Shortly before five, Sharon McCone called to report that the vehicle registered in Burke’s name was a 1992 Nissan Sentra, four-door, white, with the personalized license plate VALBLAW. The woman’s current residence hadn’t been found yet, but McCone had two of her staff working on that and on the background profile.
He and Cassie made the rounds of their neighbors, explaining the situation in terse terms and supplying Burke’s description and the information about her car. The response, as it had been with Rakubian, was strongly supportive.
At five-forty the phone rang again. Pierce. And what he had to say put him solidly in Hollis’s favor. He agreed that Angela and Kenny would be safer living at the Hollises and had talked her into a temporary move. He’d stay in her apartment and keep an eye on things there, he said.
“Angela’s packing right now. Soon as she’s ready, she’ll drive over with Kenny.”
“Follow her in your truck. You’re welcome to stay for dinner.”
“Thanks, Mr. Hollis. I’d like that.”
“And I’d like you to use my first name. Mr. Hollis makes me sound as old as I feel.”
Thursday Evening
Angela wore a smiley face, but her reluctance was plain—she really didn’t want to be dependent any longer, at least not on Cassie and him. Kenny was too quiet, always a sure sign that he was troubled. Hollis scooped him up, took him into the study, and installed him in front of the computer. But the boy’s interest in video games was less avid than usual tonight.
He said as Hollis started to leave, “Granpa? Is David coming back to hurt us?”
My God. “No way. What gave you that idea?”
“I heard Mama and Daddy talking. She’s scared, like she was before.”
“It’s not David Rakubian she’s scared of.”
“Then how come we’re gonna live with you and Granma again?”
“What did your mom tell you?”
“She said it’s just for a little while. She said we never have to be afraid of David again, but I didn’t believe her. Who’s she scared of if it’s not that asshole?”
“Not a nice word, kiddo.”
“Mama says it sometimes. Lots of people say it.”
“Well, they shouldn’t and neither should you.”
“Who’re we afraid of now, Granpa?”
“A bad lady. But it won’t be for long.”
“What bad lady?”
“You don’t know her. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt your mom. As long as I’m around, nobody’s going to hurt anyone in this family ever again.”
Eric called just before dinner. Hollis filled him in on the most recent developments, then turned him over to his sister.
The after-dinner conversation, with Kenny out of earshot in the study, was all about Valerie Burke. Angela said, “I had no idea she was so deeply involved with David, or that she was capable of so much hate. She always seemed … I guess the word I want is passionless. Colorless, too.”
“She kept her feelings well hidden,” Cassie said. “People like her often do.”
Pierce asked, “Did Rakubian ever mention her?”
“Once or twice, but always professionally. I still can’t imagine him with her. She isn’t very attractive, and David was handsome if nothing else … they just don’t seem to fit together.”
“Physical attraction isn’t everything.”
“No, but still. What would make him want a woman like her?”
Hollis steered her away from that by asking, “You don’t know anything at all about her? Where she was born, where she went to school, how she got into paralegal work?”
Angela shook her head. “The whole time I was with David, I barely knew she was alive. I mean, I saw her at his office two or three times but I didn’t really pay attention to her. He never seemed to, either, unless she spoke to him directly. It was as if she was … I don’t know …”
“A piece of furniture?” Cassie supplied.
“No. As if she was hardly even there.”
“Like a shadow,” Pierce said.
Like a phantom, Hollis thought.
Friday
A day like any other recently, except that he felt as though he were living it on the edge of a precipice: moving forward at a retarded pace, watching carefully where he walked, trying not to look down.
Cassie went to work at Animal Care because they were short-handed and needed her. Angela stayed home with Hollis and Kenny. Tom Finchley and his helper arrived to finish repainting the living room. The computer, the TV, and his mother kept Kenny out of mischief while Hollis tried to do a little work in his study. At eleven the Camden Home Security rep arrived with catalogs and a practiced sales pitch, and when he left forty minutes later he had a check for a thousand dollars and Hollis had a receipt for Camden’s top-of-the-line security system and a promise that it would be installed the first of next week.
