WALTER PACED IN HIS office for nearly an hour before Andrew Hogan appeared in the doorway. The security officer looked composed and well rested in contrast to the nearly frantic anxiety that Walter exhibited.
“Where have you been?” Walter demanded. He realized that he sounded as if he were dressing down an underling, so he softened his question. “Have you heard anything? I’ve been going crazy wondering what was going on.”
Hogan answered as he eased into a side chair. “Well, let’s see. We’ve covered your house. Looks like it happened pretty much the way you guessed. But we know that Emily wasn’t injured. She was drugged and taken out in the shower curtain. There’s every reason to believe that whoever set this up wanted to make damn sure that Emily remained alive.”
“Thank God …” Childs collapsed into his chair as if a heavy burden he had been struggling with had finally been lifted. But after a fraction of a second at peace, the anxiety reappeared in his eyes. “But will she be safe?”
“I think so. Unless somebody screws up. From what you said about the messenger and what we saw in your house, we think that these are rank amateurs. They probably don’t want to hurt anyone. But, on the other hand, they’ll probably spook easily. Quite honestly, there’s no telling what they’ll do.”
Walter told him about seeing Mitchell Price in the restaurant and launched into the litany of his suspicions. “You think he’d be capable of planning a kidnapping?” Hogan wondered out loud. “He seems pretty much of a straight shooter.”
“He’d have help,” Walter suggested. “Mitchell Price would never get his hands dirty. But is he capable of setting the whole thing up? Would he have the stomach for it? You’re damn right he would. He’d kill his mother if he thought it was going to get him moved into the big office.” Hogan listened to Walter’s analysis, shaking his head at the details. It wasn’t just the mindless ambition being attributed to Price. Hogan realized that Walter clearly understood his rival’s ambition because it perfectly matched his own. The key to the big office had become the center of both men’s lives. He listened, nodded, and made a few notes. Then he leaned forward confidentially and told Walter that Price, like all the other senior executives, had been put under surveillance the previous day. “We didn’t start following him until he got back from lunch,” Andrew monotoned as he read the information from his notes. “We had a tail on him last night, but all he did was stay home. We’re also bugging his private line, but there have been no significant phone calls, either in or out.”
Walter’s face fall into the palm of his hand. “Then you really have nothing?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. We’ve picked up a few significant items.”
Walter’s face reappeared.
“We’ve identified the messenger. His fingerprints were on everything. He’s a down-and-out lawyer doing public defense work in Newark. He lives near you, but he won’t be there much longer. The bank is foreclosing on him.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Nothing, yet. But we have his phone tapped and we have a guy following him. Maybe he’ll try to contact someone or someone might try to contact him. We’ll wait until later in the day to sit him down and ask him some questions. But we tend to believe your evaluation of him and there probably won’t be a great deal he can tell us.
“We also found several sets of prints around the shower,’ Hogan continued. “Emily’s and yours, of course, but also several others that, judging by their size, appear to be men’s fingerprints. You haven’t had a plumber in lately, have you?”
“No … not that I know of. No, I’m sure. I would have seen the bill.”
“We’re running the prints now. We’ll let you know the moment we come up with something.”
Walter started to rise. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am …”
“I’m not finished,” Hogan said. He waited while Walter sat back down. “If you’re really grateful, then do me a favor and tell me everything you know that might bear on Emily’s kidnapping. Like, for example, how long you have been seeing Angela Hilliard?”
“Angela?” Walter’s eyes went out of focus. He stuttered a few defensive sounds.
“She was the first one you called after you learned that Emily was missing. And then you went to her apartment last night, as soon as you left the office. So you’re seeing her, aren’t you?”
The best Walter could manage was a slight dip of his chin.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Angela … my, eh … relationship with her has nothing to do …” He raised his hands hopelessly. “I wanted to keep her out of it, I suppose.”
“Not a smart decision,” Hogan told him. “A married man having an affair. His wife with a claim to everything he owns. And then the wife gets kidnapped by someone who knows your job as well as you do.”
Walter remembered what he had suddenly announced to Angela. “You think I did this!”
Hogan waved at him. “Take it easy. I don’t think anything. But I should tell you that as far as my investigators are concerned, you’ve become the number one suspect.” He waited while Childs turned away in embarrassment and shuffled to the window. Then he asked, “You want to guess who their second favorite suspect is?”
Walter’s face was showing his fear. “You can’t mean …”
“I’ll know better once I’ve been through her place.” He held out his hand. “I assume you have a key.”
“Dammit, no! Leave her out of this. She couldn’t do such a thing.” Walter was nearly screaming, his voice cracking with emotion.
Hogan remained calm. “The fact is, she could do it. She knows your job very well. There’s every chance you’ve told her more about Emily’s habits than you ought to. And she certainly has a motive.”
Walter was sputtering. “But, she wouldn’t know how … where would she find the people … how could she … ?”
“That is why I’d like to see her apartment,” Hogan answered.
Walter stared helplessly for a moment. Then he went to his desk, took out a ring of office keys, and snapped Angela’s key off the ring. He couldn’t bare to hand it over to Hogan, so he simply tossed it on the desk.
“I think she has a security alarm,” Hogan said
Walter went to his wallet and produced a business card with a security PIN number written on the back. He copied it on a phone memo pad and pushed it in Andrew’s direction.
