Unspoken (41 page)

“I didn’t know how they had met. That’s useful to me.” Charlotte looked over at him. “Gage writes that the task force nearly found me the first week after the abduction.”

“We were working a tip you had been seen by the river, officers were canvassing homes, knocking on doors, looking for two men that fit the description from Tabitha. The address where you were held was on the list. A bad car wreck at the train crossing that day pulled officers off the canvass to help with the injured. The next day the first of several news specials on your case ran, and the tip line flooded with sightings. Manpower got diverted to work them. You were two addresses away from an officer knocking on the door. I can’t tell you how sorry I am it didn’t end that day for you.”

“Life would have been so different if it had.” Charlotte pushed her hands into her pockets, mimicking his. “I know cops did their best over the years.”

“Did the cousins talk about planning a kidnapping in the days before they took baby Connor?”

She shook her head. “They didn’t plan the crime. They went out to buy some beer, four hours later returned with a screaming baby boy bundled up in a blanket. They were yelling at each other, making the baby cry even louder. They thrust Connor at me and a sack of things they had bought and told me to make him be quiet.” Charlotte went silent. “I thought that first evening—the cops are going to be searching for this baby, they’ll find the boy and they’ll find me at the same time, and so much hope welled up inside at that thought. I already loved that little boy, but I thought he might also be my way out of the nightmare.”

“I’m so sorry he wasn’t, Charlotte.”

“After he died, I gave up. I stopped eating, stopped caring, grieved. I willed myself to die too. Baby Connor had escaped their grip, not as I hoped with his freedom, but with his death. I figured maybe it wouldn’t be so bad being dead compared to what reality was.” She looked over at Paul. “They were going to try again. I could hear it in their voices, see it in their frustration over not getting the ransom money they wanted. They were going to snatch another baby like Connor. I couldn’t go through it again.”

“I’m glad it took a different turn, for your sake, Charlotte, but also for every cop involved. You being found alive was the one bright moment in the case.”

They walked in silence.

“How much of this have you told Bryce?” Paul asked.

“Enough.”

“You can trust him for whatever you need to say.”

“I know. He’s a good husband, Paul.”

“Ann and I know in a small way the terrain you’re on. Her abduction lasted eight days, broke some bones, caused some medical complications. She still has trouble sleeping. If you want someone to talk with, you can trust my wife to keep your confidence.”

“I appreciate that. You’ll talk to Bryce if he needs a sounding board?”

“Of course.”

Paul shifted his briefcase to free his right hand as the elevator doors opened on the private fourth floor. Black was waiting for him. The dog promptly sat, lifted his paw. Paul grinned and took the handshake. “You’re getting fast at the greeting,” he whispered, and slipped the dog a piece of jerky. Black headed at speed toward the living room with his reward.

Ann appeared, smiling and shaking her head. “He’s not going to need dinner if he keeps this up. He got a double out of me, added a flourish of shaking hands, then rolling over and playing dead.” She took Paul’s briefcase, leaned in to share a welcome-home kiss. “I gather Charlotte kept the appointment.”

“We took a thirty-minute walk, and she answered every question I asked.”

“Anything else we need to worry about?”

“No. We find Christopher Caleb Cox, we can safely consider the baby Connor case closed.”

“How’s Charlotte holding up?”

“From her body language I’d say she’s a bundle of nerves. She has an identity for that third man now, and she needs him caught.”

“Anything on the tip line that sounds promising?”

“Sightings are all over the map, most on the West Coast, a
couple from here, a few for New York. You want to come in with me tomorrow, read through them? Fresh eyes are always useful.”

“For an hour or two. He’s going to need cash. John thinks he comes back to this area, returns to family and old friends.”

“I tend to agree. And it would be appropriate if what began here could end here.”

B
ryce straightened his tie as he joined Charlotte in the kitchen for lunch, saw she was holding the pitcher of tea. “I’ll take a glass of that while you’re pouring.”

