James Grippando - The Abduction

“It was powerful, I’ll say that.”

“Is that what brings you here tonight? Or is this part of the investigation General Howe referenced in his speech?”

“Investigation?”

“Yes. He said there was an investigation underway to determine whether someone from my staff had leaked confidential details about the investigation-specifically, the ransom demand.”

“I suppose you could consider this visit part of that, yes.”

Her brow furrowed. “Could you be a little more vague, please?”

He paused, then said, “Between you and me, I think the allegation is totally bogus.”

“Oh,” she said with a thin smile. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” Her smile faded. “I guess the tape did make a convert out of you.”

“Partly. That, and the simple fact that there was just no way you could have leaked it. You didn’t know about the demand. And I didn’t tell you.”

“You think General Howe leaked it?”

“Do you?”

She sipped her coffee, thinking before she spoke. “I’ve been thinking about it, trying to figure out what he might have been trying to accomplish. It’s true he’s not a rich man. I’m sure he doesn’t have a million dollars laying around the house. Maybe he thought that leaking the kidnappers’ demand would stimulate private donations and help raise the money. Then he blamed the leak on me so the kidnappers wouldn’t hold it against the Howe family and take it out on Kristen.”

“That’s certainly giving him the benefit of the doubt,” said Abrams. “But a few things make me wonder whether his motives are all that pure.”

Her interest piqued. “What?”

“The first thing is just the whole TV stunt. His declaration of war. It’s the kind of macho move you might see in an action-adventure movie, but not in real life. I have to question whether a man who believed his granddaughter’s life was on the line would really react that way.”

“He is a military man. It may be the only way he knows how to respond.”

“True,” said Harley. “But his attack on you is also curious. The kidnappers told Tanya not to go to the FBI. Then Howe accuses you of leaking the ransom demand to the press. He’s basically admitting to the kidnappers that either he or his daughter relayed the demand to the FBI in the first place, against their orders.”

“I can’t fault him there. That’s an inference the kidnappers would make just as soon as the ransom demand became public.”

“Possibly. But if he were really concerned about saving his granddaughter, he would have used his airtime to assure the kidnappers that he and his daughter followed their instructions to the letter. He could have said that no one called in the FBI, and that some slimy reporter must have bugged Tanya’s apartment and overheard her talking to her mother about the ransom demand. Instead, he essentially admitted he called in the FBI, just so he could take another political shot at you. That troubles me, especially when you consider the more subtle points of his presentation.”

“Like what?”

“Most important, the way he talks about his grandchild.”

“How do you mean?”

“I noticed it before, but it really came out in tonight’s broadcast. He never refers to Kristen as ‘my grandchild.’ He rarely even mentions her name. He refers to her as ‘this innocent child’ or ‘this little girl’ or ‘that poor child.’ It’s a very subtle thing, but I picked up on this about ten years ago when I moved over to CASKU, one of my first cases. A three-month-old baby disappeared. We interviewed the father. He would talk about how happy he and his wife were when they brought ‘ our baby’ home-how much they loved little Amy. Then, as the interview progressed, he’d talk about how for three months ‘ the baby’ just wouldn’t stop crying, or ‘ the baby’ was getting to be a strain on the marriage. You see what I’m getting at? No more ‘Amy.’ No more ‘ our baby.’ He was distancing himself. Turned out the father killed ‘ the baby.’”

The thought chilled her. “But how could that be in this case? What about the photographs taken the night of the abduction-the ones of Lincoln Howe crying his eyes out in the back of his limo?”

Abrams was deadpan. “There are two kinds of tears. Tears of sorrow. And tears of regret.”

Their eyes locked.

“Are you saying that Lincoln Howe arranged for the kidnapping of his own granddaughter?”

“I don’t think I’m going that far. Not yet. But think of the possibilities. Some underling stages the kidnapping to push his candidate over the top. Lincoln Howe finds out about it, but he does nothing to stop it. Before he knows it, Reggie Miles is dead and everything’s out of control. In a matter of hours he’s in deeper than Richard Nixon and his Watergate cover-up.”

Allison leaned back, shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t imagine someone like Lincoln Howe actually doing something like that. We’ve had our differences, but he’s a man of integrity.”

“He’s a man of ambition,” said Harley. “Immense ambition.”

Allison turned her stare to the logs crackling in the fireplace. Finally she looked back at Harley. “Is this what you came to talk to me about? The possible incrimination of my political adversary?”

“At this point I’m exploring every angle. Including a possible connection between the abduction of Kristen Howe and the abduction of your daughter eight years ago.”

Allison knew the danger of false hopes, but the fact that someone other than herself was even considering a possible link to Emily was the best news she’d heard in eight years. “What makes you think there’s a connection?”

“Nothing, as yet. But one thing I’d like to examine more closely are the threats you may have received in the past eighteen months or so. See if anything stands out. Particularly anything that might tell us whether the person who took your daughter eight years ago has resurfaced.”

Allison thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I can’t think of anything. The attorney general gets the usual spate of weird calls and threatening letters from crackpots around the country, all of which the FBI investigated.”

“I’ll get someone to pull the files, maybe probe a little deeper. I’d like to construct a profile of the person who abducted your daughter, and then compare it to the profile I’ve constructed of Kristen Howe’s kidnapper. To do that, I’ll need to flesh out some details that you’ve probably suppressed in the healing process. I know it’s late, and I hate to stir up anything painful. But can we talk?”

She took a deep breath, then smiled sadly. “I’d better put on another pot of coffee.” She started for the kitchen, then stopped and glanced back. Her expression was troubled, a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. “There must be something that makes you suspect a connection between Emily’s abduction and this kidnapping. Tell me. What is it?”

Harley grimaced, though it didn’t seem as though he was holding anything back. Maybe he was just having trouble articulating it. “I think it’s just a feeling I have,” he said. “Not a goofy groundless thing, like people who think they can pick the winning numbers in the lotto. It’s an instinct based on experience.”

“And what is your experience telling you?”

“Emily’s abduction was very unusual. You don’t see many cases where a total stranger actually breaks into a house and snatches an infant right out of her own crib. Emily’s abductor took a big risk, and he went to an awful lot of trouble, with the tape recording of her voice and all that. A scheme that elaborate tells me that whoever took her wasn’t just after a baby. What they really wanted was to hurt you. ”