by K. T. Tomb
“Guess that’s why we haven’t had a ransom message come through yet?”
“Yeah. It’s Rae he wants. I just don’t know what he’s going to do to her!” At that point, John was overcome with emotion and collapsed into a chair and started to cry.
“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Thorn,” Marshal Henry assured him. “We’ve got agents sitting all over this. We’re getting them tonight.”
Raleigh sat in a car posted in the parking lot of the train station. John was at the wheel, ready. There were two other such cars parked waiting; Marshal Ryder sat in one and Chief Cummings in the other. It was the first line of defense in case the suspects managed to get Rae off the train and out onto the road to Henrico.
Marshal Henry had already instructed Henrico police to mount road blocks on all incoming roads and had them standing by in case the criminals got away. As a further measure, he had Lynchburg PD mobilized to storm the cabin on The Gap. From the looks of things at the train station, John doubted that things would come to that, but he was still impressed with the man’s forward thinking. When the first whistle sounded in the distance, John jumped in his seat.
“Sounds like the show’s about to start, John,” Raleigh said, not knowing whether he should be happy or nervous. Somehow the butterflies that were turning his stomach over made him feel like being nervous was the natural reaction.
As the caution lights in the station began to flash, every officer readied themselves for action. Marshal Henry was standing on the platform with three other plain clothes officers, ready to grab a hold of Steve, Anita and Emmitt as soon as they got off the train. They’d planned ahead of time to wait until all four had disembarked before they made their move, pretending that they were boarding, then securing Rae before arresting the other three simultaneously. Henry wanted a clean take in order to avoid any of them trying to make a run for it, whether back onto the train or into the nearby woods.
Fifteen minutes later, John watched as the train pulled into the station and slowly came to a halt at the platform. A long, steamy whistle escaped the train’s funnel as the last of the steam left the engines and the locomotive settled into a final halt. The brakes were set and the door slid open. John closed his eyes and prayed.
***
Kenneth Henry was the first to move toward the door of the train.
His hat was low over his eyes and he rocked from heel to toe as if he were just an impatient passenger waiting to get on his way. As soon as the doors opened, Anita Moore stepped out onto the platform. She was unmistakable with her long, wavy red hair. Steve Moore followed her; the officers recognized him from his mug shot. Then Rae stepped down. She was supported by Emmitt Farmer, whose hand was on her elbow as she took the three steps down onto the safety of the platform.
The four law enforcement officers moved inconspicuously toward them, trying to box them in as they pretended to be boarding the train.
When Henry made his move, everything happened in a flash.
He grabbed a hold of Rae and pulled her from Emmitt’s grip. Rae screamed and tried to fight the man she thought was assaulting her, but then she heard a voice boom across the platform.
“US marshals! Steve Moore, Anita Moore, Emmitt Farmer; put your hands up!”
Emmitt spooked and turned toward the tracks. In the struggle to remove Mrs. Thorn from the danger zone and detain the Moores on the floor of the platform, the officers had turned their attention from him for the briefest moment and that was all he’d needed to dive underneath the train out of the line of any gunfire, run across the tracks behind it and disappear into the thick woods beyond.
Rae stopped struggling and allowed Henry to guide her into the station building and pass her off to another officer. She was placed on a bench to recoup while Henry went out to the parking lot and beckoned to everyone who’d been waiting in the parking lot.
Raleigh shook John’s shoulder violently.
“They’ve got her, John! They’ve got her!”
John vaulted from the driver’s seat of the car and ran into the station. He stopped at the door and looked around until he saw her. She looked so frail sitting on the little bench. One of the Petersburg police officers was putting a blanket around her shoulders. When she looked up and saw John, she threw it to the ground and ran into the comfort of his arms.
Chapter Fourteen
Stone Mountain, Georgia
Two Suspects Arrested in Connection With the Kidnapping of Atlanta Attorney
Two suspects in the robbery and kidnapping of a Georgia woman from outside Piedmont Park in Atlanta have been arrested in Lynchburg, Virginia, the Bedford County Sheriff’s office said yesterday.
Steve and Anita Moore were arrested and were incarcerated in the Bedford County Jail. The sheriff’s department worked with Georgia law enforcement, the US Marshal’s office and the woman’s husband to track them down, Deputy Sheriff Miles Jeffrey said in a news statement last night. Though unavailable for comment, US Marshal Kenneth Henry and his team were lauded for their tenacity in Mrs. Thorn’s safe return to her family.
The two have been denied bail, taking into consideration that they transported the victim over two state lines and had no intention of releasing her to her family or the authorities. They face charges of aggravated kidnapping and attempted murder, both felonies.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, detectives tracked down the three with the help of John Thorn, the victim’s husband, Marshal Henry and Police Chief Catherine Cameron of the Augusta police department. After mounting failed attempts to capture the criminals in the city, Cameron personally coordinated the communication of current and accurate information to Virginia police which proved instrumental in their capture.
