Special Forces Father

by Mallory Kane

  It was eight-thirty before Kate came out of the house and locked the door. She didn’t pay any attention to the car with the real estate sign on its side, parked a few houses away from hers. She backed out of her driveway and drove off. The kidnapper pulled away from the curb and followed her.

  Travis followed the green sedan at a safe distance. He expected Kate to drive to her office, but she didn’t. Instead, she led them to a bank and parked in its parking lot. Again, the green sedan parked half a block away and Travis drove on past and turned at the next light. He pulled into a small parking lot and quickly changed the magnetic sign from City of New Orleans to Upton Upholstery—Uptown Style for 15 Years. He slipped out of the coverall, took off the Saints cap but left his sunglasses on, then made the block and parked at a fast-food restaurant across the street from the bank. He walked into the restaurant and bought a burger and a soft drink and went back to the van to eat while he waited.

  He knew what Kate was doing and he wasn’t happy about it. He’d done what he could to keep her from having to deal directly with the kidnapper, at the very least trying to be there when he called.

  He couldn’t believe she had enough money to come close to tempting the kidnapper away from Travis’s wealthy family. Even on a psychiatrist’s earnings, there was little chance she could scrape up a decent fraction of what the kidnapper might demand from the Delanceys. What frightened him the most, though, was that the kidnapper would decide that two birds were better than one and he’d kidnap Kate, as well.

  And he knew that for all his training and all his carefully honed restraint, he would kill the man if he hurt Kate or their son.

  Kate was inside the bank for over two hours. Travis had moved from the fast-food parking lot to a side street a couple blocks away from the kidnapper where he couldn’t see the bank’s parking lot. When the kidnapper pulled away from the curb, Travis followed him. As soon as they came to a straightaway, he saw Kate’s car in front of the green sedan. She went directly from the bank to a credit union, where she only spent about forty-five minutes. Then she went directly to her office, oblivious to the two vehicles following her.

  Once she walked inside her office building, the kidnapper, who’d been idling at the curb half a block away, pulled into the street and headed away. Travis started the van and followed him. He wasn’t sure if following the kidnapper was the best idea, especially in a decade-old minivan, but he couldn’t pass up the chance that the kidnapper might lead him to where he was keeping Max.

  The kidnapper got on Interstate 10 and took the Airline Highway exit. He was heading to his hideout. Travis was sure of it. Now he had a decision to make. He was going to follow the man and he would find out where he was keeping Max. But what was he going to do then?

  He knew how to move through deep forest or open desert nearly undetectably. With the proper equipment, he could pick locks and cut window glass without making a sound. But he held little hope that those skills would help him. Even if he could sneak into the place where they were holding Max, even if he could neutralize the kidnapper and his partner, how would he approach his son? To Max, he would be nothing more than another stranger.

  Suddenly, the green sedan sped up, darting from one lane to another, avoiding cars. Travis’s pulse sped up. The kidnapper had spotted him. He gunned the van’s engine, but there was a dismaying lack of pickup. Still, he floored it. He wasn’t going to lose the kidnapper if he could help it. He watched the speedometer creep higher, too slowly, and listened to the van’s engine struggle. Ahead of him, the sedan was putting more and more distance between them. Airline Highway was a long, straight road, but as the sedan grew smaller and smaller, it became harder for Travis to keep his eye on it.

  The van’s engine was straining. The speedometer appeared to be stalled at ninety. Travis focused on the road ahead, but now he couldn’t spot the dark green sedan at all. He didn’t give up, though. If he couldn’t see the sedan, he was certain the sedan couldn’t see him. So he kept driving, past Kenner, past the airport and farther, into LaPlace, then on until he saw the signs for the Maurepas Swamp. He slowed the van down and took the next exit.

