Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
And there was the exit. Tenley touched her fingers to the metal handle of the glass door, testing, as if it might be alarmed. Outside was a little alleyway, the covered turn-around the mayor and other big shots used to get into City Hall without getting rained or snowed on. Past that was a strip of decorative cobblestones, then the sidewalk.
And then the street, she thought.
Freedom.
Where she’d go, she wasn’t quite sure. But if she stayed, wasn’t she in big trouble? Somehow? Her mother was sure acting like it.
All she had to do was run.
* * *
“Get away from that door!” Catherine Siskel felt like yanking her daughter’s fingers from the curved silver handle. “I told you not to move, Tenner. For good reason. If there’s danger out there, we need to stay inside.”
Tenley looked at her, those dark eyes questioning, her T-shirt all pulled out of shape, just like their lives were. Four flights of stairs had allowed Catherine to mentally regroup. She tried to tamp down her resentment. She wasn’t any less angry, or any less hurt, or any less in mourning. But she didn’t have to take it out on poor Tenley.
She and Greg had tried to protect their younger daughter from sorrow and grief and loss. Ten long months of bereavement and disbelief. The three of them. Until Greg went off the reservation. Now he was gone. The sorrow welled up in her, so powerfully she almost couldn’t see. What if Tenley was in danger, too?
“I’m sorry, honey, I know I sounded angry.” Putting her arm across her daughter’s shoulders, Catherine felt the girl’s muscles freeze, rigid and unyielding. Well, she’d be mad, too, or sad, or confused, or all of the above. “But I’m not angry with
you.
”
Silence from Tenley.
“Let’s go to my office.” Catherine had been so angry when she’d heard the name Brileen, her brain had white-flashed into overdrive. Now they had to deal with it. “We need to talk. In private.”
But Tenley had scooted even farther away on the bench. Scowling, she drew her knees to her chest, yanked her skirt over her legs, and wrapped her arms around them. A brick wall.
“We can talk
here.
Who were you calling?” Tenley demanded. “Why were you so mad about Brileen?”
There it was.
The question Catherine tried to avoid, hoped to avoid, hoped never to face anywhere but in her own remorseful memories. Now she’d never be able to sort it out with Greg, either. He’d denied everything, but she hadn’t believed him. Why should she? She’d seen too much evidence of his lying. She had always thought, she realized now, she had always thought there would be more time for the truth. And then there wasn’t.
“Shhh, honey. I had to check with the guard, then call the mayor about the situation across the street, let him know where I am. And Ward Dahlstrom. I told him you were with me.” She stopped as she saw the look on her daughter’s face. “I know, he’s not the most—anyway. Then this happened.” She waved a hand, toward upstairs and outside, encompassing the entire morning. “The mayor says he’s been told it’s almost all clear, trouble’s over. Nothing to fear. But there’s a lot of other stuff going on. City Hall stuff.”
“Whatever,” Tenley said. “Ward Dahlstrom is an asshole.”
“Tenley! Language.” It was hard not to smile. She had to agree. It was Dahlstrom who’d kept her out of the surveillance video loop. Dahlstrom who had helped put her in the impossible position of having to lie to the police to protect the mayor. So, indeed yes. Dahlstrom was an asshole.
“Be that as it may,” Catherine said.
“What about Brileen?” Tenley said.
“Brileen.” Catherine looked at her daughter’s narrowed eyes, saw the yearning behind them, and the sorrow, and the disappointment. Saw a future ahead of them that no one could have predicted or planned. Lives that had once seemed so promising, so exciting, even
important.
Lives now devolved into sadness and lies and cover-ups and death. Here they were. Mother and daughter, face-to-face on a little bench in the lobby of Boston City Hall.
What they didn’t teach at the Kennedy School was how to spin this one:
Telling your teenage daughter about her father’s affair.
“I heard two shots,” Jane told him from behind her barricade of plants. “They sounded muffled, like they came from upstairs.”
“Anything else?” Jake checked the bank of elevators. Four doors, all closed. Their call buttons lighted. Floor indicators now all on lobby.
Six minutes since he arrived. Why wasn’t he getting radio transmissions? Jake had clicked to the incident frequency, blocking out all traffic except about what unfolded here at the hotel. Unless they’d totally lost the shooter,
impossible,
something was going down. And where the hell was his backup? A squad was supposedly en route to wrangle the people stranded in the lobby.
