One Scream Away (36 page)

“Why would I tell you where I am?” Chevy asked, then he couldn’t help but gloat: “Did you like the way I handled your buddy Sheridan? I only got to hear about his demise on the radio, but I’m sure I’ll catch it on
Nightline
later.”

“How will Beth know where to meet you?”

Chevy sighed, setting the Monte Carlo’s cruise control at an innocent sixty-one miles per hour. “Show her the doll. She’ll figure it out.”

“Wait. What if… what if she can’t? She’s not acting right. She’s messed up, you know?”

Again, Chevy laughed. “The doll will snap her back.”

“She can’t look at any more dolls. She’s finally cracked up.
Loco.
Shrinks and everything. Tell
me
.”

“Show her the doll. Tell her to remember our time together.”

The doll in the culvert was a Benoit that Anne Chaney had once had: dark hair, dark eyes, and… mutilated. She was supposed to be part of a mother-daughter pair, but in her hands she clutched the bar of a baby carriage—empty.

“Sheridan, take this,” Copeland said, handing him a fresh shirt. Neil’s had red dye all over it. “You’ve gotta pull yourself together, son. Stop looking at that damned doll and carriage.”

Neil forced himself to look up. They’d commandeered a waiting room at the hospital where he’d been taken by chopper. The woman from the culvert, Rebecca Alexander, was down the hall, getting her cheek stitched up. She’d been a trouper. As soon as Neil convinced her to put the gun down, they’d come up with a plan to reenact the whole thing, exactly the way Bankes wanted it to happen. This time, they did it on camera. Corey Dunwoody, the photographer who had scuffled with O’Ryan, was called back in. He videotaped the whole thing over the loud and bogus objections of the FBI. He’d relished the idea of shooting something ostensibly forbidden, and when it was over, dangled the tape like a solid-gold carrot to the TV station that had fired him.

Neil was stripping off the ruined shirt when his phone rang. Suarez.

“It’s Abby.
Dios
. He got Abby!”

“What? No.” The world crumbled. “Ah, God…”

“What is it?” Copeland asked. “Is that Bankes?”

Neil tried to control the frantic drumming in his chest, ignoring Copeland as he listened to Suarez. By the time Suarez finished talking, Neil was in shock. The same cold, physical shock he’d experienced when they’d told him Mackenzie was dead.

“Sheridan, damn it, talk to me.” Copeland yanked the phone from his hand. “Who was that?”

“Suarez,” Neil answered in a fog. He wasn’t sure his voice could even be heard over his heartbeat. “Bankes got Abby.”

The room went still. Copeland sank to a chair. “Oh, Christ.”

Neil turned to Brohaugh. “Bankes just called Beth’s cell and Suarez answered—”

“Okay, I’m on it,” Brohaugh said, punching keys in a rush. The rest of the room held its breath. “Trace is coming. Hold on, I’ll get the sound.”

“Jesus,” Harrison said. “What did Bankes say?”

Neil cleared his throat. Stay sane. Stay in control. Copeland could still throw him off the case. “Bankes has Abby. He took her from the yard at Foster’s and wants Beth to come meet him.”

Copeland ran a hand over his head. “Get it in the APB that when they find that car, there’s a little girl in it.”

“At least we know what car he’s driving now,” Harrison said. “Rebecca Alexander’s burgundy Monte Carlo. Got a chance this time.”

A chance, but not a big one. It was getting dark. And they’d be two minutes behind Bankes.

And Abby. Bankes had Abby.

Neil grabbed fistfuls of his own hair, then pounded both hands on the wall. “Fuck!”

No one else said a word; that one seemed to sum it up. When he finally caught his breath again, he said, “I have to go to Beth. She’s asleep. Suarez hasn’t told her yet about Abby.” He peeled away the broken blood capsule taped to his chest. His fingers were still stained red where he’d clutched it when Rebecca Alexander fired blanks at him.

Standlin walked in while he slid into the fresh shirt. She’d been talking to the Alexanders.

“Is she telling the truth?” Copeland asked her.

“Absolutely,” Standlin said. “Rebecca Alexander is cool as a cucumber. Her husband’s the one falling apart now.” She stopped and looked around the room, frowning. “What the hell is going on here?”

Copeland spoke softly—words he didn’t want to say. “Bankes just picked up Denison’s little girl.”

Standlin gaped at Neil. “Oh, no. Oh, God, Sheridan. I’m sorry.”

