Shine On Oklahoma

by Maggie Shayne

  “What did I know?”

  She shook her head. “You knew I couldn’t do it anymore. That the last time…changed me.”

  “I thought it might help you get your edge back. I was doing you a favor. You’d be thanking me if it had worked.” He shrugged. “But you were too slow, Caine got impatient, and everything went sideways. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe I left my sister to try to save your worthless ass. I can’t believe I ruined the only good thing in my life to try to save yours, when it wasn’t even real.”

  “You’re right. I played you,” he admitted. “Kind of makes us even, doesn’t it?”

  “That you can run out on us, after you’ve caused so much harm—how can you do that?”

  His back was toward her, but he’d gone still. He dropped the whiskey and the humidor onto the bed. “I’m not running out. I’m coming with you to save Kiley.” Then he turned slowly, blinking like a blind man when light somehow gets through. “You really think I’d run out on my own kids, Kendra? I mean, I was going to leave, yeah, but I hadn’t thought it through far enough. I would have, before I got very far. I’d have come back. How can you think otherwise? Have I been that bad a father?”

  “Yeah. You have. Come on, Dax.” She was out the door a second later, and striding through the parking lot purposefully. Then she got into her Corvette, and started it up.

  Dax stood beside her car, so she didn’t shut the door. “If he’s coming, he should ride with you,” she said. “God only knows what kind of tracking that asshole Caine has on his Caddy.”

  “Okay.”

  She looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Dax. I thought I had no choice, and it was all for nothing, and I fell for it like a rookie. And I’m sorry.”

  He said, “I am too, Kendra.”

  #

  “This is it,” Kiley’s kidnapper said after forcing her to hike what felt like miles uphill, through dense woods and undergrowth. “I told you it wasn’t far.”

  “It was far for me.” She wrapped her arms around her belly, as if she could protect the baby. They had reached a shack that looked like it was on the verge of falling down.

  There were two men. The one in charge was a tall man, and way too well dressed for hiking through the woods. His suit was shiny. He had dark hair, male pattern baldness, a pock-marked face, and an oddly high-pitched voice. There was another guy with him, a big guy with carrot colored hair and freckles and eyes as cold and heartless as marbles. His name was Phil. The boss was “Mr. Caine.” At least that was how they addressed each other.

  They didn’t speak to her much at all, except to give orders. She’d asked over and over what this was all about, but they wouldn’t say.

  “Is that an outhouse, over there?” she asked, pointing at the sturdiest piece of construction in sight.

  “Yeah,” Phil said.

  “I need it.”

  “No.” That was Caine, the boss.

  “I’m nine months pregnant. There’s an eight-pound baby sitting on top of my bladder. If I don’t pee in the outhouse, I’m going pee in my pants. You want to smell that the whole time we’re here?”

  Mr. Caine studied her for a moment. “Go ahead but uh—don’t try anything.”

  She strode to the outhouse, opened its door and poked her head inside. Quick as a minute, she snapped off her smart watch and tucked it behind a board. That way, it could keep beaming her location until help arrived. If these two douchebags found it, they’d smash it.

  Then she backed out again. She hadn’t even stepped all the way in. “I’ll just go behind a tree or something. I think there are things nesting in here.”

  “Fine, just don’t try anything funny.”

  “What am I gonna try? Sprinting through a forest, ten miles from anywhere? Idiot.”

  Only, she wasn’t ten miles from anywhere. She’d been trying to pay attention to the landscape as they’d hiked, and she thought she was about a mile from the Falls, and Edie Brand’s place wasn’t far past them. She had that giant dog, Sally, too. Even if no one was home, Sally would protect her.

  But Rob would be coming or her. These animals hadn’t hurt her yet. Maybe they didn’t intend to. And Rob would think to trace the watch. He’d be here.

  So she didn’t try anything. She went behind a tree, and peed, and found a tissue in her pocket to use. She was pretty sure the muscle, Phil, could see her the whole time, and she didn’t give two nickels about that. He had his gun out, like he’d shoot her if she took off through the woods. So she stroked her belly as she walked back toward him, and sang a lullaby to her baby, and looked him right in his cold marble eyes.

