Gone(64)

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Start figuring out how to get yourself out of this.

Good advice. Rondeau consciously slowed his breathing. He watched the slippery silhouettes of men outside the car, heard the murmur of their voices, then tuned it all out. He needed to come up with a plan. If he kept acting crazy, the bonds were only going to cinch tighter.

The thought irritated the skin around his scars. He went to scratch, but the bracelets held tight. Panic stabbed through him. Fear, anger, helplessness.

Stop it. Think. First, start with the truth.

The truth? Who knew anymore? The truth was, there was no truth.

Start with what you know.

He’d done most of his growing up in the District. Even in those days he’d felt like an outsider. When people thought about Washington D.C., they thought of the politicians, the scandals, the architecture. But there was a city surrounding all of that with a high crime rate and plenty of poverty. That was where he’d cut his teeth as a detective, where he’d learned to survive, in the hidden places. He’d learned to see what others didn’t. Or wouldn’t.

Three days ago, Lily Kemp’s hospital had called the police. He’d decided to start a missing person’s investigation. He’d gone through all the proper channels. He’d assembled the right team. The search parties were deployed. He’d loaded Stokes with assignments. Short of detectives in his squad, he’d delegated to the deputies. He’d interviewed the next of kin.

All the man’s filmmaking materials had been taken. Every scrap of data. Except for one sheaf of papers he’d found in Kemp’s basement. Materials on EPA strictures for hazardous waste management. He’d passed the information on to Deputy King. But he’d wondered if it was a plant, something purposefully left behind for investigators to find.

Hutchinson Kemp was a filmmaker who’d set out to make environmental documentaries. But he’d wound up exposing people with a lot to hide. The kidnapping looked like Spillane or his connections’ work.

Even the phone call could’ve been the modern mafia at work.

You have twenty-four hours.

But then there was the tip from Tamika Levitt. She’d seen Kemp’s film crew in Indian Lake, where Addie lived part-time. She’d told Rondeau about the Indian Lake Project — a clandestine, black budget project testing experimental drugs on people. The fact that Addison Kemp had bought a seasonal home near the site, and that she had presented Rondeau with footage from Hutchinson Kemp’s animal agriculture movie, spoke to her knowledge of something fishy.

It left a lot of questions, and gaps in the narrative of a do-gooder, leftist filmmaker whose family had been kidnapped by the mob for making a movie about waste disposal. The biggest hole in that story — big enough to drive a truck carrying hazardous waste right through — was that Kemp hadn’t just got a bullet through the head.

Because Spillane suddenly wanted to turn himself into a federal witness? Please, Rondeau thought — Whitey Bulger had been hiding out for years before his capture. Spillane never would have gone willingly — and he most certainly had friends in the Bureau. Once you were in, you stayed in. Rondeau didn’t buy it.

Anyway you sliced it, this was about a major government cover-up. They’d called Rondeau, and him alone, because he’d gotten too close. When that didn’t work, they’d kidnapped him, tortured him. Why? What was their next move?





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE / Loyalty

Peter smiled for the cameras but felt deflated after witnessing Detective Rondeau lose it, and with the unnerving encounter in the mine still preying on his mind. He saw Althea in the crowd. She was in the same bright yellow poncho as everyone else, but she was unmistakable to him.

She winked at him, seeming to say, Yeah, you’re a big hero now.

He returned a sheepish grin. At least he didn’t have to address the reporters. Agent Eldridge was doing that, giving them the soundbite summary they craved: “This was a comprehensive investigation involving the cooperation of multiple law enforcement organizations,” Eldridge said. “We all owe a debt of gratitude to the Stock County Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Oesch, along with Captain Bouchard and the New York State Police.”

Eldridge sounded in control, Peter thought, but seemed preoccupied. The lean, young agent’s eyes kept darting to his colleague, Jackson, who Peter had ridden down with. Jackson looked terrible, even sicker than before.

The rain whipped Peter’s face. He glanced at the Kemp family, lined up beside him. They didn’t seem to mind it. It probably felt like bliss to them. Maggie Kemp still clung to her father. Peter saw she was sucking her thumb. The little boy was squawking, the mother rocking him gently. Medics hovered close, eager to check the children’s vitals — were they hurt? Dehydrated? But no one dared to pry the family apart to have a better look just yet. Hutchinson Kemp appeared dazed, though the ordeal of the past week was more clearly expressed in his wife’s face. Lily Kemp looked anguished. But they all seemed unharmed.

“We ask you now to give the family some room,” Eldridge continued. “This is still an ongoing investigation. I understand the public’s right to know, but I urge you to show every respect and kindness to this family, and to the process of the law.”

Peter scanned the eager faces of the press. One rogue media team had rushed off toward the parking lot, where Rondeau had been taken. Two meaty-looking agents, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, were blocking them.