Whisper of Revenge (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 4)

by Janice Kay Johnson

  A tremor ran through Hannah.

  “A vehicle stopped in the alley. A man wearing a black hoodie climbed out with your puppy. He played with him, got him excited. The camera doesn’t show the door, but Ian appears and runs to Jack-Jack. The man had left the rear hatch of the vehicle open. He grabbed Ian and threw him in. He stayed bent over him for a minute. My guess is that he was tying Ian up, maybe—” Gagging him. Not something he wanted to say to this terrified mother. “He drove away, swerving to scrape a fender on one of the dumpsters. The puppy chased the vehicle out of sight.”

  Hannah sat so still now, Daniel doubted she was breathing.

  This part, he did have to tell her. “The vehicle was an older Land Rover, Hannah. The license plate was visible. It was Elias Burton’s.”

  Her stricken stare had him reaching for her hand, squeezing, hoping a touch reached her, wherever she’d gone.

  “The man was very careful to keep his face hidden, but… I’ve seen Elias wearing a black hoodie.”

  Her teeth chattered. “No. No. No!” As if her stomach hurt, she curled forward.

  Nothing he did or said could comfort her. Daniel had called Sophie, who was on her way. He needed to find Ian Cline, and quickly. But first, he had to find Elias Burton, who appeared not to be at home and who wasn’t answering his phone. Daniel had already mobilized every single member of his own small police force, and the county sheriff’s deputies, too, in the hunt for the Land Rover and for Burton. Sitting here with Hannah, Daniel could listen to the terse communications on his radio, background noise he hoped she hadn’t noticed.

  This was all too familiar, taking him back to the foggy night when Sophie’s car was found abandoned in the middle of the road, the driver’s side door open. When every cop in the county had searched for her. And then he’d had to relive the experience when Naomi Kendrick, the chef who owned Sea Watch Café, was snatched in turn.

  Both had been found somewhere at the old Mist River Resort. Now owned by a non-profit dedicated to protecting the fragile environment of old growth forest and sand dunes, the resort was still within the Cape Trouble city limits despite being on the other side of the river.

  If somebody hadn’t already driven out there, they needed to.

  *****

  A cold wave rushed over Elias’s feet, soaking his jeans halfway to his knees. Intensely focused on what he was doing, he didn’t so much as turn his head. The tidepool would be submerged within minutes. His feet had gone numb half an hour ago when the tide first turned. He was racing time to finish the colored pencil drawing that would serve as a blueprint for the oil painting that was vivid in his mind. The starfish, so rare now, a shade of orange tinted with peach he didn’t remember ever seeing before.

  He drew quickly, dissatisfied with the color but confident he could remember why it was wrong. With each crash of a wave, the water reached higher. To his knees now. Damn it, he didn’t want to lose his easel—

  “Burton!”

  With a vague awareness someone had been calling his name for a while, he looked toward the beach just as the incoming surge almost knocked him off his feet.

  Swearing, he grabbed his easel to make sure it didn’t fall, glared at the tidepool and gave up, tucking the pad beneath his arm and folding the easel.

  Sean Holbeck waited just above the water line. Elias had met him in passing, and knew he was a detective with the sheriff’s department. The weapon and badge on his belt suggested he was on the job. He didn’t look like a man out for a beach ramble. The sudden chill Elias felt had nothing to do with the temperature of the ocean water.

  “What is it?” he asked, sloshing through the foam eagerly reclaiming rocks and sand.

  “You’re soaked.”

  Elias looked down at himself and grunted. His trousers were wet up to his balls. It wouldn’t be a comfortable walk back to his car. “You’re not here to throw me a life preserver.”

  “No.” Holbeck’s expression was grim. “How long have you been here?”

  “It’s Hannah.” He glared at the cop. “Tell me.”

  “I need you to answer my questions first.”

  That rocked him back. Had the bastard gotten to her? Was she injured? Not dead. She couldn’t be dead.

  “I’ve been in this vicinity since—” he had to think “—probably eight this morning.” A glance at the sun put it at around noon now.

