Guilty (43 page)

The brief illumination of the interior light terrified her. What it they were nearby and saw her in Tom's car? Her heart pounded. Her pulse raced. She glanced desperately all around. If they saw her they would kill Ben—but who would be watching here?

Please, God, let no one be watching here.

"What the hell is going on with you?"

The light faded. Kate sank down in the seat, wrapping her arms around herself, shivering, feeling as if all her bones had turned to jelly.

"Don't sit here. Drive. Get us out of this neighborhood." She sucked in air as, without asking any more questions, he did as she said. The car turned the corner, heading toward the entrance to the subdivision. "Oh my God, Tom, they took Ben."

"What?"
He stood on the brakes.

"Keep driving."
She was frantic. "If they see—"

"Who? If who sees? Who took Ben?" But the Taurus was once again moving. His hands were clamped tightly around the wheel. His face had gone hard and tense. But his voice had gone the other way, maximum calm and cool, and she was instantly reminded of the cop who had tried to talk Rodriguez down in courtroom 207.

"I don't know." Her voice was unsteady. "Mob, I think. Or maybe— I don't know. Everything you suspected about me—it's true. I have been lying. About all of it. I... They said they'd kill him if I went to the police or anybody. But I think they'll kill him anyway. You have to help me figure out what to do."

She was shaking so hard her teeth chattered by the time she finished.

"O-kay." She heard him exhale. "When did they take Ben?"

His steady self-control helped her get hold of herself. She couldn't lose it. Ben's life was at stake.

"Half an hour ago, maybe." "Where did this happen?"

"At the entrance to the Perrys' subdivision. I was at a stop sign, getting ready to turn onto the expressway, and ... they dragged him out of my car." Her stomach twisted. Tears stung her eyes. "Who dragged him out of your car?"

"I told you, I don't know. I saw two men—they were wearing ski masks. One hit me, one grabbed Ben. There had to be more, though, in the van and the car."

Tom swore under his breath. But when he spoke again, it was in that same controlled voice. "Can you give me any more of a description of the vehicles than that? It helps a lot to be specific when you're putting out an APB."

"It was a white van, a paneled van like workers use. And a dark car. A sedan. Four-door." Then it hit her, and terror shot through her. "You can't put out an APB. They told me not to call the police. They told me to go home and act like nothing had happened. I turned on the lights and the TV so they'll think I'm still in there." She took a deep breath. "They want me to do something for them. Tomorrow night at that fund-raiser for Jim Wolff. They said they would call and tell me what it is they want me to do once I was there. And if I do it they'll let Ben go, and if I don't they'll kill him."

"Jesus." For a moment, naked emotion came through in his voice. Then Tom cut his eyes at her. "Kate, listen: I need to put an APB out on those vehicles right now." The steadiness was back. "And I need to call Rick Stuart on the Major Case Squad—they've got the expertise in kidnapping. And I need to call Mac Willets at the FBI."

"No." Kate rocked back and forth in her seat, staring unseeingly out at the dark streets surrounding them. Panic rose like bile in her throat. "You can't. They've been following me. They know things about me. What if they're listening to police scanners to see if I called the police? What if one of them's a cop?"

Tom was silent for a beat.

"You're being paranoid."

"No," Kate said. "No, I'm not. You don't know."

"All right. Then you need to tell me." He seemed to think for a moment. "We're going to my place, and you're going to tell me the whole thing, and then we'll decide what's best to do."

Kate didn't object. It was the closest to a plan she could come up with.

He made a right, and a few minutes later they were on the expressway. Fifteen minutes after that, they were walking into his living room, having, at Kate's insistence, parked on a side street and entered through the back door.

In case someone knew that she'd been seeing Tom and was watching his place, too.

"Damn it to hell and back anyway," he said when he flipped on the light and got his first good look at her. "Are you hurt? You said they hit you. Where?"

