As she was running, she pulled her phone out of her purse to call Jack. The phone rang before she could flip it open. It was her father.
“How about I take you to dinner, Princess?” he asked. “I’m back in town, and I’m not a wanted man today. We can catch up face-to-face.”
“That’d be great, Daddy,” she said, “but I can’t talk now.”
“Where are you?” he asked. “You sound out of breath.”
“I’m cutting through Nelson Park to catch the El,” she said. “I’m meeting someone.”
“It’s getting dark. You have no business walking through a park in the dark. Why won’t you let me buy you a car?”
“Not now, Daddy,” she rushed. “I’ll have to call you back later. I need to get hold of Jack right away. This is really important.”
“Jack? Jack MacAlister?” he asked.
“Dad, I can’t—”
He heard, “No…don’t…” and then a scuffle.
And she was gone.
FORTY
JACK SAT AT THE CONFERENCE ROOM TABLE WITH THREE other agents and a stack of case files. Pittman walked in carrying three more files and took her place at the head of the table. Alec trailed in a minute later.
“You’re late, Agent Buchanan,” Pittman barked.
“Yes, I am.” He didn’t offer an excuse. She wouldn’t have appreciated one anyway. He wasn’t a child. He was late.
“We’ll start with the Alaska file. Jack, you’re up.”
Jack gave an update on his interviews with Kirk Halpern and Marcus Lemming. “Both of them basically reiterated what was in the file. Halpern told me Lemming had the closest relationship with Carter. They spent a lot of time together. Lemming, on the other hand, would have you believe he couldn’t stomach the guy. He blamed Carter for everything but the snow. He didn’t particularly like the questions I asked, so he told me what he wanted me to know. He’s an arrogant prick. He made a point of stressing that Carter wasn’t as smart as he was. He sure wanted me to believe that Carter was keeping secrets. Protested a little too much, if you know what I mean. I think we should be tailing him.”
There was a knock on the door, and Pittman’s assistant, Jennifer, looked in.
“I don’t want any interruptions,” Pittman reminded her.
“A call just came for Agent MacAlister.”
“Take a message. We’re in the middle of something.”
“It’s Bobby Rose.”
Everyone at the table turned to Jack.
The announcement took the wind out of Pittman. “Bobby Rose? Why would he be calling you, Agent MacAlister?”
Jack was already crossing the room to get to the phone when Jennifer said, “Mr. Rose insists it’s urgent.”
Something had happened to Sophie. Jack knew it before he answered. Bobby Rose would not be calling him otherwise.
“Put him on speaker phone,” Pittman ordered.
“Line four,” Jennifer said before pulling the door closed.
“MacAlister here.”
“Sophie’s missing. Someone took her.”
“When?” he demanded. “What happened?”
“She was cutting through Nelson Park on her way to the El.”
Pittman identified herself and asked, “How do you know she was taken?”
“I was talking to her on the phone.” Fear made his voice hard. “She told me she was going to meet someone, and she needed to call you, Jack. She had to tell you something important.”
“How long ago was this?” Alec asked the question.
“Five minutes at the most. She was saying good-bye, and suddenly she screamed…then she was gone.”
“We’ll pinpoint her location,” Pittman said as she nodded to an agent.
“Where are you now, Mr. Rose?”
“I’m on my way to the park.”
“We’ll meet you there,” Alec said.
“Listen to me, MacAlister. You find her. You hear me? You find her.”
The second the call ended, Jack looked at Pittman. In a rage, he said, “That son of a bitch Lemming has her. I know it.” He threw his chair out of his way and ran.
Pittman grabbed the phone and called for help as she began issuing orders to the others in the room.
Alec caught up with Jack in the parking garage. “I’m driving,” he shouted.
Shaking with fury, Jack was trying not to think about what could be happening to Sophie, trying to concentrate on finding her.
Nelson Park wasn’t far away, but by the time Alec and Jack arrived, the area was swarming with police. There was no sign of Sophie, and no one had seen anything.
“He has her, Alec. You know I’m right. I should have dragged him in. I should have—”
“There isn’t any evidence.”
