False Witness Page 29

  “I confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in my heart that God raised him from the dead,” he said. “Amen.”

  Stacie chuckled at that last part, but he no longer cared. He felt a wave of forgiveness and freedom—and another emotion that he had never expected. For the first time in three years, he felt like he and Stacie were truly one again.

  She leaned over and hugged his neck, whispering her own prayer of thanks.

  When she was finished, he closed the Bible.

  “Let’s go to bed,” she said. “Tomorrow could be a very long day.”

  68

  After several more unsuccessful attempts to engage her captor in conversation, Jamie gave up. She rode in silence for the next few hours—planning, wondering, feeling gross and powerless. She imagined a hundred different scenarios once they arrived at their location. She tried to prepare herself for anything.

  The temperature had dropped several degrees, and she had grown used to the stench of her own urine. She assumed it was now late at night. Eventually the steady hum of the interstate gave way to the stops, starts, and turns of local roads. Jamie felt the anticipation tense her tired muscles. She had actually grown used to the drone of the highway and convinced herself that Stocking Man wasn’t going to molest her during the trip. But now that the trip was ending, who knew what horrors lay ahead?

  The truck slowed and came to a complete stop, and the engine shut off. The resulting silence had its own eerie psychological message. She felt alone. Deserted. Miles from help.

  The man stepped toward her, this time holding a gun with two metal prongs on the end directly in her line of vision a foot away from her face. “This is a stun gun,” he said as Jamie stared at the prongs. He pulled the trigger, and a bolt of electricity jumped from one prong to the other, hissing like the tongue of a snake. Jamie flinched and jerked away as much as she could, terror sparking through her body.

  “I’m going to untie you,” the man said. “I won’t use this unless you make me. But I won’t hesitate to use it if you try anything.”

  “Okay,” she managed.

  The man reached over and released the bottom strap first, the one tight around her calves. Next, he released the strap around her hips. As he fumbled with the top strap, Jamie heard noises outside the back door. It sounded like somebody might be removing some kind of padlock.

  Her captor removed the top strap, and Jamie sat up slowly on the gurney, eyeing him to make sure it was okay. Though her hands were still cuffed together in her lap, it felt good to no longer have the straps biting into her, tying her down to the gurney.

  “Thanks,” she said. Her captor nodded.

  The man received a call on his cell phone. “Yes. Everything is fine. Open the door.”

  Her captor held the cell phone to his ear with his right hand, the stun gun in his left. Should she lunge at him now? The doors started to creak open. Soon she would have another kidnapper to deal with. But still she hesitated. The handcuffs. The stun gun.

  As she sat there, every muscle poised to strike, torn between the danger of action and the consequences of inaction, she heard two gunshots rip through the silence of the night. There was shouting. Chaos. Another pop, more like a ping, the sound of a bullet hitting the back door. The man inside the truck grabbed Jamie and yanked her to her feet, his arm locked around her throat, the barrel of a gun against her head. She heard something clatter on the floor. The stun gun? The cell phone?

  In the next instant, the back doors, which someone had started to open, swung closed. And then, just as abruptly as the shots had started, the night turned silent again, magnifying the sound of Jamie’s captor panting in her ear. Jamie could literally smell the fear.

  He yelled something in Russian, and Jamie picked up two names. Dmitri. Sergei.

  Her captor waited, his breath coming in staccato bursts. But there was no answer from the outside, nothing but eerie silence.

  He shoved Jamie toward the back door of the truck. “Move!”

  A few feet from the door he stopped her and wrapped his left arm tighter around her neck. “Who’s out there?” he yelled, this time in English.

  The answering silence could only mean that her captor’s accomplices had been killed or captured. Jamie felt a sudden flicker of hope, her heart hammering against her rib cage, adrenaline shooting through every fiber of her body. But in her next conscious thought, that hope crashed into grim reality. She was still a human shield, facing a door that would open to almost-certain gunfire. Even friendly fire might kill her.

