Voices Carry (16 page)

“Maybe you shouldn’t stay alone this weekend. Any chance I could talk you into going up to the lake and staying with Patsy?”

“I’ll think about it,” Genna told him.

“Stay in touch, Gen,” he said, suddenly sounding weary, “and be careful, okay? Watch out for yourself.”

“I will.”

Genna stopped at Decker’s office on the way out, but his lights were off and she recalled that he’d left for a meeting in New York right after lunch. She asked the night guard to watch her walk to her car, though she felt foolish doing it. Even so, she felt a prick along her spine as she crossed the parking lot.

Silliness, she tried to tell herself. Who would want to follow me?

No one, she answered her own question as she got into
her car and turned on the lights. Except maybe a couple of hundred people—and their immediate families, friends and loved ones—that she’d helped to convict over the years. Or the porn king whose neck she was currently breathing down. Or the bikers who’d led the Frick boys astray. . .

The first thing Genna did upon arriving home was to pick up the phone and call Patsy.

There was no answer.

Genna ate standing up in the kitchen because she was suddenly too antsy to sit still. She tried to watch television but couldn’t concentrate. She dialed Patsy’s number twice, unsuccessfully, before getting ready for bed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she splashed clear polish on her nails and called Patsy’s cabin again.

“Hi, sweetie!” Patsy said before Genna could so much as say hi.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Caller ID. Connie and I went to the grand opening of the new shopping center in Wick’s Corner yesterday and I broke down and bought an answering machine. It has caller ID on it.”

“Why didn’t the answering machine pick up when I called?”

“Oh, I haven’t figured out what message I want to leave yet. But I do feel very high tech.”

Genna laughed.

“How’s Aunt Connie?”

“She’s already turned in for the night. Said she wants to get an early start in the morning.”

“Where’s she going?”

“Oh, she’ll be going back home. She—”

“Does Brian know you’re going to be alone?”

“Sweetie, I won’t
be alone. Nancy will be here most likely by noon tomorrow. And Brian still has that security guard coming and going at the Miller house just across the road. . . you remember old Mr. Miller? Had that blind collie dog that you used to take for walks? Remember that dog, honey?”

“Yes, I do. Pats. . .”

“Connie and I drove each other crazy this week trying to remember the name of that collie.”

“It was Buster.” Genna sighed.

“Buster. Of course. I knew you’d remember. Wait till I tell Connie.”

Genna could hear a pot rattling in the background, and the sound of running water. Patsy was making herself a cup of tea.

“Now, let me tell you about this new shopping center that just opened up. . .” Patsy launched into a store by store description.

Genna leaned back against her pillow, and turned off the light, nearly falling asleep as Patsy chattered on and on about the new shops and what she bought.

It wasn’t until later, after they’d hung up and sleep was just about to claim Genna for the night, that it occurred to her that she never did ask Pats why Connie was leaving, or when she’d be coming back.

He leaned closer to the computer screen to read the address and smiled with satisfaction. Yes, he thought perhaps this would be the right one.

Shaking his head slightly, he marveled at the wonders of all this new technology. Why, with just the slightest bit of information, one could locate just about anyone one wanted to find. So far, he was batting 1.000 in his search. There was no one he hadn’t been able to locate.

And here, he’d thought the task would be so difficult. As it was, he’d be finished in no time. No time at all.

He looked out the window and pondered his future. What might he do, after all these loose threads had been tied off?

He giggled at his choice of words. How clever he was, even when he wasn’t trying to be.

His fingers glided swiftly over the keyboard. He loved the computer, loved the power of the information it gave him. Loved knowing it was taking him just where he’d been dreaming he’d go, all these years. He loved the speed of it, the ease.

“Bingo,” he whispered. “There you are, Mary
Alice Tunney, nee Bancroft. I think it’s time for a little reunion.”

He laughed again, out loud this time, there being no one to hear him.

