by Leona Karr
McGrady and the ranger walked down the gravel road at a seemingly leisurely pace. Courtney swallowed hard as she watched.
Hurry! Hurry! The word was a drum beating in her head. When McGrady and the ranger disappeared from sight, she turned away from the window. She hugged herself as if she were about to break apart, and began pacing up and down. Adrenaline fired every cell in her body, demanding release.
“Easy does it,” Neil cautioned, fighting his own battle to remain calm as he ran agitated fingers through his hair.
A large round clock on the wall ticked off the excruciating minutes. As they waited, they kept glancing out the front window. It seemed as if an hour had passed, but in reality, it was less than ten minutes when Officer Rogers came into sight. He ran toward the station with his two-way radio pressed to his ear.
Courtney and Neil bounded out of the station and met him on the front steps. They both talked at once, bombarding him.
“What happened?”
“Was it her?”
“My baby?”
He shook his head. “The camper was empty even before I took up my position. Looks hastily abandoned. We’ve called in backup units. McGrady wants you to come and see if you can identify any of the baby stuff.”
Baby stuff!
Neil grabbed her hand as they ran down the road.
Shaded by huge ponderosa pines and set back from the road, the campsite would have been inconspicuous under normal circumstances, but Courtney’s chest nearly exploded when they reached it.
McGrady stood in the doorway of a small snubnosed camper, parked in campsite number twenty-nine. Ranger Lewis was outside, his eyes searching the ground as he circled the camper and made his way through wild grass and mountain shrubs.
McGrady motioned them inside. “Take a look, Courtney, and see if anything looks familiar.”
The clutter was unbelievable. Boxes, dirty dishes, cans of food, baby paraphernalia and clothes were strewn from one end to the other. Every square inch of the small camper had been utilized to provide a miniature galley, a combination couch-bed, one small table for eating and a postage-stamp-size bathroom.
Courtney’s eyes passed over it all with driving urgency. Breakfast was still on the table, and there were signs of a hasty departure.
“The ranger’s attention this morning must have alerted her,” Neil said, his chest tightening.
McGrady nodded. “She left in a hurry, all right.”
“We’ve still got to verify that Jamie is the baby she has with her,” McGrady reminded them.
Courtney knew they were looking to her for that confirmation. There was plenty of evidence of a baby in the small camper, but none of the stuff was familiar. All of Jamie’s used belongings had been left in the houseboat. The only thing she was sure had been taken was Jamie’s carrier, and there was no sign of it in the camper.
“How about this toy?”
“This bottle?”
Neil and McGrady kept showing her all the baby stuff they could find. She shook her head.
None of it had been Jamie’s. Courtney was about to despair when they moved a pile of bedding on the couch and she glimpsed the corner of a familiar blanket.
She grabbed it as if she’d found a treasure. “It’s Jamie’s.” With tears in her eyes, she pressed the soft flannel against her face.
“Are you sure?” Neil questioned. One baby blanket looked like any other to him.
“Positive. I made it for him. See the edging? One of my feeble attempts at crocheting.”
It was Neil who found the footlocker. “I’ll be damned, would you look at this.”
“What is it?” the detective asked.
“Take a look.”
McGrady’s expression matched Neil’s as he stared at the gray wig, mustache, cowboy hat, an empty gun holster and a couple of loose bullets.
“Your bank robber,” Neil said evenly. “What’s this?” He lifted out a photo of a rough, hard-looking man with piercing black eyes.
“Buzzy Kline, if I’m not mistaken. Killed in a bank robbery a while back. Billie’s accomplice.”
Courtney’s eyes went first to the empty gun holster. She paled. “She’s armed.”
If they cornered the woman, and she shot her way out, what would happen to Jamie?
Courtney’s reaction was one of instant anger.
“Why did you let her get away!” she lashed out at McGrady. “She was here this morning, the ranger said so. She had my baby, and—”
Neil touched her arm. “Easy, honey.”
She shook off his hand and continued to blast McGrady. “You waited too long. Why didn’t you do something when the ranger called you?”
“I did,” he answered in a calm tone that was a sharp contrast to her verbal attack. “I immediately closed off the roads. There’s no way she could have driven away after that.”
“Then where is she?”
“Somewhere in the park.”
His calm answer only infuriated her further. “How many hundred acres is that?”
He ignored the question. “Now that I have verification that she’s the kidnapper of your baby, I’ll call in as much manpower as we need. In the meantime, you two stay here.” He gave Neil his cell phone number. “If you see anything, call.”
Neil knew it would take time to organize a search party. At least an hour or more. The anger and frustration surging through his body needed some release. He was just as capable of joining the search as anyone, but something in the detective’s steady eyes warned him not to argue.
As McGrady started toward the door, Ranger Lewis appeared.
“I checked the perimeter,” he told the detective. “Looks like someone hurriedly made their way through the area in back of the camper. There’re broken twigs and footprints in the deadfall. The size could be a woman’s but the prints seem too heavily pressed into the dirt for normal weight.”
“She could have been weighed down by the baby, especially if she had him in a carrier,” McGrady replied.
