Fatal Game

by Linda Ladd

  When they were finished shopping in the mall, they stopped outside on the parking lot, where a big winter carnival was in full swing. There were lots of booths with sparkling Christmas lights and people all bundled up in parkas and caps and carolers strolling around and singing to everybody. There was a big Ferris wheel, and a Tilt-a-Whirl, and all kinds of other rides. It was really crowded, lots of shoppers bundled up in the cold, eating at picnic tables. They mingled awhile and watched the rides. It was fun. Papa rode on the swings with him, and Memo rode on the Ferris wheel with him but she said she didn’t like it much. They gave Rico some money to buy cotton candy for all of them, and he ran up to the booth and stood in line for a long time. There were people everywhere.

  Once he finally got the cotton candy and had Papa’s change in his hand, he started back toward the table. Halfway there, he stopped in his tracks when a big guy suddenly stepped out from the shadows and grabbed his arm. Rico was shocked; then the man jerked him back into the dark and pressed a big gun against his neck. Then Rico reacted as he’d learned to do when he’d been held captive on the island. He lurched away as hard as he could and let out a yell for help, but then he felt something sharp jab into his neck and everything started getting all woozy and dizzy and he stumbled and fell on his knees. The man caught him before he hit the concrete, and then he only knew that somebody was carrying him through the dark, away from the carnival and his grandparents, and there was nothing he could do about it. Then he fell asleep and couldn’t even worry about it anymore.

  When Rico came to later, he couldn’t think straight at first. He was lying on his back in a truck or a van. They were moving fast, and the vehicle was shimmying around and rocking back and forth as it barreled its way down some kind of rocky road. He could hear the gravel crunching and flying up under the wheels and hitting the fenders. There were lots of odors around him, too, motor oil for one thing, and some kind of paint maybe, and some really strong cigarette smoke all mingled together. He lay still once he was able to think straight, and then he slowly tested his arms and legs and found that he wasn’t bound with ropes or tape or anything. That’s when he took a couple of deep breaths and played like he was asleep. Rico had learned to do that the hard way when those mean people had him. The redheaded woman had tied him up and treated him like her pet dog. He wasn’t going to let them tie him up. He was going to get away.

  After Claire and Black had rescued him and brought him back to America, Nick spent lots of time talking to him about what he’d gone through, and he always told Rico that he should stay calm and think things through if anything like that ever happened to him again. Nick told him that he was a real smart kid, and very brave, that he had proved it. He said that Rico could deal with anything bad that ever happened to him, because he’d already survived the worst thing anyone could live through.

  So Rico pushed away some of the scary feelings ballooning up inside him and moved his hand slowly down to his coat pocket where he kept his cell phone. It was gone. They already took it. That made him panic some, and his heart sped up but he forced himself to lie still. He thought about what he should do next. He tried to figure out what Claire and Black would do, because they were both really brave people and they’d been through a lot of bad stuff, just like him. Then he went over a plan in his head a bunch of times before he worked up the courage to even move an inch. Once he was ready, he opened his eyes just a little bit and tried to see the man who’d grabbed him.

  It looked as if they were riding in a van without windows. He could see the front seat and the windshield and the guy driving. Rico could see the man’s face reflected in the rearview mirror. He had on black glasses and had really short dark hair. Rico had never seen him before; he wasn’t the one who kidnapped him.

  He was driving hard and fast and causing all the jouncing and bouncing. He had a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. The guy who’d caught him at the carnival was in the back of the van, sitting on the floor right across from him. His back was leaning against the opposite wall and he was looking down at the cell phone in his hand, the pale glow of the screen lighting up his face. Maybe that was Rico’s phone. Maybe he could get it back and then he could call Nick. The guy who’d grabbed him was a big guy, sort of, but not near as big and strong as Nick. Not as tall, either. The black ski cap he’d worn at the carnival was now pushed up on top of his head. He wasn’t paying a bit of attention to Rico. Maybe he thought Rico was gonna be asleep for a long time and scared to death when he woke up. But Nick had been right. After those bad people last summer, this didn’t seem as awful as all that. Not yet, anyway. He wasn’t even tied up, and nobody had put a shock collar on him the way the mean lady had done. He hated her so much. Even now that she was dead, he couldn’t stop hating her. He knew it was wrong to hate her so much, but he did. He hated her brother and her father, too, even if they were all dead and could never hurt him again, like Claire always said.

  So Rico lay real still and quiet and didn’t move a single muscle, but his mind was busy figuring stuff out. He turned his head a little and searched the back of the van, looking for something he could use as a weapon. Then he saw a heavy tire iron that was rolling back and forth with the sway of the van. If he could reach it―and he was pretty sure he could―he could hit the man with the phone, slide back the door, and get away. Nick had been teaching him how to box and where to hit a bad guy if anybody ever attacked him again. Nick said it was important to be able to defend yourself, no matter how young or small you were. He said that even if Rico was just a little kid, he could take care of himself, that he’d already proved that. He taught him some karate stuff, too, but Rico wasn’t good at that yet. He sure couldn’t take down some big guy. But he could hit him in the head with that tire iron, all right. It looked heavy enough to knock him out. He had to knock him out, too, or he’d just catch him again and be mad about getting hit in the head. So that’s what he had to do: get that tire iron and knock that guy out with it. Then maybe the driver would throw on the brakes and Rico could get out the door before they could stop him. It was a pretty good plan, he had to admit.

