“Sure. But he isn’t here. He checked out.” The manager used his key to open the door. Gesturing for them to go in, he asked, “Is this guy in some kind of trouble?”
“We don’t know yet,” Tony said. “Thanks for your help.” Tony looked around at the room. It hadn’t been cleaned yet since he’d checked out, but the man had left little behind. He went to the trash can and stooped down next to it, while Larry went into the bathroom.
“At least we have some fingerprints here,” Larry said.
Tony nodded as he sorted through the sundry papers that had been dropped into the can. A Delta boarding pass stub, a couple of receipts with credit card numbers, a rolled up newspaper, a small sheet of paper with a phone number on it.
“Hey, Larry,” Tony said. “There’s a phone number on here. You’ll never guess what it is.”
“The number of the gallery?” Larry asked.
“You got it.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean anything. We knew he had an appointment.”
“This piece of paper here has the name John Lieber written on it.”
“Keep it and we’ll check him out.” He looked around. “No evidence of any children having been here.”
“Nope. If he’s got them, he’s got them someplace else.”
Tony reached for the newspaper and shook it out. It was the edition put out on the day of the murder, and it was folded so that Dubose’s picture was on top. “Well, he knows about the murder. No doubt about that.”
“Where is he now?” Larry asked.
“Who knows? We’d better check out all the flights leaving in the next few hours. He could be at the airport as we speak.”
“What about the children?”
Tony shook his head. “Who knows?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Emily had waited what seemed a very long time, but the longer she sat, the more afraid she got. She had seen a TV show once about snakes, and how they loved to hide in trees. Still sucking her thumb, she clung to the trunk and looked around her.
The thought that some unseen creature might be sharing this hiding place with her made her want to get down, but she was still afraid of the man, too. She hadn’t heard him since he had walked away into the forest, and she hoped he had given up the search and gone back to the car.
She reached for the next branch with her foot and stepped down onto it. Trembling and perspiring, she made her way to another branch, and then another. She looked around for any sign of snakes and saw a shadow moving across the tree. Quickly, she took another step.
Branch by branch, she made her way down, propelled by fear. A small branch broke under her foot, and she slipped, but grabbed onto another branch in time. She found her footing again and continued her descent.
She breathed relief when her feet hit the ground. Quietly, she crept to the edge of the ravine again. Should she slide down it, hoping the water was shallow, and scramble up the other side? Would that take her deeper into the woods, or out to the road again? Where were those houses she and Christy had talked about, anyway?
She decided to slide into the gully, since she had no intention of going back toward the shed. She looked around for something to sit on as she slid down, but there was nothing that would work. She sat down, scooted to the edge—
Two hands grabbed her from behind, and she let out a high-pitched scream.
“I’ve got you, you little brat!” Chamberlain said, lifting her and squeezing her under his arm. “I’ll teach you to run away from me!”
She kept screaming until he clamped his hand over her mouth and stopped her. She bit him, and he jerked his hand away, allowing her to scream some more.
When his hand came back, he shoved a handkerchief into her mouth and clamped his hand over it again. This time she couldn’t bite, and she could hardly breathe as his big hand pressed against her nostrils.
He ran through the trees with no regard for the bushes and brambles tearing at her clothes and scratching her skin. When they came to the edge of the woods, she saw the shed and car, but there was no sign of Christy.
They reached the car, and he opened the trunk.
Christy sat up and looked around, eyes squinted, and started to scream. He pushed her back in, and threw Emily in on top of her. When he started to close it, Christy cried, “No, Mister! We’ll be good. We promise. We won’t run away again. Please don’t put us in here!”
“Shut up!” he said through his teeth. “And if you make a sound as I drive through town, I’ll pull over and kill you both. Do you believe me?”
Christy and Emily looked up at his searing blue eyes. “Yes,” Emily whimpered, and Christy agreed.
“Lie down,” he said, and they both did.
He slammed the trunk shut, and seconds later, started the car.
CHAPTER FORTY
Tony and Larry had just returned to Sharon’s house when the phone rang. The two cops who’d been waiting beside all the equipment turned on the recorder and picked up their own phone to call for a trace, then nodded for Ben to answer.
“Hello?”
“I’m losing patience, and your girls are running out of time.”
Ben closed his eyes and nodded to Sharon and Anne that it was him. They both ran into the other room to hear the conversation as it played across the recorder.
“Look, you obviously want a painting of some kind,” Ben said. “I’ll give you anything I have. Is it the Marazzio?”
The man laughed. “You’re amazing.”
“If that’s it, Dubose took it. I don’t know what he did with it.”
“You have until 11:30 tonight, Robinson. I’ll call you back later with details. Just be ready.”
The phone clicked, and one of the officers cursed. “It wasn’t enough time! He knows we’re tracing him so he’s keeping the conversations short.”
Ben sank down at the kitchen table. “What am I gonna do?”
“Daddy, was that the kidnapper?”
