24 Hours

  The heavyset man was gone. Will glanced into the waiting area and saw what he was looking for: a cream-colored house telephone.

  “Here it is,” he said, turning back to her. “They’ll have a new key up here in no—”

  The words died in his throat. Cheryl was pointing an automatic pistol at his chest. She must have taken it from her handbag. Her eyes were resolute, but there was something else in them. Fear.

  “What is this?” he asked. “I’ve only got a few bucks on me, but you’re welcome to it. Credit cards, whatever.”

  “I don’t want your money,” she said, looking anxiously at the elevators. “I want you to go in your room.”

  “What for?”

  “You’ll find out. Just hurry up.”

  Something in Will’s mind hardened to resistance. He wasn’t going to start blindly obeying orders. If you did that, the next thing you knew, you were lying facedown on some dirty bathroom floor while they shot you in the back of the head.

  “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me what’s going on. In fact”—he stepped toward the phone—“I’m going to call the front desk and have them call the police.”

  “Don’t touch that.”

  “You’re not going to shoot me, Cheryl.” He picked up the telephone.

  “If you call the police, Abby is going to die. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  His arm froze. “What did you say?”

  “Your daughter was kidnapped two hours ago, Doctor. If you want her to live, take me into your room right now. If you call the police, she’ll die. I’m serious as a heart attack.”

  A paralyzing numbness was spreading from deep within Will’s chest. It was disbelief, or perhaps the brain’s attempt at disbelief in the face of knowledge too terrible to accept.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Cheryl glanced at the elevator again. He sensed the fear inside her metamorphosing into panic.

  “Doctor, if somebody gets out of that elevator and sees me with this gun, the whole thing’s going to come apart. Abby’s going to die, okay? And I don’t want that to happen. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but you’d better get me into your goddamn room right now.”

  Will heard a squawk and realized the phone was still in his right hand. He brought it slowly to his mouth.

  “Talk, and you put a bullet in Abby’s brain.”

  He hung up.

  “Hurry,” she said. “If I don’t make a phone call soon, she’s going to die anyway.”

  He stared at her for another few seconds, looking for options. He had none. He walked down to his door, unlocked it, and held it open for her.

  Cheryl walked past him, holding the gun close against her, as though she expected Will to try to take it. Once inside, she walked all the way across the sitting room and into the bedroom. He closed the door and followed her.

  Cheryl put the bed between herself and Will. She was still pointing the gun at him, but he walked to the edge of the bed anyway. His fear for Abby was burgeoning into an anger that would brook no delay.

  “Get back!” she cried. “Stay back until I explain!”

  “Tell me about my little girl!”

  “This is a kidnapping-for-ransom,” she said, like a grammar-school girl reciting from memory. “Right now my partner is with your wife, at your house in Madison County. Someone else is holding Abby at a third location. This is what’s going to happen from this point on. . . .”

  Will listened like a man being given a clinical description of a disease that would shortly kill him. His disbelief quickly gave way to horror at the way his family’s lives had been studied and deconstructed, all in preparation for a plan designed to separate him from two hundred thousand dollars.

  “Listen to me,” he interrupted. “We don’t have to wait twenty-four hours. I’ll get you the money right now—”

  “The banks are closed.”

  “I’ll find a way.” He tried to keep panic out of his voice. “I can make it happen. The casino has money. I’ll call down—”

  “No. It doesn’t work that way. It has to be tomorrow. Now, let me finish.”

  He shut up and listened, his brain working frantically. Whoever was behind this plan knew his business. He—or she—had turned the normal mechanics of a kidnapping inside out, creating a situation in which any aggressive response was impossible. Cheryl’s gun was only there to control Will’s initial panic. The real coercion was Abby. He could pick up the telephone and call the police right now. But if they came and arrested Cheryl, and she didn’t call her partner on their thirty-minute schedule, Abby would die.

  “If I do what you want,” he said, “what guarantee do I have that we’ll get Abby back?”

