Her mouth and hands were bound with duct tape.
Two men on either side of her wore distorted white ghost masks. One of the men was pointing a gun at him. The other was holding a knife to Sarah’s throat.
Her eyes were huge with terror as they found Jeff’s.
24
At the Crime Center, analyst Renee Abbott reached for her World’s Greatest Mom mug, took another hit of strong coffee and whispered another prayer.
It’d been a long time-
“I still got nothing, Artie,” she said into her headset’s microphone.
“Yeah, not a bleep, nada,” Artie said. “He must have it off.”
“The leads said Griffin picked up a new cell at the gift shop on West Thirtieth-the suspects left it for him.”
“Yeah, these guys are smart. We can’t find him,” Artie said.
“This is not good. I don’t like it.”
As they spoke, Renee clicked through the new images of Griffin that had been captured by the security cameras at the gift shop. They’d been circulated to everyone operational. These pictures were less than an hour old. Renee zoomed in on Griffin’s face. A handsome, decent-looking guy, under colossal stress, she thought, going to the photos of his wife, Sarah, and son, Cole.
“Heads up.” Artie’s voice betrayed an urgent tone.
Renee’s monitor showed a blip on the map.
“Is that him, Artie, at West Fourteenth and Seventh Avenue?”
“Bingo. He’s back on the personal. He tried a call, now he’s taking a call from a Montana number. I’ll get back to you. I’ve got to advise the leads. We’re so close now.”
Renee checked satellite mapping, geocodes and alerted people in the sector. She’d barely finished doing that when Artie came back on.
“He’s on the move again. Going north, signal strength is spotty,” he said. “I think he’s on the Seventh Avenue Line going north. Yes, it was the subway. He’s already off at Eighteenth. Signal is good.”
“I can see he’s moving,” Renee said. “I’ll get units rolling, stand by.”
Detectives Joe Finnie and Sean Maynard were fresh this morning. First shift on after a few days off, following five nights on.
They’d closed a carjacking beef and an assault in Clement Clarke Park. They were heading out of the Tenth Precinct for a follow-up interview on the assault when their lieutenant reassigned them to the kidnapping. That was just under an hour ago.
“The mom’s a looker. Nice-looking family.” Maynard was behind the wheel of their unmarked unit. He’d glanced again at the photos on the screen of his partner’s netbook. “What do you think?”
“I always wanted to go to Montana,” Finnie said.
“They’ve been circulating this stuff for nearly an hour now. It’s a needle-in-a-haystack thing.” Maynard bit into a bagel as he drove. “What are the odds we’ll see action on this down here, Fin?”
Finnie studied updates on his small computer.
“Better than you think. Turn this thing around.”
“Why?”
“They got something on our guy, on West Eighteenth and Seventh. We’re almost there. No lights, no siren.”
Finnie’s cell phone rang. It was Renee Abbott at the Real Time Crime Center, confirming that their unit was live and unmarked in the hot zone.
“We are,” Finnie said, “and I’ve got your photos and description of the subject.”
“He’s proceeding eastbound on West Eighteenth Street, in the three hundred block. By your twenty, you should have a visual.”
Maynard wheeled their unmarked Crown Victoria onto West Eighteenth Street. They slowed to a near-stop, creeping along in the three hundred block, scrutinizing the sidewalks of the narrow street.
Traffic was nil.
All seemed sleepy here. A van was stopped at the end of the street.
“Who’s that?” Maynard indicated a man approaching the van.
Finnie took small binoculars from the console. He focused on the man and van down the street. He glanced at the photos from the gift shop. Shirt color, pants, body build, all matched.
“That’s him, Sean.” Finnie grabbed his phone, which was still open to Renee at the center. “We’ve got him, please advise?”
25
Jeff froze.
Time stood still.
In one surreal instant he inhaled every detail he could.
The van’s rear had no seats, or windows. Sarah was sitting on the carpeted floor between two masked captors near the rear doors with her back against the wall on the driver’s side.
The man in the ball cap and dark glasses in the passenger seat repeated his order.
“Get in!”
Jeff hesitated, wishing he could reach inside and pull Sarah out.
He considered calling 9-1-1 or Cordelli, anybody, but there was no time. The driver had glanced nervously at his side-view mirror. Jeff glimpsed a sedan approaching slowly from some distance behind them. The street was too narrow for it to pass. They’d soon be blocking its path.
“Get in now!”
As Jeff stepped up into the van, one of the masked men tucked his gun, grabbed Jeff’s shirt and yanked him inside before pulling the door shut.
The van proceeded down the street.
Jeff got on his knees opposite Sarah.
She was gaunt. Fear had gouged stress lines into her face. It shone with sweat, snot and tears.
“Where’s Cole?” Jeff asked.
His question triggered an explosion of muffled crying and as he moved to comfort Sarah the gunman shoved him down, searched him for weapons, found none, but seized his phones and passed them forward. The gunman moved back beside Sarah and held Jeff at gunpoint.
“Where is our property?” the man in the passenger seat asked.
Keeping half a block behind the van, Detectives Finnie and Maynard followed in their unmarked Ford sedan for the next few moments.
They’d already sent in the van’s license plate.
