Greg Iles - 24 Hours

Despite his speech about human frailty, Will couldn’t believe that fathers whose children were in mortal danger would have sex with one of their kidnappers. It seemed incomprehensible. And yet, he knew it was possible. “You’re lying,” he said, trying to reassure himself.

“Whatever you say. But I know what I know.”

Special Agent Bill Chalmers thanked a black homicide detective named Washington and closed the door of the police interrogation room. Dr. McDill and his wife had followed the FBI agent’s car the few blocks from the Federal Building to police headquarters, and what they had come for now lay on the metal table in front of them. A stack of mug books two and a half feet high.

“I know it’s not great,” Chalmers said. “But it’s more private than the squad room.”

“There must be thousands of photos here,” McDill said.

“Easily. I’ll be outside, accessing the National Crime Information Center computer. I’ll check all past records of kidnappings-for-ransom in the Southeast, then hit the names ‘Joe,’ ‘Cheryl,’ and ‘Huey’ for criminal records under actual names and aliases. ‘Joe’ is common as dirt, but the others might ring a bell. Also, I talked to my boss by cell phone on the way over. We may see him down here before long. Right now he’s waking up some bank officers to set up flags on large wire transfers going to the Gulf Coast tomorrow morning.” Chalmers looked at his watch. “I guess I mean this morning.”

McDill sighed. “Could we have some coffee or something?”

“You bet. How do you take it?”

“Black for me. Margaret?”

“Is it possible they might have tea?” she asked in a soft voice.

Chalmers gave her a smile. “You never know. I’ll check.”

After he went out, Margaret sat down at the table and opened one of the mug books. The faces staring up from the page belonged to people the McDills used all their money and privilege to avoid. The faces shared many features. Flash-blinded, dope-fried eyes. Hollow cheeks. Bad teeth. Nose rings. Tattoos. And stamped into every one, as though dyed into the skin, a bitter hopelessness that never looked further than the next twenty-four hours.

“Are we doing the right thing?” Margaret asked, looking up at her husband.

McDill gently squeezed her shoulder. “Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“The right thing is always the hardest thing.”

Abby sat scrunched in the corner of the ratty sofa, crying inconsolably, her Barbie held tight against her. Huey sat on the floor six feet away, looking stricken.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I just did what Joey told me to. I have to do what Joey says.”

“He stole me from my mom and dad!” Abby wailed. “You did, too!”

“I didn’t want to! I wish your mama was here right now.” Huey squeezed his hands into fists. “I wish my mama was here.”

“Where is she?” Abby asked, pausing in mid-wail.

“Heaven.” Huey said it as though he didn’t quite believe it. “How come you ran away? It’s because I’m ugly, isn’t it?”

Abby resumed crying, but she shook her head.

“You don’t have to say it. I know. The kids in my school ran too. Nobody liked me. But I thought we was friends. All I wanted to do was be nice. But you ran. How come?”

“I told you. You stole me away from my mom.”

“That’s not it. You don’t like me because I look like a monster.”

Abby fixed her swollen eyes on him. “What you look like doesn’t matter. Don’t you know that?”

Huey blinked. “What?”

“Belle taught me that.”

“Who?”

Abby rubbed her eyes and held out her gold-lamegowned Barbie. “This is Belle. Beauty and the Beast Belle. She’s my favorite Disney princess because she reads books. She wants to be something someday. Belle says it doesn’t matter what you look like. It only matters what you feel inside. In your heart. And what you do.”

Huey’s mouth hung slack, as though he were staring at a magical fairy risen from the grass.

“You never saw Beauty and the Beast?” Abby said incredulously.

He shook his head.

“Let’s pretend I’m Belle, and you’re Beast.”

“Beast?” He looked suddenly upset. “I’m a beast?”

“Good Beast.” Abby wiped her runny nose. “Beast after he turns nice. Not mean like at first.”

She slid off the couch and held Belle out to him. “Say something Beast says in the movie. Oh, I forgot. You missed it. Just say something nice. And call me ‘Belle,’ remember?”

Huey was at a loss. Tentatively, he said, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Belle. I’m going to keep you safe till morning comes, and your mama comes to get you.”

Abby smiled. “Thank you, Beast. And if the villagers come and try to kill you, me and Mrs. Potts and Chip will make them go away. They won’t get you!”

Huey swallowed, his eyes bright.

“Now you say, ‘Thank you, Belle.’”

“Thank you, Belle.”

Abby petted the doll’s hair. “Do you want to brush her hair? Just pretendlike.”

Huey reached out shyly and petted Belle’s hair with his enormous hand.

“Good, Beast,” Abby murmured. “Good Beast.”

Karen watched the digital clock beside her bed flash over to 1:00 A.M. She was sitting in the overstuffed chair in the corner, hugging her knees; Hickey lay on the bed, his injured leg propped high on some pillows. The Wild Turkey bottle sat beside him, along with Will’s. 38. His eyes were glued to the television, which was showing the opening credits of The Desperate Hours with Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March. She was glad he hadn’t yet realized there was a satellite dish connected to the bedroom television; she didn’t want him flipping through to Cinemax and getting more ideas from the T amp;A movies they seemed to run all night.

“Bogey’s good,” Hickey drawled, sounding more than half drunk. “But Mitchum was the greatest. No acting at all, you know? The real deal.”

Karen said nothing. She had never known time to pass so slowly. Not even when she was in labor, screaming for Abby to be born. It was as though the earth itself had slowed on its axis, its sole purpose to torment her family. She had entered that realm of timelessness that exists in certain places, a few of which she had visited herself. Prisons were like that. And monasteries. But the ones she knew most intimately were the waiting rooms of hospitals: bubbles in time where entire families entered a state of temporal suspension, waiting to learn whether the heart of the patriarch would restart after the triple bypass, whether a child would be saved or killed by a wellintentioned gift of marrow. Her bedroom had now become such a bubble. Only her child was not in the hands of a doctor.

“You alive over there?” Hickey asked.

“Barely,” she whispered, her eyes on Fredric March. March reminded her of her father; he was a model of male restraint and dignity, yet he would do whatever was required when the going got tough. She still cried when she saw The Best Years of Our Lives, with March and that poor boy who’d lost both hands in the war trying to learn to play the piano-

“I said, are you alive over there?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Then you ought to feel lucky.”

She sensed that Hickey was looking for a fight. She didn’t intend to give him one.

“’Cause a lot of people who ought to be alive aren’t,” he said. “You know?”

She looked over at him, wondering who he was thinking of. “I know.”

“Bullshit you know.”

“I told you, I was a nurse.”

He glanced at her. “You proud of it? People in agony waiting for pain medicine while nurses sit there painting their fucking fingernails, watching the clock, waiting for their shift to end.”