Ransom Beach (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 2) (23 page)

Lido and Ambler raced back into the building. They looked like drenched rats—at least Ambler did. As for Lido, I wanted to towel him dry, light a fire, and toss him onto a bearskin rug. As you know, it had been a very long time. In fact, I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it home before I—

"So what went down?" Ambler asked as he approached me. His aviators were rain spotted. He took them off and dried them on his sleeve.

"The place seemed empty when I got here—quiet and dark. There was a small closed-circuit TV on the floor.

"Closed-circuit?" Ambler said.

"Yeah, closed-circuit—Manny was on the tube, sitting in his wheelchair in front of an industrial oven and preparation table."

"He was in the kitchen?" Lido asked.

"Could have been a tape," Ambler said. "Previously recorded."

"That's what I thought, but no, I'm pretty sure Manny was really here, in the kitchen."

"Christ, we lost him?" Ambler said, grimacing as if his intestines had just tied themselves into a knot.

"Afraid so. I checked out the kitchen and found the camera the kidnappers had used. The power light was still on."

"Inconclusive, Stephanie. They could have taped him days ago and neglected to switch off the camera." Ambler turned and summoned one of his men. I recognized him from Thorne's penthouse. It was Ken Smith. "Ken, there's a TV camera in the kitchen—get someone on it. I want to know if it's hooked up and where it's sending to."

"Right away," Smith replied. He turned and hurried off.

Ambler turned back to me. "What then?"

I pointed to the door with the message written on it. I aimed my searchlight beam at it. Lido and Ambler read the message.

"You went downstairs?" Lido asked. "Smells like a setup."

"That's what I thought, so I disconnected the TV and hurled it down the stairs—took a bullet before it hit bottom. I was about to give chase when the wall came down—didn't miss me by much."

Lido looked distressed as one would if the life of a loved one had been threatened. "You're sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine, Gus. Thanks." I gave him a reassuring smile.

"Are you sure?" he persisted. "Have the paramedics check you out."

"Not necessary."

It didn't look like Lido was satisfied but he respected my decision. "Okay. Anything else?"

"No, that's where you came in. I didn't see anyone. The shooter had fled by the time I hit the basement,. I suppose they yanked Manny when the van tore the place apart."

"They must've had a car parked on the street behind the field. We'll start canvassing the neighborhood. Hopefully someone saw the car," Lido said.

Ambler was looking around. At first I wasn't sure what he was looking for but then it hit me, it hit me like a ton of bricks. "Oh shit."

"Oh shit is right," Ambler said. "Where's the money?"

The car was
a
wreck,
a
curbside
Bondo job
covered with black
Krylon
spray
paint. It had come from the street where it had been discarded and claimed, discarded again and reclaimed. The '82
Nissan
had not been registered with the DMV for three years. It sat in the indoor parking lot of the Long Island Railroad's Hicksville train station, discarded once again. The Hicksville station was one of the largest. Five separate parking fields supported the station's commuter population.

Moira
waited in the wreck until the surge of returning commuters dispersed and had driven off in their cars before opening the expensive
Louis Vuitton
tote. The air caught in her lungs at the first glimpse of the cash, bundled in ten thousand dollar bricks. It was more money than all the generations of her family had ever possessed.

"Christ Almighty," she said as she lifted up two handfuls of money and let them cascade back into the bag. "Mother fucking Christ." She yelled within the car's confines, the smile on her face so robust it had a mind of its own. She scooped the money once again and again allowed the stacks of cash to tumble back into the bag.

She wanted to share her excitement with someone. She wanted to show the money to Daniel but the plan called for him to go on ahead in an earlier train. They were to return separately.
Moira
was going to take the train into Brooklyn and from there transfer to the subway.

"We did it," she howled. "We actually fucking did it. Holy shit! Holy fucking shit!"

One late straggler was heading toward his car, holding a Snapple in his hand.
Moira
ducked down until he passed by and got into his BMW.

