In a new twist, the phone call had been for him.
“Left something special for you at your house.” The malice in that voice raised the hair on Elias’s neck. “But don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on it until you get here.” And then he’d said, “Hannah stays home. Just you, if you care about her kid.”
Hannah hadn’t liked it, but Elias had called Daniel anyway. Sean Holbeck would meet Elias at his house. He didn’t think for a minute that the kidnapper was lurking in the woods to watch his reaction, not when he wanted his money. The greater likelihood was that the asshole had his eye on Hannah’s house, waiting until she was alone.
He’d left her preparing to go out the door. They’d been separated for a reason. The idea of Hannah going to meet this monster in the dark terrified Elias.
No radar gun recorded his speed. He turned off the highway and tore up the road leading to his house, fishtailing when it turned to gravel.
That was the moment when he thought he smelled wood smoke.
He reached for his phone without diminishing speed.
*****
Orange flames roared into the sky. Elias slammed to a stop by his garage and leaped out. He could already hear sirens, far off, but knew firefighters wouldn’t be in time to save anything.
Then a horrifying thought struck. What if Ian was here? What if he was in the house? What if he was the ‘something special’?
Elias ran around the house, searching for any sign of the boy’s presence. Nothing.
The circuit complete, he tried to think. The front of the house wasn’t yet engaged. He knew what that meant. The son-of-a-bitch had targeted his studio on the back. Elias wouldn’t allow himself to think what that meant. If he could get inside, he could at least grab the metal lockbox where he stored important papers. What else? Nothing came to him. The completed paintings, a lifetime of sketches, those were his only possessions that mattered, and they were already destroyed.
A car raced into his driveway and flung to a stop. Caught in the headlights, he wheeled around.
“Elias?” a man called. “Thank God. I saw the flames and was afraid you’d be inside.” His next-door neighbor, a forest service employee named Jed Whittaker, ran toward him. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I’m going in,” Elias said. “See what I can grab.” He didn’t really believe Ian could be inside. The boy was still a pawn, useful only as long as he was alive. But that didn’t mean Elias wouldn’t search as long as he could.
“It’s burning hot. Don’t take the chance.”
“Just a look.” He bounded up the steps, unlocked and stepped cautiously inside. The living room was hazy with smoke. Fuck. Should have thought of that. Even so, he took a last, deep breath of fresh air, covered his nose and mouth with his arm, and plunged deeper inside.
He took a pass through the as-yet undamaged part of the house. No Ian. The lockbox was in a cabinet that was part of the divider between living room and dining room. Elias grabbed the box and tucked it under his arm, able to see flames crawling up the kitchen wall. Lungs straining, he knew he had to get out of here.
And then it struck him that there was one painting he could save. Or maybe this was the moment meant for him to really let it – and her – go. Eyes watering, he looked toward it as he started for the front door. What he saw had him stopping involuntarily.
A hole had been blasted through her head. Gunshot? Blood, or only red paint, streamed from the wound.
Rage choked Elias as much as the smoke did. He ran to the front door, handed the lockbox to his neighbor, took a breath and went back in for the painting. Maybe, in dying again, Michelle could tell them something.
By the time Sean Holbeck arrived, Elias stood fifty yards from his house watching as firefighters wet down the garage and the surrounding trees. It was far too late for the house.
Holbeck walked over and looked at the painting, lying on the grass. “What the hell—?” Then he growled out an obscenity. “That’s Michelle Thomsen, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Holbeck stared for a minute. “This guy really hates you.”
Elias laughed, until he started coughing instead.
Hannah. For all Daniel’s precautions, Elias needed to be with her.
*****
Hannah hadn’t realized how empty the house would feel once Elias was gone. For all the emotional distance she had tried to keep, she hadn’t convinced even herself. He’d been her rock, and now she was alone.
Her heart had leaped at the idea the ‘something special’ left at Elias’s house might be Ian, but logic squelched hope before it took root. He was playing with them, that’s all. The something special was probably, in truth, something shocking. Another vicious swat at Elias.
Forty-five minutes after leaving, he called. Hannah knew exactly how long it had been, because she’d been watching the second hand sweep around the wall clock in the kitchen.
She snatched up the phone. “Elias?”
“My house is gone. Burned down.”
“What?” she whispered, aghast. “Even your studio?”
“Especially my studio.” Darkness infused his voice. “That’s where the fire started. By the time I got here, he’d had plenty of time to slip away.”
“All your work.” Maybe he’d been the original target, but she couldn’t help believing this wouldn’t have happened if not for her.
“You haven’t heard from him?” he asked, as if he was more worried about her than he was his losses. Was that even possible, or would it all hit him later? Even if that was true, Hannah felt a coal of warmth at his caring.
“No.”
“Firefighters are still working to wet down the surroundings. They won’t leave until they’re sure the fire is out. I’m on my way. I don’t like you being alone.”
His tension sounded stretched tight enough to snap. She opened her mouth to remind him she would undoubtedly have to go alone, anyway, when the kidnapper called. But Elias was gone.
Not two minutes later, the second cell phone rang again.
