by Harlan Coben
I hit the answer button.
“Let me talk first,” Lenny said before I could even utter a hello. “For the record, if this is being taped, this conversation is between an attorney and his client. It is thus protected. Marc, don’t tell me where you are. Don’t tell me anything that would force me to lie. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Did your trip bear fruit?” he asked.
“Not the fruit we wanted. Not yet anyway. But we’re getting very close.”
“Any way I can help?”
“I don’t think so.” Then, “Wait.” I remembered that Lenny had handled my sister’s arrests. He had been her main legal advisor. “Did Stacy ever say anything to you about adoption?”
“I’m not following.”
“Did she ever think about giving up a baby for adoption, or in any way mention adoption to you?”
“No. Is this somehow connected with the kidnapping?”
“Could be.”
“I don’t remember anything like that. Look, they might be taping us, so let me tell you why I called. They found a dead body at your house—a man shot twice in the head.” Lenny knew that I was already aware of this. I assumed that he was saying this for the benefit of whoever might be eavesdropping. “They haven’t made an ID, but they did locate the murder weapon in the Christies’ backyard.”
I was not surprised. Rachel had figured that they’d plant the gun somewhere.
“The thing is, Marc, the murder weapon is your old gun, the one that’s been missing since the shooting at your house. They already ran a ballistics test. You and Monica were shot with two different thirty-eights, remember?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that gun—yourgun—was one of the two used that morning.”
I closed my eyes. Rachel mouthed a “what?” at me.
“I better go,” Lenny said. “I’ll look into Stacy and an adoption angle, if you want. See what I can dig up.”
“Thanks.”
“Stay safe.”
He hung up. I turned to Rachel and told her about the gun discovery and the ballistics test. She leaned back and bit down on her lower lip, another familiar habit from our dating days. “So that means,” she said, “that Pavel and the rest of these people are definitely linked to the first attack.”
“You still had doubts?”
“A few hours ago, we thought it was a total hoax, remember? We thought that maybe these guys knew enough to fake like they had Tara, just to con some ransom money out of your father-in-law. But now we know different. These people were there that morning. They were part of the original abduction.”
It made sense, but something about it still felt wrong. “Where do we go from here?” I asked.
“The logical step is to visit this lawyer, Steven Bacard,” Rachel said. “The problem is, we don’t know if he’s the boss or just another employee. For all we know, Denise Vanech is the mastermind and he works for her. Or they both work for a third party. And if we go busting in there, Bacard is just going to clam up. He’s a lawyer. He’s too smart to talk to us.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It might be time to call in the feds. Maybe they can raid his office.”
I shook my head. “That’ll take too long.”
“We might be able to get them to move fast.”
“Assuming they believe us—which is a big assumption—how fast?”
“I don’t know, Marc.”
I didn’t like it. “Suppose Denise Vanech was suspicious back there. Suppose Tatiana gets scared and calls her again. Suppose there is indeed a leak. There are too many variables here, Rachel.”
“So what do you think we should do?”
“A two-prong attack,” I said, the words coming out without much thought. There was a problem. I suddenly had a solution. “You take Denise Vanech. I take Steven Bacard. We coordinate it so that we hit them at the same time.”
“Marc, he’s a lawyer. He’s not going to open up to you.”
I looked at her. She saw it. Verne sat up a little and made a smallwoo-ee noise.
“You’re going to threaten him?” Rachel asked.
“We’re talking about my child’s life.”
“And you’re talking about taking the law into your own hands.” Then she added, “Again.”
“So?”
“You threatened a teenage girl with a gun.”
“I was trying to intimidate, that’s all. I would have never really hurt her.”
“The law—”
“The law hasn’t done squat to help my daughter,” I said, trying not to shout. In the corner of my eye, I saw Verne nodding along with my outrage. “They’re too busy wasting time on you.”
That made her straighten up. “Me?”
“Lenny told me at the house. They think you did it. Without me. That you were obsessed with having me back or something.”
“What?”
I rose from the table. “Look, I’m going to see this Bacard guy. I don’t plan on hurting anyone, but if he knows something about my daughter, I’m going to find out what it is.”
Verne raised his fist. “Right on.”
I asked Verne if I could keep borrowing the Camaro. He reminded me that he was behind me all the way. I expected Rachel to argue some more. She didn’t. Maybe she knew that I would not change my mind. Maybe she knew I was right. Or maybe—perhaps most likely—she had been stunned to learn that her old colleagues had zeroed in on her as the sole serious suspect.
“I’ll come with you,” Rachel said.
“No.” My voice left no wiggle room. I had no idea what I would do when I got there, but I knew that I was capable of plenty. “What I said before makes sense.” I could hear my familiar surgeon-tone taking over. “I’ll call you when I get to Bacard’s office. We hit him and Denise Vanech at the same time.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I got back in the Camaro and started toward the MetroVista office complex.
chapter 40
Lydia checked hersurroundings. She was a little more in the open than she liked to be, but that couldn’t be helped. She had on the spiky blond wig—the one not unlike Steven Bacard’s description of Denise Vanech. She knocked on the door of the efficiency.
