Hold Tight (14 page)

DOLLY Lewiston saw the car drive past her house again.

It slowed. Like the last time. And the time before.

“It’s him again,” she said.

Her husband, a fifth-grade teacher named Joe Lewiston, did not look up. He was correcting papers with a little too much focus.

“Joe?”

“I heard you, Dolly,” he snapped. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“He has no right.” She watched him drive off, the car seeming to dissolve in the distance. “Maybe we should call the police.”

“And say what?”

“That he’s stalking us.”

“He drives down our road. It’s not against the law.”

“He slows down.”

“That’s not against the law either.”

“You can tell them what happened.”

He made a snorting noise, kept his eye on his papers. “I’m sure the police will be very sympathetic.”

“We have a child too.”

She had, in fact, been watching little Allie, their three-year-old, on the computer. The K-Little Gym Web site lets you watch your child via a webcam in the room-snack time, building blocks, reading, independent work, singing, whatever-so you could always check in on them. This was why Dolly chose K-Little.

Both she and Joe worked as elementary schoolteachers. Joe worked at Hillside school teaching fifth grade. She taught second graders in Paramus. Dolly Lewiston wanted to quit her job, but they needed both salaries. Her husband still loved teaching, but somewhere along the way the love had faded away for Dolly. Some might note that she’d lost her passion for teaching right around the same time Allie was born, but she thought it was more than that. Still, she did her job and fended off complaining parents, but all she really wanted to do was watch the K-Little Web site and make sure her baby was safe.

Guy Novak, the man in the car who drove by their house, had not been able to watch his daughter or make sure she was safe. So on one level, Dolly totally got where he was coming from and even sympathized with his frustration. But that didn’t mean she was about to let him hurt her family. The world was often simply a case of us or them, and she’d be damned if it would be her family.

She turned to look at Joe. His eyes were closed, his head down.

She came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulders. He winced at her touch. The wince lasted a second, no more, but she felt it ripple through her whole body. He had been so tense the last few weeks. She kept her hands there, didn’t pull them away, and he relaxed. She started rubbing his shoulders. He used to love that. It took a few minutes but his shoulders started to soften.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“I just lost my cool.”

“I know.”

“I went out to the edge, like I always do, and then…”

“I know.”

She did. It was what made Joe Lewiston a good teacher. He had passion. He kept his students listening, told them jokes, sometimes crossed the line into inappropriateness but the kids loved that about him. It made them pay attention and learn more. Parents had gotten mildly upset by Joe’s antics before, but he had enough defenders to protect himself. The large majority of parents fought for their kid to get Mr. Lewiston. They liked the fact that their children enjoyed school and had a teacher who showed genuine enthusiasm and didn’t just go through the motions. Unlike Dolly.

“I really hurt that girl,” he said.

“You didn’t mean to. All the kids and parents still love you.”

He said nothing.

“She’ll get over it. This is all going to pass, Joe. It’ll be fine.”

His lower lip started quaking. He was falling apart. Much as she loved him, much as she knew that he was a far better teacher and person than she would ever be, Dolly also knew that her husband was not the strongest man. People thought he was. He came from a big family, growing up the youngest of six siblings, but his father had been too domineering. He’d belittled his youngest, gentlest son, and in turn, Joe found an escape in being funny and entertaining. Joe Lewiston was the finest man she had ever known, but he was also weak.

That was okay with her. It was Dolly’s job to be the strong one. It fell to her to hold her husband and her family together.

“I’m sorry I snapped,” Joe said.

“That’s okay.”

“You’re right. This will pass.”

“Exactly.” She kissed his neck and then the spot behind the earlobe. His favorite. She used her tongue and gently swirled. She waited for the small moan. It never came. Dolly whispered, “Maybe you should stop correcting papers for a little while, hmm?”

He pulled away, just a little. “I, uh, really need to finish these.”

Dolly stood and took a step back. Joe Lewiston saw what he’d done, tried to recover.

“Can I take a rain check?” he asked.

That was what
she
used to say when not in the mood. That was, in fact, the “wife” line in general, wasn’t it? He had always been the aggressor that way-no weakness there-but the last few months, since the slip of the tongue, pardon the wording, he had been different even in that.

“Sure,” she said.

Dolly turned away.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’ll be back,” Dolly said. “I just need to run to the store and then I’ll pick up Allie. You finish correcting your papers.”

Dolly Lewiston dashed upstairs, logged online, looked up Guy Novak’s address, got directions. She also checked her school e-mail address-there was always a complaining parent-but it hadn’t been working for the past two days. Still nothing.

