Fatal Dawn

by Diane Capri

  Kimball said nothing about Metcalfe. Where was he? That bastard was as mean as any rattlesnake Gotting had ever encountered. With any luck, maybe he was dead, too.

  His thoughts returned to the Norells. She thought she was so smart. She figured out how to get money from those fancy clients at the law firm where she and Belk worked. She put the whole business in motion. He had to give her that much.

  The two were useless for implementing the whole plan. Sometimes they’d meet the new parents if Belk couldn’t do it. And she did the finance trick. Apart from that, they took no risks. Gotting never could figure out why they got paid at all.

  He was always the one who took the biggest risk. He scoped out new adoption candidates. Most times, he found the babies on his own. He shuffled new identities all the time so police couldn’t trace him to the apartments where the babies had gone missing.

  And the brats he had to put up with? He shook his head. New babies. Up to two years old, that was the rule. The worst. Once he found a reliable drug he could dose them up with, things got better. But the first bunch had been hell. Even watching them for a few hours was miserable. Man, he was glad that part was over.

  Belk had taken risks, too. He had a nice house and a good job at that swanky legal firm. Tough to run away from that if things went south. Course, now he wouldn’t have to worry about it, Belk being dead and all.

  Gotting noticed a sign on the side of the road. He’d entered another small town and checked his speed. He definitely couldn’t risk being stopped.

  The boy had been making moaning noises in the trunk for a bit. Despite the Audi’s luxury construction, the sound still seeped through to the cabin.

  He shook his head. It was ironic, really. After all this time, the thing was finally unraveling. Yet here he was, with a teenager in the trunk. The same kid he’d abducted as a baby years ago. A wry grin settled on his lips. He was pulling victory from the jaws of failure. How good was that?

  He turned left and followed the road as it curved upward.

  Peter moaned. The drug and the motion were probably messing with his senses. Gotting hoped the kid didn’t vomit in the trunk. That would be more than inconvenient. He shrugged. Nothing he could do about it.

  Belk and Hallman were dead. Huh. He had a thought. Did Jess Kimball kill them? Maybe she did. He might have, in her shoes. And hell, Hallman he could understand. What a scum bucket. Belk wasn’t that bad.

  He shook his head. He couldn’t see Kimball killing them before she found her kid. Must have been Metcalfe. Yeah, that made more sense.

  Metcalfe caught up with Belk and Hallman. He’d killed them, and the resulting investigation had led the police to Norell. Yeah, he could see it happening that way. Snap Metcalfe was a mutha and a half. Always had been.

  So he had Hallman and Metcalfe to thank for his five-million-dollar payday. Sure. Why not?

  A smile spread across his face. Even if Metcalfe was alive and coming after him, Peter Kimball was already gone. Metcalfe’s killing spree would end at Peter’s address. Because Metcalfe would never find him. Gotting laughed heartily visualizing the rage on Metcalfe’s face. He’d pay money to see that, but no way was he going back there. Not even for the satisfaction of seeing Metcalfe rot in prison.

  A fine dust of snow was blowing in the wind as the Audi climbed altitude. He turned on the windshield wipers. The trunk would be cold. The boy had grown silent. Either the drug had overwhelmed him, or he had regained consciousness. Gotting doubted the latter.

  He slowed for the track leading to the derelict mine. The wind and the snow had erased his earlier tracks. As the Audi bumped its way over the rocky track, he considered skipping his rake routine, but the risk was too great. He was too close to his millions now to screw up like that.

  The car slithered into the shelter. He cut the engine and stepped out. His weight caused his right leg to cramp and revived the throbbing burn atop his injured right foot. He walked the length of the car and back, trying to ease himself into the movement and deal with the pain.

  The wind and snow together delivered the biting cold. He bowed his head to shield his face and eyes. He found the rake and swept the Audi’s tracks away. The wind would do the rest. He put the rake where he could easily find it next time.

  He pulled his gun and opened the trunk.

  The boy was curled in a ball and pressed up against the back seats. He didn’t move as the cold air swept over him. Gotting nudged him. The kid groaned. Gotting nudged him again, and he twisted around.

  Peter’s lips were pressed together. His eyes were only half open. With slow deliberation, he moved his duct-taped hands to shield his vision from the glare off the light and snow. He moaned.

  Gotting held out the gun. “One stupid move and I shoot. Got it?”

