Find Me, Save Me (Full Heart Ranch Series Book 1)

by Barbara Gee

  Libby nodded, reluctantly accepting her fate, and doing it much more calmly than Tuck had expected. Now that she knew what they were facing, she was smart and mature enough to see there weren’t any alternatives.

  “I’m going to take you to one of our safe houses. It’s almost an hour from Charlotte, so I won’t be able to be with you much, but there will be at least one agent with you at all times. And there’s a real good local police force that can be on site within minutes if needed. It’s one of the best facilities we have. I know you’ll be bored and lonely, but right now I don’t see any other choice unless you want to go a lot further away, where you could have more freedom.”

  “No, I don’t want to go any further away. Let’s see how it goes.”

  Tuck knew his sister well, and he knew this was going to be hard on her.

  “I’m sorry, sis. I’ll do my best to get you back to Chandler as soon as I possibly can.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid or risky, Tuck. I promise to be patient if you’ll promise to be careful.”

  Tucker smiled at her, grateful that she wasn’t furious at him for completely disrupting her life. Somewhere along the way, his baby sister had grown up and realized the world didn’t revolve around her after all. It made him proud.

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I promise, Lib.”

  Chapter 4

  After dinner at a nice steakhouse, Tucker agreed to stop at a mall on the way to the safe house to allow Libby to buy a few clothes and necessities. As he parked in the mall lot, his phone rang. Looking at the screen, he saw it showed an unknown number and he tensed.

  “Hang on, sis.”

  She could tell by his tone it was serious and she nodded and sat quietly.

  Tuck took a long breath and answered. “Agent Simon,” he said brusquely, no emotion evident in his voice.

  A cackling laugh came through the line.

  “Well, well, well. If it ain’t my favorite Special Agent.”

  “You sound surprised, Jimmy, but the fact is, when you call my phone there’s a good chance I’m going to be the one to answer.”

  Jimmy cackled again. “You got a smart mouth, mister big shot FBI guy, but the fact is you’re about as stupid as they come.”

  “And you’re wasting my time, Jimmy,” Tucker said curtly. “What do you want?”

  “What do I want?” the man drawled. “Oh, trust me, Agent Simon. I got everything I want right here. Right here in front of me, matter of fact.”

  Tucker balled his fist, his hatred for the man on the other end of the line making it hard to maintain his cool.

  “I’m busy, Jimmy. Get to the point or I’m hanging up.”

  “The point, Agent Simon, is I got somethin’ you want, and you got somethin’ I want. I suggest we make a little trade.”

  “What could you possibly have that I want?” Tuck said impatiently. “I don’t do drugs, I have plenty of guns, and I like women, not girls. I doubt you have anything else to offer me, Jimmy.”

  “Oh I got me a woman all right. And trust me, you’re gonna want ‘er. How ‘bout I give ya a couple hints, Agent Simon. She’s got the purtiest long blonde hair I ever seen. Soft, too. And blue eyes like the baby doll my little sister used to play with, before I ripped off the head. And a sweet, tight little body that makes me all kinds of excited. Smells real good, too. All flowery and clean and pure. Gonna have to have me some, Agent, no doubt about it.”

  “What makes you think I have the slightest interest in you and your latest girlfriend, Jimmy?” Tuck scoffed.

  “Oh you’ll be interested in this girlfriend, Tucker. Real interested. And since I’m such a generous guy, I’ll even share the fun with you. I’m gonna be sending you a video link, Agent Simon, so you can watch me get to know this sweet little gal. Soon as my computer nerd gets things all set up so you can’t use it to figure out where we’re at, that link is comin’ your way. How’s that sound? Saves you the price of a movie ticket, too, cuz I’m givin’ it to ya for free.”

  Tuck unclenched his jaw and tried to sound bored. He was beyond grateful to Ryan Anderson for picking Libby up before this psychopath had been able to make his move. Jimmy must have gotten his hands on a photo of her, however, because he was describing Libby to a tee. Even though his sister was sitting safely right beside him, hearing what Jimmy’s plans for her had been made Tucker’s stomach burn.

