Paternity Unknown

by Barrett, Jean

  “You?” she asked Ethan, knowing he couldn’t have slept much, either. He looked as worn as she felt.

  “Some.”

  He was silent for a moment. Then he set his mug down on the table with a decisive bang.

  “The hell with this,” he growled. “I’m not going to sit around here any longer waiting for something to happen.”

  He was a man of action, frustrated by a vigil that had prevented him from doing anything but pacing restlessly. Lauren had known that eleven months ago when they’d been snowbound in the cabin. She’d known it yesterday at the motel when the sheriff had stopped him from joining Deputy Wicowski out on the street. And she had known it last night when she had watched him struggling to keep his impatience in check. Now he’d had enough.

  “If this is about my desperation,” she started to say, “then—”

  “It’s about my desperation, too, Lauren.”

  “Don’t you think the sheriff and his people are already doing whatever needs to be done?”

  “No, I don’t trust that they are.”

  “But what can you do?”

  “I can hunt on my own. I can drive back to Elkton and cover the area where Sara was taken, question everyone I can find. Have you got another photo of Sara I can show around?”

  “Yes, I’ll get it for you.” She rose from the table. “I know you need to do this, Ethan, and I wish I could go with you, but I can’t. If her kidnappers call—”

  “Yeah, someone has to stay here by the phone.” He frowned. “The thing is, I don’t like leaving you on your own.”

  With the effort she should have made last night, Lauren restored the courage that had failed her since Sara’s abduction. “I don’t need protecting, Ethan. I can take care of myself.”

  “I know that,” he said solemnly. “Your strength is something I’ve never doubted. Not since that night you hauled me out of a snowstorm and brought me here. But do me a favor, huh? Lock the doors behind me, and keep them locked. And something else…”

  He gave her his cell phone number, and instructed her to call him if she heard anything from either the kidnappers or the sheriff.

  Five minutes later, after pocketing the photograph she’d handed him, he was gone.

  Chapter Six

  The telephone remained maddeningly silent. There was no word from the kidnappers, the sheriff or Ethan as the morning hours crawled by.

  Lauren was so weary from worry and lack of sleep that she stretched out on the sofa to rest. As anxious as she was, she didn’t think she was capable of drifting off. But she wanted to be close to the phone in case she did.

  As it turned out, her fatigue was enough to put her solidly to sleep for over an hour. She felt better when she awakened. In body, anyway, though certainly not in mind.

  It didn’t seem possible she could have missed the ring of the telephone. She’d been too alert for it, even as heavily as she’d slept. However, she immediately checked the answering machine. There were no messages.

  Knowing it would be impossible for her to concentrate on any occupation, she turned on the TV. But the newscasts that reported Sara’s abduction were so upsetting, hinting as they did at the possibility of a grave outcome, that Lauren turned off the set.

  There was nothing for her to do after that but wander from room to room, repeatedly gaze out the windows and wonder what was happening with Ethan in town. All the while, her tension mounted.

  It was past noon and her nerves raw when Ethan returned to the cabin. She had the door unlocked and open by the time he arrived on the porch.

  “Anything?” she asked. Not that it was necessary to inquire. She could see by the look on his face that he had nothing worthwhile to report.

  He shook his head. “No one seems to have heard or seen anything. What about you?”

  “A call from a friend offering her sympathy, and one other from a reporter asking questions I declined to answer. Otherwise…”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I fix you something to eat?”

  “I grabbed a bite at a fast-food place in town, but you go ahead.”

  “I had a bowl of soup. It’s all I want.”

  “Then let’s sit down. I’ve got something to ask you.”

  There was a tautness in his voice that instantly told her his trip into Elkton hadn’t been entirely uneventful.

  “What is it?” she demanded, leaning toward him hopefully when they’d settled at the table.

  “It came to me on the drive back here. Something obvious we ought to have thought of straight off, and would have if we hadn’t been so broken up over Sara’s kidnapping. But it shouldn’t have been overlooked by the sheriff, and that it apparently has is one more reason why I don’t trust—”

  There was the sound of another car pulling into the driveway. The sheriff with news?

  Whatever Ethan had started to tell her would have to wait. Getting to their feet, they hurried outside. But it wasn’t one of the sheriff’s vehicles that parked next to Ethan’s rental car. This was a plain, unmarked sedan. The woman that emerged from it was equally unremarkable.

  In her late forties or early fifties, with graying hair and wearing a warm smile as she approached them, she looked like someone’s sweet-tempered mother.

  Lauren was wary as she and Ethan came down from the porch to meet their visitor. For all she knew, the woman was someone else from the media looking for a story.

  “Lauren McCrea and Ethan Brand. Am I correct?”

  She addressed them in one of those little-girl voices that always struck Lauren as unexpected when it came from a mature woman. She and Ethan traded glances, and she knew he must be thinking the same thing. How did their visitor know their names?

  “That’s right,” Lauren said, cautiously accepting the hand that was held out to her.

  “I’m Marjorie Landry,” she introduced herself.

