A Pursued Heart

by Elaine Manders

  “I’m sorry, but I have an appointment in fifteen minutes and I’m getting ready.”

  “I understand it’s inconvenient, but I wouldn’t take up more than a minute of your time.”

  “Hold on while I check.” She dialed Maintenance. “Is this Tad Smalley?”

  “Yes, how can I help you?”

  “Mr. Gammon is here—says he’s your brother and you told him about my decorators.”

  “That’s right. I remember how much you liked how they did your apartment.”

  “Just checking. Thank you.”

  She opened the door. Gammon nodded with a friendly smile. He wore a turtleneck and a knitted hat. “Is it that cold outside?” She stood back for him to enter.

  He laughed, removing the hat. “It is pretty chilly. As I said, I won’t be but a minute.” He swiveled his head in a sweeping gaze. “I’ll start with the living area. I love the open concept.”

  “Yeah, I do, too. They called the decorating style shabby chic. Most of the apartments are done in modern or industrial loft, but I found those cold for my taste.”

  “I’m not fond of that, either.” He strode around the island.

  Rebecca turned around to the wall of cabinets. The only thing cluttering the shiny granite countertop was a peach, left over from a cobbler Darcy had made. It probably came from Florida or South America, the Georgia peach season being well past. Darcy said imported peaches weren’t good for anything but cobblers.

  Rebecca dropped the peach in her pocket. She’d give it to Ben to take to Jamie. “I would offer you some refreshments, Mr. Gammon, but my boyfriend will be here to pick me up in a little bit.” No harm in reminding him. She observed her reflection in the microwave’s glass door.

  “I’m afraid not, Ms. Atkins. You’re coming with me.”

  “What?” She swirled around and recoiled at the Glock 38 pointed at her. “What are you doing?”

  “Just getting rid of an obstacle. Trouble is, I haven’t worked out the fine details yet, so I’m taking you to my house for holding.”

  Rebecca had once lost control of her car going around a curve. A strange calm came over her then—supernatural really—as the vehicle wove from one side of the two-lane road to the other. When the speed dropped, she regained control just in time to avoid an eighteen-wheeler coming in the opposite direction.

  That same calm draped its arms around her now. “Why?”

  “When my good friend, Lyle Moran told me how inferior you were for the chief of research position—remember, the position you stole from me—I decided I’d had enough of political correctness taking what’s rightly mine. Then he told me how you convinced Dr. Breckenridge to choose you—” His laugh belied the sneer on his face. “I knew the only way to correct the situation would be to simply rid the world of women like you.”

  He was insane as well as pure evil. “Could I go to the bathroom first? I feel sick. You don’t want me to mess up your car.”

  “All right, but don’t try anything or try to leave a message. I inspected every inch of your bathroom when I left the spiders in there.”

  It took all her effort to turn her back on that gun as she moved quickly to the bathroom.

  “And hurry up. If your boyfriend gets here before we leave, I’ll have to kill him.”

  She left the door cracked so he’d know she hadn’t locked it—and so he could hear her retching sounds.

  Frantically looking for a weapon, she turned on the water. Nothing sharper than a pair of tweezers appeared. She turned the water off and pretended to retch again.

  She could write a note with the eyebrow pencil, but there was nothing to write on. Dropping a washcloth in the sink she turned the water back on and shoved the tweezers in her pocket. Her hand came in contact with the peach.

  Shutting off the water, she wrung the washcloth out and sat on the toilet, peach and tweezers in hands, and considered what to carve into the flesh of the peach.

  The word help was useless. Anyone finding her missing would know she needed help. No—Gammon’s name. Better still, his address. He said he was taking her to his house. And she knew he lived on Peachtree Street. She remembered it from searching his personnel data.

  She searched the recesses of her brain for the address. In school, she’d had a photographic memory. Squeezing her eyes shut, she let the question float in her mind. Nine-four-something. A three-digit number for sure. She was pretty sure the last number was a seven.