  “No guarantee. You have to trust us.”

  “That’s not good enough. How are we supposed to get her back? Tell me the details. Don’t think! Tell me right this second.”

  Cheryl nodded. “Abby and your wife will be driven to a public place and set free within sight of each other.”

  She sounded like she believed it. And she’d told him they’d carried out the same plan five times before. He thought back over the past few years’ headlines in Mississippi. He didn’t remember hearing about any kidnapped children who were found murdered. Not kidnappings-for-ransom, anyway. And that would definitely have made headlines across the state.

  “What’s to keep me from going to the police after you let Abby go?” he asked.

  “The fact that two hundred thousand dollars is nothing to you. And because if the police start looking for us, we’ll know. We’ll know, and my partner will come back and kill Abby. In the playhouse in your backyard, at her school, after church . . . anywhere. Believe me, he’ll do it. We’ve done this to five other doctors just like you, and none of them have reported it. Not one. You won’t, either.”

  He turned away from her in frustration. Through the bedroom’s picture window, he saw the lights of a freighter out on the darkening gulf, plying its way westward. He had never felt so impotent in his life. One simple dictum had carried him through many life-or-death situations: There’s always a way. Another option. Drastic, maybe, but there. But this time there didn’t seem to be one. The trapped feeling made him crazy with rage. He whirled back to Cheryl.

  “I’m supposed to just sit here all night while some stranger holds my little girl prisoner? Scared out of her mind? Lady, I will rip your head off before I let that happen.”

  She jerked the gun back up. “Stay back!”

  “What kind of woman are you? Don’t you have any maternal feelings?”

  “Don’t you say anything about my feelings!” Cheryl’s face reddened. “You don’t know anything about me!”

  “I know you’re making a child suffer pure terror.”

  “That can’t be helped.”

  He was about to respond when a thought burst into his mind like a starshell. “Oh Jesus. What about Abby’s insulin?”

  Cheryl’s face was blank. “What?”

  “Abby’s a juvenile diabetic. You didn’t know that? You didn’t plan for that?”

  “Calm down.”

  “You’ve got to call your partner. I’ve got to talk to him right now. Right now!”

  The telephone beside the bed rang loudly.

  They stared at it. Then Cheryl walked to the phone and laid her free hand on the receiver.

  “You want to talk?” she said. “Here’s your chance. But be cool, Doctor. Very cool.”

  FIVE

  Will took the phone from Cheryl and held it to his ear.

  “This is Will Jennings.”

  “Doctor Will Jennings?” said a male voice.

  “That’s right.”

  “You got some unexpected company down there, Doctor?”

  Will looked over at Cheryl, who was watching intently. “Yes.”

  “She looks hot in that black dress, doesn’t she?”

  “Listen, I need to explain something to you.”
br />   “You don’t explain anything, college boy. I’m in charge tonight. You got that?”

  “I’ve got it, but—”

  “But nothing. I’m going to ask you a question, Doc. Kind of like the Match Game. Remember that one? That freakin’ Richard Dawson—what a fruitcake.”

  Will heard eerie laughter.

  “Anyway, we’re going to see if your answer matches your wife’s. This is really more like the Newlywed Game, I guess. Uhh . . . that would be the butt, Bob.” The man broke up again.

  Will breathed deeply, his entire being concentrated on understanding whom he was dealing with.

  “The question is . . . does your child have any serious medical condition?”

  A trickle of hope flowed into his veins. “She has juvenile diabetes.”

  “That’s a match! You just won the all-expense paid trip to beautiful Puerto Vallarta!”

  The man sounded like Wink Martindale on speed. Will shook his head at the surreal horror of the situation. “Abby needs that insulin, sir. Immediately.”

  “Sir?” The man laughed darkly. “Oh, I like that. This is probably the only time you’d ever call me ‘sir.’ Unless you had to tell me I was dying or something. Sir, I’m afraid you’ve got terminal pecker cancer. Stand two steps back please.”

