Angels (A Detective Pierce Novel Book 3)

by Remington Kane

  Sophia and Rosa both smiled in their sleep as they dreamed, but their waking nightmare was just beginning.

  Amy pulled the bottle containing the anesthesia from her pocket and gripped it tight. The substance inside the bottle was an ether-based concoction that she had gotten off the internet. The original mixture had been intended to subdue Val Pierce, but Amy cut the potency in half for the children.

  It was supposed to be safe and leave its victim unconscious for many hours. Still, Sophia and Rosa looked tiny beneath their covers and Amy began to fear that the drug might harm them. She crept into the room’s adjoining bathroom and added just a bit of water to the mixture.

  Using Pierce’s children was one thing, but if she were to harm the girls, Amy would never forgive herself.

  After shaking the bottle to let the water mix well, Amy poured a little onto a rag she’d taken from a pocket.

  She hesitated, but then clamped the rag over Sophia’s face. The child awoke wide-eyed and frightened, but her struggle was a brief one before she went limp. In the other bed, little Rosa stirred, but her eyes stayed closed.

  Amy checked Sophia and found her pulse strong and her breathing appeared to be normal. She repeated the process with Rosa, who struggled a bit longer, but succumbed to the drug all the same.

  Now came the difficult part. Amy was wearing a contraption over her shirt that was made for toting twins around. It was a combination of straps and slings that resembled a topless backpack with leg holes cut in its bottom. One of the slings was in the front, while the other was at the back. Sophia and Rosa were no longer babies, but Amy thought they would fit into it.

  Amy gathered up the girls’ white slippers and placed them into the canvas bag that hung from her shoulder. Both Rosa and Sophia were dressed in white nightgowns that reminded Amy of a communion dress. She smiled, she had never wanted children, but the girls looked adorable and she could see a bit of Rick Pierce in their features.

  Amy shook herself and got down to business. She cinched the waist belt tighter and then picked up Rosa. The little girl was heavier than Amy thought she’d be, likely because she was limp, but her legs slid into the front sling without a problem.

  On the other hand, getting Sophia inside the rear sling proved to be difficult. Aware that she had no time to waste, Amy picked Sophia up and settled her over a shoulder. The girls’ combined weight made her have to strain with each step she took, and she was glad that she was walking down stairs instead of climbing them.

  She had to be careful going out the door or she risked striking Sophia’s head against the doorframe. Her car was parked out at the gate with mud obscuring its license plates. Amy had to carry her victims over a hundred yards, and she was breathing hard and sweating by the time she reached the gate.

  She relieved herself of Sophia’s burden by laying the child atop the grass. Amy so wanted to lean against the fence and rest, but she dared not waste the time. After easing her way carefully through the slats of the horse fence, she opened her car and placed Rosa amid the cocoon of down comforters she had earlier fashioned in her rear seat. The comforters were covered in sheets of plastic and it would all be discarded later. Amy would also clean the car thoroughly. She was well aware that a single strand of DNA could cost her decades behind bars.

  Upon retrieving Sophia, Amy repeated the process. Although they weren’t strapped in, the girls were lying on several layers of down-filled comfort, and more importantly, they were out of view.

  Headlights appeared farther down the quiet road, but Amy was already pulling away from the gate. The car turned out to be a pickup truck and the driver paid Amy no attention as he talked into a cell phone.

  Amy’s hands stopped trembling by the time she reached the highway. After looking into the rear and seeing her precious cargo, she smiled.

  She had done it! She had actually done it and soon she would be a rich woman. Amy drove towards the cabin while thinking of Matt. He was the only weak link in her plan, but she hoped that the love he felt for her would make him strong and keep him silent.

  After all, love had to be good for something.

  CHAPTER 26

  As usual, Matt left the house before Val and Pierce were due home. They told Christy that they didn’t mind her having company over, but she was considerate and tried not to abuse their trust.

