Supreme Justice (17 page)

“I never moved into combat without having the feeling of a cold hand reaching into my guts and twisting them into a knot.”

Audie Murphy, most decorated soldier of World War II, Congressional Medal of Honor winner.
Section 46, Lot 366-11, Grid O/P-22.5, Arlington National Cemetery.

SEVENTEEN

Just outside the door of his town house, where Patti Rogers had dropped him, Reeder wanted nothing more than a Heineken, a shower, and his bed. Exhausted, he was not up to sorting through thoughts that might add up to something, tomorrow morning. He had taken them as far as he dared on the ride home with Rogers, but these were half-formed ideas not yet worth sharing, puzzle pieces without a shape to fit them in.

He was barely inside when his cell phone chirped. He didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID and ignored it at first, then reconsidered. With all that was happening, he better take the call.

“Reeder,” he said.

The voice that came out of his phone was mechanical, obviously filtered through an antirecognition program.

“We have your daughter. You have one hour to verify, after which you will receive further instructions. Involve no one else, or suffer the consequences.”

The call clicked off.

Such things could chill the blood, it was said; but with Reeder, the opposite occurred: His temperature spiked and sweat popped out like a thousand blisters.

He pulled up
Contacts
on the phone and punched Amy’s number, but the call went straight to voice mail.

“It’s Dad, honey. Call me. It’s important. Never mind the hour.”

He fought back panic. He was not prone to it, though not immune, either, not with his daughter at stake. Should he call his ex-wife? Ask Melanie if she’d heard from Amy? No. Not yet, anyway—he didn’t want to risk panicking her. That would do no good, and if she got wind of what was up, she might call the authorities and . . . well, he wouldn’t call her now.

The Prius made the already short drive to Amy’s in a record four minutes and a few seconds. Speeding and ignoring traffic laws had an oddly calming effect on Reeder, a response he’d not felt since Secret Service days. In a tense situation—after a first burst of adrenaline—everything inside him would ease, and he’d settle into a zone. That feeling fell over him now, the hysterical parent caged up somewhere deep within him.

He parked in front of Amy’s, glancing up and down the block with seeming unconcern. If someone was watching her building for him, they were goddamned good—he didn’t spot anybody on the street, or in parked cars.

She lived on the third floor, and street entry was by numbered keypad only, no getting buzzed in. But his company had installed the alarm system, which had an embedded master pass code that only Reeder and a few top ABC employees knew. He could get into scores of residences all over the DC area, but this was the one that counted.

Inside, he took the carpeted stairs two at a time to the third floor. Breathing a little hard, he stopped and knocked once, in the desperate hope that Amy was on the other side of the door, in the small living room. He didn’t give a shit if she and her hippie boyfriend were humping away like rabbits on the floor, if she would just take a break and open that damn door.

He knocked again, louder, longer.

Nothing.

He brought out the key that Amy didn’t know he had. He had it, all right—he paid the rent, didn’t he?—but he’d promised himself to use it only in an emergency, which this sure as hell was.

The lights were off, the room quiet. As he stepped inside, the apartment had an empty feel.

“Amy!” he called, keeping alarm out of his voice.

Silence.

He closed the door behind him, flipped the switch, triggering an overhead fixture that she rarely used, preferring table lamps and a generally muted lighting scheme. The overhead made the living room seem overly bright, like an autopsy room. Everything seemed in place, though two sofa pillows were on the floor. Some yellow and white flowers on an end table looked fresh.

Damp towels in the kitchen spoke of a home-cooked meal, as did the familiar smell of the marinara sauce that Melanie had taught their daughter to make.
Amy had been in this kitchen this evening.
The dining room table was set for two.
Had Bobby been here with her? Maybe an early birthday celebration?

Was he here when she was abducted?

The realization of that likelihood uncaged the crazed parent for a few moments. He always thought Melanie leaving him had ripped him apart worse than any physical wound ever could. And that was true enough. But this was worse.

