Web of Fear

by Mike Omer

  But there was no FBI ambush. The couple looked surprised to see him there. They were probably waiting for a call to the payphone, just like his partner had planned. There was no visible tail. He had driven north from Glenmore Park for about twenty minutes, then turned west, toward New Hampshire. Finally, he got off on a silent, remote road and drove along it, stopping after a quarter of a mile. He waited for ten minutes, seeing no one, though he could imagine the police and FBI following his car using satellites, or high zoom binoculars. Perhaps there was a GPS chip in the bag. If that was the case, he had to go on with the plan as fast as possible.

  His own car waited at the side of the road, where he had left it earlier. The car he was driving was a used Volvo, bought with cash from a used car salesman in Boston. They had replaced its license plates, just to be safe. He got out, opened his own car, and got his own duffel bag. He opened the ransom bag, leaning back in case it was booby trapped with paint, like he had seen once in a movie.

  There was no paint. Just stacks of money. More money than he had ever seen in his life.

  Darrel started moving the stacks to his own bag. It took a long time, but he didn’t want to just empty one duffel bag into the other. He wanted to make sure he wasn’t taking a stray GPS chip with him.

  Finally, he was done. He threw the empty duffel bag back into the Volvo, got into his own car, started the engine, and drove away. He began grinning as he removed the latex gloves from his hands. He tossed the mask away as well, knowing he’d never have to wear the damn thing again. He was done.

  He glanced over at the duffel bag in the passenger’s seat, its zipper still open. Stacks of money winked back at him. His grin widened as he zipped it shut. There was no point risking someone looking through the car’s window and noticing the unusual passenger. That’s right, he was driving with some guys named Benjamin in his car. Was he over the passenger limit? Well, the car was insured for four passengers other than the driver. But there were thirty thousand Benjamins driving with him. He burst out laughing. That was a good one! Thirty thousand Benjamins! A bit over his passenger limit, wasn’t he? He laughed again, tears of relief and happiness springing from his eyes.

  He could still see Abigail’s mother’s eyes as she looked at him, her face begging him to return her daughter. Well, she’d get her daughter back. Finally. The past week had been terrible. Knowing that they were holding back the girl from her parents was hard on them both. He could see the turmoil in his partner’s eyes every time they talked about the girl. He saw how she tried to keep her distance. Of course. She was a woman; she probably felt motherly compassion to the girl. He was relieved they could both finally ease their consciences.

  Damn! He was supposed to let his partner know she could set the girl free! He stopped at the side of the road, took the burner phone out and quickly texted. All good. On my way back.

  The response quickly came back: a thumbs up. They were always careful, never texted each other anything that mentioned the girl, or the ransom. Never talked about it on the phone. Never carried around their own mobile phones when they met. Used burner phones to post those Instagram pictures, each time from a different location, at least thirty miles from Glenmore Park. His partner was the one who insisted on it all. She said they couldn’t know what technologies the FBI had, that it was best to be prudent. And she was right. He was glad she was the brains of the operation.

  There was a moment of apprehension as he got closer to Glenmore Park. Was that car following him? But no, it turned at the next intersection, to his relief. He had been careful, and the Lisman family would not endanger their daughter’s life.

  He finally got to his house, and opened the garage door, smiling. It had been hard, coming home for the past week, knowing there was a crying child in his basement. He was relieved she could finally go back home. One day in the far future, he’ll send some money her way, a compensation for the terrible week she’d gone through.

  He parked the car, hefting the duffel bag on his shoulder. Damn, those thirty thousand Benjamins were heavy. He grinned again at his joke, walking into the house.

  She was already waiting for him, to his surprise. She stood in the kitchen, a bottle of champagne on the table. Two full glasses stood on either side. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, reacting to her as always. He loved to see her smile.

  “Did you call the parents?” he asked. “Tell them where she is?”

  “Of course,” she grinned. “Is that the money?”

