“Did you find the guy on the bicycle?” he asked.
They frowned.
“What guy on a bicycle?”
“The one we hit with our car. Did you find him?”
“We didn’t see any guy on a bike.”
“We hit him a few hundred yards back, I think,” Stokes said. “Please . . . you have to go find him. See if he’s OK.” He coughed again.
“I should call the cops,” Shorty said again.
“I’ll call them. I’ll say good-bye to my wife, then call 911. You go look for the cyclist.” Stokes gave a gasp loaded with fake pain. “He might need help. My buddy here is dead and I don’t know if I even have a chance, but the guy we hit . . . maybe he can be saved. You gotta find him.”
Shorty eyed his phone in Stokes’s hand.
“My phone . . .”
“I’ll make the calls. You’ll get your phone back.”
“But . . .”
Stokes fixed him with a hard gaze. “I’m dying here . . . and some poor guy might be dying on the road up there . . . and you’re worried about your phone?”
The kid looked confused. Maybe he was worried about losing his cell phone. More likely, he was afraid Stokes would die before he called 911, and then everyone would wonder why the hell he’d given a dying man his phone without first calling the cops himself.
“Where am I gonna go with it?” Stokes asked. “I’ll be here when you get back. Hopefully, I’ll still be alive. Now please, go look for the guy we hit.” He let loose a horrible, wracking cough. “For God’s sake, go.”
The kids scurried away, scrambled through the trees, back toward the road, their flashlight bobbing before them. How the hell had they found the car? It was practically dark out, and Stokes thought he’d wiped away all traces of the tire tracks. Whatever—he needed to move. Stokes kicked open the door, stood, and wiped down the kid’s cell phone with the bottom of his shirt before letting it fall to the forest floor and stomping on it, grinding it beneath his boot.
“Sorry, kid.”
He got to work, figuring he’d bought himself only a few minutes before they’d be back. Or maybe they’d flag down a passing car, borrow a cell phone from the driver. Whatever, Stokes had to move fast. He hurried around to the driver’s side again, leaned into the car, and shined his light into the tight corner where the dashboard and the windshield and the side of the car all met. There he saw the small metal plate with the VIN stamped into it. He tried to get the screwdriver under it to pry it up, but couldn’t. So he used the sharp edge of the tool to scrape at the number. He dug at it as hard as he could for a minute before leaning back and inspecting his handiwork. He had completely obliterated five of the seventeen characters, and had badly damaged two others. Maybe this would slow down the identification of the car; maybe it wouldn’t. But he’d tried. He knew there could be another VIN stamped somewhere else on the Altima’s frame, but if there was, he didn’t know where and didn’t have time to hunt for it. He hurried around to the passenger door again so he’d be closer to the bag of money, and dropped into the seat there. He leaned over, turned the key to the “off” position, and plucked the keys from the ignition. He removed the only key that looked like it could have been a house key, then stuck the car key back into the ignition and turned it back to the “on” position. He used the napkin again to wipe his prints off the keys still on the ring.
Then he sat for a minute and thought, acutely aware of the seconds zipping by. Yeah, he’d done all he could. He was ready to go. He looked at his watch: 5:53. They’d be calling in seven minutes. He switched off the flashlight, stuffed the license plates into the bag next to the money, and picked up the backpack. He took a last look at Paul Jenkins.
Doubt started to creep into his mind. The cops were going to find the car. The kids would eventually bring them, probably sooner than later, and they’d ID the vehicle, probably fairly quickly. Or hell, maybe one of the cops even knew Jenkins personally somehow. Played golf with him or went to the same barber. Whatever. The point was, if he left the body in the car, they might figure out who he was in time to kill the deal, and maybe the girl, too.
Stokes sighed. There was nothing else to do. He had to take the body with him. Even if they identified the car, without the body they wouldn’t know for certain that Jenkins had died, and the kidnappers therefore might believe that their chance for a payday was still alive. Yeah, Stokes had to take the body. He should have just done that to start with, but who the hell thinks about dragging a corpse around?
Just when he’d made up his mind, he heard the kids’ voices again.
Goddamn it.
He dropped the backpack on the ground, where it had been when the kids were there a few minutes ago, and slipped back into the passenger seat. He let his head flop back against the headrest, closed his eyes, and tried to think of another goose chase to send them on so he could slip away with the body while they were gone.
