How could Joe give Luke the facts and still give him hope? “I don’t know, Luke. “There’s no sign of violence. She’s missing. That’s all we know.”
“It’s gotta be Maxwell.” Luke’s shoulders heaved and tears pooled in his red-rimmed eyes. “I’ll kill the son of a bitch.”
Joe grasped the teen’s shoulders. “I’m not giving up. You’re not either.”
Luke wiped his face. “The next time you go to your job, I’m coming with you.”
“If I were in your position, I’d feel the same way. But one thing your mom would want is for you to be safe. And I’m going to do my best to make sure that happens.”
“I can’t just sit here.”
“Your mother’s purse wasn’t found at the shop, Luke. If Maxwell does have her, it’s reasonable to assume he knows your address. I’ve been in this job a long time. Criminals often show up at a victim’s house after the fact to rob it.”
“So let’s set a trap for him,” Matt interjected.
Joe cast Matt a look as if to say ‘you’re not helping.’
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Joe said. “But without you boys being anywhere in the vicinity.”
“They can stay with me,” Rick said.
For the first time in hours, Joe felt his worry lessen. He needed his complete focus to remain on Mel. “That would be great.”
“No way,” Luke argued. “If Maxwell comes anywhere near my house I’ll be―”
“Far, far away,” Joe said.
“You can help Lt. Crandall by doing what he says,” Rick added. “I know it sucks, son, and I’ll do my best to help keep your mind off your mom. We’ll swim, shoot baskets, whatever it takes.”
“Can I come, too?” Matt asked.
Luke gawked at his friend. “You’d do that?”
“Heck, yeah.”
Luke’s hair was so blond it nearly looked white. He lowered his head, then raised it to focus on Joe. “You swear to call me no matter what?”
Joe felt a helpless rage. He wanted to promise the boy he’d find his mother and bring her back safe. However, that was unrealistic and a long shot. Yet, he could honor this request. “No matter what, Luke. The moment I learn anything, you’ll know in the next minute.”
Ten minutes later, Joe entered his garage to return to the division. His cell phone rang and he answered, “Crandall.”
“Joe, it’s Harry. Got a match on those prints. You pegged this one. They match an ex-convict by the name of Drake Maxwell.”
Chapter Forty-eight
With the boys in Rick’s care and two unmarked units parked near Mel’s property, Joe headed downtown. He needed to assemble a task force, access Maxwell’s prison photos for patrol and go over phone records he’d acquired via emergency subpoena.
On the way, he also placed another call to the Cañon City Chief of Police and left voice mail. Undoubtedly, Chief Clayborn Morrison from Riverside had called his counterpart by now to list Drake Maxwell as the most viable suspect for the off-duty correction officer’s murder. But the Chief hadn’t known when he’d talked to Joe that Maxwell’s prints had been confirmed on Melanie’s cell phone. Joe had been a fool not to trust his instincts.
At four-fifteen the next morning, existing on a diet of stale bagels and caffeine, he rubbed his eyes. An equally exhausted-looking Bruce Bennett knocked on his door.
Joe tightened his stubble-covered jaw. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Believe it or not, I do work for a living. Campaign by day, prosecute by night. I heard, Joe. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
Joe’s throat clogged. He couldn’t have told the D.A. to go to hell if he wanted to.
“This may strain our already tenuous friendship, but I have to ask. Are you sure she didn’t go willingly?”
At the ludicrous statement Joe opened his right-hand drawer and removed a plastic evidence bag. Inside lay Mel’s mutilated cell phone.
He also removed the phone logs from both her cellular carrier and landline. Melanie had a very small social circle. Joe had successfully identified each call, marking them with a yellow highlighter. The log included one long distance call to Peter Walford in Kansas City, several calls to Warden Simon Rivers, while the rest were local, placed or received from either Mel’s place of employment, Luke, Matt or Joe.
Bruce said, “Okay, you’ve done your homework. She appears legit. What are the chances she’s still alive?”
Joe buried his face in his hands. “Get out, Bruce.”
