Tall, Dark and Dangerous Part 1

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Frisco would find them. Mia knew that as surely as she knew that the late-afternoon sun would soon slip beneath the horizon.

  And then he would come.

  “The stakes are higher than I thought,” Frisco said tightly, coming out into the drug-and-alcohol rehab center’s waiting room. Joe Catalanotto rose to his feet. “Sharon didn’t steal five thousand from Bell—she stole fifty thousand. She fudged his bookkeeping—didn’t think he’d notice.”

  He headed for the door, toward the parking lot and Joe Cat’s jeep.

  “Can she pay it back?” Cat asked.

  Frisco snorted. “Are you kidding? It’s long gone. She used most of it to pay off some gambling debts and blew the rest on drugs and booze.” He stopped, turning to Cat. “Let me borrow your phone. Sharon gave me the address where she used to live with Bell,” he told Cat as he dialed the number of the cellular phone link they’d set up back at his apartment.

  The line was picked up on the first ring.

  “Becker here.” It was Harvard.

  “It’s just me, Chief,” Frisco said. “Any calls?”

  “Nothing yet. You know we would have relayed it directly to you if there were.”

  “I’ve got an address I want to check out. It’s just outside of San Felipe, in Harper, the next town over to the east. Have Lucky and Blue meet me and Cat over there, all right?” He gave Harvard the street address.

  “I’ve got that location on my computer,” Harvard told him. “They’re on their way, soon as I print them out a map. You need directions?”

  Cat was listening in. “Tell H. to send a copy of that map to the fax in my jeep.”

  Frisco stared at Joe Cat. “You have a fax machine in your jeep?”

  Cat smiled. “CO privileges.”

  Frisco ended the call and handed the phone back to Cat. But Cat shook his head. “You better hold on to it. If that ransom call comes in…”

  Frisco met his friend’s eyes. “If that ransom call comes in, we better be able to trace it,” he said grimly.

  “And pray that we’re not already too late. Sharon told me Dwayne Bell has killed in revenge for far less than fifty thousand dollars.”

  “No one’s home,” Lucky reported as he and Blue McCoy silently materialized alongside Cat’s jeep, down the street from the house Sharon had lived in with Dwayne Bell.

  “I went through a basement window,” Blue told Frisco and Joe Cat. “From what I could see from just a quick look around, Dwayne Bell doesn’t live there anymore. There were kids’ toys all over the place, and there was mail on the kitchen counter addressed to Fred and Charlene Ford. Looks like Bell moved out and these other folks moved in.”

  Frisco nodded, trying not to clench his teeth. It would’ve been too easy if Bell had been there. He’d known that coming out here was a long shot to start with.

  Cat was looking at him. “What do you want to do?”

  Frisco shook his head. Nothing. There was nothing they could do now but wait. “I want the phone to ring.”

  “He’ll call and we will get Natasha back,” Lucky said with far more confidence than Frisco felt.

  Mia tried the window of the tiny bedroom where she and Tasha were being held. It was sealed shut. They wouldn’t get out that way, short of breaking the glass. And even if they could break it without Dwayne and his goons hearing them, there was a long drop down to the ground.

  Tasha sat on the bed, knees hugged tightly to her chest, her blue eyes wide as Mia made her way around the room.

  The closet was minuscule—there was no way out there.

  There were no secret doors, no hidden passages, no air ducts in the walls or crawl spaces underneath the throw rug. There was no hidden telephone with which she could make a furtive call for help, no gun in the dresser drawer that she could use to defend them.

  The door was locked with a bolt on the outside.

  They weren’t going anywhere until Dwayne or his goons unlocked it.

  There was nothing to do now but wait.

  The phone rang.

  They were halfway back to the condo, when the cell phone in Frisco’s pocket chirped and vibrated against his leg. Joe Cat quickly pulled the jeep over to the side of the road as Frisco flipped the phone open.

  “Frisco.”

  It was Harvard. “Call’s coming in,” he reported tersely. “I’m linking it directly to you. Remember, if it’s Bell, keep him talking.”

  “I remember.”

  There were several clicks, and then the soft hiss of an open line.

