Operation Alpha

by Justine Davis

  She just had to hope that eventually Liam would figure it out. Maybe even figure out that she had her phone on her, or find out that she hadn’t left it in her purse in her car. If they even found her car. At the least he would know she hadn’t gone to work, when it clearly had been her intention when she’d left him.

  Of course, she hadn’t left under the best of circumstances. But Liam was not the kind of man who would let his personal feelings interfere. In fact, given the painful history he’d shared with her, he would likely move the entire planet if he had to to stop it from happening again.

  They made the turn. They were headed for the bridge. And on the other side lay wild places, including a national park spanning nearly a million acres, with more surrounding it. Including massive mountains, cold-running rivers, deep forests and a windswept ocean.

  Including the place where Kevin’s mother had died.

  She told herself her imagination was running riot. That all the wild possibilities that were occurring to her were crazy. Stick with what you know, she ordered silently.

  She clung to the rock-solid certainty that Liam would do what had to be done. He would be coming for her. He would find her.

  She just had to keep herself and Kevin alive until then.

  * * *

  Brett Dunbar looked up from the screen of his phone. He had come to Foxworth from the Oakley house. Liam knew he realized from prior cases he’d worked with them on that he’d be able to access whatever he needed from here, and it was a lot closer than the main sheriff’s office. Carly Devon, the juvenile detective, was still at the house, working up her own reports and making the call to children’s services. Teague had gone to pick Quinn up at the local airport an hour ago and would fill him in on the way back.

  “We got lucky,” Dunbar said. “Devon found another neighbor who remembered the car Oakley brought home last night. Gave us a good description. Including that it has some pretty noticeable damage to the left rear.”

  “Last night? Bought for just this, then?”

  “Maybe,” Dunbar said, registering the ramifications. But before he said anything more his phone rang again. He answered, listened, saying little, and then thanked the person.

  Liam took one look at Brett Dunbar’s face as he disconnected from the call and knew it wasn’t good news.

  “Two things. Oakley didn’t show up at work today. And your friend Ria called 911. Oakley was slapping the boy around.”

  Liam let out a compressed breath. “And she confronted him,” he said flatly. “She’d be incapable of letting that go.”

  “Looks likely, when taken with our witness statement of Oakley forcing a woman answering her description into the car with the boy.”

  “I should have known, damn it.” Liam slammed a fist down on the table in the Foxworth meeting room. “She wanted to go get Kevin out of there the moment we put it together, and I told her to wait, let the law handle it.”

  Something hot and corrosive boiled up inside him. If anything happened to her, it would be his fault. Again. His jaw was so tight even his teeth were hurting.

  Dunbar’s expression didn’t change, but Liam belatedly heard how his own words had sounded.

  “That wasn’t aimed at you,” Liam said. “I know you guys got there as fast as you could. Hell, you didn’t have to go personally at all. It’s not your thing. I just...”

  He ran a hand over his hair, trying not to think of how Ria had done the same thing just hours ago. Trying not to think of how intense it had been and how the thought that had kept echoing in his mind as he held her against him was at last.

  He felt as if his bones would snap under the tension of every muscle in his body. It was all he could do not to unleash a chant of number four, number four in his head.

  “Interesting,” Dunbar murmured.

  “What is?” Liam turned, thinking he’d found something in whatever search he’d been doing. Hoping. Seizing on the distraction to regain a little control.

  “You.”

  Liam drew back. “What?”

  The tall, lean detective with the touch of gray at his temples was studying him with every evidence of just that—interest. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “It’s a kidnapping,” he muttered.

  “I don’t seem to recall you being quite so tightly wound on the Kiley kidnapping,” Dunbar said, referring to the case of six-year-old Luke Kiley that he’d worked with them last winter.

  “This is different,” Liam said, aware it sounded a bit lame but also aware he’d gotten a bit of a grip on his emotions.

  “Oh.”

  “It is,” he insisted. “That was coercion. Leverage. This is some crazy guy who found out his whole life has been a lie.”

  “Point taken,” Dunbar said, “but you’re still a bit revved up. And it’s not your fault. Anybody would have made that call.”

  A lot of people telling him what wasn’t his fault lately. Liam was thankful when the big screen blinked to life and saved him from having to deny the obvious. Or, worse, explain it. Hard to do when he couldn’t even explain it to himself.

  “Hey,” Ty said over the speakers. “Got it strung together. Ready?”

  Dunbar had gotten them access to the back feeds of DOT traffic cams, and Ty had put those together with a couple of weather cams that showed various sections of local roads either directly or in the background. Liam had given him time and probable route parameters, starting from the time Ria had left here. He supposed that was what had triggered Dunbar’s suspicions, when he’d said she’d left here a little after seven in the morning. Thankfully it didn’t seem to occur to Ty to even ask, but then Ty wasn’t the detective Dunbar was.

