The Last Man She'd Marry

by Helen R. Myers

  Without emotion Jonas replied, “I have to get back to you on my other phone. Ten minutes. No more.”

  “Thank you.”

  He snapped the phone shut and met Alyx’s worried and curious gaze. “I have to go.”

  “It sounds like it.” From the distant expression in his eyes, he’d already left a minute ago. Something was wrong. “Is it the airport? What happened?”

  “I really have to go.” He snatched his keys and BlackBerry off the end of the counter. “I may be out of touch for a while.”

  “Yes…okay.” Already dazed by what had transpired between them before the call, Alyx was slow to follow. “So I’ll call you later to see about dinner?”

  “Alyx, don’t call me. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

  What on earth…? “Jonas, please. Don’t leave like this. If this is about something I said—”

  He strode back to her, gripped her by her upper arms and kissed her hard. “I love you.”

  And then he was gone.

  Jonas drove midway between Alyx’s and Zane’s house before he pulled over and dug out the prepaid cell phone he had in the glove compartment of the Mustang. Referring to his BlackBerry, he punched in the fourth number in its address book. Before the first ring was completed, he had a connection.

  “It’s me,” he said without waiting for a “hello.”

  “I really hate to put you on the spot. I know you’re already committed where you are. I’m also going to have to tell you the worst of it straight off—you can’t call this in to your people.”

  He was referring to the FBI, and Jonas immediately knew this was going to be worse than he feared. His throat was fire-torch dry; he was aware that Judge Dylan Justiss wouldn’t be this cautious and demanding if it weren’t critical. What he wanted to hear was that this wasn’t about E.D. or their kids. “You called me, you know what you’re getting,” he said, shorthanding through the finer details. “What have you got?”

  “Kidnapping. Boy, seven years old.”

  Jonas looked at the stratus clouds still blocking the sun. Although veil-thin, they lent a coolness to the morning, but would be burning off by the time he was supposed to fly. However, something told him that he wouldn’t be flying today—at least not any of Zane’s planes. “Why didn’t the family call for an immediate Amber Alert?”

  “Because the father’s not your usual citizen. He’s a billionaire, one of the increasingly numerous ones who made their fortune in technology-related areas, and he believed if he and his family kept a low-key life, they wouldn’t be targeted by opportunists.”

  Recently—and after the fact—the Bureau had dealt with a home invasion for another billionaire, equally eccentric and naive. Fortunately for everyone involved, they’d all come out of it alive. Victims weren’t always so lucky. “How long since the snatch?”

  “Four hours.”

  Jonas grimaced. “Ransom call?”

  “One hour ago.”

  Jonas rubbed at his forehead hard enough to take off skin, but he kept his tone flat not to attract any attention. One could never discount accidental reception. Since he wasn’t targeted surveillance, he was fairly certain Big Brother wasn’t listening. Still, Dylan had to know what he was asking. If this situation spiraled out of control and tanked, he wouldn’t have to lose any more sleep over decisions about his future.

  Then Alyx’s lovely face flashed before his eyes.

  “I’ll say this again—this needs to be called in.”

  Dylan’s voice dropped to barely audible. “And I’m telling you he won’t do it. They convinced him that his son will be sacrificed if he pulls anything. From what I can gather, the kidnappers are willing to cut their losses and run, but they’re not going to take any chances of being identified. I can’t blame him, his son’s bloody T-shirt was found stuffed in their morning newspaper. You should also know the boy is a hemophiliac.”

  Could it get worse? Silently swearing, Jonas started considering possibilities. Chances are the kidnappers knew of the boy’s condition and were playing it to their advantage. A package of fresh hamburger meat could be useful to fool terrified parents long enough to make a lab sample a moot point. That would mean an insider was involved, a servant or employee. If it was an outsider who was aware of the family’s wealth, but not the details of the boy’s health, and he’d gotten the blood from the kid, things could already be out of control.

  But there was a major hurdle even before he worried about that worst-case scenario.

