Then he focused on one number, at the bottom of the bill. It was a collect call charge, from a South Portland prefix, dated a week and a half ago at 10:17 p.m. Someone had called collect and Marilyn Dukoff had accepted the charges.
“This could be something,” Sam noted. “I need the location of this number.”
“We can call the operator from my car,” said Gillis. “but I don’t know what it’s going to get you.”
“A hunch. That’s what I’m going on,” Sam admitted.
Back in Gillis’s car, Sam called the Directory Assistance supervisor.
After checking her computer, she confirmed it was a pay phone. “It’s near the corner of Calderwood and Hardwick, in South Portland.”
“Isn’t there a gas station on that corner?” asked Sam. “I seem to remember one there.”
“There may be, Detective. I can’t tell you for certain.”
Sam hung up and reached for the South Portland map. Under the dome light, he pinpointed the location of the pay phone. “Here it is,” he said to Gillis.
“There’s just some industrial buildings out there.”
“Yeah, which makes a collect call at 10:17 p.m. all the more interesting.”
“Could’ve been anyone calling her. Friends, family. For all we know—”
“It was Spectre,” Sam said. His head jerked up in sudden excitement. “South Portland. Let’s go.”
“What?”
Sam thrust the map toward Gillis. “Here’s Bickford Street. A squad car was dispatched there at 12:10. And here’s Calderwood and Hardwick. The squad car would’ve gone right through this area.”
“You think Spectre’s holed up around there?”
Sam scrawled a circle on the map, a three-block radius around Calderwood and Hardwick. “He’s here. He’s got to be around here.”
Gillis started the car. “I think our haystack just got a hell of a lot smaller.”
Twenty minutes later, they were at the corner of Hardwick and Calderwood. There was, indeed, a gas station there, but it had been closed down and a For Sale—Commercial Property sign was posted in the scraggly strip of a garden near the road. Sam and Gillis sat in their idling car for a moment, scanning the street. There was no other traffic in sight.
Gillis began to drive up Hardwick. The neighborhood was mostly industrial. Vacant lots, a boating supply outlet. A lumber wholesaler. A furniture maker. Everything was closed for the night, the parking lots empty, the buildings dark. They turned onto Calderwood.
A few hundred yards later, Sam spotted the light. It was faint, no more than a yellowish glow from a small window—the only window in the building. As they pulled closer, Gillis cut his headlights. They stopped half a block away.
“It’s the old Stimson warehouse,” said Sam.
“No cars in the lot,” Gillis noted. “But it looks like someone’s home.”
“Didn’t the Stimson cannery close down last year?”
Sam didn’t answer; he was already stepping out of the car.
“Hey!” whispered Gillis. “Shouldn’t we call for backup?”
“You call. I’m checking it out.”
“Sam!” Gillis hissed. “Sam!”
Adrenaline pumping, Sam ignored his partner’s warnings and started toward the warehouse. The darkness was in his favor; whoever was inside wouldn’t be able to spot his approach. Through the cracks in the truck bay doors, he saw more light, vertical slivers of yellow.
He circled the building, but spotted no ground floor windows, no way to look inside. There was a back door and a front door, but both were locked.
At the front of the building, he met up with Gillis.
“Backup’s on the way,” Gillis informed him.
“I have to get in there.”
“We don’t know what we’ll find in there—” Gillis suddenly paused and glanced at his car.
The phone was ringing.
Both men scurried back to answer it.
Sam grabbed the receiver. “Navarro here.”
“Detective Navarro,” said the police operator. “We have an outside phone call for you. The man says it’s urgent. I’ll put it through.”
There was a pause, a few clicks, and then a man’s voice said, “I’m so glad to reach you, Detective. This car phone of yours is coming in handy.”
“Spectre?”
“I’d like to issue a personal invitation, Detective. To you and you alone. A reunion, with a certain someone who’s right here beside me.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s perfectly fine.” Spectre paused and added with a soft tone of threat. “For the moment.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing at all. I’d just like you to come and take Miss Cormier off my hands. She’s becoming an inconvenience. And I have other places to go to.”
“Where is she?”
“I’ll give you a clue. Herring.”
“What?”
“Maybe the name Stimson rings a bell? You can look up the address. Sorry I won’t be here to greet you, but I really must be going.”
* * *
SPECTRE HUNG UP the phone and smiled at Nina. “Time for me to go. Lover boy should be here any minute.” He picked up his toolbox and set it in the car, which he’d driven through the loading bay to keep it out of sight.
He’s leaving, she thought. Leaving me as bait for the trap.
It was cool in the warehouse, but she felt a drop of sweat slide down her temple as she watched Spectre reach down for the radio transmitter. All he had to do was flick one switch on that radio device, and the bomb would be armed, the countdown started.
Ten minutes later, it would explode.
Her heart gave a painful thud as she saw him reach for the radio switch. Then he smiled at her.
“Not yet,” he said. “I wouldn’t want things to happen prematurely.”
Turning, he walked toward the truck bay door. He gave Nina a farewell salute. “Say goodbye to Navarro for me. Tell him I’m so sorry to miss the big kaboom.” He unlatched the bay door and gave the handle a yank. It slid up with the sound of grating metal. It was almost open when Spectre suddenly froze.
