If Angels Fall (54 page)

“Who are you?” Gabrielle repeated coldly.

“Zach Reed. How do we get out of here?”

Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

“We can’t. Mr. Jenkins has got everything locked up.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Jenkins.” Gabrielle pointed at the ceiling.

“Well don’t worry, that doof is not going to hurt us!”

Danny started to whimper. “Can you take me home, now?
I want to go home.”

Zach put his arm around him. “Don’t worry, Danny. It’s
going to be okay. I’m gonna fix it so somebody comes for us.”

Garbage covered the floor -- fast food bags, wrappers,
and containers. The basement’s only window was barred and covered with
newspapers. Zach noticed the door was wide open.

“Where are we Gabrielle? San Francisco? You know what
street?”

Gabrielle shrugged.

“And are there any other people here?

“Just Mr. Jenkins. My dog Jackson was here, but Mr.
Jenkins said he ran away. Did you see him? He’s a blond cocker spaniel.”

“No.”

Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

Gabrielle burst into tears, triggering Danny’s sobs.

Zach didn’t know what to do, so he hugged both of
them, fighting his own tears. “It’s gonna be fine. Shhh-shhhh. It’s okay.”

“He’s a crazy man!” Gabrielle sobbed. “He killed a rat
and he’s always praying to us on his knees! He calls us by other kids’ names,
shows us old movies of them and makes us wear their old clothes! I’m so afraid!
We tried to run away, but he’s got us locked up, and he keeps making us
sleepy!”

“Does he hurt you?”

“Gabrielle shook her head. “He just baptizes you.”

“What?”

“You’re going to get it soon.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He puts you in the tub and dunks your head. After
that, he starts to call you by another kid’s name. He told us you’re the last
one he was looking for.”

“The last what?”

“Angel.”

Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

Zach saw the door and thought. “Does he always leave
the door open?”

“Uh-huh. So we can go upstairs to the bathroom.”

Zach looked around for something, anything that might
help him try to escape. He was surprised to see a corner of his backpack
protruding from the stinking garbage. He fished it out.

The creep had never touched it. Zach dumped the
contents, grabbed his father’s business card, his cash, his portable video
game, then his tiny Swiss army knife. He opened it and ran his finger over the
three-inch, razor-sharp blade. He folded it and stuffed it in the crotch of his
underwear. Bad guys always frisked you, but a guy never checked another guy
there. He was not supposed to. It was like a world rule, or something.

“Does this house have a phone, Gabrielle?” Zach said.

“In the kitchen, on the wall.”

Squeak-creak. Squeak-creak.

“All right.” Zach glanced at the ceiling and sniffed.
“I’ve got a plan to get us outta here.”

Reed pushed
his way through the throng of reporters, photographers, and TV crews waiting in
the lobby of the ancient fourteen-story
Star
Building in downtown San
Francisco.

“Reed, is it true you know the kidnapper from a story?

This was real. It was happening.

“Has there been a ransom demand?”

Something was roaring in his ears.

“Did this guy take your son because you were
suspicious he abducted Danny Becker and Gabrielle Nunn?”

He couldn’t concentrate clearly.

“Any connection to the Donner case and Virgil Shook?”

His only thought was of his son.

“Can we have a picture of Zach?”

“I can’t talk now,” Reed managed.

Cameras flashed and TV lights burned as he shouldered
his way in. Sydowski, Turgeon, Rust, and a half-dozen other police, shields
hanging from pickets and neck chains, surrounded him, ensuring no one else got
on the elevator with them. It was closing when a security officer wedged his
arm between the doors.

“What the hell you doing, Butch?” Reed demanded.

The plump, gray-haired guard felt the hard glare of
the detectives and he cleared his throat. “Uhmm, sorry, Tom. But orders are that
you’ve been terminated. Barred from the building. Mr. Benson’s orders.”

“Back off,” Sydowski growled.

“Just doing my job. Good luck, Tom.” Butch saluted.

As Reed and the police swept through the newsroom,
heads snapped around, conversations stopped and people gaped. By now, the
entire department knew Zach had been abducted. And everyone knew Reed had been
fired.

He hurried to his desk, whispers following his wake.

His only crystalline thought was for Zach. Finding his
son. Ann was right. It was his fault, and if it was the last thing he did, he
would find Zach. Alive. Nobody would stand in his way. Every molecule of his
being was focused on his son.

Everything remained on Reed’s desk exactly the way he
left it yesterday when he was still employed. He rifled his paperwork: his
yellow file on Keller was gone. Sydowski and the others encircled his cubicle
as he searched in vain.

“It was right here, a yellow legal-size folder!”

“Tom?” Molly Wilson materialized, her teary voice
thickening. “I know everything. What Benson did. Zach. I’m so sorry, Tom.”

“I need help, not sympathy, Molly. Where’s my Keller
file?”

“I’ll help you, Tom.” She sniffled, eyes going to
Benson’s office. He was on the phone, reading from a yellow file folder. “I’ll
help you right now!” Wilson ran off, bracelets chiming.

Reed burst into Benson’s office, snatched the Keller
file, and returned to his desk to show Sydowski and the others.

Benson leapt after him. “What do you think you’re
doing, Reed?” Benson grabbed the file back.

“Give me that file, Benson!” Reed spat.

“Tom, I’m terribly sorry about what’s happened.
Really. But you have to calm down and think rationally. This file is the
property of the newspaper and you, as a former employee, are trespassing.”

