Night Chill (26 page)

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “But I still don’t see how this helps.”

“Huckley said they’re planning to bring Sarah to the cave, right? So, we know they have to keep her alive until then.”

“O.K.” Jack said. “So we got back to the cave and wait for them.”

Lonetree shook his head. “If it was just Huckley, maybe. He’s impatient and brash enough to go ahead whether or not he knows where are. But there’s the leader of the group, the one Huckley called the Boss. He’s careful. Careful enough to keep his identity secret. So I’m guessing he’s smart enough to tie up loose ends before he allows Sarah to be brought to the cave.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying we need to force the issue. Go on offense. Make this Boss guy do something. Hope for a mistake.”

“That’s our plan? Hope for a mistake?”

“Well, we could call them up one by one, tell them we know who they are and threaten to kill them. Worked well with Janney.”

“Listen, I don’t care about your revenge. I just want to get my girl back.”

“Fair enough.”

“You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

Lonetree reached into a stack of papers wedged into the space between the driver’s seat and the console. He pulled out a folder and tossed it over to Jack. “Take a look at that. You’ll see why I still need you.”

Jack flipped through the papers Lonetree had tossed him. The last page was a large photograph. It took his breath away. “Is this for real?” he asked.

Lonetree nodded.

“Jesus,” Jack whispered

“You’re going to get one chance at this. You have to be ready for some dirty work if you want to save your daughter. Tonight might be your best chance to get her back alive. Your only chance.”

Alive
. Before that moment, Jack hadn’t contemplated Sarah being anything other than alive, and the idea of his little girl being hurt in
any
way made it difficult for him to breathe. The thought of her being killed was not within his ability to process.

Jack took a deep breath and studied the photograph he held in his hands. Just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse. “All right. Tell me what I have to do.”

SIXTY

A half hour had passed since the phone call and still no Jack. Lauren tried his cell a half-dozen times, but it went directly to voicemail without ringing. Janney hovered nearby whenever she picked up the phone. Each time she hung up in frustration he gave her a thin, patronizing smile. She wondered if that was the effect he intended. If it was an attempt to comfort her it didn’t work. If anything, Janney’s presence, his squinty eyes and creepy smiles, made her more anxious. What was she doing trusting the sheriff’s judgment over Jack’s?

She looked over and saw Janney on the phone in a nurse’s station. A glass window separated them, but the door was open so she caught snippets of the conversation. He was giving a detailed description of Sarah and telling whoever was on the other end of the phone what had been done so far to search for the girl. When he was done, he gave a full description of Jack. Janney turned in mid-sentence and made eye contact with Lauren through the window. She looked away, and couldn’t shake the feeling that Janney had turned to make sure she could hear him. Maybe she was just being paranoid. Then again, she scolded herself for the hundredth time that hour. If she had been
more
paranoid about leaving her children alone, none of this would have happened.

“Dr. Tremont.” The voice shocked her out of her thoughts. It was Janney, back from his phone call. “I have good news. That was the FBI. They’re treating it as a kidnapping now.”

“Wh-what does that mean?”

“They don’t work kidnapping as much as they did before they became primarily anti-terrorism. But they still have great resources available. They’ll check all major transit points, train stations, buses, airports, you name it.”

“I want to talk to them. Do you have the number for the agent in charge?”

Janney lowered himself into the chair next to her. He reached out to take her hand but she pulled it back away from him. “Listen, you let them do their job, all right? They’ll find them,” Janney said.

“You mean her. They’ll find her.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. They’ll find her.” He tapped the table with his fingers, drumming out a slow, methodical beat, his eyes never leaving Lauren’s face. “Have you had any luck reaching Jack?”

Lauren didn’t answer. The sheriff already knew she hadn’t. She shifted her eyes to look out the window. Janney pressed on. “You know, it seems strange to me that a man whose daughter has just gone missing wouldn’t…” He let the sentence hang over the table, his fingers still thumping the table. Lauren didn’t take the bait. She turned her back to the sheriff, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing tears welling up in her eyes.

“Lauren, there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Dr. Mansfield said from behind her. Lauren turned in her chair. A man stood next to the doctor, dressed casually in slacks and a button down, looking very uncomfortable. There was no color to his face and he wrung his hands as he waited to be introduced. “This is Scott Moran. He saw Jack earlier today.”

