Remote Control Read online

  “Do you know that I had exactly two sips of wine tonight? And do you know why? Not because that’s all I wanted. I was nervous enough that I wanted half a bottle. But I had two sips because, the reality of my life is this: if you or your husband get caught driving drunk, maybe, just maybe, it’s worth one paragraph in the Daily Camera. If I get caught driving drunk, it’s the cover of every news magazine for a week, the tabloids for a month, Betty Ford for six weeks of drying out, and the cop who stops me gets five minutes on Hard Copy like he’s as important as the guy who caught the Oklahoma City bomber.”

  Lauren considered what Emma was saying and knew that it was true. In a tabloid world, the Emma Spires on the planet didn’t get to make little mistakes. Blemishes became front-page melanomas.

  “I understand your need for privacy. I live with something I don’t want people to know, a secret, I guess, and I’m afraid that if it gets out, my life will change in ways I don’t want, and that I can’t control. For me, protecting that vulnerability is a small, but constant, part of my life. But for you the protection involves every step you take. It must be very difficult. I really can’t imagine.”

  Emma took Lauren’s hand and pulled her around the corner onto Eleventh Street toward the garage.

  “Even people I consider friends have tried to tell me that not having any privacy is simply the price I have to pay for celebrity. But by leaving Pico, I had hoped I rejected celebrity once and for all. I don’t want to have to pay a price for it. I’m not Demi Moore. I’m not Sandra Bullock. I’m just a kid whose father was murdered by a nut. I’m not cut out for this.

  “I don’t even know where to look for a life right now. I know I need to find one someplace, though. Maybe I’ll go into international law and move to Paris. People would leave me alone there. The French don’t give a damn about Americans.”

  Alan was parked just south of the entrance to the four-story brick garage in a no-parking zone against the curb. He had spent the couple of minutes he had been waiting watching a pair of rather older adolescents zooming up and down the ramps on BMX-style bikes inside the almost-empty structure. The driver’s window on his car was open and Alan was singing along, badly, to the Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb” on the radio. He extended his arm and waved at Emma and Lauren as they started up the staircase to the second level of the garage, continuing to sing along, oblivious to how poorly he was doing it.

  The parking garage had been built to address modern security concerns. The stairwells were open to the street and the whole facility was brightly lit. The exterior walls of the elevators were glass so the passengers could be viewed from the sidewalk.

  Emma’s car was parked against the north wall of the garage about halfway up the structure. Emma killed her alarm remotely from ten feet away.

  She said, “Get in, I’ll drive you back down to your car.”

  Lauren replied, “No thanks, I’ll walk. See you tomorrow at the office? Listen, let’s get together soon for dinner, just you and me, what do you say?”

  “Great idea, I’d like that. Thanks, and thanks again for coming tonight.” She started the car, fiddled with the radio for a moment, and shifted into reverse.

  The kid on the bike didn’t scream in fear at the car pulling in front of him. Emma never even saw him barreling down the steep ramp from the next level.

  She had checked her rearview mirror, had seen nothing in her path, and had continued to back up. The bicycle came around the corner, braking only at the last second, before sliding sideways into the rear fender of Emma’s car. The rider flew off, his momentum carrying him across the trunk of the car to the driver’s side. Emma Spire didn’t see the rider until he was airborne, flying past the back window of her car.

  Lauren was halfway down the stairs when she heard the brief squeal of bicycle tires and the crash. She listened, but couldn’t tell what the noises had been. She hesitated between stairs, then heard the door to a car open and Emma’s call, “Oh my God, are you all right?”

  An angry male voice yelled, “Shit, did you hit him, man? Oh shit, lady, look what you did.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t see him, I didn’t see him. Don’t move him, don’t move him, he could be hurt. We need to get an ambulance. I’ll call for an ambulance.”

  Lauren started back up the stairs, pulling a phone from her purse. She had barely opened her mouth to speak when she realized she was walking onto a very different scene than the one she was expecting to find.