  “That’s right! I want you to meet my new friends,” he said, unzipping the bag. “They’re all named Benjamin.”

  She didn’t laugh. Maybe she didn’t get it. She stared into the bag, her grin widening.

  He knew how she felt. This was freedom.

  “I think we should celebrate,” she said, taking one of the glasses and raising it, looking at him.

  “Sure!” he said, grabbing the other glass. She sipped from hers and he did the same, just a tiny sip.

  “Ugh,” he said, feeling the bitterness on his tongue. “I think this champagne has gone bad.”

  “Really?” She drank another sip. “Tastes fine to me. It’s probably just the first sip. Try some more.”

  “Nah,” he said, putting the glass down on the counter. “I wouldn’t drink from that. You’ll get sick.” He inspected the bottle, looking for the expiration date.

  “It really tastes fine,” she said, stepping up behind him.

  “Hey, listen, I know what champagne tastes like, and this champagne is—”

  The pain in his back was sharp and terrible. He screamed in agony and turned around. She stood in front of him, her eyes cold and vacant. His abdomen suddenly erupted in pain as well, and he stumbled back, looking down. Blood. So much blood. Where did it all…

  Another sharp pain, this time in his chest, and it was her hand on his chest, blood running down her arm, spattering her cheek, just below an emotionless eye. He took another step backward, feeling the pain in his chest becoming worse as he wobbled. It was a knife. When he walked back, it slipped from her fingers, still stuck in his ribcage.

  He fumbled at the handle, feeling horror and disbelief. That bitch! She’d tried to kill him! For money! He wrenched the knife from his chest, the pain nearly blinding him, and swung it at her. But she wasn’t there anymore. She stared at him with distant eyes from six feet away.

  “You bitch,” he muttered, stumbling forward, blood bubbling in his mouth. He was going to kill her.

  She abruptly moved forward, swinging her hand, and the bottle of champagne smashed against his face, knocking him down.

  “Jesus,” he mumbled as he rolled to his back. Where was she? His vision got dim; his face was on fire. Where was that knife? He’d been holding it a second ago.

  He tried to get up, and something hard hit him on his head again.

  Chapter Twenty

  People shouted in the hallway, phones rang constantly, cops and detectives ran in and out of the squad room. Hannah tried to concentrate, her head pounding with guilt and self-hatred, trying to figure out how she could help fix this colossal mess.

  Naamit and Ron Lisman had gotten home by ten-thirty in the morning, and waited for the call. By eleven, Hannah had joined them, the three of them tense and silent, rushing to any phone that blipped or rang. None of the text messages, e-mails or calls were from the kidnappers. At eleven forty-five, an hour and a half after they had delivered the ransom, Hannah managed to convince them to let her call Agent Mancuso.

  The call was short. The result was a huge manhunt, encompassing dozens of FBI agents, the entire Glenmore Park PD, a large portion of the Staties, and some of the Boston PD as well. There were five choppers in the air over various areas. All nearby airports were notified. They assumed that the kidnappers would try to leave the country.

  They assumed Abigail Lisman wasn’t alive anymore.

  Hannah bit her lip, reading through the Glen Haney murder case file again—her only lead to the kidnappers. Any
evidence the FBI had regarding the kidnapping case was withheld, especially from her.

  She realized she was reading the same paragraph for the third time. In the background she heard Mitchell talking to someone, repeating the same description of the faded blue Volvo that Ron and Naamit had seen.

  Finally, she could take it no longer, and called Agent Mancuso. It rang for a very long time and then went to voice mail. She dialed again. This time the agent answered after a few seconds.

  “Yeah, Shor, what do you want?”