“My e-mail is still on the fritz,” she called down.

“I’ll check on it,” he said.

Dolly printed out the directions to Guy Novak’s house, folded the paper into quarters, and jammed it into her pocket. On the way out, she kissed her husband on the top of his head. He told her that he loved her. She told him that she loved him too.

She grabbed her keys and started after Guy Novak.

TIA could see it in their faces: The police weren’t buying Adam’s disappearance.

“I thought you could do an Amber Alert or something,” Tia said.

There were two cops who looked almost comical together. One was a tiny Latino in uniform named Guttierez. The other was a tall black woman who introduced herself as Detective Clare Schlich.

Schlich was the one who replied to her question: “Your son doesn’t meet the Amber Alert criteria.”

“Why not?”

“There has to be some evidence he was abducted.”

“But he’s sixteen years old and he’s missing.”

“Yes.”

“So what kind of evidence do you need?”

Schlich shrugged. “A witness might be nice.”

“Not every abduction has a witness.”

“That’s correct, ma’am. But you need some evidence of an abduction or threat of physical harm. Do you have any?”

Tia wouldn’t call them rude; “patronizing” would be the better word. They dutifully took down the information. They did not dismiss their concerns, but they weren’t about to drop everything and put all their manpower on this one. Clare Schlich made her position clear with questions and follow-ups on what Mike and Tia told her:

“You monitored your son’s computer?”

“You activated the GPS on his cell?”

“You were concerned enough about his behavior to follow him into the Bronx?”

“He’s run away before?”

Like that. On one level, Tia didn’t blame the two cops, but all she could see was that Adam was missing.

Guttierez had already talked to Mike earlier. He added, “You said you saw Daniel Huff Junior-DJ Huff-on the street? That he might have been out with your son?”

“Yes.”

“I just spoke to his father. He’s a cop, did you know that?”

“I do.”

“He said his son was home all night.”

Tia looked at Mike. She saw something explode behind his eyes. His pupils became pinpricks. She had seen that look before. She put a hand on his arm, but there was no calming him.

“He’s lying,” Mike said.

The cop shrugged his shoulders. Tia watched Mike’s swollen face darken. He looked up at her, then at Mo, and said, “We’re out of here. Now.”

The doctor wanted Mike to stay another day, but that wasn’t going to happen. Tia knew better than to play the concerned wife. She knew that Mike would get over his physical injuries. He was so damn tough. This was his third concussion-the first two he’d suffered in a hockey rink. Mike had lost teeth and had stitches in his face more times than a man should and had broken his nose twice and his jaw once and never, not once, missed a game-in most cases, he had even finished playing in the games where he’d been hurt.

Tia also knew there would be no arguing this point with her hus- band-and she didn’t want to. She wanted him out of bed and looking for their son. Doing nothing, she knew, would hurt far more.

Mo helped Mike sit up. Tia helped him get on his clothes. There were bloodstains on them. Mike didn’t care. He rose. They were almost out the door when Tia felt her cell phone vibrate. She prayed that it was Adam. It wasn’t.

Hester Crimstein did not bother with hello.

“Any word on your son?”

“Nothing. The police are dismissing him as a runaway.”

“Isn’t he?”

That stopped Tia.

“I don’t think so.”

“Brett told me you spy on him,” Hester said.

Brett and his big mouth, she thought. Wonderful. “I monitor his online activity.”

“You say tomato, I say tomahto.”

“Adam wouldn’t run away like this.”

“Gee, no parent has ever said that before.”

“I know my son.”

“Or that,” Hester added. “Bad news: We didn’t get the continuance.”

“Hester-”

“Before you say you won’t go back to Boston, hear me out. I’ve already arranged for a limo to come pick you up. It’s outside the hospital right now.”

“I can’t-”

“Just listen, Tia. You owe me that much. The driver will take you to Teterboro Airport, which isn’t far from your house. I have my private plane. You have a cell phone. If any word comes in at all, the driver can take you there. There is a phone on the plane. If you hear something while in the air, my pilot can have you there in record time. Maybe Adam will be found in, I don’t know, Philadelphia. It will pay to have a private plane at your disposal.”

Mike looked a question at Tia. Tia shook her head and signaled for them to keep moving. They did.

“When you get up to Boston,” Hester went on, “you do the deposition. If anything happens during the deposition, you stop immediately and go home on the private plane. It is a forty-minute flight from Boston to Teterboro. Chances are, your kid is just going to walk through the door with some teenage excuse because he was out drinking with friends. Either way, you will be home in a matter of hours.”

