She took a deep breath, then nodded. The door opened, and Dr. Jeffson walked in with a nurse. He looked at them with the curiosity Lissa had seen on so many faces before; that wonder at the two of them together as a couple. She didn’t care. She knew what they were doing together; that was all that mattered. “The ultrasound is available,” he said. “Are you ready?”
Lissa looked up at Kozlowski and gave his hand another squeeze. “We are,” she said. “We’re ready.”
Finn was waiting downstairs in the lobby. He wondered whether he should have gone in to see Lissa. Normally there would have been no way to keep him out. There were few people more important in his life.
Nothing seemed normal anymore, though. He’d never felt like a third wheel with Lissa and Kozlowski until a few days before. They were a couple; he understood that. And yet they didn’t act like a couple. They didn’t cling to each other the way so many other couples did. Their relationship seemed built on stronger stuff than mutual dependence. As a result, his presence in the middle had never seemed to weaken it.
Things had changed. He had to give them a little more space now. When the doctor had pointed to her room and said that she could have visitors, Finn merely nodded to Kozlowski. “I’ll wait downstairs,” he’d said.
Kozlowski didn’t argue. Finn half expected Kozlowski to tell him to come in with him, just to make sure that she was all right. He hadn’t, though. “I’ll meet you down there in a little while,” he’d said. With that, he’d turned and walked down the hallway toward her room. Finn stood there for a moment, then headed toward the elevator.
He was sitting on a bench, trying to focus on Sally’s kidnapping, working through all the various ugly possibilities, when Kozlowski walked off the elevator forty-five minutes later.
Finn could tell nothing from Kozlowski’s face. The older man walked over to him, looked down. “We’ve got work to do,” he said.
Finn got up. “How is she?”
“She’s fine. They’re keeping her for a night, just to make sure.”
“The baby?”
Kozlowski nodded. “Still alive. Let’s go.” He turned and walked toward the lobby exit. Finn had to walk quickly to keep up. “We’ve got to get to this guy,” Kozlowski said. “He’ll kill the girl. He’s not just fucking around.”
Finn agreed. It was the only conclusion he’d come to about which he was sure. “Should we bring in the police?” he asked. “Maybe the FBI? It’s a kidnapping, so they’d have jurisdiction.”
Kozlowski shook his head. “I thought about it. This guy’s desperate. It’s not just about the money, there’s something else driving him. That means he’s unpredictable. The cops and the FBI work from a standard playbook that depends on predictability. We call them in, he’ll know, and he’ll kill her without even thinking twice. We need to get to this guy ourselves.”
“How?” Finn asked. “I’ve been sitting here, racking my brain, trying to come up with some way to find him, and I’ve got nothing.”
“We won’t find him,” Kozlowski said. “There’s not enough time, and he’s smart enough to be holed up in a place we’d never locate.”
“So? What do we do?”
They were out at the car, and Kozlowski was opening the passenger-side door. He looked over the roof of the car at Finn. “We find the paintings.”
“What?”
“He wants them,” Kozlowski said. “Why not give them to him?”
Finn blinked back at him. “Well, yeah. That sounds good in theory; in practice it seems a little unrealistic, doesn’t it?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because every relevant law-enforcement agency in the world has been looking for those paintings for twenty years and hasn’t come up with anything. That doesn’t even include all the journalists, private investigators, art houses, and every profiteer with any knowledge of art.”
“We’ve never looked for them,” Kozlowski pointed out.
“You sure you’re not being a little bit overconfident?”
“Probably,” Kozlowski said. “You got any better ideas? Maybe this will give us back some control. Besides, we have a better reason than anyone else to find them.”
“How do we even know that they’re still in Boston? In all likelihood they were sold a long time ago and moved out of the goddamned country.”
Kozlowski shook his head. “They’re here. This asshole helped steal these things almost twenty years ago, and he’s here, now. Not only that, but he seems pretty fuckin’ sure that someone here knows something. He’s smart, we know that much; and he’s careful. Careful enough to torture and kill a bunch of people and not leave behind anything that’s got him caught by the cops. A guy like that doesn’t make the kinds of moves he’s making after twenty years unless there’s been some reason-unless he’s learned something concrete.”
Finn considered this. “Okay, that seems logical,” he said. “There’s only one problem with it. It assumes that a guy who’s running around torturing and killing people is rational. That may be a stretch.”
“It may be, but if we want to have any hope of getting the girl back, we have to make that assumption. If it’s wrong, then we’re fucked and he’s going to kill her no matter what we do.”
Finn started the car, let the engine run for a moment. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll buy all that for the moment. But I need to know one thing.”
“What is it?”
“Is this personal? Because of what he did to Lissa?”
Kozlowski took a deep breath. “He took the girl. The daughter of our client-a girl we were taking care of. He assaulted Lissa, and he could have killed my child before it was even born. It doesn’t get any more personal than this.”
Finn stared back at him. “Good,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to hear. So where do we begin?”
“Where every investigation starts,” Kozlowski replied. “At the scene of the crime.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Finn made the call from the car. Sometimes being a lawyer seemed like a life strung together in a series of unpleasant phone conversations. Your parole was denied; the judge ruled against you; there’s a problem with the contract. Nothing in his experience, though, had prepared him for a call as difficult as this one.
“ Devon,” Finn said. He stopped. He couldn’t figure out how to say it.
“What’s wrong?” his client asked.
Finn took a deep breath. “Sally’s been kidnapped.” Three words. The worst three words Finn had ever uttered.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Devon said after a minute. “How? When?”
“A couple of hours ago. From her school.” Finn could hear Devon suck in air like a drowning man pulled from the ocean.
“Was it him?”
“Yeah,” Finn said. “We got a call from him within the last hour. He said she’s okay, but he’s only gonna let her go if he either gets the paintings or he gets you.”
“Did you tell the cops?”
“No. He told us that if we did, he’d kill her. She’s your daughter, though. If you think we should get the cops involved, we will. It’s your call.”
“No cops,” Devon said. “He’s not the kinda guy who bluffs. He’ll kill her. I gotta deal with this myself. Can you get me outta here?”
“Probably,” Finn said. “I’ve got a motion for a new bail hearing ready, and I can get it filed today. After the last hearing, it’s not gonna be cheap, but they’ll set bail.”
“I don’t care what it costs. Just get me out. It’s me he wants. That’s her only chance. When do you think the judge will hear it?”
“He’s got a motions session tomorrow. I’ll try to get it scheduled for then.”
“Get it done. I gotta get outta this place.” Devon sounded deep in despair.
“It’s the best I can do,” Finn said. “It’s not gonna be an easy hearing.”
“Okay,” Devon said. “Finn, I’m worried.”