Author: James Hankins
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/james-hankins/page,10,260489-shady_cross.html
“Can you call me back in a couple of minutes then?”
“I thought you wanted to talk to Amanda. Now you want me to call you back. Doesn’t sound like a concerned father to me.”
He heard the cops’ voices again. Might have been right at the bottom of the stairs. Stokes still struggled with the window sash.
“Let me talk to her, then,” he said.
“Like I said, I got a question first.”
The window flew up suddenly, less quietly than Stokes had been shooting for. He didn’t think the sound had carried far, though. He raised the screen and peered out and saw roof just a few feet below him.
“OK,” he said as quietly as he dared without making the kidnapper suspicious, but as loudly as he dared without alerting the cops to his presence. “What’s your question?”
“OK, Paul, tell me . . . what’s the song you sing to Amanda every night when you tuck her in bed?”
“Huh?”
“Amanda says you make up your own silly words to a certain tune. So what’s the tune?”
The question brought Stokes up short. He was about to start climbing out the window. He stopped for a moment. Oh, no.
“Paul?”
“Hold on a second,” he said quietly. “I didn’t catch that. Bad reception, I guess. Let me move a little.”
He put the phone on the top of the toilet, next to the backpack, and climbed up on the toilet seat. He thought he heard footsteps on the stairs. Not racing up, but climbing stealthily. He climbed out onto the roof and reached back inside for the bag and cell phone. When he had them, he pulled the window down and lowered the screen, leaving it open half an inch. He crept as quietly as he could away from the window. The roof’s pitch wasn’t too bad, so he was confident enough of his footing. He turned a corner of the house and climbed to the roof’s peak, out of sight of the window. He could just see the police cruiser in the driveway. He sat on the peak with the phone to his ear and the backpack in his lap.
“You there?” he asked into the phone.
“I’m here. How’s the reception?”
“Better. Are we finished here? Can I talk to Amanda now?”
“You still haven’t answered my question. I’ve got a problem, see? I heard from a reliable source that your car was found in the woods, smashed to hell. There was blood all over. But no Paul Jenkins. They tell me you might have got knocked silly, wandered off into the woods. So I’ve gotta wonder what happened, right? Whether you might be dead. And if you are, then who the fuck am I talking to, right? Who the fuck have I been talking to for the last few hours?”
The bad news was that this pretty much guaranteed that the kidnappers had a source inside the police department at least, and if they’d been telling the truth about that, they might have been telling the truth about having a source in the FBI, too. The good news, though, was that they seemed willing to believe that Paul Jenkins was still alive and that Stokes was, indeed, Jenkins . . . as long as he was able to prove it.
“You see my problem, Paul?”
“Sure,” Stokes said. “Yeah, I had a car crash. Some idiot ran me off the road. I’ve been walking all day. Satisfied?”
“Not at all. You keep avoiding my question.”
Damn it. “What was it again?”
“The tune you sing to Amanda every night, making up silly words.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Stokes’s mind was back on the Tilt-A-Whirl, whipping around, spinning, dipping, twirling—
“Paul? I think we’re done here.”
Stokes had seen something. In the girl’s room. He knew he had. If he could just remember.
“Bye, whoever the fuck you are. I’m gonna cut the kid’s throat now.”
“Wait—”
The line went dead.
Jesus Christ. The kidnapper hung up.
Stokes sat with the silent phone at his ear for a moment, irrationally hoping he’d somehow hear the kidnapper’s voice again.
What have I done?
He lowered the phone and stared at it.
Jesus Christ, I’ve killed her.
Stokes heard the front door close. He sat, staring stupidly at the phone.
I should have just gone to the cops. Should have taken my chances and gone to the cops, told them about all this, let them handle it. Maybe their inside man would have been off duty or out on a call or something. At least the kid might have had a chance. At least—
Voices from below jolted Stokes back into the moment. He crab-walked quickly away from the peak, out of the sight line of anyone below. When the phone rang in his hand, he snapped it open halfway through its first trill and prayed the cops below hadn’t heard it.
