She nodded. “I live in the area, out at Moon Lake.” She told them her name.
“And yours?” the sheriff asked, turning to Ethan.
Ethan obliged him. The sheriff gazed at him, frowning. He’s trying to remember where he heard my name, Ethan thought.
Before the lawman could pursue it, Lauren spoke up with a pleading, “Please, we’re losing time.”
“All right, Ms. McCrea, go ahead and tell us what this is all about.”
“My daughter. She’s been kidnapped.”
Lauren repeated the story for them. To her credit, this time she related the episode with a minimum of emotion, although Ethan knew she was all torn up inside. The deputy took down the particulars in a notebook.
“This woman on the bicycle,” the sheriff said. “Give us a description of her.”
“I can’t be accurate. She was wearing sunglasses and a bicycle helmet. From what little I could see of her hair, I think she was a bottle blond. Sort of anemic-looking and somewhere in her twenties, I’d guess.”
“Build?”
“Thin, maybe just a little over five feet. I’m not sure.”
“That the best you can do?”
Ethan was beginning to think he didn’t care much for Sheriff Howell. Lauren’s baby had just been abducted, and all this pompous jerk could do was bark at her.
“I’d say under the circumstances, Sheriff, that she gave you a pretty good description. Anyway, she was occupied with helping the woman, not with taking an inventory of her.”
Ethan could see the sheriff didn’t appreciate his observation, but he let it go. Turning to his deputy, he briskly instructed him, “Go over there, Eddy, and take a look at her car. Then see if you can find any witnesses who saw anything at all. Knock on a few doors along there. Could be somebody was looking out a window at the time.”
Deputy Wicowski moved toward the door. When Ethan started to join him, the sheriff stopped him. “Where do you think you’re going, mister?”
“With your deputy, that’s where. I don’t intend to just stand around doing nothing when—”
“You stay right here. I have some questions for you.”
Ethan thought about telling the lawman to go to hell. But when he glanced at Lauren, he reconsidered. He didn’t want to leave her here at the mercy of this guy and his bullying tactics.
When the deputy had departed, Sheriff Howell directed his attention back to Lauren. “And you never saw or heard a thing?” He seemed to find that hard to believe.
“As I told you, I had my back to the car. And there was all this rock blaring from the music store down at the corner.”
“Yeah, they’ve been warned about the volume there.” The sheriff thought about it while he sucked at his teeth. “Woman down with her bike didn’t have her back to the car, though. Sounds to me like it could have been a setup. Helmet and sunglasses to disguise her, and then she keeps you busy with her accident while a partner grabs the baby.”
Ethan had already considered this strong possibility. He supposed it must have occurred to Lauren, too.
The sheriff was looking at him again. “How do you figure in this?”
Ethan had been wondering when he would get around to that. Before he could respond, Lauren spoke up. “He’s Sara’s father.”
What did it cost her to reveal that precious secret? Probably a lot, if the strain in her voice was any indication.
“Which makes me want her back as much as her mother,” he gruffly informed the sheriff.
“Ethan Brand, huh?”
He’s remembered.
“You’re the guy the state troopers arrested for murder over at Moon Lake last year, aren’t you?”
“Jury decided I wasn’t guilty, Sheriff. And if you’re thinking I might have been involved in my daughter’s abduction—”
“No need to get hot over it. Nobody’s accusing you of any involvement. But parent abduction is always a possibility, and I’ve got to consider all the angles.”
Yeah, I just bet you do.
The hell with his suspicions. They were wasting time. Ethan wanted action, and he didn’t trust Howell to deliver it. “Kidnapping is a federal offense, isn’t it? So why aren’t we calling the FBI?”
“I’ll notify them, but until an agent is able to be on the scene—and remember distances in Montana—my department will handle it.”
Ethan could see it on his face. The sheriff didn’t like the idea of the FBI being on his turf.
“How will you handle it?” Lauren pressed him.
“We’re gonna do all we can to get your girl back to you, Ms. McCrea. We’ll question anyone who might have been in the area, issue an Amber Alert.”
Ethan knew that meant bulletins with Sara’s description would be broadcast on radio and TV. They’d probably also appear on the Internet.
“Better give me all the details, Ms. McCrea.” Howell took out his own notebook. “Start with what she was wearing.”
“A yellow stretchie. Pale yellow, with white cuffs on the arms and legs.”
A stretchie? What was a stretchie? Ethan wondered. He realized he knew next to nothing about babies or their needs. Yeah, he’d have a lot of catching up to do. He refused to so much as consider the possibility that such an education might not be necessary.
“That’s it, then,” the sheriff said, snapping the notebook shut after Lauren finished with a full description, as well as providing him with a photo of Sara she took from her purse.
Ethan wasn’t satisfied. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? There must be more that can be done. A lot more.”
Howell leveled a stern look at him. “We’re a small department, Mr. Brand, and sometimes we get stretched pretty thin, especially in tourist season like this. I said we’d do our best for you, and we will, but you have to realize we’ve got other emergencies that come up.”
