“Did you hear that?” Hobson heard Vanessa yell at her father. “You better not try anything now. Director Hobson will hear everything you do. Carl and I will lay down our weapons when the police come. We won’t hurt anyone, so there won’t be any ‘killed resisting arrest,’ or ‘killed in self-defense.’ If you shoot us you’ll be charged with murder.”
The second line in Hobson’s hotel room started blinking.
“I’m going to put you on hold for a moment, General” he said. “I’m getting another call. It’s probably an update on the police situation.”
“I’ll hold,” Wingate said. “And don’t worry. My men won’t shoot. I don’t want Vanessa hurt.”
Hobson spoke to Detective Walsh long enough to be briefed. Then he reconnected with Wingate.
“The local police are minutes away, General. Please have your gate man let them in.”
“Of course. Now, Director Hobson, will you ask my daughter, as a show of good faith, to send my man out?”
“Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
“Your father says that you have a hostage.”
“He’s not a hostage. He’s the bastard who kidnapped me. You’ve met him. He’s Sam Cutler.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend. My father paid him to keep an eye on me. He’s the one who’s been giving me drugs, and he tried to murder Carl.”
“Will you send him out as a show of good faith?”
“I should kill the bastard, but I’ll give him back to his master if Carl says it’s okay.”
Hobson held on the phone. He could hear Vanessa and Rice conferring, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“Okay. Tell the General to keep his men back and we’ll drag him out. He’s still unconscious.”
“Vanessa has agreed to send out your man, but you have to keep back from the door.”
“I’ll tell my men to back away and hold their fire.”
“Good.”
“And I have a favor to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“Please tell the police to treat my daughter gently. She’s a sick woman. I’m certain she has no real grasp of reality. She belongs in a hospital, not a jail.”
Vanessa could hear Victor Hobson’s half of the conversation, and she could imagine what her father was saying. He would be lying, of course, telling Hobson that she and Carl were crazy, but crazy was better than dead.
As soon as Hobson told her that the General had pulled his men down the hall, Carl gave Vanessa his gun.
“He looks like he’s still out,” Carl said, “but don’t hesitate to kill him if he’s faking.”
Vanessa kept the gun trained on Cutler. Carl grimaced from the pain in his shoulder as he pushed the bed out of the way and pulled the chair from beneath the doorknob. Then he grabbed Cutler under the arms and dragged him to the door. Vanessa followed him, keeping the gun trained on Cutler. He still looked unconscious, but Vanessa wasn’t taking chances.
Carl wrestled Cutler to the door and Vanessa opened it. The area in front of the door was empty. Carl laid Cutler on the floor and shoved him into the hall. Vanessa slammed the door shut and Carl wedged the chair under the knob again before pushing the bed back into place.
“We did what you asked,” Vanessa told Hobson. “Sam’s in the hall, safe and sound. Now it’s your job to keep us alive.”
“The police are almost there,” Hobson said.
Vanessa sat down with her back to the far wall and pulled her knees to her chest.
“How are you holding up?” Carl asked.
“I’m fine, just tired. It’s probably the drugs.”
“They’ll wear off soon.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” Carl said.
“You didn’t get me into anything. I’m the one who broke you out of jail.”
“And now it looks like we’ll both go to prison. I never meant for it to be this way.”
“Why did you come for me, Carl? You could have been well away from here, on your way to freedom.”
“I betrayed you once, Van, and I wasn’t going to do that again. I let the General seduce me. That decision has haunted me my whole life.”
“You think we would have stayed together if you went to college? I was pretty screwed up back then.” She laughed. “I still am.”
“I have no idea what would have happened. I just know that I let you down.”
“So you were trying to set things right by storming the General’s castle?”
“I was keeping my word. You saved me and I told you I’d come for you. That’s what I did. Sorry it didn’t work out like it does in the movies.”
“Oh, I don’t know. In the movies, the cavalry always comes to the rescue.”
Vanessa pointed to the outer wall. Rice heard the faint sound of sirens.
“We’ll be out of here soon and we’ll be alive,” Vanessa said.
“But we’ll both be in jail.”
Vanessa reached over and held Carl’s forearm. “Don’t give up. We’ll beat him. I know it. I just haven’t figured out how, yet. But we’ll beat my father.”
Vanessa swore this with conviction, but Carl knew he was doomed to spend the rest of his life behind bars. Vanessa’s father could probably keep her out of jail, though she would spend years-if not a lifetime-in a mental hospital.
Carl put his good arm around her shoulder and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Sure we will, Van. Sure we will.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Ami’s wake-up call shocked her out of a deep sleep shortly after six in the morning, but Ryan slept through the jangling noise. Ami hung up the phone, flopped back in bed, and watched her son sleep. Last night, he had been so excited about staying in a hotel, eating in the fancy dining room, and watching a Disney movie in their room. Now, he looked so peaceful that she had to smile. Death and destruction were all around, but they barely touched her boy.
Ami wished that she could let Ryan sleep, but she had to get him to school. Then she would go to her office. The Morelli case had consumed most of her time since the General’s daughter had barged into her life, but Ami had other clients with pressing problems and she could not afford to laze around her hotel room all day. She had explained this to Brendan Kirkpatrick after they had finished breakfast yesterday morning. The prosecutor had arranged for the policeman who was guarding her to drive her to her office after she woke up around noon. The officer had stayed in the reception area until it was time to pick up Ryan at school.
“Hey, Tiger,” Ami said as she gently shook Ryan’s shoulder. “It’s time to get up.”
Ryan grunted and rolled away from her. She leaned over and planted several disgustingly wet kisses on his cheek.
“Yuck, Mom, don’t,” he begged.
“Then get your butt out of bed. It’s a school day.”
“Do I have to? Can’t I stay here with you?”
“Nope. I’m not even staying here. I’m going to work, and you’re going to school. Now, if you move fast enough, we can have breakfast in the dining room.”
Suddenly Ryan was wide awake. “Can I have pancakes?”
“If you don’t dillydally. Now scoot.”
As Ryan grabbed the clothes that Ami had laid out for him and ran for the bathroom, there was a knock at the door. Ami knew that the guard would not let anyone hurt her if he could help it, but she remembered what had happened to the policemen who had guarded her at her house.
Ami slipped on the terry-cloth robe that the hotel provided and peered through the peephole. Brendan Kirkpatrick was standing on the other side of the door looking as if he’d just stepped out of a men’s fashion magazine. She, on the other hand, looked like a woman with no makeup who had just gotten out of bed and had not even brushed her teeth. For a moment she debated pretending that she wasn’t in, but that wasn’t practical. The guard knew she hadn’t left the room. It wasn’t a particularly adult way of handling the situation, either, so she opened the door and let the prosecutor in.
“To what do I owe this honor?” Ami said, clutching the edges of the robe together at her neck.