Josh accepted three hundred dollars from the ATM in the Sternwheeler lobby and handed it to the girl—the second time, he mused, that he had given money to a prostitute for no sexual services in return.
The girl left. Josh tried Katie. Voice mail again. He settled into a couch in the lobby, his head spinning as he tried to make sense of everything that had happened. The scene with Dorn had been deeply disturbing. Josh couldn’t look at the girl without thinking that she was almost the same age as his daughter, that somewhere she had a father, a man just like him. His heart ached for them both. But then, he thought bitterly, at least the girl wasn’t missing. There was no pain greater than loss.
“Do you think that it’s possible Katie just ran away?” Allison plopped down beside him, still wearing her pizza delivery hat. Josh removed it. She fluffed her hair.
“Always possible. But I tend to agree with what you said earlier. She’s a pretty grounded young woman.”
“But kidnapping? Who would—” He stopped. He remembered the cat. “You don’t think Bludhorn . . .”
It fact, her very first thought when Katie went missing was that Bludhorn was responsible, that Katie’s disappearance was orchestrated by the same dark forces that had perpetrated a nuclear disaster, attempted to blackmail her with an embarrassing DVD and turned the town against them both. But she had said nothing to Josh at the time. There was no reason to panic him without evidence. “He’s capable,” she acknowledged. She could see Josh pale. “He did bring back Hippocrates unharmed.”
“Well, we got Dorn’s help,” Josh noted. He had no second thoughts about suppressing a story in order to aid the recovery of his daughter. If it ever came out, people would understand. It was no different from a prisoner of war signing a false confession to save his own skin.
“I wouldn’t count on Dorn,” Allison said. She hated to be so discouraging. She understood the decision to kill a story in exchange for Dorn’s assistance. But Josh deserved the truth. The congressman was an unprincipled, alcoholic, lying, pedophile whose only interests were sick sexual gratification and reelection. Politicians like him were why kids like Katie couldn’t get decent health coverage. He was in the same class of abuser as Darryl Dunn and her ex-husband. “I don’t trust him for a minute. That’s why I took the photo. It’s insurance in case he doesn’t come through.”
“So what now? I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
Allison felt the same way. Katie was missing. Winston was facing a public health catastrophe. They had to turn to someone, someone who would sound the alarm. State and federal officials had been no help. “What about Chief Holt?”
“I think he’s in on it. He has to be. He works for the plant. Plus, how else would he know that we were out there?”
“Same question we had before,” Allison said. “Is he one of the good guys or the bad? We don’t know. But he’s our last, best hope.”
Josh’s cell phone beeped with voice mail. He seethed. He had never understood how a call went to voice mail when his phone hadn’t even indicated a call coming in. He pounded in the code and held the phone to his ear. His heart leapt when he heard Katie’s voice—“Daddy”—followed by a burst of static that sounded familiar but which he could not identify.
“Where are you?” he shouted to the recording. But that was the entire message. The call had been dropped or the phone had died.
“She’s alive,” he gasped with audible relief. He dialed Katie back. The call went to voice mail.
He tried over and over with the same result. Katie was alive. But now what? What had happened? Where was she? Just because she was okay now didn’t mean she was out of danger. He was ready to try anything. “Let’s find the chief,” he said.
“Where do you think he is?”
“Cop shop’s right around the corner. If he isn’t there himself, someone will know where to find him.”