A Bookmarked Death (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

H
ADN
’
T
THEY
TOLD
him? “The police helicopter that landed on the beach by the water. Elisa ran to it and they picked her up. Sheila got on board too;
I
think she wanted to pull Elisa off. But they closed the doors before she could.”

“How did you know it was a police helicopter?” Ruth demanded. Her face looked flushed against her white blouse, her eyes glittery.

Well, duh. “It said Suffolk County Police in big blue letters on the side. There were a lot of official numbers on the tail.”

“But was the undercarriage dark blue?”

What was she talking about? “It said Suffolk County Police,” I repeated.

She turned to Frank as if I was too stupid to live.

“What are you saying, that it wasn’t from the police?”

Frank turned back from the other two men. “We have four units in Suffolk County, used mostly for medevac. None of them were deployed.”

“But whose was it then?” I
was
too stupid to live. No wonder Sheila had scrambled aboard. “You mean the police don’t have Elisa?”

Nobody seemed to hear me.

“We’ve contacted MacArthur-Islip,” the shorter, swarthier cop was telling Frank and Carew. “We’ve put out an alert for anything trying to land in a public strip. Does the device work in the air?”

“I don’t know.” Frank turned to me then. “Do you remember any of the numbers on the helicopter?”

I closed my eyes to conjure up the copter but saw no numbers. “Ethan has some kind of plane,” I added dully. “Elisa said she used to skydive from it.”

Ruth scowled at me. Her excitement had faded; now she looked like a disgruntled raccoon.
You need to get more sleep.
“A plane is not a helicopter. Unless he had one of those too and the girl was in on it.”

I pressed my hand against my waist to keep from giving her an angry shove.
How dare she?
“Of course she wasn’t ‘in on it’! She saw that the copter said Suffolk County Police. What else was she to think? You promised to protect her and you didn’t!”

Carew gave me a black look and turned her back deliberately, making the huddle of police a closed circle.

The catastrophe of what had happened made me want to collapse on the sand and wail. The unthinkable had happened; they had Elisa. How would we ever get her back? I was holding on to Hannah as if I were the one unable to stand, but I said, “How are you feeling now?”

“Uhh.” She turned to me like a patient waking from ether. “They kept making me take stuff, they had a
gun
.Where are Elisa and the police?”

“We’re trying to find that out.” I suddenly remembered Will, probably waiting back at the ferry terminal, hanging on to Elisa’s promise that she would see him for dinner tonight. He would kill me.

Frank moved back to us and gestured toward the steps. “Let’s go.”

But I didn’t want to leave this contained place. It made no sense, but once we did it meant that we had abandoned Elisa, that she could be anywhere in the world.

Ruth Carew turned to us too. “How’s she doing?” she asked, eyeing Hannah with concern. “She was drugged?”

“She says they gave her stuff. But it seems to be wearing off. A little.”

She nodded. “We’ll have her looked at as soon as we get back.”

I sighed. Just when I was ready to write Ruth off completely she did something human.

Then she was business again. “Who else was on the beach?”

“Sheila Crosley.”
I told you
.

“That’s impossible.”

“You think I’m making it up?”

“No, but—”

“We’re going. Now.” Frank’s voice overrode our conversation.

I waited until Hannah was holding the railing and climbing, then caught up with him on the stairs. “Do you really think we’ll find her?”

“A helicopter’s not that easy to hide. Small craft aren’t required to file a flight plan if the weather’s good and they’re flying under VFR conditions. Visual flight rules. They’re supposed to set their transponders to a certain frequency so they can be tracked on radar, but if they don’t, they don’t . . . Radar doesn’t work below a certain altitude anyway. And helicopters can fly very low.”

“You mean no one can
see
them?” The stairs tilted under my sandals and I reached for the wooden rail.

“We‘ll find them if they go through Islip’s airspace. Or Republic’s in Melville. Everyone’s been notified.” He sighed and looked back out across the beach. “Everything was set up for a boat. Or if they tried to hide out here, that’s what the device was for. But a copter?” Frank shook his head.

Lack of imagination. Lack of thinking outside the box. And not just on their part either.

