CHAPTER ONE
Monday, May 29
6:30 a.m.
Humboldt Prison, Kansas
Shane Hallman watched Earle Gotting’s spindly body shuffle down the wireframe steps from the upper cell block. His orange prison jumpsuit hung off his shoulders and rolled up sleeves exposed stick-like arms. In his hands were a few threadbare clothes and a couple of pictures. His worldly possessions. All of them.
At the bottom of the steps lay the recreation area. A dozen steel tables all bolted to the concrete floor. Each table had a bench on either side, also bolted to the concrete. A strict code determined who could sit at which table and Gotting wasn’t welcome at any of them. He turned straight for the wall and moved along the side of the recreation area.
Hallman crossed the room and put his foot on one of the benches, blocking Gotting’s path.
Gotting moved to go around.
Hallman blocked his progress. “You’re getting out.”
Gotting’s face remained impassive. “Done my time.”
Hallman snorted derisively. “So did I. Year ago I was up for parole. They denied me. Because of you.”
“Not my problem.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You’ve been inside for some chicken shit stuff. Drug running. Unlicensed guns. You’d have been here for life if they knew what you’d done.” Hallman glowered. “Six more months and I’m done here. Then I’ll make all of this your problem. Count on it.”
“You’ve hung out with the wrong crowd in here, repeating the mistake you made out there with that thug Metcalfe.” Gotting tilted his head toward the exit and shrugged as if the threats were water off his back. “Got to pick your friends more careful.”
Hallman leaned forward. He saw the strain around Gotting’s eyes as he enunciated each syllable separately. “I. Wasn’t. There.”
“And I’m going to remember that after your gang beat me senseless,” Gotting said, chin jutting forward. He patted his right leg. The one they’d mangled.
Hallman shrugged. “You should have told them what they wanted to know.”
“You mean what you wanted to know,” Gotting said.
“I wasn’t there!” Hallman growled. “You should have told them. You’d be walking straight.”
Gotting snarled back. “You’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid and listening to the wrong stories. Think if I had some secret stash somewhere, I’d be limping out of here?”
Hallman leaned closer and cracked his knuckles. “I think you’re so stupid it’ll take a lot more than a damaged leg to get that secret out of you.”
A guard stepped up behind Hallman and spoke over his shoulder. “You leaving or hanging around, Gotting?”
Hallman stepped aside, and gestured to the exit door, painted with the words “Way Out,” like any inmate was likely to mistake the exit for something else.
It was the warden’s idea of a joke. A lame insider’s joke meant to convey that no inmate could find his way out. In the battle of the guards against the inmates, inmates made better jokes. Crude and vulgar. Cutting and remorseless. But the warden and his guards always got the last laugh. Walking out free was the only thing most of the inmates wanted.
“Yeah, big day,” Gotting said to the officer.
“We should meet up when I get out. Catch up on old times.” Hallman punched Gotting on the shoulder. “I insist.”
Gotting tucked his bundle of possessions under his arm and rapped on the door with his knuckles. He glanced back at Hallman one last time before he walked out and closed the door from the other side.
Hallman stood for a while watching the door. He should have been the one walking out. And he would. Soon. Only six more months. Make the best of it, Gotting. I’m coming for you. This will be the last six months you’ll draw breath. Trust me.
CHAPTER TWO
Six months later
Monday, November 27
8:00 a.m.
Denver, Colorado
Jess threaded her powerful Dodge Charger through the Monday morning Denver traffic on her way to work. She rarely spent enough time in Denver to battle rush hour traffic. She definitely remembered why she hated it.
The weekend’s dusting of snow lingered in doorways and corners. She tuned into a radio report on the decline of the bee population. A specialist was encouraging conservation efforts before large-scale agriculture production was affected, he said.
She turned off onto a quiet street well behind a white Lexus sedan. The traffic light turned red a moment before the Lexus reached the intersection. A Toyota cut across the lane into the cushion she’d left herself.
Jess braked hard.
The Toyota rear-ended the Lexus. Both cars rocked on their suspension.
She stopped barely two feet from the Toyota’s rear bumper. She checked her rearview mirror. The car behind her was too close. She couldn’t back up.
An elderly driver stepped out of the Lexus. He sorrowfully looked at the broken bumper on his car.
