Shady Cross (11 page)

“Ummmm . . .”

Shit. She didn’t know. He heard the kidnapper say, “Gimme that,” at the same moment he thought he heard Amanda blurt, “Laundro—” At least he
thought
she said that. He wasn’t sure.

“What the hell was that all about?” the kidnapper asked.

“Just making sure Amanda’s OK, telling her I’ll see her soon.”

“Didn’t sound like that.”

“Look, this is almost over, right? I’ll take care of the money. You take care of my daughter. Everybody will get what they want. OK?”

After a moment of silence, the kidnapper said, “Talk to you in an hour,” and ended the call.

A Laundromat. Shady Cross had a few that Stokes knew of, but only one had a faded billboard he’d seen somewhere around town declaring it to be the only twenty-four-hour Laundromat in Shady Cross. So Laund-R-Rama was where he needed to be at one-thirty. He hoped. If he’d heard Amanda right, and if Amanda had been correct, that’s where he had to be to get the kidnapper’s phone call.

Stokes looked at Martinson. Still napping.

“Is Amanda all right?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Is she OK?”

“Yeah, I talked to her. She sounded fine.”

“You said something about getting her to a doctor.”

“She’s fine, Nancy, really. She bumped her knee and she’s crying about that. I told her a doctor would make it better to give her something else to think about other than her situation.” She seemed to buy that so Stokes continued. “Now listen, did you know your ex-husband had three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in an account for your daughter?”

“What? Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Are you sure?”

“Trust me.”

“My God, no, I didn’t. I had no idea he had that kind of money. He’s an accountant. Makes eighty thousand a year.”

An accountant? Stokes nodded, thinking. It was starting to make sense.

“Did Paul ever talk about his clients?”

“His clients? Which ones?”

“Did he ever give you the idea that he was keeping the books for questionable people?”

She was thinking. “Like criminals?”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah, maybe he hinted that he had at least one client like that. He wasn’t very happy about it, but it’s hard to turn down paying clients, you know?”

“He say who it was?”

She shook her head. Stokes frowned. Jenkins was probably into something illegal. Either he helped out with some creative accounting and was rewarded well for it, or he stupidly cooked the books and tried to hide a hell of a lot of money from the wrong people. They were certain he had $350,000, so he must have stolen at least that much from the kidnappers. Paul simply got his hand caught in the cookie jar, and they wanted their cookies back. Every last crumb.

“Paul ever tell you about important files he kept somewhere, somewhere other than his house?”

Nancy shook her head. “Anything not at his house would be at his office.”

“That’s what I figured. Where’s that?”

“The Emerson Building downtown.”

“I don’t suppose you have a key to his office there?” Stokes asked without much hope. Why would Paul’s ex-wife have that?

“No, sorry. Besides, you couldn’t get in there, even with a key, unless you also had the accounting firm’s office security code. Without that you can’t get past the reception area on the firm’s floor.”

Stokes shook his head. The Emerson Building was one of the newer buildings in Shady Cross. It had alarm systems and security guards. That was a dead end. If Jenkins kept the evidence there and had planned to pick it up later, Stokes wasn’t going to get his hands on it.

“Nancy, do you own a computer?”

“Sure.”

“Go get me a computer disk, OK? I don’t care if it’s blank.”

She hurried off down the hall. Stokes looked over at the unconscious cop. He was going to have to do something about the guy. But what? He couldn’t leave him here with Nancy. She might be inclined to free him, perhaps worrying that she might get into trouble herself if she kept him bound, which she would. And even if she didn’t free him, he’d certainly have radioed in his location before he came to the door. Other cops would be coming when they didn’t hear from him. No, Stokes couldn’t leave him here. Which meant he had to take him with him. Which meant he’d be kidnapping an officer of the law. Kidnapping is a serious goddamn crime. Kidnapping a cop is probably ten times worse. Oh, man, things were spinning out of control.

Who the hell was he kidding? He’d never had a single thing under control tonight.

