“It was a defense mechanism. He’s a mama’s boy. Mommy didn’t show up at his wedding, and she didn’t come running to his side when the band started playing ‘There Goes the Bride.’ Instead of accepting the fact that the old Mrs. Gibbs doesn’t give two shits about the new Mrs. Gibbs, Jamie would rather convince himself that his mother was the victim of foul play.”
“Or he was trying to convince us that she’s a victim so we won’t look at her as a suspect.”
“Is she a suspect?” I said.
“She has a motive.”
“And we have an eyewitness who ID’d Bobby Dodd with Erin,” I said.
“What if Bobby and Mom are in this together?”
It didn’t make a lot of sense, but when you’re trying to solve a crime, logic doesn’t always apply. I’ve seen more than a few preposterous theories turn out to be right. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s say Mom and Bobby are in cahoots. Make a case for it.”
Kylie smiled. Unraveling a mystery was as much a passion as it was her job. “All right,” she said. “We know that Bobby is obsessed with Erin. They’re soul mates, destined to be together forever. He loves her. He’s not going to kill her. So he needs a place to hide her long term. Do you think he’s going to chain her to a pipe in some rat-infested basement?”
“I’ve tried it,” I said. “The girls are never impressed, especially the ones, like Erin, who are accustomed to much finer accommodations. Bobby is definitely going to have to step up and spring for a five-star hidey-hole.”
The joke fell flat. She kept going, hell-bent on making her point.
“Zach, you read McMaster’s file on Dodd. He hasn’t had a real job in years. He’s got no credit history to speak of. I don’t know what kind of cash flow he has, but judging by that rented room he was living in, it can’t be much.
“Kidnapping someone like Erin is expensive. Planning it, executing it, keeping her well fed, well taken care of, and under wraps for an undetermined amount of time—you can’t run that kind of operation on a shoestring. It takes a lot of money to become invisible. And Dodd is a loner, so it’s not like he has a best friend bankrolling his obsession.”
“So you’re suggesting that he found an unlikely friend who saw Bobby as a way to get rid of Erin and who has the resources and motive to do it?”
“Exactly,” Kylie said. “Veronica Gibbs.”
“Interesting theory. Can I shoot one little dart at it?”
“You can try.”
“A lot of people online are pointing fingers at Veronica. Jamie brushed that off, saying that if his mother had orchestrated it, Erin would have been taken long before the wedding. It makes sense.”
“Don’t you see the brilliance in that?” she said. “That’s like Jamie saying, ‘My mom couldn’t possibly have stolen your Mercedes. She only steals American cars.’ We can’t ignore Veronica just because the kidnapping didn’t go down the way Jamie wants us to think she would do it.”
“We’re not ignoring her. We may not have a shred of evidence connecting her to the kidnapper, but she’s at the top of the list of people who would like to see Erin disappear. We’re definitely talking to her.”
“No time like the present.”
“Fine with me,” I said. “I’ll call McMaster and find out where she lives.”
“Don’t bother,” Kylie said, pulling up to a hydrant in front of a building at Ninety-Second and Park. “We’re there.”
CHAPTER 16
That was fast,” I said, opening the car door. “It’s like you read my mind.”
“I figured you really didn’t want to go back to the barn and watch a bunch of other cops try to crack this case before we do,” Kylie said. “Plus we owe it to Jamie to find out if his mother’s been kidnapped.”
The doorman assured us that Mrs. Gibbs was alive and well. “She’s expecting you,” he said.
“She’s expecting us?” Kylie said.
“Well, yeah. Her assistant rang down and told me the cops would be showing up. I mean, you’re here about the whole Erin Easton thing, right?”
“We’re in a hurry,” Kylie said, not answering the question.
“Right. Mrs. Gibbs is in penthouse A and B. You want to go to A, which is the office. B is her private residence. It’s off-limits. Like at the White House,” he added in case we didn’t get the point. “I’ll ring up and let them know you’re on the way.”