“Screw evidence.” He looked around at the crowd and the police. Other agents were arriving on the scene.
“We’re close to Sophie’s office. Maybe she left something behind. An address, a note, anything.”
Jack was running to the car nodding. “We’re losing time. The longer he has her—”
“We’ll find her, we’ll find her,” Alec promised as he jumped into the driver’s seat. “Why? Why would Lemming risk taking her? He knew we didn’t have any evidence against him. He’d be in custody if we did. It doesn’t make sense.”
Alec slammed on the brakes in front of the newspaper offices and left the car double-parked with the lights flashing.
“I don’t know what his reason is,” Jack said.
Bitterman was turning the light off in his office and heading to the door when he saw Jack and Alec running at him. “What’s happened?”
Alec quickly filled him in. Bitterman’s face paled.
“Did she mention where she was going when she left here?” Alec asked.
“I assumed she was going home. She was supposed to turn in an article, but she left without finishing it. That’s very unusual for Sophie.”
“Did she say anything to you, anything at all about where she would be going or who she would be talking to?”
“We talked about work. She told me about the doctors up in Alaska. She thought they were doing something to those poor animals. I made her promise to stop snooping, and she agreed, said she’d let the FBI figure it out.”
Bitterman led the way to her desk.
Gary jumped up when he saw the agents. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Sophie’s missing.”
Gary immediately looked down at his feet. “I wouldn’t worry. She’s probably shopping. She’ll turn up.”
Jack was tearing through Sophie’s desk looking for anything that might shed some light on her whereabouts.
“She’s not shopping,” Bitterman told him in a near shout. “Someone took her.”
“Oh…I see. I hope she’s all right.”
Jack spotted the bug on the back of Sophie’s monitor. “What the…”
He looked at Alec and picked up Sophie’s phone. He had it apart in seconds.
“Another bug,” he said. “Short range.”
Alec turned to Gary. Jack slowly advanced.
“You want to step out into the aisle?” Alec said.
“Why? I’m not finished working.”
Jack wasn’t going to waste time explaining. He grabbed Gary by his shirt and tossed him out of the way.
“What do we have here?” Alec asked, pointing to an earpiece underneath a box of paper clips inside the desk drawer.
Gary tried to back away. Alec blocked him from going any farther.
“You’ve been listening to her phone conversations, haven’t you? You bugged her office, and you bugged Bitterman’s office, too.”
“No, no, I didn’t—”
“It was you?” Bitterman demanded.
“What did you hear on Sophie’s phone?” Alec asked.
Jack had Gary by the throat. “You listen to me, you perv. I’m not wasting time here. If you know something, you better tell me now. I’m going to count to five, and then I’m going to snap your neck. One…two…three…”
“Okay, okay. Some man called her and said he needed her help. He wanted to give her some videos she could take to the FBI. She told him to bring them here, but he wouldn’t, so she was going to meet him.”
“Where?”
“Cosmo’s. He wanted her to meet him somewhere else, but she wouldn’t.”
“Where did he want to meet?” Alec asked.
“Sixty-eighth and Prescott.”
“When I told you Sophie was missing, why didn’t you speak up?” Bitterman demanded.
“Then you’d find out I was listening, and I’d get in trouble. I wasn’t gonna hurt anybody. I was sure her father would call and maybe say something I could sell—”
Jack shoved him so hard, he fell across his desk.
Alec was running for the stairs talking on his cell phone, and Jack followed right behind.
Bitterman shouted, “What can I do to help?”
“Keep him here,” Jack shouted. “Don’t let him out of your sight, and if he remembers anything else, you call me.”
“I don’t know anything else,” Gary screamed. “You can’t make me stay…”
Bitterman picked up the phone and called security.
Jack and Alec flew down the stairs to the street. “I’ll call Pittman,” Jack said as Alec gunned the motor. “I don’t know this city. Where’s Sixty-eighth and Prescott?”
By now, Jack had Pittman on the phone and he repeated the question to her. She had a map spread out on the conference table but didn’t have to use it.
