The woman’s head slumped forward. “No. No, we’re not. We thought…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what we thought. We just had to help Wilson when he needed us.”
“I understand. Everyone understands. We will do our utmost to get your son back.”
Harriet frowned. “We, who?”
“Me. And the FBI.”
Harriet stood up, her knitting slipping to the floor. “No.”
Jess frowned. “Yes.” She curled up one side of her lips. “Maybe even the State Department.”
“No, no. They can’t.”
Jess stood, and held Harriet by the arm. “Yes. This isn’t something one person can—”
Harriet waved her hands. “No, no, no. You don’t understand. They can’t. They mustn’t.”
Jess frowned. “Mustn’t what?”
Harriet grabbed Jess’s arms, one hand on each. “They mustn’t…The FBI. They told us not to go to the police.”
“Harriet—”
“They’ll kill him. They said so.”
“They won’t know until it’s too late for them.”
The woman shook her head. “They will, they will.”
“Harriet—”
“They’ve been watching us.”
Jess’s skin tingled. Her mouth hung open. “What?”
“They’ve been watching us. They have.”
“The kidnappers?”
Harriet nodded fast. “They told us things. Like when we went shopping.”
Jess frowned. “Shopping?”
Harriet nodded. “They’re watching us.”
“You’ve met them?”
Harriet shook her head. She picked up her bag and upturned it on the table, the contents spilling over the tray and the cakes. She sifted through the wool and the patterns and a hundred other items, and pulled out a small purple mobile phone. “They’ve been calling us.”
Jess took the phone. It was switched off. “I thought you didn’t have a mobile phone.”
Harriet shook her head. “We don’t. They sent that. In the mail.”
Jess glanced at the garish pay-as-you-go phone. “You’ve been answering it?”
Harriet nodded. “They called last night.”
“Have they called today?”
Harriet shook her head. “I don’t know. I turned it off. Like the flight attendant said.”
Jess looked at the tiny blank screen. She hovered her thumb over the power button. The kidnappers had been watching the Grantlys. They knew what Roger and Harriet were doing. They knew what was happening. Maybe they even knew about Roger’s heart attack.
She looked around the café. They could be anyone and anywhere.
She took a deep breath, and held the power button down until a logo appeared and the phone registered a cellular connection. The phone dinged. There were three missed calls.
Jess looked at Harriet.
Harriet looked back. “Do you think they’re here?”
Goosebumps crawled all over Jess’s skin. She grabbed Harriet’s arm. “Stay here. Right here. With lots of people. Don’t go anywhere. Stay with lots of people. Out in the open. You understand?”
“What—”
Jess shook Harriet’s arm. “Here. Lots of people. Understand?”
“All right, dear. But—”
Jess turned and ran.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
It took longer to locate her limo than Luigi expected. He jogged up the incline to the fourth floor of the parking garage. He sweated under his jacket. The cars had thinned out as he climbed the levels, but still he had to circle each floor to be sure he didn’t miss the Lincoln.
It was a large garage with plenty of full-sized black sedans. He’d wasted time checking out a couple that turned out to be Crown Victorias. It was all he could do not to shoot out the tires in frustration.
He slowed to a walk, breathing hard. He needed to bring his heart rate down. His aim would twitch in time to the heavy beat of his heart. He needed to be ready for when he found the car.
The parking levels were divided into symmetrical halves. He took the left half first. It was closer to the exit ramp, and if the driver had any experience, he would want to be quick out of the parking lot and back to earning money.
He started at the low bay numbers and worked his way up. With a random chance of finding the car, it made no difference whether he worked up or down, but he was a methodical man, and his methods had always paid off.
When he found her limo, he approached behind the cover of parked vehicles and structural support poles until he could see the driver through the side window.
The driver had reclined the seat and lay back almost flat. His arm was bent at the elbow and covered his eyes. The limo’s engine was not running.
Luigi approached silently until he was standing next to the vehicle. He rapped his knuckles on the window.
The driver jerked his arm away, startled. When he looked up, Luigi gestured to request the driver lower his window and simultaneously said, “Please, sir?”
The driver lowered the window.
Americans. Idiots.
When the window was fully retracted, Luigi brought his hand from behind his back, lifted the pistol and placed two quick rounds in the center of his forehead.
The driver slumped sideways. Luigi put a third round in his left temple. Insurance. Always better to be certain.
Luigi returned the gun to his pocket, reached into the cabin and unlocked the door. He pulled the driver from the vehicle and dragged him to the back of the limo. He’d released the trunk and hefted the dead weight of his body into the deep storage.
The American woman hadn’t inspected the contents of old man Grantly’s suitcase because it was locked. Luigi smiled. Americans locked everything. And then trusted those locks to hold.
He would miss working in this country. Where else would he find so many gullible people concentrated in one place again?
He pulled out the box cutter he’d removed from his locker at the airport and sliced the green luggage belt and allowed the excess pressure of the stuffed luggage to push the lid open on the ancient hinges. He slid the box cutter back into his pocket and rifled through the contents.
