He dialed his home number as he lurched into traffic. Maybe he’d misunderstood Brenna. Maybe. But no. Even before she answered, he knew. There was no other possible explanation. Someone had taken their kids.
“Bren?”
“Where are you?”
“Tell me you have the kids.” He squeezed the steering wheel tighter during the long silence.
“What are you saying?”
“So you don’t have them?”
“Don’t fuck with me, Jim. This thing is too—”
“Jesus.” How to tell her? “Bren, someone signed them out of Kids’ Korner. Used a fake name, and apparently they left with him.”
“Him?”
Christensen ran a stop sign a block from the school. The crossing guard in his rearview mirror stood defiantly in the middle of the intersection, apparently taking down his license plate number. “Couple of the other kids saw them talking to some suit at the fence about thirty minutes before, then whoever it was signed a fake name and they left. I looked everywhere. The goddamned staff didn’t have a clue.”
“The kids wouldn’t do that, Jim,” Brenna said, clinging to a faded possibility. “Taylor wouldn’t.”
“Bren, I’m pretty sure they did.”
Christensen cradled the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he worked the Explorer up through the gears on Penn Avenue. Traffic was mercifully light; rush hour hadn’t yet started. “I’m five minutes from the house,” he said. “You call the police.”
“I don’t … There’s … You’re sure?”
“They’re not there. No one I talked to saw them leave, but someone signed them out and I couldn’t find them. They’re gone, Bren.”
A screeching yellow-light left turn onto Fifth. Had she responded? “Bren?”
“I’m here.”
“Just call. I’m on Fifth Avenue, so I’ll be right there.”
He wished he hadn’t hung up. Alone in the car, he searched for some trace, any trace, of the optimism that usually sustained him. He wanted to believe it was a misunderstanding, that Annie and Taylor had simply made other arrangements, that some kindly uncle was driving the carpool and simply confused the days. But there were no local relatives, no carpool. What made sense, the only thing that did, was a scenario that could pass for a flop-sweat nightmare: They’d blundered into something bigger than they ever imagined, and now it was too late to back away. On their first try, the Underhills had found the fleshy pink chink in his armor, then shoved to the hilt. Nothing else made sense.
Howe Street was a jumble of cars. He could see their house two blocks away, but had to wait excruciating minutes as two amateurs tried to parallel park, then tried and tried again. Brenna was pacing the front porch, arms folded across her chest, when he wedged the Explorer sideways in the alley entrance. It was probably the only opening for blocks. He left it unlocked with the emergency lights flashing. Brenna watched him take the porch stairs in a single bound, but even from the street he thought he saw muted panic in her eyes. Could she see the anger in his?
Brenna turned and walked back into the house.
“What’d they say?” he said.
She stopped in the front hall, her back to him.
“Bren?”
He expected tears, terror. But when she turned, she had the look of someone well in control.
“We’re not calling the police, not right now,” she said, refolding her arms. Her voice was defiant, certain, even.
“The hell we aren’t. Enough, Bren. You’re too close to this. You can’t see what I see, and I see your goddamned clients completely out of control.”
He knew he’d swung wildly, exorcising the doubts he’d had about the Underhills, and her, since this all began. He respected the role of a criminal-defense attorney, but he could no longer abide Brenna’s defense of the indefensible.
Brenna absorbed his words like body blows, not surrendering, but not defending herself either. “They’re not my clients now. Look, we can deal with my stupidity later. But we’ve got some decisions to make right now, and I just think we need to be smarter than calling the cops.”
“Because you still don’t think the Underhills are capable of this, do you?”
She waited, ignoring the bait.
“And you don’t think we should call?” he said.
“No.”
If she’d wavered, if he’d heard even the slightest hitch in her voice or seen a flicker of doubt in her eyes, he might have pushed it. But the way she stood, the way she spoke, he knew Brenna was somehow two steps ahead of him.
“You don’t trust the police?” he said.
“Do you?”
He thought of Bostwick, of the coroner’s odd clerk, of the politicians of both parties whose fealty to the Underhills was unquestioned and unchallenged. Brenna put his thoughts into words.
“Think about it, Jim. This is a family that demands loyalty, even pays for it. If they could buy a deputy coroner, who else could they buy? Cops would be easy, probably cheap. Who else? The sheriff? Even the D.A.? What if their feud with Dagnolo is just a cover?”
“There’s nobody down there you could call? Somebody who wouldn’t just blow off this whole story as paranoia or fantasy?”
“Maybe, but they’d be starting from zero. We don’t have time to start someone at the beginning and bring them up to speed. Are you ready to take the chance they’ll buy it and follow up?”
She hugged him, holding on like someone whose fingers had found a rock in roiling white water. He wished he still trusted her instincts.
“What, then, Bren? I’m scared.”
“Me, too. But—” She pushed him away.
“But what?”
“What would they accomplish by hurting the kids?” Her voice was analytical, wrung of emotion. “They wouldn’t.”
“You’re pretty damned sure,” he said. “I don’t get it.”
