Greg Iles - 24 Hours

He was having trouble keeping his mind on track. He remembered the ride to the airport that morning, when he’d asked Karen to bring Abby to the convention at the last minute. He’d had a bad feeling about her refusal. A premonition. Nothing melodramatic, just a feeling that if Karen wasn’t with him on this trip, their lives might skew farther apart than they already had. In his wildest flights of paranoia, he could not have imagined something like this. But he had imagined that without Karen at his side this weekend, he might find himself in one of those situations he’d experienced many times before. Situations in which he had always chosen to spend the night alone rather than accept an offer of female company. But during the ride to the airport, something had been whispering below the level of consciousness, a voice born during long months of miscommunication and silent rejections, whispering that a channel for release was presenting itself. And a part of him had heeded that voice. That knowledge now ate like acid at his heart.

It was a cliche of a cliche. You never knew what you had until it was gone. The idea that Abby could be murdered was so paralyzing that Will did not allow himself to consider it a real possibility. He would get her back, no matter what it cost him. Money. Blood. His life. But even with the best possible outcome, something irrevocable had already occurred. He had left his wife and child alone. Exposed. It was nothing that millions of fathers didn’t do every week, but in this case, some part of him had wanted to be alone on this trip. He could have pushed Karen harder-and earlier-really convinced her that he wanted her with him on this weekend. But he hadn’t. It wasn’t solely his fault. Organizing the Junior League’s sixtieth anniversary flower show was comparable to planning double-blind trials for a new drug, and missing the event itself would be Junior League suicide for the chairperson. But deep down, Will suspected, Karen wanted to commit Junior League suicide. And he had not done enough to help her.

“What are you thinking about over there?” asked Cheryl.

She came out of the bathroom and climbed back into the bed, using the oversized pillows to prop herself against the headboard. The torn cocktail dress was tied around her waist. She wore the black bra as though it were a Madonna-style bustier. Will supposed that to a girl who had turned tricks in cars behind a strip club, wearing only a bra in front of a stranger was no big deal.

“Not speaking to me?” she asked.

Cheryl was the kind of person who couldn’t tolerate silence. Will shrugged and turned back to the lights of the freighter.

“Look, you’re going to get your daughter back,” she said. “It’s just a waiting game. You pay some money-which you don’t give a shit about compared to your little girl-and you get her back in the morning. You ought to try to sleep. I’ve got to take the calls from Joey, so I have to stay awake. But you should crash. I’ll wake you up when it’s time.”

“You think I can sleep with this going on?”

“You need to. You’re going to be a basket case in the morning if you don t.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Leave me alone, okay?”

“Look, you’re just standing there blaming yourself and trying to figure out a way to rescue your little girl. That’s what they all do. But you can’t. You’re not Mel Gibson, for Christ’s sake. Mel Gibson isn’t even Mel Gibson, you know? You save your little girl by paying Joey the money. It’s that simple.”

“I should trust Joe?”

“Joey’s got a motto on this deal, Doc. You know what it is?”

“What?”

“The kid always makes it.”

Will turned from the window.

“I’m serious,” she said. “He’s said it a hundred times. That’s how we’ve managed to keep on doing this. That’s how we made all our money.”

“And every child you’ve done this to has lived? Been returned to its parents?”

“Good as new. I’m telling you, you’ve got to chill.” She barked a laugh that gave the lie to the classic beauty of her face. “You gotta chill, Will!” she sang out, delighted by the rhyme. “You’re going to give yourself a stroke.”

He turned back to the window. Cheryl’s reassurances didn’t mesh with the voice on the other end of the phone. There was hatred in Hickey’s voice, a resentment so deep that Will could not see it stopping short of the maximum pain it could inflict. Yet in the other cases, it had. If Cheryl and Hickey could be believed.

“You want me to help you calm down?” Cheryl asked.

He looked at her reflection in the window. She had taken a brush from her purse and was pulling it through her blond hair. “How?” he asked. “Drugs?”

“I told you, I’m clean now. But I can chill you out. Whatever, you know. Back rub?”

“No, thanks.”

“Front rub?”

He turned to her, unsure he had heard correctly. She stopped brushing her hair.

“It’s no big deal,” she said. “You’ll sleep like a baby. All guys do.”

“Are you kidding?”

She smiled knowingly. “Don’t worry. Wifey won’t ever know about it.”

“I said no, okay? Jesus.”

“I was just trying to help you relax. I know you’re upset.”

“What’s the deal here, Cheryl? Is sex the only way you know how to relate to men?”

She turned to the television, her lower lip pooched out like an angry child’s. “Not quite, Oprah.”

“A while ago you gave me your sob story about how terrible it was to be a whore. Now you’re acting like one.”

“Hey, I was just trying to make this easier on you.”

“Do you make the same offer to all your victims?”

The word “victim” didn’t sit well with her. “I saw you looking at me during the speech, and I knew you were interested.”

“Bullshit.”

She cut her eyes at him, and they held a disturbing knowledge. “My mistake, I guess. What do I know? I’m just a dumb stripper, right?” She picked up the remote and flipped through some channels, finally settling on the Home Shopping Network.

Will turned back to the window. As he searched for the tiny lights of the freighter, he saw movement in the reflection of the room. Focusing on it, he saw Cheryl remove her bra. He didn’t turn, but he saw her settle deeper on the pillows and begin slowly stroking her breasts. He tried to watch the freighter, but he couldn’t concentrate. It was absurd. This woman had helped kidnap his daughter; now she was coming on to him as if they’d just met in the casino downstairs. Cheryl moaned softly, drawing his eyes to her reflection again. Her movements were impossible to ignore.

“Why are you doing that?”

“To show you you’re no different than the rest. And that it’s okay.”

“Put your bra back on.”

She didn’t stop moving her hands. “You’re saying that, but you’d rather I left it off.”

“Put it back on, Cheryl.”

“They look good, don’t they?”

He turned toward the bed at last. “If you like implants.”

She laughed. “Sure they’re implants. But they’re good. Not like the local junk you see around here. Joey flew me out to L.A. to have it done, when I was a featured dancer. I got the same doctor that did Demi. He said mine looked just as good.” She cupped them in her palms. “Just as good.”

They did look like perfect male fantasies, but they did not look natural. As a doctor, Will had seen more breasts than he cared to think about, and Cheryl’s Penthouse-style showpieces had almost nothing in common with the female form in its natural state.

“Cover yourself,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t care what you do.” He turned back to the window.