  “You’re a big talker, Jimmy. But like I said, I’m busy. I don’t have time for your ramblings and I have no idea why you think I’d be interested in watching you do anything on a video link.”

  The other man’s voice was suddenly hard, filled with hate. “You don’t got time to watch me bang your purty little sister, Agent Simon? That’s too bad, cuz I’m gonna do it over and over. Then maybe I’ll let my boys join in. And maybe after everyone gets their fill we can do a deal, you and me. Cuz I figure you’ll still want her back, even after she’s all used up. She’s still your blood, after all.”

  Fighting to keep his temper in check, Tuck reached over to grab Libby’s hand.

  “Nice bluff, Jimmy. Too bad I saw this one coming.”

  “I ain’t bluffin’, Agent Simon. I got your sister, and I’m gonna send you a link to prove it.”

  “My sister is right here beside me, big guy, so that little story you spent so long getting just right was all for nothing. Nice try, though.”

  There was a long silence, filled only with Jimmy’s heavy breathing. “Well then, Agent Simon, seems like we got us a little situation here. Cuz the purty little gal I got here with me most definitely came from your sister’s apartment. So how’s about I have my fun with her while you sit there and try to figure out who she is and if she’s worth it to ya to make a deal.” He laughed again, the evil sound giving Tuck chills. “Looks like I’m gonna win either way. This is one fine little gal. I’ll be sending you the link, Agent Simon. Hope you enjoy it.”

  The phone went dead and Tuck frowned over at Libby, a bad feeling churning in his gut.

  “What did he say?” Libby asked, unsettled by her brother’s angry tension.

  “You didn’t take on a roommate did you?”

  She shook her head. “No, why?”

  Tuck ran a hand through his short dark hair, his eyes troubled. “Jimmy claimed he had you. When I told him you were here with me, he said I’d better figure out who he took from your apartment. I know he’s bluffing but—” Tucker broke off when Libby clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes immediately filling with tears.

  “Oh my god, Tuck!” she cried. “Maddy! Did he take Maddy?” Libby grabbed onto his arm with both hands. “Oh dear god, what if he has Maddy!”

  “Who’s Maddy?” Tuck put his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her. “Who’s Maddy, Lib?”

  “My friend from across the hall!” Libby keened. “She feeds Luther for me and loves to watch HBO movies on my TV when I’m gone! Oh god, Tuck, what’s that horrible man going to do to her? What did he say?”

  A sense of dread curled through Tucker, so dark and ominous he could barely hold back a roar of rage.

  Libby wrapped her arms around her stomach and leaned forward. “I might be sick, Tuck. We have to go back, we have to find them. Maddy has nothing to do with this, we can’t let him hurt her.”

  “Going back isn’t going to help. I can guarantee he’s no longer anywhere near Chandler.”

  “But we have to do something! You don’t understand, Maddy is the absolute sweetest girl I’ve ever met. I adore her. She can’t get caught up in this—we have to find her!”

  “Jimmy could still be bluffing,” Tuck told her. “Does Maddy have a husband or family members we can contact, to see whether she might be with one of them?”

  “No, there’s no one. She’s single and her parents died when she was really young. She doesn’t have any siblings, either.”

  “I need to get you to the safe house so I can get back to the office,” Tuck said tersely as he put the SUV in gear and drove away
from the mall. “Tell me more about Maddy while we drive.”

  It took Libby a while to get her sobs under control, but finally she began telling him about the girl who had become her best friend.

  “Her name is Madison Harper. I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about her, Tuck. She’s a couple years younger than me, and we look a lot alike. Most people think we’re sisters when they see us together, so that’s probably why Jimmy just assumed she was me, since she was in my apartment.”

  “Wrong place at the wrong time,” Tuck agreed.

