Fifth Victim (30 page)

Eventually, he turned and looked right at me, defeat in his eyes. ‘OK, yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’ And shook his head afterwards like he couldn’t believe the scope of his own treachery.

I nodded carefully, not wanting to spook him into changing his mind. I closed my mind to the fact I was probably committing all kinds of offences to do with not handing him straight over to the Feds. He might have acted dumb, but he wasn’t stupid, and if he’d any sense he’d lawyer up so fast they’d get nothing useful out of him for weeks. By which time, who knew where Lennon and his new playmate might be?

‘Where’s the place you were using to hold the others?’ It seemed best to start with something easy.

‘Over in Elizabeth,’ he mumbled, and I realised he’d been foolish enough – or Lennon had been cunning enough – to use Ross’s own house for this. Maybe Lennon had him pegged as a scapegoat from the outset. Even so, Ross still clung to the thought of his mate’s comparative innocence. ‘Lennon can’t have had the Eisenberg kid, though, man. Not there, anyways, ’cause I hardly left the place myself the last few days, y’know?’

Damn! Still, worth a try
…

‘When you last saw Lennon – just before he went out – who called him?’ I asked. ‘You ever see the guy?’

He shook his head. ‘No, man. I picked up the phone, that’s all. He asked for Lennon and I don’t ask no questions.’

‘What did he sound like?’

He shrugged. ‘Just … ordinary, y’know?’

This was heading nowhere. I tried a different tack. ‘And you haven’t heard from Lennon since?’ I asked, and saw the quick but honest denial in his face. ‘How does he normally get in touch?’

Ross shrugged. ‘He calls me, but he changes his cell, like, every week. The last number I have for him is dead. I have to wait for him to call me.’

I paused, considering. For what it was worth, I believed him, and I’d become pretty good at spotting when people’s body language was not aligned with what came out of their mouths. My instincts told me Ross was scared enough to grasp at the possible way out I was offering, but not so scared he’d promise anything, just to get rid of me.

That part, if necessary, would come later.

The hard part now was that, to make best use of him, I was going to have to turn him loose. That rankled. For all his apparent innocence when it came to Torquil’s death, he’d still attacked Dina at the riding club. He’d been the one who’d swung the bat that had broken Raleigh’s arm. And if it had connected with the man’s head, as had clearly been intended, it could easily have broken his skull.

My fingers itched to dial 911 and have done with it. I remembered the carcass of the Buell being dragged onto a breaker’s yard truck. I remembered opening the makeshift coffin and finding Torquil already dead inside.

‘Give me your cellphone.’

He frowned, as if I wasn’t intending to give it back. The phone he handed over was old and scratched to the point where it didn’t look worth stealing. All I did was punch in my own cell number and dial just long enough for the number to register on my device. An easier, and safer, way to make sure he could get in touch with me and – more importantly – I could get in touch with him.

‘OK,’ I said as I handed it back. ‘I think we can help you, if you help us. When Lennon next gets in touch, you need to stay calm, arrange a meet, and call me, yeah?’

I saw the compulsive swallow as he nodded. ‘OK, man,’ he said, almost eager. ‘I can do that.’

‘You better.’ I slid off my bar stool, leaving half my beer untouched on the sticky counter, and straightened my jacket over the SIG, making sure Ross knew the gesture for what it was. His eyes, a blue-grey with pale lashes, were wary, but I read no deceit in them. I leant in, saw his gaze flick to my mouth, as if I were about to kiss him.

‘I know who you are, and where you live, Ross,’ I promised in a husky murmur. ‘You try to screw me, and it won’t just be your car that gets crushed. I will find you, and I will hurt you in ways you cannot imagine. Just remember that I keep my promises, good and bad. Yeah?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ he gabbled. ‘I hear you, man.’

‘One last thing, Ross,’ I said. ‘Don’t call me “man”, OK?’

I walked out of the bar, across the dirty sidewalk, and popped the locks on the Navigator. Before I pulled out into traffic, I glanced back, expecting to see Ross still sitting on his stool. The window of the little bar was empty.

I checked the street, but it looked like Ross had taken the back way out. A bar like that, in an area like this, it must have been a pretty well-worn route. I was aware of another twinge of guilt that I’d let him go, and hoped to hell that his rapid disappearance now was not an indicator of things to come.

