Paying The Piper (11 page)

“Too busy saving yourself to think about what would
help your son, huh?”

“Fuck you.”

“Hey, that’s enough,” Brannon said. “From both of you.”

“I’d like to speak to my wife.” Scott jumped to his feet. “Are we finished here?”

“For now,” Sheils said. Scott stormed out of the interview room.

“What do you think?” Brannon asked.

“None of this adds up. We weren’t brought up here for a ransom drop. I think Scott knows the reason.
There’s something he’s not telling us.”

“Do you want to sweat him?”

“No, I want to see where he leads us. In the meantime, I want his blood tested and his clothes examined. If we find something, we might have what we need to get some truth around here.”

“You really think he’s involved in this?”

“Something’s not right. He did give us one valuable bit of information, though.”

“What’s that?”

“If the Piper is up here screwing with us, and Sammy Fleetwood is elsewhere, that means he isn’t working alone.”

“Or Sammy is already dead.”

Sheils refused to believe that. He wouldn’t have two dead kids on his conscience.

J
ane put the phone down,
missing the cradle, the shakes getting the better of her. The last twenty-four hours had been the worst of her life. Instead of Scott calling to tell her he had Sammy and they were on their way home, Sheils had called to say the Piper had abducted Scott during the ransom drop. The Piper was tearing her world apart. Scott wasn’t the only one being punished here—she was too. When Scott had escaped, a piece of her had been returned, but it wasn’t enough. She had put on a brave face for Peter and the FBI, even Scott, but the moment she was alone, she felt the fabric of her identity unravel one thread at a time. She clutched herself to keep the remaining threads intact.

Peter picked up the handset and replaced it. He was such a quiet kid. Jane worried about him. He was keeping things from her, just like his father. But it was different with Peter. He lived inside his head. A lot went on in there that he didn’t share. She wondered if she should take him to a shrink. Under these circumstances, it might prove to be a good thing. The kidnapping of his father and brother had to be taking its toll on him.

And what of Sammy? He was alive. She truly believed that. She had no doubt that she’d see her son again. Her only fear was how this ordeal would affect him. There would be psychological wounds. But wounds of all kinds could be healed. She’d heal him. If that meant the whole family going into therapy, then so be it. Her family would survive this. She’d see to it.

“When will Daddy be home?” Peter asked.

“Late tonight.”

“Can I stay up?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Disappointment masked his face.

“But I’ll wake you.”

Peter smiled, but it didn’t last. “When’s Sammy coming home?”

Jane was tempted to lie, but it
wasn’t a time for Band-Aid answers. “I don’t know, honey.”

Her answer attracted Agent Guerra’s attention. Jane had grown to like this woman. She was smart and thoughtful, someone Jane would be friends with outside of this ordeal. Guerra stopped her work at her laptop and came over.

“Hey, Peter, I’ve got a job for you. You want it?”

“Yeah.”

She held up a menu and a pen. “I need you to get everyone’s dinner order.”

Peter snatched the menu and the pen and rushed off with it.

“He’s a great kid,” Guerra said.

“So’s his brother.” Jane realized how bitter her remark sounded, and she softened her tone. “What do you think will happen now? The Piper has his money. He doesn’t need Sammy anymore.”

“I think we’re in the homestretch now. I’m sure the Piper will be in contact to tell us where to pick him up.”

Peter came trotting back. It hadn’t taken long for him to go around to the handful of agents in the house. Sheils had left only a skeleton crew to watch over them while he carried out the money drop in Oregon. Jane liked the relative peace in the house. Even the TV crews had started losing interest. Their vigil had dwindled since Scott had left for Oregon.

Peter presented Guerra the
annotated menu with everyone’s meal selections. Guerra added her own. Jane said she’d be cooking for Peter and herself, but when Peter complained, she relented and let him pick something off the menu.

Guerra rang in the order, and Peter sparkled when a burger the size of his head arrived. As Jane had expected, he didn’t come close to finishing it. It was a waste of food, but it gave him a boost. The same couldn’t be said of Jane’s salad. She only picked at it. The food couldn’t distract her. Why hadn’t they heard from the Piper? He’d been paid. He’d had his fun. Now it was time to give Sammy back.

