Every Breath You Take (39 page)

Wondering where the valet attendants were, Kate debated about driving around the corner and putting her car in the lot there, then she decided to risk getting a ticket by leaving it where it was until she could find a valet to move it. She was halfway across the sidewalk when she heard Hank at the corner newsstand shout, “Congratulations, Miss Donovan!”

Puzzled, Kate waved to him and kept walking.

She unlocked the heavy front door, walked inside, and saw—absolutely no one. The dining rooms were set up for lunch, everything looked perfect, except no one was there—not the maître d’, not a single waiter or busboy or valet attendant. Puzzled and vaguely uneasy, Kate quickened her pace toward the kitchen, rushed through the swinging doors, and stopped short as a smiling army of loyal employees burst into cheers and applause. At the front of the crowd, Molly was holding Danny, and he was clapping and grinning.

Next to him was a big sign on a floor stand where the specials of the day were usually posted by the chefs for the benefit of the kitchen staff and waiters. Today it said, “Kate Donovan, Restaurateur of the Year.”

Kate scooped Danny out of Molly’s arms and looked around at the sea of smiling faces. “What’s all this about?” she asked.

Frank O’Halloran grinned at Marjorie and then at the rest of the staff. “She hasn’t seen it yet,” he said, and everyone burst out laughing.

“Seen what?” Kate said.

Drew Garetti, the manager she’d replaced Louis Kellard with a little over two years before, held out the morning’s edition of the
Chicago Tribune
. It was opened to a full-page article with a headline that read,
KATE DONOVAN, CHICAGO’S RESTAURATEUR OF THE YEAR.
According to the article, Kate had been chosen for the honor partly because of the overall excellence of the dining experience at Donovan’s and partly because of a program she’d instituted whereby Donovan’s chef and sous-chef exchanged places four times a year with their counterparts at equally famous restaurants throughout the country. This gave Donovan’s customers a chance to enjoy the fare from other fabulous restaurants, as it did the customers of the other restaurants.

Included in the article were several pictures used in prior stories about Donovan’s, including one of Kate with the governor of Illinois and one of Kate meeting with her kitchen staff, with Danny beside her in his high chair.

The caption below that one read, “Kate Donovan runs her restaurant while son Daniel looks on and learns the ropes from his high chair.”

Kate scanned the article, then she looked around at her staff and told them exactly who she felt deserved the credit for her award. “I can’t thank all of you enough for this,” she said simply.

Drew glanced at his watch, then at everyone else. “We’re opening in two minutes,” he warned them, and patted Kate’s shoulder as he walked out. “You’re the best,” he said.

Kate gave Danny a hug. “Did you hear that, Danny? Drew says we’re the best.”

In response, Danny planted a kiss on her cheek and said, “Molly and me go to the park, Mommy.” Kate let him slide to the floor, and he took Molly’s hand. He adored Molly, who’d come to work for Kate when Danny was born, and the middle-aged Irish woman positively doted on him.

“No flirting with Caperton,” Kate teased, looking from the little boy to his devoted nanny.

“Billy Wyatt is waiting out in the reception room,” Evan’s secretary said as he stalked by her desk, carrying his briefcase and a folded newspaper. “He’s been here since ten o’clock, and he insists on seeing you.”

“Bring me a glass of water, send someone for a Dr Pepper, and then have him come in,” Evan said curtly. In his office, he slapped the newspaper on his desk and unloaded the files that he’d worked on the night before from his briefcase.

His secretary arrived with a glass of chilled bottled water, and he sat down behind his desk; then he picked up the
Tribune
and reread the latest story about another of Kate’s successes. She was like a splinter in his foot that he couldn’t get completely out. Everyone knew they’d been engaged, and every time people started to forget, Kate reemerged as the star in another damned local newspaper or magazine article.

According to the article before this one, the state’s attorney and the mayor were two of her regular customers. For weeks after that article appeared, Evan couldn’t show his face in the courthouse or anywhere
lawyers gathered without being ribbed for failing to recognize what a political advantage he’d sacrificed by not marrying her.