Recaging the crazy man, Reeder returned to the living room. The two couch cushions on the floor of the otherwise undisturbed area were not enough to indicate a struggle. She had left under the barrel of a gun, most likely, or perhaps had been lured out by some trusted figure, a cop maybe, with news of a nonexistent accident.

On the coffee table, Amy’s cell phone spoke silent volumes—she would
not
have left that behind. Someone had quickly, suddenly, gotten her out of here. His fists clenched—the cell’s presence meant there would be no tracking her by GPS.

He was doubting now that Bobby had been here when she was taken. He looked around to see if the boyfriend’s phone was anywhere, on the floor maybe, but didn’t find it. On her cell, he found the Landon kid listed first in her contacts—that hurt a little—and tried his number. Straight to voice mail.

“This is Amy’s father. I’m looking for her. Call me when you get this, no matter the hour.”

Her cell didn’t tell him much. The numbers in her call log were all ones he recognized—him, her mother, and a bunch of calls and texts to Bobby. Her e-mail account looked normal, and so did everything he could access on her social media accounts. No contact with or from anyone out of the ordinary.

He returned the cell to the coffee table.

In his daughter’s bedroom, he found nothing apparently out of place—not that he would know. The only time he’d been in this room was when he helped her move in. Her closet seemed fairly full, a suitcase out but empty, as if she was planning to pack for an upcoming trip.

Bathroom looked normal. Her toothbrush there, hairbrush, all her toiletries.

Then he walked through every room again, absorbing the awful emptiness. Nothing about it confirmed that she’d been taken, but circumstantial evidence combined with cop instincts screamed it:
They had her.

Nothing left to do but call Melanie. He would try to elicit from his ex-wife any information she might have without alerting her that their daughter might have been abducted.

“Hello, Joe,” she said in that awful, neutral tone reserved for phone solicitors and ex-husbands.

“Hi, Mel.”
Keep it light.
“I’m trying to get ahold of Amy, and her cell goes right to voice mail. Heard from her tonight at all?”

“No. Not for a few days, actually. But then she’s been very caught up in midterms, and of course that boyfriend.”

“Right.”

“She doesn’t always answer the phone, you know. Text her—I know you hate doing it, but she always responds right away to my texts, even when she’s blowing off my calls.”

“I’ll try that.”

“What’s the matter?” That tone for ex-husbands disappeared. It was the old voice. The voice of someone who loved him. “Honey, you sound a little off.”

She
was the real people reader in the family, at least where he was concerned.

“I was just a little worried when Amy didn’t pick up,” he said. “We had kind of an awkward meal out the other night, with her and her boyfriend.”

Would she buy it?

“Joe, don’t worry about it. She and Bobby probably just went to a movie. Isn’t this five-dollar night at the art theater they go to?”

She bought it.

“Hell, I don’t know,” he said, and forced a laugh. “I don’t keep track of the artsy-fartsy stuff those kids like.”

“Joe, what’s
wrong
?
”

Whoops—he’d tried too hard.

“They pulled me in on the Venter investigation,” he said. “The security footage came from one of our cameras. I’m pretty stressed, back in the federal frying pan.”

When in doubt, punt with the truth.

“You don’t need that kind of crap anymore, Joe. How many times have I told you? You have to learn to delegate.”

An image popped into his mind: He was with Melanie and Amy, age ten, on vacation, at Mount Rushmore. Looking at giant presidents, Amy thinking carving up that mountain was awful, Mel talking about
North by Northwest
, him loving them both. And probably not showing it enough.

He said, “Good advice. Mel, listen, if you get ahold of Amy, or hear from her or whatever—tell her to give me a call, will you?”

“Sounds kind of urgent.”

“Well, I need to change some birthday plans with her.”

“I will. Joe?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t overdo. You’re not a kid anymore.”

She clicked off and he clicked off. Then he sat on the sofa and cried into his hands for maybe thirty seconds.

It was all he could spare.

Eventually, Melanie would have his ass for not telling her what was going on, but he knew he’d just done her a kindness, and himself a favor. She could make phone calls that would only hamper him on his mission to get Amy back. And when he got her back—not
if,
fucking
when
—Melanie would forget all about anything except that she was holding her daughter in her arms.

