Paying The Piper (2 page)

S
heils pulled up in front
of the school. SFPD didn’t give him any grief at the scene. In fact, they looked more than happy to off-load this case onto the bureau. He welcomed another shot at the Piper. The thought of finally bringing down the bastard filled him with such excited determination that his hand trembled when he flashed his badge at the school entrance. The officer didn’t seem to notice and directed him to the principal’s office.

Remembering Nicholas Rooker tempered his excitement. That boy’s death weighed heavily on his conscience. Circumstances had worked against him, but he’d let Nicholas down. He should have done better. Now he had another chance. If he failed, he doubted he’d get another.

No one ever blamed him for failing to catch the Piper. No one faulted his methods, but the fact remained that he’d worked every Piper kidnapping, and he’d never even gotten close to catching him. That single fact affected him more than his stalled career. Pride ate into him. He’d closed a lot of high-profile cases, but he’d lost to the Piper every time. Statistics said he’d lose again, but he didn’t think so. This time the Piper had screwed up.

He’d made it personal.

The Piper was a for-profit kidnapper. In all his previous kidnappings, he’d demanded a ransom. He went after prominent Bay Area families who could rustle up a million or two
without a second’s thought. But Scott and Jane Fleetwood didn’t fall into that category. They could bankrupt themselves and still not come close to the Piper’s usual ransom demand.

But Sheils didn’t think money was the point this time around.

This was payback. Scott had derailed the Nicholas Rooker kidnapping, and now the Piper was dishing out a little retribution. Sheils could relate. He’d wanted some of that action himself. If Scott hadn’t given Redfern his fifteen minutes, then the FBI wouldn’t have been sidetracked. The Piper blamed Scott for botching the Nicholas Rooker kidnapping and so did Sheils. If Mike Redfern’s bullshit hadn’t suckered the journalist in, the Piper would have gotten his money and Nicholas Rooker would be alive.

This was personal for the Piper, which was good. Until now, the kidnapper had kept things businesslike and detached. But if he was making this personal, that made this kidnapping emotion driven, which would make him reckless. Reckless people were easier to catch but twice as dangerous. Emotion would bring the Piper down. His desire to destroy Fleetwood would distract him from the business of kidnapping.

The Piper wasn’t the only one whose emotions had gotten away from him. Sheils was no shining star in that department. He didn’t like to think he hated Scott, but he did. His interference had killed Nicholas as sure as if he’d suffocated the boy himself. Scott had brought this pain upon himself, and he deserved every miserable minute of it. Sheils’s bitterness drew him up short. He couldn’t face the Fleetwoods as parents with that attitude. Regardless of how he felt about that idiot reporter, there was a frightened boy out there who needed him.

While he took a moment to compose himself, his cell rang.

“Have you spoken to the Fleetwoods yet?” Bill Travillian asked. Travillian was the special agent in charge of the San Francisco division, and Sheils’s boss.

“No, I’m just about to.”

“Just take it easy on them.”

“You mean take it easy on Scott. Bill, I can separate
my personal feelings from my job.”

“I hope so, Tom. I’m assigning you to the Piper because you know more about this prick than anyone and you’ve earned the right to bring him in, but I won’t if there are going to be problems.”

There weren’t going to be any problems. His duty came way before his grudges. He wanted Samuel Fleetwood back safe and sound, irrespective of who his father was. Samuel was priority number one, with the Piper’s apprehension a close second, but Sheils couldn’t deny he’d enjoy watching Fleetwood squirm during this case.

“You have nothing to fear. I’m here for the Piper.”

Travillian paused, mulling over Sheils’s response. Travillian wasn’t a bureaucrat. He was an old-school agent who’d come up through the ranks and had twenty years of fieldwork under his nails. He knew his stuff. Sheils felt the man pick through his reply, analyzing it for veracity.

“Okay, Tom. I’m trusting you on this one.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me. Just stop this bastard.”

Sheils found the principal’s office and knocked on the door.