“Hello? Hello?” he half whispered. “I’m here. Hello?”
Stokes heard car doors open and close. A powerful engine rumbled to life.
“Are you there?” Stokes asked desperately.
A moment of silence on the line. “I’m here.”
Stokes almost sighed with relief but realized that this call might have been made to inform him that Amanda was dead. Stokes watched the police car pull out of the driveway and head off down the street.
Stokes took a breath. “Did you . . . is Amanda OK? Please, tell me you didn’t . . .”
“Not yet. We figured maybe you really are just nervous, having bad cell reception, whatever. So you get one more chance. Now answer my question.”
“Your question?”
“You really do want her dead, don’t you? Tell me the name of the tune you sing to her at night with your stupid made-up lyrics.”
Stokes closed his eyes and brought the girl’s room to his mind again. There had to be something—
“Paul? Time’s up.”
“We sing a lot of songs, OK? Just give me a second.”
The kidnapper sighed. Sounded like he was disappointed. “I really didn’t want to have to do this. Good-bye.”
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” Stokes blurted, suddenly remembering the glow-in-the-dark, star-shaped stickers stuck to the ceiling above her bed and the star-shaped night-light on her bed table. It had been nothing more than a guess. A guess met with silence. Stokes held his breath.
Finally, the kidnapper spoke. “Hold on.”
Stokes heard muffled voices on the other end of the line, then the kidnapper was back on again.
“OK, here’s another one. What’s her favorite stuffed animal?”
Stokes pictured the room again. He wanted to go back inside and look around but he knew the kidnapper wouldn’t let him stall long enough to get there.
“Paul? Her favorite stuffed animal. She says it’s on her bed at home right now.”
Stokes blinked sweat from his eyes. He tried to remember what stuffed animals he’d seen on her bed. A duck, maybe? And he thought there might have been an elephant. Possibly. Shit.
A couple of seconds ticked by. Though he needed to concentrate on nothing but the question before him, nothing but Amanda’s favorite stuffed animal, he couldn’t help but think that the cops would be back soon. He’d left the lights on in the house, the front door unlocked. And Jenkins’s car was wrecked and he’d disappeared. Yeah, the cops would be back. He needed to get away from there.
“Oh well,” the kidnapper said, “you can’t say we didn’t give you a chance.”
“Her favorite stuffed animal?” Stokes asked.
“Yeah.”
Stokes was about to try to buy more time, as risky as it was, time to run through the things he’d seen in her room again, when he blurted, “Her stuffed frog.”
Stokes hoped he was right. He remembered the tattered stuffed frog Amanda was clutching in the photograph of her with her father, the one the kidnappers had sent to Paul and that Stokes still had in his backpack. And she was clutching the same frog in the videos th
e kidnappers had texted to the phone Stokes was carrying. The stuffed toy was ragged and worn. It had clearly been hugged and dragged and cuddled and slept with for years. It wasn’t in her room. It was with Amanda right now. It was a trick question. At least Stokes hoped it was.
“OK, Paul. You got that one. One more question, just to be sure. What’s Amanda’s favorite food?”
“Chicken noodle soup,” Stokes answered immediately, recalling the inordinate number of cans of chicken noodle soup he’d seen while searching the kitchen cabinets. Had to be two dozen of them, stored neatly in stacks and rows.
After a moment of silence, a moment that stretched longer than Stokes was comfortable with, the kidnapper said, “OK, good enough. But you’ve got to get your shit together, Paul. Sounds like you’re starting to lose it. Here’s Amanda.”
Stokes closed his eyes and exhaled.
“Daddy?” the girl said. Her voice still hadn’t regained the enthusiasm of the first conversations, when she still thought she was speaking with her father, but she was trying. Stokes had to give her that.
“Good girl, Amanda,” Stokes said. “You’ll be home soon, OK? Be brave.”
“I will.”