We climbed each step slowly, a tired procession
.
The sun was disappearing for the day and Fire Island was already chilly. Once it was dark it would get very cold. I needed to hurry, but I felt weak as a tissue doll. When I looked back to Hannah, she seemed exhausted too.

When we were nearly to the dock, Ruth Carew said to me, “The police launch will take you back to Patchogue. That’s where your car is, isn’t it?”

“Where are
you
going?”

“Same place.”

I nodded. She didn’t need to know that I had no intention of climbing in my van and driving home.

As soon as we had boarded the white launch and were settled on the seats inside, I called Colin. When he answered, I handed the phone to Hannah.

“Daddy?” I heard her say. “Yes, it’s really me. I’m with Mom. No, I’m okay. But we can’t find Elisa! She’s in a helicopter but we don’t know where.”

She listened, then said, “No, I’m not coming home with you. Mom—we need to find Elisa!” A pause. “No, I’m fine. We’re with the police. Love you, Dad.” She clicked the phone off and handed it back to me. “He doesn’t get it.”

Hannah was returning to herself.

But my phone rang immediately. “Delhi? You’re coming in at West Street?”

“That’s where my—”

“I know, I’m here. And I’m taking Hannah home.”

“You’re at the dock?”

Colin sighed at my surprise. “Where else would I be? You told me where you were leaving from. I’m looking at your van right now.”

“We’re just crossing the bay. We’ll be there soon.”

I put my phone away. My arm still around Hannah, I said, “Dad’s at the pier. He’ll be hurt if you don’t go home with him.”

“But
Mom
—”

“We don’t know what’s going to happen, how long it will take. And I don’t want you anywhere near those people again!”

The police launch, smaller than the ferry, skimmed the water so rapidly that some of the time I felt we were airborne. When we had slowed enough to enter the canal, Frank came from the front and hopped down to the benches where we sat.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked Hannah.

She nodded. “These men came to my house and kept asking me where Elisa was. Then they said that she was in trouble, that she needed to see me.” A quick, guilty look at me. “I know. How could they know she was in trouble if they were asking me where she was? And I shouldn’t have gone with them after Elisa warned me. But I was
worried
.”

“Do you know who they are?” Frank asked urgently. “Was Dr. Crosley there too?”

She frowned. “But he died in the fire.”

“Give her more time, she’s still confused.”

Frank ignored me and leaned closer to her. “Did they use any names? Did they say why they wanted your sister?”

“No-o.” It came out as a wail. “No!”

Frank may have thought it was his questions upsetting her. I knew she was starting to understand that things were very wrong with Elisa.

“You were on a yacht the whole time?” Frank asked.

“I think so.”

“How did they treat you?” I demanded.

“Okay. They just wanted Elisa back.”

And now, God help us, they had her.

T
HE
CONFRONTATION
I had expected with Will at the ferry terminal did not happen. When the police launch arrived at the dock a moment later, the building was already locked for the night. Hannah and I climbed off shakily and walked around the grassy side to the parking lot. At every moment I expected Will to appear, to rush at us demanding to know where Elisa was. But it was Colin who ran toward us, who stopped short and held out his arms for Hannah, enveloping her in a fearsome hug. They held on to each other like people reunited after a catastrophe who hadn’t been sure they’d see each other again.

I couldn’t help myself. I moved over and pressed my body against theirs, hating the tears that ran down my face in streams. I hadn’t let myself think fully about Elisa, but now I couldn’t help myself. “Never again,” I sobbed. “Never again,” though I had no idea what I meant.

When our family hug ended, Hannah said to me anxiously, “You’re coming home too, aren’t you?”

“Soon,” I said. Frank and Ruth Carew were already at the edge of the parking lot, about to cross the street to a police cruiser.

“Wait!” I shouted. Colin and Hannah jerked, startled, but I motioned them on.

Frank and Ruth turned to their right to stare at me as if in a choreographed dance.

I beckoned them urgently. After exchanging a look, they moved toward me.

When they were close enough, I pointed and said, “That’s Will Crosley’s car.”

