I pulled into a McDonald’s off the highway certain that after fleeing the Hyatt half of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department that hadn’t been actively looking for me before was probably looking for me now.
I felt Mike’s phone vibrate.
I dug it out and looked at the screen. It was Liz. Thank God. She sounded off the planet. I figured I knew why.
“Henry, I just heard on the news. What the hell did you do up there?”
“Someone set a trap for me, Liz. I don’t know if you heard the whole story, but—”
“Henry, I told you to give yourself up if they found you again! Not to resist.”
“I couldn’t give myself up! Liz, I have something bad to tell you. Don’t freak out. Have you heard from Hallie? In the past few hours?”
“Hallie? No. Not since lunch yesterday. She was going riding.” I could hear her grow nervous. “Why are you asking about Hallie?”
“Because I received a call. In the lobby of the Hyatt, just before the cops there spotted me. Liz, don’t freak out. Hallie’s been taken.”
“Taken?” I could feel tears rushing into her eyes. “What do you mean taken, Henry? By whom? How do you even know?”
“Because I heard from her, Liz. It’s the person who did these things today. Who killed Mike and that cop on the road. He called me at the Hyatt before the police found me. He has her.”
“Has her? Oh Jesus, Henry, no …” I could almost feel the blood rushing out of her face. Knowing that someone who was fully capable of cold-blooded murder had taken our daughter. I heard her sniff back sobs. This was awful. One minute she was just trying to help me out of a mess. Now she was in it herself. Up to her eyeballs. Same as me. Then she said the only rational thing she could say. “We have to go to the police. You got a partial ID on that car. They might be able to trace it!”
“No, Liz. There are things I have to tell you. That’s exactly what we can’t do. We can’t go to the police.”
“Henry, I’m sorry about what’s happening to you, but some madman has our daughter …!”
“Liz—listen! Hear me out! I went to the Hyatt because I knew someone there who I hoped could get me off the streets until you negotiated some kind of deal. But I got a call in the lobby, just before the police saw me there. He put Hallie on and she sounded okay. Scared out of her mind, but I got the sense she hadn’t been harmed. But the guy who took her, who’s doing this, he said if I went the police on this—if I turn myself in or even if I get caught, or if he hears on the news that Hallie’s missing, he’s gonna kill her, Liz. Just like he did Mike. And Martinez. I won’t even tell you what he said he’d do. Just that the longer I stay out, the longer she lives … That’s why I had to run. It was one in a million that I even got away. That’s why we can’t go to the police!”
Liz was silent. I needed her to be rational, yet I knew that what I’d just told her violated every rational instinct she had. Her daughter had been abducted and we couldn’t even report it to the police!
It was killing me too.
Liz lashed out. “What have you done, Henry? What have you done to put our daughter’s life in danger this way?”
“I haven’t done anything, Liz. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“So what do you want me to do? You tell me this insane story about cops pulling you over and putting you in cuffs. Then everywhere you go people are being killed. And now our daughter’s been taken by this … this person who’s got some vendetta against you. Who’s killed people! Goddammit, Henry, why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?”
“Please, Liz, don’t go there on me. I need you to understand. I need you now too. You know damn well I’m not capable of anything they said I’ve done. I don’t know why this is happening! I’m up here for a conference. I’m supposed to deliver a speech tonight. I got pulled over for a traffic violation I didn’t commit. The rest …” My voice started to crack. “I don’t know what’s happening, Liz!”
“And you’re saying we can’t even do the one sensible thing that could save our daughter’s life! You can’t be serious, Henry! What do you expect me to believe? What else should I believe?”
“I am serious, Liz. Deadly serious. I heard him. He’ll do it, Liz. He’s already done it. We can’t.”
I just let her sob it out for a while.
Finally Liz said, “He’s doing this for a reason. What does he want from you, Henry? Money? There’s got to be something he wants?”
“I don’t know what he wants yet—other than to watch me suffer. Other than to enjoy seeing me completely trapped.”
“So what are you saying? We just let him keep her and do nothing. I don’t know if I can do that, Henry …”
“You have to, Liz. For Hallie’s sake. I don’t know who this person is and or what he thinks I’ve done, but he’s targeted me. I think Hallie will be okay, for a while, crazy as that sounds. He needs her to get to me.
“You’re willing to put our baby’s life on the line … I can’t.”
“We have to, Liz. I don’t see any other way. I can try to find that car …”
“You don’t even have a clear memory of it, Henry. A blue car. From South Carolina. You don’t even remember the plate number! It could be chopped up to parts, repainted, hidden in some garage for months for all you know.”
She was right. “But there’s that gamecock thing …”
“Gamecock?”
“The image I saw on the shooter’s car. The mascot. From the University of South Carolina. I saw one on the back window of Mike’s car too.”
“Mike’s car?” Liz paused. “Do you think your friend is connected in this?”
“I don’t know.” I had run the idea around in my head. But no one knew Mike and I were even getting together. Only my assistant, Maryanne. And she’d been with me for fifteen years. I’d trusted her with much bigger things than this. “I don’t see how. We have to come up with a cover, Liz. For Hallie. In case people worry at school. We have to say she came home …”
She sucked in a harried breath. “All right. All right.”
“At least for a day or two …”
“Okay, I’ll think of something. Henry, I’m scared. We don’t even know what we’re doing at this. Hallie’s life is on the line. What do we do if he just kills her and we’re … I don’t know if I can live with that.”
“Liz, if you break down, they’re just going to use it as a way to get to me. The guy’s not going to do anything now. He won’t. I’m telling you, he wants me. He told me to get a disposable cell phone so he can contact me again. Maybe we’ll know more then. In the meantime, don’t contact me. The minute they find out about Mike … this phone will only lead them to me.”
“I know.” I felt her about to start weeping.
“You just stay strong, Liz. I’m gonna find our girl, Liz, and bring her home. He’s not gonna hurt her until he can get to me.”
“This is bad, Henry. Isn’t it?”
“Yeah, Liz,” I said. I was trying not to think of it. “Let’s not pretend any other way. It’s bad.”
Hanging up, I suddenly felt about as alone as I’d ever felt in my life. In spite of trying to pump up Liz, I really didn’t know what my next step was going to be, other than finding that car.
That car was the only thing that could save my daughter’s life.
And Liz was right. We were way, way out of our league. What resources did I possibly have? On the run. In a stolen car …
I flipped on the car radio, and it didn’t take long to hear the account of my escape from the Hyatt.
They had my name, but I didn’t hear any description of the car I’d escaped in. Which was good. With any luck, the owner might be on the golf course for a couple more hours, so for the near term I could get around.
But what I did hear, which suddenly seemed like a path for me, was a public hotline number to call with any tips related to the crimes.