  Libby shook her head, wiping her eyes. “This can’t be happening. She’s amazing, Tuck. So fun and smart, and as Mom would’ve said, she has a good head on her shoulders. She works in the HR department at that big aviation company north of town. They refurbish airplanes and do flying missions for the government and stuff. She’s only been there for two years but they’ve promoted her a bunch of times already because she’s so good at her job. She really is smart, Tuck, both smart and beautiful. Guys are kinda scared of her because she’s got it all and doesn’t take any crap. But she’s sweet, too, never has a bad word to say about anyone.”

  “And she would have gone to your apartment to feed Luther this evening?”

  “Yeah, and to watch movies. Like I said, we have a deal. When I’m gone, she takes care of Luther for me, and then watches as many movies as she wants. She loves movies.”

  Libby put her hands over her face and started sobbing again. “Why didn’t I think about that? When you told me Jimmy Callahan was after me I should have remembered that Maddy would be going over to my place this evening. I could’ve warned her to stay home with the door locked. Oh god, how could I be so freaking stupid?”

  “Don’t go there, Lib. You’ve had a ton of crap dropped on you in the past couple hours and there’s no way you could’ve put all that together.”

  “What’s he going to do to her? What did he say he was going to do?”

  He didn’t answer and Libby turned to him, choking back sobs. “Tell me, Tuck.”

  Shaking his head slowly, Tucker wondered how much to tell her.

  “What he threatened to do won’t happen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tuck sighed, his hands aching from his tight grip on the steering wheel. He needed to get to the safe house and leave Libby with the agent waiting there so he could get back to the office and get everyone up to speed on Jimmy’s latest move. He accelerated, wishing his vehicle was equipped with siren and lights.

  “Just a sec, Lib, I need to call Detective Anderson and have him try to find out what happened at your apartment building. And I want to call Emma at my office so she can bring my team in so they’re ready when I get there.”

  Tuck made the calls, filling Anderson in on Jimmy’s claim to have abducted a girl from Libby’s apartment. Ryan cursed angrily when he learned that someone, either working alone or as part of a second team, might have gotten past his men. He promised to get to the apartment building and go door to door on Libby’s floor to see if there were any witnesses. His officers would also continue to tail the two men they had already identified, whom he and Tuck now realized could have been decoys for the real abductors.

  Next Tuck called his office and asked Emma, one of the agents on his team, to round up the four other team members, and also to find out everything she could on Madison Harper.

  When he hung up, Libby asked again what Jimmy Callahan had threatened to do to Maddy.

  “He threatened rape,” Tuck admitted, “but that’s not going to happen. The bastard is impotent, not even little blue pills can help. Obviously he doesn’t know I found that out about him.”

  Libby’s eyes filled again. “Is that true? He really is impotent? You’re not just saying that to try and make me feel better?”

  “It’s true.” Tuck didn’t tell her about Jimmy’s threat to let his men join in. And he didn’t tell her about the video link that was supposedly going to be sent.

  “I hope so,” Libby said. “Because if he rapes Maddy I’ll kill him, Tuck. Seriously, I’ll kill him.”

  “You’d have to get in line for that privilege,” Tuck said darkly.

  They arrived at the safe house and hustled inside. The female agent Tuck had requested was waiting for them, and she promised to take care of getting clothes and necessities delivered for Libby.

  “I’ll be back when I can, Lib. Sit tight.”

  “Keep me posted, Tuck, please. As soon as you know anything, please call me.”

  “I”ll try.”

  Libby grabbed her brother and held on, her sobs returning once again and her whole body trembling.

  “Please find her. I can’t stand the thought of her being scared and hurt.”

  Tuck hugged her for a moment then stepped back, his hands firm on her shoulders. “We’ll find her, Libby. I wish I could stay with you but I can’t. I need to get back.”

  She nodded, making an effort to pull herself together. “Go. Go get her.”

  One more quick, tight hug and Tuck was out the door and headed back to Charlotte. His head was pounding and he felt like he was moving in slow motion. Time was critical and Jimmy held all the cards. He could be anywhere, and Tuck had no clues.

  Nothing. He had nothing, and Libby’s friend was going to pay the price.

  Tuck clenched his teeth and slammed his palm against the steering wheel once, and then again. Dammit.