  Emma was leaning over into her car, probably trying to punch 911 into her car phone. One kid, in a big flannel shirt, was standing behind her, looking furtively around the garage. The other kid was raising himself nimbly from the concrete deck, a knife in his hand.

  “Emma, he has a knife!”

  Lauren immediately wanted to take back the words and sound the warning a second time, this time without including Emma’s name.

  Immediately, the kid with the knife turned and faced Lauren. Although his face was in the shadows of the bill of a baseball cap, she could tell he was white. Like his friend, he was wearing baggy jeans and an oversize flannel shirt. The police would love the description. A couple of white adolescents in baggy jeans, flannel shirts, and baseball caps. There were maybe sixteen males between fourteen and twenty in Boulder that didn’t occasionally fit that description.

  “Go bitch, beat it.”

  Lauren fought to instill some calm in her voice. “Let her go. Take her purse. Let her go.”

  “Sorry, but I think we’ve made other plans.” He laughed, thought he was pretty funny. “We’re all going for a ride. But I suppose we can change our plans. You want to join her?” He seemed to be waiting for an answer. “No, didn’t think so. Go, get the fuck out of here, or I cut her.”

  Emma turned, her face solemn and frightened, but not panicked. Her eyes said, See, what did I tell you? Her lips mouthed the word, Go.

  Lauren backed into the staircase. Everything she had ever heard or read about self-defense said that, whatever you do, whatever you are forced to risk, don’t let them take you someplace else. If they take you someplace else, they can do whatever they want to you.

  That means rape. That means murder.

  Lauren tore down the steps to get Alan. He was still singing along to oldies, oblivious to what was unfolding above him in the garage.

  Lauren burst out of the stairwell at street level and caught his attention. “Alan! Back up the car, block the exit to the garage. Somebody’s kidnapping Emma.”

  “What?”

  “Back up, now, you have to block the exit. Someone has Emma, they’re in her car.”

  He started the Land Cruiser just as he heard the squeal of tires from Emma’s car. To stop her car, it was apparent that he would have to block both the entrance and the exit to the garage simultaneously. His car was big, but it wasn’t big enough to do that; he was going to have to choose one or the other. From his position in the street he would be able to see Emma’s car approach the gates for a distance of about twenty yards. That was it. If the driver was going fast, and Alan assumed he would be, then Alan would have about as much time to react to his chosen direction as a power hitter has to adjust to a fastball.

  Emma’s car came around the corner and skidded to a stop about fifty feet from the exit.

  One of the kids, the one who wasn’t driving, leaned out the window and yelled at Alan, “Get out of our way, man. We’ll cut her.”

  Lauren was standing on the sidewalk, out of sight of Emma’s car. Alan could see her clearly. In a voice that said “I know what I’m doing,” she said to him, “Don’t let them go. Time is on our side. They need out of the garage. They need Emma’s car. Cutting her isn’t as bad as the alternative. You can’t let them leave with her.”

  Alan edged forward three or four feet. He prayed these kids didn’t have a gun. He flashed on his brights.

  The driver of the car gunned the engine and backed up another fifteen feet. Alan was well aware that Emma�
�s car could out-accelerate his Land Cruiser off the line. But, he reminded himself, all he had to do was get in its path. Her car could not move a heavy Land Cruiser out of its way.

  He checked his seat belt, wished he had a later-model car equipped with an air bag.

  Lauren remembered her phone. She pulled it out.

  The engine of Emma’s car roared. The tires squealed on the slick concrete, fighting to get traction. The kidnappers had made their choice. They were coming out the entrance of the garage.

  Alan had guessed that they would. He punched the accelerator and instantly jerked the wheel to the right. He swerved once and the bulk of the Land Cruiser filled the entrance lane. Trying to change course, the kid driving Emma’s car clipped the brick railing of the garage and spun. Both doors opened and the two kids jumped out of the car, fleeing back into the garage, around a corner.

