For a moment Hallie stood there, too numb to think or move. “You didn’t see who she got in the car with or what kind of car it was?”
Shay shook her head. “I was waiting on some customers. I just told her goodbye, then went into the kitchen.”
“Were these people here?”
Without looking at the customers, Shay nodded.
“I’d better tell Brady. I’m sure he’ll have some questions.”
“I’m so sorry, Hallie,” Shay murmured.
“It’s not your fault,” she said quietly as she turned toward the door.
It was their fault.
Brady’s…and hers.
Chapter 13
Canyon County had never been a hotbed of criminal activity. They had plenty of small stuff to keep the sheriff’s department busy—burglaries, barroom brawls, assaults, domestic disputes—but for the most part they didn’t see a lot of major crimes. There had been only four homicides in the past nine years, and to the best of Brady’s knowledge, there had never been a kidnapping.
Why did the first have to be Lexy?
He’d known the instant Hallie walked out of the café that something was wrong. He’d met her on the sidewalk, and in a shocked, numbed tone she’d told him Lexy was gone. He’d called the dispatcher and damn near every deputy on the payroll had shown up, whether they were on duty or not. While waiting for them, he’d questioned everyone in the café, but learned nothing. A few diners had seen Lexy leave, but no one had paid attention to where she’d gone.
Without a description of the vehicle, they couldn’t even look for her, short of putting up roadblocks on every single road leaving the county, and they didn’t have the manpower for that. Besides, the bastard—or bastards—already had a good head start. They could be halfway to Tulsa by now.
Still, most of the deputies were out looking for her. A purple-haired kid would be hard to miss, Mitch had remarked, and for the first time Brady had been damned grateful that she didn’t look like every other teenager out there.
Ryan Sandoval came to stand beside him at the door. “Lexy knows these guys have been after her. Why would she leave with them or anyone else without kicking up a fuss?”
Staring sightlessly outside, Brady shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“She told Shay, ‘There’s my ride.’ You’re driving your patrol unit, aren’t you? And she knew that?”
Brady nodded.
“Which would suggest it was…a deputy?” Ryan shook his head. “It just doesn’t make sense. She couldn’t mistake any other vehicle for a black-and-white SUV with a light bar.”
No, Brady silently agreed. But maybe she’d seen a deputy approaching and had gone outside, thinking it was him and Hallie, and the guys had grabbed her then. Or maybe…maybe…
Damn it, he hated this! He hated being on the other side of a police investigation, hated the sick feeling in his gut and the fear that intensified with every beat of his heart. He hated not knowing where his daughter was, and he hated like hell that he hadn’t protected her. He shouldn’t have let her help out Shay. He never should have left her alone unless she was safely behind bars in the courthouse basement.
“Does she have a cell phone?” Ryan asked.
Brady shook his head. Of course she did, she’d mentioned once—everyone at Marshall High had them—but she hadn’t brought it with her. There wasn’t anyone in Texas she wanted to call, she’d said with a dismissive shrug.
He should have gotten her one. Should have come straight back here after Hallie checked out Neely’s house. Damn well shouldn’t have gone all the way back to Buffalo Plains and shown Hallie the hill or made love to her. God help him, he’d gotten close to Hallie when they were standing on top of that hill, and he’d forgotten all about Lexy.
After Ryan walked away to talk with Lucy and a state trooper who’d stopped in, Brady looked over his shoulder at Hallie. She was sitting on the nearest bar stool, legs crossed, looking cool and elegant. Anyone who didn’t know her could be forgiven for thinking she seemed unconcerned, but he knew better. He could see how tightly her jaw was clenched, and the shadows in her hazel eyes, and the nervous movement of her foot.
He should go to her, put his arms around her, reassure her, but he didn’t have any assurances to give. He didn’t know if everything would be all right, didn’t know if they would get Lexy back safe and unharmed, or at all. Those two bastards had been damned determined to grab her. It wasn’t likely they’d give her back easily.
When he turned his gaze outside again, he saw a couple approaching. Automatically he opened the door for them, then stepped back.