Lauren accepted the psychiatrist’s outstretched hand. It was cold and clammy, like shaking hands with a cadaver. Even in the midst of her own emotional agony she couldn’t help feeling sorry for the man. Something weighed heavily on his mind, and she suspected it had to do with Jack.

“Please sit. Tell me what you know,” Lauren said.

“Sheriff, I was supposed to tell you that one of your deputies needed to speak with you right away. Sorenson, I think his name was,” Dr. Mansfield said.

Janney looked to the door impatiently. He was obviously unhappy about missing whatever the psychiatrist had to say. To Lauren’s surprise, Janney got up to leave. “Moran, you come find me later and fill me in. You got that?”

Scott Moran nodded. Then he and Dr. Mansfield each took places around the small square table that Lauren had used as her base of operations throughout the long night. Moran grimaced as he sat down as though he were in physical pain. Lauren wondered if she looked the same way to the people around her. It was how she felt anyway.

“First let me say I’m sorry for your loss,” Moran started.

Lauren felt her stomach muscles clench.
My loss
. Dr. Mansfield cleared his throat impatiently.

“I mean, there’s still a chance they’ll find her, of course. I’m sorry. I…”

“You’ll have to excuse Scott,” Dr. Mansfield said. “He’s had some bad news in his family today.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lauren said, feeling bad that, in fact, she wasn’t sorry to hear it. She just felt sorry that it interfered with the man’s ability to tell her about her husband. It was a selfish thought and she chastised herself for it, trying hard to find some sympathy. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

“It’s my daughter, she…she” Scott Moran’s voice trembled and he bit his lower lip in an effort to control himself. Lauren looked up at Dr. Mansfield for an indication of what the man was talking about. The doctor scowled at the psychiatrist.

“Come on, Scott. Pull it together here,” Dr. Mansfield said.

Lauren caught the irritation in his voice and assumed that he thought the man was over-reacting to whatever was happening with his daughter. Ungracious thoughts poured through her as she waited for him to continue.
My daughter’s missing. If yours is dead or dying, all right. Otherwise, shut the hell up
. The thoughts made her feel like a terrible person but she couldn’t help herself. It was all she could do to keep from reaching over the table and shaking the man until he told her what he knew. But her lack of control over her thoughts didn’t extend to her actions. She sat quietly, feigning patience and empathy she didn’t feel. 

“Go on. Tell Lauren what you told me.”

Scott Moran nodded his head. “Of course. I’m sorry.” He turned to Lauren. “You know my conversation with your husband would normally be bound by doctor-patient privilege. But since you are his spouse, and since it involves the commission of a crime, I’m not…”

Lauren waved he hand in the air impatiently. “Wait, wait. What do you mean commission of a crime? What did the two of you talk about?”

“Well, you know about the hallucinations, right? First the one with Huckley here in the hospital, then later at your house. The baseball bat?”

“Yes,” Lauren said softly, ashamed for the embarrassment she felt, as if Jack’s obvious mental illness were a dirty family secret instead of a medical problem.

Scott Moran whispered so quietly that Lauren was forced to lean across the table to hear him clearly. “So you know he thinks he heard Nate Huckley’s voice telling him what to do. He actually believed that Huckley caused his actions. That he was being haunted by him.”

“I know all this. What else did he say?”

“That Sarah heard Huckley too. That she was special. He went on and on about psychic phenomenon and these strange powers Sarah possesses. Do you know where he could have gotten such an idea? Has anything strange happened involving your daughter recently?”

Lauren though of the pages of numbers Sarah had drawn. The number 320 over and over. Huckley’s room. She wasn’t ready to talk about that. “No, of course not,” she said.

“Well, the idea fascinated him. He believed that Huckley was after her to try to steal these secret powers. On top of that, he was the only one who could save her. I mean, it was really paranoid stuff.”

Lauren swallowed hard. “All right. So how does this make you so sure that Jack’s responsible for abducting her.”

“Now I never said that, not directly.”

“You said you were telling me this because ‘it involved the commission of a crime.’ I think those were your exact words. What crime would that be Dr. Moran? Hallucinating?”

“Lauren, easy,” Dr. Mansfield said. “Scott is trying to help.”

Lauren smoothed her hair back and took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just getting a little tired of people who don’t even know Jack already convicting him.”

