Terry stood and called to his mom in the kitchen. “Mom, come here, hurry! I just saw this guy they’re talking about!”
Chapter 31
When Zack exited the elevator he headed toward the ICU where the woman at the information desk told him he would find Kate’s mother and, therefore, Kate.
Sure enough, Kate sat in the corner of a couch located in a small waiting room just outside of the ICU. Her legs were bent and tucked up close to her body and her arms were wrapped around them. She stared into space and didn’t notice when Zack approached her.
“Kate?”
After a second or two of delay, she looked up at him and recognition filled her eyes. She stood quickly and practically leapt into his arms.
“I’m here, honey. It’s okay.”
“Oh, Zack.” She then held him tightly for a long time without saying anything. Finally, she uttered one word. “Jimmy?”
“We’re looking for him. The FBI says we’ll find him since we know who took him. Don’t worry, he’ll be okay.” Zack didn’t know if he believed his own words, but he prayed they were true. He felt so helpless. He was the sheriff and he could do nothing but wait for his missing son to be found. And hope they got lucky. He could only imagine what Kate was feeling. Her mother lay in ICU and her son had been taken by a madman.
They had been embracing for a full minute when a strange voice interrupted them.
“Excuse me. Ah, excuse me.”
Zack looked up. The doctor had to be several years younger than them. He had curly brown hair and glasses and reminded Zack of those geeks everyone messes with in high school. A name tag was clipped to the breast of his long white coat.
“I’m Dr. Henson.”
Zack and Kate released each other and turned to face him.
“You must be Kate. I’m treating your mother. Can we sit?” He motioned to the couch and adjoining chair.
Zack and Kate sat on the couch and he sat in the chair at a right angle to them. No one spoke at first until he finally broke the silence.
“Well, I’ve examined your mother, Mrs.…”
“Jenkins,” said Zack. “I’m Sheriff Taylor, her son-in-law, Kate’s husband.”
“Yes, well, I’ve examined Mrs. Jenkins and she is stable for now. We have her on a ventilator and have stabilized her breathing.” He shifted in his chair. “However, she is in a coma and we see very little brain activity.”
“But she’s alive?” Kate’s voice was desperate.
“Yes. But we’ll have to wait and see. Between the blow to the head and the lack of oxygen from the smoke inhalation, I can’t promise you that she will fully recover. I’m afraid she’s had brain damage. At her age … I’m sorry.”
Kate sank her face into Zack’s shoulder and quietly sobbed.
---
Thirty minutes later Zack walked out of the hospital toward the parking lot. One of Kate’s friends had arrived and was sitting with her. Kate had insisted that Zack go back to work and find their son. He had reluctantly agreed.
He got into the Blazer and started the engine. On the way out of the parking lot he remembered a time when he had been leaving this same parking lot after his friend Max had died six years earlier.
Five minutes into his drive back to Michaeltown, his cell phone rang. He pulled off the road and stopped, removed it from his pocket. “Hello?”
“Zack, its Tina. We have a development.”
“What? Have you found my son?”
“Well, we have a lead, a really good lead. Where are you now?”
“Just left the hospital on my way back to town.”
“How’s Kate’s mother?”
“Not so good. I’ll be at the station in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
---
Zack pulled into his parking spot and trotted into the station. He found Tina with one of her agents and several of his officers standing in the main section of the office.
“What do we have?”
Tina turned to him. “We researched the suspect’s background for addresses and properties he may own. You know a cabin by the lake, that sort of thing. He was left an old house a few miles outside of town by his mother when she passed away. We cross-referenced the location with phone calls we’ve received and found a match. A teenager who saw the Amber Alert on television called to report he thinks he spotted our suspect along the same road where this house is located. Also, the car he described matches the one Frank Ray owns. Everything fits.”
“Really? Where?”
“About fifteen miles from here. We’ve put together a team to go out there and I figured you might want to join us.”
“Let’s go!”
Chapter 32
They parked the cars along the road just out of sight of the house and quietly exited the vehicles. Tina summoned the others to meet near her car. The agents held assault rifles with scopes and were dressed in black with helmets.
“Everyone knows their assignment.” Tina looked each one of her team in the eyes and they each nodded. “Rick and Omar go ahead and get into position. First, let’s have a comm check.” Once everyone including Zack had tested their earpieces and confirmed their mics were working properly, Tina pointed toward the woods and the first two agents trotted off. Zack had listened to their briefing just minutes earlier and he knew if they had a clean shot where Jimmy was in no danger, their orders were to take it.
“We’ll give them five minutes to get into position, and then we move out.”
---
Inside the house, Frank opened the cooler and grabbed a bottle of water. He had checked on the kid and found him, hands and feet still taped, sound asleep on the old ratty couch in the living room.
Now they would just wait. It might take several days for the area to cool down before they could escape the county and the state.
