by Dale Mayer
“No,” she said. “I have no idea. Is that why you think they’re after Becky?”
Galen nodded slowly. “I don’t know what other reason there could be,” he said quietly. “Generally, if somebody does this, and they wanted the child as ransom, it’s to make the parent fall in line somehow or because they want the child.”
“God.” She rocked herself on the top step.
He muttered an oath and sat down beside her. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her close.
She wasn’t normally the type to depend on anybody, but, in that moment, it felt really good to be held. She burrowed in deeper, while his arms crushed her close. “We don’t have time for this,” she muttered.
“Sometimes you have to take the time when it comes,” he said. “Nothing else we can do right now, besides keep Becky safe and figure out who her father is.”
“What about the other option? You said something about, if they had Becky, the kidnappers could keep my sister in line.”
“Does your sister have direct access to any large sums of money?”
Gemma shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Access to the brewery’s business accounts?”
She again shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Did she know anybody else in the company?”
She stopped and looked up at Galen. “Wait. One guy she used to talk about all the time. James. Joe just kind of winced whenever his name came up. I saw him do it.”
“Who is this James?”
“According to Rebecca, he was one of the big shareholders for the brewery, but he wasn’t in Germany. I think he was in the US.”
“Any idea who he is, who he really is?”
She shook her head. “No. But we should be able to figure it out from the company website.”
He released her, and together they stood and went back inside. She brought up her laptop and then frowned. “The internet sucks here.”
“I know it. We’ve got a special satellite booster,” he said. “Come over here.” He hooked up her laptop and said, “We’ve got a little bit of internet signal here, not too much though.”
She quickly checked the company that Joe had worked for. “Here it is,” she said. “The list of shareholders. There’s a James.”
“So maybe that’s him?”
She shrugged. “I never heard a last name for him, so maybe. But …” She turned to face Galen. “His last name is the same as Joe’s. Clark. Joe Clark. James Clark.”
Galen tilted his head. “Common last name. Doesn’t necessarily mean they are related. Where is he located?”
“Doesn’t say,” she said. “It’s just his name.”
He started searching the net and also asked for information on this James Clark guy from Levi. “And this doesn’t mean anything other than James is a common first name that I heard from her lips.”
“Right,” he said, “but that’s something. It’s information we haven’t had to date.” Levi contacted him quickly with an ID and a location. “He’s out of Florida,” he said. “Miami.”
“That’s possible,” she said with a shrug.
“I have no idea.” On his laptop he brought up a face and nodded. “Do you recognize him?”
She looked at it and frowned. “Yes,” she said. “I saw a picture of him with my sister.”
“When?”
She shook her head. “It was in my sister’s purse. She snatched it from my hand and glared at me.”
“So it’s possible they had a relationship?”
“It’s also possible it was just a photo,” she retorted. “Not everybody is in love with my sister.”
He studied her for a long moment. “No,” he said, “not everybody is. I’m certainly not. But she seems like the type to attract lovers and leave the pathways strewn with them.”
“Yes,” she said. “She is like that.” And how interesting that Galen saw through Rebecca so easily. It made him a special kind of man.
“Is there any chance she might have let him think that Becky was his?”
“I don’t know,” she cried out in frustration. “Whatever she did is between her and whoever she did it with. I’ve deliberately distanced myself from my sister when it comes to her relationships.”
“Good choice,” he said. “That’s the safe thing to do. But now we have to figure out who the father is.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said wearily. “What matters is who thinks they are the father.”
“True.” He stared at her for a long moment. “In your heart of hearts, who do you think is the father?”
“Joe,” she said. “Joe and Becky both have the same birthmark on the back of their shoulder. But that still doesn’t mean that some other people don’t think they are her father too.”
Galen kept doing his research, then made an odd sound.
She looked at him. “What?”
He turned around his laptop and said, “Get this. Joe and James are brothers.”
She stared at the picture with a sinking heart and whispered, “Shit.”
“And based on this,” he said, “do you still think Joe is Becky’s father?”
She looked up at him, struck dumb for a moment. “They’re not only brothers by name,” she said, “but they look like brothers. So, no, I can’t be sure. Not now.”
He nodded, as he kept looking. His phone rang. It was Zack. “What’s going on, Zack?”
“Looks like they’ve turned in for the night,” he said. “I did get a photo of one of them. I’m sending it now.” He quickly sent it over, and Galen pulled it up on his phone, then turned and faced Gemma with it. “What about this face?”
“The picture’s not so great, but it looks similar to James’s shareholder photo online and resembles Joe too,” she said. “So I presume that’s the same James Clark then?”
“Could be—or a thousand other nondescript guys,” he said. “And it could very well be that Joe wasn’t killed for anything to do with the company but that his brother took him out.” She stared at him in horror, and he nodded slowly. “You know yourself about love-hate relationships.”
She winced. “Is it that obvious? I really don’t like discussing my past.”