She stared. “They hurt the kids, they’ve got nothing on us, nothing to keep us quiet. They play that card, they’ve got no hand. And I think they’re smarter than that.”
Christensen couldn’t stand it. “Bren, this is Annie and Taylor we’re talking about. They’re not—”
With a brusque sweep of her arm, she cut him off. “Think logically, goddamn it. We have to now.”
After two weeks in the new house, boxes still littered the front hall. Those that hadn’t been unpacked were shoved against walls, out of the way. Brenna knelt beside one labeled B. K. DOWNSTAIRS STUDY and popped the tape that kept it closed, oblivious to the dust she was grinding into the hem of her skirt.
“I’ve dealt with people like this before,” she said. “The Underhills move in a subtler world, but they know the same thing any Blood, Crip, pimp, or mob guy knows: It’s all just control. It’s like judo. To control someone, you have to know their pressure points.”
Brenna pulled a handful of books out of the box and set them on the floor. She probed the remaining contents of the box, refolded the top flaps, then opened another one that was marked the same way.
“They’re showing us they know how to control us, but they understand the deal. They lose their advantage the second something happens to the kids. At that point we’d have nothing to lose.”
More books. Brenna made a face as she peered into the box.
“I want to believe that, Bren, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I mean, Maura probably had pressure points. They didn’t exactly work those before—”
Brenna waved him off. She sat back on her feet, brushed the dust from her knees with a chop of her hand. He could tell the comment had thrown her off stride. “With us, they’re showing what’s possible,” she said. “That’s all. Jim,
I believe that. I have to. Otherwise—”
Her eyes drifted, caught suddenly on another box. She moved two small boxes to get to it, then popped the tape that held it closed.
“So, what then? If you’re right, Bren, if we play by their rules, they’ve got us, forever. Say we don’t call the police, and the kids come back safe and sound. Can we live with that threat the rest of our lives? Can we live … hell, could we look ourselves in the mirror every morning knowing what these people are capable of?”
Brenna stopped digging through the box, but didn’t turn around. “I can,” she said.
“You’re a lawyer. You’re used to it.”
She wheeled on him, a familiar gun in her right hand, a small yellow box in the left. Her eyes were like jade-green lasers, searing straight through to the back of his skull. “Look, fuck you. You’ve never made a mistake? You’ve never misjudged anybody? Jesus God, Jim, save the sanctimony for sometime when it matters what you think about me. Right now, let’s just deal with what’s happened and sort the rest out later. Deal?”
Christensen felt sick as she set the box on a nearby plant stand and released the pistol’s clip. She opened the box and, one by one, pushed the bullets inside. She must have noticed the color drain from his face. “You just never know,” she said.
“I’m not … Bren, don’t. We need help. We’re in over our heads here.”
She shoved the loaded gun and the box of bullets into her purse. “We can swim,” she said, looking up.
“But we’re not the only ones in the water now. They’ve got the kids.”
Neither wanted to linger too long on the thought.
“Right now, the worst thing we could do is panic,” Brenna said. “The worst thing. They’re going to play this out their way. We just have to let them and assume they won’t panic, either. That’s all we’ve got.”
Christensen ran a hand through his hair, brushing away the few strands that hung over his forehead. “For now,” he said.
“Meaning?”
He closed his eyes, wishing his head were clearer. But from the murky snarl of theories and hypotheticals that defined the Underhill mess from the beginning rose a single, certain truth. “There still may be a trump card out there somewhere,” he said.
When he opened his eyes, he knew he had Brenna’s full attention.
“The autopsy photos. The X-rays. I think Bostwick has them. Carrie Haygood thinks so, too.”
Brenna’s eyes narrowed as she considered the possibility. “You don’t know that. And even if he does, we’re nowhere near getting them.”
Christensen shook his head. “I could try.”
“If we did have something like that—”
He nodded. “Pressure point.”
Something crashed behind the closed door of their downstairs office, a thunderous sound preceded by nothing, the sound of sudden and uncontrolled violence. He turned toward the door at the end of the hall, but felt Brenna’s firm hand on his arm. She held a finger to her lips, then reached into her purse.
Christensen pulled away, headed down the hall. The sound was too big, too outrageous to be an intruder, even a clumsy one. He opened the office door into a nightmare of ruined electronics and water trickling from a yawning hole in the ceiling above his desk, at the exact spot where he’d noticed the moisture stain. He knew that beneath the pile of soggy plaster his printer would never print again, and that his computer was dead.
“Holy shit,” Brenna said, lowering her gun. “The leak.”
Christensen turned and urged Brenna back out, then closed the door on a disaster that couldn’t have seemed more trivial.
Chapter 35
“Let me make it real clear what’s at stake here.”
Christensen was on the road again, wheeling through rush-hour traffic toward the Parkway East, holding his car phone like a lifeline. Bostwick had listened without a word as he sketched the broad outlines of the story, skipping over details that would need longer explanations. If Christensen was right, the man already knew the story. He just needed to know how much more deadly it had become. When he was done, though, all Bostwick had said was, “Told you not to call me at home.”