“What about a safe?” the security officer asked.
“No. I told her to get one, but she doesn’t think she needs one. She has a hiding place for her jewelry and a few very personal things.”
“And where might that be?”
Walter was showing his irritation. “In her closet. The floor molding pulls away and there’s a space behind it between the wall and the floor. But, I’m telling you, you’re wasting your time. You won’t find anything.
Hogan took the key and glanced at the security code. “I’d have thought you’d be hoping that I’d find a lead to Emily,” he answered.
Helen Restivo used the key to open Angela’s apartment door. She went immediately to the alarm, and tapped in the PIN. Then she took a deep breath and let her eyes roam freely.
The apartment was spacious and tastefully furnished, the decor relaxed rather than impressive. It seemed to be the way the woman wanted to live, rather than the way she wanted her lifestyle to appear. The living room had a small sitting area of the typical sofa and soft chairs surrounding a coffee table. There was a small television on a TV stand, with a remote resting on one of the sofa arms. The longest wall was covered with standing bookshelves, interrupted by a built-in desk that held a personal computer. Most of the books seemed to be business reference volumes and the shelves to the immediate right of the PC were stacked with CDs and floppy disks. The telephone, at the back of the desk, accessed multiple lines and the facsimile and scanner were office quality.
The artwork was striking. The paintings were postimpressionist, with two good prints of works by Bonnard. There was an original oil by a Mexican painter, done in a primitive style. The statuary, resting on the tables and on the floor, were quality pre-Columbian copies and Indian pottery.
Helen entered the kitchen from the living room. Small and suitably cluttered, she thought, very much like her own. Women who generally cooked for only themselves didn’t seem to make a big thing out of it. There was a loaf of bread hanging out of the breadbox. The dishwasher door was open and breakfast dishes were set into the baskets. There were several liquor bottles on the countertop near the dining el, all top-shelf brands. Helen noticed the notes tacked to the refrigerator with magnets and reminded herself to copy them before she left. She opened the refrigerator and found a career woman’s store of stovetop meals and fast foods, along with a dieter’s ration of fruits and raw vegetables. Again, she could have been looking in her own refrigerator.
Nice girl, she decided. The evidence said “hard working and nonpretentious.”
She went into the bathroom and searched the hamper, where he found designer underwear and a nearly transparent nighty, and the medicine cabinet where she found contraceptive cream. Helen no longer worried about her underwear and she was pretty sure she had thrown out her old, flattened tube of spermicide along with her diaphragm.
The closets and dresser drawers described the same woman. A mix of the provocative and comfortable that said she knew how to dress for the sport in which she was involved. But everything was understated. The lady knew her own value. She apparently had no need to be anything but herself. Restivo was relieved that the popular battery-powered sex toys or gaming costumes were nowhere to be found. A decent girl, she decided with a shrug.
Inside the closet, she pulled the baseboard molding away from the wall and found the secret hiding place that Andrew Hogan had mentioned. She slid out a small jewelry case and found two diamond rings, a sapphire pendant, a pair of diamond earrings, a string of real pearls, and an antique cameo broach. It was a small cache for a very successful young woman, but it all seemed to be fine quality. She found heself liking Angela better and better.
She set to work in the living room office, starting with the computer and opening the file manager so that she could look into Angela’s written files and downloaded records. It was like paging through a personal diary. There were letters to her mother, her sister, and to a favorite aunt, all in the “I’m fine, how are you” genre. She shared enough of her success so that they would be proud of her, but not so much that they would feel she was leaving their orbit. A thoughtful girl, Helen told herself. Then there were long files of business correspondence, some granting loans and establishing lines of credit, others calling notes and implying legal actions. She was staggered by the amounts of money involved—tens of millions on individual transactions. Helen’s security agency was a very successful company, but numbers seldom reached over six figures. Angela’s business manners came through clearly. She was bright, authoritative, and to the point. Always there was the assumption that she knew more than her client and that the hoard of money she was dispensing put her in the position of power. A real ballbuster! Helen tried to reconcile the InterBank executive with the Angela Hilliard who swapped recipes with her sister. It wasn’t difficult. She had managed to retain her own feminine instincts despite moving in a world of ambitious men. She was glad that Angela seemed able to handle both well.
Helen found other files that seemed almost a tutorial on international monetary transactions. “Steps to create a transferable fund” was a detailed primer of Walter Childs’s job. “Routing procedures” explained in great detail how routing numbers could aim funds not just to another bank, but to a branch of the bank and a specific account within the branch. “Passwords and IDs” broke down the identity codes that were used to authenticate transactions. There was also a downloaded file on InterBank procedures for monetary transfers, authored by Walter Childs himself. She chuckled at the imprimatur that Andrew Hogan had added to this document in his role as vice president for security.
But she found Angela’s interest in areas of the bank other than her own very disturbing. It was pretty obvious that she had made a very close study of Walter’s operations, which were exactly the operations needed to deliver the $100 million ransom.
Helen copied the dozens of e-mail addresses in her electronic telephone directory. Then she connected to Angela’s Internet service and opened up the listing of her favorite sites. Surprise! The lady was a bit of a voyeur, judging by her fondness for photos of the Chippendales. She was also an opera buff who had ordered computerized courses in spoken Italian. And she was apparently planning a trip. She had been in and out of travel services on an almost nightly basis.
