Silent Night

that.

Jimmy was evil. He had no conscience, no pity. Face it, Cally told herself fiercely-he won’t hesitate to kill that little boy if it helps his chances to escape.

She turned on the radio to the local news. It was seven-thirty. The breaking news was that the condition of the prison guard who had been shot at Riker’s Island was still critical, but was now stable. The doctors were cautiously optimistic that he would live.

If he lives, Jimmy isn’t facing the death penalty. Cally told herself. They can’t execute him now for the cop’s death three years ago. He’s smart. He won’t take a chance on murdering the little boy once he knows that the guard isn’t going to die. He’ll let him go.

The announcer was saying, “In other news, early this evening, seven-year-old Brian Dornan became separated from his mother on Fifth Avenue. The family is in New York because Brian’s father…”

Frozen in front of the radio, Cally listened as the announcer gave a description of the boy, then said, “Here is a plea from his mother, asking for your help.”

As Cally listened to the low, urgent voice of Brian’s mother, she visualized the young woman who had dropped the wallet. Early thirties at the most. Shiny, dark hair that just reached the collar of her coat. She’d only caught a glimpse of her face, but Cally was sure that she was very pretty. Pretty and well dressed and secure.

Now, listening to her begging for help, Cally put her hands over her ears, then ran to the radio and snapped it off. She tiptoed into the bedroom. Gigi was already asleep, her breathing soft and even, her cheek pillowed in her hand, the other hand holding the ragged baby blanket up to her face.

Cally knelt beside her. I can reach out and touch her, she thought. That woman can’t reach out to her child. What should I do? But if I call the police and Jimmy does harm that little boy, they’ll say it’s my fault, just the way they said that the cop’s death was my fault.

Maybe Jimmy will just leave him somewhere. He promised he would… Even Jimmy wouldn’t hurt a little boy, surely? I’ll just wait and pray, she told herself.

But the prayer she tried to whisper-“Please God, keep little Brian safe”-sounded like a mockery and she did not complete it.

Jimmy had decided that his best bet was to go over the George Washington Bridge to Route 4, then take Route 17 to the New York Thruway. It might be a little farther that way than going up through the Bronx to the Tappan Zee, but every instinct warned him to get out of New York City fast. It was good that the GW had no toll gate at the outgoing side where they might stop him.

Brian looked out the window as they crossed the bridge. He knew they were going over the Hudson River. His mother had cousins who lived in New Jersey, near the bridge. Last summer, when he and Michael spent an extra week with Gran after they came back from Nantucket, they had visited them there.

They were nice. They had kids just about his age, too. Just thinking about them made Brian want to cry. He wished he could open the window and shout, “I’m here. Come get me, please ^{! ”}

He was so hungry, and he really had to go to the bathroom. He looked up timidly. “I… could I please… I mean, I have to go to the bathroom.” Now that he’d said it, he was so afraid the man would refuse that his lip began to quiver. Quickly he bit down on it. He could just hear Michael calling him a crybaby. But even that thought made him feel sad. He wouldn’t even mind seeing Michael right now.

“You gotta pee?”

The man didn’t seem too mad at him. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt him after all. “Uh-huh.”

“Okay. You hungry?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jimmy was starting to feel somewhat secure. They were on Route 4. The traffic was heavy but moving. Nobody was looking for this car. By now, the guy who parked it was probably in his pj’s watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the fortieth time. By tomorrow morning, when he and his wife started to holler about their stolen Toyota, Jimmy would be in Canada with Paige. God he was crazy about her. In his life, she was the closest he had ever come to a sure thing.

Jimmy didn’t want to stop to eat yet. On the other hand, to be on the safe side, he probably should fill up the tank now. There was no telling what hours places would keep on Christmas Eve.

“All right,” he said, “in a couple minutes we’ll get some gas, go to the john, and I’ll buy sodas and potato chips. Later on, we’ll stop at a McDonald’s and get a hamburger. But just remember when we stop for gas, you try to attract attention and…” He pulled the pistol from his jacket, pointed it at Brian, and made a clicking noise. “Bang,” he said.

Brian looked away. They were in the middle lane of the three-lane highway. A sign pointed to the exit marked Forest Avenue. A police car pulled abreast of them, then turned off into the parking lot of a diner. “I won’t talk to anyone. I promise,” he managed to say.

“I promise, Daddy,” Jimmy snapped.

Daddy. Involuntarily, Brian’s hand curled around the St. Christopher medal. He was going to bring this medal to Daddy and then Daddy was going to get better. Then his dad would find this guy, Jimmy, and beat him up for being so mean to his kid. Brian was sure of it. As his fingers traced the raised image of the towering figure carrying the Christ child, he said in a clear voice, “I promise, Daddy.”

10

At lower Manhattan ’s One Police Plaza, the command post for the Jimmy Siddons manhunt, the escalating tension was visibly evident. Everyone was keenly aware that to make good his escape, Siddons would not hesitate to kill again. They also knew he had the weapon smuggled in to him.

“Armed and Dangerous” was the caption under his picture on the flyers that were being distributed all over the city.

“Last time, we got two thousand useless tips, followed up every useless one of them, and the only reason we ever got him behind bars last summer was because he was dumb enough to hold up a gas station in Michigan while a cop was on the premises,” Jack Shore growled to Mort Levy, as in disgust he watched a team of officers answer the flood of calls on the hot line.

Levy nodded absently. “Anything more about Siddons’s girlfriend?” he asked Shore.

An hour ago one of the prisoners in Siddons’s cellblock had told a guard that last month Siddons had bragged about a girlfriend named Paige, who he said was a world-class stripper.

They were trying to trace her in New York, but on the hunch that she might have been involved with Siddons in Michigan, Shore had contacted the authorities there.

“No, nothing so far. Probably another dead end.^”

“Call for you from Detroit, Jack,” a voice bellowed above the din in the room. Both men turned quickly. In two strides Shore was at his desk and had grabbed the phone.

His caller did not waste time. “Stan Logan, Jack. We met when you came out to pick up Siddons last year. I may have something interesting for you.”

“Let’s have it.”

“We never could find out where Siddons was hiding before he tried to pull the holdup here. The tip about Paige may be the answer. We’ve got a rap sheet on a Paige Laronde who calls herself an exotic dancer. She left town two days ago. Told a friend she didn’t know if she’d be back, that she expected to join her boyfriend.”

“Did she say where she was going?” Shore snapped.

“She said California, then Mexico.”

“ California and Mexico! Hell, if he makes it to Mexico we may never find him.”

“Our guys are checking the train and bus stations as well as the airports, to see if we can pick up her trail. We’ll keep you posted,” Logan promised, then added, “We’re about to fax her rap sheet and publicity pictures.