by Lisa Gardner
Moving felt good. After the first twenty-four hours, confined to a hospital bed, followed by another twenty-four hours stuck in jail, to finally be out, moving, getting the job done, felt right.
Somewhere ahead was my daughter. I was going to save her. I was going to kill the man who had taken her. Then we were both going home.
Unless, of course…
I stopped thinking again.
The woods thinned. I burst onto a snowy yard and drew up sharply, eyeing the flat, sprawling ranch that appeared in front of me. All windows were dark, not a single light glowing in welcome. It was well after midnight by now. The kind of hour when honest people were asleep.
Then again, my subject didn’t make an honest living, did he?
Motion-activated outdoor lights, I guessed after another second. Floodlights that would most likely flare to life the second I approached. Probably some kind of security system on the doors and windows. At least basic defensive measures.
It’s like that old adage-liars expect others to lie. Enforcers who kill expect to be killed and plan appropriately.
Getting inside the house undetected probably was not an option.
Fine, I would draw him out instead.
I started with the vehicle I found parked in the driveway. A black Cadillac Esplanade with all the bells and whistles. But of course. It gave me a great deal of satisfaction to drive the butt of the shotgun through the driver’s-side window.
Car alarm whistled shrilly. I darted from the SUV to the side of the house. Floodlights blazed to life, casting the front and side yard into blinding white relief. I tucked my back against the side of the house facing the Cadillac, edging as close as I could toward the rear of the home, where I guessed Purcell would ultimately emerge. I held my breath.
An enforcer such as Purcell would be too smart to dash out into the snow in his underwear. But he would be too arrogant to let someone get away with stealing his wheels. He would come. Armed. And, he probably thought, prepared.
It took a full minute. Then I heard a low creak of a back screen door, easing open.
I held the shotgun loosely, cradled in the crook of my left arm. With my right hand, I slowly withdrew the KA-BAR knife.
Never done wet work. Never been up this close and personal.
I stopped thinking again.
My hearing had already acclimated to the shrill car alarm. That made it easier for me to pick up other noises: the faint crunch of snow as the subject took his first step, then another. I took one second to check behind me, in case there were two of them in the house, one creeping from the front, one stalking from the back, to circle around.
I heard only one set of footsteps, and made them my target.
Forcing myself to inhale through my nose, take the air deep into my lungs. Slowing my own heartbeat. What would happen would happen. Time to let go.
I crouched, knife at the ready.
A leg appeared. I saw black snow boots, thick jeans, the red tail of a flannel shirt.
I saw a gun held low against the man’s thigh.
“John Stephen Purcell?” I whispered.
A startled face turning toward me, dark eyes widening, mouth opening.
I stared up at the man who’d killed my husband and kidnapped my child.
I slashed out with the knife.
Just as he opened fire.
– -
Never bring a knife to a gunfight.
Not necessarily. Purcell hit my right shoulder. On the other hand, I severed the hamstring on his left leg. He went down, firing a second time, into the snow. I kicked the gun out of his hand, leveled the shotgun, and except for thrashing wildly in pain, he made no move against me.
Up close and personal, Purcell appeared to be mid-forties to early fifties. An experienced enforcer, then. Kind of guy with some notches on his brass knuckles. He obviously took some pride in his position, because even as his jeans darkened with a river of blood, he set his lips in a hard line and didn’t say a word.
“Remember me?” I said.
After a moment, he nodded.
“Spend the money yet?”
He shook his head.
“Shame, because that was the last shopping trip you had left. I want my daughter.”
He didn’t say a word.
So I placed the end of the shotgun against his right kneecap-the leg I hadn’t incapacitated. “Say goodbye to your leg,” I told him.
His eyes widened. His nostrils flared. Like a lot of tough guys, Purcell was better at dishing it out than taking it.
“Don’t have her,” he rasped out suddenly. “Not here.”
“Let’s see about that.”
