Michael stepped back, took a moment. “Look, something’s come up. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come back another time.”
The young man stared at the second-floor office for a moment, glanced back at Michael, then at his watch. It looked like Miller Time was coming a bit early. “Sure. No problem. It’s going to take me a few minutes to close the cans and clean the brushes and rollers.”
“I appreciate it,” Michael said. His own voice sounded distant, like he was hearing himself talk through a long tunnel.
Bobby Rollins walked down the stairs, said over his shoulder, “I’ll be out of here in ten minutes.”
Michael stepped back into the second-floor office. There was little furniture, just a desk and a pair of plastic chairs. He paced the room, his mind and heart ablaze with fear. He had to make a move, to do something. But what?
He looked over at the long bookcase against the wall, at the leather-clad books of legal doctrine and opinions. What had always seemed like the solution to everything, things he believed in with all his heart, were now merely paper and ink. There was nothing in any of those books that could help him now.
Before he could decide what to do his cellphone rang. He almost jumped out of his skin. He picked up the phone, looked at the screen.
Private number.
Pulse racing, he flipped open the phone. “This is Michael Roman.”
“How did it go in court?”
It was the man who had his family. The man called Aleks.
“Let me talk to my wife, please.”
“In time. You are at the new office? The office for the planned legal clinic?”
It was a question, Michael thought. Maybe he wasn’t being watched. He peeked out the window. There were cars parked all along Newark Street. All appeared empty.
“Look, I don’t know what you want, or what this is all about,” Michael began, knowing he had to talk. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but he knew he had to try and engage this man on some level. “But you obviously know a lot about me. You know I am an officer of the court. I am friends with the chief of police, the commissioner, many people in the mayor’s office. If this is just about money, tell me. We’ll work this out.”
Michael heard the man take a deep, slow breath. “This is not about money.”
Somehow, the words were even more chilling than Michael expected. “Then what is this about?”
More silence. Then, “You will know very soon.”
Something inside Michael flared red. Before he could stop himself he said, “Not good enough.”
He jammed shut the phone, instantly regretting what he had done. He opened it a second later, but the connection had been broken. It took every ounce of restraint within him not to smash the phone against the wall. He scanned the office frantically, trying to think of what do, how to act at such a moment. He knew that he would never get this minute back, and every wrong move he made at this moment could mean disaster, could mean the lives of his wife and daughters.
Go to the police, Michael.
Just go.
He grabbed his keys, headed for the door.
As he rounded the platform he saw a shadow cross the stairs below. Someone was blocking his way.
It all fell into place. It had been nagging his conscious thought for the past few minutes. Nick St Cyr had told him that Edgar Rollins amp; Son was really only one man, that Edgar Rollins’s son had been killed by a drunk driver in 2007, and the old man didn’t have the heart to take the name off the business. St Cyr had represented the old man in a lawsuit against the drunk driver.
The man who called himself “Bobby Rollins” was not a painter at all. He now stood in front of the door leading to the street. He had shed the painter’s overalls, removed his painter’s cap. He had also removed his latex glove.
He was now pointing a weapon at Michael’s head.
In his other hand was a cellphone. He handed the phone to Michael. For a moment, Michael couldn’t move. But the insanity of the moment soon propelled him forward. He took the phone from the young man, put it to his ear.
“His name is Kolya,” Aleks said. “He does not want to harm you, but will if I give him the order. His father was a corporal in the federal army, and a vicious man. A sociopath by all accounts. I have no reason to believe that the apple has fallen far from the tree. Do you understand this?”
Michael glanced at Kolya. The young man lowered the gun slightly, leaned against the door jamb. Michael took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“I am most pleased to hear this. And, if it puts to bed your fears for the moment, let me say that your wife and your adopted daughters are just fine, and they will remain that way, as long as you do what I say.”
Your adopted daughters, Michael thought.
“May I please speak to my wife?”
“No.”
Michael wondered what had happened to the real painter. He shuddered at the possibilities. He tried to calm himself, to tell himself that there was only one job: getting his family back.
“Are you ready to listen?” Aleksander Savisaar asked.
“Yes,” Michael said. “What do you want me to do?”
THIRTY
Sondra Arsenault stared at the television, an icy hand squeezing her heart. In the past twenty-four hours she had not eaten, had not left the house, except to get the mail, and even then she had all but run back to the front porch and slammed and locked the door, as if being chased by invisible demons. She had not slept a single minute. She had alternated between pots of black coffee, vitamins, scalding showers, and runs on the treadmill. She had taken her blood pressure a dozen times, each time registering a higher reading. She had cleaned the refrigerator. Twice.
Now, watching this news report, she realized her fears had not only been justified, but horribly understated. There was a good chance that, before the day was over, her world would end.
At six o’clock James walked through the door, his briefcase bulging at the seams, a pile of papers under his arm. As one of the newer teachers at Franklin Middle School he not only taught English but also a fourth-grade civics class, and served as the school’s soccer coach. In the past three months he had lost fifteen pounds from his already tall and lanky frame. At fifty-one, he was beginning to walk with an old man’s slouch.
James kissed Sondra on the top of her head – Sondra was nearly a foot shorter, and they had fallen into this routine years earlier – put his case and papers on the dining-room table, and crossed into the kitchen.
The kids were staying with Sondra’s mother in Mamaroneck for a few days, and the house was preternaturally quiet, a state made even more pronounced to Sondra by the savage beating of her heart. She could swear she heard her diastolic pressure rise and fall.
James reached into the cupboard over the stove, took down a bottle of Maker’s Mark. It had become a ritual for him. One drink before retiring to what passed for a den in their three-bedroom colonial. He would mark papers for an hour before dinner, catch up on his e-mail. If something unusual happened at school that day, this would be the ten-minute window in which he told his wife.
This was one of those days.
“You’re not going to believe what happened today,” James began. “One of the kids in my civics class, this big fourth-grader who thought it would be a good idea to bring a pair of chameleons to school -”
“I have something to tell you.”
James stopped pouring his drink, his shoulders sagging. All the dark possibilities of what might be coming his way danced across his face – an affair, a disease, a divorce, something happened to the kids. As long as Sondra had known him, he had never faced adversity well. He was a good husband, a great father, but a warrior he was not. It