The elevator was manned. The operator nodded politely but said nothing as we rode up. It was a lonely job, especially on the graveyard shift, and I guessed that the absence of small talk was Veronica’s idea, not his.
The doors opened up into a vestibule where a highly polished antique table sat on a thick Persian rug. An oversize vase was filled with enough fresh flowers to set me back a week’s pay. There were two industrial-strength metal doors, one on either side of the room, and our elevator man pointed at the one marked A.
“Ring the bell and look up at the camera,” he said.
We did. We heard an electronic click, and the door unlatched. The operator gestured for us to go through.
“Wait in there,” he said.
We stepped in and the door clicked shut. I heard the elevator head back down.
It was well after midnight, but the lights were on, soft music was playing, and the smell of fresh-brewed coffee was in the air. About fifteen feet from the door, a meeting was in progress behind a glass wall. Two men and two women were seated at a table facing a cork wall where six photos, each one of a beautiful woman, were hanging. There was an animated discussion going on, accompanied by head-nodding and some laughter, and finally one of the men pulled a photo from the wall and turned it facedown on the table.
“Another grueling late night at the model agency,” Kylie said.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” a voice said. A dark-haired woman in her early thirties walked toward us. “I’m Adriana Stevens, one of Ms. Gibbs’s assistants.”
We introduced ourselves and gave her our cards.
“We knew somebody from the police would be coming, but we didn’t know when,” Stevens said.
“I realize it’s late,” I said, “but clearly we didn’t wake anybody up.”
“Oh, it’s not late. It’s Monday morning in Europe, and Veronica is on a videoconference call.” She glanced down at her iPad. “How much time do you think you’ll need with her?”
“We don’t know,” Kylie said. “You understand this is a police investigation into the disappearance of her daughter-in-law.”
Stevens put a finger to her lips. “Oh God, please don’t say that.”
“Don’t say what?”
“Daughter-in-law,” Stevens whispered. “Veronica would go ballistic if she ever heard you refer to that woman as family.”
“When can we talk to Mrs. Gibbs?” I said.
“Her calendar is jammed until morning.”
“Excuse me? Doesn’t she sleep?”
“Not like normal people. She has this remarkable body clock. She naps for a few hours, and she’s fine. That’s why she has three assistants. We work in shifts.” She glanced at her iPad again. “Veronica grabbed about three hours of sleep this afternoon from four to seven, which means she’ll be good to go till noon. I can squeeze you in before her breakfast meeting at seven a.m.”
“Ms. Stevens,” Kylie said, “a woman’s life is in danger. We’re not here to be squeezed in. Squeeze somebody else out. Now.”
“Okay, don’t shoot the messenger. I’ll tell her. Give me a minute.”
As soon as she walked off, Kylie turned to me. “Did you catch that? She napped through her son’s wedding.”
I nodded. That Veronica Gibbs was a piss-poor mother didn’t surprise me. What I was still trying to get past was how she could run a global enterprise on only a few hours of sleep a day.
We watched the meeting on the other side of the glass wall while we waited. One by one, three more pictures were removed from the photo array. There were only two models left
, one black, one white.
We never got to see the winner. Veronica Gibbs came marching down the corridor behind her assistant. She was in her midsixties, with perfect hair, the tall, lean, angular body of a model, and the purposeful, angry stride of a pissed-off corporate CEO.
“I have no idea where she is,” Veronica called out as she approached, “and I don’t give a flying fuck.”
She stopped in front of us and held up the cards we’d just given her assistant. “If you have any more questions, Detective Jordan, Detective MacDonald, you can call my attorney. Adriana will give you the number.”
The protocol at NYPD Red is that rich-and-famous assholes get treated differently from regular assholes. Essentially that meant the interview was over before it started.
“Just one quick question,” Kylie said. “Have you ever seen this man?” She held up her phone with the picture that Venetia Jones had taken of Dodd on the screen.