Still seated on the coffee table, he leaned over, grabbed his backpack off the floor, and slung it over his shoulder. He’d take it out to Bobby’s pickup, pull the vehicle into the driveway, right up to the house, and dump Martinson in back. As soon as this was all over, he’d let the cop go and pray the guy had never gotten a decent look at his face.

Nancy returned and handed him a silver object, the length of his little finger.

“This OK?” she asked.

“What is it?”

“A thumb drive.” He stared at her blankly. “It’s like a computer disk.”

“Oh.” He stuck the drive into a pocket of the backpack. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he started toward the door.

“Wait . . .” She looked worried.

“I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He pushed the cop away from the door and hurried outside. When he came back after stowing the bag in the truck and moving the vehicle into the driveway, Nancy was standing in the living room in a tight pair of jeans and a sweatshirt the same shade as her baby blue eyes.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“The hell you are.”

“The hell I’m not. How do I know you’re not going to decide to just take off with the money?”

“I could have done that hours ago and saved myself a shitload of trouble.”

“Yeah, but how do I know you’re not going to change your mind? No offense, but there’s too much at stake for me to trust you. Amanda’s my daughter, not yours.”

Letting her come along would be a bad idea. But she was right. Why should she trust him? And even if she did at first, she might start to get antsy and call the cops after all. She didn’t know how serious the kidnappers were, and he wasn’t about to show her the videos of Amanda being maimed to prove it.

“All right,” he said. “But you have to listen to me. And do what I say. If I tell you to stay out of the way, you do it. Got it?”

She nodded. “I just want to get her back safe.”

He was starting to get a headache.

“Help me carry this guy to the garage.”

Stokes took the cop’s arms and Nancy took his legs and they half carried, half dragged him down the hall, then down three concrete steps into the garage. Nancy hit a button and the garage door cranked open. Stokes had backed the truck right up to the door. He grabbed a canvas tarp he spotted on a shelf and folded it under the cop’s head. No reason to give the guy a concussion if the drive got a little rough. Finally, he pulled the cop’s car keys from his pocket and slipped them into his own. He didn’t want Martinson to try to use them as a weapon or to slice through his bonds.

They hurried back inside. Stokes grabbed the bag of money and the cop’s utility belt—complete with gun, baton, pepper spray, and the like—and headed for the garage again. Nancy went down the hall.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. “Just grabbing a few things.”

Stokes walked through the garage, slid behind the wheel of the truck, and dropped the bag of money and the cop’s belt on the floor of the cab. He briefly considered taking off before Nancy returned, hoping he could trust her not to do anything to jeopardize Amanda’s life. He didn’t want to put her in danger, too, by bringing her along. But Amanda was her daughter. The choice was hers. Besides, she might even help out somehow. You never know. Plus, she was nice to look at.

A minute later, she appeared at the passenger-side window, a small duffel bag hanging on her shoulder.

“What’s in there?” he asked.

“A few things. Extra clothes for Amanda, my wallet, a flashlight. I even grabbed a first aid kit.”

“You must have been a Girl Scout.” He had a mental flash of her in the uniform, but filling it out as she would now.

“I didn’t know what we might need,” she said, “so I just grabbed whatever I thought might be useful.”

“Good thinking. Listen, it won’t be fun for you, but I think you should ride in the back. If he wakes up, bang on my window.”

“What will you do?”

“Beats the hell out of me. But I’ll have to do something, right?”

She threw her bag into the bed and climbed in after it. When she was settled, Stokes pulled out of the driveway. Again, the irony in this situation was evident to him. To get one kidnapping victim back, he’d kidnapped someone else. A cop, no less. The poor guy was just doing his job and didn’t really deserve a knot on the back of his skull, the headache he was going to wake up with, or, when he did wake up, having to do so in the bed of a pickup truck, bound and gagged. On the other hand, the guy
was
a cop, so Stokes’s sympathy didn’t run too deep.

Stokes hadn’t figured out exactly where he was going, only that he had to get away from Nancy’s house. Martinson hadn’t been awake to check in with his dispatcher so the rest of the cops would get suspicious soon. Stokes had briefly considered taking the cop’s car, but realized that it probably had a LoJack-type device, a transponder or something that would tell the authorities exactly where it was, and therefore, where
he
was. So he stuck with Bobby’s truck and tried to put some distance between them and Nancy’s house, all the while considering his options.

