“Can I pour you a drink?” Maitland asked.
“No, thanks,” Stephen said.
Rachel drew her attention from the elegant room to its owner and wondered how many drinks he’d consumed before their arrival. She shook her head at his offer.
“Southern ‘Comfort.’” Maitland lifted his glass, swallowed its contents in one gulp and poured another.
In his early forties, Maitland’s dark hair was thinning at the temples, gold designer eyewear framed pale gray eyes, and thin lips stretched over wide, gleaming teeth. Perspiration beaded his pallid skin, colorless except for a dark shadow of beard, and his hands shook noticeably. His wife’s abduction had clearly shaken him.
Short and stocky, Maitland looked uncomfortable in his expensive suit that pulled across his shoulders and stomach as if he’d gained weight since its purchase. According to the information he’d given Jason when he phoned, his wife had been abducted over an hour ago, yet his silk tie remained knotted tightly at his starched collar, as if holding him together and under control.
“Tell us what happened,” Stephen said, “every detail that you can remember.”
The gentleness conveyed in her partner’s voice was one of the reasons Rachel found Stephen so likable. Beneath his powerful physique and an attitude of unrelenting severity in dealing with criminals lay a core of warmth and compassion that made him extraordinary, not only in dealing with victims, but in being a friend.
At Stephen’s words, Maitland relaxed before her eyes. He slumped into a chair that seemed too fragile to support his bulk and rolled the glass between his palms. “We were driving down to Brunswick to visit Margaret’s cousin. South of Savannah Beach, on a deserted part of the highway, an old Impala forced us off the road. Two men jumped out. Both had guns. They threatened to kill us if Margaret didn’t get out. As soon as she unlocked her door, one of them grabbed her and threw her into the Impala. The other man said I’d be hearing where to leave the ransom. Then he climbed into his car and they took off.”
“Did anyone else know about your trip to Brunswick?” Stephen asked.
Maitland frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The kidnappers were waiting for you,” Rachel explained. “How did they know you’d be coming that way?”
“Habit,” Maitland said. “We visit Margaret’s cousin every Friday.”
Rachel nodded. The circle of suspects had just widened from acquaintances and employees to anyone who’d taken the trouble to stake out the Maitlands’ movements over a period of weeks.
“Describe the Impala.” Stephen drew a small notebook from the pocket of his suit jacket and clicked the nib of his ballpoint pen.
“Late seventies model. The paint was so faded, I didn’t get a good impression of color—maybe blue.”
“Did you get a look at the men?” Rachel said.
Maitland tossed down the remainder of his drink and set the glass on a mahogany side table, heedless of the polished surface. “White men. One was big, over six feet. He had to hunch down to talk to me through the car window.”
“And the other?”
“Small, but wiry.”
“What about their faces? Any distinguishing marks?”
“They wore ski masks.” Maitland closed his eyes, as if remembering. “But one had a tattoo.”
“Where?” Stephen asked. “What kind?”
Maitland pointed to his left elbow. “A spiderweb, an immense thing that covered several inches of his arm.”
Rachel glanced at Stephen, and his eyes flashed with comprehension. They had investigated enough hate crimes to know the infamous spiderweb tattoo was the insignia of white supremacists who committed murder in their battle for ethnic superiority. If Maitland’s description was accurate, they were dealing, not with bumbling amateurs, but very dangerous individuals.
Stephen glanced up from his notebook. “Do you own a cell phone?”
Maitland appeared confused. “Yes. Why?”
“Why didn’t you call the police as soon as your wife was taken?”
Rachel, knowing this response was crucial, studied Maitland’s face.
His eyes blinked rapidly behind the lenses of his glasses. “All I could think of was hurrying home, to be here when the kidnappers called.”
His obvious nervousness told her nothing. He could be lying—or he could have been so concerned for his wife, his motive was exactly as he’d stated.
A rapping at the front door interrupted the interview. In a few seconds the maid appeared in the drawing room doorway. “It’s more FBI, Mr. Maitland.”
“That’ll be the technical team,” Stephen explained. “They’re here to establish the phone taps and monitor incoming calls.”
Maitland leaped from his chair, knocking over his glass in his excitement. “My God, they can’t come here!”
“Why not?”
“If the kidnappers know I’ve contacted the authorities, they’ll kill Margaret. They warned me.”
“It’s all right,” Rachel assured him. “They’re driving a caterer’s van, and the equipment is concealed in catering coolers and baskets. If the kidnappers are watching, they’ll assume you were planning a party and, in the excitement, hadn’t bothered to cancel the plans.”
“Where should we set up the phones?” Stephen asked.
Maitland swiped his hand across his receding hairline and sighed. “The dining room will probably accommodate their equipment best. It’s across the hall.”
The maid disappeared to direct the technicians. Maitland picked up his glass from the carpet and headed back to the sideboard.
“I’d go easy on the Southern Comfort if I were you,” Stephen said gently.
Anger suffused Maitland’s pale face with a flush of color. “You’ve got some nerve—”
“You’ll need a clear head,” Rachel said, “when the kidnappers call.”