  Still, he was a little bit afraid to try it, so he lay there some more, trembling with nerves. He was scared to hit the man really hard, but knew he had to. Nick would want him to do that and try to get away, he was pretty sure. Outside the front windshield, he could see that it was dark, so it was still night outside. Snow was coming down and slanting straight into the windshield and making the wipers slap back and forth real hard. He was pretty sure they were out in the country somewhere, still traveling fast down a dark road. There were no streetlights or buildings or houses or anything lit up that would mean that other people were around. His neck stung pretty badly where the needle had gone in, but he tried to ignore all that.

  Rico waited some more, wishing he didn’t have to hit anybody with that tire iron, but he couldn’t just lie there and do nothing. He didn’t know where the men were taking him, but he knew they probably were going to hurt him when they got there, so he had to do something. He had to get away right now, and then call Claire and Nick so they could help him. He had to get that phone back. Claire was going to be so mad at these guys. She was going to find them and put them in jail, but he had to get away from them first and let her know where he was so she could come pick him up, and fast.

  The van hit a pothole and the whole vehicle lurched violently to one side. That’s when Rico sucked it up and made his move. He rolled over onto his stomach as if he’d been flung there by the swerving van and got hold of the tire iron in his right fist. Grabbing a good, firm grip on it, he looked at the guy in the back with him. He was sitting very close now, telling the driver to quit sliding around and drive slower. Rico jumped up onto his knees, lunged toward his captor, and swung the heavy bar with both hands as hard as he could. It struck the left side of the guy’s head, but the man had seen it coming and managed to lunge sideways enough to fend off the force of the
blow. But Rico had managed to get him good enough in the temple to knock him sideways onto his back.

  When the driver heard the scuffle going on in back, he stomped the brakes, and Rico and his captor got slammed hard into the back of the front seat. The man groaned, holding his injured head with one hand, but he managed to grab hold of the back of Rico’s parka with his other one. Rico jerked away from him and scrambled to find the phone on the floor. He found it by the glow on the screen, grabbed it, and lunged toward the door.

  Rico knew what he had to do, and he didn’t hesitate for one second. He grabbed the door handle and slid the door all the way open. It hit the end of the track with a loud bang, and the driver lurched to a skidding stop. Rico held on for dear life as the van slid on the ice for a few seconds, and then he leaped out into the darkness. He landed in a big snowbank that the snowplows must have left on the side of the road, then he scrambled up over it and down into a ditch on the other side. It was covered with ice and he felt the breath knocked out of him when he hit the hard surface on his stomach. He rolled over onto his back and gasped for air. He’d hurt his knee on the snowbank. The van was still running; he could hear the motor idling. Then he heard the driver yelling―it sounded like he was coming after Rico.

  Really scared now, Rico pushed himself onto his belly and scrambled up the other side of the ditch until he could duck under some snowy bushes. An avalanche of icy snow poured down on top of him and got into the neck of his coat and into his mouth and eyes. He was so cold now that he was shivering and shaking all over. He was way out in the middle of nowhere. It was pitch black outside and super cold and deep snow covered everything around him. He could hear the little ice pellets popping on the back of his parka so he knew the snow had turned into sleet. He crawled deeper under the thick brush on his hands and knees.

  Breathless and terrified that the men would catch him, he kept stopping and looking behind him. The driver had a flashlight out now. He was shining it under the trees where Rico was, so Rico hit the ground and lay down flat and kept a death grip on the cell phone. The trees around him were close together, with lots of saplings and bushes and rocks and boulders around them, all of it icy and frozen, but there were some patches underneath the bushes where the snow hadn’t fallen through the tangled, dead vegetation. It looked like a deep, dark tunnel that he could maybe crawl through, one that might hide him and his footprints from the bad guys. He could hear them shouting back and forth to each other now. They sounded mad at each other―really mad. They were coming after him now, and moving faster than he was. He had to hurry up and get going!

  Panting, his breath pluming out in the frigid air, Rico forced himself to remain calm, just like Nick had taught him. Take a deep breath, calm down, and think about what you have to do. He halted every few minutes and took some more of those deep breaths. He was pretty sure he could hide from the two men if his tracks didn’t give him away, for a little while anyway. He had done that plenty of times on the island when he got loose and hid in the underground tunnels. And he had a phone this time. He could call Nick and Claire and they’d grab their guns and come right out there and get him. And they’d get those bad guys chasing him, too, just like last time.