He couldn’t come up with any good ones.

SIXTEEN

9:36 P.M.

STOKES DROVE OUT OF NANCY’S
neighborhood. Within a few minutes they were traveling along a road with a few scattered houses, not truly part of any neighborhood, just houses lined up along the road. He didn’t have much of a plan. He figured he’d stash the cop in the woods somewhere, someplace fairly remote. If he got the chance later, he’d call the police and tell them where to find their buddy. Every once in a while as he drove he’d lean a little so he could see Nancy in his rearview mirror, and every now and then the moonlight hit her and he’d realize that she was even prettier now than when he first saw her, the moonlight bathing her face, the wind whipping her hair into a yellow storm. He let himself fantasize for a moment about how beautifully this could end. He saves the girl. He’s a hero. She loves him for it and they live happily ever after. Perfect. And pure fantasy—one he wasn’t even completely certain he’d want to come true. He hadn’t done such a great job of settling down the first time he’d tried it.

Without warning, he hit the brakes, jerked the wheel, and bounced up a driveway. He looked at the house illuminated in his headlights. Windows completely dark. The place was small, didn’t even have a garage, and there were no cars in the driveway or on the street out front. It was the “For Sale” sign on the lawn that attracted him. It looked to Stokes like the owners had moved out before they could sell. He got out of the truck and peered in a front window. No furniture. And no alarm system he could see. A realtor’s lockbox for the house key hanging on the front-door knob. Stokes looked to his left, then his right, and saw that the houses on either side of this one were each a good fifty yards away. This would work.

He drove the truck around the back of the house, parked it, and got out.

“He didn’t wake up?”

“Slept like a big baby,” Nancy said.

Without the wind blowing her hair around, it hung shapelessly. She didn’t bother to fix it, which Stokes liked about her. Just a quick shake of her head to clear stray strands from her eyes. She looked tired, though. And worried.

“She’ll be OK,” he said. “I promise.”

She smiled a small smile and nodded.

“Wait here a second.”

Stokes walked over to the house and, as quietly as he could, smashed a windowpane on the back door with a rock. If he’d had his lock picks with him, he could have been neater about it. And quieter. He knocked out the glass shards that remained in the opening, then reached through and unlocked the door from the inside. He walked back to the truck, reached into the cab, took Martinson’s gun from its holster, and stuck it into the back of his jeans.

“Think you’ll need that?” Nancy asked.

“Hope to hell I don’t, but I’d rather have it if I do.”

Together, he and Nancy slid Martinson to the end of the truck bed, where Stokes bent down so they could work the unconscious cop onto Stokes’s shoulder. His back was starting to ache from all the people-lugging he’d been doing.

Stokes carried the guy, all two-hundred-or-so pounds of him, into the dark house, down a dark hall, and into a dark bedroom, which he made darker by pulling down the window shades after depositing Martinson on the floor. His shoulders throbbed. His legs burned. He went back into the hall and was nearly to the back door when he heard sounds coming from inside the house. When he reached the bedroom again he found that Martinson had woken up and was struggling ferociously against his bonds, grunting like an angry, desperate wild animal into his gag. When he heard Stokes’s footsteps, he tipped his head back, trying to see underneath his blindfold.

Stokes deepened his voice in an improvised and somewhat pathetic attempt to disguise it and said, “Stop that.”

The cop didn’t. He grunted louder as he strained to break free.

Stokes added, “I’ve got your gun and it’s pointed at your balls, so shut up or you lose your boys.”

The gun was still in the back of his jeans but the cop didn’t know that, so he shut up and stopped struggling.

“Listen, Officer,” Stokes said in a quiet, faux-deep voice, “this seems like a shit situation, but it isn’t as bad as you think. I don’t want to hurt you. I will if I have to, but I don’t want to. Why, you ask? Well, I’ve got nothing against you personally, except the fact that you’re a cop, but that’s not enough to make me want to hurt you. Also, I know I’m in deep shit for this and I don’t need the added trouble that hurting you more than I already have will bring. You understand?”