Helen cross-referenced Angela’s discount broker and, within a few seconds, had her trading record up on the screen. Each quarter, for the past year, Angela had put $25,000 into her account, probably a hefty slice of quarterly bonuses. She had traded furiously in a futile effort to latch onto one of the soaring rockets in computers or pharmaceuticals. Most of her investments had floated up with the rising market, almost covering her few big losers and her mounting commission fees. She was down about $30,000 in a year when she could have been up ten or fifteen in even the most conservative funds. Clearly, Angela Hilliard could afford the loss. But if, as the trading record testified, she was in a hurry to make a fortune, she had fallen well behind her schedule.
Restivo shut down the computer and leaned back in the swivel chair. Angela Hilliard seemed like a nice enough young lady, normal in every respect except for the enormous resources she commanded. More of a gambler than she would have expected, particularly for someone who worked in a bank. Maybe a bit more cold-blooded than her mother and sister would ever acknowledge.
Could she be part of a scheme to kidnap her lover’s wife? Yes, Helen concluded, and probably for the money as much as for the freedom to marry Walter Childs. There was no question that she knew enough about transferring funds to have set up the ransom scheme.
But there was no smoking gun. In fact, there was no gun at all. Nowhere in her files was there any reference to Emily Childs’s typical schedule, nor even a hint of any special relationship with Walter Childs. She could be part of the kidnapping, but, by the same token, so could most other women who had risen to management positions in the field of finance. There was nothing glaringly unusual about Angela.
There was, of course, the possibility that something would turn up in the telephone records Helen’s operatives were examining. And when she set them to calling the e-mail addresses she had copied, they might find themselves talking to people who could handle a kidnapping for a price. But judging by what she had in front of her that didn’t seem likely. She locked the apartment door behind her, hailed a taxi, and rode back to her office on the West Side.
The messenger who had visited Walter was the center of attention, sitting at the head of the conference room table. He had a delicatessen lunch in front of him, a chicken salad sandwich resting on a nearly soaked-through wrapper, and a paper cup of black coffee. Three of Restivo’s investigators were sitting along the sides of the table, politely asking questions while agreeing with the man that he had done nothing wrong. Helen slipped in quietly and took a chair at the far end, offering an apologetic smile for interrupting the man’s story.
Thomas Beaty was a night-school lawyer who had kept a modest local practice in wills and mortgages, with a little slip-and-fall whenever the opportunity arose. He had thrown everything into property in the Newark slums, betting on a tip that the buildings were going to be bought by the housing authorities. They were still standing, vacated by a court order, but tied up in a political skirmish that had gone on for three years. Beaty owed money for taxes and mandated repairs, was being sued by a family whose child had blown himself up in one of the buildings, and he had lost his office to a foreclosure. The promise of $10,000 for simply delivering a message had been irresistible.
Helen’s lieutenants had already established that Thomas Beaty was telling the truth. He knew nothing other than the instructions he had received over the telephone, the down payment that had appeared in his mailbox, and the final payment that had come to him through the mail earlier that morning. His concern had originally been that he was being arrested for a crime and would be sent to prison. Now his only worry was that the private investigators might try to force him to give the money back.
The questioning had taken a new turn. Now they were trying to learn all that they could about Beaty’s background, hoping to find a point where his path might have crossed with one of the players in the kidnapping. Could he possibly have had a past connection with Walter or Emily Childs? Did he have any dealings with anyone at the bank? Could he have ever communicated with Angela Hilliard? Someone had selected him as the messenger. Who could have known him? How could they have learned that he had fallen on hard times?
“No, never,” he had answered to a question on whether he had ever dealt with InterBank. “Who?” he asked, genuinely bewildered, in response to a question of whether he knew Mitchell Price.
“What country clubs do you belong to?” one of the investigators asked. Beaty began to laugh. “Or did you belong to?” the investigator corrected. Beaty didn’t play golf or tennis and he did his drinking at a local bar. “What professional associations do you belong to?” Just the Bar Association and once they knew that he had served as courier in a kidnapping, it was doubtful that he would remain a member. Social memberships? Church memberships? Helen’s mind was wandering in the pointless repetition of the trivia of a failed life. Where could winners like the people surrounding Emily Childs have ever crossed paths with a loser like Thomas Beaty?
“The Urban Shelter,” she heard Beaty say. “I was on the board for a year. I resigned when things began to mount up on me. Embarrassed, I suppose. I was sitting with a bunch of rich people allocating money to the homeless and I was about to become one of the homeless myself.”
Helen snapped to attention. The organization had been prominent in Walter Childs’s files. “Mr. Beaty, isn’t Walter Childs on the board of the Urban Shelter?”
Beaty smiled at his own surprise. “Yes. You’re right. I mean, he was on the letterhead. And I guess I must have seen him at some of the meetings. But we never spoke or sat together or anything like that. I didn’t make the connection until just this minute.”
“Could he have known about your financial misfortune?”
The man thought. “I suppose so. If he remembered my name, he might have found it in the legal notices in connection with the foreclosures. But he probably wouldn’t have paid any attention.”
