One Scream Away (35 page)

T
ime to go. Chevy didn’t know precisely how long the attention span of a six-year-old was, but Abby had been outside with Evan Foster when Chevy drove by in Samantha’s mom’s Monte Carlo. That was about a half hour ago now, and he didn’t want to take the chance that Abby would go back inside while he was getting in place. As long as she was out beyond the gallery, he wouldn’t have to go as close to the house as he’d been prepared to.

Besides, the excitement at Ellis Park ought to be ending soon. He hadn’t heard anything on the news yet, but wanted to be well on his way out of town before Neil Sheridan got his just reward.

“Stop there,” he told Samantha, and she did. Her cheeks were chafed with tears, her wrist rubbed red where Heinz had pulled at his leash as he scented familiar territory. Chevy smiled, remembering a show he’d once done that had a dog in the cast. “Dogs and kids,” the director had said. “They’re a lot more trustworthy than adult actors. They never miss a cue.”

He walked through the trees to where he could just see Abby peering into the sky, then scouted the area until he saw two men with yellow block letters across the backs of their jackets: FBI. Fine. There might be a few more surrounding the rest of the property, but these two were patrolling exactly the part of Foster’s perimeter Chevy needed them to patrol, about fifty yards apart. They were both looking into the sky just now, watching Abby’s kite.

Chevy motioned for Samantha to come in front of him. Behind her, he withdrew the gun, the silencer snagging on his pocket lining for a second.

“That’s it! You got it!” Abby’s tiny voice sailed across the hill, and Heinz whimpered. Chevy heard the distant sound of Evan Foster laughing, watched him struggle with the string to the kite. A minute later it took a nosedive straight to the ground. Abby moaned and ran to help pick it up.

Chevy found the perfect position, pushing Samantha along silently in front of him. When he had the right view, he stopped and shoved her to her knees. Terror stiffened her spine, but too late. He pressed his hand over her mouth, held her rigid, and put the gun to her temple.

The nearest FBI agent was busy chuckling at the kite fiasco. The other one called to him from across the field.

“You think you could do any better, asshole?”

“I could keep it up better than Foster just did,” he called back, then muttered a bunch of stupid he-man insults under his breath. “Rich, spoiled jerk. Betcha he can’t keep up much of anything…”

He ground a cigarette beneath his heel and strolled a little closer to Chevy.

Move away, bastard; move away.
Chevy held his breath.

His arm tightened on Samantha and he whispered in her ear: “Make a sound and I’ll shoot you.”

She believed him. The guard meandered away, Heinz getting antsy now, and Chevy tossed down a wiener to shut him up. He waited for the agent to move farther out and worked his way to the edge of the trees, keeping the gun against Samantha’s head, the leash in hand.

No more time. It had to be now.

“Freeze!” Neil said.

He straight-armed the .22. A Glock 380 pointed back at him, a fractured, feminine voice just behind it.

“Stay b-back.”

Neil blinked. It was a woman, for Christ’s sake, sounding weak and terrified, the gun trembling in her hands. Neil’s .22 stared back at her, both guns ready to fire from only twenty feet apart. “I’m not going to hurt you, honey. Put the gun down.”

“Stay back,” she said again. She was young, mid-twenties; her left cheek was gashed, an ugly mound of purple flesh and crusted blood swelling up around it. A doll sat on her lap. “I’ll sh-shoot you,” she stammered. “Stay back.”

“Listen to me,” Neil said. Get her to trust him, keep her calm. Stupid thought, given that she and her daughter had been the hostages of a madman all afternoon and Neil had a pistol—even a small one—aimed between her eyes. “I’m here to help you. I talked to you earlier on the phone.”

The woman shook her head. Convulsive little movements that told Neil she was on the narrow edge of hysteria.

“Lower the gun and I’ll take you home.”

“ H-he has my d-d-daughter. He has Samantha.” Tears poured over her cheeks. “I h-have to kill you.”

What?
“Listen to m—”

“I-I have to kill you, and then he’ll let her go. He said that. I’m s-s-sorry—”

“Stop. Listen to me.” Calm was almost impossible. Bankes had set the woman up as Neil’s assassin. The
bastard
. “You don’t have to kill me. Bankes won’t know, and I’ll help you get your daughter back, I promi—”

“H-he’ll know. He said he’d kill her.” She was crying but kept the gun pointed at Neil. “I have to kill you. He needs to see it on TV, and then he’ll let Samantha go.”

