by Nupur Tustin
But what could possibly go wrong?
He’d just assured Penny that nothing could and had hung up, when a niggling doubt surfaced into his mind, drumming away at his consciousness. Before he had a chance to explore it, however, the door to his office opened.
Julia stood on the threshold, her face grave, the wrinkles standing out on her sun-weathered features.
“How long have you known Ted Ridgeway?”
“Long enough,” he said when he realized it wasn’t a casual question. Frowning, he leaned forward, elbows pressing into his desk. “Why do you ask?”
“The van isn’t on Storrow Drive anymore.”
He didn’t ask how she knew. Julia had stationed herself at a laptop early that morning, monitoring both the trackers attached to Reynolds’ sculptures as well as the one in Celine’s necklace. Blake had been glad to see Celine wearing the jewelry—a gift from her retired psychic cop friend, Keith Elliot—when she’d arrived at the Gardner that morning.
“It seems to have taken an unscheduled detour,” Julia continued.
That meant it wasn’t heading toward Chelsea and the imaging center anymore. Unwilling to believe there was anything seriously wrong, Blake searched his mind for an explanation.
“Going to a coffee shop, maybe?” he suggested. “When the guys and I left, Jonah was getting ready to head out for the nearest one he could find.”
Julia stared at him. “That was how long ago?”
Okay, point taken. “Where are they headed?”
“River Street.”
“That’s close to where Ridgeway lives,” Blake said. “He’s on Byron.” The question was, why had Ridgeway made an unscheduled stop at his apartment building. “Have you tried calling him?”
“Ella’s been trying. No answer.” Julia walked toward his desk. “I saw his photograph when Ella called up his contact details on her computer, Blake. He was at the Gardner yesterday. At the memorial service when—”
Julia didn’t have to complete the sentence. “When Penny was busy blabbing,” he finished for her. “And Ridgeway overheard.” The half-formed doubt took shape and grew.
Julia gave it voice. “The ambush was a diversion.”
He could see that now. The strike had been nowhere near as deadly as he’d expected. Their attackers had lacked the firepower for a sustained assault. And most of the bullets they’d shot had gone astray, hitting their targets in inconsequential areas.
“That means Celine was right,” Julia continued. “There’s a second informant. There always was.”
“I know. And he’s among us.” He got to his feet, shoving his chair back.
Ella was at the door now. “Julia, Blake, they’re on the road again. On Storrow Drive.” She paused, looking at them uncertainly. “At least, Ridgeway is. Jonah and Celine are still on Byron in Ridgeway’s apartment.”
“Damn!” Blake pushed past her. “Have you tried calling them?”
“I—”
She didn’t seem to understand the question.
He turned around. “Have you tried to get in touch with either Celine or Jonah, Ella?”
“No, I—” She hurried out into the anteroom, grabbing the receiver off the phone on her desk.
Blake checked Ella’s computer. The trackers on the sculptures showed movement. He switched screens, checking for Ridgeway’s tracker. The agent was right where he should be with the sculpture trackers, headed toward Chelsea on Storrow Drive.
But why wasn’t the guy answering his phone? What was going on?
Ella turned toward them, frantic. “I can’t get through to either Celine or Jonah. They’re not answering.”
“Julia?” He turned to where she’d stationed herself at a folding table beside Ella’s desk.
“Ella’s right.” Julia’s anxious gaze met his. “Celine and Jonah are still on Byron Street. Ridgeway’s on his own. I don’t like this, Blake. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” He was at the door, tugging it open. “But we’re damn well going to find out.”
He took a step out and turned. “And Ella?” An icy calm had descended upon him, his brain leaping into overdrive. “Find out whether Mailand ever got round to faxing us that composite from the Paso mail guy. See if it’s a match for Ridgeway.”
The agent had been on leave the week Tony Reynolds traveled to California. A fact Blake had known but not remembered until now.
Grimly he headed out. If he was right, they’d just discovered the mole in their midst. Goddammit!
