Cold Silence (A High Stakes Thriller) (7 page)

Peter nodded.

Cody watched the boy, wishing his father would disappear. "Maybe your dad will make us something to drink after we're done, like you and R.J. do when you're at our house." Images of their last overnight were sharp in her mind, each smile and laugh like a dagger now. She looked over at Travis.

Travis didn't budge.

"Can we have hot chocolate?" Peter asked.

Travis nodded slowly. "You want to come with me, partner?"

Peter shook his head. "I can stay and tell Mrs. O'Brien about what happened."

Travis stood in his spot.

"We'll be right here."

His gaze swept across her face. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to find my son."

"That's not what I mean. What's really going on here? Why wouldn't we call the police immediately?"

From the corner of her eye, she saw Peter look at her. She wished she could make Landon stop. He was only making it tougher. Stay calm, she told herself. Stay calm. "I'm just working the best way I know how."

Landon didn't bite. "By not involving the police?"

She nodded. "That's right. Not until I know who the captor might be and what he might want."

"The captor?"

"The person who took my son."

There was a pregnant pause and Cody remained silent. She didn't know what to tell him. Certainly not the truth: that she was an ex-FBI agent, that the Russian mob had killed her husband and wanted to kill her and her son, that she had been in witness protection and they had found her even there. That her son might be with the Russian mob as they spoke, that the time he was wasting might cost her the only thing in the world that mattered at all. She wouldn't trust anyone with the truth. Not after the betrayal in New Orleans.

No, the truth was hers alone. The mob wanted her and her son dead because Mark had killed Viktor Kirov. But Mark was dead, too. Hadn't she paid enough with her husband?

"It's okay, Dad. I'll tell her about it," Peter said.

Cody smiled. "Thank you, Peter. I promise it'll only take a couple minutes."

Travis stepped between them. "Go on and watch TV for a few minutes while I talk to Mrs. O'Brien."

Cody felt the wind rush from her lungs. Every moment felt like R.J. was being pulled farther away. She blinked to battle the tears that lined her lashes.

Peter looked between her and his dad. "But R.J.'s my friend—"

"I know. And we're going to find him."

Peter stood up and padded across the floor toward the back of the house. From behind, he could have been R.J. The thin frame, the lazy slapping feet, the red pajamas. She closed her eyes, holding the image of his motion, praying that she would watch her own son again.

Travis grabbed her arm. "Who would take your son?" He sounded panicked.

She shook her head without saying more.

"If it wasn't his dad, who was it?"

She started to turn. "I don't need to answer your questions."

He held tight to her arm. "You do if you want to talk to my child."

Cody felt her chest heave beneath the weight of his threat as she pulled herself free. She needed Peter's help. She calculated her response. "Fine." She forced her shoulders down in defeat, though it was nothing like what she felt. She ran her hands through her hair and leaned against the banister. "His father's not dead," she whispered, her voice cracking with emotion. She now lied with an ease that had once frightened her. "He's crazy." She shook her head, keeping her face down. She worried her expression would give her away. Her voice she could control; the determination in her eyes, she wasn't so sure about. "I took R.J. away to save him—to save us both."

"Why did you say he was dead?"

She clenched her jaw. "Because I don't like to talk about him."

His voice was soft and she felt it like breath on her neck. "You're sure it was him?"

She nodded, frowning. "As sure as I can be."

Travis expelled a breath and sank onto the stairs, dropping his head in his hands. "Jesus." He sat in silence and then said, "Well, at least we know who did it. Where is this guy?"

She stepped away, sitting on the far side of the stairs from where Travis was. She pulled her chin up, imagining the resources available to Oskar Kirov. Seven hours had passed. Ryan could be anywhere by now. "I don't know. I haven't known since we left."

"You think he would do this?" he probed again.

She thought about Oskar Kirov. "I know he would. I just need to ask a few questions, get as much information as possible before I decide how to approach it."

"Why wouldn't we call the police? If he's dangerous, they can help us."

She shook her head. "Please let me do this my own way. I know what I'm dealing with here, and you really have no idea. I just need to ask Peter a few questions and then I'll go."

Travis looked at her and nodded. Turning his back, he crossed the hall to get Peter.

Cody leaned against the banister, the air spilling from her lungs in relief. A million thoughts entered her mind. Where was he right now? Were they hurting him? Was he cold? Was he hungry? It was too much to bear. It piled on her until she could feel her knees shake under its weight.

She walked along the edge of the living room off the entryway. A small table sat in between two upholstered chairs, and she scanned the pictures: Peter and his dad in front of a lodge in the snow, Peter getting dropped off at camp, Travis and him in front of a reddish brown stone fireplace with a high oak mantel. Next to those was one of Peter and his mother. Cody leaned down to study it. She was a beautiful woman with long, curly auburn hair and dark eyes lit with happiness.

The door opened and Peter shuffled across the floor, followed by Travis. "I'll help you, Mrs. O'Brien."

Turning back, she watched his wide green eyes and forced herself to smile. "Thanks, Peter. That means a lot to me." She glanced up at Travis, who nodded.

"You guys sit down and I'll go make that hot chocolate."

Cody sat on the stair beside Peter and crossed her hands in her lap. Her every hope was vested in the wide-eyed eight-year-old sitting across from her.

God help Ryan.

