Talk (35 page)

Daily seizures, very violent, she's often hurt badly by them, but otherwise she's a hundred percent. Denton and his wife have taken this little girl everywhere, trying to find some treatment or operation that will keep her from having these seizures. Nothing has worked and so this otherwise normal little girl has to wear a helmet and face guard to school and then in front of all her friends"-The agent gestured with her hand in a way that let Jessica know it would only hurt to hear more details.

"The long and the short of it is, insurance won't cover experimental treatments and that's the only hope for this little girl.

So Denton's somewhere around three hundred thousand dollars in debt, he's got three kids under the age of eleven to care for. Somehow, we believe, Lawson knew of his situation and approached him about the kidnapping. "

"He was a nice guy," Jessica said.

"I mean, I know he kidnapped me and everything, but I could tell. Really, I mean he was courteous, and direct and-Well, whatever. But what about Lawson, what the hell was his problem? I mean what was his motive? DBS paid him very well."

"That's part of the problem," Hepplewhite acknowledged.

"There's an absence of motive where he's concerned. He's made good money, he's put some away, has some investments. Now, his wife did divorce him a couple of years ago, and she got the house in Long Island and custody of the kids. He pays very high alimony and we're trying to see if this might have something to do with it."

"Something like the fact he hates women," Jessica said.

"I probably remind him of his wife."

The agent and the detective looked at each other.

"I was kidding," Jessica said.

"Yeah, but you never know," Hepplewhite said.

Agent Cole was making a note.

"We look into every possibility."

"You're not here to tell me he's going to get off, are you?" Jessica suddenly said.

"No," Hepplewhite said.

"Then what are you doing here? I don't know anything about that idiot Lawson, except he was always obnoxious and a pain in the neck."

"We needed to talk to you," Hepplewhite said, "to bring you up to date on where the case now stands, and also to see if you might know of any detail, or any piece of information that might be of help to us."

"Well, where exactly does the case stand?" Jessica said.

"Nobody's really explained to me how this all went down."

"What we think happened," Agent Cole said, "is that Lawson had been toying with the idea of kidnapping you, or perhaps Alexandra Waring if--and only if--the right scenario happened to come up. And when James Plattener--Leopold--started sending his notes. Law- son immediately spotted the possibility of a stalker in the making. So he took the opportunity to compose his own notes--in Leopold's name--to firmly establish the idea around West End that you definitely had a stalker, one who was not only obsessed with you, but obsessed with being with you. Then later, when it became clear that Plattener was a stalker, and did, in fact, successfully penetrate Lawson's own security measures at West End, Lawson knew he had his fall guy. All he had to do was play along, and start planning the kidnapping. But then the real Leopold acted in a way he hadn't anticipated."

"He murdered Bea," Jessica said.

"Leopold kept telling me how she was such a bad person and how it was a good thing she was dead."

"Exactly," Hepplewhite said, picking up the story.

"That's when Lawson knew he had to make his move, the sooner the better. He had the perfect foil. He lined up Denton to commit the actual kidnapping, he designed an electrical distraction and deterrent that was consistent with the electrical knowledge Leopold had previously displayed, and he even disagreed with the idea of using your publication party as a trap for Leopold when, in fact, he was counting on us to do it, and counting on him to oversee the security operation."

"But we changed the locale at the last minute."

"Lawson selected the locale at the last moment," Agent Cole said.

"He had handled security at Rockefeller Center a few years ago when the president visited, so he had extensive prior knowledge of the layout.

So what he did was issue layouts of the complex which failed to include the very corridors he would direct Denton to use to get you out of there. "

"But that's proof right there, isn't it?" Will asked.

"It's circumstantial," Hepplewhite said, "because we can't prove where the alterations to the layouts actually happen. But yes, this is, right now, our only real piece of evidence against him--and that it appeared he was about to kill Denton when we stopped him."

"And that's not going to stand up, is it?" Jessica sighed.

"So how much was he going to ransom me for, anyway?"

"He wasn't," Agent Cole said.

"He was going to have Denton stash you somewhere" -- "Where?"

