by Mary Calmes
“I—”
“Please,” Detective Baylor almost yelled, hand up. “Any more outbursts from anyone and I will clear this room. Do you understand? If you can’t contain yourself, Scott, we will have you removed.” He turned and glared at me. “That goes for you as well, boyfriend, do you understand? Everybody shut the hell up.”
I nodded furiously and Scott seethed beside me, arms crossed, the energy just sparking off him.
“Now,” the detective began again, facing Mr. Carter. “Sir, what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.” He shook his head, and I saw his chin quiver with the control it was taking for him not to cry. “And that’s my crime.” His eyes lifted to Baylor. “He told me. My son told me what he was going to do, and I told him to wait. I didn’t want him to touch Scott or Christian because I was scared, but when Landry came home….”
I almost went down; my legs barely held me up. He wasn’t about to feed either of his good sons to the beast, but the prodigal, the prodigal could be led to the slaughter.
“Breathe,” Conrad ordered me, his voice cold and hard and quiet.
“When Landry came home, I thought he was the answer to my prayers because he probably wouldn’t get hurt, but this way—” He lifted his head to meet Scott’s gaze. “I couldn’t take the chance on you or Chris. I would have had to stop him. I would have had to tell.”
Landry was expendable.
“When he called me yesterday and said that he had Landry,” he said, eyes returning to Detective Baylor, “I was terrified, but I told him what to do. I told him to call for the ransom. He just needed the money I promised him, that’s all.”
We all waited as he took a shuddering breath.
“When Landry left, I changed the trust,” he explained. “I thought he was gone forever and didn’t want anything to do with us, so I went to Brendan and I told him that the money that I had set aside for Landry, his trust fund, now belonged to him.”
I heard Scott take a breath beside me, and I reached out and grabbed his bicep hard. I didn’t want him to interrupt again, but I also didn’t want him to get us all thrown out of the room.
Amazingly, his hand covered mine and he squeezed tight. Like we were in it together. When he stayed quiet, because no one interrupted, Mr. Carter continued.
“But when I went to change the trust this year”—he turned his head and looked at Scott again—“I found out that you had changed the terms.”
Scott was taking no chances of being removed, so even with his father staring at him, he stayed quiet.
“What did you do, Mr. Carter?” Baylor asked Landry’s older brother.
He took a breath. “When I became CEO of Carter Limited last year,” Scott told us all, letting my hand go, looking at his father, “I saw that Landry’s trust was up for review. And I thought about breaking it at that point and dispersing the money, but no matter what, he’s a Carter, and that trust was set up by my grandfather when he was born. I had to think of Melvin Carter’s wishes, and I realized that he’d want Landry to have what was his. So I changed the terms and locked it until he turns thirty. I figured if nothing changed by then, if he was still a no-show in our lives, if the silence continued, then the money could be allocated to wherever it was most needed or even given to a charity in his name. We could distribute it if Landry wasn’t home before he turned thirty, but no way was it getting touched before that.”
“I had no idea,” Neil whispered. “And when I found out, I said nothing. I figured that I could get Brendan the money from some other source, and I had time because he knew that the trust couldn’t be opened for a while, but then… then….”
“Then he needed the money,” Baylor offered.
“Yes.”
“And Brendan, who had been content to wait, not knowing that the trust was locked anyway, asked you for the whole sum.”
“Yes.”
“But you couldn’t get it.”
He shook his head.
“So Brendan decided that kidnapping one of your sons was the way to get it,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you were in the process of stalling him when Landry came home.”
He nodded.
“Did Brendan also believe that because Landry showed up, the money automatically reverted to him?” Baylor asked.
“Yes.”
“Even though that was never the case because the money had never left Landry’s trust to begin with, you let Brendan believe it was.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Brendan Arnold how much was in Landry’s trust?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Brendan to take Landry instead of either Scott or Christian?”
“Yes, I did.”
Yes, he did. It was why he asked Landry to stay.
My stomach lurched hard.
“Mr. Carter, where is your son, Landry?”
“I have no idea.” He shook his head. “I don’t. Brendan took him somewhere, but he was supposed to call yesterday, and now… something must have gone wrong.”
“Tell me, when Brendan took Landry, what was his plan?”
“To ask for the amount of the trust in ransom.”
“And so because it was for Landry, to get Landry back, the trust could be opened and the money released.”
“No,” Scott interjected, shaking his head. “It doesn’t work like that. The trust is sealed until Landry either dies or turns thirty. There’s no way to get that money out. To pay off a kidnapper, we would have had to dig into the company assets.”
“Which Brendan Arnold didn’t know,” Baylor told Neil, “because you never told him that Landry’s trust couldn’t be transferred to him.”
“Jesus,” Chris yelled, startling us all, especially since I had basically forgotten he was still there. “For fuck’s sake, Dad, call your fuckin’ bastard son and tell him to bring my brother back right fucking now!”
And even though it had been an outburst, Baylor didn’t even chastise him. The story was out by that time; we all knew what was going on, now it was simply getting Landry home.
