Slow Burn: A Charlie Doherty Thriller by Terrence McCauley

Author:Terrence McCauley [McCauley, Terrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781639770533
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2021-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Back in the squad room, Hauser and the others listened while I told them everything Rachel had told me about the plan.

O’Hara stroked his mustache, deep in thought. Loomis was still sulking over me kicking him out of the room. I told them about Rachel, how she was Jack’s lover and was pregnant with his kid. None of that fazed them. They’d all heard sad stories before. It was the plan to elope that got them, just like I knew it would.

Loomis forgot all about sulking when I dropped that tidbit. “They were going to do what?”

“You heard me,” I said. “They planned to fake his kidnapping, just like it said in his notebook. It was slated to happen a month from now. A really cozy set-up, too. Just the two of them jungled up together at his Perry Street dive for a couple of days until Mr. Van Dorn kicked loose with the supposed ransom.”

Hauser asked: “How much were they going to tap the old man for?”

“Just enough money for them to live on for a while, with maybe some extra to donate to the cause when it was all over. They decided fifty grand would be just about right.”

“The same amount the kidnappers demanded,” Loomis said.

“It gets better.” I tapped out a Lucky from the pack in my shirt pocket. “Rachel said they planned to have Jessica Van Dorn deliver the ransom money to the apartment. When she showed, Rachel said they’d give her a note explaining the whole thing to the family so they wouldn’t worry. Or come looking for them.”

“That’s almost exactly the way the kidnappers handled things,” Loomis reminded us. “Right down to having Jessica deliver the ransom money.”

O’Hara surprised me by asking a pretty good question. “She say where they were supposed to go? Since the kidnappers have followed their plan so far, maybe they took Jack to wherever it is they were planning on going once they got the ransom?”

“She said they talked about heading down to Philly for starters,” I said, “then they’d head out West. San Francisco, maybe. They hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

Hauser didn’t look happy. There was no reason why he should. “All these similarities are a little too convenient for me. Think she’s in on it?”

I let smoke drift from my nostrils while I thought it over. “I don’t think so. She would’ve taken her cut and been long gone by now, especially now that it’s a murder case. Instead, I found her lying on her boyfriend’s floor, crying because she’s alone and pregnant and scared that her family will throw her out of the house.”

I rolled my neck and heard the bones pop. My back was still sore from being slammed into the door by Rachel’s brother, and my jaw hurt from Carmichael’s sucker punch. The pop dulled some of the pain, but not all of it. “And based on what I’ve seen of the brother, I don’t blame Rachel for being scared of him.”

“We’ll have a talk with him before we kick him loose,” Hauser said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.