Martinson tilted his head up, again trying to see under the bottom of his blindfold. That was good, Stokes realized, because it probably meant he hadn’t gotten a look at Stokes’s face earlier. Of course, he might have simply been trying to figure out where he was, assessing his situation.

“Now,” Stokes continued, “I’m gonna leave you here for a little bit, a couple of hours at most, then I’ll let your police pals know where to find you. I just need you out of the way for a while, that’s all.”

Martinson shook his head and tried to speak.

“I don’t really want to hear what you have to say, Officer, and I don’t have time to explain this any better. So that’s the situation. Deal with it.”

Stokes appraised the cop.

“Sorry about this,” he said as he used another plastic tie to secure the cop’s wrist bond to his ankle bond. He figured the guy might be able to scoot around the floor a little if he tried hard enough, but hog-tied as he was now, he wouldn’t be able to stand or open the door, which Stokes was going to close. He might free himself eventually, but it would probably take a while and Stokes only had to make it through another few hours. Satisfied, he headed back outside.

Nancy was sitting in the passenger seat of the truck with the door open. Her duffel bag was in her lap. His bag of money was between her feet.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

He looked at the backpack on the floor. The flap was closed but not fastened. He reached in and picked the bag up by a strap.

“Did you look in here?”

She hesitated. “I had to see it.” She paused. Stokes waited. “It’s what caused all this,” she added. “It’s what put Amanda in danger. I wanted to see it, that’s all.”

Stokes nodded. “Well, it’s what’s going to save her now,” he said, wishing he felt as confident as he tried to sound.

He started for the driver’s door.

“Was that him?” Nancy asked suddenly.

“What?”

“Was that the cop making that noise?”

“What noise?”

“It just came from inside the house. Glass breaking maybe?”

“Shit, I’ll be right back.” Stokes slung the bag over his shoulder and headed for the house.

“Toss me the keys. I’ll start the truck and turn it around.”

“Just give me a second.” He ran into the house and through it until he came to the door to the bedroom where he’d left the cop. It was still closed. Maybe the guy had slipped out of some of his bonds somehow. Or maybe all of them. Maybe he was waiting just inside the room, waiting to take Stokes down the second he stepped into it. To hell with it, Stokes thought. He didn’t have time for this. He kicked the door open and saw Martinson right where he’d left him, though his gag was starting to slip. Stokes walked over to secure it better. He knelt down and untied the gag, intending to slap it right back on him, tied tighter this time. As soon as the gag was out, Martinson said, “I don’t have to tell you, buddy, that you’re in a mess of trouble.”

“No,” Stokes said, “you don’t.”

“So why don’t you cut me free now?”

“Sorry, I’ve still got some work to do.”

“You’re really screwed, pal, you know that? You’re going to prison for a long time.”

“Yeah, I know.”

They were silent for a moment. Stokes looked at his watch: 9:44 p.m.

“Here’s the thing, Officer. I’d love to end this. I’d love to let you go. It sure as hell wasn’t in my plans to have to bring you along, stash you here. But I’m doing something important tonight and I can’t have you screwing it up. You’re not gonna believe this, but I’m trying to do something good. And it’s not even illegal. I’m trying to help someone. A little kid.”

“What are you talking about?”

Stokes probably shouldn’t say anything, especially given that this cop theoretically could be the kidnappers’ inside source in the police department. But Martinson wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so it couldn’t hurt if Stokes shared a little. Besides, if the guy wasn’t on the kidnappers’ payroll, and if he believed Stokes, maybe they’d go easier on him when they arrested him later.

“A little girl’s been kidnapped,” Stokes said. “I gotta get her back.”

Martinson seemed to be thinking that over, probably trying to decide whether it was total bullshit.

“Who’s the little girl?”

“Just a kid. I don’t know her. Never even met her.”

“Then why are you trying to help her? Just a Good Samaritan?”

“Not me. And don’t ask me why. I’m not completely sure myself, but I have my suspicions.”

Martinson tipped his head back again, trying to see Stokes.