  She briefly, firmly shook Lauren’s hand and then, in turn, Ethan’s hand. Before they could question her, she opened her purse and produced her identification for their inspection. Lauren found herself looking down at an FBI shield.

  Agent Landry, replacing the badge in her purse, looked up at the porch. “What a pleasant spot. Do you think we could sit there while we talk?”

  There were rustic chairs ranged along the length of the porch. Lauren’s grandfather had made them himself from wood he’d collected on the property. They turned two of the chairs to face each other. Ethan indicated he preferred to stand. When they were settled, with Lauren and the agent in the chairs and Ethan leaning against the porch railing, Marjorie Landry expressed her sorrow over the kidnapping of their daughter.

  “If you’ve been wondering why I didn’t get out here sooner,” she went on, this time in a brisk tone, “it’s because I’ve been on your case back in Elkton.”

  “So the sheriff’s department filled you in?” Ethan wanted to know.

  Agent Landry took a notebook out of her purse. “It’s all in here. But I’ll want further details. Have you had any contact yet from whoever took her?”

  “None,” Lauren said.

  Agent Landry looked regretful. “I’m going to be honest with you, then. If you haven’t heard from Sara’s abductors by now, it’s highly unlikely you ever will. Believe me, I’m speaking from long experience with the Bureau when I tell you this. That means this isn’t a kidnap-for-ransom. It’s about something else.”

  Lauren’s heart plummeted.

  “Like what?” Ethan asked.

  “I think we can rule out perversion. There are none of the characteristics of that here. I’m sorry to bring up such an ugly thing, but if we can eliminate the worst scenario…”

  Lauren should have been relieved. She wasn’t.

  “What else?” Ethan pressed the agent, his face looking grimmer by the moment.

  “It could be an individual who wanted a child of their own and took this way to get one. It happens. Or there’s another possibility.”

  “Such as?”<
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  “Revenge, and they’re using Sara to get it. People can have very twisted motives when it comes to this kind of thing. Do either of you have any enemies? Someone who’d go to excessive lengths to make you suffer?”

  Neither Lauren nor Ethan could think of anyone who might want to use Sara to punish them. Marjorie Landry took a pen from her purse, opened the notebook, and began to question them at length, jotting down the particulars of their histories.

  It was clear to Lauren by now that the woman was an efficient agent. That she was trying to cover all the possibilities, no matter how extreme. Lauren could appreciate that, but the whole thing seemed without explanation. A mystery that was growing more tangled by the hour.

  She knew that Ethan was feeling equally dissatisfied by the lack of results. The sharpness in his tone when he spoke to the agent was evidence of that.

  “Let me ask you something. Just what are the chances of the FBI recovering Sara for us?”

  “All I can tell you,” she answered him evasively, “is that we’ll be using all of our resources to find and return your daughter to you.”

  “In other words, no guarantees.”

  Palms up, the woman spread the fingers of both her hands in a gesture that indicated a degree of helplessness. “Montana’s population isn’t a very large one.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The Bureau is spread pretty thinly over a widespread territory, and with the caseload the district already has—”

  “I get it. We’re not the only priority.”

  “There is Sheriff Howell, remember. He and his department are also working on your behalf.”

  “And you’ll be working with him, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Just how closely will you be working with him, Agent Landry?” Ethan probed.

  “What are you saying, Mr. Brand?”

  “That I got the feeling from the sheriff yesterday he isn’t all that enthusiastic about the FBI.”

  “He’ll cooperate with us.” Marjorie Landry assured him.

  But Lauren hadn’t missed the woman’s hesitation. She isn’t telling us, but it’s obvious Sheriff Howell and the Bureau have clashed in the past, and that isn’t in our favor.

  Closing her notebook, the agent tapped her pen against it. “I think I have everything I need for now, but if anything else should occur to you—”

  “Yeah, there is one other thing,” Ethan said.

  But before he could tell her, a cell phone inside her purse began to trill. She removed the phone and got quickly to her feet.

  “Excuse me. I have to take this.”

  She moved to the far end of the porch where her conver sation with the caller wouldn’t be overheard. Lauren and Ethan exchanged glances. They couldn’t distinguish the brief conversation that followed, but it was possible to detect an urgency in the agent’s responses.

  Is it about Sara?

  Marjorie Landry ended her call and hurried back to the chair where she had left her purse. Stuffing the phone and the notebook into the bag, she turned to them. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave. We have another case going down and I need to be there.”

  Not about Sara.

  The agent gave Lauren no chance to vent her disappointment. She thrust her business card at her.

  “My number is on the card. Don’t hesitate to call me. And if you shouldn’t be able to reach me, you can always contact me through the sheriff’s office. I’ll be in touch.”

  And with that final, hasty promise, she was on her way to her car.

  Ethan drew away from the railing, scowling after the car as it turned in the driveway and sped off through the trees.

  “We’ve just been dismissed,” he said after muttering an angry obscenity under his breath.

  “You don’t think she’s serious about our case?” Lauren asked him anxiously.

