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SHAW WAS lying on the couch when it happened. He looked at the caller ID screen. He recognized the number. It was the phone Frank had given Katie. She was calling him again. He slumped back on the couch. He wasn’t going to answer. What would be the point? He was absorbed with guilt over sleeping with Reggie. Frank had accused him of disrespecting Anna’s memory, and maybe he was right. Shaw still wasn’t sure how it had all happened. But he did know that he had wanted it to happen. He had wanted the woman in a way that he had wanted no other. Perhaps even Anna. He couldn’t explain it and didn’t have the energy to even try.
The phone stopped ringing. He sat up, rubbed his head, now feeling even guiltier for not answering the call. The phone started ringing again. Okay, now he had another chance to at least make this right.
“Hello?”
“Bill Young?”
The voice from the catacombs, so close then, seemed right in his face now. Shaw almost never felt afraid anymore. It wasn’t that he was careless or considered himself invulnerable. Paralyzing fear simply had been eradicated from his psyche through an accelerated process of evolution. He spent much of his time in dangerous situations. If he continually froze up, he’d be dead. The ones who didn’t let fear get the best of them tended to live to fight another day. He was one such man.
Now Shaw felt fear like he hadn’t in a long time. But it wasn’t for himself.
“How did you get this number?” He already knew the answer and yet he was hoping beyond all reason that he was wrong.
The next voice he heard destroyed this possibility. “Shaw, stay away. Do not do what this guy says. Just stay away.”
Katie sounded scared but also resolute. In those few words Shaw was reminded starkly of how courageous the lady was. She was sitting next to one of the great psychopaths of the ages and she was telling him to just let her die. Frank had been right; he didn’t deserve her.
“Mr. Shaw?” said Kuchin.
“How did you get to her?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Kuchin. “I have her. Now I want you and the woman.”
“I can only speak for myself.”
“You and the woman,” repeated Kuchin.
“And you’ll let Katie go? Right, sure. I’ll come. Just me.”
“If it’s just you, don’t bother. Your friend here will not be alive to greet you.”
“I’m telling you I don’t know where she is.”
“Then I suggest you try very hard to find her.”
“And if I can’t?”
“I have a box, Mr. Shaw. It’s from my days in my home country. In that box are some very persuasive tools that I employ from time to time. Indeed, I just used them on another acquaintance of mine. I have to tell you that he did not seem to enjoy it. I do not often pull out my little box, but I will for your friend if you do not do as I say. I will videotape my work and send it to you.”
“What if I can find her? What then?”
“I will call you back on this number in two hours.”
“That’s not enough time.”
“In two hours,” repeated Kuchin. “Then I will tell you exactly how and when this will happen. And I would advise you strongly not to let this conversation go beyond you and ‘Janie.’ Such a tactic would be fruitless and will ensure your friend’s death in the most painful way I can possibly achieve. You saw the pretty pictures on the wall beneath that church. You know what I’m capable of.”
“Listen to me—”
But Kuchin was gone. Shaw stared down at the phone like it was a live grenade that he needed to throw himself on to save everyone else. But it wasn’t a grenade, it was a phone. And he apparently couldn’t save anyone. And Reggie? He couldn’t ask her to do it. He wouldn’t ask her to do it.
He would tell Kuchin when he called back that he had found Reggie. They would arrange the meeting. He would go alone, make an excuse, and do his best to get Katie out alive. That was all he could think of.
He looked up when something thumped against his door.
“Yeah?” His voice broke on the simple word.
“It’s Reggie. Can we talk?”
