24 Hours

Karen snapped out of her trance.

“But that’s not going to happen,” Hickey said, smiling. “You’re a smart girl. And Huey’s a good boy. Loves kids. He’s practically a kid himself. But he’s a little slow. Since I’m the only person who was ever nice to him, he always does exactly what I tell him. So you want to be real careful with that gun.”

Karen looked at the weapon in her hand. Suddenly it seemed more of a threat to Abby than to the man in front of her.

“You pick things up real quick, I can tell,” Hickey said. “So keep paying attention. This is a kidnapping-for-ransom, like I said. But it’s not like you’ve seen on TV or in the movies. This isn’t the Lindbergh baby. It’s not some Exxon executive, buried-alive bullshit. This is a work of art. A perfect crime. I know, because I’ve done it five times before and I haven’t been caught yet. Not even a whiff of Johnny Law.”

Karen pointed to Hickey’s left arm, where a poorly inked needlework showed below the band of his sleeve. An eagle holding an iron cross in its talons. “Isn’t that a prison tattoo?”

Hickey’s face tightened, then relaxed. “They busted me for something else. How’d you know that was done in the joint?”

“I don’t know.” Karen had seen several tattoos like it on surgical patients in the OR. “I just know.”

“You’re smarter than the average June Cleaver, aren’t you? Well, it won’t help you any. I own you, lady. And your little girl. You need to remember that.”

Karen forced back fresh tears, unwilling to give Hickey the satisfaction of seeing them. The gun wavered in her hand. She steadied it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “What happened to the kids those other five times, right?”

She nodded slowly.

“Right this second, every one of them is living a carefree life, watching Barney or Rugrats or swimming in their private freakin’ swimming pool. You know why? Because their mamas didn’t shoot me and their daddies were calm and methodical after the first few minutes. Just like you’re going to be.” He took another slow sip of tea. “Needs sugar. I can tell you weren’t raised in the country.”

Karen had been raised on rural army bases, but she saw no reason to correct Hickey’s impression.

“If that gun happens to go off by accident,” he said, “Abby will be just as dead as if you shot her. The bullet in that chamber will kill two people, Karen. Something to think about.”

She didn’t want to put down the gun, but she saw no choice. She tossed it onto the table beside Hickey, cracking one of the white tiles of its surface.

“Good girl,” he said, leaving the .38 where it had fallen. “Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly what a good mother does in a situation like this. I hope your husband’s as smart as you are.”

New fear gripped Karen. “Where’s Will? What have you done with him?”

Hickey made an elaborate show of looking at his watch, which he wore on the inside of his wrist, like certain military officers, as though time were his province alone, and not to be shared with anyone else. “Right about now, hubby’s winged most of his way to Biloxi’s beautiful Beau Rivage Casino Resort.”

Hickey said this with the exaggerated enthusiasm of a game show huckster, but it was the level of his knowledge that crystalized the fear in Karen. He knew their lives, their plans, their exact schedules—

“After hubby gets checked in, we’re going to let him shower up and give his little speech. Then he’s going to get a visit from a partner of mine, and he’ll find out where things stand. The way you just did. Then we’re all going to wait out the night together.”

Terror ballooned in Karen’s chest. “Wait out the night? What are you talking about?”

“This operation takes exactly twenty-four hours. I’m talking from the time Huey and me cranked up this afternoon. A day’s work for a year’s pay.” Hickey chuckled. “We’ve got about twenty hours left to go.”

“But why do we have to wait?” The old panic had come back with a vengeance. “If you want money, I’ll get it for you. All you want. Just bring my baby back!”

Hickey shook his head. “I know you would, Karen. But that’s not the way this operation works. Everything’s set up according to a timetable. That way there’s no surprises.”

“But we can’t wait twenty hours!”

“You’d be surprised what you can do for your kid.”

This is a nice place. We’ll get to know each other a little, have supper, pretend everything’s fine. Abby can watch Huey whittle. Before you know it, I’ll have my money and you’ll have Abby back.”

“Listen to me, you stupid son of a bitch!”

Hickey paled. “You want to watch what you’re saying there, Mom. It’s not smart under the circumstances.”

Karen tried to keep her voice under control. “Sir—Mr. Hickey—if we wait until tomorrow, Abby is going to die.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“Abby’s a diabetic. A juvenile diabetic. She’ll die without her insulin.”

“Bullshit.”

“My God … didn’t you know that?”

“Talk’s cheap. Let’s see some proof.”

Karen went to a kitchen drawer and pulled out a plastic bag full of orange-capped syringes with 25-gauge needles. She threw the bag onto the table, then opened the refrigerator, where a dozen glass vials waited in compulsively organized rows. She took out a vial of long-acting insulin and tossed it at Hickey.

He caught it and stared at the label. It read: Humulin N. PATIENT: Abigail Jennings, PRESCRIBING PHYSICIAN: Will Jennings, M.D.

“Damn,” Hickey said under his breath. “I don’t believe this.”

“Please,” Karen said in the most submissive voice she could muster. “We must get this medicine to my daughter. She—My God, I didn’t check her sugar when we got home.” Karen felt herself falling again, as though the floor beneath her feet had vanished. “Abby’s due for her shot in an hour. We’ve got to get this to her. How far away is she?”

“We can’t go,” Hickey said in a flat voice.

Karen grabbed the .38 off the table and pointed it at his chest. “Oh, yes, we can. We’re going right now.”

“I told you about that gun.”

She cocked the revolver. “If Abby doesn’t get her insulin, she’s going to die. Now you do what I say!”

Something flickered in Hickey’s eyes. Amusement. Perhaps surprise. He held up his hands, palms toward Karen. “Take it easy, Karen. I meant we can’t go yet. Abby’s being transported to a safe place. Maybe we can go later. Tell me about her condition. How critical is it?”

“How critical? She could die.”

“How long before she’s in trouble?”

Karen did the math in her head. If Abby ate only normal food before falling asleep—if she could sleep at all—she could make it through the night. But Karen had no intention of taking that risk. What if Hickey’s cousin fed her candy bars?

“Juvenile diabetics are very unstable,” she said. “If Abby eats too much sugar, she could get in trouble very quickly. She’ll get dehydrated. Then comes abdominal pain and vomiting. Then she’ll go into a coma and die. It can happen very fast”

Hickey pursed his lips, obviously doing some mental math of his own. Then he reached over the little built-in desk where Karen paid the household bills, hung up the cordless phone, and punched in a new number.

Karen stepped up to the desk and hit the SPEAKER button on the phone. Hickey looked down, trying to figure out how to switch it off, but before he could, a deep male voice said: “Joey? Has it been thirty minutes?”