But he didn’t call.

Around nine, Rooker called. “Just checking in. Any news?”

“They’re on their way home and should be here in a few hours.”

“That’s good. I’m sorry I haven’t made it over to you today. Duty calls and all that, but I can come by now.”

The man’s compassion after all that had happened to him left her breathless. She doubted she could be so forgiving or generous. Their families were entwined, but for all the wrong reasons.

“No, it’s okay, Charles. I don’t plan on staying up much later. I’m hoping tonight is the night I get some sleep.”

“Okay, I’ll leave you to your houseguests. Are they behaving?”

Jane smiled. “Yes. They’re very tidy.”

Rooker laughed. “Good. I’ll drop by in the morning.”

Jane thanked him, said good night, and hung up.

Peter was nestled up against Guerra on the couch, asleep. Guerra was lost in a paperback, a political thriller judging by the cover, and was absently stroking his hair.

Jane got up. “I’ll relieve you of my little package.”

“Oh, he’s fine,” Guerra said.

Jane knelt in front of her sleeping son. He slept peacefully. She took comfort from this. Maybe he would come through this trauma unscathed.

“I think someone is having his first
crush,” Jane said.

Guerra laughed softly. “I’m flattered.”

Peter stirred when Jane scooped him up in her arms, but didn’t wake. She carried him up to his room and put him to bed. She went to bed herself when two of the agents ended their shifts and left, leaving Guerra and Shultz, a cordial but tight-lipped agent.

Jane brought one of Sammy’s T-shirts to bed and held it to her face, needing his scent close to her. She’d been doing this since the day of his abduction, and without Scott alongside her to comfort her, she needed the T-shirt even more.

She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep until the sound of a heavy thud woke her. She sat up in bed, not sure whether the noise had occurred in her sleep or the real world. She listened to the house. The digital alarm clock hummed on the nightstand. A car raced by outside. A wind driven by the Pacific pressed against the windows. Instead of soothing her, these familiar sounds scared her more.

She listened for Guerra and Shultz but didn’t hear anything. She wanted to call out to the agents, but a sixth sense stopped her. Something wasn’t right.

She slipped from her bed and went to the door. She listened for a moment before carefully opening it. It clicked when she eased it back.

Someone gasped from behind her.

She froze. For a fractured heartbeat, she thought the person was in the room with her, but the gasp was a facsimile. The answer drove a fist into the pit of her stomach.

She turned in the direction of the baby monitor sitting on the nightstand. Peter had objected when she’d dug them out the day after Sammy’s kidnapping.

“I don’t want you worrying about calling for us,” she’d told him, but she’d gotten the baby monitors out for her. Listening to her sons’ breathing at night had always soothed her as
a new mother, and she needed comforting now.

When she’d woken, she’d listened for a sound out of the ordinary, but she hadn’t listened for a familiar sound—the sound of Peter’s breathing and night mumbles. She didn’t hear his breathing now. A noise, a combination of a cry, sob, and howl, left her.

“Jane? Is that you?” a voice crackled on the baby monitor’s speaker.

She didn’t recognize the voice without its electronic disguise, but she knew who it belonged to. The Piper was in the house. Maybe he was here to return Sammy. It was a lie she would have liked to believe. The Piper didn’t return things—he took them.

“Sorry, Jane, I hoped not to wake you.”

She held her belly where she’d grown her babies.

“Please don’t cry out. I want to execute my business with the minimum of fuss. Besides, screaming won’t help you. Or Peter. I’ve given him a little something to let him sleep.”

She wasn’t going to cry. She wouldn’t give the son of a bitch the satisfaction, but she couldn’t help herself. Tears poured out.

“Come to Peter’s room, please.”

She eased back the door and stepped into the hallway. Halfway up the stairs lay Guerra, facedown and still. Jane now knew the cause of the thud that had woken her. She guessed Shultz was somewhere in the house in a similar condition.

