She was reaching for the car door when she felt the impact of a pistol whip across the back of her head. She fell to the ground and heard the man’s voice behind her. “Get on your knees. Now.”
As she pushed her palms into the dirt, trying to regain her balance, she tipped her head down and caught a glimpse of the man, raising his pistol. His jaw was set, his mouth pinched. She had no doubt that he was going to execute her.
Instead of raising her body, she dropped immediately to the ground and rolled beneath the minivan. She crawled as fast as she could to the other side and let out a small scream as a crack rang out. The minivan lurched. He had shot out one of the rear tires. Driving out of here was no longer an option.
She clambered to her feet and searched, breathlessly, for an escape route. She ran into the woods just as she heard the gun fire again behind her.
* * *
Johnny Buckley was crouched low in the passenger seat of the man’s car, wondering what the man was up to. He had pretended to be excited at the idea of visiting the local beaches, but his real excitement had been about the prospect of leaving the creepy house that had become his prison.
Now that the man had left him on his own, Johnny finally had his opportunity. The car wasn’t locked. He had seen the man walk into the woods. He could finally escape.
What are you waiting for? he asked himself. No one else is going to rescue you. You have to move.
But, instead, Johnny sat absolutely still, ducking his head to make sure no one could possibly see him. The distant sound of waves was the only noise beyond a faint breeze whispering across the treetops.
And then a loud blast pierced the stillness like a cannonball.
And then two other shots rang out. A gun. It had to be the man’s gun.
Johnny unlatched his seatbelt, opened the car door, and ran.
Chapter 66
Aside from her time in nursing school, Gretchen Harper had lived in Lewes, Delaware, all forty-three years of her life, born and raised on this same ten acres of land, only two miles away from Cape Henlopen State Park, where her father had been a beloved park ranger.
Since she had moved back into the family home alone, she had even come to enjoy the property chores that had once fallen to her father. She pulled another zip tie through the chicken wire and snapped it tight around the metal pole she had just replaced. She gave the fencing a good tug and it stayed intact. “That should do the trick, you two.” Her miniature goats, Ernie and Bert, bounced around in the grass together near her feet. They wouldn’t be running out to the road again anytime soon, but she’d add a few more zip ties to be safe.
She was securing her last loop when a green minivan made its way past her house. She threw up a wave to be friendly, but wondered where the car was headed. The only other lot on the street was the Garney property. She wondered if that oddball Daniel Turner was finally going to sell it, which would mean months if not a year of construction on a new house. Even so, the new neighbors would have to be better than those Garney brothers.
She had gathered up her supplies and was tucking them back into place in the barn when she heard the sudden crack of an explosion. She hadn’t heard a sound like that since she’d had to call the sheriff on the Garneys for shooting targets on their land.
She was replaying the sound in her head, wondering if it was a gunshot, when she heard two more blasts. Boom! Boom!
She ducked low, scurried to the house, and grabbed the kitchen phone.
9-1-1.
“This is Gretchen Harper on Bonner Road. I just heard at least three shots fired nearby. Tell Chief Turner that it sounds like they came from his brother’s empty lot!”
Chapter 67
Laurie pressed the rental car key and heard a chirp chirp from the next row of cars in the lot. A small gray SUV waited in the spot they were looking for.
She hesitated a few steps from the car and looked to her father.
“Want me to drive?” Leo asked, a small grin on his face.
She broke into a smile. “Yes, please.”
“I was wondering when you were going to remember that you barely know how.”
Growing up in New York City had many advantages, but comfort behind the wheel was not one of them. “Well, I’m an excellent navigator.” She entered the town of Lewes, Delaware, where Daniel Turner lived, into her phone’s GPS system and then propped the screen on the dash where her father could see it. “Or at least, my phone is.”
They were halfway there when Laurie reached for her phone again. “Marcy was going to find a good spot for us to meet up. Let me get an update.” When she clicked on the telephone icon, she saw she had a new message from Marcy. She hit the speaker button on her phone so Leo could hear.
“Hey, Laurie. I’ve called a few times, and it kept going straight to voicemail. It’s ringing now, at least. Hopefully that means your plane has landed. A Detective Eddie Miller called me from East Hampton. He works with Detective Langland and told me where to meet the FBI. I assume you and Leo have the same info. I don’t want to jinx it, but it feels like this is actually going to work. Say a little prayer, okay?”
Laurie hit a button to return Marcy’s call, but after four rings, they heard her outgoing message.
“Eddie Miller?” Laurie asked as she hung up.
“Never heard of him. Let me call Langland.”
Detective Langland didn’t bother with a greeting when she answered. “Leo, I’m pulling every string I can find. The problem is there’s no FBI field office in Delaware. It’s covered by the Baltimore office. Two agents who’d normally run any kidnapping investigation were going to head out to Daniel Turner’s house, but they decided to pull in the local satellite office instead. It’s in Dover, about forty miles away, so I think we’re almost there.”
The news would explain Marcy’s excitement.
“And you had a colleague named Miller reach out to Marcy?” Leo asked. “We’re trying to figure out where to meet her.”