“Look, I don’t know you, you don’t know me, but I know what you’ve got.” Christensen remembered Bostwick’s voice on the rambling phone message, its drunken defiance masking fear. He was sure now it was the voice of a man who no longer wanted to carry the burden he’d shouldered three years before. “You kept those autopsy films. I don’t know why, or how, and I don’t have time to figure it out. What I need you to understand is what’s happening right now, what these people are capable of. It’s way beyond just covering up forensic evidence. A woman the Underhills thought was on to them is dead. Two other people have disappeared and may be dead. When they figured out I’d pieced it all together—” Christensen’s voice caught. “I think they’ve just taken my kids.”
Christensen could hear Bostwick breathing, even over the road noise. But Bostwick wasn’t denying, wasn’t backpedaling. The man was thinking, and Christensen knew then that his strategy had worked. Bostwick had a dirty little secret of his own, and he knew it was out.
“I’m guessing the family bought your cooperation,” Christensen said. “I want you to know I’m not judging you. I don’t care about that right now. I can’t. What I care about is making sure no one else gets hurt, and the only way I know to shut them down is with those films.”
He waited through a long silence. Finally: “You shouldn’t have called this number.”
“Look, Simon, I’m sorry. But the clock’s ticking. I’m just getting on the Parkway. I’ll take the Turnpike from Monroeville.”
“You’re coming here? Now?”
“There’s no time. I need your help. Please.”
“Oh, Christ. It’s bad enough you called here—”
“What’s your address?”
“No fucking way.”
Christensen passed a Corvette on the Parkway entrance ramp, his adrenaline pumping, but at the same time he felt himself go limp. He’d brought Bostwick this far on bluff and confidence, but what would he do if that stopped working? “Please help me,” he said suddenly, startled by the raw desperation in his voice.
“Christ,” Bostwick said. “You’ve got no idea.”
“Please,” Christensen whispered.
He waited, trying to interpret the deputy coroner’s silence as the man faced down the truth. Christensen had left no room for doubt; Bostwick knew he knew. Christensen drove on, sensing the man’s dilemma, knowing he’d destroyed the rationalizations that had sustained Bostwick during his alliance with the Underhills. Psychologically, Bostwick was exposed without a shield.
“You’re maybe ninety minutes away,” Bostwick said at last. “There’s a little place in Champion, just off 31. Cook’s Corner, it’s called. Stop there.”
Christensen breathed again. He fished into the Explorer’s door pocket for his western Pennsylvania map. “Ninety minutes,” he repeated. “Cook’s Corner. Thank you. That a restaurant, or what?”
The phone clicked, and Bostwick was gone. Ahead, traffic was moving smoothly along the Parkway East toward the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. If his luck held, the inevitable delay at the tunnel would be short. If it didn’t, he’d be late. His finger found the phone’s speed dial button and he punched in the code for home. He should let Brenna know.
Busy.
“Shit,” he said. “Come on, Bren.”
He tried again. Still busy. A mile short of the tunnel, taillights glowed red—a mixed blessing. It would slow his trip to the Laurel Highlands and his meeting with Bostwick, but the snarled traffic would give him a few more minutes before passing through the tunnel. After that, his chance of a g
etting a clear cellular connection to Brenna was pretty slim. He wasn’t looking forward to being out of cellular range, thinking about all the possible consequences of what he was about to do. Then he realized he wasn’t alone, that the Explorer was crowded with demons—residual rage, insurgent fear, self-doubt, guilt. He was about to spend the next ninety minutes with the carpool from hell.
Annie’s face flashed into his mind, giving him one of her full-pout, Machiavelli-in-pigtails glares and demanding to know what the hell was going on and why he wasn’t doing something about it. He wondered where she was, wondered how whoever had her would react if she got rude or defiant, which of course she would. He’d known for years she was indomitable; that she was still just eight years old was irrelevant. She’d inherited her mother’s strength and, from somewhere, the resolve of a pit bull.
“Poor bastards,” he said, thinking of her kidnappers, trying hard to smile at his hopeful little joke.
Busy again. Who could Brenna be talking to? Christensen fell into the obedient line of cars squeezing through Pittsburgh’s eastern choke point, waiting, dialing, waiting some more, creeping toward the tunnel entrance and God-knows-what on the other side.
Chapter 36
Brenna knew she was pacing, trying to keep a step ahead of panic, but her rational façade crumbled as soon as she hung up the phone. She trusted Levin, knew he was as deep into this swamp as they were, but what he’d told her in confidence just now left her no illusions. Enrique Chembergo had seen enough on that gazebo deck ten days earlier to reduce the Underhill name to a cinder.
Why he’d told Levin more than he told the sheriff’s investigators was, she guessed, a secret that died with him. But no, the gardener didn’t just hear a scuffle and see someone running from the scene after Floss went into the ravine. He saw a struggle, saw the old woman clock her attacker once as he surprised her from behind, saw the man cup his hand over her mouth, press her back against the wooden railing, and boost her into the void as she screamed and clutched and fell from sight. And he’d given Levin the attacker’s name: Mr. Staggers.
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