20

The chauffeur handed the phone to Garnet as if he couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.

“Urgent,” he mouthed, then beat a hasty retreat to stand like a sentinel on the stoop.

“What?” Garnet barked into the mouthpiece.

As he listened, his face lost all color, draining from tan to putty. Reaching out blindly, he touched a wall, his fingers barely grazing the surface. Taking two awkward steps forward, he leaned against it. I honest to God thought he might faint.

He said, “Wait. I’ll take it in the car.”

I said, “Tell whoever it is you’ll call back.”

“Shut up,” he mouthed.

“Is there a scrambler on that phone?: Do you want everyone in the neighborhood eavesdropping?” Dammit, I thought, a politician ought to know better.

“Look,” he said firmly into the receiver, “this phone’s not secure. Call me at—” He glared at me and I gave my number. He parroted it into the phone. “No, it’s not a trick. Immediately.”

He stared wildly around the room. I indicated my desk phone.

“Somewhere private,” he demanded.

“In the kitchen, or upstairs, first door on the left.”

He chose upstairs. My bedroom, with its habitually unmade bed. Took the steps two at a time. The phone shrilled while he was still at the top of the stairs.

I soaked it in: Garnet’s pallor, the aura of disaster. The chauffeur was outside, staring at the limo as though someone was apt to steal it, not an unlikely scenario. I sauntered casually to my desk, waited till the phone was between rings, then—oh so gently—lifted the receiver.

If Garnet hadn’t been so intent on the call’s content, he might have heard the tiny click.

“Please put her back on,” he was saying. “My God, don’t hurt her. I’m not trying to set you up!”

The other voice was inhuman, metallic, someone with a digital voice-changer. “Finger by finger,” it said menacingly. “That’s how she’ll come back to you, Mr. Cameron. It’s your choice. Two million bucks or you’ll never see more of her than ten broken fingers. Maybe we’ll leave the nails on, maybe we won’t. You won’t even find her body. Understand?”

“Wait!” Garnet insisted. “Let me speak to her again!” The other line disconnected and I pressed the receiver into the cradle as well.

I heard footsteps on the stairs. I didn’t have time to analyze my decision.

“We can discuss my ethics later,” I said. “I eavesdropped. What are you going to do?”

“You what?” He made his way down the stairs, carefully hanging on to the banister like he needed the support.

“I overheard the phone call.”

He sat on the second step from the bottom, sank into it as though all the air had abruptly left his body.

“They’ve taken her,” he whispered. “Oh, my God.”

“Who? Who’ve they taken?”

He looked at me uncomprehendingly, undecided.

“Who?” I demanded, kneeling so our eyes were on a level.

His words came out in a powerful rush. “Marissa. I talked to her. She sounded frightened.”

“Wait a minute. Earlier today, she left with a pile of luggage,” I said.

“Trial separation,” he agreed. “We didn’t know how long we could keep it from the press.”

“Where was she supposed to go?”

“Her mother’s place in Rhode Island. She must be there. This has to be some kind of hoax. Someone who saw her leave—”

“Call Rhode Island. Make sure she got there.”

“No! Her mother will be terrified!”

“Let me call. I’ll pretend to be a reporter.”

“She’ll hang up!”

“I’ll pretend to be a girlfriend! For chrissakes, what’s the number?”

He spoke the digits quickly, but I didn’t need to write them down.

“Rosemary,” he muttered. “Tell whoever answers you’re Rosemary and you need to talk to Missy.”

A woman with a twangy Texas drawl answered. I wasn’t sure if she was the mother, the secretary, the maid. She said Missy wasn’t there in a cheerful voice. Wasn’t expected. Did I want her Dover number? I hung up, ruining Rosemary’s reputation for politeness.

“Didn’t she tell her mother she was coming?” I asked Garnet.

“No. We weren’t sure. I hoped she’d hang on till after the campaign. My life isn’t always this crazy, this public. Marissa’s ‘visit,’ if it came to that, was going to be a surprise.”

Some surprise.

He stood up and started fumbling around the hall, trying to remember where he’d hung his jacket.

“Sit down,” I ordered. “Or go in the kitchen and make yourself some toast. We need to call the FBI.”

He turned on me, slammed both hands on my shoulders with more power than I expected. “No! He said they’d kill her!”

I pushed him away.

“Of course,” I said. “That’s what kidnappers do. They terrify you and then they extort money. Unless you believe their threats, they don’t get paid. But money is what they really want, not blood. That’s your trump card, and the FBI knows how to play it. They don’t send guys who come blazing out of cop cars with screaming sirens. Kidnapping is the one thing the FBI handles really well.”

Garnet shook his head. “It could be a hoax.”

“That’s what you said before you found out she wasn’t at her mother’s.”

“She could be somewhere else. Maybe she decided to spend the night with a friend. She’s unpredictable.”

“Sure,” I said. “Pretty soon you’ll convince yourself you didn’t hear her voice on the phone.”

“It could have been a recording—”

“Do you want her dead? Would a dead wife be better, campaign-wise, than a wife who wants a divorce?”

He’d have hit me if I hadn’t backed out of range. I’d gotten his attention.

“Look,” he said, “I need time to think this over.”

“You need to call the FBI. Now. Or else I will.”

He came close enough to threaten. “If you tell a soul, I’ll see you lose your license within the week. Within the week, do you understand?”

“I’m an officer of the court—” I began.

“Don’t pull that bullshit on me. You’re nothing of the kind.”

I should have known better than to try it on a lawyer, but he was distressed. I thought he might fall for it.

“So how long do you have to wait for the first finger?” I asked nastily. If I could provoke him into swinging at me, I decided I’d take the hit. Any reason to call the cops.

“Shut up!” he said. “Just shut up! It’s a hoax and that’s it. Final!”

He stormed out of the house, ripping his jacket off the coatrack. Henry, the chauffeur, followed like a shadow down the steps and across the lawn. The car doors slammed loudly. Someone gunned the engine. The big Cadillac peeled rubber as it left the curb.