  “I’m an anesthesiologist. I don’t handle things like that.”

  “No? You never told anybody they were dying?”

  Will hesitated. “When I was an OB/GYN, I did.”

  “Ahh. So, no means yes. You ever kill anybody, Doc?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Really? Nobody ever died on the table while you were passing the gas?”

  “Well, of course. But not as a result of my actions.”

  “No? I’ve got to wonder how honest you’re being about that. I really do.”

  “Would you mind telling me your name?”

  “Joe Hickey, Doc. You can call me Joe.”

  “All right, Joe. Are you a former patient of mine? Or a relative of a patient?”

  “Why would you ask that? I mean, you never killed anybody, right?”

  “It’s just that you seem to have a lot of animosity toward me personally.”

  “You feel that? Huh. Could be, I guess. Well, let’s leave that for now. ’Cause I’m about to show you what a nice guy I am. I’m about to set it up so your little princess gets her insulin.”

  “Thank God.”

  “God’s got nothing to do with this. Let me talk to my partner.”

  “Joe, could I speak with my wife for a moment?”

  “Put Cheryl on, Doc.”

  Will held out the phone.

  “Get in the bathroom while I’m talking,” she said.

  “Your partner didn’t tell me to go in the bathroom.”

  She shook the automatic at him. “Get in the goddamn bathroom!”

  Will held up his hands and backed into the spacious cubicle of white marble and gold fixtures. He kept the knob turned as he closed the door, and after he heard Cheryl’s voice resume, opened it a couple of inches and put his ear to the crack.

  “Why didn’t we know about this medicine thing?” she asked. “Well, I don’t like it. Getting on the road with her is dangerous. What if a cop stops you? . . . Okay...I’m all right, I guess. But this guy isn’t like the others, Joey...I don’t know how. His eyes are on me every second. He’s like a wolf, waiting for his chance...I know. I know. Okay. Thirty minutes.”

  Will put his eye to the crack and saw Cheryl grimace as she hung up.

  “All clear?” he asked, pushing open the door.

  “Yeah.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s taking the medicine to your little girl. I mean, he’s taking your wife to give her the shot. See? If we didn’t care what happened to her, would we take a risk to get her medicine to her?”

  “Yes. Because you know if anything happened to Abby during the night, you wouldn’t get your money.”

  “You wouldn’t know whether anything had happened to her or not.”

  “If I don’t get confirmation that Abby’s gotten her insulin within seven hours, I’ll assume she’s gone into ketoacidosis. And you’ll talk then. You’ll talk if I have to break every bone in your body, one at a time.”

  The threat seemed to have no effect on Cheryl. From her expression, he got the feeling she’d heard such things before. Maybe she thought he wasn’t capable of such barbarity. Or maybe she knew he wasn’t.

  “You think Joey hasn’t thought of that?” she asked. I don’t even know where your kid is. But even if I did, and you tortured it out of me, the police couldn’t possibly get there in thirty minutes. I know that for sure.” With the gun still in her right hand, Cheryl rubbed both arms as if she were cold. “And you don’t want to start making threats to Joey, Doctor. He could do a lot of things to your little girl besides kill her, you know? You’re not holding any cards here.”

  Will closed his eyes and fought a nauseating rush of terror. “Who the hell is this Joey?”

  Cheryl looked at him like he was an idiot.

  “He’s my husband.”