Oh, and a grand reunion, indeed, these past few weeks had turned out to be. How perfect it all was. In every detail.

There had been no one—
no one
—who’d suspected, though there had been a tense moment or two along the way. But no one had known him. Naturally, he’d left nothing—absolutely nothing—to chance. The phone calls he’d made using a disguised voice, of course, were made weeks in advance of his coming to call, long enough before his visits that no one would ever make a connection between the call and what came later. And he’d learned long ago how best to become anonymous in any situation. Dress like the locals. Blend in.

When in Rome. . .

He giggled again. Mary Alice Tunney hung her hat in a house on Egan’s Lane in Rome, New York.

It was just all too perfect.

It was all, obviously, God’s will.

With the click of the mouse, he brought up the file containing the entire list. He typed the address and phone number next to the name of the unsuspecting Mary Alice, then scanned the list to see how many more he needed to find.

The list was amazingly complete.

Of course, the last name on the list already had the address filled in, there’d been no problem finding her.

Oh, no. He’d known right where to look, even after all these years.

But he had to wait, though there were times when the waiting nearly drove him crazy. He had to take them in order. That was very important. After all, if you’re going to do something, for heaven’s sake, do it right. Isn’t that what Mother always said?

Sticking to the plan was important. It was the right way to do it.

It was just so hard sometimes to look at her and to let the game play out.

Five more.

There were only five more before he could finally have her.

He’d simply have to wait.

And remind himself once again of the pleasures to be found in saving the best for last.

He is one ugly son of a gun,
Genna thought as she flipped through the stack of surveillance pictures of Allen LeVane that she’d received via e-mail and printed out just minutes earlier. Just looking at his face made her skin crawl. The closely set dark eyes. The fleshy nose. The thin lips stretched over too-perfect-to-be-real teeth in a genial smile, a chilling touch considering the loathsome business in which he was engaged.

He’d been picked up at ten that morning as he left a town house in a fairly upscale neighborhood outside of Trenton. He’d arrived with a child of perhaps six or seven. He’d left alone. Only the patience and tenacity of the local police combined with the skills and the resources of the Bureau had prevented the child from being subjected to the unspeakable. Genna had stood across the street and watched as three adults were led out of the house in handcuffs, the child in the arms of an officer specially trained to work with juvenile victims. It had taken five police officers all day to load up the photographic equipment and the boxes of video tapes from the three floors of the house.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, Patsy would have said. Yet Genna knew that unless the judge set the bail at an unusually high number, by the next morning LeVane would be back at home in his luxurious penthouse in one of New York’s finest hotels.

But he was on the hot seat now, and the little boy who’d been lured from his mother’s side in a mall in Cleveland the previous week had been returned to his anxious family, not, unfortunately, before LeVane had taken a personal interest in the child. It would take years for the boy to recover from less than two weeks in LeVane’s company.

Genna closed out the computer file after sending the photos via e-mail to the Cleveland police. She’d had enough for one day. Hell, she’d had enough for the month. She snapped off her computer and stood up to stretch. A few hours at the gym would be greatly appreciated right about now. She gathered her belongings and left the office, cautious, as she’d become over the past week, and more attentive to her surroundings. But her “spidey sense,” as John called it, was quiet as she walked to her car, and she drove directly to the gym she’d joined months before but rarely had time to attend. Tonight she’d run a few miles on the track. Ride a stationary bicycle. Maybe lift a few weights. Then finish up with a swim followed by a hot shower. She’d been working like a demon on this case, and she was due a little downtime.

As she methodically followed the indoor course around the elliptical-shaped track, Genna wondered what she’d be working on this time next week. There was no break between one case and the next. There was only the next squeaky wheel. There were a number of
them already sitting on her desk. Between now and Monday morning, any one of them could blow up.

Best to get in a good workout while one could.

The disappearance of the wife of the president of a West Virginia college dominated the news on the television that hung over the juice bar where Genna stopped on her way out of the gym.