Kate had no idea what she looked like, but it was easy to guess that it was bad. She was shivering and sweating and nauseated and lightheaded all at the same time. Her head ached and her stomach churned. Her eyes felt swollen and grainy. Her lips and mouth were dry. She had no doubt she was deathly pale.

"It doesn't matter." Her eyes met his. Her voice shook. "I'm so scared they'll hurt Ben."

"Yeah, I know." He pulled her into his arms without another word, holding her tightly, offering her wordless comfort. Kate wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his chest and breathed in the familiar scent of him. He was wearing his gray corduroy jacket. It felt cool and soft against her cheek. Beneath it she could feel the solid shape of his shoulder holster and the sturdy warmth of his body. If she hadn't had him to turn to, she didn't know what she would have done. He was so solid, so strong, and she trusted him absolutely, something she had rarely done before in her life. But she allowed herself only a moment of weakness before she pulled out of his embrace. He let her go.

Clasping her hands together, she looked at him anxiously. "I need to tell you what happened. We need to decide what to do." "You're not hurt anywhere? You're sure?" "I m sure."

"Then start talking." He unwound the scarf from her hair, then undid the two buttons that fastened her coat. She slid out of it, and he threw it and her scarf over a small rocking chair beside the fireplace. "Sit down first. You look like you're going to pass out."

She felt like it, too, and so she sank down on the couch and drank the Jack Daniel's and Coke—heavy on the Jack—he brought her and quickly told him the whole story: her early history with Mario; David Brady's murder; Mario's recognition of her in the secure corridor and his subsequent shooting of Rodriguez and attempt to blackmail her into getting him out of jail; the visits to her house by Mario's henchmen, which Tom fortunately had interrupted; that it was Mario in the back of her car and that he had been taking her to meet his "friends" when she escaped; about her decision to deal with (okay, kill) Mario on her own and how she had called Mario to set up a meeting at her house and how she had thought the whole nightmare was finally, blessedly, over when he had wound up dead in her garage, courtesy of someone else. Then she told him about being snatched off the street by Mario's "friends," and how they had threatened her and told her she was going to do them a favor or else, and about the man who had followed her into the ladies' room at the Criminal Justice Center earlier that day. And finally she told him about Ben being snatched away.

By the time she finished, tears brimmed in her eyes, and she closed them to try to keep them from spilling over. But she could feel them seeping out, trickling down her cheeks, sliding hot and wet over her skin.

"Hey," he said. He'd been standing over her, his face hardening, as he listened intently to every word. Now he took the nearly empty glass from her hand, and as she opened her eyes in response she saw him set it on the table/box beside the couch. He still had his cop face on, but as she looked up at him and their eyes met, his expression softened slightly. He bent, scooping her up in his arms, and sat down in the shabby green armchair next to the couch with her in his lap. "Don't cry. It's going to be okay."

"It doesn't matter about me." Her voice was fierce as she tightened her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed and shook and let her tears soak into his jacket. "It's Ben. We've got to find Ben."

"We'll find him." His voice was soothing. His arms around her were comforting and strong. "It sounds like we've got some time. Whoever took him would be stupid to hurt him before they've got what they want out of you." His hand was on her nape, long-fingered and warm, and then it gently burrowed beneath her hair. In the course of her narrative, Kate had told him how they had hit her in the back of the head, and now she winced as he found the bump. "How bad does that hurt?"

"It's just a bump. I'll live." Impatient, she brushed it off. Her minor physical injuries were nothing compared to the constant, grinding torture of Ben's loss. Sniffling, gritting her teeth, fighting to control her emotions with every bit of determination she had, she lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him steadily. "Do you think, if I do what they tell me tomorrow night, there's any way they might just let him go?"

Tears still stung her eyes, and her voice was thick with anguish, but she was fighting hard to get her distress under control. Her fear for Ben oozed like some terrible icy poison along her nerve endings, through her veins, and into every organ of her body. She prayed for his safety with every breath she drew. "No."

Okay.
At least he was honest. She didn't think so, either. "We have to find out who took him. Mario was a Black Dragon. They're a gang. ..."

