24 Hours

by Greg Iles

She opened her eyes. For the first time, he thought about their color. They were grayish blue, not the cornflower you expected to go with her hair. “Tell me,” he said.

  “You killed Joey’s mother.”

  Will blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Last year, Joey’s mother died during an operation. The doctor who did the surgery told Joey it was your fault. He said you weren’t paying attention. You weren’t even in the room.”

  “What?” He thought back over the past year ’s cases. Some were clear, others a blur. He did about eight hundred fifty a year, but he almost always remembered the deaths. “Was her name Hickey?”

  “No. She’d remarried. Simpkins was her name.”

  “Simpkins . . . Simpkins?”

  “Joey said you wouldn’t remember it. That’s how little it mattered to you. But it matters to him.”

  “I do remember! The SCD case.”

  “The what?”

  “SCDs. Sequential compression devices. The surgeon operated without them, and Mrs. Simpkins developed a pulmonary embolus.”

  “Embolus,” Cheryl said. “That’s it. A blood clot.”

  “Viola Simpkins,” Will said.

  “That’s her.”

  It was all coming back now. The surgeon had been a visiting professor, and the accident had caused a big rift between UMC and his institution. “I had nothing to do with that death. It was a terrible mistake, but it wasn’t my responsibility.”

  “The surgeon told Joey it was.”

  “Well, I’ll tell him it wasn’t. I’ll make the damn surgeon tell him.”

  “That might be tough. He’s dead. Joey killed him.”

  Will suddenly felt cold. Hickey had murdered a surgeon because his mother died on an operating table? “Karen must have found this out,” he thought aloud. “That’s why she sent the message. And that’s why Joe is going to kill Abby. To punish me.”

  “He never told me that,” Cheryl insisted.

  “Because he knew you might not go along.” Will gripped her arms. “Cheryl, you’ve got to tell me where Abby is. Joe’s going to murder her. She’s only five years old!”

  She looked him dead in the eye. “I told you. I—don’t—know—where—she—is.”

  Will drew seventy milligrams of Anectine into the syringe and climbed back onto her chest. She began to fight beneath him.

  “Please, please,” she begged. “Don’t do it!”

  Streaks of blood marked the previous puncture sites on her neck and arm. Will moved the needle toward her neck and pressed it against her flesh.

  “She’s somewhere west of Hazlehurst!” Cheryl cried. “Do you know where that is?”

  He kept the needle against her vein. “Where Highway 28 crosses I-55?”

  She nodded violently. “That’s it! There’s a shack ten or fifteen miles up that road.”

  “Ten miles? Or fifteen?”

  “I don’t know! I’ve never been there. It’s not on the main road. You go down two or three logging roads before you get to it.”

  “That’s useless. There are a hundred logging roads through those woods. Hunting camps, everything.”

  “That’s all I know! For Christ’s sake, I’m trying to help you!”

  “How is Joe calling Huey?”

  “What?”

  “Is Huey using a landline or a cell phone?”

  “Cellular. There’s no regular phone out there.”

  “What else?”

  She shook her head. “That’s all I know! I swear to God!”

  Cheryl was exhausted, that was plain. But there was still a private knowledge in her eyes. Something she was holding back. He considered injecting her again, but he didn’t really want to risk it. He had never put a human being through three consecutive cycles, and he needed her alive and cooperative for Hickey’s next call. The important thing was to get a cellular trace started around Hazlehurst, if it was possible. He took the torn sheet of hotel stationery from his pocket and dialed Harley Ferris’s number yet again.

  “Are you going to leave me like this?” Cheryl asked.

  “I’ll untie you in a second.” Ferris’s phone rang four times. Then the answering machine began its spiel. Will had expected it, but even so, it was like someone slamming a door in his face at the moment he saw a way out. He hung up and redialed, taking care to enter every number correctly.

  “Joey’s going to be calling in a couple of minutes,” Cheryl said.