“Miller? Who’s that?”
Laurie knew from her father’s grimace that he shared her sudden panic. “A Detective Eddie Miller apparently called Marcy, said he worked with you, and told her where to meet the FBI.”
“No, that wasn’t us,” Langland said. “There’s no Eddie Miller in our department.”
Laurie called Andrew as quickly as she could.
“Hey, Laurie. You and Leo landed, I assume?”
“We’re almost to Lewes. We were planning to meet Marcy, but she’s not picking up.” She kept her voice calm, not wanting to alarm Andrew until they were certain. “Someone called her and gave her an address to meet the FBI.”
“Yeah, she called from there.”
“So you know for sure she arrived? She’s with the FBI?” Laurie’s fears began to subside.
“She was still a few minutes away when she called. I tried her a couple of minutes ago for an update, but she didn’t answer. I assume she’s talking to the FBI agents.”
Next to her, Leo was shaking his head, obviously worried.
“But you have the address?” Laurie asked.
“I couldn’t write it down while I was driving, but she shares her location with me, so I can find her that way.”
“That’s great. Can you check now?”
“I’m only about five miles from the turnoff. I’ll call you back—”
“Andrew, this is Leo. Can you pull over to the side of the road safely?”
“Right now?” Andrew asked, his voice suddenly filled with fear.
“Yes,” Leo said calmly.
“Okay, hold on.… Yeah, okay, I’m pulled over now. What’s wrong?”
“Whoever gave Marcy that address wasn’t law enforcement,” Leo said. “We think it was Daniel Turner. We need to find her right now.”
Chapter 68
Marcy winced from the sting of a thorn branch slicing the side of her ankle as she traversed the unlevel wooded terrain. She reached toward the pain on instinct and lost her balan
ce, catching herself before her face hit a nearby tree.
She leaned against the tree for support as she checked the cut on her leg. She was bleeding, but she was more worried about her head. She had no way of inspecting the wound, but when she reached back and touched the tender spot at the base of her skull, the blood on her palm looked fresh. She took the time to pull off her cotton sweater and use it to apply pressure. The tank top layered beneath it would do little to protect her from thorns and tree branches, but she needed to stop the bleeding.
Her capri pants and ballet flats were yet another disadvantage against Daniel Turner, who was armed with a gun and presumably knew his way around these woods. She had run so blindly and frantically that she had lost any sense of direction. She felt an urgency to keep moving to get away from him, but was terrified that she might end up running toward him instead of furthering the distance between them.
She sucked in her breath as a loud, deep shriek broke the silence. It was short and staccato. She replayed it in her head and decided it was only a bird. As she took another step, she heard the chirp again—but this one was slightly higher pitched. Then she heard both sounds at once. Not birds, and not a chirp. More of a bray. Sheep. No… goats. The miniature goats she had seen by the side of the road. The woman by the fence.
She closed her eyes, trying to internalize the direction of the sounds, and then began to move toward them. Focused now, she allowed herself to continue moving, but forced herself to slow her pace. Fast steps were louder. And every time she lost her footing, she was certain that the resulting noise would give her location away.
This time, she wouldn’t let herself get turned around.
She felt herself getting closer to the ongoing braying, when she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps in the leaves to her right. Searching for the largest nearby tree, she ducked behind it and turned sideways, trying to make herself as small as possible. It was never going to work. If Daniel Turner stepped within six feet of this tree, he would see her for sure.
The crinkling of the leaves continued. Spotting a softball-sized rock on the ground, she slowly crouched and reached for it with her right hand.
The footsteps moved closer.
She’d only have one shot at surprising him. She would need all of her strength and a lot of luck. Knowing it would probably be her final decision before she was killed, she sprang into a standing position and pulled the rock back over her shoulder. If she could, she would aim for his head.
But when she looked at the spot where she’d expected to find her target, she saw no one. Only when her gaze moved lower did she see the person who belonged to the footsteps.
“Johnny!” She dropped the rock and placed both hands over her mouth—from the shock of seeing her son, and to keep herself from crying out loud with happiness.
His eyes widened as his mouth went agape. “Mama?” He rubbed his eyes as if he were waking up from a dream.
She fell to her knees and pulled him into a tight hug. “Shhh, sweetie. I’m here. Mama’s got you. But we have to be very, very quiet. And we need to find our way out of these woods.”
“The man’s house is that way,” he whispered, pointing behind him. “And when he walked into the trees, I think he went that way,” pointing about eighty degrees in the other direction. “I didn’t want to go either of those places, and I ended up here.”
She felt herself smiling. He was such a smart boy.
Marcy was right that Daniel Turner must have known the property well. They heard his voice before they heard his footsteps. And even through the dense growth of woods, they had no trouble seeing the gun aimed in their direction.
“Danny! I told you to stay in the car.” The man’s face was beet-red and the cords in his neck bulged from rage. “You were fooling me, weren’t you? You were never going to stay with me. You were going to leave, just like them.”
