Nowhere to Run

by Mary Jane Clark

  Whoever it came from, once Annabelle got the piece approval, the next thing on her agenda was to find Joe Connelly and tell him what the au pair had told her about the baseball cap–wearing mail deliverer.

  Chapter 135

  He’d be damned if the suspect would get out of the Broadcast Center.

  “We’re locking this place down,” Joe announced. “Alert all the exits. No one is to enter or leave the building.”

  As the word went out to the security guards, Joe strode up to the main lobby, where the public address system was located. He composed his statement in his mind, knowing that the words he chose would be important. He didn’t want to cause mass panic.

  “We have an emergency in the building that is requiring us not to let anyone enter or leave at this time. Please be assured that you are in no danger. Stand by your computers for further information.”

  He hung up the mouthpiece and immediately picked up the telephone at the main desk. Joe knew the NYPD number by heart. After he informed his contact of what had happened, he made his suggestion.

  “I think you guys should bring in a K-9 team.”

  The president of KEY News was tapping against the lobby’s plate-glass window.

  “It’s all right, Roberto. Let her in,” Joe said to the guard.

  “What’s going on here?” Yelena demanded as she shook out her umbrella.

  “There’s a good chance that our anthrax buddy is right here in the building.” The security chief told her about the camera installed overnight on the suspicious closet and the discarded ski-parka disguise.

  “Finding someone with that little to go on in this huge building could be like finding a needle in a haystack,” Yelena observed.

  When informed of the police dog team that was on its way, she nodded. “All right, but keep that animal away from me. I can’t stand dogs.”

  Chapter 136

  “That’s a helluva thing to tell us two minutes before we air,” griped Linus as he walked into the control room. “What the hell is going on around here?”

  As Constance and Harry appeared on the television screen, welcoming the audience to KEY to America, Linus picked up the phone and called Yelena. Her explanation was fine, as far as it went. He needed to assign a producer to keep on top of this story as the broadcast aired. If an arrest was made, Linus wanted to beat the competition in reporting it.

  “Who’s available, Dominick?” he asked the senior producer sitting next to him at the console.

  “Annabelle Murphy is free. Her piece is all done.”

  Chapter 137

  Annabelle took the call informing her of her new assignment. Her first step should be to talk to Joe Connelly.

  “Annabelle, line three,” Wayne called across the newsroom.

  She snatched up the receiver. “Annabelle Murphy.”

  “Annabelle, it’s me.”

  “Oh, hi, Mike. What’s up?”

  He could tell by her clipped tone that she was under pressure there.

  “I hate to bother you with this, honey. But Thomas has this weird scab on his hand.”

  “What does it look like?” she asked as the hairs on her arms raised.

  “It’s black, like coal.”

  Sweet Jesus. She couldn’t get out of the building!

  Annabelle ached to fly out the door and rush downtown. She wanted to meet them at the hospital emergency room, talk to the doctors, hold her son’s hand. If something happened to Thomas, she would never, ever forgive herself. Tears welled in her eyes.

  Yet she knew, instinctively, that she had to stay calm. Her panic wouldn’t help her little boy. What would help was clear thinking. She tried to remember the research she’d done for the Lee piece. The coal-like scab signaled cutaneous anthrax, the less deadly form. Please, dear God, please, the much more treatable form.

  If the treatment came in time.

  Chapter 138

  The moment the parents left the house to catch the train into the city, the baby-sitter switched on the television set. While the baby’s bottle heated, she watched as the pretty blond lady introduced the story.

  “There’s been another anthrax death in a prosperous New Jersey suburb. While investigators have arrested former KEY Medical Correspondent John Lee in connection with anthrax allegedly obtained illegally, town residents are worried. KEY to America correspondent Lauren Adams has more about the terror in Maplewood.”

  The au pair stared as the video showed so many of the places she recognized from her walks around town with the baby. She listened to the people she had seen being interviewed in front of the diner. She wished that she could have been one of those people, who now had something to tell their friends. She envied them. They were famous now.

  When the video story ended, too quickly as far as she was concerned, the KTA host and the reporter the au pair recognized from yesterday came back on camera in the studio, conversing about the anthrax cases and the fear that had begun to grip the town.

  The young Irish woman went to her purse, taking the business card from her wallet. As she studied the white card, she thought perhaps she should call Annabelle Murphy and tell her the other thing she remembered. But as she went to the phone, the baby cried, diverting her attention back to the job for which she was so poorly paid.

  Chapter 139

  The yellow Labrador retriever, along with her handler and other police officers, was escorted down to the basement ramp. The silver ski jacket was held to the dog’s nose.

  “Every person’s scent is as unique as a fingerprint. Health, ethnic origin, the type of food the person eats, and the soap and perfumes he wears all make up the individual’s scent,” explained the handler. “But this could be a tough one. From what you say, this jacket wasn’t worn for very long. We should probably go into the closet too and let Duchess try to catch the scent in there as well.”

