“Because whoever comes will want to examine the person they talked to on the phone. Katarina and Tatiana don’t sound alike. They’ll know what we’re up to.”
“But why do we need to go through all that? We’ll have them here. Why risk following them home?”
Rachel closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Marc, think. If they find out we’re on to them, how will they react?”
I stopped.
“And I want to be clear about something else. This isn’t about just Tara anymore. We need to bring these guys down.”
“And if we just jump them here,” I said, seeing her true point now, “they’ll be forewarned.”
“That’s right.”
I wasn’t sure how much I cared about that. Tara was my priority. If the FBI or cops want to build a legal case against these people, I was all for it. But that sat way off my personal radar.
Katarina talked to Tatiana about our plan. I could see it wasn’t taking. The young girl was petrified. She kept shaking her head no. Time passed—time we really didn’t have. I snapped and decided to do something fairly stupid. I picked up the phone, dialed the beeper number, and pressed the nine button four times. Tatiana went still.
“You’ll do it,” I said.
Katarina translated.
No one spoke for the next two minutes. We all just stared at Tatiana. When the phone rang, I did not like what I saw in the young girl’s eyes. Katarina said something, her tone urgent. Tatiana shook her head and crossed her arms. The phone rang a third time. Then a fourth.
I took out my gun.
Rachel said, “Marc.”
I kept the gun at my side. “Does she know we’re talking about my daughter’s life?”
Katarina burst off something in Serbian. I looked Tatiana hard in the eyes. There was no reaction. I raised the gun and fired. The lamp exploded, the sound reverberating too loudly in the room. Everyone jumped. Another stupid move. I knew that. I just wasn’t sure I cared.
“Marc!”
Rachel put her hand on my arm. I shook it off. I looked at Katarina. “Tell her if the caller hangs up . . .”
I never finished the thought. Katarina started talking quickly. I gripped the gun, but it was back at my side now. Tatiana still had her eyes on me. Sweat popped up on my forehead. I felt my body shake. As Tatiana watched me, something in her face began to soften.
“Please,” I said.
On the sixth ring Tatiana snatched up the receiver and started talking.
I glanced over at Katarina. She listened to the conversation and then she nodded at me. I moved back to the other side of the room. I still had the gun in my hand. Rachel stared at me. But I stared back.
Rachel blinked first.
We parked the Camaro in a restaurant lot next door and waited.
There was not a lot of chitchat. The three of us looked everywhere but at each other, as if we were all strangers on an elevator. I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t sure what I felt. I had fired a gun and come pretty close to threatening a teenage girl. Worse, I don’t think I cared very much. The repercussions, if there were any, seemed far away, storm clouds that might gather and then again might disperse.
I flipped on the radio and dialed into the local news station. I half expected someone to say, “We interrupt this program with this special bulletin,” and then announce our names and give out descriptions and maybe warn that we were armed and dangerous. But there were no stories on a shooting in Kasselton or a police search for us.
Rachel and I were still in the front while Katarina lay across the fold-down seat in the back. Rachel had her Palm Pilot out. The stylus was in her hand, poised to tap. I debated calling Lenny, but I remembered Zia’s warning. They’d be listening in. I had nothing much to report anyway—just that I had threatened a pregnant sixteen-year-old girl with an illegal handgun taken off the corpse of a man who’d been murdered in my backyard. Lenny the Lawyer would certainly not relish the details.
“Do you think she’ll cooperate?” I said.
Rachel shrugged.
Tatiana had promised that she was now with us. I didn’t know if we could believe her or not. To be on the safe side, I unplugged her phone and took the cord with me. I searched the room for papers and writing material, so she couldn’t sneak her visitor a note. I found nothing. Rachel also put her cell phone on the window ledge to be used as a listening device. Katarina had the phone to her ear now. Again she would translate.
Half an hour later, a gold-toned Lexus SC 430 roared into the lot. I whistled low. A colleague at the hospital had just bought the same car. It put him back sixty grand. The woman who emerged sported a short, spiky shock of white hair. She wore a too-tight, hair-matching white shirt and, keeping with the theme, white pants so tight they seemed to be hovering below skin level. Her arms were toned and tan. The woman had that look. You know the one. She brought on memories of the hot mother strutting around the tennis club.
Rachel and I both turned to Katarina. Katarina nodded solemnly. “That’s her. That’s the woman who delivered my baby.”
I saw Rachel begin working her Palm Pilot. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Putting in the license plate and make. We should know who the car is registered to in a matter of minutes.”
“How do you do that?”
“It’s not hard,” Rachel said. “Every law enforcement officer makes connections. And if you don’t, you pay off someone at the DMV. Five hundred bucks usually.”
“Are you online or something?”
She nodded. “Wireless modem. A friend of mine named Harold Fisher, he’s a tech geek who works freelance. He didn’t like how the feds pushed me out.”
“So he helps you now?”
“Yes.”
The white-haired woman leaned back in and pulled out what might have been a medical bag. She threw on a pair of designer sunglasses and hurried toward Tatiana’s room. The woman knocked, the door opened, Tatiana let her in.
I turned around in my seat and watched Katarina. She had the phone on mute. “Tatiana is telling her that she feels better now. The woman is annoyed she called for nothing.” She paused.
“Have you heard a name yet?”
Katarina shook her head. “The woman is going to examine her.”
Rachel stared at her tiny Palm Pilot screen as if it were a magic eight ball. “Bang.”
“What?”
“Denise Vanech, Forty-seven Riverview Avenue, Ridgewood, New Jersey. Forty-six years of age. No outstanding parking violations.”