Cold Conspiracy

by Cindi Myers

She blushed and giggled, and teetered on her heels, so that Jamie reached out to steady her. She should find a way to pull Mrs. O’Keefe aside and give her the pink flats, in case Donna wanted to change later.

  “What should I do with my flowers?” Donna asked.

  “I’ll put them in a vase,” Jamie said. She took her sister’s bouquet along with her own to the kitchen, glad for a few moments alone to organize her thoughts. Nate’s arrival was a surprise, but it didn’t feel wrong to have him here for this milestone. She wondered if he understood how important this was for her and for Donna, too, and wanted to celebrate with them. Maybe he did, since he had brought the flowers.

  Voices drew her back to the foyer, where Henry stood, dressed in black jeans and boots, a Western-cut white shirt, black leather jacket and a string tie. “Henry, you look so handsome,” Donna cooed.

  “And you look beautiful,” he said, eyes shining.

  Donna turned to Jamie. “And look—he brought me a corsage.”

  Jamie duly admired the corsage—made of pink silk roses and silk ferns—and slid it onto Donna’s wrist. “Before you go, I have to get a picture,” Jamie said, rushing to retrieve her phone.

  The resulting photos showed the couple arm in arm, grinning at the camera, then at each other. Donna had never looked happier, Jamie thought.

  “We have to go,” Henry said.

  Nate helped Donna with her coat. He and Jamie followed the couple onto the front porch and waved to Mrs. O’Keefe, who waited in the car.

  Back inside, Jamie stood for a moment with her head down, one knuckle pressed hard above her upper lip, determined to hold back tears. Nate put his arm around her. “I can’t believe I’m being so silly,” she said. “You’d think I was sending my only kid to war or something. It’s just a dance.”

  “I’m wondering if it’s because she’s doing something you thought she might never do,” Nate said. “She’s going on a real date with a young man she loves. She’s doing something other girls her age do all the time, but that not every girl with her disability gets to do or is able to do.”

  Jamie looked up at him, blinking hard and somehow managing to keep the tears from overflowing. “I never thought of that,” she said. “I... I think you might be right.”

  He took her hand in his. “I figured you might appreciate a little distraction tonight, so I thought I’d take you out.”

  “A real date?” she asked.

  “A real date.” He surveyed the yoga pants and sweatshirt she wore. “I can wait while you change.”

  She laughed and punched his chest. Unlike her casual clothes, he wore pressed jeans, a dark blue dress shirt and sports coat. “What makes you think I need to change?”

  He grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “I can help you, if you like.”

  “Then we might never leave the house.”

  “I’m liking this idea better and better.” He lunged toward her and she danced out of his reach and raced up the stairs.

  “I’ll be down in ten minutes,” she called over her shoulder.

  A pleasant thrill of excitement hummed through her as she rifled through her closet, trying to choose the right outfit. She settled on a pale blue cashmere sweater, black tights, a short black skirt and tall leather boots. Warm, easy to move in, but still sexy.

  She was leaning over the bathroom sink, finishing her makeup, when Nate entered, a glass of wine in each hand. “I thought you might like this.” He handed her a glass.

  She sipped, her eyes locked to his. Despite the fading black eye and bruised temple, he had never looked more handsome to her. Maturity sat well on him, and though she still recognized the boy he had been, she appreciated more the man he had become.

  She set aside the wine glass and wrapped her arms around him. “This was a good idea,” she said.

  “The wine? Or the date.”

  “The date.”

  He set his own glass beside hers, then drew her close for a kiss—not the eager kiss of an impatient lover or the perfunctory embrace of a man doing what was expected, but a deep, tender caress that invited lingering and exploration.

  She arched her body to his and angled her mouth to draw even closer, sinking into the sensation of his body wrapped around her and the response of her own. Her pulse thrummed in her ears and all thought of anything or anyone fled, and with it every bit of tension that had lately strained her nerves and disturbed her sleep.