  “Yeah,” Frisco said.

  “Mr. Francisco.” It was Dwayne Bell’s lugubrious voice. “You know who I am and why I’m calling, I assume.”

  “Let me talk to Tasha.”

  “Business before pleasure, sir,” Bell said. “You have twenty-four hours to return to me the money that your charming sister stole. Fifty thousand, plus another ten in interest.”

  “It’s going to take me longer than twenty-four hours to get together that kind of—”

  “I’m already being very generous out of sentimentality for what Sharon and I once shared. It’s nearly 6:00. If I don’t have cash in hand by 6:00 p.m. tomorrow, I’ll kill the girl. And if I don’t have it by midnight, then I’ll kill the child. And if you go to the police, I’ll kill them both, and take your sister to prison with me.”

  “Whoa,” Frisco said. “Wait a minute. What did you say? Both? The girl, then the child…?”

  Bell laughed. “Oh, you don’t know? Your girlfriend is a guest in my house as well as the brat.”

  Mia. Hell, Bell had Mia, too.

  “Let me talk to her,” Frisco rasped. “I want proof they’re both still all right.”

  “I anticipated that.” He must have turned away from the phone because his voice was suddenly distant. “Bring them in.”

  There was a pause and a click, and then Mia’s voice came on the line. “Alan?”

  The sound was boomy and Frisco knew Bell had switched to a speaker phone. “I’m here,” he said. “Are you all right? Is Tash with you?”

  Lucky appeared silently outside Joe Cat’s car window. As Frisco glanced at him, he pointed to his own cellular phone and signaled a thumbs-up.

  Harvard had gotten the trace. They had a location.

  “Yes,” Mia was saying. “Listen, Alan. My parents have money. Go to them. Remember I told you they live near the country club in Harper?”

  No, she’d told him her parents lived in Malibu.

  “Just be careful of my dad—he’s a little nuts, with all those guns he has in his collection, and his two bodyguards.”

  Harper. Guns. Two bodyguards. Damn, she had the presence of mind to tell him where they were and how many men there were guarding them.

  “That’s enough,” Bell cut in.

  “My parents have the money you want,” Frisco heard Mia say sharply. “How is Alan going to get it if I don’t tell him where to go?”

  “I have the address,” Frisco told her. “I’ll take care of the money, you take care of Tasha. Tash—are you okay?”

  “I wanna go home.” Natasha’s voice was wobbly.

  “She doesn’t have her medicine, so if her temperature goes up again, put her in the bathtub and cool her down. Do you understand?” Frisco said to Mia as quickly as he could. “Stay with her in the bathroom. And talk to her so she’s not scared. You know how she gets when it’s too quiet. I know she’s too little to listen to the sounds of the night the way I can.”

  Man, he hoped she understood. If Mia and Tasha kept talking, the SEALs would be able to use high-tech, high-powered microphones to help pinpoint their location inside of the house. Frisco would need that information before he could figure out the best way to launch their attack against Bell and his men.

  “Mia, I’ll get that money soon. Right now, in fact, all right?”

  “All right. Alan, be careful.” Her voice shook slightly. “I love you.”

  “Mia, I—”

  The line
went dead. Frisco clicked off the telephone, cursing Dwayne Bell, cursing himself. But what, exactly, had he intended to say?

  I love you, too.

  God, the words had been right on the tip of his tongue. Forget about the fact that Cat and Lucky and Blue were listening in. Forget about the fact that a relationship with him was the last thing Mia needed.

  But if after all he’d said and done she could still love him…No, she didn’t need a relationship with him, but maybe, just maybe she wanted it.

  God knows he did, despite the fact that he may well have burned his bridges with the awful things he’d said to her. Burned? Damn, he’d bombed the hell out of them.

  Still, she’d told him that she loved him.

  “We got it—273 Barker Street in Harper,” Lucky leaned in the window to say. “Harvard’s faxing a map and leaving Thomas at headquarters to relay any other calls. He and the rest of the squad will meet us over there.”

  Frisco nodded, hope flooding through him as he turned to Joe Cat. “Let’s move.”