  “I saw your Land Rover parked at the resort.”

  “I park there often. Is that a problem?”

  “Not as far as I know.” Holbeck’s blue eyes held his with an intensity that heightened his alarm. “Elias, did you go back to the car this morning for any reason?”

  “No. I brought what I needed with me. Besides the easel, pad of paper and colored pencil, I have…” He jerked a chin toward the daypack resting against a driftwood log, safely above any tide at this time of year. Shoes, he’d left just inside the split rail fence where the trail from the parking lot became sand.

  “Do you have your car keys with you?”

  “They’re in my pack. Holbeck, what’s this about?”

  “Check for your keys first.”

  “Hold this.” He thrust the wooden easel at the cop and hurried the distance to the log, barely aware of the heat of the dry sand on his cold feet. He unzipped the front pouch and lifted the ring. “They’re here.”

  “You carry only two keys?”

  Losing patience, Elias said, “I couldn’t find my usual set of keys a week or so ago. This is my backup – house and car. Now, damn it, tell me what happened to Hannah.”

  “Her son was abducted.”

  Shock held him still for a minute. That was the last thing he’d expected. “Ian? Someone grabbed Ian?”

  “Yes.” A hard, cop face became even grimmer. “The kidnapper drove your Land Rover. Happened in the alley behind Hannah’s business. The guy made no attempt to hide the license plate. He wore jeans and a black hoodie.”

  Like I do. Suddenly cold, Elias understood Sean Holbeck hadn’t walked a mile and a half down the beach to tell him that Hannah needed him. Holbeck had come to arrest him.

  “I’m not wearing jeans today.”

  “So I see. Your hoodie?”

  “Probably on the back seat of my car.”

  “You notice anybody passing who can verify your whereabouts?”

  Desperate to finish this so he could get to Hannah, Elias said, “A guy with a dog, early on. A jogger.” He couldn’t remember when. “Midmorning? Probably some other people. I don’t pay attention.”

  “You’re not painting today.”

  “Drawing.”

  “How much have you accomplished?”

  “Everything in that pad of paper. I tear them out when I get home. Toss most of them, keep a few.”

  Holbeck accepted the pad from him and flipped with excrutiating slowness through the pages. Elias had done some rough sketches and three that were more detailed.

  Thrusting his fingers into his hair, he yanked. “You can stand here if you want, but I need to get back. Ian means everything to Hannah. You can’t imagine—”

  “I can.” Holbeck’s mouth tightened even as he started walking. “My wife lost her first husband and young son in a car accident. It destroyed her.”

  Matching him stride for stride, Elias asked, “What’s being done to find Ian?”

  “Everything we can do. Finding your Land Rover and you was a priority.”

  “Someone was setting me up.” It had finally sunk in.

  The cop’s sidelong glance was impassive. “Looks that way.” Assuming you didn’t grab the kid, was what he meant.

  Did Hannah know they were looking for him? Elias felt as if his chest was being crushed. Did she believe him to be capable of something like this?

  Why wouldn’t she? They didn’t know each other well. His reputation as a recluse wouldn’t help.

  A lot of things in his life had hurt. But thinking that Hannah would look at him with fear and loathing whe
n he walked into the bookstore… That might be the worst.

  He broke into a jog, Holbeck keeping pace.

  *****

  Just sitting was one of the hardest things Hannah had ever done. She needed to help find Ian. Reason battled hysteria. Running around screaming his name would be useless. But her nerves quivered and her skin felt too tight and if she couldn’t do something, and soon, she might fall apart entirely. Over and over, she relived that moment when she’d refused to believe it could be Jack-Jack barking in the alley. If only she’d taken two minutes to be sure, for Ian’s sake, he’d be safe now. None of this would have happened.

  My fault.

