Greg Iles - 24 Hours

“There’s not much activity around there this time of night,” Ferris said. “We’ve only got one tower down that way, an older one. Our coverage is pretty thin around there, to be honest. I’d have to get a vehicle down there to trace it, and I don’t know where our vans are right now.”

“Where could they be?”

“Anywhere in the state.”

“How many do you have?”

“Two.”

“Harley, if we don’t find that phone, my five-year-old daughter will be dead by morning. Even if I pay the ransom.”

“How much are they asking for?”

“Two hundred thousand.”

“That doesn’t seem like much.”

“That’s part of their plan. It’s not really the money they want. They want to hurt me. Can you help?”

“Doctor, it sounds to me like we should call the FBI.”

“No! They’ve thought of that. Planned for it.”

“But for a job like this-”

“This isn’t a job, Harley! This is my kid. Remember how you felt when you thought I was calling because one of your kids was in a wreck? Think back two minutes.”

More silence. “Goddamn it. Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I need your word that you won’t call the FBI. Your word of honor.”

“I’ll keep quiet until morning. But if I get a trace on that phone, we’re calling in the FBI. Agreed?”

“You find that phone, I’ll be begging for a SWAT team.”

“Where are you now?”

“You have a pen?”

“Just a second. Okay, go ahead.”

“I’m at the Beau Rivage Casino, suite 28021. Call as soon as you know anything, but not on the hour or half hour. That’s when the kidnappers make their check-in calls. The next one’s coming in less than two minutes.”

“I can’t do anything about that one, except maybe confirm that they’re using the tower near Hazlehurst. I’ll call as soon as I know something. Hang tough, Doctor. We’ll figure something out.”

“Thank you. Hey-why did you suddenly answer your phone?”

“My prostate,” Ferris replied. “We don’t keep a phone in the bedroom. I got up to take a leak and decided I was hungry. I heard the machine in the kitchen.”

“Thank God you did. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Will hung up, his heart pounding. “Joe’s going to call any second.” He turned to Cheryl. “What are you going to tell him?”

“Wait and see, you son of a bitch. You’d better untie me.”

Letting Cheryl answer Hickey’s next call could be the biggest mistake he ever made. But he had no choice. He had crossed the Rubicon. There was no retreat now. He could hold the needle against Cheryl’s neck as she answered, but instinct told him to show some faith. He reached out and unbuckled the belt that bound her chest.

“I don’t think you want my little girl to die. You’re not that far gone. You were a little girl once, too. Not so long ago, either.”

She refused to look at him.

As he untied the terry-cloth belt that held her legs, the phone began to ring. The sound constricted Will’s chest. “My daughter’s life is in your hands. Help her, and anything I have is yours. All the money you’ll ever need.”

“You’d better answer that phone, Doctor.”

He took a deep breath, then picked up the phone, handed it to Cheryl, and leaned down to listen.

“Yeah?” she said.

“Everything okay?” Hickey asked.

She looked at Will, her eyes inches away. As he tried to read them, an old memory flashed into his mind, the eyes of a secretary to a bank loan officer. She had kept him waiting for an hour even though she knew his loan application would be denied, reveling in the only power she would ever have over someone like him. Cheryl had a thousand times that power now. Would she exercise it to pay him back for the terror he’d forced her to endure?

“Yeah,” she said finally. “Everything’s cool.”

He felt light-headed. He was squeezing her arm with gratitude when Hickey said, “What’s the matter? You don’t sound right.”

The son of a bitch was clairvoyant.

Cheryl looked at Will. “I’m getting tired,” she said.

“It’s not too much longer now. Take one of the pills I gave you. I need you sharp.”

“I know. I’ll talk to you in a half hour.”

Will heard the click as Hickey hung up. With shaking hands he took the phone from Cheryl and set it in its cradle. “Thank you,” he said. “You just started earning your first million.”

She scowled and rolled off the bed. “Fuck you very much. Now what?”

“Now we wait for the phone trace. And pray.”

Huey Cotton sat on the floor in the front room of the cabin, whittling steadily. Behind him, Abby slept soundly on the sofa, the ratty horse blanket covering her body. She had been talking to Huey when exhaustion finally overcame her. She simply closed her eyes in midsentence and slipped down onto the cushions with her Belle Barbie in her left hand.

Huey had been whittling ever since.

He didn’t always know what he was whittling. Sometimes he let his hands do the thinking for him. He’d found a good piece of cedar outside in the woodpile. He cut the firewood last fall, mostly oak, and while he was oiling his chain saw he’d spotted a young cedar that had been snapped off at the ground by a tornado. Cedar was good carving wood, and there wasn’t a smell like it in the world. The chunk in his hands was starting to look something like a bear. Whatever it was, there was enough cedar left for something more to develop. His hands had never felt so good. His nervousness seemed to flow out through the knife blade and into the wood, and from the wood into the air, like power leaking from a car battery left on concrete.

Soon it would be morning, and he was glad. The quicker Joey got his money, the less chance there was that he would tell Huey to do something to Abby. Huey was glad she’d finally eaten some Cap’n Crunch. She was so hungry, and he had gobbled up what was left of the baloney and crackers long ago. Before the first bite, she’d asked if he knew what time her mother would be picking her up. Huey figured they would be at the McDonald’s by ten in the morning, so he told her ten o’clock. A smile of relief appeared on her face, and she began chomping the cereal like birthday cake. She said her shot would hold her until ten, whatever that meant. She ate two full bowls before she was done, and even drank the leftover milk. Ten minutes later, her full stomach took its effect. Her eyes rolled up and she fell sound asleep. Huey smiled at the memory and kept peeling away slivers of cedar.

Will had set up his notebook computer on the circular dining table in the front room of the suite. He was composing an e-mail to Karen. He wanted to tell her about Ferris and the phone tracing, but he couldn’t. What if Hickey came upon her while she was reading the message? For the same reason, he could not even hint at Cheryl’s cooperation. If Hickey knew his wife had betrayed him, he might decide to cut his losses and run, which would almost certainly mean Abby’s death.

He needed to tell her he understood her message and had taken action, but in a way that only she could understand. He needed a code. He searched his memory for some event in their past that might be applicable to the present situation, but there was nothing. It was too fantastic. But then it hit him. If their own lives did not contain a parallel he could use, other lives did. Lives on screen. He and Karen had watched thousands of movies together, some of them many times. It took him less than a minute to come up with a phrase he was sure she would understand. The message he typed was:

ABBY IS GOING TO MAKE IT. TRUST ME. DO YOU BELIEVE THE CONDOR IS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES?