by Jodi Thomas
They traded guesses as to where Reagan might be, but everywhere they looked was a waste of time. With a hospital this size it would be hard to disappear. The cafeteria, a room surrounded by vending machines, had only eight tables. There were four bathrooms on each of the two floors, three waiting rooms total, an emergency room, four small operating rooms, and a birthing room.
After twenty minutes, Liz tried her brother’s cell. He said he’d left Reagan in the ICU waiting area. The girl had told him she planned to sleep there. A nurse had even brought her a blanket. Unless she was in with Truman, she should be where he’d left her.
While Hank tried Reagan’s cell, Gabe asked one of the passing nurses if Reagan was in with her uncle.
She shook her head and said simply, “Not allowed.”
Elizabeth’s phone rang. She answered, listened for a few seconds, then shook her head. “It’s Hank. Reagan isn’t answering her cell. He said he knows she has it, he watched her switch it to vibrate.”
Liz closed her phone. “Hank sounded worried. Reagan’s protective of the old man. She wouldn’t just leave. Not on crutches. Not without a car. Hank says he’s calling Alex. Something has to be wrong. She couldn’t have just disappeared.”
Gabe felt the same way. He stepped back into the ICU waiting room as if he’d missed something. As he lifted the hospital blanket left on a chair, Reagan’s red cell phone tumbled to the floor. Now he knew something was wrong. She wouldn’t have left it. Reagan was in trouble. He could feel it inside. “Can you call the Blue Moon and see if Denver can report here as soon as possible? He’s got my Land Rover.”
“Sure, but I don’t have to call the café, I’ve got his cell number. Claire gave me his card the other day.” She dug in her purse. “She told me to give the card back to him. Do you think he’ll be of some help?”
“I don’t know. I just sense something’s wrong and I need him here.” Gabe didn’t want to tell her his fear, but the pieces were beginning to fit together and he prayed the picture emerging wouldn’t come into focus. If it did, he might need Denver to cover his back. Reagan wouldn’t, couldn’t, walk away from her uncle. Not without her cell. Not willingly.
Gabe spoke slowly so he wouldn’t frighten Elizabeth. “Check all the women’s rooms, every stall. I’ll check the men’s, then we’ll go to hospital security. She’s got to be here somewhere. She couldn’t have left the hospital without someone seeing her.”
They moved fast, checking every room that wasn’t locked. In his mind he kept guessing. Maybe she’d found a place to sleep, or cry . . . no, she wouldn’t leave Truman, not when he was dying. Maybe friends talked her into going somewhere to eat . . . not likely. She had no car and little chance of walking away on crutches. She had to be in the hospital. She had to be!
When he and Elizabeth reached the emergency entrance, the two security guards joined them. Dividing the room, they began asking everyone if they’d seen a girl with a walking cast pass by. Most were too concerned with their own problems. At the check-in desk, they finally got lucky. One of the nurses had noticed Reagan leaving.
Gabe shot questions in rapid fire. “Did she say where she was going? Did she seem distressed? Was she alone?”
The nurse shook her head until she heard the last question. “I saw her hobbling out behind a big guy,” the nurse said. “She yelled something at him, but he didn’t stop. Maybe he didn’t hear her, or maybe he was just in a hurry. I didn’t get a good look at the man, but when the girl went through the door, she hit her cast on the facing but she didn’t slow down.”
“Did she come back inside?”
The nurse shook her head. “I got busy. I’m sorry. I couldn’t say.”
Gabe looked up and saw Sheriff Alex McAllen running toward them. She motioned them into the first empty office. Elizabeth filled her in while Gabe asked the guards questions. No, there were no cameras. No, they didn’t keep a guard outside. No, neither of them were stationed in the emergency room. One had gone upstairs to have supper and the other one had been asked by a nurse if he’d talk to a family who were making too much noise.
Gabe fought down his anger. The two men were not security, they were doormen. He glanced up. Alex stared right at him, and he had a feeling she was thinking the same thing.