I ordered him to roll over on his stomach, hands behind his back. I had a pocketful of zip ties from Shane’s supplies. I did Purcell’s wrists first, then his ankles, though moving his injured left leg made him moan in pain.
I should feel something, I thought idly. Triumph, remorse, something. I felt nothing at all.
Best not to think about it.
Purcell was injured and restrained. Still, never underestimate the enemy. I patted down his pockets, discovering a pocketknife, a pager, and a dozen loose cartridges he’d stuck in his pants for emergency reloading. I removed all items and stuck them in my pockets instead.
Then, ignoring his grimace, I used my left arm to drag him several feet through the snow to the back stoop of his house, where I used a fresh zip tie to bind his arms to an outside faucet. With enough time and effort, he might be able to free himself, even break off the metal faucet, but I wasn’t planning on leaving him that long. Besides, with his arms and legs bound and his hamstring severed, he wasn’t making it that far, that fast.
My shoulder burned. I could feel blood pouring down my arm, inside my shirt. It was an uncomfortable sensation, like getting water down your sleeve. I had a vague impression that I wasn’t giving my injury proper significance. That probably, I hurt a great deal. That probably, losing this much blood was worse than a bit of water down a sleeve.
I felt curiously flat. Beyond emotion and the inconvenience of physical pain.
Best not to think about it.
I entered the house cautiously, knife returned to its sheath, leading with the shotgun. I had to cradle the barrel against my left forearm. Given my condition, my aim would be questionable. Then again, it was a shotgun.
Purcell hadn’t turned on any lights. Made sense, actually. When preparing to dash out into the dark, turning on interior lights would only ruin your night vision.
I entered a heavily shadowed kitchen that smelled of garlic, basil, and olive oil. Apparently, Purcell liked to cook. From the kitchen, I passed into a family room bearing two hulking recliners and a giant TV. From that room, into a smaller den with a desk and lots of shelves. A small bathroom. Then, a long hallway that led to three open doorways.
I forced myself to breathe, walking as stealthily as possible toward the first doorway. I was just easing the door open wider when my pants began to chime. I ducked in immediately, sweeping the room with the shotgun, prepared to open fire on any lunging shapes, then flattening my back against the wall and bracing for the counterattack.
No shadows attacked. I dug my right hand frantically into my pocket and pulled out Purcell’s pager, fumbling for the Off button.
At the last second, I glanced at the screen. It read. Lyons DOA. BOLO Leoni.
Shane Lyons was dead. Be on the lookout for Tessa Leoni.
“Too little, too late,” I murmured. I jammed the pager back in my pocket and finished clearing the house.
Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
By all appearances, Purcell lived a bachelor life with a big screen TV, an extra bedroom, and a den. Then I saw the door to the basement.
Heart spiking again. Feeling the world tilt dizzily as I took the first step toward the closed door.
Blood loss. Getting weak. Should stop, tend the wound.
My hand on the knob, turning.
Sophi
e. All these days, all these miles.
I pulled open the door, stared down into the gloom.
39
By the time D.D. and Bobby arrived at Tessa Leoni’s father’s garage, they found the back door open, and the man in question slumped over a scarred workbench. D.D. and Bobby burst into the space, D.D. making a beeline for Mr. Leoni, while Bobby provided cover.
D.D. raised Leoni’s face, inspecting him frantically for signs of injury, then recoiled from the stench of whiskey.
“Holy crap!” She let his head collapse back against his chest. His whole body slid left, off the stool, and would’ve hit the floor if Bobby hadn’t appeared in time to catch him. Bobby eased the big man down, then rolled Leoni onto his side, to reduce the odds of the drunk drowning in his own vomit.
“Take his car keys,” D.D. muttered in disgust. “We’ll ask a patrol officer to come over and make sure he gets home safely.”
Bobby was already going through Leoni’s pockets. He found a wallet, but no keys. Then D.D. spied the Peg-Board with its collection of brass.
“Customers’ keys?” she mused out loud.