Brohaugh said, “Here’s the audio of the call.”

They all closed in, listening to the call that had changed everything. Bankes giving Suarez a message, Suarez sounding stricken—he’d only heard about Abby’s abduction a moment earlier—but doing his best to stretch it out, get something. Bankes too smart for that.

It was the doll, Bankes said.
Show her the doll. Tell her to remember our time together.

Neil let out a stream of hot curses. He felt the eyes of every task force member drilling into him. “No,” he said. “I can’t show this doll to Beth. Once she finds out Abby is gone… Seeing this doll will kill her.”

“Sheridan,” Copeland said, using his James Earl Jones voice, “this doll is a personal message to Denison. By the time the research unit considers all the angles, Denison could have it all figured out. He’s making it sound like it’s something only she can know—”

“Research has had the thing for over an hour now!” Neil interrupted. “Let
them
figure it out.”

Copeland blew out a sigh, consulted notes he’d taken when he talked to the lab. “A Benoit, a woman pushing a baby doll in a carriage, 1868. Except for the missing baby, it’s the last of the dolls Larousse gave to Anne Chaney. They were in perfect condition at the time Anne Chaney was called in to appraise them. Now, this adult doll is… damaged.”

Neil scoffed.
Damaged.
“There’s got to be something else.”

Standlin was still catching up. “So Bankes has
two
little girls now? That doesn’t make sense.”

“No, no.” Neil shook his head. God, Suarez had told him Abby was gone, and Neil had forgotten everything else. “Suarez said the first girl, Samantha Alexander, is okay. She turned up at Foster’s when Abby disappeared. Bankes managed to pull a switch using the two girls and Beth’s dog.”

“Dog? The dog’s back, too?”

“Bankes sent the Alexander girl running out with the dog. The guards fell for it, thinking it was Abby just long enough that Bankes got her outta there.”

Standlin started for the door. “I have to go tell the Alexanders their daughter was found. She’s safe? She’s okay?”

Neil nodded. “Suarez has her at Foster’s. He said she’s shaken, but she’s not hurt. Carol Foster has her decorating cookies.”

“Oh, boy,” Standlin said. “So we got one mother and one daughter back. That’s some good news, anyway.”

But it didn’t feel that way to Neil.

“She hasn’t budged, man,” Suarez said when Neil arrived at the apartment with the doll. “I checked on her the first hour or so, then she burrowed down in the covers like she was cold, and told me to leave her alone. She was out, last I looked in.” He paused. “Any word on Abby?”

Neil shook his head. “No.”

“Hey, for what it’s worth, man, you looked good on TV. I’d’ve believed it myself if I hadn’t known it was a hoax. Bankes took it hook, line, and sinker. He talked to me about it on the phone. Gloating.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“Okay. So you think Beth can figure out where he’s taken Abby?”

“We’re about to find out.”

He set down the box in which he carried the
damaged
doll and pushed open Beth’s bedroom door. The room was dark, silent. Too silent. The hairs on his arms stood up.

He went to the bed and sat down beside the mound of covers. Beth didn’t move. He laid his hand gently on top of the quilt, on what should have been the curve of her hip.

And then he knew.

She was gone.

B
eth stood at a pay phone, shivering. Hurry, hurry. She fished coins from her purse. Thank God she’d had her purse in the bedroom, even if Suarez had her gun and her phone.

Suarez had answered her phone, and in an instant, Beth knew it was Bankes. A minute after the call, Suarez called Quantico and relayed what Bankes had told him: He had Abby.

It had taken every ounce of her strength not to sink to the floor and scream in hysteria when she heard it. Abby had run after Heinz, but the other little girl, Samantha, had come back.

Abby was gone. Dear God.

Neil. Her first impulse was to talk to him. But she couldn’t. Neil was dead. Abby was gone.

Beth had forced herself to keep listening. The doll was the key, Bankes had said. Something about the doll would tell her where Bankes had taken Abby.

Nothing else mattered anymore. Neil was dead. Abby was with Bankes.

Do something.

Evan.

She didn’t have enough change for long-distance calls, so she punched in her calling-card number, wondering how long until the FBI would discover it had been used. It didn’t matter. They probably didn’t know she was gone yet; Suarez thought she was sleeping. She had to figure out where Abby was, and the FBI obviously didn’t plan to let her see the doll.

Damn them, Neil promised.

Neil is dead.

