The Guardian (16 page)

“Why would he still be going on robberies?” She pulled away from him, alarmed. “You’re saying he robbed the store that night? The same night he shot Greg, and called us? Why hasn’t he just returned her? Why is he taking chances for so little money when all he has to do is give her back and we’ll make him rich?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s too frightened from last time. And I think he’s got a coke habit, from something he said over the phone and the way he was sniffling, like he had a bad cold.”

Beth’s eyes met Ross’s. “Or maybe she’s dead, and he’s got nothing to trade us for our money. That’s an explanation, isn’t it?”

“That’s one.” Ross took one of her cigarettes. “I’m counting on there being another.”

Chapter 27

Beth awoke from a horrible nightmare and shifted automatically to Greg, pulling his warmth close to her.

But something was wrong. He was thinner, and his scent slightly changed. Then she truly awoke.

It was Ross, sleeping beside her. He was fully clothed. The blanket was wrapped around her, and he’d apparently fallen asleep some time after she’d dropped off.

And the nightmare was true.

Beth moaned, curling into herself as it all came back, what he’d told her about the man continuing with his robberies.

As she had for days, she tried desperately to stretch her mind to touch her daughter’s. All that mother’s lore she’d always heard growing up, about how a mother who loved her child could feel her child’s injury no matter how far they were separated, how that mother would always know if her child was alive or dead … well, Beth felt nothing.

Oh, she felt pain. She felt black depression, and she felt murderous rage. But most of all, she hated herself for not being able to somehow know where her child was. The old feelings came rushing back, that she had been inadequate and terrible for not bonding with Janine when she was an infant.

Stop it!
she told herself angrily. She loved her daughter so much it hurt.

Beth sat up and covered Ross with the blanket. She looked at the bed. King-size. Wouldn’t need that anymore. After this was over, she’d get rid of it. The house she couldn’t afford, now that they … she … would have no money.

Or maybe she would. She would still have half the ransom money. She didn’t want it. Each dollar bill would mock her as much as each minute she spent safely in her house while her daughter was with that man.

Absently she picked up a letter opener and pressed the sharp tip against her palm. She wanted to feel the pain. She wanted to think that maybe even if she couldn’t tell if Janine was alive or dead, Janine could somehow pick up her mother’s pain. That maybe she could receive the message that her mother loved her and was right with her through the ordeal.

The ringing of the phone shattered Beth’s reverie. Beth was shocked to see she was standing in front of the mirror, her hand dripping with blood. She checked her watch. Three in the morning. She picked the receiver up and said hello. Cautiously. Not daring to think what a call this late could be.

“Mommy,” Janine said. “It’s me, Mommy.”

Nat’s asleep,” Janine said. “She saved me from that man.… She showed him a gun and said she would kill him if he hurt me.” Janine’s speech was slow, as if she was half asleep.

“Janine?”

She continued. “He was going to kick me. In the head, I mean, hurt me bad.”

“Oh, baby,” Beth breathed. “Oh, baby, where are you?” She put her hand over the phone briefly and cried out, “Ross! She’s on the phone.”

He awoke and rolled to his feet immediately.

“Where are you, baby?” Beth said again. She could hear a woman in the background, saying, “I said turn the radio off, Lisa.”

Janine said, “He’s been after us. Twice. We just got away. Nat says she thinks we’ll be OK here tonight… .” Janine began to cry quietly. “She’s nice to me, but she’s funny. She calls me Leanne, like she really thinks that’s my name. I’ve been so
sleepy,
Mommy. And my head hurts. I told her I want go home—”

“Well, I know it helps
you
sleep,” the woman in the background said, her voice rising. “But it’s hell on everyone else’s night, and that not the gateway—”

“Who’s that?” Beth said.

“Is Daddy all right?”

“Honey, you know—”

“I know what I
said,
but I started thinking maybe I didn’t see it right. And the man lies. I know he lies. Is Daddy all right?”

“We’ll talk about Daddy when you get home. Where are you now?”

Ross held the phone so he could hear into it, too. “It’s Uncle Ross, Janey. Where are you?”

“Leanne?” they heard a woman say. “Does your momma know you’re doing that?”

“That’s not my name!” Janine cried.

Allie joined them in the room. “I heard the phone,” she said.

Ross grasped Beth’s arm. “Be quick.”

“Where are you?” Beth said, her voice rising. “Please, baby, say where you are.”

They heard a second woman’s voice in the background. “Leanne! Put that down!”

“Who is this?” the first woman’s voice said suddenly into the phone, her tone suspicious.

“I’m her uncle, and this is her mother,” Ross said, keeping his voice calm.

“Her mother’s right here,” the woman snapped.

“Please tell us where you are,” Ross said. “We’ve been looking all over for her—”

They heard the first woman from a distance, as if she’d taken the phone away from her ear. “He says he’s her uncle.”

“It’s her father!” the second woman said. “For Christ’s sake, it’s him; he’s the one that did this to me. Don’t tell him where we
are!”

The line was disconnected.

Chapter 28

A
llie brought them down to the kitchen table. “Let me get this straight. It sounded like she had gotten Janine away from this man?”

“That’s right,” Beth said.

“What did she say, exactly?”

Beth went through it, and then Ross. Crockett joined them and quietly began to make some coffee.

“What name did the woman in the background call Janine?”

“Leanne,” Beth said. “And Janine called the woman Nat, just like you heard, Ross.”

“And this Nat, she told the other woman to put the phone down, saying Ross was Janine’s father … and what? She said, ‘He’s the one that did this to me,’ right? Like she was showing a wound, or a bruise?”

