“Shouldn’t you still be in the hospital?” Zack slid the tiny listening device into his right ear canal.
“I wanted to see this through.”
Zack looked at Kate. She was frowning. “Kate, don’t worry. Look at all the help we’ve got this time.”
“How can I not worry? That guy probably has a gun and wants to kill you.” She hugged him again.
“I’ll be all right, honey. I love you. I know I haven’t said that enough lately. You and Jimmy are everything to me.”
“I love you too. But don’t make that sound like a goodbye. I’ll see you in a little while when this is all over.”
He nodded, and then kissed her.
“Okay, Agent Simpson. I’m ready.”
He turned and got back into his Blazer. He made eye contact with Kate one last time and nodded to her. She looked scared but nodded back.
---
Jimmy hadn’t heard from Grandma in a long time. His stomach was growling for those brownies she was making. Then he realized he smelled something burning. He got up and walked toward the kitchen. “Grandma?”
When he entered the kitchen he saw smoke coming from the oven. The brownies were burning! But where was grandma? “Grandma? The food is burning!”
---
Zack turned down the trail leading to the once-familiar shack where his friend had lived, where had Zack almost died.
He could tell the road had been used recently. The grass was flattened down by tires. He remembered making this journey many times back in those days when he had visited Max.
Was this his final time to drive this route? Would he survive this encounter with an obvious madman? He had been lucky once before at this very spot. That probably made his odds worse this time. But six years ago he hadn’t had FBI agents with rifles and high-power scopes covering his back. He had barely managed to fight off Tommy just as Kate and the former sheriff had arrived. This would be much easier. He hoped.
He entered the clearing and again could see crumpled grass from previous traffic. But there was no car or truck anywhere in sight.
He turned off the ignition and listened through his open window. He heard just the sounds of a fall afternoon in the woods. He took a deep breath and exhaled. Then he opened his door and got out.
As he approached the shack he scanned the woods for signs of the agents, but saw none.
“I’m here and I’m alone.”
No one answered.
“Hello?” a little louder this time.
He continued toward the shack, hoping the killer wasn’t faster than a sniper’s bullet.
---
Kate and Tina Simpson stood listening to a hand held police radio for any word. Nothing so far. Tina was also monitoring the electronic communications system, but it too was silent.
Kate stared at the woods helplessly, knowing Zack was not more than a quarter of a mile through those trees. She could only imagine what might be happening. When we get through this we’re going to make love every day, she thought. And why not have another baby? Zack, my love, be safe. Please?
---
Zack reached the shack and saw through the open door the girl taped to a chair. She wasn’t moving. He slowly poked his head into the entrance, and quickly looked right then left. All clear? He could only hope.
He stepped inside and took one more look around before approaching the girl.
Thank God, she was breathing and only appeared to be asleep. He took out a pocketknife and began cutting the tape holding her. Once free he picked her up in his arms and left the building. Still no killer appeared to shoot them. He rushed over to his SUV and slid her through the passenger door onto the seat. He picked up the portable radio and called, “It’s all clear here. I have the girl and she’s alive. There’s no sign of him.”
As he watched, half a dozen FBI agents materialized all around them from previously hidden positions. They held their weapons at the ready as they moved in.
---
When Jimmy came around the corner of the kitchen counter he saw his grandmother lying on the floor near the wall. He hurried to her and knelt down. Then he heard someone behind him.
---
Within minutes the meadow containing the broken down shack was filled with activity. Four vehicles already crowded the area as another pulled up. Before it came to a complete stop the back passenger door opened and Kate rushed towards Zack. They embraced.
Agents swarmed the area in and around the shack like ants attacking a piece of discarded candy.
Kate, Zack and Agent Simpson talked, trying to figure out why the assailant had just left the girl behind unharmed after all the drama he had put them through.
An FBI agent, who had come from the shack, approached them and handed an envelope to Agent Simpson. “Found this near where the girl was sitting.”
Tina slipped on latex gloves before taking the envelope from the other agent. She inspected it to make sure it wasn’t rigged. Once satisfied, she carefully opened it. There was a single folded sheet of paper inside.
She unfolded the paper and read the note. Zack saw a confused look on her face at first, then her eyes widened.
You took our son away from us. Now I’ve got yours.
Zack and Kate looked at each other.
“My God!” Panic filled Kate’s face. She handed the note to Zack.
“Jimmy?” Zack faced her and held her by the shoulders a little too tightly.
“At my mom’s.”
Zack turned to agent Simpson. “He’s taken our son, Jimmy! It must be Tommy’s father.”
He ran to his Blazer and dove into the driver’s door as Kate climbed into the passenger side. It took Tina a little longer to limp to the vehicle. She opened the back door as Zack fired up the engine. She was still closing the door as Zack jammed it into gear and sped into a fishtailing u-turn through the tall grass. The back end of the SUV slammed into a tree as they came around. Zack didn’t slow down. He squeezed between another tree and one of the government cars and turned up the trail leading back to the main road.
