Taken (24 page)

I
n a wooded cul-de-sac a half mile from the highway, Stephen Cutter stands under a drooping willow tree and takes his pulse. The night sky is so overcast, and so dark, that he can see only the illuminated dial of his watch. The rest of him, indeed, the rest of the world, might as well be invisible.

A few yards away, the boxy ambulance blends into the darkness, leaving only a faint ghost image, a shadow of a shadow.

According to the timer, his pulse races at ninety-four beats a minute. Impossible. His resting heart normally clocks about fifty beats. Been that way for years. A runner’s heart, a soldier’s heart, sustaining him through trauma and combat and the slow torture of grief and disappointment. He’s never been an excitable boy, even under circumstances that would turn a civilian’s cardiovascular system into a frizzle of sparking nerves and quivering muscles.

Ninety-four? An overdose of caffeine, perhaps. Or a low-grade infection from where his face got opened by the hacksaw blade. Whatever, it can’t be fear making his heart race, because life itself has become such a complicated struggle that he almost welcomes the looming prospect of his own demise.
Hello, death. Come on in, take a seat, I’ll be right with you. “Lights out, eternal peace.” What did the old boy say? “For in the sleep of death, what dreams may come?” No dreams, Cutter hopes, most fervently, “for the worm of conscience still begnaws the soul.”
Fucking Shakespeare, how did he know these things? What could an itinerant actor know about killing, about murder? Did playing a role somehow impart the grim, pulse-pounding reality? Must have, because there it is,
“begnaws the soul”
is exactly right, conjures up an image of rats nibbling exposed organs, and that’s how it feels when a man begs for his life and you kill him with your bare hands, his life passing through your fingers like a cool breath.

Up until about three minutes ago the EMT was a nice young guy, trying his best to be to be supportive and cheerful. Snuffing out his lights wasn’t like terminating Hinks and Wald, professional killers, or Rico Vargas, a professional scumbag, or even that empty suit from Family Finders—killing him had been like stepping on a cockroach. But the boy driving the ambulance, he’d been one of the good guys. Right up until the moment his hands closed around the young man’s neck, Cutter had been trying to think of a way to spare his life. Dope him, tie him up, whatever. And then his hands had made the decision. Squeeze and kill. Keep it simple. Do not be dissuaded from your mission by pity or sympathy or the illusion of human connection.

Cutter is keenly aware that his killing chores are far from over. There will be several more retractions from the world of the living, culminating in the boy Tomas. Tomas who lies drugged and unconscious in the ambulance. No more than a foot from the twin brother he has never known, and never will know, except in the most fundamental physical sense, by providing the heart that will return Jesse to the world of normal boys. Boys who run and play and tease their mothers for worrying about them. Boys who smile in their sleep and dream their big-league dreams. Boys whose very existence gives meaning to the lives of hopelessly flawed fathers, fathers willing to sacrifice their souls so their sons might live.

Get a grip,
Cutter tells himself.
You’re a soldier, not some limp-wristed drama queen quoting the Bard. Suck it up and do your duty, if not for God and country, then for your son. For the boy who loves you without reservation. For Jesse
.

You chose this road. No turning back.

Cutter steels himself for the task of stripping the still-warm body of his latest victim. The EMT uniform will soon enough prove useful. As to the racing heart, he knows the reason, knew it all along. Not caffeine, or the simple act of murder. Something much more profound is at work, splashing adrenaline into his system. Something way beyond fear.

In this dark night of his soul, his dead are forming rank.

S
herona looks like a very plump and very serious cat who has succeeded in swallowing a somewhat difficult canary.

“They all know the boy,” she announces moments after sliding into the passenger seat, displacing an aggrieved Mr. Yap. “Nurses, janitors, everybody. He’s a sweet boy and they love him.”

“How sick is he?”

“Sick as they get,” she says. “Been in a vegetative state for six weeks. Feeding him through a tube, like they do.”

“Vegetative state?”