“Hey,” Ethan James greeted him as he followed his wife, Grace, inside. He glanced at the other deputies and the somber faces, then asked, “What’s up? Has something happened?”
“My daughter, Lexy, was kidnapped here this afternoon,” Brady said, his jaw clamped so tight he could barely force the words out.
“Oh, my God!” That came from Grace, holding her baby, Annie Grace, in her arms. “I’m so sorry!”
“Did you happen to see anything between four and four-thirty?”
Grace shook her head, then readjusted her glasses on her nose when she looked at Ethan. “No,” he agreed. “Nothing suspicious. But—”
“But?”
James’s forehead wrinkled in a frown. “A guy came in earlier, maybe three or three-thirty—a stranger. He bought a roll of duct tape.”
The muscles in Brady’s stomach clenched. If he were a kidnapper, duct tape would be his restraint method of choice. It worked for binding wrists and ankles, as well as a gag. It was quick to apply and, for removal, didn’t require a key like handcuffs, a knife like rope or special scissors like Flex-cuffs.
But not all the advantages went to the crook. It was also a terrific source for fingerprints. If they found the tape. And Lexy.
“You sure you’d never seen this guy before?” Ryan asked.
Ethan shook his head. “He’s not the sort I’d forget.”
“Why do you say that?”
A faint tinge of red appeared high on James’s cheeks. “In the old life, I would’ve considered him a mark.”
In “the old life,” Brady knew, Ethan James had been a thief, a gambler and a con artist. He’d spent so much time in the Canyon County Jail when he was younger that they’d practically put his name on the cell. He’d drifted from town to town, state to state, looking for the easy money, until one day, he’d decided to straighten himself out. And he’d done it. Grace and the baby she’d been carrying had played a part in his transformation, but Ethan had done all the hard work. Brady admired him for being able to pull it off.
“What would have made him a mark?” Lucy asked from her place beside Ryan.
Ethan shrugged. “He was dressed well, wearing a couple of nice diamond rings and an expensive watch, had a Gucci wallet with a wad of cash in it, along with a couple gold cards and a couple platinum. Oh, and he was driving a Mercedes. A convertible. Pretty.”
The stool squeaked as Hallie slowly swiveled around to face them. “Blue?” she asked.
Ethan thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Kind of a silver-blue.”
Brady went to Hallie as she slid to the floor. “You think someone stole your car and Lexy thought it was you?”
Slowly she shook her head. “The first day she was in town, when I took her with me after lunch, she said, ‘Nice car. Adam has one just like it.’”
Brady stepped aside so the Jameses could get past, staring at Hallie all the while. After the tall guy had tried to grab Lexy off the street, he’d made a mental note to check into Adam Napier’s background the next day. But first thing Monday morning, there had been the aftermath of Sunday’s shooting to deal with, then the break-in at his house, the argument with Hallie, the second break-in, the fire, the broken wrist…. Damn it, he’d forgotten all about Napier.
“Who is Adam?” Ryan asked.
Brady’s gaze remained locked wit
h Hallie’s. In addition to the shadows there earlier, there was also now fear. “Adam Napier,” he replied. “He’s my ex-wife’s current husband. Lives in Marshall City, Texas. Get a tag number and put it out on the radio. Have the dispatcher run him through NCIC and see if he’s got a record.” When he’d asked Lexy what Napier did, her answer hadn’t been the one he’d wanted to hear. I don’t know. But he makes a lot of money and has a lot of creepy guys working for him. Sounded like someone who just might generate a hit or two with the FBI’s National Crime Information Center computer.
While one of the deputies went to do as he’d ordered, Ryan asked, “Why would Lexy’s stepfather kidnap her?”
“Unless…he didn’t actually kidnap her,” Lucy suggested.
“Maybe her mother didn’t send her here for a visit. Maybe she ran away, and her stepfather found her and is taking her home. Did you talk to her mother when she showed up?”
Brady shook his head.
“Do you think it’s possible she might have lied about it?”
