Worst Case (Michael Bennett 3)
I nodded to everyone around the room. It was the same guy.
“Oh, Mrs. Haas,” the kidnapper continued. “How glorious you look at your charity events. How brightly the flash packs of the paparazzi reflect off your diamonds. While the lights dazzled, did you maybe for a moment think that you had become more than mortal? I think you did. Pride is one of your main sins, Ann. I can call you Ann, can’t I? I hope you don’t mind. After spending so much time with your daughter, I feel like we’re practically related.”
“You fucking prick son of a bitch!” Mrs. Haas screamed. “Give her back!”
The kidnapper let out a long, sad sigh.
“My, my. What filth even a daughter of the highest privilege is capable of in our tainted society. Is that really any way to talk? Did those tight-ass lily-white-tower academics teach you to speak like that at Sarah Lawrence? Or did you learn that potty mouth at Daddy’s trading desk? Mustn’t we have been turned on, being one of the few women amongst all that heady Wall Street warrior testosterone?
“Which leads us to your next sin, Ann. Lust. Multiple acts of adultery with multiple partners, if the rumors are true. Shall I get into specifics?
“Isn’t that what being rich is all about? Sex and money and hiring people to clean the eight-hundred-thread-count sheets? You’re a filthy sinner, Ann, and so’s your lackluster English poseur of a husband.”
“Please let me speak to Mary Beth,” Mrs. Haas begged. “Just for a second. For whatever I’ve done to you, I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” the kidnapper said. “But talking to Mary Beth won’t be possible. I’m here to teach you that you are human, Ann. And like all humans, you must come to terms with the reality of loss. Sin and loss go hand in hand. Please put my friend Detective Bennett on the phone now. It’s been a real pleasure speaking to you, despite your disgusting language. I hope he hasn’t pumped up your hopes concerning Mary Beth, Madam Chief Executive. On second thought, I hope he has. All the more pride to goeth before the fall. Ta-ta.”
“Detective Bennett here,” I said, taking the phone from the weeping CEO. “How’s Mary Beth? Is she okay?”
“Mary Beth is fine, Mike. For now. She has a big test coming up, though. A final final, you might say. It’s all in her hands. I’ll call you back the second her score is tallied.”
“Wait a minute. Don’t you want money?”
“All the money on this earth couldn’t prevent Mary Beth from facing her destiny, Mike.”
What the hell did that mean? How did that make sense? There was a sharp sound in the background suddenly, a distinctive click-clack. I winced. Goddammit. He’d just chambered an automatic pistol.
“Pray for her, Mike. That’s all she has now.”
Chapter 58
MARY BETH HAAS bit harder into the thick wraps of gauze gagged into her mouth as she wrestled herself up into a cramped seated position.
She was in a pitch-black metal box with a low lid and cold, rusty walls and floor. Her arms were tightly wrapped around herself in a straitjacket. She’d been in the box for several hours. At first she’d been terrified. Then angry. Now she was just sad, infinitely, inconsolably, hopelessly sad.
As she sat in the cramped dark, the events of the afternoon kept playing and replaying through her mind in a nightmare loop.
She knew she wasn’t really allowed to leave campus to run laps at the Brearley Field House on 87th, but since she was a senior and the cocaptain of the reigning New York State Championship volleyball team, her teachers and her coach often looked the other way when she snuck out during her morning free period.
She had been coming through one of those cavelike construction scaffolding tunnels across the street from the gym when a man standing beside the open door of a van had said, “Mary Beth?”
She remembered a stinging numbness in her chest as she turned toward the voice. Her whole entire body seemed to cramp at once as she fell forward, powerless. A strong, wet, medicinal smell filled her nose and mouth then, and she was out.
She’d woken up in the straitjacket with a massive headache. That had been what? Seven? Maybe eight hours before? Eight hours of blackness and silence. Eight hours of being starving and thirsty and dirty and having to use the bathroom. It was like she was stuck at sea. A sea of darkness where there seemed to be no hope of being rescued.
At first, the sadness had been sharp, but now it was lessening, weakening like a candle dying out. She thought of her friends and teachers. Her mom. I’m sorry, everyone, she thought. Sorry for being so stupid. Sorry for messing up.
She didn’t know how much more time had elapsed when she heard the clacking of a steel shutter rolling up.
Oh, God! Somebody was coming. The man who had taken her.
An unhinging bolt o
f animal panic gripped her, froze her. He would touch her now, wouldn’t he? That’s what they did, right? Crazy men? Hurt you. Raped you. Killed you. She whimpered. It would be better just to be buried. She didn’t want to be in pain.
That’s when she shook herself out of her pity. She found a hard place inside herself and went there. She would fight for her life. She would bite and scream and kick. She found the thought of it comforting. She wanted to live, but more than that, she wanted to fight. She suddenly knew she could, and that was somehow better.
There was the sound of a car motor approaching. The clackety-clack of a metal gate going back down again. The killing of the engine and the sound of the door opening made her new strength waver for a moment, but then she bit down harder on the gag, and it was back.