Every Breath You Take (45 page)

He added that issue to the others he intended to hand over to his attorneys in the morning, when his son was safely home. Not once, not even for a second, did Mitchell allow himself to consider any other outcome of the kidnapping. That would have given fear an opening, and that he could not, dared not, allow.

Beyond that, all he’d learned from Levinson was that Kate had apparently been raising Daniel on her own. Until Levinson said that, Mitchell had been braced for the unpardonable likelihood that she was married and had been raising Mitchell’s son as if he were another man’s child!

Mitchell looked again at his watch, and then he reached toward the lighted panel of buttons on the car’s
ceiling and began tuning the radio from one station to the next, hoping to find a local station that was broadcasting information about the kidnapping. He found what he’d been searching for, but the announcer’s words sent a chill crawling up his spine:

“This morning, the twenty-two-month-old son of restaurateur Kate Donovan was kidnapped from Danbury Park after his nanny, Molly Miles, was struck in the head and left unconscious. The police department has issued an amber alert.”

Mitchell’s frayed control began unraveling. The limo was in the left-hand lane, inching along at a crawl toward a red light. “I can walk faster than this,” he said, reaching for the door handle. “Tell me where the restaurant is.”

“Stay put,” O’Hara urged as the red light turned into a green arrow and their lane began surging forward. “It’s a mile away and there’s a break in traffic up ahead.” As he spoke, he handed a slip of paper over his shoulder to Calli, who was sitting directly behind him, facing Mitchell. “This is the phone number in the car,” he told Mitchell. “I’ll wait for you as close to Donovan’s as I can get, but if you don’t see me when you come out, call me at this number. I’ll be nearby.”

“Don’t bother to wait,” Mitchell said, his attention on the traffic, which was moving more steadily now. “I’ll take a cab to the hotel when I’m finished.”

“Matt gave me strict orders to wait for you,” O’Hara said emphatically, “and he also told your secretary to have your suitcases delivered to him at home. Matt and Meredith are expecting you to stay with them, no matter how late it is when you get there tonight. They’re your friends, Mitchell, and you gotta let them be with you at a time like this. Don’t bother trying to shut them out, because they’re not going to let you do it.”

“Fine,” Mitchell replied absently, scanning the streets ahead. “Where in the hell is this restaurant?” he demanded after what seemed like at least a mile.

“It’s just around the next corner, a block and a half up the street.”

Mitchell reached for his briefcase on the floor as O’Hara flipped on the turn signal, made a left, and then swore under his breath at what he saw ahead. “It’s a zoo,” he said lamely.

In grim silence, Mitchell took in the chaotic scene—a barricaded intersection with cops redirecting vehicles away from it, and beyond the barricades, a street packed with police cars, television vans, and crowds of pedestrians who couldn’t find standing room on the sidewalk.

And in the middle of it all, was the canopied entrance to an elegant restaurant that took up most of a city block, and that Kate had once described as “a little Irish pub.”

Mitchell flung the car door open and got out with Calli close behind, vigilant, watchful. “There’s a television camera aiming at you from the top of that white van,” Calli said as they skirted around the barricade and began wending their way around the mass of vehicles and humanity. “Maybe they’re just curious because we got out of a limo.”

“Reporters have long memories,” Mitchell said flatly. During the media uproar surrounding Billy’s trial, Mitchell had acted as the Wyatt family spokesman, and he knew there was little chance of getting all the way to the front door without being identified and having microphones shoved in his face. “Ignore them and keep walking.” He turned sideways in order to squeeze between the bumpers of two police cars, and added, “No more English when you’re inside the restaurant. I want to know what’s going on, and people will talk
more freely in front of someone they think can’t understand what they say.”

From his post at a front window in Kate Donovan’s apartment above the restaurant, Detective MacNeil watched a very tall man and a shorter man get out of a limousine together. Both men looked lean and athletically built, both had dark hair, and both were wearing suits, but the taller one was carrying a briefcase, and he moved with the long strides and squared shoulders of a man who was supremely confident of himself. MacNeil didn’t need to see his face; he identified Mitchell Wyatt by his height, his walk, the width and set of his broad shoulders, and his casual indifference to the crowds on the sidewalk and the reporters and photographers rushing toward him.