  “Where are we at?” Hannah asked. “Did you send anyone to the junkyard where the kidnappers got rid of their van? Because they’ll want to get rid of the Volvo, and—”

  “Shor.” Agent Mancuso’s tone was cold and sharp. “I don’t owe you an update. Let me assure you, I know how to do my job. I also knew how to do my job yesterday, when the Lismans called you and told you the kidnappers had contacted them. If you had told them to call us—”

  “I did tell them—”

  “If you had persuaded them to call us, we would have arrested the kidnappers by now, and maybe we’d have Abigail Lisman as well. Hell, Hannah, you should have called us yourself! Who cares what the mother told you? She isn’t an experienced officer of the law, is she? You are—or at least you’re supposed to be. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I should have told them to take you off the case as soon as I heard you knew the mother personally. And I definitely should have done that after the interview with that asshole, Jurgen. You’re a disaster, Shor.”

  Hannah bit her lip. “I did what I thought—”

  “I don’t care. Tell it to your damn captain, who persuaded me to give you a chance. Listen, Shor, I tell it like it is. So here’s what I think: if you had called us yesterday, Abigail Lisman would still be alive.”

  The line went dead.

  Hannah gently placed the phone in its cradle. The noise was overpowering, and a feeling of claustrophobia suddenly assaulted her. She stood up and stumbled out of the room, intent on going outside, but halfway to the exit a wave of nausea hit her and she bolted toward the bathroom. She got to the stall just in time, and threw up the little food she had in her stomach. She stayed on her knees, coughing and spitting, her head pounding.

  If you had called us yesterday, Abigail Lisman would still be alive.

  An uncontrollable sob emerged from her lips. She closed the toilet lid, sat on it and cried into her hands, trying to remain silent. She couldn’t face coworker sympathy right now.

  After crying for several minutes, she breathed deeply, forced herself to calm down. Her head was now clearer. The kidnappers had disappeared with the ransom, and Abigail hadn’t returned. The FBI assumed Abigail was dead, and they dealt with kidnapping cases all the time. They knew what they were talking about. There was no going around the fact that she was probably gone. The only thing that remained was catching the kidnappers. Getting justice.

  That word had never felt emptier. Hannah didn’t care about justice. All she wanted was to return Abigail to Naamit and Ron and…

  Why had the kidnappers kept Abigail alive for so long? The Lismans would have paid the ransom even if they hadn’t received that last image of Abigail holding the newspaper. It made no sense, unless they had intended on setting her free. And the ransom delivery had gone flawlessly, so why hadn’t they done it? Had they had second thoughts?

  Had they decided to keep Abigail as a hostage?

  No, the FBI clearly believed she was dead, and—

  Hannah paused and tried to think from a different perspective.

  Suppose she was the FBI agent in charge of the most publicized kidnapping case in recent years. And suppose she was notified that the parents had been contacted by the kidnappers, and had told only one detective, who didn’t inform anyone. The ransom was paid, the kidnappers were gone, the child was still missing.

  She’d be furious. And she’d want to assume the worst: the detective screwed up, and it was her fault the child was dead.

  But was Abigail really dead? Probably. But as far as Hannah was concerned, she couldn’t be. If Abigail was dead, Hannah was useless. She didn’t care about catching the kidnappers. Didn’t care about anything, really. But if Abigail was alive…

  If Abigail was alive, she might be living on borrowed time. They’d kept her as a hostage, a bargaining chip in case they got caught on their way out of the country. Or they just weren’t sure how to return her, and didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks. Once they got away they would either set her free, or get rid of her.

  In that case, it was up to the police and the FBI to catch the kidnappers before that happened. It was up to Hannah to do the best she could to return Abigail to her parents. She had to assume Abigail was still alive.

  She got up and strode back to the squad room. She made herself a cup of coffee and sat at her desk, looking at the Haney case file. This was stupid. She couldn’t just act as if nothing had happened. She had a new lead: the ransom drop at the payphone. There was a faded blue Volvo. She could try to get a list of all blue Volvos in the area, and the people they were registered to. She wished Matt was there to give her some info. There could be a unique tire mark on the pavement, or maybe the car got scratched when it abruptly stopped, leaving fragments of its paint behind. But if there was anything there, the FBI agents were checking it out.

