Holding On To You (24 page)

'Listen to what you already have', Claudia says and puts the phone close to Elouise's mouth. Javier can hear her breathing. In the background he can hear Claudia say, 'Say hello to daddy, Eli.'

'Addy', Elouise says excitedly, not quite able to pronounce the full word.

Javier breaks down. The sound of his daughter's voice is far too much for him to take. Claudia takes back the phone, and watches as Elouise tries to reach for it again, both arms up as though she wants a cuddle.

'Did you hear that?' Claudia says.

'Yes', Javier says, nodding, as tears as big as raindrops rail down his cheeks.

'Just come home Javi', Claudia says. 'If you do what you are thinking of doing, you'll separate this family more than you'll unite it.'

Javier cries silently into the balled up tissue he still has in his hands.

'Javier, I love you', Claudia says.

'Oh god Claudia, I love you too', Javier says.

'Promise me you'll stop this and come home', Claudia says. 'Keep this family together the way we know how. The only way.'

'I promise', Javier says. 'I promise.'

When he puts down the phone, both him and Claudia know he's lying. He takes a deep breath, takes the sim card out of the phone and puts both back in different pockets. He wipes his eyes, flushes the toilet and heads back to his desk, firm in the belief that what he has chosen to do will not only save his son's life, but provide his family with the opportunity that they've been deprived of for so long.

Claudia breathes deeply. Her daughter has come over and is now trying to pull herself up onto the sofa to be with her mother, unsure to as why she is crying. She helps her up, noticing the similarity her eyes share with her fathers. Claudia has no idea what she's going to do. In a few hours, her husband is likely to be in custody, either put there by his own stupidity, or by her hand. She cannot believe how much of an idiot he's being, blinded by the love he has for his family. It makes her sick with rage.

'Mom', comes a weak cry from upstairs. 'Mom, are you there.'

Miguel is awake again. She folds the ransom note in half, puts it in her pocket, and with her daughter in her arms, goes to look after her son.

There are two sports holdalls on officer Garland's desk, each of which contains a large quantity of paper, cut into the shape of US currency, at the request of his superior Frank Giamatti. Maddy's father has remained out of contact, unwilling to provide either money or an appeal to bring back his daughter, and the several thousand dollars they have in the evidence room, recovered from a recent drug heist, isn't worth the time it'll take to sign it out. Under Frank's orders, whether or not they have been given the go ahead by his superiors, based on his assumption that the ransom note is fake, the two police issue sports bags have been filled with paper, designed to give the impression of weight, that the equivalence in money would do.

The whole thing is a complete waste of police time, and something Garland can't wait to get over with. They'll drop the money, send the code, wait until whoever is responsible for this mess to pick up the bags, and then they'll swoop, arrest him or her and get on with finding the real criminal. Garland, although he would never say so, can't actually believe that Frank is going along with it, especially as he believes so vehemently that the note is fake. They could just ignore it and carry on elsewhere, but Garland reckons there is pressure from above, incited directly by the press, and it wouldn't be appropriate, no matter how it turns out, for them to ignore it altogether, on the very slight chance it's real, and Maddy does end up in a suitcase on the side of interstate five.

Garland will drop the money himself, set up a team to keep watch, and stay in communication with whoever it is who's demanding the money. Clearing the area, upon his request, only when Madeleine is found where she is meant to be. How whoever sent that note plans to do that if he doesn't have her, is beyond him. Stupidity, however, as Garland is well aware, goes easily with this territory.

'Don't you wish that
was
a million dollars?' Another officer says to Garland as he stares at the bags, his mind a thousand miles away.

'I would if it was mine', Garland says, dropping a transponder into one of the bags, just before he zips them both up.

The database is running as slowly as Thurston expected it to, so slowly in fact, that Hank is almost considering giving up entirely, and just making something up for his nosy sister to go on.

'Is it broken?' Hank says, as he watches the screen, frozen in thought.

'I don't know', Thurston says. 'I can't remember how long it took last time.'

'I guess we don't have much call to search for stolen cars', Hank says, sipping coffee from a mug that says 'I'm the boss.'

'Not around here', Thurston says. 'Maybe it was Bert Sinclair's red corvette last time. Do you remember that one?'

'When he forgot where he parked it, reported it stolen and then two weeks later it turned up in his garage. I remember it took a whole morning to clear it from the system. What a ball-ache that was.'

'Here we go', Thurston says, 'It's doing something.'

He leans into the screen and Hank leans with him, excited to see what comes up.

'Silver Lexus', Hank says.

'Silver Lexus', Thurston repeats.

'Well how about that', Hank says with a smug grin of satisfaction on his face. 'Not reported stolen. What did I tell you? You wait 'til I tell her about this. She's going to eat a whole damn six slice cake of humble pie, you see if I don't make her. Now lets see who it's registered to.'

'It's registered to a River Woods', Thurston says.

'Sounds like a national geographic documentary', Hank says, and they both laugh.

'Twenty seven years old, white male. He's listed here as an accountant at Juniper Glade Hotel.'

A picture of River wearing a suit and tie, and a pair of black, square rimmed glasses appears on the screen. It doesn't look like him at all, but it's definitely him.

'Well how about that', Hank says again. 'I think I might have stayed at one of those.'

'Everything checks out', Thurston says. 'He doesn't even have any penalty points.'

'Clean as a whistle, Sal's going to love that', Hank says, chuckling to himself.

'You want me to call the company, just to check. Perhaps his car has been stolen and he doesn't know it.'

