Two Little Girls in Blue (38 page)

“Y
ou're here in Old Cape Cod,” Angie sang, throwing her arms around Clint's neck. “Boy have I missed you, Big Man.”

“You have, huh?” Clint was about to push her away from him, but then remembered that he could not let her become suspicious. Instead, he hugged her back. “And guess who missed you, little songbird?”

“Clint, I know you have to be mad at me for taking off with the money, but I started to worry that if anyone connected you to Lucas, it would be better if I was out of the way.”

“It's okay. It's okay. But we've gotta get out of here. Have you been listening to the radio?”

“No. I've been watching
Everybody Loves Raymond.
I gave the kid more cough medicine, and she finally fell asleep again.”

Clint's glance darted to Kathy, who was lying on the bed, one shoe on, her damp hair clinging to her face. He could not stop himself from saying, “If we did it the way we were supposed to do it, that kid would be home right now. And we'd be on our way to Florida with half a million and not have the whole country looking for us.”

He did not see the expression on Angie's face. It
would have told him that she'd just realized she had made a mistake by letting him know where she was staying. “What makes you think the whole country is looking for us?” she asked.

“Listen to the radio. Switch channels. Forget your reruns. You're big news, baby. Like it or not, you're big news.”

With a deliberate click of the remote, Angie turned off the television. “So what do you think we should do?”

“I've got a safe car. We get out of here and dump the kid where she won't be found. Then you and I get off the Cape.”

“But we'd planned to get rid of the kid
and
the van.”

“We leave the van here.”

I'm registered here under my own name, Angie thought. If they really are looking for us, they'll be here soon enough. But Clint doesn't have to know that. I can tell he's lying to me. He's sore, and when dopey Clint gets sore, he gets nasty.

He wants to get rid of me.

“Clint, honey,” she said. “That cop in Hyannis has the license plate of the van. By now, every cop on the Cape knows I was in Hyannis this afternoon. If they think I'm still around, they'll be looking for this van. If they find it in this parking lot, they'll know we can't have gone far. I used to work at a marina not five minutes from here, and I know it's closed this time of year. I can drive the van onto the pier with the kid in it, then jump out of it while it's still moving and let it keep going off the end. The water's plenty deep enough to cover it.
They won't find it for months. Come on, honey, we're wasting time.”

She watched as Clint looked uncertainly at the window. With a chill, she realized that someone else was out there, waiting to follow him, and that he had not come there to escape with her, but to kill her.

“Clint, you know I can read you like a book,” she said cajolingly. “You're mad at me for getting rid of Lucas and taking off. Maybe you're right. Maybe you're not. Tell me something. Is the Pied Piper up here with you?”

She could tell from the expression on his face that she was right. He started to speak, but she stopped him. “Don't answer, because I know. Have you seen him?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“No, but he looks familiar, like someone I've seen before. I can't place him, though. I've got to figure it out.”

“So you'd be able to identify him?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you really think now that you've seen him, he's going to let you stay alive? I'll tell you something—he won't! I bet he told you to get rid of me and the kid, and that then you two would be pals. It don't work that way. Believe me, it don't. You're better off trusting me. We get out of this place—and we will—and we're half a million bucks ahead of what we would have been with Lucas around. Then when we figure who this guy is, we
start reminding him that we deserve a bigger share. Or else.”

She could see the anger draining out of Clint's face. I could always twist him around my little finger, she thought. He's so dumb. But once he figures out who this guy is, we're set for life. “Honey,” she said. “You take the suitcase. Put it in the car you're driving. But hold on a minute—is it rented in your name?”

“No, but now that they're looking for us, they'll be able to trace the credit card to the rental agency. I was smart though. I asked for a map of Maine, and I switched cars at the movies.”

“Good for you. Okay. I'll take the kid. You take the money. Let's get out of here. Is the Pied Piper gonna follow us?”

“Yeah. He thinks that I'll get in his car and drive with him to where he has a plane waiting.”

“And instead of that,” Angie said, “when we dump the van, you and I take off in your car. You don't think he's going to chase us and risk having the cops stop him, do you? Then we get off the Cape. We change cars again and drive to Canada, get a plane out of there, and disappear.”

Clint thought for a moment, then nodded his head. “All right. Get the kid.” When Angie picked up Kathy, he noticed that the one shoe she was wearing fell off. So what, he thought. She won't need it anymore.