"I know all about Castellanos and the Black Dragons. I've been looking into his background pretty thoroughly these last few days, believe me. I know you visited him at the detention center, for instance." "Oh, yeah?" Had she really thought he had stopped investigating her? Well, at least now he was saved the effort. She had handed herself over to him on a platter, and the legal consequences were still to come. But she didn't care. All she cared about now was saving Ben. Whatever it took.

"Did you forge Judge Hardy's signature on the release order that got Castellanos sprung from jail?"

"What?" Kate sat up in his lap, dashing the last of the tears from her eyes with both hands as she spoke. "Somebody forged the release order? It wasn't me."

Tom returned her gaze steadily. "There's a security tape from the clerk's office showing the order being filed. I haven't looked at it yet. I wasn't sure I wanted to know."

"I swear I didn't," she said. "I'm finished telling lies, I promise." The slight inclination of his head accepted that. "Somebody did. I'd say identifying that somebody is our first step, because it seems pretty clear to me that Castellanos was signed out of jail to take you to his 'friends,' whoever they are. Otherwise, why get him out? And why kill him? Right now, I'm thinking he was killed so whoever this is would have sole control over you."

"I was going to check on who signed the order to get Mario out,"

Kate said. "But I never got around to it. It didn't seem that important."

"Well, now it is." He stood up with her without warning, lifting her easily, depositing her back on the couch. Straightening, he pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket.

"Tom—" The sight of it alarmed her.

"I need to call the people I told you about, Rick Stuart with Major Cases and Mac Willets with the FBI. And I want to bring Fish in on this. We need help, and I know those guys personally and I trust them. It won't go beyond them until we put together some kind of plan."

The idea of telling anyone else sent cold shivers up and down Kate's spine, but she trusted Tom and he said he trusted them, so she nodded.

He picked up the phone and walked away from her and placed the calls. By the time he returned, phone nowhere in sight, Kate was shaking again.

"They're on their way," he told her. She was huddled in a corner of the couch, and he stopped in front of her. Doing her best to control the long shudders that racked her, she met his gaze in mute inquiry. "Willets thinks like you do, that this may be part of a conspiracy to murder Jim Wolff. If so, this is big. Even if it turns out to be wrong, it still gives us enough leverage to swing a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"In return for your full cooperation, we can offer immunity from prosecution for any crimes you may have committed, including the murder of that security guard. We'll get it in writing when everyone gets here."

Kate took a deep breath. The idea of no longer having that hanging over her head was dazzling—or it would have been were it not for Ben.

"I don't care," she said, in a voice she kept carefully steady. "Just as long as I get Ben back."

"Well, I do care." Tom caught one of her hands and pulled her to her feet. "We'll get the immunity deal done. And we'll save Ben, too. Why don't you go wash your face while I make some coffee? It's going to be a long night."

As far as Kate was concerned, the rest of the night and most of the following day went by in a blur. The reinforcements Tom had summoned arrived, and after that, things seemed to happen at warp speed. Certain moments stood out, such as when she signed the immunity deal Tom and Special Agent Mac Willets had hammered out and knew that she was finally free of the threat of prosecution for David Brady's death—although the death itself would forever stain her soul. And when she sat with Tom and Fish in the kitchen, watching on a monitor Fish brought the replay of the security tape showing a Caucasian male in maybe his late thirties to mid-forties wearing a gray business suit handing Mario's release order across the counter to the clerk. The quality of the tape was not good, and the angle was never right to get a view of the subject's face. All they could glean from it was a general description that could have fit hundreds of people. But watching the subject walk to the counter—which she did at least three dozen times—Kate was struck by the niggling sense that he was somehow familiar. Try as she did, though, she couldn't come up with even a tentative ID. Their next hope for uncovering his identity was running a fingerprint and DNA check on the document itself, which was ordinarily a process that could take several weeks. A favor was called in, and the results were promised for the next day. Which meant the timing was going to be way too close for them to count on it as a means of tightening the net around whoever was holding Ben.