A passenger stepped from the rear of the Toyota. He was too thin. Long blond hair straggled from his baseball cap. On the back of his neck was a tattoo she couldn’t make out from this distance.
Jess leaned forward.
The older man pointed at his car and said something.
The skinny guy covered the distance between them in two strides and swung a punch. He had another tattoo on his hand.
The Lexus driver toppled backward onto the sidewalk.
Jess grabbed her phone and dialed 911.
She stretched forward to see. The Toyota couldn’t move because it was trapped between her and the Lexus.
The operator answered. “911, what’s your emergency?”
The Toyota passenger rifled through the old guy’s clothes, taking his cell phone and wallet.
“Police. Robbery. Junction of Fletcher and Bonnell.”
The thin man jumped into the Lexus and screamed off in a cloud of smoke. The Toyota did the same right behind the Lexus.
“Make that a carjacking. White Lexus sedan. Suspect also in a white Toyota.” Jess stabbed a button to transfer the call to her car’s speakers.
“Are you safe?” the operator said.
“It’s not my car. There’s an elderly man injured.”
The old guy struggled to his feet.
“Do you have the plate number?”
Jess moved up to where the old guy was standing. “Get in.”
“Do you have the Lexus’s plate?” the operator repeated.
From the passenger seat, the old guy said, “I’m the owner. Ronald Walsh,” and reported his license plate. “They’ve got my wife.”
The Toyota and Lexus were almost two blocks away already.
Jess pulled away hard. She told the operator, “We’re pursuing the Lexus.”
“Please don’t put yourself in any danger. I have alerted police,” the operator replied.
Walsh fiddled to fasten his seat belt.
“Two patrol cars are on the way. ETA two minutes,” the operator said.
Jess stopped at the next light. Cross traffic was sparse, but running the red light was a risk she wouldn’t take. “They’ll be too late.”
The Lexus and Toyota took different directions at the block ahead. When her light changed, Jess went after the Lexus.
Walsh finally secured his seatbelt. “He had a gun. My wife has a weak heart.”
“We’ll follow him until the police arrive. Then we’ll leave it to the professionals.”
“She has asthma, too.”
The road opened into two lanes. The Lexus raced away. Jess took the outside lane, struggling to keep up with the more powerful car.
“Lexus is now heading east on Wilson,” she said to the 911 operator.
“Please ma’am, the police are on their way.”
“Tell them to hurry or these guys will be long gone.”
The Lexus braked hard and whipped left through a gap in the traffic. Angry horns blared.
Jess slowed. There was no gap in the traffic for her.
Walsh strained forward to see the Lexus. “I can’t find them.”
Jess accelerated for a space in the traffic.
Walsh struggled to hold onto the grab handle and dashboard when she turned sharply at the next left.
The street was one-way with two lanes. Jess used the left lane, racing between gaps in the traffic, slowing to search for signs of the Lexus. Four blocks down, she took another left.
She whipped her head left to right. No sign of the attacker.
The road ended at a T-junction with a street that ran along a steep grass embankment.
She turned left again.
Walsh pointed down the embankment. “There she is.”
The Lexus was on a parallel road at the bottom of the embankment.
Jess accelerated to chase them.
The Lexus’s wheels locked up in a cloud of smoke. The car fishtailed. Traffic behind it screeched to a halt.
The Lexus did a one-eighty.
The passenger door opened. A gray-haired woman was thrown from the vehicle. She rolled on the pavement like a rag doll.
The Lexus raced away.
Jess braked hard. “The attackers have released Mrs. Walsh. Lexus now heading west on Simpson.”
“Responders are thirty seconds out.”
Jess stopped directly up the embankment from Mrs. Walsh.
Mr. Walsh unbuckled and rushed out of the car.
“Get in. We have a half mile to cover to get over there,” Jess called.
Leaning over the guardrail, Walsh stared at his wife who struggled to her knees, clutching her chest.
Jess jumped out of the car and grabbed his arm. “We have to get your wife.”
Mrs. Walsh rolled over on her side and lay on the road.
Her husband held out a small gray tube. “I have her inhaler.”
Mrs. Walsh was curled in the fetal position.
Jess grabbed the inhaler and zipped up her coat. The railing along the top of the embankment had posted warning signs. It was too steep. She couldn’t walk down.