“He’s there and he’s not there. Nurses say he’ll look right at you and smile, but it’s just a reflex. Some habit of the muscles and brain. He can breathe on his own, but that’s about it. Mostly likely, he’ll never improve.”

“Oh, my God.”

Dead but not dead, I’m thinking. The ultimate nightmare.

“He’s on a heart pump,” Sherona continues. “I asked about a new heart for the poor boy, the nurses look all hurtful and say he’s not a candidate for transplant. They think his daddy’s taking him home to die.”

“That’s the destination he gave? New London?”

Sherona nods. “You think that’s where he’s at?” she asks doubtfully.

“No chance,” I say. “The guy is a technical whiz, but he’s not a heart surgeon. He’s got a plan, a destination.”

At that moment Connie returns and I have to get out and move into the back seat with the nervous Pekingese.

“Hope you did better than me,” she says to Sherona, sounding sheepish. Looking into the rearview mirror to make eye contact, she adds, “Sorry, Kate, the records are in the business office and the office is locked and this security guy threatened to have me arrested if I didn’t quit messing with the doors.”

“Tommy’s brother is in a coma,” I tell her. “He’s dying.”

“It sounds so strange, that Tomas has a brother,” she says almost wistfully. “I can’t get used to the idea. Coma, huh?”

“You want to know where the ambulance took the boy, right?” Sherona interrupts, no patience for chitchat or lame excuses.

“More than anything,” I tell her.

“Best get back on the road,” she suggests firmly. “Ambulance service has a dispatcher. Let’s see what he says.”

She directs us to a chain-fenced parking facility several miles from the hospital. A district of freight warehouses and trucking firms. We park in the street, but even before we get out, the dogs are barking. Attack dogs inside the perimeter of the chain-link fence that encloses a number of boxy, orange-and-white-striped medical transport vehicles. The dogs are showing a lot of teeth. Not what you’d call a friendly location. As we approach the main gate—Sherona in the lead, all business—motion detectors set off bright lights and an armed security guard emerges from a metal shack, yawning.

As it happens, the guard is Caucasian, but ethnicity is no immunity to Sherona’s persuasive charms. Within three minutes he’s apologizing for the barking dogs—he does not control the animals—and explaining that the heavy security is necessary because, as he puts it, “the junkies think an ambulance is a drugstore on wheels.”

“We never leave narcotics in the unattended vehicles, but that don’t stop ’em from breaking in,” he adds. “Now, what can I do you ladies for?”

Out of politeness he’s addressing all three of us, but it’s Sherona who has his undivided attention. I’d been aware of our pastry chef’s impressive skills in the kitchen, but this is my first experience watching her mind-meld with males. It’s uncanny, and Connie and I look at each other and shake our heads. Not so much a sexual allure on Sherona’s part, more a way of presenting herself that makes men want to please and protect her. This from a woman almost as wide as she is tall. Makes me realize that her shyness around me on the job, and with Connie, as well, apparently has more to do with the racial divide and class distinctions than any lack of confidence on her part. Out here in the big bad, black-and-white world, Sherona is Oprah and Dr. Phil all rolled into one, and I’m fortunate to have her on my side.

Sherona gives the guard an abbreviated version of what’s going on, and asks may she please confer with the dispatcher. It’s three in the morning, but the guard affects to find this reasonable and makes a phone call from the shack.

“Hank’s waiting for you,” he says, and seems more than a little disappointed that our charismatic colleague will be passing out of his orbit.

The building that contains the dispatching center for Hale Medical Response is directly across the street, behind an iron-barred door. Sherona lets it be known that it might be better if she approached the dispatcher on her own.

“That’s fine,” I say. “That’s great.” And refrain from adding, “You go, girl,” only because I don’t want to come across like some sort of wannabe to the sisterhood.

Connie and I wait in the car, fretting while Sherona does her thing.

“Who knew?” Connie says. “Is this the same woman who spent six months in a shelter for the abused?”

“Amazing, huh? I wish Shane could see her in action—he’d probably offer her a job. If we’re still in business after this is over, she gets a raise. You, too.”