Baylor turned back to look at Neil. “Do you have a number to reach him?”
“I’ve been calling it. He doesn’t answer.”
“Is that his cell number?”
“It’s one of those disposable ones.”
“Tell me what it is.”
As he gave the detective the digits, the rest of us just stood there silently.
“Okay,” Baylor said after he called in the number to someone, told them to try and start a trace. “It’s been close to forty-eight hours; Landry needs water and food. Try and think of anywhere that you think he might be, something Brendan said or did.”
“I just don’t know.”
“His mother, maybe,” Baylor suggested.
“As I said earlier, his mother died two years ago,” Scott told him. “There was a skiing accident, but my father let Brendan live here rent free even after his mother didn’t work for us anymore.”
“And now we know why,” Chris told his brother.
Scott nodded. “Yes, we do.”
“Please,” my voice cracked, because I was barely hanging on. When all eyes turned to me as I moved to stand beside the sitting detective, having freed myself from Conrad’s supportive grasp, I didn’t care. “I need Landry back. I need you to think of where the hell he could be.”
“Right now it’s not murder,” Detective Baylor told Neil. “You and Brendan will still face serious charges, but there are mitigating circumstances here. If Landry dies, though…. You need to think, Mr. Carter.”
“I don’t know!” he yelled, getting up, crossing the room to the edge where it opened out onto the porch. “He didn’t tell me anything; he—”
“Somewhere you two have gone,” Baylor cut him off. “Someplace where no one would see you and question what you were doing with the maid’s son.”
“I don’t… there’s nowhere. I gave him scraps of my
time and he had to watch my children receive all my attention and never get any. He… he hated Landry so much because he left and Brendan thought he had everything because he had me, he had a father.”
“Oh shit, I know,” Chris said suddenly.
We all turned to look at him, and I was praying, please God, let him know what he’s talking about. I lost my father too soon, don’t let me lose Landry.
“The hunting cabin,” he said, staring at his father. “I hate hunting, so does Scott, but you keep that damn thing and I always wondered why. Your friends don’t hunt. There’s no one for you to go with. But I bet your son who only wanted to please you, I bet he was down with the cabin, huh?”
“How far is it?” Baylor asked, standing and getting back on his cell phone at the same time.
“Up by Lee Canyon.”
“That’s probably why you can’t get a hold of him,” he told Neil. Then he spoke into his cell phone, directing people on the other end to call the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, getting as many people mobilized for the hunt as he could.
“But what if he’s not there?” Neil asked.
“It’s the best lead we have, and with you not being able to contact him and him needing someplace out of the way to stash Landry, I think it’s a safe bet.”
“Brilliant,” Scott told Chris, gently patting his face.
He nodded, and I could tell that he was not used to being on the receiving end of praise from his eldest brother.
“You all have to be ready for whatever we find,” Baylor cautioned us.
I had to grab for the wall because my heart stopped.
“Go get him,” Conrad barked at the detective.
“I wanna go,” I told them.
Everyone yelled “no” at the same time, even Conrad. “We’re gonna sit here with Landry’s family and wait.”
I flopped down onto the couch and watched Detective Baylor start to pace as he got back on the phone, and then saw him gesture at the plainclothes officers to take Mr. Carter into custody. They put handcuffs on him and led him from the house.
“I’m gonna go talk to Mom and Jo, bring them up here,” Scott told us. “I’ll be right back.”
But it took him longer than that. The entire house was like a resort. Even Neil and Cece’s bedroom was in another building attached to the huge area we were all sitting in. I couldn’t wait to leave it and never come back.
Scott returned with his sister but not his mother. The doctor had called and told Jocelyn to give Cece a sleeping pill and that he would be there soon to check on her.
“She’s resting,” she told us all before turning to Detective Baylor. “You’ll let the doctor in when he gets here, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
She nodded and sat down beside me.
Scott got on the phone to call a lawyer because he had to go to the police station and be there when his father was arraigned, and post whatever bail was needed. He was the man of the house now.
“Call me with news as soon as you have it,” he told Chris, who was still standing beside him.
He nodded, squeezed Scott’s arm, and then let him go. I was surprised when Scott took hold of my shoulder as he walked by. And I understood. He loved Landry, he did, but he also loved his family, and his father was still part of it. He needed to handle all the business, both legal and otherwise. I understood all of that and held no resentment toward Scott for doing his duty to his father. I just wanted Landry.
I trembled hard, but there was no sound and no tears.
“You’ll get him back,” Conrad promised me for the second time that day.
I prayed he was right.
I SAT still and silent, listening as things whirled around me. I heard the detective give exact directions to Mr. Carter’s hunting cabin as Chris gave them to him. He gave them longitude and latitude, and I sat. I heard the radio and hard-soled shoes slapping over marble and wood and saw people moving out of the corner of my eye. There was the blast of a siren, the calming voice of the lead detective, and Jocelyn squeezing my hand at different intervals. She sat shivering beside me until I took pity on her and put an arm around her shoulders. Another half hour passed, and Conrad sat down and put an arm around me, hand on the side of my head as I tried to breathe. His presence, the strength in the man, how solid he was—I would never be able to thank him enough.