Scott’s stomach tightened when Sheils entered the office. He never expected to cross paths with the FBI agent again. After Nicholas Rooker’s death, Sheils had pushed for Scott’s arrest. The charges ranged from obstruction to accessory to murder, but Sheils’s pleas fell on deaf ears. The denial only fueled Sheils’s contempt for him.

Scott noticed that the last eight years had taken their toll: Sheils’s hair had receded, his waistline had thickened, and lines made a road map of his face. But the agent burned
with the same purpose he’d encountered eight years ago.

Sheils introduced himself to them and said, “I won’t patronize you by asking how you’re holding up.”

“Thank you,” Jane said.

“Are you going to get Sammy back?” Peter asked.

Neither Scott nor Jane made any move to admonish their son for his question. They needed the answer as much as he did.

“We’re going to do our very best to find your brother.”

“That doesn’t answer his question,” Jane said.

Sheils squirmed under the intensity of Jane’s stare and turned back to Peter. He put out his hand to the boy. “You have my word as an FBI agent that I’ll bring your brother home safe and sound.”

Peter shook Sheils’s hand and attempted a smile.

“I would like to get Samuel’s picture on the evening news,” Sheils began.

“Sammy,” Jane corrected.

“Yes. Right. Sammy.”

“I can get you a school photo,” the principal said, then left her office to get it.

“Peter, I’d like to talk to you about what happened. Would that be okay?”

The question was directed at Scott and Jane more than Peter. They gave their permission and everyone sat down. Sheils dragged over a chair and pulled it in front of the boy. He sat forward in the chair so that he met Peter at eye level, and spoke in a calm and soothing tone.

His questions were open, friendly, and nonaccusatory. Peter answered as best he could, but his answers were vague and uninformed. Sheils changed tack, rephrasing his questions. This worked against the agent, causing Peter to retreat into himself. His replies went from simple sentences to one-word answers to shrugs.

Scott felt time getting away from them. As soon as the Piper reached the freeway, he could hit sixty miles an hour. That was a mile a minute. For every
minute they wasted, Sammy was another mile farther away from them. The bastard would have Sammy out of the Bay Area in the next twenty minutes. Once free of the congestion, his escape velocity would increase. But while distance was Scott’s enemy, it was also his friend. While the Piper was at the wheel, he couldn’t hurt Sammy. Scott shut out the image forming in his head and willed the bastard to just keep driving.

“Let’s take a break from the questions,” Scott said.

Peter sagged, then clutched his mother.

“Can I have a minute alone with my family?” Scott asked.

Sheils nodded and left the room.

Scott knelt before his son. “Peter, we need to know everything that happened, okay?”

Peter jerked his head up and down.

“It doesn’t matter what you tell us. You aren’t in trouble. Sammy isn’t in trouble. The man who took him is the one in trouble. Okay?”

“Okay,” Peter said in a quiet voice.

Scott called Sheils back in.

“I want to try something different, Peter,” Sheils said, “if that’s okay with you?”

Peter nodded.

Sheils asked Peter to reenact his final steps leading up to Sammy’s abduction. Peter took them to his classroom.

“The bell rang for you to go,” he said. “What happened from there?”

Peter seemed to put his fears aside. Holding on to Scott and Jane’s hands, he ran through the school, calling out what he and Sammy had done. He led them down the school steps toward the main gate and stopped at the sidewalk.

“This is where we spoke to him.”

“We?” Sheils asked. “You spoke to the man who took Sammy?”

Peter’s expansive mood dried up.

“C’mon, Peter. This is really important,” Jane said. “Did you speak to this man?”

Scott saw they were losing him again. His boys might
have been twins, but their personalities were very different. Peter was the more timid of the two.

Scott knelt down in front of his son. “I know we told you not to talk to strangers, but it’s okay if you did. Agent Sheils just needs to know.”

“I didn’t. Sammy did.”

Scott smiled at Peter to let him know everything was okay.

Sheils ventured toward Peter. “So what happened?”

