Ulterior Motives

by Terri Blackstock

  “Television?” Doris asked, her hand immediately straying to the blonde mop piled on her head. “Why, you know, if you needed some help with that, I’ll be off work at seven. I’ve had a little experience with this sort of thing. When my friend Spud McKinley ran for mayor of Slapout, I fixed his wife’s makeup before they did their campaign ad. You remember Spud, don’t you, Jake? The kid who used to shoplift cigarettes from the corner store? Lived in the trailer park across from us? Anyway, he didn’t win, but his wife had the prettiest makeup job you’ve ever seen. If that mother looks anything like you do right now, she’s gonna need a makeup job.”

  “That’s okay, Doris,” Lynda said with a smile. “We’re not really concerned with makeup. Besides, there are two mothers. The children have the same father, but they’re half-sisters.”

  “Is that so?” Doris asked, leaning back against the counter as if settling in for some juicy gossip. “Well, that’s interesting. Are they all gonna go on TV together?”

  “Probably.”

  “Hmmm. They’ll probably sell that story to Hollywood and make one of them miniseries out of it.”

  Lynda didn’t quite know how to respond to that. “Thanks for passing out the posters, Doris.” She gave the woman a hug, and Jake followed his mother out the door. “You be careful now, Lynda. Messing around with murder ain’t no picnic.”

  She smiled. “Jake’s the one you should worry about. He’s going to fly tomorrow for the first time since the crash.”

  “You’re what?” Doris asked, spinning around to face Jake. “Son, are you out of your mind? After what happened to you, you would want to fly again? Lynda, you’re not gonna let him do this, are you?”

  Lynda laughed. “Since when have I had control over anything Jake did?”

  “Honey, you’ve got more control than you know. You just don’t use it right.”

  “Come on, Mama,” Jake said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Lynda could hear Doris chastising Jake all the way out to her car.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  It was raining outside when the doorbell rang and Larry let Lynda in. Since most of the police force was looking for the girls, Larry and Tony had decided to stay at the home all night in hopes that a ransom call would come. Jenny still slept, sedated, upstairs, and Sharon paced the house, clutching Christy’s Simba doll and praying. Anne stayed busy with Bobby, who was still fussy because of his cold, though the tormented, distracted expression she wore and the swelling of her eyes testified to the fact that Emily was never off her mind.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I might as well come on over,” Lynda said as she followed Larry into the dining room of the house, where all of their tracing equipment was set up in anticipation of the phone call. “I’ve been doing a little homework, trying to find a motive. I got some books on Marazzio’s work. I thought maybe the reproduction was a clue, somehow, and that if we could just get to the bottom of the motive, we might have some lead on who the killer and kidnapper are.”

  “Good. I was thinking about doing the same thing.”

  “Then you’ll finally admit that Ben was set up?”

  “I’m not admitting anything,” he said wearily. “It’s too soon. But while we’re sitting here waiting with no leads, we can at least get a little culture.”

  Tony came into the room and said hello to Lynda, then picked up a Marazzio book and began flipping through. “This about that artist guy?”

  “He’s not just any artist,” Lynda said. “According to what I’ve read, Marazzio’s paintings have a high price tag.”

  “How high?”

  “Millions. Three of his paintings have been stolen over the past fifteen years. Two have been recovered, and sold for millions. But this book must be outdated. At the time of its printing—three years ago—The Multitude still hadn’t been found. The book said it was worth a whopping twenty million.”

  “Get outta here,” Tony said. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s true.”

  Tony looked more seriously at the book in his hand, and flipped through, looking at the shots of his paintings. “Do you think the painting Ben found could have been the real thing?”

  “It’s possible,” Lynda said. “Though I doubt it. Dubose was probably right. It probably has been recovered since this book was printed. Shouldn’t be too hard to find out.”

  “This is ridiculous, anyway,” Tony said. “People don’t kill and kidnap over a picture slapped on canvas, do they? This has got to be about something else.” He lowered his voice and said, “There’s more here than Ben Robinson is telling. Mark my word.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Larry said.

  Sharon came to the doorway and looked in. It was clear that she had been crying, and she wore a fragile, haunted look. “Oh, Lynda, it’s you. I thought maybe it was someone with news.”

  Lynda went around the table and hugged her friend. “We’re working on it, Sharon.”

  Sharon looked down at the books on the table. “Marazzio?” She looked frustrated that they were wasting time on that. “You don’t honestly think my child was kidnapped over that picture, do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” Larry admitted. “But it’s the only unusual thing that happened before Ben was fired and Dubose was killed. I don’t know if there’s a connection, but if there is, it might help us with the kidnapping, too.”

  “Instead of reading books and waiting for the phone to ring, you should be out combing the county for the girls. It’s storming outside, and the whole night has passed without a phone call!” Her voice broke off, and she covered her face. “What if this maniac has hurt them?”

  Tony got up and urged her to sit. Pulling his chair up close beside her, he said, “We’ve got people out there looking, Sharon. No one’s going to get past our checkpoints with two little girls in the car. We’re searching every boat and every plane that leaves St. Clair, and every man driving alone is going to have his trunk searched. We’re also compiling a list of every rental car in the county with the description the witness gave. We’ll find out who rented them, and that might give us some ideas.”

