Except for having their daughter disappear, Megan thought bleakly.
She gave the masked man a hard look. Traces of a brownish mustache could be spotted through the opening in the grate thing at the end of the nose. The man didn’t seem to have a beard anymore.
“You presented me with an interesting problem,” the man — she decided to call him Mike Steele — said.
“I’m surprised at your subtlety,” she shot back. “Usually you seem to blow your problems up.”
The masked head nodded. “But in this case, I had to talk to you first. I had to find out what damaging information you’d planted on me, and where.”
A little too late, Megan realized that even the best evasive maneuvers of an amateur hacker might not fool an ex-Net Force professional.
Even though she faced death, either from this masked man or from barfing herself inside out, Megan couldn’t restrain the harsh laughter that escaped her lips. “There is no incriminating evidence,” she gasped. “I saw you getting away with murder, with no one able to stop you. Figured the least I could do was make sure you didn’t enjoy it.”
“It was a prank call?” Mike Steele sounded very annoyed.
“Yeah. What are you going to do about it? Kill me twice?”
“Believe it or not, I try not to go overboard in the killing department,” Steele said. “I did society a favor taking out Steve the Bull. He was a piece of human garbage. Even his former business associates were glad to see him go. Tori Rush had no family. She was a greedy little witch with an inflated sense of her own talent. Everyone she knew, and especially all the people she screamed at — including her agent — won’t miss her much.”
“And Professor Wellman? Universally respected? Loved by his students?”
“That was a miscalculation,” Steele admitted. “He wasn’t supposed to be in his office when the bomb went off. But that shouldn’t be your concern right now. You must have a bizarre lucky angel sitting on your shoulder. After I, ah, collected you, I got a call from a source of mine in the FBI fingerprint labs. They were going over an oddball item — a baby rattle in the shape of an anchor.”
Megan stared. Steele’s lips, revealed through the opening in his mask, had twisted in an ironic smile. “It’s a present I gave my partner in a former lifetime. Handmade. Unique. Extremely traceable. And even after all these years they lifted some of my prints off it.”
“So they were on to you all along,” Megan growled. “They just didn’t tell me!”
“As things turn out, I probably owe you some thanks,” Steele said. “If it hadn’t been for your call, I’d have been sitting in my office, happy as a clam, when they came to pick me up.” His voice lost some of its humor. “Besides, as I said, murder is bad policy, especially if the victim will be missed. Considering what your Net Force Explorer friends did when I framed Jim Winters, I’d hate to see how they’d react if I killed one of you.”
Steele’s eyes held a strange emotion as he looked down at her. “James always had the knack of bringing out loyalty. Wish he’d just come through in that department for me.”
And loyally stood by while you broke the law? Megan asked silently. It didn’t seem the thing to say out loud — not when her kidnapper was debating whether she lived or died.
“Anyway, I guess I owe you one,” Steele said. “Your tip got me moving just at the right moment. And this time my getaway fund is much fatter.”
Megan didn’t say anything, but her feelings must have shown on her face.
“As long as you don’t see all of my new look — or get the description or name of this boat — I’m not registered as the owner — I think I can let you go.” Steele nodded his masked head. “A blindfold, a quiet area of shoreline…all we have to do is wait for the tide to turn.”
Matt was getting a lift home from Captain Winters when his wallet-phone buzzed in his back pocket. He dug it out, flipped it open, and held it up. “What?” he asked glumly.
“Matt?” Leif Anderson’s voice crackled in his ear. “I got a weird call from Megan. Not another ‘Beware of Marcus Kovacs.’ This was just an open line…and a big thump! It got me worried, so I called the O’Malley house. Nobody answered. Not even after several tries.”
With both parents working at home and five kids coming in and out, that was definitely unusual. Matt passed the message on to the captain, and got the response he expected. “I’m in the car with Captain Winters. We’ll go and check it out right now. Call you back.”
The doors of the O’Malley house were locked, but the windows were open — which was odd, since the air conditioners were going. When they heard a low moan coming from the kitchen window, Winters gave Matt a boost inside.
Matt found a green-faced Mrs. O’Malley trying to push herself up off the floor. “Matt? What—” She rubbed a hand across her face. “Was in here cleaning up. Then felt woozy — sleepy.”
Matt glanced around. “Did you open the windows?”
Mrs. O’Malley shook her head — then winced.
“So somebody else must have opened them — to clear something out of the house.”
He went around to the door and let Captain Winters in. They searched the house, finding Megan’s dad and two more O’Malley brothers, recovering from the effects of being sleep-gassed.
“But where’s Megan?” Mrs. O’Malley cried. “She should have been home from school — here are her books.” She pointed to a set of schoolbooks dumped on the kitchen floor. As the fumes cleared out of her brain, Mrs. O’Malley looked at her rescuers through new eyes. “She’s gone, isn’t she? That’s why you’re here.”
Captain Winters already had his wallet-phone out, calling the police and Net Force. Matt could only look at his hands. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.
“Well, now I know how a civilian witness feels,” Captain Winters said as he and Matt Hunter resumed their interrupted trip home. As a suspended agent, Winters could take no part in the investigation of Megan O’Malley’s kidnapping — except for answering questions.
Both Matt and the captain had had their statements efficiently taken down. Then they’d been politely — but firmly — told to go home.
The thoughts that had been running through Matt’s mind, held in check by the presence of Megan’s parents, gushed forth as soon as he was alone in the car with Winters.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Matt said. “My folks — Megan’s too, I bet — are always saying to me, ‘Don’t let people take you anywhere, especially if they’re up to no good. In private, they can do anything—’” He broke off. “We’ve got to do something!”
“Knowing Jay Gridley, you can bet he’s got every available hand working this case,” Winters said. “I was able to schmooze a little bit with the agents who came to talk to the O’Malleys. Net Force is taking Kovacs’s office apart bit by bit, looking for evidence of a bolt-hole. The same thing is going on at the swanky condo he’s got at the Watergate, and in his summer home in the Blue Ridge country.”
The captain shook his head. “I’m surprised at that. The Mike Steele I remember wasn’t a mountains kind of guy. He was always off to a beach, on the water. Boats were his thing.”
“Yeah,” Matt said. “He supposedly died on one. He gave you an anchor rattle as a baby gift.”
“Hmmm. So maybe my colleagues are looking in the wrong direction.” Winters frowned as he turned the steering wheel. They were less than a block from Matt’s house.
“Think your parents would mind if we used your system for a little research?” the captain asked abruptly.