The Stolen - Jason Pinter [90]
The Reeds were part of that plan. They were doing the
right thing.
But now they were gone, and Ray Benjamin felt
concern for the first time in a long time. If the Reeds lost
their will, they could give up everything. Ray would go
down. So would the big man. And everything Ray had
worked for over the past thirty years would be lost.
Ray thought about the Reeds. Where could they have
gone? And why would they suddenly decide to disobey
such simple fucking directions?
They weren't at the motel. Elaine wasn't picking up her
cell phone. He'd given them the address, a newly cloned
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phone, and now he couldn't find them. It was like they'd
looked him in the eye and lied to him.
"This isn't good," he said to Vince. "The Reeds have
disappeared."
Vince snorted a laugh, managed to keep the toothpick
in his mouth. "Ain't that ironic."
Ray looked at him, then said fuck it. He couldn't help
himself.
He slapped Vince across the face, the toothpick doing
a little spiral before landing in a puddle of sludge several
feet away. That made Ray smile.
When Vince recovered, he was holding his jaw, a thin
trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.
"Ow, man, what the fuck?"
"Couldn't take that stupid toothpick anymore."
"Christ, you could have asked me to throw it out!"
"Consider this an apology. Come on, let's go."
They got into the car, Ray shaking his head as Vince
started the engine.
"What is it?" Vince said, mopping up his lip with a
handkerchief.
"The Reeds," he said. "I don't trust them anymore.
They don't realize this thing is bigger than them. They're
being selfish, not realizing they're putting years of work
at risk. I thought they could be trusted, that they had their
family's best interests in mind. I guess I was wrong."
"What are you saying, boss?" Vince asked.
"I think when we find them, we need to make them gone."
"Gone like the kids? Or, like, gone gone?"
Ray looked at him, didn't say a word. Vince nodded
solemnly. Ray patted the kid on the back. That was his
answer right there. Then they drove away.
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"According to DMV records," Curt said, "the Reeds
drive a 2002 silver Ford Windstar, license plate JV5 L16.
I don't think it'll come as a huge surprise to anyone that
their current address is listed as 482 Huntley Terrace."
We were still at the 19th Precinct, corralled in a conference room on the second floor. Curt had already had to
shoo away three other officers who tried to reclaim the
room. When they couldn't offer concrete reasons for
needing the space--the excuses ranged from "It has the
only good coffee machine in the building" to "Fuck your
mother"--I quickly figured out the cops simply didn't
want us there. And that was fine with me. The more roadblocks were put up in our effort to find out the circumstances surrounding these kidnappings and Petrovsky's
murder, the more insolent I became. Though I didn't think
Curt would go so far as to have my back if I lost control
and tried to pick a fight. And I was getting pretty damn
close to that.
Amanda said, "So at least we have direct legal proof that
ties the Reed family to this guy Benjamin. But we still
don't know why the hell they have anything to do with a
criminal."
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"What if," I said, "the Reeds weren't linked directly
to Benjamin?"
"Not sure I follow," Curt said.
"We're forgetting about Petrovsky. He knew Daniel
Linwood and Michelle Oliveira. His career was based
around children. Bob and Elaine Reed have one son,
Patrick, and we suspect they might have kidnapped
another child, too."
"I'm still waiting for the search on that," Curt said.
"I'm hoping you're wrong."
"Anyway, isn't it possible that somehow the Reeds
became linked to Benjamin through Petrovsky?"
"Like some sort of middleman?" Amanda asked.
"Exactly. I'm willing to bet Petrovsky knew Benjamin,
and Petrovsky knew the Reeds, as well. Amanda, is there
any way you could get information about Patrick Reed? I
have a feeling we might see Dmitri Petrovsky's signature
on his delivery forms as well."
"I'm