Within five seconds, he found the first set of bills inside a quart-sized plastic baggie. Stacked neatly in a one-inch packet and wrapped with a paper money wrapper. The top and bottom bills on the stack were $100 denominations. If the entire packet consisted of $100 bills, then the set of fifty bills totaled $50,000. In which case there should be four packages of fifty and a fifth package containing twenty-four bills. If the denominations were smaller, he would find more packages.
In less than a minute, Luigi found six. He pulled the baggies out and stuffed them into his pockets. The bulges were noticeable if someone was paying attention, but at the moment, he had no alternatives.
He closed the trunk lid with the driver’s body inside. He turned and moved toward the limo’s cabin.
Then he heard a woman shout, “Stop!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jess burst out of the hospital elevator on the ground floor, and ran. She mashed the redial button on her phone, and held the device against her ear. The exit doors opened automatically as she approached. She slowed to a fast walk as the call connected.
Morris came on the line. “Jess?”
“They’re here. They’re in the country. The kidnappers. They’ve been watching the Grantlys.”
“Jess, Jess. Slow down. How do you know?”
She took a deep breath, pulled the strap of her messenger bag tighter on her shoulder, and walked to the multi-story garage. “Harriet told me. They sent the Grantlys a burner phone, and they’ve been calling on it.”
“Since when?”
“Few days. Plus, I think they’ve called since Roger had his heart attack.”
“What’s the number?”
“What?” She stopped and stamped her foot on the ground. “Damn!” She took a deep breath, and looked b
ack at the hospital entrance. “I didn’t get it. Harriet still has the phone.”
“Where is she?”
“In the hospital.”
“And where are you?”
“Heading back to my car.”
“Go back and stay with her. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“No. Listen, I left their money in their luggage. It’s in the back of my car.”
“Jess, never mind the money, go back—”
“If the kidnappers know the money is in the luggage—”
“Maybe they do, maybe they don’t—”
“If they get the money, they won’t need to keep Wilson alive. And they’ll vanish. We’ll be back to square one. More people will lose their lives.”
“Jess, please. We’re two miles away. I have four men and a team from Brooklyn. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Harriet’s in the hospital café, and I’ll be in the parking garage across the street. Fourth floor. B34.” She punched the off button, and ran.
The garage entrance was wide, two lanes in and out. Ramps led to the upper floors, one an entrance spiral, the other the exit. A concrete walkway led to an elevator. There were two buttons, large off white plastic arrows, one up, one down. She punched the up button. It didn’t light up. She pressed the button harder, holding it in, pushing it sideways. There was no response.
She wrapped the strap to her bag over her head, and took the stairs. The staircase was dark, filthy, and overwhelmed by the acrid odor of urine. The only light spilled in through openings from the streetlights on the road below.
She worked her way up one floor, watching the corners, doorways, and shadows for movement. Far off in the building, metal creaked. Her skin crawled.
She put her hand in her bag, and wrapped her fingers around the grip of her Glock, resting her trigger finger on the guard. She kept the gun inside the bag, close enough to use, if it came to that.
She moved up the floors until she reached a large numeral four painted on the wall. A big heavy steel door hung low on its hinges. A small square window offered a view into the parking area. She peered through.
She was near the exit ramp. The cars seemed scattered at random around the floor. She saw no one.
She pushed the heavy door open. It scraped along the concrete floor, squealing like nails on a blackboard.
The garage was quiet. Eerily quiet. Fluorescent lights washed the parking area with a harsh yellow glow. The cars weren’t parked randomly at all. They were clustered around one corner of the floor, near the exit. A sign on the closest pillar read A0. She looked down the row of cars. The next pillar read A10.
Omar’s Town Car was at the far end. She walked diagonally across the line of cars, and saw the big black Lincoln at the end of the row, backed into the parking spot. A man stood beside the car. Omar stretching his legs, perhaps?
Before she could call his name the man bent down. There was a flash of light inside the car. A hard, solid chug thumped through the air. The cycle repeated again and again. Flash, chug. Flash, chug.
Jess froze, her mouth open, ready to call to Omar. She had one foot in the air. Her lungs locked up.
She clamped her mouth shut, fighting back an instinct to scream. She forced her legs backward, moving between two cars. She dipped low beside a thick concrete pillar.
Omar? The man had shot him at point blank range. He hadn’t stood a chance. She clenched her fist, and realized she was holding her Glock. She slid off her bag, laid it on the ground, and pulled out her phone.
Through the glass of the parked cars, she could see the man moving to the rear of the Lincoln. The driver’s door was open. The man was struggling. He had to be carrying the body. The trunk popped up, and the man turned to lift Omar’s dead body into the cavernous space.
When he turned, she saw him, head on. He wore jeans and a blazer. His clothes looked like he’d slept in them, and he looked unshaven. She glowered at him. The man from the airport. The one who had been staring at her. The one on the plane. She felt cold.
She pressed the mute switch on her phone, and called Morris. She spoke as soon as he picked up. “Morris. I’m on the fourth floor. Column B34. At the back of the garage. The kidnapper is here. He just shot my driver, and I’d guess he’s taking the money.”
