24 Hours

“There’s no floor button lit.”

“Oh. I forgot to hit it. Still nervous, I guess. Twenty-eight, please.”

“You’ve got a Cypress suite? So do I.” She half-turned to him and smiled. “Your program was great, by the way. I can’t believe you were nervous.”

“Are you a physician?” he asked. He didn’t like to think he believed in stereotypes, but he’d never met a woman doctor who looked like this.

“No, I’m with the casino company.”

“Oh. I see. Hey, what’s your floor? There’s no button lit but twenty-eight.”

“I’m twenty-eight, too. Most of the Cypress suites are up there.”

He nodded and smiled politely, but when the woman turned away he gave her a hard look. A hooker? he wondered. The desk manager had told him Saul Stein had said give him the red carpet treatment. Did that include a beautiful call girl?

The elevator opened on twenty-eight.

“Bye,” the woman said. She got off and walked briskly down the hallway to the left. Will got off and watched her seductive motion, then turned left and counted the numbers down to suite 28021. He was inserting his credit card key when a female voice called, “Dr. Jennings?”

He looked up the long corridor. The blonde in the black dress was walking hesitantly toward him, gripping her small handbag in front of her.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

She fidgeted with her bag, then stopped as a door opened opposite Will. A heavyset man wearing a plaid sport coat came out and hurried toward the elevators.

“My key doesn’t work,” the woman said, after he’d passed. “Could you try it for me?”

“I doubt I can do any better than you. I’ll give it a shot, though.”

“No pun intended?”

Will laughed, then put his computer case inside his room and followed her past the heavyset man waiting for the elevators.

The elevator bell dinged as Will inserted her card key and watched for green LED lights. But when he removed the key, only one LED flashed—red—and there was no click of tumblers. He tried again, seating the card squarely and firmly, but no matter what he did, the lock refused to open.

“I think you’re out of luck,” he told her.

“Looks like it. Would you mind if I used your phone to call the desk?”

He started to say he didn’t mind, but something stopped him. A sense of something out of place, not quite logical. “I think there’s a house phone by the VIP elevators. I’ll be glad to wait with you.”

She looked momentarily confused, but after a moment she smiled. “That’s right. I appreciate you waiting with me. You never know who’s creeping around the casino. My name’s Cheryl, by the way.”

Will accepted her proffered hand, which was cool, almost to the point of coldness. It felt like the hand of an anxious patient, someone terrified of needles. He dropped her hand and escorted her back toward the elevators, walking a little ahead.

The heavyset man was gone. Will glanced into the waiting area and saw what he was looking for: a cream-colored house telephone.

“Here it is,” he said, turning back to her. “They’ll have a new key up here in no—”

The words died in his throat. Cheryl was pointing an automatic pistol at his chest. She must have taken it from her handbag. Her eyes were resolute, but there was something else in them. Fear.

“What is this?” he asked. “I’ve only got a few bucks on me, but you’re welcome to it. Credit cards, whatever.”

“I don’t want your money,” she said, looking anxiously at the elevators. “I want you to go in your room.”

“What for?”

“You’ll find out. Just hurry up.”

Something in Will’s mind hardened to resistance. He wasn’t going to start blindly obeying orders. If you did that, the next thing you knew, you were lying facedown on some dirty bathroom floor while they shot you in the back of the head.

“I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me what’s going on. In fact—” he stepped toward the phone— “I’m going to call the front desk and have them call the police.”

“Don’t touch that.”

“You’re not going to shoot me, Cheryl.” He picked up the telephone.

“If you call the police, Abby is going to die. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

His arm froze. “What did you say?”

“Your daughter was kidnapped two hours ago, Doctor. If you want her to live, take me into your room right now. If you call the police, she’ll die. I’m serious as a heart attack.”

A paralyzing numbness was spreading from deep within Will’s chest. It was disbelief, or perhaps the brain’s attempt at disbelief in the face of knowledge too terrible to accept.

“What are you talking about?”

Cheryl glanced at the elevator again. He sensed the fear inside her metamorphosing into panic.

“Doctor, if somebody gets out of that elevator and sees me with this gun, the whole thing’s going to come apart. Abby’s going to die, okay? And I don’t want that to happen. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but you’d better get me into your goddamn room right now.”

Will heard a squawk and realized the phone was still in his right hand. He brought it slowly to his mouth.

“Talk, and you put a bullet in Abby’s brain.”

He hung up.

“Hurry,” she said. “If I don’t make a phone call soon, she’s going to die anyway.”

He stared at her for another few seconds, looking for options. He had none. He walked down to his door, unlocked it, and held it open for her.

Cheryl walked past him, holding the gun close against her, as though she expected Will to try to take it. Once inside, she walked all the way across the sitting room and into the bedroom. He closed the door and followed her.

Cheryl put the bed between herself and Will. She was still pointing the gun at him, but he walked to the edge of the bed anyway. His fear for Abby was burgeoning into an anger that would brook no delay.

“Get back!” she cried. “Stay back until I explain!”

“Tell me about my little girl!”