The curtain next to the door moved. Lydia smiled. “Tatiana?”
No reply.
She had been warned that Tatiana spoke very little English. Lydia had debated how to play this. Time was critical. Everything and everyone needed to be shut down. When someone who dislikes blood as much as Bacard says that, you immediately understand the ramifications. Lydia and Heshy had split up. She had come down here. They would meet up afterward.
“It’s okay, Tatiana,” she said through the door. “I’m here to help.”
There was no movement.
“I’m a friend of Pavel’s,” she tried. “You know Pavel?”
The curtain moved. A young woman’s face appeared for a brief moment, gaunt and childlike. Lydia nodded at her. The woman still did not open the door. Lydia scanned her surroundings. Nobody looking, but she still felt too exposed. This had to end fast.
“Wait,” Lydia said. Then, looking at the curtain, she reached into her purse. She pulled out a piece of paper and pen. She wrote something down, making sure that if someone was still at the window, they would see exactly what she was doing. She capped the pen and stepped close to the window. Lydia held the piece of paper up to the pane of glass so Tatiana could read it.
It was like drawing a scared cat out from under the sofa. Tatiana moved slowly. She came toward the window. Lydia stayed still, so as not to startle her. Tatiana leaned closer. Here, kitty, kitty. Lydia could see the girl’s face now. She was squinting, trying to see what was on the piece of paper.
When Tatiana came close enough, Lydia pressed the barrel of the gun against the glass and aimed between the young girl’s eyes. At the last second, Tatiana tried to veer away. Too little, too late. The bullet went cle
an through the glass and into Tatiana’s right eye. Blood appeared. Lydia fired again, automatically tilting the gun downward. It caught the falling Tatiana in the top of the forehead. But the second bullet had been superfluous. The first shot, the one in the eye, had ripped into the brain and killed the young girl instantly.
Lydia hurried away. She risked a glance behind her. No one. When she reached the neighboring mall, she dumped the wig and the white coat. She found her car in a lot another half mile away.
I called Rachel when I arrived at MetroVista. She was parked down the street from Denise Vanech’s house. We were both ready to go.
I’m not sure what I expected to happen here. I guess I figured that I would explode into Bacard’s office, stick my gun in his face, and demand answers. What I hadn’t foreseen was a regular, state-of-the-state office setup—that is, Steven Bacard had a well-appointed reception area. There were two people waiting—a married couple, by all appearances. The husband had his face stuck in a waiting-room-laminatedSports Illustrated . The wife looked to be in pain. She tried to smile at me, but it was as if the effort would wound her.
I realized how shoddy I must look. I was still in my hospital scrubs. I was unshaven. My eyes were undoubtedly red from lack of sleep. My hair, I imagined, was probably sticking up in a textbook case of bedhead.
The receptionist was behind one of those sliding glass windows I usually associate with a dental practice. The woman—a small nameplate readAGNES WEISS —smiled at me sweetly.
“May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Mr. Bacard.”
“Do you have an appointment?” She kept the tone sweet, but there was a rhetorical twang there too. She already knew the answer.
“This is an emergency,” I said.
“I see. Are you a client of ours, Mr. . . . ?”
“Doctor,” I snapped back automatically. “Tell him Dr. Marc Seidman needs to see him immediately. Tell him it’s an emergency.”
The young couple was watching us now. The receptionist’s sweet smile began to falter. “Mr. Bacard’s schedule is very full today.” She opened her appointment ledger. “Let me see when we have something available, okay?”
“Agnes, look at me.”
She did.
I gave her my gravest, you-might-die-if-I-don’t-operate-right-away expression. “Tell him Dr. Seidman is here. Tell him it’s an emergency. Tell him if he doesn’t see me now, I will go to the police.”
The young couple exchanged a glance.
Agnes adjusted herself in the chair. “If you’ll just have a seat—”
“Tell him.”
“Sir, if you don’t step back, I’ll call security.”
So I stepped back. I could always step forward again. Agnes did not pick up the phone. I moved to a nonthreatening distance. She slid the little window closed. The couple looked at me. The husband said, “She’s covering for him.”
The wife said, “Jack!”
Jack ignored her. “Bacard ran out of here half an hour ago. That receptionist keeps telling us he’ll be right back.”
I noticed a wall of photographs. Now I took a closer look. The same man was in all of them with a potpourri of politicos, quasi celebrities, gone-to-flab athletes. Steven Bacard, I assumed. I stared at the man’s face—pudgy, weak chinned, country-club shiny.
I thanked the man named Jack and started for the door. Bacard’s office was on the first floor, so I decided to wait by the entrance. This way, I could catch him unawares on neutral ground and before Agnes had a chance to warn him. Five minutes passed. Several suits came and went, all harried from their days of printer toner and paperweights, dragged down by briefcases the size of car trunks. I paced the corridor.