Tia pinched the bridge of her nose.

Hester said, “I’m making sense, right?”

“You are.”

“Good.”

“But I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.”

“Oh, that’s crap. You know what I want with this deposition.”

“You want flirty. My husband is in the hospital-”

“He’s already being released. I know all, Tia.”

“Fine, my husband has been assaulted and my son is still missing. Do you really think I will be up for a flirtatious deposition?”

“Up for it? Who the hell cares if you’re up for it? You just need to do it. There is a man’s freedom at stake here, Tia.”

“You need to find somebody else.”

Silence.

“Is that your final answer?” Hester said.

“Final answer,” Tia said. “Is this going to cost me my job?”

“Not today,” Hester said. “But soon enough. Because now I know that I can’t depend on you.”

“I’ll work hard to get your trust back.”

“You won’t get it back. I’m not big on second chances. I got too many lawyers working for me who will never need one. So I’ll put you back on crap detail until you quit. Too bad. I think you had potential.”

Hester Crimstein hung up the phone.

They found their way outside. Mike was still watching his wife.

“Tia?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Mo drove them home.

Tia asked, “What do we do?”

Mike popped down a pain pill. “Maybe you should pick up Jill.”

“Okay. Where are you going?”

“For starters,” Mike said, “I want to have a little chat with Captain Daniel Huff about why he lied.”

M O said, “This Huff guy’s a cop, right?”

“Right.”

“So he won’t intimidate easily.”

They had already parked outside the Huff house, almost exactly where Mike had been last night before it all exploded around him. He didn’t listen to Mo. He stormed toward the door. Mo followed. Mike knocked and waited. He hit the doorbell and waited some more.

No one answered.

Mike circled around back. He banged on that door too. No answer. He cupped his hands around his eyes and the window and peered in. No movement. He actually checked the knob. The door was locked.

“Mike?”

“He’s lying, Mo. ”

They walked back to the car.

“Where to?” Mo asked.

“Let me drive.”

“No. Where to?”

“The police station. Where Huff works.”

It was a short ride, less than a mile. Mike thought about this route, the short one that Daniel Huff took pretty much every day to work. How lucky to have such a quick commute. Mike thought of the wasted hours sitting in traffic at the bridge and then he wondered why he was thinking about something so inane and realized that he was breathing funny and that Mo was watching him out of the corner of his eye.

“Mike?”

“What?”

“You got to keep your cool here.”

Mike frowned. “This coming from you.”

“Yep, this coming from me. You can either rejoice in the rich irony of my appealing for common sense or you can realize that if I’m ad- vocating for prudence, there must be a pretty good reason for it. You can’t go into a police station to confront an officer half-cocked.”

Mike said nothing. The police station was a converted old library up on a hill with horrible parking. Mo started circling for a space.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, Mo, I heard you.”

There were no spots in front.

“Let me circle down on the south lot.”

Mike said, “No time. I’ll take care of this myself.”

“No way.”

Mike turned to him.

“Sheesh, Mike, you look horrible.”

“If you want to be my driver, fine. But you’re not my babysitter, Mo. So just drop me off. I need to talk to Huff alone anyway. You’ll make him suspicious. Alone I can go at him father to father.”

Mo pulled to the side. “Remember what you just said.”

“What about it?”

“Father to father. He’s a father too.”

“Meaning?”

“Think about it.”

Mike felt the pain rip across his ribs when he stood. Physical pain was an odd thing. He had a high threshold, he knew that. Sometimes he even found it comforting. He liked feeling the hurt after a hard workout. He liked making his muscles sore. On the ice, guys would try to intimidate with hard hits, but it had the opposite effect on him. There was an almost bring-it-on quality that came out when he took a good hit.

He expected the station to be sleepy. He had only been here once before, to request keeping his car on the street overnight. The town had an ordinance making it illegal to park on the street after two A.M., but their driveway was being repaved and so he stopped by to get permission to keep the cars out for the week. There had been one cop at the desk and all the desks behind him had been empty.

Today there had to be at least fifteen cops, all in action.

“May I help you?”

The uniformed officer looked too young to be working the desk. Maybe this was another example of how TV shaped us, but Mike always expected a grizzled veteran to be working the desk, like that guy who told everyone “Let’s be careful out there” on
Hill Street Blues
. This kid looked about twelve. He was also staring at Mike with undisguised surprise and pointing at his face.

“Are you here about those bruises?”