  “Run it,” he said. Ty’s image vanished, to be replaced with the familiar camera views. Ty had warned them it would be rough, since speed was uppermost, but it was easy enough to follow the red car through the frames, even with the tendency toward washed-out colors. In the frame time-stamped 7:47, the car made the turn into the residential area and vanished, out of reach of any camera. Liam had known it was true, but somehow seeing her car heading for Dylan’s house made it real. His gut was churning, adrenaline spiking and he felt like he was about to jump out of his skin.

  “That fits,” Dunbar said. “Wit said he first noticed her car parked across the street at zero seven-fifty hours.”

  “Observant guy,” Liam muttered.

  “Lucky for us, between the two neighbors we’ve got solid info.”

  Ty’s voice came out of the speakers. “I picked up the other car leaving about a half hour later, on a weather cam aimed at water, somewhere. Here.”

  A new image popped up. Liam studied it for a moment. The nondescript, brown hatchback was made recognizable by accident damage. “That’s the camera on the marine supply place, above the harbor. So they’re headed west.”

  The parade of images continued. Liam pictured the route in his mind, filling in the gaps between cameras as he followed the progress of the hatchback. His nerves strung tighter and tighter as they went, as the suspicion grew in his mind as to where Oakley was headed.

  Not there, not there, he chanted silently. And then the car rounded the last turn, dropped out of range and then reappeared. And made the final turn that committed them to the Hood Canal bridge.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said.

  Two sets of footsteps spun him around. Quinn and Teague strode into the room, Quinn already focused on the image of a damaged car heading down the access road to the long span of the bridge in a series of stop-action frames Ty had pulled from the camera. Liam had updated them via phone on the way, so they both knew what was happening. If Quinn had learned anything worthwhile on their mole, it was shoved aside for now.

  “Never a submarine going by when you need one,” Teague said.

 
Liam knew he was joking, but he couldn’t deny that having the bridge open for a sub on its way to Bangor would have been a big help, trapping Oakley in the backup.

  Phone in hand, Quinn leaned in to look at the time stamp on the last image of the car on the screen. “Damn,” he muttered, “too late.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket.

  It took Liam a moment to realize he’d been checking how far behind real time they were. And the next set of photos Ty put up showed the car out on the bridge itself, the last one showing it already down on the floating section. Thinking of Teague’s joke, Liam wondered for a moment if Quinn really had that much pull, if he could have had the bridge opened with a phone call. It wouldn’t surprise him in the least.

  “I’m guessing, from the age, no GPS on the car?” Quinn asked.

  Liam shook his head. “I checked on that model. No nav system even available.”

  “You sure this guy doesn’t have a smartphone?” Ty asked.

  “Yeah,” Liam said. “He’s a bit of a Luddite.”

  “Too bad. It gets sketchy once they get over the bridge. Some of the cameras on the state route are out, but if they head for the Port Townsend ferry dock I should get them or, if they go straight, catch them on the camera at Sequim.”

  No one in the room bothered to correct Ty’s pronunciation of the town as See-quim—not now. Liam was too busy calming a gut that churned at the thought of the ferry that ran from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island. Too easy to get from there to other points north. Way north. Like Canada.

  “They haven’t yet?” Quinn asked.

  “Not within view,” Ty said.

  “Judging by that last time stamp, they haven’t had time to get to Townsend yet,” Dunbar said.

  “Sequim’s farther,” Quinn said, dropping the e from the name, “but they’d be on the highway and it’s faster. Should be about a wash.”

  “Assuming,” Liam said grimly, “he doesn’t take any of the million or so little side roads that vanish into damn near nowhere.”

  Quinn shifted his gaze to Liam. Then he exchanged a glance with Teague, who shrugged in a way that made Liam wonder what else they’d been talking about on the way here from the airport.

  “Then it’s a good thing,” Quinn said, “that we have the best tracker around. You’d better get going.”

  The casual words snapped Liam out of the haze he seemed to have been in. And he took the fact that it had taken Quinn’s order to wake him up as further proof that he was in way over his head. If he hadn’t been so tangled up, if Ria hadn’t had him so upside down, he would have been on this the moment Ty had provided their direction of travel.

  “We’ll fire up the bird for air support,” Quinn said. “We can get there a lot faster than anybody else at this point. Maybe we can pick them up. Teague, you’d better fly, I’m still in fixed-wing mode.”

  “On it,” Teague said, heading out to the large metal warehouse that served not only as storage for various pieces of equipment but as a hangar for Quinn’s other favorite toy, the black helicopter that still bore the scars of the mission on which he’d met Hayley: two bullet holes—one patched, one left alone on Quinn’s order. Only Quinn Foxworth, Liam thought, could get sentimental over a bullet hole.

  “Thanks for stepping up, Brett,” Quinn said.

  The detective was looking thoughtfully at the screen. “I think I’ll make a call to the Park Service,” he said slowly. “Have the rangers keep their eyes open.”

  Liam’s stomach turned over as he thought of the national park where Melissa Oakley had died.

  “Dylan,” he said suddenly.

  “You know where he is?” Quinn asked.

  “School. I left Cutter to keep him there until I found out what was happening. And Emily’s keeping an eye on him, too.”

  “You may need Cutter.”

