“It’s just a bump. I’ll live.” Impatient, she brushed it off. Her minor physical injuries were nothing compared to the constant, grinding torture of Ben’s loss. Sniffling, gritting her teeth, fighting to control her emotions with every bit of determination she had, she lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him steadily. “Do you think, if I do what they tell me tomorrow night, there’s any way they might just let him go?”
Tears still stung her eyes, and her voice was thick with anguish, but she was fighting hard to get her distress under control. Her fear for Ben oozed like some terrible icy poison along her nerve endings, through her veins, and into every organ of her body. She prayed for his safety with every breath she drew.
“No.”
Okay. At least he was honest. She didn’t think so, either.
“We have to find out who took him. Mario was a Black Dragon. They’re a gang. . . .”
“I know all about Castellanos and the Black Dragons.
I’ve been looking into his background pretty thoroughly these last few days, believe me. I know you visited him at the detention center, for instance.”
“Oh, yeah?” Had she really thought he had stopped investigating her? Well, at least now he was saved the effort. She had handed herself over to him on a platter, and the legal consequences were still to come. But she didn’t care. All she cared about now was saving Ben. Whatever it took.
“Did you forge Judge Hardy’s signature on the release order that got Castellanos sprung from jail?”
“What?” Kate sat up in his lap, dashing the last of the tears from her eyes with both hands as she spoke. “Somebody forged the release order? It wasn’t me.”
Tom returned her gaze steadily. “There’s a security tape from the clerk’s office showing the order being filed. I haven’t looked at it yet. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.”
“I swear I didn’t,” she said. “I’m finished telling lies, I promise.”
The slight inclination of his head accepted that.
“Somebody did. I’d say identifying that somebody is our first step, because it seems pretty clear to me that Castellanos was signed out of jail to take you to his ‘friends,’ whoever they are. Otherwise, why get him out? And why kill him? Right now, I’m thinking he was killed so whoever this is would have sole control over you.”
“I was going to check on who signed the order to get Mario out,” Kate said. “But I never got around to it. It didn’t seem that important.”
“Well, now it is.” He stood up with her without warning, lifting her easily, depositing her back on the couch. Straightening, he pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket.
“Tom—” The sight of it alarmed her.
“I need to call the people I told you about, Rick Stuart with Major Cases and Mac Willets with the FBI. And I want to bring Fish in on this. We need help, and I know those guys personally and I trust them. It won’t go beyond them until we put together some kind of plan.”
The idea of telling anyone else sent cold shivers up and down Kate’s spine, but she trusted Tom and he said he trusted them, so she nodded.
He picked up the phone and walked away from her and placed the calls. By the time he returned, phone nowhere in sight, Kate was shaking again.
“They’re on their way,” he told her. She was huddled in a corner of the couch, and he stopped in front of her. Doing her best to control the long shudders that racked her, she met his gaze in mute inquiry. “Willets thinks like you do, that this may be part of a conspiracy to murder Jim Wolff. If so, this is big. Even if it turns out to be wrong, it still gives us enough leverage to swing a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“In return for your full cooperation, we can offer immunity from prosecution for any crimes you may have committed, including the murder of that security guard. We’ll get it in writing when everyone gets here.”
Kate took a deep breath. The idea of no longer having that hanging over her head was dazzling—or it would have been were it not for Ben.
“I don’t care,” she said, in a voice she kept carefully steady. “Just as long as I get Ben back.”
“Well, I do care.” Tom caught one of her hands and pulled her to her feet. “We’ll get the immunity deal done. And we’ll save Ben, too. Why don’t you go wash your face while I make some coffee? It’s going to be a long night.”
