Dina Santorelli (39 page)

"Shut
up, I said," Maddox said. "Where do you think we're going?"

He
sped down the road for several miles and then pulled off into a small clearing
in a wooded area behind a deserted playground, one of those old-fashioned ones
with metal swings and monkey bars and concrete grounds. Behind the picnic area,
the parking lot was vacant except for one vehicle: a white Ford Flex.

"No!"
Jamie screamed. She kicked Maddox's gun out of his hands and jumped into the
backseat, but Maddox recovered and held the gun on her.

"You
bitch," he barked. "Show your hands. Now!"

"Why
are you doing this?" she asked, raising her arms in the air.

"None
of your goddamn business," he said.

The
slumped agent's walkie-talkie crackled.

"Don't
touch it," Maddox said. "Keep those hands high."

"They're
going to be looking for us," she said. "You're not going to be able to get
away."

"I
don't see what you mean," Maddox said, with a smile. "Don Bailino hijacked the
car along the way, shot the federal agent and told me to drive here. Then he
dragged you into the car and drove off. Of course, then I called the police
immediately."

"That
seems a bit farfetched."

"For
a man who was able to sneak an infant out of the heavily guarded Executive
Mansion and then pick up his nephew in midtown Manhattan the same day?" Maddox
snickered. "I don't think so."

"You
helped him kidnap Charlotte? A baby? What kind of person are you?"
Keep him
talking
, Jamie thought, as if the words would slow down time.

"He
was never going to hurt the girl. Until you came along. You became quite the
plan spoiler. You and that ex-husband of yours. I almost choked when he showed
up at the mansion with his bright ideas. If you hadn't managed your little
getaway, I do believe next on Don's agenda was to do away with the confident
Mr. Scott." Maddox smiled. "I can still see the governor's face when I told him
that Scott thought the kidnapping had to do with Gino's execution. Priceless.
But he held it together. And Katherine... Don was right. She was clueless."

Through
the misty car window, Jamie saw the door of the Ford Flex open, and Bailino's
unmistakable figure stepped out, lit by Maddox' headlights. As he approached
the car, a familiar terror seized her, and she began pulling fruitlessly on the
door handles.

"You
know he's going to kill you," she said. "Don't be stupid."

Maddox
laughed. "My dear, he's going to kill
you
."

Without
taking his eyes off Jamie, Maddox rolled down the driver's-side window. "As
promised, Mr. B..."

Maddox
never saw the bullet coming.

Jamie
shrieked and threw herself onto the car floor, slapping off the pieces of flesh
that had flown into her hair.

Bailino
leaned down so that his face was visible through the car window. He rapped on
the glass.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Did you really think I wouldn't find
you?" he asked, his breath fogging the window in a small circle.

Jamie
lay still at the bottom of the car.

"Open
the door."

Jamie
didn't move.

"
Open
the fucking door
!" Bailino thundered.

"I
can't," Jamie cried. "It's locked."

Bailino
reached into the front window, pressed a knob that unlocked all the doors and
took a step back.

"Open...
the... door," he said again calmly.

Jamie
reached up and pulled on the handle and pushed the door. It opened slightly,
but because Maddox' car had been parked on a slight incline closed again.

"Jesus
Christ." Bailino pulled the door open. "Get out."

Jamie
struggled to her feet, her legs refusing to budge, but Bailino reached in,
grabbed her by the hair and pulled.

"Please,
I'm coming!" Jamie's scalp felt as if it were on fire. "Don't!"

"It's
too late for that." Bailino dragged her to the wet ground. "Let's go. Get up!
Get... UP!"

Jamie
got on her knees and pushed herself up off the ground using her hands. It took
all the strength she could muster to look Bailino in his eyes, which were
ablaze in a way she had never seen before, not when he killed the blonde girl
or wrestled with Leo, or when he raped her. There was a wildness that had
replaced the methodical fury.

"Let's
go," he said, pushing her toward the Ford Flex, the end of the gun in the small
of her back.

Jamie
looked around, but there was nothing and no one to help her. "I had to save
that little girl," she said. "Can't you understand that?"

"I
told you I wasn't going to hurt her."

"I
couldn't take that chance." She tried to turn around, but Bailino pushed her
forward and said, "Don't. Keep moving."

"Are
you going to kill me?" she asked.