  He looked away.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Rob had found Kiley’s Jeep in a ditch about a mile from their home. That’s where everyone was when Kendra arrived. Rob, Jason, Joe and Emily, Doc Sophie and Darryl, and a couple of local cops were already there. Kendra got out of her car and ran toward her sister’s little red Wrangler. It rested at a cockeyed angel, and its passenger side front fender was crunched inward.

  It hit her hard, seeing that.

  Dax put his arm around her, squeezed her like he knew. Rob came to her other side. Kiley had texted him verbatim, the phone call from Vester Caine.

  “She had breakfast at the diner with Vidalia and Miss Dolly. It’s not that long between when she left them, and when you texted me, so he can’t have taken her far. Jimmy and the State Police have roadblocks up in a thirty-mile radius.”

  Police chief Jim Corona said, “We also have a lot of questions for you, Jack Kellogg. What the hell is this about?” Jim was married to one of Rob’s stepsisters, the sweet, shy one with the daycare business.

  “Let’s focus on getting my daughter home, and then we can talk all you want,” Jack said.

  Kendra couldn’t take her eyes off Kiley’s car. “Is there—”

  “No blood,” Rob said. “No sign she was hurt. But the airbag went off.”

  “That could’ve hurt the baby, couldn’t it?” Her heart was breaking.

  “More likely that it didn’t,” Dax said.

  Kendra pressed her fingertips into her forehead. “Okay, okay, where could he take her?” She turned in a slow circle. “Where would he take her? The highway’s that way.”

  “Blocked at the next exits in both directions,” the chief said. “Before he had time to get that far, too.”

  Kendra forced herself to look away from the Jeep. “Can we track her phone?”

  “We’re already tracking it.”

  The Big Falls cop was good. Professional, competent. Seeing a good cop in uniform had never felt reassuring to Kendra before, but it did then.

  He went on. “But a man like Caine probably knew enough to toss it. We have helicopters on the way for an air search, as well. We’re going to find her. And we’ll do it soon.”

  Man, Kendra thought, her sister sure had herself well-connected these days. If anyone could get her back, these people could. She didn’t know why she felt so sure about that. It was kind of a deep, inner knowing.

  Several of their phones chirped, beeped, buzzed, or jingled.

  “Group loop!” Emily shouted.

  They all picked up. Dax and Kendra, whose phones hadn’t made a peep, had to lean over Chief Jimmy to see his. Jack did the same with Rob, which was brave, because Rob would punch him in the face if he knew the whole story.

  The text message was two words.

  Banana hammock.

  “What the—”

  “It’s our old code!” Kendra wanted to crawl through one of those phones to her sister. “When we were younger, if we needed rescuing from a bad date, we’d text Banana Hammock, and the other would call with a fake emergency or come and get us.” She gazed down at the screen. “Could she still have her phone?”

  “No, no look!” That was Emily. She pointed at the tiny words in pale gray that appeared above the text. “Sent from Kiley’s watch,’” she read aloud.
>
  “She’s wearing her watch!” Rob shouted. Jack wasn’t beside him anymore.

  Kendra frowned, looking around for him. Where the hell did he go?

  “We can track her from my phone,” Rob said. He reached to his pocket. “Where the hell is my phone? I just had it!”

  A motor had started, then faded. That had happened several times as people and police came and went. But this time was different. This time it was her motor. She looked behind them, where she’d skidded to a sloppy stop twenty yards away, outside the police tape. “Where the hell is my car?” she asked. And then she said, “Jack! Jack is taking my car!”

  “You don’t think he’d go after her alone, do you?” Dax asked.

  “I wouldn’t have thought it up ‘til now, no.”

  Rob turned in a slow circle, one hand on his own head, like he was trying to force and idea into it. Then said, “We can track the watch from our computer back at the house. Come on, hurry.”

  Everyone piled into cars and took off for Holiday Ranch, pulling in about a minute later, spilling from their vehicles and swarming into the house. More relatives were arriving every second. Vidalia with her brood of daughters and all their husbands, and Sunny from the bakery, hanging close to Jason.