  Abby lay sleeping on an old sofa in the cabin. A crocheted comforter lay over her. Huey sat on the floor beside her, whittling slowly at a piece of cedar. Huey was nervous. He knew the little girl was going to be scared when she woke up, and that scared him. He wished she was a boy instead of a girl. Boys were easier. Three of the five times they had taken boys. Girls made him think too much, and thinking made him sad. He barely remembered his sister now, but he remembered some things. Coughing, mostly. Long, terrible coughs with wheezing whistles between them, whistles with every breath. Thinking of those whistles made him cringe. Huey had slid Jo Ellen’s little bed over by the wood stove to keep her warm, but it hadn’t done any good. His mother and the first doctor kept saying it was just a bad cold until it was too late. By the time they got her to the city doctor in a neighbor’s pickup, she was stone dead. She looked like a little china angel lying across the seat, bluish white, one of God’s chosen, just four years old. Diphtheria, they said. Huey hated the word. Someone had said it on TV once, years afterward, and he’d picked up the TV and smashed it to kindling. Joey had never known Jo Ellen. He was living in Mississippi then.

  Abby groaned again, louder this time, and Huey picked up the Barbie doll Joey had passed him through the window.

  “Mama?” Abby moaned, her eyes still closed. “Mama?”

  “Mama’s not here right now, Abby. I’m Huey.”

  Her eyes popped open, then went wide as she focused on the giant sitting before her. Tears pooled instantly in her eyes, and her lower lip began to quiver.

  “Where’s my mama?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “She had to go somewhere with your daddy. They asked me to baby-sit you for a while.”

  Abby looked around the dilapidated cabin, her cheeks turning bright red. “Where are we? Where is this place?”

  “A cabin in the woods. Not very far from your house. Your mama will be back soon.”

  Her lip quivered harder. “Where is she?”

  “With your daddy. They’re both coming soon.”

  Abby closed her eyes and whimpered, on the edge of panic now. Huey took the Barbie from behind him and set it gently before her. When her eyes opened again, they locked onto the doll, drawn to the tiny piece of home.

  “Your mama left this for you,” Huey said.

  She snatched up the Barbie and clutched it to her chest. “I’m scared.”

  He nodded in sympathy. “I’m scared, too.”

  Abby’s mouth opened. “You are?”

  He nodded again. His eyes were wet with tears.

  Abby swallowed, then reached out and squeezed his little finger as if to reassure him.

  Forty miles northeast of the cabin, still in Jackson, Joe Hickey drove Karen’s Expedition southward on Interstate 55. Karen sat beside him, the small Igloo in her lap. Hickey reached into his pocket and pulled out a lon
g silk scarf he’d taken from the Jenningses’ laundry room.

  “Put this over your eyes.”

  Karen tied the scarf around her head without argument. “Are we getting close?”

  “Less than an hour. Don’t ask me anything else. I might change my mind about the insulin.”

  “I won’t talk at all.”

  “No, talk,” he said. “I like your voice. It’s got class, you know?”

  Though blindfolded, Karen turned to him with amazement.

  In the heart of Jackson, in the elite subdivision of East-over, a white-columned mansion stood gleaming in the beams of spotlights fixed to stately oak trees. On the circular driveway before the house sat a yellow 1932 Duesenberg, the dazzling cornerstone of a vintage car collection of which its owner had spent the better part of the last year divesting himself.

  Inside the mansion, Dr. James McDill, owner of both the Duesenberg and the mansion, sat across the dinner table from his wife, Margaret. He felt a deep apprehension when he looked at her. Over the past twelve months, she had lost twenty pounds, and she’d weighed only one hundred twenty-five to start with. McDill wasn’t in the best shape himself. But after weeks of personal struggle, he was about to speak his mind on a very sensitive matter. He knew the reaction that would follow, but he had no choice. The closer the convention got, the more convinced he became that he was right. Time and reflection had brought it all back to him, particularly the things they had said in passing.

  He put down his fork. “Margaret, I know you don’t want me to bring this up again. But I’ve got to.”

  His wife’s spoon clattered against her bone china plate. “Why?” she asked in a voice that could have shaved glass. “Why do you have to?”

  McDill sighed. He was a cardiovascular surgeon of wide experience, but he had never approached any surgery with the trepidation with which he now faced his wife. “Maybe because it happened exactly a year ago. Maybe because of the things they told us. I couldn’t get it out of my mind in the OR this morning. How this thing has affected our lives. Poisoned them.”