The attorney abandoned his glass and wiped his palms on the front of his jacket. “Of course. You’re right.”
“Who else knows about your wife’s kidnapping?” Stephen asked.
Maitland wrinkled his forehead in thought. “Only you—the FBI—and Margaret’s parents. I called them after I alerted your office. They should be here soon.”
Stephen nodded. “I want you to think very carefully. Do you have enemies?”
Maitland managed a wry smile. “Besides my inlaws?”
Rachel shook her head. “Anyone who might have taken Margaret for revenge?”
The attorney grew very still, and the sounds of low voices drifted from the dining room where the technicians worked. “You think they intend to harm Margaret?”
Rachel avoided looking at Stephen. They both knew the probability existed that Harold Maitland might never see his wife alive again.
“That’s only one possibility,” she said, “but we have to check every angle.”
“Okay.” Maitland took a deep breath. “Let me think. There must be dozens of people who have a grudge against me. Every attorney, whether he wins or loses a case, always ticks off somebody.”
In the entry hall, the front door opened and slammed against the wall.
“Where is he?” a man’s deep voice shouted. “Where’s that Yankee son of a—”
“Parker, don’t make a scene,” another drawling voice, soft and cultured, interrupted.
Rachel and Stephen stood as an elderly couple swept into the room. The big man’s face was florid beneath a shock of thick white hair, but the woman was a picture of composure, not a curl out of place beneath her elegant veiled cloche that matched her navy linen dress, her white gloves immaculate. Serena Dayvault, a true steel magnolia, maintained the dress code of Savannah’s elite even when her only daughter had just been abducted.
Rachel couldn’t resist comparing Serena to her own mother. If Sally Goforth had learned someone had kidnapped her daughter, fashion and decorum would have been the last things on her mother’s mind.
Parker Dayvault, not attempting to disguise his
rage, strode across the room toward Maitland, looking as if he intended to strangle the man. “How could you allow this to happen?”
“Mr. Dayvault, please.” Stephen’s reasonable tone rang commandingly in the large room. “Recriminations won’t help us bring your daughter home.”
The towering man turned to Stephen. “Who the hell are you?”
“Special Agent Chandler, FBI. This is my partner, Agent Goforth. We have a team in place waiting for the ransom call.”
Dayvault’s bushy white brows lifted above his blazing eyes, and he turned back to his son-in-law. “That’s why you called us so fast, isn’t it, boy? Need somebody to write the check when that call comes in?”
“Parker, please.” Serena’s deceptively soft voice held a note of irrefutable authority. “Agent Chandler is right. If we want Margaret back, we must work together.”
Parker thrust his big hands in the pockets of his golf slacks and glared at his son-in-law.
Serena pulled off her gloves, removed her hat and handed them and her purse to the waiting maid. “Please,” she said to the two agents, “be seated and tell us how we can help.”
Stephen remained standing, and Rachel followed his cue. Serena Dayvault was obviously a woman who liked to take charge, but this was the FBI’s investigation.
“When you arrived,” Rachel said, “Mr. Maitland was trying to think of any enemies who might wish to harm him through his wife. Do you or Mr. Dayvault know anyone with a grudge against you who might try to harm your daughter?”
Serena pressed well-manicured fingers against her lips, and her lavender eyes flooded with tears. “You can’t live as long as we have without making some enemies, but no one I know would resort to kidnapping... or violence.”
Parker scowled at Maitland. “You have enough enemies to fill a camp meeting, boy. This is all your fault.”
Stephen appeared ready to act as peacemaker again, but the bank of phones in the dining room began to ring. “Mr. Maitland, come with me. And don’t pick up the phone until I signal you.”
Rachel followed Stephen and the attorney across the hall into the dining room with the Dayvaults close behind. The technicians had shrouded the antique table, large enough to seat twenty, with a felt cloth to protect the finish. Its surface was covered with telephones and monitoring and recording equipment. Two technicians, wearing headphones, sat at the monitors. One nodded to Stephen and pointed to two phones at the end of the table.
“When you pick up,” Stephen instructed the attomey, “keep them talking as long as possible.” He gave the signal, and concurrently Rachel and Maitland lifted the receivers.
“Maitland?” a muffled voice asked.
“This is Harold Maitland.”
“Listen good, ’cause I’m only saying this once.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’ll cost you two million dollars to get your wife back in one piece.”
Chapter Two
“TWO million dollars?” Maitland looked ready to faint. “It’s Friday evening. The banks are closing. I can’t get that kind of money before Monday.”
“Get the money,” the man said with a snarl. “I’ll call later with instructions where to leave it.”
Stephen made a rolling motion with his hand, indicating Maitland should keep talking.
“It may take longer than Monday,” the attorney said. “That’s a lot of money—”
“If it takes longer, your wife’s dead.” The line clicked in Rachel’s ear.
“Got him!” the technician shouted at the other end of the table and scribbled furiously on a notepad.
“Where?” Stephen asked.
“A pay phone at a minimarket off 1-95.” He passed Stephen the address.
Stephen finished his own notation, ripped a page from his notebook, and handed it to the technician. “Call in these descriptions to the local cops and Georgia State Police. Ask for a BOLO on the Impala.”
