Hangman Read online

  She stares like she thinks I’ve gone mad. Or maybe she thinks she has. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Sure you can. I want his exact words, his accent, everything. Ring ring.’

  ‘Mr Blake,’ the SAC says, ‘we don’t have time for this.’

  She’s right, but I ignore her. ‘Ring ring.’ I pick up the invisible telephone. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Annette,’ Hall says. Her eyes are closed. ‘I want you to listen very carefully.’

  Her voice has become deeper, harsher. There’s a phlegmy crackle in it. Her accent hasn’t changed, but clearly she’s learned a lot since Days of Our Lives.

  ‘Who is this?’ I ask. I don’t know if that’s what she said to the kidnapper, but she doesn’t correct me.

  ‘Mom! Please, help me!’ Her voice trembles like a weathervane, but she pushes through. ‘Someone’s got—’

  She interrupts herself, switching back to the growling voice. ‘Right now, your son is safe. How long he stays that way is up to you. If you tell the police about this call, he will be nailed to a basement wall by his eyelids and nostrils and lips and left to starve. If you tell anyone else about this call, he will be nailed to a basement wall by his eyelids and nostrils and lips and left to starve. And if you don’t fill a Walmart bag with twenty thousand dollars in unmarked bills—one hundred hundreds, a hundred and twenty fifties, and two hundred twenties—and put it in the dumpster behind the Walmart on the Northwest Freeway at six pm tomorrow, he will be nailed to a basement wall by his eyelids and nostrils and lips and left to starve. You have twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Anything else?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ll repeat that,’ Hall says, still in the kidnapper’s voice. ‘A Walmart bag. Twenty thousand dollars. Unmarked bills. One hundred hundreds, a hundred and twenty fifties, and the rest in twenties. The dumpster behind the Walmart on the Northwest Freeway. Six pm tomorrow, or Cameron dies.’

  Silence.

  The SAC hands Hall her clothes without a word. Hall starts putting them on, head bowed.

  The choice of words is telling. Clear, direct—the kidnapper sounds like he was reading from a prepared speech. Possibly a professional. He probably didn’t expect Hall to call the cops. I’m surprised she did.

  I ask, ‘What did you say that I didn’t?’

  ‘I said, “Please don’t hurt my son.” He didn’t reply.’

  She stares me down, not blinking, not looking away. She’s hiding something, and trying to look like she’s not.

  ‘Did he listen?’ I ask.

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Was there a pause?’

  She thinks about it. ‘No.’

  ‘What else?’ I say. ‘I’m trying to save your son’s life. What are you not telling me?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ the SAC snaps at me. ‘We have to focus. I want you out.’

  Hall’s cell phone rings.

  She pulls it out of her pocket. ‘Private number,’ she says.

  ‘Shit,’ says the SAC.

  Hall stares down at her phone like it’s a live tarantula. ‘Oh God. It’s him, isn’t it?’

  ‘You got a speaker phone setting on that thing?’ I ask.

  ‘Um…’ She fiddles anxiously. ‘Yeah, I do.’

  ‘Blake…’ the SAC warns.

  ‘Switch it on,’ I say.

  Hall does. The SAC clamps her mouth shut.

  Hall lifts the phone to her ear. ‘Hello?’

  There’s a pause.

  ‘Hello, Annette,’ a voice says.

  It’s running through a filter which removes all changes in pitch. The man sounds like a robot from a cheesy old sci-fi show, but it’s a very effective disguise. It could be my own voice, and I wouldn’t even know.

  ‘The arrangement has changed,’ he says. ‘You will drop the money in the dumpster at four pm, not six.’

  Only fifty minutes away.

  ‘What? But—’

  ‘Mom?’ It’s Cameron’s voice, not distorted. ‘Don’t let—’

  He’s cut off again by the kidnapper. ‘You already know what will happen to him if you’re not there.’

  He could be changing the time because he needs the money more urgently. But probably he wants her to be less prepared. He doesn’t want her to have time to set up a trap.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want!’ Hall cries. ‘Just please, don’t hurt him!’

  ‘The location remains the same. The dumpster behind the Walmart on the Northwest Freeway.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say.