Silence hung like fog inside the car as they bounced down the trail and swerved onto the blacktop road toward town. Eventually, Zack explained the rest of the story to Tina as they drove toward Kate’s mother’s house. They tried calling but only got the answering machine.
Chapter 29
Jimmy felt a strong arm wrap around him from behind. His body came off the floor and he couldn’t move his arms which were pinned against his body. Then he felt a needle stick him in the thigh. He inhaled, about to scream out with pain, he hated needles, but the sleepiness took him first.
---
Frank Ray waited for the boy to stop squirming before loosening his tight grip. Then he carried him out through the living room and to the front door. He scanned the area outside through the glass storm door for any traffic or people walking their dogs or jogging. He waited while a car passed by. Satisfied all was clear, he carried the boy out to his car, strapped him into the back seat, and closed the door. Within a minute he had turned the corner and was onto the road leading out of town. He knew Taylor and Kate would be coming from the other direction. Hopefully he could get away to the place he would hole up for a few days until things cooled down and the roadblocks shut down. He headed to the old house his dead mother had left to him. It waited down a country dirt road and hadn’t been occupied in years. He looked over at the key ring on the seat next to him. It was secluded enough where no one would bother him for a while. He had already checked it out and stashed some food and drinks to get them by for at least a week. The FBI would assume he was on the run and widen the search in the days to follow. His plan was to hide right under their noses until they gave up and assumed he had gotten away. When the pressure dropped he could slip out of the state with the kid.
“Fuckin’ Taylor just found out what’s it’s like to lose a son. How’s that feel, asshole?” He grinned and looked in the review mirror at the unconscious boy in the back s
eat.
The house waited twenty minutes from town. The law enforcement bozos wouldn’t have had time to cast their net before he was safely hidden from their roadblocks and helicopters. The old garage at the house would hide his car and the house would appear empty and unused.
He now had a new son. The bastards would pay for ruining Tommy’s life and sentencing his mother to a slow and painful death. Frank had watched her sitting and staring at the wall for months after Tommy had gone to prison. She had to be forced to eat. She hardly talked. He coaxed her to go visit Tommy, and that had seemed to help at first. Her mood began to improve. But eventually the depression worsened after seeing what Tommy was becoming in prison. He had shaved his head and had gotten tattoos. She watched him turn into an animal like all the other inmates. After a few years of this torture, she lost the will to live and just faded until she finally wouldn’t get out of bed one day. They couldn’t help her at the hospital. They said treatment wouldn’t work if she didn’t want to live. Then one day he’d come to visit her and she was gone. Kate and Taylor had not only taken his son, but had also murdered his wife. Now they would pay.
He had made inquiries. Being a long-haul truck driver meant that you met a lot of people and had contacts who could hook you up with almost anything, legal or not. He’d gotten the name of a guy who would be interested in taking a little boy off his hands. Frank could make back the life insurance money he’d used to pay those idiots he’d hired. He wasn’t really too concerned with the boy’s future, but the “guy” had said he would go to a nice family out of the country. Frank doubted him, but just needed to get rid of the kid and any extra money would help him start a new quiet life out west. Besides, he didn’t have it in him to kill a kid.
---
Zack pulled the Blazer into his mother-in-law’s driveway and screeched to a stop. He dove out of the car and ran toward the front steps while drawing his weapon. He paused next to the front door and peered through the exterior door’s glass and open interior door at the empty hallway. He reached out and grabbed the door handle as he heard Kate and Agent Simpson approach from behind. Glancing back he saw Tina had her weapon drawn and at the ready. “Back me up. I’m going in.”
He slipped inside the quiet house. Smoke filled his nostrils, causing him to cough. He quickly moved through the foyer and looked into the empty living room. He moved across the room to the kitchen. He found no one. As he moved through the kitchen he reached over and turned off the oven. Whatever she had been cooking was charcoal now. The screech of a smoke alarm came from somewhere nearby, probably the hallway. Through the smoke, he saw a human form slumped in the corner, his mother-in-law. He leaned down and checked for a pulse on her neck. He could feel only a faint heartbeat, but at least she was alive. After turning on the kitchen exhaust fan, he scooped her up, her head over his shoulder. She felt lighter than expected, probably because of the adrenaline pumping through him. As he carried her, he called out, “Jimmy! Jimmy!” He quickly looked in the other rooms and found no one else. His son was gone.
The front door burst open and Zack appeared carrying Kate’s mother. He laid her on the grass. “She’s alive. It looks like he hit her over the head. And there’s no sign of him or Jimmy.”
Kate knelt down next to her mother and stroked her face. “Mom?”
Her mother didn’t stir. She took shallow breaths.
Zack got on his radio and called for an ambulance. Two police cars had arrived and officers ran up to them. “Check the house again for my son.” They ran off. He saw that Tina was already on her phone calling out instructions to her troops.
“We need roadblocks and air support, ASAP,” she called into the phone.