“That’s the way I heard it,” Ross said.

“How about the woman you said was already talking, the one in the background?”

“She was telling someone else to turn down the radio,” Beth said.

“Something about the ‘gateway.’ “Ross turned to Beth. “Did you get that?”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Or was it the Gate
way
… like, ‘That’s the
way
we do it here.’ ”

“So it didn’t sound like they were at a friend’s house?” Allie said.

“No,” Ross said. “The woman who picked up the phone didn’t sound like she knew the other woman very well.”

“Like at a hotel or motel?”

“It all had sort of an institutional sound to it.”

“Maybe a women’s shelter.” Allie said.

She pulled the yellow-pages directory from the counter and together they all looked through the listings under “Women’s Services.” There were a number of shelters listed, but none with the word
Gate
in the name.

“Means nothing,” Allie said. “Most of the ones for battered women aren’t listed for the simple reason they don’t want the husbands and boyfriends finding their way there. That’s probably why the woman was suspicious of you in the first place, Ross.” Allie tightened the belt on her robe and grabbed the phone. “Get me a piece of paper, will you? It’s time to wake up a few detective friends of mine.”

Ross hesitated and Allie waved her hand at him. “Don’t worry. They don’t have to know for who or why. I won’t give them that much time to think.”

Allie started making calls, her manner apologetic for calling so late, yet insistent.

“I know, I know,” she said on her third. “It’s the pro bono ones that keep you working at four in the morning. But this client of mine is hiding out, and it’s critical I get hold of her for a court appearance tomorrow. She didn’t tell me which shelter she was staying in, but I think the name had the word
Gate
or
Gateway
in it.…”

Her eyes brightened and she looked excitedly over at Beth. “ ‘Open Gate.’ Sure, that could’ve been it.”

Beth put her hand to her mouth, and Ross felt his heart quicken.

“Hey, hey,” Crockett said, handing him a cup of coffee. “Maybe some luck.”

“Gerry!” Allie’s face clouded, and then she hung up. “Son of a bitch,” she snapped and began flipping through her book.

“What?” Ross said.

“He wouldn’t give me the address. Said it was a damn secret, that he’d have to talk to his supervisor in the morning.” She patted Beth’s hand. “Don’t worry. I know the supervisor, Nick Jacobsen. I just need his number.”

The information number had him as unlisted. It took her two more calls and fifteen minutes before she found a detective in Boston who’d give her Jacobsen’s number, and then she called him. She paced the floor as she talked. “Come
on,
Nick, you’re making it hard for me to be a good guy. I told you this was pro bono… .”

She nodded abruptly to Beth and repeated the address back. “Four-two-two Saint Botolph Street.” After she hung up the phone, she grinned over at Beth and Ross. “We’re there.”

They all crowded into Allie’s car. Crockett put the money in the trunk, saying simply, “Better with us than not.”

Ross drove, and Allie gave him directions, her whole body tense, leaning forward in the seat. Ross looked in the rearview mirror at Beth and saw her head was down, her hands clasped. Praying.

A few minutes later, she said, “Ross, why do you think this Nat didn’t simply return her? From what you said, she didn’t sound violent herself. It sounded more like she was protecting Janine.”

“There’s different kinds of violent.” Crockett’s voice was a low rumble from the back. “Maybe she’s not willing to hurt your girl, but she’s willing to trade her for a stack of money.”

“And maybe she’s got other reasons we can’t guess,” Ross said. “What we need to hold onto is that Janine is alive.”

“What Ross is saying is don’t get your hopes up,” Crockett said. “She could’ve spooked after the phone call. She did go into that store, with a gun, let her boyfriend blow away the storekeeper. We don’t know what she’s getting out of this, and you’re not talking about a nice lady here.”

“If she keeps my girl alive, she is,” Beth said. “She’s a saint, if she does that.”

When they got to the address, Allie put her hand on Ross’s arm. “Why don’t you and Crockett wait here.”

He nodded, thinking that it wasn’t the time or place for a man to be pounding on the door. Reaching back, he clasped Beth’s hand and said, “Don’t take no for an answer.”

“Oh, I won’t.” She squeezed back hard and stepped out of the car. Ross saw she had pictures in her hand.

“Man, I hope this is a happy ending.” Crockett leaned forward.

“Tired of being good?”

“Sucks. Especially being so close to all this money, it makes my back itch having it behind me in the trunk.” Crockett thumped Ross on the shoulder. “If the girl is safe, that means you’re rich.… How about you treat the two of us to a trip to Mexico, huh?”

“You’ve got it.”

“First-class?”

“First-class.”

“Yeah, you’re full of it. Once this is over, your parole breaking’s over, your associating with known felons—”

A large black woman came out to the front door. Allie and Beth began talking, and Beth stepped up beside the woman and showed her photos of herself and Janine. The woman was wearing a big, loose bathrobe, and she was clearly tired and irritated. She was shaking her head and pointing down the street and then inside the house. Becoming more animated as she spoke. She led them inside, and Ross and Crockett waited silently until they came out a few minutes later.

The woman was shaking her head. Waving them off.

Ross rolled the passenger side window down and heard her voice raised. “They’re gone. I told you. I told him. Gone.”

“Shit.” Ross hit the steering wheel. “Shit.”

Chapter 29

He was after them.” Beth got into the front seat, her face stark white. “She said a man pounded on the door just ten minutes after they left, demanding that Natalie come out. He wouldn’t leave until the woman said she’d call the cops.”

“On foot?” Ross started the car.