  Hall and the SAC whirl around to face me, shock splattered across their faces.

  ‘I’m the kid’s father,’ I say. ‘I’ve got the money. But how do I know you’ll release my boy once we’re paid up?’

  The voice keeps talking over the top of me. ‘Be there by four pm or you’ll never see him again.’

  The line goes dead.

  The SAC grabs the front of my shirt and pins me to the wall. I can smell her coconut shower gel and feel the heat from her body. I haven’t been this close to a woman in years. My heart is racing.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ the SAC demands, her breath on my face.

  I can feel my lips peeling back to expose my teeth. I shut my eyes, trying to get back in control.

  ‘He couldn’t hear me,’ I say. ‘It was a recording. That’s why he ignored her the first time, that’s why there was a pause after she answered, and that’s why his voice was distorted but Cameron’s wasn’t. It’s been edited.’

  Hall looks like an earthquake is happening beneath her. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means he could have made that call from anywhere,’ I say. ‘Not necessarily his hideout. And it also means—’

  ‘He could have recorded it yesterday.’ The SAC lets go of me. ‘There’s no proof of life.’

  I nod.

  ‘Shit,’ she says again.

  ‘I’m being punished,’ Hall says behind me.

  I turn around to ask what she means, but I’m too late. With the clap of skin against concrete, she collapses to the floor.

  CHAPTER 6

  Walk right through me, never see me, die without me. What am I?

  The rooftop has soaked up the day’s heat like an old dishcloth. The concrete reeks of it. My toes, my thighs, my stomach, my forearms—every part of me touching the roof is wrapped in sweat.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Thistle says, mostly to herself. We’re lying on top of an office building about two hundred yards from the Walmart, which is a mustard brown building big enough to house passenger planes. A McDonald’s logo glows on one wall, and a sign says Pharmacy Drive-Thru. An American flag droops from a pole on top of the Walmart. Hundreds of pigeons are perched on the edge of the rooftop, watching pedestrians come and go. The parking lot is as big as a football pitch. Stadium lights fizz quietly, their shine competing with the late afternoon sun. People wander to and from their cars at a lazy pace.

  Through Thistle’s binoculars I can see Hall sitting in her car down below, digging nervously at an invisible blemish on the back of her hand. Her face is strangely calm. It’s been that way since she woke up on the floor of the storeroom. She’s probably in shock and needs treatment, but we can’t take her to a hospital. If she doesn’t make the drop, her son is as good as dead.

  Then again, it’s likely he’s floating facedown in the bay already. That’s why she’s in shock.

  My mouth is gritty with chewed-up nails. I swallow the remains and start on another. Tiny seams of blood are appearing around my cuticles.

  I pan left. Another McDonald’s. Earlier, the SAC said it was strange to have one McDonald’s inside the Walmart and another one right outside. Maybe she hasn’t been to Texas before. A sniper in SWAT gear lies on the roof of the second McDonald’s, eye to the scope, as still as any statue of Ronald. In the Bureau, they call the SWATs ‘ninjas’.

  Another is crouched on the roof of the Walmart itself. The SAC is in this building somewhere below me, her gun barre
l resting on the frame of an open window. Yet another sniper is around the other side of the Walmart, watching the back of the building from above a cabinetmaker’s shop.

  Thistle and I have the highest and most distant vantage point, but we don’t need to be closer. We’re looking, not shooting.

  Luzhin’s voice crackles on Thistle’s radio. ‘All units. Any sign of hostiles?’

  The snipers sign off one by one.

  ‘Negative, sir.’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘That’s a negative here too.’

  The SAC says, ‘All negative this side.’

  Thistle is last to reply. ‘Sorry, sir,’ she says. ‘We got nothing.’

  ‘Well, stay sharp,’ Luzhin says. ‘No children are going to die today.’

  He’s in an unmarked van somewhere on the other side of the Walmart. The other agents may wonder why he’s taking a personal interest in this case. They don’t know he’s here to watch me.

  It’s one thing to let me read files, question witnesses and even interrogate suspects, but this is a ransom drop, which is much more volatile. Luzhin won’t let me near something like this without someone there who knows who I am and what I do. And since he can’t tell anybody, it has to be him.