Bobby came over to investigate. “Saw a bunch of old clunkers parked in the back,” he murmured. “Bet he restores them for resell.”
“Meaning, if Tessa wanted quick access to a vehicle…”
“Resourceful,” Bobby commented.
D.D. looked down at Tessa’s passed-out father, shook her head again. “He could’ve at least put up a fight, for God’s sake.”
“Maybe she brought him the Jack,” Bobby said with a shrug, pointing to the empty bottle. He was an alcoholic; he knew these things.
“So she definitely has a vehicle. Description would be nice, but somehow I don’t think Papa Leoni’s talking anytime soon.”
“Assuming this isn’t a chop shop, Leoni should have papers on everything. Let’s check it out.”
Bobby gestured to the open door of a small back office. Inside, they found a tiny desk and a battered gray filing cabinet. In the back of the top file was a manila folder marked “Title Work.”
D.D. pulled it and together they walked out of the garage, leaving the snoring drunk behind them. They identified three vehicles sequestered behind a chain link fence. The file held titles for four. By process of elimination, they determined that a 1993 dark blue Ford pickup truck was missing. Title listed it as having over two hundred thousand and eight miles.
“An oldie but a goodie,” Bobby remarked, as D.D. got on the radio and called it in.
“License plate?” D.D. asked.
Bobby shook his head. “None of them have any.”
D.D. looked at him. “Check the front street,” she said.
He got what she meant, and jogged a quick tour around the block. Sure enough, half a block down, on the other side of the street, a car was missing both plates. Tessa had obviously pilfered from it to outfit her own ride.
Resourceful, he thought again, but also sloppy. She was racing against the clock, meaning she’d grabbed the nearest plates, instead of burning time with the safer option of snatching plates from a vehicle blocks away.
Meaning she was starting to leave a trail and they could use it to find her.
Bobby should feel good about that, but he felt mostly tired. He couldn’t stop thinking what it must’ve been like, returning home from duty, walking through the front door, to discover a man holding her daughter hostage. Give us your gun, no one will get hurt.
Then the same man, shooting Brian Darby three times before disappearing with Tessa’s little girl.
If Bobby had ever walked through the door, found someone with a gun at Annabelle’s head, threatening his wife and child…
Tessa must’ve felt half-crazed with desperation and fear. She would’ve agreed to anything they wanted, while maintaining a cop’s inherent mistrust. Knowing her cooperation would never be enough, of course they’d betray her first chance they got.
So she desperately needed to get one step ahead. Cover up her own husband’s death to buy time. Plant a corpse with baby teeth and homemade explosives as a macabre backup plan.
Shane had originally stated Tessa had called him Sunday morning and requested that he beat her up. Except now they knew Shane had most likely been part of the problem. Made sense-a friend “helping” another friend would just smack her around a little, not deliver a concussion requiring an overnight hospital stay.
Meaning it had been Shane’s idea to beat Tessa. How would that play out? Let’s drag your husband’s dead body up from the garage to defrost. Then, I’m going to pound the shit out of you for kicks and giggles. Then, you’ll call the police and claim you shot your dirtbag husband because he was going to kill you?
They’d known she’d get arrested. Shane, at the very least, should’ve figured out how thin her story would sound, especially with Sophie missing and Brian’s body having been artificially maintained on ice.
They’d wanted her arrested. They’d needed her behind bars.
It all came down to the money, Bobby thought again. Quarter mil missing from the troopers’ union. Who’d stolen it? Shane Lyons? Someone higher in the food chain?
Someone smart enough to realize that sooner or later they’d have to supply a suspect before internal affairs grew too close.
Someone who realized that another discredited officer, a female, as seen on the bank security cameras-say, Tessa Leoni-would make the perfect sacrificial lamb. Plus, her husband had a known gambling problem, making her an even better candidate.