“Never,” Gibbs said. “Is he the one who kidnapped her? You can tell him for me that I’m not going to pay him a nickel.”
“Did he contact you?” I asked.
“This guy? No! How would he even get my number? My son, Jamie, called me. He wants me to help him buy back the slut I told him not to get involved with in the first place. Not happening.”
She turned and started to walk away.
“Mrs. Gibbs,” Kylie called after her.
Gibbs stopped, turned back, and walked toward us. Slowly. A white tigress, her body elegant, her eyes filled with hatred. “I didn’t take her,” she said. “I didn’t pay anyone to take her. I don’t know the man who took her, and I have no idea where she is. The only thing I do know is that I hope to God she never comes back. Goodbye.”
She turned and walked away again. This time we didn’t try to stop her.
CHAPTER 17
Welcome to your home away from home,” Dodd said as he opened the bedroom door. “It’s small, but it’s cozy.”
He actually smiled. It was pathetic how proud he was.
It was the ugliest room Erin had ever seen. Every inch of the walls and the ceiling were covered with grayish-brown panels. Soundproofing.
The bed was small with no headboard or footboard, but there were clean sheets and, hopefully, no bedbugs. There was no other furniture—just some boxes filled with clothes.
“I can’t afford Saks Fifth Avenue,” he said, “but I hope you like what I picked out for you.”
She hated it. All of it. No-name jeans, vomit-green shorts, underwear that came in packs of three, a bunch of hideous T-shirts, two sweat suits, and a pair of sneakers that were one size too big.
“Bathroom’s over here,” he said.
There was no door. Just a sink, a shower, a toilet, and a shopping bag from the Dollar Store filled with shampoo, toothpaste, tampons, and other cheap crap. The lighting was so harsh that she looked like a corpse in the mirror.
“This is where you live,” Dodd said. “If I’m in the house, you can sit in the living room or the kitchen with me, but when I’m out, you’re in here, and you’ve got a full-time babysitter. I call her Octomom.”
He looked up, and Erin followed his gaze to the dome camera on the ceiling.
“That one is obvious,” he said. “The others are not. She’s got eight pairs of eyes throughout the house, and she broadcasts everything she sees to my phone or my iPad, so don’t think about doing anything stupid. Okay?”
“I won’t,” she said.
That was the first thing Ari had taught her: Be compliant.
Erin was twenty-two years old when People magazine put her on the cover and proclaimed her the most desirable woman in the world. A week later, two men grabbed her in the parking lot of a shopping mall in LA and tried to drag her into their van.
They would have succeeded, too, if not for an off-duty cop, a woman who heard Erin’s screams and was able to stop the abduction before it happened.
The next day her father hired a bodyguard. Erin had had security people for years, but most of them had been glorified bouncers, musclemen who could wipe the floor with anyone who harassed her, but this one was different. Ari Loeb was a multilingual, combat-trained commando who had served in the Mista’arvim, the elite counterterrorism unit of the Israel Defense Forces.
Early on, Ari had warned her that she was a prime target for another would-be kidnapper.
“I’m not worried,” she said. “You’ll stop them.”
“Yes, but I can’t stop a bullet. Let me teach you what to do and what not to do if you’re ever held hostage and I’m not there. How do you feel about going back to the mall where they tried to grab you?”
“Fine, if I’m with you.”
As soon as they got in the car Erin started asking questions. “Did you ever kill anyone?”
“No talking,” he said.
She sulked. “It’s a fifteen-minute drive. What am I supposed to do?”
“Pay attention.”
“To what?” she said.
“Everything.”
He didn’t take her to the mall. Five minutes into the drive he pulled over and said, “Being aware of your surroundings can save your life. And if you are released or manage to escape, you want to help law enforcement with as many details as you can remember.”
He then asked her five questions about things they’d seen, heard, even smelled on their brief trip. She didn’t get a single one right.
