“I will, don’t worry,” she said and got out of the car.
Watching her walk away down the snowy sidewalk, Jason realized Lange was doing the same thing.
“She’s a cop,” Lange said, as if to reassure himself that Mick would, indeed, be fine.
“I know.”
“Why don’t you get up in front? I’ll look like a damn chauffeur with you back there.”
Jason slid out and got into the front.
Lange said, “I know where to go to keep her in sight.”
Instead of following her down the street, he turned off into an alley. A little worried by that at first, Jason discovered that it was, indeed, perfectly possible to keep Mick in sight while they cruised along. His heart had begun to thump from approximately the time she’d gotten out of the car. Watching her stride along in front of mostly closed businesses, the streetlight on the far corner barely reaching her, just enough to glint off her hair, he felt as edgy as a cat in a doghouse. He couldn’t help it. He knew this had to be done this way, knew Mick could handle herself, but …
“What time did they say?” Lange asked.
“Eleven. She’s got six minutes.”
“I don’t think so. I know that truck. That’s—”
He broke off abruptly as a black SUV pulled up beside Mick, blocking her from their view.
When it pulled away, Mick was gone. Jason broke into a cold sweat.
“They got her.” The voice, some anonymous agent’s, crackled over the radio. Lange did a U-turn, trying to keep the SUV in sight. Jason looked for the surveillance van: that was a better bet. Sure enough, there it was, heading down Twenty-ninth.
“There!” he pointed it out to Lange, who shot off in pursuit.
“Stay back! Stay back!” That was Wheeler, issuing what sounded like a general order to his troops.
Lange pulled in behind the van. Two vans, rolling one after the other down the street, obvious as a parade. From the number of vehicles Jason could see racing in the same general direction on various parallel streets, backup wasn’t going to be a problem. Covertness might be, though.
“They’re east on Kirby,” came the voice over the radio.
“Mick’ll get her sister,” Lange said. He wasn’t so much talking to Jason as reassuring himself.
“Yeah,” Jason answered, because he didn’t see any reason to cause the older man anxiety by saying anything else. For himself, he didn’t like not being able to get a visual on the SUV. It had sped away, and the pursuit vehicles, by Wheeler’s orders, were hanging back. It was the only way to play it and he knew it, but that didn’t stop him from being antsy as all hell.
“North on Cass,” the radio announced.
“Sounds like they’re heading toward the freeway,” Lange said. “If those punks hurt any of my girls …”
Having Lange put into words what was secretly starting to give Jason fits sent cold little darts of apprehension running through his veins.
He knew better than most that in an operation like this, there were a thousand and one things that could go wrong.
“North on the Ford,” the radio said. Then, a moment later, there was a stutter of static, a voice said, indistinctly, “Shit,” and Jason felt his pulse kick into high gear even before the same voice shouted, “We lost them. We’re not picking up the signal. I repeat, we’ve lost our tracking signal.”
Even as Wheeler got on the radio to bark, “All units, we need a visual,” Jason felt his blood run cold.
Chapter
28
By the time she was pulled out of the freezer, Mick was gasping for air. Wedged on its side in the back cargo space of the SUV, it was small, and it had been disconnected so that it wasn’t cold, but it was definitely airtight. She had seen it when she’d first gotten into the SUV’s backseat, but she hadn’t known it was meant for her until she had woken up inside it with a vague memory of one of the 2.0 version security guys Tasering her shortly after they’d gotten under way. Not having expected that, she hadn’t been prepared for it. Just like she hadn’t been prepared for the freezer.
Waking up to find herself crammed into that thing in the pitch dark while the air had slowly run out had been one of the worst experiences of her life.
She had been sure she was going to die until the very second they’d opened the door and pulled her out. Among the many thoughts that had run through her head in the horrible, stifling darkness, she’d asked, If they did this to me, what did they do to Jenny and the girls? Were they even still alive?
