"You're not walking."
She lifted the receiver, meeting Zach's angry protest with an unyielding stare. "Zach, whoever's out there is not going to do a repeat performance on Sixty-fourth Street in broad daylight."
"You've got a mile hike. I don't like it."
"I'll take whichever streets have the most sidewalk traffic. There's safety in numbers. And I'm not asking for your permission." She punched up her number, waited, then entered her code to retrieve messages. "One message," she murmured aloud. "Probably some solicitor trying to sell—" She stopped in mid-sentence as Audrey's voice reached her ears.
"Victoria?" Audrey sounded very nervous, her voice sounded thin and faraway. "I wish you were home." There was a lot of interfering background noise, and the message was so faint, Victoria could hardly hear it. She strained her ears, listening. "I need to talk to you. I don't know where to turn. I'm so weak." A long pause, after which the speech became more indistinct. "They give me ... lots of medication. It's like they want me to get well ... but till I do ... they're keeping me too drugged up to get off the bed. Thought it was for my own protection . . . now I'm not so sure. Something's not right. I don't know what it is. But I think Father ..." A muffled sound, followed by a whimper, a few scuffling noises, and a click. Dial tone.
* * *
22
"Oh, God." Quickly, Victoria replayed the message. Still unable to hear it clearly, she saved it and slammed down the receiver.
"What is it?" Zach was beside her.
"That was Audrey. Something's wrong—very wrong. I've got to get to her." She was already heading for the door.
"Wait." Zach caught her arm. "You can't charge into the Hope Institute. You'll never get past that pit-bull receptionist. And if something really is wrong with Audrey, you'll only make things worse. Now, slow down and tell me what the message said."
Victoria nodded, forcing her legal training to eclipse her fear. Details. She had to calm down and remember details. "It was hard to hear her. The connection was bad and her voice was slurred. It sounded like she was calling from somewhere public, like a corridor. She said they were keeping her heavily medicated and that she thought something was going on. She didn't say what. She was interrupted. I think someone must have found her using the phone. I don't know. Like I said, the message was disoriented and faint. I want to listen to it firsthand."
"Okay, then let's get to your apartment." Zach crossed over to the bedroom, grabbed a sweater, and shot her a look before yanking the sweater over his head. "And, yes, I'm going with you, so don't argue. This isn't about us anymore. This is evidence. If there's something incriminating on that tape, I'll contact the FBI. They'll be thrilled to have a reason to march in and search the Hope Institute."
Victoria hesitated, besieged by that all-too-familiar emotional tearing, although not for the reasons Zach assumed.
His features hardened. "Do you honestly believe I'm using this as an excuse to take you home?"
"Of course not." She fiddled with the zipper of her running suit jacket. "There's something I didn't mention. At the end of her message, Audrey said something about my father."
Zach's expression didn't change. "What did she say?"
"Nothing specific. She was interrupted before she could finish. If I remember right, her exact words were 'I think Father...' and then she was cut off."
"That's hardly an incriminating reference."
"I know. But I assumed—"
"That I'd jump all over it and have your father arrested." Zach shook his head. "Didn't you hear anything I said in the car last night?"
Victoria felt a stab of guilt. "Yes. I'm sorry. I know you're not after my father unless he's guilty. I'm just soused to shielding my family."
"Well, don't worry about your father. He's the one member of your family who takes excellent care of himself."
"Maybe I'm afraid." The words were out before she even realized she'd uttered them.
Zach paused. "Afraid of what?"
"That he is guilty." She found herself expressing aloud the very fear she'd harbored all week. "I feel horribly disloyal for even thinking it, much less saying it, but what if it's true? Zach, what will that do to my mother?"
This time he went to her, gripping her shoulders in his hands. "She'll get through it. You'll help her. Your aunt and uncle will help her. You have a supportive family, Victoria. Your mother's not alone."
She nodded, battling the urge to cry in Zach's arms. "I've got to get home. I want to listen to that message." She saw the depth of compassion in his eyes. "And, you're right. You should hear the message, too." A heartbeat of a pause. "I want you to hear it."
* * *
In the garage beneath the Hope Institute, the audio technician headed for his van. He hadn't checked the tape yet today. There had been no need. A few hours ago he'd called Leaman, who'd reported that Victoria Kensington was still at her boyfriend's hotel, where she'd spent the night. Knowing that, he didn't expect the bug he'd planted at the telephone interface box to have picked up much in the way of calls. Not since that unsettling message from Hamilton last night, which he'd reported right away.
Still, he had a few free minutes. And it paid to be careful.
He climbed into the van, put on his headphones, and pressed the playback button. Two hang-ups. One incomplete call. And one message, picked up by the machine at 2:59—a little over an hour ago. Lounging back in his seat, he listened.
Thirty seconds later, he jerked upright. Shit. That was Audrey Kensington calling her sister. How the hell had she gotten to a phone?
He'd investigate that screwup later. Obviously, from the sounds of struggle, the nurses had found her and brought her back to her room. But no one on the disinfection team knew about this. If they did, he'd have been notified so he could take care of it.
He had to erase that tape before Victoria Kensington heard it.