Hadn’t she seen a phone message that John called Decker that morning from Beckley, West Virginia?

Damn.

It would only be a matter of time before someone started to add up the number of missing women. How many had there been? Eight? Nine? How much longer did the Bureau think they could keep this under wraps? And of course, the certain notoriety would only make John’s job that much more complicated.

The exercise and the swim should have relaxed her, but it seemed it would take more than a workout to relieve the tension of the past few days. Maybe, she told herself wryly, she should try aromatherapy. Or yoga. She’d had a roommate back at the Academy who swore that yoga was the only thing that kept her inner self balanced.

Genna suspected that it would take more than yoga to balance out her inner self right now, and was thinking about signing up for an aerobics class as she made the turn into the parking lot at her apartment building.
Someone must be having a party,
she thought, as up one row and down the next, she searched for an available spot.

Must be one hell of a party.
She frowned as she spotted a vacant place near the end of the third row.

Music drifted from one of the end apartments and floated over the parking lot.

Wonder how long before someone calls the manager,
she mused as the volume was turned up on a particularly spirited song dating from the seventies.

Don’t let ‘em tell you disco’s dead.
Genna smiled to herself, walking in time to the music across the dimly lit lot toward her building.

She was almost to the walkway when the prickling sensation began to creep along her spine.

Whether a snap of a twig or the rustling of last fall’s forgotten leaves, something drew her attention to the darkened area off to her left. Slipping her hand into her bag, she sought the reassuring cold metal of the Glock. She slowed her pace as her fingers closed around the handle, and her eyes searched the shadows for a shape that shouldn’t be there.

And there, close up to the side of the building, she found it. Someone crouched between the shrubs.

Dropping her gym bag to the ground, Genna drew the gun and called, “Come out with your hands up. Now.”

For a long moment, the figure remained motionless.

“You’ve got to five.” Genna took several steps toward the landscaped area. “One. . . two. . .”

The figure stood slowly, and arms raised, began to pick its way through the shrubbery.

“Keep your arms up. Out here, into the light where I can see you.” Genna motioned with the Glock in her right hand.

“I didn’t expect you to welcome me with open arms, but really, Genna, pulling a gun might be a wee bit extreme. Even under the circumstances.”

Genna froze, every muscle in her body tensing. Even after all the years that had passed, she knew the voice that drifted out of the darkness.

The figure moved into the light, arms no longer held overhead, but out in front as if to show they were empty.

“Crystal?” Genna’s eyes grew wide with disbelief.
“Chrissie?”

“Hello, Genevieve.”

The young woman stopped almost ten feet away from where Genna stood, and while Genna’s eyes and ears told her that Crystal Jean Snow, her older sister, was the woman who stood before her, her brain was having a hard time believing it.

“A ‘hello, Crystal’ might be a nice start.” The woman’s arms dropped to her sides.

“Chrissie. . .” Genna appeared stunned. “How. . . ?”

“How did I find you?” She laughed softly. “You have to be kidding. You’re famous. Genna Snow, intrepid FBI agent. I saw you on television last year, there was a news special about that magazine heiress who was being stalked up in New England by some crazy who had killed her sister. It took me a while to get up the courage to come looking for you, but it wasn’t hard to find you, once I made up my mind.”

Genna wished there was a place to sit down. Her knees had begun to knock together.

“I can’t believe this. After all this time. . .”

“Eighteen years, Genna.”

“I should invite you in.” Genna said as if to herself.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t blame you. I only wanted to see you, Gen. I just wanted to see if you were as pretty in person as you were on television. I
wanted to see just how tall you’d grown over the years—just look at how much taller than me!—and what color brown your hair had finally settled on.” The woman dug her hands into the pockets of her light jacket. “And I wanted you to know that they’re gone.”

“Gone?” It didn’t occur to Genna to ask who. She knew. “When?”

“About three months ago.”