James Grippando - The Abduction

Silence fell between them. Kristen broke eye contact. She was looking right past him. “It’s my grandfather,” she said.

“What?”

She nodded toward the television. The picture was on, but the sound was off. “My grandfather is on the news.”

Repo shook off the confusion. For a second, he’d thought she was confirming that Lincoln Howe had hired him. He turned toward the set and switched on the volume.

Howe was standing at a podium with flags and balloons behind him. The candidate had a solemn look on his face as he spoke into the microphone. “It has come to my attention that the FBI is investigating the possibility that the kidnapping of Kristen Howe was orchestrated by one of my own supporters as a political ploy to elicit sympathy from voters. So far,” he said in an indignant tone, “the only thing political about this kidnapping is the investigation itself-which is being manipulated by my opponent.”

The image on the screen quickly shifted back to the CNN anchorwoman. “General Howe made the remarks earlier this morning at rally on the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables, Florida. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department has confirmed or denied that the investigation is, in fact, focusing on a Howe supporter. In a written statement, Attorney General Leahy has stated only that it would be improper to comment on an ongoing investigation.”

Repo hit the MUTE button, then looked at Kristen. Her expression was pained and incredulous. She asked, “The FBI thinks my grandfather hired you to kidnap me?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I guess maybe they do. Honestly, I don’t know who hired us. But the thought has crossed my mind, you know, that maybe your grandfather or one of his supporters was behind it. You wouldn’t know anything about this, since you haven’t seen any of the news. But people feel sorry for your grandfather since you were kidnapped. So sorry that it might even get him elected.”

“But- no, it can’t be him!”

“Maybe it’s not him. I hope it’s not. But we just have to be extra careful for a while until the FBI sorts this out. This is why I can’t just turn you loose. For your own good, I mean. We just have to stay out of sight, at least until the election is over. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She nodded, staring at the television in disbelief. She sniffled and wiped her nose. “I understand,” she said as her worried eyes met his. “I can’t go home.”

The Florida campaign schedule had Allison set to leave Washington at noon, with a symbolic first stop in St. Petersburg that was calculated to impress Florida’s huge block of senior citizens. She’d visited St. Pete only once before, years ago on vacation. A shriveled ninety-two-year-old man with a metal detector had helped her look for an earring she’d lost on the famous white sandy beach. In a matter of minutes, eight of his retired friends had joined the hunt, combing the beach like minesweepers, three of them veterans of the First World War. “Land of the newly wed and nearly dead,” she’d heard a young honeymooner at the bar call it. That wasn’t exactly true, but it seemed so.

Before heading to the airport, Allison decided to go into her office for an hour of secluded thought. Whenever she really wanted to get away from the world’s distractions, she did her best thinking in the tiny loft between the sixth and fifth floors of the Justice Building.

The loft was sparsely furnished with a recliner chair, a small bureau and mirror, a window air conditioner, and a daybed that allowed the attorney general to sleep over in times of crisis. It was accessible from a hidden staircase just off a small sitting room in the attorney general’s office suite. It was also near a private elevator that ran all the way to the basement. President Kennedy had made use of the elevator when his brother Robert was attorney general. He and Marilyn Monroe could steal away to the attorney general’s loft, entering through the basement without being noticed.

Allison thought with bitter irony that in this very room the happily married president had romped naked with the world’s most famous sex symbol. Americans could apparently overlook that in a man, but a trumped-up adultery scandal had been enough to send Allison into a political death spiral.

She started in her chair, emerging from her thoughts. All this cogitation on adultery had her thinking of Mitch O’Brien and the scarlet letter photograph, and it suddenly occurred to her that she’d heard nothing more about either of them from Harley Abrams. She assumed he was still in Nashville, so she picked up the phone and dialed his mobile number.

“Harley, it’s me. A loose end just jumped out at me. Any progress on finding Mitch O’Brien, my ex-fiancé?”

Harley was just getting into his car, parked outside the Nashville field office. “Nothing concrete. In fact, it’s just getting stranger. He appears to have left Miami, but wherever he went, he’s leaving no trails. There’s been no activity on his credit cards or cellular phone for over two weeks.”

“I want to get to the bottom of this. If there’s any kind of connection between the adultery accusations and Kristen’s kidnapping, he’s our best lead. And I still think he might be able to tell us something about Emily’s abduction.”

Harley sighed-it was almost a groan. “Allison, I can understand your hoping for a connection between Kristen and Emily. But after last night’s conversation with Tanya Howe, I truly believe that our best theory is that someone kidnapped Kristen to help Lincoln Howe get elected. And if that’s the case, it doesn’t seem likely that there’s any connection at all to what happened to you eight years ago. That may be hard for you to accept, but you can’t let wishful thinking steer you off course.”

“I’m not sailing off course. I’m just fishing with a bigger net. We can’t write off Mitch as a possible suspect just because Lincoln Howe turns out to be a racist who doesn’t love his granddaughter. We have no physical evidence whatsoever to incriminate Lincoln Howe or his supporters. All we have is motive. And you want to talk motive, then I say you have to look at Mitch O’Brien. For all we know, Mitch has been on a mission to destroy me ever since I broke off our engagement eight years ago. He took it very hard when I broke off the engagement, and he was frankly a little paranoid when I started dating Peter. He was the guy who kept me talking on the phone while someone was sneaking into my house to steal Emily. Coincidence? Maybe. But isn’t it also possible that he was intentionally distracting me? You yourself said that Emily’s taking was unusual-that whoever did it didn’t just want a baby. They wanted to hurt me.”

“And eight years later he’s still mad as hell?” His question was laden with doubt.

“Yes. I saw him, I know he’s still mad. He was sweet the first time, when he had a drink at the hotel. But when he showed up at that gala in Washington he was downright scary. Maybe he put a bug in the Republicans’ ear, implying that something sordid had happened between us that night in Miami, implying that I’d been unfaithful to Peter just to get back at me. When the fallout from the adultery controversy didn’t completely knock me out of the race, maybe he got desperate and hired somebody to abduct Howe’s granddaughter. Mitch was a criminal defense lawyer back in Chicago. He met some pretty unsavory characters.”

Harley started his car and turned on the heat. “It’s plausible, I guess. But why would a guy hire somebody to take your baby, virtually disappear from your life, then reappear eight years later only to destroy you all over again?”

“It could have been smoldering inside him all along. Only when he saw me on television every day running for president did it trigger something inside him. Like that guy who killed John Lennon. What’s his name?”