Tess Gerritsen - Vanish

“Director Wynne has a whole network of contacts in the Pentagon and the Company. This is the President’s hand-picked man.”

“Now he’s mine. And I’m taking him down.”

The doorbell rang. Jane looked up, startled.

“Relax,” said Lukas, rising to his feet. “It’s probably just my neighbor. I promised I’d feed his cat for the weekend.”

Despite that reassurance, Jane sat on the edge of her chair, listening, as Lukas answered the front door. His greeting was a casual: “Hey, come on in.”

“Everything under control?” the other man said.

“Yeah, we were just watching a video.”

That’s the moment she should have understood that something was not right, but Lukas’s relaxed tone of voice had disarmed her, had lulled her into feeling safe in this house, in his company. The visitor walked into the room. He had cropped blond hair and powerfully muscled arms. Even when Jane saw the gun he was holding, she did not fully accept what had just happened. Slowly she rose to her feet, her heart pounding in her throat. She turned to Lukas, and her shattered look of betrayal evoked in him merely a shrug. A look of sorry, but that’s how it goes.

The blond man took in the room at a glance, and his gaze focused on Regina, who slept soundly among the couch cushions. At once he turned his weapon on the baby, and Jane felt a stab of panic, sharp as a knife to the heart. “Not a word,” he said to Jane. He knew just how to control her, just how to find a mother’s most vulnerable spot. “Where’s the whore?” he asked Lukas.

“The bathroom. I’ll get her.”

It’s too late to warn Mila, thought Jane. Even if I screamed, she would have no chance to escape.

“So you’re the cop I heard about,” the blond man said.

The cop. The whore. Did he even know the names of the two women he was about to kill?

“My name is Jane Rizzoli,” she said.

“Wrong place, wrong time, Detective.” He did know her name. Of course; a professional would have to know. He also knew enough to keep a respectful distance from her, far enough away to react to any move she might make. Even without his gun, he was not a man she could easily tackle. His stance, the quietly efficient way he had taken control, told her that, unarmed, she did not have a chance against this man.

But armed…

She glanced at the floor. Where the hell had she left the diaper bag? Was it behind the couch? She didn’t see it.

“Mila?” Lukas was calling through the bathroom door. “Are you all right in there?”

Regina suddenly gave a start and let out a jittery cry, as though aware that something was wrong. That her mother was in trouble.

“Let me pick her up,” said Jane.

“She’s fine right where she is.”

“If you don’t let me pick her up, she’ll start screaming. And she knows how to scream.”

“Mila?” Lukas was rapping on the bathroom door now. “Unlock this, will you? Mila!”

Regina, as predicted, began to howl. Jane looked at the man, and he finally gave a nod. She gathered the baby into her arms, but her embrace seemed to hold no comfort for Regina. She can feel my heart pounding. She can feel my fear.

There was banging in the hallway, then a crash as Lukas broke through the door. Seconds later he came running back into the living room, his face flushed. “She’s gone.”

“What?”

“The bathroom window’s open. She must have crawled out.”

The blond man reacted with a mere shrug. “Then we’ll find her another day. The video is what he really wants.”

“We have it.”

“You’re sure it’s the last copy?”

“It’s the last.”

Jane stared at Lukas. “You already knew about the videotape.”

“Do you have any idea how much unsolicited junk a reporter gets in the mail?” said Lukas. “How many conspiracy theorists and paranoid nuts there are out there, desperate for the public to believe them? I wrote that one column about Ballentree, and suddenly I’m the new best friend for all the Joseph Rokes in this country. All the weirdos. They think if they tell me about their little delusions, I’ll take the story from there. I’ll be their Woodward and Bernstein.”

“That’s how it should work. That’s what journalists are supposed to do.”

“You know any rich reporters? Once you get past the rare superstars, how many names do you remember? The reality is, the public doesn’t give a shit about the truth. Oh, maybe there’d be a flutter of interest for a few weeks. A few front-page stories above the fold. Director of National Intelligence charged with murder. The White House would express the appropriate amount of horror, Carleton Wynne would plead guilty, and then this would go the way of every other scandal in Washington. In a few months, the public would forget about it. And I’d go back to writing my column, paying my mortgage, and driving the same beat-up Toyota.” He shook his head. “As soon as I saw the videotape Olena left me, I knew it was worth a lot more than just a Pulitzer. I knew who’d pay me for it.”

“That video Joe sent you. You did receive it.”

“Almost threw it away, too. Then I thought, what the hell, let’s see what’s on it. I recognized Carleton Wynne right away. Until I picked up the phone and called him, he didn’t even know the tape existed. He thought he was just chasing down a couple of whores. Suddenly this got much, much more serious. And more expensive.”

“He was actually willing to deal with you?”

“Wouldn’t you be? Knowing what this tape could do to you? Knowing there are other copies floating around out there?”

“Do you really think Wynne is going to let you live? Now that you’ve given him Joe and Olena? There’s nothing else he needs from you.”

The blond man cut in: “I’ll need a shovel.”

But Lukas was still looking at Jane. “I’m not stupid,” he said. “And Wynne knows that.”

“The shovel?” the blond man repeated.

“There’s one in the garage,” said Lukas.

“Get it for me.”

As Lukas walked toward the garage, Jane called out: “You’re a moron if you think you’re going to live long enough to enjoy any payoff.” Regina had fallen silent in her arms, stilled by her mother’s rage. “You’ve seen how these people play the game. You know how Charles Desmond died. They’re going to find you in your bathtub with your wrists slit. Or they’ll force a bottle of phenobarb tablets down your throat and dump you in the bay, like they did to Olena. Or maybe this guy will just put a bullet in your head, nice and simple.”

Lukas came back into the house, carrying a spade. He handed it to the blond man.

“How deep do those woods go, in back of the house?” the man asked.

“It’s part of Blue Hills Reservation. They go back at least a mile.”

“We’ll need to walk her in far enough.”

“Look, I don’t want anything to do with that. That’s what he pays you for.”

“Then you’ll have to take care of her car.”

“Wait.” Lukas reached behind the couch and came up holding the diaper bag. He handed it to the other man. “I don’t want any trace of her in my house.”

Give it to me, thought Jane. Give me my goddamn bag.

Instead, the blond man slung it over his shoulder and said: “Let’s take a walk in the woods, Detective.”

Jane turned to give Lukas her parting shot. “You’ll get yours. You’re a dead man.”

Outside, a half-moon glowed in a starry sky. Holding Regina, Jane stumbled through underbrush and saplings, her path faintly lit by the beam of the gunman’s flashlight. He was careful to follow at a distance, giving her no chance to strike out at him. She could not have, in any event, not with Regina in her arms. Regina, who had known only a few short weeks of life.