  If her captor didn’t do it first. He inched closer to the door, pressing the gun more tightly to her temple.

  “Answer me!” he yelled, holding Jamie squarely in front of him.

  He waited another couple of beats, swung a leg around her, and kicked open the door. First one side, then the other.

  Jamie flinched, ready for the firing squad.

  69

  Nothing happened. No shots were fired. Nobody came rushing at them. The night was dark, silent, and ghostly.

  With the back doors open, Jamie’s captor dragged her closer to the edge of the truck bed. She could see that they were in a parking lot, with distant streetlights barely denting the darkness of the overcast night. A vehicle, some kind of SUV, was parked directly behind the truck, about forty feet away. There were no signs of life anywhere.

  Jamie’s captor glanced past her shoulder—looked left, then right. He pointed his gun toward the darkness, swinging it in an arc around the area.

  Suddenly it was day—blinding lights coming at them from every direction. Headlights from the SUV. Spotlights from both sides of the vehicle. Jamie reacted instinctively, taking advantage of the sudden distraction. She stomped on her captor’s foot, pulled at the arm around her neck, and thrust herself downward to escape his grip. In the same instant, even before she slid free, she heard the sound of gunshots, loud blasts from all around her, blowing her captor backward into the truck. There was yelling. Arms grabbed her from the floor and pulled her to safety.

  Radios started squawking. Men who looked like SWAT team members scrambled into the truck, checking her fallen captor. They helped Jamie to a patch of grass next to an unmarked car, letting her lean against its side. An officer knelt beside her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Jamie nodded. Speechless. She tried to fight back the shock.

  “Are you sure? Do you need an ambulance? Did they hurt you?”

  She knew what he was really asking. Were you raped? “No, I’m okay.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, sucking in a long, deep breath. It was her first full breath, she realized, since her lungs had been placed under the viselike pressure of captivity several hours ago.

  “Do you want some water?” someone asked. “Would you be more comfortable inside the car?”

  She heard another voice, a few feet away, asking one of the men attending to her how long it might be before she could answer questions. They were all just disembodied shadows standing around her, silhouetted against the spotlights still shining at the back of the truck.

  “Can we give her a little room for a few minutes?” a different man asked. The voice sounded familiar.

  At first, Jamie thought her mind was playing tricks on her. After what she’d just been through, shock and hallucination would be a normal reaction. But when she opened her eyes, the face was there as well. If this was an illusion, her mind had quite a memory for details.

  He squatted in front of her. She reached out and touched his shoulder.

  “Drew?”

  He nodded, brushing her hair away from her face.

  After several paramedics checked Jamie out, the federal agents whisked her away from the site of the shoot-out and interrogated her about the day’s events. She would have to spend the rest of the night in a local hotel, so Drew headed to the nearest twenty-four-hour Walmart with a very detailed shopping list. Size-four jeans. Ladies’ underwear, size small. Toothbrush. Toothpaste. Deodorant. T-shirt, women�
��s small. Pajamas, size small. To his credit, Drew didn’t ask any questions. Jamie would probably never be able to look at him again without blushing.

  The conversation with the federal agents was pretty much one-sided—they provided the questions; Jamie provided the few answers she could. She vowed that when she became a prosecutor, she would treat her victims with a little more compassion. She had to keep reminding herself that none of this was her fault.

  She did learn that her kidnappers were working with the same Chinese triad that had been pursuing the Hoffmans. The triad had apparently been trying to keep the feds off-balance by contracting with a few Eastern European thugs, the same ones who had first threatened Jamie at Lake Lanier and then kidnapped her. Her captors had taken Jamie to a marina in Jacksonville, Florida, where the triad had a large yacht waiting.

  They were probably planning on using Jamie to force Hoffman out of hiding. After the shoot-out, the feds had staked out the area and searched every boat at the dock. They had found the triad’s yacht and gained some incriminating information but were disappointed that no additional accomplices showed up. The FBI agents continued to work leads from the cell phones and other evidence they had confiscated. They would let Jamie know of any additional apprehensions.

