Nighttime Is My Time

89

It was 11:45 a.m. before Craig Michaelson phoned Sam, who by then was back in the Glen-Ridge House. "My secretary tried to get me, but I had left the meeting and forgot to turn on my cell phone," he explained hurriedly. "I just got to the office. What's going on?"

"What's going on is that Jean Sheridan has been abducted," Sam said tersely. "I don't give a damn if her daughter is in West Point and surrounded by an army. I want you to be sure that a special guard is put on her. We have a psychopath running loose around here. The body of one of the other Stonecroft honorees was pulled out of the Hudson a couple of hours ago. He'd been stabbed to death."

"Jean Sheridan is missing! The General and his wife are on the eleven o'clock shuttle from Washington right now, on their way to have dinner with her tonight. I can't get in touch with them while they're on a flight."

Sam's pent-up worry and frustration exploded. "Yes, you can," he shouted. "You could get a message through the airline to the pilot, but it's too late for that now anyway. Give me the name of Jean Sheridan's daughter, and I'll call West Point myself. I want it now."

"She is Cadet Meredith Buckley. She's a second-year student, a yearling. But the General assured me that Meredith would not leave the West Point campus either Thursday or Friday because of the tests she has scheduled."

"Let's pray the General is right," Sam snapped. "Mr. Michaelson, in the unlikely event I meet any resistance when I call the superintendent at the academy, please be available for an immediate phone call."

"I'll be in my office."

"And if you're not, make sure your cell phone is on."

Sam was in the office behind the hotel's front desk, the place where he had started the investigation into the disappearance of Laura Wilcox. Eddie Zarro had joined him there. "You want to keep your cell phone line open, don't you?" Eddie asked.

Sam nodded, then watched as Eddie dialed the West Point number. While waiting for the call to go through, he frantically searched his memory for anything that might suggest another path of action. The technical guys were triangulating on Jean's cell phone, something they expected to complete within minutes. When they did, they'd be able to pinpoint the exact location of the phone. That should help-assuming it isn't in a garbage heap somewhere, Sam thought.

"Sam, they're ringing the superintendent's office," Eddie said. Sam's tone when he picked up the phone was only slightly less forceful than the one he'd used with Craig Michaelson. When he spoke to the superintendent's secretary, he did not mince words. "I am Detective Deegan from the Office of the District Attorney of Orange County. Cadet Meredith Buckley may be in serious danger from a homicidal maniac. I need to speak to the superintendent immediately."

He did not have to wait more than ten seconds before the superintendent was on the phone. He listened to Sam's brief explanation, then said, "She's probably in an exam right now. I'll have her brought to my office immediately."

"Just let me be sure that you have her," Sam asked. "I'll hold on."

He held the phone for five minutes. When the superintendent came back on, his voice was charged with emotion. "Less than five minutes ago, Cadet Buckley was seen leaving Thayer Gate and going over to the parking lot of the Military Academy Museum. She has not returned, and she is neither in the parking lot nor in the museum."

Sam didn't want to believe what he was hearing. Not her as well, he thought, not a nineteen-year-old kid! "I understood that she promised her father she wouldn't leave West Point," he said. "Are you sure she went outside?"

"The cadet didn't break her word," the superintendent said. "Although it's open to the public, the museum is considered part of the West Point campus."