“How nice.”
“I need a southbound express train on the Seventh Avenue Broadway Line.”
“I’ll need $2.25 from you. Or, you can get a seven-day MetroCard, unlimited train and bus, thirty bucks.”
“I’ll take the card.”
The agent took Jeff’s cash, passed him the paper card.
“Slide the black strip through the slots at the turnstile. Follow the signs to the island platform, take a number 2 or 3 and get off at Fourteenth.”
Jeff hurried to the platform. It was crowded with commuters. He went to the midway point, kept close to the tiled wall, avoiding the edge. He’d read news stories about people getting shoved in front of trains.
He could hear the faded rumblings of the other trains at Penn Station. While waiting for his he looked into the black tunnel, the yawning jaws of the abyss, and thought of Sarah and Cole.
White lights shot at him from the darkness, bringing a screeching sound that turned into the hum of an approaching train. Its brakes moaned as it settled into the station. The doors opened and passengers getting off did a sidestep shuffle with those getting on.
Jeff found a seat between a woman reading the
The doors closed, the train jerked, tilting everyone, then gathered speed. The platform’s brightness gave way to the drab walls racing by. As Jeff assessed the other passengers he wrestled with more questions.
At one end, a group of teenagers, mostly girls, yakked at high speed while hypertexting. Business types in suits, their noses in cell phones or tablets, were sprinkled throughout the car, along with tradesmen in paint-stained jeans. Other riders slouched over packs, eyes heavy, nodding near sleep.
As the train rocked and yawed, the lights of local stations strobed and Jeff’s mind flashed with memories.
The train lumbered to a stop at the Fourteenth Street station and the doors opened. Jeff took the stairs two at a time, surfacing to morning in Chelsea and the West Village.
Standing at West Fourteenth Street and Seventh Avenue, with time slipping by, he scanned the streets for any hint of Sarah, Cole or his next move. He looked at the deli, the flower shop, the grocery store. He searched the area’s tree-lined sections that fronted a pizza place, a smoke shop, shoe repair outlet, nail salon, dress store, check-cashing store. As he glanced up at the red-and-gray stone tenement buildings rising over the neighborhood, his fear mounted.
He looked at the traffic, at the people coming and going as if today was normal.
He stared at the phone the killers had put in his hand, attempted to redial but got a busy signal. The knot in his gut tightened and he wanted to scream at them.
He was done waiting for them to call and took out his personal cell phone from his pocket, turned it on and redialed.
It was futile.
Another busy signal.
When he ended the call his personal cell phone rang in his hand.
Hope surging, he answered without checking the number.
“Jeff, this is Clay at the shop.”
“Clay.”
“Listen, son, we’re just hearing the news here in town about Sarah and Cole. Is it true?”
“Yes. They’re lost.”
“I don’t understand. What happened?”
“Clay, I have to go.”
“But is there anything we can do to help?”
The kidnapper’s phone began ringing.
“Clay, thanks.”
Jeff ended his call and answered the ringing phone.
“State your location,” the robotic voice demanded.
“West Fourteenth Street and Seventh Avenue.”
“Get back on the subway at Fourteenth. Take a number 1 local train north to the Eighteenth Street station. Get off and start walking east on West Eighteenth Street into the three hundreds. Don’t stop.”
“Let me speak to my wife and son now!”
The caller hung up.
Jeff rushed down the subway stairs, swiped his MetroCard, followed the signs to the local platform and boarded a northbound number 1 train. Eighteenth Street was the next stop, so he remained standing.
As the train jerked forward and gathered speed, he made a rough count of the other passengers in the car. About a dozen. He kept close watch until the train decelerated and clattered to a halt at the Eighteenth Street platform.
A few people got off, a few got on. He worked his way around them and rushed to the stairs and surfaced. He followed the caller’s instructions and headed east on West Eighteenth Street.
Parked cars lined both sides of the narrow street.
Traffic appeared nonexistent, as if this part of Manhattan had been abandoned. He walked steadily, taking inventory of the stone buildings, small walk-up apartment blocks, the art deco-facade of a health center, a few arching trees, the plywood-sheltered scaffolding of segments under renovation and businesses shuttered with roll- up steel doors.
Something was catching up to him.
A tidal wave of emotion and fear.
His anger mounting, his heart pounded in time with each hurried step. He was fighting his urge to cry out for Sarah and Cole when he heard the tick and purr of an engine.
A van was rolling along the street behind him.
He dismissed it as a delivery truck.
But it didn’t pass him. Instead, it slowed, matching his speed.
Jeff took a quick look: a white GMC cargo, with dark windows up front. No commercial markings on the panels. It was a Savana, maybe 2010, 2011, in good shape.
A bearded man wearing a ball cap and dark glasses was in the passenger seat with his window all the way down.
“Excuse me, Mr. Griffin? We need you to step over to the van.” The man tapped a leather wallet to his door frame. A badge glinted.
“No, you guys take off, I’m handling this!”
The van halted in protest.
“Get over here! We’ve got something to show you!”
Jeff stopped, glanced up and down the street, then, as he neared the van, the side door swung open and his knees nearly buckled.
It was Sarah.
