Two dead so far and Steve said he’d bet his breakfast Cheerios there’d be more. Not good.
He wanted to meet the two widowers.
Savich remembered what his friend Miles Kettering had said about the two math teacher killings just a couple of nights before, when he and Sam had come over for barbecue. Six-year-old Sam was the image of his father, down to the way he chewed the corn off the cob. Miles had thought about it a moment, then said, “It seems nuts, but I’ll bet you, Savich, that the motive will turn out to be old as the hills.” Savich was thinking now that Miles could be right; he frequently had been back when he and Savich had been agents together, until five years before.
Savich saw a flash of hot-pink leotard from the corner of his eye. She started up on the treadmill next to his, vacated by an ATF guy who’d gotten divorced and was telling Bobby Curling, the gym manager, that he couldn’t wait to get into the action again. Given how many single women there were in Washington, D.C., old muscle-bound Arnie shouldn’t have any problem.
Savich finished reading Dane’s report and looked out over the gym, not really seeing all the sweaty bodies, but poking around deep inside his own head. The thing about this killer was that he was in their own backyard—Virginia and Maryland. Would he look farther afield?
Savich had to keep positive. Even though it had been unrelated, they’d saved James Marple from having a knife shoved in his chest or his head. It had come out last night that Jimbo had had an affair with Marvin Phelps’s wife, who’d then divorced Phelps and married Marple—five years before. But Savich knew it wasn’t just the infidelity that was Phelps’s motive. He’d heard it right out of Phelps’s mouth—jealousy, pure and simple jealousy that had grown into rage. The last time Savich had seen James Marple, his wife, Liz, was there hovering, hugging and kissing him.
“Hello, I’ve seen you here before. My name’s Valerie. Valerie Rapper, and no, I don’t like Eminem.” She smiled at him, a really lovely white-toothed smile. A long piece of black hair had come loose from the clip and was curved around her cheek.
He nodded. “My name’s Savich. Dillon Savich.”
“Bobby told me you were an FBI agent.”
Savich wanted to get back to Dane’s report. He wanted to figure out how he was going to catch this nutcase before math teachers in the area became terrified for the foreseeable future. Again, he only nodded.
“Is it true that Louie Freeh was a technophobe?”
“What?” Savich jerked around to look at her.
She just smiled, a dark eyebrow arched up.
Savich shrugged. “People will say anything about anyone.”
Standard FBI spew, of course, but it was ingrained in him to turn away insults aimed at the Bureau. And, as a matter of fact, what could he say? Besides, the truth was that Director Freeh had always been fascinated with MAX, Savich’s laptop.
“He was sure sexy,” she said.
Savich blinked at that and said, “He has six or seven kids. Maybe more now that he has more time.”
“Maybe that proves that his wife thinks he’s sexy, too.”
Savich just smiled and pointedly returned to Dane’s report. He read: Ruth Warnecki says she’s kept three snitches happy since she left the Washington, D.C., Police Department, including bottles of bubbly at Christmas. She gave a bottle of Dom Perignon to the snitch who saved James Marple’s life, only to have him give it back, saying he preferred malt liquor.
The booze Ruth usually gave to her snitches would probably burn a hole in a normal person’s stomach. They’d been very lucky this time, but what could a snitch know about some head case killing high school math teachers? They weren’t talking low-life drug dealers here. On the other hand, most cases were solved by informants of one sort or another, and that was a fact.
He tried to imagine again why this person felt his mission was to commit cold-blooded murder of math teachers. Randomly shooting company CEOs—that was a maybe. Judges—sometimes. Politicians—good idea. Lawyers—hands down, a top-notch idea. But math teachers? Even the profilers were amused about how off-the-wall crazy bizarre it was, something that no one could ever remember happening before.
He was inside his brain once more when she spoke again. He nearly fell off the treadmill at her words. “Is it true that Congress, way back when, was responsible for shutting off any communication between the FBI and the CIA? And that’s why no one shared any information before nine-eleven?”