  Stopping on the side of the road, he slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Damn it!” he shouted, then pressed his palms against his eyes. He knew there was no way the van could have ever caught the sedan, but still he felt as though he’d failed his son. As though he’d failed Kate. All he could do now was head back. As he drove, he mentally cataloged each exit, and pinpointed the spot where he’d lost sight of the kidnapper’s car. He had driven almost thirty miles by the time he reached the swamp, where he decided it was useless to go farther. He doubted the hideout was in there, so it had to be one of the exits after the point where Travis had lost him.

  He drove to the warehouse and parked the van, then went upstairs to use Dawson’s computer. Using Google Maps, he marked the exits that the kidnapper might have used, then forwarded a copy to Dawson and printed a copy for himself.

  Within a couple minutes, Dawson called him. “So what am I looking at here?” he asked.

  “I followed the kidnapper this afternoon. He went out Airline Highway. Of course I lost him around the Highway 51 exit, since his car was a whole lot faster than the van.”

  “Did he get off at 51?”

  “No. He was still going. That was the point at which I lost sight of him. I drove on until I entered the Maurepas Swamp, but after a few minutes of driving and not seeing a single side road, I figured if he was hiding in there, I’d never find him. I guess I could have gotten off at every exit and searched for his car, but that’d be like a needle in a haystack, so I thought it might be better to get this information to you.”

  “I’m glad you did. Dusty’s almost ready to make the call. But we’ve got to get everything coordinated. We can’t afford to waste our only chance,” Dawson said. “We’ll coordinate from the warehouse.”

  “Okay,” Travis said. “When?” He was ready, but he needed Kate to be involved. She was furious with him for going behind her back, but if she knew they were ready to close in on the kidnapper, she’d want to be there. She’d really hate him if they went in and she wasn’t there for Max.

  “Preferably tonight. Then we can make our move at daylight tomorrow, hopefully while they’re still asleep.”

  “You’re sure you can pinpoint the location that closely?”

  “I hope so. I think your map is going to help, plus I’ve got my best agent, MacEllis Griffin, standing by in a helicopter.”

  “A helicopter?”

  “He’s going to do a flyover of the triangulated area and try to spot the sedan.”

  Travis was impressed, although he should have known Dawson would think of everything.

  “I need to let Kate know what we’re doing. I know she’ll want to be there for Max.”

  Dawson paused for a split second. “Now, Travis, Ryker and Reilly are going to be handling the ambush and taking the kidnappers into custody. This is off the books, but Ryker is arranging to have a female officer there to take charge of Max.”

  “That’s not going to work for Kate,” Travis said with a wry laugh.

  “Well, how you handle Kate is up to you. And trust me, I understand completely about a woman who won’t sit by and let you do the rescuing. But we don’t know anything about this guy. I doubt Ryker is going to want either you or Kate on the scene.”

  Travis thought maybe his cousin could convince Kate that she should wait until the danger was over, but he’d be damned if they kept him from being there. He might not be a cop, but he was probably better armed barehanded than they were with their weapons.

  “Oh, and I heard from Lucas,” Dawson went on. “He got some information from his friend in Chicago. It seems that a woman named Shirley Hixon shares an address with an ex-cop named Bentley Woods. He was fired several years ago for taking bribes and protection money. Since then he’s been a suspect in a couple murders that seemed to be gun for hire, but in bo
th cases the ID was weak, so they couldn’t prosecute. He said that Woods claims to be doing private-investigator work, but that word on the street is he’ll do just about anything if the price is right.”

  “He sounds dangerous. I don’t like it.”

  “We think the Hixon woman is taking care of your boy. She and Woods have shared the same address for nine years. If they’ve been doing kidnappings for hire for that long, I’m amazed they’ve never been caught.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s going to change this time.”

  He heard Dawson sigh through the phone. “Just don’t forget what I said. Ryker’s not going to want you there for the takedown.”

  “Ryker and I will have to have a conversation about that,” Travis said.

  Chapter Nine

  By the time Kate got home that evening, it was after six o’clock. She’d spent all morning at the bank. She’d gone straight to the bank manager and asked him for a loan of two hundred thousand dollars. She offered the house she’d inherited from her folks as collateral and when that didn’t work, she tried to mortgage it.