It was Jenny, standing at the door in her robe, awake for the first time since she had been sedated. Her eyes were red and swollen, and she looked pale. She hadn’t eaten in two days, and he doubted she could eat now. Ben stood up and drew her into a hug. “Yes, honey, it was.”
“What did he say?” she asked, beginning to cry. “Is he bringing them back?”
“Maybe tonight,” he said. He turned back to the cops, hovered around the recording equipment. “It has to be the Marazzio. What if we faked it again? What if I got another painting and pretended that was it? Last time, I didn’t know what size or shape the bundle in the garment bag should be. But if it’s the Marazzio, I know it was a roll about four feet long. Maybe we could make a switch for the children before he realized it wasn’t the right one.”
Tony looked at Larry. “It depends, Ben. On a lot of things. One of them is his delivery method. We’d have to make sure that he delivered the kids before he saw the fake, otherwise it could just make him mad enough to . . . retaliate. We don’t know where he wants you to take it yet.”
“But don’t you see, I have no choice!” Ben insisted. “I have to do something. I don’t have the painting he wants, so I have to come up with something else.”
“He’s right, Tony.”
“All right,” Tony said. “Let’s find a painting and get it ready.”
Jenny started to cry and threw her arms around her father. “Daddy, I’ve been praying for you.”
“Don’t pray for me,” he said. “Pray for your sisters.”
“I have, Daddy,” she said. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Honey, I told you. It isn’t.”
Sharon pulled Jenny away from her dad and held her while he prepared for the next phone call.
Later, Sharon slumped on the couch alone in her den, waiting, as everyone else in the house waited, for the phone to ring. Tony found her there and sat down next to her.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she lied. “You?”
<
br /> “Just getting psyched up for the big chase tonight. We’ll get the girls back, Sharon. I know we will.”
She let her eyes drift to some invisible spot across the room. “You have to.”
He took her hand and fondled her fingers. “You’re a strong lady, you know that?”
“What choice do I have?”
“You could fall apart. Believe me, it happens all the time. Most mothers would have passed hysteria by now.”
“I’m glad you have a short memory,” she said.
“Well, you’ve had your moments, but you might have had more.” He gazed at her for a moment, noting how pretty she was. Her beauty was striking, but not in the way that he usually viewed beauty. There was an intelligence about her beauty, a dignity, and if he hadn’t gotten to know her in such a vulnerable state, he probably would have been intimidated by her.
“Tell me about Christy,” he said. “Is she smart? Is she athletic?”
“I think she’s smart,” she said. “She’s only in first grade, but she’s been reading since she was four.”
“I mean, logic smart. Clear-headed smart.”
“Yeah, she’s got a lot of common sense. You could say she’s even a little precocious. Jenny’s always been an honor student, and I have a feeling that Christy will follow in her footsteps. She can count to fifteen in Spanish, to ten in French . . . and she knows all of the states in alphabetical order, because Jenny taught her a song about it. They’re working on the presidents.”
“Learning them?” Tony asked, amazed. “In the first grade, they learn all the presidents?”
“No,” she said. “Jenny’s teaching her. She’s really good at memory work.”
“She sounds like a kid who could take care of herself if she had to.”
Sharon’s eyes misted. “I think she could,” she whispered. “She’s strong. She climbs all the time, getting up to her tree house. She runs really fast, and she’s a strong swimmer.”
Tony smiled. “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. She sounds like a real interesting kid.”
“She is. You’d really like her.”
“Well, I hope after all this is over, and she’s back safe and sound, that you’ll give me the chance to get to know her.”
“Of course. If you really want to.”
“I do.” He looked down at her hand, laced his fingers through hers.
She gazed up at him, her eyes serious, haunted. “Who are you, Tony Danks? Are you attached? Detached?”
He breathed a laugh. “None of the above.”
“Why not? Why haven’t you ever married?”
“Never found the right person,” he said. “Besides, marriage hasn’t had much appeal to me. Every cop I know who’s gotten married has wound up divorced. With the exception of Larry, but he’s a newlywed. Give him time.”
“Uh-oh. A cynic.”
“Not really,” he said, hating that she saw him that way. “I’m a realist. I don’t like to believe in things that can let me down.”
“And here you are asking me to believe in you.”
He grinned. “Well, that’s because I won’t let you down. You can put your faith in me and know I’ll do my very best.”
“But you can’t control everything,” she said, her face slackening again. “There are too many factors out of your control. So I can’t put any real faith in you.”
He looked hurt, but she persisted. “I can’t put faith in anyone who’s not in control.”
“Well, no one is really in control here, except for the kidnapper.”
“No. He just thinks he is.”
“You have to believe in somebody.”
“I believe in God. He knows where the children are.”
He let that declaration hang in the air for a moment before asking, “Then how come you still don’t have any peace?”
“Because I’m weak,” she whispered.
Tony got up and walked to the window. He looked out on the news truck that waited outside for some sign of drama. “I’m not much of a believer in God, Sharon,” he admitted. “I’ve had to do too many things on my own.”