“Old warehouses and storage units,” she said. “It’s a big area, Alec. You’ll need help doing a sweep.”
They got backup within minutes. Jack could hear sirens as police rushed toward them. “How far away are we?”
“Not far,” Alec said. “She’s stronger than she looks, Jack. If she can hold on…”
“Can’t you drive any faster?”
Alec was speeding like a NASCAR driver on the final loop.
Pittman called back, and Alec put her on speaker. “They’re setting up around the perimeter. More men on the way.”
Police cars barricaded 68th Street. Alec slammed on the brakes, and Jack jumped out before the car came to a stop. He looked at his watch. She’d been gone almost an hour. Her chances decreased with every minute.
Hang on, Sophie.
FORTY-ONE
SOPHIE SLOWLY REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS. SHE GROANED and tried to sit up. Falling back, she tried again, this time bracing her hands on the floor to balance herself. It was pitch black. She reached out to find a light switch, but there wasn’t anything there. She touched the floor again. It was cold, hard…concrete?
Where was she?
She finally gained enough strength in her limbs to stand. She swayed back and forth but stayed upright. Her head was pounding, and she felt dazed and disoriented. Stretching her arms out in front of her, she took a tentative step. If she could find a window or door, she could let some light in.
Something blocked her. She pushed, heard a crash, reached out again, and felt cardboard. Sophie stood perfectly still. With deep, calming breaths, she tried to control the panic she felt welling up inside her.
Where was she?
She couldn’t hear any noises, any traffic. Someone had hit her. She could still feel the pain. She touched her face, felt stickiness. Blood from the blow?
Her memory was coming back. Daddy. She’d been talking to her father. Yes, she’d had her cell phone up to her ear, and suddenly there was excruciating pain…then darkness.
She had to find a door or a window and get outside. Oh, God, what if she was in a tunnel or a cave? What if she couldn’t get out?
She tried to control her fear. She put her hands out again, feeling her way until she reached a wall. What was it? Cement blocks? She moved across the wall to a door. She felt a handle. She whimpered as she tried to turn it.
The door suddenly burst in on her, and she was thrown to the floor.
She screamed and scrambled to her feet. A glaring light was shoved in her face, blinding her. She put her hand up to block it and saw the outline of a man behind the light, but couldn’t see who he was.
“Hello, Sophie. I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Dr. Marcus Lemming. Recognize my voice? We had such nice talks over the phone. Of course, I called myself Paul Larson then.”
He put the flashlight on a cardboard box, propped it up, and stepped forward. He was holding a crowbar in his left hand down at his side.
“You’ve caused me a considerable amount of distress. Do you know why? You couldn’t stop poking your nose in where it didn’t belong. You had to keep searching…had to find out…”
He lashed out with his fist and hit her hard in the shoulder, knocking her into the wall. She crumpled to the floor. Before she could recover, he grabbed her arm, yanking her up.
“What do you know about the Alpha Project?”
She didn’t answer fast enough.
“What did Harrington tell you?” Lemming demanded.
“Nothing,” she said, her voice trembling. “He didn’t…”
“Don’t lie to me. What do you know?”
He slowly swung the crowbar back and forth. “How did you find out about this place? How did you know to come here?”
“I didn’t know…I…”
“Liar,” he shouted. “Did you find my journal? Is that how you found out about the project? No, you couldn’t have,” he answered his own question. “The journal’s here.”
He took another step closer. “Who told you?”
“No one…I didn’t…”
He hit her with the crowbar, though he was careful not to kill her. He needed his answers first. The sharp edge had cut into her skin above her ear, and blood now poured down. She tried to focus. He was moving in the light, and there were shadows dancing along the wall. She thought she saw something moving in the corner. Was someone there? Had someone followed her? Daddy? Or Jack…did he call Jack? Please let it be Jack. She had to distract Lemming. Her mind raced. Hurry. Hurry.
“How did you know to come here?” he asked again.
The question made no sense. He was out of his mind, Sophie thought. Had he become delirious? “You know how I got here,” she said. “You know.”