Another Man's Son

by Glenys O'Connell

  Officer Jesse Rigg was all business when he came into Ben’s office, and Ben instantly liked the young man.

  “I took Mrs. Morgan’s statement, sir. I’ve just got it printed up for her to sign, but I understand she didn’t wait around?” He placed a couple of neatly typed pages on the desk in front of Ben.

  “No, she didn’t. I expect she went home to change her clothes and rest up,” Ben said, hoping against hope this was the truth. But that straw was snatched away from him when the intercom buzzed.

  “According to the housekeeper, Mrs. Morgan did go home, briefly, and changed her clothes,” Tess’s disembodied voice told him. “But then she went right back out again without saying anything about where she was going. On the off chance she might have gone to see her father, I asked one of the patrol guys to call in at Fitz’s cottage. There was no sign of her and Fitz said he hadn’t seen her since yesterday. “

  “Good thinking, Tess. I want to know immediately if anyone spots her. “

  Jesse cleared his throat. “Tess’s not a total airhead, if you don’t mind my saying so, Sir. It’s just she’s so used to small town ways. Everything is grist for the gossip mill, and everyone thinks they have a right to know everything. “

  Ben regarded the younger man closely. He knew Tess and Jesse were an item and part of him admired the officer’s loyalty. The other part was more than a little irritated. “This is a major crime, not something for the coffee morning debate. Tess committed a serious breach of the rules in mentioning names over the open airwaves. It might well have cost Bertie Hanover his life.”

  Jesse’s face coloured and he looked down at his feet. “Yes, sir.”

  “So, maybe you can make some impression on Tess that will persuade her to keep her mouth shut. Damned if anything I’ve said so far has gotten through to her.”

  Jesse’s mouth twitched. “Oh, I think it’s pretty fair to say you’ve got her scared good right now…Sir.”

  Ben smiled. It was a relief to have a little lightness in his thoughts, but the feeling didn’t last. “Did Mrs. Morgan say anything at all that might cast some light on the Hanover killing?”

  “No, sir. She was pretty shook up, understandably. She did say she had gone to see him because she had the idea he might be aiding her husband in hiding their son. Apparently, Hanover made some pretty lecherous comments to her, not for the first time, it seems.”

  Ben grunted. “If every guy who made lecherous comments to a pretty woman was shot, there’d probably not be many of us left.”

  Jesse smiled and continued, “The difference this time was Hanover didn’t seem to be afraid her husband would discipline him for treating her badly. She said she was torn between insisting on checking out Hanover’s house to be sure he wasn’t hiding the kid there and fear of actually being alone inside the house with him. She was just debating what to do when the shot came out of nowhere. She says she didn’t see anyone, other than you, and didn’t have the impression from Hanover that he thought he was in danger of being attacked.”

  “Good work. It sounds like you asked all the right questions.” Jesse stood even straighter at his superior officer’s praise. “Just one question, did Mrs. Morgan think she might have been the intended target?”

  Jesse looked thoughtful. “I don’t think so, sir. She did look shocked when I asked the question; in fact, she went as white as a ghost and looked about to faint at the notion. But she denied it was possible, said she couldn’t think of anyone who’d want to kill her.”

  “Okay, then you’d better get out on the streets again. I particularly want Mrs. Morgan brought back here and Alfred Morris found and brought in for questioning—gently, we don’t know that he’s done anything. Both the Morgans and their thugs need to be watched carefully. There’s every indication of organized crime activity here, and on top of that, we still have to find the missing Morgan boy.”

  “All in a day’s work, eh?” Jesse smiled, and Ben grinned back.

  “Yeah, all in a day’s work. That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”

  Jesse chuckled, but when he reached the office door, he turned back to Ben, a puzzled expression on his handsome young face. “Sir, did you get my report about stopping a car early yesterday morning to tell a guy to get a seatbelt on his kid?”

  Ben looked up, memory tickling the back of his mind. Suddenly, he had the thought that he’d missed a connection he should have made. Excitement began to clench in his belly.