In contrast with Wyatt’s aloofness, the man with him was sharply alert and subtly aggressive in his movements. Had he been carrying a briefcase, it would have looked out of place. He looked as if he ought to be carrying something else … like a handgun? Which meant he was probably … a bodyguard?

MacNeil watched both men a moment longer; then he looked over his shoulder and announced his conclusion to Gray Elliott, who was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter staring grimly into space with the apartment’s cordless telephone an inch from his fingers. Father Donovan was sitting next to him, his elbows on the counter and his forehead resting on his clasped hands in a posture of exhausted prayer. Kate Donovan had gone into her son’s bedroom a while ago to wait there until it was time for the ransom call, and since MacNeil had no idea if Wyatt’s arrival was going to be regarded as a good event or a bad one, he kept his voice low so that only the two men would hear him. “Wyatt is here,” he said.

Father Donovan lifted his head and said fervently, “Thank God! Make sure he gets up here right away.”

Gray looked sharply at Father Donovan. “It might be better if you went downstairs and persuaded him to wait there with his attorneys. If he wants a more active role, we could ask him to help answer the hotlines.”

“He wouldn’t settle for that, nor should he be asked to do so. Based on what Kate told me long ago about his prior behavior, I didn’t think that man was capable of doing ‘the right thing,’ but today he’s done it twice, and he’s done it magnificently. First he arranged for the ransom money immediately, and without protest. Now he’s come here to wait with Kate for news of their son, which is exactly the right and proper thing for him to have done.”

“I wholeheartedly agree, but—” Gray began; then he paused long enough to look at MacNeil and say, “Call down to the uniforms at the front door and tell them to get Wyatt through the crowd as quickly as possible and without calling unnecessary attention to him. If the media recognize him, his arrival tonight will start an uproar of conjecture, and I don’t want anything distracting public attention from Danny’s kidnapping.”

MacNeil nodded, and Gray turned back to Father Donovan to explain his concerns about Wyatt’s arrival. “I agree that he’s acted admirably today—more than admirably, in fact—but Kate is in an emotionally charged, treacherous situation right now, and when Wyatt gets up here, he’s probably going to be feeling—” the phrase
royally pissed off
lodged itself in Gray’s mind, and he stared at the priest, completely unable to think of an adequate substitute, so he uttered the first lame one that occurred to him. “He’s no saint.”

“Believe me when I tell you this—” Father Donovan replied somewhat grimly, “I am not under the slightest delusion that there’s anything remotely ‘saintly’ about
Mitchell Wyatt. However,” he finished in a more normal tone, “that doesn’t change the fact that he has a legal, moral, and ethical right—and responsibility—to be up here with us, and to be granted all the consideration he’s due as Danny’s father.”

T
WO COPS WERE STATIONED UNDER THE DARK GREEN
awning at the front door, and another one was standing on the sidewalk near the curb, apparently waiting for Mitchell, who by then was completely under siege from a battalion of reporters who had recognized him and were trying to get a statement. The cop at the curb shouldered his way through them to Mitchell. “Come with me, Mr. Wyatt, and don’t talk to anyone,” he said; then he turned and began plowing a path toward the front door.

Mitchell followed in his wake, his expression carefully neutral, while cameras tracked his progress and a barrage of shouted questions assailed him from every angle. …

“Mr. Wyatt, why are you here?”

“Is your nephew Billy involved in this?”

Another reporter scored a direct hit: “Are you Danny’s father?”

Mitchell ground his teeth against the urge to say,
“Yes!”
He’d grown up wondering who his own father was and overhearing adults speculating about his origins behind his back. Because of Kate, his son was in the same humiliating position now, and the entire city of Chicago was doing the speculating. The only thing that kept him from telling the reporters that he was Danny’s father was fear that it might somehow put his son in more jeopardy.

One of the cops guarding the entrance reached for the ornate brass handle on the heavy wooden door and shoved it open just enough for Mitchell, Calli, and the cop escorting them to squeeze past. It closed behind them, shutting out the uproar outside. In comparison to that, the interior of the large restaurant seemed almost tomblike, but it was far from deserted.

