by Ty Patterson
His bouts of anger were periods of insanity. He became a different man when the red mist descended.
He walked in the park till his blood stopped pounding, till his breathing normalized and then he made another call.
The reply sent adrenaline surging through him. He started shouting and swearing.
He didn’t know when he hung up and pocketed the phone. He remembered running, cutting a swift path through the park.
He reached the building on Columbus Avenue and slowed to a walk, allowing his perspiration to dry. He wasn’t worried about people looking at him strangely.
This was New York City. Home of strange.
He pulled the hoodie over his head, and then realized he would need a getaway vehicle.
Luckily, he knew a car rental agency a block away. He ran, slowed down when he neared, and half an hour later, he was driving a vehicle.
He made another call and was reassured when he got the answer. He had time.
He circled the block a few times and slipped into a parking space when another vehicle exited.
Then came the waiting. He thought he knew what he was up against, but didn’t want to make any more calls to the other person and run the risk of that person getting suspicious.
He Googled the firm on his phone while he waited.
Security consulting. That could be a problem. But I’ll wait and see who comes out.
The wait became an hour, then two hours.
Finally a woman emerged. He recognized her from the firm’s website.
An older woman appeared, two girls in tow, and finally another woman came out, holding the hand of the girl.
A cab was hailed. He drifted closer. Pulled the hoodie tighter over his head.
A cab flashed its lights. He broke into a jog.
It slowed and stopped. He ran.
He rammed a shoulder in the woman, grabbed the girl, and then he was away to his parked vehicle.
Easier than I thought.
Chapter Eighteen
The man was still in New York, with the girl.
He knew there would be alerts for both of them in public places. He didn’t dare use the subway or any kind of public transport.
He parked his vehicle in a long term parking lot and switched cabs several times, after his escape with the girl. He spoke softly to her and spun a story that it was an elaborate game they were playing on Mommy. It calmed her.
He went to Brooklyn and used the identity he had been creating and checked them into a seedy motel.
‘My daughter has always wanted to see the city,’ he told the uninterested clerk who was more eager to get back to the porn magazine on his desk.
The girl asked many questions. He quieted her each time. Once in their room, she started screaming and demanded she be reunited with Mommy.
The rage came suddenly and without warning. He smacked her bottom, lightly, and asked her keep quiet. He would unite her with Mommy soon.
The girl looked at him in shocked silence, her green eyes wide in fright, tears trickling down her face. She took great gulping sobs, threw herself on the bed and burrowed under the blanket.
He went to the window of the motel, raised its shades and peered out. It was like any other day. People went about, cocooned in their private universes; some rushing to work, many tourists, many street hawkers.
There were no cruisers outside the motel. He didn’t hear footsteps rushing up to pound their door now.
Still undetected.
He knew it wouldn’t last, that the cops would have alerted every hotel, every house and room rental agency in the city.
From the newspapers he had read and the news he had followed, the search for the girl had caught the people’s imagination. It wasn’t because she was a celebrity; however something about her looks and the way she had been kidnapped fueled the city’s interest.
I should have planned it better; however, I didn’t have time. They moved faster than I thought.
He looked back at the girl. She was still sleeping.
He left a note for her by the bedside table, donned his jacket, pulled a ball cap low over his head and went outside.
Their room was on the fourth floor. He took the stairs, avoiding as much contact with people as possible, and went to a Duane Reed and bought a packet of chewing gum.
He popped one white stick in his mouth, chewed it, discreetly pulled on a pair of flesh colored gloves and went to a pay phone.
He dialed a number he knew by heart. The phone rang several times without being answered.
His heart pounded at the implications. Sweat beaded his forehead.
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
He paced, bought a burger from a street side vendor, bought another for the girl, and thought furiously.
He went to an electronics store and stood outside and watched the news flash on one of the TV screens.
There were regular updates on the search. The NYPD was pursuing leads. The help line number rolled underneath the headlines
A reporter started briefing on a train accident and that gave him an idea.
He walked a couple of blocks till he found a Best Buy and bought the cheapest laptop, with cash.
He went back to the motel and found the girl was still sleeping.
He used a private browser, one of those that didn’t share data on the internet, and researched Amtrak routes.
He then looked up train schedules.
He glanced at his watch.
There was time.
He went to the bed and shook the girl awake.
‘We have to go.’
Meghan and Beth didn’t have any more lines to pursue.
Josh Kittrell the lawyer was a dead end. General Klouse said he had impeccable references. There was nothing shady in his private life or his financial affairs.
Mayo and Kane wasn’t of interest in the investigation. It wasn’t a crime to represent defense contractors.
Amy Kittrell still wasn’t talking. The man who had lived with her was a ghost.
Chuck Keyser and Julie Peltier hadn’t made contact. The reporter hadn’t bothered to call back. Neither had the sole surviving detective.
