Authors: John Gilstrap
You already checked it, Samuel.
"But I need to be sure."
You are sure.
Jacob was right, of course. Again. Samuel had taken a lot of care down there at the end of the driveway to make sure that he had the right address. Sometimes, you just have to trust yourself to be right.
"I need to find the phone line first," he whispered, getting a jump on his brother. Sometimes, phone lines came in on poles, and other times, they came up from the ground. Out here, he didn't see any overhead lines at all, so he shined his flashlight along the foundation, looking for the telltale wire to the gray box.
Samuel giggled with glee when he found it within seconds. Sometimes just dumb luck goes in your favor. He'd learned to recognize them quickly, but just to be sure, he glided through the darkness over to that spot on the wall, and he clicked on his light again. Sure enough, there was the raised picture of a telephone with a bell in the middle of it. He used a Swiss Army knife to turn the screw that kept the little plastic cover closed, and as the four-inch door swung open, there were the phone connections: two wires with little plastic clips on the end, just like the one he'd seen inside his own house. The second wire could mean a second telephone, but probably meant they had an alarm system with an automatic dialler. For all the good it would do them tonight. Noiselessly, he slipped the blade under the wires and cut them cleanly away from the plugs.
He remembered the one job he'd done with Jacob a long time ago when they'd just unplugged the phone line long enough for Jacob to go inside and do the job, and then they'd plugged it back in before leaving. Jacob had said something about keeping them guessing, but Samuel wasn't sure whom he was talking about, and he didn't pursue it.
He smiled. "Things are going just fine now, huh?"
You're doing great, Samuel. You're doing just great.
Now it was time to find a way inside.
Russell Coates had finally gotten around to checking in with the Fairfield County police, a courtesy that should have been his first order of business, but in fact was an easily delayed pain in the ass to do. Sometimes, local police organizations were just plain difficult to work with, and after his long drive in from West Virginia he wanted to get some work done before he played politician. Besides, if he waited long enough, the big brass and big egos would be on their way home before he had to deal with them.
As it turned out, he needn't have been concerned. He'd heard about Fairfield County for a long time-it being one of the largest and most progressive suburban departments in the country-and from what he could tell from his dealings so far, their reputation was well earned. After exchanging pleasantries with the duty shift commander, Captain Himler, they'd made him feel right at home, granting him free access to all the files he needed and all the coffee he could drink. They even gave him a desk and a phone, courtesy of a detective who wouldn't know of his sacrifice until he started his shift in the morning.
"Why don't you just reach out and touch this guy if you're so sure he did it?" Himler asked after being filled in on what Russell had found so far. "I mean, you've got the tires and you can put him at the park and at the convenience store where the shooting was called in. What more do you need?"
Russell thought for a moment before answering. "I guess I'm just not comfortable with it yet. It's like I've got all the pieces, but none of the glue to hold them all together. One stiff breeze and I'm out of business."
Himler considered that and shrugged. "Well, it's your case. But if it were mine, the guy would've been in interrogation for two hours now."
Russell shook his head. "Not this guy. He's smart and he's rich. He'd lawyer up before you even thought of the first question. I guess I want to give him another couple of days to hang himself on something, and then if I can't come up with anything, I'll pull him in based on what I've got."
"Just let me know what I can do to help," Himler said before getting back to the stack of papers on his desk.
That had been ninety minutes ago, and since then, Russell had been on the phone with the Washington field office, getting them caught up on the same details. Everybody in the world was ready to go, it seemed, as soon as Russell pulled the rip cord. Until then, it was all a matter of plowing through--
His cell phone chirped, interrupting his thoughts. Russell snapped it open in the middle of the third ring. "Coates."
"This is Chuck Wheatley." Russell recognized the voice the instant he heard the name. "I've got news for you, some of it tough."
Russell didn't like the tone he heard. Wheatley was ordinarily the life of the party at the office. "Hit me."
"We just got word that Tim Burrows has been shot."
Russell's heart stammered, and he gasped reflexively. "Oh, shit, is he all right?"
"We don't know yet. Seems he was checking out a lead on your murder case and he opened a door that was rigged with a shotgun. Nailed him in the belly. He's in surgery now, and the doctors won't commit to anything."
"Jesus."
"He's still alive, but he's lost a lot of blood."
"I should be there." Russell checked his watch. "Shit, I'll never get a flight at this hour. I'll catch the first one out in the morning. Keep me informed, okay, Chuck? When he gets out of surgery, you give me a call. Even if they don't have a prognosis yet, I want to know."
"You got it. And there's one other thing."
Russell waited a beat until Chuck got to it.
"You said you were looking for any reports of kidnappings, and when we talked, we didn't have anything on the boards. We just received an all-points from Pittsburgh, though, about a little boy-a two-year-old named Justin Fitzgerald-who was yanked from his step-father's car last night and is apparently being held as leverage against some drug shit on the street. The details are kinda hard to figure out from what's on the wire, but apparently since then, the stepfather's been whacked by a sniper, the mother's been arrested robbing a department store, and the whole deal is somehow tied in with the murder of a drug lord inside a private school."
It came too fast, leaving Russell awash in details. "Jesus, and all that happened tonight?"
"All within the last few hours, yeah. Think it has anything to do with your park killing?"
Russell shrugged. "Hell, I don't know. The kidnapping I was looking for was an adult. I don't know how a little kid could fit-"
The footprints. The Pampers.
That door in his mind opened and shut again, teasing him with the solution he needed. "Thanks, Chuck. Remember to call me about Tim."