  There was so much he hadn’t told Libby, and for good reason. During the years he had spent on Jimmy Callahan’s case, Tuck had interviewed dozens of the man’s former associates and acquaintances, as well as quite a few people who had become victims of Jimmy’s rage. Some of them had been women. The interviews had been off the record because the people were so afraid of Jimmy, but as a result Tuck knew all too well how Jimmy operated when it came to females.

  He knew that the maniac always blamed the woman for the problems with his manhood, and he knew how he compensated.

  Bam. The steering wheel took another blow.

  Just before he got back to the office, Tucker took a call from Detective Anderson. He and some men had gone to Libby’s apartment building and found the building superintendent still unconscious on Libby’s living room floor. They called an ambulance, and when the EMTs managed to get her to wake up, she told them what she remembered.

  She’d been showing a prospective tenant the empty apartment down the hall from Libby. The man had asked to see a furnished apartment with the same layout, so he could get an idea of the possibilities. The superintendent offered to show him her own apartment, but the man said he was in a hurry and wondered whether he could see the one next door. The lady didn’t think it could hurt to at least ask Libby, but as soon as the door had opened, the man hit her and that was the last thing she remembered.

  “It wasn’t either of the men we had pictures of,” Anderson said, “so your hunch that there was more than one team in Chandler looks to be correct. And this guy somehow managed to find out that there was an empty apartment beside Libby’s. He was dressed ‘business casual’ according to the super, as if he’d just gotten off work. I’m sure my officer must have seen him go into the building, but there was nothing suspicious about him, and since it wasn’t either of the guys we had everyone looking for, I can’t really fault him. I believe the guy was joined by an accomplice after the super was knocked out, because my man in the front of the building remembers seeing two guys and a twenty-something blonde girl exit the building around 7:30 and get in a car. But they appeared normal and again, since we already had Libby in custody, it didn’t alarm him.”

  Tuck agreed that the officers couldn’t have known. He got out of his SUV and strode toward the front door of his office building, thanking Anderson for the update and requesting that he contact him if anything else came up. The detective added that the superintendent had taken Libby’s cat and said she would be happy to care for him until Libby could return.

  Having forgotten all about Luther,
Tuck was glad the other man had thought to tell him that. It was only a matter of time before Libby thought about Luther herself, and Tuck made a mental note to notify her of the cat’s whereabouts.

  He didn’t take time for that now, though. He went straight to the conference room, where he joined the rest of his team and briefed them on what he knew so far.

  “Callahan said he was going to send me a video link,” Tuck said after he had laid out the events of the day, leading them to where they were now. “If he does, we can only hope we’ll be able to pick up some kind of clue from it.”

  “But if he can’t perform, why shoot a video? Why document a fail?” Agent Marcus Spaulding wanted to know.

  Tuck finally had to put into words what he feared would be Madison Harper’s fate.

  “Callahan will come up with a reason why he won’t rape her. His favorite is accusing the woman of having a disease that he doesn’t want to catch. And then he falls back on the only thing that makes him feel like a man.”

  Tuck wiped a hand down his face, his blue eyes cold and bleak. “He’ll beat her. He gets off on breaking bones. It’s how he compensates. So let’s figure out where the bastard is.”

  The six agents worked on mapping out an area based on the time that had passed between Madison’s abduction and now. Emma had emailed Madison’s driver’s license photo to Detective Anderson, who had gotten it to the officers surveilling the apartment building. The officer at the main entrance confirmed that it was indeed Madison he had seen with the two men. They had left the building at 7:30, and Jimmy had called Tuck at 9:30, claiming to have Madison with him at that time.

  Although it was conceivable that Jimmy had continued traveling after making the phone call, Tuck had gotten the feeling that the girl had been brought to wherever he and his tech guy were waiting, and that’s probably where they had remained. That meant they were within two hours of Chandler, unless an airplane was involved. Quick calls to all local airfields eliminated that possibility, as the only small airplane that had taken off within that time period was a flight student and his instructor.