NYPD Red 6 - James Patterson Page 0,35

break room or do you want to head over to Starbucks? I’m buying.”

“I never say no to a free triple espresso macchiato,” I said. My cell rang. “I don’t recognize the number,” I said. “It could be Dodd again.”

“Put it on speaker.”

I did. “Hello, this is Detective Jordan.”

“Detective, this is Brock.” A pause. “Harris Brockway, vice president of programming at Zephyr Television.”

“Yes, sir, I know who you are. What can I do for you?”

“Erin’s kidnapper sent us a proof-of-life video.”

“Where are you?” I said. “My partner and I will be right over to pick it up.”

“You don’t have to pick it up. You can see it on ZTV in five minutes. We’re broadcasting it.”

“Sir, you can’t do that!” I said. “It’s a violation of—”

“Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t do. We’ve been told if we don’t air it by eight o’clock tonight, they’ll kill her. It’s seven fifty-five now.”

“Sir, broadcasting that video will jeopardize our—”

“Stop yammerin’, Detective, and turn on your goddamn TV set.”

He hung up.

“Call Bill Harrison,” Kylie said.

Harrison was the assigned ADA for the kidnapping. He knew he was on call 24/7, and he was thrilled to have been handpicked for the biggest case of his career. I dialed his cell, and he answered on the first ring.

“Zach, what’s going on?”

I told him. He only interrupted once, yelling, “They can’t do that,” at the same exact point in the story that I’d exploded at Brockway.

“Bill, he’s giving us five minutes. Do you think we can stop them?”

“Hell no, but let me start making some threatening phone calls,” Harrison said. “Because it damn well better look like we tried.”

CHAPTER 31

CATES LEFT AN hour ago,” I said to Kylie. “If this proof-of-life video goes live before we get our hands on it, the wrath of God is going to rain heavily upon this squad, and she’s going to get the brunt of it.”

“If? Zach, we’ve got four minutes. At this point, NORAD couldn’t stop it from going live.”

“I know, I know. Just try to find the boss and tell her what’s going down.”

“I’m on it,” she said, cell phone in hand. “And while I’m doing that, why don’t you take Brockway’s suggestion—stop yammering and turn on your goddamn TV set.”

Turning on the TV was easy. There was one right there in the break room. Finding ZTV, the cable channel where Erin Easton was a reality star, was another story. We had a boatload of information about her career, her friends, her enemies, and her private life, but not a single cop had any clue what channel her program aired on. It took another precious three minutes just to come up with the answer.

At least someone in IT had the foresight to make sure that we were hooked up to every cable channel in the city, and by the time I found ZTV, on channel 313, the entire task force was crammed into the break room.

The credits were rolling for the show that had just ended. When they were over, the screen went dark and silent. A few seconds passed, and then it erupted with dramatic music and a spinning graphic that turned into a newspaper with ztv news bulletin on the masthead.

It spun again, and a black-and-white picture of Erin came on the screen with the word abducted plastered across the bottom.

The camera cut away to a newsroom set with Brockway seated at the anchor desk. “Good evening,” he said. “I’m Harris Brockway, vice president of programming here at ZTV. Usually I’m behind the scenes, but as you know, last night at approximately seven thirty, Erin Easton, my dear friend and colleague and a muchadored member of our ZTV family, was abducted.”

Five words popped on at the bottom of the screen: time since erin was abducted. A digital clock appeared next to it. The count was at 1 Day/0 Hours /30 Minutes.

Brockway went on. “She was celebrating the happiest night of her life, and she had just gone into her dressing room, still in her bridal gown.”

The camera cut away to pictures of Erin in her wedding dress.

“Oh, shit,” some cop called out from the back of the room. “This guy is milking the hell out of this.”

The camera cut back to Brockway. “And then, while she was getting changed so she could go to sing for her loved ones, her friends, and her new husband, all of whom were gathered in a ballroom several hundred feet away”—he took a deep breath and visibly composed himself, lest

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