The phone on the conference room table buzzed and Helen picked it up. “Restivo, here.”
It was Andrew Hogan’s voice. “How’s our ransom note doing?”
“Just beautifully,” she said. “We’re chatting right now.”
“Well, stop chatting,” Andrew said, “and meet me out at the Childs house. I got your lab report and I think we may have found the one in the sneakers.”
“One of the kidnappers?”
“I would assume so, because I don’t figure that Emily could have been taking a tennis lesson while she was wrapped in a shower curtain.”
Billy Leary was giving a tennis clinic, stealing nervous glances at the man and woman who had just taken seats in the small grandstand. They looked like cops, which could only mean they knew about his activities in the Childs house. For a second, he considered chasing a ball toward one of the exits and just disappearing from the building. Instead, he decided to talk his way out of it. He did his best to focus on his students, but found himself repeating his last instruction. It was easier to arrange the women into two step-in groups and let them practice with each other.
As soon as he picked up his towel the two visitors stood up and started toward him. He pretended not to notice and made his way to the men’s locker room. He wasn’t completely surprised when the door opened behind him and the man followed him in. But he couldn’t help the double take at the woman who followed right at the man’s heels.
“Hey, lady. You can’t come in here.”
Hogan flashed his badge, which had absolutely no police authority but generally fooled people who were expecting the police. “Would you rather talk outside in front of all your students?”
Billy didn’t answer, so Helen turned the lock in the door.
“Anything you want to tell us about Emily Childs?” Andrew began.
“She’s a member. She plays tennis.”
“We’re thinking specifically about Monday, when you went slopping through her bedroom leaving fingerprints all over the door jambs and wet sneaker prints on the rug.”
Billy turned away and opened his locker. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We’re talking about a capital crime. Kidnapping, and maybe murder.”
He dropped the racquet. “What … ?” He looked stunned.
“You’re saying you don’t know about it?”
“Jesus, no! Kidnapping? Murd—” He couldn’t get the word out. “I thought …” he tried again. Then he decided, “I think maybe I ought to get a lawyer … before I say anything.”
“Right now,” Helen said, “you have a free shot.” She held up her hands. “No notebooks. No tape recorders. No one is going to read you your rights. It’s Mrs. Childs that we’re interested in.”
Billy seemed to be trying to make up his mind.
“We know you were in her bedroom,” Andrew Hogan announced. “And we know you were there while the bathroom floor was still wet. What we need to know is why you were there, what you did, and what you saw.”
“Am I under arrest?” Billy said, his eyes widening with fear.
“That depends on what you tell us,” Hogan lied, keeping up the pretence of being with the police department. “Like the lady says, this one time you get to talk off the record.”
Billy slumped onto the bench. “I figured it was her husband. I figured he found out.”
“Found out what?”
Billy actually blushed. “You know …”
“Not unless you tell us,” Helen jumped in, trying to sound totally sympathetic.
“Mrs. Childs and I were … more than … it wasn’t just tennis.”
Hogan tried to be patient. “How much more than tennis was it?”
“We were very close friends,” Leary tried.
“You were banging her,” Hogan corrected.
Billy looked shocked at the thought. Then he nodded.
“So what happened? Things get a little out of hand?”
He realized that Hogan thought he had been in bed with Emily on Monday. “Oh, no. I just went over there to give her a few pointers. She had been in a match and wanted some extra help.”
“That would explain why your footprints would be on her tennis court, which they weren’t. But it doesn’t explain why they would be in her bedroom, which they were. Unless you give your tennis lessons back and forth over the bed.”
Leary writhed at the confusion. “When I got there, her car wasn’t in the garage. The kitchen door was open.”
“So you walked in and went up to her bedroom. Pretty pushy for a tennis lesson.”
He dropped the pretence. “There was no lesson. I went there to … be with her. She was expecting me and I couldn’t figure out why no one was home. I called her name, went outside to look for her around the grounds. Then I figured something might have happened to her. I went back inside and up to her bedroom …” He ran out of steam and silently shook his head.
“She wasn’t there?” Helen provided.
“The room looked like a war zone,” Bill Leary went on. “Her clothes were scattered like they had been pulled off. There was water all over the bedroom floor and water leaking out of the bathroom door. The bathroom was torn apart. The shower curtain had been ripped off. One of the towel bars was broken. And there was a puddle of bloody water leaking slowly down the drain.”
“What did you think had happened?” Andrew asked as soon as the narrative paused.
“I figured her husband found out about us. Like maybe she told him that I was coming over. Or maybe she told someone else and he overheard. I figured he had knocked her around a bit and that probably she had run away.”
“Did she ever tell you that her husband was in the habit of knocking her around?”
“No. She sort of made it sound like he did his thing and she did hers.”
Helen tried a question. “Did she ever mention that she was going to divorce her husband?”
He smirked. “No. Rich ladies never leave home unless they get to take the house with them.”
“I’ll bet that pissed you off,” Hogan said. “You were hoping to get together with a rich divorcee, and all she wanted was a quickie every now and then. Makes you real mad to have all the ladies paying you stud fees, doesn’t it?”
“She was a nice lady. Her husband was cheating on her.”
