Strands of Truth

by Colleen Coble

  Grace finally nodded. “Nice looking man, though older than her. He had wings of white in his blond hair. Snappy dresser, too, all slick. This would have been maybe 1989? I can’t remember for sure, but it seemed strange she’d be asking questions about Judy’s boyfriend after all that time.”

  “Any hint to who he might have been?” Ridge asked.

  Grace’s brow puckered. “They were standing in front of a Datsun Bluebird. Lisa, if that was her name, said her boyfriend had just bought it for her.”

  “Was that the car she wrecked?” Harper asked.

  “I’ll text Don Ward and find out.” Ridge typed away on his phone. “He was going to try to get the notes from the investigation. It should include photos at the scene.”

  Ridge’s phone dinged, and he glanced at it. “It was a Datsun Bluebird. He’s got the records for us and says we can stop by and look at them.”

  Another lead to follow. Harper thanked Grace and followed Ridge to the door. The skies had darkened, and the drizzle had turned to a downpour.

  “Great. My hair is going to look like I stuck my finger in an electric socket.”

  “I’ll go get the Jeep. Wait here.” He took the keys from her, pulled open the door, and ran through the rain and puddles to the Wrangler.

  A pretty brunette came to stand beside her. “That man’s a keeper. Guys seem to have lost a sense of chivalry lately.”

  Harper’s heart squeezed at what she’d done to him. “He is a good man.”

  Ridge stopped the Jeep by the door and got out, leaving the driver’s door open. She dashed out into the rain to leap through the open door. The brief contact with the rain had plastered her hair to her scalp.

  She yanked the door shut and grabbed the napkin he handed her. After mopping her face, she noticed his stare. “What?”

  “You look beautiful with frizzy hair.” His gaze left her face. “Let’s go see what we can find out from Don. I feel like we’re on to something. I’m not sure what that something is, but it feels like progress.”

  His tone was softer than it had been all day. Was he going to forgive her?

  * * *

  The pounding rain left streams of water on the pavement by the time Harper pulled her Jeep onto the highway. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “The Wrangler keeps wanting to hydroplane.”

  “Want me to drive?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll put it in four-wheel drive. I know this old Jeep pretty well.” She pulled off and messed with the transmission lever, then drove back onto the road.

  The inclement weather had evidently deterred other drivers, and he spotted only a few other vehicles heading their direction.

  He glanced at Harper, whose focus was intent on the road. She hadn’t had much to say since they left Weeki Wachee, and he knew she was still mulling over his reaction to her news. He pushed away the stab of guilt. What had she expected? Joy and congratulations?

  The Jeep hit a patch of water, and the rear tires swung to the left as the vehicle began to hydroplane. She fought with the wheel and managed to get it under control again. Glancing behind them, he spotted a gray car bearing down on them. The guy would run into trouble if he didn’t slow down on these treacherous roads, but maybe the driver couldn’t see them. The rain was so heavy the windshield wipers were having trouble keeping up.

  The big car behind them continued to gain ground. “There’s a car coming up fast behind us. You might want to slow down and let him pass,” Ridge said.

  Harper braked to decelerate and let the other vehicle pass, but instead of swerving into the passing lane, the gray car crept closer until its bumper was inches from her Jeep.

  Ridge sat twisted in the seat to watch what the guy was doing. “What the heck?”

  Harper glanced in the rearview mirror. “What’s wrong?”

  “That guy behind us is still tailgating. It’s not safe in this weather.”

  The words had barely left his lips when the big vehicle smashed into the Jeep’s bumper. The steering wheel spun in Harper’s hands, and the vehicle veered to the right. The right front tire hit the gravel, which pulled it farther off the road and toward the field.

  The Wrangler’s wheels sank into the muddy ground, and the resistance slowed the vehicle enough so Harper could steer them back toward the pavement. The Jeep came to a stop with the front left wheel on gravel and the other tires in mud and water.

  “Are you all right?” The racket from the rain on the hood nearly drowned out Harper’s frantic question.

  “We’re okay.” He twisted in the seat to try to see out the back window at the vehicle that had struck them. It had felt deliberate, and he was reaching for his phone to dial 911 when the glass in his window shattered. Before he could react, a stun gun came down on his bare right arm.

  The jolt was like nothing he’d ever experienced. The voltage shot up his arm and neck, then spread through the rest of his body in a painful contraction that seemed never ending. He was conscious of Harper’s door being opened and of her screaming his name as she was yanked out from under the steering wheel. Try as he might, he couldn’t break the grip of the electrical shock until the attacker pulled his arm back out of the broken window.

  Ridge slumped against the seat for what seemed like an eternity but was only a few minutes until mobility coursed back into his muscles. He fumbled for the door and managed to thrust it open and stagger out into the pounding rain as the big car roared off into the downpour.

  His mind was still foggy as he stumbled back to the Jeep and grabbed his phone. It took several tries to punch in 911 and reach the dispatcher. He told her what had happened. When he came to himself, he was lying beside the Wrangler with his face turned up into the rain. He blinked and sat up, then looked for his phone. Sirens blared in the distance, and he staggered to his feet to wave down the police car.

