Chapter 20 #2
Colin raised his hand between them. “But David recognized someone named Michael on the mountain the day he was killed. David and Michael Hinman didn’t know each other.”
“Sure they did. They went to the same school right down the street from my house during the Ahearn’s first placement.”
Walker had placed the family in his own town to be close to Adele.
Colin laughed without humor. “That’s why Jerry’s request to be moved to the Southwest wasn’t honored. You wanted her near you.”
Walker remembered filling in the form, spelling out Connecticut in careful capital letters.
Adele had meant everything to him then. He would have moved the world to be close to her.
If he could have foreseen how the affair would color and destroy so many lives, he may have allowed them to relocate to Arizona as Jerry requested.
“I’m not proud of what I’ve done, Mitchell.
If I could, I would change it all, if only for Emma.
” He shook his head. “All through dinner that punk was hitting on her, taunting me. I forbade her to see him.” He remembered the first pull of the string that turned him into a marionette, a toy.
“Michael called me on the phone, says I’d better change my mind if I wanted him to keep my secret.
” He picked up his drink. “I should have killed him then.”
“Then he got Emma pregnant and left,” said Colin. “Jerry Ahearn took her in.”
Walker nodded, looking shell-shocked and old. “I know. I found her. She hated me.”
“Michael stayed away until last week. He shows up at my door again, saying how come I never told him Emma had his kid. Like I should have sent him a box of cigars or something.” Walker checked his watch again, nausea washing through his stomach.
“Why do you keep looking at your watch?” asked Colin.
Walker looked into his eyes like the dead, saying nothing.
Colin stood quickly. “Michael wants Luke.” He looked quickly around the bar, his eyes landing on the man beside him. “Damn it, Walker! What do you know?”
“I had to do it.” Walker shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t have any choice.”
Colin’s phone rang. “Mitchell.”
“Colin, it’s Emma,” she was sobbing, hysterical. “Luke’s been kidnapped!”
The Grand Marquis flew down the expressway like a sports car, Colin at the wheel with his one good arm and Gwen at his side.
Walker was in the backseat, his hands bound in his lap with cuffs from the collection of memorabilia on the wall at Ray Flynn’s.
They worked well enough and had served in a pinch, but no one had a key.
Rowan and Becky followed in Becky’s car.
“Thank you for bringing me with you,” said Walker. The alcohol and stress of his grandson’s kidnapping had combined to make him weepy. “You could have left me there.”
Colin felt a stab of pity for this man, even after all he had done. Walker’s decision to destroy Adele had devastated his own life, a life that at one time had been good. Grief clawed at Colin as he mourned the good man he had believed Walker to be.
Somewhere out there, Luke was held hostage to a murderer.
The fact that Michael was Luke’s father gave Colin no comfort.
Only a madman would hold his own flesh and blood for ransom.
“There has to be a way to find him.” Colin’s eyes fixed on Walker in the mirror.
“Do you have a cell phone number for Michael?”
“It showed up as unavailable,” said Walker. “I looked for a cell phone listing in his name yesterday and didn’t find anything.”
“What did you do that for?” asked Colin.
“So I could find him and stop him once and for all.”
“Why now, Graham?” asked Gwen.
He looked out the window. “I followed Colin to the house. I saw the boy, Luke. He looks like my Tommy. I wanted to protect him.”
Gwen turned to Colin. “Wait, you said Michael left a prepaid cell with the ransom note?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe he bought two—one for Emma and one for him to call her. Is there any way to track where he bought them and get the other number?”
“It’s worth a shot,” said Colin. He tossed his own cell phone to Gwen. “Call Emma back and get the number for the prepaid phone. It’s on the phone’s menu somewhere.”
When she was finished, he said, “Now give the phone to Walker.” He met Walker’s eyes in the mirror. “Call the best contact you’ve got at the FBI and have him run it, right now.”
“We’ll find him,” Gwen said quietly, reaching to touch Colin’s arm.
Colin’s emotions were running high, every nerve in his body tingling. “I let this bastard get away from me once before, and I’m sure as hell not going to let him get away again.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
How could she not see it? Michael was the one who got away, slipping right through Colin’s careless fingers. “This is totally my fault, Gwen. If I’d stopped this guy after he killed David, he never would have had the chance to take Luke.”
They were nearly at the hospital when Colin’s phone rang.
After listening for a minute, Colin swerved to the right-hand lane and talked to Gwen, the phone still held to his ear.
“The phones were bought yesterday at a Wal-Mart in Quincy. They’ve sold twelve of that model in the last two weeks, but only one at the same time as Emma’s phone. It’s showing up in Chinatown.”
“Where in Chinatown?” he asked into the phone.
“Thanks.” He hung up the phone. “It’s between Kneeland and Tyler. They’re setting up a stingray to track it.”
Gwen looked up at a billboard for an accident lawyer as they drove, the phone number made almost entirely of threes. She didn’t think much of it until she noticed the license plate on the car in front of them—333 TUH—then the sign for Route 93 and Route 3. Mentally she acknowledged the message.
Colin parked the car and put the windows down partway. “Bring the cell phone number with us in case we need it,” he said to Gwen, “and grab Walker’s gun from the floor.”
Walker whined plaintively. “You’re not leaving me here. I can help.”
“I don’t doubt that you could. I just don’t know whose side you’d be on,” said Colin, slamming the door.
He and Gwen headed for the street, the scents of cooking food and hot pavement mingling in a sickening way. “How big of an area are we looking at?” she asked.
“Right now, about two blocks. Let me call and see if they set up the Stingray.”
“What’s that?”
“A device that acts like a cell phone tower, but isn’t. It lets us track where he is much more accurately.”
“How accurately?”
“In a city with this many towers, it can tell us the building.” Colin pulled out his cell phone and dialed the FBI agent he spoke with earlier.
“Is the Stingray in place?” He turned to look around him, finding a street sign and turning back around.
Got it.” He hung up and gestured to a six or seven-story building. “That one.”
They began walking and his phone rang again. It was Emma. “Michael called,” she said. “He wants me to put the cash in a garbage can at the corner of Dartmouth and Beacon Streets in thirty minutes.”
“Are the agents going with you?”
“He said to come alone, but they’re setting up nearby.”
“Be safe.”
Emma sound shaky. “Have you found Luke?”
“We’re still looking. I’ll let you know when I have something.” He hung up. “We have to hurry. The cash drop’s in thirty minutes, ten minutes from here. He’s going to move soon.”
The building was open, but appeared to be deserted.
“Start on the third floor,” Gwen said.
“Why?”
“Call it a hunch.”
They located the stairwell and climbed quickly, reaching the third floor landing and quietly opening the door. The horrible smell of animal waste hit their noses.
A man’s voice yelled in the distance. “I said eat it!”
Colin turned to Gwen and whispered. “I think we found Michael.”