  As if of their own accord, her hand used the sharp edge of a tweezer to carve the numbers, then the P and the E. As she started the A, the door burst open. Fortunately, the toilet was almost hidden from the entrance, giving her enough time to drop the peach and tweezers in her pocket.

  She jerked the wet washcloth up as if just removing it from her face.

  “What are you doing? Get out of there. We’re leaving.”

  She slid by him and his gun. He glanced back in the bathroom as if making sure she hadn’t scrawled a message.

  “Where are your car keys?”

  “In my handbag.” The bag sat on the corner counter, and she started for it.

  “Stay. I’ll get it.” Not taking his glare off her, he reached his hand into her bag and scrounged until he found the keyring and pulled it out. He threw them to her. “You’ll be driving.”

  “You’re taking my car?” That hadn’t occurred to her. What if Ben thought she’d gone somewhere?

  “I took the Marta here. We can hardly leave that way.” He pulled the sweater’s collar up over his mouth and the hat low on his brow, then gestured with the gun for her to go to the door.

  He followed close behind and reached around her to open the door. In that moment when his head was turned to the door, she grabbed the peach and tossed it behind her.

  She prayed it would land in a place clearly visible to the first person entering the apartment. And that Gammon wouldn’t look back.

  Chapter 16

  He delivers and rescues, and He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth Who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions. -Daniel 6:27

  I have to believe the same One Who rescued Daniel from the lions’ den can rescue my love. -Ben Lucas

  While Ben negotiated the traffic from Tom’s house, the detective examined his notes. He would be probing Rebecca’s work associates tonight, and Ben wasn’t surprised when Tom asked, “Rebecca said some of the people at work were hostile when she first arrived at Bay, but were coming around. Did you know her when she first took the position?”

  “No. Even though we work in the same building, I met her at church. She’s the Singles Sunday School director. In any event, she’d only been at Bay in the chief of research position about a month. She told you about the guy who held that position before her.”

  “Lyle Moran. I’ve compiled a profile of all the suspects. Moran doesn’t fit the profile of a guy who goes postal.”

  “What?”

  “Back in the nineteen-eighties a postal employee shot and killed fourteen fellow workers. From that incident we get the term ‘going postal’ to describe workplace rage.”

  “I know what ‘going postal’ means. Why wouldn’t he fit? He had to blame Rebecca for taking his job. He already had a low opinion of women in general, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t think so. I interviewed his wife. She didn’t come across as a dominated woman. Besides, she said Moran is happier in his new position. On top of that, he was treated well by the company—given another job and allowed to retain his salary.”

  “What about the ex-boyfriend, Jason?”

  “Jason Jackson. He’s enough of an egotist to fit the profile of an ex who won’t accept rejection. But he’s more the playboy than stalker. I still have him on my radar, though.”

  His phone fitted on his dash rang and Rebecca’s name flashed. “Hello, honey. We’re on our way but the traffic’s heavy.”

  “Take me off speaker.” Rebecca’s voice was clipped. Tense.

  He did
as she asked and shoved the earbud connected to the phone in his right ear. “What’s up?”

  “I think I have a stomach virus or something like that. I’m not going to be able to go out to dinner. Sorry. Please ask Tom for a raincheck.”

  “Is there anything I can get you?”

  “No, Darcy’s coming. I’ll be all right in the morning. Tell Jamie I love him. I’ll call you when I get to work.”

  “Yeah, sure. If you’re able to get to work. I’ll stop by in the morning to check. Both Jamie and I love you.”

  A long pause followed. “Okay, that’ll be fine. See you then. Don’t worry about me. Good-bye.”

  “What was that all about?” Tom asked.

  Ben told him. “I don’t like the way she sounded. If you don’t mind, I want to swing by her apartment before we eat.”

  “Good idea.”

  Ben pulled into the parking garage and found the two slots assigned to Rebecca’s apartment.

  Both were empty. He gave Tom a started glance. “Her car’s missing.”

  “You said she called saying she was sick. Maybe she had to go to the ER.”

  That thought didn’t do much to slow Ben’s racing pulse as he called Rebecca’s number, leaving it on speaker. It rang ten times.