  Mia’s stomach hurt as one of Dwayne Bell’s cohorts followed her and Natasha back up the stairs.

  Take care of Tasha, Frisco had told her. He’d given her as much carefully disguised information in his message as she’d tried to give him. Stay with her in the bathroom. Put her in the bathtub. If bullets started to fly, bullets like the ones that could be fired from Dwayne’s enormous gun, bullets that could pass through walls and still have enough force to kill, then the bathtub, with its hard enamel, would be the safest place.

  He’d told her to talk to Tasha. Why? Talk to her so she’s not scared. Why would he want them to talk? It didn’t make sense. But it didn’t have to make sense. He’d asked—she’d do it.

  Right now, Frisco had said. I have the address. Mia knew without a doubt that he was on his way. Somehow he’d found them. He’d be here soon.

  She stopped in front of the open bathroom door, turning to look back at the man with the gun. “We need to use the bathroom.”

  He nodded. “Go ahead. Don’t lock the door.”

  Mia drew Tasha inside the tiny room, closing the door behind her, taking a quick inventory.

  Pedestal sink, grimy tub with a mildewed shower curtain, a less-than-pristine-looking toilet.

  The window was tiny and sealed shut, the same as the window in the bedroom.

  There was a narrow linen closet that held a few paper-wrapped rolls of toilet paper and several tired-looking washcloths and towels.

  Mia took one of the washcloths from the closet and turned on the warm water in the sink, holding the small square of terry cloth underneath. “Okay, Tash,” she said. “We’re going to try to fool Dwayne and his friends into thinking that you’re really sick, and that you might throw up, okay?”

  The little girl nodded, her eyes wide.

  “I need you to take a deep breath and hold it in for as long as you can—until your face turns really red, all right?”

  Tasha nodded again, drawing in a big breath as Mia wrung out the washcloth.

  “Now, this is going to be warm against your face, but we want you to feel kind of warm and sweaty so Dwayne will believe you’ve got a fever, okay?”

  The little girl stood staunchly as Mia pressed the warm cloth against her forehead and cheeks. By the time Tasha exhaled, she was flushed and quite believably clammy.

  “Can I get a drink?” she asked, turning on the cold water.

  “Sure,” Mia said. “But remember to look sick, okay?” She waited until Tash was done at the sink before she opened the bathroom door. “Excuse me. I think we better stay in here. Tasha’s got a fever and—”

  Behind her came the awful sound of retching, and Mia turned to see Tasha leaning over the toilet, liquid gushing from her mouth.

  “Oh, hell!” the man with the gun said in disgust, backing away and closing the bathroom door.

  “Natasha,” Mia started to say, alarmed.

  But Tasha turned to look at Mia with a wicked light in her eyes. “I put lots of water in my mouth and spit it out,” she whispered. “Do you think we fooled him?”

  There was a sound from outside the door, and Mia opened it a crack. It was the man with the gun.

  “I’m putting a bolt on the outside of this door,” he said gruffly. “You’re gonna have to stay in here. Dwayne don’t want no mess. Can I get the kid some blankets or something?”

  Mia nodded. “Blankets would be great.”

  She closed the door and turned back to Natasha, giving the little girl a big thumbs-up.

  Now she had to keep talking. For some reason, Frisco wanted her to keep talking.

  And she prayed that after this was all over, he’d still be alive to explain exactly why.

  17

  “I’ve got something,” Harvard said, fine-tuning the dials of the ultrasensitive microphone that was aimed at the Barker Street house. “Sounds like a woman and a kid singing—I think it’s ‘The Alphabet Song.”’

  He held out his padded earphones and Frisco slipped them on, staring out the darkened glass window in the side of Harvard’s van at the house they were watching.

  It was them. It had to be them. And then the song ended, and he heard Tash speak.

  “Mia, why are we sitting in the bathtub?”

  “Because your uncle thought we’d be safest here.”

  “’Cause Dwayne wants to make us dead, like he did to Thomas?”

  “Honey, Frisco’s not going to let that happen.”

  “Because he loves us?” the child asked.

  Mia hesitated. “Yes,” she finally said. “Because he loves…us.”