As far as Kate was concerned, the rest of the night and most of the following day went by in a blur. The reinforcements Tom had summoned arrived, and after that, things seemed to happen at warp speed. Certain moments stood out, such as when she signed the immunity deal Tom and Special Agent Mac Willets had hammered out and knew that she was finally free of the threat of prosecution for David Brady’s death—although the death itself would forever stain her soul. And when she sat with Tom and Fish in the kitchen, watching on a monitor Fish brought the replay of the security tape showing a Caucasian male in maybe his late thirties to midforties wearing a gray business suit handing Mario’s release order across the counter to the clerk. The quality of the tape was not good, and the angle was never right to get a view of the subject’s face. All they could glean from it was a general description that could have fit hundreds of people. But watching the subject walk to the counter—which she did at least three dozen times—Kate was struck by the niggling sense that he was somehow familiar. Try as she did, though, she couldn’t come up with even a tentative ID. Their next hope for uncovering his identity was running a fingerprint and DNA check on the document itself, which was ordinarily a process that could take several weeks. A favor was called in, and the results were promised for the next day. Which meant the timing was going to be way too close for them to count on it as a means of tightening the net around whoever was holding Ben.
Who’d had no supper. Who might be cold, or exposed to the elements. Who was certainly terrified.
Thinking of those things made Kate want to climb the walls with panic, so she tried not to think about them. But she couldn’t sleep, although Tom urged her to lie down for a few hours. And she couldn’t eat, although he tried to get her to. All she could do was down coffee and assist every way she could in trying to unravel the web that would lead to Ben.
Before dawn, it was agreed that Kate needed to go back to her house, so that she could leave from it the next day as if she had spent the night there. She would go to work, trying to behave as normally as possible. Then she would go home again, where Tom would pick her up at seven for the fund-raiser. At the fund-raiser, she would go through the motions until the phone call came through. What couldn’t happen was for the conspirators to suspect anything had gone wrong with their plan.
Even if Ben was rescued before then—and Kate prayed that the fingerprint or DNA evidence would come through from that release order, or the description she’d given of the van and car would cause one of them to be spotted, or that an investigation of the Black Dragons might lead to something that would lead to Ben—going to the fund-raiser and waiting for the phone call were part of the deal she’d made to get immunity.
At the idea that Ben might still be missing by tomorrow night, Kate felt cold to her bone marrow.
Tom took her home at about five a.m., walking her through the dark backyards, sneaking into her kitchen with her. As far as she could tell, no one was watching. The house was just as she had left it, with some lights on and the curtains drawn tightly. She took a shower, changed her clothes, drank coffee, and took a single bite of the toast Tom had made. It made her stomach heave, so she didn’t eat anything else.
At shortly after seven, when it was time for her to leave for work, he walked her to her car in the dark garage.
“A car will follow you in,” he told her as she unlocked her door with a beep of her keys. “You may not see them, but there’ll be somebody on you all day.”
They had agreed that it would be best if he stayed away from her until he picked her up that night.
“Okay.” Kate opened
her door. The Camry’s interior light flashed on, making her cringe instinctively. But of course they were in the windowless garage. No one could possibly see inside.
“What’s all that?” Tom was looking at the pile of Ben’s most precious possessions that was still heaped in the passenger seat. The sight of Ben’s teddy bear alone was enough to make Kate’s throat close up. So she didn’t look at it, turning instead to look at Tom, who stood right behind her, a tall, dark figure in the gloom just beyond the reach of the car’s light.
“Ben’s things.” Her reply was as brief as she could make it, because it hurt so much to talk about. “Stuff I couldn’t leave behind.”
“Were you really going to just leave without a word?”
There was something in his voice that made her gaze sharpen and focus on his face.
“At the time, it didn’t seem like I had any choice.”
“You would’ve broken my heart, you know.” The smallest of wry smiles curved his mouth, but his eyes were dark and serious as they held hers. “Just for the record, I think you ought to know that I’m crazy in love with you.”
Kate stood there absorbing the look in his eyes while, despite everything, her heart began to pound and her breathing grew ragged. His hand slid warm and smooth against her cheek and he leaned forward, clearly meaning to kiss her. Before their mouths made contact, she stopped him with a hand pressed flat against his chest.
