The Guardian (23 page)

She pulled the gun out of the pouch so he could see it. She said, “I do have something.”

He looked at her like she was trying to make him look stupid. “Is that real?” he whispered.

“Uh-huh.”

He immediately began moving closer to her, moving her away from his parents. “Let me hold it.”

“Can you tell your mom that I’m lost?”

“Let me hold the gun,” he repeated.

She pulled it to herself, not wanting to let him have it, because it made her feel safer and because he was mean and stupid. “No. It’s mine. Just tell your mother.”

“Not unless you let me hold it.” He pushed her now, his hands on her shoulders.

“Bobby,” the woman said. “It’s time for us to go in. Say good-bye to your friend.”

“She’s not my friend!”

Janine saw the woman look at her more closely and frown. The woman said to the man wearing the suit, “Whose child is this? She’s a mess.”

The boy whispered fiercely, “Let me see the gun, right now!”

“No!”

He grabbed for it.

And that’s when the woman screamed, “She’s got a gun!”

Her husband strode over, and he seemed tired and mad, and he said, “Calm down, Lucy. It’s a toy—”

And the gun went off.

Janine didn’t do it. She was holding it in the middle—the boy had it by the handle, and he must’ve pulled the trigger. She felt part of the gun move under her hand, and then there was the noise. Incredible noise, and a picture beside them on the wall shattered, and the boy was backing away into his dad, his face stark white. “She did it! She did it. She tried to shoot me!”

And the woman was still screaming as she pulled the boy behind herself and her husband. “She’s got a gun, my God. Call the police. She’s got a gun!”

Janine fled.

Chapter 39

Byrne had Ross call T.S. and tell him they wanted to keep going that night, to send the next one over to Crockett’s apartment. Byrne rearranged the position of Crockett’s kitchen table so that he could observe the meetings from inside the closet. Jamison was stationed outside the building and kept in touch by radio. He was to follow whoever came next if Ross wasn’t sure he was the kidnapper.

As if I could be sure,
Ross thought as he stood looking out the window, waiting for the next man. Ross felt edgy and irritable. He simply didn’t know enough. His own impressions of the kidnapper were gained over the course of a few violent minutes. He’d wracked his brains to remember what Greg had said about the man, but Greg hadn’t been able to see that much either. Ross had studied Babcock’s sketch, trying to imbue the blanks with detail. After a while, he began to suspect what impressions he had, thinking he’d overanalyzed it all.

“You think one person is enough for a tail?” Crockett asked Byrne.

“Olsen barely approved this stakeout as is. It’s too much of a long shot. So he thinks he’s being generous… .” Byrne stiffened. “Speaking of that putz, he just pulled up front.”

Ross checked his watch. “The next one’s due right now.”

Byrne got on the walkie-talkie. “Jamison. Tell Olsen to back off. We got the next one due any minute.”

“You tell him,” Ross heard. “Olsen’s already in the building.”

A minute later, he was there.

Olsen wore a sour expression. “Did anybody throw themselves on their knees and confess yet?”

“What’s up?” Byrne snapped.

“I’m in on this. Turner’s pushing the chief for results, and if this is the extent of our operation, I might as well check it out.”

Byrne looked at his watch and said, “Back in the hall and up the stairs, then. Bear in mind, I don’t know if the next guy will be him or not, so we don’t want to blow our contact with T.S. by screaming cop at this guy. We’re going to simply put a tail on him afterward.”

“So what’s the drill?”

Byrne outlined the plan. “Ross and Crockett, you two do your bit just like before. Ross, if you think it’s the guy, signal me by offering him a Pepsi. I’ll let the guy walk, and Jamison tails him home. If you feel like the whole thing is going wrong, signal me by offering him a beer. Keep clear of the closet door and, Olsen, you back me up.”

“Got it,” Olsen said, going out into the hallway.

“Is he any good?” Crockett asked.

“No.” Byrne went back to the window. “But I like to think I am.”

* * *

It was hard with the next man.

The others Ross had been able to quickly dismiss as unlikely. This one was the right height and weight. Thin and strong. A sunburned man with horsy yellow teeth and a hard, calloused hand.

He was qualified, too. “I’ve done stores to banks, and I’ve done time for both.” His voice was neutral. Ross was unable to detect any accent. The man sat at Crockett’s kitchen table and said, “I’ll do the job. I’m not scared about shooting anybody.”

Ross studied him carefully. A lot about him fit. The man had brought a sawed-off pump shotgun, similar to the one Ross had seen the kidnapper use. Yellow teeth, Greg had mentioned that.

But something about the man didn’t match. And Ross wasn’t pleased with his own reasoning. It seemed all too subjective. The way the man’s chin was weak, the way he stood when he first came in. Ross remembered the kidnapper’s stance the night he’d killed Greg, the way he’d stood with one hip sprung forward, cocky. This guy appeared too calm. He didn’t seem to notice or care about the sound of a board creaking outside the hallway. Ross made a mental note to tell Olsen that he wasn’t being quiet enough. If anything, the gunman fit Ross’s idea of a dirt farmer who’d turned to murder for a living.

But none of that was definitive. The hard decision was whether or not Ross should signal Byrne to arrest the man. Ross was afraid that if the police picked the man up, he’d find a way to let T.S. know. And that whole contact would be blown.

“I don’t think so,” Ross said abruptly.

“What?” The man glared back at him.

“We’re all done here.”

“Am I on?”

“No. We’ve got to keep looking.”

“The hell you say. This is a big piece of change you’re talking about, and I’m the guy to get it for you.”

Ross said simply, “No, you’re not.”