  “She’s competent, but she’s got too much to handle. The sheriff, too. And if they aren’t able to give us everything they’ve got…”

  Then we can’t count on them. Ethan didn’t say this, but Lauren knew he must be thinking it.

  “There’s something else,” she said. “When you tried to find out how closely she would be working with Sheriff Howell and his people—”

  “Yeah, she didn’t want to admit it, but it looks like the FBI and the sheriff have issues. That’s not good.”

  No, Lauren thought, it isn’t. Because if the Bureau and the local law enforcement were locked in some power struggle, then they couldn’t work effectively as a team to find and return Sara to her.

  Worried, she looked out at the lake. Its restful waters had always soothed her in the past, and she needed that view now. Needed it to quell a desperation that threatened to turn into panic. Her hand was crushing the business card Agent Landry had given her. When she realized what was she doing, she tucked the card safely into the pocket of her slacks and went back to gazing at the lake. But the business card made her remember something.

  “What you tried to tell Marjorie Landry before her phone rang,” she said to Ethan, “was it what you started to tell me when—”

  Lauren broke off. This time she herself was the cause of the interruption.

  “There they go again!”

  “What are you talking about?” Ethan asked, puzzled by whatever had suddenly distracted her.

  “Those flashes of light from the other side of the lake.”

  He swung around and stared across the waters. The flashes—brief, rapid bursts of white light—were repeated.

  “See them?”

  “Yeah. What are they?”

  “I don’t know. Probably nothing, just sunlight reflecting off something. But they’re odd. They remind me of when I was a kid and a friend and I would signal each other with pocket mirrors. Anyway, to get back to what I was asking…”

  But Ethan refused to let her drop the subject. “Again?”

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘There they go again.’ That means you’ve noticed them before. When? How often?”

  “I don’t know. Several times over the past few days or so. What does it matter? It isn’t important.”

  “The same kind of flashes?” he persisted.

  “I suppose. Why are we bothering with this?”

  “Let me tell you something, Lauren. When I was in the army, I was recruited to be trained for a special forces unit, operations like the one that landed me in North Korea.”

  Where was all this leading to? Lauren wondered impatiently.

  “‘Why me?’ I asked my commanding officer. He told me it was because I had the kind of useful instinct that couldn’t be learned. I don’t know how true that is, but there are times when I sense stuff I can’t explain.”

  “Are you saying you’re sensing something now in connection with those flashes?”

  “Well, there’s something that wants me to find out about them, yeah.”

  “But what could they possibly have to do with us and Sara’s kidnapping?”

  “Maybe nothing. I just know I have this urge to investigate them, and it’s an urge that needs to be satisfied. What’s over there on that end of the lake?”

  “There’s a small cottage in the trees there. It’s the only other place on the lake.”

  “Who owns it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a rental cottage, but I don’t think it’s occupied very often.”

  Ethan continued to look out at the lake, but this time his gaze was focused on her short pier at the bottom of the long slope below the cabin.

  “You’ve got a boat down there at the pier,” he said.

  “Just a little one that belonged to my grandfather. I use it for fishing or painting, but I haven’t been out in it since Sara’s birth. If you’re thinking of crossing the lake in it, forget it. The outboard motor is in for repair.”

  “There are oars, aren’t there?”

  “Yes, but why not go by car?”

  “How far is it using the road?”

/>   “It’s not a direct route. Probably four miles or so.”

  “I can get there faster rowing across. And if there is someone there, it won’t look like a deliberate visit. Just a casual outing in the boat and along the way stopping by to say hello to the neighbor. Besides, I could use the action.”

  “Ethan, this is all so—”

  “What? Crazy? Unlikely to have anything at all to do with Sara? That’s true, but I can’t go on doing nothing. If there’s a chance to learn answers that could help us to find her—and I don’t care how remote it is—then I mean to use it. Right now it’s all we have, Lauren.”

  Yes, she could understand his need, because she shared it.

  “All right, you’ve got to do this, but you still haven’t told me what you were going to tell Marjorie Landry.”

  “I’ll tell you in the boat.”

  “Ethan, I can’t go with you. If the phone rings and I’m not here—”

  “You heard what she told us. Sara’s kidnappers aren’t going to contact us.”

  Lauren turned her head, looking longingly at the cabin behind her, reluctant to leave it. “I do have call forwarding,” she said, “and a cell phone I got after Sara’s birth. So if I have my cell phone pick up any calls and take it with me…”

  “Perfect,” he said decisively.

  SCARCELY A RIPPLE disturbed the waters of the lake. Its polished surface reflected a perfect mirror image of the woods that rimmed the shoreline. The evergreens of that dense forest, together with the mountains behind them, provided a dark contrast to the deciduous trees whose crowns flamed with the brilliant colors of October.

  Lauren, seated in the stern of the rowboat facing Ethan, was oblivious to the scene. Under other circumstances, she would have been occupied with either admiring it or painting it. At this moment, however, her attention was focused entirely on Ethan.

  The ease with which he handled the oars amazed her. His steady strokes sped their craft smoothly across the surface of the lake. But then she didn’t know why she should be surprised. His strength was apparent.