“No. But it’s long past time we did.”
“Not yet. Please, not yet.”
“These are very short calls, Doctor. We’re looking at a minimum tracing time of an hour from now. And that’s if the subject keeps making these check-in calls on the half hour. What if he skips another one? What if he skips two?”
God forbid. “Calling the FBI has to be my decision, Harley. We’ve still got some time. There’s nothing the FBI could be doing right now that we can’t. You have all my numbers.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I hope so, too.”
He hung up and sat beside Cheryl on the sofa. She slept with her mouth open, and her snores were as regular as a metronome.
“Wake up,” he said.
She opened her eyes but didn’t turn her head.
“I don’t think Joe would kill Abby or Karen until he knew he had his money. Do you agree?”
She swallowed like someone with a bad case of cottonmouth, then nodded and closed her eyes again. So much for reassurances. Will got up and walked back to the window.
Dawn was coming, a lighter blue hovering in the indigo, far to his left. What he had taken for pale cloud formations was actually the diffuse light of the sun making its way between much darker clouds, and the narrow strip of beach he had watched all night was resolving itself into a thin, rocky breakwater. There was no beach here. The gulf’s waves actually spent themselves against the marina beneath the casino.
“Think with your head, Joe,” he said softly. “Not your heart. Think about the money, not your mother. The money’s what you want. The money…”
FIFTEEN
Karen felt hands on her body and screamed.
“Shut up!” snapped a male voice. “It’s time to get up.”
She blinked her eyes and saw Hickey leaning over her. He was shaking her shoulders. “What happened?” she asked, trying to collect her thoughts.
“You fell asleep.”
Two facts registered with frightful impact. First, Hickey was dressed. Second, daylight was streaming through the bedroom curtains. “God, no,” she breathed, unable to accept the idea that she’d fallen asleep while Abby’s life was in jeopardy. But she had. “What time is it?”
“Time to shower and doll yourself up for the Man. Fix your face.”
Her eyes went to the digital clock on her bedside table. 8:02 A.M. Two hours had passed since she last woke Hickey for a check-in call. What had happened in the interim? If Will had succeeded in finding Abby, Hickey wouldn’t be standing here telling her to shower and get dressed.
“Is it time to get Abby?”
“You mean, get the money. Play your part right, then you get Abby back.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s still asleep. I just talked to Huey.” Hickey turned and walked into the bathroom.
Karen heard the shower go on. If Hickey had just talked to his cousin, that should have given Will’s friend a chance to trace the call.
“Get a move on,” Hickey said, emerging from the bathroom. He was wearing the same khakis and Ralph Lauren Polo shirt he’d worn yesterday. He didn’t look any more natural in the outfit today. “I’m going to make coffee.”
“Could I talk to Abby on the phone? Would you call her for me?”
He shook his head. “You’d only upset her more. You’ll see her soon enough.”
Before he reached the door, Karen said, “May I speak to you for a minute.”
He stopped and turned back to her.
“I know what’s supposed to happen today,” she said. “I know… what you want to do.”
He looked intrigued. “What’s that?”
“You want to hurt Will. Because of your mother.”
His eyes went cold.
“I understand that anger,” she said quickly. “And I’m not going to try to convince you that you’re wrong about Will, even though I believe you are. You think you’re right, and that’s all that matters.”
“You got that right.”
She gathered the full measure of her feelings into her voice. “All I’m asking you to do-no, begging you to do-is to take pity on a five-year-old girl. Use me instead.”
Hickey’s eyes narrowed. “Use you?”
“To punish Will. Kill me instead of Abby.”
Again she saw the disturbance in the dark wells of his eyes, as though eels were roiling in the fluid there.
“You’ve got sand,” he said. “Don’t you, Mom? You really mean that.”
“Yes.” It was the truest thing she had ever said. If by dying she could guarantee that Abby would grow into a woman, marry, and bear her own children-or at least have that chance-then she would die. Gladly. “I think your mother would have done the same for you.”
Hickey’s cheek twitched, but Karen’s honesty seemed to overcome whatever anger she had caused in him. They had entered the realm of truth, and offense was beside the point.
“She would have,” he said. “But you don’t have to. Nobody’s going to die today. Let me tell you a little secret. This is the last job I’ll ever pull. In a few days, I’ll be in Costa Rica. A rich expatriate, like Hemingway and Ronnie Biggs.”
Ronnie Biggs? “Who’s Ronnie Biggs?”
“One of the great train robbers. You know, from England.” Hickey looked toward the window. “Maybe that was before your time. Biggs planned a perfect crime, just like me. And he got away with it, just like me. I’ve got away with it five times. And today is my grand exit.”
Karen felt a sudden ray of hope, like a light blinking on in her soul. Maybe she’d read Hickey wrong. Maybe he thought twenty-four hours of hell was enough punishment. Or perhaps, deep down, he knew that his mother ’s death had not been Will’s fault.
“Take that shower and get some nice clothes on,” he said. “You’ve got to put on a good show for your broker this morning. Davidson gets to his office at eight-thirty. You’ll call him at a quarter to nine. Then we’ll drive over and you’ll sign off on the wire.”
“What exactly am I going to tell him?”
“I’ve got it all laid out for you. Just get in the shower.” He chuckled. “Or do you need me to help you?”
“I can manage.”
“That’s what I figured.”
As she walked toward the bathroom, she spied a small but fresh bloodstain on Hickey’s khakis, just above the knee. “You’d better wrap that leg again,” she told him. “There’s more gauze in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.”
He looked down at the blood and grinned. “Guess I’ve got a new angle on safe sex, don’t I?”
His sudden levity disoriented her. There seemed no reason for it, at least none she could fathom. Maybe the impending collection of the ransom had lightened his mood. His fantasy future in Costa Rica.
She paused by the bathroom door. “Why Costa Rica?”
“No extradition to the U.S.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“I’ve got some land down there. A ranch.”
Hickey looked about as much like a rancher as Redford and Newman had in Butch Cassidy and the Sun-