Then the kidnapper had the phone again. “By the way, Paul, I hope you’ll be able to get your hands on another car later. You’ll need one.”
“I will.” After a second, he added, “I’m going to borrow a friend’s.”
“Good. It’s almost over. Everything goes smoothly, Amanda’s with you at two thirty this morning, just six and a half hours from now.”
Stokes wanted to ask the address of the pay phone, but he knew he couldn’t now. Any hope he’d had of asking had gone out the window when he’d aroused such serious suspicion in the kidnappers. Though they’d moved on, they might be harboring lingering doubts about him. He couldn’t do anything to fuel their suspicion further.
Stokes realized the kidnapper was still speaking. “I mean, your daughter will be in your arms as soon as we get the evidence and the money, of course. You’ll have the money, right?”
“I will,” he said, knowing full well that he was no closer to figuring out where to be at one thirty, no closer to finding the evidence, and no closer to coming up with the 102 grand he was short on the ransom.
FOURTEEN
8:11 P.M.
STOKES KNEW THERE WAS A good chance the cops would return to Jenkins’s house soon. They’d searched the place quickly but must not have found anything suspicious, or they’d have stuck around, called for backup. Fortunately, Stokes hadn’t ransacked the house as he searched. He’d opened drawers, then closed them, opened kitchen cabinets, then closed them. No one would know he’d even been there, unless they dusted for prints later. Which they might. They’d certainly be back, though, when they found Jenkins’s body. Possibly even sooner.
He was about to stand, to make his way down from the roof of Jenkins’s house, when he looked up into the sky. It was a clear fall night. It was peaceful up here. He wished he could just sit down, forget all this. Better yet, take the money to the airport and fly to Mexico. There were a hell of a lot of stars up there tonight. It was so quiet he could have fallen asleep right where he was. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was, how the events of the day had worn him down. It was peaceful up on the roof. He couldn’t hear ticking, though he knew time was pressing on. And he didn’t hear Amanda’s voice at the moment. Or Ellie’s. He looked at his watch. He knew he should get moving again soon, but he had no idea where to go. Or what to do.
He couldn’t remember when he’d seen so many stars. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d really looked at them.
Amanda liked to hear the “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” tune. Her father sang it to her before bed every night, substituting silly words for the real lyrics. He smiled. Her dead father. Who Stokes had killed. He stopped smiling. It was an accident, but he’d killed him nonetheless.
It was a clear night. He wondered if Amanda could see the stars from wherever she was. Stokes looked up at them, pinpricks of light in the black night. He recognized a few of the constellations. Pisces, Andromeda, Cassiopeia. He looked at a few other groups of stars, remembered his father pointing out the constellations they made. Rags the Dog over there. Quackers the Duck. Toots the Train. Stokes recalled being very young, looking for his father a few times to say good night, finding him sitting in a lawn chair in their dark, weed-choked backyard, smelling like beer. He’d ask about the stars, and his old man would point out the constellations. The Shovel. The Boot. Bozo the Clown. Stokes thought he still might be able to find some of them. But he knew now that his father had made them up. Not to entertain his son with goofy, fake constellations, the way Paul Jenkins made up silly lyrics for Amanda, but because it amused him to lie to his kid. He was drunk and he’d tell Stokes the name of another constellation and he’d chuckle to himself. And Stokes believed him. He believed him because five-year-old kids believe their dads. It wasn’t until a few years later, after his father was long gone, that he learned the truth. The man knew the names of three constellations. The others were lies, like many things he’d told Stokes when he was a boy, including “This hurts me more than it does you” and “I’m just heading to the store for some smokes, I’ll be back soon.”
Stokes knew that if it hadn’t been for his mother, he probably would have grown up to be a truly screwed-up individual—well, even more screwed up than he was.
He sat up. Hmmm. He grabbed the backpack by a strap, made his way back to the bathroom window, and crawled inside.
