Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
She heard a noise, a knocking, and they all looked toward the front of the office. Nancie Alvarez opened the door, leaning in, only her head and shoulders crossing the threshold. The hall was empty. Everyone must have scattered. The luckies.
“Is it okay if we—” Nancie began.
“Not yet!” her mother called out. The door closed again with a metallic click. “When did you
really
meet, Tenner? How long have you
really
known this girl?”
Tenley felt her stomach curl and her brain start to fry. She remembered how she felt when the police had questioned her about Lanna. Her skin had gone all cold, and her insides no longer fit into her body. It was that way now.
At least the detective wasn’t asking about her father. She had no idea what she would say then.
Why did everything always seem to depend on what she knew? Or did? Or saw?
Gracie’s white sling-back flats clacked across the dark marble floor. She carried a strappy white patent backpack over one shoulder. Tanned and coltishly lanky, bare arms and legs, she had the awkward gait of a preteen girl in shoes that didn’t quite fit. Jane stood, but didn’t rush toward her, waiting to see what would happen. Where was Lewis? Hadn’t the plan been for him to deliver Gracie to her?
The girl strolled across the lobby, dipped her fingers in the fountain, moved on. She didn’t appear to be looking for anyone. If she’d been instructed—
Find Jane Ryland, she’s a woman, younger than your mom, brown hair, and she’ll be waiting for you
—wouldn’t she be scanning the room? But Gracie seemed headed for the snack bar. Or the front door.
Should Jane go get her? Stop her? At least ask? No one else in the lobby seemed to pay much attention to the girl in yellow. The concierge lifted his head as she walked by his broad wooden desk, gave her a fleeting vacant smile. The valet guy hung another jangling ring of keys in his storage cabinet and ambled outside. A pack of rollerbag-toting tourists heading for the waist-high registration desk partly blocked Jane’s view of Gracie for a few seconds, only her curls and ruffles peeking between the adult bodies and black wheeled suitcases.
Gracie’s eyes were on the front door. Was she going to leave?
Jane took a step in her direction. She didn’t want to scare the girl, and if this was not the moment Lewis was—handing her off? Giving her up? Making the exchange? Whatever it was, Jane didn’t want to ruin it.
Maybe Gracie hadn’t seen her. Or recognized her. Jane hadn’t bothered to refresh her makeup and her hair was not very carefully pulled back, so if Gracie was looking for someone all TV glam and polished, Jane was pretty much incognito. Gracie might be too young to remember Jane from Channel 11, her last on-air story more than a year ago. But her stepfather, or someone, would have described her, and pointed the girl in the right direction. If that’s what the plan was.
Gracie stopped at a grouping of massive terra-cotta-potted fake palm trees near a rack of flapped-over newspapers. She plopped her white backpack onto the floor, then perched on the curved edge of one of the pots, legs sticking out in front of her. She seemed to be staring at her white-patent toes, moving her feet side to side, back and forth, moving her head in unison. Certainly not looking for anyone. But waiting? For what?
Maybe Gracie had misunderstood her stepfather’s instructions, thinking Jane would come find her. Jane twisted the cell phone in her hand, flipping it over and over, considering. That actually made more sense. Gracie would be told that Jane would find
her,
right? Jane was the adult.
She spooled out a breath, trying to decide what to do. Keeping one eye on the girl, she checked her cell, on the unlikely chance someone had texted or called, explaining exactly what the plan was. They hadn’t.
Imagine that.
Could anything go wrong if Jane simply approached her? After all, Jane was family, almost, kind of, soon to be. Certainly someone had mentioned her name in connection with the wedding as well as this afternoon’s plan. Jane pursed her lips, never taking her eyes off Gracie.
Should she call Robyn? Melissa? Try Lewis’s number?
If Jane weren’t standing in the middle of a hotel lobby, in public, she would have yelled in frustration. But there was no one to yell at. She closed her eyes, briefly, semi-defeated.
Okay.
It couldn’t hurt if she approached Gracie, still perched by the potted palm. Obviously waiting. This wasn’t some spy movie or TV drama; it was the lame-brained scheme of a stupid stepfather trying to avoid embarrassment. Too darn late for
that,
Jane thought.
She took a deep breath, slung her tote bag over her shoulder, plastered a non-threatening expression on her face, and headed across the lobby. Muzak played some tinkly-mushy background music, soothing and summery, the fountain splashed, and the elevator doors opened, closed, and then Jane was facing the little girl. She stopped, keeping a reasonably non-intimidating distance, a step away.