She looked over to him from the television screen, blinked, looked down at her hand. “Oh, sure.” She reached for another glass.

“What is it, Charlotte?”

“A boy was abducted on the way to school this morning. It led the noon newscast. They’ll be giving an update after this commercial.” Bryce watched the news with her. Samuel Gibbs, twelve years old, had been abducted while riding his bike to school. There was an urgent appeal for anyone who saw the boy or a blue sedan with tinted windows seen leaving the area to come forward and help police with what they saw.

“The cops will find him, honey.”

Charlotte bit her lip, nodded. “I just hate when it’s a kid.”

Bryce rested his hands on her shoulders, rubbed at the tension. “John is coming over. You’re welcome to join us.”

“I’ve heard as many details as I can handle for a while. I’m going to go work in the studio if you don’t mind.”

“What’s the latest, Linda?” Paul checked his watch as he took the call. Samuel Gibbs had been missing for four hours and ten minutes.

“The note left taped on the bike’s handlebars said
We will be in touch
. I’m set up for an incoming call. The father has given us more than forty names of individuals who might have done this. He’s had some arbitration cases where neither side was happy with his ruling.”

“Jacob need anything?”

“The canvass around where the boy was taken is wrapping up. He’s got a partial plate on the sedan from a parent who saw the car turn out of the alley and into traffic ahead of him. Jacob’s working it, and he’s tasking people to check out names on the father’s list. It’s not common knowledge the boy rides his bike to school and even less that he takes that alley behind the diner as a shortcut. It’s possible the boy could have been a target of opportunity—grab the first rich kid who comes along.”

“Are the parents cooperating?”

“Yes.”

“I’m a call away when you need something. Keep me updated.”

“Will do, boss.”

Paul looked again at the time as he hung up the phone. If the boy was fortunate, a ransom call came in soon, they had the money delivered by six, and Samuel Gibbs was home by nightfall. But life was rarely an ideal world.

Bryce selected a book and joined Charlotte in the studio. She was working on a playground scene with dozens of kids enjoying recess. What had been a large, blank piece of paper that morning was now a working sketch with swings, a climbing platform, a slide, rocking horses, and kids playing on all of it.

John came in to join them. “Bryce, Charlotte, I’ve got Paul
on the phone.” He set the phone on a tray of pencils. “You’re on speaker, Paul.”

“Charlotte, I need you to listen to something. Ignore the content of the call, just listen to the voice.”

“Okay.”

“Play the call again, Linda,” he instructed.

“I have your son, Samuel. He said to tell you breakfast this morning was a poached egg and he forgot his math assignment on the kitchen table. I want three million, in black gym bags, left at the Haverford Street railroad crossing north of Meadow Park at three p.m. today. Deliver the unmarked cash, non-consecutive numbers, and the boy will be home unharmed tonight. Miss the deadline, the price goes up, and it’s at least another day or two before you hear from me again.
If
you hear from me again.”

Charlotte’s face tightened as she listened. “Paul, that’s the third man.”

“That’s what I thought too. Christopher Caleb Cox is back on his home turf, needing to raise some fast cash. He grabbed the son of a man he went to college with. Knowing who is holding the boy gives us a lot to work with. Thanks for the confirmation, Charlotte.”

“Paul, we can source you that ransom cash, and do it in the time you’ve got,” Bryce offered.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take you up on that, Bryce. The father is trying but doesn’t have this kind of cash accessible.”

John picked up the phone and took it off speaker. “Paul, where do you want me to bring it?”

Bryce counted stacks of hundred-dollar bills to reach three million, and John packed them into black gym bags.

“I didn’t know we had that much cash lying around.”

Bryce glanced up as Charlotte joined them at the kitchen table. “There are safes now tucked all around this house. I learned from Fred. You never know when you might need money in a hurry.”

“For Samuel’s sake, I’m glad you have it available. John, would you put this with the cash?” She offered a folded piece of paper.