Three minutes later, at nine thirty-five, with Kathy wrapped in a blanket and lying on the floor, Angie drove the van out of the parking lot of the Shell and
Dune Motel. Clint followed her in his stolen car. Directly behind, unaware that Angie and Clint had teamed up again, the Pied Piper followed. Why is she in that van? he asked himself. But he's carrying a suitcase, and the money has to be in it. “It's all or nothing now,” he said aloud as he took his place at the rear of the deadly procession.

O
fficer Sam Tyron arrived at the Soundview Motel twelve minutes after receiving a terse phone call from the Barnstable Police Department. On the way there he angrily berated himself for not following his instinct to investigate further the woman he had stopped because of the lack of a car seat in her van.

It even crossed my mind that she didn't look that much like her photo ID, he thought. That bit of information, however, he did not intend to share with his superiors.

He arrived to find the motel swarming with police. The realization that the second Frawley twin was not only still alive, but had been spotted in Hyannis, had brought out all the brass. They were clustered in the motel room where the woman who registered as Linda Hagen had stayed. The twenty-dollar bills found scattered under the bed were a strong indication that this was indeed where the kidnapper had stayed. Kathy Frawley had been lying on that bed only hours before.

An excited David Toomey had responded to a call from the night manager and returned to the motel. “That child is very, very sick,” he warned. “You can bet she hasn't seen a doctor. She was coughing and wheezing
and should have been taken to the emergency room. You'd better find her soon or it'll be too late. I mean . . .”

“When was the last time you saw her?” the Barnstable police chief asked, urgency in his voice.

“It would have been about twelve thirty. I don't know what time she took off.”

That's seven and a half hours ago, Sam Tyron thought. She could be in Canada by now.

The chief voiced that possibility, then added, “Just in case she's still here, though, we'll send a message to all the motels on the Cape to be on the lookout for her. The state police will put up roadblocks at the bridges.”

O
ther than their efforts to keep Kelly awake, everyone on the plane remained silent. Kelly, her eyes closed, was in Margaret's arms. Totally lethargic, her head resting against Margaret's heart, she was becoming less and less responsive.

Agents Carlson and Realto were in the plane with them. They had been in touch with FBI headquarters in Boston. Their counterparts there would be at the Cape to take over the investigation. An FBI car would meet them at the airport and take them to police headquarters in Hyannis, which would be the command center for the search. Before they boarded the plane the two men had quietly agreed that they had actually witnessed Kelly in communication with Kathy. They also believed that, judging by the way Kelly was behaving now, it might be too late to save her twin.

The plane held eight passengers. Carlson and Realto sat side by side, each caught up in his own thoughts, each filled with chagrin because they had missed Clint Downes by only hours. Even if Angie was on the Cape this morning, she was probably meeting him in Maine, Carlson thought. It made sense. He got a map for Maine from the car rental. She was raised there.

Realto was mentally analyzing what he would do if he were in Clint and Angie's position. I'd get rid of the van and the rental car, and I'd also get rid of the child, he decided. With every cop in the country on the lookout for her, Kathy's too much of a liability. If only they have the decency to leave her where she can be found quickly.

But that would give us the exact location from which to begin tracking them, he concluded grimly. Something tells me these people are too desperate and too evil to have any decency in them.

E
very cop on the Cape is on the lookout for this van, Angie thought, biting her lip as she drove nervously along Route 28 from Chatham. But the marina is only a little past the town line into Harwich, and once we dump this wreck, we'll be okay. Geez, to think I wanted this kid. What a mess she ended up causing. I don't blame Clint for being mad at me.

She glanced up at the sky, noticing that the stars had been replaced by clouds. The weather sure changed quickly, she thought, but that's the way it happens up here. And it could be a good thing. Now I've gotta watch for that turn.

With her nerves on edge because any minute she expected to hear a siren, Angie reluctantly began to slow up. The turn is right along here, she thought. Yeah, not this one, the next one. A moment later, heaving a sigh of relief, she turned left off Route 28 and drove the winding road toward Nantucket Sound. Most of the houses along the road were hidden from view behind high shrubbery. The ones she could see were in darkness. Probably closed for the winter, she decided. It's a good spot to dump the van, she thought. I hope Clint realizes that.