Amy Kittrell had no social media profile. Werner hadn’t detected her on dating sites.
Werner had come up with two hundred men who looked like the dead Josh Kittrell, and was working on tracing their whereabouts. It would take time.
Maddie was still missing.
They went to the gym, two floors below their office, in the same building. They had let out that floor to the gym, and in return got free access, at any time.
Meghan sparred with a martial arts trainer while Beth took her frustration out on a punching bag.
Zeb poked his head through, once, watched their hands flying, the intense looks on their faces, and withdrew.
His phone buzzed. A text from Broker.
How’re they doing?
Frustrated.
Do you need me?
No. Spend time with Burke. Once we get a mission, you’ll have less time with her.
She’s still not sure if she likes you.
I know.
More texts came.
Bear and Chloe said they would be back in a few days.
Bwana and Roger were heading back too.
He put his phone away just as the twins exited the gym, wiping their faces with towels.
They stopped when they saw him in the hallway.
There was a look of determination on Beth’s face.
‘We’re going to talk to Amy Kittrell.’
Chapter Nineteen
Six days after Maddie was grabbed, Meghan drove their SUV to New York City hospital.
Beth called Chang while they were driving and briefed him on their visit.
‘Yeah, we’ll let you know if we find anything.’
‘He says we might get lucky,’ she told her sister when the call ended.
‘Fat chance,’ Meghan laughed without humor.
Peaches launched herself with a squeal into Beth’s arms, a question in her eyes.
Beth smiled at her reassuringly, detached her, and greeted Amy Kittrell.
She didn’t reply and an awkward silence fell in the room.
Beth made eye contact with Gramma who got the message and led her wards out of the room.
‘Ma’am, we need your help,’ Beth pleaded with the mother. ‘Your husband died five years back. Who was the man living with you?’
Amy Kittrell kept silent. Her face was pale; her body thin, beneath the hospital gown.
She wasn’t twisting her hands, yet the one hand that was visible, twitched.
‘They suspect me of arranging her kidnapping.’ Her voice was whispery when Beth kept looking at her.
They, the cops.
‘Who was that man, ma’am? Why does he look like your dead husband?’
‘My daughter is my life. Why would I have her kidnapped?’
Beth went closer. ‘Ma’am, who was that man who lived with you?’
Amy Kittrell turned her head away from them and didn’t reply.
She didn’t speak to them again even though they spent an hour in the room.
Beth looked at her one last time as they were leaving.
Amy Kittrell was still turned away, her eyes unseeing.
No. She’s looking at something
Beth stood on tiptoes and spotted the small picture frame that had been obstructed by Amy Kittrell’s shoulder.
It had Maddie’s smiling face in it.
‘Nothing. She isn’t talking to us,’ she told Chang.
She listened for a few minutes. ‘I am not surprised,’ she replied. ‘When Meghan and I moved from Boston, we too didn’t have any friends. It took us a long time to make some.’
‘They interviewed other parents. All of them knew the man as Josh Kittrell.’ She answered Meghan’s raised eyebrow when she had finished with Chang.
An idea struck her. She called Chang again and this time turned on the speaker.
‘Careful, Beth. My wife will think we’re having an affair,’ Chang’s dry voice came on.
‘What happened to the money, Chang?’ She ignored his humor.
‘What money?’
‘The benefit payment. It was a sizeable amount wasn’t it?’
Keys clicked.
‘It’s still there. A large chunk of it. There are small cash withdrawals. Ten, twenty dollars, those kinds of amounts. Some grocery purchases. But most if it is still there.’
‘When was the most recent transaction?’
‘Last week. At Trader Joe’s, near her office.’
‘How did they fund their home? That must have cost a few million.’
More keys clicked.
‘You know the first home she sold was a ten million dollar one. The second one went for eight mil. Both in her first year of their move to New York.’
‘Her commissions funded the down payment? Her salary, the mortgage?’ Beth asked him.
‘That’s right. We looked at the finances. Nothing there.’
‘No bank account for him?’
‘None,’ Chang confirmed. ‘He doesn’t exist.’
Beth finger combed her hair when they entered their office.
‘We can always go to every hotel and every motel in the city. Ask them if they saw Maddie and this dude.’
Her sister looked at her dubiously. ‘Are you serious?’
‘What else have we got?’
The man was no longer in the motel.
He had booked a bedroom on the Amtrak service for that afternoon and had checked out early in the day.
He dressed her in a voluminous jacket, hid her blonde hair under a cap, and hurried her to Penn Station.
‘It’s an adventure. Mommy will be waiting for us at the end of it.’
That cheered the girl up and she hopped and skipped, as she kept pace with him.
He entered the busy station and waited next to a photo booth while he looked over the concourse.
There were cops. There were a couple of K-9s. None of them seemed to be searching for anything or anyone in particular.
