“I can see that. He sounded German — how? Accent, words, what?”
Trixie listened, then translated, “Words, she says. Curse words. She knows those.”
“Did he drive a car?”
“Didn’t see one. Would’ve noticed that.”
Cahil asked her, “What about the guy downstairs? Would he know anything?”
“René? Worth an ask, I guess.”
“Thanks,” Tanner replied. “Has anyone been in her apartment in the last couple weeks?”
“Couldn’t say for sure. We’re out a lot, ya see. I’ll ask Rene that, too.”
Tanner pulled another bill from his pocket and handed it across. “We’re going to have a look around her place. Do you have any problem with that?”
This time Sabine was quicker than her partner, as she snatched the bill away. Trixie glared at her then said, “Long as you don’t nab off with nothin’.”
“We won’t.”
“Have at it.”
Susanna’s apartment was only slightly more welcoming than Trixie and Sabine’s. The undressed brick walls were painted a bright yellow, which improved the mood of the space, but the furniture was equally sparce and soiled. In the corner was a futon frame and mattress covered in a black comforter. A withered houseplant sat on the windowsill, its stalks drooping down the wall. Tucked against the opposite wall were two cardboard boxes Susanna had obviously been using as a chest of drawers. A side door led into a small kitchenette. Tanner walked through, flipped on the overhead light, and watched as dozens of cockroaches scurried for the baseboards He opened the fridge and found it empty.
“Wow,” Cahil murmured.
“Let’s get started,” Tanner replied.
Fifteen minutes later they were done. The search turned up nothing. If Susanna had disappeared voluntarily she’d taken pains to cover her trail. If she’d been taken, someone had sanitized her apartment. Of course, the apartment’s anonymity may have simply been good tradecraft on her part: Without the trappings of daily life to exploit, anyone digging into her identity would have little to pursue.
Being this careful takes a tremendous amount of mental and emotional energy, and Tanner found himself wondering how Susanna had borne the stress. He’d been in this position before. If you lose your way for even a short while or let your self-discipline waver, the lines between the real you and the character you’re playing begin to blur. Beyond that lay paranoia and depression, and quick on their heels come the mistakes and lapses of judgment that got you killed.
My god, Susanna, where are you? Tanner wondered. “Anything?” he asked Cahil
“Clean as a whistle.”
“Here, too. Let’s go downstairs and check on Trixie.”
Tanner took a final look through the kitchen cupboards, then turned to leave. He stopped. He turned back and opened one of the cupboards. Drawn on the inside of the door in blue ink was what looked like a cartoon dog; beneath it were twelve digits: 774633998127.
Cahil walked into the kitchen and peered at the cupboard. “What’s that?”
Tanner smiled, chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
“What?” Cahil repeated. “It’s a dog.”
“It’s a goat — Susanna’s goat.”
“A goat. Wonderful. What’s that do for us?”
“If we’re lucky,” Tanner replied, “it’s going to tell us where she went.”
8
Royal Oak
It had become something of a morbid tradition for Joe McBride, this watching of the clock as the forty-eighth hour passed and a case tipped down the slippery statistical slope. He’d started the practice ten years before in Minneapolis as a desperate mother and father waited for a ransom call that had never come.
Now he sat beside Jonathan Root at the kitchen table as the wall clicked over to 11:58. Root wasn’t watching it, but was staring into space as he’d been doing for the better part of two days. His hands were wrapped around a long-cold cup of coffee.
Statistically, most ransom-driven kidnappers make contact within a few hours of the abduction. The wilier and/or cruder the perpetrator, the longer they wait, but after twenty-four hours the likelihood of contact begins to drop until the forty-eight-hour point, at which time the odds plummet. In the history of kidnapping, ransom demands made outside the “golden forty-eight” are rare.
Having learned the hard way to never lie to a client — even to save them some heartache — McBride had given Jonathan Root the statistics, but he’d also added a caveat: “Rules are made to be broken. Nothing is set in stone.”
Root had simply stared at McBride, then nodded blankly, said, “Sure, sure,” and turned away.
The former DCI and Washington powerhouse was withdrawing into himself, McBride could see, and he imagined the nature of Root’s profession was working against him. As a spook, it had been his job to envision worst-case scenarios and come up with contingency plans. Problem was, there was no contingency plan for this, no manual or committee Root could consult if the worst came to pass and his wife was found dead — or never found at all. Root had seen the worst of humanity: images of atrocities in Rwanda; suicide bombings in Haifa; public executions of captured American soldiers in Afghanistan … It was all there in his memory, a sieve through which his hope was being filtered.
Unbidden, McBride felt his mind switching gears. If the worst happens, he’s going to need help. He won’t ask for it. He’ll have to be pushed into it — coaxed back into life. Left alone, he’ll sit here alone in the dark and let himself die.
After parting company with Oliver at Quantico, McBride had driven back to the Root estate to walk the grounds. As much for Root as for himself, he’d guided the former DCI through the event again, trying to pick out a thread of something useful. Together they walked through the house, Root giving him a running monologue of the sights, smells, and sounds of that night. Occasionally Root would stop beside a knickknack or a photo and relate its story to McBride. Without exception, Amelia Root was the main player in each tale. She was the nexus of Root’s life, McBride realized.
Root picked up a picture of him and Amelia standing in a fishing boat, smiling. His arm was around her waist as she struggled to hold aloft a Coho salmon. “She was so proud of that thing,” Root murmured, tears in his eyes. “She wouldn’t let anyone help her — she even netted it herself. You know, just the other day she was …” Root trailed off, blinked a few times as though coming back to reality, then walked on.
There had been one positive sign, though. Earlier in the day Root had accepted a lunch invitation from his next-door neighbors, Raymond Crohn and his wife — the people that had sounded the alarm after the kidnapping. Root had been reluctant, but then agreed at McBride’s urging. When Root returned, McBride could see some of the tension had melted from his face.
The clock began bonging. As if on cue, McBride’s cell phone trilled. He walked into the living room and answered. It was Oliver: “We’ve got something, a hit on the hiking boot.”
“Where are you?”
“Salisbury. We rousted the store owner; he’s going to meet us.”
McBride copied down the address, said, “I’ll meet you,” then hung up.
“What is it, Joe?” Root said from the doorway. “Did you find her?” he whispered.
McBride walked over and laid a hand on his shoulder. “No, but we’ve got a lead. We’ve got our foot in the door. Try to get some sleep. I’ll call you the second I know something.”
The town of Salisbury, population 23,000, was nine miles from the Root estate. Twenty-five minutes after leaving, McBride pulled into a parking space in front of Norwich Camping Outfitters. Ten minutes after that Oliver pulled in beside him. A man in pajama bottoms, slippers, and a red sweatshirt emblazoned with “Salisbury State University” got out of the passenger seat and hurried to the store’s front door.