He hurried down the stairs and into the living room, where he remembered seeing a few faux leather photo albums lined up on a bookshelf. He pulled one out and flipped through. Mostly they were pictures of Amanda, or of Amanda and Jenkins together. Beneath every photo was a caption made with a label maker. Good old organized Paul. There were captions like “Amanda—first day of kindergarten” and “Amanda and Daddy—camping on Memorial Day weekend.” Stokes flipped quickly through the pages before moving on to a second album. As soon as he opened that one, he hit pay dirt. The first picture was of a slightly younger Paul with a slightly younger Amanda on his shoulders. Beside him was a pretty blonde, the same one he’d seen before. The caption read, “Mommy, Daddy, and Amanda at the zoo.” Stokes looked at little Amanda’s dark, curly locks and figured she must have gotten her hair from her dark-haired father.
The next photo in the album was the one Paul needed. It was of just Paul and the woman. They were sweaty and tanned, holding drinks in their hands. According to the caption, this was “Paul and Nancy in New Mexico.” Amanda’s mother’s name was Nancy. Maybe she knew something about all of this. Even if they were divorced, would Paul have left her completely in the dark about their daughter being in such danger? Maybe he told her where he had to be at one thirty, just in case something went wrong, in case he didn’t come home, in case someone had to go look for him.
Stokes hurried back upstairs to Jenkins’s office. He opened a drawer where he’d seen credit card bills and bank statements, neatly organized, bound with rubber bands. He pulled Paul’s checkbook from the top desk drawer and flipped through it. If the woman were dead, he’d find nothing. If she were alive, he’d find—
And there it was. A September 28 entry in the check registry for check number 932, written for six hundred dollars. Next to the dollar amount, Paul had written “Nancy—October alimony.” He picked up the phone on Jenkins’s desk and dialed local directory information, asked for a Nancy Jenkins. The operator checked without success, broadened her search, then informed Stokes that there was no one by that name in this area code. So Stokes knew she’d either moved out of the area or changed her name. He dug into the drawer again, came out with Jenkins’s bank statements. They were stored in their envelopes. He looked at the postmark for the most recent statement. October 14. He opened the envelope and pulled out the statement. As he’d hoped, Jenkin
s’s bank returned his canceled checks to him. Leave it to superorganized Paul Jenkins to pay an extra fee for the service. Stokes thumbed through the checks, found number 932. It was made out, in extraordinarily neat handwriting, to Nancy Filoso. Maiden name, most likely, or perhaps she’d remarried.
Stokes opened the top drawer of the desk again and removed Jenkins’s leather address book. He turned to the Fs and found Nancy’s address and phone number. Stokes finally had some good luck. She lived in town, just a few miles away. Hey, he wasn’t half-bad at this. Like a TV detective, maybe.
He hoped to hell Nancy and her ex-husband were still close, that he had told her what was going on. Stokes feared that he might not have wanted to worry her, that he’d planned to bring their daughter home without her knowing of the danger their little girl was in until it was over and Amanda was home safe and sound. But maybe he did tell her something. And maybe, if Stokes was really, really lucky, she had some money lying around for emergencies. Either way, Stokes had nowhere else to turn, no other ideas.
He peeked through the curtains, hoping he wouldn’t see cops out there. He didn’t. He walked downstairs, left the lights on, the way the cops had seen them, and walked out the front door, down the walk, and up the block to Bobby’s pickup.
On the drive to Nancy Filoso’s house, he dialed her number on the cell phone the kidnappers had provided. A woman answered and Stokes asked for Ms. Filoso. She said that she was Ms. Filoso. He said, “Well, Nancy Filoso, your name was selected at random to receive a free weekend at a time-share in North Carolina.” The woman stopped him, saying that she had no interest in time-shares. Stokes hung up. He wasn’t going to be able to sell her a time-share in North Carolina, but at least he knew she was at home tonight. And he’d found that out without having to tell her over the phone that her ex-husband was dead, which she certainly didn’t know, or that her daughter had been kidnapped, which she may or may not have known.