Talk (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  "I was only at your wedding, blockhead," Jessica told him, kissing Elizabeth on the cheek.

  "Congratulations on your book," Elizabeth said. "It's very well written. I enjoyed it immensely."

  "See that?" Jessica said to no one in particular. "A professor at Columbia University says I'm a literary sensation. By the way, Elizabeth, Ann Douglas is coming."

  "She is? Wonderful!" the historian exclaimed. "Then, not only are you a literary sensation, but a major cultural event!"

  "Elizabeth, hi," Alexandra said, giving the professor a big hug. "Georgiana's dying to see you."

  "Where is she?"

  Alexandra pointed. "Take a right at Jane Pauley."

  "So, how are you?" Big Mont asked Jessica seriously. "This thing with your assistant has got to have been a nightmare."

  "Yes, it has been. Oh, and Monty, thanks for the note you sent over. It's been—well, whatever it's been means nothing, does it, compared to what happened to poor Bea."

  "They have any leads on this guy?"

  "They're working—" Her heart swelled as she spotted Will across the room. She gave a little shout and waved.

  Will was making his way through the crowd, trying to hurry. He was showered and shaved and dressed in a fabulous pale gray Armani suit, but Jessica could tell he was absolutely exhausted, knowing that he had worked practically round the clock these past three days so he could get back in time for her party. He gave her only a brief hug, but Jessica didn't care who saw and pulled Will back to her to kiss him big-time on the mouth and throw her arms around him. He broke down then and hugged her back, lifting her from the floor, then gently lowering her and kissing her again on the mouth.

  There were several catcalls and whistles.

  "Hi," he said.

  "Hi," she said.

  Jessica took Will's hand and refused to let go of it. While Denny offered Will a cocktail napkin to get Jessica's lipstick off his face, Jessica began introducing Will all around, starting with Montgomery Grant Smith, who, it turned out, knew Will already.

  "Will's been in Russia to form a coverage pool on the Olympics," Jessica explained.

  "Good luck," Monty said. "They'll steal your equipment and sell it to feed their families."

  “Jessica," her agent, Howard, said, tugging on her arm. "Sorry to interrupt, but I need you to meet your paperback publisher."

  “Yeah, yeah, all right." Jessica took Alexandra's hand and placed it firmly on Will's arm. "Don't lose him," she instructed her friend, waving to Robin Quivers who had just come in.

  By seven o'clock, mercifully, all the big names had left, leaving a half hour to finish feeding and inebriating the press and the publishing people. Jessica started to unwind and enjoy herself. At seven-forty, the restaurant staff began physically moving tables in hopes of still having time to accommodate a dinner crowd, and the partyers took the hint.

  Alexandra and Georgiana, true hostesses, stayed on to the bitter end, and Georgiana ended up signing autographs for the entire restaurant staff.

  Finally it was time to go. It had been a great party. Now it was time to move on to Cassy and Jackson's apartment on Riverside Drive for dinner. Wendy led the way out of the cafe, Slim followed up the rear with a building security guard, and Dirk walked alongside Jessica and Will, with Alexandra and Georgiana following. They turned down the passageway that led to the Fifth Avenue exit, where Jessica's and Alexandra's cars were waiting.

  Their talk and laughter reverberated over the linoleum floor, and Jessica was just trying to put her tiara on Georgiana's head, naming her Miss Rockefeller Center, when there was a horrible searing sound and then a series of muffled pops and showers of sparks as the overhead lights literally exploded, showering the group with glass and filaments. The emergency light in the comer immediately came on, but the smoke and smell of burning rubber and chemicals was terrible.

  Jessica felt two hands pull her abruptly away, into a doorway, and heard a male voice say, "Careful, Jessica, follow me."

  In the next minute, Wendy was screaming, "Get this door open! Somebody grabbed Jessica!" She banged and kicked at the steel door and then there was a sudden burst of blue sparks and Wendy fell backward to the ground.

  "Jessica!" Will cried, running to the door. But when he touched the door, he too was thrown backward in a blaze of sparks and fell to the ground.

  "Christ, it's electrified," Dirk yelled. "Stand back!" He was whipping off his belt.

