Holding On To You (28 page)
Authors: Anne-Marie Hart
At the corner table of a fast food restaurant, within spitting distance of the station lockers, Javier waits, hunched over an already cold hamburger and barely touched fries, his trembling hands stuffed into the pockets of his decade old overcoat. The huge clock that hangs over the entrance to the platforms reads 4:55pm, and the station is as active as he hoped it would be at this time. There are cameras, which he has tried his best to avoid, and since arriving here only ten minutes ago, excusing himself from work on a family matter, not that anyone would have cared anyway, he has done his best to appear normal. To act like someone either waiting for a train, or waiting for someone to get off one, not like someone who is waiting for a ransom payout of a million dollars, for a hostage he doesn't have. Javier can feel his heart beating so strongly in his chest, he wonders if others can hear it too.
The mobile phone sits in his pocket, still turned off, with the battery and the sim card strategically separated, ready to be reconnected as soon as he feels confident that the drop has been made and the station has been cleared.
He has told the police, that he has Maddy in a hotel room nearby, the details of which will be released an hour after he has the money, and is absolutely sure the police aren't following him. After that, Javier intends to return home, hide the money in his house, quit his job and pay for the medical treatment his son desperately needs to get better. He has no idea how ridiculous this plan sounds, nor how impossible it will be to pull off. He thinks that because the police have agreed to his demands, that in fact, Maddy's father has agreed to his demands, it's a sign that all they want is Maddy back, and they will do absolutely anything to ensure that happens, even though he doesn't actually have her. The threats he has made to kill her, if he isn't given an hour to get away from the station, Javier feels have been convincing enough to ensure his success. Despite the immorality of what he has done, and the fact he's sat now, a bundle of nerves waiting for the most important moment of his life, he is proud of what he has done. He is proud of what he is so close to having achieved for his family.
Officer Garland, dressed in plain clothes, and pushing a trolley stacked with two large sports holdall bags, approaches the lockers. There are two other plain clothes officers placed in strategic points on this floor, and two more on the floor above, all with perfect views of the locker area, and most of the station floor.
Javier sees him, instantly knows it's the man he has been waiting for, and although feeling as far from calm as he ever has in his life, he maintains his nerve, sipping slowly on his ice cold coke, and watching with a detached interest, what the plain clothed officer is doing.
Garland hefts the bags off the trolley, and stuffs them one by one into the locker. They are bigger than Javier expected them to be, and seem to only just fit into the space provided. Garland closes the locker door, puts the correct change into the machine, and takes a note of the access code. He looks up, scans the faces of as many people as he can see, and then when he feels as though he's looked enough, he sends the access code as a text message to the cell phone number Javier has provided for him to do so.
The clock on the wall above the entrance to the platforms reads 5pm. Officer Garland puts his mobile phone back into his pocket, and wheels the trolley back to the place he got it from. Javier sits tight. There are several people waiting with whom he catches eyes. Anyone of them could be undercover police officers, and he knows to be wary. A woman smiles at him, another man looks away, a third talks on his mobile phone. Javier smiles when he feels it is necessary, and then looks away again as soon as he can, on to the next, constantly scanning the room, like a camera collecting biometric data.
When he feels that enough time has elapsed, he finishes his coke, wraps the food he hasn't eaten in the box it came in and on the walk to the bathroom, dumps it into a bin. He finds an empty cubicle, locks it and sits down, sweating hard and breathing heavily, despite the coolness of the ambient temperature. With hands that refuse to stop shaking, he rebuilds his mobile phone, and a few moments later, he's staring at an access code to a locker that he thinks contains a million dollars, and the answer to his mountain of problems.
In accordance with what they've discussed, and to save Maddy from having to lie too much, after making sure he's no longer in sight, she heads back into the same dirty restaurant where they had their lunch, praying he's got across the border safely. There, she sits for several hours, sipping slowly at bottles of beer, while the world carries on around her, and the waitress comes up every now and again to see if she's alright. Maddy smiles at her sweetly, as tears run down her cheeks and explode against the table. She tells her she's ok, and that she just needs some time to get used to a new adjustment in her life.
People come and go, the restaurant empties and fills up again and finally Maddy thinks it's time. She takes off her wig, which she places on the table in front of her, and calls the waitress over.
'Can you call the police?' she asks.
'Of course I can sweetie, but what's wrong?' the waitress says, thinking it intrusive if she mentions Maddy's sudden new hairstyle.
'The man I was with, was holding me hostage', Maddy says, plainly. 'He said he'd kill me if I told anyone what happened.'
'Oh my god', the waitress says, sitting down momentarily opposite her, exactly where River was sat only hours before. 'Cal', she calls. 'Cal', she says again, a lot louder this time, when he doesn't respond.
'What', comes the response from the fat man in the dirty apron, scrubbing grease off a hot plate in the kitchen.
'Get the police down here, this woman has been kidnapped', the waitress says. 'What's your name, honey?' the waitress asks Maddy.
Cal wipes his hand on his apron and goes out to take a look. 'Looks alright to me', he says when he sees her sat there, before disappearing back to the small room he came out of.
'I'm Madeleine Parker', she says, holding the woman's eyes.
'Holy shit', the waitress says, seeing it for the first time. 'I'll be going to hell if you aint. Just sit tight there now, don't move a muscle.'
She gets up. 'Cal, for god's sake, this is Madeleine Parker. Get the god damn police down here now.'
Cal peers out from around the kitchen door.
'Did you say Madeleine Parker?' he says. 'The hostage everyone loves to hate?'