The man’s lip curled, and he said, “Yeah, well, fuck you, too.” But he got up and left, his shotgun well hidden under his coat.

Ross felt the sweat trickle down his spine as he went over to the window to watch Jamison pick up the trail. Ross could feel Byrne and Crockett looking at him.

“Not him, huh?” Crockett said.

“I don’t think so.” Ross was reasonably sure that he’d made the right decision. “Janine’s kidnapper doesn’t take no for an answer. This guy did.”

Chapter 40

Janine awoke to the sounds of honking horns and people walking by.

She panicked and brushed her hands down her legs, expecting the rat to be back.

But she was still alone under the restaurant. The one built like old railroad cars that was boarded up. The one across from the Children’s Museum.

She had found it last night. It had taken her a long time, because she’d been so tired and there was construction work going on, making everything so confusing. She had come to a bridge not too long after she had run away from the mean boy and his parents. And then she had turned around and gone back up the street again, and had gotten lost behind a big factory with a lot of broken windows.

It had been dark before she had finally come around a corner to find the museum right there. Janine had slumped up against the door and cried when she had realized the place was closed and that Mrs. Cranston was gone. Mrs. Cranston of the red plaid skirts, short gray hair, and glasses. Mrs. Cranston whose
job
it was to help lost children.

It had been the passing police car that had sent Janine under the restaurant. Luckily, there had been a cardboard box under there or else she would have had to sit right in the dirt.

The policeman being shot, and the screaming mother and boy, and the bullet smashing the picture had all become mixed together in Janine’s head. Everyone was angry with her: Lee, Natalie, the boy, his mother and father. She had felt certain the police would be very angry with her. Maybe even her mother would be angry with Janine for not coming home.

Maybe it was her fault Lee had killed her daddy.

She had slipped in and out of nightmarish dreams. The restaurant above her was no longer dark. It was full of people who talked and laughed.

Her mother and dad had been up there, too. Her mother’s voice had been bright. She didn’t seem to care that Janine wasn’t there. And her dad had ruffled the mean boy’s hair like he used to do with Janine’s.

Looking back now, Janine realized that none of that had been real.

But the rat had been there. It had smelled awful, like garbage and rotting meat. And it had been sniffing her right in the face when she had woken up.

Janine lifted the gun now. It smelled strongly, like when she hit a roll of caps with a brick. She hadn’t dreamed about shooting at the rat, then.

Looking out at the bright sunlight, Janine considered her position. The lights were turned on in the museum. The McDonald’s restaurant beside it was open. Janine’s stomach was growling.

But she didn’t want to go in there. She knew the people in the restaurant probably didn’t know Nat, but she couldn’t go in there, after all those burgers and shakes. It just seemed like bad luck.

Besides, it was time to go in and meet Mrs. Cranston. Janine was awfully tired, but her head didn’t feel so mushy. She knew most of the things she had thought about last night were dreams. And—as if the idea just landed right in front of her—she realized that she should have just stayed with the mean boy and his parents and let the police come.

They wouldn’t have been mad for long once she explained what had happened, and told them that she was Janine Stearns, and that she was lost.

Janine stared at the door to the museum. She wished she had stayed awake the whole night. Maybe she could’ve seen Mrs. Cranston come in and she could’ve met her at the door. The distance from where Janine was staying and the front door wasn’t far. She could run there in just a few seconds.

But it seemed a long ways away.

Janine wanted the nightmare to be over. But she had been safe under that railroad car for hours. Not happy, but safe. The cardboard box had somehow become comfortable to her, and moving from it seemed awfully hard. Her mind cast forward suddenly, seeing herself living there day after day, this little animal under the restaurant. During the days it wouldn’t be so bad. She could watch people, and see boats on the water.

But at night, there would be the rat.

Janine left the box.

The sun was hot on her skin and she was terribly thirsty. Her legs and body felt creaky and stiff. But it was better than the night before. Her body felt like her own, just tired.

A woman was coming Janine’s way, her head down as she talked to her two kids, a boy and a girl. They were little kids. Janine figured about three years old.

Janine looked right and left and didn’t see anyone else watching, and then she saw that she was still holding the gun in her hand, and the image of the mean boy came back to her. “You smell bad.”

She put the gun back in the sweatshirt pouch and hugged it to her belly. The gun felt hard and dangerous there. She didn’t like it, but she wasn’t ready to leave it behind either.

It had saved her from the rat.

The mother got to the door first, and Janine waited. The door closed. Now that she was here, her heart was pounding. What if Mrs. Cranston wasn’t there? She pressed her nose against the glass. She could see the mother and her kids straight ahead, between the ropes. Buying their tickets. Janine craned her neck, tried to see the center booth where Mrs. Cranston would be. But the angle was all wrong, she could just see a corner of the booth, not see in it.

She took a deep breath, and pulled the door open. It was hard to do with one hand, the other holding the gun to her belly. But she did it … and Mrs. Cranston was there!

“Hey!” Janine stepped in the foyer. Mrs. Cranston was talking to some people, a big man with a bald head and a woman in a long gray coat. Janine didn’t want to be rude, but the fogginess was out of her head now, and she knew the people who had taken her were wrong and she wanted to go home. “Hey!” she said, again, and Mrs. Cranston looked her way and frowned slightly. She held up her finger and turned back to the woman. Janine stopped short, confused.

Janine looked down at herself and felt at her face and knew she was so dirty, so messy, that she didn’t look like herself. And maybe Mrs. Cranston would only know her if she was with her mother.

So she had to tell Mrs. Cranston who she was.

Janine’s eyes were still downcast when she realized the man and woman were facing her now, and in her way. She stepped politely to the side, but they moved with her.