The victim, Rae Thorn, a prominent member of Atlanta society, was kidnapped from outside her doctor’s office across from Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta while on her way to work in Alpharetta. Richard Everton, a driver at Mrs. Thorn’s law practice, was standing inside the park waiting for her to exit the building and witnessed the incident.
Chapter Fifteen
Secondary Suspect Arrested in Kidnapping of Georgia Belle
Authorities arrested a man considered a “secondary suspect” in last week’s kidnapping of 28-year-old Atlanta attorney, Rae Thorn, law enforcement sources told The Times on Monday.
Details about the arrest of the man, whom the sources identified as Emmitt Farmer, were unavailable and his connection to the case was not immediately known. The two main suspects, identified by police as 30-year-old Steve Moore and his sister, Anita Moore, remain in police custody.
Police said Moore has a criminal history dating back more than ten years that includes charges of kidnapping, robbery, embezzlement and grand larceny. Sheriff’s department officials said both will remain in custody until the arraignment as bail has been denied to both him and Miss Moore.
Farmer is not a known felon, but authorities said he was arrested on suspicion of theft in a case that involved a motor vehicle.
AMPD Deputy Chief Alban Kirkland said Moore had been taken into custody for a probation violation and was released three weeks before Mrs. Thorn’s abduction, but he did not elaborate on the violation.
Authorities have not explained how their investigation led to the men, but initially said two men were suspected of taking the woman from outside Piedmont Park in Atlanta and added that Moore was the primary focus of their investigation.
Sources told The Times that investigators were still trying to determine why the well-loved attorney was targeted. At the moment, they said, they do not believe it is related to any of her recent cases or involving any of her clients.
It is well documented that Rae Thorn was taken from outside her physician’s office at around 8 a.m. in the morning and transported across state lines. She was found nearly four days later at a train station just outside of Lynchburg, Virginia, where her husband and local police apprehended the alleged kidnappers when their car ran out of gas after a lengthy chase
from Petersburg.
A week later, a dirty, disheveled man walked into the tiny ranger’s station in Lynchburg, Virginia and gave himself up.
He identified himself as Emmitt Farmer and confessed to being party to the kidnapping of Rae Thorn. He’d clearly had a rough time in the woods and had been trekking for days, probably lost. At the sight of him, the rangers had a good idea what had happened to him out in the wilderness and later that day, when a group of four ginsengers stopped by to check if a certain young man had surrendered himself to the authorities, their suspicions had been confirmed.
“Yup! Walked in here this mornin’ smellin’ like a cow pie and almost starved to death. I got him in the holdin’ cell. Waiting for him to be picked up. US Marshals are coming for him, boys!”
“Cooeee!” one of the youngest of the ginsengers exclaimed.
“Yeah, we found him sleeping in one a our ‘seng patches this mornin’. Wasn’t hard to figure out who he was an’ what he was tryin’a do,” one of the older men added.
“We thought we’d do our part, though,” another piped up. “You caint be goin’ roun’ stealin’ women from theys husbands. That’s savagery, I tell ya. If the good citizens a this here great nation start lettin’ fools get away with that type thing... Shoot! Then we nothin’ but a bunch a savages. We Appalachians are a lot a things. But we ain’t that.”
The ranger just nodded his head and the men did the same. Having understood each other completely, the men jumped back into their truck and drove away from the ranger’s post.
***
Sibling Perpetrators Plead Not Guilty to Kidnapping of Atlanta Woman
A brother and sister accused of abducting an Atlanta woman last month and attempting to take her across state lines and into the Appalachian mountains have pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and other felony charges.
Steve Moore, 30 and Anita Moore, 28, were arraigned Tuesday on two counts of kidnapping, one count of reckless endangerment and one count of attempted murder, the Fulton County district attorney’s office said.
The couple also faces an allegation that the victim was subject to unnecessary roughness from the two due to her early stage of pregnancy, and that both had “serious” prior felony convictions for grand larceny and embezzlement.
The pair are due back in court next week. If convicted, prosecutors said, both accused face nearly 50 years in state prison.
A statewide search was launched after the Moores and another perpetrator allegedly took Mrs. Thorn from off the street outside her family doctor’s office. The couple transported Mrs. Thorn across the state of Georgia and into Virginia, where they were apprehended making an attempt to flee into the Appalachian Mountains.
Chapter Sixteen
Stone Mountain, Georgia
They sat by the fire in the bedroom, talking well into the night about everything that had happened.
It wasn’t long before the longing they’d felt for each other over the past days manifested itself and when John stood to place wood on the fire, Rae stood to join him there. He moved closer to her, taking in the sweet smell of her body as it mingled with the smell of the blazing wood. She pressed back against him and every nerve in his body tingled, every hair stood on end.
“Rae, I don’t think we should,” he said, grasping her delicate hands that were already on the fly of his pants. “What about the baby?”
“What about it?” she asked.
“Won’t we hurt it?”
“Stop being stupid and kiss me.”