  “Two things you need to know,” he said to Dylan before making his decision. “First, I’m not just on vacation to help a friend. I’m on leave. Self-directed due to a promotion that didn’t come through.”

  A dejected sigh came over the air. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “The point is that if this matter could be quickly resolved, I could cover my butt by claiming it was a situation I fell into and a judgment call was necessary. But regardless of whether this drags on or not,” Jonas added, “the second problem is that you know it’ll take me a couple of hours to reach the international airport where I can catch the next flight out. Am I really your best option when every minute matters?”

  “I wish you’d trusted me enough to tell me this when we last talked,” Dylan muttered.

  “Yeah, like I wanted to share that happy news. Besides, I’d just run into a certain someone, remember?”

  “She can’t know about this. Not even my certain someone does.”

  “If you think I said anything other than goodbye,” Jonas replied with equal warning, “you called the wrong number.”

  Dylan cleared his throat and said determinedly, “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best. That’s why the person on whose behalf I’m calling has a private jet headed in your direction. It’s due at your regional airport in just over an hour and the pilot knows to break speed records getting back here.”

  This wasn’t the time for smiles, but Jonas couldn’t resist replying dryly, “Pretty sure of yourself.” But his mind continued to race.

  This already had the bad vibrations of a catastrophe in the making. However, a little, undoubtedly terrified kid was in the hands of strangers who could be anything from thugs looking for a shortcut to prosperity to pedophiles to terrorists wanting to bankroll a plot and at the same time take out a capitalist big shot. Jonas felt he had no choice but to restart the Mustang.

  “I’d better get off this line and go explain why I can’t give two weeks’ notice to my temporary employer,” he told Dylan.

  “Is he going to take a financial hit because of my asking you to break your word to him?”

  This was why Jonas was willing to risk a great deal, perhaps everything. Dylan understood the debt involved in asking for favors.

  “We can discuss that later,” Jonas replied.

  “Come knowing that no matter what happens, he’ll be taken care of.”

  Jonas disconnected because there was nothing more that needed to be said.

  “I can’t get a flight out until tomorrow,” Parke announced to Alyx.

  Her cousin’s call had come only minutes after Jonas left, and Alyx had to struggle to stay focused on what her cousin was saying, even though she was glad Parke had made the decision to remove herself from temptation. She planned to do the same thing. “At least you don’t have to rush packing,” she replied, reaching for the pad and pen next to the phone. “Give me the flight information. I’ll book my own flight as soon as we hang up.”

  “You’re not serious? Alyx, there’s no need for you to rush off.”

  “It makes the most sense,” Alyx assured her. “This way I deliver your SUV and, while you have to drive yourself, jet lag and all, at least you don’t have to worry about driving me back to Albuquerque in a few days. I know Grace will be glad to have her lady home. I’m afraid I haven’t given her quite the attention she’s been wanting.”

  “We could visit and you could explain why not,” Parke teased.

&n
bsp; “Oh, you’ll probably come home ready to get to work. I don’t want to be in the way.”

  “There’s always a chance that you can’t get the flight you want tomorrow. I know how you loathe multiple layovers.”

  “Then I’ll get a room at the airport hotel until I do manage a flight with only a Dallas or a Houston stop. Really, I hate the thought of your driving hundreds of miles through all of that empty country.”

  “I love you, too, but—” Parke uttered a sound of distress and frustration “—what’s going on? You don’t sound like yourself. And what about Mystery Man? Surely Jonas would be thrilled if you can stay longer?”

  Alyx covered the mouthpiece of the phone just in time to keep Parke from hearing an irrepressible, ragged sob. “Maybe not,” she finally managed.

  “More mystery,” Parke muttered. “Don’t tell me that you two have had a lovers’ spat already?”

  “There was hardly time for that. He’s gone.”

