Worst Case - James Patterson [36]
He’d been stupid. He was trying to accomplish everything, but even flying on speed that was impossible.
“And, oh,” Carrie said, lifting a memo sheet out of her in-box, “I heard from reception that Kurt from New York Heart called last Friday. He said it was urgent.”
New York Heart was a privately funded antipoverty organization that Mooney did pro bono work for. He’d been advising them on a case about a destitute Harlem man who was on death row in Florida.
Francis winced. With everything else going on, he’d forgotten all about it. An urgent message about a death-row appeal couldn’t be good.
He thought about his plans. His time frame. It would be an incredible crunch, but he had to try. Even with everything he’d put into motion, he didn’t have a choice but to swing by the charity.
“Drop everything and cancel the rest of my meetings until further notice, would you, Carrie? I have to head up there.”
“Areyou sure you should, Francis?” Carrie whispered with concern. “You haven’t been here for a week. I think some of the clients, and even more so the junior partners, have been complaining, Mr. M. In fact, Mr. Weymouth is livid. Is there anything I can do? Do you need someone to talk to?”
Francis smiled at his personal assistant’s concern. Ever since she’d begun working for him seven years before, she’d been terrific, so smart and precise and loyal.
When it all came out, would she understand what he had tried to do? Would anyone?
That was beside the point, he thought, steeling himself. It didn’t matter what people thought about him personally. It wasn’t about him.
He planted a kiss on her forehead.
“You’re sweet to think about me, Carrie, but believe it or not, I’ve never felt better in all my life,” he said as he headed back for the elevators.
Chapter 39
THERE WAS AN unimpeded view of the empty wheelchair from the window of Columbia’s Department of Public Safety. Standing at the window, staring at the chair, Jesse Acevedo, the Campus Security chief, seemed incapable of doing anything except shaking his head.
“That’s going to be the cover of the Post,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else. “I mean, that’s my job, right? A handicapped student gets snatched on campus? Oh, I’m sorry, the handicapped son of one of the world’s most powerful men. My daughter goes here. Once I’m out, no more staff scholarship. What the hell am I going to do?”
I felt bad for the guy. I knew full well the kind of bullshit blame he’d be getting. But I didn’t have the time to sympathize.
“Tell us about the tunnels again,” I said.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, coming back to his desk. When his phone rang, he lifted the receiver and clicked it back in its cradle. When it rang again, he unclipped the phone cord from the back of it.
“The tunnels,” he said after a deep breath. “Right. The tunnels connect some of the campus buildings. Lewisohn, the one next to where we found the empty chair, has tunnels that go to Havemeyer, Math, and the Miller Theater. There’s another, older one that actually goes under Broadway to one of the Barnard College buildings on the other side of Broadway.”
“Reid Hall. I know,” I said.
We’d already found that the basement door in that building had been propped open. John Cleary and his CSU team were there now, going over every square inch of the basement with an evidence vacuum and Q-tips. The killer must have gotten in and taken the kid out through there.
“Who else knows about the tunnels?” Emily said.
“Students, maintenance, faculty,” he said. “We blocked off some of them, but the kids still use them as shortcuts sometimes. Like hotels, every campus has its ghost stories, and the tunnels figure in a lot of the urban legends that get told around here.”
I kept thinking about the kidnapper’s cultured, educated voice. He