Ridgeway’s apartment was in a four-story brick building on Byron. The street was narrow; Blake had seen alleys that were wider by far. Leaving Julia and the two other agents he’d brought with him to search the area, he stormed up the short flight of steps and in through the front entrance.
“Ted Ridgeway,” he bawled to the stooped, gray-haired caretaker who’d shambled out of his office to see what all the fuss was about. “Which floor is he on?” He stuck his badge out, his voice hoarse from yelling.
“Third,” the startled old-timer mumbled. “Apartment 3A. But he’s . . .”
Blake left his quavering voice behind, thundering up the steps two at a time. He had no time for idle conversation.
Ridgeway’s apartment was the first door on the left of the landing.
“Celine, Jonah,” he called, fist battering upon the door. There was no answer. But they had to be here.
He thought he heard a moan, but he couldn’t be sure.
Were they being held hostage? With or without someone to babysit them?
“Whoever’s in there,” he hollered. “Open up!”
His bellows had attracted one of the neighbors—a middle-aged woman in a shabby floral bathrobe who poked her head out. He pulled out his badge again, thrusting it forward like a weapon. “Police business, ma’am. Get back in.”
Her eyes widened, but she obediently drew her head back in.
“Celine. Jonah,” he tried again, then temper rising, he yelled, “Listen, goddammit, whoever you are, you need to open up”
He took a step back, assessing the strength of the door. It was a flimsy piece of wood, easily battered. The question was, was there someone lying in wait on the other side.
Weapon at the ready, he kicked the door, then shoved his shoulder as hard as he could against it. It gave way, falling open, the momentum nearly taking him down. He caught himself just in time, whipping around, arms outstretched, gripping his gun.
The tiny living room was empty—except for the quilt-wrapped form on the couch. Warily he approached it, scanning the dining room to the left and the half-open door on the right.
Heart pounding wildly, he reached for the quilt and with one swift movement, drew it back.
Ridgeway?
It was Ridgeway. Then where—?
Chapter Eighty-Six
“Blake.” The sound of Julia’s voice was like a gun going off in his ear. He spun around, the adrenaline rushing back into his veins.
His former colleague walked into the room, oblivious to his reaction, her hands full.
“I don’t understand what’s going on.” She held her latex-glove-covered hands out to him.
His gaze fell to the items on her palm. “Their phones?” He raised his head. “Where did you find them? Where are they?”
Julia shook her head. “I have no idea. They aren’t anywhere in the vicinity. We’ve scoured the area. These were dumped in a trash can outside the building.”
Blake frowned, his mind trying to catch up with what was going on. Ridgeway’s phone was on its way to Chelsea, but Ridgeway—
Remembering the agent, he turned around.
“Check the other rooms, will you?” he told Julia as he bent closer to inspect the agent. He should’ve checked the apartment out himself, but if there was someone in there, they wouldn’t have waited this long to attack.
Ridgeway lay on the couch, eyes closed. His face was a deadly shade of white. Beads of perspiration had formed on his forehea
d. His lips—a blueish-gray—twitched and grimaced now and again, and every so often a spasm rocked his body.
Other than that he seemed to have fallen into a stupor.
Blake reached out and touched his forehead. It was cold and clammy.
Julia emerged from the bedroom. “They aren’t in here. There’s no one here.” Her eyes fell on the fallen agent. “I thought—?” She frowned, the question unasked.
“We need to get him to a hospital.” Blake’s hand closed around Ridgeway’s wrist. The man’s pulse was weak—so weak, Blake could barely feel it. “I think he’s been drugged. No idea with what. But it looks bad.”
Julia made the call. “I don’t understand,” she said, hanging up. “What went down here? And Celine and Jonah—?” She surveyed the tiny living room as though expecting the two to emerge from a hidden corner. “And who’s in that van?”
Blake didn’t respond. She was asking questions he had no answers to. He was about to call Ella to get the current location of the van when his men filled the doorway.