  Will’s watch read 3:26 A.M. By the time Ferris’s phone began ringing, he was practically hyperventilating. Three rings. Four. The answering machine clicked and began speaking. Will’s finger was on the disconnect button when he heard a click, then a clatter.

  “Hello?” said a male voice. “Hello! I’m here.”

  “Is this Harley Ferris?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “Thank God. Mr. Ferris, this is Dr. Will Jennings. This is an emergency. I want to you listen very carefully.”

  “Oh my God. Oh no. Is it one of my kids?”

  “No, sir. It’s not your family. It’s mine.”

  “What?”

  “Do you remember me, Mr. Ferris? I was the anesthesiologist on your wife’s gallbladder surgery. She requested me.”

  “I know you,” Ferris said. “We played in that scramble at Annandale a few months back. But it’s three-thirty in the morning, Doctor. What the hell’s going on?”

  “My daughter’s in trouble. Desperate trouble. You can help her. But before I tell you anything, you’ve got to promise not to call the police.”

  “The police? I don’t understand.”

  Will decided to go for broke. “Mr. Ferris, my daughter was kidnapped yesterday evening. I can’t go to the police because the kidnappers will kill her if I do. Do you understand?”

  There was a delay as Ferris processed this information. “I heard you,” he said finally. “I’m not sure I understand you.”

  “I’m in a casino hotel in Biloxi right now. The Beau Rivage. My wife’s at home in Annandale. One of the kidnappers is with her. My daughter is being held at a third location. Somewhere in the woods around Hazlehurst, Mississippi. Every thirty minutes, the leader of the kidnappers calls the location where my daughter’s being held. I know they’re using a CellStar telephone. You’re the president of CellStar. Can you trace that call for me?”

  “Not without a court order, I can’t.”

  “My daughter will be dead long before anyone gets a court order.”

  “Jesus. Is this some sort of prank? Is this really Will Jennings?”

  “I wish it were a joke. But it’s not. On the soul of my daughter, it’s not.”

  “Are both parties using cell phones?”

  “The man on the receiving end is using one. There’s no landline where he is. He’s ten or fifteen miles west of Hazlehurst, down some logging road. That’s all I know at this point.”

  “There’s not much activity around there this time of night,” Ferris said. “We’ve only got one tower down that way, an older one. Our coverage is pretty thin around there, to be honest. I’d have to get a vehicle down there to trace it, and I don’t know where our vans are right now.”

  “Where could they be?”

  “Anywhere in the state.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “Two.”

  “Harley, if we don’t find that phone, my five-year-old daughter will be dead by morning. Even if I pay the ransom.”

  “How much are they asking for?”

  “Two hundred thousand.”

  “That doesn’t seem like much.”

  “That’s part of their plan. It’s not really the money they want. They want to hurt me. Can you help?”

  “Doctor, it sounds to me like we should call the FBI.”

  “No! They’ve thought of that. Planned for it.”

  “But for a job like this—”

  “This isn’t a job, Harley! This is my kid. Remember how you felt when you thought I wa
s calling because one of your kids was in a wreck? Think back two minutes.”

  More silence. “Goddamn it. Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I need your word that you won’t call the FBI. Your word of honor.”

  “I’ll keep quiet until morning. But if I get a trace on that phone, we’re calling in the FBI. Agreed?”

  “You find that phone, I’ll be begging for a SWAT team.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “You have a pen?”

  “Just a second. Okay, go ahead.”

  “I’m at the Beau Rivage Casino, suite 28021. Call as soon as you know anything, but not on the hour or half hour. That’s when the kidnappers make their check-in calls. The next one’s coming in less than two minutes.”

  “I can’t do anything about that one, except maybe confirm that they’re using the tower near Hazlehurst. I’ll call as soon as I know something. Hang tough, Doctor. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Thank you. Hey—why did you suddenly answer your phone?”

  “My prostate,” Ferris replied. “We don’t keep a phone in the bedroom. I got up to take a leak and decided I was hungry. I heard the machine in the kitchen.”