Don’t think about it. Dial.

Waterford answered on the third ring, and Beth nearly sobbed with relief. “Kerry, it’s Beth Denison. Please, I need your help.”

Silence. She could feel his confusion.

“Please, Kerry. This isn’t about your collection; it’s not business. Please talk to me.”

There was another instant of silence; Beth could picture Waterford frowning. His voice came over the line sounding hesitant. “The news is reporting that no one knows where you are right now, Beth.”

Oh, no. They’d already found her missing.
Think.
“That’s because the FBI took me in. I’m in protective custody.”

“Protective custody?”

“Please, Kerry, I need to know about a pair of dolls.” She racked her brain for what the insurance report had said. “An 1868 Benoit baby doll and mother doll. It was a pair owned by Stefan Larousse.”

“Larousse?”

“I don’t have time to explain now, but it’s important. I’m not the expert you are, and there’s something about those dolls Chevy Bankes wants me to figure out.”

Pounding sounded in the background at Kerry’s end of the line, two or three little dogs suddenly yapping.

“Hold on, Beth,” Kerry said. “Someone’s knocking at my door.”

“Wait. Kerry!” Beth glanced at her watch. Charleston was in the same time zone. It was late for visitors. She tried to hear what was going on through the phone lines, hindered by the sounds of traffic and the night surrounding her.

“Beth.” Kerry was back. He sounded nervous. “The FBI is here. Two agents. They want to talk to me.”

Oh, God. “Did you tell them we were talking?”

“No, I just said I had to finish a phone call and came in the kitchen. God almighty, Beth. What’s going on?”

“They’re going to ask you the same things I’m asking, Kerry. Tell me first. There’s something about these dolls I need to know, or about Margaret Chadburne. Kerry, we both met Chadburne at about the same time, in Dallas. Do you remember? Bankes has been stalking me as Margaret Chadburne since then.”

“I know, I’ve been following the news.” Kerry’s voice dropped. “For God’s sake, Beth. I don’t know what to tell you. I talked to that fruitcake in Dallas, just like you did, but I’ve never seen her dolls. I’ve never seen the Larousse dolls. Chadburne came to my booth after you told her not to buy the repro. She actually threatened me, saying I’d been cheating people. Muttered that her mother got away with fooling everyone for years, and she didn’t appreciate it. I told her to go screw herself. Then she ordered that same doll from me last week.”

Beth tried to make sense of it. Bankes’s mother got away with fooling everyone.

Don’t you hear it? Mother’s singing. She does that so she can’t hear Jenny cry. Scream, bitch. Make Mother stop.

They talked around it for another minute, Kerry narrating what he recalled about Margaret Chadburne, and Beth trying to put it all together with Bankes’s hatred for his mother, for what Beth was supposed to recognize in dolls she’d never seen. All the while, she scanned the street for police cars or gray sedans with government plates.
The news is reporting that no one knows where you are right now.
It sure hadn’t taken them long to discover her missing.

“Beth?” Kerry’s voice. “That’s the only time I ever met the woman. Er, man, I guess. And I don’t know anything about those particular dolls. No one’s seen the Larousse dolls, except in photographs, for decades.”

Beth’s mind was spinning. Nothing. She had nothing to go on.

Kerry had gone silent, then his voice squeezed back within hearing. “Hey, Beth?”

“Yes?”

“Is it true what the news said about the condition of the mother doll they found?”

“I… uh… well, I’m not sure how much they’re reporting.”

“They said she was mutilated terribly, a hole drilled between her legs, and the baby doll was missing.”

A wave of nausea almost buckled her knees. “Oh. Well, I guess that’s true.”

“God almighty. That’s one sick bastard.”

She hung up. Think. No, don’t think about what Bankes did to the doll or what he might do to Abby. Just think about Bankes. And how she was supposed to find him.

She slipped back into the car, driving with caution. She took corners slowly, making sure her stops were complete enough that the car she’d taken from Foster’s lurched gently backward before she accelerated again. She didn’t know how long she could drive this car without being stopped. The old pillows-under-the-covers trick hadn’t bought her much time, and soon they would figure out what car she was driving. But at least she was out. It had been easy once Juan left her alone: through the apartment’s back door into an upstairs passageway she and Abby used to play in, down the far cargo elevator, and into the carriage house. She never had to set foot outside, and she knew where to find the keys for any car. Like most of Foster’s employees, she had driven them lots of times.