F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 (32 page)

“Daddy?” John knew that
voice, but for an instant his mind refused to identify it. Wasn’t
possible, couldn’t be… some sort of cruel trick…

“Daddy, it’s
me—Katie.” And then the kitchen swam around him.

“Katie! Dear God, Katie, is
that you?” He realized he was shouting but he couldn’t help it. He
thought he’d burst with joy.

“Is this really you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where are you—how are
you?”

“Fine.” Fine… she
always said fine. The bastards had cut off her toe and she was fine.
“I’m coming home.” John sagged against the wall and tried to
keep from sobbing. “Oh, Katie, I’ve missed you so! Where are you?
I’ll come and get you right now!”

“Now’s not a good
time.” The woman was back on the line. “You can get her
tonight.” John’s mind whirled in confusion. What was going on?
Where was the catch?

“But how… why?”

“Let’s just say the
real kidnapper is dead and I’ve got Katie and I wanna give her back. But
I don’t like wanna get locked up, know what I’m saying?”

The real kidnapper is dead… ?
She has to mean that murder scene in Falls Church where they found Katie’s
pills… what has that poor child gone through?

“You want money? I’ll
give you whatever I have. I’ll—”

“Don’t want your money,
guy. I got a sweet little girl here who can’t wait to get back to her
daddy and I’m gonna like see to it she gets there. Come to the Maryland
House on Ninety-five. Wait upstairs by the phones around nine o’clock.
I’ll meet you there with Katie. And no cops, okay? Let’s do this
so’s we both walk away happy. See you at nine.”

“Wait!”

Another rattle and then
Katie’s voice. “Bye, Daddy!” A click and she was gone.

He stood there, pressing the
receiver against his ear, listening to the electric silence, searching for an
echo of her voice, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

Finally he turned to hang up and
saw his mother standing in the doorway.

“Katie?” she said,
digging at her neck. “That was Katie?”

He could only nod. He threw his
arms around her.

“I heard you shouting,”
she said. “It sounded like you were talking to—”

“She’s alive. Mom! That
was her! She’s alive and she’s okay and I’m getting her back.
Mom. Katie’s coming home tonight!”

Agent Samson caught him in the
White House parking lot. Bob Decker was just unlocking his car door when he
spotted him running across the pavement, waving a sheet of paper.

“What is it, Rick?”

“The Vanduyne taps!” he
said, puffing as he reached the car. “I thought you should see
this.” Bob scanned the sheet and couldn’t resist a tight smile.

The whole plot was crumbling.
Looked like there’d been a falling out among the kidnappers and someone wanted
to cover her ass.

“Where was she calling
from?”

“The place she mentions for
the switch—the Maryland House?”

“What’s that?”

“A traveler’s stop on
the median on Ninety-five. You know, tourist info, burgers, yogurt.” He
cleared his throat. “This sounds like a kidnapping. How come we’re
involved in—?”

“Friend of
Razor’s,” Bob said.

Samson nodded. That was all Samson
needed to know, all he’d ever know. He was monitoring a line tap and was
to transcribe all conversations. Beyond that, he was in the dark.

“She called on his cell
phone,” Samson said. “Probably thought no one would be listening on
that. Nobody seems to realize how unsecure they are.”

Bob nodded, half listening. No use
sending anyone out to the Maryland House now. The woman would be long gone by
the time anyone got there. Better to wait for her tonight.

He wondered if Vanduyne would tell
him about this call. He decided not to hold his breath. The woman had said no
cops and the doc wanted his kid back.

All right. He’d get his kid
back. And Bob would get the woman. Put her together with whatever went down in
that Palls Church house where the child’s pills were found, and
he’d probably have this thing sewn up before the weekend was over.

He imagined how it would feel to
stroll into Bethesda Naval Hospital tomorrow night and tell Razor his godchild
is safe and the assassination conspirators are either locked up or on the run.

Sweet. Very sweet.

Poppy finally heard it on the six
o’clock news.

“… And in Falls Church
today, a murder mystery. Neighbors on this quiet suburban street called police
when they heard shots fired. Inside the house, a dead man. But the
as-yet-unidentified victim died of stab wounds. Nearby, in
Alexandria…” Somehow, hearing it on the news made it official.
Paulie was dead. Poppy started to cry, then caught herself.