  In three seconds they were gone, the bikes left behind.

  Emma had been crammed between the two criminals on the front seat, her legs straddling the gear shift. Her hands were shaking and her face was chalky.

  Lauren got to her first.

  “I’m all right. I’m all right. I’m all right.” Emma’s tone was one of surprise, not reassurance.

  “You’re not cut? You’re okay?”

  Lauren slid into the passenger seat of the car and slowly held out her arms to Emma, who hesitated before folding in to them, whimpering, and starting to cry.

  Alan leaned in. “Are you all right, Emma? Is she hurt, Lauren?”

  Lauren answered, “She’s okay, I think. Here’s my phone. Call the police, hon.”

  Emma pushed herself violently from Lauren’s arms. “No! Please, please don’t call the police. This will never be over for me if you call the police. Let’s just get out of here. We’ll say it’s a little car accident. I’ll pay for everything, any damage. Get me out of here, please, now. Don’t call the police.”

  She was begging.

  It was the first time that Lauren had ever heard Emma sound desperate. She also realized that she, an officer of the court, had just witnessed an attempted kidnapping, and that she had an obligation to report it to the police.

  Alan said, “We have to report it, don’t we?”

  “Why, who will know?”

  “They were going to kidnap you, Emma.”

  “We don’t know that. Maybe…it was a carjacking, or, or, just a mugging, or—”

  Lauren reached over and held her again, forcing Emma’s face into the crook of her shoulder. “That was no mugging. Those kids weren’t looking for a joyride, Emma. That was a kidnapping, or…worse.”

  “Maybe they didn’t know who I was.”

  “Maybe. You want to assume that? If they were waiting for you, they could try again.”

  “I don’t want the police to know. Please. I can get some protection. I’ll find someone to watch over me.”

  After the terror in the parking garage Emma agreed to go home with Alan and Lauren. Sitting in their living room, she cradled a glass of wine and tried to explain what her life had been like.

  “After my father was killed, the president was worried about me. Looking back, it’s not too surprising. I was a wreck. Because of the videotape at the airport and all the news that followed I began to get a lot of mail, most of it supportive—I mean, really nice, inspirational even—but some of it was vicious and…a few letters were threatening.

  “I was a guest at the White House for almost a week after the funeral and when I finally left, the president ordered the Secret Service to keep an eye on me. He can do that. That’s when I met Kevin. He was one of the first agents who was assigned to protect me.”

  Alan asked, “And Kevin, this Secret Service agent, will help you again? All you have to do is ask? I thought you didn’t want law enforcement involved.”

  “I only had the Secret Service protection for about a year. When I moved to California, the death threats stopped and there wasn’t really any more need for protection.”

  “Who had been threatening you?”

  “The threats had come from a few people who were part of the radical right-to-life movement, supporters of Nelson Newell. But after Newell’s trial, and after I testified at the sentencing hearing, the Secret Service did a security review, concluded I was out of danger, and the protection stopped. I was relieved that they were gone. I didn’t miss it then and I haven’t had much trouble since. Some phone calls I would rather not get, mostly. The biggest problem is always the press. The agents always told me they could protect me from a bullet but not from a camera.”

  Lauren asked, “But you could call the Secret Service again? They would help you, and they would agree to keep this whole thing quiet?”

  “Keeping quiet wouldn’t be a concern if they felt there was a security reason for it. But, no, I’m not eligible for Secret Service protection anymore. It’s a whole different world in Washington now, isn’t it? Kevin left the Secret Service not too long after my protection stopped. I get cards and an occasional phone call from him. He’s stayed in touch.”

  “And you trust him?”

  “God, yes. Most of the agents who helped me were great. Kevin was always especially sweet.”

  “And he lives around here?”

  “Close enough. Near Colorado Springs. He started a security business after he left the Secret Service. Mostly corporate things, high-tech stuff; I never paid that much attention to what he was doing.”