The D.A. dropped into a chair. “No can do, pal. I should go to Gallegos and demand you recuse yourself from this investigation.”
Ready to tear Bruce from limb to limb, Joe lifted his head.
“Can’t promise he won’t learn it from someone else, but the chief won’t hear it from me. Find Maxwell, Joe. Nail the son of a bitch, and let me know how I can help.”
Any chance for Joe to express his gratitude was waylaid by his ringing cell phone. “Crandall,” he said. He listened and the boulder crushing his chest slightly lifted. He ended the call. “Two men were caught trying to break into Melanie’s house. Cops are bringing them in for questioning.”
Mel opened the bathroom door to the sound of screaming. She ran through the convenience store aisles, desperate to find the source and end someone’s agony. But when she rounded the corner, she’d lost her way. Snow covered the ground and she started to shiver. Ten feet in front of her stood a leering Drake Maxwell. In his arms, he held a child. Kicking and crying, tears streamed down the little guy’s blond freckled face, and when he saw her, he held out his arms and sobbed, “Mommy, Mommy!”
Mel startled awake. Heart on fire, she’d been gripped in the culmination of nightmares and memories of yesterday. She also realized something else. She was freezing. Probably because she no longer had the benefit of the only warmth she’d had all night, Drake’s body heat. He’d left her alone. She lay still, listening for signs of activity overhead. Nothing.
During the night her subconscious had clued her into something else. Drake had named his partner. Ramirez. That name matched the prescription bottle in the bathroom. So did Maria own this house? Was Ramirez her husband, her brother?
She was still bound tight, but her kidnapper had made a mistake. He’d forgotten to put the duct tape over her mouth, and she knew the location of the phone. Now if only she could get to it she could summon help and get the hell out of here.
Mel finagled her body to an upright position. Unlike yesterday, the basement was pitch black, but earlier she’d counted twelve narrow steps. Now the question remained, tied up, and in the dark, could she make it up those stairs? Screw that insane thought. This was her life on the line. A more apt question remained, what happened if she didn’t?
As Joe and Bruce neared interrogation, the D.A. conveniently excused himself. “These jokers have more civil rights than all the honest folks in the building, Joe. I know you’re hot, but don’t blow this case.”
Hot was the cleaned up version of how he felt, and Melanie Norris would never be just a case to him.
A uniformed officer handed Joe the rap sheets of the men seated in Interrogation Rooms A and B. He’d busted these two before. Roscoe Mercer and Melvin “Skinny” Thomas were smalltime thugs with no history of violence. Each had served time in the East Cañon Correctional Facility, which is probably where they’d hooked up with Maxwell in the first place.
Studying their sheets, Joe wouldn’t have found it odd they’d graduated from stolen vehicles to houses. But to choose Mel’s house just hours after she’d gone missing?
Massaging the rioting muscles in his neck, he had to stop thinking of her in the past tense. He’d promised Luke he wouldn’t give up hope, but with each passing hour, the chances of finding her alive grew less likely.
/> Detective Dale Abernathy, the lead man Joe had worked with on the McPherson arson case, exited the room housing Roscoe Mercer. “We always get the fun jobs, huh, L.T.?” Dale nodded over his shoulder. “This one’s strung tighter than a turkey at Thanksgiving. Wants a public defender now.”
“Get him one,” Joe said. “But hold him off for a while. Let’s see if we can’t enlist Mr. Mercer’s cooperation.”
Joe entered the tiny room, introduced himself to a black man, who doubled as a freight train, and sat down in a chair.
Seated at the tiny table, Roscoe Mercer looked like a fourth grader held back for preschool. “I remember you,” he said.
Joe narrowed his eyes. What Mercer remembered was a by-the-book-cop who’d treated him fairly. Things were about to change.
“We’ve called your attorney. He’ll be here any minute, at which time he’ll tell you to shut up, he’ll wheel and deal, and you’ll go back to prison.” Joe linked his fingers and circled his thumbs back and forth. “Is that how you see things happening, Mr. Mercer?”