My cellphone started to buzz in my pocket. I fished it out, half expecting it might be Ross, but Parker’s number came up.

‘Hi, boss,’ I said. ‘That’s good timing. I’ve just had a long chat with one of the guys who tried for Dina, and I—’

‘Charlie.’ Parker’s voice cut raw through my explanation.

‘What?’ I demanded, drenched with a sudden cold fear. ‘What’s happened? Is it Sean?’

‘No,’ Parker said. I heard him take a breath. ‘It’s Dina. She’s been snatched.’

‘
We got that she’d called the whole thing off
…’

Lying bastard!

‘No … no,’ I muttered. ‘I left McGregor looking after her. He should … What the fuck
happened
?’

‘He did his best, Charlie. They shot him.’

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

When Parker walked into Caroline Willner’s private sitting room at 1900 hours that evening, Dina had been gone nine hours with no word from the kidnappers. I took one look at his face and feared the worst.

‘How’s Joe?’ I demanded, not waiting for the social niceties. There were too many echoes of Sean with this one, too many shards. Inside, I bled deep from every one of them.

‘Out of surgery,’ Parker said, passing me a tired smile. ‘If he’s lucky, he’ll make it.’ His eyes flicked to Caroline Willner’s white face, wary of saying anything that might touch a nerve. ‘They obviously learnt from the attack on you, Charlie,’ he added quietly. ‘They fired low enough to go under a vest, even if he’d been wearing one. Pelvis.’

Nothing else, short of a head shot, would put a man down faster. So many vital organs were cradled in the pelvis that a gunshot injury there was bound to do critical, immobilising damage. And, unlike the head, the pelvis was often the most static part of an otherwise fast-moving target. I couldn’t see McGregor, a veteran of the Iraqi conflict, making things easy for them.

But he was alive – for the moment. That was something at least.

I closed my eyes briefly, unwilling to show more relief than that. Parker nodded, understanding, and moved across to greet Caroline Willner. She had not reacted to his arrival, and remained sitting rigidly upright in her chair, eyes fixed on a point in the distance as if willing herself to hold together. Now, she seemed to notice him for the first time and allowed him limply to take her hand.

‘Mrs Willner, I’m very sorry,’ he said gravely. ‘We will get your daughter back for you.’

‘I believe you will try your hardest, Mr Armstrong,’ she said stiffly. It was not exactly a glowing declaration of confidence, and by the way Parker’s face turned instantly neutral, he recognised that fact.

‘Do we know how this happened?’

He glanced across, not so much at me, but at Erik Landers, hovering discreetly across the far side of the room. Landers lived in north Brooklyn and had been first on scene after Dina’s abduction. He’d stayed at Caroline Willner’s side ever since. When I arrived, shortly afterwards, I’d been the one who’d talked to the staff and watched the CCTV footage, and pieced together what had taken place.

I’d been through it over and over, looking for the exact point when the day turned from clear to dark. And each time, I fought a sick dread that sat high under my ribcage.

What struck me most was the same sense of ruthless purpose that had characterised the ambush on me. I’d watched Dina sneak out onto the driveway, looking behind her as she came, furtive, eager. I’d seen the van pull up with its licence plate just beyond the reach of the cameras. Dina’s stride had faltered as she’d neared it and realised the unexpected danger. She’d begun to retreat – faster when two masked figures leapt from the van and came for her. One grabbed her immediately. The other stayed back, more warily. From the way he carried himself, I would guess he had to be the guy from the passenger seat of the Dodge.

The one I’d winged. The one I now suspected might be Lennon.

There was no audio on the house CCTV, but even without it I heard Dina start to scream. McGregor appeared so quickly from the direction of the house that I believed he’d already noticed her attempt at stealthy departure. He’d barely entered the picture when the man holding Dina yanked out a silvered semi-automatic and fired, three shots, as fast as the action would cycle.

McGregor went down on the second. It hit low in his body and his instinct was to clamp both hands to the wound. He’d managed to draw his own weapon, but had no clear shot. It dropped unfired onto the gravel as he collapsed, writhing.

With every repeat viewing, I willed him to move just that little bit faster, or the bad guy a little bit slower. The outcome was always the same.

But it had been good to have a purpose, because it stopped me thinking too hard about the fact that while Ross might not have taken part in this, I’d still had one of Dina’s erstwhile kidnappers in my hands, and had let him go. Now, I prayed it would not turn out to be one of the worst mistakes I’d ever made.