  When the manager insisted on knowing what the money was for, Kate told him she wanted to remodel the house. He lectured her about the struggling housing market and the dangers of mortgaging a house for more than it’s worth.

  When she’d been able to get a word in edgewise, she’d asked him, “Are you telling me that there’s no way I can get any type of loan for that amount of money?”

  “That’s right, Dr. Chalmet,” he’d told her. “It would be virtually impossible, no matter where you went.”

  So she’d withdrawn the sixty-eight thousand dollars in her savings account—in cash, despite the manager’s disapproving expression.

  After leaving the bank, she’d gone to the credit union, but they were less helpful than the bank had been. She’d thanked them and withdrawn the five thousand she had allowed to accumulate in her checking account.

  Then she’d gone to her office for a few hours to work on her findings for court, although she wondered whether there was any need for her to continue with her determination of Stamps’s state of mind when he’d shot Paul Guillame, now that the kidnapper had decided to target the Delanceys for ransom for their first grandson.

  Back at home, she wearily took her cell phone out of her purse and set it on the kitchen counter next to the day’s mail, then glanced at her watch. She figured she had about an hour before the kidnapper called. Kate had no idea if seventy-three thousand dollars would be enough to tempt him. She hoped she could tell him it was only part of the payment and she’d be able to get the rest within a week. She had a sinking feeling that he was not going to be impressed with her small offering, given what he might be able to get from the Delanceys, but she had to try. She was desperate. It was her only chance to get her little boy back.

  Rubbing her temples, where a headache was starting, she realized she hadn’t eaten anything since morning. She opened the refrigerator and stood there, staring at the spaghetti sauce, the fruit and the soft drinks she’d gotten for Travis, but none of it appealed to her. Sighing, she poured herself a glass of milk and picked up the Oreo cookies.

  She sat down on a kitchen stool and took one cookie out and twisted the top half off just like she’d shown Max, then used her teeth to scrape the filling off the bottom half. But she had no appetite. She left the two halves sitting on the counter and made herself drink about half of the milk.

  For a few seconds she was lost in a memory of Max licking filling off the cookies then dunking them in his milk. Oh, dear God, she missed him so much. Swiping tears off her cheeks, she stood and rinsed her glass. She wished she hadn’t sent Travis away. It had been a stupid impulse, fueled by her anger at him for all the things he had done without consulting her. She’d known what he would do—the exact same thing he’d done when she’d told him not to call her again after their one fateful night together five years ago. And he’d done just that—exactly what she’d told him to do.

  Why hadn’t he refused to leave? Why hadn’t he fought to stay with her? Did he not love her enough to defy her and stay, even if she was stupid enough to tell him to leave?

  She set the wet glass on the drain board, and picked up the mail and glanced through it. Nothing but bills and flyers, as usual. When she looked at her watch again, the minute hand had only advanced by nine minutes. She blew out a breath in frustration. She wanted a shower, but she didn’t dare take the chance of missing the kidnapper’s call. She started pacing. Every time she turned and paced back across the living room toward the kitchen, she eyed the phone and checked her watch. The minutes crawled.

  Then, at eleven minutes to seven, the doorbell rang.

  “Oh, Travis, don’t. Not now. I’ve got to deal with the kidnapper,” she muttered. The bell rang again. She swung it open, prepared to tell Travis that he couldn’t come in.

  As soon as she turned the knob and pulled on the door, it slammed inward, banging her jaw and her right shoulder. It knocked her backward, onto the floor.

  A huge man rushed inside and slammed the door shut behind him. Light glinted off a big gun he was holding in both hands. Kate wanted to scream but the blow had knocked the wind out of her and it was all she could do to force small gulps of air past her spasming chest.

  The man glanced down at her then turned his attention to her house. He surveyed the kitchen, the living room, and the hallway to the bedrooms and the hall bath.