Today’s article raved about her, as all the other stories had done, but today’s article also included a nice big color photograph of Wyatt’s little bastard and her in the kitchen at Donovan’s. It was the second time he’d seen that picture, the second time he’d had to look at it. The little son of a bitch looked so much like his father that it was uncanny, and that infuriated him even more.

“Hi, Evan. Thanks for making time for me.”

Tossing the paper down in disgust, Evan stood up and shook Billy’s hand. At seventeen, Billy was a good-looking kid, a little stocky, as his father had been, but not as pleasant to be around.

The psychiatrists and the court had both agreed—with a little help from the excellent defense lawyers that Evan’s law firm had selected—that his ADHD medication had caused Billy’s psychotic break the day he shot his father. That didn’t require a big stretch of imagination, since there’d been mounting evidence that the medication could cause psychotic episodes in some people. A year of confinement in a psychiatric hospital, plus ongoing therapy during his three-year probation period, had supposedly helped him resolve conflicts and learn impulse control.

“How’s your new girlfriend?” Evan asked, trying to remember what Billy had said her name was during his last visit.

“Rebecca’s fine.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“In group therapy. You probably know her parents—the Crowells?”

Evan didn’t know them, so he shook his head and ended the small talk. “What can I do for you?” Evan asked, but he already had a good idea why Billy was there. Cecil had died recently, and he’d left one-third of
his estate to charity and one-third to Billy, which was to be held in trust until he was thirty, with the stipulation that he forfeited it if he was convicted of any felony in the meantime. The remaining one-third had been left to Mitchell Wyatt, who had already directed the executors to use his share to create the William Wyatt Foundation for Victims of Violence.

“I want to hire you to break my grandpa Cecil’s will. Mitchell is going to start a fucking foundation with
my
money, and I want you to stop him before it’s too late. My father is dead, my grandfather and great-grandfather are dead, and everything was supposed to be mine. If my dad hadn’t brought Mitchell into the family, Grandpa wouldn’t have given him my money, and I’d be rich. Instead, I’m supposed to wait around until I’m thirty to get a little bit of what I should have had, and I’m not going to do it. I get off probation in another year and a half, and I want my money, and I want my own life!”

“Billy, we’ve already had this conversation. As I told you, Cecil’s will was drawn up by the best probate law firm in Chicago. I’ve looked it over, and there’s no way you can get your money back from Mitchell. I know it’s not fair, but you’re going to have to learn to live with it—”

“You don’t understand! I hate that son of a bitch. I hate him so much I can’t stand it.”

“Believe me, I know how you feel.”

Billy looked contemptuous of that possibility, so Evan reached out and shoved the
Tribune
in front of him. “Do you see that picture? That was my girlfriend. Mitchell Wyatt got her pregnant. See that kid—that’s his kid.”

Billy studied the boy in the photograph, and then he said in a chilling voice, “So—this makes him what—my cousin?”

T
HE CLOSEST PARK TO DONOVAN’S TOOK UP AN ENTIRE
city block, with paths through the trees leading to all four bordering streets. It was too far away for Danny to walk on his own, but he always insisted on trying anyway and ended up walking beside his stroller part of the way and riding in it the rest. “Look who I see,” Molly told him as they neared the park. “There’s our friend Reba, with a balloon. I wonder who it’s for?”

“For me!” he said excitedly, clapping his hands in his stroller. He scrambled out of the stroller as soon as they reached the bench by the swings, and he ran to Reba, who was sitting there, reading a book. She’d told Molly two weeks ago, when she first started coming to the park, that she was eighteen and taking some time off before starting college.

“Hi, Danny,” Reba said, and pretended she didn’t know a red balloon was floating by a string from her hand.

“Mine?” Danny asked, pointing to the balloon. “Please?” he added with a lopsided grin that never failed to get an answering smile—and usually whatever he wanted, as well.

Smiling, Reba stood up, still holding the balloon, and gave Molly a wink. “Follow the balloon, Danny, and I’ll show you a surprise.”

“A turtle!” Danny predicted joyously, following her
toward one of the paths, with Molly holding his hand and pushing the empty stroller.

“Follow the balloon,” Reba chanted over her shoulder as she started down the path.

