He was passing Lewisohn Hall when he saw the light. A strange blue strobing coming from a doorway on its south side. Was it a cell phone? He slowed the chair and tugged out his earbuds.
“Hey, Dan. C’mere,” called a voice in a loud whisper.
What was up? Dan thought, zooming over. Was it somebody from one of his classes? College high jinks? Maybe it was a pantie raid. He was down with that. What was a pantie raid, anyway?
When he was about five feet away, Dan almost jerked out of his chair as he braked to a dead stop. A guy in a black pea coat and a ski mask stepped out of the doorway, holding a pistol.
What the fuck was this? And where the hell was Security?
He’d heard that Morningside Heights, the neighborhood around the Ivy League school, was notoriously dangerous, but he’d never heard of someone actually being mugged on campus.
“Take it,” Dan said, offering him the iPod. “There’s a hundred and fifty dollars and an American Express card in the wallet in my bag. You can have that, too, buddy.”
“Gee, aren’t you nice?” the man wearing the ski mask said as he grabbed Dan by his jacket and ripped him full out of the chair. The service door beside the man boomed as he kicked it open.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Dan cried as he was carried into the dark building.
The man hoisted him over his knee and violently wrapped his arms, legs, and mouth with masking tape.
“Shhh,” the man said, slinging him over his shoulder. “Quiet down now. No talking in class.”
Chapter 36
“DAD, DON’T TRIP, and whatever you do, please don’t drop it!” Jane called after me as I zombie-shuffled over the curb toward Holy Name’s auditorium, bearing the awkward display boards.
Though the science projects were officially completed, this next stage was like on the Food Network show where the contestants have to move their cakes to the judging table.
Only I had to do it six times, and there would be no chance for a $10,000 check.
Once everything had been safely transported, I started to relax, though when I passed a blood pressure cuff on one of the gymnasium’s many displays, I was tempted to test mine.
I walked Chrissy to her kindergarten class’s door. She pulled away from me as I went to give her a hug.
“Not here, Daddy. They’ll say I’m a baby,” she told me.
But you are a baby, I thought.
“Can’t we at least shake hands, Miss Bennett?” I said. She gave me a quick, businesslike pump and bolted off without looking back. I smiled from the door as she linked arms and began whispering in earnest with one of her classmates. The kids were all growing up so quickly.
Thank God I, miraculously, wasn’t aging with them.
I was coming down the school’s front steps when I noticed that I hadn’t turned on my phone after charging it. No wonder my morning had been filled with peace and quiet.
Uh-oh, I thought. In the past twenty minutes, there had been two messages from my boss and four from Emily Parker. I called Emily back first. She was cuter.
“What now?” I said.
“The Fox Channel. Turn it on.”
I ducked into Holy Name’s rectory, adjoining the school. Mrs. Maynard, the parish secretary, looked up from stuffing envelopes at her desk.
“Father Bennett is still saying the eight o’clock, Mike,” she said to me.
“Is he? Could I borrow your TV?” I said, going into the lounge beside her without waiting for an answer.
“Live Breaking News,” said the text in the corner of the local Fox Channel’s screen. Across the bottom I read, MEDIA BARON’S SON MISSING. There was a shaky aerial shot of a college campus, probably taken from a helicopter. I recognized the granite dome of Columbia ’s Low Memorial Library. Police were laying tape by another campus building while a growing crowd watched.
“No,” I said into my phone as I finally made out what the police were cordoning off. The camera had zoomed in on an empty wheelchair.
I felt like borrowing the rosary beads around the crucifix on the wall beside the TV. He’d taken another kid? This horror was nonstop. Was that the point? Damn it, this was all we needed!
“Where are you now, Emily?” I said as I hit the street.
“Running to the subway. Columbia ’s uptown, right?” she said. “Don’t bother picking me up. I’ll meet you there.”
“WHERE TO, MIKE?” Mary Catherine said as I hopped back into our van. “Starbucks? That diner on Eleventh? No, how about we score a couple of warm H and H bagels and eat them in the park? I’m famished after that all-nighter.”
“Change of plans, Mary Catherine,” I said. “Another kid just got kidnapped. I have to head over to Columbia yesterday.”
Mary Catherine’s eyes lit up as she revved the engine. She was a notorious lead foot.
“Hit the lights, Starsky. I’ll get you there in no time.”
On our way to Columbia, I called Chief Fleming.
“There you are,” she said. “The press found out about it before we did. Are you there yet?”
“Just about.”
“The TV is saying that it’s the media mogul Gordon Hastings’s son, but that hasn’t been confirmed.”
“That’ll be the first thing on my list,” I said as we arrived at the campus.
A mob of students and press had crowded into Low Plaza, at 116th and Broadway. Sirens split the air every few seconds as more and more police cars arrived.
I saw Emily Parker emerge from the subway and called to her.
“Oh, I see,” Mary Catherine said, glaring at her through the windshield. “You didn’t say she was going to be here.”
“Of course,” I said as I got out. “She’s a kidnapping expert with the FBI. This looks like a kidnapping. What is it, Mary?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s none of my business what you do, Mike,” she said as she revved the van and ripped the transmission into gear.
“Or who you do it with. You’re welcome for the ride,” she said as she peeled off.
She whipped a screeching U-ee. I stood gaping as she dropped the hammer down Broadway.
Had she gone completely over the edge? Must have been the science fair, I thought.
“Was that your nanny?” Emily said as she arrived at a jog beside me.
“I’m not really sure,” I said.
Chapter 38
FRANCIS X. MOONEY carried a briefcase and a venti latte as he hurried with the morning rush-hour crowd through Grand Central Terminal. He was approaching the famous clock at the station’s center when he spotted the girl at the end of one of the Metro North ticket lines. He halted, weak suddenly, his heart snaring, unable to breathe.
The milky skin, the long black hair. My God, it was her! he thought, panicking. He’d messed up somehow! Chelsea Skinner was right there. She was still alive!
When the young woman turned to open her purse, the spell was broken. Francis felt a head rush of relief as he realized it was actually a thirty-something businesswoman, much too tall and heavy to be the young woman he had abducted and shot.
What the hell was wrong with him? he thought as he unrooted himself. Things were getting to him. The lack of sleep, the physical exertion. He was losing it, actually hallucinating.
He stopped at a line of Verizon phone kiosks. He removed the vial of Ritalin that sat beside the 9-millimeter Browning at the bottom of his briefcase.
He’d been practically living on amphetamines for the past three weeks, Adderall, meth, bennies. He’d read somewhere that the air force gave its pilots amphetamines to keep them alert on long-range missions.
He was on a mission, too, wasn’t he? The most important mission the world had ever known. He needed anything and everything that could keep him going.