  Sweet Ideas was closed, of course, although people kept staring in the windows, probably because of the activity in here. Daniel Colburn had come and gone, his wife sat at the table in the bookstore with Hannah, and Emily Holbeck had arrived fifteen minutes ago, too. The two women flanked Hannah now. And, while she knew they meant well and probably understood how she felt, she was incapable of making any kind of conversation. She couldn’t think about anything except Ian and what was happening to him. How scared he must be. If— She shuddered anew. There was no reason for anyone to hurt him. She had to believe that.

  Even in her thoughts, she was pleading.

  A hard rap on the front door had her swiveling in her chair, hope surging however irrationally. It was Sean Holbeck this time. He was coordinating the sheriff’s department part of the search. Emily jumped up to let him in.

  Nobody was using the back door, Daniel had explained earlier, because the alley was taped off as a crime scene until it could be searched. Even so much as a single hair might eventually help convict the kidnapper.

  The minute Sean’s eyes met Hannah’s, he shook his head. “No news about Ian. I’m sorry. I found Elias, though. He’s at the station being interviewed by Daniel.”

  “His Land Rover?”

  “Parked at the resort. And, yes, it has a scrape on the front fender with green paint from the dumpster embedded in it.”

  Which meant someone hadn’t just stolen the license plates. It really had been his Land Rover in the alley. Ian had been shoved into the back of it.

  Her mouth opened and closed.

  Sean sat beside her, taking the seat that had been Emily’s, and laid his big hand over Hannah’s. The compassion on his face almost shattered her.

  “We have crime scene techs going over the Land Rover with a fine-tooth comb. We brought in people from the state, because they’re the best.”

  She nodded without knowing why.

  “Elias was a mile and a half or so down the beach, his easel set up. He showed me ten or twelve drawings he’d done. Claims to have been there since eight this morning.”

  Claims. Detective Holbeck wasn’t sure he believed Elias.

  When Daniel had let her watch the camera footage, she had been filled with too much terror for any other emotion to slip in. The man she saw could have been Elias; there’d been nothing distinctive enough in how he moved or his height or body type for her to say definitively that he wasn’t Elias. All she could think was, why? He’d cared. She would have sworn he had. And then this?

  Daniel had gently pointed out that Elias could have used her fear of the secret admirer to edge his way into her life. Like a firefighter setting blazes so he could put them out, be a hero. What if Elias intended to “find” Ian and bring him back?

  Only…he couldn’t, could he? Because Ian had to have seen his abductor’s face. Anyway…Elias knew about the camera. He’d recommended she install it. He was a complicated man, but not stupid.

  Sean was saying something she hadn’t heard. Digging her fingernails into her palms, Hannah said, “I’m sorry. Would you say that again?”

  “He was desperate to come here, but he understood why he had to answer questions first.”

  “What do you think?”

  She hated that his face was so unreadable. He took a moment before he said, “You know I can’t tell you that, Hannah. We have to be sure.”

  She nodded, sinking back into the emotions that felt like a vicious whirlpool, swirling so she had the same thoughts over and over and over, except she was being sucked deeper every time.

  They would find him. What would anyone have to gain by hurting a little boy? But Hannah wasn’t so naïve as not to know the answer.

  If only she’d heeded his urgency. If only she hadn’t been too busy for him.

  Sophie had said something. Hannah surfaced enough to hear Sean respond. “He says he lost his keys a week or so ago. Assumed he’d just misplaced them somewhere at home. How anyone could get in to take them…”

  If they had his car, would Elias have to walk here from the police station? Or had he been arrested, and Sean just didn’t want to say?

  Hannah crossed her arms, each hand gripping the opposite elbow. She was rocking in some instinctive attempt to comfort herself, but it wasn’t working. Nothing would work until she could hold Ian.

  What if Elias wasn’t coming?

  “I should call Grady,” Hannah heard herself say. “Ian’s father.” Surely he would care.

  Another knock on the front door. For just an instant, she closed her eyes. It could be somebody holding Ian’s hand, restoring him to her. Ian would run into her arms. She’d swing him up, hold him so tight…

  She heard Sean pushing back his chair. There would have been exclamations of delight if Ian had been found. Instead, there was only silence.