“He’s lying; he’s just using you. I can get your little girl back.” His mind raced, a speed-of-light assessment: thirty law enforcement officers with high-powered artillery, a wide-open field, asshole photographers all waiting for a story. An idea wiggled into his brain and he lowered his gun, spreading his hands in surrender. “Listen to me,” he said to the woman, hoping she was sane enough to hear him. “Don’t shoot me, but listen…”

Beth kicked the covers off the bed. She couldn’t sleep, though she knew Juan thought she’d conked out. She couldn’t even doze successfully. She couldn’t do anything but lie there and wonder where Neil was, what he was doing. Where Bankes was.

She got up, padded barefoot to the window and looked outside. To her left, she had a view of Abby and Evan, a couple of FBI agents standing like sentries in the field. A dragon-shaped kite tumbled through the air, out of control. Beth smiled. They weren’t having much luck with the kite, but Abby was having fun. That seemed more important than anything right now.

She started toward the door but stopped as she laid her hand on the knob. The television was going on the other side. Juan must have turned it on. The voice of the broadcaster was urgent, relaying some sort of breaking news.
“FBI… Ellis Park… the Chevy Bankes hunt…”
Beth craned her ears.
“A G.I. Joe, reportedly damaged by a bullet to the chest…”

She stepped back, stricken. G.I. Joe? Damn Neil for not telling her. For telling her to go and take a nap, play with Abby, and just leave everything to him.

She tiptoed back to the bed, switched on the six-inch black-and-white television that sat on the nightstand. She turned the sound all the way off so Juan wouldn’t hear, then fiddled with the channels until she saw something that looked like news. She only had to pass one station—everyone was starting to report on it. She stopped at Channel 2 and turned up the sound just enough to hear.

“… at Ellis Park where suspected serial killer Chevy Bankes is allegedly holding a mother and her daughter host—What’s that?”
The anchorwoman paused, listening to something in her earpiece, then continued her report.
“We’re now learning that someone is going to meet with Chevy Bankes…”

Beth nudged the volume up a notch.

“We have Chuck Strommen at Ellis Park. Chuck, can you tell us what’s going on?”

A male voice came on, the owner of the voice relegated to a tiny square in the upper right corner of the screen.
“Well, Melissa, all we know now is that Corey Dun-woody, a freelance photographer, earlier scuffled with the FBI about shooting footage here at the park, but somehow he has now managed to get in position to film. I remind viewers that we are showing this footage live…”

Beth held her breath. Neil, his shirt hanging open, walked across the grass. What the
hell
was he doing?

“Channel Two News has learned that the man allegedly going to confront Bankes is thirty-eight-year-old Neil Sheridan, and is apparently operating without consent of the FBI. Viewers may recall that Sheridan is the former FBI agent who has been on the periphery of this case from the beginning. A few days ago, he emerged as a quote, unquote ‘consultant,’ and was cited by some as the leak of critical information…”

Beth watched in horror. Confronting Bankes? Without the FBI behind him? Damn him, damn him, damn him.

“… and we wouldn’t be seeing any of this if the FBI had its way. As you can see from tape shot earlier…”

The little square in the corner of the screen showed video of a reporter being pushed back from the scene, FBI agents confiscating his cameras amid shouting and shoving. The words
Taped Earlier
appeared inside the square, while on the larger portion of the screen the word
Live
flashed on as Neil continued to walk slowly down a path.

Beth rubbed her palms over her eyes and watched, trying to focus, trying to tune out the commentary, but at the same time afraid she would miss something if she did. Neil was walking into a shallow valley, hands empty, shirt open, walking without the casual grace his stride usually sported. Steady but tense, stiff.

Until something made him slow his steps. He hesitated, moved to the right, then pulled a gun from his pocket and aimed it into the culvert.

The camera zoomed in, and Beth’s heart stopped. Another gun pointed back at him.

Beth couldn’t breathe. Neil stood poised to shoot or be shot, the announcer’s voice-over like a little boy recounting an exciting movie. Neil seemed to say something to the person holding the gun—it was a woman—then his body went tight and Beth wanted to scream,
Get away, get away!
Yet even as she thought it, he lowered his gun and spread out his hands. Beth watched in horror, praying for the other gun to come down as well, but it didn’t. It flashed, and Neil dropped to the ground.

