For the Right Reasons

by Kara Lennox

  “Don’t think like that. She was taken by someone who’s looking for a ransom, not by a sexual predator. It’s a whole different animal.”

  “Then why hasn’t he called?”

  “Things are just taking longer than he thought they would. When Travis kidnapped Elena, he had to be very careful how he made contact. He had to make sure Elena was in a secure location. Then he had to drive far away before he could turn on his phone and make the phone call. And he wasn’t even trying to hide his identity—just his location.”

  “How did you hear about all that?”

  She shrugged. “Elena and I talk. Quite a romantic story, the way he won her over and rescued her from the bad guy.”

  “Our meeting was romantic. I ripped off my shirt five minutes after I met you.”

  She smiled at the memory.

  “Bree, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” He really needed to get this off his chest. At least under these circumstances, she would have to stay and hear him out. She wasn’t going to leave this house until MacKenzie had been brought home.

  “What is it?”

  “You know I’m the one who killed Kelly’s case at Project Justice.”

  “I know. You’re also the one who got it reinstated.”

  “I didn’t tell you the worst of it. I lied—to you and to Daniel. When I said Kelly bragged about his crimes, it was a fat lie. He never said anything. I lied because I was a coward. I was afraid he would get out of prison and come after me. But I know now it was wrong to punish Kelly for something he might do in the future. It’s pointless to go through life afraid of things that might happen. Life is full of dangers no matter what precautions you take. That’s certainly been proved to my satisfaction.”

  Bree looked down and said nothing.

  “I’m sorry I said such horrible, untrue things about your friend. He didn’t deserve that, and neither did you.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  “You don’t sound too surprised.”

  “I never believed Kelly would do that. Even when I almost confronted him about it at the prison—I was pretty sure he would deny admitting his guilt to anyone.”

  So she’d known all along he’d lied to her. Maybe that explained her ambivalence toward him, hot one minute, cool the next.

  “Bree, I want you to know—I don’t lie. I’ve seen firsthand what dishonesty can do to a relationship.”

  “Don’t lawyers lie by definition? What’s that old joke? ‘How can you tell when a lawyer is lying?’”

  “‘His lips are moving,’” Eric finished for her. “I’m not like that. I regretted the lies I told that day almost from the moment they were out. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but once I’d done it—”

  “Kind of like Philomene.”

  “Yeah. I understand why she kept perpetrating that lie, even though she knew she might have sent an innocent man to prison. Once you start, it’s hard to stop.”

  “You were trying to protect your daughter.”

  “I should have come clean a long time ago. But I didn’t want you to hate me.”

  “Oh, Eric, I could never hate you.... I... The feelings I have for you—”

  Eric’s phone chose that moment to ring.

  His hand shook as he looked at the caller ID Blocked. “It’s him.”

  “Answer it.”

  He did, but not before he took three seconds to prepare himself to speak with the monster who had his little girl—and to remember everything Daniel had coached him to say.

  He pressed the connect button. “Eric Riggs.”

  “Miss me?”

  Eric refused to let the man engage his temper. He was supposed to encourage the kidnapper to talk; minutes from now a language expert would be deciphering the accent, the word choices, the cadence—all things the voice-disguising program couldn’t mask.

  “I’ve done as you asked. Now, where’s my daughter?”

  “All in good time. Did you call the police?” He made a tutting noise with his tongue. “Keep in mind, I’ll know if you’re lying. If you tell me one lie, we’re through.”

  “I didn’t call the police,” Eric said. “Do you think I’m crazy, that I’d risk my little girl’s life? I’ll follow your directions exactly. Just please, don’t hurt her.”

  “She’s perfectly fine, for now. The first thing I want you to do is go to your mailbox. In it you’ll find a cell phone. I’ll call you back on that phone in thirty seconds.” He disconnected.