  I’m tense. The muscles in the back of my neck are knotted around my spine. Most of me wants to see Hall pay the ransom, the kidnapper drop Cameron off and the FBI shoot him dead. The kidnapper, that is, not the kid—although that sort of screw-up does happen from time to time.

  But if it goes down that way, everything I did was useless. Working out where Cameron was taken from, who he’s close to, why the ransom calls weren’t interactive—none of it means anything if he gets returned right now.

  One body for every life I save. That’s my deal with Luzhin. If my input leads directly to a rescue, I get to feed my addiction with a death row inmate. If Cameron dies, or if he shows up without my help, I get nothing. And there’s a Tanzanian triple murderer I’m just dying to meet.

  Figure of speech. He’s the one who will be dying.

  I should hate myself for wanting the drop to go wrong. But a pound of guilt is worth an ounce of lust.

  Annette Hall pushes the car door open. She wobbles on her pumps as she hurries across the lot towards the dumpster. I would have worn something easier to walk in if I were her. Maybe it’s a confidence thing.

  ‘Three minutes,’ Thistle mutters. ‘You noticed anything?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like whatever the fuck you were supposed to notice while I was babysitting you all day.’

  ‘There are two hundred and thirty-eight cars down there in six hundred and four spaces,’ I say. ‘Twenty-three of the cars have vanity plates. At this moment, seventeen pedestrians are headed towards Walmart, and twelve are going back to their cars. Of those twenty-nine people, twenty-one are women, and nine are under twenty years old. Fourteen of them are black, three are Asian. The rest are Caucasian.’

  Thistle says nothing.

  ‘That all means,’ I say, ‘our suspect isn’t here.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Statistics tell me he’ll be a white male between twenty and forty. Experience tells me that he won’t be walking into or out of Walmart. He’ll be standing still, pretending to read a newspaper or talk on a cell phone or smoke a cigarette. A hoodie would be conspicuous in this heat, so he’ll be wearing a baseball cap and maybe sunglasses too. And his clothes will be old, faded, badly fit. He’ll want to look homeless when he’s searching the dumpster for the bag.’

  ‘How do you know he’ll be standing? What if he’s in one of the cars?’

  ‘He’ll want a direct line of sight to the dumpster. Only the cars closest to the Walmart have that, and they’re all empty.’

  Thistle stares at me for a long time, and then says, ‘Blake, were you a kidnapper?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No one knows that shit except cops, ex-cops, PIs and kidnappers. I suppose judges and lawyers and psychologists might know parts of it, but if you didn’t finish high school, you never went to college.’

  Sure I did. I bought pizzas there.

  ‘Kidnappers typically get twenty years,’ I say. ‘Do I look old enough to have done that kind of time?’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t get caught. Maybe Mr Burns knows you did it but can’t prove it, so now he’s using you.’

  That’s worryingly close to the truth. ‘I never kidnapped anybody,’ I say.

  We’re interrupted by a ringing phone. It takes me a moment to realise that the sound is in my earplug.

  I look down through the binoculars. Hall is fumbling with her handset, searching for the accept button.

  ‘He’s not here,’ I say. ‘I would’ve seen him.’

  Hall answers. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Then why is he calling?’ Thistle asks.

  My mind is racing. Maybe he left something here—like a car with the keys in it, to take her to yet another location, somewhere we can’t monitor her. If he did, we’re in deep trouble.

  The kidnapper starts talking. ‘Annette, for Cameron’s sake, I hope that bag contains twenty thousand dollars.’

  I’m searching the parked cars, looking for one with missing plates or a patchy paint job, and suddenly I see something. On the back seat of a white Toyota Camry, nowhere near the Walmart, there’s something hay-coloured. Blond hair, maybe. Could be a boy slumped against the window. Cameron. Unconscious…or dead.

  Or it could be something else—a golden retriever, asleep on the back seat. The angle makes it impossible to tell. I wriggle sideways without taking my eyes off it, but it’s too far away to get a better view.

  ‘The money’s all there,’ Hall tells the kidnapper, just in case it’s not a recording this time. ‘Where’s Cam?’