Footsteps approached. He couldn’t hear what the kids were saying, but they were getting closer and the words were becoming more distinct. He opened his eyes a crack and saw the flashlight beam bouncing his way again.
“I’m telling you, we were talking to him,” one of the voices said. Sounded like Tall.
“Bullshit,” someone said. Stokes frowned. Didn’t recognize the voice.
“He’s alive, Kevin,” Shorty said. “Royally messed up, but alive. I gave him my phone so he could say good-bye to his wife.”
They were almost to the car. Stokes heard the new kid, Kevin, start to respond. “But I thought . . .”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tall said, cutting him off, “the driver’s dead as hell, but the other guy’s still alive. At least he was when we left him here.”
“But . . .”
The flashlight hit the side of Stokes’s face. He turned slowly into the light and smiled weakly.
“Thank God you’re back,” he whispered, acting even closer to death’s door than he had before.
He looked at Shorty. Wasn’t sure what he was going to tell him about his phone. Stokes slid his gaze from Shorty to Tall, then moved it over to the new guy, Kevin. Kevin was staring back at him with a mixture of emotions on his face that Stokes couldn’t categorize. He was looking at Stokes, but he spoke to the other two.
“I swear to you guys, I looked in this car half an hour ago.”
Uh oh.
Kevin turned to the others. “Dudes, there was only one guy in there.”
Well, Stokes certainly hadn’t seen that one coming.
TEN
5:57 P.M.
STOKES DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO think. It looked like the three teens had independently come to the same conclusion—that they needed to run away as fast as they could. Stokes couldn’t allow that, so he sprang from the car with far more speed and agility than the kids could have expected from a guy with one foot in the grave. Before they could move, he stepped right up to them, looked down at them from his solid, six-two height, and held the screwdriver up in front of their eyes.
“See this?” he asked.
They nodded.
“Think I could do serious damage to you guys with it?”
They nodded again.
“Think I could kill you with it?”
More nods.
“Good. Don’t run and I might not have to use it. Got me?”
Emphatic nods that time.
“Look at me.” They did. He knew what they saw. A big guy with a face slick with blood. Intense eyes, probably, because Stokes felt like there was intensity in his eyes. Probably made him look even scarier. And the pointy screwdriver in his bloody hand certainly wasn’t making him seem any more friendly. “Look at me,” he repeated. “You think I’d hesitate to stick one of you boys if you piss me off.”
They shook their heads that time.
“So you’re not gonna run, righ
t?”
They shook their heads again. But Stokes wasn’t convinced. Tall and Shorty looked ready to bolt the second they got the chance. Stokes looked at the three of them in turn, sizing them up. One of them might have been old enough to drive, possibly two, but they were all wispy things. Shorty looked to be thirteen at most. Without warning, Stokes shot his hand out and grabbed his shirt. Pulled him close. Held the screwdriver against his throat. The other kids tensed but didn’t move. Smart kids.
“This is your little brother, right?” he asked Tall. He’d seen a resemblance.
Tall’s frightened eyes were on the screwdriver. He nodded.
“What about you?” Stokes asked Kevin.
“Friend.”
“I don’t wanna hurt anyone,” Stokes said, “but I definitely will if I have to. Now, I want some answers. If I think you’re lying, the kid gets stuck. If you make me stick the kid too much and he’s no use to me anymore, I grab one of you and start sticking again. So don’t lie to me, OK?”
They nodded again.
“What’s your name?” he asked Tall.
“Chris.”
“Chris what?”
“Parker.”
“Address?”
Chris gave him an address Stokes knew was nearby. Sounded plausible.
“You drive?”
Chris nodded.
“Let me see your license.”
The kid pulled a wallet from his back pocket, removed his license, and held it out.
“Hold it up for me. I got my hands full.”
Chris held it up so Stokes could see it.
“A little light here?” Stokes said.
Kevin leaned forward—didn’t step forward, but leaned as far as he could without actually getting any closer to the maniac with the bloody face and the sharp screwdriver—and shined the flashlight on the license. Chris had been telling the truth. Stokes turned to Kevin and was about to speak when the cell phone in his pocket rang.
Shit. Stokes understood what had driven Paul Jenkins to insist on receiving a call from the kidnappers every hour on the hour until this was over . . . why he felt the need to hear his daughter’s voice every time . . . but goddamn it, these calls could be inconvenient. He wished like hell he just could say, “Hey, guys, I’ve been thinking about it. Calling me every hour is a lot to ask. Maybe just give me a ring every three or four hours. That’s probably enough.” But he couldn’t say that. The real Paul Jenkins would never have said that, and Stokes needed them to believe he was the real Paul Jenkins.
The phone rang again. Shorty looked up at him.
“Mine, not yours,” Stokes said. “Yours is broken.” He pushed the sharp tip of the screwdriver tight against Shorty’s throat, making a slight indentation in the soft flesh.
“I gotta take this call,” he said. “You guys make a single sound, I push this through the kid’s neck, you hear me?” Without waiting for an answer, he looked hard at Shorty. “You move, you die, OK?” Shorty nodded.
Stokes released his hold on the kid’s shirt, kept the screwdriver hard against his neck, and pulled Jenkins’s cell phone from his pocket with his free hand. He flipped it open on the fourth ring, keeping his eyes on the three kids.
“Hello?”
“Why’s it take you so long to answer the phone, Paul?”
“Sorry,” Stokes said.
“Here’s your six o’clock call. The girl’s doing all right.”
Stokes knew what was expected of him.
“Let me talk to her.”
The kidnapper didn’t respond. A moment later, the little girl’s voice came on the line. “Daddy?”
He reminded himself not to call her Baby. “Yeah, it’s me. You OK?”
Silence on the phone for a moment. “Daddy? Is that you?”
Jesus Christ. He had to put a stop to that. He prayed the kidnappers couldn’t hear his half of the conversation. “Listen, kid,” he said quickly, “your daddy’s gonna come get you, but you gotta help him. You gotta pretend I’m him, OK?”
The girl said, “But where—”
He cut her off. “Don’t ask where your daddy is. He’s working hard to come get you. But you gotta trust me. You gotta pretend I’m your daddy, OK? If you don’t, your daddy can’t come for you. You have to believe me.” Stokes heard the urgency in his voice. He was probably scaring her silly, but he had no choice. “You understand, kid?”
A pause. “Yes, Daddy.”
Stokes blew out a breath.
“That’s enough for now, Paul,” the kidnapper’s voice said. “Got the money?”
“I’ll have it.”
“You better. And you’ve got this evidence you claim to have?”
“I do.”
“OK. Talk to you in an hour.”
The line went dead. Stokes shoved the phone into his pocket and grabbed Shorty’s shirt again. Looked at the kids, who were staring at him, questions in their eyes.
“Forget all that. Where was I?” He thought for a moment. “Oh, yeah.” He looked at Kevin. “Don’t suppose you have your driver’s license yet, do you, Kevin?”
To his surprise, Kevin nodded. Christ, had the kid even hit puberty yet?
“OK then,” Stokes said. “You know the drill.”
Kevin took out his license, held it up for Stokes, shined the flashlight on it. Kevin Joseph Shapiro. Also lived nearby.
Stokes nodded. “OK, guys. Last question. You call the cops yet?”
Kevin shook his head. Chris hesitated before shaking his, too. He was holding back.
“Try that again, Chris. You call the cops yet?”
Chris sighed. “I didn’t call them, but when Kevin came to our house a little while ago, told us he found a wrecked car out here, my mother was in the room. The three of us ran out before she could tell us not to. She might call the cops. Especially if we’re not back soon.”
Stokes almost smiled. The kid had made his point. Pretty smart. Mom knew where they’d gone and would start to worry if they didn’t come back soon. And Stokes believed him. Still, just in case the mother hadn’t called 911, he said, “OK guys, here’s the deal. You never saw me here. Understand? No one knows I was here but you, so if the cops find out about me I’ll know it came from you guys. Remember, I know your names. I know where you live. They find out about me, I’ll come for you. And I’ll be carrying something bigger and sharper and a whole lot scarier than a screwdriver, you hear me? You do not call the cops. If your mother already did, you tell them nothing about me. You came here, found a wrecked car, end of story. I wasn’t here. The car was empty. Got it?”
They’d been nodding during his instructions, but the last one stopped the bobbing of their heads.
“Empty?” Chris said.
“That’s right.”
“What about . . . him?” He nodded toward the car.