  “Yes.” His mind was racing. “I’ll go get him on my way. But what the hell do I tell Dylan? That his dad kidnapped his little brother and Ria?”

  “I’ll call Devon. She wanted to talk to him anyway. I’ll tell her to do it now,” Dunbar said. “She’s really good with kids. She’ll find the best way to deal with it. He doesn’t need to know all of it until he needs to.”

  Liam nodded. He turned on his heel and headed out. Went down the stairs three at a time. Headed to the warehouse at a run. Teague already had the helicopter out on the pad. If only he’d been so quick. He’d already wasted too much time, lost in that damned fog of worry. That’s what happened when you got too personally involved.

  Now he shoved all those feelings aside, summoning up all control he had in him. He hit his equipment locker and grabbed the gear he wanted.

  He was the Foxworth tracker, and it was time—past time—for him to do what he did.

  Chapter 31

  They had been riding in total silence since Kevin had managed to smother his sobs. Ria knew conventional wisdom said to try to get a kidnapper to talk to you, try to make them see you as a person, not just a means to an end. But she was at a total loss for what to say. Oakley was already angry at her for getting involved at all, and it seemed to her that meant he wouldn’t care at all about anything personal she might say. Besides, what was there?

  Please, I can’t die now, because I finally met The Guy?

  Too bad The Guy didn’t feel the same. Too bad he was so full of guilt that he wouldn’t let any woman get close. And she wasn’t egotistical enough to think that she was the one who could change that, after he’d carried it around for years.

  Maybe I should tell Oakley the martial arts guy will be coming after us.

  No matter what else she had doubts about she didn’t question that for a moment. Once he figured out what had happened—and he would—Liam would be on their trail. And he wouldn’t quit.

  Liam never quits once he’s on the scent.

  Foxworth doesn’t give up.

  She only wished it would be because of her as well as the Foxworth creed. But he’d made it pretty clear.

  I don’t know what we are, Ria. Except not the same as before.

  And that could as easily mean they were done as anything else.

  She gave herself an inward shake. This was not helping. She tried to focus. She had the sense that talking about Kevin would only enrage him more. The boy had been painfully quiet for some time now, huddled on the floor of the cargo area of the hatchback. He was probably hoping the man he still thought was his father had forgotten about him, at least for now.

  So what to say? What on earth could she say to the man who had essentially kidnapped her? She stared out the windshield, barely noticing the cloud bank headed in from the ocean. After all, it was hardly the time to start jabbering about the weather. Not when—

  Wait, she thought. Maybe that was it. Talk about something...ordinary. As if nothing extraordinary was going on.

  She took a deep breath and then the plunge. “I hope Dylan does well on his exam today.”

  Barton Oakley’s head snapped around. She’d startled him, if nothing else.

  Trying to put even more casualness into her voice, she continued. “If he keeps these kinds of grades, he should have no trouble getting into U-Dub.”

  She used the local nickname for the University of Washington intentionally. As she had picked the words. She knew the man had gone to the Seattle-based school himself.

  He was back to looking at the road ahead, but she sensed she still had his attention.

  “I think it’s wonderful that he wants to go there because you did,” she said.

  His head came around again. He stared at her, long enough that she got worried about the road ahead.

  “He said that?” he asked.

  “He did.”

  He looked forward again, correcting for the slight veer the car had tak
en, and she breathed again. She tried to decide what to say next, since this had at least gotten him talking. Should she tell him Dylan loved him? Admired him? She thought about what the man had been through. Thought she might know what would get to him the most.

  “He respects you very much,” she said.

  Although she couldn’t be sure, she thought she saw a shudder go through him. Maybe she’d hit upon the key word. And she felt a rush of relief as it occurred to her that, had she not been forewarned by Liam’s foray into the man’s computer, she might have brought up his dead, unfaithful wife. Hardly likely to endear Ria to him.

  And then he went cold again. “Whatever you’re trying to pull, it won’t work, so shut up.”

  “I just thought you’d want to know how Dylan feels about you.”

  “I said, shut up.”

  “He’s a good kid. He’s got a bright future.”

  Oakley snorted. “As long as some slut doesn’t get hold of him.”

  And there it was. The bitterness, the rage, the betrayal. She didn’t blame him for feeling that way. His response to it was something else entirely.

  Again she weighed the possible gain from bringing up his wife against the possible disaster it could become. She had to keep him talking, get him to interact with her, see her as a person, not just an impediment. She simply didn’t know which way to go, which might work, which was the greater risk.

  In fact, there were only two things she was certain of right now. That she could never, ever forgive this man for what he was doing to the little boy cowering barely a foot behind her.

  And that Liam was coming for them.

  She drew in a deep breath and chose.

  * * *

  “They haven’t hit Sequim or Port Townsend that we could find,” Ty said.

  “Copy,” Liam said as he turned past the former mill town turned picturesque tourist attraction. Cutter shifted restlessly, nudging at Liam’s cell phone atop the center console, even though Liam had activated the earpiece that put him in constant, live contact with the Foxworth system. He supposed the dog could still hear the familiar voice.