"We haven't found it yet," Hepplewhite said.

"And then Dirk was going to find you and be the hero of the hour," Agent Cole finished.

"And since he was a DBS employee, maybe he'd keep only half the reward and make some grand gesture like giving the rest to charity" -- "How much was the reward?"

"I didn't tell you?" Will asked her.

"Five million. And then Jackson was thinking about raising it."

"Hmm," Jessica said, considering this. Then she shook her head, as if to clear it.

"Wait a minute,

though-What I don't get is, when Denton got me out of there in the Con Ed truck, where was Leopold? "

"Watching," Hepplewhite said.

"And waiting for his moment."

The way he said this made her blood run cold.

"Did he know I was going to be kidnapped?"

"We don't know," Agent Cole said.

"He's not talking yet."

"He kept saying that he had saved me," Jessica offered.

"I'm sure that's what he thinks," Agent Cole said.

"When we found the truck that Denton used to get you away from Rockefeller Center," Hepplewhite said, "we also found bloodstains in the parking lot near it. As Will may have told you, at first we freaked out because we thought it was your blood. Happily, it wasn't.

And now we know the blood was Calvin Denton's. And so we're assuming that that was where Plattener overpowered him. "

"But I saw Hurt Guy there," Jessica said.

"We drove there, he took me to the bathroom and then he made me take some sleeping pills. And then I climbed into the back of the truck, on a stretcher. You know, like an ambulance stretcher on wheels."

"It was after that, we think," Hepplewhite said, "after you were sleeping, that Plattener overpowered Den- ton."

"Yeah, but" -Jessica frowned, trying to remember.

"You didn't go anywhere else in the Con Edison truck," Agent Cole explained to her.

"That truck was left in the lot. Oh, we have your diamond earring, by the way."

"Oh. Good, thanks."

"And that stretcher you mentioned," Hepplewhite said, "was not in the Con Ed truck. That's how Plattener moved you from the Con Ed truck to his van, and then later into the old hospital and up the elevator and down the halls."

"What about Hurt Guy? Where was he during all this?"

"We found a bloody tarp in Plattener's van upstate. We're assuming he just rolled Denton up in it and dumped him on the floor of the van he moved you into, and then brought him along to Buffalo to dump the body in the room next to yours."

She tried to remember. She did remember tripping over something at one point.

"When we stopped in the country" -- "That was Plattener who took you out and walked you to the springs."

"I remember tripping over something in the van," Jessica said.

"There was a big pile of something. A carpet I thought."

"That was Denton."

Jessica mulled over this for a moment.

"So Leopold kidnapped the kidnapper."

"Yes," Agent Cole said.

"And Hurt Guy can't tell you that Dirk was responsible for kidnapping me in the first place."

Looking grim, Hepplewhite nodded.

"Unless he regains consciousness."

Reading the detective's expression, Jessica said, "Hurt Guy's dying, isn't he?"

The detective nodded again.

Agent Cole spoke up.

"It's a miracle he's lived as long as he has."

"Three kids," Jessica murmured, looking down and absently smoothing her sheets.

"What a waste. What a stupid waste of so many lives." She looked at Will.

"What's Hurt Guy's family supposed to do?" She looked to Agent Cole.

"And Leopold's not talking?"

"No."

"And you're not going to screw this up and let him off on some insanity charge, are you?"

She shook her head.

"No. He won't be getting out."

"Good." Suddenly Jessica felt very tired. So dead tired she could scarcely keep her head up. The tears started to come then, and she tried to stop them but couldn't.

"I'm sorry," she managed to say.

"It's all right, we shouldn't have stayed so long," Hepplewhite said, quickly standing up.

"We've exhausted you."

"You must get him," Jessica said quietly.

"That son of a bitch Lawson, you have to get him."

"We will," Hepplewhite promised.

"You can't let him get away with this," she said with new urgency.

"They will, Jess," Will hushed.

"It's okay."

"It's not okay," she said, agonized. Will held her tight as she tried to choke back her sobs.

"Look at what he's done to me. Will. He's made me a coward. I'm such a mess. I'm so scared of everything now."