“Was. Is there something you’re not telling us, Mr. Leary?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Billy shouted. “But if anything happened to her, he’s the guy you should be talking to. Her death would save him a lot of money and a lot of headaches.”
They left Leary in the locker room, advising him to keep himself available.
“What do you think?” Hogan asked Helen as they walked toward their cars.
“I think he knew Emily a lot better than he’s letting on. And I think he pretty much had free run of the house.”
“You think Walter Childs knows about Billy Leary?”
“No,” Helen said quite positively. “If he did, he wouldn’t be blaming Mitchell Price. He’d get the lover.”
Hogan nodded. “Why don’t you follow me over to the Childs house. There’s something I want to show you.” The two cars left the tennis club in a procession.
“It’s for making voice recordings,” Andrew said, handing Helen a software package that contained a CD and an instruction book. “You set it up, type in a message, and then load it into a PC that has a sound card and speakers. Here, let me play one for you.”
He keyed the mouse. Almost instantly, a computerized voice began to speak, announcing the opportunity to earn $10,000. It told the listener which telephone keys to press on a telephone to proceed with the deal and indicate agreement. A smile spread across Helen’s face as she listened. “It’s pretty incriminating,” she said as soon as the message had played itself out. “Whose is it?”
“Mine,” Andrew said. “I made it when I was here yesterday. At the time, I thought it put a noose around Walter Childs’s neck. But then I found out you can buy the software in any computer store for fifty bucks.”
“So anyone could have done it.”
Andrew nodded. Then he added, “Do you think you can find out whether our tennis coach has a copy? Because if he does, given the fact that he was at the crime scene …”
“Who in hell are you?”
They both wheeled toward the voice, with Helen’s hand reaching instinctively under her jacket. They were confronting a young woman, perhaps twenty, who was looking at them as if they were bugs she had found in her breakfast.
“And what are you doing here?” She stepped angrily into the room, totally unconcerned that she might be calling out a pair of serial killers.
Hogan did his badge trick. “We’re police officers. And just who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”
“I live here,” die young woman said, playing her ace card. “Now, would you mind telling me why I need the police?”
She was of medium height and slightly built, wearing the tank top and jeans that were college campus uniform. Her features were attractive and her figure was noticeable but certainly not outstanding. What set her apart was her hair, which was shaved close to her scalp on die back and sides, but which stood up in a long crewcut at the top. The crewcut was pure white in contrast to the brunette shade of the fuzz. As she came closer, Helen noticed the rhinestone stud that was fixed to one side of her nose.
“You’re … Amanda?” Hogan tried.
“Good guess, Detective,” she mocked. “If I live here and I’m not Emily, then I’m probably Amanda. Obviously, there’s no fooling you. But that still doesn’t tell me why I need police protection.”
“Your father called us in,” Walter said.
“Why? Are you supposed to arrest me and brainwash me?”
Helen eased closer to her. “You might want to sit down.”
“I’ll stand,” she fired back, “so I can show you two to the door.”
Helen nodded and then told her the news. “Your mother has been kidnapped. We’re trying to find her.”
The sophistication drained instantly and Amanda’s eyes widened with fear. “Kidnapped … how … when?” She settled into the chair that Helen had been offering.
“She was taken out of the house Monday morning by two or three people. She was drugged. It looks as if they were very careful not to hurt her.”
“Then she’s all right and we’re going to get her back.”
“We certainly think so,” Hogan answered.
“Why? What do they want?”
Andrew and Helen exchanged glances. Helen answered, “I think you ought to talk to your father. He can explain.”
“He’s going to give them whatever they want, isn’t he?”
Another exchanged glance and then Andrew said, “Why don’t you talk to your father.”
Amanda’s expression turned angry. “Talk to my father? That’s a laugh. Nobody talks to my father. All you do is listen.”
“He’s going through hell right now,” Andrew said. “This might be a good time to cut him some slack.”
“Sure, like all the slack he cuts for me.”
“He doesn’t approve of …” He gestured to her face.
Amanda jumped to her feet. “That, and my friends, and my course selection, and my apartment … and Wayne …” She kept up the litany as she walked out of the room. “I’ll call him. He’ll be thrilled to hear from me.”
They both stared through the doorway as if an exotic animal had passed through the room.
“Daddy’s little girl,” Andrew finally offered.
“The nuclear family,” Helen added. “Daddy gets it in the office, Mother gets it at the tennis club, and little Amanda gets it at college.” She turned to Andrew. “Am I the only one who isn’t getting any?”
He smiled. “We could go back to my place.”
She stood quickly and picked up the software package she was supposed to investigate. “Been there, done that,” she said as she left the house.
Emily prayed it wouldn’t be him when she heard the door latch. But then came the footsteps on the stairs, with a sharp knock of heavy leather heels. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and buried her face against die arm that was shackled to the headboard. The footsteps came toward her and then stopped dead at the foot of the bed. Then she felt the blanket being pulled slowly off her.
She sat up abruptly, catching the top of the blanket and dragging it back over her.
“Pretendin’ to be asleep,” his mocking voice said. “Next thing you’ll be tellin’ me you’ve got a headache. What’s the matter, baby? Don’t you want to get it on with me?” He looked down at her with his openmouth smile. She couldn’t stand the obscene leer that danced in his eyes, but when she looked down she saw something even more frightening. He was holding a pair of scissors in one hand and carrying a boom box in the other.