“We were waiting for Mom.”

“Waiting?” Scott asked. Jane got off work in time to be outside the school before the bell. He turned to her. “Why were you late?”

“A flat tire. Someone put a strip of wood with nails through it under the back wheel.”

“The Piper wanted you out of the way,” Sheils remarked and turned back to Peter. “Okay, your mom was late. So you waited for her?”

“Yeah. We waited here.” Peter pointed to the spot where he was standing. “And a car pulled up in front of us.”

Sheils interrupted. “It was a car, not a van or SUV?”

“No, not a car, a minivan. A blue one.”

“Good job,” Jane said and hugged Peter.

“Did you get a license plate? Do you know if the minivan was a Dodge or Honda or anything?” Sheils asked.

Peter shook his head.

“That’s okay,” he said. “What about the driver? Did you get a good look at him?”

Peter scrunched up his face. “Not really. He was wearing a red hoodie with the hood up.”

“Could you see whether he was white, black, Hispanic?” Sheils asked.

After seven kidnappings, thousands of FBI man-hours,
and six surviving victims, no one had ever seen the Piper’s face.

“White. I saw his hands.”

“That’s great,” Sheils said. “How about age? Young? Old?”

Peter hemmed and hawed. “Old,” he finally replied, but sounded uncertain.

Scott saw how subjective the question was to an eight-year-old. College grads were senior citizens in Peter’s eyes. “As old as me, Peter?” he asked. “Or as old as your grandpa?”

“As old as you,” Peter said.

“That’s good,” Sheils said. “Now, did this man say anything?”

“Yes. He told us that Mom had sent him to pick us up. Sammy asked who he was, and he said a friend. He said he knew you, Dad. He used your name.” Peter stared up at Scott.

Scott’s stomach clenched.

“Honey, did he say anything else?” Jane asked.

“I told him we don’t talk to strangers, and he laughed and said that he wasn’t a stranger and he told Sammy to get in.”

“Did Sammy get in?” Sheils asked.

“Yes.”

Jane broke out in tears and pulled Peter tight to her. This started Peter crying again. Sheils gave them a moment before interrupting. Jane wiped Peter’s tears away with her hand.

“Peter,” Sheils asked, “did you get in the minivan?”

Cracks appeared in Peter’s resolve. Tears welled up again and his chin wobbled.

Scott hated seeing Peter in so much pain. He couldn’t imagine how Sammy was doing right now. He moved toward his son to comfort him.

“Tell us, buddy. It doesn’t matter what you did. We just need to know for Sammy.”

His reply came out small and tight. “Sammy told me to get in. I didn’t want to, and he told me I was a wimp.” He wiped away his own tears. “I went to get in, and he told me no.”

Scott thought he’d missed something. “Sammy told you not to get in the minivan?”

“No. The man. He said only Sammy should get in.
Then the door closed and he drove off.” Peter broke down. Jerking sobs racked his body, and he buried his head into his mother’s shoulder. “He didn’t want me.”

Then it made sense. Scott understood his son’s reticence to tell them the whole story about Sammy’s abduction. Peter was
ashamed
. The Piper had chosen Sammy over him. Peter hadn’t been good enough to be kidnapped. He should have been counting his lucky stars, but instead, he was feeling left out. Scott put a hand on Peter’s head and murmured words of comfort.

Sheils signaled to a pair of men in suits walking toward them. “I want to get you home. The Piper will call with his demands tonight. I want to be ready.”

Sheils pulled Scott to one side while the other two agents led Jane and Peter away.

“What’s the world teaching our kids if they’re embarrassed when a kidnapper passes them over?”

“Life is a popularity contest,” Scott said.

This was the first nonacrimonious exchange they’d had since they’d met. Scott took that as a good sign.

Sheils frowned. “We both know this kidnapping is personal. The Piper wants to hurt you. You need to be prepared for the worst.”

“Sheils, do you think Sammy’s still alive?”

The agent didn’t answer him.