  Frisco knew she didn’t believe what she was telling Tash. And why should Mia think he loved her after the terrible things he’d said? The thought of it made his chest ache. He handed the headphones back to Harvard. “It’s them, Chief,” he said. “Can you pinpoint their location?”

  “Back of the house,” Harvard told him, turning his dials. “I’ve got a TV up much too loud in the front of the house, along with sounds of someone eating.”

  Frisco nodded. That was a start. He’d have a better idea of Mia and Tash’s exact location after Blue, Cowboy and Lucky checked in from their sneak and peek. In the early hours of the dusk, the three SEALs were checking over the yard and exterior of the house, looking for alarms or booby traps—anything that would tip Bell off as to their presence.

  And Wes and Bobby were scanning with an infrared device that would help place the locations of Mia and Tash and their kidnappers. Bell and two others—that’s what Mia had managed to tell him. All armed.

  Three lowlifes against eight SEALs. There was no way the SEALs could lose.

  Except for the fact that Frisco was determined that the SEALs would not open fire. Not with Mia and Tasha in the house, even despite the fact that they were protected by the bathtub. Because God help him if something went wrong and one of the two people he loved most in all of the world wound up in the cross fire.

  No, they were going to have to do this by stealth—which currently was not one of his strengths. There was no way in hell he could climb up the side of the house silently.

  “Hey! I found an extra headset and vest in the back of my jeep.” Joe Catalanotto climbed into the van, tossing both in Frisco’s direction.

  “Man, do you know how long it’s been since I’ve worn one of these?” Frisco asked, holding up the vest and lightweight headphones.

  Cat nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I do know. Put ’em on. Blue and Lucky are starting to report in. You’re gonna want to hear what they’re saying.”

  Frisco slipped on the black combat vest. It was a newer version of the heavy-duty vest he’d damn near worn out during his five years as a SEAL. It was made from lighter fabric than his old vest and was more comfortable.

  It felt good. He slipped on the headset and adjusted the lip microphone, plugging the wire into the radio unit in the vest. He adjusted the frequency and—

  “…ly nothing in the ya
rd.” It was Blue McCoy, speaking in a low voice. “No extra alarms or movement sensors—nothing. The alarm on the house is Mickey Mouse—Lucky already overrode it. There’s also a trellis in the back—it’s perfectly placed. Like an engraved invitation to the second floor.

  “I’m already up there.” This was Cowboy’s voice. “Windows seem tight. But there’s a third floor—probably an attic. Windows there look good and loose. Easy access.”

  “I got movement on the infrared,” Bobby’s deep voice reported. “Two are still stationary on the second floor, and three are downstairs, in the front of the structure, although one is moving now toward the back.”

  “That’s Cliff,” Harvard reported. “He just told his homeboy Ramon that he’s going into the kitchen to get more salsa for his corn chips. They’re watching something on an adults-only channel. Not much dialogue but lots of cheesy music.”

  Blue’s voice again. “The house has seven rooms downstairs. A living room in the southeast corner. A dining room to the immediate west, and a kitchen and some kind of rec room stretches along the entire back of the house.”

  Frisco grabbed paper and pen and sketched a rough floor plan as Blue continued to describe the layout, and the location of all doors and windows.

  “Cat, you want me to insert through the attic?” Cowboy asked.

  “It’s Frisco’s show,” Cat replied, turning to look at him.

  Frisco looked up from his drawing and shook his head. “Not yet. Report back to the van,” he said, speaking into his mike for the first time in five years. “Everyone but Bobby. I want you to stay on the infrared, Bob. I need to be dead sure that Mia and Tash aren’t moved from that upstairs room.”

  “You got it,” Bobby replied.

  It only took a few minutes for the rest of Alpha Squad to appear from the shadows and gloom of the early evening.

  Frisco’s plan was simple.

  “I want Cat and Lucky to go in through the attic windows and work their way down to the second floor where Mia and Tash are held. The rest of us will make a silent entry through this back door.” He pointed down to his drawing. “Except for Bobby, who’s going to stay glued to the infrared and Harvard who’s gonna keep listening in.”