In all of this Monica Bevins remains strangely reticent. Confronted with Naomi’s conclusion that Taylor Gatling is somehow deeply involved, she merely grunts. More of a snort, really. As if she has knowledge she can’t share, or doesn’t fully understand herself. “Obviously he’ll be attempting to find the missing child,” she says. “That’s what Shane does. My question is, why now?”
“We got pictures of a female leaving the hospital in his company,” the Boston detective points out.
Bevins stirs herself to ask, “Have you identified her?”
“Not yet, but we will.”
The fact that the FBI assistant director doesn’t spill the beans-she has to suspect, as we do, that the female in question is Kathleen Mancero-is telling. Whatever Bevins is up to, it doesn’t involve sharing with Boston or Cambridge police, both of whom are keenly interested in apprehending Randall Shane, the sooner the better. But when the moment comes, when they all get up to leave and she could make an excuse to stay behind, she doesn’t. All she does is give Naomi a loaded glance and say, “It’s out of my hands, do you understand?”
When the group of angry law enforcement types are finally out the door, I bolt it behind them and hurry back to the command center, where the door has been unlocked and activities have already resumed. “What did she mean by that?” I demand of boss lady. “That you would understand?”
Naomi shrugs. “I think I do. Voices have spoken, orders have been given or alluded to, and the result is that she can’t touch Mr. Gatling. As we already knew, he has friends in very high places.”
“Friends who’ll let him get away with kidnapping a child?”
She shrugs, as if to say that is the way of the world. “Friends who have made fortunes hitching themselves to his star. Friends who must be aware that as a civilian he made decisions to target and kill suspects in Afghanistan. At least one of those targets turned out to be a school, for children most likely, and yet the investigation was squelched and his contract was not terminated.”
“
“Obviously the life of one particular child has not made a difference, in respect to those covering for Gatling and his enterprise. They have already established themselves as men lacking in conscience or they wouldn’t have allied themselves with him. That much must be obvious by now to you. Shall we all get back to work?”
There’s something in her manner that warns me off from any further discussion. Naomi Nantz is truly angry, and when that happens I’ve found from past experience that it’s best to bury the wisecracks and let her concentrate on the case. She takes her seat, but does not turn immediately to the screens where Teddy is already hard at work, fingers flying over the keyboards like some mad composer. “Jack? Your impressions?”
Jack Delancey has slumped into a seat looking thoroughly discouraged. “The shit has hit the fan. If Mancero has taken the risk of approaching Shane in the hospital, something must have gone badly wrong.”
“Do we know it’s her?”
“Not yet. They’ve confiscated the data from the hospital surveillance cameras. But who else could it be?”
“No other confederates leap to mind?”
“No. And why would he call in someone? It’s not like he needed help overpowering the guard. No, the only thing that makes sense is that something happened, she got separated from the kid or whatever and she went to Shane for help.”
“And in your estimation he would render assistance, even if it put him at legal peril?”
“Are you kidding? The guy would walk through fire.”
She nods, satisfied. “Then we agree. He’ll be going after Mr. Gatling.”
Jack says, “Absolutely. I should head back up to Cow Hampshire, stake out this scumbag Gatling. See if Shane has the same idea.”
“Not tonight,” Naomi says, very firmly. “Need I remind you that we are, all of us, under deep surveillance? They expect you to lead them to Shane. We must confound that expectation, however much we might want to assist our friend. He will contact us when he sees fit. Until then, I suggest we stand down and let him do his thing. With the exception of Teddy, who will maintain vigil in the event Shane makes contact, I advise you all to get some sleep. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a big day.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
“I’m worried about the gun,” Kathy Mancero says, staring at the motel room door. “Not having one, I mean.”
Shane, his sore and swollen ankle wrapped in hot towels, considers the problem. “Guns can be useful,” he says. “If we need one, we’ll get one.”
“How?”
“Leave that to me. First things first.”
There’s no need to be more specific than that. They both know that their first and only task is finding Joey. Shane notes that Kathy Mancero’s need is so deep in this regard that it radiates from her body like a fever. She has described the circumstances of her separation from the boy in very nearly the same terms that she used when speaking about her missing daughter, as if some vital part of her soul has been freshly amputated. Recounting how she had fled the basement with Joey and had then been knocked down by a massive electrical shock that had left flash-point burns in her left arm. She describes the sensation of falling into unconsciousness as dying, and how when she came back to life, hours later, she was somehow under a thick, bushy hedge at the corner of the property, with no memory of how she got there. If she had crawled to the hiding place, she has no memory of it.
“All I remember is this vague sense of a child lying next to me, breathing into my face and whispering, ‘Mommy, Mommy, wake up.’”
In her semiconscious state Kathy had believed it was her daughter, come to take her to heaven at last. Had longed for it to be so. But then she heard Joey calling out, from another corner of the property, and knew in her heart that his had been the voice begging her to wake up. She was injured but alive.
“He must have helped me get behind the hedges, out of sight. I can’t remember that part. All I know is, I woke up to the sound of Joey’s voice, from the opposite side of the yard. I almost called out to him. But something stopped me. Some instinct, I guess, because I certainly wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Whatever made her hesitate, silence had saved her. From her hiding place under the hedges she had seen Kidder stagger by-it was daybreak, how had that happened? — and then she heard him howl in rage, a horrible animal sound, and she had tried to crawl out, anything to distract him from Joey. Because she knew with a terrible sickening thud exactly what the boy was doing. By calling out he was offering himself, saving her from Kidder, like a little bird drawing a predator away from the nest.
“It was almost as bad as Stacy dying, watching that monster grab Joey and take him back into the house and shut the door behind him.”
She had stayed there under the hedge, regaining her strength, and had managed to crawl to one of the windows, but could see nothing of Kidder or the boy-he must have taken him back down into the basement. Scrabbling back under the hedge she’d rooted around in the dirt until she uncovered a fist-size rock.
“Killing size,” she tells Shane, with no inflection in her voice. “I intended to kill him when I got the chance, which is what I should have done in the first place, to protect Joey.”
Except it hadn’t happened that way. As she waited, poised to strike, a van had pulled into the driveway and Kidder had come out through the garage and she was powerless to act, all she could do was watch and listen as Kidder and a younger man had argued, and then the younger man had gone into the house and emerged with Joey, the precious child unconscious but with his little hands and feet twitching in a way that convinced her he was still alive, and the new man had put the boy into the van and driven away.
Her eyes burning with the intensity of her need, Kathy says, “That’s when I put the license plate number on my arm. Because I might forget it, and then we’d never find Joey.”
Shane winces, aware that she scratched the tag number directly into the burned area on her arm, where it