Christ, they all were probably taking cell phone videos and snapping photos from their hiding places.
OMG, I’m a hostage.
He could just see it on frigging Twitter. Or
TMZ.
He watched Jane close her eyes for an instant, thinking, then open them.
“Yeah. The shots came from the rear of the building. The cops all ran that way, through the fire door.” She pointed, starting to stand up. “That’s why those alarms were clanging. There hasn’t been anything since.”
“Stay down,” he told her.
He wanted to get her out of here. But he had to get himself upstairs, too, wherever the team was. As soon as his backup arrived.
“Jake.” A voice behind him. He turned. DeLuca?
“I told you to stay on Hewlitt, D,” Jake said. “Why the hell are you—?”
“Supe’s orders.” DeLuca put up a palm, cutting him off. “It’s a code one. Hotel security reported attempted child abduction, then shots fired. You kidding me? The supe’s going nuts, City Hall’s going nuts. The freaking child molester’s on the loose. Apparently the hotel security morons let her go when—”
“Her?” Jake said.
* * *
Oh, no.
All
she needed. How to explain that she was—or wasn’t—the child molester?
There’s
a conversation she’d never imagined having with Jake. Jane, still hunkering behind the stupid plants, puffed out a breath.
“Jake?” she said, standing up a little. “There’s no child molester. That’s what I was trying to tell them.”
“Huh?” Jake said. He and D exchanged looks.
“What’s she doing here?” DeLuca said.
“I was here to get—nothing. Nothing, never mind.” Somehow she’d hoped that whole child molester thing would go away. She should have bolted when she had the chance, although she’d told Tall and Beefy her name—
several times, brilliant
—so they could easily track her down if they decided to. Now, though, that was hardly the point. There was a guy with a gun somewhere.
What if it was Lewis? Where was he? And where was Gracie?
“All units.” The voice came over Jake’s radio. “All units. Do you read?”
Jane had heard enough radio calls from cops trying not to sound afraid. They never succeeded. But this was good news, she predicted. If this were a continuing risk, something disastrous, someone dead, a shooter on the loose, their voices would be different. Whatever had happened, it was over.
Maybe no one was even hurt. She’d see Gracie soon. Lewis, too. All would be explained. All would be safe.
“Brogan, I copy,” Jake replied.
Jane checked her camera, still on standby, battery fine. Would it be kosher to roll on Jake? Tape him getting this radio call? It felt wrong, but … Was she a reporter, or a victim? A reporter, or the police officer’s girlfriend?
Why did all of reality have to be recorded? Life never just happened anymore. Memories had to be indelible, every event captured. And shared. And used.
“Brogan, I copy,” Jake said again. And to D, “Switch to incident channel.”
“Shooter apprehended, repeat, all clear, shooter apprehended,” the radio voice began again, calm, solemn, reporting. Unafraid. An alarm, beeps, then an unintelligible voice blared in the background of the transmission, but the sound of that “all clear” filled the lobby.
“One person in custody,” the radio voice continued. “Floor three. One victim, calling for transport. Third floor. It appears to be a—stand by, all units.”
Appears to be a what? Jane wondered. She stood, pulling herself up with one hand clamped on the huge clay pot as the transmission paused, her thighs creaking, trying to get her balance. She aimed her camera at the registration desk, where heads began to emerge, now a row of hairlines and wide eyes peering over the counter.
She watched DeLuca take one wary step closer to the center of the lobby, then another, then another, his eyes darting to every corner. Maybe not convinced the danger had passed. The sun glinted off the facets of the cut-crystal chandelier, shafts of afternoon light spackling him with patches of shadow. So unnerving, Jane thought, that the fountain still burbled. The elevator doors closed and opened and closed again.
Jane leaned against the wall, letting it support her. Waiting.
Lewis. Gracie.
And nothing she could do.
“Stay down until we give a final all clear, please, people,” DeLuca called out. He held up his radio like a baton, his DeLuca-esque sport coat—tweedy, sprung, and seasonless no matter how Kat McMahon tried to make him over—lifting to reveal the weapon still holstered in black leather on his belt. “We will inform you when—”
“All units, all units.” The voice came over both radios now, interrupting.