‘How did they lure her out of the house?’ Parker asked.

‘She got a text, apparently from Orlando, saying she was at the riding club when Raleigh arrived back with the horses,’ I said. ‘According to the message, Cerdo slipped coming out of the trailer and was injured, and she should come at once,’ I said. Nothing would be more guaranteed to make Dina throw caution to the winds.

‘You’ve checked, of course.’ It was a comment rather than a question.

I nodded anyway. ‘Raleigh says he hasn’t seen Orlando since the last time I was there with Dina, and the horses are fine.’

‘So, either Orlando’s complicit,’ Parker murmured, ‘or this was definitely a pro job.’

‘We know that whoever this guy Lennon’s hooked up with, he’s an expert when it comes to hacking technology – Dina’s email, the traffic light system, and Gleason’s comms network. I shouldn’t imagine Orlando’s cellphone would cause him much trouble.’

Parker raised his eyebrow, just a fraction. I’d already briefed him fully over the phone on my conversation with Ross, and the agreement we’d reached. He agreed, even with the benefit of hindsight, that handing the college kid over to the authorities would probably have got us nowhere – certainly not as far as recovering Dina was concerned. For better or worse, we had to trust him to deliver his end of the deal and lead us to his former friend. It was a calculated risk. I just hoped my calculations weren’t way off.

‘What will happen now?’ It was Caroline Willner who spoke, her voice hoarse with strain.

Parker turned back to her. ‘We wait, ma’am,’ he said. ‘No doubt they will be in contact with their demands. Until then, we just have to wait.’

She cleared her throat. ‘I would very much like for you to negotiate for my daughter’s release,’ she said, eyes sliding away from his. ‘I regret that, if they ask for a substantial amount, I … may not have the money to pay.’

‘You mentioned yesterday that you had kidnap insurance,’ I said. ‘What about that?’

Her face had hardened into a brittle mask, refusing to allow her fear and pain to break surface. ‘If I make a claim, and then it comes out – as it is bound to – that my daughter and her … friends were in any way responsible for their own predicament, I would likely face prosecution for fraud,’ she said, selecting her words with care. ‘Besides, Brandon Eisenberg was prepared to pay in full for his son’s life, and much good it did him.’

I heard the bitter thread, felt compelled to point out gently, ‘I know Dina told them she had changed her mind. Whatever’s happened to her now, it’s not of her choosing.’

Caroline Willner nodded, very slightly, grateful. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘And I pray that we both get the chance to ask forgiveness.’

We waited for the ransom demand most of the night.

Parker had connected a recorder to the house phone. As soon as the line rang out, caller ID was displayed on the screen of his laptop, allowing Caroline Willner to take the call if she recognised the number, or let Parker handle it.

There were a lot of rubberneckers, of one form or another. People who thought they might have heard a rumour and wanted to check it out. Caroline Willner rebuffed them all equally, telling them Dina had caught a chill and was resting in her room. They obviously came from a stratum of society where such a minor ailment was a viable excuse for bed rest. Either way, it seemed to satisfy them. If I hadn’t been able to see the sorrow in her face as she spoke, I would have believed her, too.

And when Manda called, just before midnight, pushing to speak with Dina, Caroline Willner dismissed the girl’s apparent concerns and told her, in a slightly obstreperous tone, that Dina was simply not available to come to the phone.

The kidnappers finally called a little after 6.00 a.m., no doubt aware of our sleepless night. Dina was twenty hours gone. Even though it wore the same mechanical disguise, I knew the voice belonged to the same man I’d spoken to, yesterday morning at the Eisenberg’s house.

And I knew, without a single shred of physical evidence to back it up, that this was also the same man who’d shot me.

Parker saw the unrecognised number and took the call. Caroline Willner had gone to lie down and rest in her own room, so he put it on speaker. The kidnapper did not seem surprised to find him on the other end of the line.

‘You want Dina back alive,’ the voice said flatly, ‘this time it’s going to cost you ten million dollars.’

‘Ten million?’ Parker allowed his incredulity to come through. He would have shown surprise regardless of the amount asked for, as a stalling technique. But this time there was little acting required. He paused, then pointed out calmly, ‘That’s double what you asked for Torquil Eisenberg.’