“She’s not seriously hurt,” the Piper said from the doorway to Peter’s room. “I’m not here for that. Now, this way.”

Dressed in black with a ski mask hiding his face, he was a shadow in the night. Jane approached, and he retreated into the room, a pistol aimed at her stomach. He told her to stop when she reached the room’s threshold. Peter lay on the bed, the covers pulled back. Still in his pajamas, he was also wearing his sneakers. Jane understood and anger burned inside her.

“You’re not taking him.”

“Jane, this isn’t a negotiation. Out of
respect, I wanted you to know that I’m taking your son.”

Infuriated, Jane charged at him. There was no grace or design to her attack, just raw fury. The Piper dealt with her easily. He waited until the last second to sidestep her flailing arms and brought the butt of the pistol down on the back of her neck. The blow failed to knock her out, but it chopped her legs out from under her. Her momentum sent her crashing into Sammy’s empty bed. She bounced off the mattress and onto the floor.

The Piper moved in before she had time to recover. He yanked her hands together and hiked them up until he reached the point of dislocating her shoulder. He pressed a knee into her back, pinning her to the ground.

“Please, don’t force me to hurt you further.”

“No, you’re not taking him,” Jane moaned. “Take me, but leave him.”

“It doesn’t work like that, and you know it.”

“Why?”

“Scott. He failed me again.”

“You knew the FBI was here. We did everything right.”

“You’re not listening, Jane. The FBI, you, and the media are all doing your part. It’s Scott who fell down on the job. I gave him a simple task to do, and he screwed it up. Now, he must pay the price.”

“Not Peter.”

“Peter is the price. But all is not lost. Scott can recover from his mistake.”

“No,” Jane said, the word coming out in a protracted sob. This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be happening again, but it was and she couldn’t prevent it. The rage that fueled her turned to misery and sucked the strength from her limbs.

“I’m going to let you up now.”

The Piper released her arms and removed his
knee from her back. She pushed herself onto all fours.

“Please remain on your knees and don’t look behind you.”

Jane did as she was told. She felt him move in behind her, totally in her blind spot, and press something hard and cold against her neck.

She faced Peter asleep in his bed, his chest rising and falling. No doubt the Piper had choreographed her position this way so that Peter was in full view. She guessed this was supposed to frighten her, but the Piper’s plan backfired. If the sight of her sleeping son was to be her final image on his planet, then so be it. To her, there was no better sight.

Jane fought her need to cry, but failed. Peter’s still form melted as her tears clouded her vision.

“Just know Scott is to blame for this,” the Piper said.

Before Jane could ask why, a bolt of pain shot through her, and darkness flooded in to sweep Peter away.

S
cott burst through the door. An army of FBI agents
filled the downstairs rooms of his house. None made any move to restrain him.

“Where is she?”

“In the bedroom.”

Scott tore up the stairs. Sheils yelled after him, but he ignored the agent.

They’d been so close. So close to making it home before the Piper had struck again. Their convoy was tearing through Vacaville when the call had come through that the Piper had snatched Peter. It had taken thirty minutes to cover the fifty miles, but it was all for naught. It didn’t change anything. Peter was gone.

The bedroom door was closed. He didn’t bother knocking before barging his way in.

She was sitting on the bed while two agents attended to her. They stopped when Scott appeared in the doorway.

“Thank God, you’re okay,” he said.

“The Piper just tasered and sedated everyone,” an agent said.

Jane shoved the agents aside. She raced toward Scott with her arms out. Scott halted his approach. Jane wasn’t coming to him in need of an embrace. There was no time to ask
questions before she smashed into him.

“What did you do?” she screamed and slapped him hard across the face. “What did you do? He said you didn’t do what he told you. That was why he took Peter.”

His mind whirled. What had the Piper told her? If he’d told her everything, it was game over. Sheils would find out, and there was no way he could help Sammy and Peter. The Piper’s next call would direct them to a quiet spot at Golden Gate Park. Was that why the bastard hadn’t called with his next instructions during the drive back to California? He couldn’t answer Jane’s questions until he knew what the Piper had divulged.