DeLuca and Jake both peered at the black plastic rectangles in their hands, as if they could see who was talking. “We have one victim, stabilizing, floor three, transport is en route. Appears to be a domestic. All units stand by, please.”
“Victim? Domestic?” Jane felt the frown returning, stepped away from the wall.
Lewis. Gracie.
“Jake, what do they mean by—” She stopped. There was no other meaning for victim
.
Or domestic.
Jake put up a hand, stopping her, shaking his head, radio static from the open channel buzzing a fuzzy undercurrent. “You know as much as I do, obviously.”
She understood the bitterness in his voice. It wasn’t only exhaustion. He still hadn’t changed clothes, or shaved, or even combed his hair, she realized, since she saw him at City Hall this morning—how long ago? Almost six hours? No, he hadn’t changed since last night at the restaurant. So he was running on empty. Still, she knew he’d want to be up on the third floor in the thick of whatever incident the officers had just conquered, rather than standing in the lobby. She was happy, though she’d never tell him so, that he was down here. Safe, and with her.
“All units? We have a BOLO for a missing girl,” the radio announced.
“Shit,” Jake hissed. Then into the radio, “This is Brogan. What girl?”
“Jake?” She felt her eyes widen, a shiver of apprehension crawling up her bare arms. She could always imagine the worst possible outcome. Ironically, a personality flaw that made her successful at her job. She knew the worst didn’t always happen. She also she knew sometimes it did.
“Jake?” The cop’s radio voice had lost its professional timbre.
“Copy,” Jake said. He rolled his eyes at her, impatient. “Be on the lookout for
what
girl?”
Jane leaned toward him, aching to hear the answer, wishing away the wrong one.
“Age nine, Caucasian, light hair, curly, yellow dress,” the voice said. That alarm still blared in the background. “We’re pretty sure she can’t have left the hotel. Gracie Wilhoite. That’s spelled—”
But Jane didn’t hear the rest of it. “Gracie,” she whispered. “Where are you?”
* * *
“What’s your location?” Jake spoke into the radio. He was trying to keep his eyes on Jane and DeLuca and the people behind the counter and orchestrate a search for a missing little girl all at the same time.
“Floor three,” the radio answered.
Gracie Wilhoite. Missing? Or hiding? Kidnapped? The word crossed his mind:
abducted
? Exactly what Jane had been afraid of.
Lewis Wilhoite’s preposterous scheme to hand Gracie to Jane. No wonder she looked upset. This is where she must have been told to pick the girl up
. What the hell happened before he got to the hotel?
Jane had tried to tell him, he remembered. But there had been the more imminently critical matter of the guy with the gun. Was it Lewis? “Who says the girl is missing?” Jake continued on the radio. “You got ID on the shooter? The victim?”
“Confirming ID. Stand by, please.” The radio went silent.
“Jake.”
Jane had come closer, hovering behind him. She was out of danger, he guessed, and now he could listen to her. And get her to turn off that damn camera.
“They said domestic,” Jane said. “That means it has to be either…”
“Hang on, Jane,” he said. “I hear you.”
“Just to make sure, I’m gonna call—” she began. Then stopped.
He saw her grab her tote bag from the floor, paw through it. Looking for her phone? Nothing he could do would prevent her from calling her family. By the time Melissa and what’s her name—Robyn—arrived, he bet they’d have found Gracie. How far could a nine-year-old go? Unless someone had taken her. Lewis?
Shit.
Maybe Jane was calling the TV station? Even if it was her job, he didn’t see why she always had to do it.
“D!” he called out across the lobby. Jake hated this. At least the bad guy was in custody, that was a done deal. Upstairs had indicated the person was not dead. Had the victim reported the missing girl? Was it even connected? He could already hear the wail of the ambulance, on the way to take the victim to MGH.
MGH, where maybe-tattooed guy might have awakened, where his Curley Park case might hang in the balance. Add Kiyoko Naka, still waiting for him to return her call about the ID of Bobby Land.
Gracie Wilhoite was the priority now. He gestured at D with his radio. “Get up there. Get the scoop. Get a team to fan out, look for the girl. She might be with her father, Lewis Wilhoite. He’s a white male—”