“I’m in love with you, too,” she told him.
His smile widened. “I thought you might be,” he said, and kissed her, a quick, hard, but nevertheless infinitely satisfying kiss that ended when he put her in the car.
Then he vanished back into the house while she punched the button to open the garage door.
The next fourteen hours were the longest of Kate’s life. By nine o’clock Friday night, as she left the stage in Mona’s slinky black dress and rhinestone earrings, clutching the Shining Star award (a gold-colored plastic trophy in the shape of a star on a pedestal) that the mayor had just presented her with to thunderous applause, it was all she could do not to give in to blind terror. No word had been heard from the kidnappers. Some progress—via the unraveling of the Black Dragons’ ties to the Mob—had been made on possibly identifying them, but not enough. Jim Wolff had left the building. After making nice with the big donors in attendance, he had been whisked away by his security detail, which had been notified of the possible assassination attempt in progress and declined to take the risk of leaving him in place even to possibly save the life of a little boy. Ever resourceful, the team working to save Ben had substituted a ringer—a man in a business suit with the same general height, build, and coloring—who was now supposedly in a back-room meeting with more potential big donors, which in reality were a gaggle of FBI agents. During the brief time he’d been present, Wolff had been covered by all the local TV stations, and no one knew of the ringer except their own small group, which was sworn to secrecy about the entire operation. But Kate was sick with fear at the thought that somehow the kidnappers had found out.
As the minutes crawled past with no phone call, she became increasingly convinced of it. Her heart pounded in great, panic-stricken strokes.
She rejoined Tom—so handsome in his tux that she would have melted looking at him under any other conditions—at their table just as his phone rang. The sound startled her so much she almost fell out of her chair.
He excused himself to answer, and she excused herself to follow. If he was taking a call now, it had to be about Ben. Had the kidnappers somehow gotten hold of his number? Had Ben been found? Had . . .
Her wild speculation ended when he disconnected and looked at her. They were standing in a little hall along the east side of the building by this time. Inside the main event room, she could just glimpse the stage, where the mayor was introducing someone else, and one of the huge gilded arches that girded the ceiling.
“We got an ID on the man on the security tape,” Tom said. “Edward Curry. He was the PD in courtroom 207 that day, remember. It looks like he forged the judge’s name and filed the order himself. Plus, one of his fingerprints matches one on the gun Soto used to kill Judge Moran, so we got him on planting the weapons, too.”
Ed Curry. Kate was momentarily staggered. “Have they picked him up? Has he said anything?”
She meant about Ben. Her entire focus was on Ben.
Tom shook his head. “They don’t want to pick him up yet. In case that should somehow tip off whoever’s got Ben that you went to the cops. They’re watching him, and he’ll be picked up later.”
He meant if there was no other hope for finding Ben.
“Oh my God.” Kate felt a terrible sinking sensation in her stomach. “What happens if—”
Her phone began to ring.
Chapter 30
CASTING A SINGLE petrified look at Tom, Kate snatched her phone out of Mona’s borrowed evening bag. The ID line read Unknown caller, she saw as she answered.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Ms. White.” It was him. It was him. Kate nodded wildly at Tom, who stiffened and picked up the two-way radio he had clipped to his belt, then moved away as he started talking quickly into it.
“Where’s my son?” Kate demanded. Her hands shook, and her legs felt about as stable as Slinky toys. Her heart did flip-flops in her chest.
“I’ll tell you—as soon as you do that favor for us.” He was on a cell phone, she thought, because there seemed to be a lot of static. She could hear a low hum punctuated by a faint click-click-click sound that wasn’t coming from her end. “Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to go into the ladies’ restroom in the back hallway near the kitchen and unlock the window.” Hum. Click-click-click.
So someone could enter through it? A gunman, perhaps?
Tom was back beside her. He had his cop face on. His eyes were fastened on her face. He made a motion with his hand that meant she should keep the conversation going as long as possible. They were, she knew, trying to trace the call.
