James Grippando - The Abduction

She peered around the corner. The footsteps stopped. She ducked back into the alcove and listened again. The clicking resumed, but it was muffled this time, as if someone were walking more carefully, sneaking away.

It wasn’t like security to skulk like a stalker.

Quietly, she walked halfway down the long corridor, then stopped and listened. All was still.

A door slammed, echoing through the marble hallway.

She hurried ahead, made a quick turn at the bank of telephones, and found a metal fire door. She pulled the handle. Locked. She peered through the small window at eye level. Up or down, she saw endless flights of concrete steps with metal railings. She put her ear to the door. Silence. She opened her evening bag-the panic button would summon a team of FBI and Secret Service agents to her side in an instant. But what would she tell them? That she was having a spat with her ex-fiancé? She closed the bag. Better to leave this one alone.

“Is everything all right, Ms. Leahy?”

It was Secret Service. “Yes,” she said, her heart in her throat. “I was just looking for the ladies’ room.”

“This way,” he said, offering to lead her.

She walked at his side, a half step behind him. After several steps, she noticed his shoes. They were the rubber-soled type. They didn’t make a sound. No clicking of the heels, like before. It definitely wasn’t security she’d heard earlier.

Her hands shook as she tucked her evening bag beneath her arm. She walked with her head up, keeping her composure. But fear was gripping her by the throat as one thought consumed her: Had someone overheard everything? …

“Allison, aren’t you ready yet?”

“Huh?” she said, shaken from her memories by the sound of Peter’s voice. He was standing in the doorway that divided their suite-dressed and ready to go. She was still seated at the vanity mirror in her robe and wet hair.

“The helicopter leaves in fifteen minutes.” He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t make me leave without you.”

She smiled awkwardly. “I’ll be ready in ten.”

He returned the smile and headed for the door.

“Peter?” she said, stopping him in his tracks. Her expression was serious. “Do you really think I did the right thing at the debate?”

“Absolutely, darling.” He raised an eyebrow, sensing her anguish. “I hope you’re not second-guessing yourself.”

She sighed, wishing she had just told him everything two months ago. She knew his temper, however, and telling him that an ex-fiancé was still in love with her seemed utterly pointless at the time. And what would he think if she told him now, well after the fact, on the heels of her public refusal to confirm or deny that she’d ever had an affair? Would anyone believe that nothing had happened?

“No second thoughts,” she said with a forced but appreciative smile. “I’m still convinced that silence was the right response.”

He nodded in agreement, then left the room.

She checked her reflection in the mirror, still shaky from the memory of Mitch at the gala. Maybe she was paranoid, but she had a horrible gut feeling that she was being set up-that someone wanted her to deny she’d ever cheated on Peter, only to hit her with a tape recording and a mystery witness who would totally distort her encounter with Mitch. She’d be worse than an adulteress. She’d be an adulteress and a liar, another presidential hopeful sinking on the charter boat Monkey Business. With that, she was indeed convinced that silence was the correct response.

More convinced than ever, she told the troubled face staring back at her in the mirror.

Bright autumn colors lit up the tree-lined streets of Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday, Halloween morning. One good rainfall and it would all be gone, but a solid week of chilly nights and sunny days had set the leaves ablaze.

The sun was shining brightly as twelve-year-old Kristen boarded the transport van at Wharton Middle School. It was the same routine each morning, Monday through Friday. Kristen attended homeroom at Wharton until nine o’clock, then rode the van to Martin Luther King, Jr., High School, a magnet school on the other side of picturesque Fisk University. Kristen was a gifted sixth grader who studied English literature at a tenth-grade level. Schoolwork was easy; looking older was the hard part. Her heart-shaped face was just beginning to show angles of maturity, and the results were promising-too promising, as far as her protective mother was concerned. Makeup was forbidden until she turned thirteen, but Kristen still managed a little mascara to accentuate her huge dark eyes, her best feature. She knew, too, that her long legs would someday be an asset, but for now the gangly pre-teenager was happy just to get by without tripping over them.

“Hi, Reggie.” She was her usual cheery self as she bounded into the front passenger seat. The middle school was having a contest, so she was dressed in her Halloween costume. A red, white, and blue sweat suit with the TEAM USA logo and a big snack food insignia that marked it as the official sweat suit of the 2000 Olympics.

Sixty-year-old Reggie tipped his driving cap. “Mornin’, Miss Kristen.”

“Will you please stop calling me ‘Miss Kristen.’ It’s so aristocratic.”

His eyes widened. “Now that’s a high-falutin’ word if I ever did hear one. They teachin’ you real good over at the high school, ain’t they, Miss Kristen?”

“I guess.”

The van merged into traffic on the busy Dr. D.B. Todd Boulevard. The street bordered Fisk University, which lay roughly midway between Wharton Middle School and Martin Luther King High School. Reggie turned onto the campus at Meharry Street, then parked in front of Jubilee Hall, a six-story dormitory built in the nineteenth century in Victorian Gothic style.

The campus detour was part of their agreed-upon routine. From the very first day, Kristen had hated arriving at the high school in a van marked WHARTON MIDDLE SCHOOL. She thought she could make a much more fitting entrance if Reggie simply dropped her off at the university and let her walk the remaining three blocks to the high school. She had been forced to bat her eyes and turn on the charm, but after two weeks she’d finally sold Reggie on the arrangement. The only condition was that he be allowed to trail behind in the van, keeping an eye on her from a safe but inconspicuous distance.

“See you tomorrow, Reggie.” She eagerly opened the passenger door, jumped down with her book bag, and started across the college campus. She passed the old library with its big broken clock, an imposing building of brick and stone that now housed administration. To her left were the towering Fisk Memorial Chapel, the quaint Harris Music Building with Italianate detail, and a modern three-story library with a long concrete colonnade. The two-block walk across campus inspired her with dreams of becoming the youngest student ever at the nation’s oldest black college.

As she exited beneath the iron campus gate, she noticed the Wharton Middle School van trailing slowly, no more than fifty feet behind her. She crossed Jackson Street and started down Seventeenth Avenue. The van was creeping along, now less than fifty feet behind her.

She stopped and grimaced. With her hands on hips she glared back at the van, as if to say, “Reggie, you’re following too close.”

She turned and headed for the high school, strolling down a cracked old sidewalk that had been rearranged by the twisted roots of hundred-year-old oaks. A bench at the corner was the perfect place to stop and undo the awful pigtails her mother had weaved for her. The left one unfurled quickly. She was tugging on the other when she noticed the Wharton Middle School van drawing closer.