Bailino
smirked. "That's a funny question to ask a man who was just told that he
couldn't keep his word."

"You
just killed Leonard Maddox, the man who helped you."

"Leonard
Maddox was a second-rate spin doctor who sold out the only friends he had in the
world for money, and not a lot of it. There's another little lesson in loyalty
for you." Bailino turned Jamie around. "What about the man who helped
you
?
Who's the Hispanic guy in the Escort?"

"Just
some guy who found us."

"What's
his name?"

"I
don't know."

"Wrong
answer." Bailino shoved Jamie hard in the chest with the tip of the gun, and
she stumbled backward onto the wet, rocky ground. "His name is Reynaldo
Rodriguez, the nephew of Rosalia Garcia, housekeeper and nanny to Charlotte
Grand. Does that joggle your memory?" Bailino asked, the anger returning to his
voice. "Or should I say, the soon-to-be-former Reynaldo  Rodriguez."

"He
was just trying to help us." Jamie stood back up and tried to regain her
footing, but it was difficult. Although one of the nurses at the hospital had
treated the bottoms of her feet and given her a pair of flip-flops to wear,
some of the bandages had unraveled, exposing her sores. Still, she turned and
faced Bailino with as much strength as she could muster.

"Keep
walking," he said.

"Are
you going to kill me?" she asked again, without moving.

"No,
no... Now's not the time to be brave."

"Am
I supposed to die?" She felt a sort of wildness overtake her as well. "You told
Joey the people who die are supposed to die. Am I supposed to die?" Jamie
thought she saw a glimmer of tenderness in Bailino's eyes, but then it was
gone.

"Move"
was all he said, motioning to his car, which was a few feet behind her. "Get
in."

Jamie
hesitated.

"Don't
be stupid. Get into the fucking car."

"I
can't..."

In a
flash, Bailino grabbed and twisted Jamie's arm behind her back until the pain
caused her to drop again to her knees. He held her there and opened the trunk,
the small corner light revealing a black tarp. Bailino ripped it off, and lying
there at the bottom, hog-tied and gagged, was Edward.

"Edward!"
Jamie cried. Edward's face was badly bruised, and he was red and sweating and
having difficulty breathing.

"Get
in the car," Bailino said. "
Now.
"

Edward
shook his head vehemently and muttered underneath his gag, when Bailino shot
him in the shoulder, and he screamed a horrible, muffled sound, writhing in
pain.

"Nooo!"
Jamie said. "I'll go. Please, please, don't. Leave him alone."

Bailino
let go of Jamie's arm, and she ran to the passenger door of the Ford Flex and
climbed in. As Bailino slammed the trunk closed and walked around to the
driver's seat, she reached under her shirt, into the front of her jeans, and
plucked out the federal agent's handgun. She had never fired a gun before and
prayed that the safety, whatever that was, wasn't on, and as Bailino opened his
door she planted her feet against the dashboard, braced herself, and fired.

The
bullet hit Bailino's shoulder, and he fell back, buffered by the car door, and
Jamie shot again, this time into his chest, and he dropped to the ground. She
held the gun steady in front of her, watching Bailino's legs, making sure he
was down for good, and climbed into the driver's seat and stepped out of the
car.

Bailino
was clutching his chest, where Jamie had shot him right in the center; the
other wound was gushing blood in short spurts. Jamie kicked away his gun, which
had fallen out of his hands, and held hers on him as headlights passed over
them, the roar of car engines and sirens replacing the damp quiet.

Bailino's
eyes remained fixed on Jamie's as he coughed and tried to speak, but his words
were gurgling. He spit out a mouthful of blood.

"Am
I supposed to die?" he asked her. A small smile formed in the corners of his
mouth and he started to laugh, and then choke.

Jamie's
arms shook, but she held the gun steady.

Then
Bailino turned serious, as his eyelids began to flutter. "I... I..." His
breath came in staccato bursts. "I love you," he said as a series of shadows
blocked his face from the glare of Maddox's headlights.

The beeping of the heart
monitor was competing with Edward's snoring for hospital-room domination, the
latter winning by a landslide. The familiar drone was comforting to Jamie as
she stood in the bright room, in a newly bought pair of jeans and black
T-shirt, looking out the window. The glass, speckled with the remains of past
rainstorms, had an unexciting view of the parking lot, but it didn't
matter—Jamie had gained a late appreciation for the mundane.

