The Guardian (25 page)

Whether or not the driver of the Chevy noticed the charade, Ross had no idea. But the car’s speed remained steady until the gunman signaled for the exit to Storrow Drive. Ross followed him down the steep, winding turn, and then out along the river. It was a gray morning, and yet there were small boats sailing on the Charles. Ross felt a distinct sense of unreality, driving past people whose primary goal at that moment was most likely a good tack—while his was how to get his niece back from a man who’d just shot three policeman and killed his friend.

A good tack was all Ross had been concerned about plenty of times in his life, and he wondered briefly if he would ever have the chance again.

He pushed those thoughts aside when the gunman took the Arlington Street exit. Up until then, Ross had been following through major thoroughfares. But on the city streets the gunman would be more likely to notice the motorcycle still behind him.

The gunman took the jog to the left and then started down Arlington Street. Ross kept two cars between them. When the Chevy pulled to the right and turned onto Commonwealth Avenue, Ross took a right onto Marlborough Street, which ran parallel. He knew that first block of Marlborough was the only one that ran outbound. After that, it went one-way in the opposite direction. Once he came to the corner of Berkeley, he saw the Chevy flash through the intersection a block up. Ross took a quick turn against traffic and ignored the screeching horn of a cab as he dove down the alley behind the row of buildings on Commonwealth.

The alley was actually a narrow road, full of potholes and occasional patches of slippery cobblestone. It wasn’t the kind of road on which Ross would’ve chosen to wind a motorcycle up to eighty.

But that’s what it took to reach each intersection, stop, and make sure the Chevy swept by a block over. And then Ross would twist the throttle and do it again, scrabbling through holes, actually flying a dozen feet out of a deep indentation soon after the intersection of Dartmouth Street. At Gloucester, he took a left as soon as he saw the Chevy go by and pulled up fast to the corner of Commonwealth in time to see the Chevy turn left onto Massachusetts Avenue.

Ross nailed it again, went straight forward on Gloucester. He saw the car crossing the inbound section of Commonwealth. Ross went another block and took a right onto Newbury. He knew he was taking a chance the driver would see him, but he had no choice; he would’ve been forced to take a left onto Boylston if he’d continued. He stood on his pegs, expecting to see the Chevy flash by then.

But it didn’t.

Ross wound the bike out, thinking maybe the gunman had already passed, or had gotten onto the turnpike entrance and Ross had missed it. Or maybe he’d headed up the side street along the turnpike entrance.

Ross stopped at the Massachusetts Avenue light and looked right and left.

Nothing.

His heart was tripping hard. Had the gunman seen him?

Ross leaned forward on the bike, revving the engine in frustration. A patch of green caught his attention and he edged the bike forward, craning his neck.

There it was. So close he’d missed it—the gunman
had
gotten past. The Chevy was facing the wrong way on Massachusetts Avenue, right in front of the subway station.

It was empty.

The gunman had ditched the car and taken off down the subway, Ross thought, cursing himself. He glanced left, looking for a place to leave the bike.

And the man was right there. Standing two feet away.

His hand was inside his coat pocket, and he said, “Just who the hell are you?”

Maybe he’d been waiting in a doorway. Maybe he’d been standing there on the street corner all along and Ross had been too focused looking for the car to notice. Either way, Ross was stuck: In the seconds it would take him to get free from the bike, the guy could empty the gun into him.

The man reached over and lifted Ross’s visor. “You a cop?”

“Ross. Ross Stearns.”

The corner of the gunman’s mouth lifted, and then he grinned. “You’re Uncle Ross?”

“That’s right.”

The guy swung his leg over the back of the bike. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 43

The man grasped the inside of Ross’s collar and said, “You’re wearing a vest, huh? That means that cop must be still walking.” He jammed the gun barrel into Ross’s hip. “You’ve got a big artery right about here. That vest won’t help. Now, take a left.”

The gunman took the extra helmet off the side of the bike and put it on with one hand, presumably to keep from attracting police attention.

“Is Janine alive?” Ross asked.

“Move it!”

“Not until I know.”

The gunman ground the barrel deeper into Ross’s hip, but still Ross didn’t move. The light turned yellow. The guy said, finally, “She was the last I saw. Now, if you behave, we’ll see if your sister-in-law will spring for
you.
I’m not picky, as long as I get my money.”

Ross took off. He thought about trying to dislodge the gunman. But from the way he moved with him, Ross figured he had too much riding experience to fool.

The gunman told him to pull off Massachusetts Avenue, and they took the back streets around Northeastern University, until they turned right onto Huntington Avenue, and passed by the Museum of Fine Arts.

Up ahead a few blocks, the gunman snapped his fingers and pointed to the left. Ross took the turn, banking the cycle hard.

“Right there.” The gunman pointed to a small factory building, one with boarded-up windows on the bottom floor. It was painted industrial tan, and many of the windows on the upper two floors were shattered. “Home, sweet home.” He swung off the bike, opened the garage door, and had Ross park the bike inside.

The gunman pulled the shotgun from the saddlebag and waved Ross over to a broad set of stairs. “You’ll have to do the five floors on foot. The elevator’s broken.” The guy seemed amused. “Good for your health.”

The place had obviously been abandoned for some time. Some floors were empty and others were full of machinery tools covered in old grease and dust. The stairs sagged under Ross’s feet, and the freight elevator shaft yawned wide and black at each landing, unprotected by safety gates. Ross wondered if the gunman intended to drop his body down there afterward. He was certain the man had no intention of exchanging him alive for the ransom.

