by Molly Rice
She snatched her bag out of her desk drawer and the jacket that hung on the clothes tree near the door.
At that moment she remembered that Nico was in his little cubicle, two doors down. She’d have to pass his open door to get to the elevators. Even the staircase was down at that end.
She ran back to her desk, punched in an interoffice number, got a busy tone, nervously banged on the disconnect bar and tried again.
“Scalia,” Nico announced abruptly, picking up after the second ring.
Dana cleared her throat. Could she pull this off? She glanced at her watch. Almost six minutes down.
“Nico,” she said, trying for a bright, breezy tone, “I’m down in the coffee shop. I was going to get carry-up, but then I decided it would be more fun to eat down here. Want to join me?”
“How did you get downstairs without passing by my—
“Explain when you get here, sweetie. Hurry.”
It seemed an interminable time until she heard his door open and close. She pressed her ear to the door, listening for the clang of the elevator bell as the car reached their floor. Thank God it’s Saturday, she told herself, or the office would be teeming with activity, phones ringing, voices raised to din level. When she finally heard it, she tore out of her office and ran for the door marked Exit, barely breathing as she raced from landing to landing until she reached garage level.
It took her a moment to catch her breath, control the shaking in her hands so she could get the key into the ignition slot. Another couple of minutes getting her pass out to wave at the parking guard in his little booth, what seemed like an hour at the red light on the corner. She didn’t dare draw the attention of the cops. She was walking into an unknown setup with no idea of the kidnapper’s field of vision, should she have to relay to an officer why she was speeding and risk his following her.
Nevertheless, when she saw that she had only thirteen minutes, she stepped on the gas and pushed her speed up to fifteen mph over the limit. She ignored the honking horns that blared their outrage as she passed by, moving in and out of lanes, trying to shave off precious minutes.
NICO MADE his second search of the coffee shop and stopped up at the cash register, totally bewildered. Dana was not here. He’d spoken to her less than three minutes ago and now she wasn’t even here. He went to the door and peered through the glass, thinking she might have stepped out to the ladies’ room or something. But after a couple of minutes he began to get an uneasy feeling. He went back to the register. The cashier was counting the drawer.
“I beg your pardon,” Nico began.
The cashier raised her hand to stop him and kept dealing bills into piles, her lips moving as she counted.
When she jotted a number down and reached for the coins in the nickle compartment, Nico raised his voice.
“Lady, this may be an emergency, do you mind?”
Exasperated at the interruption, the woman threw the coins back in the drawer. “What is it?” she snapped, “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Nico bit back a nasty retort, this was no time for amenities.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Harper. Dana Harper?”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” the woman snapped.
“Then she’s been here?”
“Nope. Haven’t seen her at all today. Didn’t even know she was working today.” Her face creased with the effort of thinking. “That’s funny, usually if she comes in on a Saturday, she calls down for sweet rolls, but not today. Do you suppose she’s on a diet?”
She looked up and did a double take. The goodlooking guy was gone.
Nico only had to hear that Dana hadn’t been in the coffee shop, hadn’t even been seen today. He ran.
He arrived at the elevators just as a car landed, and jumped inside, pushing the floor button and Door Close button over and over.
She was not in her office. He ran to her desk, pulled open all the drawers, glanced over at the clothes tree. Her bag and jacket were gone.
He fell onto her chair, rubbed his eyes and stared at her phone. Had she called from outside the building? She wouldn’t have needed her jacket to go down to the coffee shop. Had she left the building, or planned to leave it? To run an errand nearby? Maybe that’s where she’d called from, expecting to be back in the coffee shop before he made it downstairs.
But no, she’d clearly stated she was in the coffee shop, that she wanted him to join her there. She’d told him to hurry.
He returned to the lower level, praying he’d find her there, hoping they’d just missed each other some way. She could have used the ladies’ room, stopped in the lobby to use the phones there.
The coffee shop had a Closed sign on the door window. He peered in and saw only waitresses, and that cashier, bussing and wiping down tables and counter.
He turned around, refusing to let panic obscure his reasoning, and his glance fell on the security guard near the revolving doors.
“Haven’t seen Ms. Harper at all today. But that’s not so unusual, when she parks in the garage she doesn’t come in through the lobby.”
Now he was faced with the big questions; where had she called from? What had made her leave her office without notifying him? What had made her leave the building?
The garage. She’d insisted on taking the Lexus that morning, saying she missed doing the driving lately.
He raced around the corner to the stairwell down to the garage, praying this was all a crazy mix-up, that she’d just stepped into another office, that her car would still be parked where she’d left it. He ran to the space reserved in her name. The car was gone. He collapsed against the side of a Blazer and tried to catch his breath as he stared at the vacant space. He hadn’t really paid attention that morning, could she have parked in someone else’s spot, knowing they wouldn’t be in on a Saturday morning?
His search proved another futility.
It dawned on him that he had no wheels. Worse, he had no idea where to begin looking for her.
It struck him then! Something must have happened to Krystal, in her panic to get to the child, Dana had run out without thinking of letting him know.