She
had been told by hospital personnel that the camera crews had been camped out
in front of the hospital since the night they'd first brought her in three
weeks ago, and she imagined that's where they'd stay until Don Bailino was well
enough to be transferred to a federal prison facility. After undergoing
immediate surgery to remove the bullets and repair one of his lungs, which had
collapsed, Bailino was admitted to Albany Memorial among widespread speculation
that he wouldn't make it through the night. Medical experts had predicted
pneumonia as well as other complications that were common among patients who
had initially survived gunshot wounds to the chest, but Bailino had confounded
doctors with a steady recovery. The surgeon's words had stayed with her: "The
bullet caused severe tissue damage, but the integrity of Mr. Bailino's heart is
intact." Now estimations were that he could be out in as little time as a month
if his respiratory therapy continued to be as successful as it had been.

Bailino's
room was located on the far side of the hospital, in the west wing, under
twenty-four-hour surveillance, and Special Agent Wilcox stopped by Edward's
room nearly every day to give Jamie an update on Bailino's status and also to
reassure her that, should Bailino survive—and all indications pointed to his
doing so—she and her family would have ongoing federal protection until his
trial, when, he said, Bailino was sure to go "straight to prison, no question."
With her testimony, of course, Jamie thought, as she watched a pigeon try to
perch on a ledge that had metal prongs. Based on Jamie's information, the
police were able to find the body of Inga Tyler, the blonde girl who worked at
the Exotica Strip Club, and they also took Joey into custody once he was
discharged from the hospital. About a week after his arrival, Edward had been
cleared to talk to the police about what happened and managed to clear
Nurberg's name in time for the young detective's funeral—a solemn ceremony
attended by hundreds of law enforcement in full uniform from across the state.

Edward's
snoring stopped as he changed positions, his bandaged shoulder protruding
upward as he rested on his side. Jamie adjusted the blankets over him before
she sat in what had become "her chair." Like Bailino, Edward had been rushed
into surgery when he arrived at the hospital; Bailino's bullet had fractured
both his shoulder blade and collar bone, requiring two surgeries—for which
first Governor Grand and then Jamie donated blood—and he too would be receiving
intensive rehabilitative therapy once he returned downstate. Today, fingers
crossed, Edward would finally be able to go home.

Jamie
checked her cell phone to see if Tricia had texted her—she had gone downstairs
to get some drinks for the ride home and to call her mother to check on the kids—but
there was only one text message, and it was from Bob, who was "just checking on
things." Jamie had become far more interesting to Bob these days than she had
been in a long time—perhaps than she'd ever been—since her photo and life story
had become fodder for the morning news shows. She noticed the time on her phone
and turned on the small television hanging from the ceiling, a high-pitched
whirr filling the air. She flipped the stations until she saw the familiar
front porch, rosebushes, and lush grounds of the Executive Mansion, her home away from home these past three weeks.

Governor
Grand, who had taken a self-proclaimed
staycation
following the return
of Charlotte, stepped forward on the television screen to a podium positioned a
few feet in front of the towering, historic sugar maple tree. He had announced
to Katherine and Jamie at breakfast that morning, in the disjointed silence
between bangs of Charlotte's spoon on her high-chair tray, that he was ready to
resume his gubernatorial duties and had scheduled this short press conference
on the mansion grounds, allowing only a handful of news media inside the gates
to operate the news feed. Two days later, he and Katherine planned to announce
the news of the pregnancy. They never spoke a word publicly about the
kidnapping.

"Good
morning,"
said the governor, who was
wearing a polo shirt, unbuttoned at the top, and khakis.
"I will make this
brief. It is with great pride that I announce the following names to the
inaugural Brightest Minds Legal Roundtable of New York State, an idea first
proposed nearly a year ago—and was snickered at in a way that has become
commonplace in the very unilateral political climate across the nation. But
since our announcement, we have received thousands of applications from lawyers
and all varieties of legal authorities throughout all sixty-two counties. I've
always envisioned my tenure as governor as one of inclusion, not exclusion, no
matter how diametrically opposed our political stances. To you who have been
selected, I hope to have many lively debates and do great things together.
Congratulations to the following..."
The governor pulled out a set of index
cards.
"From Albany County, Doug Pritcher of Mann, Thomas & Webber; from
Alleghany County, Dale Berner of Aster, Walker & O'Connell..."