“Bolo?” Serena said. “What’s a bolo?”
“Be on the lookout,” Rachel explained. “The Impala is the kidnappers’ car.”
“Rachel?” Stephen’s gaze met hers. They’d worked together so long, he didn’t have to ask. She knew he wanted her to check the pay phone on the interstate with him.
“Ready,” she said.
Parker Dayvault was arguing loudly with Harold Maitland over the quickest way to obtain the ransom money when she and Stephen slipped out the front door. They darted across the street and climbed into Stephen’s car. Twilight cast long shadows across the square, and the crowds of tourists had thinned, probably heading to area restaurants for dinner.
Stephen maneuvered the car into traffic and headed west toward Interstate 95. The dusky glow of evening backlit his elegantly sculpted nose, strong jaw and a lock of dark hair tumbling over his broad forehead. If she hadn’t known better, she would have attributed the flutter in her heart to attraction rather than the excitement of a new case.
Every kidnapping Rachel had investigated since joining the Bureau brought back memories of Caroline, the lifelong friend who’d been like the sister Rachel had never had. Next-door neighbors, they’d grown up together, been roommates in college. After graduation Rachel had gone on to medical school and Caroline had taken a teaching position.
Three months into the fall semester, Rachel had received a call from her mother.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” Her heart had accelerated with fear at the sorrowful tone of her mother’s voice. “Dad—”
“Your father’s fine. We’re all fine.” Her mother’s voice broke with a sob. “It’s Caroline. She’s... dead.”
“Dead?” The idea was incomprehensible. Her lively friend with the wacky sense of humor and perennial smile couldn’t be dead. “What happened?”
“It’s too awful to explain over the phone. You’d better come home.”
In a fog of disbelief, Rachel drove the thirty miles from the university to Raleigh. There she learned that Caroline had been kidnapped and held for a ransom. Her father, Dr. Kidbrough, a wealthy cardiac surgeon, had paid the ransom, but Caroline wasn’t returned. Days later, when her body was found over a hundred miles away on the bank of the Catawba river, the coroner determined Caroline had been killed within hours of her abduction.
Standing over her friend’s grave at the funeral service, cold, drizzling rain mixing with her tears, Rachel had vowed to spend her life doing all she could to prevent what had happened to Caroline from happening to others. She never forgot her promise and, upon graduation from medical school, entered the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia.
Rachel tried to bring a professional detachment to her work, and she usually succeeded—except in kidnapping cases, where detachment was impossible. She had experienced firsthand the pain and suffering of the victims’ families and friends.
She prayed Margaret Maitland was still alive—would stay alive until they could find her.
“What do you think?” she asked Stephen. “Still have that funny feeling about this case?”
He flicked her a quick glance, and in spite of the dim light, his brown eyes gleamed like polished maple. “Something’s not right, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
In the past, Stephen’s instincts had proved so accurate, she’d often wondered if he was psychic. “Maitland didn’t ask the caller about his wife or insist to speak to her, to assure himself that she’s okay. You think the husband might be in on this?”
He shrugged. “Maitland’s a strange character. His emotional reactions don’t ring true with what I’d expect from a distraught husband, but his behavior could indicate his peculiar personality, not collusion.”
“Maybe, but we’d better check out his finances, just the same. See if he’s in debt and has an urgent need for a couple million bucks.”
Stephen shot her a grin. “That’s what I like about you, Doc.”
“What?”
“You’re so consistently suspicious.”
“I am not.”
&nb
sp; “Then marry me.”
“Why?”
With one hand steering expertly, he reached over and ran the warm knuckles of his other across her cheek. “I think I just proved my point.”
“Your proof wouldn’t hold up in court.” She hoped passing headlights didn’t reveal the flush creeping across her face. What was the matter with her, going all soft and gooey inside over a question that was obviously intended as a joke? “Besides, why would you want to ruin a perfectly good friendship by getting married?”
“There you go, being suspicious again.”
His tone was teasing, but the momentary heat that had flared in his eyes shocked her. That warmth couldn’t have been desire. It must have been a fluke, caused by the lights of oncoming traffic in the twilight.
Curiously shaken, she slid down in her seat. Maybe Stephen was right. Maybe she was consistently suspicious. Wariness was appropriate in her line of work, but ever since Brad had broken her heart over four years ago, doubts and uncertainty had ruled her personal life, too.
“I’m not always suspicious.” She wondered if her protests were to convince Stephen or herself. “I’ve trusted you with my life, many times. And I’d do it again. That’s what partners are for.”
He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but apparently changed his mind. They rode in silence for the next ten minutes.
“Here’s the exit.” Stephen pulled into the crowded parking area of a brightly lit combination gas station, minimart and stopped the car.
“The pay phone’s over there.” Rachel pointed to a kiosk on the side of the building where a young woman was making a call. In her arms, a toddler, hands sticky from the candy he held, tried to wrest the receiver from her grasp. “So much for hopes of any fingerprints.”
“If we’re lucky the clerk will remember something.” Stephen slid from the car and headed toward the entrance, and Rachel joined him.
Undercover Dad Page 2