  He should have been in the Jeep chasing after Harper’s abductors, but instead he’d passed out and been lying out there in the rain for who knew how long. If anything happened to her, it would be his fault.

  The police car stopped behind the Jeep, and he stumbled back toward the two officers who got out into the rain. They had to find her.

  * * *

  Harper’s arms ached where the man had grabbed her. She’d fought with all her might, desperate to get back to Ridge, who had been rigid in the grip of that stun gun thing. The man who’d grabbed her had dragged her to a gray Cadillac, then thrown her into the trunk.

  The claustrophobic darkness pressed in on every side, and her scraped cheek lay pressed against the rough fabric of the trunk’s carpeting. Rain drummed against the top of the car, and the tires threw up more water that struck the bottom. The sound in both directions drowned out any other noise and added to her disorientation. She patted her pocket for her phone, but of course she’d left it at Oliver’s.

  She touched her belly. Was the baby all right? There was no pain or blood to indicate that the accident had harmed the baby.

  She reached out and tried to find some kind of weapon in the dark, but the space was totally empty except for her. There didn’t seem to be a void beneath the floor for a spare tire and tire tool either. She was trapped here until her captor chose to release her.

  Her lungs ached, and she forced herself to slow down her breaths until her hands quit shaking. She prayed over and over again for Ridge. Could that stun gun kill him? His agonized expression played over in her mind in a terrifying sequence.

  Where were her attackers taking her? Annabelle had warned them, but there’d been no way to anticipate an attack like this out on the highway. The rain had played right into their enemies’ hands. As far as she could recall, there’d been no other vehicles on the road at the time of the attack. No one would have had a chance to get the license plate number or make and model of the Cadillac.

  It felt as though the car had hurtled through darkness forever by the time it slowed, and she thought they were on city streets. She had no idea of direct
ion or location. The car stopped and started, turned and drove more until the tires rolled over a slight hump as though up a drive. The vehicle stopped, and she rolled to her back and sat up as far as she could in anticipation of the trunk lid opening.

  If only she had a weapon.

  She clenched her fists and waited. The lock clicked and the trunk lid opened, letting the rain strike her in the face. She sat up the rest of the way and tried to scramble out, but a man in a ski mask grabbed her arm. He hauled her out the rest of the way and propelled her through the puddles toward a small building nestled in pines and southern oaks. There were no other houses around as far as she could see, and her mouth went dry.

  She was out here facing this alone and without help.

  But no, that wasn’t right. No matter what happened, God was with her in this. He might choose to save her or he might not, but either way, he had her by the hand.

  Where was the driver? She hadn’t seen him get out. She heard splashing behind her and saw the gray car glide out of the drive. Its lights moved down the road and disappeared as the tree line blocked them out.

  The hitch in her chest smoothed, and she lifted her head. If she quit fighting him, his grip might loosen. She eyed the surroundings through the rain again. The trees and vegetation to her right were thick. If she could get away from her captors, she might escape detection in the foliage.

  She yelled so it would carry over the pounding rain. “You’re hurting me. You can let go. I know I can’t escape.”

  His grip only loosened a fraction, not enough to wrest free. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Where are you taking me, and what do you want?”

  He didn’t answer as they reached the building. The door was unlocked and he opened it, then pushed her inside to a brightly lit space. It looked like an operating room, all clean tile and stainless-steel counters. An operating table and lights occupied the center of the room.

  He released her arm to lock the door before he pocketed the key. “This way.”

  He pushed her through the room to an open door on the far side. It had no window, so she got only the vague impression of a bed.

  She glanced back at the operating space. “What is this place?”

  “Just a spot to keep you for now.” He reached past her and flipped on the light, which illuminated the bed with its stark white sheets. Another room opened to a bathroom with a small sink and shower.

  She turned to him and splayed her hands in a pleading gesture. “Look, I don’t understand what this is all about.”

  She guessed his height at about six feet. His muscles were thick and ropy, even the ones on his neck. Likely a bodybuilder. His eyes behind the ski mask were dark brown and stony. No sympathy there, and she didn’t really expect any.

  “You’ll know soon enough. It’s not for me to tell you.”

  So he was a hired gun. She’d suspected as much, but she hoped to find out something about the motive behind all these events.

  “Did you kill Oliver Jackson?” She blurted out the question, then took a step back.

  His gaze never faltered, but he turned around and went out the door, slamming it behind him. That was enough of an answer since he hadn’t seemed surprised. She didn’t understand why she would be a target, but she had to find a way out of here before the person who hired him showed up.

  Maybe there was a window in the bathroom. She peeked into the room, but no window. Could she find some way to pick the lock on the door? She went over to the lock and peered at it. It was a dead bolt, locked from the outside.

  She was stuck in here and at the mercy of her captors.

  35

  The rain had finally stopped, and the oppressive humidity steamed the air like fog. Harper had been gone nearly four hours, and the encroaching darkness made him feel even more helpless. How did they go about finding her? Gray Cadillacs were hardly scarce in this part of Florida. The only hope was if the car’s bumper or grill had been damaged in the blow to the back of her Jeep.