Right in front of him, a pair of headlights came on.
“Freeze, Spectre!” came a command from somewhere in the darkness. “Hands over your head!”
Sam, thought Nina. You found me….
“Hands up!” yelled Sam. “Do it!”
Silhouetted against the headlights, Spectre seemed to hesitate for a few seconds. Then, slowly, he raised his hands over his head.
He was still holding the transmitter.
“Sam!” cried Nina. “There’s a bomb! He’s got a transmitter!”
“Put it down,” Sam ordered. “Put it down or I shoot!”
“Certainly,” agreed Spectre. Slowly he dropped to a crouch and lowered the transmitter toward the floor. But as he lay it down, there was a distinct click that echoed through the warehouse.
My God, he’s armed the bomb, thought Nina.
“Better run,” said Spectre. And he dived sideways, toward a stack of crates.
He wasn’t fast enough. In the next instant, Sam squeezed off two shots. Both bullets found their target.
Spectre seemed to stumble. He dropped to his knees and began to crawl forward, but his limbs were moving drunkenly, like a swimmer trying to paddle across land. He was making gurgling sounds now, gasping out curses with his last few breaths.
“Dead,” wheezed Spectre, and it was almost a laugh. “You’re all dead….”
Sam stepped over Spectre’s motionless body and started straight toward Nina.
“No!” she cried. “Stay away!”
He stopped dead, staring at her with a look of bewilderment. “What is it?”
“He’s wired a bomb to my chair,” sobbed Nina. “If you try to cut me loose it’ll go off!”
At once Sam’s gaze shot to the coils of wire ringing her chair, then followed the trail of wire t
o the warehouse wall, to the first bundle of dynamite, lying in plain view.
“He has eighteen sticks planted all around the building,” she said. “Three are under my chair. It’s set to go off in ten minutes. Less, now.”
Their gazes met. And in that one glance she saw his look of panic. It was quickly suppressed. He stepped across the wire and crouched by her chair.
“I’m getting you out of here,” he vowed.
“There’s not enough time!”
“Ten minutes?” He gave a terse laugh. “That’s loads of time.” He knelt down and peered under the seat. He didn’t say a thing, but when he rose again, his expression was grim. He turned and called, “Gillis?”
“Right here,” Gillis answered, stepping gingerly over the wires. “I got the toolbox. What do we have?”
“Three sticks under the chair, and a digital timer.” Sam gently slid out the timing device, bristling with wires, and set it carefully on the floor. “It looks like a simple series-parallel circuit. I’ll need time to analyze it.”
“How long do we have?”
“Eight minutes and forty-five seconds and counting.”
Gillis cursed. “No time to get the bomb truck.”
A wail of a siren suddenly cut through the night. Two police cruisers pulled up outside the bay door.
“Backup’s here,” Gillis said. He hurried over to the doors, waving at the other cops. “Stay back!” he yelled. “We got a bomb in here! I want a perimeter evac now! And get an ambulance here on standby.”
I won’t need an ambulance, thought Nina. If this bomb goes off, there’ll be nothing left of me to pick up.
She tried to calm her racing heart, tried to stop her slide toward hysteria, but sheer terror was making it hard for her to breathe. There was nothing she could do to save herself. Her wrists were tightly bound; so were her ankles. If she so much as shifted too far in her chair, the bomb could be triggered.
It was all up to Sam.
Fourteen
Sam’s jaw was taut as he studied the tangle of wires and circuitry. There were so many wires! It would take an hour just to sort them all out. But all they had were minutes. Though he didn’t say a word, she could read the urgency in his face, could see the first droplets of sweat forming on his forehead.
Gillis returned to his partner’s side. “I checked the perimeter. Spectre’s got the building wired with fifteen or more sticks. No other action fuses as far as I can see. The brain to this whole device is right there in your hands.”
“It’s too easy,” muttered Sam, scanning the circuitry. “He wants me to cut this wire.”
“Could it be a double feint? He knew we’d be suspicious. So he made it simple on purpose—just to throw us?”
Sam swallowed. “This looks like the arming switch right here. But over here, he’s got the cover soldered shut. He could have a completely different switch inside. Magnetic reed or a Castle-Robins device. If I pry off that cap, it could fire.”
Gillis glanced at the digital timer. “Five minutes left.”
“I know, I know.” Sam’s voice was hoarse with tension, but his hands were absolutely steady as he traced the circuitry. One tug on the wrong wire, and all three of them could be instantly vaporized.
Outside, more sirens whined to a stop. Nina could hear voices, the sounds of confusion.
But inside, there was silence.
Sam took a breath and glanced up at her. “You okay?”
She gave a tense nod. And she saw, in his face, the first glimpse of panic. He won’t figure this out in time, and he knows it.
This was just what Spectre had planned. The hopeless dilemma. The fatal choice. Which wire to cut? One? None? Does he gamble with his own life? Or does he make the rational choice to abandon the building—and her?
She knew the choice he would make. She could see it in his eyes.