He took his bottle of water and walked back into the living room where he heard the boy snoring softly. At the window he pulled back the dusty curtain and scanned the front yard. Everything appeared quiet. The coming night would be long and probably sleepless.
He sat on a wooden dining chair next to a round table and wondered if he would make it through this. He thought about his dead wife and his imprisoned son. He thought about how much he hated Zack Taylor and how he had corrupted Kate, the woman who should have been his daughter-in-law. Looking over at the boy, he thought about how he should be his real grandson, not one he had been forced to kidnap. And he thought about how he didn’t really care if he made it through this ordeal or not. What did he have to live for anyway? He had spent the last six months sitting around his house staring at the walls. He’d felt the anger building each day. If he didn’t do something to avenge his family he might as well be dead anyway.
He opened the bottle and took a long drink.
---
“Okay, let’s move.” Tina waved her hand. Zack and the two remaining agents with rifles followed her slowly down the road. They crouched as they walked. The grass along the shoulders stood three feet high and provided some cover as the house came into view.
The roof shingles needed replacing and the peeling paint needed to be redone. A small covered porch with three steps down to the brown grass stood at the center of the building. The place reminded Zack of his dead mother’s home in suburban Detroit.
Tina waved her hand and one of the agents turned off the road and dropped out of sight in the long grass. He would be moving to a prone shooting position covering the front of the house from this angle.
One of the other two agents, call sign Alpha, checked in on the comm confirming he was in position at left back corner of the building where he could also cover an exit to the rear.
Tina, Zack, and the last agent approached the driveway and slowly moved down it. Their cover of bushes and long grass would end twenty yards farther up when they reached the house’s open front yard and shorter grass.
“This is Bravo. I see the vehicle in
the garage. License plate matches,” came over the comm. The other agent assigned to that side of the house had also been given the task of checking for the car through a garage window as their final confirmation of positive ID of the suspect. Tina clicked her mic twice to acknowledge his call.
“Bravo now in position.”
“Charlie in position,” the final sniper’s called. They were ready.
“Okay. Zack, I want you to stay here and let us go in. Agent Keene and I will approach the house.”
“But --“
“Zack, just be our backup in case we need you, but let us do this. Okay?”
Zack drew his weapon and held it ready. “Okay.”
She motioned for them to move out.
---
Kate leaned against the glass of the ICU where her mother lay in the bed on the other side. Her head was bandaged and what must be a breathing tube ran down her throat. An IV was connected to her arm and wires ran to a machine that displayed her vital signs.
She still couldn’t believe their sweet little boy was being held by some lunatic. It was almost unreal to her that he wasn’t home playing or watching TV like every other normal day in their lives. She felt so helpless knowing the fate of her son was out of her control. And there was nothing she could do but wait. Wait for a message from Zack. She prayed the news would be good.
Kate looked through the glass at her mom.
“My God,” whispered Kate. “Why?”
---
Zack watched as Tina and the other agent slowly approached the house while three snipers watched from somewhere nearby.
Please be okay, son.
Chapter 33
Frank Ray suddenly got the feeling that something wasn’t right when the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Had he heard something?
He walked over to the table and picked up his revolver. First he glanced at the boy who seemed to be stirring as if the drugs were wearing off, but Frank guessed he would be out for a while longer. He didn’t have time for a closer inspection.
Approaching the window, he immediately saw the black clad FBI agent, his M16 fixed on the house, as he slowly moved toward them.
“Oh, shit. They’ve found us.”
He hurried over and scooped up the boy with his free arm. His tiny eyes blinked and then opened, still groggy, but now awake. “Come on, let’s go.”
He went to the front door and opened it.
---
Tina saw the door opening and called into the radio, “He’s coming out. Everyone be ready. Remember, if you have the shot--”
---
Zack, waiting back up the driveway, saw Tina raise her hand and heard her announcement over his earpiece.
He looked past Tina and saw that the front door had opened. A few seconds later Frank Ray came out onto the porch with Jimmy held in front of him with one hand. Jimmy’s hands were taped together in front of his body. Frank’s other hand held his gun, the end of its barrel pressed against Jimmy’s right ear.
Zack stood and moved toward Tina’s back. As he approached her, he passed to the right, his gun at the ready. Now the other agent, Tina, and Zack formed a semi-circle in front of and twenty feet from the porch where Frank Ray stood holding Zack’s little boy at gunpoint and as a human shield.
---
Jimmy was now wide awake and wondering where he was and why all these adults were pointing guns at each other. He really couldn’t remember much. Then he saw his dad.
---
“Mr. Ray, there’s no place to go. This is over,” called Tina.
“I want you to bring me your car or I’ll kill the boy.”
“Let him go. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt here. Even if you escape we will find you again. Let’s just end this now. Lay down your gun and release the boy.”
Tina watched as Frank Ray slowly scanned the three law enforcement officers in front of him. When he looked at her, a slight grin crossed his face. “Tina. Right?” He recognized her from that day they’d met in the bar.