  “What about the possibility of anthrax exposure?” asked Joe. “You stay back,” instructed the handler. “We’ve all been vaccinated.”

  “Even the dog?”

  He patted Duchess on her head. “Though we’re concerned about the risk, we know that dogs are about five hundred to a thousand times less likely than humans to develop an anthrax infection.”

  Chapter 140

  Annabelle checked to make sure that her cell phone was on. Mike would call her on it as soon as he had some news. There was absolutely nothing she could do to help Thomas right now. She had to keep busy, keep her mind off her little boy, or she would go insane.

  If they found the murderer in the building, Annabelle wanted to be there for it. They’d have to pull her off the monster. Her fists clenched at the thought of the miserable wretch who had hurt her son.

  Suddenly, she was glad to have this assignment.

  “Mr. Connelly isn’t in the office.”

  “This is Annabelle Murphy. It’s urgent that I speak with him.”

  “We can beep him, but it might be a while before he gets back to you. He’s with the police K-9 unit.”

  Annabelle hung up the phone. So they were using dogs to try to track the killer. Her professional mind automatically went into gear.

  She had better get pictures of that.

  “No, I don’t know exactly where they are,” admitted Annabelle. “We’ll just have to scout around until we find them.”

  “All right,” said the cameraman. “I’ll meet you in the lobby in five minutes.”

  Annabelle grabbed her notebook and pen and was heading out of the newsroom when another call came in for her. It was Ruby, Edgar’s sister.

  “I just wanted to tell you that Edgar’s graveside service has been postponed because of the bad weather out there, in case you might want to come.”

  Annabelle wanted to scream. Sad as it was, Edgar’s burial was the last thing on her mind this morning. “Thank you for telling me, Ruby,” she managed to answer. “When you know the rescheduled time, let me know. If I’m not here, just leave it on my voice mail, all right?”
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  She wanted to get off the phone, but Ruby had more to get off her chest.

  “It was awfully nice of you all to come to the Going Home Celebration last night. I have to admit, I was kinda surprised that the big boss came and paid for that van. Edgar told me she was mighty cheap.”

  Where the heck was that coming from? “Oh, you mean cheap with the budget cuts?” Annabelle asked. “That’s just Yelena’s job. She has to enforce those things.”

  “That’s what Edgar said too. But he couldn’t believe it when he caught the big boss one day taking sugar from the cafeteria. Doing your job is one thing, being cheap is another.”

  Chapter 141

  Russ felt his stomach growl. He still had more than half an hour before his segment was scheduled. Since leaving the building to go up to the corner deli was out, he could grab something cold off the guests’ table in the greenroom or go downstairs to the cafeteria and get what he was really in the mood for, a bowl of hot, creamy oatmeal.

  As he approached the entrance to Station Break, he saw the dog sniffing along the hallway floor.

  “Wherever a person goes, whether he sits, stands, walks, runs, even swims, he sheds thousands of minute particles of skin,” the handler explained for Joe’s benefit as both kept their eyes on the retriever. “These rafts of skin contain the person’s individual genetic scent composition. The more contamination that occurs in an area, though, the more difficult it is for the dog to work the available scent.”

  “So this guy walking toward us is going to foul things up, right?” Joe observed as Russ approached them.

  “It ain’t gonna help.”

  “Go back, sir. This is an investigation area,” ordered the police officer, waving Russ away.

  Russ was only too happy to comply. If that dog sniffed its way to his desk, he was going to be in big trouble. He had to get that powder out of his desk, out of the Broadcast Center.

  Chapter 142

  As she walked to the lobby to meet B.J., Annabelle recalled the twenty dollars she had lent Yelena the day the ATM was down. Twenty dollars perhaps simply forgotten with all that Yelena had on her mind. Annabelle had certainly forgotten about it herself until now. But Ruby’s remark about Yelena’s cheapness had made her remember.

  How odd it was for someone, especially of Yelena’s stature, to pilfer a cup of sugar. But further reflection about her boss and her motives was diverted as Annabelle spotted the cameraman waiting for her, ready to track down the K-9 team.

  It didn’t take long to find them.

  The dog and its entourage were coming down the hallway toward the lobby.

  B.J. switched his camera on and managed to get some video before the cops shooed him away.

  “Joe, can I talk to you a minute?” Annabelle called to the security chief.

  He shook his head. “Not now, Annabelle.”

  “It’s important, Joe,” she insisted.

  “All right, but be quick about it,” he said as he came toward her.

  The retriever was leading the handler to the revolving door out to the street.

  “Christ, if the suspect got outside, we’re dead.” The security chief groaned as he watched the dog circling in confusion.

