24 Hours

He had to detach himself from the situation. Karen always said that his instinct was his most valuable asset. But instinct, he believed, was integrally bound up with emotion. And emotion had no place in solving a problem like this one. What he needed now was logic. Pure reason.

Of course, there were situations in which doing nothing was the wisest response. Any doctor could tell you that. But when doctors chose the option of “inaction,” they were actually choosing to get out of the way of an immune system perfected over millions of years. For Will, on this night, doing nothing meant relying on a system created by Joe Hickey, a man he did not know or remember, yet who harbored a deep resentment of him and all he stood for. He could not do that. In spite of Cheryl’s assurances that waiting out the night was the way to get Abby back, he was certain she was wrong. He would trust his instinct that far.

The washrag on his eyes had gone cold again. The QVC hawker’s voice floated in from the bedroom, where Cheryl was watching a presentation on “faux sapphires,” whatever they were. He threw the cloth on the floor and sat up on the sofa. He needed more information. Cheryl claimed this kidnapping was exactly like all the others, but it wasn’t. What made it different? Was it something Cheryl herself did not know? Or something she did not know she knew? With a groan of pain, Will got up and walked into the bedroom.

In downtown Jackson, Dr. James McDill was working his way through police mug books, sliding his hand down each page to isolate the lines of photos. Tired of the claustrophobic interrogation room, he and Margaret had moved out to the squad room, with the late homicide shift. Agent Chalmers had been working the NCIC computer but hadn’t come up with anything yet. The number of “Joes” who had committed crimes in the South was astounding, and most had compound names. Chalmers had shown Margaret photos of Joe-Bobs, Joe-Eds, Joe Dees, Joe Jimmys, Joe Franks, Joe Willies, and even a Joe DiMaggio Smith. But none brought even a flicker of recognition to Margaret’s eyes. McDill had asked his wife to lie down on the Naugahyde sofa by the wall, but she refused. She sat at another empty desk, doggedly searching through book after book. Her eyes had a strange glint, and McDill was glad to see it. Perhaps, after the long year in purgatory, that light signaled a return to the world of the living.

He took a sip of cold coffee and looked down at the book before him. Female offenders, harshly lit. The smug grins of check kiters. The gaunt, pocked faces of coke whores. None was nearly as attractive as “Cheryl.” In his memory, the woman who had forced him to sit all night in the Beau Rivage looked like a high school prom queen. He knew he must be exaggerating her beauty, yet his mental picture was as clear as the room he was sitting in now. He was sure of one thing. If “Cheryl” was in one of these books, she would stand out like a rose in a field of garbage.

He rubbed his eyes and turned another page. As he scanned the photos, Agent Chalmers’s voice intruded into his concentration. The FBI agent was talking to the black JPD detective named Washington about the McDills’ experience. Chalmers had enough tact not to mention the rape with Margaret in the room, but he seemed very impressed by the kidnappers’ plan.

“There is no ransom drop,” he was saying. “Not in the classic sense. See? The ransom is low enough so that it’s liquid. The target can get it without any trouble. Two, the husband’s out of town when it goes down. The kid vanishes, poof, and the mother finds herself stuck with one of the kidnappers for the night. A female member of the team hits the husband on the coast, while the kid’s with a third member at an unknown location. From then on, the thirty-minute check-in calls work like an unbreakable net. It wipes out the classic model. I mean, it neutralizes the risk. In the morning, pretty as you please, the wife goes down to her bank and wires the ransom to her own husband. Ba-da-bing, it’s over. Jackpot.”

Detective Washington nodded thoughtfully. “You’re dealing with a smart son of a bitch. What you gonna do if you find out who he is? That thirty-minute thing has you boxed. Anything you do could kill the hostage before you even figure out where he is.”

“We have to go high-tech, all the way. If we can confirm that this thing is going down, Frank Zwick is going to get a chopper, GPS homers, the works, everything by dawn.”

“Do you think it’s going down?” Washington asked.

Chalmers nodded. “I’ve never known a criminal to stop something that was working for him. They always push it till they get bit. That’s their nature.”

“You’re right about that much.”

“We just need to catch a break. If we still don’t know who they are when that ransom wire hits the coast in the morning, we’ll be way behind the curve.”