The phone rang twice: Mannix wondering if there was any news, Gloria with a question about one of their jobs. The silence from McCone Investigations must mean that Burke hadn’t shown up at Rakubian’s house last night.
Twelve-thirty. He bundled his daughter and grandson into the Lexus and drove downtown to the Mill, where Cassie met them for lunch. No one had much appetite, not even Kenny. Hollis felt exposed sitting there in the crowded restaurant, as if he were a character in an action film—one of those loud, messy flicks where somebody in a ski mask suddenly bursts in and opens fire with an automatic weapon. Nothing happened, of course, but by the time he pulled into the driveway at home he had developed a tension headache.
An abortive try at a nap, design work that went badly, a couple of mindless computer games with Kenny … the afternoon crawled away. The phone rang at 3:10: somebody wanting to sell him aluminum siding. Cassie came home at 3:50; Pierce showed up at 4:20. And just as Hollis was about to put in a call to McCone Investigations, the phone rang again and it was McCone herself on the other end.
Some news, but not the news he wanted to hear. Burke still hadn’t been located. No-show at Rakubian’s house, no fixed address after the one on Parnassus, no listing with any of the paralegal services or the American Society of Paralegals, no apparent affiliation with any legal firm in the Bay Area. The background check had produced a still-sketchy but emerging profile of an unstable woman: born in Chico, raised by a single father who ruled her upbringing with an iron hand until he died suddenly of a heart attack when she was eighteen. Married and pregnant at nineteen, to another dominant male who physically abused her and caused her child to be stillborn. Divorce, a mental breakdown that put her in a sanitorium for three months. Moved to San Francisco after her discharge in an effort to turn her life around. Studied law at Heald College, graduated, became an accredited paralegal, worked for one of the larger paralegal firms and a private law firm before joining Rakubian’s operation five years ago. No significant male presence in her life after her divorce and before or since her evident relationship with Rakubian.
Not a good profile, McCone said, but not necessarily an alarming one, either. The only documented violence in her background had been directed at her, not by her toward someone else. Even as unstable as she apparently was, she might not be capable of an act of overt violence against another person. Putting the best possible spin on it for their benefit, Hollis thought bleakly.
Drinks. Dinner. Talk. Two games of Monopoly that they all played more or less by rote. Early to bed and eyes wide open in the dark as usual. Long, dull, stressful day. Good because nothing had happened, bad because it meant they would have to do it all over again tomorrow and God knew how many days after that.
Saturday Morning
The weather turned clear again, windy but warmish. Kenny was in a tantrumy mood, and the combination of that and the paint smell from the living room drove Hollis outside shortly after breakfast. He didn’t feel much like puttering in the garden. Or doing anything else, for that matter, but busy work would keep his body if not his mind occupied. The garden shed drew him. Its door ha
d warped and needed planing and weather-stripping; he’d meant to do the repairs in the spring, hadn’t gotten around to it with all the upheaval since then. This seemed as good a time as any for the task.
He got his tools, removed the door, set about shaving the bottom. The effort tired him more quickly than he cared to admit. He kept at it at a dogged but slower pace until the door fit the frame without sticking when he rehung it. He took it down again to add the weather stripping.
Cassie came out a few minutes past ten, saw the sweat on his face—he was working in the direct sun now—and warned him against overdoing it. He grumbled a reply; he was not up to being mothered this morning.
She said, “We need some things from Safeway. Angela and Kenny are going with me.”
“All right.”
“After lunch I thought we could all drive to Santa Rosa, look at furniture and carpeting for the living room. It’ll give us something to do.”
“All right.”
He finished the door, rehung it again, and decided he’d done a decent job. He still wasn’t ready to go in and rest; he fiddled around inside the shed, rearranging things. He was done with that and on his way to the garage, to see what kind of chore he could find to do in there, when he heard the phone ring.
His first thought was that it might be Sharon McCone with news. He hurried inside, snagged the receiver on the kitchen extension on the fifth or sixth ring.