She moved even closer against him and the heat of her body paralyzed him. His fingers were still clamped over her hands, but she didn’t care. Her arms went up around his neck and sent a shiver down his spine. He felt her breasts rest against his chest and he could see the desire burning deep in her eyes, daring him to turn her down. There wasn’t a part of him that could turn her away and his lips parted hers with a zealous kiss that was sweeter than any they’d shared before. Her hands tightened around his neck as she responded to his yearning with her own.
He drew back from her and put one hand up to her hair to pull the hair pins that held her brown curls securely and tossed them to the floor one by one. His hands ran up the nape of her neck and took her hair into his fists. When every coil had fallen loose, he ran his fingers through her hair and sighed.
“I can’t even tell you how many nights I’ve dreamt of your gorgeous hair and how it feels between my fingers.”
With a groan, he crushed her to him, throwing away the last of his inhibitions and allowing himself to be engulfed by the urgency in Rae’s body. She responded, setting fire to his need and sending him beyond all caution and reason. John carried her to the bed, lifting the nightdress over her head before he even put her down. As he kissed her, his hands trailed tenderly over her shoulders to the swells of her breasts, pausing to cup their roundness in his hands and roll her nipples between his finger and thumb. A sigh escaped her and John covered her lips with his again. He rolled onto his side so as not to crush her under his weight. One arm went beneath her neck and the other made its way to the cinch of her waist and around her buttocks. He rested it on her belly and paused to look at her naked pregnancy for the first time.
“You are so beautiful, Rae. How will I be able to share you with that little person in there?”
“When you become a father, you’ll understand the love that I have been feeling all along. It will grow and include the child.”
The fire cast a soft glow on their bodies as they lay holding each other tenderly. She moved on top of him, her mouth searched for his nipple which she flicked and teased with her tongue, sending his head back in anguish. His hands found her hips and he lifted her up as his hardened flesh sought out her moist sheath. But instead she moved lower on his body, her fingers running over his stomach. Soon her mouth found his solid manhood and she surrounded it with her mouth.
This was what he’d dreamt of most of all while they were apart. It was something that was unique to their lovemaking and which she’d used to own him as her lover for a long time. She felt his urgency build as she was licking and sucking the source of the pleasure that would soon consume her. It aroused her further to shock him; to feel his body respond to her touch, to feel him grasping handfuls of her flowing hair between all ten of his fingers and hear the sound of her name shivering past his lips in disbelief.
He cursed and groaned, drawing her up to meet his lips. He slid a leg between hers, opening her up to his advance and buried his moistened staff inside her with one tender thrust. He moved in and out of her in long, steady strokes, feeling every inch of her as if it were the first time and she was mesmerized by his movements, clinging to him as if it would be the last.
Her breathing was ragged as he delighted her with stroke after stroke, bringing her closer to the edge of her passion. His responses were wild. She became moister and tauter and more insistent for his attentions with each vaulted stroke. She moved her hand to his hip to anchor her own movements, riding the slow and deliberate thrusts and the intoxication of moist friction between them.
He moved her limbs wider and lifted her leg up around his waist and she gasped as he plunged even deeper. Tears came to her eyes as the unbidden cries of pleasure each tender stroke produced maddened her. When he lowered his head and suckled at her delicious nipples again, the combined sensation had her pushing forward again and again, meeting every thrust of his hips with a rhythm that took both their breaths away.
A groan climbed up John’s throat as Rae began to quiver and shake with the unmistakable urgency of their consuming desire. As his thrusts came harder, deeper, and faster, his hands were on her waist to hold her steady. She called out his name as the wave of ecstasy washed over her. He heard it ring through the inundation of pleasure that surged through his body, clouding his senses to everything but the sound she was making in the throes of her orgasm and the writhing and shuddering of her body. His own body screamed for release, but he lingered in the bliss of her
clenching velvet sheath a moment longer, until the spasms grew so intense that he couldn’t wait any longer. His hand went beneath her hips, and he placed the other around her waist and pushed into her moist sex again. He moved with conviction, stroking in and out. Rae held onto his neck as her orgasm stretched out, refusing to subside. A deep moan came from her lover and he shuddered as the pleasure of release gripped him.
“I love you, Rae Thorn and I always will.”
Epilogue
Athens, Georgia
1980
The sun shone brightly that April morning as Rae Thorn squinted her eyes to look out over the newly green fields of Athens.
They had spent the summer there every year since William had been born and everyone and everything was thriving. The new lambs scampered in the fields after their mothers, dairy cows heavy with calf laid lazily in the shade of the trees that lined their pasture, chewing their cud. As she surveyed the prosperity of the countryside, there came the unmistakable patter of William’s feet behind her in the hallway.
“Would you stop running, Will,” Emilia cried after the toddler as he vaulted into his mother’s arms, laughing.
Emilia made a face at his antics and immediately reached out to take him from Rae’s arms. She was well into another pregnancy and getting round and heavy and, despite every warning, she refused to stop lifting and carrying William around every chance she got. She was deeply in love with her son and so was John; he was their pride and joy. It didn’t help at all that he was so angelic with his chubby, rosy cheeks and cupid’s bow mouth. His shiny black hair and calm nature was an exact copy of his father.