Gracie looked up at her. Then down. As if she had no idea who Jane was.
“Gracie?” Jane leaned closer, touched her on the shoulder for an instant. “I’m Jane, okay?”
Gracie looked at her again, then stood, grabbing the strap of her backpack with her right hand.
Good.
“Ready to go?” Jane asked. Or maybe, she should make sure. “Your stepfather told you to come with me, right? Didn’t he?”
Gracie took a step back, stumbled against the pot, sat down again. Stood up. “How do you know my name?” she whispered. Her eyebrows drew together, and the corners of her mouth turned down.
Uh-oh.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to alarm you, honey,” Jane said. “I’m Jane. Didn’t your stepfather tell you I was going to take you home? To your mother? And I have Twizzlers, just for you.”
“DADDY!” Gracie screamed, the force of her entire body straining behind her little voice. “HELP! Stranger!”
Gracie turned and ran, skittering and sliding across the marble floor, racing toward the elevators, her backpack abandoned, arms flailing, yelling at the top of her lungs the whole way.
Every head in the lobby came up. Every person in the place stared at Jane. The concierge leaped from his desk. The clerk bounded from behind her registration counter. Every uniform in the room now beelined toward Jane. Two security guards, in starched steel gray and running shoes, banged through an unmarked metal door she hadn’t even noticed.
“We saw the whole thing on surveillance,” one yelled at her. “Stop right there, ma’am. Now.”
“No, no.” Jane put out her hands, smiling, blushing, embarrassed. What must that have looked like on surveillance? Her in the lobby, alone, compulsively checking her cell, black T-shirt and jeans. Waiting? Stalking? Approaching a little kid? She’d actually touched her! Offered her
candy
!
“No, no,” she said again. “It’s all a misunderstanding.”
“I bet,” the taller guard said. He conferred with the muscle-bound one by rolling his eyes.
“I’m Jane Ryland,” she began. This was going to be funny. Someday. Not right now, when these guys thought she was a child molester. “I’m a reporter, from Channel…” Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t anyone from anywhere now, and if this guy didn’t recognize her from TV, which she hadn’t been on for more than a year come to think of it, she sure didn’t look like a TV reporter. What’s more, she didn’t have any press credentials. Nor was she actually covering a story.
She started to unzip her tote bag. She’d show them her driver’s license, they’d call Robyn, and all would be well. These rent-a-brutes were only doing their jobs. There were bad people in the world, and they didn’t always look bad on the outside. It would take one phone call to prove she wasn’t one of them.
“Listen, listen,” she said, trying to look innocent as well as make the explanation as simple as possible. “That little girl is my sister’s fiancé’s daughter. Her stepfather asked me to come and—”
“Ma’am? Keep your hands out of that bag, please.” The guard took a step closer. The other one was behind her, sandwiching her between them. She smelled their bubble gum and acrid aftershave, the leather of their belts. The stupid Muzak was still tinkling along, the world’s most inappropriate sound track. Every single face in the lobby openly gawked. “You’ll have to come with me.”
“No, I don’t, I really don’t, it’s all fine.” She felt her heart twist a little, a prickle of sweat across the back of her neck. This was solvable, but it wasn’t going well. Not at all. And the harder she argued, the harder these guys dug in. “I don’t, because this it just a big misunderstanding. If you’ll listen, for one second, my sister’s fiancé’s ex-wife is—”
“Like you keep saying. But you can tell that to the cops, miss. They’ll be here any second.”
* * *
Jake saw Catherine Siskel’s eyes dart to the surveillance monitor. She leaned toward it, moving her daughter aside, frowning. What was she looking at?
“What are all these cop cars?” Catherine narrowed her eyes, peering closer at the screen.
“Whoa,” Tenley whispered. “Do we need to start the ta—”
“Hang on,” Jake interrupted. His radio had crackled to life again.
“Jake?” Behind DeLuca’s voice, behind the static, rose a flaring high-pitched wail. Sirens.
“Copy,” Jake said. “D?”
Static.