  “Well, it didn’t occur to me until just now…it was still dark when I stopped the car, and the driver was an elderly man who said the kid was his nephew. The boy was having a tantrum. He was trying to settle him which accounted for the erratic driving. By the time I got up to the car, the kid was sitting quietly, looked to be half asleep, so I didn’t make a big deal of it.”

  Ben guessed what was coming next. “But the man was Alfred Morris?”

  ****

  Ben activated the lights on the sheriff’s vehicle and raced through the desultory suppertime traffic along the waterfront in Lobster Cove. He cursed when he hit a snarl-up caused by a truck carrying a prefabricated home. The wide load almost blocked the highway and he wasted minutes as he tried to overtake the clumsy vehicle, its driver trying stoically to move as far over to the side of the road as he could.

  As it was, he arrived at the grim brick and stone building that housed Morgan Quality Shoe Company and administrative offices to find Kathryn’s car empty in the parking lot.

  There was only one other vehicle there, a shabby dark sedan, once an expensive car but now long past its scrapyard date. He called in the plate number and was told moments later the vehicle was registered to Alfred Morris.

  Kathryn was alone in that silent factory with a man who might just be a desperate kidnapper with nothing left to lose.

  Old-fashioned wood and glass doors guarded the entrance. The brass kick plate and handles looked as if they’d not seen polish in many years. He pressed one hand against the battered wood and to his surprise, the door swung open under his touch. He strode forward into an empty reception area, furnished with shabby steel and plastic, circa 1960s, and painted in a depressing shade of gray that might once have been white.

  No-one challenged him and no-one answered his call of “Police! Anyone here, please show yourself!” He strode on unchallenged down a corridor following directions from a small brass sign that said Accounts over an arrow helpfully pointing the way.

  The corridor was only dimly lit, leading to a large room that echoed in near darkness. In the gloom he could see this was what was left of the Morgan Quality Shoes production line, barely a dozen work stations still operative, the rest of the machinery and belts covered in dust and reeking of stale oil. Three sagging panniers on wheels held a selection of out-of-style leather shoes in assorted sizes. No wonder the company was in trouble if this was the best they could produce in these days of high-end brand names.

  A swishing sound came from behind him. He whirled around, hand on the butt of the service weapon at his hip, to see another person entering the factory floor. He slipped the strap off his holster and moved silently forward, the dim shadows of the room absorbing his movement.

  The little light from the corridor glowed on a slight figure leaning against the doorframe, fumbling with something…a gun?

  Ben launched himself forward, taking the intruder by surprise and pinning him against the wall. It took only seconds for his body to register his mistake and respond to the womanly softness of his prisoner, for his nostrils to identify the light floral perfume she wore.

  “Dammit, Kathryn, what the hell are you doing here, wandering around in the dark?”

  “I suppose I could ask you the same question, Sheriff Asher, particularly as my husband owns this factory, so I guess I’ve more right to be here than you.” Her lips were just below his left ear and her soft, sweet breath stirred him even as he tried to back away. Desire, lust, need…whatever it was, the emotion ripped through him like a fi
restorm whipping the breath from his chest and setting his body to hard fire. Thought dissolved as he dragged her even closer to him, capturing her lips with a savage need to imprint his mark on her as his body once had stamped her as his own.

  Kathryn struggled against him, but Ben had always stirred a wanton need in her and with a soft mewling sound she abandoned her struggles and her arms slipped around his hard chest. Her fingers splayed across the corded muscles of his back, she hugged him closer to her as his tongue dipped into her mouth and was welcomed.

  He swung her around, walking her backward until her bottom rested against one of the worktables, his mouth never leaving hers. He kissed her deeply, revelling in her response, releasing her lips to drop tiny kisses on her cheeks and down the smooth length of her neck. It took all his resolve to stop, to pull away from her when his entire being was demanding he claim her for his own. Kathryn gave a little sob of need, groaned his name. “I can’t be responsible for what happens next if we don’t stop,” he murmured softly against the lavender scent of her hair.