“You find a wire on her? Any kind of homing device?” The speaker stood in the opening of the garage door that led into the house, waiting for her to be dragged to him. The voice was familiar, but only vaguely, and in her woozy state Mick couldn’t quite place it. Her hands were bound behind her back with a plastic zip tie, which told her that the guys who had brought her here probably weren’t cops. Tina’s puffy black jacket was missing, as was, she was sure, Jason’s Sig. That told her that she’d been searched. But not especially thoroughly. From the feel of it, her father’s phone was still wedged in her shoe.
If she could only get to it …
“No. Nothing. We took precautions just in case, though. A jamming device, plus we stuck her in the freezer.” The man gripping her left arm was incongruously cheerful. “Hi-tech and low-tech.”
“You can keep your jamming device. Ain’t no signal getting through a freezer,” the man on her right said as the man in the doorway stepped aside so they could bring her in.
Even sucking in air as she was, Mick realized two things right away. The man in the doorway was Rossi, sporting a bandage and a sling from where he had been shot, but perfectly mobile. And the prospects for rescue by the FBI had just dimmed considerably. She didn’t know how her hair ornament had been affected by the combination jamming device-freezer defense that had been used to nullify it, but she had a bad feeling. Her luck wasn’t in, and these guys were sounding too smug.
“We meet again,” Rossi said as the men holding her released her arms and stepped back.
She was in a house, in the kitchen, she saw with a quick glance around. Just an ordinary ranch-style house with a garage that opened into the kitchen, older appliances, linoleum floors, cheap wood cabinets. It smelled of pizza, and from the Domino’s box on the table she guessed that was what her captors had had for dinner. Beyond the kitchen, she glimpsed a living room, tweed couch, window with beige curtains drawn, beige walls. A normal middle-class house. But whose was it? And where was it?
Mick thought of the phone in her shoe. Even if she could get her hands free and get to it, even if she could figure out who to call—a general 911 to report a fire would work if she couldn’t think of anything better—she wouldn’t know where to tell them to come.
Concentrate. Look for an address.
“I hope this time works out better for you.” Mick glanced deliberately at Rossi’s wounded shoulder and had the satisfaction of watching his face redden.
“Hello, Mick.” Iacono walked in from the living room. Mick felt such a spurt of hatred upon seeing him that he had to have seen it in her eyes. Well, she wasn’t trying to pretend to be his friend any longer. They’d moved way beyond that.
“I showed up like I promised,” Mick said. “Where is my sister?”
Iacono laughed. “Where’s your accomplice? Jason, isn’t that what you called him? See, I pay attention. And the others who helped you rob Mr. Marino, too. You tell me where they all are, and where the money is, and then everybody can go home happy.”
Liar, Mick wanted to say. She knew as well as she knew her own name that unless the FBI showed up soon, or she managed to think of some way to escape, she was going to die. The worst thing about it was that Jenny and the girls hadn’t had anything to do with this, and they were going to die right along with her. Unless they were already dead.
Her stomach cramped at the thought.
“The only person I’m giving that information to is Uncle Nicc
o.”
Iacono’s eyes looked suddenly very hard. “Oh, no, we’re not playing that game again. You’re going to tell me, right now, or I’m going to start shooting your relatives.”
Okay, at least that meant Jenny and the girls weren’t dead.
“I want to see them,” she said. “Then I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Iacono exchanged a quick glance with Rossi. “Take her to the basement,” he said to the goons who had brought her in.
Mick’s heart raced as one of them grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the back of the kitchen, where he opened a door. In front of her were steep, gray, painted wooden stairs. A faint musty smell hit her as she started to descend. As much as she could see, the walls were unpainted concrete. Then she reached the point where she could see beyond the small area at the base of the steps, and her heart thumped and her stomach plunged straight down.
Jenny and the girls, their hands bound behind them, bungee cords wrapped around their feet, sat on the unfinished concrete floor, huddled together, backs against the wall. As Mick reached the bottom step, their eyes fastened on her.
“Mick!” her sister cried.