  After a few minutes of rapid combat crawling, he stopped moving and listened. That’s when he heard the van start up out on the road. That shocked him a little bit. Had they given up already? Were they just leaving him out there? He smiled a little, hopeful, but scared, too. Maybe they were afraid and wanted to get away before they got caught. One of them could still be coming after him, right behind him, getting closer and closer in the cold darkness.

  Still shivering, he opened the phone. He pulled off his gloves and punched in Claire’s number. Nothing happened. His heart fell―there was no service out this far in the woods. There were no bars at the top of the screen. He started moving along again, keeping under the bushes and trying to call home every few minutes. Nothing happened. He finally stopped, sat up on his knees, and tried to think what he should do next. He had to find somewhere to get warm. He was really, really cold now, and kinda wet. Maybe he could find a house nearby. Maybe there would be people who lived there who might help him and let him use their phone. He had to keep going until he found a house; he’d just have to help himself get there until Claire and Nick could find him. And they would. He knew they would. They were like that. They always knew what to do. Both of them.

  Chapter 21

  “So how’s Claire taking all this?”

  Nick Black looked across his desk at John Booker. Booker was Black’s best friend, and his private investigator when he needed somebody he could trust. Right now, he was filling Booker in on the Hammons couple. Black wanted an in-depth background check on both husband and wife before he would even consider turning Rico over into their care. He thought they were okay, but he was going to make damn sure.

  “You know Claire, Book. She’s not saying much yet, but she doesn’t want to lose Rico any more than I do.”

  “You think these people have ulterior motives for coming for the boy?”

  “No, not really. I just want to make sure they are legitimate relatives and good people who’ll love him the way we do. I’ve got money, and some people will do lots of things to get hold of some of it. They could be here to make a deal. Like I said, I don’t think that’s the case, but we’ll have to wait and see. What I want you to find out is if they’re really who they say they are, if their story stacks up the way they laid it out for us. You need to make sure they aren’t involved in any illegal dealings or drugs or criminal activities, either now or in their past. You find anything like that, it’s a deal-breaker and they’ll never get their hands on Rico. Like I said, my gut’s telling me they’re perfectly clean. But Rico is not going off with complete strangers that I know nothing about. You need to get up to Toronto now and check out everything about them. If they’re on the up and up, then I’ll probably have no choice but to let him go back to Canada with them.”

  Booker gazed at him a moment. “Does he even want to?”

  “We haven’t really had time to discuss that with him yet. He’s been with the Hammonses most of the time since they arrived here. He ought to be home soon. Then Claire and I have got to sit down and talk to him about what is coming up the pike, what his choices are and what’s the best thing for him.”

  “You don’t look so thrilled about any of this, my friend.”

  “I’m not happy about it, but how I feel doesn’t matter in the long term. It’s what’s in Rico’s best interest that counts. It’s about what’s going to make him happy.”

  “Personally, I don’t see him wanting to ever leave here. Not with them, or anybody else. I’ve seen how much he loves you two. He’s happy with you.”

  “I hope to hell you’re right. But he loves them, too. They are his Memo and Papa, and that’s something we can’t take away from them, or him.”

  When Black’s cell vibrated, he quickly picked it up. Caller ID told him it was Buckeye Boyd, Canton County’s medical examiner. Whatever he wanted, it couldn’t be good. He was Claire’s colleague, and he’d never once called Black, not that he could remember.

  “This is Nick Black.”

  “Is Claire there with you?”

  The shaky tone rattling Buck’s voice alerted Black instantly to trouble. He’d gotten similar calls about Claire in the past, from other friends of hers, more times than he liked to remember. “No, she’s not home yet. What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know if anything’s wrong, but she was supposed to show up here to ID the victim’s body, along with Jonesy Jax and some FBI fella she’s working with. The appointment was at three o’clock this afternoon, and there’s no sign of them yet. She’s not picking up her cell, either. Nobody answered in Jonesy’s suite, I just tried, so I need to know if I should keep waiting or postpone the viewing. I’m a little worried about her, to tell you the truth. This is n
ot like her, at all.”

  Before he even finished, Black’s instinct told him something awful had happened. Claire did not miss appointments, especially official ones that entailed a victim’s positive ID. His gut clenched, and he jerked his attention to Booker.

  “What happened?” Book asked, sitting up straighter and looking concerned.

  “I’ll find her and have her call you back, Buck,” Black said. Then he clicked off. “Claire missed an appointment at the morgue hours ago. Something’s wrong. She’s in trouble. I can feel it.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe she’s just late. You know, could be she got caught up with some police emergency, something like that. Don’t buy trouble, Nick.”

  “I’ve found that it’s expedient to buy trouble where she’s concerned. Claire would never be late for something like this, not without calling Buck and cancelling it.”

  Quickly punching in Claire’s cell number, Black sat and listened to it ring. No answer for him, either, and Claire always picked up for him. It was a promise she’d made a long time ago because he worried about her so much. And now he was worried, all right―more than worried. He clicked off and phoned down to Jonesy Jax’s suite. No answer there, either.