“Please,” Marcy pleaded. “He’s a seven-year-old boy. He heard gunshots. He got scared. He was out here looking for you. Weren’t you?” She looked down into Johnny’s eyes and could see his fear, but could also see that he understood what she was saying.
Johnny nodded slowly. “I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said quietly. “You told me you were taking the gun for protection. I thought something happened to you.”
The man pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, but kept the weapon aimed at them.
“I need to think. Come on. We’re going for a car ride.”
Chapter 69
According to the GPS, Leo and Laurie had nearly reached the location Andrew obtained when he searched for Marcy’s phone. “Dad, look,” Laurie cried out. “There’s the minivan!”
Laurie’s optimism was short-lived. As he stopped the car, she could see that something was wrong with the minivan. It looked off-kilter.
“Stay here,” Leo said, getting his gun from the console. “And keep an eye out for the FBI. They’re supposed to be on their way.”
He approached the van in a low hunch, pulled open the driver’s-side door, and then closed it, shaking his head. He was walking away when he stopped and crouched, examining something near his feet. Climbing back into the car, he reported the news. “One tire’s shot out, and her cell phone was in the driver’s seat. And Laurie, there’s drops of blood on the ground by her car door.”
“I don’t think we can wait for the FBI, Dad.”
“Pull up Daniel Turner’s address.”
* * *
Leo stopped on the road in front of Turner’s house. “It’s too big a risk to drive right onto his property. He’s probably got cameras or motion sensors if he’s as paranoid as his ex-wife said.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“You wait here, and I’ll find the house through the woods.”
“Dad, no. You can’t walk up there on your own.”
They heard the sound of tires on the dirt road behind them. Laurie turned and spotted overhead lights on top of the approaching vehicle. “Look, the FBI, just in time,” she said.
He checked out the rearview mirror. “That’s local police,” he said, rolling down the window.
The car’s only occupant was probably in his mid-forties. He had dark hair and a well-groomed beard. Laurie knew that the stars sewn on his uniform’s sleeves indicated that he was high in the department’s leadership, but it was his nameplate that resolved any uncertainties. C. Turner. The passenger-side window of his vehicle was already down.
“We got a report of some gunfire out here. Can I ask what the two of you are doing by the side of the road? This area’s designated ‘no hunting’ in case you’re wondering.”
Leo looked at Laurie. One glance was enough to reach an agreement. They had no choice. Charlie Turner was the only help they had right now. He was Daniel’s brother, but he was also the police chief.
“I’m Leo Farley, still on the job at NYPD. If it’s all right with you, Chief, I’m going to reach for my wallet to show you my ID.” Chief Turner nodded, and Leo presented his badge to the chief’s satisfaction. As Leo laid out the events that had brought them to this dirt road, the chief’s face fell further, each piece of evidence an emotional punch to the stomach.
He suddenly put his car into gear.
“Chief,” Leo said, “I’m not a crackpot. This is serious.”
“I know,” the chief said. “That’s why you’re going to wait at the police station while I call for backup.”
“With all due respect, Chief, we don’t have time to wait. My daughter and I will go to the house by ourselves if we have to. And if you try to stop us, the lives of a little boy and his mother could be on your hands.”
“Are you carrying?” the chief asked.
Leo raised the side of his shirt to display the gun holstered at his waist.
The chief clenched his jaw and held Leo’s gaze. “Fine. Follow me. There’s a side road a ways up. We’ll stash the cars and cut through the woods to the house. Daniel’s got the main drive alarmed
like Fort Knox.”
After they parked, they let Chief Turner lead the way on foot, followed by Leo, and then Laurie. As they were about to enter the woods, the chief turned. His face was somber. “I was thinking about your evidence. Some of it must have come from my former sister-in-law, Roseanne.”
They did not respond.
“Back then, I couldn’t see the full extent of my brother’s problems. After she left—for good—I realized I didn’t do Daniel any favors taking his side like that. He would have been better off getting some help. Anyway, I won’t ask where she is, but if you happen to talk to her, please let her know I’m sorry.”
“Let’s see if we can get your brother the help he needs now,” Laurie said.
They followed him into the woods.
* * *
Marcy Buckley tried to keep her attention focused on the rocky and narrow dirt road leading to Daniel Turner’s house, but she could not stop seeing the gun pointed at her in her periphery from the passenger seat, or Johnny’s terrified expression in the rearview mirror.
She flinched as Turner reached his left hand across her and hit a garage door opener clipped to the flip-down sun visor.
As they waited in silence for the garage door to roll open, none of them saw the three people emerge from the woods just in time to spot them drive inside.
Chapter 70
Laurie could see a switch flip in Charlie Turner at the sight of Johnny and Marcy Buckley inside the white Chrysler sedan. Until that moment, she sensed that Charlie believed there would be some rational explanation for whatever misunderstanding had made his younger brother the leading suspect in the disappearance of a missing child. But once he saw the kidnapping in progress with his own two eyes, he had immediately shifted modes. He was no longer acting like a helpful family member. He was a police chief on an urgent call out, and he was speaking to Leo as a fellow law enforcement officer.
Piece of My Heart Page 24