Russell slapped the phone closed and leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. The answer was there. Right there, so close that he could touch it. He pressed his temples hard, trying to squeeze the answer out.
What did he know? He knew that a child was kidnapped from someplace in Pennsylvania, and either coincidentally or otherwise, a lot of people shot up a lot of places as a result. He knew that one Jacob Stanns was shot dead while either being buried alive or burying someone else alive.
But the murder was so far away from the burial site.
Yeah, how about that?
Could this be the key? This Justin Fitzgerald? Could this be the boy for whom Robert Martin shelled out more money than he expected for a box of diapers, at the same convenience store where someone happened to call in a 911 report of a murder?
Russell still didn't have his arms completely around it, but he sure as hell knew enough to bring this Martin guy in for questioning. Rising from his desk, he headed across the squad room toward Himler's office.
It was time to see about some reinforcements.
EXHAUSTION CRUSHED BOBBY'S body like a blanket welded from steel. Mentally and physically, there was nothing left. He'd spent it all in the past twenty-four hours, and now, as they lay together in the bed, the three of them-Bobby, Susan, and . . . Steven-his body demanded that he sleep, but his mind wouldn't let it happen, cycling through rushes of intense fear and then anger, and finally, sadness.
This was their truce. They would spend the night as a family together, either with the adults sleeping on the floor of the nursery or Steven sleeping in the bed with them, and then in the morning, they'd start anew, firing volleys at one another at full volume.
But there it would end, simply because Bobby couldn't take it anymore. His first act in the morning would be a telephone call to Agent Coates. He'd come by the house, he'd find whatever he found, and Bobby would be led away in handcuffs.
What was that?
Something startled him, making his whole body convulse in the bed, and jolting his heart. He realized now that he'd dozed off, if only because he was so conscious of being wide-awake. He must have heard a noise; why else would he have jumped so?
He sat there for a long time, bolt upright in the bed, his legs lost under the blanket and bedspread, the flesh of his bare chest pimpling into gooseflesh. He listened to the night, but it didn't move. He heard only the syncopated rhythms of Susan and Steven breathing. Even in
the darkness, he could make out their forms in the bed, Susan flat on her stomach, with her head buried under her pillow, only a two-inch stripe of flannel nightgown showing above the line of the covers.
Next to her, Steven lay sideways, likewise on his stomach, but with his knees tucked under and his bottom sticking straight up into the air, as if he'd collapsed while praying. Not that the kid didn't have a lot to pray for. Didn't they all?
Steven was a snorer, a world-class one at that. Bobby had to smile as he listened to the boy saw at his sleep like somebody's grandfather. Bobby remembered from the baby books that such aggressive snoring was a sign of future tonsil and adenoid problems, and he fleetingly wondered who was going to take care of those for the little guy.
The longer he listened, the safer the night seemed. Perhaps it had just been the snoring that woke him up, a hitch in the breathing that registered somewhere deep in his psyche as danger. That was probably it.
Moving as gently as he could, so as not wake the others, he settled back into the bed, into his pillows. He wished he could burrow in as Susan did, blocking out all traces of sound and light, but if he slept on his stomach, his back wouldn't be right for days. A cruel reminder that his fortieth birthday lay not so far down the road. Instead, he lay on his back and brought the covers up to his chin-his "coffin position" as Susan liked to call it.
He closed his eyes and tried to think about something pleasant, images that would let him sleep peacefully through the night.
It wasn't snoring, his subconscious told him. It was more like a crash.
That was silly. If there'd been a crash, then the security alarm would have gone off, and God knew there'd be no sleeping through that. Just to reassure himself, he turned his head to the left and strained to see the backlit annunciator panel on the wall just beyond Susan's night-stand. His heart skipped again as he saw a green light glowing where there should have been red. In all the excitement and acrimony of Susan's arrival home, he'd forgotten to set the damn thing.
Cursing under his breath, he quietly pulled back the covers and swung his feet around to correct his omission. He froze in place, though, even before his feet touched the floor. This time, there was no mistaking the sound he heard, and with a sudden head rush of recognition, it was all he could do to keep from fainting.
Somewhere downstairs, a door opened and then closed.
Climbing in through the basement window had been Jacobs idea. Houses this big always have alarms, he'd told Samuel, but a lot of times, they don't hook anything up to the basement.
Samuel had thought about arguing but in the end deferred to his big brother just as he always did. Samuel had landed right in the middle of a stack of boxes, sending all kinds of shit tumbling onto the concrete floor. God, what a noise that made!
The gun! Jacob told him. Be ready with the gun. Samuel quickly picked himself up off the floor, struggling to keep his balance among the junk, and held the pistol straight out at arm's length, his flashlight in the other hand, waiting to blast whoever might come tearing down the steps to get him.
He waited there for a good minute, not moving even a muscle, listening. When nothing happened, he decided it was safe to move on.
Samuel's hands shook. Even as a little boy, he refused to play hide-and-seek, because he hated the way he jumped every time he discovered someone. And then they'd laugh at him. They always laughed at him. He got used to it after a while, but still.
Walking around inside other people's houses was way worse than hide-and-seek.
Keep going, you pussy.
"I'm going," he whispered. "I just want to make sure that nobody heard me."
You've got a gun, asshole. Why the hell should you care?
Letting the flashlight beam lead the way, he made his way quickly and quietly across the basement over to the wooden stairs that led to the main level. As he walked, he tried not to let himself be distracted by all the boxes and tools and exercise equipment that lay strewn everywhere. He tried not to think about how much fun it would be just to spend a day down here looking at stuff and trying to figure out how it worked. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it.