  Kendra stood there waiting with the rest of them while Rob tapped keys, and brought up a map. “That’s out past the falls,” he said. “Not even on a road.”

  “Tell me this ass hat is not making my pregnant sister hike through the woods,” Kendra all but growled. They’d explored those woods as little girls, she recalled. It hadn’t gone well.

  “There’s an old hunting cabin up near there,” Rob said. “That’s gotta be where they are.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Kendra looked at them expectantly.

  Chief Jimmy held up a hand. “All right, listen. I know you all want to go up there, but you should leave this to the police. We need to be careful, we don’t want to get her hurt.”

  Kendra looked at him, then looked around. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but if you want to keep me here, you’re gonna have to shoot me.”

  “I could arrest you,” Jimmy said.

  Rob clapped the chief on the shoulder. “No, Jim. You can’t. She’s family.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he replied with a look at Joey, meant to be teasing, and maybe break some of the tension. It failed. He sighed, and said, “We’ll meet at the Brand family cabin, here.” He touched a spot on the computer screen’s map. “We’ll have to hike in from there. And I don’t want to see a single weapon on any of you.”

  “Don’t worry.” Kendra pressed her arm to her side, to cover the bulge in her pocket. “You won’t.”

  #

  Kiley couldn’t believe it when she heard someone knock on the shanty’s wooden door.

  She knew Rob would come for her. But she didn’t expect him to knock.

  Her captors didn’t seem surprised though. “Mr. Caine” looked up. Then he nodded at “Phil,” who went to the door, lifted the 2 by 6 board that held it shut, and opened it.

  Kiley’s father walked in. She shot out of the rocking chair—shot being a relative term—and would’ve run into his arms, except that Caine pointed his ugly handgun at her and said, “Uh-uh-uh. Sit down.”

  Jack smiled, first at her face, and then at her belly. “You okay, Kiley-girl?”

  “So far, so good, Dad,” she said. “Does this all have something to do with you?”

  “Yeah. And I’m sorry. I’m here to make it right.”

  Phil waved his gun. “Come on, Jack, you know the deal. Arms up.”

  Jack held his arms out to his sides, one a bit oddly, and as Phil patted him down, he said, “I missed you, too, you adorable ginger thug.”

  “He’s clean, boss,” Phil said.

  “Where’s Ace?” Jack looked from one man to the other. “Oh, he didn’t have the stomach for kidnapping a pregnant woman, did he? Yeah, he’s too decent for this kind of garbage. Well, no matter. Here I am, Caine. Alone and unarmed. Your demands have been met. You can let my daughter go now.”

  “Yeah, that’s not exactly how this is gonna go down.”

  “I was afraid you’d say something like that.” Then he shot Kiley a look, and she read it. He was going to do something. She was terrified, and opened her mouth to ask him not to, but too late. He grabbed Phil’s shoulders and kneed him in the groin. Phil doubled over, and Jack shoved him so hard he stumbled backward and crached Caine. Caine’s gun went off as his chair toppled. Jack clutched his thigh and collapsed to the floor. All of it had happened at the same time, and the next thing she knew, blood was pulsing from under her father’s hand. Caine got up on his feet again.

  Jack pushed himself up too and told her to run without a word, his eyes shifting from her to the open door twice, filled with meaning. Then he lunged at Caine. Kiley raced out the door and into the woods. She had to get her baby to safety. And her father had just risked his life, maybe given his life, so that she could.

  She would send someone back to save Jack. Maybe he’d still be okay.

  Then something new happened that brought her dash through the forest to a sudden stop. It felt like a steel band was tightening around her middle. She clutched herself, fear, more than pain, just through her entire being.

  Was that a contraction?

  She couldn’t rest. She had to keep moving. Caine would send his henchman after her. She had to get Diana to safety. So she clenched her jaw, and she ran.

  #

  Dax had never seen Kendra’s eyes look the way they did, perfectly round and kind of hollow. Like something had sucked all the life out of her.