Mrs. Walsh thumped her chest. She was suffocating.
Jess rolled over the guardrail and shuffled a few steps before she lost her footing. She turned sideways as she hit the ground. She held her arms and legs out to try to control her descent, but the forces of gravity were too great. She wrapped her hands around her face to protect herself as she tumbled over and over.
Grass and rocks tore at her coat. She dodged a stick of a tree laid bare by winter.
Her hands were stung by cuts and scrapes. Her back pounded into the concrete retaining wall at the bottom of the slope, forcing the air from her lungs in a hard whoosh.
She climbed over the concrete above a ten-foot drop to the sidewalk. She lowered herself as far as her arms would allow and let go. Her left foot imprinted her impact on the damp ground.
Mrs. Walsh was gasping and choking. Jess ran to her, jammed the inhaler in her mouth, and pumped the trigger twice.
The woman strained to breathe.
Jess pumped two more shots.
Her breathing slowed. Still long and labored, but not wheezing.
Mrs. Walsh put her hand on Jess, keeping the inhaler in her mouth. Her gasps turned to normal breathing. She took the inhaler in her hand.
Jess laid her tattered coat over Mrs. Walsh. She heard the ambulance siren in the distance.
“Hang on. Help is on the way,” she said.
Jess looked up the embankment. Mr. Walsh was leaning over the rail. She gave him a thumbs-up. He nodded before putting his head in his hands, in tears, Jess figured.
Mrs. Walsh gripped Jess’s arm. “You’re an angel.”
Jess shook her head. “Shhhh. Save your breath.”
CHAPTER THREE
Monday, November 27
10:00 a.m.
Denver, Colorado
By the time Jess made it to work, her body was already complaining about her tumble down the embankment. As she approached the elevator, Thelma Baxter slipped her bony hand along the edge to hold open the doors.
Thelma was the special assistant to the owner of Taboo Magazine, and Jess loved her to pieces. Many a time over the years Thelma’s warm heart had buoyed Jess’s spirits when it seemed like the entire world was against her.
Thelma’s infallible memory for every story that had ever run in the magazine’s pages came in handy often, too. She knew more about what was going on at the magazine than the owner himself. Jess secretly wondered if Thelma actually ran the operation using Carter Pierce as the figurehead.
When she entered the elevator, Thelma raised her eyebrows. “What happened to you?”
“Carjacking,” Jess replied without thinking.
Thelma gripped Jess’s wrist. “Are you all right?”
Instantly mortified because she’d alarmed Thelma, Jess patted her hand and nodded. “Perfectly. I’m sorry. It wasn’t my car. I just tried to help out.”
Thelma whistled. “And it looks like it. What happened to your coat?”
The elevator doors opened. Jess followed Thelma out.
Jess’s assistant, Mandy Donovan, was busy at her computer as Jess approached. Mandy did a double take, too. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Carjacking,” Thelma said, with a wink.
“Someone else, not me,” Jess added quickly before Mandy could go into full-on alarm mode.
“You okay?” Mandy asked.
Jess nodded. “A little sore, maybe a couple of bruises. I fell down. I’ll tell you about it later.”
Mandy stood and held her hand out. “Give me your coat. I’ll get it cleaned.”
“Don’t bother. The coat’s not worth the price of cleaning now.” Jess shrugged the coat off her shoulders and handed it over. “Just toss it in the trash. But could you—”
Mandy laughed. “Coffee coming up.” She poured a mug from a pot on her desk and handed it to Jess.
Jess smiled. “You’re a star, you know that? Let’s ask Carter to pay you more money.”
Mandy laughed again. “Hey, works for me.”
Thelma frowned and muttered on her way to her office, “Based on what I hear, there won’t be any raises around here for a while.”
Mandy and Jess exchanged knowing looks.
Jess went to her office and settled in at her desk. Her computer monitor was covered with several sticky notes that served as today’s to-do list. She was more than a little behind schedule, and the carjacking stole a couple of hours. But for now, the spirit of the past Thanksgiving weekend reminded her to be grateful that she hadn’t been seriously injured and both Mr. and Mrs. Walsh would be okay, too.
Thinking about the long weekend carried her to memories of Peter again. She’d only spent two Thanksgivings with him before he was abducted. He was twenty-three months old then. He would be fifteen years old now.