Two long rows of tables had been set up on the far left of the main dining room, and at least two dozen people were seated there, answering ringing phones that were obviously newly installed, their cords strung haphazardly across the floor. A few restaurant employees were keeping coffee cups filled and passing out sandwiches to the task force on the telephones, while other employees looked on in watchful silence, clearly hoping for some indication that one of the people on the phones was getting a good tip.

Pearson and Levinson were sitting at a nearby table with two black suitcases between them, openly eavesdropping on the people manning the telephones.

“Come this way,” the cop told Mitchell, and both attorneys looked around sharply to check out the new arrival. Mitchell nodded at them but continued following the cop, who seemed to be leading him toward a pair of large doors at the rear of the restaurant that opened into a kitchen, where more employees were gathered. At the kitchen, the cop turned to the right, however, and headed down a long paneled hallway lined with offices. At the end of the hallway, a staircase led up to a landing with an open door. The cop gestured toward it, stopped, and stepped aside for Mitchell to pass. “The apartment is up there,” he said.

Mitchell glanced at Calli, told him in Italian to stay downstairs, and continued walking. The back hallway with its staircase leading up to an apartment were the only identifiable characteristics that this restaurant shared with
the one Kate had invented and used as a backdrop for her charming stories about her childhood escapades, Mitchell realized.

However, he had no difficulty recognizing the first two men he saw when he strode into the spacious apartment’s comfortable living room. The same detectives who’d questioned Mitchell when he was a suspect in William’s death and who’d photographed him in the islands with Kate were standing in the kitchen area now, watching him. Gray Elliott walked forward, held out his hand, and said with a grim smile, “I’m sorry we’re once again meeting under very difficult circumstances—”

Mitchell ignored his outstretched hand along with his implied sympathy. “Have you heard anything?”

When he said that he hadn’t, Mitchell turned around expecting to see Kate somewhere in the living room, and instead found his view blocked by a stocky man with sandy hair, green eyes, and a Roman collar. “I’m Kate’s uncle, James Donovan,” the priest said, holding out his hand and studying Mitchell’s face. “You’re Mitchell, of course.”

“Of course,” Mitchell agreed sardonically. He shook the priest’s hand and then he terminated the social niceties. “Where is she?” he asked bluntly.

Unfazed by Mitchell’s rudeness and lack of respect, the priest turned and gestured toward a hallway at the far end of the living room. “Danny’s bedroom is the first door on the right,” he said calmly. “Kate is in there.”

The last thing Mitchell had expected to feel when he walked into Danny’s room and saw Kate Donovan was a surge of pity, but pity was exactly what he felt. She was sitting in a rocking chair next to Danny’s bed with her eyes closed and her head tipped back, clutching a
big gray flop-eared rabbit to her chest. One bare foot was curled beneath her, the other foot on the floor, gently pushing the rocker back and forth. Other stuffed animals, all of them in seemingly perfect condition, were neatly lined up on the floor behind her, but the faded, scruffy rabbit in her arms looked as if it had been dragged behind a car … or dragged behind a little boy who’d taken it everywhere with him.

The bedroom itself had been designed to delight a child and inspire his imagination, Mitchell noticed as he looked around. Bright jungle murals covered the walls, with whimsical animals and colorful birds peeking out from tall grass and frolicking in the branches of lush trees that stretched up to and partway across the ceiling.

On the wall to his right, two rows of long shelves were mounted within child’s reach and filled with toy trucks. On the wall to his left was a small bed with a mock picket fence for a headboard, with carved parrots, macaws, canaries, and parakeets roosting atop the white slats—all of them fast asleep.

Trying to adjust to the reality of being in a bedroom that belonged to a two-year-old son he’d never known existed, Mitchell gazed at the woman who’d conceived his son during an unforgettable night of lovemaking. Clad in jeans and a yellow turtleneck sweater, with her red hair loose around her shoulders and her russet eyelashes lying like curly fans on her unnaturally pale cheeks, she looked painfully forlorn, totally defenseless, and very young …

But then, Kate Donovan’s looks had always been deceptive, Mitchell reminded himself. The proof of her true nature, of her boundless arrogance and audacity, was all around him in the form of a bedroom that belonged to a son he didn’t know, and who did not know him; a son she’d intended to deprive of all contact with
his father—just the way Mitchell had been raised. Those thoughts demolished Mitchell’s pity and toughened his tone as he announced his presence with two curt words: “Hello, Kate.”