The black Mazda sports coupe sat forlornly in the row behind my van in the deserted parking lot.

Ruth Carew gave me a so-what? blink.

“He brought Elisa here, but he didn’t want her to go through with it. He was waiting for us to get back. So where is he?” I couldn’t account for the bleakness that enveloped me when I looked at Will’s car. It was true my emotions were raw, but this was something else.

“Maybe he went to get a drink,” Frank suggested.

“And risk missing us? He was completely opposed to Elisa’s going. It was almost this macho thing, as if she was disobeying his orders.”

Frank walked over to the car, peered in, then took a pair of vinyl gloves from his pocket and opened the door. We leaned in behind him. The car was empty, but a set of keys dangled from the ignition. The sunglasses tossed on the passenger seat seemed ominous.

“Shit,” said Frank, pressing his lips in a disappearing line and looking heavenward. “Shit, shit,
shit.
”

“What?” demanded Carew.

“You don’t go off and leave your keys in the ignition in West Patchogue. Not with this kind of car. Not if you’re as street smart as he was supposed to be.” He turned to me. “Do you remember what he was wearing?”

“Yes.” I closed my eyes a moment. “A red polo shirt like a golf shirt, jeans I think. And the sunglasses.”

“Who’s in the squad car?” Frank asked Carew.

She gave him two names.

“Good. We’ll take the car and they can search this area.”

He jerked his head and she started to walk.

I followed them.

Ruth Carew must have sensed me behind them because she turned at the curb. “Ms. Laine, go home. Police personnel only.”

“Wait a minute.” I was ablaze with a fire I had been keeping under control. “I promised Elisa the police would keep her safe and you didn’t. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again. I’m not going home until you find her!”

We faced off in the shadow of an elm tree.

Carew appealed to Frank. “She can’t come with us. This is an official investigation.”

“She knows who the perps are.”

“They’re the people in that chopper.” Her pale face was reddening. “We don’t need her. You may have seniority, but this is
my
case.”

Frank gave her a flat, unfriendly stare. “I do have seniority. And this kidnapping case is mine. Let’s just go.”

Her eyes shifted to me, furious. But then she looked back to Frank and I saw not the anger I was expecting but a flash of desire.

Wonderful.
I wanted to tell her that he and I had only recently become friends. Just friends. But my feelings were so overwhelming right now, my need to see Elisa so strong, that I couldn’t tell what I was feeling for anyone. Even though I had been sure earlier that my marriage was over, holding on to Colin on the dock had weakened that idea as well.

A
ND
THEN
WE
sat, crowded uncomfortably in the squad car, waiting for any direction, any information. Frank was tense in the driver’s seat, Carew fiddling with the GPS and tracking screen, me hunched in the back. I saw a blue-uniformed policeman appearing and disappearing in the woods beside the parking lot. Would he find Will’s body? The Crosleys had to know he had given them up to the FBI. Perhaps they had been looking for him all this time too. I couldn’t escape the horror of Will lying motionless on his back, a blood-edged hole on his forehead like a red scar. If they knew he had been hiding Elisa as well, what reason was there to let him live?

Chilled, I turned my attention to the gray bungalow we were parked in front of. It had probably been built in the 1930s judging from the fat-columned porch and crumbling stone flowerpots. I half expected to see a metal box for milk deliveries by the front door.

I didn’t know how much longer I could sit and wait. There was no point in driving around blindly until we had some idea where the Crosleys had gone, but this was getting unbearable. Carew had already informed us of what I had guessed, that Elisa’s device wasn’t tracking.

When the news came it was not from the screen, but a crackling voice from the radio. “Aircraft down. Aircraft down!”

I leaned forward in terror.

“Give me the coordinates.” Frank’s voice was calm.

A pause, then the voice rattled off numbers. The second time Carew finished punching them into the GPS device.

“Helicopter?” She leaned toward the radio.

“Affirmative.”

“Did it land?”

“Crashed.”

“Oh, no!” It was my voice that filled the car in a wailing protest.

Ruth jerked, startled.

“Where did it crash?” Frank asked.

What did crash
mean
? Just a hard landing? Or . . .