“Stop that,” Stokes ordered.

“How do you plan to get her back?”

“Give the kidnappers the money they want.”

“How much?”

“Almost two hundred fifty thousand, three fifty if I can manage it.”

Martinson snorted and Stokes knew he thought he was getting snowed. “Where are you gonna get that kind of money?”

“I already have most of it. Got it from the girl’s father. He had the money with him when he had a car accident.”

Martinson shook his head.

“I don’t care if you believe me, but the kid’s dad died today. You got kids, Officer?”

The cop said nothing.

“Come on, you got kids?”

“One son.”

“You love him to death, right? Tuck him in at night, read him stories, all that stuff?”

“None of your business.”

“What? You don’t love him? You don’t tuck him in?”

The cop hesitated. “He lives with his mother.”

“Oh. You probably have pictures of him everywhere, little drawings he made at school hanging on your fridge, all that stuff, right?” Stokes thought about all the photos of Amanda at Jenkins’s house.

Martinson nodded. “All over my house. What’s your point?”

“You’d do anything for him, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, this kid’s dad would have done anything for her, but he’s dead. I’m stepping in. Somebody’s got to.”

Stokes reached for the gag.

“Wait,” Martinson said quickly.

Stokes paused.

“If this is true, call the police. This is our job, not yours. It isn’t your problem.”

“Yeah, I keep telling myself that.”

“So call them. They can help.”

“I can’t do that,” Stokes said.

“Why not?”

He thought about the video of the kidnapper cutting off Amanda’s finger. And he thought about how the kidnappers knew very quickly that Jenkins’s car had been found and that Jenkins hadn’t been. “The kidnappers have a source with the cops. They say they’ll kill the girl if anyone goes to the authorities.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true. I know it for a fact. The kid’s dad already tried it, and they cut off one of her fingers. They say they have someone with the police and the FBI, too. I’m actually not sure whether the father called you guys or the Feds, but I know the kidnappers cut off her finger because of it. I’m not going to make the same mistake.”

Martinson was silent for a moment. Probably wondering whether it was possible that one of his fellow cops was that dirty. He thought for quite a while, so he clearly didn’t reject the idea out of hand.

“Listen,” he said, “cut me loose. If you’re not lying, I’ll forget all of this. We’ll get the girl back, just you and me, and I’ll forget this ever happened. I swear to God.”

Stokes wished he could believe him.

Martinson added, “If what you say is true, that little girl is counting on you. Don’t try to cowboy your way through this. Don’t do it alone. Let me help.”

He seemed completely sincere. But though the odds were against it, it was still possible that Martinson was the kidnappers’ inside man. And even if he wasn’t, there was a good chance that as soon as he was cut loose, he’d try to arrest Stokes. So as much as Stokes wanted to believe the guy, as much as he would have liked to have the cop’s help in all this, he just couldn’t take the chance.

“Sorry,” he said as he lifted the gag and fitted it snugly into place in Martinson’s mouth. As he made sure it was tight, the cop continued to plead with him. He didn’t seem to be pleading for his own sake, though; rather, he seemed to want more than anything to help save Amanda Jenkins. Confident that Martinson wouldn’t be heard if he tried calling for help, Stokes stood.

He paused. Something bothered him, something the cop had said. He wasn’t sure what, though. He heard a sound behind him and turned. Nancy walked through the door.

“What’s taking so long in here?” she asked.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong, something he was missing.

She bent down and picked up the backpack he’d left on the floor. “I’ve got this,” she said. “You almost ready to go?”

He hesitated. Something wasn’t right.

Nancy looked at him with those beautiful eyes, and then he had it.

“Yeah, let’s go,” he said. “I’ll take the money.”

He held his hand out for the bag. Nancy was starting to hand it to him when she suddenly shifted her eyes past Stokes, to where Martinson was supposed to be sitting on the floor, and said, “You better sit back down.” And Stokes, feeling like a fool almost the instant he began to turn to check on Martinson, felt a sudden, solid blow to the back of his head. The room jerked to the side of his vision, then disappeared from his sight altogether, along with everything else.