'No way', Hank says. 'What's rule number one of this department?' He points at the whiteboard behind them, where are list of rules have been crudely written.

'Don't look for a crime if one doesn't already exist', Thurston says, reading the note word for word.

'Exactly', Hank says. 'We're far too busy here to go ringing around people to check to see if their cars have been stolen. If he reports it, we find it, otherwise we don't have a crime. Besides which, Juniper Glade have hotels all over the place, that's a big company to start calling. Sounds like way too much effort to me. If it's been stolen, I'm sure River will notice and give the police a call.'

'You don't think he could have stolen it? You know, the robber, without River realising it?' Thurston says, asking the questions he believes a good cop should ask, from several years watching his TV counterparts do the same.

'What the hell would she be doing driving it, if she's supposed to be his hostage? I reckon that dear old sister of mine saw something she wanted to see, so she could get herself involved and end up on TV. You know how obsessed she is with being the centre of attention all the time. No one else has rung in saying they've spotted this Mandy Parker.'

'Maddy Parker', Thurston quickly corrects him.

'No, we've done what she asked, even prioritised it too. After lunch I'll go down there and tell her what we found. And after that, she can believe what she likes.'

Hank screws up the piece of paper with the license plate number on and throws it towards the bin, missing by a metre and a half.

'Shall I carry on with the floor plan?' Thurston asks him, when he's back at his desk.

'You carry on with whatever needs to be done', Hank tells him, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up on the desk, where they nestle comfortably into an indent rubbed into the wood, from several years of relaxing in the same position.

Chapter 19

'That's it?' Maddy says, looking at the border control and the wide expanse of land on the other side of the fence that looks exactly the same as the side they are on, with, if anything, a slightly smaller town. 'That's Mexico?'

'That's freedom', River says.

They've parked the car side on, so both of them can see. It's a reasonably busy border crossing, not the most active or popular of them all, but definitely not a line in the dirt with a hut and a wooden barrier, keeping people either out or in. Here they'll check documents thoroughly enough to make you feel like a criminal, even if you're not. If the police don't have his name yet, River knows he'll be fine. If they do, it'll only be a matter of time before they catch him anyway, time he might as well spend wisely, before it's taken away from him altogether. For armed robbery, he'll be looking at fifteen years, possibly more than that with the murdered civilian. Either way it's a long way down if he happens to fall.

A guard spits in the dirt and wipes it away with his shoe. River watches the way he holds his gun, having seen that stance in several eager men, a hundred times before. It says, 'give me an opportunity to use this, and I won't hesitate to take it.'

The Lexus, in which they sit, has been registered in his name through Buck's business, and is completely legitimate. It was parked exactly where he found it, the morning of the raid, because he put it there himself as back up. In the event that something went wrong, which it eventually did, he would change back to his own car, as long as he could do so without being seen. What he hadn't counted on was having a hostage with him, which hasn't necessarily changed his plan, only made it a riskier one. A risk he would retake again and again until the fabric of time dissolved around him.

The car can easily be traced back to him, but can only be linked to the bank via Maddy. There is nothing else that puts him there at the crime scene, apart from the fingerprints he left in the Oldsmobile, that the police will have failed to match up to anyone, because neither himself or Buck, have ever allowed them to be taken and put into the system. Buck has kept River away from a life of crime for as long as he has been able to, and thankfully for River, that has been long enough.

He figures he'll be safe, as long as nobody recognises Maddy, and if they do, then he'll still be fine, if nobody puts a face and a name to her companion.

'Are you scared?' Maddy says. 

'I don't know', River says. 'Ask me that again when I'm on the other side.'

'Are you really going to do it?'

'I haven't got another option Princess', River says. 'Why, you having second thoughts?'

'I'll tell you that when you're on the other side', Maddy says.

'It might be too late then', River says.

'I hope not.'

'I'm going to take you somewhere', River says, gunning the car into action, and driving away from the border back into the town. 'You ever been on a Ferris wheel before?'

'A Ferris wheel', Maddy asks.

'Yeah', River says. 'A Ferris wheel. Don't ask me why, but right here in town, they used to have one of the biggest Ferris wheels in the United States, I kid you not. It was like it didn't ever belong, but there it was, like it had grown up by itself out of the dirt, and because of that, no-one ever tried to do anything other than accept it. If it's still here I want to take you on it.'

'You want to spend what could be your last afternoon in the United States, riding an ancient Ferris wheel with me?'

'We can get lunch afterwards if you like', River quips.

'Can I choose it?' Maddy asks.

'Only if you promise to have another beer with me when we eat', River says.

'I reckon I can do that', Maddy says.

The town centre is like a thousand other's she's seen already. The same shops, the same people, even the same smells, as though it's all been created in a factory, and rolled out to order. As she watches the people, and the couples particularly, she wonders how many people are happy. She wonders how many people amongst the billions out there in the world can say beyond a shadow of doubt that they are truly happy.

High rise flat blocks blot the horizon as they drive, one coming after the next, like an endless row of dominoes, that Maddy pretends to knock down, with one eye closed and her finger out to cheat the perspective. All of a sudden, as though revealed like a dove at the conclusion of a magic trick, the bowed metal of the Ferris wheel, still turning slowly after all these years, looms large above them, like the gaping jaws of a gigantic metal shark. It is all of a sudden there, so disconnected from what surrounds it, Maddy can hardly believe it exists at all. Like a metal bush, the carriages of which could be flowers, it tangles and towers above everything else, demanding to be seen.