by Brad Parks
Once he heard three yeses, he got out of the car, a chilly blast of air hitting him in the face as he stood. Very gently, so as not to make any noise that might alert anyone inside to his presence, he closed the door.
Then he took a few steps forward and crouched next to his bumper so he could study the driveway. Whoever had come up and down had stayed in virtually the same line, wearing down the same section each time. But, very faintly, he could make out fresh tire tracks. They were wider than a passenger car’s—left by a van or light truck, perhaps—and appeared to have been made after this particular snow had started but had since been covered over by new snow.
Like someone had just left. Maybe ten minutes earlier? Twenty? It was hard to tell.
He stood and studied the house. There were no lights on, but it was also just after noon, about as bright as it could get on a snowy March day in New Hampshire. Anyone inside wouldn’t necessarily need lights. He wished he had some binoculars or even his hunting rifle, which had a scope on it, so he could get a better look.
The smoke from the chimney continued to drift upward until it was carried away by the sporadic wind gusts cutting through the trees.
Emmett trained his ears on the house—could he hear anything?—but the falling snow had a way of dampening ambient noise. The first thing he heard, from the road below, was the sound of an engine approaching.
It was revving hard and hot. Probably a younger officer, driving just the way Emmett would have when he was that age and had been called off catching speeders so he could assist a detective on a potentially big case.
Perhaps thirty seconds later, a Dodge Charger, painted in forest green and copper, with the chevron of the New Hampshire State Police on the side, pulled up the driveway. Emmett walked toward it, holding his finger to his lips. The last thing he wanted was this kid—and Emmett was sure it was a kid—slamming his car door, alerting whoever was inside the house that they had company.
The officer who got out was, as expected, maybe twenty-four, with short blond hair and a face that could barely dull a razor. His nameplate said JENKINS.
Emmett introduced himself, then explained the situation, skipping the part about how they had arrived at that house, in particular. Jenkins nodded along and seemed eager for whatever came next.
“All right, then, let’s go,” Emmett said. “Keep it quiet and steady. Don’t do anything crazy. But keep your guard up. This could be anything or nothing.”
Emmett strode forward, his feet kicking up small plumes of snow. After a hundred feet, he was out of the trees and in plain sight of anyone inside the house who happened to be looking his way. The final two hundred feet was all open.
Jenkins was just behind him, his hand already on his weapon. He had thumbed loose the leather strap that kept it in place but had not yet drawn it. Emmett’s gun was in a holster on his hip.
A hundred feet left. Emmett had yet to see any sign of movement in the house. The snow was thick enough that their footprints didn’t go all the way through to the ground underneath and cold enough that it squealed slightly as their boots twisted on it.
Fifty feet now. Still nothing from inside. There were three main windows on the front of the house—two to the left of the front door and one to the right. Neither had curtains or blinds, but because the house was set atop a small hill, Emmett could only see ceiling when he looked inside.
He took three more steps.
Then, in the distance, a dog barked.
Or maybe it didn’t.
Emmett halted.
So did Jenkins.
“You hear that?” Emmett asked.
“Hear what?”
“I think someone called ‘Help.’”
“Uh, okay,” Jenkins said.
Emmett took out his radio and spoke softly. “Dispatch, this is forty-seven. I’ve got three thirty-one here with me.”
“Go ahead.”
“We just heard a call for help inside the house. We’re going in.”
“Okay, forty-seven. I’ve got four-eighteen en route, but he’s still twenty minutes out.”
“I’m worried we don’t have that kind of time. We’re heading in.”
“Roger that. Be careful.”
Emmett stowed his radio and turned to Jenkins. “I’ll take the front door, you take the back. Move, move.”
Jenkins took off, racing around back. Emmett ran toward the front door, reaching under his jacket for his pistol, which he soon gripped firmly in his right hand. There were three wooden steps leading up to a small landing in front of the door. Emmett took them in two strides.
He pounded on the front door with the butt of his gun.
“State police, open up,” he said.
He counted to three. “State police. I heard someone calling for help. I’m coming in.”
After trying the handle—locked—Emmett studied the door for a split second. His boots were heavy and steel toed, but his door-kicking-in days were long over.
There were small slits of frosted glass on either side of the front door. Using his gun as a cudgel, Emmett jabbed the one on the right. The glass came away from its rotting frame in one piece, falling to the floor below and shattering. He reached inside and thumbed the lock.
“State police,” he said again as he shoved open the door.
There were rooms to the left and right and stairs in the middle, just slightly off center from the door. The floors were pine and deeply scuffed. The walls were a grungy white. The ceiling in the small foyer had a gaping, brown-ringed hole in it, probably from where a pipe had burst. No one had bothered to replace the drywall.
Leading with his gun held low, Emmett took two steps inside.
What he didn’t immediately see was furniture. The room to the right, which may have been a sitting room or an office, was completely empty save for the dust and bug carcasses that littered the floor. The floor of the room to the left, which was larger and also included the fireplace, appeared to have been more recently disturbed. There was dust and debris by the walls and in the corners, but the middle of the room had been worn clean by foot traffic.
