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Behind them Sarah and Cole browse at the vendor’s souvenir cart. They move closer to the road. Bit by bit they are exiting the frame.
“Can you slow it down some more?”
The footage slowed to near frame-by-frame speed.
Now, Sarah and Cole are almost out of the picture. All Jeff can make out are their feet, up to their knees, and the lower portions of cars passing by.
One stops near Sarah and Cole with such suddenness.
It just appears.
Doors open, other legs emerge from it, shoes, black shoes, or boots. Military style? Three sets? They move fast, positioning next to Sarah and Cole. Right beside them. Too close. A moment passes, then they all move to the vehicle two steps away.
Doors open.
Sarah and Cole vanish.
Doors close.
The white vehicle pulls from the curb, the rear right quarter, rear bumper, plate flash. Then someone’s head, a passerby, blocks the view; the plate is obscured. The vehicle disappears.
It’s over.
“Hold it!” Jeff pressed his finger to the screen as if to grab the image and stop time.
Chad froze the frame.
“That plate. I need that license plate!”
“Hold on.”
Chad froze the footage, then frame by frame he reversed and forwarded it until he had the best view on the plate.
“Hold on.”
Chad enlarged the plate until it was clear enough to read.
“I need something to write with,” Jeff said.
Mandy passed him a pad and pen and Jeff copied down the New York State license number.
“Can I use your computer to get online?” Jeff asked.
Chad and Mandy traded worried glances, obviously concerned that they were already too involved in whatever was going on.
“No.” Chad returned the security surveillance system to its normal state and his keys jingled. “That’s all you’re going to get from us.”
“Please.”
“We’re done.” Chad locked up the console.
“You saw what happened!” Jeff said.
“I don’t know what happened,” Chad said.
“Those people took my wife and son! I have to run this plate!”
“I don’t know what I saw, but we’re not getting involved.”
“I just need a computer.”
“We’re done,” Chad said.
Jeff looked at Mandy.
“There’s an internet café three blocks west of here,” she said. “I’ll draw you a map.”
9
New York City
In the minutes after Jeff had left the Fourteenth Precinct, Detective Vic Cordelli resumed staring at the pictures of the Griffins.
Juanita Ortiz stopped reading her notes and shifted her gaze to him.
“What is it, Vic?”
Cordelli brooded as mistrust gnawed at him and he shook his head.
“I just don’t know about this one, Juanita.”
Ortiz tapped her pen against her notes, sighing to herself.
“You got a lot going on—” Ortiz picked up her landline “—but I need you to help me get to work and run this thing, okay?”
Ortiz called the Real Time Crime Center downtown at One Police Plaza. The RTCC operated a vast computer network, including hundreds of surveillance cameras and plate readers in all boroughs. She’d requested all footage covering the time and location of Sarah and Cole Griffin’s abduction.
While that was being processed Cordelli ran the Griffins through the National Crime Information Center, which held active records on millions of cases, ranging from thefts, to missing persons, fugitives and terrorists. The query rang no bells—no arrest, warrants, nothing.
As Ortiz checked with other local, state and regional databases, Cordelli got on the phone to Montana. He hooked up with Detective Blaine Thorsen of the Laurel Police Department, who was puzzled at why the NYPD was calling about Jeff and Sarah Griffin.
“No.” Thorsen’s keyboard clicked as he consulted local computer records for Cordelli. “There’s no complaint history here. No custody orders. It’s a damn shame that they lost their baby a while back.”
“What was the cause?”
“The coroner said it was SIDS. We investigated and had no reason to believe otherwise. They’re nice people. Why are you checking? What’s going on in New York?”
“They’re here on vacation,” Cordelli said. “Jeff’s reported that Sarah and Cole were abducted less than two hours ago near Times Square.”
“Abducted? Shit, really?”
“We’re looking into it.”
“Do you have any suspects?”
“A witness gave us a couple of men and a vague vehicle description. Nothing solid. Does this sound out of character for the Griffins?”
“Completely,” Thorsen said. “That family went through hell when they lost their daughter and now this. Lord Almighty. If you need anything from our end, anything at all, let us know.”
Cordelli hung up.
His perspective was shifting.