As they watched, two BPD Crown Vics, blue wig-wag lights flashing through the sunshine, careened down Congress Street. They tore past the surveillance cameras and skidded to a halt in front of the University Inn. Weird to see all the action but not hear the sirens or the squeal of the tires. The cruisers pulled up to the sidewalk, bumping their front wheels over the curb. Doors opened. Uniforms leaped out. Doors slammed. Silent on the screen. But Jake knew what it sounded like.
“Jake? You hearing me over all this?” DeLuca’s voice was almost trampled by the sirens, which were still wailing even though the cops had arrived on scene. “Situation here.”
“I hear you,” Jake said into the mic. He stashed his notebook in his back pocket. Looked at the monitor. “And see you, too. On the sidewalk. What you got?”
Jake watched his partner running toward the hotel.
“University Inn.” Jake heard D’s voice growing breathless, and the pounding of his footsteps over the radio. “Attempted child abduction, dispatch says.”
Catherine Siskel gasped, her hand up to her mouth, and stepped closer to her daughter. Put an arm across her shoulders. Jake now saw four uniforms outside, also running toward the hotel. In two seconds, they were out of sight.
“
Mom,
do we need to—” Tenley began.
“Honey,” Catherine whispered, “hush.”
Jake could see DeLuca’s shape moving closer to the inn.
“DeLuca, stop!” Jake ordered. The black Isuzu was still in place, no lights on that he could make out. What the hell were Hewlitt and that girl doing in there? If she was in there. “You stay on Hewlitt.”
“But—” DeLuca had come to a halt, right at the corner of Congress and North. Jake was glad he couldn’t see the look on his partner’s face. Probably pissed. D loved a good takedown. Some creep trying to abduct a kid from a hotel lobby? All the city needed. But it sounded like they’d already nailed the bad guy. Nobody was dead. And the alleged abduction wasn’t their primary case. This was.
“Negative. We can’t lose Hewlitt.” Jake heard a clatter of commotion behind him. He turned to see a row of bodies, Nancie Alvarez and her crew, hovering in the hall outside the office, eyeing the three of them through the glass door like they were performing animals. It
was
pretty much a circus, Jake had to admit. With him as the juggler.
“Come on in,” Catherine Siskel called out, waving a hand. “Our visitor is about to leave.”
The door opened and Alvarez came through with her team, owl-eyed and hesitant, trooping behind her.
“Jake.” DeLuca’s staticky voice cut through the rustle of desk chairs being wheeled into place and the metallic squeaks of the swivels as their occupants reclaimed their desks. Someone coughed. Another sneezed. A phone jangled. “What if our guys need help?”
Three-friggin’-ring circus,
Jake thought. He had to extract the info on the Finnerty girl from Tenley. He had to make sure Hewlitt didn’t slip away from them. But dammit, he wished he could head to that hotel lobby. If a child had been threatened by a stranger, and that stranger was in custody, Jake would like nothing better than to race down there and handle it. Take the asshole in for questioning. See if he was a sex offender. See if there was more to it than just some pervert scouting for tourist prey.
Disgusting.
He checked the surveillance screen. D was still on the corner. The Isuzu was still in place. The only puzzle pieces he could reliably control were Catherine Siskel and her daughter.
“Do not move, D,” Jake ordered. “I’m on the way down there. One minute. Less.” Real police work was about real life, down on the street, not from an ivory tower view of the action. You could know what was going on only if you were in the midst of it, seeing it, hearing it. He’d been so mesmerized by his vantage point he’d forgotten about reality. Where he should be right now.
He saw Catherine Siskel still protecting her daughter, shielding her, one arm clamped over her shoulder. Tenley seemed absorbed by the activity on the street below. Or the black Isuzu, maybe. He pointed his radio at the Siskel women. “And you two. Don’t—”
“I understand, Detective.” Catherine Siskel sounded ever so slightly sarcastic as she looked him in the eye. “We won’t leave town.”
“Jake!” DeLuca’s voice cut through the moment, his tension blasting unmistakably over the staticky radio. “Shots fired!”
“Do it, do it, do it!” the beefy security guard had ordered, grabbing Jane by one arm, essentially dragging her across the floor toward that unmarked metal door, her black flats scuffing when they hit the strip of ugly carpeting that ringed the marble center.
“Hey!” She’d tried again to get his attention, also attempting to untangle her feet. She looked longingly toward the front entrance to the hotel and its revolving door to freedom. “Sir? I don’t think you can do this, you know? I’m Jane Ryland, ask anyone, they’ll tell you. That girl is my—”