“Jack!” Cassie, her voice octaves higher than normal. Calling on her cell phone: the background was staticky. And there were other sounds, too … sobbing? “Oh, God, something terrible … Safeway, the parking lot …”
The sweat on him had turned icy; nerve endings contracted and wired him so tight his body thrummed. “What happened? Burke?”
“She was right there, but we never saw her until it was too late. She had a gun, it all happened so fast, I couldn’t … We tried to catch her, but she’s gone, I don’t know where. The police … we’re on our way there now ….”
“For God’s sake, slow down, you’re not making sense. What did Burke do?”
Ragged, hissing breath.
“Kenny … she took Kenny!”
24
THE police station was on North Main, not far from the Safeway where they regularly shopped. He reached it in less than ten minutes, driving as fast as he dared on city streets. The waiting room was empty; he rushed ahead to the bulletproof Plexiglas wall that bisected most of the anteroom, gripped the edge of the counter in front of the speaker opening.
“My name is Hollis, Jack Hollis,” he said to the uniformed cop on the desk. “My wife and daughter—”
“Yes, right, they’re here. Mrs. Hollis is with Lieutenant Davidson, your daughter’s resting in the women’s lounge.”
“My grandson … any word?”
“Not yet.” The cop’s tone was sympathetic. He was a few years older than Hollis, probably had grandchildren of his own. “We’ve got an APB out on the car—not just Paloma County, all of northern California. We’ll find them.”
When? How soon?
“I’d like to see my daughter.”
“Right away. She’s been asking for you.”
The cop buzzed him in, led him back to the women’s lounge. Angela was lying on a couch in there, a policewoman watching over her. She said, “Oh, Daddy!” when she saw him, and struggled to a sitting position. Tear tracks, stained black with mascara, covered her face; her eyes were enormous, too much white showing, not quite focused. The sick, impotent rage in him was close to unbearable now. She was trying to get up; he went to her, kissed her, murmured words that even to him sounded empty, and made her lie back again. When he glanced at the policewoman, she mouthed the words “Paramedics are on the way.”
“Why?” Angela said in a choked voice. “Why would she kidnap Kenny?”
“I don’t know, baby.”
“What if she hurts him? He’s so little.…”
“She won’t hurt him.” Wanting to believe it so desperately, he repeated the words. “She won’t hurt him.”
“They have to bring him back safe. They have to!”
“They will.”
She made a little sobbing, hiccuping sound. “Ryan,” she said. “Does he know?”
“Not yet. I’ll call him right away.”
“Tell him to hurry. Tell him … Kenny …”
It was too painful being in there with her. He felt awkward and helpless, not worth a damn to her or to himself. He left her with the policewoman, asked the desk cop for the use of a phone, called the Gugliotta ranch, and broke the news to Pierce. The kid wasted no time with questions; he said, “I’ll be there as fast as I can,” and broke the connection.
The paramedics had arrived; he saw them go into the women’s lounge. A few seconds after that a gray-haired cop in uniform appeared. Lieutenant Max Davidson—Hollis knew him slightly from Rotary meetings. Davidson shook his hand with professional gravity, reiterated that everything possible was being done to find Hollis’s grandson, and then ushered him down a hallway to a private office where Cassie was waiting. He let Hollis go in alone, shut the door after him to give them privacy.
When he embraced her she clung to him fiercely, with such strength he felt her fingers digging deep into his flesh. Gently he stood her off at arm’s length so he could look at her. Pale, shaken, but in rigid control.
“I’m okay,” she said. “But Angela …”
“I know, I just saw her. Shock. Paramedics are here, they’ll give her something.”
“She won’t go to the hospital.”
“No. And they won’t force her to.”
Cassie pulled on her lower lip, pinching it hard enough to turn it white. “It’s our fault, Jack. We should’ve known that crazy bitch would go after Kenny.”
“How could we know?”
“We should’ve been more careful, taken better precautions.”
Hindsight, the great teacher. Nobody’s ever completely safe. You can’t live in a vacuum. Hollow clichés. He said, “Yes,” and nodded like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“She won’t hurt him. I keep telling myself she wouldn’t go that far.”
“No.” She might. We both know she might. “Hold him for a day or two, then let him go.”