  A car pulls out of its spot, giving me a clear line of sight.

  That’s no dog.

  I yell, ‘The kid!’ Then I’m running across the roof, towards the stairwell door.

  Thistle cries out, ‘Wait! Wait, damn it!’

  But the kidnapper’s not here, I’m sure of that. No reason for me to stay hidden. Every reason to get to the boy as fast as possible. If he’s unconscious, that means drugged. And I doubt the kidnapper is a professional anaesthesiologist.

  I race down two flights of stairs, soles slapping the cement, and shove open a fire door. Office workers stare at me as I sprint down the corridor to the elevators and stab the call button.

  The voice is still going. ‘You’re going to put it in the dumpster and start walking back to your car.’

  ‘Don’t do it,’ the SAC reminds her.

  Hall screams, ‘Not until I see my son!’ Her voice overloads the mic. The plug crackles in my ear.

  The ten seconds it takes the elevator to arrive feel like an hour. Finally the doors open and I dive through them. I hit the button marked G, and then the one that’s supposed to close the doors.

  Thistle slips through, blocking them. ‘Blake, just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  I stab the button again. ‘The kid’s in a white Camry in the parking lot.’

  ‘Alive?’

  The doors slide closed. ‘I don’t know.’

  The kidnapper says, ‘If you don’t comply, you will be killing Cameron.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Hall says. I hear the thump of the bag dropping into the dumpster. ‘It’s done. Just please don’t hurt him. Please.’

  The SAC says something I don’t catch.

  I can see Thistle’s jaw clenching as the floors hum past. She says, ‘You can’t go out there. He might be watching.’

  ‘He’s not. I’d have seen him.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Reese,’ I say. ‘Trust me.’

  She bites her lip. Then she mutters, ‘Christ,’ and grabs her radio.

  ‘This is Thistle, calling all units. I have an unconfirmed sighting of Cameron in a white Toyota Camry. Registration number…’

  She loo
ks at me. I recite the plates from memory.

  Thistle repeats the number into the radio. ‘Heading down to check it out,’ she says.

  Luzhin’s voice comes on immediately. ‘Stand down, Agent—the kidnappers could be here.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir, your boy Blake says they’re not.’

  There’s a pause. ‘Then get out there,’ Luzhin says finally. ‘Everyone else, eyes on the Camry. The suspect may be inside.’

  The kidnapper is still talking to Hall. ‘Keep walking towards the dental clinic up the other end of the lot. There’s a white Toyota Camry parked on the end of the row. It’s unlocked.’

  ‘He’s releasing Cameron,’ Thistle says.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ I say. ‘He’s not here to collect the ransom.’

  The elevator doors open again. Thistle and I run out, past the reception desk, headed for the fading daylight.

  We reach the door. Thistle says, ‘You stay here.’

  Not likely. I follow her out.

  Ahead of us, Annette Hall has nearly reached the Camry. Her eyes widen as she sees the boy in the back seat. She starts running. Thistle and I sprint towards the car from the other side.

  We all reach it at the same moment. Hall pulls open the rear door.

  A shop-window mannequin tumbles out. One plastic arm gets caught in the frame on the way, and it spins like a ballerina before hitting the ground with an ugly crack. The blond wig slithers off.

  ‘No!’ Hall cries.

  Thistle says, ‘Fuck.’ She holds up the radio again. ‘That’s a negative on contact. We don’t have Cameron. Repeat, we do not have Cameron.’

  There’s a stab mark in the dummy’s abdomen. The cheap T-shirt it wears has been torn, and the plastic split. Blood surrounds the fake wound.

  Real blood. I can smell it.

  The kidnapper resumes talking. ‘You shouldn’t have called the cops, Ms Hall. I’m willing to give you another chance, but the discount has expired. You have now paid zero point five per cent of the total ransom. Think of it as a down payment on your son’s life.’

  They want more money. That figures.

  Hall is sobbing hysterically. Thistle leans in closer to the stab wound. ‘What’s that?’ she says.

  ‘As a gesture of good faith,’ the kidnapper continues, ‘I have returned zero point five percent of Cameron.’