Greg Iles - 24 Hours

He ran his hands through his hair. “I need you to bluff Joe a bit longer. Over the phone, you know. Like we have been. Just long enough to get Abby.”

“I’m dead,” she said in a toneless voice.

“No, you’re not. Hang with me, Cheryl.”

She covered her eyes with a shaking hand. Fear and exhaustion had brought her to the point of despair. Will could almost read her mind. In some corner of her brain she was thinking she should pick up the phone and warn Hickey. That if she told him what Will was up to, he might forgive her and call the whole thing off before everything came apart.

“Cheryl, you’ve got to think straight right now. I’m going to do everything I can to help you. If you somehow wind up in police custody, I’ll testify on your behalf. I swear it. But you can’t save Joe. It’s gone past that. I know you still feel loyalty to him. But if you try to warn him, I’ll have no choice but to tell him everything you’ve told me. He’ll know I could only have gotten it from you.”

Her face closed into a bitter mask, like the face of a woman from some impoverished Appalachian hollow. “I’ll tell him you tortured it out of me with those goddamn drugs.”

“If anything spooks Joe now, he’ll tell Huey to kill Abby, and then he’ll run. But you won’t get out of this room. The only place you’ll go will be death row in Parchman. You’ll spend ten years rotting there while you go through all your appeals. Shitty food, no drugs, no life. And then-”

“Shut up, okay? Just shut up!” Tears welled in her red-rimmed eyes. “I see I got no place to go. I never have.”

“But you do. If you can keep it together for another hour, you’ll get enough money to become anybody you want to be. To get free and clear for the first time in your life.”

Cheryl turned and walked back into the bedroom. Before she was out of earshot, Will heard her say, “Nobody’s free and clear, Doc. Nobody.”

Dr. McDill accepted the magnifying glass that Special Agent-in-Charge Zwick offered him and leaned down over the photograph on the desk. It was a black-and-white, high-resolution digital still, captured from videotape shot by a security camera at the Beau Rivage Casino on the previous day. A time/date stamp in the corner read: 16-22:21. 4:22 in the afternoon. That particular camera had been covering one of the blackjack tables at the time. The shooting angle was downward from behind the dealer, which yielded a perfect shot of the blonde in the slinky black dress standing over the king of diamonds and six of hearts.

“Is it her?” Zwick asked.

“No doubt about it.”

McDill put down the magnifying glass and looked back at his wife, who was sitting on Zwick’s sofa with her legs close together. The emotions running through him were intense enough to make his eyes sting. “I was right,” he said. “It’s happening again. Right this minute, another family is going through the same hell we did.” He walked over to Margaret, sat beside her, and took her hand. “We did the right thing. Thank you for coming with me. I know how difficult it was.”

She looked as shell-shocked as a war refugee. He needed to get her home.

“Has Agent Chalmers seen that picture?” he asked. McDill hadn’t seen Chalmers in the past couple of hours. There were so many people moving in and out of the office now that it was hard to keep up with anybody.

“Chalmers is in the field,” Zwick replied. He was already behind his desk, dialing the telephone.

“Oh my God,” McDill cried, slapping his forehead like one of the Three Stooges.

“What is it?” Zwick pressed the phone to his chest.

“I’m scheduled to do a triple bypass in a half hour. My surgical team is probably calling the police right now.”

“Would you like an agent to drive you to the hospital? We can have a female agent take Mrs. McDill home.”

“I can’t operate. I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours. May I use your phone?”

“Of course. There’s another line just outside.”

As McDill approached the door, a young woman burst into the room.

Zwick glared at her. “I assume you have a good reason for this interruption, Agent Perry?”

The female agent nodded, her eyes flashing with excitement. “There’s a man on the main line asking for the Special Agent-in-Charge.”

“Who is it?”

“Harley Ferris.”

Zwick turned up his palms. “Who the hell is Harley Ferris?”

“The president of CellStar. And he says he’s got to talk to the SAC about a kidnapping-in-progress.”

The blood drained from Zwick’s face.

Huey Cotton was sitting on the porch steps of the cabin, using the point of his knife to put the finishing touches on his carving. When his cell phone rang, he put down the cedar and picked up the phone.

“Joey?”

“How you feeling, boy?”

“Okay.” Huey looked past the old Rambler to the line of trees. It stayed dark longer in the woods. He liked the way the light pushed down through the limbs in arrow-straight shafts, the way it did in churches. “I guess.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I heard something a minute ago.”

“What was it?”

“A motor.”

“Where? In the woods?”

“In the sky. I think it was a helicopter.”

Hickey said nothing for a few moments. Then, “It’s probably the Forest Service. You just heard it once?”

“No. Back and forth, like a buzzard circling.”

“Is that right. Well… you remember the backup plan we talked about?”

Huey reached down and picked a roly-poly from the dirt below the bottom step, delighting in the way its gray segmented body curled up in the palm of his hand. “I remember.”

“It’s time to start thinking about that.”

He felt a twinge of fear. “Right this red-hot minute?”

“Not quite. But you be ready. I’ll call you.”

“Okay.”

“How’s the kid?”

“She’s nice. Real nice.”

“That’s not what I mean. Is she still asleep?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Maybe you better wake her up.”

“Okay.” Huey heard the gurgling sound of the commode from inside. “She already woke up.”

“Okay. I’ll call you soon. Stay ready. And keep listening for that helicopter.”

“I will. Are there bad people up in the sky?”

“Nobody to worry about. You just get ready.”

“Okay.” Huey hit END, then set the roly-poly carefully on the ground and stood to the accompaniment of creaking steps and knee cartilage. When he turned, he saw Abby standing in the cabin door. Her face was pale, her eyes crusted with sleep.

“I don’t feel good,” she said.

Huey’s face felt hot. “What’s the matter?”

“My head hurts. And my tootie feels funny.”

Confusion and fear blurred his vision. “Your what?”

“Where I tee-tee. It feels funny. Something’s not right.”

“What should we do?”

“I need my mom. I think I need my shot.”

Huey cringed at the memory of last night’s terrifying injection scene. “Soon,” he promised. “It won’t be long now.”

Karen stood in the kitchen with the cordless phone in her hand, listening to “hold” music that sounded like George Winston on sleeping pills. She was dressed in a navy Liz Claiborne skirt suit with a cream blouse, and her face was made up to cover the bruises she’d sustained during the night. At Hickey’s insistence, she had even curled her hair. She had the feeling he was molding her to fit some ridiculous idea he had of the suburban yuppie wife. But no makeup was going to hide the hunted look in her eyes.

“Still on hold?” Hickey asked. He was sitting at the kitchen table, his sutured leg propped on its tile surface.