“The car was empty,” Stokes repeated. “Maybe you saw blood, but you didn’t see a body. And you sure as hell didn’t see me. You understand?”
They looked confused.
“I need to know that you understand. That you’ll do what I’m saying. That you understand what will happen if you don’t do what I’m saying.”
Chris and Kevin nodded. Stokes looked down into Shorty’s face.
“You understand?”
Shorty swallowed hard and nodded. He was scared out of his mind. Stokes felt a little sorry for him.
“You do as I say and you’ll be all right.” He released Shorty, who moved quickly to his big brother’s side. Chris put a protective arm around his shoulders.
“You don’t do exactly what I say,” Stokes added, “I’ll be seeing you real soon.”
They looked at him. He could see they believed him.
“Now get the hell out of here.”
They hesitated a fraction o
f a second, then ran, kicking up leaves as they sprinted toward the road. Stokes turned back to the car. And Paul Jenkins. He groaned inwardly as he walked around to the open driver’s door. He unfastened the guy’s seat belt and wrestled the body from the car. It wasn’t easy. The guy was nearly Stokes’s size. Similar build, which might come in handy if he needed to get close to the kidnappers before they realized that he wasn’t Paul Jenkins. But though their similar sizes might be helpful later, Stokes would have preferred Jenkins to be a dwarf at the moment. He struggled with the big corpse, which was literally dead weight. When the body was on the ground, Stokes retrieved his bag of money and hiked it up onto his back, then picked up the flashlight and stuck it into his rear pocket. He returned to the body, struggled to get it into a sitting position—which was made more difficult by the rigor mortis that had clearly begun to set in—then groaned and staggered as he hoisted it up onto his shoulder for a fireman’s carry. Shit, the guy was heavy. Stokes wasn’t exactly a weakling, but he was surprised at how hard it was to carry a dead body. He switched the flashlight on, then stumbled away from the road, farther into the woods, the dead body heavy on his back.
If the three kids didn’t tell the police what they knew, Stokes’s removing the body from the car should confuse the cops. Even if they figured out the car belonged to Jenkins, and even though there was a lot of blood inside it, if Jenkins was missing, they couldn’t be certain he was dead. And if they weren’t sure, the kidnappers couldn’t be sure—especially if Stokes kept posing as the father in their hourly calls.
Stokes trudged through the dark, chilly night, the corpse on his back slowing his steps. Still, he walked as quickly as he could, ever aware of time bleeding away. He still had so much to do, so much he needed to figure out. And he knew the consequences of failure.
He shifted the body on his shoulders, got a more secure grip, and continued his march through the cold woods, the unwanted image of the kidnappers cutting off the little girl’s fingers, the sounds of her screams, playing over and over again in his head.
ELEVEN
6:45 P.M.
STOKES’S FEET WERE FREEZING. IT had been twenty minutes since he trekked, with a dead body on his back, through the small but mercilessly cold stream in the woods. Fortunately, the woods, which were on land preserved by a conservation organization interested in saving some frog or turtle or something, backed right up to the rear the trailer park on the edge of town, where Stokes kept his Airstream. He knew the woods well, having cut through them on more than one occasion—usually moving quickly to avoid someone or other he’d seen coming down the road toward his trailer, someone looking for him, maybe to arrest him, or to try to hurt him, or to squeeze money out of him . . . money he most likely owed but didn’t have. Stokes had known the stream was there. So he’d hauled Jenkins’s body for fifteen difficult minutes, dying for a rest but pushing on, knowing that his trail wouldn’t be tough to follow until he came to the stream. He stepped into the goddamn cold water, hoped it wouldn’t rise above the tops of his boots, was terribly disappointed in that regard, and slogged downstream for a hundred yards or so, praying he wouldn’t slip and tumble into the frigid water or, worse, snap an ankle on a slime-slick rock. He was doing anything he could to slow down any pursuit of him that might develop. Cops coming upon Jenkins’s car would see the tracks he’d left leading into the woods. They’d think it was Jenkins himself who had, by some miracle, walked away from the crash. They’d probably think he was disoriented, walking farther into the woods instead of walking thirty feet back to the road. The important thing would be that they thought he was still alive. As long as there was doubt, the kidnappers would have that doubt, too, and they might not abandon their plan to trade the girl for the money and the evidence.
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