“What are you going to do?” There was no disguising the fear in her voice.
“Not me, baby. Us! You and me together. It takes two to tango.”
He set down the portable stereo. “We’re going to make a record that we can send to your old man. But first, I need to know his address. We wouldn’t want to deliver it to the wrong house.”
He took a folded paper out of his shirt pocket. “Here! You better rehearse the words.” Emily read the note that was thrust in front of her face.
Dear__________________,
Do what this man tells you. He’s treating me very nice.
If you pay him, he will let me go. If you don’t, his friends will kill me. Don’t talk to anyone, and don’t call the cops or you will never see me again. I love you.
She tried to sound defiant. “You can’t do this. He’ll never believe you.”
He laughed. “Well, now, that would be a real bummer. Because if he doesn’t, then you’ll never get outta here alive, will you?”
Emily tried to fight back the panic. “But you’re just supposed to keep me. Someone else is asking for ransom.”
Another big, self-satisfied smile. “Someone else will have to make his own deal. I’m gettin’ mine now and I’m countin’ on you to make it work. So don’t let me down.”
“I won’t do it,” Emily snapped. She tried to sound determined.
“Okay,” he said, sounding overly pleasant. “Whatever you say.”
His hand moved like lightning, snatching the edge of the cover and tearing it out of her grip. She though she might scream, but the voice caught in her throat. He sat on the edge of the bed. Then he began fingering the hem of the nightgown, which lay just below her knees. He lifted the scissors and snapped the blades open and closed. Then he put the scissors to the hem and slowly began to cut the cloth. “I’m going to just keep cuttin’, all the way to the top. Whenever you want me to stop, you just tell me the address where we should send our recordin’.”
“Please, don’t!” The defiance was gone. She was begging.
He snipped again, this time cutting farther up, above her knees. “What did you say?” he demanded.
“Stop, I’ll give you the address.” She recited it slowly, while he wrote it on the back of the paper.
“Now, you ready to record?”
Emily nodded and took back the paper. She scanned the words. Mike adjusted the dials on the boom box and set it on the bed with the microphone port in front of her face. “Anytime you’re ready,” he told her, and he pushed the record button. Emily could see the tape begin to turn through the small, smoke glass window on the front of the machine.
“Dear Walter,” she began, filling in the blank. She tried not to mind his big hand, which was resting on her knee, or the scissors that still held her gown locked in their grip.
When she finished recording the message, he punched at he controls until Emily’s voice played through the speaker. She sounded breathless with fright, an emotion that came through clearly and made Mike smile broadly. Her husband would be able to picture the groping hands sliding over her body. He would certainly imagine a garrote cutting into her throat, or maybe a silencer pressing into the hollow under her chin. The poor son of a bitch would pay up in a hurry. He shut the machine off.
“You were terrific. Ever think of becomin’ an actress?”
“No,” she said angrily.
“No problem,” he snickered, as he picked up his things. “With me, you’re never goin’ to have to act. You won’t have to fake anything!”
He ran up the stairs and slammed the door behind him. Emily heard the dead bolt slide back into place. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blot out the images of the past few minutes.
She had to get out. No matter what the risks, she had to abandon any thought of remaining a prisoner, waiting to be rescued. That had seemed a safe course, but now everything had changed. Rita was obviously sympathetic and was apparently following the rules of the game. But this leering jerk, whoever he was, had invented a role for himself in the affair, and that changed everything. He could screw up the ransom exchange, which would certainly ruin her chances of rescue. Even more dangerous, the pervert was excited by the presence of a captive woman. He could rape her, or even kill her as a punishment when his brainless scheme backfired on him. He certainly wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate her and the risk that might be involved in setting her free.
First, she had to break the shackle that held her in the bed. She couldn’t free her wrist. She had tried several times to slip her hand through the loop, even soaping her wrist when the woman unlocked her and let her use the bathroom. But the bracelet was squeezed too tight.
The headboard held more promise. It was a gently curved crossbar supported by a series of vertical rungs that disappeared behind the mattress and were supported by the bed frame. The overall impression was that of a bridge truss connecting the two corner posts that rose up from the floor. The chain from her wrist connected to another cuff that was locked around the crossbar in the middle of the vertical posts. It wouldn’t be enough for her to force the crossbar out of one of the corner posts, because she still wouldn’t be able to slide the locked cuff to the end. What she needed to do was figure out a way of detaching the crossbar completely, not just from the corner posts, but from all the vertical bars, as well. It would take hours of work. Rita, and probably her houseboy, would be coming down at least a few times while she was working. So she had to take the headboard apart without letting a single cut or break show. If they caught on to what she was doing, they could simply tie her to the bed frame.
But even if she succeeded in freeing herself from the bed, there was still the problem of escape from the room. She would have to get back up into the ceiling and hope that she could find another room over the tops of the framed-out walls. And then, she could only pray that if there were a room, it would have a door to the outside.
Walter used the rear door of the InterBank complex and took a taxi to the side street entrance of Angela’s apartment. He climbed the fire stairs rather than risk being observed in the lobby and studied the hallway through the small glass window in the fire door before he stepped out into the corridor and hurried to her apartment. He let himself in, surprising her as she came out of her bedroom.
