Before leaving, Poppy scoured the room of every trace that they’d been here. Even if someone tracked them to this room, they’d have no notion that hair had been cut or dyed.
She stopped their newly red truck at a gas station, got a fistful of change ready, let Katie punch in her dad’s cell phone number, then held the handset between them as her father answered.
“Hi, Daddy. It’s me.”
“Katie!” said a masculine voice. “Oh, Katie, thank God it’s you! What happened? I thought I was going to see you last night. I waited and waited.”
Poppy heard the voice crack and almost break with emotion. Damn me, she thought. I should’ve let him know I wasn’t coming.
“I fell asleep,” Katie said.
“Are you all right?”
“Sure. We’re playing let’s pretend and you know what we did?” Poppy pulled the handset away. “Let me talk now, okay?”
No telling who might be listening. Maybe even Mac. Paulie said he was a genius. He might have tapped Katie’s home line, but how could you tap a cellular phone? No wires.
“Sorry about last night,” she said. “I had to like change plans.”
“As long as Katie’s all right. But she needs her medicine. She—”
“All taken care of,” Poppy said.
A pause on the other end, then, “But the pills were left—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m taking good care of her. I ain’t about to let her start having fits.”
“Can I ask how you got them? I mean, is it the right dose?”
“Exactly the same as the ones in the bottle. I had to like knock over a drugstore to get them.”
After another pause, longer this time. “You did that for Katie? You…you really do care about her, don’t you.”
“Sure. You got a great kid here.” A totally great kid. “But how come she’s got like this dent in her head?”
“An… accident. A fractured skull. It left her with the seizure disorder.” He cleared his throat. “Listen… can I ask you… is she all there? I mean, her toes… ?”
“Yeah. She’s still got all ten. How’d you figure out the one you got wasn’t hers?”
“A laboratory. Were you the one responsible for—I mean, for not…”
“Not allowing her to get hurt? Yeah. Me and Paulie. And it got Paulie killed.”
“The dead man in the house?”
Now it was Poppy’s turn to get tight in the throat. She swallowed. “Yeah. He was a good guy. He died protecting her.”
“I… I don’t know how to thank you… I’ll never be able to thank you enough… but I don’t understand…”
“It’s like a long story and I don’t have time to tell it. But what you gotta know is that the guy who killed Paulie is still alive. That’s why I didn’t bring Katie last night. I thought he was totally dead. I mean, like I put a bullet in his head. I—”
“You?”
“Well, yeah. He was trying to hurt Katie. She knows what he looks like, so he’ll still be after her. If I give her back, you gotta get her protection.”
“Oh, trust me, she’ll have the best protection in the world. I guarantee as soon as she’s back the FBI, the Secret Service, and DEA, even the CIA will be guarding her.”
Poppy’s stomach did a flip-flop. All those federal initials. What if they were looking for Katie now? That meant they were looking for her too. Suddenly she wanted this all over with.
“They’ll protect you as well,” Katie’s father was saying.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. My hands ain’t so clean in this.”
“Believe me, you bring Katie back and help them, all sorts of deals can be made.”
“I think I’d just like to fade into the scenery, if you don’t mind.” She kept thinking: FBI, Secret Service, DEA, CIA. She glanced at her watch.
She’d been on the line for too long.
Her mind raced. How could she get Katie safe back home? Couldn’t do it back in the D.C. area, and she couldn’t stay around here any longer.
Where?
And then she knew.
“All right, look. Here’s how it’ll go down: I’ll meet you in A.C. tomorrow and give Katie back.”
“Aycee?”
“Atlantic City.” Paulie liked blackjack; they used to hit the casinos regularly. “Register tonight in Bally’s Park Place under your own name and I’ll get in touch. You’ll have Katie back like tomorrow for sure.”
“Can’t we do something today?”
“Sorry. Gotta be tomorrow. Bally’s. Don’t forget.” She hung up.
“You didn’t let me say bye,” Katie said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, honey bunch. But guess what? You’re going back to him tomorrow for sure.”
Katie’s big smile and the light in her eyes were daggers through Poppy’s heart. Aren’t you going to miss me? Just a little?
6
Every time he thought things couldn’t get worse, they did.
Dan Keane sat in on the task force update and tried to appear calm as Decker summarized the latest information. But it wasn’t easy. Murphy’s Law had taken over.
“… and so it appears that the actual kidnap operation is a bust. If we can trust this unidentified woman who’s been calling Vanduyne, the kidnappers had a falling out over cutting off the child’s toe. The disagreement left Paul Dicastro dead and someone named ‘Mac’ wounded. ‘Mac’ may or may not be ‘Snake.’ According to the woman, he’s got a head wound. Consequently, we’ve got an APB out for a man with a gunshot head wound— officially listed as a suspect in the Falls Church killing. We’re combing emergency rooms in a fifty-mile radius.”
I’ve got to call Salinas, Keane thought. He’s got to start his own ER sweep.
“We want this guy. We’ve got to get to him before he gets to Katie Vanduyne. Once we have him, we can tie him to the kidnapping and to the murder. With those counts against him, I know we can make him roll over and give up whoever put him up to this.”
Canney spoke up. “But first we need Katie Vanduyne alive and well. We traced the last call to a pay phone in Edgewood, Maryland, but they could be anywhere between Maryland and Atlantic City now. We could clamp down on the A.C. Expressway and check every car, but that might frighten her off. We want this exchange to happen. We want Katie back. We’d also like the woman who has her, of course, but we’ll settle for Katie. She can identify ‘Mac.’ She’s the key right now.”
“Right,” Decker said. “That’s why this will be our last face-to-face meeting for a while. Gerry and I are heading to Atlantic City tonight. That’s where Vanduyne’s supposed to get Katie back. We’ll bug his phone and be in the wings making sure nothing goes wrong.”
Why risk another call? Keane thought. I’m clean. No links. Let’s keep it that way.
Right. Everything has already gone to hell. Let Salinas worry about it.
Time for Dan Keane to wash his hands of the whole affair. Let the little girl get home to her father, let Decker and Canney catch this wounded kidnapper. It won’t matter. He was certain Salinas had insulated himself from the plot. And if this missing guy does pose a threat, Salinas will see to it that he never gets a chance to talk.
What mattered was that the plan had worked. That fool Winston was in Bethesda Naval rather than on his way to The Hague. His decriminalization debacle was heading for derailment. Without him, it would never get back ontrack.
And I did it.
Dan headed straight home to Georgetown after the meeting. Still early on this Sunday afternoon, but he needed a drink. A stiff one. He wished Carmella and the kids hadn’t gone to Florida. He didn’t feel like being alone today.
The phone was ringing as he entered his townhouse. He hurried down the narrow front hall and snatched it up.
“Hello, Mr. Keane.”
Dan nearly fell into a chair as he recognized the voice.
He could not speak.
“Hello?” said Carlos Salinas. “Are you still there?”
His panicked mind whirled. How? How did he trace me? What do I do?
Play dumb.
“Who… who is this?”
A laugh. “You know very well who this is. And I know who you are.”
Dan said nothing. His body had turned to stone… cold stone.