Now.

Heinz barked right on command. Chevy turned him loose.

Abby saw him, squealed with glee, and ran toward Heinz. Gape-mouthed, Evan jogged after her, the kite darting wildly in the air like a balloon with a hole in it, the string pulling at his hands. The guards flinched with their weapons, then watched as Heinz and Abby met in a joyful reunion.

Chevy whistled.

Twice. He had to whistle twice, but then Heinz ran back to him in the trees. Abby followed.

Good dog…

S
hock.

Anguish.

Beth sat on the edge of the bed, frozen.

“
Melissa
,” said the reporter on the scene, and his voice was higher now, his words coming fast.
“Sheridan is down, Sheridan is down! Emergency personnel are now flooding the scene…”

Oh, God. Neil.

It was like a movie-of-the-week. The images were choppy and fast, zooming in and out, trying to get close enough to provide details but also trying to catch the dramatic influx of people from all areas of the park. In one of the tighter shots, Beth caught a glimpse of Neil on the ground—blood on his chest, then the camera panned out to show running rivers of emergency personnel flowing down the slopes to the culvert. They closed in around him until she couldn’t see anymore—had he been breathing?—then a wall of people knelt around him, frantic, shouting at one another, but all the viewers could hear was the continuous, staccato descant of the reporter. The camera swept out to show agents with rifles, ambulances, a chopper settling lightly on a nearby rise, and everyone seemed to be running, running… Then the shot swept to the culvert, where something was happening, someone coming out, wrapped in so many FBI agents it was hard to see.

“
It looks like a woman, Melissa
,” said Chuck’s voice.
“Perhaps this is the woman who was held by Chevy Bankes. We can’t really be sure of anything at this point, but there doesn’t appear to be a child. Melissa, it doesn’t look as if Chevy Bankes is anywhere near, and just as soon as we can figure out what is happening, we’ll get it to you.”

Beth sat horrified, numb. Neil. God, don’t let him die.

Anger flooded in. At Neil, for shutting her out; at this woman, this stranger who had tried to take his life. At Bankes, who was sitting somewhere watching, maybe holding this woman’s child, laughing at what he had wrought.

She thought he had caused her pain seven years ago. It was nothing compared to this.

Beth didn’t know how much time passed as she watched the television reporters try to sort it out. She could hear the living room television, too, and someone else coming in to talk to Juan, speaking in hushed tones. The anchors started repeating themselves, showing the same loops over and over again, searching for things to report, until the chopper had flown away and the anchor-woman at the studio, rehashing things for the hundredth time, stopped, looked at a little piece of paper in her hand, and spoke to the camera.

“We have just received word that former federal agent Neil Sheridan, who went down into the culvert apparently to negotiate with suspected serial killer Chevy Bankes, has died. A spokesman for Georgetown University Medical Center reports that he was dead on arrival, from a bullet wound to the chest.”

C
hevy listened as Beth’s cell phone rang. Three times. Damn her, the waiting pissed him off. She should have picked up on the first ring, should have known he’d be calling. When the ringing finally did stop, there was no voice, only silence.

“Come with me, Beth,” Chevy said into the phone. He felt like howling to the moon. Everything had played out so perfectly.
Not much longer, now, Jenny.
“Come with me and get your daughter.”

“Beth isn’t here. Talk to me instead.”

Chevy froze. It was a man’s voice, Latino accent. Bodyguard, no doubt. A fucking bodyguard was answering her phone. Rage shook him to the bone. “I want to talk to Beth.”

“Talk to me,
amigo
.”

Chevy waited, gaining control. “Fine. You give her the message then.”

“What message?”

“She should come to me if she wants her daughter alive.”

“Where? Where are you? What did you do with Beth’s little girl?”

Federal agents. No finesse, no subtlety. This one sounded strained. Obviously, someone had already reported to him that Abby was gone, from right under their noses. Evan Foster and the remaining two guards had all started running as Abby followed Heinz back into the woods when Chevy whistled, then they had all backed off when they saw Samantha run out wearing Abby’s sweater and holding Heinz on a leash. The switch had distracted them for only a moment before they realized she wasn’t Abby Denison, but it was long enough for Chevy to haul Abby back through the trees to the neighborhood where he’d parked the Monte Carlo.