  Kinkaid had rushed inside almost as soon as the phone rang, and he was listening to his own phone with a Bluetooth headset. Clearly he had heard the kidnapper’s orders.

  “He’s forcing you to switch phones so it can’t be traced or recorded,” Kinkaid said. “Damn!”

  Eric wasted no time heading to the front door. The mailbox was on the front porch.

  “Wait!” Kinkaid called. “You’re gonna get yourself picked off like a fish in a barrel if you don’t think before you—”

  “I don’t give a shit.” Eric ignored Kinkaid’s advice. “This is my little girl we’re talking about. When it’s your little girl, you can call the shots.” He’d contacted Project Justice because he needed help, but that didn’t mean he intended to let them roll all over him.

  He threw the door open and stepped out. No shots rang out. He reached into the mailbox. His hand closed over something small.

  The phone, as promised.

  He’d scarcely gotten it out before it buzzed. It was an ancient flip phone—probably didn’t even have a GPS tracker.

  “I’m here,” Eric said into the phone, stepping back inside.

  “Is the good doctor with you?” the hateful voice asked.

  The question was confirmation that the kidnapper couldn’t see Eric’s house, or he would know the answer to that question. “Yes, she is. What do you want? If it’s money, I might be able to scrape together something.”

  There was a pause. “How much?”

  Kinkaid gestured with his fingers.

  Eric deciphered the gesticulations. “Maybe twenty thousand?”

  The kidnapper said nothing.

  “It’s enough that you could make a new start somewhere.”

  “Not much of a start. But if that’s what you have available, I guess I’ll make do. How fast could you get it together?”

  Eric didn’t want to delay this thing. Every minute the monster had MacKenzie in his control was another minute of terror she had to endure. “Immediately.”

  “Excellent. Gather together the cash. Then you and the doctor get in your car and start driving. Get on I-45 and head north. You’ll hear from me in about thirty minutes.”

  “Wait—why does Bree have to come?”

  “If you have to worry about her safety, you won’t try anything. Keep in mind, you deviate from my instructions one bit, and she’ll be the first to go. I’ll slaughter her right in front of you, and I’ll make it last a long, long time. If you don’t bring her with you, you’ll never hear from me again.”

  He disconnected.

  Eric felt sick to his stomach. “I don’t have twenty thousand dollars.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jillian said. “We’ve got it covered. I’ll go get it.”

  “You brought twenty thousand dollars with you?”

  “Actually, one hundred thousand. It’s in a specially designed package with a tracking device.”

  “You were prepared to risk one hundred thousand dollars?”

  “Of course,” said Kinkaid. “It’s not like we won’t get it back. And he’s not likely to find the tracker unless he takes the wrappers off every single bundle. Chances are he’ll flip through a few to make sure you didn’t supplement with newspaper or something.”

 
; Jillian returned shortly with a small duffel bag, and the two investigators went to work taking out some of the cash bundles.

  “I’m surprised that he settled for such a small amount,” Kinkaid said. “You know what that tells us?”

  “He’s not really interested in money,” Eric theorized. “He just wants us to think he is.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t want to take Bree with me,” Eric said. “It’s too dangerous.” But even as he said this, he realized there was no other way. Even if they dressed up Jillian with a wig or something, the kidnapper would recognize her as a fake almost immediately. And much as Eric wanted to keep Bree safe, he didn’t want to see Jillian or anyone else killed.

  “Of course I’m going with you,” Bree said. “I won’t let you face him alone.”

  “And we’ll be close by,” Jillian assured them. “We’ll plant another tracking device on your car. More of our team will be in cars farther back. We’ll be in constant communication with you. Daniel even has a helicopter on standby.”

  “What about arming ourselves?” Eric asked.

  Kinkaid shook his head. “I assume neither of you has firearms training.”

  Bree and Eric both shook their heads.

  “If you end up face-to-face with this guy, the first thing he’ll do is search you. And the last thing you want is to shoot him. He is very likely to have MacKenzie stashed at a separate location. If he dies, you might never find her.”

