“No,” Thomas said. “Adam, you, Savich, and Sherlock hang around there for a while. Try to get a line on this guy. He’s got to be somewhere. He’s got to be traceable. Find him. Oh, and Adam?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Stop beating yourself up. Guilt just slows down your brain. I want that brain of yours sharp. Get it together and find my daughter.”
They finally rang off. Thomas Matlock looked at the phone for a very long time before he slowly eased it back down. Then he leaned his head back against the soft leather of his chair. He closed his eyes to blot out the feeling of helplessness, for just a moment, an instant, but instead, he felt a deep, soul-corroding fear that a man should never have to feel in his damned life. It was fear for his child, and the knowledge that he was helpless to save her.
It was Krimakov, he knew it, deep in his gut, he knew, and they had cremated the body. No, Krimakov wasn’t dead-maybe he’d staged his death, murdered another man who resembled him. He’d somehow found out about Becca and he had begun his reign of terror. There was no doubt at all in Thomas’s mind now. Krimakov, a man who had sworn to cut Thomas’s heart out even if he had to chase Thomas to hell to do it, had his Becca.
He lowered his face in his hands.
20
She was aware of ear-splitting noise-men’s and women’s voices yelling loudly, car tire s screeching, horns blasting, and movement, she could feel the blur of movement everywhere, pounding feet, running fast. She was moving as well, no, she was flying, then she hit hard and the pain ripped through her. She lay on her side, smelling the hot tar of the street, a light overlay of urine, hot and sour, whiffs of food, of too many bodies, feeling the unforgiving cement beneath her. Cement?
People were yelling, coming closer now, and there were men and women shouting, “Stay back! Let us through!”
She tried to open her eyes, but her muscles were too weak, wouldn’t obey her, and the pain was boiling up inside her. She was so very tired, nearly blown under with it. Then she felt a hideously sharp stab of pain somewhere in her body, fierce, unrelenting, and she knew tears were leaking out of her eyes.
“Miss! Can you hear me?”
She felt his hand on her shoulder, felt the sun beating down on her, hot on her bare skin-what bare skin? Her legs were bare, that was it. But he was over her, a shadow blocking the sun.
“Miss? Can you hear me? Are you conscious?”
She opened her eyes then because he sounded so very afraid. “Yes,” she whispered, “I can hear you. I can see you. Not clearly, but I can see you.”
“My God, it’s her! It’s that Matlock woman!”
More shouting, yelling, some curses, and so much heat, the press of bodies, the running thuds of shoes and boots.
A woman lightly tapped her cheek. “Open your eyes for me. Yes, that’s right. Do you know who you are?”
She looked up into Letitia Gordon’s grim, incredulous face.
Maybe there was also a touch of worry in those unforgiving eyes. Becca whispered to that hard face over her, “You’re the cop who hates me. How can you be here, right over me, speaking to me? You’re in New York, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and so are you.”
“No, that’s not possible. I was in Riptide. You know, I never could figure out why you hated me and believed I was a liar.”
The woman’s face contorted. Into anger? What?
“He drugged me,” she whispered, her mouth so dry she nearly swallowed her tongue. “He drugged me. I hurt so much but I just can’t tell where.”
“All right. You’ll be all right. Hey, Dobbson, is the ambulance here yet? Get off your butt, usher them through. Now!”
Letitia Gordon’s face was really close to hers now, her breath minty on her cheek. “We’ll find out what’s happening here, Ms. Matlock. You just rest now.”
She felt hands pulling cloth down over her legs. Why were her legs bare? She realized then that there was pain in her legs. But it wasn’t as bad as the other pain. Where was she? In New York? But that made no sense. Nothing made sense. Her brain nestled back into the shadows. The pain faded away. Becca sighed deeply and closed down.
She heard them speaking, soft, quiet voices not four feet away from her, talking, talking. Then they were closer, much closer, talking above her, which meant what? She opened her eyes. Blinked. She was flat on her back. The people speaking were on the left, and one of the people was Adam.
She wet her lips with her tongue. “Adam?”
He whirled around so fast he nearly lost his balance. Then he was at her side and he lifted her hand and held it hard between his two large ones. She felt the calluses on his palms.
“What’s going on? Where are we? I dreamed I saw Detective Gordon, you know, that cop who hates me?”
“Yes, I know. She left just a little while ago. She’ll be back, but later, when you’ve got it together again. You’re going to be all right, Becca. There’s nothing to worry about. Just take it easy and breathe nice shallow, light breaths. That’s right. Does your head hurt?”
She thought about that. “No, not really, it’s just that I’m all fuzzy. Even you’re kind of fuzzy, Adam. I’m so glad to see you. I thought I was going to die, that I’d never see you again. I couldn’t bear it. Where are we?”
He lightly touched his fingertip to her cheek. “You’re at New York University Hospital. The guy who took you from your bed in Jacob Marley’s house, the guy who was holding you, he shoved you out of his car right in front of One Police Plaza.”
“It was Krimakov?”
“We believe so. At least it’s a strong possibility.”
She said, “I asked him if he was Krimakov but he wouldn’t answer me. We’re in New York City?”
“Yes. You did see Detective Gordon. She was one of the cops who came running. It was early in the afternoon, bunches of people around, lots of cops heading out for lunch. Detective Gordon was there because she had some meetings with the Narcotics Division.”
“My lucky day,” Becca said.
“Damn, I’m sorry, Becca, so sorry. I really fucked up and just look what happened.”
She heard the awful guilt in his voice, the fear, and finally, overlaying all of it, the relief that she was alive. He couldn’t be as relieved as she was. “It’s okay, Adam, really.”
“Hi, Becca.”
She smiled up at Sherlock and Savich, one on either side of her hospital bed. “We’re sure glad to see you.”
“Me, too. I thought you were in Riptide.”
“We can move quickly when we have to,” Sherlock said, lightly patting Becca’s shoulder. “Dillon got a call from Tellie Hawley, the SAC at the New York City office. Tellie told him what happened. We got here three hours later.”
“What happened to him? Did they get him?”
Sherlock said, “Unfortunately, no. There was mass confusion. He shoved you out of the car, then jumped out while the car was still rolling and disappeared into the crowd. The car hit three other people before it smashed into a fire hydrant and drenched another fifty people. It was a zoo. We’ve gotten some descriptions, but no one agrees with anyone else so far.”
He was still out there, free. She felt flattened. “So he got away again,” she said, and wanted to shriek with the helplessness that flooded her.