No one said anything; what would we have said?
The detective walked in after what felt like days, and we were all on our feet.
“He’s secured; he’s en route to the hospital.”
“Is he speaking?” Conrad asked.
“He’s screaming. They can’t get him to stop.”
Oh God.
“Brendan Arnold is dead. Once the cabin was breached, he was shot twice before he could shoot Landry.”
Like I cared about some faceless guy I had never met.
“Landry’s lost some blood, but he’s conscious, and that’s amazing.”
But he was screaming.
“We need to get you”—he turned to me—“on a helicopter now.”
“Why?” Chris asked him.
“Because Landry is screaming Trevan’s name.”
Chapter 10
HE WASN’T conscious when I got to the hospital. He still wasn’t conscious when everyone else made it. Five hours after that, he was still out. The doctor said we just had to wait.
Landry had sustained a blow to the head that had caused a minor concussion. He was also banged up and bruised and suffering from mild hypothermia and dehydration. His physical injuries, all in all, were not bad; they would heal. What had gone on in the cabin, the psychological trauma, was harder to gauge.
“He’s going to hate me,” I told Conrad. “He’s going to think I should have fought him and made him go home with me. He’ll never forgive me.”
Conrad looked at me like I was insane. “There’s no way.”
But he didn’t know Landry.
The nurse told me that he had been yelling and screaming at me, not for me. He had been enraged that I was not the one to find him. It confirmed my very worst fears. My life, on the cusp of beginning, had just ended, because the man I loved hated me.
As I stood outside his room, I let my head hit the wall hard.
“Don’t to that,” Conrad growled at me, his hand sliding around the nape of my neck so he could look into my face. “You don’t know shit about anything yet. Now if you go in there once he wakes up and he’s pissed at you and he hates you, then we’ll know that he actually is all kinds of crazy and there’s nothing, really, for you to hold onto anyway.”
My eyes flicked to his face.
“I like Landry, I do, but he is volatile, and sometimes I worry. But you’re not going to listen to me about what I think he needs and—”
“There’s nothing wrong with him.”
“Maybe not, but when he’s with you, it doesn’t matter. When you two are together, he’s different. Now, if he’s given up on that, if his anger is misdirected, you have to get used to him being gone. I will not allow you to go crazy trying to win him back. There are people beyond Landry Carter who are counting on you and who need you. And maybe right now you think he’s the only one that matters, but bigger picture, he’s not.”
I took a shuddering breath.
“When Landry wakes up, you’ll see what he says and we’ll go from there. Do not stand out in this hall and try and figure out your whole life when you don’t even know what the fuck is going on with it yet.”
It was good advice.
At the eight-hour mark, after Conrad made me eat a granola bar and Jocelyn watched me drink water, after Scott showed up at the hospital and said that his father had broken down sobbing, and after Chris went out and got us all burgers, finally, Landry woke up.
I heard him scream from the hall where I had gone to stretch my legs. Staring at his face, seeing the marks, the bruises, the yellow that his eye would turn as it healed, had made my stomach roll
, and I had needed to move.
I bolted back into the room and stood still at the doorway, terrified and hopeful all at the same time.
For once, I prayed, let me be wrong about Landry Carter.
I swallowed hard, frozen there, and my stomach twisted into a knot with sharp edges and thorns.
“Trevan!” He shrieked my name, high and wailing as he flung his arms out to me, for me.
I ran.
“Ohmygod, I knew you’d come.” He sucked in his breath as I grabbed him and hugged him and kissed his face, his eyes, his nose, his cheeks, and then his mouth. I slanted my mouth down over his, the kiss demanding and deep, tasting him, devouring him. He was shivering in my arms when I stopped sucking on his bottom lip and leaned back to look at his face.
“Baby.” My voice broke as I choked on the words. “I know you blame me, but please don’t send me away. I’m so—”
“Blame you?” he almost shrieked at me, hands on my hoodie, holding tight, not letting me go. “Why in the hell would I blame you? I wanted to stay, and even if it hadn’t been today or now, that crazy fuck Brendan was going to get me.”
I took his beautiful face in my hands and stared into the eyes I adored, that were everything when he looked at me. “You still want me? You’re not sending me away?”
“What the fuck?” He scowled at me. “You came right back the second you knew I was gone, and I’ll bet that somehow you saved me. I don’t know how yet, but I know that’s true. I know if you hadn’t come, I’d be dead.”
My knees almost buckled at his faith as doctors and nurses streamed into the room.
“I love you. I will always love you. Don’t ever fuckin’ leave me.”
“No,” I promised him, holding his hand tight even as medical staff tried to move me away, push me back. “Never.”
And he took a breath as the deluge began.
“THOSE two guys getting shot,” Detective Baylor said after the second hour of us all being in Landry’s room. “That’s what broke this case. Mr. Carter lost it when he heard about that. I shudder to think what might have happened had they not been killed.”
