The Guardian (27 page)

“She had the right.” The shower had washed the resentment out of Ross, and all he felt was exhausted and rather useless.

“Nonsense,” Allie said. “You’ve done everything you could. You’ve gone after Janine as if she were your own daughter. You’ve sold your inheritance, you put yourself at great physical risk…” Her voice caught, and she looked away for a moment, and then continued as if nothing had happened. “It’s obvious to me, and to everyone involved—including Beth—that you’d lay down your life for this little girl.”

“Do you think this is all some vendetta?”

Her eyes faltered from his. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Meaning you do.”

“I don’t
know.
Neither do you. I admit it’s awfully strange that Teague and Jeffers knew each other.”

“Is that what you’d say if you were prosecuting?”

“I wouldn’t be prosecuting you,” she said gently. “You’re a victim in this, Ross. It’s not your fault.”

Ross shook his head, disgusted with himself. “Victim? I’m alive and free. What’s Janine going through right now?”

“At this moment, you’ve done all you can. They’ll call if something happens tonight. So, right now, your job is getting rested for tomorrow. And praying that tomorrow includes welcoming Janine home.” She put her hand out to him. “Give yourself a break, Ross. Now let’s both go to sleep.”

He didn’t know where he was when he awoke.

It was late, just after three o’clock by her digital clock. He must’ve called out, because she was awake and pulling him back: “Sssh, baby, sssh.”

He lay back down, his heart pounding.

He had been falling in that shaft again, only this time it was his father watching from the top. And there were no cables to catch, nothing to do but fall, and just before he hit, he cried once for help. And he saw it was no longer his father who was watching, but Crockett.

“What?” Her voice was blurred with sleep. “What’s the matter?”

“Crockett.” He sat up and rubbed his face, trying to clear his head.

“What?”

Suddenly everything Beth and Turner had thrown at him had landed as unassailable facts. All of it was Ross’s fault. All of it. “Maybe I misjudged Crockett,” he said. “Jesus, I thought I knew him. But he could’ve done it. A million five would’ve been a big score. All that time in prison, I kept a low profile as best I could, but he knew that the Sands was worth some money.”

“And you trusted him.”

“I did. I had to trust someone.”

“Sure you did.” She sat up beside him. “And you may have been right. I mean, wouldn’t it have been simpler if he wanted to rip us off to have just done it once we had the cash? Back at the house, before the police were involved?”

“That would’ve been a lot more straightforward. But it would’ve meant killing all of us. By using Jeffers and Teague he could’ve pulled the whole thing off as a blind. Even Janine would’ve been all right, if she didn’t see their faces.”

“But it didn’t happen that way. And he wouldn’t have let Jeffers walk in on the stakeout the two of you set up with the police, would he?”

Ross sagged back against the headboard. “No.” His heart calmed down.

She kissed him. “Your brain is just going overtime.”

“Good thing I have a trained legal mind waiting at three in the morning.”

She smiled as her lips touched his. “Is that all I’m good for?”

The heat swept through him as it had the first time they’d been together. Five years of binding down, of awakening to a loneliness that had pervaded his very flesh, had been burned away by the feel of her throat under his hand, the firmness of her breasts, the soft curve of her belly. The nervousness he’d brought to her bed had vanished.

And it was that way now, made only more intense by his knowledge of her body, and the separation of the past months. He pulled her nightgown to her waist, his breath made short by the sight of her. She stopped him, holding her hands over his. He closed his mind to whether or not it was right, with Janine still gone.

He waited.

Allie didn’t speak. She hesitated for just a second, and then pulled his head back down to hers.

Chapter 47

The next morning, Ross awoke to the sounds of traffic. He sat up quietly so as not to wake her. Purposefully he blocked out thought of anything but taking a moment to look at her dark lashes against her fair skin, the delicate rise and fall as she breathed, the way she tucked the blanket under her chin like a small child.

She awoke to find him watching, and if he was right, he saw a touch of wariness in her eyes.

He tugged at her hair gently and ran his hand down her long, smooth back. “Relax. This isn’t where I start making demands.”

She smiled at him sleepily, “You might want to consider it after she’s back. You could make a good case.”

“Thanks, Counselor.”

She got up as he took the phone from the nightstand and dialed the house.

Beth answered.

“Nothing from them.” She paused. “Look, I’m sorry about what I said last night.”

“All right.”

“I can’t afford to turn you away, and I don’t want to. All I want is to get her back.”

Afterward, she put Byrne on the phone. He told Ross they had confirmed with Mrs. Cranston at the Children’s Museum that she had seen Janine but hadn’t recognized her. “We got a witness on T.S., too, not that that’ll do us much good. Cambridge Police turned up a guy who said he’d seen T.S. loading a light green van at about the time you were working your way out of that factory. My guess is Jeffers called him.”

Byrne also said that Geiler’s office had phoned about closing on the property. After hanging up, Ross told Allie, “I’ve got some work for you today.”

She cocked her head curiously.

He told her about Geiler’s call. “There’s the balance of the sale coming to me. So I guess that means I need a will.”

She blanched but said only, “It makes sense.”

He watched her personality change as she dressed into a nicely cut but somewhat austere gray business suit. Her face turned cooler as she put on a subdued shade of lipstick and the image of competency replaced her easy warmth. By the time she was on the phone with Geiler’s office, she was fully masked by her role. “In any future dealings, I’d prefer you call my office rather than my client’s home,” she said.

They went to Geiler’s office right after breakfast. He came out briefly and shook Ross’s hand. Geiler’s manner was sympathetic but distant. “I’m sorry my people contacted you so urgently. Any word about your niece so far?”

Ross shook his head.