They were both going to die.
“Two and a half minutes,” said Gillis.
“Go on, get out of here,” Sam ordered.
“You need an extra pair of hands.”
“And your kids need a father. Get the hell out.”
Gillis didn’t budge.
Sam picked up the wire cutters and isolated a white wire.
“You’re guessing, Sam. You don’t know.”
“Instinct, buddy. I’ve always had good instincts. Better leave. We’re down to two minutes. And you’re not doing me any good.”
Gillis rose to his feet, but lingered there, torn between leaving and staying. “Sam—”
“Move.”
Gillis said, softly, “I’ll have a bottle of Scotch waiting for you, buddy.”
“You do that. Now get out of here.”
Without another word, Gillis left the building.
Only Sam and Nina remained. He doesn’t have to stay, she thought. He doesn’t have to die.
“Sam,” she whispered.
He didn’t seem to hear her; he was concentrating too hard on the circuit board, his wire cutters hovering between a life-and-death choice.
“Leave, Sam,” she begged.
“This is my job, Nina.”
“It’s not your job to die!”
“We’re not going to die.”
“You’re right. We aren’t. You aren’t. If you leave now—”
“I’m not leaving. You understand? I’m not.” His gaze rose to meet hers. And she saw, in those steady eyes, that he had made up his mind. He’d made the choice to live—or die—with her. This was not the cop looking at her, but the man who loved her. The man she loved.
She felt tears trickle down her face. Only then did she realize she was crying.
“We’re down to a minute. I’m going to make a guess here,” he said. “If I’m right, cutting this wire should do the trick. If I’m wrong…” He let out a breath. “We’ll know pretty quick one way or the other.” He slipped the teeth of the cutter around the white wire. “Okay, I’m going with this one.”
“Wait.”
“What is it?”
“When Spectre was putting it together, he soldered a white wire to a red one, then he covered it all up with green tape. Does that make a difference?”
Sam stared down at the wire he’d been about to cut. “It does,” he said softly. “It makes a hell of a lot of difference.”
“Sam!” came Gillis’s shout through a megaphone. “You’ve got ten seconds left!”
Ten seconds to run.
Sam didn’t run. He moved the wire cutter to a black wire and positioned the jaws to cut. Then he stopped and looked up at Nina.
They stared at each other one last time.
“I love you,” he said.
She nodded, the tears streaming down her face. “I love you too,” she whispered.
Their gazes remained locked, unwavering, as he slowly closed the cutter over the wire. Even as the jaws came together, even as the teeth bit into the plastic coating, Sam was looking at her, and she at him.
The wire snapped in two.
For a moment neither one of them moved. They were still frozen in place, still paralyzed by the certainty of death.
Then, outside, Gillis yelled, “Sam? You’re past countdown! Sam!”
All at once, Sam was cutting the bonds from her hands, her ankles. She was too numb to stand, but she didn’t need to. He gathered her up into his arms and carried her out of the warehouse, into the night.
Outside, the street was ablaze with the flashing lights of emergency vehicles: squad cars, ambulances, fire trucks. Sam carried her safely past the yellow police tape and set her down on her feet.
Instantly they were surrounded by a mob of officials, Chief Coopersmith and Liddell among them, all clamoring to know the bomb’s status. Sam ignored them all. He just stood there with his arms around Nina, shielding her from the chaos.
“Everyone back!” shouted Gillis, waving the crowd away. “Give ’em some breathing space!” He turned to Sam. “What about the device?”
“It’s dis
armed,” said Sam. “But be careful. Spectre may have left us one last surprise.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Gillis started toward the warehouse, then turned back. “Hey, Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“I’d say you just earned your retirement.” Gillis grinned. And then he walked away.
Nina looked up at Sam. Though the danger was over, she could still feel his heart pounding, could feel her own heart beating just as wildly.
“You didn’t leave me,” she whispered, new tears sliding down her face. “You could have—”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“I told you to go! I wanted you to go.”
“And I wanted to stay.” He took her face in his hands. Firmly, insistently. “There was no other place I’d be but right there beside you, Nina. There’s no other place I ever want to be.”
She knew a dozen pairs of eyes were watching them. Already the news media had arrived with their camera flashbulbs and their shouted questions. The night was alive with voices and multicolored lights. But at that moment, as he held her, as they kissed, there was no one else but Sam.
When dawn broke, he would still be holding her.
Epilogue
The wedding was on. No doubt about it.
Accompanied by a lilting Irish melody played by flute and harp, Nina and her father walked arm in arm into the forest glade. There, beneath the fiery brilliance of autumn foliage, stood Sam. Just as she knew he would be.
He was grinning, as nervous as a rookie cop on his first beat. Beside him stood his best man, Gillis, and Reverend Sullivan, both wearing smiles. A small circle of friends and family stood gathered under the trees: Wendy and her husband. Chief Coopersmith. Nina’s colleagues from the hospital. Also among the guests was Lydia, looking quietly resigned to the fact her daughter was marrying a mere cop.
Some things in life, thought Nina, cannot be changed. She had accepted that. Perhaps Lydia, some day, would learn to be as accepting.