He reviewed the report from the uniforms, the witness statement taken by Roy Duggan. He knew Duggan, knew he was a hard-ass who didn’t trust many people. Duggan wouldn’t waste his time if he didn’t sense a case here. Cordelli would have to get down to the street and talk to Freddie.
For now, he returned to the family photos, the baby, Sarah, Jeff and Cole. Cordelli considered putting out an Amber Alert for Cole but they had nothing on a vehicle.
Juanita was still working her phone and the computer. These days an investigation entailed as much mouse clicking as shoe leather.
The more Cordelli looked at the Griffin family pictures, the deeper he’d looked into himself and how hollow his life had become.
Three nights back, in the case they’d just closed, a jacked-up addict had put a gun in his face but it jammed. Cordelli’s “this-is-it” moment made him realize that nobody would mourn him because, after five years, he’d determined marriage wasn’t for him. He’d told his wife that he couldn’t breathe, that he was on a leash.
She got a lawyer and cut him loose.
The papers came through yesterday.
Seeing the Griffins underscored what he would never have.
It’s what he saw with Juanita every day. He could never tell her how it ate him up. She had Lucy, her little girl, and Bert, her husband. He was a building contractor who often surprised her with picnics in Central Park or getaway weekends to Boston.
Cordelli figured these things were factors contributing to why he had been skeptical and a bit of a prick to Jeff Griffin. Yeah, maybe, he thought, downing the last of his coffee, maybe a little.
It was stupid.
He would correct it, starting now.
Going back over everything, one theory came to mind telling him that—
“Hey, you there? Vic? Hello? Did you hear me?”
Ortiz had yanked him from his thoughts.
“I said RTCC just came through. I think we’ve really got something here. Come around, you’ve got to see this.”
10
New York City
The fleeting video images of Sarah and Cole vanishing with strangers were seared in Jeff’s mind as he hurried through New York’s streets to the internet café.
Seeing what had happened to them made it real.
Someone had taken them, pulled them from the street in a heartbeat.
Why? Who would do this? It’s insane!
His scalp prickling, he glanced at the directions to the café while rushing through a crosswalk against a red light. A Mercedes bumper came within inches of his knee—the horn blast startled him as the driver spewed obscenities. Jeff waved it off, took a deep breath and moved on.
What was he doing running around like this?
He should call Cordelli and Ortiz, alert them to the surveillance footage and the plate. He’d do that. But not yet, because when he considered the slip of paper bearing the license number, he knew he had more than hope in his hand.
This was his thread to Sarah and Cole.
Nothing was going to stop him from following it.
* * *
It was called Virtual Connections Online Coffeehouse.
Jazz music and the hissing gurgle of espresso machines filled the air of the packed café. At every table people had their noses in their BlackBerries, tablets, cell phones and laptops. All the rental computer terminals were in use. Jeff got his instructions and number from a girl in a white apron at the counter.
“Hit Enter, the rates come up. Swipe your credit card. Remember to log out. Three people are ahead of you but it won’t be long—we have twelve terminals.”
While waiting, Jeff went to the ATM next door for more cash. By the time he’d come back, a terminal in the corner had become available. The mouse was sticky and the keyboard was so worn off he had to strain to see what letters he was typing.
He took the half hour rate of seven dollars. He knew the detectives were monitoring his family credit card, so he used his company card for Clay Platt’s Auto Service. He’d explain the charges to Clay later. Once he was online he searched Google services that identified license plates. He submitted the plate number for New York State, then his credit card information.
A few seconds later the monitor displayed the data. The vehicle was a white 2010 GMC Terrain, the registered owner was Donald Dalfini and his address was 88 Steeldown Road, New York City. There was a vehicle identification number, title, registration date and other information.
Jeff printed it all off, then searched the address.
It was in the Bronx. The map put it near Neverpoint Park in the southeast section of the borough. The estimated travel time from midtown was about forty minutes.
Jeff collected his pages, folded them into his pocket and debated his next step.
Call Cordelli and Ortiz, tell them I saw the recording and now had a plate and address.
He took out Ortiz’s business card and pressed the number. The line rang, then went straight to her voice mail. He didn’t want to leave a message and he didn’t want to waste any time.
I’ll follow this on my own. I’ll take it as far as I can, then I’ll alert them once I have something.
Jeff worked his way through the crowd to the street and flagged down the first cab he saw.
11
New York City
