Hand of Fate (31 page)

"I am so, so sorry," Cassidy said, meaning it. If she could just get the gun out of Willow's hand and some sense into her head, this would make great TV.

"Sorry doesn't bring them back, does it?" Willow shook her hea
d a
s if to clear the memory. "Now, tear off some more long pieces of duct tape so I can tape your wrists together."

As Cassidy did so, she said, "But it was contaminated peanut butter that killed your sister, not Jim. Why go after him? He's not a food manufacturer."

"Jim Fate had millions of listeners who hung on his every word. And he was always telling them that we didn't need more regulations." Behind Cassidy's back, Willow wrapped the tape tightly around her wrists. "That we could count on the laws that were already on the books. What a joke! Every day, manufacturers decide to gamble. One positive salmonella test can mean dumping thousands of dollars' worth of product. When the alternative is to ship it out, make money, and cross your fingers that with luck, A, no one will get sick, and B, if they do, they will blame something or someone else, not you."

"But why didn't you reason with him?" Cassidy thought of Jim. He had a soft side, even if many people didn't get to see it. "He would have cared about your sister. He would have listened to you."

Willow's laugh was real. "How can you seriously ask me that? You knew him. You couldn't reason with Jim. Jim Fate didn't listen to anyone but himself. It would be like trying to argue with Hitler. Would you try to get Hitler to see that what he was doing was wrong? Or would you shoot him down like a dog?"

Hitler! Anger heightened Cassidy's senses. She could hear the rasp of Willow's breathing. The edges of everything she saw were sharper. So were her words, spilling out before she could think twice about their wisdom."You've obviously got a gun--why didn't you shoot him? But no, you didn't even have the courage to look Jim in the eyes when you killed him."

Willow waved the gun at her. "Don't tempt me, okay? And I did see him that day. I was watching through the window when he opened th
e e
nvelope. It only took a few minutes for him to die--it took three days for Sunny. Three days! I did him a favor, killing him the way I did."

Cassidy felt her attention widen past the round eye of the gun, past Willow's sad and crazy explanation. "So what's going to happen now?" More important, what was going to happen to her?

"I figured I'd get caught eventually. Step number one was stopping Jim Fate from standing in the way of real reform that will clean up our food supply. But there's always been a step number two."

"And that is?"

"I now have access to millions of listeners. I'll be able to get my message out, and you can be sure it will be broadcast again and again when they cover this story, and be reprinted in magazines and newspapers. And now that you're here, I can use you to get it on TV as well:'

Before Cassidy could protest, Willow slapped a final piece of tape over her mouth. Even though her nose was clear, Cassidy immediately felt like she was suffocating.

"First I need to buy us some time," Willow said, and Cassidy hoped it was a good sign that she'd said us.

Willow took the white pages of the phone book down from a shelf. Opening it at random, she stabbed a page with her finger, and then looked up at Cassidy and said, "Now watch me be . . . hmm." Willow looked back down, squinted at a name. "Myra Crutchfield."

Picking up the phone, she began to key in a string of numbers, pausing to grin up at Cassidy. "I have a card that lets me be anybody. Anybody at all, as long as I know their phone number. It can even alter my voice so that I sound like a man. Or if I wanted, I could call your old boyfriend right now and tell him that I want him back, and he would see your number on the caller ID and think it was really you. But right now, it's going to be 911 that's going to believe that Myra Crutchfield is watching a world of hurt."

So Chris had been right, Cassidy thought--the voice on the phone hadn't belonged to Congressman Glover. Instead Willow had framed him so effectively that he had been pushed into suicide.

Willow finished dialing the long string of numbers and then put the phone to her ear. "Yes," she said in an old lady's quavery voice, "this is Mrs. Crutchfield on Southwest Thirtieth. My neighbor's house is on fire. I tried to go over there with a garden hose, but it's too hot. Flames are shooting out of the roof. And I can hear little kids screaming. Oh no! One of them is trying to crawl out a second-story window!"

