by Dale Mayer
With Shane sliding through the darkness at his side, they crept up to the kitchen to find the door unlocked. They stepped inside, listening for sounds of anybody around, but there was nothing. Instead of searching the house, he headed straight to the garage access. And there, with the door opened, Gavin stepped inside. Using his phone as a flashlight, he checked the vehicle in the middle and found it was the one he’d been tracking.
He turned, gave Shane a thumbs-up symbol, and then went to the back of the black truck and checked to make sure it was empty. No sign of anyone was there, but Gavin found a purse, several gags, and a sweater. He pulled the purse toward him and checked it out. Sammie Johnston, the wife of one of the guys knocked out at the warehouse perhaps.
He nodded and said in a low whisper, “Well, this is definitely the truck that had Rosalina’s parents.” He left the purse and took several photographs for evidence and sent them to Lennox, along with the license plate and the location of where they were at. Then they went inside, looking for the parents. They had to be somewhere; Gavin just didn’t know where.
Inside the second house, they quickly searched the main floor, but it was empty and cold, as if nobody had lived here. They swept upstairs, guns at the ready, and checked out each and every bedroom but found nothing. He and Shane stared at each other in the hallway, as they contemplated their options.
Then he looked up and frowned at the handle to the attic. Shane studied it, nodded, and gave him a three-finger countdown. When they reached one, Gavin dropped the door, and Shane bolted up top. And again found nothing.
Gavin was right behind him, his handgun up, only to find the attic space empty as well. “Shit,” he whispered.
“They have to be somewhere,” Shane whispered back.
“Unless they were moved elsewhere that we didn’t see,” he said.
“Did the vehicle stop anywhere on the way here?”
“No,” he said. He holstered his weapon and sent a message to Lennox to bring forensics in here, even though they still had no bodies, alive or dead.
“They have to be here then,” Shane said softly.
Gavin made his way back down the attic stairs again. “Let’s check for a basement. I mean, it’s possible that he met somebody on the road, and there was a glitch in the camera system. It’s possible that he pulled up in traffic and made a switch. I don’t know,” he said.
“Yeah, but all of that would mean taking too big a risk,” Shane said. “The easy answer is, they’re here.”
“And does that mean we need cadaver dogs, I wonder,” Gavin said. “I hope not because that would really wreck Rosalina.”
“I wonder if it would wreck Melinda,” Shane said.
“Humph. Not likely.”
With one quick dash around the main floor again, they searched for a basement and found access at the back of the pantry. Gavin went first and quietly crept down the stairs. He wished for a light but didn’t want to turn one on and get hit with a bullet. Just too damn easy in a case like this to get shot.
As soon as he could see below, he stopped and crouched for a moment, waiting for the shapes to make sense to his eyes as they adjusted to the darkness. Boxes. Wood. All kinds of just junk. He silently crept down the rest of the stairs. With Shane right behind him and his phone up as a flashlight, he quickly did a preliminary search.
On the post at the bottom of the stairs was a light fixture. He looked at it, checked around, and then hit the switch. Instantly a glaring white light lit the overstuffed basement that had been long forgotten. It didn’t look promising, but then Gavin grabbed Shane’s shoulder and pointed at footsteps in the dust on the floor.
He nodded, and they each crouched behind the boxes. The footsteps only went in one direction and didn’t return. That meant somebody was down here. Checking around the boxes quietly, waiting for a bullet to come their way, the two men finally made it to the last corner, not finding anything, just the tracks leading away from the stairs.
Gavin stopped. The trail ended right at the wall. He stared at it, then at the footsteps in the dust on the floor, looked all around for a secret door, then shook his head and whispered, “What the hell?”
“Another room has to be here,” Shane said.
They studied this wall, looking for something, their fingers pressing, seeking a hidden mechanism. It ended up being on Gavin’s side, and, as he pressed in one spot, he heard a tiny snap. The two looked at each other, and the door opened silently.
There were no lights on, so, with flashlights confirming that the footprints once again went inside, Shane slowly ducked into what appeared to be almost a hallway—a tunnel—and realized they were heading back to the neighbor’s house. Shane smiled.
They made their way through the long tunnel—at least twenty feet long, connecting the two homes—ending at another door on the other end. Before Shane pushed and tried to open it, he held his ear against it, listening for any kind of sound, and there it was, … voices. He listened intently and held up two fingers, then a third. Three people were on the other side of that door.
He looked at Gavin, both of them pulling out their weapons again, and, when they were ready, Shane grabbed the door, shoved it open, and called out, “Hands up!”
Chapter 10
“Where are they?” she snapped, now getting irritated. She shuffled under the blanket, feeling hot and sweaty. She pulled it back after she rolled over, so she lay face down. But it was morning out there, so her face surely couldn’t make any difference now. Not only that, her bladder screamed for relief. She wondered how mad Gavin would be at her if she got out, but she didn’t have a whole lot of choice. She pushed the door open on her side, then slid out and walked a few steps.