“… the
as-yet-unidentified man… ?” What about men? She’d left two
bodies in that house. Paulie had been stabbed to death, and Mac had a bullet in
his brain. How come they were only talking about Paulie?

Unless…

A stab of fear, as sharp as the
blade that had killed Paulie, knifed through her.

“Oh, Jesus!” she said
aloud and leapt to her feet.

“Can I change the channel
now?” Katie said.

“Sure,” Poppy said
without looking at her.

She went to the window and peeked
around the edge of the curtain. The light drizzle outside made the parking lot
shine. The Holiday Inn sign reflected from the wet surface.

A minute ago she’d felt so
safe. She’d had everything planned. Tonight she and Katie would get back
on Ninety-five, but they would not stop at the Maryland House. She’d copied
down the numbers from a couple of the phones there when they’d called
Katie’s dad this afternoon.

At nine o’clock sharp
she’d place a call to one of those phones, tell her father that
he’d find his daughter waiting in the Roy Rogers at the next rest stop up
the freeway from the Maryland House. Then she’d leave Katie in a booth
with a burger and fries.

If Katie’s dad was like the
rest of Mac’s victims, he probably hadn’t said word one about the
snatch to the cops. And even if they were involved, they’d all be at the
Maryland House. Poppy would be long gone by the time they reached Katie.

Poppy’s heart would be broken
but Katie would be safe and at home with her family, where she belonged.

But she wouldn’t be safe if
Mac was alive.

Poppy could still see his eyes as
he came out of the kitchen with that knife, saying “She saw me!”
Only two people could connect Mac with the kidnapping—and Paulie’s
murder—and both were in this room.

Even the slightest chance that Mac
was still alive changed everything. A whole new game, a completely different
world if Mac had survived. But how could he be alive? She’d like shot him
in the head. She had to know. Before she made another move, she had to be sure.

She turned to Katie.
“I’m gonna run down the hall for like a soda. You want
anything?”

“Can I have a Yoo-Hoo?”

“Sure.”

“My daddy never lets me have
Yoo-Hoo.”

Her daddy, her daddy. Never her
mommy. Poppy forced a smile. “Well, I’m not your daddy. Be right back.”

This was risky, she knew, maybe
even stupid, but it couldn’t wait. She dashed through the drizzle to the
Shell station on the far side of the parking lot and found the pay phone. A
call to information got her the Falls Church Police Department, and pretty soon
she was talking to a homicide detective. He kept trying to get her name and she
suspected he was trying to like keep her on the phone.

“Look,” she said,
“I’ll just say this once: I know the names of the dead guys in the
house on Sylmar Street. The stabbed guy was Paulie Dicastro. The shot guy
was—”

“Wait, wait, wait,”
said the cop. “Nobody was shot. We’ve only got one victim.”
Oh, no. Oh, sweet Jesus, no! He’s gotta be lying!

“No. You know damn well there
were two! All I can tell you about the shot guy is that his name was like Mac
and he drove that blue Jeep out front.”

“What blue Jeep? Do you know
the tag number?” Poppy hung up. The drizzle had suddenly become freezing
and the night much darker. She shivered and looked around, feeling as if
someone was watching her.

Mac was alive! But how? She’d
seen him lying there on the floor with like a bullet in his head. Somehow
he’d survived.

She dashed back across the parking
lot, ducked back into the motel room, and locked the door behind her. She saw
Katie sitting there on the bed, eyes glued to the TV. How could she send that
little girl back to her father with Mac alive and on the prowl? Her father
wouldn’t know how to protect her. Mac had known enough about Katie to
kidnap her. How much would it take to get a rifle and put a bullet in her the
next time she stepped out her front door?

Poppy shuddered. No way Katie could
go home tonight. She hoped the information she’d given the Falls Church
cops would set them hunting for Mac. But until they caught him, Katie would be
safer with her.

Katie looked up.
“Didn’t they have any Yoo-Hoo?” Damn! She’d forgotten
all about the drinks.

“I didn’t see any. Want
me to get you something else?”