“No,” Mike said. The other officers started moving faster. They handed off papers and called one another and cradled receivers under their necks.

“I’m here to see Officer Huff.”

“Do you mean Captain Huff?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask what this is regarding?”

“Tell him it’s Mike Baye.”

“As you can see, we are pretty busy right now.”

“I do see,” Mike said. “Something big going on?”

The young cop gave him a look, clearly suggesting that it was none of his concern. Mike caught snippets about a car parked in a Ramada hotel lot, but that was about it.

“Do you mind sitting over there while I try to reach Captain Huff?”

“Sure.”

Mike moved toward a bench and sat down. There was a man next to him in a suit, filling out paperwork. One of the cops called out, “We’ve checked with the entire staff now. No one reports seeing her.” Mike idly wondered what that was about, but only to try to keep his blood down.

Huff had lied.

Mike kept his eyes on the young officer. When the kid hung up, he looked up and Mike knew this was not going to be good news.

“Mr. Baye?”

“Dr. Baye,” Mike corrected. This time maybe it would come across as arrogant, but sometimes people treated a doctor differently. Not often. But sometimes.

“Dr. Baye. I’m afraid that we are having a very busy morning. Captain Huff has asked me to assure you that he will call you when he can.”

“That’s not going to do it,” Mike said.

“Excuse me?”

The station was pretty much open space. There was a divider that was maybe three feet high-why do all stations have that? Who is that going to stop?-with a little gate you could swing open. Toward the back, Mike could see a door that clearly said CAPTAIN on it. He moved fast, causing all kinds of new pains to sparkle across his ribs and face. He stepped past the front desk.

“Sir?”

“Don’t worry, I know the way.”

He opened the latch and started hurrying toward the captain’s office.

“Stop right now!”

Mike didn’t think the kid would shoot, so he kept moving. He was at the door before anyone could catch up to him. He grabbed the knob and turned. Unlocked. He flung it open.

Huff was at his desk on the phone.

“What the hell…?”

The kid officer at the front desk followed quickly, ready to tackle, but Huff waved him off.

“It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry, Captain. He just ran back here.”

“Don’t worry about it. Close the door, okay?”

The kid didn’t look happy about it, but he obeyed. One of the walls was windowed. He stood there and looked through it. Mike gave him a quick glare and then turned his attention to Huff.

“You lied,” he said.

“I’m busy here, Mike.”

“I saw your son before I got jumped.”

“No, you didn’t. He was home.”

“That’s crap.”

Huff did not stand. He didn’t invite Mike to sit. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “I really don’t have time for this.”

“My son was at your house. Then he drove to the Bronx.”

“How do you know that, Mike?”

“I have a GPS on my son’s phone.”

Huff raised his eyebrows. “Wow.”

He must have already known this. His New York colleagues would have told him. “Why are you lying about this, Huff?”

“How exact is that GPS?”

“What?”

“Maybe he wasn’t with DJ at all. Maybe he was at a neighbor’s house. The Lubetkin boy lives two houses down. Or maybe, heck, he was at my house before I got home. Or maybe he just hung out nearby and thought about going in but changed his mind.”

“Are you serious?”

There was a knock on the door. Another cop leaned his head in. “Mr. Cordova is here.”

“Put him in room A,” Huff said. “I’ll be there in a second.”

The cop nodded and let the door close. Huff rose. He was a tall man, hair slicked back. He normally had the cop-calm thing going on, like when they’d met up in front of his house the night before. He still had it, but the effort seemed to drain him now. He met Mike’s eyes. Mike did not look away.

“My son was home all night.”

“That’s a lie.”

“I have to go now. I’m not talking about this with you anymore.” He started walking to the door. Mike stepped into his path.

“I need to talk to your son.”

“Get out of my way, Mike.”

“No.”

“Your face.”

“What about it?”

“Looks like you’ve already taken enough of a beating,” Huff said.

“You want to try me?”

Huff said nothing.

“Come on, Huff. I’m already injured. You want to try again?”

“Again?”

“Maybe you were there.”

“What?”

“Your son was. I know that. So let’s do this. But this time we go face-to-face. One-on-one. No group of guys jumping me when I’m not looking. So come on. Put away your gun and lock your office door. Tell your buddies out there to leave us alone. Let’s see just how tough you are.”

Huff gave a half smile. “You think that will help you find your son?”

And that was when Mike saw it-what Mo had been saying. He had been talking about face-to-face and one-on-one, but what he really should have been saying was what Mo said: father to father. Not that reminding him of that would appeal to Huff. Just the opposite. Mike was trying to save his kid-and Huff was doing the same. Mike didn’t give a damn about DJ Huff-and Huff didn’t give a damn about Adam Baye.