  “Who’s here?” he asked, stepping a heavy booted foot on her left hand. He didn’t put his weight on that foot, but Kate had no doubt that if he did, her bones would crush like a bird’s.

  “Noh-nobody,” she gasped. With his foot on her hand, she couldn’t move. She lay there, on her back on the hardwood floor, still trying to get a full breath and watching him in abject fear. It was the kidnapper.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” he growled, digging in his back pocket. He pulled out a set of metal handcuffs and tossed them down on the floor near her. Then he took his boot off her hand. “Put those on.”

  “Are...you...?”

  “Don’t talk. Put the cuffs on. Your right wrist first.”

  She did as he said. The cuff fastened with a loud metallic click. She sat up and started to slip the other cuff around her left wrist.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “No. Not in front. In back.”

  “In back? But—”

  “Shut up and just do what I say.”

  She caught the dangling cuff in her right hand and put her hands behind her back, then tried to slide the cuff onto her left wrist, but she kept fumbling and dropping it. The chain that held the two cuffs together was not very long.

  “I can’t,” she said truthfully. She wished she were smart and brave enough to trick the man by pretending not to be able to fasten the cuffs, but unfortunately, her fumbling was real.

  The man spewed out a string of curses. “Don’t try anything,” he warned. “Do it!”

  By some miracle, she managed to get her wrist inside the second cuff and fasten it. It made a flat metallic sound as it locked.

  “Now sit over there.” He gestured with the gun barrel. “On the floor next to the TV.”

  Kate went over to the TV and knelt on the floor.

  “I said sit.”

  She rolled sideways, pulling her legs out from under her, then tried to sit up. It was hard with her hands cuffed behind her back. She wiggled around until her back was against the TV cabinet, and watched the man as he disappeared down the hall to search her bedrooms and bathrooms.

  As soon as she heard him enter her room, she tried to stand, but again, she was surprised and dismayed at how hard it was to move without the use of her hands. By the time she got to her knees again he was back.

  “I told you to sit. What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “My hands are falling asleep.”

  “No, they’re not. You haven’t had the cuffs on two minutes yet. Stop horsing around or it won’t
go well for the kid.”

  With a huge effort, Kate pushed herself to her feet. “Where is Max?” she asked, trying to sound imperious and demanding, but knowing she wasn’t pulling it off. “Did you bring him with you?”

  “No,” he said and laughed shortly. “That’s not how it works. You’re going with me. I’m going to do this on my terms. I’m not about to give you any kind of chance to sic the police or your baby-daddy’s family on me.” He let his gaze run from her head down her body to her toes and back up again. “So, Doc, how much money were you able to get?”

  “A lot,” she said eagerly. “You’re going to be really happy.”

  “Where is it?”

  She nodded toward the kitchen. “In my purse,” she said, swallowing the panic that was pushing its way up her throat. For a man like this, who kidnapped people for a living, was $73,000 enough? She felt her throat fluttering with the need to scream or run or do something other than just wait pitifully, while this ghoul held the decision of whether or not she could see her child.

  “In there?” He looked at her purse, then reached over and picked it up. “It’s not very heavy, considering. How much can you have in there. Gotta be less than a hundred thousand, right?” He grabbed her phone from the counter. “We’ll take your phone in case I want you to tell your baby-daddy something.”

  “You’re not going to check it?”

  “Nope.” The man shook his head. “We gotta get out of here. Besides, I’ll be able to squeeze five times that out of the kid’s grandparents. I’m hoping they’ll be willing to pay more for you and the kid together.” He gave her the once-over again. “Then again, maybe not.”

  His flat words and the leer in his gaze chilled Kate to the bone. What had she been thinking, trying to handle this on her own?

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her over to the kitchen counter. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do.” He unlocked the cuff around her right hand. Then he pulled something out of his shirt pocket, while he picked up the glass she’d left on the drain board. “I want you to swallow this. Here. Get some water.”