“Aunt Mick!” Lauren, who had been leaning against her mother’s side, straightened.
Kate looked at Jenny. “Oh, Mom, are we saved?”
“Jenny. Lauren. Kate. Are you okay?” Pulling her arm free of the hand holding it, Mick rushed toward them. Jenny’s chin-length blond bob was disheveled, and she had faint mascara smears under her eyes that told Mick she’d shed some tears. Lauren had blond hair like her mother’s, pulled back into a ponytail from which loose strands now straggled around her face. Kate sported a ponytail, too, but her hair was auburn, like Mick’s. All three of them were wearing jeans, sweatshirts and sneakers. All three looked exhausted. And scared. God, she hated it that they were scared.
“Oh, Mick, you came. I shouldn’t have asked you to, but …” Jenny looked at Mick in such despair that Mick’s heart turned over.
“Of course you should have.” Mick started to turn to face the two goons and Iacono, all of whom had followed her down the stairs. What she’d thought was a pile of rags in the corner behind the furnace caught her eye. It was not, she saw with an icy thrill of horror, rags.
It was Curci. It was apparent from the way he was lying there that he was dead.
The Lightfoot killings immediately popped into her mind. A whole family, shot in a basement …
For a terrible moment, she went all light-headed. Her knees went weak.
God, protect us, she prayed as the terrible possibility that her own family might suffer such a fate suddenly seemed very real.
“Aunt Mick, did they catch you, too?” Kate piped up, as, apparently, she saw the zip tie binding her hands.
That steadied Mick. Whatever happened, she could not fall apart. Her family needed her.
“Don’t be afraid,” she told Kate over her shoulder, although her own heart slammed against her rib cage.
She saw that Iacono, who was just now reaching the bottom of the stairs, was carrying a gun. Cold sweat broke over her. A vinegary taste that she recognized as the product of pure terror rose up in the back of her throat. She knew what was going to happen, knew that if she didn’t think fast she and Jenny and the girls were all dead, knew that Iacono, the sick son of a bitch, wouldn’t have the least mercy on the children.
Taking a desperate gamble, she mixed a little bit of truth with a lot of lie.
“I have more important information for you than where the people you’re looking for are. Remember those pictures? You know the ones I’m talking about.” She didn’t want to mention the Lightfoot killings in front of Jenny and the girls. That just gave Iacono more reason to kill them. “Somebody was using them to blackmail Uncle Nicco. I know all about that. I can tell you who, and where the originals are, and who else has copies.” Mick took a quick breath, encouraged by the arrested look in Iacono’s eyes. “You go tell Uncle Nicco that. Believe me, that he’ll want to know.”
“How would you know that?”
“I’m a cop, remember? I know a lot. Just tell Uncle Nicco what I said.”
Iacono looked at her hard for a moment, then turned and headed back up the stairs without a word. The goons followed him.
As soon as the door was closed behind them, Mick dropped down beside Jenny and the girls.
“Lean up. Let me see your hands,” Mick told her sister urgently. Jenny complied. Clothesline was wrapped around Jenny’s wrists and tied in a knot. Clearly they did not consider her much of a threat, and had not feared what might happen if she got loose.
“Can you get me untied?” Jenny whispered, her eyes huge as she cast a scared look at the stairs.
“I think so.” Mick turned her back to her sister and, relying on feel, started working at the knot. Desperation made her fingers nimble: she was able to tease it free, although every second she plucked at it seemed to stretch into an hour.
“Oh, thank God,” Jenny breathed as the rope fell away and she brought her arms swinging around to chafe her hands.
“Mom, you’re free!” Kate whispered, her blue eyes that were so like Jenny’s wide with excitement.
“Hurry, Aunt Mick.” Lauren, too, was casting scared looks at the stairs.
“Free the girls,” Mick told her sister, who was already unfastening the bungee cord securing her feet. “Hurry.”