Crouching behind the back of the vehicle, she relieved herself. Not the best answer and certainly not one she would choose, but one’s basic physical needs must come first. When she was done, she grabbed a couple napkins she had had for the muffins, and, when she’d cleaned up, she stood ever-so-slowly and looked around the vehicle. She saw no sign of the men at all, no sign of life for that matter. Nothing was out here.
She studied the area, not having a clue how many people lived up here, but she could see a couple houses in front, and the road continued farther up and on past. Maybe more homes were up there, but it wasn’t obvious from the gravel road. No major tire tracks because the gravel was still fairly loose. And, of course, that meant absolutely nothing, and, for all she knew, a huge subdivision was up there that people hadn’t yet moved into.
She groaned softly, enjoying the fresh breeze now that she was out of the vehicle. She didn’t want to make any further noises, so she couldn’t shut the door, but she pushed it almost closed and settled down into the trees. She’d see the men if they came, and she’d see anybody else as well.
When her phone buzzed, she pulled it out, hoping it was Gavin or Shane, but instead it was her sister. Her sister at this early hour of the morning? Her sister sent her a text message.
Do you want to meet for breakfast? I can’t sleep, and I know we haven’t talked, and we need to.
Rosalina thought about it, frowned, and realized she certainly couldn’t meet for breakfast anytime soon. She sent back a message. Trying to sleep. Maybe later.
Eight?
We’ll see.
Downstairs hotel restaurant?
Yes.
Okay. And sorry, sis.
Rosalina sent back multiple question marks. Then typed, Sorry about what?
But Melinda didn’t answer.
Ten minutes later, Rosalina heard a branch crack behind her. She whirled around to see a man standing there, holding a handgun on her. He gave her a big wide happy smile.
“I knew you’d be somewhere close,” he said.
She stared at him in shock. “What are you talking about?”
He said, “Hand over your phone. You’re not contacting anybody.”
She hated to, but, given that he had the upper hand, she didn’t have much choi
ce. She held it out, and he put it in his pocket. She stared at her lifeline to the outside world. “Why do you need it? What are you doing?”
“I’m taking you somewhere,” he said, his joy a little too hard to contain. He grabbed her by the arm and moved her up to the front of the vehicle.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, trying to resist.
“Look. If you’ll keep struggling,” he said, “I’ll just knock you out and throw you over my shoulder.”
He was a mountain of a man, and she believed he would do that easily enough.
“Fine,” she said, “please don’t hurt me.”
“I won’t if I don’t have to,” he said. “I’m not into beating up women.”
“Says you,” she said resentfully. “It appears you are into making them do things they don’t want to do though, so what’s the difference?”
He glared at her, his smile falling away. “I don’t hurt women,” he said. “Other people do, and I have to follow orders sometimes, but that’s not my problem.”
She took a deep breath, trying to figure out that convoluted logic. “So, you’ll hurt women if you’re ordered to, but, other than that, you wouldn’t do it by choice.”
“Well, I would just as soon not do it at all,” he said, “but sometimes I don’t get that choice.”
She nodded ever-so-slowly. “Well, you could just let me go,” she said. “I haven’t done anything to hurt anybody.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But somebody sure seems to think you have.”
“I haven’t,” she cried out. “I spend all my time in the labs.”
“Maybe so. Doesn’t matter to me,” he said.
“But you just said it does.” She tried logic, but there was no getting through to this guy. He appeared to be a whole lot of brawn and a little short on brains. He held himself to an honorable standard, yet was completely swayed by what other people told him to do. He led her up to the house and forced her inside. She stopped to look around, but it was empty, with no sign of anyone.
“What will you do to me?” she asked, allowing some of the fear holding her in check to seep out. “Please don’t hurt me.”
He shrugged, then pushed her down on the couch. “Just sit there.”
She sat there, quietly curled up in the corner as she watched him. He paced, as if waiting for something to happen. “What are you waiting for?” she asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said. And she was afraid it wouldn’t be anything she wanted. He had a gun, but he didn’t appear to be keeping it on her. She studied the room. There was a bunch of older furniture in floral patterns. Floral in every direction, in fact, but there was a window in front and the front door. Then, as she twisted around, she could see a fireplace and a dining room behind her. She presumed a door was at the back wall, but that didn’t mean that she would reach it before he caught her.
The advantage of being small and slim was that she was fleet of foot. He, on the other hand, was big and bulky, and she could only hope that he wasn’t a linebacker who could run fast too. The front door was a whole lot closer, but she still had to get away from the line of bullets, should he shoot to stop her. And that wouldn’t be easy. She looked at him. “How long do we have to wait?”
He just shot her a look. “The longer it is, the better for you.”
At that, she took several deep, slow breaths and said, “But I haven’t done anything to anyone.”
“And again, that doesn’t matter,” he said.
“So, is this all about being in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have a clue. And what it’s about doesn’t matter to me.”