  Matt had relocked the door earlier without Christy seeing him do it. He assumed that Amy had been and gone, but didn’t dare wander through the home to confirm it. If Amy were still inside the house after he left it, he hoped that she would be able to sneak out without being seen.

  After Christy unfastened the locks to let him out, Matt kissed her goodbye, and Christy reminded him to call her when he arrived home safely. Afterwards, Christy walked around the rooms on the ground floor to make sure that all was neat and tidy.

  She sat on the sofa and watched a sitcom, then, she wondered why Matt hadn’t called her yet, since he lived only a short distance away. She decided to wait a little longer before she checked to see that he was all right, and a few minutes before ten, she went upstairs to peek in on the children.

  For some reason, Christy noticed that Sophia’s slippers were missing from the side of the bed before she realized that the girls were both gone.

  She sighed.

  They hadn’t played this game in a long time, but she assumed they were awake and hiding somewhere. On rare occasions, the girls would remain wide awake and wander the house while avoiding Christy. It was never hard to find them, you just had to listen and follow the giggling.

  Christy had thought the girls had outgrown the game, but she supposed the excitement of learning they’d soon have a baby brother had suppressed their desire for sleep.

  Christy called to them in a singsong voice.

  “Sophia, Rosa, where are you?”

  No answer.

  Christy called to the girls while walking the home and began feeling concerned. She had even checked the balcony, the yard, and beneath every bed. She hadn’t seen or heard a sign of them. As she opened the door that led down to the finished basement, Christy knew in her heart that the girls weren’t down there. She checked anyway, and came flying back up the stairs in a panic.

  “Sophia! Rosa! Girls this isn’t funny anymore. If you’re here, come to me.”

  Nothing, just the sound of the refrigerator motor cycling on.

  Christy cried as she took out her phone.

  When Jake answered, she almost screamed the news at him.

  “Dad, I can’t find the girls anywhere!”

  It was then she heard the front door open. Val and Pierce had come home.

  ***

  About the same time that Christy was going into the Pierce basement, Matt was removing an envelope that had been taped to the rear door of Amy’s townhouse.

  He had been a block from his house when he received a text from her telling him that she needed to see him right away. When Matt got there, he found the note. The note was typed, and by the lack of light and sound coming from the townhouse, Matt assumed that Amy wasn’t home.

  He didn’t open the envelope until he was back in his jeep with the dome light on. When he realized what the note was telling him, he gasped.

  Matt,

  I’ve done that bad thing that you swore you’d be able to forgive me for doing.

  When I snuck in the house, I didn’t leave alone. I have the girls and they won’t be harmed.

  The police and FBI will question you, but all you have to do is remain silent. I left a letter where someone will find it and this will all be over very soon.

  You need to destroy this note and get rid of the phone I gave you. When it’s safe, I’ll contact you, but don’t come back to my home.

  Stay strong my love, and stay silent. Once we have the ransom money, we’ll be able to be together.

  I love you.

  Matt read the note three times while his heart beat so loudly that his pulse was pounding in his ears.

>   When his phone rang, he jumped.

  It was a call identified as coming from the Pierce house.

  Matt let it ring, started his jeep, but then shut the engine off. He had no idea what to do next, but knew that he couldn’t go home.

  ***

  Thanks to light traffic, Amy arrived at the cabin without being delayed. She had to slow down a bit over the last few miles of the trip because of all the deer roaming about at night, but she arrived without incident.

  Sophia and Rosa had murmured in their sleep, but had not awakened. Once she was at the cabin, Amy brought them inside one by one and secured them to the bed. Planning the children’s abduction was one thing, while seeing the tiny figures bound to a bed with chains was another thing altogether.

  Amy had a moment where she felt like an absolute monster for doing what she’d done, but it passed when she thought about the ransom money.