  Eric let that weigh on him as hasty preparations were made. He wasn’t sure he bought the logic. He could shoot the son of a bitch in the leg, then torture him into telling where he’d hidden MacKenzie.

  “Eric,” Bree said, “I know you’re feeling a lot of things right now, but Joe is right. We should take his advice. Project Justice has dealt with this kind of thing before.”

  “Many times,” Jillian added. “I owe my life to them.”

  Eric tamped down the fear and anger that threatened to swamp him. Bree was right. This guy was obviously no idiot. He’d thought this through enough to snatch MacKenzie and plant the cell phone without detection. He wasn’t just going to walk up to Eric and let himself be shot.

  “All right. No gun.”

  “We’ve got Kevlar vests for you to wear,” Kinkaid said. “They’re the newest technology, pretty lightweight. Put them on under your clothes, and if you wear jackets, they won’t be easily detectable.”

  Eric did as requested. A horrible numbness had started creeping into his body, and he recognized it as some biological defense mechanism to stop him from thinking about what MacKenzie might be going through. He would go mad if he dwelled on that.

  While he and Bree got dressed, Jillian had been on the phone. “Our psychologist listened to the kidnapper’s voice. She offered some insights. He’s probably well educated. Also a native Texan. He’s intelligent and angry. She agrees that the ransom demand might just be a way to flush you out into the open where he can stage some kind of confrontation. If he tries to draw you to some secluded location, you can’t go along. It seems as if Bree might be the target and this whole setup is a way to get to her. So when he calls, you’ll have to stand up to him. Tell him you’ll leave the ransom in a garbage can in some public place where it won’t be easy for him to pick you off.”

  “Okay.”

  “Also, it might be a good idea to let Bree talk to him. If she’s the target, he might not be as cool talking to her.” Kinkaid handed Bree some kind of plug-in device. “Plug this into the phone’s earphone jack. It will relay the conversation via shortwave radio signal so everyone can hear it.”

  Eric was beginning to feel a little like James Bond with all these tricks and gadgets. He was willing to bet the police would not have handled the situation like this. They probably wouldn’t have trusted Eric and Bree, as civilians, to do what they were about to do. They’d have deemed it too risky.

  It was risky. It was insane. But what choice did they have?

  A few minutes later, with twenty-four thousand dollars in cash in hand and a tracking device on his car, Eric set out with Bree. They wouldn’t be alone; Kinkaid and Jillian would keep them in sight, and other Project Justice people would be close by, ready to formulate a plan on the fly and get into position as they learned more about where the kidnapper would lead them.

  Still, Eric felt exposed as they drove off, heading for the interstate.

  The call came about fifteen minutes later. They had just gotten onto the freeway.

  “Hello, this is Dr. Johnson speaking,” Bree said in a businesslike way. He admired her bravery. She didn’t have to do this. She could have stayed safe at his house. But she hadn’t even considered staying behind.

  “Let me speak with Riggs, please,” the caller said, matching her polite tone.

  “He’s busy driving. I’ve got the phone on speaker. He can hear you.”

  He also had the silver encrypted cell phone in his pocket, connected to a Bluetooth earpiece so he could get prompts from the Project Justice team listening in.

  “Fine, I’ll talk to both of you, then. Drive twenty-three miles north of the city limits. At mile marker one-fifteen, take the exit for Boylston Road. Wait there until you hear from me.”

  “Don’t hang up yet,” Eric said quickly. “I’m not comfortable driving out into the country somewhere. I’ve got the money here but I want to leave it for you in a populated area. Otherwise what’s to stop you from simply taking the money and killing me?”

  “You’ll follow my directions, or you won’t hear from me again. Is that clear?”

  “Tell him it’s clear,” the psychologist, whose name was Claudia, said into Eric’s ear. “Sounds like he’s not going to budge.”