“You may have thought you were doing them on your own. But God was still God, whether you believed or not.”
He turned back to her. “What if we don’t find the girls, Sharon? What if this ends badly? Are you still going to believe that God was in control?”
He hadn’t realized how biting that remark would be, but she looked up at him with horrified eyes. “It can’t end badly, Tony. You see? Already you’re giving up. And you expect me to believe in you.”
“No, I’m not giving up. It won’t end badly. I’m just trying to make a point. What about all the other parents who’ve lost children? Was God in control there, too?”
She wiped away a tear. “Yes, I believe he was.”
“Was he in control when that man was luring your child into his car?”
It was almost as if he wanted her to break, to scream out that God wasn’t in control, that the world had fallen out of God’s grasp and chaos ruled.
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Tony,” she said in a shaky voice. “The fact that I’m a basket case doesn’t take one iota away from God’s power. It just proves how fragile my faith can be. It’s an indictment of me, not God.”
“Fragile faith?” he asked, his voice softening as he realized he was being too harsh. “Your faith isn’t fragile. It’s as strong as a rock.”
“No,” she whispered. “If it were, I’d be asking more directly for his will to be done. But I’m not sure I can do that yet, because I don’t know what his will is.” She began to cry harder and covered her mouth. “I’m just not to the point where I can trust God to take my child from me, even if there’s a big, divine purpose. I don’t want to lose my baby!”
He sat back down and pulled her against him, holding her while she wept. For the first time since he was a kid, he thought of praying. But then he wondered what he would say. God, I don’t even think I believe in you, but Sharon does, so if you’re listening ...
Right. As if God would be open to listening to a prayer like that. But the feeling that his prayers were no good, that there was no way he could appeal to the Creator Sharon put all her faith in, made him feel too helpless.
He dropped his chin on the crown of her head as her tears soaked the front of his shirt, and feeling more humble the harder she cried, he closed his eyes. Give us a miracle, Lord. Bring the children back. For Sharon.
If there was a God, wouldn’t he answer a prayer for Sharon, who believed so deeply in him?
But didn’t bad things happen to Christians? Didn’t tragedies befall them, just like everyone else? Weren’t they frequent customers at hospitals and funeral homes, just like the regular joes were? Weren’t some of their prayers not being answered?
He hated the thought that her faith might not make any difference. It would be nice if it did. After all these years of going it alone, he could use something to believe in. If he just had a sign . . .
But he couldn’t rely on God to bring the children home. He could rely only on himself, and his experience, and the gun he carried in the holster under his arm. He could rely only on good luck and solid planning.
Sharon pulled herself back and wiped her eyes. “I never do this.”
“Do what?”
“Cry. Openly, in front of a stranger, like I have with you. It seems like every time I’ve been around you, I’ve broken down. I don’t want you to think this is the real me.”
“Isn’t it?” he asked perceptively. “You’re not really a sweet, loving, feminine beauty who loves her children more than she loves herself?”
She smiled through her tears. “You’re good, you know that?” She sat up straight and shook her head. “I don’t know why I feel comfortable enough with you to bare my soul like this.”
“Because you have to be a tough guy for the others in the house,” he said.
“Oh, is that it?” she asked, sniffing.
“Why would that be?”
“Well, you can’t be vulnerable around your ex-husband. That would be too painful, given your history. You have to keep that wall up, for your own protection, I would imagine.”
She cocked her head and gave him a narrow look. “Is that right, Dr. Freud?”
“Yes,” he said with certainty. “And you can’t let your guard down around Anne, because you don’t want to feel her pain. Then you’d have to be compassionate toward her, and you need to hold onto your bitterness. That’s a defense mechanism, too.”
She stood up. “Oh, that’s ridiculous. You’re forgetting that my daughter is in the house, too. Do I have deep-seated bitterness about her, too?”
“No. But around her you have to be strong, so she doesn’t shrivel. I’ve seen you come close to cracking with Lynda Barrett, but you held back. I think it may have been because Ben and Anne and everybody were around.”
“So I picked you by default? I could have fallen apart with any cop, right? It could have been Larry?”
“I’m cuter,” Tony said.
She couldn’t help smiling. “While I find your whole scenario to be a lot of baloney, I think you’re selling yourself a little short. The fact is that you have a way about you. I’ve felt I could be myself with you. You’ve understood.”
“Some of it, maybe,” he said. “But I’m glad you’ve felt comfortable with me. Sit down.”
Slowly, she sank back down with a giant sigh. He began to massage her shoulders, working out the tension that had hardened itself in her neck and upper back. “There are some things a woman just shouldn’t have to face alone,” he whispered.
Her face sobered again, and tears pushed to her eyes once more as she relaxed against his ministrations. It felt so good to be pampered, she thought, to be touched with gentle hands, to be spoken to in soft, masculine tones. Part of her wanted to curl up in the warmth and comfort of it, to hide in the strength of it. But another part of her told her it was a fantasy, because he was not a believer. They had little in common.
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