He gave her a ghostly smile. “No, not at all,” he said, “but believe me, I understand. I had a couple relationships that, in hindsight, made me wonder where my head had been at the time. I don’t fall easily. In both of those cases, I jumped. As soon as my head cleared, I realized that lust had been mistaken for love. I’d been lonely and had made up a story that seemed to suit. But it was a story in my head and had nothing to do with the real-life circumstances around me.”
“Ditto, although I hadn’t thought of it that way. We really do write a story around us, and God help us when we reach the punch line.”
He chuckled at that.
She smiled slowly. “So what do we do now?”
“Well, first, we’ll have to rescue your sister, and we’ll have a plain talk with her,” he said. “And then we’ve gotta figure out how to keep her safe. Honestly, it’s not her as much as it’s Becky who we need to keep safe.”
“So what’s next?”
He sighed, stood, and said, “I’m heading back to Zack because we need to set up a mission. You stay here and look after your niece. I’ll have a talk with Tim before I leave.” He walked over and, in a surprise move, kissed her gently on the temple. She stared at him, wordless. He shrugged. “Stay safe until I get home, will you?”
“Of course,” she said faintly. “Why the kiss?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Because it felt right, I guess.” When she gave him that deep stare again, he laughed and said, “Keep looking at me that way, and I’ll do it again.”
She shook her head. “It’s not the time. This isn’t about you. It isn’t about me,” she said. “And, yes, it is about Rebecca, but, yes, more than that, it’s about Becky,” she said slowly. “We need to do whatever we can to keep her safe and
not get sidetracked with other issues.”
“Even if those other issues look really promising?”
She gave him a ghost of a smile. “Especially then.”
*
Galen hated to leave Gemma, and, if he hadn’t had a quiet conversation outside with Tim, Galen wouldn’t have left. He was confident that Tim would keep an eye on her. He understood the man’s mind-set about staying away from society and about avoiding all the ugliness that came with it. But Galen also understood that Tim had a previous military career and had seen the worst of the worst. If he said that he would look out for Gemma and Becky, then he would. Galen was still a little concerned about the heavy artillery on site, but, considering what he would want for himself, if he lived out in a place like this, maybe not so much.
As he drove back along the pathway, he called Zack. “Have they sent out any demands?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice tired. “I don’t have any way to tell. I couldn’t hear any conversations now, but it could have been done through email, text, or even a notice to the newspaper. I just don’t know.”
“And who would they send it to?”
“Presumably the newspaper, the brewery, or Joe’s family. I’m not sure.”
“Are you sure Gemma didn’t get a notice?”
“I just spoke to Gemma, and she didn’t say anything.”
“It could still be coming,” Zack said. “Even for instant delivery, out here, with the sparse internet connectivity, any email could be delayed. However, any email can be sent later, to seemingly shift the time zone.”
“Well, it’s something you and I would do,” Galen said. “But them?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s obvious we’ve got some sort of family dynamic going on here.”
“And some kind of a lost-lovers’ reunion,” Galen said sadly. “I don’t even know if Rebecca understands what she’s wrought on her sister and her own daughter, not to mention all the men involved with her constant lover-on-a-string scenarios.”
Zack answered, “I doubt it. She’s very good at keeping us on a string.”
Zack’s voice got to Galen. And how Zack had used the word us in his comment too. “Did you cut that string yet?”
“Oh, yeah,” Zack said. “Now I’m just sitting here, wondering how I could have been such a fool for all those years.”
“But not recently though, right?”
“No, not recently. I hadn’t really seen the Rebecca effect until now, as I look at these other men and realize how much chaos she’s put them through.”
“All from a woman who was supposedly married till death do us part.”
“Which is where the problem comes in because Joe is, of course, dead now,” Zack said.
“Did you know him?”
“Yes. Not well, but I did. I hated him at the beginning because she had the affair with him to get away from me.”
“Not to get away from,” Galen corrected. “Just to move up a rung.”
Zack laughed. “Yeah, she’s definitely a social climber, isn’t she?”
“Absolutely,” Galen said. “And she’s using her body to get there. You’ve seen women like that the world over. It’s the oldest game in the book, and it won’t change anytime soon. Well, until the inevitable aging takes over.”
“Right, but she’s brought her daughter into this mess, and that’s not okay. She can go screw all the men she likes,” Zack said forcibly, “but she has no damn business bringing that little girl into it.”
“The only constant sanity in Becky’s life appears to be Gemma. Joe too, while he was alive.”
“You’ve got to wonder how two women could be so different,” Zack said.
“Gemma started looking after her sister by herself at what age? Like seventeen or something?”
“Yeah,” Zack replied. “And Rebecca was already well versed in playing the love game by then.”
“How old was she when you came on the scene?”
“Eighteen,” Zack said. “Joe was the same year.”
“And Joe was quite a bit older than you, correct?”
“Depends on what you call quite a bit. I’m twenty-eight now, and he was like thirty-four or so. And Rebecca is now twenty-six or twenty-seven, I think,” Zack said. “Definitely old enough to know better.”