Without saying anything more, Willow hung up. Cassidy imagined the firefighters and police being dispatched to the neighborhood, hearts pumping, only to find--nothing. And Mrs. Crutchfield denying that she had been doing anything but watching TV or making dinner.

But Willow wasn't finished. She selected another page in the phone book, and again her finger stabbed down, choosing a name. "Here's one in Southeast Portland. Got to keep them busy."

After dialing another long string of numbers, Willow whispered, "Help me! I'm hiding in the basement. There are four men here, and they are beating up my housemate and demanding money. And I think they shot my sister. I heard a gun go off, and I saw a lot of blood. We don't have any idea who they are, and we don't have any money, but they don't believe us." She let out a gasp. "Oh no, someone's coming down the stairs!"

Willow disconnected the phone. Her eyes were alight with a strange glee.

"Let's mix things up a little," Willow said. "How about if I be Victoria, or at least Victoria's cell phone?" This time when 911 answered, she said, "I'm at the Lloyd Center Mall, and there's some guy, he's on the upper balcony, and he just leaned over and started shooting. There are bodies everywhere! He's by the Jamba Juice."

She hung up and grinned at Cassidy, her eyes shining. "There. That should keep everyone busy for a while. I was always good at acting. How do you think I've been able to stand working with Jim, anyway?" She ripped the duct tape away from Cassidy's face. It was more painful than any visit to the aesthetician.

Cassidy couldn't wipe her mouth on her sleeve, so instead she spit the taste of glue into her lap. "The cops and firefighters will figure out you're lying:'

"Sure, sooner or later. But in the short run, they have to take it seriously. It's just one way of throwing a wrench in the works." Her grin widened. "And now you're going to help me throw another one. Tonight we are going to take back KNWS and give it to the people. Tonight we're going to start waking up America."

"What do you mean?" Cassidy wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"I'm going to broadcast some cold, hard truths about the food supply. And you are going to help me." Then Willow explained to Cassidy what she had to do.

At night, KNWS normally broadcast shows that were national feeds. But not this night. Tonight it would be the Willow Klonsky show. And if Willow had her way, it would be broadcast on more than one venue.

After dialing the number Cassidy gave her for Channel 4's station manager, Willow pressed the button for the speakerphone.

Cassidy tried to put as much urgency as she could into her voice. "Jerry, it's Cassidy. You need to listen to me. I have been taken hostage."

"What?" In the single syllable, she could hear his confusion and disbelief.

"I'm down here at KNWS. I came to interview Jim Fate's intern, Willow Klonsky. Jerry, it turns out she's the real killer."

"Not Glover?"

"No. She killed Fate and then tried to make everyone think Glover did it. And now we're in the control room of KNWS, and she is going to broadcast a manifesto about food safety."

"Food safety?" His tone was dubious.

"And, Jerry, she says she will kill me unless you broadcast it live on Channel 4 as well."

"A manifesto?" Jerry finally seemed to be following. Unfortunately, he was heading in another direction. "Cassidy, are you drunk? You haven't been yourself lately."

Willow shot her a smirk.

"No, I am not drunk, Jerry. I'm being held hostage." Cassidy only hoped that as soon as they were off the phone, he would call 911. But would they even believe Jerry now that they had been sent on three wild goose chases? "And Willow will kill me unless Channel 4 simulcasts the same message."

"Are you serious? With just the audio? No visuals at all, except maybe a big photo of you on the screen? Nobody is going to watch that."

"Jerry, this is my life you're talking about."

"Could we run it on a tape delay this evening? After prime time?"

Cassidy couldn't believe her ears. Had it come to this? That Jerry was willing to dicker for her life?

"Look," Willow said leaning into the speaker, "if you want Cassidy Shaw to live, you will put her on, unedited. Now. And I have a TV in here, so I can see whether you do it or not. Her blood will be on your hands if you don't obey."