“That’s okay.
I’ll take my pill with water.” Pill? Oh, Jesus! Do I have her pills?

Poppy ran over to the night stand
where she’d left her pocket book and dumped it out on the bed. She had
some Valium, her driver’s license, some bills and change—but not
Katie’s medicine.

She ran to the closet and yanked
Mac’s jacket off the hanger. Maybe she’d stuffed the pill bottle in
one of the pockets as she was leaving. She didn’t believe that for a
minute but she had to check. She emptied the pockets; Paulie’s wallet,
some loose change, and a cassette tape fell out. But no little amber bottle of
pills for Katie.

Poppy slumped on the edge of the
bed and wrung her hands. In the horror and confusion and panic back at the
house, she’d forgot all about the pills.

Jesus, what else could go wrong?

She stood and paced the tiny room.
Decision time. She had to get some medicine for Katie. She remembered the name
on the bottle: Tegretol 100 mg. If she couldn’t get hold of any,
she’d have no choice: Katie would have to go back home. A possible threat
from Mac was not as bad as the totally certain threat of fits if she missed a
dose or two of those pills.

Poppy had to get hold of some.

But where? How?

She pulled out the phone book and
began flipping through the yellow pages.

Carlos listened to the distorted
voice barking from the receiver.

“What kind of half-assed
operation are you running there, Salinas? I just learned that a bottle of pills
belonging to the little girl was found in a house in Falls Church where someone
was murdered. What the hell is going on?” Carlos stared at the ceiling.
Please, God, if you will ever do anything for me, do this for me now.

“One dead man?” Carlos
said. “Has he been identified?”

“Yes. They got a tip as to
his name and confirmed his prints. A smalltime hood named Paul Dicastro.”
Thank you. God, Carlos thought. I will make a large offering to the church.

“No one else? No woman? No
child?”

“No sign of anyone else, but
they’re looking. Looking hard, because this death is now linked to the
other matter. Better clean house, Salinas. And fast.” The line went dead
and Salinas hung up. He turned to Gold who was stuffing a valise with papers
from a filing cabinet.

“I believe we can relax for a
while, Alien.”

“Relax?” Alien said.
His face was unusually pale, even for him. “How can I relax?”

“Well, you insisted on
knowing about my dealings with MacLaglen, and now you know.” He smiled.
“Don’t you feel better?”

When Carlos had thought he would
have to flee the country, he’d filled Gold in on the plan to remove
Winston. After all. Gold had to know why they were running for the airport.

He did not return Carlos’s
smile. “You want to say, ‘I told you so,’ go ahead. But right
now, if we don’t get out of here—”

“Be calm. MacLaglen is not
dead. He is still alive and free.”

Alien stared at him.
“You’re sure of that?”

“My source.” Alien
staggered to the nearest chair and dropped into it.

“What a relief! But why
doesn’t he call back?”

“That I do not know.
Something happened. An argument, perhaps. He may be busy trying to find a new
hiding place for the child. Or, even better, a place to dispose of her. Keep
trying to reach him. Sooner or later he will call in.” Carlos agreed with
the voice on the phone: Time to clean house.

“See, I got like this problem
with my nephew,” Poppy said to the pharmacist, keeping her voice so low
that he had to lean forward to catch every word. “He’s visiting and
I found these pills in his room. Not that I don’t trust him or nothing,
but I’m like, ‘What are these?’ you know?” The overhead
fluorescents gleamed off the black of the pharmacist’s balding scalp as
he nodded and stared at her over the top of his reading glasses. The old dude
couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her eyebrow ring. Did he like live in
a cave or something? Hadn’t he ever seen one before?

For more than an hour she’d
driven around with the yellow pages on her lap, checking out one drugstore
after another. Finally she’d settled on Doc’s Pharmacy in what
looked like a black neighborhood. Kinda small but with a good-sized front
window, and off the main drag in a building that looked like it had been built
when dirt was new.

“I’ll be happy to
identify them for you,” said the pharmacist, like he got asked this all
the time. He might have been “Doc,” but more than likely he was the
original Doc’s grandson. Kind of grumpy, but then, closing time was near
and he looked like he wanted to go home. “Give me one and I’ll look
it up.”