“Stay down, Jess. Stay out of the way. We’re almost there. Three minutes, tops.”
The man closed the limo’s trunk and straightened his jacket.
“I don’t think we have three minutes.”
“Jess—”
“Fourth floor. At the back. Hurry.” She hung up.
If he left with the money, he wouldn’t need Wilson Grantly alive any more. He would kill Wilson. Or his accomplices would. No good outcome was possible if this man got away.
She checked her Glock and moved a couple of cars closer to the limo.
He closed the driver’s door. His pockets bulged, his jacket ballooned around him. He walked away from the limo. He passed one car, two, three.
Jess held her gun out. “Stop!”
He stopped and looked in her direction. It was a natural reaction. A quirk of nature. Walking people generally obeyed instructions, running people usually ran harder. He looked calm and serene. Happy, even.
“Lie down,” she said.
He didn’t move. He wasn’t moving but he wasn’t taking orders from her, either.
She gestured with the Glock. “On the ground. Now!”
He leaned forward, as if bowing, as if he was going to lie in the concrete dust on the floor. And sprang back up. Gun out. Chest height. A pistol with a silencer. Pointed directly at her.
Jess jumped back. She folded herself in two, pivoted and lunged behind a concrete pillar. The man fired. It was like the car. The same flashes of light. The same chug, chug beating the air. Concrete chips exploded above her head.
Her heart raced. She panted, her mouth wide open.
He was fifty feet away. From behind the pillar, she couldn’t see him.
She remembered the words of the man who had first taught her how to use a gun. Lose sight, lose the fight.
She took a deep breath. She gripped her Glock with both hands, and leapt from behind the concrete pillar to behind the engine block of an SUV.
He fired. The windscreen of the SUV exploded. She gripped her gun, and squeezed the trigger. One. Two. The Glock boomed. Louder and heavier than his silenced pistol.
The man ducked and fired. A wild shot hit the garage roof and brought down a cloud of concrete.
She crouched down, keeping her eyes a fraction above the glass beltline of the SUV, and the man in view.
He ran, doubled over, awkward steps, his bulbous jacket flapping hard left and firm right. He was going for the limo. Omar’s keys were probably still in the ignition.
Jess angled the gun down the side of the SUV. He would come into view. She tensed her finger on the trigger. She could see the nose of the limo. If she could just stop him, Morris would arrive and take over. She hoped.
She saw a blur. Jacket, jeans, loafers. She squeezed. Aiming ahead of him. The Glock boomed, jolting in her hands. She held it down. Resisting the urge to let the barrel rise as the recoil wanted it to do. She needed her next shot to be on target if she was going to fire again.
The man screamed. Short, sharp, guttural. Pain and shock, tightly controlled.
She heard a thump, and peered around the side of the SUV. He was folded over, one hand on his side, the other on the Lincoln. He shuffled toward the driver’s door.
She inched forward. If she shot now, she would hit him for sure. He was prone. Stationary. No longer a moving target. Sandwiched between the Lincoln and the next car.
But she wasn’t a killer. She’d hit him when she only meant to frighten him into submission. And if she killed him, Morris might never learn where Wilson Grantly was hidden.
Omar’s killer was still moving, but not easily. Morris wasn’t far away. She eased back behind the inadequate safety of the SUV’s
engine block and waited.
The door to the Lincoln popped open. She heard grunting. The door slammed.
There was silence and then the churning of the starter motor.
The Lincoln leapt forward, tires screeching, the rear fishtailing out of the parking space. She whipped her gun into the gap between the SUV and the next car.
The Lincoln passed her. A streak of black. And gone.
She leapt up. The Lincoln made a wild turn at the end of the row of parked cars. He was heading for the exit.
She ran full out for the stairwell, taking the steps three and four at a time, crashing her shoulder into the wall to slow her for the turns.
She skipped the third floor, and hit the door to the second level at full speed, ramming the door back against the concrete.
The Lincoln raced down the exit ramp. She ran toward it, her Glock in front of her.
The Lincoln lurched left, following the arrow for the exit. She took the turn, sprinting after the Lincoln’s red taillights.
He turned another corner. She heard a loud crash. The impact of metal and glass. An engine roared. Tires squealed. Another crash.
She reached the bottom of the ramp. The Lincoln was sideways across the lane, its nose buried in a minivan reversing out of its parking spot, and its rear wedged against a concrete pillar.
Sirens sounded. Harsh and loud and close.
The man was in the Lincoln, hands still on the wheel.
Jess walked forward, her gun trained on the man, keeping behind him.
A woman pulled two girls from the minivan.
Jess made eye contact. “Move! Go! Get away!”
The woman caught sight of the Glock, and needed no more encouragement, hustling her children away.
The Lincoln’s engine died. The man stumbled out.
Jess took cover behind a pillar, her Glock in her outstretched arm.
He waved his gun, and stumbled to one knee.
Jess kept her Glock on him. “Down!”
He swung his gun in her direction. She whipped behind the safety of the concrete as he loosed a hail of bullets. Glass exploded and fragments of the pillar flew around her. She squeezed her arms to her sides.
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