Chapter 6

It was late on Friday night when Mei Ling answered her line at the Bureau. "Computer Intrusion Squad, this is Mei Ling."

"Such a mean name," her mother said to her in Cantonese. She meant the name of her squad at the Bureau. Mei couldn't remember a time when her mother called without starting with that same comment. It had been even worse when she'd been in the special Virus Squad. In Chinese custom, speaking about illness was like asking it to strike.

"Hello, Mother," she responded in English.

"Why do you talk to your mother that way?"

Her mother meant in English. "Just busy." She wasn't sure how or why the ritual had started, but with her family she always tried to speak English as much as possible. Each of them spoke some English. Her father spoke the most because he had been an alderman representing their district in the local Chicago government. But they all refused to speak English to her.

Also, it was awkward to speak Cantonese in the office, especially around Jennifer. Coworkers had told her more than once that it was unnerving when she spoke Cantonese, because it seemed like she was talking about them so they couldn't understand. At least they had told her. Jennifer just complained to their manager every time it happened.

Her mother was sullen and silent, and Mei knew she could sit on the other end this way forever. It was a no-win situation.

"How is Baba?" she asked about her father.

"Mah mai dei la,"
her mother answered in Cantonese, meaning "so-so."

Her father would be "so-so" if he were planning to run a marathon the next day. Mei wasn't sure how she'd ever know if they were really sick, the way her mother exaggerated.

"Is it worse?"

"Always bad. Always very bad," her mother lamented.

"Can I bring him something?"

Her mother harrumphed as though Mei had insulted her ability to care for her husband. "You come to red egg and ginger party for Lai Ching. We're having it this Sunday. Two o'clock."

It wasn't the first time Mei's mother was throwing a red egg and ginger party, the traditional party for a new mother with a one-month-old baby. Mei could appreciate the party despite the fact that it originally had been celebrated only for boys. The smooth, round shape of the egg represented tranquility and was a symbol of fertility. The ginger, representing yang, warded off evil spirits and complemented the yin of the new mother. Red-tinted hard-boiled eggs and sliced sweet pickled ginger were served at the celebration as symbols of rebirth, good luck, and happiness.

The party was supposed to mark the first time the mother and child left the home since coming back from the hospital. Lai Ching had wanted to keep with the tradition and had refused to take the baby to her doctor appointments. So Mei had to drag her sister and the baby to her three-day and two-week appointments.

Like many of the Chinese traditions, keeping a baby at home for a full month struck Mei as ridiculous when it could jeopardize the baby's health.

"You coming?" Her mother's tone told her this was not a point of negotiation.

"I plan to come. As long as I don't have a work emergency."

"You always work. You have no life. You need to stop work and find a good man before it's too late." There was a brief pause, but Mei knew better than to think her mother was finished. "You at work now, you work middle of the night," she added in broken English, as though that might somehow get through to her daughter. "This is your family. Your niece. You must come."

"Hou a.
I'll do my best," she whispered in Cantonese with her hand carefully cupped over the receiver.

"Perfect. I'll make your favorite—
ham yu yok bing."

Mei wrinkled her nose. The traditional Cantonese dish of minced pork and salted fish had never been her favorite, but that of her father and sisters. "I can't wait," she said.

Her mother clicked her tongue as she did when she was particularly pleased and rang off.

She was used to this push and pull. Her life had always been a complex draw between two very different worlds. Hers was a traditional Chinese family, despite the fact that they had been in the States for more than three decades. Her two sisters, one older, one younger, both led traditional lives. They were married, each had produced a son, and now Lai Ching had a daughter and Man Yee was pregnant again.

As a child, Mei had been the rebellious one by Chinese standards. Especially for a girl. After school, she used to sneak to a seedy little theater on the edge of Chinatown that played American action-adventure movies.

She'd grown up with
Star Wars
and
Jaws
and three different James Bonds. In the evenings, she would go into the small bathroom in her family's flat, the only room where she could ever be alone, and practice her defense moves until someone dragged her out.

She had always wanted to be an FBI agent. Even after ten years, her parents still asked her when she planned to move home and get married. There was no man. Dating, like everything else, felt like a pull between two drastically different realities. She didn't want the life her parents and sisters had, and yet the American culture and its dating rituals seemed completely foreign as well.

Mei made a note in the calendar, although there was little risk that the plans would interfere with anything other than her job. Her life was almost all work. In her free time, she still devoured the same movies she had always loved.

Just then, Jennifer Townsend entered the office they shared and closed the door behind her. Mei thought it was a little late to be showing up for work, but she said nothing. Jennifer hung her coat and scarf and pulled off her gloves. Her back turned, she didn't even look at Mei, let alone say hello. It had been like this off and on the entire time Mei had worked with her. Ten years already. They had been young when they'd started working together: Jennifer twenty-six or -seven and Mei only twenty-four. Despite the relatively narrow age gap, Jennifer had always treated Mei as an unwelcome stranger. Things had been getting worse for years, but the last twelve months had been almost unbearable. And Mei knew there were a lot of things Jennifer didn't talk about. The case they were working right now wasn't helping matters. They'd had more late nights and weekends than either cared to discuss. The problem was, criminals didn't keep bankers' hours. And Mei's mother had learned that the later she called, the more likely Mei was to be at the office and actually answer her live.