"No, darling, shh," Will soothed, rocking her.

"No, not for long."

"Should I call the doctor?" Slim asked from the doorway.

Will nodded and Jessica's head came whipping up.

"No!"

"But, Jessica" -- "No!" she insisted.

"I know what I have to do." And then she pushed Will away and threw back the bed covers.

"Oh, get me unhooked from this thing!" she demanded, irritably swatting at the traction device.

The intensive care unit of Lennox Hill Hospital was under heavy guard.

Jessica took Detective Hepplewhite's arm as they entered the glassed-in area where Calvin Denton lay. Jessica stood there a moment, assessing the situation, and then drew a chair up next to the bed.

"Hi, Hurt Guy," she said softly.

"It's me, Jessica. Can you hear me?"

No response, just the beep, beep, beep of a heart monitor.

"I know you're very weak right now, so you don't have to try and communicate, okay? I just stopped by to see how you're doing." She frowned and spoke more loudly.

"And it seems to me you should certainly be doing better than this. After all, now you're spoiled-you've got all these fancy doctors and medicines and everything, and before you didn't have anything except me and a couple of lousy aspirin." She chuckled.

"I suppose you've figured out by now that I was never a nurse. I did know first aid, though--well, sort of. But we did get through it, though, didn't we?"

She leaned forward, letting a low, knowing, rumbling laugh roll out.

"Remember when Leopold was coming for dinner that night? Remember?

When I think back--it was kind of cool, wasn't it? How we snuck you in from. next door and he didn't have a clue! And they say he's supposed to be some kind of genius. Well, he's a friggin' psycho, that's what he is. We both know that, don't we. Hurt Guy? "

She sat back, crossing her legs.

"So anyway, he's in the slammer now.

They've brought him down here to New York, in fact. The feds get him, you know, for the kidnapping"-She stopped here. The feds would be getting Hurt Guy, too, if he lived.

"So listen. Hurt Guy," she said, starting again, "I didn't come here just to see how you're doing. I mean, I did, but, um, I wanted to talk to you about something. The police and the FBI and everybody have been telling me a lot about you-Oh, and by the way, I've told everyone what a nice guy you were. You know, about how polite and courteous and thoughtful you were when you, um-Well, you know, when you picked me up at Rockefeller Center."

Beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor.

"Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, they've been telling me about your daughter's condition, and what a financial bind you got into. They seem to think this is how Lawson got to you--you know, to be part of his scheme. Anyway" -she leaned forward "--I just wanted you to know that we're going to watch out for your daughter. Actually, your whole family. I know you've been through a lot, and they have, too, and the point is, you shouldn't worry about anything except getting better.

Because your kids need you. They'll understand why you got mixed up in all this. But they're still going to need you, even if they can't be with you all the time. And sometime they will be with you again, but in the meantime, you have to do father-like things,

like boss them around and tell them you love them and stuff. "

She paused, looking around at all the medical equipment.

"You really have to get better. This is just not your scene. They tell me you were a CIA operative once. So you can't let some wimpy psycho like Leopold get the best of you. I mean, how will it look? The guy is the absolute worst. Mr. Mama's Boy, the sheik of freak." She frowned.

"Hey, are you listening to me?"

She stood up to hang her face over his.

"Are you? Hurt Guy? Is that one eye I see opening? Is it? Can you open it for me like you used to?"

The eye parted and Jessica beamed, clapping her hands in joy.

"I knew you were in there!"

"Easy, easy, Ms. Wright, please," the I. C. U nurse said as the beat on the heart monitor grew uneven.

"Oops, sorry," she whispered. Then Jessica reached for that little patch of unhurt skin on Hurt Guy's face and touched it with her forefinger.

"You're on the mend. And that makes me very happy. If it wasn't for you, you know, I don't think I would have gotten through everything. You gave me something to do, something to think about, a reason to act. And you were good company. I always did prefer people who didn't talk much." She leaned closer and whispered, "I meant that about looking after your family. You just worry about getting better, we'll take care of the rest. And I'll be back. Hurt Guy, to see how you're doing. So rest easy and get some sleep now."