end.
The last thing I wanted to do was nothing. Sitting down felt too much like giving up. As defeated as I was right then, we had to keep pushing on and doing . . . something.
But as soon as we returned to the precinct, Darren and Paula all but forced me to sit and put my foot up. Admittedly, they were right. I was supposed to spend time with it elevated so it wouldn’t swell. It was already throbbing, and with as tight as the cast had become in the last few hours, there was definitely some swelling going o
n. And now that I wasn’t moving, all the other body parts were chiming in too. Crutches were fucking brutal. So was hobbling around God’s green earth on one foot. My hip, my back, my hands . . . I was a wreck.
Mentally, I was way worse. Lying on the couch in the conference room, foot dutifully elevated while I turned Emily’s barrette over and over between my fingers, I didn’t know what to do next. The fear and hopelessness sank deeper. Our one and only lead had come up dry. My kids had been there, and now they were gone, and where they were now, I had absolutely no idea.
Paula, Darren, and Captain Hamilton were interrogating Weyland and Brando, digging at them for any scrap of information they might have. Someone had to know something. And if they didn’t start talking, they were going to be dealing with me.
I closed my hand around the barrette, gripping it tight enough for its plastic edges to bite into my palm. We needed some sort of lead. Something. A concrete motive. But . . . what the hell would motivate someone to—
Best not to think too hard about that. I’d been at this job long enough to know there were some sick fucks out there, and I was too close to my breaking point to think about what those sick fucks might want with my kids.
Occasional footsteps passed by the conference room door, which was ajar, but one set broke away from the usual rhythm. I looked up as Marcy appeared in the doorway.
“Hey.” She leaned in slightly. “Can I come in?”
I eased myself up onto an elbow. “Yeah. Sure.”
She stepped in and closed the door behind her. I started to get up, but she gestured for me to stay where I was, and brought a chair from the table a little closer to the couch. “How’s your foot?”
“Not happy.” I settled back down, resting my hand behind my head on the wadded-up jacket I’d been using for a pillow. “It’ll be fine.”
She looked at the cast. Her lips were tight, and the dark circles under her eyes reminded me of those rough few months after each of the kids were born. How we’d both run on fumes for what seemed like years. I’d have sold my soul for that to be the reason we were so drained now.
