THE SKY GROWS darker, more ominous, the fine hairs on the back of my neck rising up from the static electricity in the air. The rain is growing harder, verging on coming down in sheets. In the back of the Jeep, I find a tire iron. I grab hold of it, bring it with me to the front door, shove one end of the tool into the narrow space between the door and the screwed-on plywood.
Gripping the bar with both my hands, I plant my booted foot against the exterior wall. Inhaling a breath, I yank on the bar. Turns out the plywood is rotted. It comes away from the log wall so easily I almost fall onto my backside. Pulling the entire board off the doorframe and tossing it to the side, I try the doorknob. It turns. I push on the door. It opens.
“No wonder the owner boarded the place up,” I observe. “No working locks.” Then, stepping inside, “Stay close behind and leave the door open, in case we gotta make a quick exit.”
Setting the tire iron against the interior wall, I pull out the gun and slowly step into the open room. To my right is a log wall with a set of wood-framed bunk beds pushed up against it. A gun rack is mounted to the wall beside the beds. A pump-action shotgun is stored on the rack, along with a .30-30 lever-action rifle. Something John Wayne would have carried in one of his old Westerns. Whoever owns the place isn’t all that concerned about the safety of his firearms.
To my left is a big stone fireplace. Thick spider webs shroud the black cast iron hearth, telling me it hasn’t been used in months or maybe years. I step farther into the room located on the opposite side. But then, the word room is too generous. More like a galley kitchen, attached to a small bathroom that also contains a stand-up shower.
Stepping into the kitchen, I wipe away the spider webs that hang from the ceiling.
“Hope you’re not afraid of spiders, Pen.”
“You know I am. If there’s a broom, I can get rid of them while you make a fire, Daniel Boone.”
I nod, begin making my way back across the front room to the open door.
“You know what I think?” I say, closing the door on the rain and the storm. “I think this place is abandoned. I can bet whoever lived here either couldn’t take care of it anymore, or maybe died. Places like this are scattered all over the Adirondacks. With no surviving relatives, the places are soon forgotten and simply rot back into the earth like your average corpse.”
Penny comes back out of the kitchen with a broom. Already she’s swiping at the spider webs.
“There’s a pile of dry wood by the hearth,” she says. “Now all we need is a bottle of wine.”
“And our daughter,” I add.
Luck hasn’t entirely abandoned us. Good luck, that is. Because the chimney is clear. The dry wood catches quickly and burns hot and bright from the unobstructed draw. All too often you hear about critters getting stuck in fireplace chimneys that are underutilized, but not this one.
With the burning wood going snap, crackle, pop inside the fireplace, I pull out my cell phone, flip the top. No calls, but I know that sooner than later, my parole officer is going to call me and tell me I’m a wanted man. Or perhaps at this point, he’s not even bothering to call me.
Penny pulls up two wood stools. One for mama bear and one for papa. We both take a load off.
“Okay,” I say. “Who gets the first call? Parole or the lawyer?”
“Toss-up,” she says. “That is, if we even have service out here.”
“Never thought of that. What about you?”
She’s holding her phone in her hand.
“Two bars,” she says. “You wanna use mine?”
“Let’s see how I do with mine. I have the numbers on speed dial. You don’t think I’ve actually memorized them, do you?”
I decide to contact Joel first. He’s my legal counsel, after all. Could be he doesn’t want me to contact Drew Lochte at New York State Parole in the first place. Thumbing the speed dial for my lawyer, I press the phone to my ear and wait.
Electronic rings fill my ear. The rings are clouded by pulses of static coming from the bursts of lightning striking all around us. The ringing stops as someone picks up.
“Mr. Harwood’s office,” comes the faint voice of Joel’s secretary. “How can I help you?”
My heart rate begins to climb. I know the wrath I’m about to face down, even over the phone. To a man like Joel, the abduction of my daughter by a man like Rabuffo is secondary to the fact that I have taken the law into my own hands. Gone vigilante. Or perhaps secondary is not the right word. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that he will consider the move stupid and reckless. But what he can never know is the desperation that fills my veins. Mine and Penny’s. And desperate times call for desperate measures, it’s true. I simply can’t risk being locked up by the police or anyone else.
I tell the secretary my name, then I ask for Joel. She nervously tells me to wait one second. I picture the blue-suited Joel seated behind his big mahogany desk in his glass-walled office on the top floor of a downtown Albany tower. He’ll have a glass candy bowl filled with Good & Plenty within reach, and not one computer monitor, but two, one of them dedicated to real-time stock market quotes. He’ll be relaxed, leaning back in his leather swivel chair. But when he hears my voice, he’ll instruct his secretary to hold all calls. He’ll straighten up, and concentrate entirely on me and my situation.
He picks up the phone.
“Jesus Christ, Sidney,” he snipes, in the place of a hello. “Where the hell are you?”
I must admit, I’m taken aback. It’s almost like Joel is somehow able to punch me in the gut from a distance of two hundred miles. Under normal circumstances, his demeanor is even keel, even tempered, and by the book. Even when parole negotiations got heated with the DA, Joel always maintained total professionalism. The sudden change in tone tells me he’s worried. Maybe more than worried. Maybe in fear of what could happen to him and his practice, his having been such a strong advocate for my release.
“They took my daughter, Joel,” I say. “They took my daughter, and I’m going to get her back.”
“The police will get her back, Sidney,” he asserts. “You must trust the system. You must go back. You must turn yourself in. Do you understand me? Do it now.”