His watch said only a few minutes remained before that second call with “further instructions.”

He needed help on this, and he needed it right now. But calling Gabe would not only violate the no-cops demand, it would automatically put Joe Reeder on the sidelines. Sloan would have no choice but to bring in the full force of the FBI even while keeping Reeder out of the search for Amy—AD Fisk would insist, as would anybody in her place.

Hell, even if Amy was quickly found, Reeder would be yanked off the task force—she had almost certainly been targeted because her father was looking into the murders of the two justices. And if the kidnapping had no connection to the murders, he would
still
get sent to the showers, an investigator whose daughter had been recently kidnapped . . . even if she’d been recovered.

Even if she’d been recovered.

He couldn’t allow himself to think that way.

His DC Homicide pal Bishop was in some ways a better short-term option, but that also went against the kidnapper’s demand, and anyway Bishop didn’t have the tools at his disposal that Reeder needed.

That left only one real choice.

“Patti Rogers,” said the voice in his ear.

“Can I trust you?”

“Well, I’m fine, Joe. How are you?”

“Can I trust you?”

“What the hell . . . ?”

“Before I tell you what’s going on, I have to know. We haven’t been partners long. It’s a fair question.”

For a while her only answer was silence, but he didn’t prod her with any more words. He just waited.

Finally she said, “Short of risking my career for you? Yeah. I’m there. What do you need?”

“My daughter has been abducted. I think there’s a reasonable possibility that the conspiracy took her.”

“Jesus fuck,” Rogers blurted. “Reeder, we have
got
to call Sloan.”

“Not now, not yet,” Reeder said. “I need to track the kidnapper myself. I don’t want to be sidelined, and that’s what Gabe would have to do.”

“What would you say to any other father in your position?”

“Let the FBI handle it. Patti—am I ‘any other father’? This is my daughter, yes. But I’m damn near certain it’s part of this judicial coup we’ve stumbled onto.”

Silence again.

Then: “Okay. Goddamnit. I’m sorry about your daughter . . . Amy, right?”

“Right.”

“Joe, what can I do? Name it.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t risk your career for me.”

A shrug was in her voice: “Risk it, make it. One of those should happen.”

He almost smiled. “Look, I’m expecting the kidnapper’s second call in, like, six minutes. Can you get a trace set up on my cell in that time?”

“On it,” she said, then clicked off.

Nothing to do now but wait.

Reeder fell back onto the sofa and pressed his fingers into his temples.
Why Amy?
This
had
to be about the justices—no way this was a coincidence. But why attack
him
instead of someone else on the team? Everybody had vulnerabilities,
something
they loved—fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, wives, a goddamn dog!

What threat did Joe Reeder present to the conspirators that nobody else on the task force did? Or was this big enough that they could go after
all
their families?

No, no—that was crazy . . .

But wasn’t killing Supreme Court justices to reconfigure the court crazy?

Then his phone trilled and, for all his training, he damn near jumped out of his skin. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, whispering a silent prayer that Rogers had the trace set up, and said, “Reeder.”

He waited for the mechanized voice. Here in his daughter’s deserted apartment, he pledged to her and himself that no matter how this turned out, the person on the other end of this call would never stand trial.

“By now, you know we have your daughter.”

Reeder’s voice was as cold and mechanical as his adversary’s: “She isn’t here, but that doesn’t mean you have her.”

“Don’t speak unless you’re asked a question.”

“If you have her, let me talk to her.”

“No.”

Reeder hung up on the bastard.

He stared at the phone in his sweaty palm, forcing the crazed parent back in his cell. They hadn’t made a demand yet. They would call back. Otherwise, kidnapping Amy had been for nothing, and this was not that kind of situation, not that kind of crime.

The cell rang.

“Reeder.”

Rogers said, “Not long enough for the trace.”

Fuck!

“Hang up,” he snapped. “I’m waiting for him to call back. I’ll call you.”

He clicked off and stared at his cell again.

They let him sweat longer than he would have ever imagined. But that was smart, wasn’t it? Time allowed doubt to take root and grow.