“I’ve heard that” was all he said.
She leaned close and he smelled her perfume, mixed with a light coating of sweat. He didn’t like Valerie Rapper looking at him like she wanted to pull his gym shorts off.
She asked, “How often do you work out?”
He had only seven minutes to go on the treadmill. He decided to cut it to thirty seconds. He was warmed up enough, loose, and a little winded. “I try to come three or four times a week,” he said, and pressed the cool-down pad. He knew he was being a jerk. Just because he was anxious about this killer, just because a woman was interested in him, it didn’t mean he should be rude.
And so he asked, “How often do you come here?”
She shrugged. “Just like you—three or four times a week.”
Without thinking, he said, “It shows.” Stupid thing to say, really stupid. Now she was smiling, telling him so clearly how pleased she was that he liked her body.
He was an idiot. When he got home he’d tell Sherlock how he’d managed to stick his foot all the way down his throat and kick his tonsils.
He pressed the stop pad and stepped off the treadmill. “See you,” he said, and pointedly walked to the weights on the other side of the room.
He worked out hard for the next forty-five minutes, pushing himself, but aware that she was always near him, sometimes standing not two feet away, watching him while she worked her triceps with ten-pound weights.
Sherlock, much smaller, her once skinny little arms now sleek with muscle, had worked up to twelve-pound weights.
Thirty minutes later he forgot all about the math teacher killer and Valerie Rapper as he opened the front door of his house to hear his son yell “Papa! Here comes an airplane!” and got it right in the chest.
Two evenings later at the gym, while Sherlock was showering in the women’s locker room after a hard workout, and Savich was stretching his tired muscles in a corner, he nearly tripped on a free weight when Valerie Rapper said, not six inches from his ear, “Hello, Dillon. I heard that you saved a math teacher from a crazy man a couple of days ago. Congratulations.”
He straightened so fast he nearly hit her with his elbow. “Yeah,” he said, “it happens like that sometimes.”
“The media is making it sound like the FBI messed up, what with that old man getting his head blown off.”
Savich shrugged, as if to say what else is new? He said again, “That happens, too.”
“Maybe you’d like to have a cup of coffee after you’ve finished working out?”
He smiled at her and said, “No, thank you. I’m waiting for my wife. Our little boy is waiting for us at home. He’s learning how to make paper airplanes.”
“How delightful.”
“See you.”
Valerie Rapper watched him as he made his way through the crowded gym to the men’s locker room. She watched him again when he came out of the locker room fifteen minutes later, showered and dressed, shrugging into his suit coat. He wished there were more men in Washington, D.C. Maybe he should introduce her to old Arnie. He found Sherlock talking to Bobby Curling. He grabbed her and hustled her out before she could say a word.
She asked as she got into the Porsche, “What was all that about?”
“I’d rather tell you when we get home.”
Savich brushed out a thick hank of Sherlock’s curly hair and carefully wrapped it around a big roller. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I’m glad you were at the gym tonight.”
She watched him in the mirror, concentrating on getting he
r hair perfectly smooth around the roller. He was nearly done. He really liked doing this ever since they’d met an actress who’d had a particularly sexy way with hair rollers. Of course, the rollers didn’t stay in her hair all that long. “Why? What happened?”
He paused a moment, smoothed down her hair on another roller, and slowly turned it. Sherlock shoved in a clip to hold it. “There’s this woman. She’s not taking the hint.”
Sherlock leaned her head back until she was looking up at her husband’s face. “You want me to go kick her butt?”
Savich didn’t speak for a good thirty seconds. He was too busy untangling the final thick hank of hair for the last roller. “There, done. Now, be quiet. I just want to look at you. You can’t imagine how that turns me on, Sherlock.”
She now had a headful of fat rollers, perfectly placed, and she was laughing. She turned and held out her arms. “Now what, you pervert?”
He stroked his long fingers over his chin. “Hmmm, maybe I can think of something.”