  She moaned in protest when Nate pulled away, and opened her eyes to stare at him accusingly. “Your phone,” he said, gesturing toward the bedroom.

  Then she realized a tinny reproduction of an old-fashioned phone ring was echoing from the bedroom. She pushed past him and retrieved the phone from the dresser. When she saw Mrs. O’Keefe’s name her relaxed happiness vanished. “Hello? Mrs. O’Keefe, is everything all right?”

  “Oh, Jamie!” Mrs. O’Keefe’s voice broke in what sounded like a sob. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

  “What is it? What happened?” Nate moved in behind her and she glanced back at him, sure her eyes reflected her sense of panic, then held the phone a little away from her ear so that he could hear, too.

  “I stopped to get gas and went inside to pay,” Mrs. O’Keefe said, the words pouring out in a rush. “I was sure Henry and Donna would be fine while I was away, but when I came out, she was gone.”

  “Gone? Donna is gone?” Jamie’s voice rose, on the edge of hysteria. Nate’s arm encircled her, holding her up as her knees threatened to buckle. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know!” Mrs. O’Keefe wailed. “Henry said two men in masks grabbed her and dragged her from the car. One of them hit him—he’s bleeding, and when I got there he was hysterical. A sheriff’s deputy is here, but I knew I needed to call you.”

  “We’re on our way.” Jamie ended the call and grabbed her keys from the dresser. “We have to go,” she said, already running for the stairs. “Someone’s taken Donna.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Nate drove as fast as he dared from Jamie’s house to the corner where Eagle Mountain’s two gas stations stood opposite each other. It had started to snow again, and the streets were mostly empty. Mrs. O’Keefe’s Honda sat beside the end gas pump, a sheriff’s department cruiser behind it. Jamie was out of the truck before Nate had come to a complete stop, hurrying to where Gage stood with Mrs. O’Keefe beside her vehicle. When Mrs. O’Keefe saw Jamie approaching, she burst into sobs.

  Gage moved to one side while Jamie embraced the older woman. Nate approached him. “What have you got?” Nate asked.

  “Two men in a white soft-top Jeep pulled up. One got out, jerked open the back door of the O’Keefe car and slashed the seat belt. He clamped one hand over Donna’s mouth and dragged her out of the vehicle. When Henry tried to go after them, he punched him—hard. I think the poor kid’s nose is probably broken.”

  “Did anyone see what happened?”

  Gage shook his head. “Mrs. O’Keefe was the only customer and the clerk was busy with her.”

  Nate nodded toward a camera mounted above the gas pumps. “Maybe we’ll get something from that.”

  “Maybe,” Gage said. “But the camera is focused next to the pumps, to catch people who drive off without paying for their gas. The kidnappers pulled up on the far side of the O’Keefe car. Henry says they wore masks.”

  “We don’t need to see them to know who did this,” Nate said.

  The ambulance pulled in on the other side of the gas pumps, followed by the sheriff’s cruiser.

  EMT Emmett Baxter climbed out and approached the car. Mrs. O’Keefe and Travis met him. Jamie walked over to stand with Gage and Nate, her arms hugged tightly across her chest. The lighting under the gas pump canopy cast a sickly yellow glow, and snow blew around them in dizzying swirls.

  Nate went to his truck and retrieved his coat an
d put it around her shoulders. “It’s freezing out here,” he said.

  “I don’t even feel it,” she said. “I don’t feel anything.” Her eyes met his, red-rimmed and bleak. “What if they kill her?”

  “You can’t think that,” he said.

  She glanced over toward the car, where Henry sat in the back seat. “Go see about Henry,” she said. “He had to see it happen, and he tried to protect her.” She covered her mouth with her hand. He started to reach for her, but she pulled away. “Go make sure Henry is okay.”

  Henry sat between Emmett and his mother in the back seat of the Honda. Nate opened the passenger door and leaned in. “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “His nose is broken,” Emmett said. “We’ll have to splint it.” He turned back to Mrs. O’Keefe. “We can give him something for the pain first, if you think that’s all right.”