He tore back up the stairs to the lobby and ran to the phones. He rubbed sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his sports coat and dialed his mother’s number. Twice he dialed, muttering under his breath as the ringing continued unanswered.
He looked up and saw a yellow cab parked under the overhang that connected the two buildings that comprised the government center.
It wasn’t until he was seated in the back, and the driver had asked his destination, that it occurred to him that he didn’t know. “Give me a minute,” he said, trying to get his thoughts straight.
Krystal may have been badly hurt and taken to a hospital. Which one? Had to be in St. Paul. About four hospitals to choose from. Which one?
But then how would that explain Dana’s cheerful voice inviting him to lunch. Thoroughly confused and scared as hell, Nico did the only thing he could think of.
“Police station,” he told the driver. If Joe Lake was on duty, so much the better, together they’d find Dana.
The driver took off his cap, scratched his head, replaced the cap. “That’s a block away, practically across the street, mister.”
Weary, with his energy seriously flagging, he told the driver to drive him there anyway.
Less than three minutes later the cabbie saw that his fare had given him a twenty and told him to keep the change. But the meter had registered at less than two dollars. He looked up, thinking he should call out to the guy, make sure he hadn’t counted wrong.
The guy had already disappeared from the main entrance.
HEATHER RUBBED her cheek and took a last look around the mall entrance. Had she misunderstood Dana’s secretary? But no, she’d written it down. Heather was to bring Krystal to the west entrance of the mall, next to Waldenbooks. Dana had decided to take a couple of hours off to do some last-minute shopping for school things for K
rystal.
“It’s been an hour, Krys,” she said to the little girl whose high spirits were lowering by the minute. “What do you think we should do? I called both your mom’s office and the house, and there was no answer either place.”
“Then she’s on her way,” Krystal announced, clamping her lips together in a thin line. She seemed to be holding back tears, stoic in the face of disappointment. Heather loved the child’s decisiveness, her squared shoulders, chin-high attitude.
Heather knelt in front of her. “I have a great idea, honey, why don’t we go into that Pizza Hut, over there, and have lunch? We can ask to be seated in the window so we can keep an eye on this entrance and that way we won’t miss Mommy when she comes in.”
“Now that sounds like a plan, Heath, I’m starving and my feet hurt from standing so long.”
Heather led the way over to the restaurant. Nico had her cell phone number; he’d have called if there’d been a change in plans. Dana must have been delayed but probably was on her way.
“Your mom will probably be here before our food is served,” she told her little ward.
DANA PULLED UP in front of a nondescript stucco bungalow, set apart from its neighbors by a vacant lot on either side. The barren look of the place brought the Carters to mind for some reason. She could envision them living here.
“No cars,” she murmured. She’d expect the Carters to have lots of junky cars sitting around, almost visibly rusting. As she got out of the car, her heart beating rapidly, she spotted a garage at the back. A car or two could certainly be hidden there. Or a pickup truck.
Walking up the path of weed-choked broken cement slabs, she noticed that all the windows on the main floor were barred.
The owners had to be pretty paranoid to have taken such precautions against burglars, and yes, paranoid is exactly how she’d describe the Carters.
But bars also kept people in, she reminded herself. Krystal. Were the bars put there to imprison her baby?
Her limbs shaking now, she stepped up to the bell and fumbled to push the small button.
She’d been so sure it was the senior Carter, for a second she was almost relieved when the front door opened to reveal Charles Donegan.
But this was a different Donegan. This man in bib overalls, holding a gun on her, his face set in grim lines, was no Prince Charlie. The darling of the press had disappeared and in his place stood a man who might well have been a member of the Carter clan.
“You’re one minute late, Dana…oh, you don’t mind if I call you Dana, do you?” He gestured her ahead of him, using the gun for a pointer.
“As I was saying, you’re a minute late, but I’ve decided to be lenient with you, which,” he emphasized by jamming the gun nose against her back, “is more than you were willing to be with me.”
He snatched the bag off her shoulder, fumbled inside until he found her gun and threw the bag on the floor.
Dana, spun around by his action, glared at him. “I’m not taking another step until you tell me where Krystal is, prove to me that she’s all right,” she declared.
A terrible laugh erupted from Donegan’s throat. He waved his gun as well as hers and in a voice edged with hysteria raged, “These aren’t cattle prods, you know, but I’m willing to bet that after I plant a bullet in your leg, you’ll be more than willing to obey my orders. Now turn around, keep moving toward that door ahead of you.”
They were moving down a hallway with rooms on either side and a closed door at the end. He shoved her, making her move faster, but not before she got a glimpse of the rooms with their open doors. All bedrooms, vacant, except for the one on the right of the closed door. A bathroom.
She stumbled and almost fell down the rickety wooden stairs leading to the basement. But Donegan caught her arm and pulled her to safety.
“No accidents, please,” he instructed. “Can’t have you spoiling my plan.”
He must be holding Krystal down here, Dana thought, and felt her spirits raise at the thought of seeing, holding, her little girl again.
But then, maybe he was just bringing her down here to kill her.