“What about this woman?”
“Forget her. She’ll lose interest.”
Sherlock did forget all about the woman during the removal of the rollers in the next hour. She fell asleep with a big roller pressed against the back of her knee.
It was just after six-thirty on Friday morning when the phone rang.
Savich, Sean under one arm while Sherlock was pouring Cheerios into a bowl, picked it up. He listened. Finally, he hung up the phone.
“What’s wrong?”
“That was Miles. Sam’s been kidnapped.”
3
Don’t give up, don’t give up. Never, never give up.
Okay, so he wouldn’t give up, but it was hard. He’d cried until he was hiccupping, but that sure hadn’t done him any good. He didn’t want to give up. Only thing was, Sam didn’t have a clue where he was and he was so scared he’d already peed in his jeans.
Be scared, it’s okay, just keep trying to get away. Never give up.
Sam nodded. He heard his mama’s voice every now and again, but this time it was different. She was trying to help him because he was in big trouble.
Don’t give up, Sam. Look around you. You can do something.
Her voice always sounded soft and kind; she didn’t sound like she was scared. Sam tried to slow his breathing down.
The men are in the other room eating. They’re watching TV. You’ve got to move, Sam.
He’d been as quiet as he could, lying on that stinky mattress, getting colder and colder, and he listened as hard as he could, his eyes on that keyhole, wishing he was free so he could scrunch down and try to see what the men were doing. He heard the TV; it was on the Weather Channel. The weather guy said, “Violent thunderstorms are expected locally and throughout eastern Tennessee.”
He heard that clearly: eastern Tennessee.
He was in Tennessee?
That couldn’t be right. He lived in Virginia, in Colfax, with his father. Where was Tennessee?
Sam thought about his father. How much time had passed since they’d put that cloth over his face and he’d breathed in that sick sweet smell and not really waked up until just a while ago, tied to this bed in this small bedroom that looked older than anything, older even than his father’s ancient Camaro? Maybe it was more than hours, maybe it was days now. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. He kept praying that his father would find him. But there was one big problem, and he knew it even while he was praying the words—his father wasn’t in Tennessee; as far as Sam could see, there was no way his father could find him.
I’m really scared, Mom.
Forget about being scared. Move, Sam, move. Get your hands free.
He knew he probably wasn’t really hearing his mama’s voice in his head, or maybe he really was, and he was dead, too, just like she was.
He could feel that his pants were wet. It was cold and it itched so that must mean he really wasn’t dead. He was lying flat on his back, his head on a flattened smelly pillow, his hands tied in front of him. He’d pulled on the rope, but it hadn’t done anything. Then he’d felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t want to throw up, so he’d just laid there, breathing in and out, until finally his stomach calmed down. His mom wanted him to pull on the rope and so he began jerking and working it again. His wrists weren’t tied real tight, and that was good. He hadn’t talked to the two men when he woke up. He was so scared that he’d just stared up at them, hadn’t said a single thing, just stared, tears swimming in his eyes, making his nose run. They’d given him some water, and he’d drunk that, but when the tall skinny guy offered him a hamburger, he knew he couldn’t eat it.
Then one of the men—Fatso, that’s what Sam called him in his head—tied his hands in front of him, but not too tight. Fatso looked like he felt sorry for him.
Sam raised his wrists to his mouth and started chewing.
“Damned friggin’ rain!”
Sam froze. It was Fatso’s voice, loud and angry. Sam was so scared he started shaking, and it wasn’t just the damp chill air in this busted-down old room that caused it. He had to keep chewing, had to get his hands free. He had to keep moving and not freeze. He couldn’t die, not like Mama had. His father would hate that almost as much as Sam would.
Sam chewed.
There weren’t any more loud voices from the other room, but he could still hear the TV announcer, talking more about really bad weather coming, and then he heard the two men arguing about something. Was it about him?
Sam pulled his hands up, looked closely, and then began working the knotted rope, sliding his hands first this way, then that. The rope felt looser.