“Well, that wasn’t all he said.”

“O.K., what else did he say to convince you he’s a criminal?”

“There was one thing that shocked me enough to write it down word for word.” Scott Moran took out a piece of paper from his pocket. “Here you go. ‘I’d rather Sarah were dead than be captured by those bastards. She’d be better off being dead, that’s for sure. I just hope I have the guts to do it if it comes to that.’” Scott Moran folded the piece of paper.

Dr. Mansfield put his hand on Lauren’s shoulder. “It doesn’t prove anything, but I thought you had the right to know.”

“C-can I see that,” Lauren asked, pointing a shaky finger at the paper Scott Moran held. He handed it to her and she read through it, still unable to imagine the words coming from Jack’s mouth. “What did you—what was your recommendation to him?”

“I told him to admit himself for hospitalization. I thought he was a suicide risk and might pose a threat to others. He just laughed at me. Told me I was the crazy one. I didn’t push it because I thought he would become violent.”

“I just don’t understand,” Lauren said, her lower lip shaking. “How could it go this far so fast? I don’t understand.”

“On the contrary, I don’t think this was fast at all. If anything, it was very slow. He told me about the accident in California. The little girl who died.”

“That wasn’t his fault though.”

“But that’s not what he thinks. He holds himself responsible. He is carrying enormous guilt. Something like that held inside long enough starts to take on a life of its own. It manifests itself in unexpected ways. Depression. Hallucinations. Split personality. All it took was a trigger.”

“And what was the trigger?” Lauren asked.

“Could have been anything. Some obvious ones are the man he saw killed by lightning. Could be because of Max Dahl’s daughter having a terminal illness. Could be he saw a pick-up truck the same color as the one in the accident. What I’m trying to say is that it could have been anything.”

Dr. Mansfield stood up. “Thank you, Scott, for coming to us. Why don’t we let Lauren think about this for a moment?”

Scott Moran took his cue, slid his chair from the table, and stood. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more. I really am.”

Lauren tried to smile but felt as if she would lose control again. She remained seated and nodded her acknowledgement. Dr. Mansfield lowered himself to her level. “I have to talk to Scott about a few other things. Will you be all right?” Lauren nodded, not at all sure if she would be or not. The doctor patted her on the shoulder and told her he would be back shortly.

Across the room Janney saw the meeting with Lauren Tremont breaking up. He still seethed at missing whatever Scott Moran told her. How was he supposed to handle the situation if he didn’t have all the information available? Before he could work up a real rage about being excluded, Deputy Sorenson appeared in the hallway. Janney dragged him to a private corner for an update. “What do you have?”

Sorenson stared at the floor. “Nothing. Not a trace. The guys are still out looking.”

“Godammit!” Janney ran his hands through his hair. “We need to find Tremont and Lonetree. We’re running out of time.” He steadied himself. He made it a rule never to look concerned around his men, never show weakness. He was used to dealing with situations like this, but this one had him worried. Janney had intended to use this problem to make a case for being the number two guy instead of that idiot Huckley. Maybe even to argue to the Boss that Huckley was a liability. But for that to happen, he needed to contain this problem quickly. It would boost his stock and, more important, give him a chance to make Huckley look worse. But the Tremont woman made things difficult. If he hadn’t faked the phone call to the FBI earlier, he was sure she would have called them herself. And that would have complicated things.

“What do you want me to do?” Deputy Sorenson asked.

“Set up outside. They might be heading this way.”

Sorenson leaned in close and whispered, “What about the other thing? Do you want me to do anything with that?”

Janney looked up and down the hall, impatient with the deputy’s lack of discretion. “No, let it alone. I’ll take care of it. Just get outside and keep your eyes open.” He watched as the deputy turned and strutted down the hall, one hand resting on the handle of his gun. “Goddamn cowboy,” Janney muttered.

If he was right about Lonetree, this might be the last time he had to deal with Sorenson. He felt a tinge of regret, but not because he felt any affection for the man. Sorenson had been a mistake. Like always, Janney had recruited him from out of state. The fewer local ties the better. Criminal record, ex-military, the man had seemed the perfect addition. And in the past year Sorenson had done everything asked of him. Of course, the kid thought he was involved in nothing more than old fashioned police corruption. A little drugs. A little prostitution. He didn’t have a clue what he was really mixed up in. They never did until the very end.