by B. J Daniels
He had no idea what the woman’s problem was. But he was about to find out.
* * *
FRANKLIN’S CELL PHONE RANG, stopping him from saying anything further. He quickly glanced at the number and didn’t recognize it. He said as much to the judge as his phone rang again.
“Answer it,” Willie said, and cleared his throat. “If it’s the kidnapper, tell him you need more time to get the rest of the money. Let’s see how desperate they are to finish this quickly. It will give us some idea as to whether or not they know what we do.”
As he took the call, Franklin couldn’t help noticing that his friend hadn’t taken his eyes off Helen. What the...?
It was the same mechanically altered voice as the one that had called Franklin to tell him Geneva had been kidnapped.
“Do you have the money ready?” the voice asked.
He looked at Willie, who had risen from his chair and come over to listen. The judge nodded and whispered, “Tell him how much you have.”
“There’s someone with you. I told you not to call the cops or what would happen.” The voice sounded angry.
“It’s not the cops,” Franklin said quickly. “It’s a friend who’s helping me get the money together. You can’t possibly think that I have ten million dollars lying around.”
“How much do you have?”
“About four.”
“Four?” A curse, then, “It’s not enough.”
“It’s all I’ve been able to raise with such short notice. I need more time.” For a moment, he feared that the kidnapper had hung up. Willie held up his phone. He saw what Willie had written on it. “Before we go any further, I want to speak to Geneva.” More silence. He looked to the judge, afraid they’d pushed the kidnapper too far already. Was it wise to make demands?
“I need to speak to Geneva,” he repeated, his voice breaking. Calling the kidnapper’s bluff felt as if he was playing Russian roulette with his granddaughter’s life. She was his princess. She meant everything to him. There was no amount of money he wouldn’t pay for her safety. But he had to trust that the judge knew what he was doing.
“She can’t come to the phone for such a small amount of money. If you want to see her again, then you’ll come up with the rest and quickly. I’ll call tomorrow about where to take it. You’d better have it by tomorrow night if you ever want to see your granddaughter alive again. If you involve the authorities, I will kill Geneva. Is that understood?”
This time there was no doubt. The line had gone dead. He disconnected and, shaking with fear, looked to Willie.
“They don’t know that we have Geneva,” the judge said. “Or that we know about the plane crash, but they’re worried that we’re going to find out. They want the ten million bad, so they’re willing to take the gamble and it’s bought us some time.”
He nodded, hoping Willie was right. He knew he couldn’t have picked a better man than this one when it came to trouble. His friend’s color had returned to his face from earlier, but Franklin would have been blind not to sense something between him and Helen. “The two of you...” He made a motion through the air.
“We’re old friends,” Helen said quickly, and changed the subject. “Did I hear you correctly? The kidnappers don’t have Geneva? And what’s this about a plane crash?”
* * *
WT ONLY HALF LISTENED while Franklin filled Helen in on what had happened. He was still in shock, and it took a lot to rattle him. When Helen had walked in the door earlier, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d never thought he’d see her again. He could have been knocked over by a feather.
It had been years, and yet she looked so much the same. She’d aged, just as he had, but if anything, the passing of time had made her more beautiful.
He felt like a teenager again at just the sight of her, and wanted to kick himself. At sixty-five, a lot of water had flowed under the bridge. But it sure didn’t feel like that right now looking at her.
Franklin had conferred with Helen and Curtis for several hours before ordering in food for all them. WT had realized that he wasn’t going to get a chance to talk to Helen alone. He’d been busy trying to reach Thorn, and was growing more worried by the moment.
Earlier on the phone, he’d heard Thorn swear, followed by a slamming door and then a disconnect. Since then, all the judge’s calls to him had gone to voice mail.
The only explanation WT could come up with was that Geneva had either been taken by someone—or she’d gotten away somehow. He couldn’t imagine Thorn letting that happen, unless he’d lowered his guard. If Geneva had taken off, then that made her look even more guilty of this crime.
But WT had to believe that Thorn would find her. The man was a bloodhound. He’d get on her scent and track her down, or die trying. That’s also what worried him.
He realized Helen had asked him a question. He looked up from his phone.
She smiled at him. “We were just about to have a drink,” she said. “Join us?”
He shook his head, feeling off-kilter. The last thing he needed was alcohol. Seeing Helen again had definitely added to the feeling. But he was also worried. From what Thorn hadn’t said, he knew Geneva had been giving him a hard time. Not that Thorn couldn’t handle just about anything thrown at him.
Making him more anxious was the fact that Franklin had called in Helen and Curtis. Curtis had been on his laptop since he walked in. He didn’t seem interested at all in the kidnapping. But Helen had hung on Franklin’s every word.
Was she flirting with his friend? The thought made his chest tighten with jealousy even though it had been years, and he and Helen definitely hadn’t ended on the best of terms. Wouldn’t she enjoy knowing how many times over the years he’d thought about her? How many times he’d questioned breaking up with her.