Oh boy, his hands did feel looser, he knew it. Sam chewed until his jaws ached. He felt a give in the rope, then more give, and then the knot just came loose. He couldn’t believe it. He twisted his wrists and the rope fell off.
Unbelievable. He was free.
He sat up and rubbed his hands. They were pretty numb, and he felt pins and needles running through them, but at least they didn’t hurt.
He stood up beside the mangy bed with its awful smells, wondering how long it had been since anyone had slept in that bed before him. It was then he saw a high, narrow, dirty window on the other side of the room.
He could fit through that window. He could.
How would he get up there?
If he tried to pull the bed to the window they were sure to hear him. And then they’d come in and tie him even tighter.
Or they’d kill him.
Sam knew he’d been taken right out of his own bed, right out of his own house, his father sleeping not thirty feet away. He knew, too, that anything those men had in mind to do to him wasn’t any good.
The window . . . how could he get up to that window?
And then Sam saw an old, deep-drawered dresser in the corner. He pulled out the first drawer, nearly choking on fear when the drawer creaked and groaned.
He got it out. It was heavy, but he managed to pull it onto his back. He staggered over to the wall and, as quietly as he could, laid the drawer down, toeing it against the damp wall. He stacked another drawer on top of that first one, then another, carefully, one upside down on top of another.
He had to lift the sixth drawer really high to fit it on top of the others. He knew he had to do it and so he did.
Hurry, Sam, hurry.
He was hurrying. He didn’t want to die even though he knew he’d probably be able to speak to his mama again all the time. No, she didn’t want him to die, she didn’t want him to leave his father.
When he got the last drawer balanced on the very top, he stood back, and saw that he had done a good job putting them on top of each other. Now he just had to climb up on top and reach the window.
He eyed the drawers, and shoved the third one over just a bit to create a toehold. He did the same with the fourth.
He knew if he fell it would be all over. He couldn’t fall. He heard Fatso scream, “No matter what you say, we can’t
stay here, Beau. It’s going to start raining any minute now. You saw that creek out back. A thunderstorm’ll make it rise fast as bat shit in a witch’s brew!”
Drown? The thunderstorms he’d heard on the Weather Channel, that must be what Fatso was yelling about. He didn’t want to drown either.
Sam was finally on the top. He pulled himself upright very slowly, feeling the drawer wobbling and unable to do anything about it. He froze, his hands flat against the damp wall, then his fingers crept up and he touched the bottom of the windowsill.
Things were unsteady beneath his feet, but that was okay. It felt just like the bridge in the park when he walked across it, just like that. He could work with a swing, even a wobble, he just couldn’t fall.
He pushed at the window but it didn’t budge. Then he saw the latch, so covered with dirt that it was hard to make out. He grabbed it and pulled upward.
He heard Fatso yell, “Beau, listen to me, we gotta take the kid somewhere else. That rain’s going to start any minute.”
So that was his name, Beau. Beau said something back, but Sam couldn’t make out what it was. He wasn’t a screamer like Fatso.
Sam had the latch pushed up as far as it would go. Slowly, so slowly he nearly stopped breathing, he pushed at the window.
It creaked, loud.
Sam jerked around and the drawers teetered, swaying more than ever. He knew he was going to fall. The drawers were sliding apart like earth plates before an earthquake. He remembered Mrs. Mildrake crunching together real dinner plates to show the class how earthquakes happened.
He shoved on the window as hard as he could and it creaked all the way out.
The drawers shuddered and moved and Sam, almost crying he was so afraid, grabbed the windowsill. With all the strength he had, he pulled himself headfirst through that skinny window. He got stuck, wiggled free, and then fell outside.
He landed on the ground, nearly headfirst.
He lay there, breathing, wanting to move, but afraid that his head was split open and his brains might start spilling out. He lay listening to the wind pick up, whipping through the trees. There were a lot of trees around him, and the sky was almost dark. Was it nighttime?