Silent Night (14 page)

Jimmy felt the kid stirring beside him, trying to settle back into sleep. What a mistake! he thought. I should have dumped him five minutes after I took him. I had the car and the money. Why did I think I needed him?

He ached for the moment when he could be rid of the kid and be safe.

O
fficer Ortiz escorted Catherine, her mother, and Michael to the Fiftieth Street entrance to St. Patrick's Cathedral. A security guard stationed outside was waiting for them. “We have seats for you in the reserved section, ma'am,” he told Catherine as he pushed the heavy door open.

The magnificent sound of the orchestra led by the organ and accompanied by the choir filled the great cathedral, which was already packed with worshipers.

“
Joyful, joyful
,” the choir was singing.

Joyful, joyful, Catherine thought. Please God, yes, let this night end like that.

They passed the crèche where the life-sized figures of the Virgin, Joseph, and the shepherds were gathered
around the empty pile of hay that was the crib. She knew that the statue of the infant Christ child would be placed there during the Mass.

The security guard showed them to their seats in the second row on the middle aisle. Catherine indicated that her mother should go in first. Then she whispered, “You go between us, Michael.” She wanted to be on the outside, at the end of the row, so she could be aware the minute the door opened.

Officer Ortiz leaned over. “Mrs. Dornan, if we hear anything, I'll come in for you. Otherwise when Mass is over, the guard will lead you out first, and I'll be waiting outside in the car.”

“Thank you,” Catherine said, then immediately sank to her knees. The music changed to a swirling paean of triumph as the procession began—the choir, the acolytes, deacon, priests, and bishops, preceding the cardinal, who was carrying the crook of the shepherd in his hand.
Lamb of God
, Catherine prayed,
please, please save my lamb
.

*   *   *

Chief of Detectives Folney, his gaze still riveted to the map of the Thruway on the wall of his office, knew that with each passing minute, the chances of finding Brian Dornan alive grew slimmer. Mort Levy and Jack Shore were across the desk from him.

“Canada,” he said emphatically. “He's on his way to Canada, and he's getting close to the border.”

They had just received further word from Michigan. Paige Laronde had closed all her bank accounts the day she left Detroit. And in a burst of confidence, she had told another dancer that she had been in touch with a guy who was a genius at creating fake IDs.

It was reported that she had said, “Let me tell you, with the kind of papers I got for my boyfriend and me, we can both just
disappear
.”

“If Siddons makes it over the border . . .” Bud Folney muttered more to himself than to the others.

“Nothing from the Thruway guys?” he asked for the third time in fifteen minutes.

“Nothing, sir,” Mort said quietly.

“Call them again. I want to talk to them myself.”

When he got through to Chris McNally's supervisor and heard for himself that absolutely nothing was new, he decided he wanted to speak to Trooper McNally himself.

“A lot of good that'll do,” Jack Shore muttered to Mort Levy.

But before Folney could be connected with McNally, another call came in. “Hot lead,” an assistant said, rushing into Folney's office. “Siddons and the kid were seen by a trooper about an hour ago at a rest area on
Route 91 in Vermont near White River Junction. He said the man matches Siddons's description to a T, and the boy was wearing some kind of medal.”

“Forget McNally,” Folney said crisply. “I want to talk to the trooper who saw them. And right now, call the Vermont police and have them put up barriers at all the exits north of the sighting. For all we know, the girlfriend may be holed up waiting for him in a farmhouse on this side of the border.”

While Folney waited, he looked over at Mort. “Call Cally Hunter and tell her what we've just learned. Ask her if she knows if Jimmy has ever been to Vermont and if so, where did he go? There might be some place in particular he could be headed.”

B
rian could tell that the car was going faster. He opened his eyes, then shut them as fast as he could. It was easier to stay lying down, curled up on the seat, pretending to be asleep, instead of having to try not to act scared when Jimmy looked at him.

He also had been listening to the radio. Even though the volume was turned way down, he could hear what they were saying, that cop killer Jimmy Siddons, who had shot a prison guard, had kidnapped Brian Dornan.

His mother had been reading a book named
Kidnapped
to him and Michael. Brian liked the story a lot, but when they went to bed, Michael told him he thought it was dumb. He had said that if anyone tried to
kidnap him, he'd kick the guy and punch him and run away.

Well, I can't run away, Brian thought. And he was sure that trying to hurt Jimmy by punching him wouldn't work. He wished that he'd been able to open the car door earlier and roll out like he had planned to. He'd have curled up in a ball just like they taught the kids to do in gym class. He would have been okay.

But now the car door near him was locked, and he knew that before he could even pull up the lock and open the door, Jimmy would grab him.

Brian was almost crying. He could feel his nose filling up and his eyes getting watery. He tried to think about how Michael might call him a crybaby. Sometimes that helped him when he was trying not to cry.

It didn't help now, though. Even Michael would probably cry if he was scared and he had to go to the bathroom again. And it said right on the radio that Jimmy was dangerous.

But even though he was crying, Brian made sure he didn't make a sound. He felt the tears on his cheeks, but he didn't move to brush them away. If he moved his hand, Jimmy would notice and know he was awake, and for now he had to keep pretending.