Mercer leaned back in his chair and nodded.
“You think attempted breaking and entering holds a minimal sentence, is that it?”
“I know it does.” The ex-con shrugged. “I won’t do a year. I’ll get three squares and free cable. Hell, on the outside I have to pay for it.” Mercer flexed his bouncer-sized arms, then folded them. “No one’s ever been crazy enough to mess with me. Frankly, the joint’s my idea of a vacation.”
Stupid fuck. Joe wanted to kick the legs out from under his chair. “Too bad it’s not breaking and entering we’re charging you with.”
“Huh?”
“The charge is first degree kidnapping, potentially murder.” Joe paused to let the charge sink in.
Confidence fled the big man’s face. “But it wasn’t kidnapping. Me and Skinny never made it inside the house.”
It was Joe’s turn to feel confused. His lie was about to become fact―the suspect’s attorney would show up at any time. “Where’s the woman, Mercer?”
“Who?”
“Melanie Norris. She’s missing, and you were found breaking into her home.”
“We weren’t sent to get no woman. Me and Skinny, we saw a house that looked easy, we took it.”
“Really.” Joe felt rage seizing him. He’d personally left lights on in the house and secured the windows and doors. Of all the houses on the block that looked easy, Mel’s house was hardly the one. “Drake Maxwell tell you to hit that house?”
Mercer’s eyes darted away from Joe, then back again. “Don’t know anybody by that name.”
“Is that so?” Joe stood. In one fell swoop he did what he’d resisted doing moments before.
Mercer and his chair toppled backward.
Applying his weight, Joe pinned his forearm against the asshole’s windpipe. “I ain’t got time to play with you, Mercer, so here’s what’s going down. I don’t give a damn about my badge on this one. The lady you took, she’s mine. If anything happens to her, that cell you call a country club will be your casket. I’ll spend every dime I have to make sure someone on the inside sticks you. You’ll never know who or when, and you’ll never be safe.”
Mercer struggled for breath, the healthy color leaving his face, forming a grayish hue.
The door opened and Det. Abernathy barged in. “Lieutenant! Sir. Lt. Crandall, let him go.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Joe heard the detective’s voice, but his ability to reason had deserted him. Abernathy’s powerful arms pulled Joe away from the scum on the floor. With both men breathing hard, and Mercer clutching his throat, Abernathy said, “Get hold of yourself, L.T. The PDA’s on her way up.”
Joe didn’t give a damn. He was running on fury, worry and adrenaline. If he couldn’t strangle Mercer, he’d just as soon throw the son of a bitch through the one-way mirror.
Abernathy righted the suspect’s chair, then extended his hand. Helping the man to his feet, he said, “Mr. Mercer? Do you wish to press charges against the lieutenant?”
Rubbing his neck and glaring, Mercer cleared his throat.
A woman wearing a public defender’s badge stood in the doorway. “What’s going on here?”
Mercer cast a wary glance from Abernathy to Joe, then balled his hands into fists. “You call these things you give us to sit in chairs? Damned thing collapsed out from under me.” To the woman he said, “You my lawyer, lady?”
“I am.”
“It’s about time you got here. You might want to tell Skinny I’m talking. These SOBs think I kidnapped some dame. That wasn’t part of the deal, and I ain’t going down for something I didn’t do.”
Chapter Forty-nine
Mel lay in the basement counting. Where did criminals disappear to in the early morning hours? Certainly not church or to visit their mothers. Maybe they’d gone for coffee. When she’d reached thirty and heard nothing but quiet above her, she didn’t care where they’d slithered off to. She had only a fraction of time to make her move.
Damn, it was dark. The basement stairs were somewhere to her left and about twelve feet away. With her hands tied behind her back, her ankles bound, she’d be forced to hop. The hard cement floor beneath her discouraged that thought, so she rolled.
It turned out to be a brilliant idea, because she made quick progress. When she neared what she thought was the base of the stairs, she slowed. Her head hurt enough without adding a self-inflicted blow to it.