“Liz,” Alex began, “while Gabe and I step outside to look for any sign of Reagan, can you stay here with Truman? Call my cell if there’s any change in him. We need to get Reagan back by his side before he wakes.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Liz said. “Just find the girl.”
As Gabe and Alex moved to the front door, the sheriff asked the security men to run another check of the building, and then, as they took off down the first hall, she whispered to Gabe, “You know what we might have here?”
“I do,” he said. “Reagan didn’t just step outside. Not on crutches. Not alone.”
“I agree.” Alex was all business. “Can you help me with this? I may need backup.”
Gabe glanced out the glass door and saw Denver pulling up. Before the engine of the Rover died, he was out and running toward them. “You’ve got two of us and we’re both armed.”
She smiled. “I had a feeling you would be.”
Chapter 45
FRIDAY NIGHT
FEBRUARY 22, 2008
TIMBER LINE ROAD
REAGAN TRIED TO BRACE HERSELF IN THE BACK OF A cluttered, dirty van. She wanted to scream her head off, but she doubted that would do any good.
She’d been an idiot to try to stop Lloyd. Edith must have told him she was leaving him. No telling how long he’d been at the hospital stewing over their fight when he passed the ICU waiting room and noticed Reagan alone.
The horrible man had yelled at her, told Reagan it was all her fault. If she’d minded her own business his wife would never think of leaving him. Reagan smelled whiskey on his breath and guessed he was high on pills as well. His world seemed to be falling apart, and she was the closest person to blame.
Reagan had tried to explain. Tried to calm him down. Then, suddenly, Lloyd bolted, saying simply that he’d stop Edith.
Reagan followed, planning to at least slow him down to give Edith time to get her things out. But he wouldn’t turn around, wouldn’t listen, and she couldn’t catch him on her crutches.
Halfway to his parked van, Reagan grabbed Lloyd Franklin’s arm, making one last effort. A second later, she realized her mistake. In only a few steps she’d gone from being surrounded by people to being alone with a man who blamed her for all his trouble.
He turned on her and shoved her hard against a snow-covered car.
“Wait,” she said, holding up her hands. “I can explain.”
“I don’t have time to wait.” He grabbed her coat and pulled her up. “How about you come along with me and talk my wife out of leaving me the same way you talked her into it.”
He collected her crutches and dragged her to the back of his van. “I’ve been thinking about how you could help me out in another way, and now’s as good a time as any to begin the negotiations. I’m feeling like I haven’t got much to lose, so I might as well run full out.”
She kicked and screamed, but he was like a man possessed. He slammed her cast hard against the bumper as he fought to hold on to her and open the two doors in the back of his lawn equipment van.
“You’re nothing but trouble, girl,” he said as he shoved her inside. “It’s time someone taught you a lesson!”
Pain shot up her leg, and for a moment Reagan couldn’t draw a breath. The break was too new to take a blow. She gulped for air as tears streamed down her face. She wiggled atop dirty tools and pieces of sprinklers as her crutches clattered in on top of her.
“Stop,” she yelled. “Let me—”
She didn’t get any more out before he slapped her hard across the face, busting her lip. “There’s no need to start hollering,” he said almost calmly. “It won’t do any good. I’m about to offer you a business plan that you won’t be able t
o refuse, but first we need to get somewhere that we can talk.”
Reagan stopped screaming as she tasted blood, then balled up all her energy and kicked him hard in the stomach with her good leg. The effort caused her more pain than it did him.
He staggered a step back, straightened, grabbed her arm and pulled her a few inches closer, then hit her again with his fist.
Her shoulder took most of the blow.
“Quiet,” he said, raising his hand for another blow if he heard a sound. Bruising her arm with his grip, he added low and sharp, “The next one will be harder. I learned a long time ago some folks don’t listen unless you get their attention first.”
She’d stopped screaming, shocked and frightened by the wild look in his eyes. Even out of shape, he was a big man who could do a great deal of damage with his beefy fists.