  In the meantime, they said, it was absolutely critical that Jamie not contact anybody to tell them she was safe. The FBI wanted other triad members to think that the triad still had Jamie in custody. The agents were apparently setting up some kind of trap that might require them to keep Jamie hidden for a day or two.

  The FBI had secured a nearby Hilton where Jamie would stay for the rest of the night and possibly the next day. Drew Jacobsen would stay in an adjoining room, and the bureau’s agents would patrol the premises.

  When Jamie asked if she had a choice in the matter, the agent in charge gave her a disapproving look. “Of course,” he said. “You’re not under arrest or in custody. You can do whatever you want. But it’s our job to protect you and apprehend the other members of the triad, and I would recommend letting us do our job.”

  “I think that’s how we got here in the first place,” Jamie said.

  Eventually, however, she acquiesced. Jacobsen returned from his shopping trip as the questioning and evidence swabbing were winding down. They rode together in the backseat of an unmarked federal sedan to the hotel. Drew escorted Jamie to her room and asked for the fourth time whether she was really okay.

  “I’m fine,” she said with as much conviction as she could summon.

  “If you need to talk—anytime—just knock on the adjoining door,” Drew said.

  “Okay,” Jamie responded. In truth, she had a bunch of questions for her private security guardian angel, starting with the most obvious ones: What was he doing here? Wasn’t this a federal case? How did they find her? But she knew every one of those questions could wait until morning. Other things couldn’t.

  She needed to get out of her soiled clothes. She needed a hot shower. She needed a soft bed.

  She needed some time alone to think.

  70

  Jamie didn’t really even try to sleep. After what she had been through, sleep would only lead to nightmares, replaying distorted versions of the day’s terrifying events. It seemed like every time she closed her eyes, she saw the man wearing the nylon stocking.

  As the minutes marched by, she lay in bed with the television on and the bedside lamp burning, so many questions floating around in her mind. And so much pain. These last few days had rekindled bitter memories of her mother’s death. The emotions she thought she had conquered came back with a force so great it was almost like losing her mom all over again. Losing Snowball, being held hostage, nearly getting shot—these things tormented her, like wolves fighting over a fresh kill, overwhelming Jamie’s best efforts to maintain control.

  A few weeks ago she was a third-year law student itching to get out in the “real world” so she could start prosecuting criminals. Her main concern had been whether to answer questions if called on in crim pro. Now, she was being hunted by the mob. Kidnapped. Threatened.

  Life seemed so fragile.

  At 3:30 a.m., Jamie rose from her bed and padded over to the door that separated her room from Drew’s. She hesitated for a moment, recalled his words—“if you need to talk”—and knocked softly on the adjoining door. She waited, heard no sound coming from the other room, and knocked again. This time she heard a faint “Just a minute,” and a few seconds later Drew opened the door.

  He was wearing a pair of jeans and no shirt, his thick, dark hair matted. The man certainly kept himself in shape. He leaned against the doorjamb looking sleepy and squinting at the light.

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie said. “It’s just that I couldn’t sleep. And you said . . .”

  “No, really, it’s fine.” He waved off her apology. “Let me get a shirt on, and maybe we can get some coffee or something.”

  She suddenly felt like an idiot for waking him up. “Are you sure? I mean, it can wait until later.”

  He smiled, the sleepy eyes coming to life. “Let’s see, you knock on my door at 3:30 a.m. to tell me it can wait? I don’t think so.”

  For some unspoken reason, it didn’t seem right staying in one of the hotel rooms, so the two friends made their way down to the lobby. Drew talked one of the FBI agents into making a coffee run, and soon Drew and Jamie were sitting on an overstuffed lobby couch, their feet propped on a coffee table, discussing the previous day’s events. Jamie, still wearing the pajamas Drew had bought earlier, kicked her sandals off. Drew was wearing his jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt.