They were both out to protect their sons. Huff would fight to do so. Win or lose, Huff wouldn’t give up his child. The same with the other parents-Clark’s or Olivia’s or whoever’s-that was Mike’s mistake. He and Tia were talking to the adults who’d jump on a grenade to protect their offspring. What they needed to do was circumvent the parental sentinels.

“Adam is missing,” Mike said.

“I understand that.”

“I spoke to the New York police about it. But who do I talk to here about helping me find my son?”

"TELL Cassandra I miss her,” Nash whispered.

And then, finally, at long last, it was over for Reba Cordova.

Nash drove to the U-Store-It on Route 15 in Sussex County.

He backed the truck into the dock of his garagelike storage unit. Darkness had fallen. No one else was around or looking. He had placed the body in a trash can on the very outside chance someone could see. Storage units were great for this sort of thing. He remembered reading about an abduction where the kidnappers kept the victim in one of these units. The victim died of accidental suffocation. But Nash knew other stories too-ones that would make your lungs collapse. You see the posters of the missing, you wonder about the missing, those kids on milk cartons, the women who just innocently left home one day, and sometimes, more often than you want to know, they are kept tied and gagged and even alive in places like this.

Cops, Nash knew, believed that criminals followed a certain spe- cific pattern. That may be so-most criminals are morons-but Nash did the opposite. He had beaten Marianne beyond recognition, but this time he had not touched Reba’s face. Part of that was just logistics. He knew that he could hide Marianne’s true identity. Not so with Reba. By now her husband had probably reported her missing. If a fresh corpse was found, even one bloodied and battered, the police would realize that the odds it belonged to Reba Cordova were strong.

So change the MO: Don’t let the body be found at all.

That was the key. Nash had left Marianne’s body where they could find it, but Reba would simply vanish. Nash had left her car in the hotel lot. The police would think that she had gone there for an illicit tryst. They would focus on that, work that avenue, investigate her background to see if she had a boyfriend. Maybe Nash would get extra lucky. Maybe Reba did have someone on the side. The police would zero in on him for certain. Either way, if no body was found, they would have nothing to go on and probably assume that she had been a runaway. There would be no tie between Reba and Marianne.

So he would keep her here. For a while at least.

Pietra had the dead back in her eyes. Years ago, she had been a gorgeous young actress in what used to be called Yugoslavia. There had been ethnic cleansing. Her husband and son were killed before her eyes in ways too gruesome to imagine. Pietra was not so lucky-she survived. Nash had worked as a military mercenary back then. He had rescued her. Or what was left of her. Since then Pietra only came to life when she had to act, like back in the bar when they grabbed Marianne. The rest of the time there was nothing there. It had all been scooped out by those Serbian soldiers.

“I promised Cassandra,” he said to her. “You understand that, don’t you?”

Pietra looked off. He studied her profile.

“You feel bad about this one, don’t you?”

Pietra said nothing. They put Reba’s body in a mixture of wood chips and manure. It would keep for a while. Nash did not want to risk stealing another license plate. He took out the black electrical tape and changed the F to an E-that might be enough. In the corner of the shed, he had a pile of other “disguises” for his van. A magnetic sign advertising Tremesis Paints. Another that read CAMBRIDGE INSTITUTE. He chose instead to put on a bumper sticker he’d bought at a religious conference entitled The Lord’s Love last October. The sticker read:

GOD DOESN’T BELIEVE IN ATHEISTS

Nash smiled. Such a kind, pious sentiment. But the key was, you noticed it. He put it on with two-sided tape so he could easily peel it off if he so desired. People would read the bumper sticker and be offended or impressed. Either way, they’d notice. And when you notice things like that, you don’t notice the license plate number.

They got back in the car.

Until he met Pietra, Nash had never bought that the eyes were the window to the soul. But here, in her case, it was obvious. Her eyes were beautiful, blue with yellow sparkles, and yet you could see that there was nothing behind them, that something had blown out the candles and that they would never be relit.

“It had to be done, Pietra. You understand that.”

She finally spoke. “You enjoyed it.”

There was no judgment. She knew Nash long enough for him not to lie.

“So?”

She looked off.

“What is it, Pietra?”

“I knew what happened to my family,” she said.

Nash said nothing.

“I watched my son and my husband suffer in horrible ways. And they watched me suffer too. That was the last sight they saw before dying-me suffering with them.”