  “No, you listen to me, asshole,” Eric bellowed. “I’m done taking orders from you. You want the ransom money, you do as I say. Follow my orders and the police will never know you exist. Screw around with me, and every cop in the country will be hunting you down. If anything happens to me, I’ve left a detailed account of my dealings with you, which a close friend will turn over to the police. Is that clear?”

  The kidnapper hung up.

  “Um, that didn’t go exactly according to plan,” Kinkaid said into Eric’s ear.

  He yanked the earpiece off in frustration, hoping he hadn’t hosed the whole operation. What if he’d just put his daughter at further risk? He hadn’t forgotten the initial threat involving itty-bitty pieces.

  * * *

  BREE PICKED UP the silver phone and brought it to her ear. “What now?”

  “Bree, do what you can to get him to stay with the plan. I can’t even imagine what he’s going through right now—”

  “I’ll do what I can— Oh, the phone is ringing again.”

  “You talk to the kidnapper. Turn off the speaker if you have to.”

  Eric had already grabbed the phone and answered. “I’m only going to say this once.” Eric’s voice was a low animal growl that sent a chill down Bree’s spine. “Downtown Tuckerville. Garbage can on the corner in front of the café. You leave a note there telling me where I can find my daughter, I’ll leave the money. Call me back as soon as the note is in place. Now let me talk to MacKenzie. And she better be alive and well or I call in every law enforcement agency in the state of—”

  “You want proof your daughter is alive?” The kidnapper’s odd tinny voice came over the cheap speaker. “Have a good listen.”

  A piercing child’s scream filled the car. The look of horror that came over Eric’s face was almost as frightening.

  “Dear God.” Eric barely breathed the words.

  “She’s alive, Eric,” Bree said. “Focus on that.”

  Eric grabbed the phone out of Bree’s hand. “I’m going to kill you. I’ll shoot you in the head like a rabid dog.”

 
At that moment Bree didn’t doubt Eric would do just that if given the chance. She only hoped it wouldn’t come to that. What a nightmare if Eric found himself charged with murder again.

  “And then you’d never get the kid back,” the kidnapper said, laughing. “I don’t think so. I’m giving you one last chance to do this my way. Take the Boylston Road exit. Once I see your car, and I confirm you and the doc are alone, we’ll proceed. And if by chance you have involved the police...let’s just say I have ways of finding out, and it’ll be game over.” He hung up.

  Bree could hear Kinkaid’s voice coming out of the discarded Bluetooth earpiece. She picked it up and hooked it over her ear. “It’s Bree,” she said. “Can you repeat?”

  “We’re damn lucky the guy still wants to play. If he gets nervous, he’s going to bolt. Please, do this my way.”

  “Okay. But honestly, I think Eric rattled him by standing up to him. He said if we didn’t follow his directions to the letter, we’d never hear from him again, yet he called back. He wants to go through with this. And I don’t think it’s for some stinking twenty thousand dollars. Joe, this guy has to be Philomene’s killer. He’s luring us someplace so he can kill us. Which means we must be close to figuring out who he is.”

  “If he gets rid of us, he solves his problem,” Eric said, having returned to his senses. Bree was amazed he could still drive the car after hearing his daughter shriek in fear or pain. “No one else is pushing to tie Philomene’s death to the man who raped her six years ago or to a series of murders. But the weird thing is, I don’t feel like we’re close at all. We have theories, but not much in the way of hard facts.”

  “We must have done something to scare him,” Bree said. “Otherwise why would he take such a big risk? Kidnapping a child, going through this elaborate setup—we must be close and not know it.”

  “It must be the DNA,” Eric said. “The Hollings County case. None of the other murders yielded any usable trace evidence. But that one—maybe the killer believes it’s only a matter of time before we match it up to him.”

  Bree felt a trace of hope. “Which means he must be someone close to the investigation. Someone who knows we requested the evidence from that case.”