“Found this, sir.” The older of the two held out the chain in his hand with a pink jewel dangling from it. It was Celine’s necklace.
“They discarded it.” Blake’s eyes met Julia’s. “That means we have no way of finding her.”
“I know.” The color had left her cheeks. She clenched her fists to her side. Then her eyes widened. “But no one knew—” She stared at him. “Ridgeway couldn’t have known about her necklace.”
“It’s not Ridgeway, Julia. He’s not our informant.” That should’ve been obvious given the state in which they’d found the agent. But his former colleague was clearly in shock.
“No, and he didn’t know about the tracker. No one did, except . . .” her voice faded, eyes wide with shock. Before he could ask her what she’d remembered, his phone rang.
It was Ella.
“I have two pieces of information. First, Ridgeway isn’t on Storrow Drive anymore. He’s—”
“I know,” Blake interrupted, not bothering to bring her up to speed. There was no time.“What else did you have for me?”
“Mailand faxed the composite. It was transmitted over the weekend. I—”
“Send it to me,” he interrupted.
“I have. That’s what I was going to tell you. I emailed it—”
“Great, thanks.” Blake ended the call. “We have a picture of the mailman Reynolds saw in Paso Robles,” he said to Julia.
He opened his email, scrolling through the inbox until he saw Ella’s message and the attachment she’d sent.
“Here we go.” He held his phone out to Julia, waiting for her to step by his side before he clicked on the JPEG file.
It loaded slowly, pixels filling up his screen with a face that was all too familiar.
“Jesus Christ,” Blake whispered. How could he have been so blind? “I don’t believe it!”
“Oh God, she’s with him, Blake,” Julia exclaimed. “We need to find her. How do we find her?”
Celine was lost. There were lights at either end of the tunnel, penetrating its depths, spotlighting the blackness. But she didn’t know whether to move forward or to turn back.
Over here, Celine. Sister Mary Catherine’s voice came from afar. Trust your instincts.
I’m trying, Celine thought, looking first to the left and then to the right, wavering between two hard choices.
“Celine!”
It was a voice she hadn’t heard in nearly seventeen years. Her head turned sharply in its direction.
“Mom?”
Vivian Skye stood silhouetted against the brightness at the end of the path on her right. Celine stumbled forward.
“Mom.” She was running now, tears streaming down her cheeks, to the arms outstretched toward her.
It was only when she got closer that she saw Vivian’s palms were up, motioning her to stop.
“You can’t come here, Celine.”
“Why not?” Celine’s shoulders sagged against the weight of her mother’s inexplicable rejection. “Why not, mom? Don’t you want us to be together?”
Vivian smiled. “You know I do, sweetheart. But it’s not your time yet. You need to go back. Go back, Celine.”
Celine stepped forward. “No.” She couldn’t understand it. Why was Mom sending her away?
“No, Celine.”
Vivian disappeared. Puzzled, Celine was about to take another step toward the flickering light, when something—some force like a strong wind—grabbed her and sucked her out of the spinning vortex.
“Wake up, Celine! Wake up.”
She heard the words a second before the torrent of water hit her, dousing her face and chest.
“Wake up, dammit!”
A stinging slap followed, to the left cheek, then the right, the force of it sending her face swinging onto the hard concrete that supported her form.
Her eyes opened and her surroundings—the gray, corrugated, sloping ceiling high above, the dim bulb dangling down, the cobwebs—swam into focus. Then she saw eyes—dark, demented eyes—a pale face.
Jonah?
She frowned, trying to sit up.
“Wha—?” The words were clear in her mind, but her voice was too thick to make it past the dryness of her throat. She coughed.
“Wake up.” Jonah grabbed her shoulders and pulled her upright. Her head spun, feeling woozy. “Where is it?” he yelled. “You know where it is, don’t you?”