  “We are sorry. That number has been disconnected.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Tom said. “Sometimes that message comes on when the battery runs down.”

  Ben opened the car door. “I’m going up.”

  “Right behind you.”

  The crowded elevator seemed to take forever to reach the seventeenth floor, stopping on every floor. Ben and Tom were the only occupants when the doors opened at the seventeenth.

  They jogged down the hall. At Rebecca’s door, Ben pounded with his fist while Tom rang the doorbell. “Rebecca, open up,” Ben shouted loud enough for the neighboring residents to hear.

  Tom reached around him and grabbed the doorknob. It turned. He pushed it open, and Ben would have plowed after him, but Tom held him back. “Better let just me go in. The police won’t want anything disturbed. Why don’t you go down and get Darcy? She might know something.”

  “I’ll call her.” Ben wasn’t budging from this place. Likely Tom didn’t want him to go in because he hoped to save his friend from finding Rebecca’s bloody, lifeless body.

  Darcy hadn’t heard from Rebecca all day. She knew nothing about her being sick. By the time Darcy rang off, Tom came back out and closed the door behind him. “No one in there now. Nothing looks disturbed.” He held something in his hand.

  “What’s that?”

  Tom showed him.

  A peach? “This was lying on the floor, the only thing out of place. I called the police.”

  “I thought you said the police wouldn’t want anything disturbed.”

  “This may be a clue they’d ignore.” He turned it around. “Someone carved these numbers and letters on it. Was Rebecca in the habit of doodling on her fruit?”

  Ben grabbed the peach. “Of course not. Looks like nine-four-seven-P-E-I. What does it mean?”

  The sound of running feet had both of them turning in that direction. Darcy came to a breathless halt. “What’s happened? Where is Rebecca?”

  “Looks like she may have been abducted. Do you know anything about this peach?” Ben shoved it at her.

  She looked from one man to the other. “It looks like one of the peaches I used to make peach cobbler the other night. What of it?”

  “Do you have any idea why Rebecca might have carved these particular numbers and letters on it?”

  Darcy squinted, staring at the peach. “Has she ever done anything like that before? Has she ever mentioned writing messages on fruit?” Tom asked.

  “No, not that I know of.” Darcy’s brows suddenly shot up and her jaw dropped. “Oh, yes. We were watching old movies one night last week. We have a standing movie night on Thursdays. I was working on my wedding list so I wasn’t paying much attention, but Rebecca was really into it. Some old movie about a woman who was kidnapped and scratched a note on her watch and put it around a cat’s neck. They found the crooks by following the cat. I remember Rebecca remarking how clever that was. I agreed it was original.”

  “I remember that movie,” Tom said. “Some teen flick. The surfer kids got involved when the FBI discounted their theory.”

  “How does that help us here? We don’t have a cat to follow.”

  “We’ll have to google every street in Atlanta that begins with PEI.” Tom said it like anyone would know that. “And maybe the police will help us. They can check the security cameras and put out an APB on Rebecca’s car.”

  “If they ever get here.” Ben held the peach up to eye level, trying to discern if he’d overlooked anything. “Wait. I know the street. Peachtree. This third letter isn’t an I. See how it’s slanted. It’s one side of an A. She must have gotten interrupted and dropped it to the floor.”

  Tom nodded and Darcy said, “It’s possible.”

  “Let’s go. Darcy can wait for the police and tell them what happened. While I’m driving you can check your profiles and see if anyone lives at this address.”

  “Do you know how many streets there are in Atlanta that have Peach in the name?”

  “How many?”

  “Seventy-one.”

  “Atlanta is proud of their Peachtree Street, I guess,” Darcy said.

  Tension had the nerves in Ben’s temples throbbing. “We’ll search all seventy-one then. Seconds count after an abduction. You know the longer it takes to find someone taken, the less chance of finding them alive. You check the details while I drive.”

  “Darcy, lock up here and wait for the police down stairs. Call and let us know how things are going.” Tom turned to Ben. “Let’s roll.”