  “Thank God you did. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Will hung up, his heart pounding. “Joe’s going to call any second.” He turned to Cheryl. “What are you going to tell him?”

  “Wait and see, you son of a bitch. You’d better untie me.”

  Letting Cheryl answer Hickey’s next call could be the biggest mistake he ever made. But he had no choice. He had crossed the Rubicon. There was no retreat now. He could hold the needle against Cheryl’s neck as she answered, but instinct told him to show some faith. He reached out and unbuckled the belt that bound her chest.

  “I don’t think you want my little girl to die. You’re not that far gone. You were a little girl once, too. Not so long ago, either.”

  She refused to look at him.

  As he untied the terry-cloth belt that held her legs, the phone began to ring. The sound constricted Will’s chest. “My daughter’s life is in your hands. Help her, and anything I have is yours. All the money you’ll ever need.”

  “You’d better answer that phone, Doctor.”

  He took a deep breath, then picked up the phone, handed it to Cheryl, and leaned down to listen.

  “Yeah?” she said.

  “Everything okay?” Hickey asked.

  She looked at Will, her eyes inches away. As he tried to read them, an old memory flashed into his mind, the eyes of a secretary to a bank loan officer. She had kept him waiting for an hour even though she knew his loan application would be denied, reveling in the only power she would ever have over someone like him. Cheryl had a thousand times that power now. Would she exercise it to pay him back for the terror he’d forced her to endure?

  “Yeah,” she said finally. “Everything’s cool.”

  He felt light-headed. He was squeezing her arm with gratitude when Hickey said, “What’s the matter? You don’t sound right.”

  The son of a bitch was clairvoyant.

  Cheryl looked at Will. “I’m getting tired,” she said.

  “It’s not too much longer now. Take one of the pills I gave you. I need you sharp.”

  “I know. I’ll talk to you in a half hour.”

  Will heard the click as Hickey hung up. With shaking hands he took the phone from Cheryl and set it in its cradle. “Thank you,” he said. “You just started earning your first million.”

  She scowled and rolled off the bed. “Fuck you very much. Now what?”

  “Now we wait for the phone trace. And pray.”

  FOURTEEN

  Huey Cotton sat on the floor in the front room of the cabin, whittling steadily. Behind him, Abby slept soundly on the sofa, the ratty horse blanket covering her body. She had been talking to Huey when exhaustion finally overcame her. She simply closed her eyes in midsentence and slipped down onto the cushions with her Belle Barbie in her left hand.

  Huey had been whittling ever since.

  He didn’t always know what he was whittling. Sometimes he let his hands do the thinking for him. He’d found a good piece of cedar outside in the woodpile. He cut the firewood last fall, mostly oak, and while he was oiling his chain saw he’d spotted a young cedar that had been snapped off at the ground by a tornado. Cedar was good carving wood, and there wasn’t a smell like it in the world. The chunk in his hands was starting to look something like a bear. Whatever it was, there was enough cedar left for something more to develop. His hands had never felt so good. His nervousness seemed to flow out through the knife blade and into the wood, and from the wood into the air, like power leaking from a car battery left on concrete.

  Soon it would be morning, and he was glad. The quicker Joey got his money, the less chance there was that he would tell Huey to do something to Abby. Huey was glad she’d finally eaten some Cap’n Crunch. She was so hungry, and he had gobbled up what was left of the baloney and crackers long ago. Before the first bite, she’d asked if he knew what time her mother would be picking her up. Huey figured they would be at the McDonald’s by ten in the morning, so he told her ten o’clock. A smile of relief appeared on her face, and she began chomping the cereal like birthday cake. She said her shot would hold her until ten, whatever that meant. She ate two full bowls before she was done, and even drank the leftover milk. Ten minutes later, her full stomach took its effect. Her eyes rolled up and she fell sound asleep. Huey smiled at the memory and kept peeling away slivers of cedar.