  Sharon whispered, “You think he put them in the trunk? That’s horrible. Christy will be terrified. And it’s thundering. She always sleeps with me when there’s thunder.”

  “Maybe we’ll find them soon. It’ll be morning in a couple of hours, and we’ll have the advantage of daylight.”

  Lynda bent over her and stroked her hair. “Sharon, as soon as the sun comes out, Jake and Mike are going up in a plane to see if they can spot the car anywhere, or get some idea where they may be. So that means all the bases are being covered. They’ll be searching on the ground, in the water, and in the air.”

  “It’s not enough!” she cried. “It won’t be enough until they find them!”

  The telephone rang, and they all jumped.

  Ben bolted for the telephone in the kitchen, but waited and looked through the dining-room door to Tony—as he’d been instructed. Tony, who held his hand over his own phone, nodded that he was ready to begin tracing, and Ben picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you ready to give me what I want now?” the muffled, disguised voice asked.

  “Where are my children?” Ben asked, the blood draining from his face. “Where are they?”

  “I asked you a question.”

  Sharon rushed toward Ben. Anne already stood next to him, hanging on every word. “I don’t even know what you’re looking for!” he shouted.

  “The painting, you con artist. You know I’m looking for the painting!”

  “What painting?” Ben asked. “Is it . . . is it one of my paintings? Because Dubose didn’t let me leave with any of them. But if you’ll tell me which one, maybe I can get back into the gallery and get it. Please!”

  “What do you want, Ben?” the voice asked. “For me to spell it out for those cops sitting there with their tape equipment, waiting for me to state it fo
r the record?”

  Ben was silent.

  “I’m getting tired of these games,” the voice said. “Your girls are getting tired of them, too.”

  “Where are they, you scumbag? Where are my children?”

  “They’re in a damp, dark place. Picture it, Robinson. Those two beautiful little girls screaming for their daddy. And you’re the only one who can help them. All you have to do is give me what I want.”

  “I don’t have what you want!” Ben said, breaking into tears and leaning his forehead against the wall. “I don’t know what you want!”

  The phone went dead in his ear.

  Sharon swung back to Tony and Larry, who were each on another telephone, and were now barking orders.

  “Did you trace it?” she asked, her eyes wide with hope.

  “Yeah,” Tony said, putting his hand over the receiver. “He was at a pay phone on the east side of town. A unit should be there by now.”

  “He’s gone,” Larry said, shaking his head and dropping his own phone. “The booth was empty when our guy got there.”

  “Oh, no!” Sharon cried. “I don’t believe this!”

  “They’re combing the area. It’s not too late. They could still catch him.”

  They all waited as moments ticked by with agonizing slowness. Finally, the officers searching for the kidnapper called to say that they hadn’t found him.

  Tony dropped the phone back in its cradle and looked up at Sharon, Ben, Anne, and Lynda, who were all clustered in the arched doorway of the living room.

  “They lost him?” Sharon cried. “Are they looking around the area? Did they block off the neighborhood around the phone booth? Maybe he has the girls with him!”

  “They’re still searching the area,” Larry said. “But with this storm, it’s unlikely that there were any witnesses.”

  “But you’ve got to do something!”

  Tony rewound the tape of the phone call and looked up at Ben through the door. Ben was still leaning with his forehead against the wall, weeping. Anne was staring at them with a look of shock on her face.

  They played the tape again, hoping Ben would recognize the voice, but he couldn’t place it. Sharon was near the breaking point. Gritting her teeth, she turned to Ben and shoved him.

  “Tell him where it is!” she shouted through her teeth. “Give him what he wants!”

  “I don’t know what he wants!” Ben cried. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  “No more times,” she shouted. “Just give it to him!”

  “Please, Ben!” Anne threw in, and began to sob into her hands.

  He turned to her, then back to Sharon. “Do you really think that I’d put my family through this for some stupid secret?”

  “Why not?” Sharon shouted. “You’ve done it before. Once you even destroyed your family over a stupid secret!”

  “I have never intentionally hurt my family,” he said, quieter now, though his voice trembled. “I’ve always tried to do the best I could.”

  “It was the best you could do when you left your wife and children for another woman?” she screamed. “You had no regard for them then, and I don’t believe you have any regard for them now.”

  “Shut up!” Anne cried. “You don’t know how he felt! You don’t have a clue what was going on—”

  Ben broke in, raising his voice over his wife’s. “So what do you think is going on here now, Sharon? Do you think I have something that could ransom our children, but I’d rather sacrifice them than turn it over? Is that really what you think of me?”

  “Stop it!” Lynda shouted. “All of you.”

  All three of them turned to look at Lynda, sobs racking them as they glared at her.

  “I think I know what he wants,” Lynda said. “The Marazzio, Ben. I think it’s time to seriously consider that what you found may not have been a reproduction.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Christy woke with a start and shivered from the cold. The night-light must have gone out, she thought, and Mommy must have forgotten to leave on the hall light. But as those thoughts came to her, she realized she was not at home, but lying on a dirt floor in the tool shed where the man had left them.