He pushed her over to a pair of washtubs and her stomach flipped as she considered his intention. Tubs to wash away her blood?
Thinking death was imminent, Dana almost felt relieved when Donegan ordered her sit on the floor and pulled out a set of handcuffs. Why bother cuffing her if he was just going to kill her?
As he cuffed her left wrist to the leg of the tub, she looked up at him, pleading, “Please, Donegan, at least tell me where Krystal is, what you’ve done with her.”
Charlie leaned against the wall, still holding a gun on her. He shook his head. “This was all unnecessary, you know, Dana. If you’d heeded my warnings, I wouldn’t be forced to go to such extremes.”
“I don’t understand. You’re up on embezzlement charges—why are you adding kidnapping and murder to your agenda? If you kill me you’re looking at life in prison.”
“How did you get to be a lawyer?” he snarled. “You’re so ignorant, you can’t figure anything out. Don’t you see that if I go down for embezzlement, my career, my life, is over anyway? With you out of the way I know I can beat the rap.”
“How can you be so sure, because even if I die, the case will still go to trial, the evidence will still hold up. Nothing can change that.”
“No, but evidence has been known to get lost, disappear as it were.”
“Who would do that?” she asked, puzzled.
“Bill Henry. He put in a bid to Yearling asking to take over if you should become ill or incapacitated in any way. Seems Bill has handled many white-collar cases and prefers them. Yearling agreed. Seems you’ve had so many problems lately that there’s a good chance you won’t make it to trial.” He gave another of those obscene giggles.
Dana gulped, resisting waves of nausea.
“Why would you expect Bill Henry to help you?”
“For money,” Donegan gleefully crooned. “Money is the second best motivator in the world.”
Despite herself, Dana asked, “What’s the first?”
“This,” Donegan said, sobering as he thrust the gun toward her. “Threat of death has surely got to be number one for inspiring someone to go along with your plans.”
Dana shuddered, hoping she wouldn’t anticipate his plans. The less she thought about them, the more likely she was to devise one of her own.
“Why are you holding me here, why not just shoot me and get it over with? And why won’t you tell me what you’ve done with my child?” She pulled the shackled arm and held it up to the limit of mobility. “Obviously I can’t use it against you.”
“I’m sick of your whining about your kid,” Donegan snapped. “She’s not here and frankly, I don’t really know where she is. For all I know, she’s probably home by now. As for you, I can’t believe you haven’t worked it out. I’m waiting for dark and then I’m going to take you for a little ride in your very own car.” He started walking toward the stairs and then turned to add, “Speaking of which, I think I’ll just move your car into the garage where it won’t be so noticeable.”
She noticed now the sheen of perspiration covering his face. A wisp of hope drifted through her. Maybe Donegan didn’t have the stamina for a scene like this. And if that were the case, she still had some slim chance of outsmarting him.
He was gone long enough for Dana to devise a scheme. Unless he was totally merciless, in which case, nothing would work.
When he returned, she claimed to be very thirsty. “Could you please get me a drink of water?” she begged.
“Ah, so remiss of me to forget my manners. As you’re my guest, I should have offered you a drink as soon as you arrived.”
She almost laughed aloud as he went back up the stairs. The pompous jerk loved to play the “prince” and because of it, he was going to play right into her hands. She glanced at her watch. Only two o’clock. She had about four hours until full dark. She should be able to pull t
his off by then.
“FRANKLY, SCALIA, I think you’re overreacting. Dana Harper is a grown woman not a runaway adolescent”
“But why would she send me on a wild-goose chase,” Nico argued, “unless she was in trouble and was forced to con me, to avoid having me go with her.”
“Now, son, think a minute. She’s going to turn up with a perfectly normal explanation and aren’t you going to feel like a fool for running to the cops?”
Nico got to his feet, glaring down at the older man behind the desk. “I already feel like a fool, for expecting you to take this seriously, to help me find her. Thanks for nothing, Lieutenant”
He went out into the street, hailed a passing cab and gave the driver Dana’s address. His car was there and once he had his own car, he’d figure out what to do next.
His heart was heavy as the cab joined the flow of traffic on 394. If anything happened to Dana, he didn’t know what he would do.
DANA HAD HAD TWO full glasses of water. The minute hand on her watch seemed to be inching along by the second. She’d figured thirty minutes before she enacted part two of her plan, it had only been twenty minutes since she polished off the second drink. It felt more like a couple of hours.
Charlie had gone back upstairs for some reason and she was bored as well as nervous, frightened, depressed. She made an attempt to visualize the floor plan of the main floor. She knew the bathroom was to the right of the basement stairs, had glimpsed a kitchen through what must have been a tiny pantry to the left.
The front door had opened right into the living room and she’d seen a dining room beyond that. If her memory served well, that meant there was a traffic pattern that encircled, living room, dining room, kitchen, pantry and two of the bedrooms. Depending upon which side the bathroom door opened, she had a better than even chance of getting away.
She played a scenario using that floor plan over and over in her mind, rejecting some options and memorizing others.