  She left the girls a few minutes later and prayed that they would sleep through the ordeal. In her ransom note, she had left instructions for the money to be gathered by noon the following day. Thanks to Matt, she knew Christy’s email address, and she would use a cheap laptop to send detailed directions to the old well where she wanted them to drop the money. The instructions would also demand that the money be placed in a certain type of container. If the FBI did as she demanded, once dropped inside the old well, the money would float its way to her.

  The timeline would be tight, leaving the police and FBI little time to set a trap. Once she had retrieved the ransom, Amy would leave the area and bury the money in a pre-selected spot near her home, then, she would go about her business.

  A moderate search of the region near the well would uncover the girls’ location. However, the old well was far enough from the secluded cabin that even if they woke up, the girls should go undetected. They had never seen her face, and if Matt stayed strong and said nothing, there would be no link to connect Amy with the crime. The perfect crime.

  Amy sighed before turning from the girls and walking down the stairs to leave the cabin.

  She dreaded the conversation she would need to have with Matt, but the boy would have to learn the facts of life. He’d been used, first, for pleasure, and later, for financial gain. He would be used a third time when Amy gave him some of the ransom money. If it were marked, Matt would be arrested.

  Amy knew there was a risk of that, but the money could be spent in time, possibly in another country, but there were ways. If Matt wasn’t arrested, then the money was clean and the boy was an accessory to the crime. Once he was an accomplice, he’d be foolish to ever tell what he knew to anyone.

  Amy smiled sadly as she started her car.

  She would miss Matt, but she would always have pleasant memories of him.

  Amy drove away from the cabin, totally unaware that she had left Sophia and Rosa in the hands of a monster.

  ***

  Dave Owens watched Amy’s car until it disappeared from sight, before going up into the loft to see the daughters of a man he hated.

  Although their hair was dark instead of blond, Sophia and Rosa reminded Owens’ of his own daughters at that age, and once again he experienced the emotional torment of having lost his family.

  Pierce would know that pain as well, Owens vowed silently, oh yes he would.

  Dave Owens stared down at Rick Pierce’s daughters and thought about the best way to kill them.

  CHAPTER 27

  Pierce held on to Val, as around them, controlled chaos swirled.

  The ransom note was found under Sophia’s pillow by Val, and Pierce called his friend, FBI Agent Daniel Rodgers. Rodgers knew exactly who to contact to get the investigation going and he showed up at Pierce’s house twenty minutes after hanging up. Shortly after Rodgers came to the home, Rodger’s partner and fellow agent Carl Abrams arrived.

  They were soon joined by a small army of FBI personnel who joined Coke Dyer, Jake Collins and other cops on the scene. The police were politely told to stay out of the way, and although it pained them to do so, they acquiesced and did nothing.

  Collins, Coke, and the other officers all knew that the FBI were uniquely trained to handle kidnapping situations. They had an expertise that could make all the difference in getting Sophia and Rosa back unharmed.

  Stacey appeared at the house last, because she had to find someone to cover for her on the night shift, but she opened her arms for her daughter and Christy fell into them. The distraught teen kept saying how sorry she was for everything, although she wasn’t at fault.

  Neither Pierce nor Val were blaming her in the least.

  Her boyfriend, Matt, was another matter altogether.

  Matt never went home, wasn’t answering his cell phone, and was proving difficult to locate. Matt had apparently removed the battery from his phone. His mother was sick with worry and insisted that Matt must be as much a victim as Sophia and Rosa were, but the facts didn’t support that.

  The FBI had video of Matt taken from a traffic camera. The camera had a clear view of the red jeep with the desert decal on its side, and there was no one else in the vehicle. This gave rise to the theory that Matt had a partner. His friends, acquaintances, and relatives were being contacted to be questioned.

  Ginny was at the house to give Val comfort, but Jimmy was on the streets. Jimmy Drake was out hunting for Matt, and answers. He told Pierce that he wouldn’t rest until he found the boy.