He was about to press Stop and get on that, when another recorded call began playing. The dialing of the number, two rings, die answering machine ... and the tones of someone accessing it from outside. Then Victoria Kensington's horrified "Oh God..." and a hang-up.
Shit.
She'd already heard it.
Sweat broke out on his brow and he wiped it away, forcing himself to think calmly. Fine. So she'd heard it. He couldn't change that.
But he had to make sure no one else heard it. That message had to vanish, now, before she got her hands on it. Or worse, before she played it for the authorities.
He grabbed his cell phone and punched in Leaman's number as he set up his frequency analyzer.
"Yeah?" Mr. Cigar picked up.
"Are they still at the Plaza Athe'ne'e?"
"They haven't budged. They're probably still rolling around in the—"
"No, they're not." He got ready to decipher the tones she'd pressed so he'd have her access code, "They're probably about to make a dash for her apartment. Stall them."
"Stall them? Why?"
"Her sister left her a message a little while ago. She's already accessed it. I gotta get into that machine and erase it. Buy me fifteen minutes."
"How am I supposed to—?"
"I don't care. Throw yourself in front of their fucking cab if you have to. Just do it." He slammed down the phone and got busy.
His first hunch proved to be right. 4-9-7-2. It figured.
She was as predictable as everyone else. April 9, 1972. Her birthday.
He remembered that detail from the file he'd been given.
Good thing he had such a knowledgeable source.
* * *
Victoria and Zach were going nowhere fast.
Traffic outside the hotel was at a standstill.
Today, of all days, some jerk had decided to flag down a cab, climb in, and then, half a block down and directly beside a parked moving truck, throw open the door and start a huge argument with the driver. With one leg in and one leg out of the cab, the guy had effectively stopped traffic from passing.
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The argument was still going on when they jumped out of their cab and took off on foot.
Leaman bent down low in the back seat of the taxi, hiding all but his one exposed trouser leg from view. He had to make sure he wasn't recognized. With that in mind, he kept his head down until his driver told him the coast was clear. Then he straightened, grinning as he imagined the poisonous looks they'd thrown his way when they blew by. He stayed still, watching and waiting as they made their mad dash uptown.
When they were out of sight, he hopped out of his cab.
A mile would take a long time to walk, he thought with a satisfied smile, handing his driver the promised hundred-dollar bill. He ambled off and lit a cigar. There would be more than enough time for Fenton to deal with the answering machine and erase Audrey Kensington's message.
Another disaster averted.
* * *
Victoria burst into her apartment, going straight to the answering machine. She was frowning by the time Zach locked the front door and joined her.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"The LCD display. It should say 'one,' for one saved message. It doesn't. It's just showing the time, like there's nothing recorded." She pressed the play button.
'No messages," the electronic voice announced.
Blinking, Victoria raised her head and stared at Zach. "I don't understand. I know I didn't erase it."
Now it was Zach who was frowning. "The only way you could have wiped out what Audrey said is by inadvertently pressing the machine's erase sequence after retrieving your messages. But you didn't press any buttons—not after the second time you played back her message. You just hung up. That should save whatever calls were there." He picked up the answering machine, checked all its connections, then put it down. He pressed play, and was greeted with the same: "No messages."
"I don't like this," Zach muttered.
Victoria was feeling more frustrated by the minute. "That message was there a half hour ago. Now it's gone. My machine didn't suddenly start malfunctioning. Someone erased Audrey's plea for help." She pivoted, scanning the apartment suspiciously. "Maybe someone broke in."
"I didn't notice any signs of a break-in." Zach went to the front door, opened it, and studied the top and bottom locks intently. "Nothing looks as if it was tampered with. Check the rest of the apartment, see if anything was disturbed."
Rapidly, Victoria moved from room to room, checking everything she could think of, from her jewelry to her files. Nothing had been touched.
Not that she expected it would be. This wasn't about robbery.
"Everything's intact," she told Zach, returning to the hall. "And, no, my father doesn't have the keys. There's only one spare set, and I keep those in my office desk."
"1 wasn't going to suggest your father broke into your apartment" Zach replied tersely. "That's hardly his forte. Actually, my guess is no one broke in. I think your answering machine was accessed from outside." Pausing, Zach rubbed a hand over his unshaven jaw. "The logical order of events would be that whoever found Audrey making that call to you overheard enough to know her message was a cry for help and had to be erased. That would explain the abrupt hang-up." He cleared his throat. "Does anyone but you know your access code?"
"No. Not my partners. Not my family. And not my father," she added vehemently.
"Is the code easy to figure out?"
A shrug. "That depends on how clever the figurer is— and how close to me. It's the numerical digits of my birthday." Victoria's mouth snapped shut as she realized she was, once again, pointing an involuntary finger at her father.
Dammit. Why did every avenue lead to him?
She eyed Zach, assuming he'd be thinking along the same lines.
He wasn't.
Rather than looking like a tiger closing in on its prey, Zach look troubled, as if all the pieces didn't fit. "Do you remember what time Audrey's call came in?"
"Just before three."