'Cal', the waitress shouts, and Cal disappears again, heading for the phone.
Midland Jenkins runs as fast as he can down the empty corridor, tight shoes echoing against the cold stone, the sides of which pinch into his toes. He's not a man built for running, and these shoes aren't build for athletics. He makes it to his destination, out of breath and red faced, and bursts into Frank Giamatti's office without knocking.
Frank is in the middle of a meeting with his superior. Both men are understandably pissed off at the interruption, and look at the flabby form of Jenkins, leaning against the door frame, sweat making his collar damp, with thinly disguised anger. Frank is the first one to speak.
'What the fuck?' he says, rising from his chair.
'Sir. Sorry sir', Midland babbles, his voice nowhere near as suave as it is when heard through a telephone. He gulps down great lungfuls of air while Frank and his superior, a mean looking septuagenarian with a glass eye and thin hateful lips, wait impatiently for what he's about to say.
'We've found her', Midland manages to get out eventually. 'Maddy, we've found her.'
'Fuck', Frank says and bangs his fist on the table, causing his telephone to jump. 'Fuck.'
Frank watches the story unfold on the large TV in the centre of the office. Every other police officer, except officer Garland and his team, who are still at the central train station, watch as police take Maddy from the restaurant and put her in the back of a police car.
'Put me through to them', Frank says angrily to no-one in particular, before walking away from the TV to a desk. 'I want that woman here by nightfall.'
He picks up a phone and gets the operator to patch him through to the relevant police department.
A news reporter standing outside the café, talks to camera.
'It is believed that the kidnapper, the name of whom is still unknown, left Maddy here at the Last Stop Border Café, and disappeared without issue, through the border gates and into Mexico. The police are currently looking through records and CCTV camera footage at the border gates, and we hope to have you updated soon. Maddy is understandably distressed, but considered to be in good shape, despite the events of the last two days.'
In the café, away from the glare of the cameras, and the eyes of the millions of viewers watching, amongst several empty beer bottles and a fifty dollar tip for the waitress, sits Maddy's golden wig, like a washed up jelly fish, a long way from home.
Later that evening, when the police finally manage to connect the dots, an APB is put out for River Woods in conjunction with the Mexican police force. It's the same name that officer Garland still has written on his white board, put there at the start of the investigation, but left uninvestigated due to a lack of available officers, and the same name that's written on a piece of notepaper on his desk, left there earlier that day by Midland Jenkins from a tip off that afternoon by Sally Cannon, who has been watching the news unfold from her French patisserie, fuming that River has been allowed to get away. It is the timing of that information which he decides to conceal from Frank, at the possibility of being held responsible for not bringing it to light earlier, especially as he has every belief, based on his experience with the Mexican police force thus far, that River will not be caught. He's just too low a priority.
After a long car journey back up to her own city, Maddy is handed over to the Albuquerque police department at their request, where she agrees to sit in an interview with Frank Giamatti and Indigo Garland, keen to get the legal formalities out of the way, and back on with her life.
In a cold and clinically well-ordered police interview room, that sends chills down her spine and not because of the temperature, she tells them exactly what has happened over the last two days.
She tells them about the day of the robbery, without mentioning the sleeping arrangements that evening, and how earlier that morning, she was forced by River to buy breakfast alone - a detail Frank needs clarification on - because he wanted to see if he could trust her, (and not because she'd handcuffed him to the bed head and had gone out alone), after which she was allowed to sit in the passenger seat of the car, while River drove them both to the border.
She tells them about the Ferris wheel, with tears in her eyes, and about the stories River told her about his parents. When asked about how he treated her, she says that she was frightened for her life at the very start, as anyone would be, but after that, he treated her like a friend, and not a hostage. That it was clear he didn't have any friends himself, and liked having her around, and how to her, with her basic experience of the matter, it was obvious he had some serious psychological issues.
She makes it clear to them that she doesn't know where he is going, nor would she want to know, and when Frank challenges her, a little bit rougher that she expects, and in accordance with his particular style, which is usually saved for much grizzlier suspects, she begins to break down. Frank seems convinced the two were beginning to develop a bond, however unlikely that might sound, and tries his best to get Maddy to admit to it, but as soon as she bites back, he realises he's overstepped the mark, perhaps hoping to find something that isn't there, through sheer frustration at having a case collapse on him, the perpetrator still at large.
'He kidnapped me, put a gun to my head and took me without my consent', Maddy says enraged by the forcefulness of his questioning, with tears blotting her eyes. 'Afterwards, he treated me politely and with care, but he's not my friend, and I never want to see him again. I hate him for what he did to me. I want my life back and I want you to catch him. Why would I want anything else? Please, put him in jail for what he has done to me.'
Later, when Maddy has settled down and Frank has backed away, Garland asks her about why River left her with the money, confused by his seemingly contradictory motives.
'Because he said he felt guilty for taking it from me. Wouldn't you?', Maddy says, looking him right in the eyes.
Frank's far from happy, but he knows there's little point in grilling her like he would love to, because even if there is more to her story than she's letting on, it's likely enough that she doesn't know where he's gone, and he doesn't want to get another hard time from the press, for treating a former hostage as a current suspect.
As far as he's concerned, and as much as he hates to admit it, the case is now closed for them, handed over to a different police force in an entirely different country, and completely out of his hands. It's not the outcome he wanted, but at least he has the hostage back, although no thanks to his own inept police force. There's nothing else they can do now. The little funding there was will come to an end, as the focus moves to other, more important cases. Garland will write it up, he'll drink a quart of scotch and everyone will move on and forget about it.