A mechanical trill sounded—someone’s cell phone. Jonah stopped shaking her long enough to answer it, fury and desperation mingling on his features.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Blake had never felt such a strong desire to wring his personal assistant’s neck. The woman had always been infuriating. But he couldn’t remember her being this incompetent. “Look at the tracking software on your screen and tell me where that goddamned van is, Ella.”
They were out of Ridgeway’s apartment. The paramedics had come and gone, taking Ridgeway with them. They’d confirmed the agent had been drugged. “Could be some kind of thienodiazapine,” one of the medics had said as he’d helped his colleague lift the stretcher up.
Now Blake was in the hot sun, trying to figure out why Ella was unable to perform the simple task he was asking her to.
“You don’t understand, Blake.” His assistant sounded flustered, panicky. “You cut me off earlier while I was trying to tell you—”
He released an exasperated breath. “What were you trying to tell me? Get on with it, Ella!”
“Look, the van should’ve been on the 1-North, headed into Chelsea, right? It should’ve looped around Millers River. Well, instead, it headed right to the wharf. Ridgeway’s phone is on Canal Street. And based on the trackers in the sculptures, the van should be in Burroughs Wharf. Only it isn’t. I sent a couple of agents to check it out.”
“And there’s no sign of it?” He didn’t know why he was asking. She’d just told him it wasn’t.
“No!” Ella’s voice rose, shrill with panic.
If Blake had let himself think about the implications of the situation, he’d have been shitting bricks, too. He’d never had an operation go pear-shaped so rapidly. This was worse than the kidnapping four months ago. This was—
He cut short his thoughts, lest he get himself into a funk. This wasn’t the time for that. Definitely not the time for that.
“It’s okay.” He was calming himself down as much as he was Ella. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”
He hung up, turned to Julia. “I have no idea—” he began, but she shushed him, her head bent intently over the vibrating phone in her palm.
“He’s getting a call, Blake. Someone’s calling Jonah.” The vibration ceased. Julia looked up at him. “I think he might have call forwarding enabled.”
“No.” “No, we don’t need it.” “No, it’s not here.” “No—”
Celine heard Jonah barking responses to his caller, too irritated to be polite. He moved away from her,
still talking, still arguing. While he spoke, she inspected her surroundings. Captioned images flowed into her mind, making sense of what her eyes saw: Warehouse. Van. Shattered sculptures—
Her gaze snagged on those, and her eyes narrowed. Those were Reynolds’ works. They were supposed to be taking them to the Massachusetts Imaging Center. They’d dropped Ridgeway off at his house; he’d taken sick.
“We should call for backup,” she’d suggested to Jonah after he’d seen Ridgeway to his apartment.
“Nah,” he’d rejected her advice. “I can do this.” He’d peered into the side-view mirror and maneuvered the van back onto the narrow street.
That was the last thing Celine remembered. Her memory after that was hazy. She’d sipped her coffee, struggled to fight off a heavy drowsiness that made her eyelids droop. The only thing she could recall after the blackness that followed was—
Her breath caught in her throat. Her mother. She’d seen her mother.
Concentrate, Celine, Sister Mary Catherine warned her. Stay alert. Don’t let your mind drift.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Jonah was coming back to Celine, his conversation done.
He stood by her side, his skinny form looming over her. She caught a glimpse of gun-metal gray pressed to his side. Ridgeway’s gun, she thought. He’s taken Ridgeway’s gun.
“Ready to talk?” Jonah glared down at her. She’d never seen such hatred in his dark eyes.
“Talk about what?” she asked, although she was beginning to figure it out.
“Where that Rembrandt etching is, Celine. I need it, you must understand that.”
“It’s not where we all thought it was?” She looked past his legs to the shattered fragments strewn on the concrete floor. She was trying to buy time—time to gather her thoughts and process the situation.
“No, it’s not.” He was pointing the barrel at her now. “So, where is it? If anybody knows, it’s you.”
She ignored his question, tipping her chin at the weapon he held. “I thought you didn’t like guns.”
“I like them well enough when it comes to protecting myself,” Jonah replied.
