Greg Iles - 24 Hours

“You’ve forgotten something, Doctor. When Joey calls back, I can kill your kid with one word. And I think I’m going to, for what you did.”

Will kept his face calm. “You don’t want Abby to die. I sensed that before, when we were talking about kids. About being pregnant.”

She looked away.

“And you don’t want to die yourself. If you kill Abby, you will. One way or another. It’s one thing to talk about death, or to flirt with it when you’re depressed. But you’ve got a taste of it now. And it’s bad. Isn’t it?”

She closed her eyes.

“You think that because nothing happened to the kids those other times, nothing will happen to Abby. But you’re wrong. There’s something different about this time. And Karen found out what it is. That’s why she sent me that message. What is it, Cheryl? What’s different about this time?”

“Nothing.”

He reached out and pulled her chin over until she faced him. “Open your eyes and tell me why this time is different. Don’t make me inject you again. To be honest, it’s getting dangerous.”

She opened her eyes. For the first time, he thought about their color. They were grayish blue, not the cornflower you expected to go with her hair. “Tell me,” he said.

“You killed Joey’s mother.”

Will blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“Last year, Joey’s mother died during an operation. The doctor who did the surgery told Joey it was your fault. He said you weren’t paying attention. You weren’t even in the room.”

“What?” He thought back over the past year ’s cases. Some were clear, others a blur. He did about eight hundred fifty a year, but he almost always remembered the deaths. “Was her name Hickey?”

“No. She’d remarried. Simpkins was her name.”

“Simpkins… Simpkins?”

“Joey said you wouldn’t remember it. That’s how little it mattered to you. But it matters to him.”

“I do remember! The SCD case.”

“The what?”

“SCDs. Sequential compression devices. The surgeon operated without them, and Mrs. Simpkins developed a pulmonary embolus.”

“Embolus,” Cheryl said. “That’s it. A blood clot.”

“Viola Simpkins,” Will said.

“That’s her.”

It was all coming back now. The surgeon had been a visiting professor, and the accident had caused a big rift between UMC and his institution. “I had nothing to do with that death. It was a terrible mistake, but it wasn’t my responsibility.”

“The surgeon told Joey it was.”

“Well, I’ll tell him it wasn’t. I’ll make the damn surgeon tell him.”

“That might be tough. He’s dead. Joey killed him.”

Will suddenly felt cold. Hickey had murdered a surgeon because his mother died on an operating table? “Karen must have found this out,” he thought aloud. “That’s why she sent the message. And that’s why Joe is going to kill Abby. To punish me.”

“He never told me that,” Cheryl insisted.

“Because he knew you might not go along.” Will gripped her arms. “Cheryl, you’ve got to tell me where Abby is. Joe’s going to murder her. She’s only five years old!”

She looked him dead in the eye. “I told you. I-don’t-know-where-she-is.”

Will drew seventy milligrams of Anectine into the syringe and climbed back onto her chest. She began to fight beneath him.

“Please, please,” she begged. “Don’t do it!”

Streaks of blood marked the previous puncture sites on her neck and arm. Will moved the needle toward her neck and pressed it against her flesh.

“She’s somewhere west of Hazlehurst!” Cheryl cried. “Do you know where that is?”

He kept the needle against her vein. “Where Highway 28 crosses I-55?”

She nodded violently. “That’s it! There’s a shack ten or fifteen miles up that road.”

“Ten miles? Or fifteen?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never been there. It’s not on the main road. You go down two or three logging roads before you get to it.”

“That’s useless. There are a hundred logging roads through those woods. Hunting camps, everything.”

“That’s all I know! For Christ’s sake, I’m trying to help you!”

“How is Joe calling Huey?”

“What?”

“Is Huey using a landline or a cell phone?”

“Cellular. There’s no regular phone out there.”

“What else?”

She shook her head. “That’s all I know! I swear to God!”

Cheryl was exhausted, that was plain. But there was still a private knowledge in her eyes. Something she was holding back. He considered injecting her again, but he didn’t really want to risk it. He had never put a human being through three consecutive cycles, and he needed her alive and cooperative for Hickey’s next call. The important thing was to get a cellular trace started around Hazlehurst, if it was possible. He took the torn sheet of hotel stationery from his pocket and dialed Harley Ferris’s number yet again.

“Are you going to leave me like this?” Cheryl asked.

“I’ll untie you in a second.” Ferris’s phone rang four times. Then the answering machine began its spiel. Will had expected it, but even so, it was like someone slamming a door in his face at the moment he saw a way out. He hung up and redialed, taking care to enter every number correctly.

“Joey’s going to be calling in a couple of minutes,” Cheryl said.

Will’s watch read 3:26 A.M. By the time Ferris’s phone began ringing, he was practically hyperventilating. Three rings. Four. The answering machine clicked and began speaking. Will’s finger was on the disconnect button when he heard a click, then a clatter.

“Hello?” said a male voice. “Hello! I’m here.”

“Is this Harley Ferris?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Thank God. Mr. Ferris, this is Dr. Will Jennings. This is an emergency. I want to you listen very carefully.”

“Oh my God. Oh no. Is it one of my kids?”

“No, sir. It’s not your family. It’s mine.”

“What?”

“Do you remember me, Mr. Ferris? I was the anesthesiologist on your wife’s gallbladder surgery. She requested me.”

“I know you,” Ferris said. “We played in that scramble at Annandale a few months back. But it’s three-thirty in the morning, Doctor. What the hell’s going on?”

“My daughter’s in trouble. Desperate trouble. You can help her. But before I tell you anything, you’ve got to promise not to call the police.”

“The police? I don’t understand.”

Will decided to go for broke. “Mr. Ferris, my daughter was kidnapped yesterday evening. I can’t go to the police because the kidnappers will kill her if I do. Do you understand?”

There was a delay as Ferris processed this information. “I heard you,” he said finally. “I’m not sure I understand you.”

“I’m in a casino hotel in Biloxi right now. The Beau Rivage. My wife’s at home in Annandale. One of the kidnappers is with her. My daughter is being held at a third location. Somewhere in the woods around Hazlehurst, Mississippi. Every thirty minutes, the leader of the kidnappers calls the location where my daughter’s being held. I know they’re using a CellStar telephone. You’re the president of CellStar. Can you trace that call for me?”

“Not without a court order, I can’t.”

“My daughter will be dead long before anyone gets a court order.”

“Jesus. Is this some sort of prank? Is this really Will Jennings?”

“I wish it were a joke. But it’s not. On the soul of my daughter, it’s not.”

“Are both parties using cell phones?”

“The man on the receiving end is using one. There’s no landline where he is. He’s ten or fifteen miles west of Hazlehurst, down some logging road. That’s all I know at this point.”