Ethan knew he was probably being unreasonable, but he couldn’t help it. This was his kid they were talking about, and he wanted her found. Was so frustrated by the need that, had it been in his power to demand it, he would have personally conducted a door-to-door search of every building in Elkton, stopped every vehicle leaving town. As it was—
Ethan had no chance to finish the thought. Deputy Wicowski reappeared.
“Learn anything, Eddy?” the sheriff asked him.
The younger man shook his head. “Nobody saw anything, and the woman on the bicycle seems to have vanished. Car looks clean, but maybe the lab boys will turn up something.”
“Let’s hope so,” Sheriff Howell said, but he didn’t sound encouraging about that. “You’ll have to leave your vehicle with us while it’s examined, Ms. McCrea. If you don’t have any other transportation back to your cabin, then Deputy Wicowski will run you—”
“You expect me to go home? Just sit there and wait while Sara is missing?”
“That’s just what I want you to do. If this is a kidnap-for-ransom, then whoever took your daughter will contact you with instructions. And seeing as how they left no ransom note in the car, could be they’re counting on reaching you by phone. You need to be there for that.”
“Lauren is going home with me in my car,” Ethan informed them sharply. “I’m going to wait there with her.”
Lauren looked like she wanted to challenge his decision, but she raised no objection. Maybe because she realized he was prepared to defeat any argument. Damn it, if there was nothing else he could do, then he was going to keep this vigil with her. Whatever their issues, they shared a daughter whose life was at risk.
LAUREN WAS SILENT on the way to the cabin. She hadn’t spoken since they’d left the motel after the sheriff’s instructions to immediately call his office should the kidnappers phone them. Ethan had expected her to question his intention when he’d grabbed his travel bag and thrown it into the car, but she’d said nothing.
The desolate look on her face when he glanced over at her in the passenger seat had his insides clenching on him again. He knew she was sic
k with worry. He wanted to stop the car, take her in his arms, tell her everything was going to be all right. But he had a feeling she wouldn’t welcome his comfort.
They reached the cabin. The place looked forlorn without the baby that should have been arriving there with them. Ethan parked the car. They got out and went up the steps to the porch. Lauren took the key out of her purse and inserted it into the lock of the front door.
And that’s when the telephone inside the cabin began to ring with an insistent shrill.
Chapter Five
It was just as well Lauren reached the phone before him, Ethan decided. With the rage that was simmering inside him, he would probably have recklessly promised the caller that, if his daughter was harmed in any way, he would tear her abductor apart piece by piece.
Heart in his throat, Ethan watched as Lauren plucked the phone off the wall. Listened tautly when she identified herself with a quick, breathless “Lauren McCrea.”
There was a long silence after that. She held the receiver so tightly against her ear that, even though Ethan stood close enough to feel her breath mingling with his, he was unable to hear what the speaker was telling her.
Her face was explanation enough, however. He saw the eager expression on it fade into disappointment. This couldn’t be the call they’d hoped for. His heart settled back into his chest, heavy with his own disappointment.
Lauren finally interrupted the caller. She said impatiently, “I’m sorry, but I’m not into that line of work anymore. Yes, I do appreciate your need, but I just wouldn’t be interested in making an exception. No, I don’t know of anyone else who might be available, and I really have to go now. I’m expecting another call.”
Ethan watched her hook the receiver back in its cradle.
“You okay?” he asked her.
A dumb question. Neither of them was okay.
“It was someone wanting me to write a speech for him,” she said, her voice lifeless.
“Yeah?”
“That was what I did when I lived in Helena. I wrote speeches for politicians.”
Helena, Ethan thought. It was the state capital of Montana. He remembered it was where her ex-boyfriend lived. He wondered if the guy had also been connected with the political scene and if that was how Lauren had met him. Not that it mattered.
“But now…”
Her voice trailed away into silence. Unaware of her action, she lifted a hand to her head and dragged her fingers through her auburn hair. It was a habit he’d observed before when she was worried, upset. He knew she was fighting for her sanity.
She deserved to hear something reassuring from him, words that would bolster her courage. But all he could do was stand there, aware of the warmth of her body close to his while he inhaled her alluring fragrance.
Bastard.
How could he permit his senses to kick in on him at a time like this?
Suddenly conscious of his gaze, of the intimacy of their proximity, Lauren nervously moved away from him. There was a bar that separated the kitchen from the living room portion of the cabin. He had noticed the groceries on it this morning when he was here, but only now did he realize the structure hadn’t existed last November.
She went around to the kitchen side of the bar, using it to put distance between them. Ethan didn’t try to follow her, accepting the wisdom of a physical barrier. As for the issues that divided them emotionally…well, he hoped that for now they could set them aside. It was imperative they work together in harmony to recover Sara. She was all that mattered.
“If you’re hungry, I can fix you something to eat,” Lauren offered, dumping her purse on the countertop.
He had forgotten all about the late lunch he had promised himself on the way back to the motel. His appetite had vanished along with the promise, but he understood her need to occupy herself with an activity of some kind.
“A sandwich would be fine. Anything you’ve got.”
