James Grippando - The Abduction

“What?”

Her voice filled with concern. “Remember that night General Howe went on television to speak to the kidnappers? The night he declared war on child abductors?”

“Of course.”

“Remember afterward, how you were so suspicious because he never referred to Kristen by name. You said it was like a case you had before, where the father killed his baby girl and then in interviews referred to her as an ‘it,’ rather than using her name or at least saying ‘she.’”

“Right. Psychologically, it was his way of distancing himself from the crime. Using the word ‘it’ depersonalized the victim, made it easier for him to deal with what he’d done. I thought Howe might be doing the same thing.”

Allison turned her attention back to the videotape on the television, still speaking into the phone. “I have a videotape from two days after Emily’s abduction. Just to give you a little background, Peter and I had been dating about seven months at the time. He was really in love, but I honestly wasn’t. I had even told him I wasn’t looking to get married and was perfectly happy raising Emily on my own. Still, he was unbelievably supportive after Emily was gone-right from the start. He even went on the news to say that he was offering a half-million dollars of his own money for information that would lead to the arrest of Emily’s abductors. Listen to what he said.”

She hit the PLAY button and held the phone close to the television speaker. Peter’s recorded voice boomed, “We will find the baby. It will never be forgotten. Allison and I will do everything humanly and financially possible to find it.”

Allison trembled, barely able to hit the stop, button as she spoke into the phone. “In three sentences he called her ‘the baby’ once, ‘it’ twice. He never used Emily’s name.”

“Well, that’s just one tape.”

“It’s like that in all the tapes, Harley. I’ve been keeping track in my notes. Twenty-three times he referred to Emily as an ‘it’ Never did he call her by her name.”

Harley was silent.

“Are you still there?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “I think I should see the tapes. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll have them ready.”

Allison hung up the phone. Her hands shook as she stared at the screen and the frozen image of Peter speaking to the press.

“My God. Peter.”

Peter was in the bedroom packing a suitcase for Chicago when his telephone rang. It was the phone on the nightstand on his side of the bed, the private line that he used primarily for business. He dropped the Armani suit on the bed and answered it.

“Hello.”

He heard a click, then a message. “You have e-mail.” Another click. Then the dial tone.

He laid the phone in its cradle, staring at it in confusion. The voice was familiar. It was that standard, recorded voice that plays automatically whenever you turn on the computer and there’s e-mail in your mailbox-the “personal” touch in an impersonal world, like that mysterious woman from the long distance company who jumps in after you dial with your credit card and says, “Thank you for using AT &T.”

Peter stood still for a moment, mulling it over. The message was clearly for him, not Allison. The call had come on his own line-no one ever called Allison on that line. Obviously, they wanted him to check his computer. He walked cautiously toward his briefcase on the other side of the room. He removed the notebook computer and plugged the modem into the phone jack. He dialed his office in New York, watching the screen as his notebook computer interfaced with his business computer in New York.

“You have e-mail,” said the computerized voice-the same recorded voice he’d heard on the phone. It unnerved him at first. He couldn’t help feeling as though the caller had recorded his personal message. But he knew that 40 million people subscribed to his same Internet carrier, all of whom received the same “You have e-mail” message. It wasn’t like someone would have had to access his personal computer to record it and play it back to him over the telephone.

The computer screen blinked on. Scores of unanswered e-mail messages appeared in his mailbox. Each specified the date and time received. All but one identified the sender. The most recent one, received today at 3:54 P.M., had an unintelligible entry next to the “Sender” designation. The sender, Peter realized, had managed to scramble his screen name to protect his identity.

Peter clicked his mouse on the most recent e-mail. The typewritten message flashed on the screen. He stared at it carefully, reading it once, then again.

CHANGE IN PLANS. MEET ME IN ROCK CREEK PARK AT THE WATER FOUNTAIN EAST OF THE OLD PIERCE MILL. 5:00 P.M.

His pulse quickened. There was no signature, of course, but the postscript indicated an attachment. He clicked his mouse again, downloading the attachment to his computer. He clicked once more and opened the file. A photograph slowly emerged on his screen. Bright red everywhere, splattered on white. The image came into better focus: a young girl in a bathtub, covered in blood. The focus sharpened further: The girl was plainly Kristen Howe.

Peter closed the file, wiping the photograph from the screen. The original message popped back on the screen-MEET ME AT ROCK CREEK PARK. He sighed deeply, collecting his thoughts.

Rock Creek Park bordered on Georgetown. He had jogged there hundreds of times. He knew exactly where the meeting spot was.

He also knew the handiwork-the girl in the bathtub covered in animal blood. It was as good as a signature. Vincent Gambrelli.

He switched off his computer and placed it back in his briefcase. He stepped to the window and peeled back the bedroom drapes. Below, a few members of the media were still waiting outside the townhouse, but the crowd had thinned greatly. Most had apparently inferred that Allison wasn’t coming back when they saw her assistant leaving with her suitcase.

Peter checked his watch-4:15. Even if he took a few circuitous turns to shake the media, he could easily make it to Rock Creek Park in forty-five minutes. He put on his jacket and grabbed his car keys, then stopped, turned, and disappeared into the closet. Down on one knee, he peeled back the carpeting in the corner, uncovering the floor safe. With three quick turns of the combination dial, it opened.

A semiautomatic pistol lay inside.

He checked the ammunition clip to make sure it was loaded. It was. He tucked it inside his jacket and closed up the safe, then quickly headed for the door.

A foggy mist clung to the city as dusk turned to early evening darkness. City lights glistened on the glossy-wet streets and sidewalks, though there were still a few dry patches beneath the urban trees and storefront overhangs. Some rush-hour commuters had popped their umbrellas. Others seemed oblivious to the precipitation, sans weather gear, rushing through crosswalks and heading for the Metro as on any other day. It was the meteorological version of classic Washington ambiguity-raining, but not really raining.

Moisture gathered steadily on the taxicab’s windshield as Peter rode alone in the dark rear seat. The wipers were on intermittent speed, clearing the windshield about every half-block along Q Street. Peter looked ahead to the next intersection. Streetlights grew brighter as the gray sky darkened into night. The fog began to swirl in the beaming headlights of oncoming traffic. Like searchlights, thought Peter, hundreds and hundreds of them. He drew a deep breath and shook off the paranoia.

The taxi stopped at the red light, and Peter glanced out the rear window. He couldn’t be absolutely certain that no one had been tailing him, but he had been riding around Georgetown for the past twenty minutes and was now on his fifth cab. Had someone been following, he figured he would have noticed.