“Oh, we’ll be in business,” Connie says confidently, reaching over to pat my hand.

Mr. Yap, no doubt jealous, climbs into her lap and nuzzles at her chin. Connie coos at him softly, eyes keen for the door to the dispatcher’s office.

Fifteen minutes pass. More than enough time for the strange fit of giddiness to be displaced by another heavy dose of dread. My very blood feels heavy, turgid. It’s true that tremendous progress has been made in the last eight or nine hours. The man in the mask has been identified and his motive revealed. But he’s still out there in the wind, heading for an unknown rendezvous where, I am absolutely convinced, my son will die. It’s all happening now, today, in the dog hours of the night, and every minute we idle here, our quarry is another minute farther on down the road. Another minute closer to taking Tommy’s life.

My mind supplies the next phrase—
if he hasn’t already done so
—but I force that terrible possibility out of my thoughts. No room for doubt. Doubt is fatal. Watching Tommy’s teammates taught me that, if nothing else did. The kids who doubted they could hit the ball never made contact. At best they closed their eyes and swung just to get it over with. Whereas the better players like my son never doubted they’d make contact, never stepped into the batter’s box anticipating failure. Each swing was a stroke of confidence, even if the result was a whiff or a pop-up.

Connie and I both inhale sharply as Sherona exits the barred door and strides purposefully to the car. Her strong arms pumping like a majorette leading a parade. The determined expression on her face letting us know that something is up, facts have been learned.

“All kinda things going on,” she announces, panting just a little as she settles into the passenger seat. “Best get you back on the highway. Go south.”

She doesn’t have to tell Connie twice. As we glide through the deserted streets of the freight district, Sherona fills us in. “Silly kind of man,” she says. “Keep sayin’ how I’d make a good wife for somebody like him, when he means
exactly
like him. But he knows about the missing ride, that’s what counts, right?”

“Missing ride?”

“That’s what they call the vehicle, the ambulance. Call it a ‘ride.’ Four rides on the street, six more in the lot on standby. Upstairs, above where the dispatcher works? They’ve got a bunk room, like for firefighters. I ask do they slide down a pole, he says no. Never mind about that. The ride that picks up the Cutter boy, he’s a driver name of Tim. Tim’s real reliable, always calls in, keeps in touch, like they do. Only he doesn’t keep in touch. I ask can the radio break, he tells me sure, the radio can break but they also got the cell phone.”

“So they think the ambulance has been hijacked?”

“Something like that. When Tim doesn’t call, Beavis checks him out on the locator.”

“Beavis?”

Sherona looks slightly embarrassed. “The dispatcher. Beavis isn’t his real name, his real name is J.D. or some kind of initial name, but I’m callin’ him Beavis cause he’s a butt head. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Beavis, he’s got this satellite thing going. Look on the computer screen, all his rides are showing. Knows exactly where they are at all times. Driver stops to pee, Beavis knows about it.”

A GPS locator. It makes sense an ambulance service would use the latest technology to monitor its fleet of vehicles. It’s all I can do not to rub my hands with glee. We’ve got him.

“Beavis sees Tim driving south on the highway instead of north to New London, he tries to get him on the squawk. That what the fool calls his radio, a squawk. Minute later the ride stops at the Route 90 exit, at a rest area, and the locator stops working. Ride disappears from the screen.”

My spirit plummets. What was I thinking? The man in the mask—
Cutter, Kate, his name is Cutter
—he knows about GPS locators. He used one on my minivan, the day I transferred the money. The query from the dispatcher confirmed that the diverted ambulance had a locator, and Cutter silenced it.

“Beavis, he calls the cops, reports a stolen ride. Say they’ll get right on it. Beavis say, ‘Don’t hold your breath.’”

“But the last known location was 287. Heading into Westchester.”

“From 287 you can go south, hook into the Sawmill, get you into the city,” Sherona points out.

“Or go north, up along the Hudson, all the way to the Tappan Zee,” Connie adds. “Face it, 287 could be just one road on the way to anywhere.”