“Two trails are only a short distance away. One leads down to a small camping area beside a stream, and the other doubles back toward the main road. We’ll have to send search parties in both directions.”
“Let’s get on it.” McGrady started out the door with the ranger.
“I’m coming, too.” Courtney was ready to bolt after them.
“The woman’s got a gun.” Neil grabbed her. “Nothing would please her more than to use it on you. Getting yourself shot isn’t going to help anyone.”
“It’s my baby!” Courtney protested. “Why can’t I be out there looking like anyone else?”
“Because you’re too emotionally involved, and you don’t know the area. Tracking someone in these mountains takes skill and training. McGrady doesn’t want to put you in harm’s way.” Neil gathered her close. “And neither do I.”
“Maybe she’ll run back here.” Courtney stiffened at the thought. “I wish she would.”
Neil hadn’t considered that possibility. A cold prickling rose on his neck. If she burst into the camper, gun in hand, they’d be like sitting ducks.
Courtney couldn’t sit still. She gathered up all the baby clothes, toys and diapers, and packed them in one of the suitcases. As all of “Devanna’s” shopping trips came back to haunt her, she was relieved that Jamie hadn’t wanted for anything while he was in the woman’s clutches.
“Good idea.” Neil was relieved she was putting some of that nervous energy to good use. When she examined the refrigerator and found two baby bottles of prepared formula, her face went white. Had Billie left in too much of a hurry to take them with her? What would she do when it was time to feed him? It was already time for his afternoon bottle.
She began frantically looking for the diaper bag.
“What is it?” Neil asked, seeing her frantic search.
As Courtney drew out a brown leather bag from under the daybed, she wailed, “She left without it. No bottles, no diapers.”
; “Maybe she packed them in something else,” he soothed, as he sat down beside her and let her bury her head against his chest.
The wait was even more excruciating than the one at the ranger station. When they heard someone coming up to the door, they both froze.
“Hello.” A timid knock echoed the greeting.
Neil pushed Courtney behind him as he went to the door. A small, bald-headed man holding a small box of laundry soap looked at Neil questioningly.
“Is the lady here?”
“No,” Neil answered evenly.
“Well, she loaned my wife a cup of soap the other day when they were doing laundry, and we wanted to pay it back.” He handed Neil the box. “Tell her, thank you.”
“I will,” Neil assured him. “You haven’t seen her this morning, have you? My wife and I paid her a surprise visit, but she doesn’t seem to be around.”
“No, we left early this morning on a sunrise hike. Just got back. Sorry. Maybe if you ask around?”
“Yes, maybe we’ll do that.”
After the man had left, Neil looked at Courtney, thoughtfully.
They weren’t equipped to join any search party, but there were some things they could do. Sitting around, waiting for something to happen was driving him nuts. “What do you think?” he asked Courtney.
“About what?”
“We could walk through the campground. Talk to people. Maybe turn up something that might help. She’s bound to have made contact with some other people, like that guy’s wife.”
Courtney’s face brightened. “Yes, we can do that. McGrady will probably be pleased.”
Neil wasn’t so sure, but he couldn’t see what they had to lose.
He took her arm. “Let’s go.”
After all, what harm could come from chatting with a bunch of friendly campers?
Chapter Fifteen
Courtney and Neil looked for signs that McGrady’s organized search parties had arrived, but the campground seemed as peaceful as ever.
“They’re probably concentrating on securing the areas around the campground,” Neil speculated. “Like casting a net, they’ll tighten the perimeter, and men and dogs will move in until they find her.”
“Someone is bound to have seen her leave,” Courtney insisted. “There are kids and adults all over the place. A woman carrying a baby carrier would stand out. All we have to do is ask around.”
Courtney’s hopeful expectations soon proved to be ill-founded as they went from one camping site to the next asking adults and children alike if they’d seen a middle-aged woman with a baby that morning.
Even families occupying the sites closest to Billie’s camper shook their heads and admitted they weren’t even aware that a lone woman was the occupant.
The responses were varied, but equally discouraging.
“Sorry, we just pulled in last night.”
“Nope, I got up at dawn to go fishing.”
“There are women and babies all over the place,” one man retorted. “What’s special about this one?”
Neil put a firm hand on Courtney’s arm before she could answer. If the news of an armed kidnapper spread through the campground, the whole camping community might panic. Well-meaning sympathizers could just muddy the waters with half-truths in an effort to help.
Frustrated and disappointed, Courtney fought back angry tears as they came up with absolutely nothing at the end of their canvass of the camping sites in the immediate area where the camper had been parked.
“I think we ought to check the bait shop and laundry room,” Neil said, still hopeful they would run into someone who had seen Billie that morning. He knew that fishermen came and went on the paths that led down to the stream. If Billie fled that way, one of them might have seen her.
“I’ll get the laundry,” Courtney said, and headed in that direction. Keeping up with the baby’s washing would cause Billie to make frequent trips to the laundry room, and apparently she’d been pleasant enough to loan another woman some soap.