She hadn’t thought she could be any more afraid than she already was, but a new spurt of terror squeezed her heart and lungs until her head swam. Even so, she hastily picked up the phone Emily had brought to her from Daniel and dialed. “I think it’s him.”
“Okay,” Daniel said. “Go.”
Musical phones. She picked up the one that was ringing.
“Hello?” How ridiculously normal that sounded.
“Same deal as last time,” the muffled voice told her. “You walk out of the house, set your phone down on the porch rail where I can see it, and get in your car. You do have the money?”
“Yes.”
“Keep this line open. I’ll give you instructions as we go.”
“Yes. Okay.”
With the screen having gone black on the extra phone, she couldn’t tell if the connection with Daniel was still open, but she had to trust it was. She slipped it in her pocket and walked out the front door, lifting her own high so he could see, if he was really here, and placed it on the railing. Then she reached back inside for the duffel bag with the money.
Stuffed in a similar bag, Ian wouldn’t have weighed nearly as much, she thought with a shudder.
Hannah unlocked the back of her Highlander and set the duffel on the cargo floor, then slammed the rear hatch before getting in behind the wheel. She set his phone on the seat, the phone Daniel gave her in a molded nook that usually held CDs or miscellaneous junk. The engine started without hesitation and she backed toward the street.
“Which way?”
“Go to Schooner and turn north.”
“North on Schooner,” she repeated, before realizing in a panic she couldn’t do that with each bit of instructions or he’d become suspicious.
Would Daniel be close behind her?
Her chest ached with fear, some of which was reserved for Elias, who would reach her house to find her gone.
*****
; Daniel pursued via Spruce Street, which paralleled Schooner a block over. Through the phone he heard engine sounds, surrounding traffic, once a burst of laughter or voices that had probably come from a group emerging from one of the restaurants or the beer pub popular with tourists. Spruce Street stayed quiet evenings; all the action was on Schooner, closest to the beach and tourist central.
He turned over ideas about tonight’s destination, which wasn’t necessarily productive since the asshole could have her suddenly turning again and heading for the highway. But there were a couple of possibilities this direction that might be smart choices for a kidnapper wanting to make an exchange amid confusion.
The Surfside would be coming up on Hannah’s left in about a quarter mile. It was the biggest hotel in town until Bresler’s new resort over the point opened. Dating back to the sixties, the Surfside was two-story, an ugly, elongated structure allowing every room to have either a ground-level patio or balcony looking out at the beach and ocean. Three or four pass-throughs interrupted the length. At one end of the Surfside, the Waves Restaurant would still be busy tonight. The parking lot was large, the lighting only so-so – Daniel had talked repeatedly to the management about that without results – and the hotel’s beachfront was vast, rocky and picturesque in daylight. At night, it was just plain dark. There might be beach fires, couples taking romantic strolls, sea lions barking toward the point. A lot of places to hide, a lot of ways to escape. Just beyond was the Sun ’N Surf, a cheap, family hotel that had hung on despite the climbing value of waterfront property.
Alternatively, there was a community park down this way, not huge but taking up a city block. Public restrooms that should be locked this time of night, but who knew? A playground that was the main attraction along with a chainlink enclosed tennis court and some concrete basketball courts as well as a smaller treed area with picnic tables. Another parking lot. A couple streetlights on this end, but mostly dark beyond. He and his officers had had to round up teenagers partying beneath the trees often enough.
Still no sound from Hannah’s end.
A faint buzz had him reaching for the second phone he carried, set on vibrate. A text from Sean.
Didn’t tell you Michelle painting mutilated.
Mutilated? What did that mean? Slashed, or—? Daniel shook his head, still sickened to know Elias’s house had been burned to the ground. Daniel was one of the few people privileged to have seen the artist’s huge, light-filled studio lined with cabinets designed to store empty canvases, paint supplies, frames, and every piece of unsold work he’d kept from the time he was a teenager. Drawers packed with folders full of sketches, hundreds of them. The house, beautiful as it had been, could be replaced. The rich body of his work was irreplaceable. So much he’d accomplished wiped out of existence. Daniel doubted it had really hit Elias yet.
Another buzz.
Burton on his way to town.
There was his answer. Right now, all he cared about was Hannah.
And then Daniel heard garbled words, followed by her strained voice. “Which end?”
The Surfside? Or the park? Daniel took a left at the next corner, afraid he’d lose her if he didn’t regain a visual on her vehicle.
*****
She was hyperventilating. How could she repeat out loud, “The Surfside?” As if that wouldn’t be obvious.
“What if there isn’t anyplace to park?” she tried. “It looks awfully crowded.”
There was another, smaller motel next door to the Surfside, and a couple restaurants, but at least that should give Daniel an idea.
“Follow instructions.”
She’d been right; the lot was packed. She had to stop a couple times to let people walk in front of her car. It felt surreal, her enclosed in a dark bubble, trying to deliver $250,000 in cash to a kidnapper, while everyone she saw was laughing, talking. Calling goodbyes across the parking lot. Happy.
Please let Ian be here. Please.
If only Elias were with her.
Some things you had to do alone.
