Lynne Heitman - The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

“We’ll certainly take that under advisement,” I said. “Can I show you to the door?”

“We’ll find it.” Ling was his affable self as he stood to button his jacket. But Southern had one last shot to take. “An inmate in a wheelchair has a hard time taking care of himself in prison.” He stared down hard at Harvey. “All kinds of bad things happen to gimps in the can.”

I walked Ling and Southern to the door anyway, and watched them to their car. After they had pulled away, gone down the street, and turned the corner, I went back to the office. Harvey had moved back to his wheelchair. His chin was resting on the collar of flesh that had formed around his neck in the past year or so. It made him look overly jowly. That the stakes had taken a gigantic leap in the past hour had not been lost on him. He was clearly shaken.

“All right, Harvey. I need to know the truth. Did you have anything to do with the murder of that agent?”

He was horrified that I would ask such a thing, but my new policy was to be thorough. I was tired of being surprised.

“Yes or no?”

“No.”

“What about Rachel? She and Roger had a thing. Susan Fratello also thinks she was in bed with the Russians.”

“In bed with the Russians?”

“Not in bed with them.” At least I didn’t think so. “She told me Rachel brought the Russians into Betelco as investors. Does that sound right to you?”

He looked up at me. I could see he didn’t want to think it could be true. I could also see that he wasn’t sure.

“We have to ask her,” I said. “You have to tell me where she is so I can find her and bring her back here.”

“I do not know where she is.”

“Harvey, you don’t want her out there alone, running from Drazen and possibly the FBI.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I do not. I wish I could send you to her, but I made her promise not to tell me where she was going. She is supposed to call when she gets settled somewhere.”

“All right.” I went over to the couch where Ling had been lounging and pulled my casework out from under the cushion. I found my backpack and stuffed everything into it.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to see Felix. I have him working on something to find Rachel. The three of us need to sit down and pool ideas and resources. That’s the only way I see this working-all three of us together.” I reached under the couch and coaxed out my laptop. My backpack had just enough room left for it. Even so, it took me four tries to get the flap zipped up. I was ready to go, but I had one item still open. Harvey had rolled his chair to within arm’s reach of the teapot. I helped him pour a cup.

“You have to tell me,” I said, “because you promised. What is it about this woman that would make you act this way? As your friend, I would like to know. As a woman, I would really like to know.”

“I am not sure I can explain it to you.”

“You need to try, Harvey, before I go and find her.”

He set the saucer on his thigh. It had a design on it that looked like pink rosebuds, and it occurred to me that Rachel had probably picked it out. He balanced the saucer on the cup and looked at me.

“I asked her to dance and she said yes.”

“That’s it?”

He sat back, and his gaze drifted to that tarnished tin ceiling. He seemed to be looking for his words up there.

“There is a point in one’s life where it becomes impossible not to look back and say, my life has not worked out. It is neither here nor there. One cannot change what he is, but realizing what he is inevitably colors expectations, what he might expect his life to become. I learned to be satisfied with very little. One day, I met Rachel. I asked her to dance with me. I expected her to say no, but she said yes. When I asked her to dinner, she said yes. When I asked her to marry me, she said yes.”

“You used to dance?”

“I loved to dance. I loved dancing with my wife.”

That’s what the music was all about. Now it made sense. It had been something he had shared with Rachel. It had been packed away in boxes, which was where he’d wanted it to stay. That’s why he’d told me to pack everything away and leave it alone.

“She said yes for a reason, Harvey. She said yes because you gave her something, too.”

“Whatever I gave her, it could never approach the happiness she gave me. I love her because I asked her to dance and she said yes.”

IN MY EXPERIENCE, HOUSES WERE MOST EASILY BROKEN into through the basement windows, which were either unlatched or easy to make that way. The basement window for the house where Rachel was hiding was so low to the ground I had to lie on my belly in the dirt to check it out. The window was at ceiling height for the basement and had a simple latch lock that I could handle easily. I used my flashlight to look for the obvious signs of an alarm system. When I saw none, I put on my gloves, opened my tool case, and went to work.

Not surprisingly, Rachel had found a nice house to hide in. It was a large, white, brick-front ranch-style, sitting on almost an acre out in Acton. That it was built on a cul-de-sac made it even more secluded and private. Perfect for hiding, but it’s hard to hide from Felix. He had talked Gary Ruffielo into providing a current cell-phone number for Rachel. After working the problem all day, he had finally managed to track her through the use of that very useful GPS chip.

I finished with the latch, popped the window open, and gave thanks when no alarm sounded. If it was a silent alarm, I was in trouble. I cut the flimsy and rusted chains on each side that kept the window from flopping all the way to the wall. I gathered my stuff, turned on my belly, and wriggled in. When my feet hit the ground, I closed the window and did a sweep with my flashlight. It was dark and gloomy and haphazard down there, the way basements are. I saw nothing living or breathing of the human variety, but there was an old kitchen chair in the corner. I moved it to a position under the window in case I needed a springboard to a quick exit.

At the top of the stairs, I put my ear against the interior door, listened, and heard nothing. I heard more nothing when I popped the door open, which was a good thing. No alarm sounded as I stepped into the kitchen. No motion detectors were tripped, so I kept moving. There were no lights on, which made it very dark in the house, but I heard something, and it wasn’t just the daily hum of household machinery. It sounded like a shower running upstairs.

I cleared the downstairs as quickly as I could with a flashlight. The rooms were big and open, with few nooks, closets, and alcoves to hide in. But it took forever to get up to the second floor. The stairs creaked. I took each one in slow motion, checking for loose boards as I went. By the time I reached the top, my muscles felt as if they’d fused into one inflexible mass. The hallways were all dark up there, but, like the music in Harvey’s empty house, the sound of the shower running told me where to go: down to the room with the closed door.

Given that I had broken in, I had to decide about the Glock. It was one thing if it was Rachel behind the door. It was quite another if it was the law-abiding owner of the house, hiding out, perfectly justified in shooting the home invader. But what if it was Rachel with a gun? I didn’t know her. I didn’t know how she would react. I decided I needed to go in with my weapon front and center. I twisted the knob, flattened against the wall, and pushed the door open.

It was like a steam room in there, the steam billowing out from behind an interior door across the room. The light from behind the door provided the only illumination. It fell across the bed, where the sheets were twisted and the blanket mostly puddled around it. A rolling carry-on bag sat on the floor with its zippered flap lying open. Clothes were strewn about as if it had exploded. I stayed low and crept in, listening to make sure there was spraying and splashing and not just a steady hum. I got close enough to the bag to read the tag. Rachel Ruffielo of Quincy, Mass. It was good to know all the sneaking around hadn’t been for nothing.