  The police car reached Dunedin and stopped at the Coffee Shop. Ridge pulled the Jeep in behind the cop car. Scott was supposed to meet him here, and he recognized Scott’s car parked along the street.

  He got out and approached the police car. “Detective Rice is here. Thanks for the escort.”

  Scott exited the Coffee Shop with two cups in his hand. “You don’t look so good. Getting stunned can do that to you.”

  “It wasn’t much fun.”

  Scott gestured to an outside table and sat in the chair closest to the door. “No news about Harper’s whereabouts? My mom is beside herself. She’s texted me every few minutes telling me I have to find her. Can you go over the events for me step by step?”

  Ridge dropped into the other chair and went through everything that had happened, including the sudden attack with the stun gun. “She was screaming my name as the guy dragged her away.” His voice trembled, and he took a quick sip of hot coffee. “I failed her.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. A stun gun is impossible to fight. Those guys knew what they were doing. There were two, right?”

  “As far as I know. I didn’t see who grabbed Harper, because I couldn’t turn my head while I was being paralyzed by the gun. There were at least two though because someone grabbed her while someone else attacked me. I heard two doors slam before the Caddy drove off.”

  One of the worst moments of his life had been hearing that car drive off with Harper in it while he could do nothing. He’d never felt so helpless, and it was an agonizing sensation.

  “I’ve been in touch with the detectives handling the case, and they have no leads. They can’t stop every gray Caddy out there, but her picture has been disseminated and cops are looking for her. That won’t help much if they stashed her in the trunk. And it’s been long enough they probably have reached their destination.”

  Scott sipped his coffee and stared at Ridge over the rim of his cup. “There has to be some tie between Harper and my mom. They didn’t even know each other existed before the DNA test and had no contact.”

  Ridge set his coffee down. “Harper and I talked about this last night. I’ve racked my brain on how their relationship could play into this. Revenge against their dad maybe? Perhaps someone is trying to use them as a hostage to flush him out, though as far as I know, he doesn’t know they exist. No father has popped up on their reports. And how did my dad play into this? Harper thinks the killer believed Dad could identify him as the person who attacked her underwater.”

  A thought hit him. Just before Harper had told him about her pregnancy, he’d wondered if Dad had gone back to trying to discover her father’s identity. Could there be something about that in his desk? Maybe her father had figured out he was being investigated.

  He told Scott what Harper had said. “Let’s take a look at Dad’s desk.”

  “We can check that out.” Scott frowned. “I’m going to review Mom’s DNA report. I want to see who all had access to their blood connection. A revenge motive sounds possible, that is, if this is all about their being related.”

  “You have any other theories? It’s the only thing connecting them.”

  “Not the only thing. When you and Harper showed up, my grandmother’s homicide case was reopened. Maybe the murderer heard about that and wants to stop us from solving it. And the detective investigating Lisa Taylor’s death believed it wasn’t accidental. I think it’s more likely related to my grandmother’s murder than to the accident that killed Harper’s mom. There would be no connection to my mom if that was the underlying cause.”

  “True enough. Let’s focus on looking at who had access to those DNA results and who might have heard about you reopening Judy’s murder case. We don’t have much time though. Harper is in their hands, and I doubt they will let her live long.”

  Scott whipped out his phone. “I’ll call Mom and get her log-in information.” He placed the call and jotted down something in his notebook. “Got it. I’ll grab my laptop in the
car.”

  He sprinted to his car and pulled a bag out of the passenger seat, then returned and handed it to Ridge. “See what you can find while I call in and find out what I can about the company who tested their DNA.”

  Ridge took the computer and the notebook and logged into Annabelle’s profile. It didn’t take long to discover the only close match was to Harper, but there were four other matches who appeared to be distant cousins. Any one of them could be the culprit.

  He jotted down the information and slid it across the table to Scott, who had ended his call. “Could you see if your mom would contact these distant cousins? If we can get their names, it would be a good place to start.”

  “I’m sure she would.” Scott tapped out a text message and got back an almost immediate response. “She’s doing it now, but it could be days before they answer. We have no way of knowing how quick they’ll be.”

  “Can we get a court order to reveal their identity?”

  “We don’t have any real evidence yet, so no, we can’t get that. I should have a phone number for the company owner soon though.”

  “Maybe you can sweet-talk the owner into helping me.”

  Scott raised his brows. “Doubtful. Companies aren’t usually willing to disclose confidential information without a court order.”

  Ridge took another gulp of his coffee. He couldn’t sit here and do nothing when Harper was in mortal danger, but he didn’t know where to look. “Let’s check Dad’s files.”

  * * *

  Ridge flipped on the lights in his dad’s office. The scent of his father—cloves and cologne—made him wince. He’d never inhale the smell of his father during an embrace again.

  The overhead light was dimmer than he’d like, so he flipped on the bookshelf lights as well. This might take a while, but he wasn’t sure where else to search.

  He moved to the desk and began pulling out drawers. “I’ll take this set of files, and you can look in the ones on the other side,” he told Scott.

  The detective nodded and reached into a desk drawer to extract an armful of files he dumped on his side of the big desk. He picked up the first folder and began to peruse it.