To see her again, here...
His cell phone rang, startling him. He’d been lost in thought. He checked the screen. As he excused himself to take the call, both Helen and Franklin were watching him with interest. He had the strangest feeling that she’d been purposely trying to make him jealous.
The moment he closed the den door behind him, he took the call. “Thorn, is everything all right?”
“I’m afraid not.”
* * *
THE SUN HAD gone down by the time JJ reached the turnoff to Geneva’s house. Dusk was setting into the pines as she started up the narrow steep dirt road after hours of driving. The small upscale development had been built high in the Mission Mountain Range. Each house sat on a roomy twenty acres in the secluded woods for privacy.
The gate partway up the mountain was locked during off-season, but left open during the summer to make it easy for residents. Geneva wintered with friends either down south or in Europe. Only in the past eighteen months had she hired a contractor to build her a house to her exact specifications.
At the top of a rise, JJ turned left and followed a narrow paved road back into the huge home Geneva had built. She didn’t see another soul anywhere as she drove up to the house. It faced the lake, with huge glass windows across the front and a three-car garage. A few lights shone behind the tinted windows, coming on automatically as programmed.
JJ saw no sign of police. No sign of crime scene tape.
She pulled into the drive. Nothing moved. She left the truck running and got out to open the garage. If they were waiting for her...
As she keyed in the passcode, the main garage door rose smoothly. She held her breath. As the truck lights illuminated a bumper she felt her pulse jump, but it was only her car that she’d left here. It seemed like it had been in another life. Next to it was Geneva’s SUV. The third space was where Geneva parked her convertible sports car; it was still empty.
Even as she pulled the truck into the garage and closed the door, JJ told herself that she could be walking into a trap. The FBI could be inside.
But only if Geneva’s grandfather had called them, which seemed unlikely given that he’d sent a cowboy to rescue her instead of the authorities.
That didn’t mean that someone else wasn’t waiting inside, though. By now the kidnappers could have realized that they’d grabbed the wrong woman. It was the not knowing that was keeping her on edge as she opened the mudroom door.
She let out the breath she’d been holding when no one arrested her the moment her shoes hit the marble floor. Or grabbed her and injected her with more drugs.
Hurriedly she punched in the security code before the alarm sounded. She froze, listening, afraid the house code might have been changed.
Apparently it hadn’t, she realized with a sigh of relief.
Her first instinct was to run upstairs as quickly as possible, since the sooner she got her duffel bag... If it was still here.
But she hesitated, giving it a moment before she moved. As she stood listening to the dead quiet in the house, she had a stray thought.
How had the kidnappers gotten in to kidnap her in the first place? She’d just assumed they’d broken in, but then the alarm would have gone off and awakened her. The front door required a security code to open—just like the garage, and even the entrance in from the garage.
She considered how many people Geneva could have given the code to. Look how easily she had given it to a woman she’d never met in person. A few months ago Geneva had given JJ the passcode for her house. While inflight to the French Riviera, the woman had called the travel agency and asked for Jenny Foster, like she always did when she wanted someone to handle all of the arrangements.
When JJ had come on the line, Geneva had told her that she’d forgotten one of her travel bags and needed it overnighted to her. She’d already been in the air when she’d remembered.
“I know it’s an imposition, but would you mind going to my house, retrieving it and sending it to me? I would be forever grateful.” The woman had given her the passcode immediately when JJ said she would be happy to do that for her.
She’d assumed that all of the woman’s close friends must have been on the same flight from the noise in the background. When she’d gotten to the house, she couldn’t believe what she’d found. The place was a mess, as if Geneva had thrown a party and left without picking up.
JJ hadn’t been in the house long before a cleaning service arrived, making her wonder at the time why Geneva hadn’t simply called the service instead of sending her all the way out to the house.
But then again, she did a lot for the woman. She had been Geneva’s travel adviser and planner for over two years and had handled all of her travel arrangements including reservations and VIP accomodations. JJ had become her go-to girl for anything the woman might need.
Often while on the phone, she could hear Geneva talking to friends in the background. JJ had learned more than she’d wanted to about the young woman’s rich, privileged life.
The realization that the kidnappers must have had the security code for the front door meant that at least one of the kidnappers must be someone close to Geneva. A scary thought, but JJ figured the cops would figure it out. Once they were called. In the meantime Geneva was safe. JJ had made her reservations for a two-week rendezvous with her latest boyfriend, Zac Judson. He was the older man that Geneva’s grandfather couldn’t stand. Zac was one of the reasons Franklin Davenport had cut up the credit cards he’d given her and cut her allowance to the bare minimum.
JJ knew all of this from being on the phone with the talkative Geneva every time she called, which was often. It was why JJ wasn’t worried about the woman. She knew exactly where she was staying since she’d made the reservations for her at a posh resort in Palm Springs, California.
She listened for a few more moments before she headed for the stairs to the third floor master suite. She wasn’t about to take the elevator. She hated closed-in spaces, especially right now.