John opened it, scanned the words, looked at her. He nodded and added the paper to a stack of the bills.

Bryce looked between the two of them, but didn’t ask.

Bryce met their guest at the back door. “Ann, thanks for coming by.”

“My pleasure, Bryce. Paul thought it might be helpful to hear an update with some of the details in person.”

Bryce was slow to close the door, caught off guard by the increased security presence on the property. John had added security dogs. His quiet comment earlier that day, “This changes things,” had been more layered with meaning than Bryce had realized.

“The boy is back safe?” Charlotte asked, walking into the kitchen from her studio.

“Young Samuel Gibbs walked into the police station in Evanston fifty minutes ago,” Ann confirmed. “He picked out Christopher from a set of photos as the man who took him. His family is on the way to him now.”

“Thanks for that very good news.”

“I wish I had more to offer than just that. We lost the chance of trailing the ransom money to Christopher. He used the Madoni family to pick up the ransom. He knew what he was doing in that respect.

“Think of the Madoni family as running a cash exchange for hot money,” Ann explained. “You tell them how much money you want to bring into their network, they tell you where to deliver it, you pick up clean cash less their fee at a different location. They’ve been doing this for at least sixty years. The dollar bills that enter their network end up in Mexico, some in Dubai, where it’s not going to matter if the serial numbers on the bills are being traced.”

“So the money we delivered isn’t the actual cash Christopher received,” Bryce clarified, thinking about Charlotte’s note.

“The Madoni family doesn’t normally release funds in less than forty-eight hours. They want time to make sure they aren’t accepting counterfeit currency, want to confirm the amount. If Christopher didn’t want to wait around, they would simply transport the bags and hand off the contents for a steep fee. Given the elaborate depths of the transportation shell game they put together, I’m guessing they simply passed along the contents of the bags to him minus their fee.”

“How did they move it?”

“An ambulance with two men dressed as paramedics picked up the ransom money. The tracking signals on the money went dead, either dumped in water or stomped on. Then they started pitching black duffel bags out the passenger window every block, and the bags were snatched up by passing cars. They pitched out a lot more duffel bags than they had picked up. The money could have been moved then.

“The ambulance then pulled into the parking garage at Shore Mall. Within minutes a caravan of white vans exited the parking garage. The final count on them was twenty-two. The money could have moved to one of the vans or an entirely different vehicle in the parking garage.

“The ambulance then pulled into Bayfield Hospital, parked, the two men walked through the hospital and exited the front
doors where they caught a cab. The ambulance owner didn’t even realize it had been stolen for the hour and a half it was gone. Somewhere along the way, probably at the mall parking lot, Christopher was handed the ransom money.”

“The priority always was getting Samuel back unharmed, so it was a good day,” Charlotte said.

“It was,” Ann agreed. “If Christopher is still traveling under the name Allen Crimson, this is going to be an easier search than if he’s changed his name again. But even with the ransom money, it’s going to be hard for him to hide for long. His photo is widely distributed now, and the fact he made this kind of desperate move means he has lost access to any cash reserves he might have built up. I think he’s in the last days of his freedom.”

“Charlotte turned in?” John asked.

“Half an hour ago. Today really took it out of her,” Bryce replied, getting them both cold drinks. “It shook her more than I expected, having Christopher behind another kidnapping.”

“He’s running because we’re chasing him, so indirectly Charlotte feels responsible for whatever he now does.”

Bryce raised an eyebrow at that, but nodded. “What’s going on? Charlotte writes a five-million-dollar check for cash, I figure it’s for an interesting reason.”

“We now own the house where she was held. I’ve been working on the demolition plans.”

“She’s appreciated seeing them,” Bryce said.

John pulled a page out of his pocket. “This is the text of the note she asked me to slip in with the cash.”

I remember what you said. I’ll pay you five million more if you leave my family alone. I’ll put it in the place you know.