  Hannah opened her eyes and turned her head to see Ron Campbell walking in. He zeroed in on her, crouching beside her chair. “I just heard. If there’s anything I can do—”

  She saw compassion, but it didn’t touch her. “Thank you,” she managed, while wondering why he was here. What did he think he could do?

  After a minute, he stood and turned to Sean, acid etching his tone. “You’re county, not city. Is my police chief delegating to the sheriff’s department now?”

  My police chief? Oh – he was on the city council.

  With a glance at her, Sean took Ron’s arm and walked him out of earshot. She dismissed him from her consciousness.

  Seconds later, another rap on the door had her tensing again. This time, Sophie leaped to her feet. The moment she unlocked, Daniel walked in. Behind him came Elias.

  Closed in, expressionless, he could have been the remote stranger who used to be an occasional customer. He looked at her, but he stayed by the door, his posture rigid.

  Waiting.

  *****

  Hannah rose slowly to her feet. The sheen in her beautiful eyes had Elias’s heart clenching. He wanted to take her in his arms, try to absorb as much of her pain as he could. But if she believed what she’d seen on the surveillance tape, she must hate him right now. What if she turned her back?

  If his presence offended or hurt her, he’d leave. It was his only choice.

  Her tears overflowed and she took a couple of steps before she stopped as if uncertain of him. “Elias?”

  All the fear he’d suppressed ripped through him. “Hannah,” he said hoarsely. “God, I’m so sorry.” He held out his arms and she flung herself at him. As he pulled her close, his own eyes stung and he laid his cheek against her springy hair while whispering he didn’t know what. Her body shook with grief and her tears wet his shirt. Elias forgot everyone else in the room, the horror of knowing he’d been set up, of seeing doubt in the eyes of men he respected. There was only Hannah, and trying to give her what she needed.

  “We’ll find him. I’ll do anything,” he heard himself promise, brokenly.

  It was a long time before the tension seeped out of her. The fists that had been gripping his shirt in back loosened. She simply leaned on him. His hands seemed to know what to do, kneading her nape, her shoulders, stroking. At last she let out a long sigh and straightened and looked at him again.

  “Thank you for coming,” she whispered, then backed away. “I need— I’d better—” She fled toward the back hall, disapp
earing into the bathroom.

  Shaken by the torment he’d seen in her red, swollen eyes, Elias wiped his own cheeks with the back of his hand.

  A hand gripped his arm. “Sit down,” Daniel said, voice softened. “Do we still have coffee on?”

  One of the women answered. Elias slumped into a hard chair and struggled to hide his emotions. He didn’t cry. His composure was innate. He didn’t understand what was happening to him.

  A minute later, a mug of coffee appeared in front of him. “Thanks,” he managed, and took a swallow. The warmth felt good, even though Colburn had allowed him to dry off and had provided a pair of sweatpants from a stash kept at the police station.

  Finally, he lifted his head and looked to see that the police chief had stepped away to talk to Ron Campbell, of all people. Who had let him in? Colburn didn’t quite succeed in hiding his irritation as he walked the businessman to the door, nodded a couple times, then locked it behind him. He was shaking his head when he returned to the table.

  Elias looked at him. “What next?”

  “We hunt for witnesses,” Colburn answered readily. “If someone borrowed your Land Rover, he had to leave his own vehicle somewhere over there. When he returned it, he had to transfer Ian. I don’t see how he accomplished all that unseen.”

  The ‘if’ wasn’t reassuring, but Elias let it go. “Would a tourist pay any attention to a guy switching cars?” Maybe to an artist working; that was a more unusual sight. Elias had no doubt the police officers were searching for people who’d seen him with as much determination as witnesses to any exchange between vehicles.

  “Not to think about then,” the police chief said, “but all of us constantly take in detail that seems unimportant. Mostly, we don’t retain it, but with luck we’ll find any witnesses while they do still remember. I have officers going to every inn and resort and campground in the area, knocking on doors. And tents. Some of those people came and went from that beach today.” He hesitated. “I also have an officer monitoring Hannah’s landline, in case ransom is the objective.”