  It was midafternoon when the sleek logo-free corporate plane landed in Austin. By then Jonas had spoken to Dylan again, who’d introduced him to Harold Arthur Freeman, young John Samuel Freeman’s father, and taken copious notes detailing everything about the abduction of “Jimbo,” as the family affectionately called him, the house and neighborhood where they lived, their schedule and services they used.

  H, as he preferred to be called, was the soft-spoken genius behind Digit Dynamics, a communications technology company that was key in shooting the science of images and data into a new realm. He employed 117 people in offices located not far from the University of Texas, a three-story building wisely identified by only its street number, 313. Security was twenty-four hours, but began at the door. There were no gates into the parking lot and cameras were only situated at the building’s two entry-exits and at the elevators.

  Equally disturbing was that while H had a state-of-the-art fire-alarm system and sprinklers built into his thirty-five-hundred-square-foot, two-story home, he had no alarm system, save his five-year-old daughter Faith’s spoiled Chihuahua, Truffles. A widowed live-in housekeeper named Loretta had been with the family for three years and the children treated her like their grandmother. All other services were contract—the yard service, pool service, handyman needs. Sarah, H’s wife, drove the children to school herself and then often spent her time doing volunteer work and choosing charities and foundations with which to share their wealth. Jonas concluded they were un-assuming and private people who were living well under the radar of what they could afford, and foolishly believed that somehow protected them from predators of all kinds. Unfortunately, the world was full of those living in denial.

  As he descended the plane’s retractable stairs, he saw Dylan pull up in his black Navigator. The man sitting in the backseat, he concluded, was H. Jonas shook his head, having told Dylan that he’d done plenty and to back off now and return to his family. H was to come alone to pick him up. He should have suspected his friend wouldn’t listen.

  “Stubborn fool,” he said as he climbed into the passenger seat and deposited his leather carry-on bag on the floorboard. Although he gripped Dylan’s hand with affection for their long friendship, he also glared into the dark-eyed, noble face of the respected judge, who didn’t look very judgelike in his short-sleeved denim shirt, jeans and boots. “Tell me that you at least kept an eye out for someone shadowing you?”

  “I know the drill,” Dylan replied, unflinching. “I also had H lie down back there until we entered the airport. And E.D. and the kids are at the ranch under Chris’s watchful eye. They think we’re going to have a little family time before school starts next week.”

  Chris Coats was the caretaker-foreman of Justiss’s property outside of town. That appeased Jonas, but only somewhat. “So what is E.D. going to say if you don’t show up for dinner tonight?”

  “I’ll deal with that when and if I have to,” Dylan replied.

  Jonas turned to the gaunt-faced man sitting in the back and extended his hand. “Mr. Freeman, Jonas Hunter. I’m sorry we have to meet under these circumstances.”

  With a gray cast to his skin and his hazel eyes reddened behind wire-rimmed glasses, H looked closer to sixty than forty-five, which was understandable under these circumstances. He was a slender man who clearly didn’t live to eat, rather ate to live, and his blue-striped, short-sleeved shirt and khaki pants hung on him, also indicating he wasn’t much into sports or exercise despite having told Jonas that they had a pool in back of his house.

  “Thank you,” H murmured. “My wife and I are very grateful that you’re risking so much on our behalf.”

  Jonas shot Dylan a look that seethed. “Big mouth,” he muttered, and dove straight into business. “Has there been any other contact or messages?”

  “No. It’s been eerily silent. As I told you earlier, we’re to put five cashier’s checks totaling a quarter-million dollars and made out to Cash in a lockable plastic bag. Then I’m to go to a designated mall fast-food counter and get an empty fast-food drink cup and lid. He told me to put the bag into the cup, and drop it in the trash can at the entry to the restrooms beside the food court. Then I’m to leave. I would find my son standing by my car waiting for me.”

  “What kidnapper demands cashier’s checks?” Dylan asked.

  “Could be someone who suspects cash would be marked or contain dye. There is some ingenuity to his thinking that way. Any bank would raise eyebrows at being asked to put all $250,000 in a cashier’s check not made out to someone specific. This way Mr. Freeman can say that he intends to make a few anonymous donations.”