  Okay, forget the forensics of the ransom delivery. What else? Her mind zoomed out, trying to see the bigger picture. Who were the suspects? Someone close to the parents, hating them, a low level administrator…

  Her heartbeat quickened. What about Debra? Had they ever thoroughly checked her? They’d done background checks on everyone, but had they ever looked closer? A low level administrator, close to Naamit. Did she have reason to hate her?

  Three reasons at least. Naamit had been promoted to management, and not her. She’d had a miscarriage, while Naamit had a beautiful daughter. Debra’s husband had left her, while Naamit was happily married.

  How had she not seen it before? It was right in front of her, it was…

  No. She was forcing the puzzle piece to fit. Sometimes you could connect the pieces together, and they almost seemed to match, even though you had to push a bit too hard. But it was the wrong piece. Debra had an alibi for the night of the kidnapping. Naamit had been at an office party. She had specifically mentioned that all her coworkers were there. Hannah would call Naamit and verify it with her, but she could already feel in her gut that Debra was innocent. No, it was someone else. She mentally went over the people they’d encountered in the investigation. No one seemed to meet the profile.

  She sighed, tried to shift gears again—turn the case around, look for another angle, another fresh perspective. She could go door-to-door, ask anyone who lived nearby if they had seen the car. Someone might have gotten its license plate. She could try and get the CCTV footage from the gas station and the post office. It might be problematic without a warrant, but she could try.

  It was worth a shot. She opened a map of the street on her computer, trying to decide where to start. The post office and the gas station were the only two businesses in the area. She’ll start with them. Then she’d go door to door in a hundred feet parameter…

  She frowned. There was that niggling feeling again, at the back of her mind. Something about the street map bothered her. She concentrated, trying to fish out the pesky detail, as if it was a tiny thorn wedged deeply under her skin.

  The gas station and the post office were the only two businesses in the area. She recalled the report in Clint’s briefcase. The CCTV footage of various businesses in Glenmore Park had been hacked. A gas station, a post office, two clothing shops…

  There were no clothing shops near the kidnapping scene. Why had their footage been hacked?

  She chewed her lip, trying to figure it out. She searched online for clothing shops in Glenmore Park, and scanned the list. Most were at the Glenmore Park Mall, some on Clayton Road, but nowhere near the are
a of the kidnapping, two were on the other side of town. It made no sense.

  She got up, and went down to the lobby. Officer McLure was manning the reception desk, and he nodded at her.

  “McLure,” she said, “do you have a cigarette?”

  He frowned. “Didn’t you quit, Detective?”

  She nodded. “Three years. But today is a bad day.”

  He fished a crumpled box from his pocket and tossed it to her. “The lighter is inside,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she said. He looked as if he was about to say something, then shrugged and leaned back in his chair, remaining silent.

  Hannah stepped out of the station and walked around the corner of the building. She put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it, tasting the familiar taste of nicotine, smoke, and impending lung cancer. It felt good.

  She smoked the cigarette slowly, staring at the parking lot. The Redditors could have thought that the clothing shops might have cameras pointing at the road. Who knew what those weirdos thought. Hell, they could be just looking for footage of a changing booth with a hot customer inside…

  The cigarette dropped from her mouth. She cursed, stepped on it, and picked up the stub. Then she rushed into the station, tossing the box back to McLure, who caught it without even raising his head. She stormed into the squad room yet again, sat at her desk, and browsed to Abigail’s Instagram. There they were, the three famous photos posted by the kidnappers. The second image was a full body shot of Abigail standing up.

  Then she browsed to the subreddit, and clicked the top post, which was still the famous picture of Abigail and Gracie on the street together.

  She looked from one to the other.

  It was almost impossible to tell—the color was the same, and the picture on the street was fuzzy and unfocused. But Abigail was wearing different pants.