"And you didn't pick it up until over an hour later." A hard shake of his head. "If your father found Audrey calling you, or if he was frantically paged by whoever did, why wouldn't he erase the message the instant he figured out your access code—which, for a man as brilliant as your father, would probably take ten minutes tops. Why wait an hour?"
"I don't know."
"It doesn't make sense. He'd want that tape wiped out ASAP."
"If he's involved. Maybe my father isn t the one who did this."
"Maybe not." Zach's scowl deepened. "Let's try a different approach. We're assuming a criminal discovered Audrey making her phone call. It could just as easily have been some innocuous nurse doing her job. That nurse would have no interest in the content of Audrey's message or in knowing who she'd called—only that she should be confined to bed. That would explain why there was no rush to investigate."
"But if that's the case, the nurse would have no reason to ever pursue it any further. She'd simply mention it to my father or Audrey's doctor the next time they were in. Which I highly doubt was at four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. Prominent doctors don't make their rounds then. And I know my father wouldn't visit then. He'd have too much to explain to Mother. So why was my answering machine broken into? It doesn't make sense."
"I agree."
Something about Zach's tone brought her up short. She stopped speculating and gave him a hard look. "You know something."
"I think I know something," he corrected. He glanced at the answering machine, then began counting off on his fingers. "Two seemingly unrelated incidents since yesterday. First a maniac pushes us off the road. Then your answering machine is violated. Both without provocation."
"Okay," Victoria agreed, tucking her hair behind her ear. "You're right. How did that lunatic on the parkway know I was still poking into the Hope Institute? And how did someone know that Audrey's call was incriminating enough to need to be erased? And, finally, how did he know exactly when to erase it? It's almost as if these people know what I'm thinking and what I'm doing."
An odd light glittered in Zach's eyes. "I'd be willing to bet they do."
"How?"
"By bugging your phone."
"What?" She froze. "You just got finished saying you didn't think anyone had broken into my apartment."
"They didn't need to. The bug's probably at the interface box in the basement of your building. It's less risky and equally effective. Think about it, Victoria. You yourself just said it's as if they know what you're doing before you do it. A bug would explain everything: how they knew the nature of Audrey's call, how they knew you were still checking into the Institute, even how they got your access code."
Victoria turned slowly, staring at her telephone as if it were a foreign object. "You're saying they're taping all my calls?"
"Yes. And listening at regular intervals to whatever their tape picks up. When you're home, my guess is they're more on top of their monitoring, just in case any of your calls pertain to them and you're there to take immediate action. When you're out, they're less worried. And last night and today, they knew you were out. Mr. Cigar must have reported that you were at my hotel. So, they weren't in any rush to play back today's tape. Which accounts for the lapse in time between Audrey's leaving her message and their erasing it."
Abruptly, Victoria's chin shot up as Zach's theory hurled another piece into place. "They were listening last night before I went out. They heard your call to me. They heard you say you took the cigar butt and had it dusted for fingerprints. That's how they realized we're still checking into the Institute. And that's why they came after us last night."
"I tipped them off," Zach said in disgust. "That's why that son of a bitch nearly killed us."
"If you're blaming yourself, don't. You had no idea they were listening." Victoria rubbed her palms together. "What about breaking into my answering machine? How did they manage that?"
Zach's mouth set in a grim line. "Their bug would have picked up the call you made from the hotel, checking your answ
ering machine. An access code is nothing more than a series of touch tones. Anyone good with audio equipment can analyze and reproduce those."
"I see." She considered that. "They realized I'd heard Audrey's message, so they made it disappear as quickly as possible."
"Right."
Victoria drew a slow breath, nodding as she accepted the explanation. "What do we do from here?"
"We wait till morning. We don't use the phone, except to order takeout. First thing tomorrow, I'll walk you to work. That won't look suspicious, not even to Mr. Cigar, who'll be watching you like a hawk. He knows about our little inci- dent on the Merritt Parkway the other night. He'll expect you to be unnerved. He'll follow us, see me escort you upstairs to your office. He won't see me pick up your spare set of keys and take them with me when I head out for the FBI field office."
"What if they've now assigned someone to follow you? He'll see you go to Federal Plaza and guess you're meeting with the FBI."
Zach shrugged. "They already know I have law enforcement contacts, thanks to last night's call. If they're smart enough to figure out who, so be it. Let them sweat. It might make them careless. In the meantime, I'll have the feds send an agent here to sweep your phones while you're out—someone who's an average-looking Joe. He'll probably find what he's looking for at the interface box. But, just to be on the safe side, he'll let himself into your apartment and check each telephone and the whole place for bugs. Now that I think about it, we'd better have him sweep your office, too. Late tomorrow night should be good, after everyone's gone home. Especially you. That way Mr. Cigar won't be there. He'll be outside your apartment, like a good watchdog."
Victoria's mind was going a mile a minute. She forced herself to organize her thoughts, the same way she did in the courtroom.
First things first.
"You're so damned cavalier. If whoever's guilty figures out you're helping the FBI with their investigation—and me with mine—they're going to feel cornered. That would put you in danger."
A corner of Zach's mouth lifted. "Worried about me?"
She didn't bother pretending. "Yes."