  “Okay,” Dylan said. “But playing devil’s advocate, what then do they do with the checks? Once they release Jimbo, they have to know all banks will be alerted to be on the lookout for them to show up as deposits.”

  “Maybe they think they’ll be safe if they go to Oklahoma or Louisiana…or into Mexico.”

  H leaned forward. “If they just give us our son back, I would swear never to put out an alert.”

  Even if he weren’t a father himself, Jonas’s heart couldn’t help but wrench at the anguish he heard in the man’s voice. But his logic was dangerously flawed. “You do that, sir, and you not only open yourself up to a repeat incident like this, you also embolden the kidnappers to try this again on some other poor family.” One glance at the suffering man, though, told Jonas that he wasn’t able yet to feel concern for anyone but his boy, and he prompted kindly, “Tell me again about the man who called?”

  “As I said, the voice was muffled as if he was covering the mouthpiece or something. Uh…and he spoke in a deeper monotone.”

  Jonas already had drawn his own conclusion, but asked, “Old? Young?”

  “I’m not a good judge of things like that. The first time I heard my wife on the phone I thought she was a little girl.”

  “How was his English? Did he have an accent? Twang? Drawl?”

  If anything, H looked thoroughly lost. “I don’t even know I have an accent until I leave Texas. Let me think…he said ‘gonna’ instead of ‘going to,’ and addressed me as ‘man.’ When he said the name of the mall, I had to ask him where that was and he asked me if I was stupid. There was something different about how he dragged out man and stupid. I had to explain that I don’t shop.”

  Jonas was intrigued. “He didn’t accuse you of keeping him on the line so the police could trace him?”

  “No.”

  “Then he’s been watching to see if you follow directions and knows you haven’t brought anyone in yet. Either that or he’s bugged your phone, which somehow I doubt, but we’ll need to check anyway. You’re sure no one followed you to where Dylan had you park your car and picked you up?”

  “Frankly, Agent Hunter, I was so shaken, I was lucky not to get pulled over by the police for erratic driving.”

  That wasn’t heartening news. Jonas glanced at Dylan’s profile. “What about you? I know you were watching.”

  “He turned into the strip mall par
king lot alone and when we left in this car, no one followed us.”

  That could mean the guy was a rank amateur and this was his first snatch. Maybe he was even working alone, although somehow Jonas doubted it. It would be tough to keep tabs on a terrified little kid and tag after the money man.

  “Please,” he added to H, “make that Jonas. We don’t need you addressing me that way in front of other people unless I want to ID myself.”

  H looked confused. “Who would that be? There’s only Sarah, Faith and Loretta at the house.”

  “Your service people? Who takes care of the pool and yard?”

  “Oh, I see what you mean. I’m not sure.” He was getting increasingly befuddled and spoke as though in a dream. “You’ll have to ask Sarah or Loretta to give you their schedules. But I understand, yes…Jonas.”

  Poor guy was a real geek who got lost in the details of his tech dreaming. Wife Sarah probably had to stop him from walking out the door in the morning without his shoes on. No wonder he hadn’t realized how vulnerable he was.

  Moving on to their next potential problem, he asked, “What excuse did you give your people at the office for not coming in?”

  Nodding, H said with some relief, “Sarah thought of that. She called my secretary and told her that I’d contracted a stomach virus and would be out for the day.”

  “Good. Let’s hope the secretary doesn’t have a problem she needs answered and calls while you’re not there.”

  “She might. Sometimes I do work at home.”

  Good Lord, the guy wasn’t making things easy on him. Fighting his own frustration, Jonas asked, “Do you also let your son go out by himself and retrieve the newspaper at the end of your driveway?”

  The thin-faced man blanched. “He…we were trying to teach him about chores and responsibility. Some kids at school were taunting him about not having the latest video game like they did, and we were telling him that he couldn’t have every new thing just because other kids did, but that he could earn money to buy it himself.”