“Walter, what are you doing—”
“Hogan knows about us,” Walter said, cutting her off. “He had one of his people go through your apartment this afternoon.”
“He … what?” Angela was genuinely shocked.
Walter drew her into his arms. “I’m sorry. He confronted me this morning. He said we were both suspects.”
“Me?” She seemed horrified as she pulled back out of his embrace.
“Not just you. Everyone I know,” he hastened to tell her. “Particularly anyone who understands bank operations.”
Rage appeared in her eyes. “The dirty bastard!”
“It’s what I need him to be doing,” Walter said. “I need him to be looking at every possibility. Jesus, I know you’re not involved. But Hogan has to figure that out for himself. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t tell him that you were out of bounds. He would have gone straight to the chairman.”
Angela calmed as the information sank in. “I suppose so,” she conceded. “But couldn’t you have called to warn me?”
“I think my phone may be bugged. He said that they had put a bug on Mitchell’s phone. It figures that they would bug my office, as well.”
Angela’s eyes snapped toward her home telephone.
“No, I don’t think so,” Walter said. “Hogan can do anything he wants on bank property. But I don’t think he could cut into our home lines without a court order. Just be careful what you say in the office.”
Her anger flared again. “Why should I be careful?”
“Angela, he knows we’re lovers, for God’s sake! Emily was standing between us and now she’s been kidnapped. It’s not unthinkable that you and I could have planned this together. At least it’s a possibility that an investigator would have to look into.”
Her nod was almost imperceptible. “I suppose it’s logical,” she conceded. “But I don’t enjoy being suspected of a capital crime.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Walter comforted. “How do you think I feel when I’m suspected of doing in my own wife.”
Angela slipped back into his arms and they stood in an embrace, consoling each other. “God, I need you,” he whispered. “But, right now … the way things are …”
She froze and then slowly backed out of his embrace. “What are you saying. That we can’t see each other?”
“It’s probably not wise,” he answered. She backed away another step. He saw the suspicion in her eyes just before she turned her face away from him. “It’s just for a few days. Friday … Monday at the latest. Then it will all be over.”
“If she comes home,” Angela said. “Or if they catch somebody. But if something goes wrong… if Emily doesn’t come home … then it will be a police investigation. With publicity. They’ll be watching us forever.”
Walter was shaking his head before she could finish her thought. “We’ll get her back. I’m going to do exactly what they told me. I’m going to wire the money no matter what the bank does to me.”
Her fingertips touched his lips. “Get her back, Walter. Please, get her back.” She turned away from him, her shoulders sagging, and disappeared back into her bedroom. Walter hesitated for a moment and then retreated back through the front door.
He returned to his office and shuffled papers aimlessly. The incredibly important work of the bank seemed meaningless. All his attention was focused on the Friday deadline.
His task was complex. There was no $100 million pool of funds just waiting to be transferred. The wealth of the bank was in its investments; the vast array of bonds, securities, properties, and the enormous deposits in foreign banks. Much of its ready cash was in its liabilities, principally in the accounts of its depositors. To transfer funds, Walter first had to raise cash from internal sources. He could sell investments and withdraw cash from the bank’s accounts. Or, he could sweep up the idle cash in depositors’ accounts. It would take hours to assemble the funds through a series of transactions that were small enough so as not attract attention. Then he would have to set up an account at a different bank, perhaps one of the Swiss affiliates, and fill it with a number of small deposits that he could transfer to the Folonari Cayman Island branch. Eventually, Mitchell Price’s computers would retrace the flow of funds through the circuitous routing and Andrew Hogan’s lookouts would detect the total amount going into the Caymans. But that would probably be hours—maybe even days—later. By then, the money would have vanished.
During his ride home in the limousine he reviewed his complex scheme, calculating the number of transfers, too small to raise any flags, that would be needed to accumulate the entire amount. His head was spinning with figures.
“You seem terribly occupied,” Omar’s voice sounded from the front seat. The East Indian cadence to the precisely pronounced English seemed almost condescending. “I hope my money is safe.”
It was standard banter. Omar had a small account in one of InterBank’s few remaining retail banking locations and often joked about the effect of his deposits and withdrawals on the global financial economy. But at this moment, the harmless remark seemed sinister, as if the driver were amused by Walter’s predicament.
“It’s safe!” Walter snapped, his eyes still fixed on his worksheets.
“Oh, that’s very comforting,” Omar chanted. “I would hate to lose my money.”
Walter looked up and caught the driver’s thin smile in the rearview mirror. The man looked self-satisfied, as if his ethereal Eastern values were superior to those of his money-grubbing Western employers. He had often seen the same look on the faces of clergymen, preaching the true wealth of poverty while adding a few words about the importance of next week’s collection. Well, Walter thought, look who’s riding and look who’s driving.
He turned back to his cash transfer figures, but the melodic voice kept on talking. “It must be very disconcerting for you, Mr. Childs, having to keep track of such fantastic sums of money. To be so burdened with matters that are, at their root, unimportant.”
Would the man never shut up! Walter raised his eyes again. “As a matter of fact, Omar, this is extremely important. Much as I’d like to chat, I really have to get through this.”