He took a deep breath, grabbed the girl’s hand and hurried to their platform without looking left or right.
Two passengers hurrying to catch their train.
No one gave them a second glance.
He greeted the train attendant, helped the girl board the coach, and guided her to their bedroom.
He shut the door once they were safely inside and released his breath.
The girl was excited. She hopped and bounced on her seat. She explored the bedroom in delight and made to open the door and check the outside.
He stopped her.
‘There’s enough time for that. Let the train start.’
The train started and something loosened inside him.
The next part is the riskiest.
They reached their destination early the next morning. He woke the girl up, bundled their luggage and helped her down the portable steps onto the platform.
It was deserted; they were the only two passengers in the station.
The girl looked up and down, yawned, and asked. ‘Where’s Mommy?’
‘She’ll be here soon.’
He waited for the train to leave and then got the girl to do his bidding.
Seven days from Maddie’s disappearance, the message blinked on the twins’ phones, waiting to be seen.
The twins were on their early morning run in Central Park and neither of them carried their phones.
Meghan got the first inkling that something was wrong when her sister pounded her door and yelled loudly at seven a.m.
‘For chrissakes,’ she flung open the door, ‘you’ll wake the neighborhood.’
Beth brushed past her, entering her apartment, and hunted for Meghan’s phone.
She spied it in her charging cradle. She grabbed it and tossed it to Meghan.
Meghan caught it, ‘What…?’
She sat heavily on a couch and stared at her cell phone.
Madison Kittrell smiled back at her.
Chapter Twenty
‘You need to get here. Pronto,’ Beth told Chang.
She cut off his protests. ‘Yeah, I know it’s seven thirty a.m. and you’re gulping your cereal in One PP. However, you and your partner need to get your asses here. Now.’
She tossed her phone at her desk and looked at her twin. Meghan still wore a shell shocked expression. She was still looking at her phone, not touching it, as if it would explode.
Beth groaned in exasperation and snapped her fingers in her sister’s face. ‘Wake up. Get over it. Start working.’
She went to the kitchen, brewed two cups of coffee and when she had returned, Meghan was alert.
‘Identical messages?’ she asked Beth after taking a grateful sip.
‘Yes.’
She dialed the number, held the phone to her ear and grimaced immediately.
‘It’s dead. Probably sent from a burner phone. The sim card’s trashed.’
She stared at the picture again as if it could tell a story. ‘How did he or whoever sent that, get our numbers?’
Beth frowned. ‘That’s one part of the puzzle. However, have you looked at that picture properly?’
Meghan connected her phone to Werner and transferred the image to her computer.
She brought it up on the larger screen and sucked in her breath when she saw it in greater detail.
‘Where the heck is Toccoa?’ Pizaka paced their office.
Chang and he had reached the Columbus Avenue office in the ‘shortest time ever taken by the NYPD,’ according to Chang.
They had hurried up and as soon as they had stepped out of the elevator and taken a step, Beth had hit them with the picture.
Maddie was posed on a train station platform, with the building behind her. It seemed to be a wooden frame
structure, its walls yellow with a red brick skirting at the bottom. Its sloping roof was tiled.
Behind Maddie’s smiling face, beyond her right shoulder, a signboard was visible.
It had blue lettering on white and a distinctive logo on the left. It had been defaced by graffiti; however, the name was legible.
The board read Toccoa, GA.
‘It’s in Georgia, obviously,’ Chang wore a bemused expression on his face as he watched his partner pace.
Chang was relaxed, sprawled on a couch, a coffee mug in his hand. It was the twins’ office. They would do the work for a change. A NYPD cop needed to grab his rest wherever he could find it.
‘It’s northeast of Atlanta. Ninety miles from it. About eight thousand people. In Stephens County.’ Beth read from a screen.
‘When was the photograph sent?’ Pizaka again. Still pacing. Shades glaring at nothing in particular.
‘We got it at six forty-five a.m. We saw it at seven-fifteen. We called you at seven-thirty.’
Pizaka glanced involuntarily at Mickey Mouse. Eight-thirty.
‘When was it taken? Who sent it?’
‘The who is easy. From a throw away phone. Werner is working on it.’
‘The when is more difficult.’ Meghan this time, curling a tendril of hair behind her ear. She was at another screen, giving instructions to the supercomputer. ‘Werner will try some algorithms.’
‘Send it to –’
‘Done,’ Beth interrupted Pizaka. ‘I have forwarded the message to your team.’
Chang wriggled on the couch and settled more comfortably. ‘Maybe we should move here,’ he directed a hopeful glance at his partner.
The shades turned on him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Watching you at work. Very inspiring.’
Werner came back with an approximate time. It had looked up light readings in Toccoa, compared the light in the photograph, and checked out angles, distances, brightness, and presented a time.
Six-thirty a.m.
‘When?’
Pizaka stopped pacing for the first time.
