Before he can finish the car door is yanked open and the big trooper “assists” Jack from the vehicle. “Mr. Delancey? You’ll have to come with me.”
“What’s the charge?”
“The charge is, get in the cruiser and don’t speak until spoken to.”
“Like that, huh?”
“Captain Tolliver wants a word.”
As he’s being jammed into the cruiser Jack catches my eye and croaks out, “Don’t hesitate, go!”
And then the cruiser screeches down the public alley, leading our lead investigator away.
Let me tell you, driving a Lincoln Town Car is like piloting a boat. Not that I’ve ever piloted a boat of any kind, but you get the idea. Big and wide and gliding along the highway like a battleship with an uncertain navigator at the wheel. There’d been such urgency in Jack’s request-right away, no delay, don’t hesitate-that I resisted the temptation to return to boss lady for a consultation. She’ll know soon enough and time is of the essence. By the time the cruiser clears the alley I’m headed in the opposite direction, doubling back through a few side streets, and then slipping onto Storrow Drive with fingers crossed, hoping I haven’t picked up a tail.
As to the precise rendezvous location, all I know is that Taylor Gatling’s company is headquartered at the Pease International Tradeport. That’s where Milton Bean had been threatened with torture so it makes sense that Shane would be checking out Pease in his hunt for Joey Keener. And if he’s doing so in the company of the woman who had originally helped kidnap the boy, or at the very least helped care for him, then he-they, Shane and his accomplice-quite possibly have current information on the boy’s whereabouts.
Fortunately for me, Jack’s ride has a built-in GPS. A female-sounding navigator who rather snippily directs me to go north on Route 95, which I do manage, although not as efficiently as Miss Snippy would have liked. Using the cruise control-the boat comes with every option-I keep it to just a teensy bit over the maximum speed limit, so as not to attract attention from the highway patrol, and settle in for the fifty-minute journey.
All the while wondering if I’m doing the right thing. Not so much worried about legal repercussions-there’s always hope that Dane can sort those out-but doing the right thing for Joey. Maybe we’re wrong about the FBI being compromised and we should bring them in, use all that manpower and tactical advantage. Naomi could be wrong about that, we all could, but it’s not my call. So I decide to leave the option to boss lady, who is no doubt already factoring in what happened to Jack, considering all the possibilities. Possibilities I probably can’t even imagine, not being a genius with a brain that recalls every little thing.
It boils down to this. Jack Delancey thinks it’s important that Shane be supplied with a weapon. And that, ultimately, is good enough for me.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The birds are going nuts, making so much noise I feel it like a pressure in my ears. All of them shrieking,
The navigator turns out to be useful but limited. It guides me to the Tradeport, no problem, but for whatever reason it can’t seem to come up with Gatling Security Group World Headquarters. Maybe it’s been blocked or shielded, like other high-value security targets. Or maybe I just failed to find the right screen on the smug little GPS. Whatever, in the end all I’ve got to guide me is my recollection of Jack’s description of where he was when he rescued Milton Bean. Something about a nature trail running alongside a huge airfield. The Tradeport is, after all, built around a former U.S. Air Force base with a runway big enough to land the space shuttle-if we still had one, that is.
I located the runway-really, it can’t be missed-and by following the signs found a trail marked, no surprise, Nature Trail. The only trouble, as soon as I ventured away from the paved road I somehow misplaced the trail part. The vast expanse of the airfield is in sight, just beyond the thick leaves, but I’m left thrashing around in the thick underbrush, trying not to panic because the birds, damn their little shrieking beaks, are going to give me away.
And that, of course, is exactly when my cell phone starts twittering. I’d turned it back on when I left the car, hoping Naomi will text me with something useful, but swear to the god of SIM cards that I left it on vibrate. Honestly, the rotten little Nokia seems to have a life of its own. I fumble around in my purse, nearly dumping out the Smith amp; Wesson, and flip open the phone. It is, as I expected and hoped, Naomi Nantz herself.
The message is succinct, and maddening, because she doesn’t wait for my reply.
“I’ll make this quick,” she says. “Jack is on the way. He says don’t do anything foolish, wait for backup. And turn off your phone. If I can see you, they can, too.”
Then she hangs up. What I want to do is throw the phone all the way back to Boston. Instead I turn it off and remove the battery for good measure. The idea that I might be a little green blip on somebody’s screen is unnerving to say the least.
I’m thinking, come on, Jack. Hurry. I messed up bad. I can’t find Shane, hell, I can’t even find myself. Rescue me and I’ll let you call me “doll” anytime you like.
That’s when a very large hand clamps over my mouth and drags me down into the bushes.
Randall Shane, big as life. Bigger.
“Who the hell are you?” he wants to know, his voice a husky whisper. And then he relaxes his grip. “Oh yeah, I remember you from the hospital.”
I explain about Jack getting delayed and sending me ahead with a gun.
“Have you got it?”
“In my purse.”
The big guy slips the Airweight and ammo out of my purse, but doesn’t seem overly enthusiastic.
“You wanted a bigger gun?” I ask.
“No. I wanted Jack Delancey.”
“Sorry, it’s the best we could do.”
He nods grimly and whispers, “Kathy? Come on out.”
His accomplice emerges from the ferns, smeared with dirt and looking not at all happy to make my acquaintance. I barely recognize her as the woman on the bridge with Joey. She’s lost weight-she can’t be a hundred pounds soaking wet-and her eyes have sunk back in her skull. Haunted eyes that burn with a feverish intensity.
“You trust her?” she hisses.
Shane shrugs and says, “Yeah, I guess.”
I’m tempted to make a wisecrack about the less-than-enthusiastic endorsement, but they both look so exhausted, so anxious and on edge that I can’t bring myself to say anything but, “How can I help?”
“You know any first aid?” he wants to know. “Kathy has a bad burn that needs attending to.”
“Forget it,” his scrawny little companion says. “Not until we find Joey.”
The burn on her arm is festering. The pain must be unbearable-the top layer of skin has burned away from wrist to elbow-but she makes no complaint. When I mention that, knowing Jack, the Town Car might have a kit in the trunk, she adamantly refuses to accompany me back to the vehicle. “Not until we find Joey,” she insists, repeating her mantra.
“She scratched her arm, made it worse,” Shane says.
The remark seems to make her eyes shine even more brightly. “It worked, didn’t it?” she says. “That’s what counts.”
He brings me up to speed. Explains how Kathy was made to think she was working with Shane, protecting