Chapter 30
Frank Ray drove along the hard packed dirt road toward the house that had just come into view up ahead. Suddenly, a teenage boy appeared from nowhere on a bicycle. Frank’s and the boy’s eyes met briefly as he swerved to avoid him. “Stupid kid.” He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the boy flip him the middle finger.
A few hundred yards up, he slowed down and turned into the long driveway leading to the house.
---
Zack felt numb as he pulled up to the police station with Tina. Kate had gone with her mother to the hospital. Her last words to Zack were, “Find our son!”
Now Zack felt even more helpless than ever before. Tina’s experience and resources were his only consolation.
They got out of the car and hurried though the front door of the station. Tina moved faster and limped less as she concentrated on finding Zack’s son and forgot the pain in her leg.
“Okay, we’ve got the picture of Jimmy you gave me. Now we need to pull up a picture of the suspect so we can get out an Amber Alert.”
Zack had received training on Amber Alerts, a broadcast that went out to all media when a child was missing; however, Zack had never been involved in one until now, and had never thought his son would be the victim.
“We can pull him up in the computer.” Zack turned into his office and sat at his desk. Shortly after logging onto the computer he went into the DMV database of driver’s license photos and keyed in Frank Ray’s name.
When the picture popped up on the screen, Tina gasped from behind Zack. “Oh my God, I know him.”
Zack turned in his chair and bumped her because she had been so close behind, leaning over his shoulder looking at the screen. “What?”
“The first night I came to town I went out to eat and had a drink at--what was the name? Oh, Hillside Bar and Grill, I think. Anyway, this same guy came up and started talking to me. We ended up sitting together and talking for almost an hour, at least when we could hear each other over the band. He’s a truck driver, right?”
“Well, he used to be. He got a DUI last year and lost his license. That’s Tommy Ray’s father.”
“Thank God he made a major mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“We know who he is. Don’t worry, Zack. We’ll find this guy and your son.”
Tina headed toward the office door to exit. “Okay, let’s get these photos turned in now. Their pictures will be on TV within thirty minutes and in all the newspapers tomorrow. We need the public’s eyes out there to help us locate him.”
Zack put one of his deputies on sending in the information to the people who handled the missing child alerts.
Tina moved around the desk and sat across from Zack on one of the chairs facing his desk.
“How are you holding up, Zack?”
He looked over at her and sighed. “I don’t know. I’m… I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry, Zack. I’ve done this before. Everything is falling into place. There’s no way this guy is going to get away with your son. We’ll find him. I promise.” Tina didn’t like promising him. She would never say that to a regular parent of a kidnapped child. But she wanted it to be true as much as he did.
“Okay. We have every state, local, and federal officer out looking for this guy. The roadblocks are in place. Soon, his picture goes on TV and we’ll have the public helping us, too. I’ll need at least two of your officers here answering phone calls. One of our men can also assist. Someone needs to find out what vehicles he owns and get that information out to the field officers, too. Oh, and they’ll need that information for the Amber Alert.
“The public tends to be overly helpful in these cases and we’ll get a lot of calls that are from, how should I say it, people with overactive imaginations, if you know what I mean. We’ll need to sift through the calls and prioritize which ones to start following up on first. I’ve got more people coming within the next hour to help. I can brief your people on how to handle these calls as soon as you let me know who they are. Then, we’ll set up our operations base here and wait for the information to start pouring in.”
Zack looked around the room like he was dazed.
“Come on Zack.” She stood and reached for his arm. “Assign me two men for the phones and then you can go to the ho
spital and be with your wife.”
---
Frank closed the garage door after setting the unconscious boy on the ground nearby. He then picked him up and headed for the rear door of the house.
---
Terry Malik parked his bike in the normal place by the back porch and entered the house. In the kitchen, he headed straight for the refrigerator in search of an afternoon snack to satisfy the empty feeling in his stomach.
Just then his mother entered the kitchen and called out, “Don’t spoil your dinner, Terry. Where have you been anyway?”
“Andy’s. Just playing video games.” He didn’t want to tell his mom he’d almost gotten run down on the way home by some crazy guy. She would just be upset, and after all, nothing really happened.
He grabbed a couple cookies and a can of Coke and headed toward the living room to watch TV.
As he picked up the remote, he thought of what shows were on this time of day. He flipped it to channel 7, sat back on the couch, munched on his cookies, and drank his soda.
Then ten minutes into his show, an emergency bulletin interrupted -- Special Announcement -- Amber Alert flashed across the screen. A familiar local news woman came on and said, “We have a special Amber Alert for the northern Kentucky area. A child from Michaeltown has been abducted. If you have seen this man,” the picture of a man was displayed on the screen, “or this boy,” a kid’s picture appeared next to the man’s picture, “report it immediately to the police by calling the number listed at the bottom of the screen. The man’s name is Frank Ray and he could be driving a 1991 silver Ford sedan, Kentucky license number 527 CXS.”
Kentucky Murders: A Small Town Murder Mystery Page 25
