Another Chance

Chapter 8

Kate's face whitens as she reads a text from Esposito. Castle drops his fork, still filled with his morning scramble. "What's wrong?"

"The commissioner's granddaughter has disappeared. There was no immediate Amber Alert because her parents thought she was at a sleepover with friends, but she never got there, and it took too much time to figure out that she really was gone. It's all hands on deck, but with the freeze, there are no extra hands. There's going to be a call going out for members of the public to help in any way they can, but she's already been missing for over 24 hours, and it doesn't look good. She could be dead, Castle."

"Has there been a ransom demand?"

Kate shrugs. "Espo didn't mention one. If there was, the FBI would be all set to intercept it. You know that better than most people, after what happened with Alexis."

"And I also know that if I hadn't gone to Paris myself, and worked with my father, Alexis would be gone forever. Your old pal in the FBI didn't exactly turn in a sterling performance to find Angela Candela, either. Kate, if the girl is still alive. She needs all the help she can get."

Kate chews the tip of her index finger. "Meaning help from me."

"Help from you, your agency, me, anyone who can do something. Kate, I know how that poor girl's parents must be feeling. They can barely think. They can hardly breathe. When is the information on their daughter's disappearance going to be released?"

"Probably any minute. We should turn on the TV. It should go out on the early morning shows."

Jane Paulson, host of New York Morning, is soberly reading the bulletin from the N.Y.P.D. Castle has no doubt that the details will be available all over social media, but he takes notes anyway. Marilyn (Merri) Johnson is 16 with black hair and blue eyes. She's 5 foot 6 and weighs 120 pounds. She was last seen wearing jeans torn at both knees and a Maroon 5 T-shirt, at the subway station at 72nd Street and Central Park West. Merri doesn't regularly take any medications but is severely allergic to anything containing peanuts and would need an immediate injection of epinephrine if she ingests any.

Castle blows air through his lips in a silent whistle. "Alexis had a friend like that in fifth grade. She was over here a lot. I had to get rid of half the stuff in the pantry because it was processed in the same facilities as peanut products. She always had an EpiPen on her, and from what Alexis told me, the school had to call the paramedics several times because other students just got close to her with snacks that provoked a reaction. Even if whoever took Merri doesn't try to kill her deliberately, he could do it accidentally just by trying to feed her or even himself."

"That subway station is right underneath the Dakota. That's a pretty rich neighborhood, lots of celebrities and probably a load of private security personnel," Kate notes. "One of them might have seen something."

Castle can feel dread tightening a vice around his stomach. "But it's also right across the street from an entrance to Central Park. Someone could have grabbed Merri and dragged her an almost unlimited number of places where they wouldn't be seen. Kate, you grew up in the city same as I did. You know how many concealed make-out nooks the park has that could be used malevolent purposes."

Kate begins restlessly pacing the floor. "Both the FBI and the N.Y.P.D. would have gone over the area with a fine tooth comb. And from that subway station, she could have gone or been taken anywhere."

Castle strides to her, and wraps his hands around her upper arms, turning her to face him. "Kate, everyone will be proceeding on that presumption, but what if she wasn't? You remember when Tyler Donegal was kidnapped to force his father to help some thugs steal financial records? They kept him in a utility room in the subway. Someone familiar with the system would know about hiding places like that and how to avoid the surveillance cameras."

Kate unconsciously shoves her hair behind her ear. "Castle, that is such a long shot. But if the cops haven't already done it, we could check out subway employees and see if any of them might be AWOL or have a reason to have a hate on for the commissioner or Merri's family."

Castle starts wearing his own track in the hardwood. "Not just subway employees. There are other regular denizens of the underground world; vendors, musicians, even transit cops. Anyone of them might have the know-how to snatch and hold Merri undetected."

"Castle, that's a lot of people."

Castle's long legs quickly cover the distance to the laptop sitting on his desk. He flips it open. "All the more reason to start right now. I can work from here. Do you have more resources at the agency?"

"Yeah, there are some databases we can get into that aren't available to the general public. It's mostly stuff that's designed for skip traces, but there's a lot more that we can dig into."

Castle nods. "Good. If I uncover anything, I'll let you know."

"Ditto."

Castle rapidly grows frustrated with Google and switches to his subscription service giving him access to archived news stories. As always with searches, the trick is in finding the right keywords. If they don't appear in the story, he could miss a vital lead. Subway is a given, but he also includes police, conflict, and complaint. Unless Merri's abductor is just some nutcase, whose motive would reside strictly in the bad wiring of his brain, someone just might have enough animus against the commissioner or cops in general, to take the unfortunate girl. It's a place to start.

Even as a lifelong New Yorker, Castle is amazed by the number of gripes people have that relate to the subway and cops. A lot of them have to do with gropers and flashers who go uncaught and unstopped. Whoever took Merri is interested in a lot more than grabbing ass or getting his rocks off in front of the commuter crowd. Finally, Castle finds an article about something different but definitely having to do with the subway, cops and a complaint.

A musician, Christopher Larkin, playing in the subway without a permit had been rousted from the 72nd Street Station, and somehow in the process, his guitar had been damaged. According to Larkin, the instrument had originally belonged to Andrés Segovia and was priceless. His protests to the department had apparently yielded nothing, and his lawsuit was dismissed by a judge who just happened to be a close friend of the commissioner.

In his imagination, Castle quickly spins a tale of revenge. The cops in New York City have taken something precious and irreplaceable from Larkin, so he decides to take something equally priceless in return. But if Larkin did take Merri, would he kill her or just hold her somewhere long enough to make the commissioner suffer? Castle fervently hopes it would be the latter. Of course, he doesn't have a shred of evidence to back up his theory, just a deep gut feeling. If Kate hasn't come up with anything else, she might just go along with his hunch.