  Emily still slept, her head resting on Christy’s shoulder. For a moment, Christy didn’t move, for fear of waking her. But as she sat staring into the darkness, feeling the cold creeping around them, despair fell over her. She began to cry quietly.

  The feeling that she would never be found, that she and Emily would never get out, panicked her, and she suddenly felt the urgency to try to get out. She gently slid out from under Emily’s weight, then helped her to lie down on the cold dirt floor. Emily curled up in the fetal position, trying to get warm, her thumb stuck in her mouth.

  Christy tried to reach the shelves to look for something to cover her with, but they were at least four feet higher than she could reach.

  Her stomach ached with hunger, and she felt shaky and weak, but she went to the door and tested it again, as if hoping it had miraculously come unlocked during the night. They were still bolted in.

  She sank down and listened to the sounds of the rain still pounding against the roof. Was Mommy out looking for her? Was Daddy? Had they called the police?

  She wiped the tears from her face and set her hand down on the dirt by the wall. It was wet there. The rain was seeping under the walls, making the dirt floors soft. An idea came to her.

  She felt around for a tool of some kind, anything she might dig with, but there was nothing. She tried using the heel of her loafer to start a hole in the dirt. It came loose, so she dug more, until she reached the softer, wetter earth underneath. Getting on her knees, she began to dig with her hands, raking away small handfuls.

  “Mommy!” Emily woke, looked around, and began to scream. “Mommy!”

  Christy grabbed her. “Emily, it’s me. Christy. We’re here, remember? In this place?”

  Emily’s wailing just got worse. “I want my mommy! Moooommmy!”

  “She can’t hear you,” Christy said sullenly. “But I think I’ve found a way out. You have to help me. Now stop crying and look.”

  Emily hiccuped her sobs, but grew quieter.

  “Look,” Christy said, going back to the hole she’d been digging. “Help me dig under the wall, and we can get out.”

  “Dig with what?” Emily asked.

  “Our hands,” Christy told her.

  Emily looked down at her hands. “I don’t want to.”

  “Do you want to be here when that man comes back?” Christy asked her. “Or do you want to get out so we can go get help and call home?”

  “Get out,” Emily whimpered.

  “Then help me.”

  Slowly, Emily moved over to the hole and began to help halfheartedly.

  “If we dig deep enough, and get under the wall, we can run real fast into the woods.”

  “I’m scared of the woods,” Emily said. “It has wolves and bobcats and alligators.”

  Christy hadn’t thought of that. “Well . . . maybe we’ll find a house. Maybe some nice grandma lives there, and she can give us some food. Maybe she has a phone.”

  Emily liked that idea better. “Okay, but I hope she has a heater. It’s cold in here.”

  Together, they began to dig with their fingers, desperately trying to make a way to escape.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Sharon didn’t know what to do with herself, so she set about to do something, anything, for Christy. First, she washed all her clothes. Then she pulled out a ready-made roll of dough and began to make cookies. The smell that filled the house made her feel that her child would be home by the time they were done.

  But when she took them out of the oven, the children were still just as lost as they’d been before.

  The house was deathly quiet, though she knew the two police officers sat in her dining room waiting for the phone to ring again. Larry and Tony had taken Ben to the gallery to look, once again, for the mystery paintin
g, and two officers she’d never met were taking their place here while they were gone. The fact that they played a hand of cards in the dining room riled her, for she couldn’t stand the thought that they were wasting time when they could be looking for the girls. It didn’t matter that other cops—dozens of them—were combing the town for them.

  She turned off the oven. Looking around at the clean kitchen, she realized there was nothing more to do. This busyness was crazy, anyway. It wasn’t helping to give her any more peace.

  She wandered upstairs to Jenny’s room and checked on her. Heavily sedated, Jenny was sleeping soundly. Sharon touched her back and felt her rhythmic breathing. At least one of her children was safe. But what if something happened to Christy? Jenny would always blame herself. Her guilt over the kidnapping was overwhelming her already.

  Feeling the weight of a couple of tons on her shoulders, Sharon adjusted Jenny’s covers and left her bedroom. Slowly, she walked up the hall to Christy’s room, trying to recover the feeling that her child was in there, tucked into bed, sleeping soundly. But as she neared the doorway, she was hit with the reality that her child was out in the cold, wet morning someplace, terrified and confused.

  She burst into tears as she reached the doorway.

  Anne sat there in the rocking chair in Christy’s room, her knees hugged to her chest. For a moment the only sound was that of the rain pelting against the windows.

  “Oh,” Sharon said. “I didn’t know you were in here.” Anne started to get up, but Sharon stopped her. “It’s okay. Stay.”

  Anne hugged her knees again, and Sharon could see that the misery on the woman’s face reflected her own. “Where are they?” Anne asked on a whisper.

  Sharon went into the room and sat down on the bed. She picked up one of the dolls propped against the pillow, and smoothed out its hair. “At least they’re together.”

  “Yeah,” Anne said. “I was just thinking that. Christy’s not that much older than Emily, but she takes care of her. If either of them was alone . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she looked out the window again.