  “Of course.” Mrs. O’Keefe squeezed her son’s hand. “It’s going to be all right,” she said.

  “It won’t be all right without Donna,” he moaned.

  “Give me your other hand,” Mrs. O’Keefe said. “And look at me.”

  Henry opened his hand and stared at the crumpled rectangle of white pasteboard in it.

  “What have you got there?” Mrs. O’Keefe asked.

  Nate leaned in past her. “Let me see,” he said.

  Henry held out his hand and Nate stared at the crumpled business card. “Ice cold,” he read.

  “He shoved this into my hand before he took Donna away,” Henry said.

  Nate took the card carefully, holding it by the edges, and walked over to where Travis stood with Jamie. When she saw what he held, her face blanched white, but she said nothing.

  Travis frowned at the card. “This doesn’t fit the pattern for the other women,” he said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Nate said. “The others were all alone, taken when no one else was around.”

  Travis turned to Jamie. “Did you see any strange cars around your house when the O’Keefes and Donna left there this evening?”

  “No.” She bit her lip. “But I wasn’t really looking.”

  “I didn’t see anyone, either,” Nate said. He had been focused on Jamie. Still, if Alex and Tim had been there, wouldn’t he have known?

  “I think they were watching your house and followed Mrs. O’Keefe to the gas station,” Travis said. “They saw their chance to grab Donna and took it.”

  “But why Donna?” Jamie asked. “She never hurt anyone!”

  It was the question everyone left behind when a loved one senselessly died asked—the question the families of Kelly Farrow and Christy O’Brien and Michaela Underwood and all the other murder victims had asked. Usually, there was no explanation for a crime like this.

  “I don’t think they were really after Donna,” Travis said.

  “Then why?” Jamie looked dazed.

  “I think they were after you,” Travis said. “This was a way to get to you. To get to a cop. It’s what they’ve wanted all along.”

  “They can have me,” she said. “As long as they don’t hurt Donna.”

  “They’re not going to have either of you,” Travis said.

  “We have to figure out where they’ve taken her,” Nate said. “They have to be holed up somewhere.”

  Gage emerged from the gas station office. “The security camera at the pump picked up a partial plate number for the vehicle the kidnappers were in,” he said. He handed Travis a slip of paper.

  “It’s the last two numbers of a Colorado plate,” Travis said. “That will help—the first three letters are the same for half the cars registered in the county, but the last three are different.” He returned the paper to Gage. “Call this in to Dwight. Tell him to do a search for every white Jeep Wrangler in the county and see if he can match this.”

  “I’m on it,” Gage said.

  “Let me help,” Jamie said. “I’m good on the computer and focusing on the search will help keep me from going crazy.”

  Travis looked at her a long moment, as if trying to decide if she was going to crack up. “All right,” he said. “Go help Dwight.”

  “I’ll take you,” Nate said.

  They drove to the station in silence. There was no sense trying to comfort Jamie with words. The only thing that counted was action. He parked in front of the sheriff’s department and came around to open the door for her. She slipped off his jacket and pressed it on him. “Are you coming in?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No. I’m going to talk to Pi and Greg again. Neither were very forthcoming when we interviewed them earlier, but Travis thinks they know something they aren’t telling us, and I’m going to find out what that is.”

  But when Mrs. Calendri answered the door and Nate showed her his ID, she told him her son wasn’t at home. “He’s with Greg and Gus,” she said.

  “Could you call him for me?” Nate shoved his hands in the pocket of his jacket, which still carried a faint whiff of the lotion Jamie used. “It’s important.”

  She retreated into the house and returned with a phone in her hand. She held it to her ear for a moment, then shook her head. “He isn’t answering.” Another pause, then she said, “Pi, please call your mother as soon as you can. It’s important.” She ended the call.

  “Do you know Greg and Gus’s numbers?” Nate asked.

  “No. I don’t. What is this about? Is Pi in some kind of trouble?”