  “Nice pajamas,” Drew said. “They look even better on you than they did on the mannequin.”

  “They don’t put pajamas on mannequins.”

  “Reality should never stand in the way of a good pick-up line.”

  They talked for a few minutes about everything and nothing. Drew asked how she was doing without Snowball. Jamie asked whether Drew ever had any dogs. He did—a greyhound he had rescued from the kennel. So they swapped dog stories for a while. When the coffee came, Jamie decided it was time to ask about a few of the things that had been keeping her up.

  “How did you guys find me? And how did you end up down here?”

  “I can go home if you want me to,” Drew countered with a smirk.

  “No, I’m really glad you’re here,” Jamie said emphatically. “But this is a federal case, and they don’t usually bring local cops along for the ride.”

  “You don’t have your watch on right now, do you?”

  She looked down at her wrist and realized she had left it on the bedside table. “No. Why?”

  “I’ll show it to you later, but when you hired me for private security, I implanted a small chip inside your watch. It’s like one of those RFID chips they implant in a lot of retail products these days, or the ones they use to track the migration patterns of animals, only stronger.” As he talked, Drew seemed to be watching Jamie to see what kind of impact this was having on her. In all honesty, she really wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Thankful he had saved her life? Upset that she was being monitored without her knowledge?

  “It’s a passive, read-only tag, and the feds didn’t even know I’d installed it,” he continued. “That’s why it took so long to rescue you. I was working at my desk job and didn’t find out you’d been kidnapped until about seven o’clock. I helped them track you down but demanded to tag along . . . no pun intended.”

  Jamie took a sip of coffee. “You installed a tracking device in my watch and didn’t tell me?” It felt a little weird.

  “I should have told you. I know.” Drew avoided Jamie’s eyes and fiddled with his coffee cup. She felt guilty for jumping on his case.

  “It’s just that you were freaked out enough with everything going on and I didn’t want to create more worry,” Drew continued. “Plus, I wasn’t 100 percent sure you’d let me do it. I know that doesn’t justify it, Jamie. I’m just saying . . . it seem
ed like the right thing to do at the time. Now . . . I wish I’d told you about it.”

  “What other tags do you have on me?”

  “None. I swear.”

  “Cameras in my apartment? And in my car?”

  “No, but that’s probably not a bad idea.”

  Jamie managed a weak smile, and it seemed to relax Drew a little. At least he was contrite about it and didn’t try to make excuses. And it had ended up saving her life.

  “Drew, I really am grateful you implanted that chip or code or whatever, especially the way things turned out. But you can’t just track me like some wild animal and not even tell me about it. What about my privacy rights?”

  He opened his palms in surrender. “I’m sorry, Jamie. I really am. I cared so much about your safety that I did something really stupid. From now on, what I know, you’ll know.”

  She found it hard to stay mad at a guy who admitted his mistakes and in the process threw in a line about how much he cared. Especially when she felt so exhausted. Right now, she didn’t need another fight. She needed an ally, someone she could trust. “Tell me about the way this whole thing came down,” she said. “Start to finish. Every detail.”

  “Well, fortunately,” Drew began, “this brilliant detective had implanted an RFID-type device in the watch of a beautiful young lawyer, although he admittedly should have obtained her permission first. . . .”

  She nodded her encouragement. “You’re off to a good start.”

  Later, when they returned to their rooms, Drew lingered in front of Jamie’s door. She turned to face him, told him thanks, and waited for a beat, frozen by an awkward mixture of fear and anticipation, wondering if he felt the same thing she did.

  In response, he reached out and gently touched her arm, then took a step closer and brushed his lips against hers. She felt the electricity of that moment: two people meant for each other, her destiny starting to change. It was the perfect kiss, gentle and sensitive, from the perfect Southern gentleman. She wanted to lean in and kiss him back, to reward him for taking a chance with someone as emotionally tough and distant as she could be. But the past several hours had been traumatic, and her emotions were still on hyperdrive. It was not the right time to trust her heart.