She struck him again, this time harder. His face burned white-hot with shame. He felt the afterglow of her handprint on his cheek.

His standing there, just taking the abuse, did nothing to diffuse her anger. Instead, it poured gasoline on an already raging fire. Her hands balled into fists. She pounded on his chest until the agents peeled her from him.

“What exactly did he say, Mrs. Fleetwood?” Sheils said from the doorway.

Guerra came up to Scott. “Are you okay?”

He nodded and sank into the love seat by the window.

“He said Scott was to blame for tonight.” Jane stared at Scott while she answered. The hatred on her face forced him to look away.

Sheils took Jane’s arm and guided her to the corner of the bed, where she sat down. “What else did he say?”

“That Scott had a simple task to do and he screwed it up.”

“What is he talking about?” Sheils asked Scott.

Just like the Piper to call killing Redfern a simple task
, Scott thought. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Sheils said.

“You must, Scott,” Jane demanded. “You did something to
cause this.”

“I did everything he told me to do.” He jumped to his feet. “He’s not looking for reasons to punish me—he’s looking for excuses. If I don’t jump when he says jump, then I fail his test.”

He hadn’t said an untrue word, and the honesty burned bright when he spoke, protecting the lie for now. He had to maintain the pretense until the Piper called again.

His outburst took the sting out of Jane. The tension in her body that kept her knotted on the corner of the bed unraveled.

“You must be missing something, Scott,” she said, her tone pleading. “You must know. Think.”

There was something he could say to buy him time. It would keep Sheils off his back and pull Jane back to him. He hated that he was manipulating these people, especially Jane, but he had no choice.

“I escaped,” he said. “The Piper had the ransom, Sammy wasn’t anywhere close, and he wasn’t going to let me go, so I escaped. I never thought he’d take Peter because of it.”

This explanation left the room quiet for a long moment while Jane, Sheils, and his minions absorbed the information. Scott wondered if they were buying it. Jane seemed to be. The warmth was returning to her face as she looked at him. Sheils remained poker-faced. Scott could have walked himself into a trap and wouldn’t even know it.

“Did the Piper say anything else?” Sheils asked.

“That Scott could make up for his mistake.” Jane forced out a weak smile.

Scott smiled back. A second chance. The Piper was giving him a second chance, but he’d doubled the stakes. There’d be another challenge. Get it right, and Sammy and Peter would live. Get it wrong, and he’d surely kill them both.

Sheils examined Scott with a look that could blunt diamonds. “Did he say how Scott could do this?”

That was Scott’s question too. Redfern was
dead. He couldn’t kill a dead man. No, the Piper had a new challenge lined up. That was why Sammy wasn’t at the ransom drop. Redfern was never the end game for the Piper. When Scott looked back on everything so far, he cursed himself for being so blind. It had been child’s play to find Redfern, so much so that the Piper, with all his skills and resources, could have tracked him down years ago and put a bullet in his head. Redfern was only the appetizer. The Piper had been preparing Scott for the main event. But what was it?

“No,” Jane said. “That’s all he said.”

Sheils turned to Scott. “Got any ideas?”

Maybe the main event wasn’t a what, but a who. Redfern and Scott weren’t the only flies in the Piper’s ointment. Sheils was responsible too. He’d been suckered into Redfern’s fantasy as much as Scott had. If the FBI agent had recognized Redfern for the hoaxer he was, then everything could have been recovered in time for the money drop to be made and Nicholas to be returned safe and sound, but he’d failed, just like Scott. Was the Piper’s next call going to tell Scott to kill Sheils? Sheils had a family of his own, and he’d never done anything but try to help. Scott would die for his boys if the Piper decided that was the ransom to be paid, but could he kill Sheils?

He knew the truth. If the call came ordering Sheils’s death to save his boys, he would do it. He wouldn’t hesitate.

Scott shook his head. “Not until he calls.”