“Of course, of course. I’m very sorry for having disturbed you. I only meant that it leaves so little time for pleasurable things. Human things … like the people we love. But I will let you get back to your very important work.”
The thin smile came back to Omar’s lips. Walter felt his hand move over the work sheets so that the driver couldn’t see them in the mirror. Does he know, Walter thought Could he possibly know what these figures are? The people we love … Does he mean Emily? Does he know about Emily? He was suddenly very frightened. Maybe Hogan should put one of his people on Omar. Maybe he should call the car pool manager and get another driver.
The headlights dimmed as the car turned into a residential area. Walter folded his papers and slid them into his briefcase. It would be more comfortable working at home. He keyed his code into the alarm and started toward his office. He was startled when he saw his daughter waiting in the living room.
“Amanda. This is a surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Mother was,” she answered. “I talked to her Sunday and told her I was coming down.”
“Your mother is…” Walter was fumbling for the right word.
“Kidnapped,” Amanda filled in. “The police were here when I got home. I tried to call you at your office but you had stepped out.”
He set down the case and gave her a perfunctory hug. “I’m glad to see you,” he said.
“Then why didn’t you call me? I would have come home right away.” She walked back to the coffee table where she had left her cigarettes, shook one out of the pack, and flicked her lighter, knowing that he would disapprove. She was surprised when he let the moment pass. “You were going to tell me, weren’t you?”
“I thought about it,” he lied. “But there’s nothing that you or your brother can do. There was no need to worry you.”
“Did you think maybe I had a right to worry about my mother? Maybe a chance to give my input on how we might get her back.”
Walter went to the bar. He didn’t particularly want a drink, but he needed a moment to get his thoughts together. He had given some thought to calling Alex, if only for appearance sake. But the last person he wanted under foot was Amanda. He set a glass on the bar and then remembered that she was standing there. “Can I get you something?”
“Just the truth. The police said you knew what the kidnappers wanted for Mom’s return. What is it? All your money?”
He poured his scotch. “Not my money. That would be easy. They want the bank’s money. A great deal of it. It’s a very complicated situation that I have to work out. I don’t think you can help and there’s no reason why you should worry. That’s why I decided not to call you.” Walter endured the cigarette smoke as he passed by her on his way to retrieve his briefcase.
“What are you doing?” she snapped when she saw him lift the case. “You can’t just close yourself up with your damn bank while Mother is in trouble.”
He took a deep a breath. “Amanda, for once give me the benefit of the doubt. I told you they wanted the bank’s money. The bank has procedures that keep me from giving away its money. I’m trying to figure out how to get around them.”
She looked suddenly apologetic, but she couldn’t bring herself to say she was sorry. Instead, she crushed out her cigarette and followed Walter into his office, where she waited silently as he spread out his papers. “There must be something I can do,” she finally tried.
“Just your being here is important,” he said.
Amanda watched in silence while he used his pocket calculator to work the figures on his spreadsheets. “Dad,” she eventually interrupted, “I know the bank is everything to you. I’m glad Mom is more important.”
He nodded. But he was afraid to say that her mother was the most important thing in his life. He might not be able to sound completely sincere.
She jumped up. “I better call Wayne and tell him I won’t be back tonight.”
Walter’s jaw tightened at the mention of the name. “Could you do that from an outside phone. I should keep these lines open … in case…” He was trying to imply a call from Emily’s captors, even though he was sure that no call would be coming. The truth was that he suspected the line might be bugged and he didn’t want strangers enjoying the details of Amanda’s sordid life. Away at college was all the police needed to know.
He heard her go out and then heard her car start in the garage. In a few seconds her headlights panned through the front windows. Walter turned back to his papers.
The telephone rang. His instinct was to ignore it, particularly since it was Emily’s line. But on the second ring, he thought better of it. He touched the line switch and lifted the receiver. “Walter Childs,” he announced.
“Okay, Childs, listen good, because I’m only goin’ to say this once. I have your lovely wife with me here and it will cost you fifty thousand dollars to get her back.” His drink slipped through his fingers and splattered on the carpet.
“I want the money in twenties. Random serial numbers. And none of them better be marked because I’m goin’ to look them over very carefully.”
The voice was completely business like. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Get the money tomorrow and you put it in a black leather briefcase. Then drive the case up to Randy’s on Southshore Drive in Greenwood Lake. Be sittin’ at the bar at eleven p.m. That’s where you’ll hear from me. If you’re not there, or you bring the police, then I’ll sell your dear Emily to one of my Colombian friends. They pay pretty well for women to work in their jungle whorehouses. Now listen very carefully. There’s somethin’ she wants to tell you.”
There were mechanical clicks followed by the electronic hiss of blank tape running through a player. Walter jumped at the sound of Emily’s voice.
“Dear Walter, Do what this man tells you. He’s treating me very nice. If you pay him, he will let me go. If you don’t, his friends will kill me. Don’t talk to anyone, and don’t call the cops or you will never see me again. I love you.”
His hands began to shake and a flood of nausea pushed up into his throat until he thought he was going to be sick. He was still listening to the terror in Emily’s voice even though her words had gone silent. “Jesus, this can’t be happening,” he whispered to himself. Then he shouted, “This can’t be happening…”