The fire was still going. It had been stoked recently. The two top logs still had unburned portions on the top.
Someone had been here. Or still was.
But who?
Not the owner. Clearly, judging from the dearth of furniture, no one lived here.
So kidnappers?
Or just squatters?
Emmett closed the door behind him. The fire, he quickly realized, was the only source of heat in the house, which was otherwise cold and dead feeling, like the electricity had been cut off.
He stopped and listened. For breathing. For the shifting of weight on the floorboards above him. For anything that indicated he was not alone.
Anyone in the house would have heard him by now. Which meant either no one was there.
Or they were lying in wait.
Emmett walked as quietly as his wet boots allowed, leading with his pistol, checking first the room to the right, including the closet. There was nothing.
He turned to the living room next and passed through it quickly. There was no place to hide in there.
Behind the living room was an eat-in kitchen. Here there were more signs of recent habitation—potato chip bags left out on the counter, crumbs on the table.
Still, there were no appliances out, no pots or pans or trivets or cutting boards or anything else suggesting permanent residence.
Jenkins was standing on the deck that butted up against the back of the house. Emmett let him in through the door and, in whispers, told him what he had observed so far.
Jenkins just nodded.
Using hand gestures to signal his intentions, Emmett worked his way down the short hallway behind the kitchen. It led to a closet that had apparently served as a pantry, a laundry room, and a half bath, all of them as vacant as the other rooms had been.
Emmett walked into the bath and lifted the lid on the toilet. It was b
one dry inside. Whoever had eaten those chips had not been using it.
There was, clearly, no one downstairs. But that still left the second level. Emmett pointed in that direction. Jenkins nodded again.
They walked around to the staircase. Emmett brought his gun up when he reached the first step. If you were going to ambush someone, this would be as good a place as any.
He climbed the stairs quickly, his eyes up the whole time. Jenkins, in a crouch, trailed behind.
It was colder on the second level, almost as cold as it was outside. The heat from the fire had only made it so far. At the top of the stairs was a bathroom. Two bedrooms were on either side. The doors were half-open.
Emmett checked the bathroom—nothing—then went to the bedroom on the right. He peeked cautiously in, then shoved the door quickly, in case anyone was hiding on the other side.
It slammed against the wall. The sound echoed through the house. Emmett swept through the room and its lone closet.
One room to go. He repeated his procedure, slow then quick, moving tentatively then decisively.
But there was no one here.
No one at all.
He reholstered his weapon and rejoined Jenkins in the small upstairs foyer.
“What do you think?” the officer asked.
The tracks in the driveway. The potato chip wrappers. The fire.
“Well, someone was here,” Emmett said. “But I think we just missed them.”
CHAPTER 32
If there was one aspect of being an obsessive billionaire that Sean Plottner wished he could live without, it was what might be called his competitive spirit.
Once he started something, he had to finish it. By winning.
Sometimes it felt like the winning mattered more than the actual objective.
And so—even though there were a million ways Sean Plottner could have spent his billions to entertain himself, distract himself, or pamper himself—he wasn’t interested in any of them.
All he really cared about at the moment was nailing down Tom O’Day and beating him at this high-stakes game they were suddenly playing.
What kind of money was he looking for here? If it was two million, okay. Four? Well . . . fine. But there was a limit, right?
Especially when Plottner couldn’t even be sure he’d ever get a return on his investment.
More immediately, when would Tom O’Day go on Facebook again?
Plottner finally got an answer to that last question at 1:15 p.m., via an email from an account that showed up in his in-box as “Friendly Facebook Bot.” It told him that Tom O’Day had just logged in from an IP address in Vancouver.
Finally.
“Theresa!” he called out in his excitement. “Theresa, he’s back! It’s Tom O’Day!”
“Great,” Theresa called, halfheartedly, from somewhere downstairs. “Do you need me for something?”
“Just note the time, please.”
Plottner opened up Facebook in his browser. He clicked on Messenger, bringing up his previous exchange with O’Day, but didn’t type anything.
He just waited.
And waited some more.
Negotiations were all about perceived leverage. And you had to shift as much of it as you could into your own corner. If you waited for the other guy to make the first move, you planted that little seed that he must want it more.
Except . . . what was O’Day doing? Why wasn’t he reaching out? It’s not like he had any other Facebook friends. There was only one reason O’Day had an account: to wring money from Plottner.
So why wasn’t Plottner seeing anything appear in that Messenger window now?
Negotiations were about discipline too. Being tougher. Holding your ground. Staking your—
Finally, he couldn’t help himself. To hell with winning the negotiation.
“I’ve been thinking,” he typed, “and I may be willing to offer more than a million dollars for Professor Bronik.”
The dots began dancing.
“How much more?”
“First things first. Can you prove you actually have him?”
The response was quicker: “How do I prove?”