Another couple entered. I could tell right away by their tentative steps and shattered eyes that they, too, were heading for Bacard’s office. I watched them and wondered what path they had taken here. I saw them getting married, holding hands, kissing freely, making love in the morning. I saw their careers begin to thrive. I saw them feel the pang and segue toward the initial attempts at conceiving, the wait-till-next-month shrug when the home tests were negative, the slowly blossoming worry. A year passes. Still nothing. Their friends are starting to have children now and talk about them incessantly. Their parents are wondering when they’ll have grandkids. I see them visiting the doctor—“a specialist”—the endless probing for the woman, the humiliation of masturbating into a beaker for the man, the personal questions, the blood and urine samples. More years pass. Their friends drift away. Making love is now strictly about procreation. It is calculated. It is always tinged with sadness. He stops holding her hand. She rolls over at night unless it’s the right time in her cycle. I see the drugs, the Pergonal, the ridiculously expensive in-vitro fertilization, the time off from work, the checking of calendars, the same home tests, the crushing disappointments.
And now they were here.
No, I didn’t know if any of this was really the case. But somehow I suspected that I was close. How far, I wondered, would they go to end this pain? How much would they pay?
“Oh my God! Oh my God!”
I jerked my head toward the scream. A man banged through the door.
“Call nine-one-one!”
I ran toward him. “What is it?”
I heard another scream. I ran through the door and outside. Yet another scream, this one more high pitched. I turned to my right. Two women were running out of the lower-level parking garage. I sprinted down the ramp. I slipped past the gate where you pick up your parking ticket. Someone else was calling for help, begging people to call 911.
Up ahead, I saw a security guard shouting into a walkie-talkie of some sort. He broke into a full gallop too. I followed him. When we turned the corner, the security guard pulled up. There was a woman next to him. She had her hands on her cheeks and was screaming. I ran next to them and looked down.
The body was jammed between two cars. His eyes stared open at nothing. His face was still pudgy, weak chinned, country-club shiny. The blood flowed from the wound in his head. The world teetered again.
Steven Bacard, maybe my last hope, was dead.
chapter 41
Rachel rang thedoorbell. Denise Vanech had one of those pretentious chimes that ring up and then down the scale. The sun was all the way up now. The sky was blue and clear. On the street, two women power-walked carrying tiny mauve dumbbells. They nodded at Rachel, never missing a step. Rachel nodded back.
The intercom sounded. “Yes?”
“Denise Vanech?”
“Who is this please?”
“My name is Rachel Mills. I used to work with the FBI.”
“Did you say, used to?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want?”
“We need to talk, Ms. Vanech.”
“About what?”
Rachel sighed. “Could you please just open the door?”
“Not until I know what this is about.”
“The young girl you just visited in Union City. It’s about her. For starters.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t discuss my patients.”
“I said, for starters.”
“Why would a former FBI agent be interested in any of this anyway?”
“Would you prefer I call a current agent?”
“I don’t care what you do, Ms. Mills. I have nothing else to say to you. If the FBI has questions, they can call my lawyer.”
“I see,” Rachel said. “And would your lawyer be Steven Bacard?”
There was a brief silence. Rachel glanced back at the car.
“Ms. Vanech?”
“I don’t have to talk to you.”
“No, that’s true. I’ll start going door-to-door maybe. Talk to your neighbors.”
“And say what?”
“I’ll ask them if they know anything about a baby-smuggling operation that runs out of this house.”
The door opened quickly. Denise Vanech with her tan skin and white hair pu
shed her head through the door. “I’ll sue you for libel.”
“Slander,” Rachel said.
“What?“
“Slander. Libel is for the printed word. Slander is for the spoken. You mean slander. But either way, you’d have to prove what I’m saying is untrue. And we both know better.”
“You have no evidence I’ve done anything wrong.”
“Sure I do.”
“I was treating a woman who claimed to be ill. That’s all.”
Rachel pointed up the lawn. Katarina stepped out of the car. “And what about this former patient?”
Denise Vanech put a hand to her mouth.
“She’ll testify that you paid her money for her baby.”
“No, she won’t. They’ll arrest her.”
“Oh sure, right, the FBI would much rather crack down on a poor Serbian woman than break up a baby-smuggling ring. That’s rich.”
When Denise Vanech paused, Rachel pushed open the door. “Mind if I come in?”
“You have it wrong,” she said quietly.
“Cool.” Rachel was inside now. “You can correct me on all my misgivings.”
Denise Vanech seemed suddenly unsure what to do. With one more look at Katarina, she slowly closed the front door. Rachel was already heading into the den. It was white. Totally white. White sectional couches against a white carpet. White porcelain statues of naked women riding horses. White coffee table, white side tables, and two of those white ergonomic-looking chairs with no backs. Denise followed her in. Her white clothes blended into the background, camouflagelike, making it look like her head and arms were floating.
“What do you want?”
“I’m looking for a specific child.”
Denise let her eyes wander toward the door. “Hers?”
She was talking about Katarina.
“No.”