Paying The Piper (18 page)

The intervening years had treated him well. He’d aged, but in a good way. His hairline had crept up his forehead and silver dominated his dark hair. The lines around his mouth and forehead had deepened, giving him a distinguished look. He was still trim and fit.

Brian eyed her with suspicion and looked over her shoulder at her BMW. “Can I help you?”

He didn’t recognize her. There was no shame in that. She’d been eleven when he’d last seen her. She was a woman now.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?”

He shook his head. “No. Should I?”

“It’s been a long time.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I have some business to attend to and I don’t have time for a sales pitch. Sorry.”

He went to close the door.

“Brian, it’s me. Annabel Cho.”

It was the mention of his name, not hers, that stopped him from closing the door. His gray eyes went wide as he scanned the landscape behind her carefully.

“It’s okay, Brian. You have nothing to fear. You’re safe with me,” she said, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

He closed the door after her. “What do you want?”

“To see you. You’re in the news again. I remembered how kind you were to me.” She flushed. “I never stopped thinking about you.”

“Let me see some ID.”

She delved into her purse and pulled
out her wallet. He snatched it from her and removed her license and credit cards. He examined the license photo, then Annabel.

“As you can see, I’m all grown up.” She did a little pirouette for him.

“How did you find me?”

“I sort of always knew where you were. Remember when I peeked out the car window? I saw the road signs for McKinley and Walnut.”

He still retained a note of caution in his voice. She put it down to shock. He wasn’t expecting her. But he would relax. He just needed a minute. She decided she would need to get things started. She wandered over to a love seat and settled into it. Room for two.

He remained standing.

“You didn’t just happen to find me from a couple of road signs.”

“No, I had help.”

“Help? From whom?” Panic edged his tone. He went to the window and stared out from behind the sheer drapes.

“From Jane Fleetwood. You have her boys. She’s beginning to work things out.”

He whirled. “What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t have much, and I didn’t tell them anything,” she hastened to add, “but something she said connected the dots and I knew where to look for you. I felt I should warn you. I can help you, if you’ll let me.”

She patted the spare seat next to her. He sat, handing her wallet back to her.

She took his hand and placed it between hers. It was warm and dry. Hers were ice cold. All the heat in her body was in her chest trying to contain her pounding heart.

“Why have you come here?” he asked. His tone was soft and soothing, just like it had been all those years ago.

Her nerves melted away. “You were so kind to me during
the kidnapping, especially after breaking my arm. I never felt kidnapped. I felt like I was with a friend. No one ever treated me with the tenderness you did.”

“What about your parents?”

Annabel frowned as she thought of her father’s treatment of her. He’d been more of a drill sergeant than a dad. And her mother had just let him berate her. She shook her head.

“Boyfriend?”

“Boys always wanted something. You were the only one who loved me for who I was.” She put her hand to his cheek. “You don’t know how upset I was when you gave me back. I wanted to stay here forever.”

He smiled, took her hand, and guided it back to her lap. He let his hand rest on top of hers. His warmth radiated through her hand to warm her thigh.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said. “No one has ever expressed themselves to me quite like that before. And you’ve felt that way all these years?”

“Yes.”

He patted her hand softly, then stood. He went to the window and peered out before turning back to her. “And you want to help me?”

“Any way I can.”

He smiled again. “And nobody knows you’re here?”

She joined him at the window. “Of course not. No one understands how I feel about you.”

“I doubt they do.”

“I could help you with the boys. I know you work alone, but if you let me help, I can halve your work and double the FBI’s.”

He drew her into an embrace, and she slipped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. His heart beat at a steady, calm rate.

“You know, you’re right. The boys would appreciate
a woman’s touch. C’mon, I’ll show you.”

He took her hand and led her out of the house. He pointed toward the barn.

“Where are the horses?” she asked.

“I didn’t have the time to take care of them, so I sold them.”

“Maybe with me around, you’ll have time for horses again.”

He looked down at her. “Maybe I will.”

They walked toward the barn. “Are they in the cellar?” she asked.

“Of course. No one gets special treatment.”

She smiled. “Except for me.”

He smiled back. “Except for you.”

The barn doors were padlocked. He removed the lock and uncoiled the thick length of chain binding the two doors before swinging them back. Light penetrated the gaps in the siding to cut through the gloom. It was enough to illuminate the trapdoor at the center of the floor.