But they continued all the way to the top floor, and the gunman gestured for Ross to open a gray door at the top of the stairs. Ross had just the faintest inkling that there was someone on the other side. He half-heard a small rustling noise.

It couldn’t begin to prepare him for what he saw in the faint light from the hall skylight.

Janine, bound and gagged, and clearly alive.

* * *

Relief stabbed through Ross. But before he could draw breath there was movement to the left. Ross saw the woman, and there was a flash beside her, and the wood jamb behind Ross’s head splintered.

The gun fired again.

From behind, the kidnapper shoved Ross in the direction of the flash.

Ross instinctively dropped to the floor. In the half-light, Ross could see a vague shape of a big man. Ross crabbed his way over to Janine and pulled her off the chair, covering her with his body. The woman huddled beside them, her muffled cry eclipsed by the sound of the shotgun blasting from behind.

Teague fell into the light of the open door, his face and upper body blackened with blood. The kidnapper stood over him, saying, in a tone close to bemused, “How about this?”

Ross forcibly shoved aside any thought of Teague, or even Janine. He launched himself off the floor and slapped the shotgun aside. All the fear, guilt, and rage poured out.

Ross simply didn’t give the gunman room to move. He crowded him into a corner and tried to break through bone and flesh to the wall behind.

Ross used his knee, pistoning up into the man’s groin. He used his elbow across the man’s chin.

Having Janine behind him fueled him on, knowing that it all came down to this.

When he felt with fierce exultation that the man had begun to break, he took just long enough to snatch the shotgun away, step back, and crack the man against the jaw with the shortened stock.

The guy fell to his knees.

Ross hit him in the same spot again, sprawling the guy onto the floor. Ross whirled, the gun leveled against the woman, but her hands were bound in front of her, and she cried through her gag for him to stop.

Ross pumped in another shell and put the shotgun barrel behind the kidnapper’s ear.

Janine moaned behind him, and the sound brought Ross up short. Blood dripped off his knuckles, and his breath was whistling in and out.

Janine shook her head violently back and forth, and Ross recognized instantly his position with the gunman wasn’t so different than the gunman’s had been to Greg.

Ross said, “Hold on, honey. I’m going to tie him up.”

But she turned and fled for the doorway, clearly panicked.

“Wait, Janine!” Ross hesitated an instant, and then went after her onto the landing, afraid she wouldn’t be able to catch herself with her bound hands if she tripped near that open shaft.

The woman make a noise, a strangled cry.

Ross turned and saw he’d made a terrible mistake—he should’ve killed the gunman no matter what.

The man had dragged himself into a sitting position, and he had Olsen’s gun in his hands. Even as Ross lifted the shotgun, he knew it was too late. The man fired steadily, emptying the gun. Two rounds whistled by harmlessly. One took Ross in the shoulder and set him back on his heels. Another caught him full in the chest, sending him stumbling back. Janine cried out through the gag and tried to reach out for Ross’s hand.

She missed by inches.

Ross threw his arms out, but he was right in the center of the elevator entrance. Unchecked, he fell into the darkness of the shaft.

Chapter 44

Ross may have screamed aloud. Maybe not. In the second or so of free-falling he threw his arms back, pin wheeling, stretching for something, anything. Every cell of his body cried out with the atavistic fear of falling into the unknown.

Light flashed by, and he was barely aware that he’d passed two floors, and then he felt a blow on the back of his head and realized he was falling along something, and he twisted and grabbed, and then he
did
scream aloud because his hands were being ripped, they were being sliced by free strands of a woven wire cable, and Ross got his leg around it … and still he slid.

Until he wasn’t.

That’s how it felt. He didn’t realize at first he had stopped. He was still swaying in the dark, he was still moving, but he wasn’t going down.

He wasn’t dead.

Ross looked up and saw four parallel cables swinging side by side, in and out of the three windows of faint light that were the landings above.

Blood trickled between his fingers. Ross could taste it, too. He did a brief checklist: shoulder and chest hurting, but no blood there. The vest had done its job.

He shook his head, wondering for a second if he’d hit bottom and was already dead, so unnatural was the sensation of being suspended in the darkness. He rested his head on the cable as a wave of nausea and dizziness overcame him. He ground his teeth and held tight, swinging on his metal lifeline.

The pain in his hands was real.

And so was the strength he was expending hugging the cable. Already his arms were starting to tremble.

He opened his eyes.

Below him about a dozen feet was another open landing.

Ross heard a noise up above, and looked up to see the silhouette of the gunman leaning out at the top-floor landing. The man said, “You hear him hit? I didn’t.”

His voice echoed down the shaft.

More faintly, the woman’s voice drifted down to Ross. He figured she was standing behind the gunman on the landing. “We’ve got to get out of here, Lee. Somebody could’ve called the cops with those gunshots.”

“I need a frigging flashlight. This guy made a cripple out of Teague, and he’s given me trouble at least three times now. I want to see the body.”

Ross could hear Janine up there crying. He hung his head, infuriated with his helplessness, and the implication of the man knowing Teague’s name.

“Well, maybe the cops will show it to you!” the woman said. “Leave the girl, and let’s get the hell out of the state.”

“Yeah, right. Jeffers gets fucked again. Why should I be the one to lose out on the deal?”

“You’re alive.”

“Don’t give me this concern shit. You tried to shoot me.”

“If I was really trying, you’d be dead,” the woman snapped back.

Ross heard the sound of a blow after that. The man’s voice was farther away, but Ross could hear the menace clearly. “I’m gonna deal with you later. But right now, I’m gonna make sure Uncle Ross is out of it—and this place passes police inspection. We haven’t got time to clean it up right. You hold onto the little chick while I get that mattress.”