“Joel,” I say. “Rabuffo’s people revealed themselves. Last night. Someone was holding my daughter outside our hotel room. They let her speak to me. When I took the bait, I stepped outside and one of his goons knocked me over the head with a pistol. I was knocked out for a few seconds, but when I got up, I chased him. When I got to him, I beat him. I couldn’t help myself, Joel. I completely lost it. You would, too, if you were in my shoes. I just want my daughter back.”
He pauses for a beat or two. Long enough for me to make out his breathing.
He says, “Why would they bait you like that, Sidney? Why not just send over a note, an email, or a text, listing their specific demands? Why do something so risky like that?”
“You tell me,” I say, my eyes looking into the hot fire, but seeing the silhouette of my daughter as she stood on the beach beside the big unidentified man. “If you ask me, it was to taunt me. To torture me. To let me know they have power over me.”
“You notice anything missing from your pockets? Your wallet maybe? Maybe they baited you so that they could search you. Find something you keep on your person at all times.”
I pat my back pocket. My wallet is present and accounted for.
“What could they be looking for, Joel?”
He pauses once more. Then, “You and Rabuffo were pretty damned close. Like a proud dad and his only boy. That’s the way you’ve always described it to me.”
In my head, standing side by side Rabuffo in the basement of his house. A basement that was like a fortress located within a fortress, with its own alarm system, CCTV system, emergency lockdown system, enough firearms … long and short gun … to wage a small war. And of course, the vault where he stashed his cash and booty. Everything from diamonds to gold coins. Enough to purchase a small country in West Africa.
“So what’s your theory, Joel?” I go on. “Where’s this going?”
“Well now that the big boss has had his legs cut out from under him by the FBI, could be his lieutenants want their fair share of the Rabuffo fortune. Maybe the only way they can get at it is through you. You ever think of that, Sidney?”
I’m standing, even before I feel myself making the conscious decision to stand.
“Why, Joel?”
“Because, like I’ve already said, you and the big boss were pretty cozy before you got sent away.”
“I owed him.”
“And he, in turn, employed you. Reciprocity at its purest. Until … well, you know what happened.”
“Yah,” I say, “I was there.”
In my head, the flashes of gunfire lighting up the windows of the bungalow the Chinese family lived in. Four gunshots in total.
“So let me get this straight,” I go on. “This isn’t about revenge for exposing Rabuffo. Instead, this is about something his people want from me.”
“Maybe a little of both,” he says, exhaling so deeply even I can feel it. “None of this matters, Sid. What matters is that you turn yourself in to me, and then we can let the police do their job, get Chloe back safe and sound.”
“So far all they’ve been concentrating on is me, and not my daughter.”
“That’s because you’re giving them reason to concentrate on you. Sources said you grabbed hold of Penny inside the hotel lobby. That when you approached a Marine and his girlfriend in the bar, you were drunk and belligerent. There’s reports of you fighting and getting violent inside your hotel room. Then that goon … what’s his name, Bertram … showing up at the police station and on the local news, his face destroyed, his finger nearly yanked off. I won’t even bring up what you did this morning, for God’s sakes, taking that hotel detective hostage and assaulting her. You’re not even supposed to be in Lake Placid. By law you’re supposed to remain in Albany where you’re to be looking for a job and reporting in to your parole officer.”
“I needed to spend quality time with my family. It’s been a while, you know? It was Penny’s idea, and to be honest, I jumped at the chance.”
“Yeah, well, how’s that quality time going for you, Sid? You’ve broken enough laws to put you back in the pen for four back-to-back life sentences.”
“Do I have to answer that?”
“No, but you do have to answer to parole and the Lake Placid Village law enforcement authorities. And after all the work we did to get you free, I can bet it’s all for nothing. They’re going to want to incarcerate you again, Sidney, and this time it will be for good. So why not turn yourself in to me now, and at least plead your case to the courts? You’re under obvious duress because of the abduction of your daughter, and you acted out of emotion. Any red-blooded man and father would do the same thing. That will be our defense.”
I find myself looking at Penny. Rather than concentrate on me, and my conversation with Joel, she seems fixated by her smartphone. Something she’s watching on the little digital screen.
The thoughts race through my head. Maybe Joel is right. Maybe Penny and I should get back in the Jeep, head back to town, turn ourselves in, leave the rescue of Chloe up to the cops. Maybe that’s the only way out of this mess. The only way I can guarantee that I will not be transported back to prison.
“What about contacting Lochte?” I pose.
“I’m already on it,” Joel says. “He’s of the opinion that you need to turn yourself in right now. Like me, he understands your state of mind. But the goddamned law is the law, Sidney. You can’t make it all up to suit your own purposes. Only God can do that.”
Me, nodding. Penny turns to me, her eyes wide open, her face withdrawn and pale. Filled with a sudden burst of stress. She stands.
“Get off the phone, Sid.” Her words are forced, emphatic.
I look into her eyes, whisper, “What? Why?”
“Get off the phone … Get off the damned phone!”
“Sidney,” Joel says. “You there?”
“Ahhh yeah, Joel …”
“Sidney, what’s happening?”
Penny, stepping toward me, her face practically in my face. She grabs the phone out of my hand, thumbs the END CALL button.
“Why did you do that, Penny? That’s Joel. The one man we have on our side.”
She hands me back the phone.
“You’re not … We’re not turning ourselves in,” she states.
“Joel said it’s the best move. I believe him.”
“It’s too late for that,” she says, holding the screen on her smartphone up to my face.
“It’s never too late,” I say.
“You’re now wanted for murder, Sid,” she cries. “Two … fucking … counts. The murders of our daughter, Chloe, and Giselle.”