“I want a photograph of him,” Plottner typed. Then he imagined Tom O’Day mining the internet for photos of Bronik. How to make sure this was authentic and not photoshopped?
He needed a photo that was fast and unique. Something impossible to fake. What was the most unlikely thing for a physics professor to do?
Suddenly, he thought of that famous Albert Einstein snapshot—the one where the mischievous physicist stuck out his tongue—and started typing.
“I want a photograph of Bronik sticking out his tongue. And I want it in the next five minutes or the deal is off.”
Set deadlines. Even if they’re artificial. Yet another important tactic.
“Okay,” Tom O’Day wrote back. “I be back.”
“I’m setting the timer on my phone. It starts now.”
Plottner did as he promised, then turned his eyes back to the screen. A minute passed. Then two.
He realized he had his fists balled. He relaxed them. This reminded him of the early days, when he had made a big play on a stock and stared at the ticker to see which direction it was moving.
Three minutes. Three and a half.
What if Tom O’Day called his bluff? Would Plottner really walk away? That hardly felt like winning. That was like stopping the game, taking his ball, and going home.
Four minutes. Four minutes, fifteen seconds.
Dammit.
Plottner swore at the screen, exhorting it to do something.
Four forty-three. Four forty-eight. Four fifty-two.
Four fifty-nine.
And . . .
Nothing.
CHAPTER 33
I stayed in Emmett’s idling car as another state trooper showed up, a middle-aged guy with a husky build who disembarked from his patrol vehicle and barely glanced at Beppe, Sheena, and me as he passed.
Then the Crime Scene Unit truck, the one I had seen parked outside Wilder earlier, pulled up behind the patrol vehicle. The first person who emerged was a young woman with strawberry-blonde hair sticking out from under a knit cap. She was followed by two other men. All of them carried briefcases.
Next, there was an unmarked car, from which a pear-shaped younger man with a red beard emerged.
All of these people disappeared into the little green house. None came back out to tell us what was going on.
In the front seat, Sheena’s eyes were closed, as if the effort of having guided us this far exhausted her too much to keep them open any longer.
Or, maybe more simply, because she had slept so poorly the previous night.
I kept peering ahead anxiously. The more time passed, the more I realized I wasn’t going to get the happy ending I hoped for—the one where they rescued Matt, who was scared but basically unscathed, and brought him out to be smothered in kisses by his loving wife.
If that was the case, it would have happened already.
“What’s taking so long?” I whispered to Beppe.
He shook his head. He’d just be guessing.
We sat there, in that information vacuum, for a seemingly interminable amount of time. What had they found? Couldn’t someone come back to the car and put me out of my agony?
But the flow of law enforcement officers only seemed to go in one direction.
Then, prompted by nothing I could discern, Sheena stirred, lifting her head.
Without a word, she unclipped her seat belt, opened her door, and got out.
I briefly looked toward Beppe, who seemed as confused by this as I was. I quickly scrambled out and ran to catch up with Sheena.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To the house,” Sheena said, like this should have been obvious.
“But we told Detective Webster we’d stay in the car.”
“I know. I just . . . I keep getting these two feelings. One says he’s
in the house. One says he’s getting further away. I can’t tell which is right. It’s driving me crazy.”
Sheena was marching with resolve, her black ponytail a magnet for the swirling white snow. I scurried after her. From the corner of my eye, I saw Beppe had also left the car.
She climbed the stairs without breaking stride and entered the little green house like she owned it. It was all I could do to keep up.
But I still caught the bizarre looks Sheena got as she barged into the living room. Detective Webster and the pear-shaped man with the red beard, who looked like they had been in the middle of an argument, stared at her like she was stepping off a spaceship.
Webster recovered from his shock first.
“I asked you to stay in the car,” he said.
“And I didn’t,” Sheena replied.
Right. Like what else did he need to know?
She was studying the empty living room with the eyes of a scientist ready to release her findings.
“He was definitely here,” she said simply.
I felt my soul lurch.
“Oh, Christ,” the pear-shaped man said, the disbelief as plain as his eye roll.
“How do you know?” Webster asked.
“How do you know you’re standing here?” Sheena asked. “How do you know this isn’t just an elaborate computer simulation? How does anyone know anything? I’m not in the mood for an epistemological debate at the moment, Detective. I just know. I feel it right now.”
“Oh, Christ,” the pear-shaped man said again.
Sheena kept going, wandering to the eat-in kitchen. The woman with the strawberry-blonde hair was sitting at the table, her attention fixed on a laptop screen. She was wearing blue nitrile gloves. A small scanner was affixed to her computer via a USB cable.
“He was in here too,” Sheena announced.
She pointed at the table. “He sat right there.”
I stared at the table like it was either charmed or hexed. I couldn’t decide.
Then she gestured toward the back porch. “They let him go out that door a few times. Maybe to pee or something, I don’t know. But not for long. He never went to this half of the kitchen or down that hall.”