  Pierce, who was no stranger to tense or dangerous situations, trembled with fear at times for his daughter’s safety. He couldn’t imagine why Matt would be involved in a double kidnapping, but assumed that he must have misjudged the boy’s nature.

  After releasing Val so that she could go off into the kitchen with Stacey and Ginny, Pierce walked about his home with his hands balled into fists.

  He was so tense and filled with anxiety that he jumped when Jake placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “We’ll get them back, Rick. You know as well as I do that most kidnappings fail.”

  Pierce turned and looked at his partner with eyes on the verge of tears.

  “Where are they, Jake? And what the hell is happening to them? Oh God, I’m so scared for them.”

  Jake was looking for words to lend comfort to his friend when they both heard it.

  It was silence.

  The equipment the FBI brought with them made muted sounds, but the men had all grown quiet. They were also staring in Pierce’s direction.

  “You have something?” he asked.

  Rogers spoke quietly to the agent-in-charge who nodded and handed him a copy of a photo.

  “What the hell is going on, Dan?” Pierce said.

  Rogers walked over and spoke in a low tone.

  “We’ve pulled the video from every camera within a wide radius of your home and fed it all into the computer’s facial recognition software... it had a hit from Wednesday night.”

  Rodgers showed Pierce and Jake the photo. It was black & white and taken from an angle, but it was recognizable. It was a photo of Dave Owens.

  “There’s a camera at the gate of that construction site nearby. That was what captured his image.”

  Pierce dropped the photo, made a strangled cry, and then his legs gave out and he landed on his knees while toppling over a small table. There had been a vase on the table. It shattered as it struck the hardwood floor.

  Val came out of the kitchen with Stacey and Ginny. When she saw her husband, she ran to him, and knelt beside him.

  “Rick, oh God, what is it?”

  Pierce shook his head.

  “It’s fine, the girls are fine, and we still don’t know anything. I just stumbled, that’s all.”

  Pierce had dropped the photo of Owens as he fell. Jake picked it up without Val noticing. He wasn’t sure that he agreed with Pierce’s decision not to tell her about Owens, but he understood his reasoning. The girls’ abduction was terrifying enough, but to know that they might be in the hands of a murderer, a serial killer, that wou
ld triple Val’s stress. And after all, she was pregnant.

  Pierce stood, took Val in his arms, and prayed to God that his daughters were still alive. If they were, he would find them, and then he would kill Dave Owens.

  ***

  Dave Owens did indeed have Pierce’s daughters.

  Owens had left the cabin on foot once he was certain that Amy was gone. He was going to retrieve his car and drive it back to the cabin.

  The walk took him far longer than it should have, because he felt weaker than he had earlier and the pain in his middle was torturous. Fog had invaded the area as well, and Owens had to find his way along the dirt road while walking in near darkness.

  There was a full moon above, but the fog was obscuring it from view. When Owens realized that he wasn’t walking in fog, but rather, smoke, he quickened his pace as much as he was able.

  After rounding a curve and seeing a glow ahead, he came upon a sight that chilled him. His car was on fire, and the flames were spreading. He took out his phone to call the fire department and found that he had no signal.

  Owens shouted a stream of useless curses towards the night sky before deciding what to do. There was still enough room to walk around the flaming car and the surrounding blaze, although the heat was growing intense and a strong wind was spreading the fire. Owens turned and went back towards the cabin. He reasoned that he could find another path out of the area by walking the other way. Besides, he needed Sophia and Rosa in order to properly torture Pierce.

  His walk back to the cabin took even longer than the walk away from it had taken, and Owens had to stop and rest against a tree for a few minutes. The smoke from the fire was doing him no good as well, and he found himself coughing at times.

  When Owens finally made it back, he climbed into the loft where Sophia and Rosa were still asleep. He barely looked at them. He was staring out the window.

  The fire had grown in magnitude, having been spread by the wind. It was large enough to lend a natural glow to the room that was strong enough to see by. Owens shook his head in wonder, as a trickle of fear touched him.