"Go on in that piece of shit you're driving. I can buy a better fucking car than that. I can buy a fucking Rolls Royce. You hear that, world?
Moira
Ryan can buy a fucking
Rolls Royce
." She gave the
BMW
driver the finger as he drove past her.

She checked her watch—only fifteen minutes until her train's scheduled departure. Reaching under the seat, she retrieved the black canvas bag she had stowed days before. Five stacks at a time, she transferred the money from the Louis Vuitton to her backpack—twenty arms-length transactions. She searched the inside of the Louis Vuitton visually and then felt around the inside for good measure to make sure nothing had been left behind.

Ten minutes to go. She rolled the soft-sided Louis Vuitton into a ball and placed it inside a black plastic trash bag.

Eight minutes to go.
Moira
stepped from the car wearing her backpack. She was holding the trash bag under her arm. She had timed the walk—almost four minutes to exit the parking lot and walk the short distance to the train platform.

She heard a train whistle in the distance and got nervous, thinking that her watch was off. She wanted to be off Long Island in the safety of her apartment before the police put two and two together and found the old car.

At the base of the train station, a display indicated that the westbound train to Flatbush Avenue was on time. She stuffed the black garbage bag into the trash pail and took the escalator to the elevated railroad platform.

She never looked back.

She didn't see the vagrant reach into the trash pail and remove the black garbage bag.

She didn't see him take the steps two at a time, slipping into the train just as the doors were closing.

She never saw it coming.

Ambler reached into his breast pocket and retrieved his PDA. Lido and I looked over his shoulder, waiting for the unit to boot. He had it programmed in a few seconds—a GPS grid appeared on the small screen. Our location was easy to find—we were on the beige strip bordering the winding blue strip, otherwise known as the Long Island Sound. A black pulsing square on the grid marked our location. What we were looking for was a pulsing red dot to show us the position of the Q-logger, the tracking device, we had cut into one of the bundles of cash—nothing.

"What gives?" I asked.

Ambler's face looked as if he were fit to be tied. Lido's too. I had clumps of pancake makeup smeared across mine, camouflaging my level of unhappiness, making it hard to see, but it was there all the same.

"Not sure," Ambler replied.

"I thought you checked the batteries."

"I did."

"Guess you didn't use Energizers. You know, the ones that keep going and going and going and—"

"They were fresh, Stephanie," Ambler snapped. "It's not the batteries."

"What then?" Lido asked.

"Range maybe—the Q-logger's good for about two miles. We lost a lot of time when the van totaled the building. They're likely too far away for this unit to pick them up."

It was true. No one had anticipated a diversion large enough to rate a measurement on the Richter scale. Still, the bottom line was that we had come up empty all around—no Manny and no cash. Not exactly cause for celebration. "Plan B?"

Ambler rubbed his cheek while he thought about alternatives. "Fortunately, the Q-logger's transmitting frequency is programmable. We can set up a grid at two mile intervals throughout the area."

"Sit around and hope that we pick up a signal? Lots of luck—how long will that take?"

Ambler shrugged. "Won't be quick."

"Gives the kidnappers plenty of time to go through the cash and dump the transmitter. I don't like our chances."

"You have another idea?" Ambler asked.

That minimizing bra I was wearing had really become uncomfortable. It felt like I was bound like a mummy. I wanted to rip the damn thing off so that I could breathe. I'm sure that would have been okay with Lido. Ambler too, probably—way cool. Now, however, was not the time to consider my creature comforts. "Where did they take Dr. Zaius?"

The boys looked at me as if I were crazy.

"The gorilla I wounded."

They both said, "Oh," in unison.

"North Shore Hospital," Lido said. "What's your point?"

"Let's set up the grid as fast as we can. While we're waiting, let's lean on the gorilla—see if he gives up something, anything, a morsel that we can use for a warrant to take down The Faith. I say we come down on them now—we come down hard and heavy."

I heard the wail of a fire truck approaching. They were on the way to pry open the white van, the metallic coffin Carl was entombed within.