There was a long pause, long enough for Cassidy to imagine that Jerry was going to turn Willow down.

Finally he said, "Okay, okay, but it's going to take at least twenty minutes."

"I'll give you fifteen. And if I don't see it then, you'll hear me execute your reporter. Live. On the radio." Willow stabbed the button to disconnect the call.

Chapter
42

KNWS Radio

After learning that the board operator at KNWS had called 911, reporting a gun-toting hostage-taker, Allison drove as fast as she could to the radio station. She was torn between burning anger that Cassidy had gone behind her back and cold fear that her friend had now gotten herself in trouble so deep she would never get out. The car radio was tuned to KNWS, but so far it was only playing a national feed. For a second, the radio went silent, and in the quiet Allison could hear her heart beating in her ears. Then she heard a familiar voice.

"Hello. My name is Cassidy Shaw. You might know me from Channel 4 news, but I'm here tonight at the KNWS studio, where I am being held hostage." Cassidy enunciated each word carefully.

So it was true, then. The police had already told Allison about the spate of false 911 calls. She had been hoping that this was just one more.

Cassidy continued, her voice slow and even. "I've been asked to introduce this important message about our nation's food supply. I have been told that I will be shot if I do not comply. You may think that this is some kind of joke, but I can assure you, it is not." Her voice dropped. "This is real."

Unexpectedly, Allison found herself smiling. Even with a gu
n t
rained on her, Cassidy was still a professional, still using her tone, choice of words, and well-placed pauses to command attention.

Then another woman's voice broke in, angry and strident. "Wake up, America! When you sit down to eat, when you give your children a hamburger or milk and cookies, how do you know it's safe? How do you know there isn't salmonella in your spinach, campylobacter in your peas, Listeria in your cheese, Shigella in your bean dip, E. coli in your hamburger?

"Well, you know what? You don't know. Every forkful you put in your mouth is a gamble. Every day our food supply can and does kill someone. Our food is being contaminated by rats and cow manure, mold and dead birds, bacteria you can't see, taste, or smell, but that can still kill you. It's not just a matter of turning your stomach. It's a matter of life and death.

"And you know who is the most likely to die? Our most vulnerable. Your baby, your grandmother, your friend who is fighting cancer. And maybe when they die you'll think it was the flu, or old age, or some kind of bug--but it was completely preventable. Thousands are dying each year who don't need to.

"Now weigh that against the fate of a single man. A man who called people like me 'Chicken Littlest Who mocked us as the food police and supporters of the nanny state, and falsely claimed that it was too expensive to really keep our food safe. You know what? Tell that to my dead sister. Tell her that it cost too much to keep bacteria out of her peanut butter. Tell the kids whose kidneys fail that safe food is too much of a hassle. Tell your grandmother that it's too much of a burden to make sure her salad isn't teeming with pathogens.

"Because that's what Jim Fate did. He mocked those of us who cared. Millions of people listened to his lies. And as a result, Jim Fate had the blood of innocents on his hands.

"We must demand that the federal government take on the responsibility of policing our food. That inspections are frequent, and the consequences dire. When a company weighs whether to keep contaminated food off your table, they need to know that they might go out of business if they don't."

Despite Cassidy being held at gunpoint, despite Jim Fate's murder, Allison found Willow's words striking a chord with her. The girl's approach was dead wrong--but were her ideas?

Up ahead she saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. It was like a nighttime replay of the day Jim Fate had died, minus the panicked crowd on the street.

It was a nightmare.

Thank goodness you're here," Nicole told Allison on the sidewalk outside KNWS. Leif nodded, and the three of them huddled close. They were surrounded by uniformed cops, guys in suits holding cell phones to their ears, and men in black commando outfits complete with helmets, bulletproof vests, and submachine guns. "We called Willow, and she actually answered. But she'll only speak to you."