Джеймс Паттерсон - NYPD Red 6

“So we’re looking for a white box truck,” Kylie said. “How many of those are there in New York City?”

“Hundreds. Maybe thousands. But this might help narrow it down.” Diaz froze the picture. “You see the lettering on the driver’s-side door?”

“Barely,” she said. “It’s a blur, but it looks like Chinese.”

“Or Korean. Or Japanese,” Diaz said. “Whatever it is, it’s not English, and it’s enough to help set this one apart from a lot of other white one-ton boxes.”

“Call Real Time Crime Center,” Kylie said. “Have them pull the photos captured in the past four hours from every single license-plate reader in a twenty-block radius of the Hammerstein, then check to see if any of those plates are registered to a white commercial box truck. If they get a hit, check the truck for Asian lettering on the door.”

“I’m on it,” Diaz said.

“Finding the truck isn’t going to help find Erin,” McMaster said. “This was no random snatch-and-grab. The person who did this carefully planned this whole thing. The clock on the security feed may be an hour off, but this guy showed up at the perfect time—when Erin was alone in her dressing room changing out of her wedding gown.”

“How could he even know when that was going to happen?” I said.

“All he’d have to do is follow her tweets.” McMaster said. “She doesn’t eat, sleep, pee, or shop without posting about it on social media.” He looked at his watch. “She’s been missing almost two hours. By now she’s been transferred out of the truck and onto another vehicle or a boat or a plane. Or, if he’s totally out of his gourd, she’s dead.”

“She’s not dead,” Kylie said. “He’s going to need proof of life when he makes the ransom call.”

“What makes you so sure he’s in it for the money?” McMaster said.

“Because he waited until after she’d married a millionaire to take her.”

CHAPTER 8

HE WAITED UNTIL after she’d married a millionaire,” McMaster said, repeating Kylie’s logic. “I’d almost forgotten how smart you were.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Let’s go talk to our millionaire husband before the kidnapper gets to him.”

We stepped into the hall, where a uniformed cop was going at it with a civilian.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass who you know,” the cop said. “This is a crime scene. Turn off the camera or you’re walking out of here in cuffs.”

The man, about sixty, wasn’t taking orders. “Did you ever hear of the First Amendment? You shut me down, and I’ll have your job.”

“Declan, do you know that guy?” Kylie asked.

“Harris Brockway. He’s a suit with the network. He’s a pompous ass, but he’s got a lot of footage you’re going to want to get your hands on. I’d make nice.”

It was a politically savvy suggestion, but Kylie has never been good at making nice, especially with a pompous ass threatening a cop. “Officer,” she called out, jumping into the fray. “Can you do me a favor and give them a hand in the ballroom? I got this one. Thanks.”

The cop checked out the gold shield clipped to her blue dress, shrugged, and walked off.

Brockway checked out the blonde inside the dress, smiled, and turned on the charm.

“Harris Brockway, vice president of programming at Zephyr Television,” he said, waving for his cameraman to move in closer. “My friends call me Brock. And you are?”

“Detective Kylie MacDonald. That’s my partner, Zach Jordan. We’re investigating the disappearance of Ms. Easton, and you’re going to have to turn off that camera.”

“Please, Detective, you strike me as an intelligent woman. Do I really have to explain the First Amendment to you?”

“You mean the one where Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press?” Kylie said. “No, I’ve got that one down. You can broadcast whatever you want. However, there are laws against interfering with a police investigation, which is exactly what you’re doing when you bring your camera into an active crime scene. Now, either tell your cameraman to turn it off or prepare to spend the night with him in a holding cell.”

The cameraman lowered his camera. “Hey, you work it out with her and the union, Mr. Brockway, but I didn’t sign on for no jail time.”

Brockway glared at Kylie. “Do you know how much ZTV has invested in this production?”

“I’m not here to help you put on a show, Mr. Brockway. I’ll tell you what I can do—I can impound your cameras right now and get a court order giving me access to all the footage you shot today. Or, if you’re willing to cooperate and provide me with copies, you can keep on shooting, just as long as you don’t point your lens at this side of the yellow tape.”

“Fine,” Brockway said, spitting out the word. “I’ll get you dupes.”

“And the script,” Kylie said.

“What script?” Brockway demanded.

“Mr. Brockway, I have a boss, and she has a boss, and so it goes, all the way up the chain of command to the police commissioner himself,” Kylie said. “Every one of them thinks like a cop, and eventually every one of them is going to ask the same question: ‘How do we know this isn’t a publicity stunt?’ ”

“Are you out of your mind?” Brockway said. “This is a reality show. There are no goddamn scripts. How could you even ask such a dumb question?”

“Erin Easton has been around since I was in high school,” Kylie said. “She’s not exactly the flavor of the week. This kidnapping—real or staged—is going to put her back in the spotlight. When you’re a detective investigating her sudden disappearance, the question isn’t dumb at all.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Detective, but we’re not shooting an episode of Law and Order . We have an outline—heartwarming ceremony, over-the-top reception, exclusive interviews with celebrity guests. Basic reality-show fodder. Trust me, none of our writers are creative enough to come up with anything as outrageous as the bride being kidnapped.”

“We’ll need a copy of the guest list,” Kylie said, “along with the names of anyone who accepted the invitation and failed to show.”

“ Failed to show? ” Brockway said with a smirk. “Sweetie, this was the hottest ticket in town. There are two hundred and twenty-four names on that guest list. Only two people didn’t make it. One was Shelley Trager’s wife, but of course you know about that one, because you took her spot.”

“Who was the other no-show?”

“Veronica Gibbs,” he said, the smirk on his face wider and even more irritating. “The groom’s mother.”

CHAPTER 9

AS SOON AS Declan McMaster realized that Erin was missing, he had his security detail get Jamie Gibbs out of harm’s way. The new groom was now locked up in one of the administrative offices on the second floor and was being closely guarded by the NYPD.

“I never even heard of Gibbs until he became the man who was marrying Erin Easton,” I said to McMaster as Kylie and I followed him downstairs. “What can you tell us about him?”

“Classic spoiled rich kid, always in the gossip rags, famous for his sexual exploits and his run-ins with the paparazzi, ex-husbands, current husbands, Uber drivers, and just about anyone who got in his way,” McMaster said. “Three years ago he woke up with a dead girl in his bed. Not his fault; she OD’d. But according to Erin, it scared him straight. He gave up the blow and the booze and went to work for his mother.

“Veronica Gibbs owns Head Turners, a multimillion-dollar international modeling agency, and she put Jamie in charge of talent development. It’s a real job—if Veronica would let him do it. But she’s a tyrant. I swear to God, her business card doesn’t say CEO , it says BIC , which, if you ask, she’ll tell you stands for ‘bitch in charge.’ She runs the business and her son’s life with an iron fist. Jamie hates living in her shadow, but he doesn’t have any real money of his own, so he tolerates her bullshit and cashes the monthly allowance checks.”