This time both Brady and Hallie nodded.
Lucy shrugged. “It makes sense. I mean, her stepfather drives a forty-thousand-dollar Mercedes, and she shows up in town on the bus? With no return ticket?”
Brady leaned against the counter. “It’s possible Lexy lied. It’s also possible that her mother put her on the bus. Sandra’s not particularly maternal, and her judgment is usually flawed.”
Beside him, Hallie was shaking her head. “Even if Lexy did run away and that’s why Adam is here, and he thinks he’s just taking her home…. Lexy would tell him she was staying with her father. She would want to pick up her things, and she absolutely would not leave without saying goodbye to Brady.”
“And there’s no legitimate reason for Napier to refuse,” Lucy conceded. “So back to the question—why would her stepfather kidnap her?”
There was a moment of heavy silence before Ryan cleared his throat. “Maybe…I’m sorry,” he said to Brady. “But maybe something’s going on at home that he doesn’t want her to tell anyone about.”
The ice that had frozen in Brady’s chest when Hallie had told him that Lexy was missing started to spread. If Adam Napier had molested Lexy, if he’d laid so much as a hand on her, Brady would kill him and take great pleasure in it. And he’d kill Sandra, too, for allowing it to happen.
“Maybe he didn’t do anything to her,” Lucy said. “Maybe she saw him do something to someone else. Maybe she witnessed some shady deal and doesn’t even realize what she saw.”
“Or maybe he doesn’t want her at all,” Hallie murmured.
Brady looked sharply at her. “Those bastards tried to grab her three times.”
Again she shook her head. “That night at the dance, they followed her for three blocks, but they never got close or did anything. When the guy tried to force her into his car…he didn’t have hold of her. He had her backpack. And when we got mugged outside the courthouse, from what I understand, they didn’t drag her away. They struggled over the backpack, and when the strap broke and they got hold of it, they ran. The first time they broke into your house, she wasn’t even there, but they searched it anyway…and didn’t take a thing. They certainly didn’t empty your kitchen cabinets because they thought she might be hiding inside. They were looking for something, Brady.”
“Something they thought might be in the backpack,” he muttered thoughtfully.
“They didn’t find it in your house, so they took the backpack. They didn’t find it there, so they took…Lexy.”
“And if she doesn’t have whatever it is….” Grabbing her hand, he started toward the door. “It would most likely be at your house.”
He’d never made the trip from Heartbreak to Buffalo Plains in so little time. With the emergency lights flashing, he used the siren only when traffic made it necessary. Just outside town, he screeched almost to a stop, then turned into Hallie’s driveway.
The minimal furniture in the house made searching an easy prospect. Presumably, Lexy didn’t have a clue what the men wanted, so she wouldn’t have deliberately hidden it. But a search of the guest-room closet and the two drawers in the night table turned up nothing that shouldn’t have been there. They took the bed apart and checked between the mattress and springs, and he looked through her makeup bag while Hallie patted through the pockets of every garment in the closet, then dragged in a chair so she could see the shelf above the clothes.
They found nothing.
Silently they remade the bed, then sat down on it. “What if this guy calls and says he’ll trade Lexy for whatever it is he wants,” Hallie asked softly, “only we don’t have it?”
He needed to think about that—to come up with some kind of plan—but he couldn’t. There were too many possible outcomes to the situation, most of them not good. He just couldn’t face them at the moment.
After a time, she leaned across to hug him. “She’ll be all right, Brady. She’s smart and tough, like her father. She’ll be fine.”
The only response he could make at the moment was to slide his arm around her waist. Maybe whatever the men wanted had been destroyed in the fire, and once Lexy persuaded Napier of that, he would release her. Yeah, sure, and face kidnapping charges and twenty-plus years in prison? Not likely. Unless he’d underestimated her and thought no one could possibly believe her over him.
Abruptly he got to his feet. “Let me have your keys. I want to check your car.”