“Did you hear me?” the voice asked.
“I want to speak to Ben first,” Kate said, as she had been instructed to do. “I’m not doing anything until I talk to my son. How do I know he’s even still alive?”
“Ms. White . . .” Hum. Click-click-click.
“I mean it. I want to talk to Ben. I won’t do it until I talk to Ben.” Her voice climbed dangerously near the edge of hysteria.
It must have convinced him, because he said, “Wait.” Except for the static, there was silence. Kate could hear muffled voices in the background, as if two people were quickly conferring. Then he was back. “Hold on.”
A moment later Ben said, “Mom?”
“Ben?” Kate’s heart lurched. She nearly crumpled to the floor with relief. “Are you all right?”
“ ’Member when I had that nightmare about the tyrannosaurus?” Ben’s voice was shaky, but there was a note in it that made her brows contract. Her hand tightened on the phone until her knuckles hurt. “I had another one last night.”
There was a scuffling sound, followed by a thud and a muffled “Ow” from Ben.
“Ben,” Kate said desperately, knowing he could no longer hear her as she called to him. “Ben.”
Except for the static, there was nothing on the other end.
“Ben,” she begged, going weak all over as she held the phone to her ear. Her breathing came fast and shallow. She felt as if she might faint. Her pulse raced.
Don’t lose it. She had to keep it together for Ben.
“Go unlock the window, Ms. White.” The man was back.
“Did you hurt him?” Her voice was fierce. She shook with reaction and fear and anger. “If you hurt him—”
She broke off because he disconnected. She knew instantly, because the static was gone. Her lips parted as she sucked in air. Her eyes flew to Tom.
“Tom—” She couldn’t bear to close the phone.
Tom’s eye
s stayed on her face as he spoke into the two-way. “Did you get it?”
Kate knew he was talking to whoever was trying to trace the call. His grimace told her the answer even before he shook his head in response to her pleading look. Leaning against the wall, using it as a crutch to aid her untrustworthy knees, she saw that their handpicked squad of police and FBI agents was converging on them from various directions like an army of ants, including the female agent in the blond wig and slinky black dress whose assignment was to take her place in carrying out the caller’s request. Ignoring them, Kate grabbed Tom’s arm.
“I think I know where he is,” she said, dry-mouthed.
“What?” Tom lowered the radio to stare at her.
“Last summer I took him to the navy yard to look at the ships. There was a billboard with a picture of a tyrannosaurus attacking another dinosaur on it. It was advertising one of the museum exhibits. He had a nightmare about it that night. On the phone just now he said, ‘ ’Member when I had that nightmare about the tyrannosaurus? I had another one last night.’ He’s somewhere where he can see that billboard. He was trying to tell me where he is.”
“Jesus,” Tom said, as the infantry engulfed them.
“Smart kid.”
THE PHILADELPHIA navy yard was located down at the end of South Broad Street, with the smooth, dark waters of the Delaware stretching seemingly endlessly beyond. Strung out along the waterfront were three miles of floating docks for visiting or anchored or dry-docked battleships and aircraft carriers and gunboats and the occasional submarine, as well as barges and freighters from all around the world, plus a small flotilla of commercial fishing vessels. There were cruise ships, too, docked at their own small, relatively upscale area off to one end. Dozens of identical gray and blue metal warehouses lined up in rows behind the docks. Huge metal shipping containers waited beside the warehouses to be moved either into the warehouses or onto ships. Forklifts, cranes, and winches sat idle, waiting for the coming of day. Narrow concrete roads ran between the warehouses and parallel to the docks. Gravel pocked with scrub grass covered everything else. Big halogen lights lit the area near the docks, although farther out, the shipyard, which covered hundreds of acres, was dark. A single security guard in a small guardhouse controlled the entrance to the cruise-ship compound. A couple more security guards patrolled the areas in front of the commercial vessels. Except for maybe half a dozen dockhands still laboring to unload one of the freighters, the rest of the compound appeared deserted.
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