  "Will!" Alexandra was down on her knees. She opened his eye and then grabbed his wrist to take his pulse. "He's alive, but we need an ambulance, call for an ambulance!"

  Slim was already on his walkie-talkie; Dirk was trying to short out the door with the metal end of his belt "Where does this lead to?"

  "It's a maintenance tunnel," the building guard said.

  "I can't short it out," Dirk said, throwing the belt down and grabbing at his walkie-talkie. "This is Lawson. Close the whole center down—now!"

  "It was a nice party," Cassy agreed, sitting in the back seat of their limousine, resting her head against her husband's shoulder.

  "They had a lot of cameras," Jackson said. "If that guy was there, he'll be on tape."

  "Good Lord, I hope so," Cassy sighed.

  As the Darenbrooks' limousine approached their building, the telephone rang. Cassy reached forward, beating her husband to it. "Hello?"

  "What?" she said a moment later. She looked to the driver. "Harry, back to Rockefeller Center immediately—as fast as you can." Then she looked to her husband. "He's got Jessica."

  12

  At seven o’clock the following morning, Cassy Cochran, showing every minute of her forty-nine years, solemnly turned the corner into the outer area of her office. All the phone lines in Chic Chi’s work area were lit.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Oh, God, Cassy!” Chi Chi cried, jamming a call on hold and jumping up. Her eyes looked as though they were cried out. A great many people at West End were extremely fond of Jessica and Chi Chi was near the top of the list. Chi Chi had been Cassy’s secretary for over twenty years, and Cassy knew firsthand that the woman did not give her loyalty—or her friendship—easily.

  On Chi Chi’s desk lay the morning’s newspapers; on top the New York Post headline screamed

  JESSICA

  KIDNAPPED!

  “Forward the calls and come in, please,” Cassy said, going into her office. Inside, she turned around and placed her hand on Chi Chi’s arm. “We’re going to find her. We will.”

  Chi Chi nodded, tears threatening.

  “We’ll find her,” Cassy said again. And then she turned back around, threw her briefcase in a chair and circled her desk. “I want you to locate Alexandra, Will, Denny, Alicia and Dirk and get them here in my office by ten o’clock. I don’t care what it takes, they have to be here. Tell them I—“

  She stopped midsentence after she pulled her chair out from her desk. "Chi Chi," she said quietly, never taking her eyes from the seat of her chair, "do we have any gloves?"

  ''I've got the disposable gloves I use to refill the printing cartridge on the copying machine," she answered, not bothering to ask if Cassy wanted them, but simply running out to her area to retrieve a pair and bring them back to her boss. Staring down at the seat, Cassy snapped the gloves on like an emergency-room surgeon and leaned over to pick up the envelope that was lying there. Cassy Cochran it said in that now horribly familiar typeface.

  "Do you know what's going on?" Alicia Washington asked Alexandra as she came into Cassy's office.

  "No more than you," the anchorwoman answered. She was sitting on the couch, Will next to her, his face in his hands. Denny arrived, his eyes ringed with red. Dirk was the last to arrive, looking as tired and dreadful as the rest of them.

  When Will raised his head, however, it was clear who looked the worst. Much of his right eyebrow had been singed off and he had also lost a whole hank of hair in front. The electrical charge on the door at Rockefeller Cent
er had been set to stun, not to kill, otherwise he would have been badly burnt. Nonetheless, the bodyguard, Wendy Mitchell, had to be hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat after the incident.

  "Any news, Dirk?" Alexandra asked.

  "Hell if I know," he said. "Cassy's cut me out completely." Dirk dropped into a chair, leaning forward, running his hands through his hair and avoiding the others' eyes.

  Will was looking at the security expert with cold fury. Alexandra reached over to lightly rub his back and murmur, "We need him."

  Cassy came striding in moments later, introducing FBI agents Norman Kunsa and Debbie Cole, and NYPD detectives Jefferson Hepplewhite and Richard O'Neal. Chi Chi arrived a moment later, closed the door behind her and sat down with a notepad. Cassy walked over to stand in front of her desk, and then leaned back against it, crossing her arms over her chest.