  “You think he’ll help?”

  “Not himself, no, I doubt that he does this sort of thing anymore. But I think he’ll know people who can tell me what I need. Whether it’s a bodyguard, or just a better alarm system, or what. He’s always told me if I need anything, I should call him. He’ll give me good advice.”

  Lauren found a fresh toothbrush and a T-shirt for Emma to wear to bed. Once she was settled into the downstairs guest room Lauren moved back across the hall and snuggled next to Alan.

  He waited for her breathing to slow before he said what they were both thinking.

  “We made the wrong decision tonight. About not notifying the police. Emma’s needs aside, it means that those two assholes—whatever their motives were—are still out there. Assuming that they weren’t targeting Emma, they’re going to pick another victim soon, right? And if they were targeting Emma, she has to know why, doesn’t she, in order to determine the amount of danger she’s in?”

  “I know,” Lauren said, scrunching into the crook of his shoulder. “I’ve been thinking the same thing for the past hour. But I don’t see a way out of it at this point.”

  “What if you ran it by Roy tomorrow at the office, see what he thinks?”

  “Want to know what Roy would think? He would be thinking about giving me a pink slip and figuring out how to handle the PR fallout. And Emma’s internship would be history.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, absolutely. I have more credibility with Roy than Emma does. But, I think we’d both be gone.”

  “Everything happened so fast out there. We weren’t thinking clearly.”

  “So?” she said. “What kind of an excuse is that? We’re still expected to obey the law, aren’t we?”

  Emma slept with the big dog, Emily, at her side.

  In the morning, Alan was out of the house at dawn to see an early patient, and Lauren made breakfast for two before she drove Emma back to her own house. While Emma showered and dressed, Lauren read the morning paper, reflecting how different the front page would look had Emma Spire notified the police of the attempted abduction the night before.

  Before they left for work at the Justice Center, after continued prodding by Lauren, Emma finally called Kevin Quirk in Colorado Springs.

  The receptionist at Tech Secure said Mr. Quirk was in a meeting, could he return the call later? Emma identified herself and said to please tell Mr. Quirk it was important. The flustered receptionist said, “Of course, Ms. Spire, I’m sorry.”

  Fifteen seconds later,
Emma heard Kevin’s familiar voice. Like the man, it was anvil solid and plain. Pure Iowa. If a voice could have freckles, Kevin Quirk’s would.

  “Emma, it’s great to hear from you. Kim said it was urgent. What’s up?”

  “Hello, Kevin, how are you?” She tried to sound normal. Thought she had succeeded.

  “Fine. Good. What’s going on?”

  “Not too much. But, um, there was an incident. And I think I may need your help, Kevin. Security-type help. Someone may have tried to kidnap me last night.”

  Kevin’s tone lowered an octave and his words became clipped and efficient. “First, are you injured?”

  “No, I was with some friends. They managed to help me before—”

  “In order. Tell me what happened. From the beginning, don’t skip anything.”

  She did. Lauren listened to Emma, occasionally prompting her with some salient detail she was forgetting.

  “You didn’t call the police?” Kevin Quirk knew Emma well enough to know what she was going to say in response to his question.

  “No. What would they do? I can’t stand the thought of being back in the public eye that way, Kevin. I moved here to get away from that. This will pass. You know what the press can be like with me. They wouldn’t let go for weeks.”

  Kevin Quirk stayed silent for a moment.

  “I think you may have made the wrong decision last night, Emma. You need to reconsider bringing the police in, and given that it looks like it may have been attempted kidnapping, which is a federal crime, maybe the FBI. Whoever did this to you needs to be found. We need to know what they were up to, what their motives were. Get them off the street.”

  “Couple of kids, Kevin. That’s all. I think it was a carjacking.”

  “I’m sure you would like to assume that, Emma.” He knew he wouldn’t convince her of an alternative position over the phone. “Listen, I’ll come up to Boulder, we’ll talk about it. Where’s your house?”