"Good," Ambler said. "I'll lean on the wounded guy while the two of you hightail it back to the city. I'll call you if I'm lucky enough to squeeze anything out of him."

"If?" I said, narrowing my eyes at the aging Fed.

"Bad choice of words," Ambler said. "I mean when."

"You've got to. We've got to get a fix on the kidnappers now, at this moment. Once they make it back to their hideout, they can cool out indefinitely. They've got Thorne's five mil to lean on, and all the time in the world. It might be years before they attempt to extort more money. All they have to do is feed Manny and keep him healthy."

A sad thought crossed my mind. I'm sure Lido and Ambler picked up on it immediately. The kidnappers could perpetuate future ransom demands with or without Manny. Manny had likely penned dozens of his quatrains or would in short order. They had photos of him, hair, etc. They could stockpile everything they needed and dispose of Manny when it was convenient. Their plan was secure as long as the body never surfaced. "Scratch that," I said. I didn't have to fill in the blanks: the boys had already arrived at the same conclusion.

Lido puffed out his cheeks. "We're wasting time."

"I'll catch a ride with Smith." Ambler reached into his coat pocket and pulled out another PDA. He handed it to me. "Backup unit," he said. "It's already programmed. Just turn it on and it'll boot directly to the GPS tracking screen."

At this point the tracking thing wasn't looking too good, but I wasn't going to argue with Ambler. "Thanks," I said. "Off you go."

Ambler turned immediately. He hustled over to Ken Smith. He put his arm around Smith's shoulder while he filled him in. Smith nodded, barked instructions to his next in command, and followed Ambler out of the building.

"Let's go," Lido said.

Lido and I began walking away when the fire engine's strobe light distracted me. The beam was flashing into the building through the ruptured outer wall. I heard the firemen deploying off the truck. I don't know why I needed to look, but something inside said it was the thing to do. "One second, Gus." Lido caught my body language and followed me.

The Oyster Bay Volunteer Fire Department was hard at it. The rain became heavy as they enabled the Jaws of Life and set it on the driver's door. The fireman working the device was a real pro. I didn't want to think about the reason why. Oyster Bay was an affluent town, lots of money everywhere, which meant fast cars, good times, teen drivers, alcohol and drugs, fire and plague, etc. The fireman was adept at his task for all the wrong reasons, terrible reasons. I shook my head woefully—my mind just didn't want to go there.

The door made a sound like a wounded t-rex roaring as it came off its hinges. I've seen bodies extricated from vehicles before. If the driver wasn't wearing a seatbelt, it was not uncommon to see the body slump and fall out the door but that didn't happen to Carl. He was wedged firmly in place, but his cell phone was not. It clattered out of the truck and fell into a puddle. I swooped in and picked it up before it became waterlogged. The display was dark. I powered it up. The display came on momentarily. It flashed low battery, and then shut down.

I looked at Carl one last time, frozen behind the van's wheel. I don't usually believe in poetic justice but it seemed that he had received his just comeuppance. He had engineered the abduction of a helpless child and had paid with his life. He, like millions before him, had placed a religious quest before morality. It always pained me to think about how much had been lost over the centuries; people doing terrible things for what they were convinced were the right reasons. Carl was just one additional statistic to be added to the balance sheet of the holy wars.

Lido tapped me on the shoulder. There wasn't a moment to lose. We raced back to the car with Carl's phone in hand. I hoped the crime lab would be able to extract vital information from it, information that would put me onto Manny's kidnappers, Helen Gillette's murderer—they were, I believed, one and the same.

Moira
had taken the Long Island Railroad to Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn and from there the subway into Manhattan. It had taken every ounce of self-restraint for her to keep her hands out of her backpack. Dirty laundry, she told herself, a bag of soiled shorts. The pads on her fingertips actually tingled with the desire to reach into the backpack and touch the money. The grin refused to stay washed from her face. She had to stay in control, couldn't let on. The railroad was one thing but the subway was something else entirely. Her life wouldn't be worth five cents if a subway thug picked up on the attention she was showing the backpack.