  "First off, I want to reassure you that we have every reason to believe Jessica's all right, and that she will not be harmed."

  The DBS gang looked at each other.

  "Secondly, I've called you here to give you our official position on this, and to tell you how things will proceed from this moment on. I'm making Kate Benedict acting executive producer of DBS News, and we are immediately going into anchor rotation. Will and Alexandra, as of now I'm assigning you to a special investigative task force with access to every resource Darenbrook Communications has, or our affiliates have, that can help locate Jessica. This includes all the Darenbrook electronic retrieval systems, and Dr. Kessler will be working with you personally. Detective O'Neal and Agent Cole are to be given complete access to these resources. I've also got Craig Scholer coming up from D.C."

  Scholer was a prize-winning crime-beat investigative journalist for the Darenbrook newspaper chain.

  "The deal is," Cassy continued, DBS and the Sentinel get the scoop when we bring Jessica home. Until then, no one—no one—but myself may convey information concerning our investigation to the DBS News staff or to the Sentinel. Is that understood? Alexandra?"

  The anchorwoman nodded.

  "Denny, Alicia—until Jessica gets back, we'll be running 'best-of' shows, so I want you working with Dirk to amass a database. We need everything you can remember about the guests and studio audiences—and anything and everything, personally and professionally, that you know about Jessica and anyone who has ever been anywhere near her at any time since you began working with her. This includes going through the fan mail." Denny and Alicia were nodding.

  "Dirk, you'll be working with Dr. Kessler to determine the best way to process this information. You are not to talk to anyone else about it, or use anybody in the research department unless Dr. Kessler is physically present. Do you understand?"

  Dirk, looking as though he wished to say something but didn't—nodded.

  "And now I'll let Jeff—Detective Hepplewhite—explain what we know thus far. We'll be giving out fact sheets at the end, so you don't need to take notes."

  Alexandra reached into her blazer pocket to take out a pad and pen anyway.

  There was a knock and then the door opened and Wendy Mitchell was standing there, with a scarf tied over her head and salve over dreadful-looking bums on one side of her face. "I'd like to help," she said.

  After a moment, Cassy said, "Absolutely. Alexandra, Wendy's going to work with you and Will. You'll fill her in. Wendy, have a seat."

  The bodyguard took the seat Alexandra offered her on the couch.

  "That reminds me," Cassy said, turning to Dirk. "I'd feel better if we got Slim to work security here too, until we clear this up."

  "Fine," Dirk said. "Consider it done."

  Cassy turned around. "Okay, go ahead, Jeff."

  "This is what we know," Detective Hepplewhite said, standing up in front of Cassy's desk. "As Jessica Wright was exiting the party, the lights in the corridor leading to Fifth Avenue were blown out by a power surge of two thousand volts, at which time Jessica was pulled through a steel door off the hall—a building-maintenance passageway. Seconds later, the door was not only locked, but electrified with two hundred and forty volts, preventing pursuit.

  "The electric current in the door was deactivated at 8:07 and the door was opened at 8:10, and two things were found—a power-pack battery that had electrified the door and a bomb. At 8:12 a security alert was issued and all of Rockefeller Center was evacuated because of the structural damage such a strategically placed bomb could cause. The bomb squad arrived at 8:26 and defused what turned out to be a cleverly constructed fake at 8:59." He paused. "Obviously, by that time, the kidnapper had a lead on us.

  "We're assuming," Hepplewhite continued, "the kidnapper used the dummy bomb as a means to threaten Jessica into cooperating. We're assuming Jessica did cooperate, but she also did her best to leave a trail. The kidnapper's escape route ran through several underground maintenance tunnels and passageways that snake through the Rockefeller Center complex and ultimately feed into the central furnace room."

  "Are you trying to tell us there is only one furnace room for all of Rockefeller Center?" Alexandra asked.

  "Yes," the detective answered.

  "One furnace for all those skyscrapers, the restaurants, the rink, all of it?" Will said skeptically.

  Detective Hepplewhite nodded. "And the kidnapper not only knew this, but knew the corridors like the back of his hand."