He let her arm go and smiled as if he’d simply settled a problem.
Raising herself with her arms, she tried to back away from him and move farther into the van.
“Good.” He nodded. “I’m glad you’ve decided to be sensible about this.”
He slammed the back of the van doors and ran around to the front, climbed in, and gunned the engine.
Reagan tried to scramble over pieces of machinery and long pipes, but her broken leg made it impossible to reach the door. She could hear him yelling from the front. Something about how she thought she was too good to go have a drink with him. How she never liked him so she poisoned his wife. Edith would have never talked of leaving him. Somehow, in Lloyd’s mind this was all Reagan’s fault.
Reagan leaned back and tried to think. Her head hurt, her leg throbbed, and she thought her foot was bleeding where pieces of her cast had been shattered. She wouldn’t have believed the day could get any worse. Her uncle might be dying. She needed to be with him. Yet, somehow, she’d let an idiot kidnap her. Suddenly she was far more angry than frightened.
“I can’t help you!” she screamed at him. “Edith isn’t leaving you because of something I said.”
“I’m not so sure about that, but you can help me. I’ve been thinking. You got land and those that got land got money. Maybe if you loaned me some money, Edith would think twice about leaving.”
“My uncle just had a heart attack. He won’t give you money even if he was able. Take me back right now.”
Lloyd laughed and turned a corner, sending Reagan rolling across the back, along with tools and pipes. “I don’t need your uncle, girl. Edith told me you own the land; I heard he gave it to you for your birthday.” He pulled a bottle from beneath his seat and took a drink. “Now, you can give a little over to me.”
“I’ll never do that.” She said the words, but he didn’t stop talking long enough to listen. Lloyd Franklin was piecing together a plan in his mind. A plan to keep his wife and solve his money troubles.
“I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to help us out. My brother and I talked about it the other night at the bar. He said since you’re so close to Edith, you might want to float a loan. I don’t plan on hurting you, kid, but it’s not right for someone so young to have all that land. You didn’t do nothing to earn it.”
“I won’t give you any money or land.” Reagan had no idea who his brother was, but the gene pool was definitely polluted. “Let me out of here. I want nothing to do with you.”
Lloyd slid over icy roads again, sending her rolling. “That’s what Edith used to say when she was fifteen and going out with me, but I talked her into it. The day she turned sixteen, we ran off. She was like you. She didn’t have any folks to speak of. Her mom didn’t like the idea, but she had her own problems.
“When we were first married, Edith thought I was perfect, but bad luck and people turned her against me. You’re not much older than she was. I’ll talk you into seeing things my way, and Edith will see the light once I got money.”
“My uncle will shoot you.” Reagan thought of adding that he’d be shooting at a dead body because she planned to murder Lloyd first. The instincts that had kept her alive all those years without anyone to help her came back to her now. She couldn’t get too upset, she couldn’t let the pain show, she had to be ready to act. One thing she’d learned was that there would be a moment when the tables could turn and when they did, she’d act.
The loneliness she’d hated now circled her like a shield, reminding her she could survive. “Take me back!” she yelled. “I’m not going to give you a dime of money or a handful of land.”
“You will,” he protested. “You’ll give me plenty.”
Lloyd pulled out his cell and punched a number. After a short wait, he yelled, “Donnie, I got the Truman girl in my van, and all I got to do is talk her into giving me a little of what she got for her birthday.” He hesitated a few seconds and added, “Calm down. Stop yelling at me. This is going to be easy. The hardest part is over. She came running out following me, so I just picked her up. Nobody even saw me. Not a soul, I swear.” He glanced back at her lying on the floor of the van. “She’s all quiet. I don’t think she’ll give me much trouble at all. I’ll be there in a few minutes and you’ll see.”
The van hit a sheet of ice and spun around. Reagan rolled into as tight a ball as she could and held on to the inside of the van.
When he finally stopped in the middle of the street, he turned back to her. “Look what you made me do, girl. I dropped my phone.”