  “I hope not, Mrs. Calendri. We’re trying to find someone who may be involved in a crime, and we think your son might be able to help us.”

  The lines around her eyes tightened. “I don’t have Greg and Gus’s numbers, but I can tell you where they live.”

  Greg Eicklebaum lived only two blocks away. Nate drove there and found him and Gus playing video games in a den off the garage. “We don’t know where Pi is,” Greg said after Nate explained his mission. “He was supposed to come over this afternoon, then said he had something else to do.”

  Nate sat and faced the boys, so close to them their knees almost touched. “You’ve got to tell me everything you know about those two climbers you saw out near the campground that day,” he said. “We think they kidnapped a young disabled woman this evening. Her life may depend on us finding them.” His throat tightened as he said the words, but he pushed the image of Donna, helpless and afraid, away. He had a job to do, and that meant staying focused on facts, not emotions.

  The two boys exchanged glances, then Gus said, “We saw one of them this morning.”

  “Where?”

  “We were walking over to the park to shoot hoops.” He gestured to the north. “This white Jeep pulled up to the stop sign and we looked over and it was one of the guys—the taller one, with the lighter hair. I remembered his sunglasses—really sharp Oakleys. We waved, but I don’t think he saw us.”

  “You don’t know where he was driving from—or where he went?” Nate asked.

  “No,” Gus said. “But Pi figured he must live near here, because nobody else really drives around here. I mean, there aren’t any through streets or anything.”

  “Can you think of anything else that could help us find this guy?” Nate asked.

  They both shook their heads. “I wish we could,” Greg said. “Really.”

  “If you think of anything, call the sheriff’s office,” Nate said.

  He returned to the sheriff’s department and found Gage and the sheriff huddled with Dwight and Jamie in the situation room. “We think we’ve got something,” Gage said when Nate joined them.

  “There are a lot of white Jeeps registered in the county,” Dwight said, tapping the keys of a laptop open on the desk before him. “But only two with the two numbers the security camera caught. One is registered to Amber Perry of 161 Maple Court, the other to Jonathan Dirkson of 17 Trapper Lane.”

 
“Trapper Lane,” Nate said.

  The others stared at him. “Trapper Lane is in the same neighborhood as Pi Calendri and Greg Eicklebaum,” he said. “I just talked to Greg and Gus Elcott, and Greg said they saw one of the climbers they had run into earlier, driving a white Jeep in their neighborhood this morning.”

  “What’s the contact information for Dirkson?” Travis said.

  “I’m on it,” Jamie said, furiously typing at a second laptop. “Jonathan Dirkson’s contact information is in Phoenix,” she said.

  “That’s it!” Nate said. “The house on Trapper Lane is probably a vacation home. Alex and Tim broke into an unoccupied home and made use of the vehicle that was probably in the garage.”

  “A lot of houses in that neighborhood are second homes,” Gage said. “And a lot of people rent them out short-term. Alex and Tim could tell anyone who asked they were vacationing here and the chances of anyone checking with the house’s owner are slim to none.”

  “Let’s go,” Travis said.

  Jamie shoved back her chair. “I’m coming with you,” she said. “And don’t tell me to stay here. If I’m really the one they want, then maybe I can help to trap them.”

  “All right.” Travis turned to Nate. “I suppose you’re going to come, too.”

  “You could use another trained officer.”

  “Go with Jamie, in her cruiser,” Travis said. “And try not to get hurt. I don’t want to have to explain to your boss how you were injured yet again when you aren’t even officially on duty.”

  * * *

  FOUR SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT CRUISERS—and most of the sheriff’s department, plus Nate—blockaded both ends of Trapper Lane. They surrounded the house, and the sheriff used a bullhorn to demand that Tim and Alex release Donna and come out with their hands up. But the only reaction they received was silence, and furtive looks through the curtains from the neighbors.

  Dwight approached the house from the side, then returned to the others. “The Jeep isn’t in the garage,” he said. “Maybe they aren’t here.”

  “Then we search the house,” Travis said.