The Stolen - Jason Pinter [97]
as fast as I could.
By the time I got to the first floor I was out of breath.
When I shoved open the stairwell door, I could hear panic
in the lobby. Several people were screaming, a rolling cart
was overturned and an elderly man looked to be unconscious. I ran toward the lobby exit, but then another thunderous gunshot exploded in the night, and I dove behind a
marble wall for protection. I waited a minute, unsure of
what to do, then took a few quick breaths and ran for the
exit.
As I ran into the warm evening air, I heard a car's
ignition turn on and a pair of brake lights come on at the
other end of the parking lot. I ran for it, saw a dark BMW
peeling backward. It backed up into a pool of light cast by
a lamp, and I read the license plate numbers, punched
them into my cell phone.
I couldn't chase Benjamin's car. The fight was over. I
had to see how my friends were.
Just as I ran back into the lobby, the elevator door
opened and out came Curt Sheffield, hobbling, leaning on
Amanda for support. The fleece was soaked through with
blood. I heard sirens approaching from outside. I ran to
Curt.
"Christ, man, how is it?"
"I'll live," he said through gritted teeth. Then he took
one hand from Amanda's shoulder and grabbed my shirt.
"The Reeds," he said. "They're gone."
"But we found this," Amanda said. She pulled a man's
leather wallet from her pocket. "It was down at the other
end of the hall, through a set of double doors. I thought I
heard another noise, like several people running down the
stairs. It's Robert Reed's. They must have been approach-274
Jason Pinter
ing the room. He was going for his room key, then dropped
it when he heard the gunshots. The key is still inside."
"I saw them," Curt said, the pain evident on his face.
"Damn it, if only I could run..."
Amanda helped him sit, kept pressure on his wound.
I took the wallet, opened it. The key card was nestled
inside one of the slits inside. I went through the rest of it.
Credit cards. Driver's license. And a small slot for photos.
I opened it up. There was a picture inside that looked
awfully familiar.
The shot was of a young boy. It was taken from behind,
from a close distance. There was nothing special about the
shot. The boy's face was turned away and he was in midstride.
I slipped the photo from the wallet and turned it over.
On the back of the photo was written one word.
Remember.
36
Curt had seen the Reeds approaching from the other end
of the hallway. The family looked happy. Curt recognized
Robert from his driver's license photo. And when he saw
that Robert was with a woman and two children, he knew
for sure that this was the family we'd been searching for.
I confirmed with the hotel restaurant that the Reeds had
finished a late supper just a few minutes earlier. Then
they'd gone upstairs. They must have seen Curt lying
outside their room, blood everywhere. That's when they'd
run.
On the way to the hospital, Curt said they'd likely seen
the body at the other end of the hall, as well. If so, they
probably recognized the dead man. If they knew Raymond
Benjamin, chances were they'd met his flunky. And with
all that death and blood, they must have known Ray
Benjamin had come for them.
We followed Curt to the Harrisburg hospital, the
primary hub for all the medical centers in the Harrisburg
area. They'd taken Curt right into surgery. Amanda and I
sat in the waiting room as a doctor explained that the bullet
had nicked his femoral artery. Luckily the bullet had
missed severing the vessel by half a centimeter, other-276
Jason Pinter
wise, he said, we'd be having an entirely different conversation.
I'd given the license plate number to the Harrisburg
chief of police, a burly man named Hawley who had a look
on his face that said as soon as they found Benjamin, the
three of us would have hell to pay. An APB was put out
on a dark BMW with New York plates, but an hour later
the license plate was found abandoned in a gas station in
Bethlehem. Raymond Benjamin was gone.
Curt would be laid