Reagan raised her head a few inches and glared at him. “I didn’t do anything,” she said as she felt the phone against her side.
Lloyd rummaged on the floorboard around his feet, then straightened and swore as someone honked at him to move.
“Don’t you say another word,” he said in a low voice. “Or I swear I’ll dump you out right here. I could do it too. I could toss your body somewhere no one in the state would ever look. Edith told me you looked like a runaway when you came to town two years ago looking for your uncle. I figure if you disappeared they’d all just think you ran away again.”
Reagan didn’t move until he’d turned back and started driving again. Her fingers brushed over the clutter around her until they came to rest on a hammer. Carefully, she shoved it beneath her body so it wouldn’t shuffle away. Then she palmed the phone.
Lloyd Franklin might think she was easy to kidnap, but he was about to learn that she would not go easily. Sixteen years of being tossed around from foster homes to orphanages had taught her how to survive.
She punched 911, then slid the phone between her arm and body. When the tiny light disappeared, she punched redial. She might not be able to talk, but she would let someone know she was in trouble.
Chapter 46
SHERIFF ALEX MCALLEN EXPLAINED THE FACTS TO HANK on her radio while Gabe and Denver searched for clues in the hospital parking lot.
Hank took the news without emotion. “Do you need me?” he asked in a tired voice that silently whispered that he’d come if she said yes. “We’re dealing with several injuries out here on the interstate, but if you need me, I’ll be there.”
Alex hated to pull him away. “Reagan wasn’t in the hospital. We found plaster from her cast in the parking lot. There was no mistaking all the purple writing. The bastard must have slammed her leg against something hard enough to break part of her cast off.”
Alex couldn’t bring herself to say the words to get Hank to come to her. Reagan needed Hank’s help, but not her. Alex was the sheriff; she shouldn’t need anyone.
“Do you need me?” Hank asked again, his voice the only calm in the mist of the snowstorm.
“No,” she finally said. “Gabe Leary and Denver Sims are here.”
“Good,” Hank said. “We’ve got a hell of mess here and it’s getting darker. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Keep in touch.”
Alex closed the phone. For once she had no backup. She was on her own. The memory of her brother crossed her mind. Five years ago he’d been alone when he’d been out on routine patrol. He’d stopped a car on a lonely road and been shot
. Alex couldn’t help but wonder if he’d hesitated when real trouble arrived. And would she?
“We don’t know it was her blood in the snow,” Denver commented as if trying to make Alex look less worried.
Alex pulled her thoughts back as he continued, “It could be Lloyd’s blood or someone else who came in hurt, but from the signs, there was definitely a struggle in the parking lot. My guess is she fought getting in the car.”
“Van,” Gabe corrected from five feet away. “He drives an old van. Edith said she was having car trouble, remember. He had to take her to work.”
“Get the guards to rope off the area,” Denver yelled. “I don’t know what is going on, but right now we’re treating it like a crime scene. Tell one of those security guards to keep people away.”
He stepped to the back of the Rover. A moment later he reappeared, strapping on what looked like a military tool belt. “I can track the van on foot in this storm probably as fast as you could in a car and far more accurately. I’ll stay in touch.” He nodded toward Gabe. “When I make visual contact I’ll call you and wait for you to move in and pick me up.”
“But it’s snowing, it’s freezing.” Alex couldn’t believe he was heading out into the storm. “You can’t run for miles in this mess.”
Denver smiled. “I can and I have.”
Gabe watched Alex take a few steps to her cruiser, then turn and ask, “Who are you guys?” She glared at them both.
“We were Special Forces five years ago. Trained to search and destroy the enemy in any terrain,” Gabe said as Denver moved away, waving his flashlight over tracks.
“I’d call for backup,” she commented as she climbed into her cruiser, “but they’re all busy right now.”
Gabe moved to her side of the car. “I’m with you,” he said. “The lieutenant and I were once the best at what we did. For Reagan’s sake, I hope we remember more than we forgot.”