“Your brain was already at the mall,” he said. “You have to learn to live in the present.”
He was so incredibly sexy—jet-black hair, steel-gray eyes, and full lips, and the jacket he wore did little to hide the chiseled body underneath. Erin leaned in to kiss him.
“No,” he said, grabbing her wrist. “Not now. Not ever.”
“Why? Are you married?”
“No. I am only here to protect you from the insanity of others and your own stupidity. If you don’t want to learn, I will look for a job teaching someone who does.”
“I’m sorry,” Erin said. “Let’s start over.”
They did, and the next thing Ari told her was never to let her enemy know how well trained she was. He taught her how to stay mentally and physically active. How to capitalize on even the smallest mistake an abductor might make. But most important, he taught her how to deal with a captor: Keep your dignity. It’s harder to kill or harm someone who can remain human in his eyes. Establish rapport. Don’t antagonize and don’t try to convince him that his delusions are unfounded. Above all, comply. You may have to do things you don’t want to—including sex. Just do it, because sometimes that’s the only way to stay alive.
“Give in,” Ari told her over and over and over again during the four years they were together. “But never give up.”
CHAPTER 18
It was two in the morning when Kylie and I sat down to debrief the bosses. Not just Captain Cates, but all the way up the food chain. Even the mayor showed up for this one.
They asked a lot of questions, some of which we couldn’t answer because they were the same questions Kylie and I were still asking ourselves.
“You want to know the difference between the two of us and most of them?” Kylie told me when the session was over. “We’re trying to figure out how to solve this, and they’re trying to figure out what to do if we don’t solve it.”
We went back to our desks to crank out paperwork—DD-5s. On a normal case we’d document everything we’d learned to date, and it would go into a file that could be accessed across the department. But this case was a hot potato, and the powers that be were afraid of press leaks, so our reports were restricted to a very short list of people.
It was too late to go home, so at three thirty both of us crashed at the station. I slept till six thirty, showered, and wondered how the hell Veronica Gibbs could exist on so little sleep every day of her life. Kylie was still asleep, so I decided to walk around the corner to Gerri’s Diner and bring us back some breakfast.
And that’s when my day
took a turn for the better.
Cheryl Robinson, the love of my life, was sitting in a booth talking with Gerri Gomperts, the diner owner who will happily unscramble your personal life while she scrambles your eggs.
As soon as I walked through the door, both women stood up. Cheryl ran over and gave me a much-needed hug. Gerri grabbed a coffeepot, poured me a cup, and told me I looked like crap.
I ordered two breakfast burritos and coffee to go, then sat down with Cheryl.
“What’s going on with Erin Easton?” she said.
I put an imaginary key to my lips and turned the lock. “Sorry, babe. They’re keeping a tight lid on it. Let’s talk about something else.”
She shrugged. “What did Kylie say about my cousin?”
I knew exactly what she was asking, but I gave her a puzzled look to buy myself some time to come up with an answer.
“My cousin Shane,” she said. “You were supposed to ask her about him.”
My first impulse was to say, We were a little busy with this kidnapping thing. But that was a half-assed excuse, and Cheryl would see right through it. I’d spent the entire night with Kylie. We’d had plenty of downtime in the car. I could easily have told her about the tall, good-looking, ginger-haired, soon-to-be-celebrity chef who’d be perfect for her.
Then it hit me. “You’re jumping the gun,” I said. “I know you think I was supposed to tell Kylie about him, but that’s not how guys work. I can’t pimp Shane without clearing it with him first. We’re going to the restaurant next month to meet your aunt Janet, and I’ll ask him then. If he opts in, I’ll take the next step.”
“We don’t have to wait a month,” she said. “I was just telling Gerri that after you left, Shane came back to the table, and I told him all about Kylie. He doesn’t like fix-ups, but I did such a great presell that he was definitely intrigued.”
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