“Meaning that you have a paycheck coming, and nothing’ll get in the way of that,” she said, bitterly hating how the world worked.
“Yeah, that’s about it,” he said. “Hey, I’ve got a family to feed.”
She studied him for a long moment. “You’ve got kids?”
He nodded. “Yep,” he said. “I got two boys and another one on the way.”
“So, of course you need extra money for that.”
“And how.” He snorted. “Nobody ever tells you about the real cost behind kids.”
“What will you do when you have a girl?”
“Be a proud papa,” he said, that grin of his splitting and lighting up the room.
She studied him for a long moment. “Yeah, you’re a proud papa, until somebody down the road decides that your daughter’s a pawn and that she should be snuffed out just because somebody says so.”
Immediately he spun and stared at her in horror.
“What? Do you think I’m not someone’s daughter?”
“Maybe,” he said, forcibly pulling himself backward. “But I can’t let it matter.”
“And why is that?”
“The pay. It’s too big,” he said. “So sorry. You’re it.”
And she realized that there really wouldn’t be a happy ending to this. If she escaped from the room and from the kidnappers, she thought that maybe she would get out of this hole. But she seemed destined to go from the frying pan into the fire in this situation. “I was kind of hoping,” she said, “that you would see reason.”
“Too much at stake,” he said.
“Right,” she nodded and smiled. “Well, I hope you enjoy your money when you realize that your daughter will be the one to pay the karmic price for this.”
“Pffft! Karma’s a bitch, right. Except she’s not real,” he snapped.
“Right. Well, I know for a fact that it’s definitely real.”
He totally ignored her.
She tried again. “Whatever you do, early in your adult life, tends to come back on your kids.”
“That just goes to show you that karma’s not real,” he said. “Why the hell would anybody go after my daughter because of things I’ve done?”
“Well, maybe you should ask yourself why anybody would go after me for something I didn’t do? It’s all apparently because of something somebody else did.”
He stared at her for a long moment and then shrugged and said, “We’ll deal with it at the time,” he said, “but I’ll kill anybody who tries to hurt my daughter.”
“Your mythical daughter,” she said. “What if somebody hurts your wife while she’s carrying your daughter?”
Again he rounded on her. “Is that a threat?” His voice rose to thunderous proportions.
She gave him a bland expression. “Do you really think people won’t be looking for me? People who are coming to help me? What happens if they go after your wife as a way to get me back?”
He shook his head. “They have to find her first,” he said.
“Well, that should be easy enough,” she said. “These guys can find anybody.”
“But they don’t know who I am,” he said, as if she was simple.
“But they will,” she said, “and you better believe it.”
“Why? Are they some kind of Secret Service?” he scoffed. “As if those guys know anything. They can’t find anything without help.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but I highly doubt that they’ll be stupid about it. And, although you haven’t touched anything,” she said, “you know there’s hair transfer. There’s DNA evidence all over.”
He looked around, looked at his jacket, and shook his head. “You’re just trying to scare me.”
“I’m trying to warn you,” she said. “Now that you’ve taken me,” she said, “you’ve crossed a line.”
He glared at her. “I don’t like being threatened.”
“No?” she said. “Neither do I but what the hell. Apparently I’ve just been kidnapped a second time now.”
“You weren’t supposed to escape,” he said, at least confirming that he was part of the same kidnapping.
“How could I possibly not escape? she asked. “It was actually pretty damn easy. And why the hell was my sister gagged, and I wasn’t?”
“I don’t know,” he s
aid.
“You’re not the one who tied me up? Or did you kill him?”
He shook his head. “I only heard that you escaped afterward.”
“Bully for you. Then what happened to the guy who tied us up?”
He stopped, looked at her, and said, “We don’t kill people for that.”
“You mean, for letting a prisoner escape?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“And whose fault was it?” she asked him, suddenly trying to get into his mind-set and to figure out just what kind of logic this guy was operating on.
“He was new. It was his boss’s fault for not checking your ties.”
“How do you know that he didn’t check them though?” she asked.
He looked at her again and said, “Well, it’s easy for you to say that, but he can’t defend himself now.”
With a sinking feeling, she realized that the man who had checked her bonds was now dead. “So the supervisor was killed but not the ineffectual employee?”
“Everybody has to learn,” he said.
“So, if I escape from you, would you get killed?”
He nodded. “Probably, which is why you’re not escaping because that’s not happening.”
She nodded slowly. “It would be a shame for your kids to not know their father,” she said.
His gaze narrowed at her. “That won’t happen.”
“I’m afraid,” she said, “that it is. Definitely.”
He walked forward, his weapon out. “I can just blow apart your knees,” he said. “That’ll stop you from escaping.”
“Yes,” she said. “It will. But it won’t do a damn bit of good to stop the men who will vindicate my death or the injuries you inflict on me.”
For the first time he looked a little nervous.
She nodded. “You should be nervous,” she whispered, “because they’re coming.”