“Yeah, I remember her,” a young woman attendant in charge said in response to Courtney’s description. “She was kind of a funny duck.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I saw her washing a lot of baby stuff, and I thought she must be a grandma. Just trying to be friendly, and make conversation, I asked her about the baby. Wow, what a mistake. She looked at me, all daggers, and stomped out of here.” She shook her head. “Go figure that one.”
“How about this morning?”
“Yep, she was here early.”
“We’re trying to find out where she might have gone after she left here. Did you see her later on anywhere?”
She shook her head. “You might ask Ranger Lewis. I saw him talking to her.”
Courtney repeated the conversation to Neil when he returned empty-handed from his visit to the bait house. The attendant’s information just verified Ranger Lewis’s reported contact.
“Maybe if he hadn’t said anything to her, she wouldn’t have taken the baby and fled,” Courtney lamented.
“She hadn’t planned on leaving, that’s obvious from the condition of the camper,” Neil agreed. “Maybe it was her encounter with the ranger, or something else. In any case, I think we should keep asking around.”
They had covered the main area of the campground, but Neil knew that there were other sites along two narrow roads running in opposite directions from the center campground.
“Why don’t we split up? That way we can cover more campsites faster.” An urgency had been mounting inside Courtney with every fruitless minute.
“I have a better suggestion. Why don’t you wait at the station, and let me do the footwork.”
An icy cold glare was his answer. “If we learn anything important, we can head back to the ranger station and contact McGrady right away.”
“Okay, but we’ll meet here first. You wait if I’m not back when you get here.”
Courtney nodded in agreement and headed in one direction while Neil went in another. As before, they each stopped at every site, asking their well-worn question, and getting the same negative results.
Neil stopped to talk to families collected around picnic tables and barbecue grills, but came up empty without any helpful information.
He stopped several hikers returning to the campground, hoping they might have spied a woman and a baby somewhere along the trail.
“Nope. Sorry.”
He boldly knocked on an assortment of recreational vehicles, and got the same negative answers as he did from people who were camping out in tents.
When he met a couple of young boys who had been fishing in a nearby stream, he asked them if they’d seen a woman with a baby.
“Nope,” the oldest boy replied. “But we saw plenty of trout jumping around, didn’t we, Luke? Lookee.” He opened the fishing basket to show Neil their catch.
The contrast between their high spirits and his own leaden feelings only heightened his growing frustration.
Activity was everywhere. Children bounded around, squealing. Tethered dogs wagged their tails and yapped to get attention. Adults sat in lawn chairs, laughing and joking as they sipped drinks.
As he passed a luxurious RV, the total absence of any activity caught his attention. No sign of life inside or outside. On such a warm day, you’d think the door or windows would be open to catch the cool mountain breeze, he thought as he made his way to the door.
His knock echoed in the total silence. Nobody home. Maybe they were hikers or fishermen like the boys. He wondered if McGrady’s men were checking the lakes and streams, or just concentrating on the wooded areas.
He started to turn away when a faint sound stopped him. Even before he fully recognized it as a baby’s cry, the door flew open, and the gun in Billie Mae Kessel’s steady hand was pointed at his head.
His heart stopped. His last breath burned in his lungs. Never in the world had he expected to find her himself. The most he had hoped for was to find someo
ne who might have seen her leave the campground.
Now he knew the truth. She’d never left! A crazed glint in her eyes warned him not to make any sudden moves.
“Get in here before I blow your brains out.” Her finger trembled on the trigger as she motioned him inside.
One section of the RV had been expanded and the spacious sitting area was almost as large as a mobile home, and as beautifully furnished.
A fussy Jamie was lying on a daybed. His pacifier had dropped out of his mouth, and he was kicking and waving his arms in protest.
A white-faced, gray-haired couple huddled together in a sitting position on the carpeted floor. Their frightened eyes pleaded with Neil to do something.
“She’s going to kill us,” the woman wailed. Her whole body shivered with fear, and her terrified, white-lipped husband looked ready to have a heart attack.
“Shut your trap!” Billie ordered. “One more peep out of you, and you’ll get it now instead of later. You’re only alive because I need you to drive this thing out of the park when it gets dark.”
“Down!” Billie motioned Neil to the floor, and her eyes glinted with a strange kind of power. “You’re not so high and mighty now, are you?” A low rumble of satisfied laughter came deep from her chest, but there was no mirth in it, only hatred.
Neil’s skin crawled as he realized how twisted her mind was. How could he appeal to any decent behavior when the term had no meaning for her?
“You thought I was dirt under your feet, didn’t you? Flashing around in your boat and fancy car. I told Buzz all about you. He damn well knows how to handle the likes of you.”
“Buzz?” Neil echoed. He searched his memory. Wasn’t that the name of her partner who had been killed in an aborted robbery? Buzzy Kline. Why was she speaking about him in the present tense?
“Yes, Buzz. He’s my man,” she answered, defiantly. “And he’s taking good care of me and Jesse.”
“Jesse?”
“Our baby. That’s what we named him.” She smiled in a secret kind of way as she sat down on the daybed beside Jamie. Keeping her gun leveled at her prisoners, she gave him back the pacifier.