  “Joe, I just wanted to let you know about something I heard in Maplewood yesterday when we were out there for a shoot.” Annabelle hurriedly recounted the story the au pair had told her.

  “All right, I’ll let the cops know,” he responded as he turned his attention back to the dog.

  “And, Joe,” Annabelle said, as she took hold of his arm, “my son may have been exposed too.” She gave him the details of what she knew so far about Thomas.

  The security chief looked stricken.

  “Can’t you let me out of here, Joe?” she tried.

  “I’m sorry, Annabelle. No exceptions.”

  Thinking her cooperation with him should at least earn some reciprocal information for her story, Annabelle continued, “All right, but I’ve got to do this story for the show, Joe. What can you tell me about what’s happening here?”

  “Sorry again, Annabelle. I would help you if I could, but there’s nothing I can say right now.”

  Chapter 143

  The second his movie segment interview with Harry finished at the end of the first hour of the broadcast, Russ clipped off his microphone and headed up to his office. He took the envelope from the bottom drawer of his desk and stuffed it in his raincoat pocket.

  The main entrances might be blocked, but there were other ways out of the Broadcast Center.

  If he escaped this time, Russ vowed he was going to clean up his act.

  Gavin looked over the copy he was about to deliver on the Wellstone investigation. As he waited while the microphone was clipped to the lapel of his suit’s soft jacket, he wondered how much longer he really wanted to continue in this business. Getting up most mornings at an ungodly hour, being under pressure to perform, enduring Linus’s insults and tirades, and, now, the aspersions cast upon him by Yelena, assailing his character.

  He didn’t need this anymore. He had enough money, his retirement fund was fat. He could get a part-time teaching position at a university if he wanted to make sure that he would have breaks from Marguerite’s harping. Yes, a college would be a good place to be. All those young, pretty coeds looking up to him.

  He should get out while the going was still good.

  Chapter 144

  Annabelle’s cell phone pulsed. With shaking hands, she flipped it open.

  “Mike?” she answered anxiously.

  “They aren’t even waiting for the test results, Annabelle. They’ve already started Thomas on Cipro.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “Eighty percent of cutaneous anthrax cases recover.”

  There was a long silence. Neither one of them would speak of the other 20 percent.

  “Annabelle?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Look, sweetheart, all that matters is Thomas getting well and you staying safe. Everything is going to be all right. I promise.”

  Annabelle hung on to the phone, fighting back tears and clinging to her husband’s reassurance and strength. For the first time in these many months, she really started to sense that Mike was going to be okay.

  Chapter 145

  As Russ pushed through the heavy metal door, the red light flashed from the board in the security office.

  “The alarm is blinking at the rear emergency exit on Fifty-sixth Street,” the guard yelled at his colleague. “I’m running out there. You call Joe and let him know.”

  The guard pushed through the emergency door into the torrential rain. He looked from side to side and randomly decided to run toward Tenth Avenue. Squinting through the downpour, he searched fruitlessly.

  It was too late.

  “Damn it!” Joe hissed.

  The dog was coming up empty, losing the track in the lobby, the rain washing away the possibility of following the scent outside and, now, someone had escaped through the back of building.

  “Let’s see if we can get prints off that emergency door,” offered the cop.

  Chapter 146

  She tried to push thoughts of Thomas away and concentrate on the task at hand. If Joe, with his law enforcement background, wasn’t going to share any information, perhaps Yelena, with her journalistic bent, would be more forthcoming. Yelena would understand that Annabelle needed to know the facts in order to report the story of what was happening in the Broadcast Center this morning.

  Yelena saw her right away.

  “They found some things in a storage closet downstairs that look suspicious. A chemistry set and a box of gloves,” the president explained. “Joe had a camera trained on the closet. It caught someone running away. The dog is trying to pick up the scent from a jacket they found thrown aside near the closet. If you want,” Yelena offered, “I’ll take you down and show you the closet.”

  “Great, let me call my cameraman,” said Annabelle.<
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  Yelena glanced at the watch on her wrist. “I’m running behind and don’t have the time to wait. Let me take you down there quickly and just show you where it is. You can call the cameraman from there and direct him down to meet you.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Yelena. Thank you for being so forthcoming,” said Annabelle. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Just as long as I don’t run into that police dog.”

  Annabelle looked at her quizzically.

  “I’m allergic to dogs.”

  Chapter 147

  As they reached the top of the basement ramp, Annabelle felt the vibration and pulled the cell phone from her pocket.

  “Excuse me, Yelena, but I have to answer this. It might be my husband.” She paused as she opened the phone. “Mike?”

  “No. It’s me, Colleen, the au pair from Maplewood. I talked to you yesterday?”

  “Oh yes. I’m sorry, but I’m very busy right now. Can you give me your phone number and I’ll call you back?” Annabelle felt for her pen.

  The younger woman hesitated. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea. But you told me to call if I remembered anything else.”