A sense of urgency filled her as she climbed. Just get the duffel bag and get out. Even as she thought it, though, she worried that she might have left one stray blond hair in the bed that could be used to get her DNA and her identity found through her criminal record. She couldn’t take the time to wash the sheets, dry and remake the bed like she usually did.
She had bigger worries, she told herself. As she climbed, she had flashbacks of being carried from the house. Maybe she hadn’t been as out of it as she’d thought she had.
Out of the blue, she thought of Thorn back at his cabin. He must be furious. By now he would have called the cops. There was probably a BOLO out on her and his truck. Well, eventually it would be found in Geneva’s garage. Let him deal with it when it happened. By then, she would be long gone.
For just a moment, she felt guilty. Especially if he was telling the truth and he really was one of the good guys. He hadn’t wanted to be involved in this any more than she had. She wondered what he’d think when he found out who she was and why she’d ended up in the middle of a kidnapping.
Seriously? That’s what you’re thinking about at a time like this? What some cowboy hermit thinks about you? She shook her head as she reached the top floor. With each step, she held out even more hope that she was going to get out of this unscathed. Maybe no one had been here. Maybe her duffel bag was still in Geneva’s bedroom, right where she’d left it. Once she had it and her car in the garage, no one would know she’d been here.
There would be some confusion about who was kidnapped, but all Franklin Davenport would care about was that his granddaughter was safe. The kidnappers who were still alive would cut their losses and go back to their normal lives. They weren’t stupid enough to try to grab Geneva again, right?
She reached the landing, her heart a wild frightened bird’s wings beating in her chest at the thought that she really might be home free. At the closed door to the master suite, she stopped to listen. The house felt so eerily quiet. Had it felt like that last night and she just hadn’t noticed it?
A chill washed over her. She shivered. Just a few more steps and this could be all over, she thought as she pushed open the door, remembering the incredible view of the lake from the bedroom. The view had been why she’d chosen to sleep in the master bedroom instead of taking one of the guest rooms—a near fatal mistake in retrospect.
JJ pushed the door open and gasped.
CHAPTER NINE
JJ TOOK A step back as she tried to hide her shock. Thorn sat on the end of the king-size bed in the middle of the master suite, his gaze on her, her open duffel bag beside him. He looked relaxed, but she knew better. She’d seen how quickly he could move.
“JJ,” he said, and nodded as if now everything made perfect sense. “Or should I call you Jenny Jo Foster?”
“I can explain.”
He laughed. “Why should I believe anything that comes out of your mouth?”
She flinched at her own words thrown back at her. She considered running, but there was no place to go. He had her duffel with her purse inside it. He knew who she was, and he had proof that she’d been in this room last night when the kidnappers had abducted the wrong woman.
“How did you—”
“Motorcycle parked in my barn. I used to race them, and I still love to go fast and push myself, when challenged. Also, I didn’t have to stop for gas as many times as you did in my old truck. I’m assuming you used the credit card you found in the glove box.”
She nodded, acknowledging that he’d outsmarted her. He’d been waiting for her. She wondered how he’d found the place, how he’d gotten in, how he’d known this was where she’d been headed. Apparently, he’d been one step ahead of her since he had someone feeding him information, she reminded herself.
She shifted on her feet. “May I have my duffel bag?”
“No.”
“I’d like to change my clothes. Yours are a bit...baggy.” She pulled the extra sw
eatpants fabric out a good eight inches. He placed his hand over the duffel bag protectively. “What are you going to do with my things?” she asked him.
“What do you think? I’m going to give the bag and its contents to the authorities.”
She’d been listening for the sound of sirens, but heard nothing but the pounding of her heart as he rose slowly from the end of the bed. “If you were going to call the authorities, you already would have.” She saw that she’d hit on the truth. “So let me change.”
Stepping forward, she took the duffel from him and headed for the bathroom, knowing he would be right behind her. As she started to close the door, he stopped her, putting his flat palm against it to keep it from shutting.
“Don’t do anything stupid like try to climb out the window, okay?” he said.
JJ glanced at the window, which was three stories above the ground. “That would be stupid,” she agreed. “Do you mind? I’d like to change without you standing there watching me.”
He removed his hand. “I’ll be right here.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said, and pulled the door shut, locking it. Not that locking it did any good if he decided to come in.
She quickly changed into jeans, T-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt that actually fit. From her purse she took out what cash she had, her only credit card and her phone. She stuffed them into the pockets of her hoodie. Then she brushed her hair and tossed the brush back into the duffel, ready, she told herself, to face whatever was coming.
“JJ?”
Opening the door, she smiled. “Worried I was going to tie the towels together and give that bathroom window a shot? Sorry, I never got my knot-tying badge in Girl Scouts. All thumbs, unlike you. So what now?”
“Now you’re going to tell me the truth.” He motioned to one of two chairs in a sitting area by the wall of glass. The view really was amazing, even in the evening like now.