Hands thrust into the pockets of his cords, he stood on his side of the bar while she removed sliced ham, cheese and a loaf of bread from the refrigerator. He was aware that both of them were resisting the urge to eye the telephone on the wall above the countertop. It didn’t ring again.
“It’s your turn,” she said as she busied herself making his sandwich.
“For?”
“I told you just now what I worked at in Helena. The rest you learned last winter. You pretty much know everything about me worth knowing. But I know very little about you.”
He was surprised she would care. “Does it make any difference?”
“It could.”
“How?”
She put down the knife she was using to spread mayonnaise on the bread and solemnly met his gaze. “Has it occurred to you that Sara’s disappearance might have a connection with her father?”
“In what way?”
“For one thing, there’s your money.”
“I told you—”
“That you aren’t rich. Yes, I remember. But if I thought you’d inherited wealth, then others must have assumed it, too, and if Sara’s disappearance is a kidnap-for-ransom…”
The media, Ethan thought. They hadn’t bothered with his renouncement of his grandfather’s fortune. Instead, they had emphasized how he came from money. Much more sensational that way.
“That would make sense if her abductors knew I was Sara’s father. Pretty ironic, considering I didn’t know it.”
“I don’t know how they could have learned it, if they did. But considering her resemblance to you and that you were here with me nine months before her birth, it’s possible. And if your grandfather’s money isn’t the explanation, then something else associated with you or your past could be. I want to know everything, Ethan. I need to know.”
She finished his sandwich, put a plate under it and set it on the countertop in front of him. There were stools under the bar. He dragged one out and straddled it.
“Starting with what?”
“All the way back.” She took a carton out of the refrigerator. “Would you like a glass of milk?”
“Sure.”
She poured the milk and placed it next to his plate. Then she perched on another stool on her side of the bar and looked at him expectantly.
All the way back. That wouldn’t be easy. Not with his memories. He picked up the sandwich, bit into it and chewed slowly to give himself time to collect his thoughts. Then he began to relate the story Lauren waited to hear.
“My father had a taste for things that went fast. Cars, speedboats, motorcycles, planes. You name ’em, he had them. One of them ended up killing him, along with my mother and his younger brother, Mac. His Cessna went down in a storm over the Cascades.”
“How awful for you!”
Ethan shrugged. “Kids that age can be pretty resilient. I was seven years old.”
“And left an orphan.”
He took another bite of the sandwich, washing it down with the milk. “I could live with being an orphan. Getting sent to my grandfather was something else.”
Ethan had few pleasant recollections of his existence in Jonathan Brand’s vast Tudor mansion on the shore of Lake Washington.
“You’d think with all the rooms in that house of his, and just the two of us to rattle around in them, we could keep out of each other’s way, but it didn’t work like that.”
“You had no brothers or sisters?” Lauren asked. “No cousins?”
“Nope. I was an only child, like my mother had been, and Uncle Mac had been a bachelor. The other grandparents died years before. That left just the old man and me as surviving members of the family. And you can stop looking at me like that.”
“How?”
“Like you’re feeling sorry for me.” He took another long swig of the milk before adding, “Though come to think of it, maybe I deserved to be pitied. My grandfather could be a bastard.”
“Difficult?”
“Oh, yeah, the old school of discipline, as severe as they made them.
I hung on until I finished my education, and then I got out. Joined the Army, thinking I would make a career of it. What I really wanted was to get as far away as possible from Jonathan Brand and his damn money.”
“Did you?”
“If you call a prison cell in North Korea getting away, then I did. Another man and I were captured on a reconnaissance mission that went wrong. Spent nearly four months in that hellhole before they were able to negotiate our release.”
He saw Lauren look puzzled for a minute, and then her look shifted to an expression of understanding. “The nightmare,” she said, and he knew she was remembering that evening when Sara had been conceived.
“Battle wounds heal and go away,” he said. “The emotional ones take longer, and they leave scars. That’s why I needed to rebuild my life after the Army and I parted company.”
“You came back to Seattle?”
Ethan nodded. “To civilian life and a new direction. Pop had left me this small company, a marine salvage operation. Except I couldn’t touch it before I reached the age of twenty-five. One guess who had been authorized to handle it until then.”
“Jonathan Brand.”
“Who’d deliberately mismanaged it, wanting his grandson to be dependent on him. Only the outfit was mine now. He couldn’t control it any longer. It just about killed him watching me fighting to turn the operation around and not asking for a thing from him while I did it.”
“Did you succeed?”
“There were problems, but I was doing okay. Would have done better if the old man hadn’t kept interfering. I put up with it until he used all that influence of his to lose me a contract.”
“Was that when—”
“The day I went to his mansion, the one all the newspapers wrote about, yeah.”
Ethan would never forget that morning and the angry scene in his grandfather’s library. He briefly described it for Lauren and how he’d stormed out of the room afterwards. How Jonathan Brand had stood in the doorway shouting after him, warning his grandson he would disinherit him, cut him off without a penny.
“As if I cared.”
“But the media said—”
Paternity Unknown Page 6