  They were hiking through the woods about a hundred yards out from the old hunting cabin where Kiley’s watch was. Their goal was to circle behind the place and come in from the rear. They had the furthest distance to walk, but when they reached their goal spot, according to the GPS on his phone, no one else had yet checked in. Kendra brought the walkie-talkie up and pressed its button. “We’re in place. Why aren’t the rest of you?”

  “Kendra, come on.” Dax said it softly. He took the radio and said, “It’s Dax and Kendra,” he said. “We’re ready.”

  “This is Rob, Joe and I are ready on the east side.”

  “Jason here. Sunny and I are ready on the west.”

  “Move in slow and quiet,” Chief Corona said. “See if you can get a look inside,” I’ll assess. Do not do anything else until and unless I give the word.”

  “Hear that, Rob?” Dax asked, but his eyes were on Kendra.

  Rob didn’t reply, and Kendra didn’t say a word either. She didn’t have to. If she spotted her sister, she was going in, come hell or high water. He didn’t know if he could stop her. He didn’t know if he should.

  He clipped the radio to his jeans. “I get why you’ve been deceiving me.”

  Kendra pushed a limb down to peer at the cabin. “I should’ve just told you the truth. That they had my father. Or that I thought they had my father.” Shaking her head slowly, she said, “I can’t believe he lied to me. I should’ve known. Kiley’s right, I have a blind spot where he’s concerned.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dax said. “I mean, as far as you and me.”

  “You and me? No, Dax. There is no you and me. Look at this, look at what I do to people. It’s my fault all this came down on my sister. And sweet little Diana. And Rob. And you.” She looked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes. Tears. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her cry before. “You’re good, Dax. I’m just…I’m bad. I’m bad, and, it’s contagious. I can’t wash it off like my sister did. It goes too deep in me. And it stains anything good that comes too close. I can’t be with you, Dax. I’ll ruin you. I’ll ruin them, too.”

  “That’s such a pile of horseshit.” He reached for her, but she ducked away, turning from him and pressing the heel of her hand to her wet cheek.

  “I’ve been kidding myself with this marketing thing, thinking I
could live straight. Thinking I could change my own DNA.”

  “Kiley’s your identical twin. Same DNA, right?”

  “And yet my eyes are green, and hers are blue. We’re opposites. Yin and Yang.” She wiped a tear from her cheek like she was mad at it. “I’ve gotta go get my sister.” Then she took off toward the back of the cabin like a ninja rabbit, staying low and darting from juniper to pinion pine. There were no tall grasses or brambles in between the trees. Just rich red earth, under a layer of decaying tree litter. Needles, leaves, twigs. Blossoms and berries, cones and bark. Every footfall released a waft of fragrance as he ran to catch up. He got a hand on her shoulder just as she reached the cabin’s back wall, and pulled her into a crouch beside him underneath a window.

  It wasn’t a cabin so much as a shack. Its barn-board sides were so old the wood was bleached to Gandalf gray. The tin roof looked like it had been in a rusty rainstorm. There were two windows in the back, both made of thick plastic-glass. It had been there so long it was hazy.

  “Easy now,” Dax said. “You went too fast. The others aren’t—”

  She popped up, stopping with her eyes just above the bottom of the foggy plastic. “I can see a little. Jack’s in there!” She dropped into a low crouch again, breathing fast. “He doesn’t look good.”

  Dax rose just enough to see inside. A tall man in a suit paced back and forth in front of a rickety chair, smoking a cigar almost violently. Jack Kellogg was occupying said rickety chair. He looked like a duct tape mummy. His head was the only part of him not taped to the chair. His face was turning purple.

  Dax looked around the inside of the cabin. One room. No partitions. There was a second man there, a big guy. He didn’t see Kiley. Not unless she was hiding in a rear corner, beyond his line of sight.

  Crouching low again, he took Kendra’s hand and pulled her with him a few yards back, to the nearest tree. From behind it, he keyed the walkie-talkie. “I can see Jack Kellogg, duct taped to a chair and not looking too healthy. There are two other men, one I’m presuming to be Vester Caine. The other must be one of his goons. No sign of Kiley.”