  She dragged in a breath, planted a sweet kiss on his cheek, and leaned back away to look up into his eyes.

  “I have missed you so much, Ben. I need you to know I was Ket’s wife in name only. I married him to give our child a home and a future.”

  Ben felt the passion drain from his body. “If that’s so, why would Ket Morgan, heir to the Morgan Empire and rumoured playboy, choose a loveless marriage?”

  Kathryn’s cheeks bloomed pink and she was grateful for the dim light that hid her embarrassment. “Ket’s father was pressing him for a grandson, an heir. Nothing was ever said, but I think he has a heart problem and maybe the sense of his own mortality was making him more insistent. I hadn’t heard from you since you’d left, and I felt so alone. I…I told Ket the ultrasound scan showed I was carrying a boy, and that’s when he suggested marriage would be a solution for us both.

  “You see, Ket’s unlikely to ever have children unless he adopts. He and Andrew Shepherd, well, they’ve been an item for years, but he didn’t dare tell his father. That’s why he told Andrew to take the letters you wrote. He didn’t want his father to guess there was anything wrong or odd about our marriage.”

  Ben closed his eyes. “I couldn’t write to you often at first. It was discouraged during training and then I shipped overseas immediately. Our operations were…covert. I came back to Lobster Cover to find you. I hadn’t heard anything from you and I was afraid something had happened.”

  “Something had happened,” Kathryn placed her hand on his arm. “You came back to find me married.”

  “Not just married, but at the church on Ket Morgan’s arm, celebrating the baptism of your child.”

  She winced at the remembered pain in Ben’s voice. How he must have hurt to see her with Ket and to not know why she taken that action. “Oh, Ben, we’ve lost so many years.”

  His silence made her bite her lip with anxiety until he placed a finger under her chin and, raising her face to his, kissed her tears away.

  “There’s something you need to know, Kathryn, but you must swear not to repeat this.” He felt her nod against his chest. “I may be the acting sheriff, but that’s because of a ruse we cooked up with Sheriff Lawton.”

  “We?”

  “The FBI. I’m an agent working in forensic accounting and organized crime.”

  Kathryn was silent. All she could think was that when all this was over, Ben would be leaving. Back to his real life, wherever that was.

  Shuffling sounds outside in the corridor leading from the workroom suddenly snagged Ben’s attention. Kathryn heard it at the same time, exerting a gentle and reluctant pressure against his chest to push him away from her.

  “There’s someone here,” she whispered frantically in his ear. His hands grasped the sides of her face, imprinting a last deep kiss on her mouth, before shielding her with his body as he turned toward the doors. He took several deep breaths to pull himself under control, straightening his clothes. With the kind of people they were dealing with, such distraction could leave them both dead.

  Then he stepped forward, calling out, “Who’s there? This is Sheriff Ben Asher of the Lobster Cove Police Department. Show yourself.”

  There was a sudden frozen silence outside in the corridor, a breathing pause, then scuffling footsteps as someone rushed away down the corridor. Cursing, Ben tore through the doors, chasing the stooped figure only yards ahead.

  The man turned, his face a frantic mask of fear as he threw the brown paper bag he’d been carrying at Ben’s face. Ben ducked and swerved as hamburger and French fries flew from the bag to land with a greasy plop on the floor. Kathryn, tearing along behind him, slipped in the mess and hit the ground with a sharp cry.

  He glanced behind, saw her struggling to her feet, and resumed the chase through into the reception area and out into the parking lot.

  Kathryn was right behind him again, her breathing heavy from the exertion and the adrenalin pumping through her body.

  “Stop! Police!” Ben shouted as the fleeing figure ran toward the old sedan parked close to her vehicle.

  “That’s Alfred Morris!” Kathryn cried. Ben launched himself forward as the panicked man paused to pull car keys from his pocket.