“Ladies first,” he said and gestured.

She grinned and walked inside the barn. Her heels sank in the soft earth. She felt nervous, suddenly. She wished she’d paid more attention to what she was wearing.

“Annabel?”

She smiled as she turned to face him. His smile tightened into a grimace as he smashed her in the face with the chain. A bomb detonated inside her skull. Blood filled her mouth and spilled down her chin. She flew back, colliding with the soft dirt and spraying blood into the air.

He stood over her, the chain swaying in his grasp. She looked up and saw not Brian but a monster half-hidden in the shadows.

“You’ve ruined everything,” he said.

Then the shadows bled into the light, and everything went black.

“W
here are you?” the Piper
asked.

“The
Independent
,” Scott answered.

In reality, he and Jane were at Sheils’s home, with Sheils and a technocrat named Charlie Pitts. Pitts had jury-rigged a system linked to the phone company to triangulate the Piper’s location. Scott’s cell was plugged into a unit with handsets that allowed Sheils and Jane to listen in.

They had the house to themselves. Sheils’s wife had welcomed Scott and Jane into her home, then made herself scarce. Seeing pictures of Sheils’s kids hanging on the walls reminded Scott about the size of the hole in his own life.

“Writing up your next installment?” the Piper asked.

“It keeps the FBI off my back. They don’t bother me when I’m here.”

“The story’s getting cold, though.”

It was true. The media was losing interest; too much was happening behind the scenes. The hordes at his door had dwindled. They needed a body or an arrest to bring them back.

“Not the moneymaker you thought it was going to develop into,” the Piper said.

“I didn’t come looking for this. You came to me.”

“That’s true. But you must have thought all
your Christmases had come at once when I took Sammy. I think this has real movie potential, don’t you?”

The Piper wanted to provoke a fight, but Scott was only interested in talking to his boys. He had to know they were okay.

“I think you’re the one in it for the fame.”

The Piper chuckled. “Not in the mood to play?”

“I just want to speak to Sammy.”

“And you will. So what have you got for me today?”

“Your initials are BG.”

“How did you dig up that particular nugget, Scott?”

Scott’s palms were perspiring, and he tightened his grip on the cell before he dropped it. “Is that important?”

“It is if you want to speak to your son.”

Scott had to play it cool. He couldn’t tell the truth about Jones’s discovery today, and he had to keep the lie convincing. He’d hoped not to go this route, but he and Sheils had invented a cover story.

“Mike Redfern. The cops never got all his notes. I got them from his mother. He’d stashed them at her house.”

“And how did he find out?”

“If you hadn’t put a bullet in his head, I could ask him.”

The Piper laughed. “My shortsightedness will be my undoing.”

No
, Scott thought,
I will be
.

“I want to speak to Sammy now.” His words came out in a rush. He hated how desperate he sounded.

“In a minute. You’re making great inroads. I’m interested in how you’re doing it.”

“Sammy first.”

“Impress me, and I’ll let you speak to both of them.”

Suddenly, Pitts smiled and put his thumb up. Sheils rounded the desk and looked over the technician’s shoulder at his laptop. He pulled out his cell and punched in a number.

Sheils scrawled something on a sheet of paper
and handed it to Jane. She read it, her expression tightening. She showed it to Scott.

It read,
We’ve got a lock on his location. He’s in the city. I’m going after him. Keep him talking.

Scott’s stomach clenched. Everything hung in the balance. One wrong move from Sheils, and it was all over for his boys. He shook his head.

Sheils mouthed,
Yes. Now.

“I’m waiting, Scott.”

Sheils left the room. Scott went to stand, but Jane put a hand on his arm and shook her head. He settled back in his seat. Pitts looked embarrassed to be caught in the middle of this.

“You moved Annabel Cho from the basement after she got sick,” Scott said.

“Is that right? Who told you that?”

“Annabel.”

“Wow. I’m impressed. You’ve achieved a lot in the last couple of days. How close do you think you are to finding me?”

A couple of days
, Scott thought. Was that all it had amounted to? Just a couple of days? It took the second hand a long time to make a revolution lately. “Pretty close.”

“You’ll know by Monday?”