She cruised down a long line of parked cars. And there, at the very end of the hotel part of the building, was a single parking spot facing the beach, blocked by an orange cone. It was so dark down here. Nobody coming and going, she realized, the nearest sodium lamp far enough away she’d have scuttled for her room if she were a guest. Probably employees were condemned to park down here. Absurdly, she put on her turn signal before switching it off again. That was the moment when when her headlights exposed the handicapped-only sign.
If only the worst she had to worry about was a ticket. She drove right over the cone.
Once parked, engine off, she said, “I’m here. Now what?”
“Get the money, then walk straight onto the beach toward the ocean.”
She almost forgot Daniel’s phone and had to open and close the driver’s door again to grab it.
“What was that?” the voice asked sharply.
“I…I forgot your phone. I’m…” No, she would not tell him she was scared, or rattled. “Nothing.”
She heaved the duffel bag up, using the strap to cross her body. It seemed to get heavier every time she lifted it. She took a deep breath and murmured, “Straight ahead.”
“Who are you talking to?” This time, he sounded agitated.
“Myself!” she exclaimed.
“Just walk, and shut up.”
She crossed a short paved area that held several outdoor showers for guests to rinse themselves before they went to their rooms. Then her feet sank into sand and she headed toward the roar of the surf, her eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness enough for her to see the white line where waves broke. Beach fires burned off to her left, closer to town proper, where tumbles of driftwood logs offered seats and material to burn. Hannah had this image of people sitting around those fires, roasting marshmallows, telling stories, letting themselves be mesmerized by the sparks climbing into the night, soothed by the rhythmic beat of the ocean. She and Ian had never done that. She thought how much he’d enjoy that, even if he was also scared enough to want to snuggle right up against mommy ’cuz he might get cold, never because he was scared.
“Turn directly right.”
She could barely make out the words but obeyed.
“Right again.”
The instructions kept coming. He was taking her toward the motel with small cottages north of the Surfside. But the lights still seemed far away, the darkness dense.
“Stop.”
*****
Daniel jogged onto the dark beach, two other officers doing the same, but spread out to form a net. Others waited in parking lots up and down the beach, within reasonable walking distance of Hannah’s current location.
For a night so clear, it was astonishingly dark. The moon was barely a sliver. The stars were beautiful, spread across the velvet darkness, but useless as a source of illumination. The surf drowned out most other sounds. He had an unpleasant flashback to the night a young girl had gone missing from her bed at the Sun ‘N Surf, scaring the crap out of her parents. She’d gotten turned around out here, on this same beach, frightened by the vocal sea lions. Searchers’ voices had been carried away by the breeze. They’d found her unharmed, their worst fears unrealized. That night, the true malevolence had been elsewhere, as a serial killer broke into the cottage where Sophie had slept alone.
Daniel shook off the memory. No help now.
A muffled voice came from the phone. Daniel couldn’t make out a word. Help me, Hannah. But he didn’t know how she could with the guy already suspicious. She had to be thinking Ian might be there, only a few feet from her.
And then he blinked. Had he seen a flash of light?
*****
“One flash. Come to me.”
There it was. She swung north – sort of north – trying to pinpoint exactly where the quick flash of light had come from. It hadn’t been…twenty yards away?
“I won’t give you the money if you don’t let Ian go,” she
said fiercely.
“You’ll do as I tell you, or I’ll kill him.”
Hannah’s foot caught and, unbalanced by the duffel bag, she tumbled forward, landing with a cry of pain. She’d come down on rough rocks. Her hands and knees had to be shredded. Her hands felt wet. A tidepool? No, blood, she realized, and didn’t care. She made an awkward attempt to get to her feet, but suddenly a hand had seized the strap of the duffel bag and was yanking.
“Mommy? Mommy, are you here?” cried her son in a thin voice.
“I’m here! Ian! Where are you?”
“Let go of the money,” he snarled, his voice no longer muffled.
Ian kept calling for her, his voice coming closer. Hannah heard a thump followed by a startled cry. Ian! He’d hit him, knocked him down. And the duffel bag fell away as if the strap across her body had broken.
Cut, she thought, even as the large, dark shape bent over the small one.
“No!” Hannah screamed, and threw herself toward the monster. “You can’t have him!”
Somehow she was clutching his leg, throwing punches upward with her bloody hands, trying to hit his balls. And Ian was whimpering and crawling until she cried, “Run! Run, Ian. Go!”
Something cold and hard pressed into her temple.
“Stand up,” he said softly, “and start walking. If I can’t have him, I’ll take you. One word, and you’re dead.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Running toward the sobs and yells, Daniel lifted his radio to his mouth. “Flashlights on. He’s out here.”
But silence had fallen again, except for a thin whimpering that could have been a wounded animal.
“Hannah, say something!” he called. “Ian, can you hear me?”
Other voices were calling, too far off. What was happening? More flashbacks. Trying to follow Sophie and the monster hunting her through fog-shrouded woods without giving away his own presence. The eerie voice calling, Run, Sophie. Run. Not Sophie this time. But the disorientation was too similar. Where the fuck were they?
Whisper of Revenge (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 4) Page 20