Brian died because his out-of-control habit made him a threat to everyone. And Tessa was packaged up with a bow and handed over to the powers that be as their own get-out-of-jail-free card. We’ll say she stole the money, her husband gambled it away, and all will be accounted for. Investigation will be closed and we can ride off into the sunset, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars richer and no one the wiser.
Brian dead, Tessa behind bars, and Sophie…
Bobby wasn’t ready to think about that. Sophie was a liability. Maybe kept alive in the short term, in case Tessa didn’t go along with the plan. But in the long term…
Tessa was right to be on the warpath. She’d already lost one day to planning, one day to hospitalization, and one day to incarceration. Meaning this was it. She was running out of time. In the next few hours, she’d find her daughter, or die trying.
A lone trooper, going up against mobsters who thought nothing of breaking into police officers’ homes and shooting their spouses.
Who would have the balls to do such a thing? And the access?
Russian mafia had sunk huge tentacles into the Boston area. They were widely acknowledged to be six times more ruthless than their Italian counterparts, and were swiftly becoming the lead players in all things corrupt, drug-fueled, and money-laundered. But a quarter mil defrauded from the state troopers’ union sounded too small time in Bobby’s mind.
The Russians preferred high risk, high payoff. Quarter mil was a rounding error in most of their undertakings. Plus, to steal from the state police, to actively summon the wrath of a powerful law enforcement agency upon your head…
It sounded more personal to Bobby. Mobsters wouldn’t seek to embezzle from a troopers’ union. They might, however, apply pressure to an insider who then determined that was the best way to produce the necessary funds. An insider with access to the money, but also with the knowledge and foresight to cover his own trail…
All of a sudden, Bobby knew. It horrified him. Chilled him to the bone. And made complete sense.
He raised his elbow and drove it through the passenger-side window of the parked car. Window shattered. Car alarm sounded. Bobby ignored both sounds. He reached inside, popped the glove compartment, and helped himself to the vehicle registration info, which included record of the license plate now adorning Tessa Leoni’s truck.
Then he trotted back to D.D. and the garage, armed with new information as well as their final target.
40
People were brought down here to die.
I knew that from the smell alone. The deep, rusty scent of blood, so deeply soaked into the concrete floor, no amount of bleach or lime would ever make it go away. Some people had workshops in the basements of their homes. Apparently, John Stephen Purcell had a torture chamber.
I needed overhead light. It would destroy my night vision, but also disorient any gangsters waiting to pounce.
Standing on the top step, my hand on the left-hand wall switch, I hesitated. I didn’t know if I wanted light in the basement. I didn’t know if I wanted to see.
After hours of blessed numbness, my composure was starting to crack. The smell. My daughter. The smell. Sophie.
They wouldn’t torture a little girl. What would they have to gain? What could Sophie possibly tell them?
I closed my eyes. Flipped up the switch. Then, I stood in the deep quiet that falls after midnight, and waited to hear the first whimper of my daughter waiting to be saved, or the rush of an attacker about to ambush.
I heard nothing at all.
I unpeeled my right eye, counted to five, then opened the left. The glare from the bare bulb didn’t hurt as much as I’d feared. I kept the shotgun cradled in my arms, and dripping blood from my wounded right shoulder, I started to descend.
Purcell maintained a clutter-free basement. No stored lawn furniture or miscellaneous boxes of junk or bins of Christmas decorations for a man in his line of work.
The open space held a washer, dryer, utility sink, and massive stainless steel table. The table was rimmed with a trough, just like the ones found in morgues. The trough led to a tray at the bottom of the table, where one could attach a hose to drain the contents into the nearby utility sink.
Apparently, when breaking kneecaps and slicing off fingertips, Purcell liked to be tidy. Judging by the large pink blush staining the floor, however, it was impossible to be totally spill-proof about these things.
Next to the stainless steel table was a battered TV tray bearing various instruments, laid out like a doctor’s operating station. Each stainless steel piece was freshly cleaned, with an overhead light winking off the freshly sharpened blades.