  Will had set up his notebook computer on the circular dining table in the front room of the suite. He was composing an e-mail to Karen. He wanted to tell her about Ferris and the phone tracing, but he couldn’t. What if Hickey came upon her while she was reading the message? For the same reason, he could not even hint at Cheryl’s cooperation. If Hickey knew his wife had betrayed him, he might decide to cut his losses and run, which would almost certainly mean Abby’s death.

  He needed to tell her he understood her message and had taken action, but in a way that only she could understand. He needed a code. He searched his memory for some event in their past that might be applicable to the present situation, but there was nothing. It was too fantastic. But then it hit him. If their own lives did not contain a parallel he could use, other lives did. Lives on screen. He and Karen had watched thousands of movies together, some of them many times. It took him less than a minute to come up with a phrase he was sure she would understand. The message he typed was:

  ABBY IS GOING TO MAKE IT. TRUST ME.

  DO YOU BELIEVE THE CONDOR IS AN

  ENDANGERED SPECIES?

  He could not help but smile. As cryptic as this phrase would appear to Hickey, he was sure Karen would understand it. She’d had a crush on Robert Redford for years.

  “What are you typing?” Cheryl asked.

  At Will’s request, she lay on the sofa a few feet away, sipping from a can of Coke. She had complained when he asked her to stop drinking rum, but she seemed to realize that she needed to be clear-headed for whatever might happen in the next few hours. The question of why she seemed to be cooperating had occupied a great deal of Will’s thoughts. Was it fear of more succinylcholine injections? Desire for the money he had promised, and the freedom it offered? Or had she come to believe that Hickey did mean to kill Abby, and wanted no part of it? The answer was probably a combination of all three, in proportions she herself did not understand.

  Will plugged his Dell into the data port of the hotel phone and logged on to AOL through their 800 number. His mailbox was empty. He sent the e-mail to Karen’s screen name—kjen39—then logged off. Seconds after the program disconnected, the phone began to ring.

  It was only 4:15—halfway between the scheduled check-in calls. Will motioned for her to answer.

  She picked up, said, “Yeah?” then handed the receiver to Will. He expected to hear the voice of Harley Ferris, but it was his answering service, making sur
e he’d gotten the pager message. The operator said something encouraging about “that little girl who needs the liver transplant.” Assuming this was part of a cover story Karen had fabricated, Will made appropriate noises and hung up.

  Almost immediately, the phone rang again.

  “That has to be Ferris,” he said, grabbing the receiver. “Will Jennings.”

  “Harley Ferris, Doctor. Our computers show a call just after four a.m., processed through the tower that serves the Hazlehurst area. It came from one of the landlines at your house.”

  Will’s pulse kicked into hyperdrive. “Did you get any idea of the receiver’s position?”

  “No. Even if we’d had a tracing van there, it would have been tough. The call lasted less than fifteen seconds, and the phone was switched off afterward.”

  “What about the phone number? Do you have the name of the person who rented the phone?”

  “Yes. But without police involvement, I can’t do anything with it. I can’t even tell it to you. I’m assuming it’s an alias, but only the police could tell us that.”

  “I’m not asking you to give me the name, okay? But tell me this. Was it Joe Hickey?”

  “No. Look, it’s time to bring the FBI in on this. Our security people have good contacts with the local field office—”

  “You gave me your word, Harley. Not until morning. What about your tracing vans? Where are they?”

  “They’re up in Tunica County, working with the state police on a fraud operation that involves casino employees.”

  Will gritted his teeth. Tunica County was practically Memphis. That meant a minimum of three hours before the vans could get to Jackson, much less Hazlehurst. “That’s eight a.m. before they could even start tracing.”

  “Exactly. I told one crew to hit the road and come on, but you’re right about the time. That’s why—”

  “No police. Could this equipment be flown down?”

  “It’s four-thirty in the morning!”

  “I have pilot friends who’d get out of bed right now and go get it.”

  “Some of this gear is hardwired into the vans, Jennings. Listen . . . there’s a guy who used to work for us, an engineer. He’s retired, but he keeps his hand in. I’ll give him a call. He’s probably got enough equipment in his garage to do a trace from his truck.”