“If not sooner.” Scott felt incredibly tired. It was taking all his strength to hold the phone to his ear. “I told you what you wanted to know. Let me talk to the boys.”

“Get any outside help?”

Scott went cold. The Piper had heard Sheils in the copy room. Scott had detected the skepticism in the son of a bitch’s voice at the time. He’d hoped he’d put enough doubt in the Piper’s mind to dismiss it. Shit! It was all going off the rails, just as it seemed it was coming together.

“Christ, no!”

The color drained from Jane’s face. Her grip on his forearm cut into his flesh.

Scott wanted to reassure her and tell her the
Piper was bluffing, but he couldn’t. He knew things weren’t airtight. It was possible the Piper knew everything.

“I thought I made it pretty apparent what would happen if you betrayed our confidentiality agreement.”

“You did, and I haven’t. No one knows!”

“I’ll go get Sammy.”

The sound of the Piper putting his phone down echoed through the line to Scott.

Jane went to speak and Scott put a hand up to her mouth to silence her. He hadn’t heard the Piper move away. He wouldn’t put it past the bastard to trick him to confirm his suspicions.

Finally, he heard the Piper moving away from the phone. He returned with Sammy a minute later.

“Sammy, Daddy’s on the other end of the line,” he heard the Piper say. “Say hi to your daddy.”

Jane clapped a hand over her mouth. Tears burst free and trickled down her face.

“Daddy?” Sammy said.

Hearing his son’s voice tore a hole inside Scott. It was the best and worst moment of his life. “It’s Daddy, Sammy. I’m coming for you and Peter real soon, okay?”

Sammy broke into tears. “Why can’t you come now? I don’t like it here.”

Scott couldn’t hold back his tears. “Oh, Sammy, we’re doing everything to get you guys home as soon as possible, but you’ve got to hang in there. You and Peter have to be strong, you hear?”

“Now, that’s interesting,” the Piper said, clearly having taken the phone away from the boy. “What you said there.”

What had he said? What mistake had he made?

The Piper carried on. “You said ‘we.’ ‘
We’re
doing everything to get you guys home.’ Who’s ‘we,’ Scott?”

His mind spun its wheel, struggling for traction. “His mother and me. I don’t want him thinking I’m acting alone.”

The Piper didn’t answer.

The Piper was sweating Scott. Scott
fought the urge to speak. Anything he said would be a lie.

“I don’t believe you. You’ve made too much progress in too little time to be working alone. Who knows?”

“No one.”

“Tell me the truth, and I’ll spare one of your sons.”

“No! Don’t hurt them. I’m working alone.”

Sammy’s shriek cut through Scott. He couldn’t breathe.

Jane jumped up, the look of a trapped animal in her eyes. She retreated to the corner of the room and sobbed silently.

The color had left Pitts’s face.

“Do I have to break Sammy’s arms and legs before I get an honest answer from you?”

“No.”

“Good. Let’s review. Today, you dug through previously undiscovered files held by Mike Redfern and you spoke to Annabel Cho. That’s pretty amazing, considering the FBI doesn’t let you go anywhere without an escort. I know you’re good, but you aren’t that good. You need help for that. Now, I’m going to ask you one last time—who knows? Lie, and I’ll kill Sammy. Right here. Right now. So choose your answer carefully.” Would the Piper do it? He’d been so compassionate with Nicholas Rooker. Now he was threatening to kill Sammy in cold blood. Was it all a bluff? It could be, but Scott couldn’t take the chance.

“People know.” His words tasted like rust on his tongue.

“No, Scott, no,” Jane shrieked.

“My wife and Sheils know.”

“Jesus Christ,” Pitts said.

Jane charged across the room. She slammed into him and his chair tottered back but rocked back onto its feet. She thumped at his chest. He didn’t bother defending himself. He deserved this. He deserved worse. She soon lost her strength and collapsed against him, sobbing. He stroked her back and shushed her while he kept the phone pressed to his ear. That
was the important thing. To maintain the lines of communication to keep his boys alive.

“What have you done?” she moaned.

He’d bought his sons time, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

“Thank you, Scott. I appreciate the honesty. I can’t say I’m happy about it, but you told me and I respect that.”

Scott had trouble speaking. His words caught, forcing him to clear his throat. “What happens now?”