Forced to use her nose, cheek and mouth to feel her way, she lifted her head. She strained her neck, and although Mel was panting like an Olympian, she managed to place it on the bottom step. Success. Now it was a matter of climbing to a sitting position and using her butt and her legs. Doing just that, she breathlessly traveled from step to step.
Drake had taken her watch, but she suspected she’d accomplished this feat in under ten minutes. And as beams of early morning light poured through the basement windows, at last she could see. The winter solstice had passed, the days were getting longer, which she estimated made it around seven. Yet, the house remained eerily quiet.
She pressed her ear to the door.
Nothing.
Okay. Good. Time to get through it. Holding her breath and commanding her heart to slow, she reminded herself she was close. Although there was still the huge challenge of standing and positioning her body just right so she could get her hands around the knob.
She could do this. She had to do this.
Using the door at her back as leverage, she pushed herself up. Her cautious stance accomplished, she was no longer grateful for the light. Facing a harrowing flight of stairs below, with no free limbs to break her fall, she’d be lucky to end up with only one broken bone if she fell.
Quit being a coward, think of your son, and get through that door.
Fumbling with bound hands, she finally found the knob and turned, but the door wouldn’t budge.
No!
She’d been sure there wasn’t a lock. Did she dare push? Damn it, what choice did she have? Careful not to shove too hard, lest the momentum backfire and propel her to the cement floor, she applied her weight. The door gave, but didn’t open.
Tears of frustration welled and she knew. Drake must’ve blocked the basement’s exit.
With her heart jack-hammering, she pressed her back against the door, and furtively lowered herself once again to sit on the top step.
That’s when she heard the outside kitchen door open, followed by footfalls, Drake’s hated voice and the man she suspected to be Ramirez.
Slink down the stairs, Mel. Get back to the mattress. In moments they’ll come for you.
Someone spoke; she leaned close to the door.
“Mercer doesn’t answer his phone. Something’s wrong.”
“Relax. He probably turned it off during the break-in and forgot to turn it back on.”
“I don’t know, Max. It’s been too long. I told him to call the moment he had the kid. If the cops latched on to him, he could tell them about the hits, how to find us.”
“It’s not Mercer I’m worried about. Mercer wouldn’t rat us out, it’s Skinny I’m not too sure of.”
“I’m not willing to chance either of them. We’re out of here. Go get―”
Mel started to scramble. A phone rang, however, and she stayed perilously glued to the door.
Ramirez answered. “Where are you?” He paused. “Took you long enough. You get the kid?” Another brief silence later, he said, “Good. Bring him here.”... “Why not?... “The entire car?”. . . “Shit. Where’d you take him?”... “Yeah?”...“Skinny’s old lady must’ve loved that one.”...“Well, bring me evidence you got him. We can’t get the broad to cooperate without proof.”
Every ounce of stamina drained from her body, leaving Mel empty. It wasn’t possible. They couldn’t have Luke. What did they mean the entire car? Had he become sick? Were they talking about blood? And why couldn’t they bring him here? Had they hurt him?
Oh, god, Joe, I counted on you. Why didn’t you protect him?
“Get the woman, Max.”
The sound of a chair scraping back was followed by the basement door swinging open.
And even as Maxwell bellowed, Mel made no attempt to get away. He grabbed her and hauled her into the kitchen. She didn’t cry out. She couldn’t. Her son was in the hands of madmen. Mel no longer had the strength to scream.
Chapter Fifty
“Very good, Mercer,” Joe said as the ex-convict ended the call. “If you ever decide to go straight, you should try acting.”
Along with several detectives, SWAT team members, the man nicknamed Skinny sat in a chair looking on. By his unrelenting glare, he didn’t appear happy that Mercer had agreed to wear a wire and cooperate with police. That was okay with Joe. Not only had Roscoe Mercer identified every member of the Chaos Bandits, the police had these men as accessories to felony kidnapping. Melvin “Skinny” Thomas wasn’t going to see the outside world anytime soon.
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