“And old enough to play the odds and to think that she has time left in her life to move up, if something doesn’t work out here soon enough,” Galen said slowly.
“True, but she’s also had plenty of time to get enough data on her target to see if it’s worthwhile or not. And to tweak it so that it’s perfect.”
Galen almost laughed at that. As long as Zack was detached and calm about the whole thing, it did help to see this in a very different light. “So we’ve got a Lolita here, her little girl with uncertain paternity, and several men who we presume are thinking they could be the father. But what does it all mean?” Galen asked as he rubbed his face in frustration.
“Do you think that’s why the kidnappers want Becky?” Zack asked.
“I would hope so,” Galen said. “It would be damn sad if it were for another power play.”
“What kind of power play?” he asked.
“Well, if it’s James, and he thinks Becky is his own daughter, I would hope that he would want to protect her and not send her off into the sex trade or something. But, if he doesn’t think it’s his daughter, and he’s just looking to punish the mother, that brings up all kinds of horrible scenarios.”
There was a long moment before Zack spoke. “You really didn’t have to voice that, you know?”
“Actually, I did,” he said. “We can’t hide anymore from these elements,” he said. “The potential here is way too serious.”
“I get you,” he said, “but it sucks.”
“I’m just a few minutes away. Any update on what’s going on inside the cabin?”
“As far as I can see,” Zack said, “they’ve all gone to bed.”
“Well, here’s a question for you,” he asked. “Was everybody in a separate bed?”
“Last I saw them? Yes,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some nighttime shuffling.”
“Given that she might need a way out of this, that would be one avenue to make it happen.”
“I think I’ll check the bedrooms,” he said.
“You do that. I should be around the house pretty quick.”
Galen hung up the phone, tossed it onto the seat beside him, and pulled into the same place he had parked last time. He shut off the engine and sat here, waiting. When he figured it was safe, he slipped out and slid through the trees, heading toward the cabin. His mind still tumbled with the possibilities of what was going on and could only hope that things came to a head pretty damn quick.
As he headed toward where Zack was last, Galen stopped and studied the cabin. He saw no signs of movement and no signs of any life on the inside. The only thing that bothered him was he also saw no signs of life on the outside either.
Where was Zack?
Chapter 13
How the heck was Gemma supposed to sleep with all this going on? She kept her eye on the laptop and one on the book in her hand, as she sat in front of the fire in the main room as the wee hours of the night passed by. She got up what seemed like every thirty minutes to check on Becky. Gemma wished that she could sit beside Becky or that the little girl could move out to the couch with her. The bedrooms in these small cabins were pretty much taken up by the bed in each. No room to even drag in a spare chair. Gemma could join Becky on the bed. She had contemplated doing that but didn’t want to wake her. At least one of them should get some sleep on this dark night.
When she heard a cracking sound outside, she immediately slipped over to the window. Just being where they were, it could have been wildlife. They were still inside the fence of the compound, but that wouldn’t stop a coyote. And, if it was a fox coming in after the hens, he would have come in from the far sid
e. At least she thought so, but she wasn’t a fox, so who knew?
Another crackle came, and her breath caught in the back of her throat as she studied the darkness outside. She was tucked up against the curtain, so, if it was a two-legged predator, she had no way of staying hidden, except by staying out of the light of the fireplace from the inside and out of the moonlight from the outside.
When the sound faded away again, she relaxed. But, just as she settled on the couch again, she heard something on the other side of the cabin. Swearing softly, she got up and walked to the other window. The curtains were closed so she lifted a corner to peer outside and could see a man standing there, as he studied the space between the two cabins. She sucked in her breath, until she realized it was one of Tim’s men. And then she had to wonder. Why was he here? He did have a weapon tucked in the back of his pocket, and he also held a rifle.
When a call came from the far side of the acreage, he answered it. She smiled, realizing it was the sentry. Was this new? She didn’t remember seeing anything like this when she had been here as a child and later as a teen. But then her life had changed, and being a child was no longer an option in this world. Gone was her sense of innocence, of not knowing how the actual world worked. Just because her family scenario was crap, she’d always been optimistic that the rest of the world functioned in a much saner and more positive way.
As she watched, the man walked to Rebecca’s cabin, checked inside again, and then headed across toward the long house. She walked to the front window and studied him as he hopped up onto the veranda of the long house and calmly walked into the front door. Definitely a sentry then.
When her phone buzzed, she snatched it off the back of the couch. Tim. Sending her a message that all was well. She smiled and quickly answered. I wondered when I saw somebody walking around the cabins.
We’re doing constant patrols. Particularly now.
Is this new?
Yes. Galen asked us specifically to keep an eye on you, but we would have anyway.
She smiled at that and sent him a heart emoji. Tim was a good guy. He didn’t really want any of this kind of thing in his world, and she appreciated that he’d opened the door for them as it was. And he wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t have been one of the people who had been here summer after summer after summer. She really appreciated what he was doing. She sent him a quick note of thanks.