“What?” Reed was incredulous. “What did you say?”

“I’m afraid the only way to take this file is with a
warrant.”

Sydowski said, “We’ll get one right away. Linda.”

Turgeon picked up a phone. “What number to get out?”

“Nine,” someone said.

FBI Special Agent Ditmire rolled his eyes. “I don’t believe
this. This is a hot pursuit. Can’t we charge this man with obstruction, Merle?”

Reed thrust his face to within an inch of Benson’s.
“The clock is ticking on my son’s life! If you don’t give me that file now, it
starts ticking on yours.”

Benson blinked.

Reed continued. “Give me that file now or I hold a
news conference outside and every parent in the Bay Area will know what Myron
Benson at the
Star
is doing! Then I’ll join the Beckers and Nunns to sue
you for the wrongful deaths of our children.”

“Myron, give Tom his file, now.” It was Amos Tellwood,
the publisher. Molly Wilson stood beside him. Newsroom activity ceased.

“I’ve just been fully enlightened. Tom, you have the
paper’s unbounded support.” Tellwood turned to Sydowski. “I am the publisher and
you have full access to anything we have that will expedite finding Tom’s son.
We shall not lose another second debating it. Tom, you remain a
Star
employee. Myron, in my office. Now.”

Reed opened the folder. Sydowski and the others took
notes, and went off to the telephones. Tom told Sydowski and the others about
Keller’s pilgrimages to the drowning spot at the Farallons. Sydowski told him
Keller had bought a boat.

The hunt for Zach Reed, Gabrielle Nunn, and Danny
Becker intensified. The FBI double checked with the US Coast Guard. Yes, the
Farallons had been sealed. And the FBI and California Highway Patrol each put
choppers up, searching for a new white van, possibly with rental plates, or
anything trailing a boat like the one Keller had bought in Calaveras County.
They had a team of police at Half Moon Bay, and alerts to all marinas.

Statewide bulletins with photos and more information
were continually broadcast. Police stationed at every known point in Keller’s
past were watching for him and the children. Detectives went to the homes of
Danny Becker, Gabrielle Nunn, and Reed’s mother-in-law in Berkeley, where a
phone trap was being set up. They were setting up a trap on Reed’s newsroom
line.

The SFPD tightened its surveillance of William Perry
Kindhart, and undercover cops turned their radar for any street talk on the
kidnappings. Detectives questioned other members of Keller’s bereavement group;
others canvassed every car rental and leasing outlet in the Bay Area. The FBI’s
psych profiler pored over Reed’s file on Keller and discussed it with Dr.
Martin. The photo department kicked out three clear pictures of Keller taken
secretly when Reed had sat in on Martin’s research group and duplicated Reed’s
wallet snapshot of Zach. It was more recent than the framed one on his desk.
Other newsrooms were calling the
Star
for Reed -- for quotes, for
photos.

Reed found a moment’s sanctuary at an empty corner
window desk, where he had a partial view of the Bay Bridge between the office
towers. In his hand he held a picture Ann had snapped on a cable car a month
before the breakup. He traced Zach’s face with his finger.

He remembered Nathan Becker, sitting in that boutique
in Balboa, drowning in fear, clutching Danny’s picture, and Nancy Nunn pleading
before news cameras for Gabrielle’s life, and how he thought it was sad for
them, but a dynamite news story.

What had he become?

Wait until it happens to you.

Sydowski rolled up a chair beside him. They were
alone. “How you doing, Tom?”

Reed shook his head, unable to answer.

“Hang in there. If we have anything going for us, it’s
that we know more about the bad guy than we ever did, thanks to you.”

“Do you think Zach’s dead?”

The two men searched each other’s eyes.

“No.” Sydowski gave him the truth. “Not yet.”

Reed turned to the window.

“Tom, I think whatever he’s going to do, he’ll do
tomorrow on the anniversary.”

Reed agreed.

“Look, Tom, you met the guy. What does your gut tell
you?”

“He’s a madman.”

“You know we’re doing everything conceivable to find
him. Right now we’ve got nothing -- no driver’s license, no record with Pacific
Bell, utilities, voter’s registration, taxes, credit cards, nothing. On paper
he doesn’t exist. We’ve got people dealing with Fargo, following the bill he
paid for the flowers on his family’s grave. We may get a lead there. It’s a
question of time.”

Reed nodded.

“Tom, this is the guy you wanted to tell me about
after the Nunn case, after you met him at Martin’s group, and saw the rough
home video we had from Nunn’s party?”

“I held off because of the Donner fiasco.”

Sydowski wanted to tell him everything about Franklin
Wallace and Virgil Shook, but decided it wasn’t the time. “Go home and be with
your wife, Tom. She needs you. If something pops, I’ll call you. We’ll be
moving everything to the Hall of Justice very soon.”

“Walt?”

“Yes?”

“He’s our only child. He’s all we have.”

“I know.” Sydowski patted Reed’s shoulder. “Be strong
for him,” he said, then left.

Reed rubbed his thumb over his son’s picture, picked
up a phone, and called his mother-in-law’s house in Berkeley.

Ann’s mother answered, her voice quavering.

“It’s Tom, Doris. Is Ann there?”

“She’s resting. A doctor from the university came over
and gave her a sedative. There’s lots of police here -- Oh, they’re signaling
not to tie up the line.”