“Angela won’t be able to stand that kind of waiting.”
“She won’t have to. They’ll find him.”
“The FBI? Have they been notified yet?”
“I don’t know, I’ll ask Davidson. How much did you tell him about Burke?”
“Everything we know.”
“Give him McCone’s name?”
“Yes.”
“She may have found out by now where Burke’s been living. That has to be where she’s taking Kenny.”
“If she harms him, I swear to God I’ll kill her.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“I mean it. I’ll rip her fucking eyes out.” She pinched her lip again; her eyes were haunted. “I should have seen her there. But I didn’t, I just didn’t.”
“Seen her where?”
“Safeway lot. I looked around when we came out … so did Angela, but she had Kenny to contend with. It was my responsibility.”
“Don’t keep beating yourself up,” he said. “If you’d been able to stop her, you would have.”
“You weren’t there, you don’t know.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Cassie squeezed her eyes shut; shuddered and popped them open. “Everything seemed all right in the lot,” she said. “The van was in the end row, on the Main Street side. When we got to it I unlocked the side door.… Angela was taking one of the bags out of the cart, Kenny right there beside her. All of a sudden she cried out, ‘No, don’t!’ Burke … it was as though she materialized out of nowhere. Except she’d been there all along. She had hold of Kenny’s arm, he was squirming and trying to pull free. In her other hand … a gun, a little automatic. She said something like, ‘Don’t either of you move or yell,
I’ll shoot the kid if you do.’ Then she told me to put my car keys into her coat pocket. I had to do it, the gun was only a few inches from Kenny’s head. Then she dragged him to her car, shoved him inside—the door was wide open—and slid in after him and I heard the door locks click. The engine must’ve been running, as fast as she drove away, but I don’t remember hearing that. Just the door locks clicking. Kenny’s face … I’ll never forget the way he looked. Pressed to the window glass, his mouth open as if he was screaming …”
“Easy.”
“It all happened so fast. Just a few seconds. And then she was gone onto North Main. Angela was yelling, people were staring, but not one of them came over to try to help. I ran and got the spare key out of the bumper case, but I was so wild I dropped it and had trouble picking it up. By the time we were in the van and moving, there was no sign of them. I thought we might be able to catch up at one of the stoplights … my Lord, I must’ve driven like a maniac all the way to Corona Road. She must’ve turned off somewhere … I don’t know. Angela was hysterical. Screaming at me to keep going to the freeway interchange. But it was too late, we were just wasting time. She tried to grab the wheel when I turned around at Corona and I had to slap her to get her off me.”
“You said Burke was there all along in the lot. Where?”
“In the space next to the van. Not when we arrived, when we came out with the groceries. Either she followed us from home, or found out somehow Saturday morning is when I shop and was waiting there for us.”
“Cass, how could she’ve been parked next to the van and you didn’t notice? A white Nissan—”
“That’s just it. We were looking for a white Nissan, but she was driving a silver BMW.”
“A silver—”
“Rakubian’s car. Her Nissan must be in his garage.”
Saturday Noon
Pierce got there just as the paramedics were about to leave. As upset as he was, he handled the situation far better than he would have when he was younger. Took charge of Angela, and as soon as he’d been briefed, bundled her into his pickup and drove her home.
Hollis met with Lieutenant Davidson, Police Chief Reese, who’d been summoned from home, and two ranking county cops from Santa Rosa. The FBI hadn’t been called in yet and he wanted them to do it right away. Premature, they said. But the plain truth was, local law didn’t like federal law; they intimated that the feds took over, pushed everyone around, and exacerbated the jurisdictional problems that already existed between city and county law enforcement. Angrily he insisted on the family’s behalf, and because he was considered a prominent citizen and they were all scared to death of adverse publicity, they gave in. If Burke and Kenny weren’t found by one o’clock, the FBI office in San Francisco would be notified. The one issue they all agreed on was that a media lid should be kept on the kidnapping as long as possible. Reporters, TV remote crews, crowds of sensation seekers would make matters even more difficult for everybody.
In an Evil Time Page 21