Ridley Pearson - Cut and Run

“What website?”

“The daycare,” Tina answered. “It went up over the weekend. Such cute shots! You should see you and Penny in the music circle. The two of you are adorable. And I’ll tell you something, I like that they only use first names. You know? A little extra measure of safety.”

Alice ’s ears whined, like standing too close to a jet airplane. She remembered the music circle, vaguely.

“Do you read any of the e-mail they send us?” Tina worked the keyboard of her computer, opening the website. “The coolest part of it is this…” She spun the monitor so that Alice could see.

On the screen, in a small box, Alice saw the jerky motion of kids playing, and she understood immediately that she was watching a live webcam.

“Are they insane ?” Alice said, far too loudly for the small office. She dropped the pile of papers she’d been holding.

She broke into a full run as she reached the same corridor through which the burn patient had just been admitted. She felt burned as well.

Tina watched through the office’s interior window. She called out, her voice silenced by the thick glass.

Tina inadvertently left the webcam up on her computer. Five minutes later, in that same jerky, almost inhuman motion, Alice entered into frame, snatched Penny into her arms, and looked once directly at the camera, with a face so full of fear that Tina flinched and backed from the screen.

Paolo entered the modern brick edifice of Minneapolis ’s St. Luke’s Hospital with the small brown shoulder bag he’d borrowed from Mrs. Blanchard, the woman who’d told him about St. Luke’s in the first place. He worked his way down the sterile corridors until reaching the administration receptionist, a Hispanic woman in her mid-twenties with long, acrylic fingernails.

He held up the bag, putting it on display, then slid his photograph of Hope Stevens across the counter, and through the open window. “I found this purse out in the parking lot. It says inside there is a reward if found. This picture was inside. Does this woman work here?” He let the woman take a look, and he took a chance. “The name on the ID is Alice… Alice Dunbar. There is a photo of a pretty little girl, too.”

The woman answered him after a moment. “ Alice? This? I’d barely recognize her.” She looked up at Paolo. “You only found this just now?”

“Just now.”

“Hmmm. She hasn’t worked here in a long time.” She eyed him curiously. “ Where did you say you found this?”

“Have you got a forwarding address for me? I wouldn’t mind that reward.” He felt his pulse quickening. Legwork and patience paid off. It had been drummed into him by Philippe. The thrills-like those at the apartment-were short-lived, but well worth the wait.

The receptionist worked the keyboard with those long nails. “No, nothing,” she finally said. “You might try Tina, down in ER admin. She and Alice were close.”

“Tina.”

The woman pointed to the left down the hall. “Follow signs to the ER.”

“ Gracias .”

“Good luck with the reward. And if you hear from her, tell her we could use a postcard.”

The ER’s waiting room teemed with noise and confusion, giving Paolo a moment to study the back of the brown-haired woman in the glass box of an office, a woman he took to be “Tina Humboldt, Executive Assistant,” as advertised by the black placard by the sliding window.

Another woman, prim and proper, came and went from the same office. She carried an aluminum clipboard and hurried stiffly down the long corridor, her clothes neatly pressed.

Twice, a male housecleaner in green scrubs opened and entered a glorified closet that Paolo saw stacked with linens, cleansers, and supplies. This, he thought, would make a suitable interrogation room. He would need Ms. Tight Ass to be off on one of her excursions, and the busy waiting room to remain so. The more he worked it out in his head, the longer he waited, the better he liked it.

The officious one with the pointy tits and stiff walk came and went one more time. A sick Mexican laborer coughed up blood that threw his family into a frenzy. Paolo moved toward the office door and knocked loudly enough to be heard over the cacophony behind him.

“Hello?”

Tina glanced up at him, delivered a press-on smile, and pointed to the waiting room. “We’re handling everyone as quickly as possible.”

She’d probably mistaken him for a Mexican, and this pissed him off. A Brazilian, orphaned and raised briefly in Italy before being trained in Washington State, Paolo didn’t care for the ethnic association. “It’s about Alice,” he said. “Alice Dunbar.”

Tina spun on her office chair. She had a pleasant but not exceptional face. “You know Alice?” Her face brightened.

Paolo measured his chances of getting her out of the office and toward the closet. “I’ve heard from her…” he said. “She asked me to pass a message along to you, but it’s… private… confidential, you understand.” He looked behind him at all the noise and confusion.

“Please come in,” she said, standing to reach for the door.

The phone rang, saving him. He gave it a distasteful look, its interruption unacceptable, and he said, “Maybe just over there…” cocking his head, “away from all this… stuff.”

She nodded. “I get so used to it. I don’t even hear it.”

He stepped away, hoping she would follow, and she did, drawn by her curiosity. He felt a rush of satisfaction. When he found the right play-as he had just now-he could use the victim’s own desires and needs.

He stopped just in front of the closet door marked PRIVATE, turned and faced her. “My name’s Raoul,” he said. “I helped to relocate Alice and Penny.”

Tina’s brow furrowed with concern. He knew that word would win her interest.

“Relocate?” she asked.

“Did she never tell you about him ? The father? And what he’d done to her?”

Tina shook her head. He could see her thinking: So that was it.

The trick was to buy enough time to wait for the exact moment. He needed them to be invisible. He used a convex hallway mirror mounted overhead to keep an eye on the corridor behind him, another eye on the distraught Mexicans, while watching the small glassed-in office as well, in case the other woman returned. A doctor appeared in the waiting room and the Mexicans clustered around him.

Now!

Paolo reached out toward Tina with open hands, as if to console her. As she responded, her hands coming up reluctantly, Paolo grabbed her wrist, opened the closet door and spun her inside in one fluid motion. In a precise ballet of movement, he flicked on the light, caught her up in a choke hold, and eased the door shut behind him. The door wasn’t made to lock, so he dragged her off her feet and away from the door.

He reversed her, his hand on her throat now, and pinned her up against the shelves, nearly lifting her again.

Tina proved herself a wily one. Maybe she’d taken a self-defense class, or seen the move in a film, but she reached back onto the shelf as he pushed her against it, and one-handed a steel brush at Paolo’s face.

He saw it coming, deflected the effort, and knocked the brush from her hand. He was angry now.

She drove a knee for his crotch, but he blocked it, taking it on his thigh.

He delivered a fist to her solar plexus, and watched her pale, felt her sag. His rule, his automatic response to those who fought back, was severe punishment. He drew his razor from its hiding place behind his belt buckle.

“Listen to me, now,” he told the whites of her eyes. “You know what happens to little girls who lie? They get religion.”