Rocking to her feet, Mick ran over to the furnace, skirting Curci’s body, unable to resist giving it a quick look. As she had expected, he had been shot in the head, double tap. The pool of blood around his head had already started to congeal. He had not betrayed her, then, but had been a victim. He had been a friend, but she couldn’t stop to mourn for him. She had to do what she could to save her own family.
The furnace was forced-air gas, exactly like the one in the house she had grown up in, and she was familiar with how it operated. Crouching down, she opened the little door that housed the pilot light and peered in at the flickering blue flame. Gritting her teeth, she turned her back and thrust her hands into the opening. She felt the lick of the flames searing her wrists and almost screamed at the pain. She jerked her hands back, wincing at the reddening places on both wrists, but the flames had done their work. The zip tie fell away, melted through.
Remembering the phone, she reached down and snatched it out of her shoe. Now was the moment to call for help just in case they couldn’t get away. She fumbled with the button. The phone lit up. Then she remembered: she had no idea where they were. The city had trace technology. Could they trace it here?
It didn’t matter. There was no signal. Hitting 911 anyway, she thrust the phone into her pocket.
There were two small windows set into the wall behind the furnace. If she and Jenny and the girls had not been very slender, there would have been no chance of escaping through them. But if she could just break the glass …
A desperate glance around in search of something she could use to break the glass told her that Jenny had untied Lauren, freed Kate’s hands and was unfastening the cord around Kate’s feet.
Then Mick saw that Curci was wearing steel-toed boots. She ran to him and yanked one from his foot.
“Jenny! Bring the girls over here,” Mick’s voice was hushed but urgent. In case breaking the glass made more noise than she hoped, the girls had to be ready to go. They rushed to join her as, wrapping the boot in her coat, swinging the improvised mallet by the sleeves, she whacked the glass.
“Hurry, Aunt Mick!” Lauren urged.
The second time, she swung with every bit of strength she had.
The glass broke. The melodic tinkle as the shards rained down galvanized her. Cold air rushed through the opening. Only a few sharp pieces remained. Dumping Curci’s boot from her coat, she threw her coat over the bottom edge of the window.
“Come here, Lauren. You wait out there for Kate, and then you two run away as fast as you can. Don’t wait for us. Don’t stop for anything.
Jenny, let’s lift them out.” Mick and her sister grabbed Lauren and practically threw her out the window. Then they did the same with Kate.
“What about you?” Jenny asked as Mick offered her sister a leg up.
“I can get out,” Mick said, and when Jenny put her foot in Mick’s hand, Mick heaved Jenny up toward the window. The opening was a little snug for Jenny; she had to wriggle her way through.
While she waited, Mick realized that there was one more thing she could do: she could record the evidence of Curci’s murder.
Taking out her father’s phone, she hit the camera button and took two quick snaps of Curci’s body. Even as the pictures recorded, she got a glimpse of the preceding pictures.
The closest one on the roll was the one of Edward Lightfoot sitting in a chair, a gun held to his head. The other pictures, the pictures of the Lightfoot murder, were all right there. Mick stared at them in shock.
It meant—it had to mean—that her father had been there at the scene of the Lightfoots’ murders. That he’d taken the pictures.
Mick’s mind reeled. Then she heard the door open at the top of the stairs.
Thrusting the camera into her pocket, she leaped up, grabbed the edge of the window, and pulled herself through with a strength and agility she hadn’t known she possessed.
“What the hell …? They’re gone!” she heard Iacono yell. “They’re outside! Go …”
But she missed the rest, because she was running for her life, slip-sliding on the snow, bounding after Jenny and the girls. They were in a wooded area, on a hill. The scent of logs burning was strong; someone, somewhere, had built a fire. They had come out behind the house, and the only choice was to run uphill. Mick watched as Jenny caught up with the girls, then Mick caught up with them, too. Each sister took a child by the hand and raced through the trees. Jenny had Lauren; Mick had Kate.
“Where are they?”
“Find them!”
Mick’s heart hammered as she realized that the men were already outside, already giving chase. She and Jenny and the girls weren’t far enough away.
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