“Punishment.”

“Please don’t say that. Not Sammy. Not Peter.”

“I’m sorry, Scott. You betrayed me. Again. Sammy has to pay your price.”

“Don’t hurt him. Please. He’s just a kid.”

“Sorry, Scott. Not this time.”

He couldn’t control the sobbing, but he was out of tears. He emitted a noise, harsh and ugly. It was the sound of him dying inside.

“Say good-bye to Sammy now.”

“No. Stop. A trade. A life for a life.”

“I’m not interested in you, Scott. I’m going to have you later.”

Jane leaned up from him. “Me,” she said.

No, he couldn’t do that to Jane. If anyone were to survive this, it would be her and the boys. Everyone else was expendable.

Finally, Scott blurted out, “Tom Sheils knows where you are. He’s coming for you. Now.”

There was silence for a long moment. The Piper didn’t speak, and Scott’s admission had left Jane and Pitts shell-shocked.

“That is useful information, Scott. Well done. You just saved Sammy’s life.”

The Piper’s cell was transmitting from an address
on South Van Ness, only minutes from Sheils’s home. Sheils drove like a madman and parked on a cross street two blocks from the property, a two-story mixed-use building on the corner of South Van Ness and Sixteenth.

Sheils’s business suit and necktie clashed with the neighborhood. He stripped off his tie for a more casual look, but he needed his suit jacket to hide his weapon. It wasn’t a great disguise, but it did give him the appearance of an office worker on his way home. As he rounded the corner and approached the building, his cell rang and he answered it.

“We’ve got a problem,” Pitts said.

“What?”

“He knows you’re coming.”

He stopped short. “How?”

Scott came on the line. “He knew I was working with someone. I had to tell him. He was going to kill Sammy. I had to trade you for Sammy.”

Damn it!
Surprise was the only thing he had going for him, and it had been snatched away. Now he was walking into a trap, and he didn’t see any way to avoid it. Sammy and Peter were in worse danger than before. He had to go in.

“Tom, he knew,” Scott said, using Sheils’s familiar name for the first time. “I’m so sorry. I had no choice. You have to believe me.”

Sheils needed to figure out how he was going to piece this mess back together again. He couldn’t do that with Scott bleating in his ear. He talked over Scott’s incessant prattle. “You did the right thing. The situation isn’t blown. Is he still there?”

Pitts came back on the line. “We don’t know. He hung up and powered the phone off. I’ve lost the signal, Tom.”

“When did you lose him?”

“Three minutes ago.”

The building looked derelict with its whitewashed
windows. Sheils looked for signs of movement from within and saw none. Vehicles lined the street next to meters. A couple of vans made for prime transport vehicles, but none had a guy loading kids into them.

“I’ll call for backup,” Pitts said.

“I’ll take care of it. Just be ready if this bastard calls back,” Sheils said and hung up before Pitts could object.

He stopped in front of the building. The door to the commercial downstairs section looked fragile enough to give way if he breathed too hard on it. A padlock hung from the handle.

He stepped back from the building and turned onto Sixteenth. He dialed Brannon’s number.

“Shawn, it’s Tom.”

“Yeah.”

His tone was harsh. Obviously, he was still sore about being cut out of the investigation.

“I’ve got the Piper cornered. Get to the southeast corner of South Van Ness and Sixteenth.”

“I’ll send up a flare.”

“No. Just you and Dunham. I can’t explain right now.”

“Tom, I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I. Just get here. I’m going in. I’ll stall him until you get here.”

“Are you crazy?”

“No. Just out of options,” he said and hung up.

He estimated it would take Brannon and Dunham ten minutes. He hoped he could last that long.

He went to the rear of the building. A narrow alley, less than three feet between the building and a chain-link fence, provided access to a rear door. He edged his way to the door. He listened for movement and voices and heard nothing. He tried the door-knob. It was open.

I’m expected
, he thought.

Entering the building without backup was a
mistake. The Piper wanted him to enter the building through this door, and he’d pick him off the second he charged inside. But if he waited for Brannon and Dunham, he’d have the Piper cornered, along with two human shields. If the Piper saw no way out, those boys didn’t stand a chance. He had to go through that door alone and shift the Piper’s gun barrel from those boys to him.