“The balloon is the same color as your shirt,” Molly told Danny. “What color is it?”

“Red!” Danny replied gleefully.

A thrashing sound in the brush on her left and slightly behind her made Molly turn to look, but all she saw was a baseball bat an instant before it crashed into her skull. She didn’t see the bat being raised again for a second blow or hear Reba say fiercely, “No, don’t, Billy! No one is supposed to get hurt!” She didn’t hear Danny start to cry or call, “Molly, Molly!” She didn’t feel a sheet of paper being shoved down the front of her dress.

In the park near the swings, two mothers looked up and saw a bright red balloon floating upward from the trees. They didn’t think anything about it until fifteen minutes later, when a woman staggered from the path with blood streaming from her head.

A block away, on the opposite side of the park, an old man was sitting on a bench tossing peanuts to a squirrel. A young couple emerged from the park, pushing a dark green stroller with a child who was trying to climb out. The young mother laughed and pressed him back down. The old man on the bench didn’t think anything about that until twenty minutes later, when police cars, with sirens screaming and light bars flashing, descended on the park from every direction.

On the fifth floor of the Richard J. Daley Center, Gray Elliott was in his office, eating lunch at his desk and writing an outline for a speech he was scheduled to give before the Illinois Anti-Crime Commission the following week. With a sandwich in one hand, he picked
up his telephone with the other and answered a phone call from police captain Russell Harvey.

“Gray,” the captain said, “I just got a phone call from a lieutenant downtown who knows that you and I have dinner at Donovan’s once in a while. Kate Donovan’s son was kidnapped from a park near the restaurant an hour ago. I thought you’d want to know.”

Gray dropped his sandwich on the desk and stood up. “Who caught the case?”

“A couple of pretty good detectives. They’re on their way to tell Kate right now.”

“Can you assign MacNeil and Childress instead and put them in charge? They’ve been partners for a couple of years now, and from everything I hear, they’ve racked up one of the best arrest records in the department.”

“I already did that. Are you going to go to the restaurant to see Kate? If not, I think I’ll drop by there and assure her that she has our unconditional support.”

“I’m on my way,” Gray said, already shrugging into his suit jacket. “I’ll give her your message.”

“M
ISS
D
ONOVAN
, I’
M
D
ETECTIVE
M
AC
N
EIL AND THIS IS
Detective Childress.” Seated behind the desk that had been her father’s, Kate took one look at the detectives’ grave faces and an awakening terror, unlike anything she had ever known, sent her slowly to her feet. “Danny?” she said, automatically naming the most terrifying reason of all for their visit. “Where’s Danny? What’s happened? Where’s Molly?”

“Danny was kidnapped from the park about an hour ago—”

“Oh, my God. No. Please!” she cried. “Not Danny. Please, not Danny!”

Across the hall, Marjorie bolted from her chair at the sound of Kate’s anguished cry, and she bumped into Drew Garetti, who’d rushed down the hall from the other direction.

“Where’s Molly?” Kate asked in tones of rising hysteria. “Is she with Danny? He won’t be as scared if—”

“Mrs. Miles was knocked unconscious in the park by the kidnappers,” Detective MacNeil said, “but she regained consciousness and managed to attract notice and get help. She was taken by ambulance to Parkston General with a suspected skull fracture. However, she was able to give us a pretty detailed description of a young woman who we think was part of the plot.”

In her mind, Kate was screaming in tormented fear,
but all she could do was stand there with her knees knocking together and her body trembling so violently that she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold herself still. Detective MacNeil continued in a calm, reassuring voice. “We stand an excellent chance of getting Danny back safely, but we need to move very quickly now, and we need your help.”

Kate nodded jerkily, her teeth chattering. “What?” she asked. “What do you need?”

“We’re going to issue an amber alert right away. For that, we need a recent picture of Danny, a description of his clothing, his age, weight, and height.”

Kate picked up a framed picture of Danny from her desk, started to hand it to Detective MacNeil, then pulled it back, clutching it to her heart and wrapping her arms around it. “My baby,” she whispered brokenly. “My baby!”

“I’ll get his pictures from upstairs,” Marjorie volunteered, already on the way at a run.