Feelings of guilt, sadness, and loss invariably overtook her during the holidays, which was one reason she seldom accepted the invitations she received from friends and co-workers to join their family celebrations.
She pulled up a spreadsheet with a long list of names and dates. She scrolled right. Addresses with street names and apartment numbers were listed in the area where she and Peter had lived.
She’d run down to the basement, started her laundry, and run back up to her apartment. Not more than five minutes. Probably less. Peter was sleeping when she left. He was gone when she returned.
Although he’d never climbed out of his crib even once, she’d wasted precious minutes looking everywhere inside the small apartment, growing more frantic by the moment. But of course, Peter wasn’t there. Some part of her had known that from the start but refused to accept reality.
She’d chased around her apartment building in ever-widening circles until she’d ended up waking all the residents. She’d knocked on doors and stopped pedestrians on the street. Neighbors had joined her. They spread out around the streets and alleyways.
No one could believe Peter had simply disappeared. When she’d finally faced the truth, she’d called the police. A cruiser arrived quickly, and the officers organized a more efficient search.
Peter was gone without a trace. How could that be?
There was only one answer. Peter couldn’t have run away. Some bastard had taken him.
The night was cold, but more than the temperature chilled her heart. She was nineteen back then. A teenage mom. Her life was a precarious balancing act between caring for Peter, classes, and a part-time job. Peter had been everything to her and still was. From the moment he was conceived, her entire life had revolved around him and always would.
Jess’s phone rang. She saw the caller ID. Her boss. “Hi, Carter.”
“I’m in New York, but I just heard about your heroics this morning. Nice job.”
“Carter—”
“You’re about to tell me it was nothing?”
“It didn’t end very well. Mrs. Walsh was terrified, and so was her husband. The carjackers got away.”
She heard the pleasure in his voice as he said, “CCTV is a wonderful thing. The thieves are in custody right now.”
“That’s something, at least.”
“Mrs. Walsh wouldn’t have made it until the ambulance arrived if you hadn’t helped her, Jess.”
“So the medics said.”
Carter paused.
Jess knew why he’d called. Just as he knew she only tolerated the personal spotlight as a means to an end. When the glare of media attention helped her search for Peter.
He said, “Denver Broadcasting called. You know the owner’s a friend.”
Jess sighed. “Uh huh.”
“He said you’d turned down a spot on Denver PM. I know what you’re like and I know the last thing you’d want is hero worship, but—”
“Carter—”
“Just listen to me, Jess. We need it. The magazine. Our star reporter is caught on camera saving a life, and…well. We need all the positive publicity we can get.” He paused to let his begging soak in, and when she didn’t relent, he said, “It’s not for me, Jess. I’ll be fine if Taboo Magazine goes under. My ego will be bruised. I don’t like failure. But we employ a lot of people. Your friends and colleagues. This kind of publicity could really help. Can’t you do it for them?”
Jess sighed. Everything he said was true. The magazine was failing. Online competition was strong. Demand for print magazines had fallen dramatically, but the production costs remained the same. Carter was wealthy. The complete collapse of the business wouldn’t cause him much hardship. But the employees? Mandy and Thelma? All of them would be looking for new jobs, which were not easy to find these days. And her search for Peter would be a lot harder without Carter’s support, too.
“I really wish you’d reconsider, Jess. They promised to do a short segment. They have surveillance camera footage from a hotel nearby, and they’ll ask a few questions. Personal questions are off limits unless you want to talk about Peter. That’s up to you.”
Carter was right. She could help Taboo. After everything Carter and Taboo had done for her. Not to mention Thelma and Mandy. Taboo had been her only real family, helping her when she needed it. She shouldn’t even hesitate.
“Don’t make me beg, Jess. Please.” His tone was downright pitiful.
She laughed, as he’d meant her to do. “I’m sorry, Carter. I was just preoccupied. I’m glad to do anything I can to help. I hope you already know that.”
“Thanks, Jess. I owe you one.”
“That’s crazy talk. You owe me nothing. I should have volunteered in the first place.” She frowned. “But is the magazine in seriously bad shape? Should I be looking for a new job?”
“Let’s just say we need to keep our foot on the gas. I’ll make the call,” he said before he disconnected.
A few minutes later, an assistant producer from Denver PM called and rattled off a list of instructions for her evening appearance.
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