  It took Ben half an hour of grueling traffic before Tom indicated the first turn. “While you look for the address, I’ll be checking the addresses of our suspects,” he said. “Oh, by the way, be on the look-out for Rebecca’s car.” Tom had already called his office and had them checking the address of every employee at Bay Phar. They were to call him back if they found any with a Peachtree Street address.

  Ben itched to tear down the open road, but the thirty-mile-an-hour limit held him back. He couldn’t afford to be stopped by a traffic cop. Besides, they had to check every square inch, something that became increasingly hard as full dark fell. Some of the streets didn’t have street lights.

  He kept his high-beams on, much to the annoyance of oncoming traffic.

  The phone rang. Tom’s office. He grabbed it out of its holder as fast as a six-gun out of the holster. All Ben could hear was, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Got it.” He hung up.

  “Francine Eagleton, Lenard Samms, and Derek Gammon. You remember Rebecca mentioning any of those names?”

  “No. Call Darcy.”

  Tom put the phone back on speaker, and Darcy’s southern drawl came through, “Hello.”

  “Are the police still there?”

  “Yes. I told them what you said, and they’re still up there. They wouldn’t let me in, so I’ve been checking with the security guy. He showed me the camera and it caught the guy taking Rebecca all right, but he had a turtleneck pulled up and a knit hat pulled down so you couldn’t tell anything.”

  “Right. I’m going to give you three names. Tell me if you recall hearing Rebecca mention any one of them. Francine Eagleton?”

  A long pause before Darcy said, “No, and I think that’s a name I would have remembered.”

  “Lenard Samms?”

  “No, that doesn’t ring a bell at all, and I would have remembered since I’m engaged to a Sam.”

  “Derek Gammon?”

  Another long pause. “That one sounds familiar. Yes, I think she’s mentioned it, but I probably wasn’t paying attention, but I think he was somebody from where she works.”

  “When the police come down, tell them to send reinforcements to Gammon’s address.” Tom
referred to his notes, then gave her the address.

  “That’s a different number than on the peach,” Ben said.

  “She was off by one digit. Turn around. It’s five streets back.”

  Ben made a U-turn right in the middle of the street and, regardless of traffic cops, turned the emergency lights on and sped up.

  He took a left into a quiet, hilly, affluent neighborhood of mostly two-story brick colonials with walk-out basements. Ben clenched the steering wheel, ready for anything and praying harder than he ever had in his life.

  “Cut the lights,” Tom said. “Park on the street on the left side. Leave the cops plenty of room.”

  And so they wouldn’t be noticed by the house’s occupants. Lights shone in windows on both floors.

  “Here.” Tom shoved a handgun at him. “And stay behind me.” They got out and quietly shut the doors behind them.

  Crouching down, they scampered along the edge of the yard, avoiding the outside lights and, hopefully, the security systems. Ben grabbed Tom’s shoulder. “Look.” His raspy whisper barely disturbed the silence. “Rebecca’s car.”

  Her navy sedan, hidden in the brush between an outbuilding and the neighbor’s property. Tom nodded. “Let’s go to the front door, just follow my lead. Keep your weapon in your pocket but with your hand on it. We don’t know who’s in there with Gammon.”

  Both men stood and walked with purpose toward the house. Ben hoped they could take Gammon before the police got here. If not, he might barricade himself with Rebecca in there.

  Tom rang the doorbell. Once. Twice. It wasn’t yet nine. Surely the people hadn’t gone to bed yet—not with all the lights on. On the third try, the door opened a slit. “Yes, who is it?”

  “I’m a neighbor from down the street, Charles Dawson. My car overheated. It’s an older model.” He laughed. “I can’t get ahold of my wife, and I was hoping you could give me some water. That would cool it enough for me to get home.”

  Ben prayed Gammon would buy the lie as the seconds ticked off.

  The door widened. “Of course, come in.”

  They stepped into a spacious living, dining, kitchen area with no sign of another occupant. “This is my friend, Dan Jordan. We’ve been on a hunting trip in my old jeep.”