  The dull glow of the single security light glanced off the face of the fugitive. It gave his skin a sickly-yellow pallor but didn’t hide the terror that bloomed there. A terror that deepened as a black SUV prowled out of the darkest shadows of the lot where it had lurked unnoticed until now.

  “Stop! Police!” Ben shouted again. The SUV continued to approach as Morris pushed the sheriff away, his flailing hand trying to grab the driver’s door of his own car.

  Ben launched himself forward as the rear door of the SUV opened and arms reached out to grab a struggling Morris and drag him inside.

  Ben repeated his order to stop, his weapon now in his hand. He pointed at the other car, but before he could fire off a shot, the vehicle roared toward them. He grabbed Kathryn and shouldered her out of its path, both of them landing hard on the rough surface as a bullet whizzed by them and lodged in the brick above their heads, sending up a cloud of red dust.

  Ben managed to fire off a couple of shots at the big car’s tires as the vehicle sped past them, contemptuously spurting gravel from its tires as it reached the road and took off with a quiet roar of its powerful engine.

  Kathryn was on her feet and running toward her own car as Ben holstered his weapon. “That was Ket’s car. I’ll bet they’re taking him to the Morgan place,” she shouted over her shoulder as she struggled with her car keys.

  Ben gripped her arm. “Stay out of this Kathryn! You saw what happened. These people are prepared to kill, and for some reason, you’re no longer on the protected list. Those guys didn’t care which of us they hit just then.”

  She turned, her voice strong as she answered: “How can you tell me to stay out of this? Until I find my son…our son, I’ll do whatever I have to do. And for the record, Ket’s just being honest now. He doesn’t care whether I live or die, and never did.”

  She watched Ben’s reaction and knew his mind must be going a million miles a minute but she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her. “I’ve got to get back to the Morgan house. That was a Morgan company car which means Ket’s into this up to his neck! I’m going to make him, or Alfred, tell me where Alex is.”

  “Okay, but we’re taking my car...”

  “No, driving up in the police cruiser will tip them off before we even get to the door. We’ll go in my car and just maybe they’ll think it’s me being stupid enough to go back to the house. That could help us catch them off guard.”

  Kathryn was through waiting for him to make up his mind, getting in her car and starting the engine. She began backing out of her parking spot as he slammed the car door and settled into the passenger seat.

  ****

  Cut off from the outside world, alone in the dank basement room, Alex lay quietly on
the dirty, hard bed. He was exhausted and hungry. The man hadn’t been around in a while. He was pretty sure it was way past time for the man to bring some food, although it had gotten pretty lax recently. His tummy growled and hurt with hunger and with fear. The man was getting angrier and angrier. He’d smashed the glass this morning, and afterward had spent a long time pacing and muttering and shouting outside the door to Alex’s cell.

  Alex shivered. He had the feeling it wouldn’t be long before the man wanted to break something more than a cheap glass and he didn’t want to be around when that happened. He sucked on his raw, bloody fingers, wrapped another part of the tattered blanket around his hand, and began sawing away with the shard of glass at the last threads of the nylon rope.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Well, son, you’ve sure made a mess of everything as usual. I’m getting tired of having to clean up after you.”

  Ket Junior had just walked into his father’s office and the uneasy feeling he’d had all day suddenly swallowed him whole as he saw a white-faced Alfred Morris slumped in a chair in front of his father’s desk.

  Even so, he found it easy to paste an innocent look on his face. After all, he really didn’t have a clue what Alfred had done to spark his father’s wrath. “What’s going on, Father? What’s the bookkeeper doing here?”

  Morgan Senior snorted. “Alfred here says he was just following your orders when he kidnapped my grandson.”

  Ket gaped. “What the fuck is he talking about? I had nothing to do with this! The bastard phoned me and asked for $5 million in exchange for the boy.”

  Morgan’s attention swung back to Alfred, who cowered even further his chair. “Is that true? You tried to barter my grandson’s life for cash?”

  The little man suddenly drew on a hidden well of courage. “Yes…yes, it is. That ransom was money you owed me. Money you stole from the employees’ pension fund.