Instead, he clasped the St. Christopher medal even tighter and made himself think about how when Dad was
able to go back home, they were going to put up their own Christmas tree and open the presents. Just before they had left for New York, Mrs. Emerson who lived next door had come in to say good-bye, and he had heard her say to his mom, “Catherine, no matter when it is, the night you put up your tree, we're all going to come and sing Christmas carols under your window.”

Then she'd hugged Brian and said, “I
know
your favorite carol.”

“Silent Night.” He'd sung it all by himself in the first-grade Christmas pageant at school last year.

Brian tried to sing it to himself now, in his mind . . . but he couldn't get past “Silent night.” He knew if he kept thinking about it, he wouldn't be able to keep Jimmy from knowing that he was crying.

Then he almost jumped. Someone on the radio was talking about Jimmy and him again. The man was saying that a state trooper in Vermont was sure he had seen Jimmy Siddons and a young boy in an old Dodge or Chevrolet at a rest stop on Route 91 in Vermont, and the search was being concentrated there.

Jimmy's grim smile vanished as quickly as it had come. The first surge of relief at hearing the news bulletin was followed by instant caution.
Had
some fool claimed he'd spotted them in Vermont? he wondered. It was possible,
he decided. When he had been hiding out in Michigan, some two-bit drifter swore he'd seen Jimmy in Delaware. After he got caught at the gas-station job and was taken back to New York, he had found out that the marshals had kept the heat on in Delaware for months.

Even so, being on the Thruway was really beginning to spook him. The road was good and he could make time, but the nearer you got to the border, the more troopers there might be on the road. He decided that when he got off at the next exit, and got rid of the kid, he'd swing over to Route 20. Now that it wasn't snowing, he should be able to make okay time there.

Follow your hunch, Jimmy reminded himself. The only time he hadn't was when he had tried to hold up that gas station. He still remembered that at the time something had warned him there was a problem.

Well, after this, there'll be no more problems, he thought, looking down at Brian. Then when he looked up, he grinned. The sign looming before him read
EXIT 42, GENEVA, ONE MILE AHEAD.

*   *   *

Chris McNally had passed the fender-bender on the exit 41 ramp. Two police cars were on the scene already, so he decided there was no need for him to stop. He had traveled fast, and he hoped that by now he had caught up to any cars that had been ahead of him on line at McDonald's.

Provided, of course, they hadn't taken one of the earlier exits.

A brown Toyota. That's what he kept looking for. Finding it was the one chance. He knew it. What was it about the license plate? He clenched his teeth, again trying hard to remember. There had been something about it . . . Think, damn it, he told himself,
think
.

He didn't for one minute believe the report that Siddons and the kid had been spotted in Vermont. Every gut instinct kept telling Chris that they were nearby.

Exit 42 to Geneva was coming up. That meant the border was only another hundred miles or so away. Most of the cars were doing fifty to sixty miles an hour now. If Jimmy Siddons was in this vicinity, he could look forward to being out of the country in less than two hours.

What was there about the license plate of the Toyota? he asked himself once more.

Chris's eyes narrowed. He could see a dark Toyota in the passing lane that was moving fast. He switched lanes and drove up beside it, then glanced in. He prayed that it held a single man or a man with a young boy. Just a chance to find that child. Give me a chance, he prayed.

Without turning on his siren or dome light, Chris continued past the Toyota. He had been able to see a young couple inside. The guy was driving with his arm
around the girl, not a good idea on an icy road. Another time he'd have pulled him over.

Chris stepped on the gas. The road was clearer, the traffic was better spaced. But everything was moving faster and faster, and closer and closer to Canada.

His radio was on low when a call came in for him. “Officer McNally?”

“Yes.”

“New York City Chief of Detectives Bud Folney calling you from One Police Plaza. I just spoke to your supervisor again. The Vermont sighting is a washout. The Lenihan woman can't be found. Tell me what you reported earlier about a brown Toyota.”

Knowing his boss had dismissed that, Chris realized that this Folney must be really pressing him.

He explained that if Deidre had been talking about the car directly ahead of him in the McDonald's line, she was talking about a brown Toyota with New York plates.

“And you can't remember the license.”

“No, sir.” Chris wanted to strangle the words in his throat. “But there was something unusual about it.”

He was almost at exit 42. As he watched, a vehicle two cars ahead switched into the exit lane. His casual glance became a stare. “My God,” he said.

“Officer? What is it?” In New York, Bud Folney instinctively knew that something was happening.

“
That's it
.” Chris said. “It wasn't the license plate I noticed. It was the bumper sticker. There's just a piece of it left and it says
inheritance
. Sir, I'm following that Toyota down the exit ramp right now. Can you check out the license?”

“Don't lose that car,” Bud snapped. “And hang on.”

*   *   *

Three minutes later the phone rang in apartment 8C, in 10 Stuyvesant Oval, in lower Manhattan. A sleepy and anxious Edward Hillson picked it up. “Hello,” he said. He felt his wife's nervous grasp on his arm.

“What? My car? I parked it around the corner at five or so. No, I didn't lend it to anyone. Yes. It's a brown Toyota. What are you telling me?”