  "But we changed the locale of the party at the last minute," Alexandra said. "How did—"

  "We'll get to that," Cassy promised. She looked to Hepplewhite to continue.

  "We found Jessica's boots in a maintenance passage off the lobby of the NBC building at 30 Rock. Based on what witnesses have told us, we believe Jessica and the kidnapper put on Con Edison hard hats, ponchos and boots and drove off in a Con Ed vehicle that was parked at a work site outside the Avenue of the Americas entrance.”

  "So the guy must work for Con Edison, now or in the past," Alexandra said. "That's how he would know the layout of Rockefeller Center. Or West End. They'd have the building plans on file, wouldn't they?"

  "We'll get to that in a second," the detective promised. "Back to the witnesses—we have several who say two Con Ed workers in hard hats and ponchos climbed into the truck and drove away."

  Will dropped his face into his hands again.

  "What time was that?" Alexandra asked.

  "About 8:09. And at 1:30 a.m. we found the truck in a city maintenance lot down on Twelfth Avenue at Twenty-Third Street. We also found several bloodstains at the site—" He quickly held up his hand in anticipation as Will's head snapped up. "Bloodstains that do not, I repeat, do not belong to Jessica Wright—we've already run the test. We're trying to figure out now if they were from something else, something unrelated to the kidnapping."

  A moment later, Will said, "And?"

  "And that's where we are," Hepplewhite told him.

  "You mean that's where you've lost the trail," Will said, his voice breaking.

  "I mean, that's where we are," Hepplewhite insisted. "More information is coming in every ten minutes."

  "This is a summary of the specifics we know right at this moment," Cassy said, passing out sheets to the group. "Description of Jessica, the outfit she was wearing, witness statements, photos of the bomb, of the power pack, Xeroxes of all the notes from the stalker, including one that was found this morning."

  "One this morning?" Alexandra said in surprise.

  "You received a note?" Will asked, jumping up.

  "Yes, I did—“

  "You did?" Alexandra said.

  "I did," Cassy confirmed. "And I'm personally taking it as a very good sign. And I think you should too. This is it," she added, quickly passing out the photocopy.

  Dear Mrs. Cochran,

  Do not fear, Jessica will be safe with me. I can and will look after her far better than you can. The danger is there.

  Sincerely, Leopold

  "'The danger is there'?" Alexandra quoted. "He means here?"

  "The guy is
a wacko," Dirk reminded the group.

  "We believe it's part of the game," Agent Kunsa said, speaking up for the first time, "to make us focus on things close to home while he's spiriting her off."

  The room fell silent.

  "But it could be someone here, couldn't it?" Alexandra said.

  13

  For a stalker and a kidnapper, he was very thoughtful.

  He never raised his voice, but spoke to her in direct, clear sentences. One minute she had been walking down the hall in Rockefeller Center, the next the lights had exploded and in the next, she had felt two strong hands guiding her while in her ear she had heard, "Careful, Jessica, follow me."

  So she had. Idiot. She had thought her kidnapper was one of the security guys.

  By the time the steel door had clanged shut behind them and her abductor had turned on a flashlight, it was too late. In fact, if she remembered correctly, she had even said, "Oh, man, am I stupid," when she realized she had just been separated from her protection.

  The man had quickly moved toward the door to flick a switch attached to a mass that looked something like an electrical octopus. Then he'd stepped back and shone the flashlight beam on something hanging above them—a bomb with eight sticks of dynamite. "I will not hurt your friends if you cooperate, Jessica. But please remember, I can detonate this at any time."

  "I'm not going to argue with you," she said. They had warned her that if something like this were ever to happen, she was to go along with it, and essentially do anything he asked, to spare her life. But in this case, it was the life of a lot of other people, too.

  "This way, quickly please," he said, guiding her from behind. Jessica felt she had no choice but to do as he said.

  They only had to walk through two more short passageways before they reached a corridor where the lights were still working. At this point he urged her to move faster and faster, dictating "left," "right," "that door," until they were practically jogging through what seemed to be a labyrinth of concrete passageways beneath Rockefeller Center. When they entered an enormous room with the biggest furnace boiler she had ever seen in her life, she purposely dropped her bracelet to leave a trail.