“They’re on the table by the front door.” Hallie watched him go, then slowly followed. She stopped on the porch, hugging herself tightly, and watched as he searched her car. The Mercedes was small, so it went quickly. Next he repeated the action in his truck, checking under seats, in the glove compartment and console, flipping the sun visors down. Finally he searched his sheriff’s department vehicle. When he turned away after slamming the rear doors, he looked so dejected that she could hardly bear to look at him.
He’d just reached the top step when another black-and-white vehicle pulled into the driveway. It was Ryan Sandoval. The deputy was about Brady’s age, Hallie estimated, though a few inches shorter and a few pounds thinner, and he wore a troubled expression that she suspected had little to do with the case he found himself investigating. All was not well in Deputy Sandoval’s life, and she sincerely hoped it didn’t affect his job performance. They needed all the help they could get.
He came to the top of the steps, nodded politely to Hallie, then turned his attention to Brady. “Looks like Lucy might have been at least partly on the right track earlier, when she’d suggested that Lexy might have witnessed a shady deal between Napier and someone else. I called a buddy of mine at the FBI. Napier’s currently under investigation by the bureau, the DEA and the IRS for drugs and racketeering. They know he’s dirty. They just haven’t been able to make a case yet.”
Though they weren’t in physical contact, Hallie could feel Brady go stiff and cold at the news. She laid her hand on his arm as she asked, “What is the IRS’s interest in drugs and racketeering?”
“Taxes,” Ryan replied. “He’s making a hell of a lot of money on his illegal activities, and he’s not declaring it as income or paying taxes on it.”
She stared. “They expect you to pay taxes on ill-gotten gains?”
“Income is income,” the deputy said with a shrug. “Actually, it’s sometimes easier to get these guys on tax evasion than on the drug charges. Either way, they go to prison, which is what you want.”
“So my ex-wife moved my daughter into a house with a drug dealer.” Brady’s voice was low and menacing. “Does she know she married a drug dealer?”
“My friend didn’t know,” Ryan replied.
“A damned drug dealer.” Muttering curses, Brady went inside the house and slammed the door behind him.
Hallie smiled tautly at the deputy. “Thanks for finding out….”
“Sorry it wasn’t better news.”
“Yeah, me, too.” She waited until he’d made it hal
fway to his truck, then she went in, too, leaning against the door after she closed it. Brady was methodically searching the couch—removing the cushions, shoving his hand into the crevices, tilting it back so he could see underneath. He did the same with the two armchairs, then began rummaging through the end-table drawers.
Finally he straightened and faced her. “The last eleven months we were married, she wouldn’t let me touch her because she was so repulsed by my scars,” he said, then his voice grew louder and angrier with each word. “But she has no problem going to bed every night with a damned drug dealer?”
“Maybe she doesn’t know,” Hallie said softly.
“And maybe she does, and she just doesn’t give a—” He broke off and drew a shaky breath. “I should have checked…. I should have taken the threat more seriously. Hell, what I really should have done is sent you both away. I didn’t want you here, disrupting my life. I should have put her on the next bus out of here, and I should have told you to stay the hell away from me. I knew you were both trouble, and I didn’t want you making trouble for me. I didn’t want…” Taking a look around the room, he gave a forlorn shake of his head and finished bitterly. “Damn it, I didn’t want either of you.”
As he left the room, something inside Hallie shriveled and died. Her hope, her dreams, her future, her family. She didn’t feel any pain—though she knew from experience that would change. All she felt was a great emptiness inside where the best parts of her had lived. Emptiness and disappointment and anger.
She’d known better than to get involved with Brady. Hadn’t Max taught her anything? She’d warned herself over and over, but she’d gone and fallen in love with him anyway, and for what? Another broken heart. The one she’d said she couldn’t survive.
Numbly she replaced the sofa’s cushions and pillows, then the chairs’. She closed the end-table drawer he’d left partly open and straightened the afghan on the back of the chair. When she heard his footsteps coming down the hall, she wanted desperately to dash into the kitchen, but forced herself to remain where she was. She wouldn’t hide from him, not in her own house.
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