Why had she given him her real name?
Then his gaze turned toward Zack and Tina saw the hatred in his eyes.
Finally, he turned back to Tina. “I said bring me a car or the boy dies. You’ve got two minutes.”
“Calm down.” She lowered her weapon.
“And all of you put your guns on the ground,” said Ray, and he looked toward the agent holding the M16.
BOOOOOOOOM.
Tina, stunned, her ears ringing from the gunshot that had gone off a few feet away, saw the kidnapper’s left shoulder being thrown backwards, a spray of blood splattered behind him onto the siding next to the front door of the house. The impact had almost spun him completely around. It took a few seconds for him to regain his balance, but the other FBI agent was on top of him before he could react.
The boy leapt off the porch and ran to his dad.
Tina looked toward Zack and saw the cloud of blue smoke drifting away from his gun barrel. He quickly holstered his weapon, reached out, and scooped up his son who had jumped the last few feet into his father’s arms. Zack struggled and remove the tape from the boy’s hands while holding him.
Finally, Zack looked over at Tina, shrugged, and grinned. “I had a clear shot.”
Tina called over the radio, “Stand down. The child is safe and the suspect is in custody.”
Chapter 34
Jenny lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. A Little Mermaid nightlight dimly lit the room. She had been lying awake for hours thinking about her daddy and why he hadn’t shown up that day to take her away. Finally, she had given up waiting and went to school late. The teacher gave her a note to take home for her mom to sign. He mom was really mad and wanted to know why she was late since she had left for school on time. She didn’t know what to say so she kept quiet and that made mommy even madder. She’d been sent to bed early.
Where was her dad? Why hadn’t he come? She knew he would have come for her unless something had stopped him. She hoped someone had not put him away again. Maybe he would show up tomorrow.
---
Tommy finished his shitty lunch and went to the prison library where they could read the paper, magazines, or books. He picked up the local newspaper and began skimming through the first section.
As he looked toward the bottom of the front page an article caught his eye.
Kidnapper Captured by Police
Michaeltown, KY -- Local resident, Frank Ray, was arrested Friday by Sheriff Zack Taylor. A retired truck driver, Ray was confronted by FBI agents and Sheriff Taylor outside of an abandoned home where Ray was hiding after abducting Sheriff Taylor’s son earlier in the day. Sources say that Ray was seeking revenge against the sheriff who had been responsible six years ago for Ray’s son, Tommy Ray, being convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to a prison term of twenty years to life…”
Tommy threw the paper on the table. “That son of a----”
Epilogue
Zack and Kate listened to the preacher give Mrs. Jenkins her final blessing. Jimmy sat to Zack’s right and Sharnita sat to Kate’s left along with Sharnita’s aunt they had located a week earlier.
Looking over, Zack saw Kate lift a tissue to wipe a tear from her eye as she looked at her mother’s coffin.
Two weeks had passed since Jimmy’s rescue. Mrs. Jenkins’ health had continued to deteriorate until only the machines were keeping her alive. Finally, Kate had signed the paperwork to allow her mother’s body to join her soul, which she knew had already departed.
The service ended. Everyone stood and filed past Kate and Zack to pay their respects. There would be food and drink later at the house.
Kate bent and touched her mother’s coffin one last time.
As they walked back towards the limousine, Jimmy and Sharnita hurried ahead of them. Nina Stewart, Sharnita’s aunt, walked along with Zack and Kate. Then Sharnita called out, “Last one to the limo is a rotten egg,” and ran toward the car with Jimmy close behind. Bo
th of the children had been fascinated with the word limo.
“We’re riding in a limo, Mom. A limo…”
The kids were in good spirits because Zack had explained they shouldn’t be sad for Grandma. She was now in heaven and could have ice cream every day if she wanted.
“So you and Sharnita will be leaving for Chicago tomorrow?” asked Kate.
Ms. Stewart seemed like a nice woman. She had come down five days earlier and had stayed in their spare bedroom. She had recently retired from a government job, and had never been married or had children. Kate felt relieved and could see that she would make a good mother for Sharnita.
“The train leaves at 7:00 AM.”
“We’ll miss Sharnita. She’s a good girl.”
She smiled and looked over at the children. “Yes, she is a blessing.”
“Maybe we’ll visit sometime,” said Kate.
“That would be nice.”
As they continued to walk Zack caught sight of Tina coming toward them.
“Zack, Kate” she called as she approached. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” She took Kate’s hand in hers.
“Thanks, Tina. We appreciate you coming. Can you stop by the house to eat? How’s your leg?”
“It’s fine. Got the stitches out the other day. Sorry, I’ve got to get back to work.” She looked over her shoulder at her car and the lean man standing next to it. “That’s my partner, Larry.” The guy by the car saw them look over and nodded slightly.
Kentucky Murders: A Small Town Murder Mystery Page 26