“What do we know?” I ask them. “We know he has his comatose son in a stolen ambulance. We know the boy needs a heart transplant. How many places can do that, in Westchester, or in the metropolitan area? A few, a dozen?”

“No idea,” says Connie. “But I can find out.”

“How?” I ask eagerly. “You know a heart surgeon we can call up at this hour?”

“Sort of,” Connie says, grinning at me in the rearview mirror. “We’ll make a pit stop at my place and ask Dr. Google.”

While Connie boots up her home computer, I make another call to Maria Savalo, expecting the usual dump to voice mail. Amazingly enough, the real deal answers, bright and chipper at four in the morning.

“Once again, don’t give me your location,” is her first admonition.

“I’m in the company of friends,” I tell her. “What’s the word on the FBI? Any positive response?”

The cell connection isn’t that great, but good enough to transmit her sigh. “Had to call in a favor and get home listings for a couple of the special agents who work out of the New Haven bureau, because, of course, the office won’t officially reopen until 8:00 a.m. Figured I’d try some of the working stiffs in addition to the agent in charge. Kind of stir things up.”

“How’d that go?”

“Not well. Threatened to prosecute me for harassment. Apparently there’s an obscure statute forbidding the transmission of an agent’s home number.”

“So they’re not going to do anything?”

“I didn’t say that,” Maria says. “As a matter of fact, I get the distinct impression they’ve opened an active investigation. But these are guys who keep their lips zipped for a living. They’ll never admit to anything, even when they’re doing the right thing.”

Exasperated, I say, “Got a pen? I’m going to give you the tag numbers for the ambulance Stephen Cutter hijacked. My guess is he’s swapped the plates already, disguised the vehicle somehow, but it’s all we’ve got to go on. Last located on 287, heading west. Route 90 exit. Give the highway patrol a heads-up.”

“I’ll be darned,” Maria says with a chuckle. “You sound like Randall Shane.”

Ignoring that, I continue, “Hale Medical Response has already notified state police in the tristate area. What they’ll do about it is anybody’s guess. They may assume it’s just another hijacking for drugs.”

“I’ll make a few calls, see what I can find out.”

“Have you spoken to Jared Nichols?”

“I got him out of bed,” Maria admits.

“So you’ve got his home phone number. Is that a violation of the law, too?” I add caustically.

My lawyer mumbles something. I ask her to repeat.

“Didn’t have to use the phone,” she says. “Jared and I are engaged. We’ve, um, been living together for the last six months.”

The mind boggles—my lawyer and the prosecutor in bed, literally. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest or something?” I ask lamely.

“We’re pretty careful about that,” Maria says somewhat defensively. “If anything, it’s to my client’s advantage. I never tell Jared about a case, not one word, but I sort of know what he’s up to, depending on who he’s scheduled a meeting with on any given day.”

“Whatever.” The fact is, there’s no room in my fevered brain for worrying about my lawyer’s domestic and professional entanglements. “We’re checking hospitals and transplant centers and so on,” I tell her. “Seeing if we can determine a likely destination. I’ll let you know.”

“Kate, if you find the guy, call the locals, okay? Let the cops handle it.”

I feel my face growing hot. “Like they’ve handled it so far? My son is going to die in the next few hours if I don’t find him. So far the cops haven’t done anything but screw this up. Last I heard, they didn’t even believe there
was
a kidnapper.”

“I’m sure that’s changed, thanks to you and Shane.”

“Maybe. I hope so. But I have to assume nothing has changed, that I’m the only one searching for Tommy. If they prove me wrong, great. But I’m not stopping until I have that little boy in my arms, do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

I end the call just before the tears start flowing again. How much can a body take before overdosing on adrenaline and anxiety? Guess I’m about to find out.

Connie and Sherona are huddled in front of her monitor.

“What have you got?” I want to know.

“So far so good,” Connie says, working her mouse as she clicks through Web sites. “There are nine transplant centers in the metropolitan area. All associated with major hospitals or medical schools. Locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long Island, a couple in New Jersey.”

My heart sinks. “So many? I thought two or three, max.”