“Don’t worry about any problem from me regarding … the situation with your brother’s body.” He grimaced. “Totally useless, this whole thing. So unnecessary.” He looked at his watch. “Well. Let’s close this out.”

He thinks I’m going to be killed,
Ross thought abruptly. Geiler was concerned about the sale getting screwed up if both brothers were dead.

“I’d like to take her to the beach one time when she’s back,” Ross said suddenly.

“What’s that?”

“Janine. I want to take her on the beach at the Sands one day before Labor Day.”

Geiler hesitated and then had the good grace to cover his pity with a smile. “Absolutely. All the time you want, of course.”

Ross saw that they actually wrote it in. A weekend at the Sands before the summer died for Janine, Beth, and him.

Chapter 48

They were back to waiting. They were at the house, Byrne, Allie, Beth, and Ross. Turner’s ranks had swelled to eight agents.

Ross felt sour and irritable, and listening to Turner frustrated him. Not that the man’s logic was so far-off. If anything, Ross felt he was missing something the man had said, and though he didn’t like Turner, he listened all the harder for whatever it was. Some comment Turner had made during the hours of conversation, the endless hashing over the smallest details …

“Just about zip on the Black Bloods,” Turner was saying. “The gang Teague used to ride with. They’ve been gone for months. And we haven’t had any luck with his buddies at Concord.”

One of the agents was a woman who introduced herself as Lisa Taves. She looked a bit like Beth, only a little younger and a lot harder. At that point, Lisa sounded like Beth, too. She and an agent named Peters had been working on Ross’s and Beth’s voices for hours.

A big aluminum coffeepot stood beside the computer that was to be used during the phone trace. A state map was tacked up on an easel, and Turner was using a flip chart to outline their preparations.

He seemed to appreciate the audience.

“Three cars ready to follow whenever the call comes in. My guess is Jeffers will insist that you drop the money someplace, Beth. And he’ll promise you he’ll release your daughter.”

“Just like with Greg,” she said dully.

“That’s right. And I expect we can trust him just as far as then. So when he calls, Lisa here is going to have to make the case that it must be a face-to-face swap. Frankly, we’re hoping he asks just for you, that he assumes Ross is dead. Then Lisa will head out. One of my cars will be actually just ahead of her like this … two staggered behind that can switch off. Radio contact the whole way, of course. We’ll wire Lisa as well, so we can monitor anything she says, and we’ve put a transmitter in the case.” He showed them how the little electronic device had been inserted just under the plastic near one of the hinges.

He looked at the woman agent approvingly. “Lisa’s highly trained.… She could probably take this guy out on her own, but she’ll have all the backup she needs.”

“You’re planning on shooting him, then?” Beth said. “Gunfire with Janine right there?”

The woman met Beth’s eyes. “We’ll do it right, Beth.”

Turner continued, “The big question is whether or not Jeffers realizes Ross is still alive, and if he therefore assumes we now know his name.”

Turner looked at Ross disdainfully. “Peters is ready to go with Lisa, if that’s the case.”

“Only one TV station got a shot of Stearns,” a young agent said. “Two newspaper articles referred to an ‘unidentified white male survivor.’ “

“I think there is a fair chance he doesn’t realize I know his name,” Ross said quietly. As if he hadn’t said the same thing a dozen times already. “When he referred to himself, it was automatic, like a habit: ‘Jeffers gets fucked again.’ There’s a good chance he’ll never remember saying it, not like he might remember someone else saying it.”

Byrne said, “Last night you started to talk about someone else coming out ahead.”

Allie glanced quickly at Beth. “Why don’t we drop that, OK?”

“No, I’d rather not,” Byrne said. He stood and reached for Turner’s marker. “Do you mind?”

“Knock yourself out.” Turner sat down.

Byrne said, “I’ve got no argument with your plans. But let’s at least consider the idea that if Teague was involved, there might be someone else involved as well. We can talk motive and opportunity, but lots of times it’s best to just to take a step back and see who has actually gained something.”

Byrne turned to the time line that listed all the major events that had occurred from the moment Janine was kidnapped. He frowned. “We’re looking for who’s winning, who’s losing.” He began circling the names of people as they came up: Greg, Janine, Beth, Jeffers, Natalie, Ross, Allie, Crockett, Datano, Geiler, Teague, T.S. He circled the unnamed gunmen by nicknames: Red, Surfer, Mr. Clean, Green.

He put slash marks through Beth’s, Janine’s, Greg’s, and Allie’s names. To Ross, he said, “For the moment, we can probably set aside the people you approached yourself after the kidnapping, like Datano, Geiler, and T.S., and the gunmen he introduced you to.” He put slash marks through their names. Byrne left Ross’s name circled. “Frankly, I think we could cut you out here, too. But if we look at who’s got something to win—or something to lose—Turner here could still make the argument that you had something to lose in letting the land be sold because of Greg’s failing business.”

“Damn straight,” Turner said.

“But, again, I don’t buy it,” Byrne said. “So let’s take a look at Crockett.”

“Allie and I were talking this through last night,” Ross said. “Setting aside the fact that I trusted him, he did know I owned some land worth a fair amount of money. But if he had been working with Jeffers, why would he have let him walk into that sting with us at his apartment?”

“Maybe he wasn’t in contact. Maybe something had broken down between them. After all, Teague did try to kill Jeffers just an hour or so later.”

“You guys keep playing this old song,” Turner said abruptly. “Maybe
he
did it; maybe
he
did it. We
know
who took the girl. We know who has her now. It was Jeffers, and all this speculation is totally useless.”

“Geiler said that.” Ross spoke without thinking.

“What?” Turner’s brow wrinkled.