  Peter moaned. Not a yes or no, just an automatic response from the human submerged under the drug.

  Gotting dragged the boy’s legs out of the trunk. He pulled until his torso was halfway out, then levered him up under his arm. Gotting’s foot screamed in agony with the extra weight. He shuffled Peter forward, testing to see if the boy could stand, but he grabbed the kid again as he collapsed. The last thing he needed right now was to wrestle him off the ground, and it was too cold to leave him there.

  Gotting gritted his teeth and steered Peter up the track. They slipped and stumbled on the rough ground hidden by the snow blanket.

  When the track ended, Gotting backed into the bushes, pulling Peter forward by his taped hands. The boy blundered his way through scrapes and scratches from the vegetation without flinching. He was beyond pain.

  Gotting breathed normally again when he made it to the clearing. The last fifty feet was easy going. He dragged the boy through the hatch, past the metal door, and into the tunnel. He left Peter lying on the floor next to a wooden tabletop where Gotting had placed bread and soda. The kid rolled over onto his side and moaned.

  He left a dim flashlight resting on top of the bread and closed the door. He wedged a wooden beam under the handle. When the boy came to, he’d likely panic. The light would at least allow him to get control of himself. Didn’t matter whether he did or not. He couldn’t escape the tunnel.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Wednesday, November 29

  9:15 a.m.

  Kansas City, Kansas

  The moment Gotting ended his call, Jess reentered the FBI offices.

  The receptionist frowned. “Forget something?”

  Jess shook her head. “I need to talk to Agent Fernandez, immediately.”

  The receptionist called his office.

  Thirty seconds later, Fernandez burst into the reception area. “You got my message?”

  Jess shook her head. She held up her phone. “I got a call. You should be able to hear it. Morris has you guys tapping my phone.”

  “Threatening?”

  “He wanted five million for Peter.”

  “Did you recognize the guy?” Fernandez asked.

  She shook her head again. “How could I? Hallman is the one who called me before and he’s dead. I’m pretty sure this guy was Earle Gotting.”

  Fernandez said, “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Jess raced up the stairs behind him. They stopped at an office cube outside his door, told an agent to get the recorded call, and walked into Fernandez’s office to wait in silence.

  The agent came in shortly afterward, handed Fernandez a note, and left.

  “The call came from Vista Hermosa, Colorado,” Fernandez said, reading the note.

  Jess frowned. “I live in Denver, but I know the place. Up in the mountains.”

  “Locals are on their way to check it out.”

  “Did the call actually come from there? Or is he faking it somehow to confuse us?”

  “Looks like a cell phone. Probably a burner. But we’ll have a better idea after we hear from the locals.”

  She frowned when she remembered what he’d said when he saw her in the lobby. “What did you m
ean when you asked if I’d received your message?”

  Fernandez handed Jess a sheaf of papers. “These are copies of adoption records for cases handled by Belk’s firm from the month after Peter was taken. We got them from the court files.”

  Jess sifted through the pages. There were lists of names and addresses, more than she’d seen in the basement with Barbara. Case numbers, too. “Are these real people? Any of this verified?”

  “Still checking. However…” Fernandez pointed to a line on the sheet. “We believe this is the couple who adopted your son.”

  A chill ran though Jess’s veins. She read the names aloud and they felt strange on her tongue. “Ross and Lynette Tierney?”

  Fernandez nodded. “He was at Higgins AFB at the time. Thirty minutes north of here. It’s closed now. The wife was a dental hygienist. Worked on the north side of Kansas City back then. The dentist she worked for died a while back. Husband’s career Air Force. They’ve moved several times in the past thirteen years.”

  Jess swallowed. “Why do you think they’re the ones who adopted Peter? And how could they, anyway? Legally, I mean.”

  “They couldn’t. But they did. Which was probably accomplished with forged documents. We’re still running that down.” Fernandez pointed to the boy’s new name.

  “Steven,” she whispered.

  Fernandez nodded. “We can’t be certain without a thorough DNA test. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “You think this is Peter, though.” She couldn’t move her gaze from the names on the paper.

  Fernandez said, “We do. Timeline fits. He’s the right age. In fact, he’s the only boy on the list that might fit. If this isn’t Peter, then we’re at a dead end here.”

  Jess felt her stomach churning. She’d hit so many dead ends over the years. She knew what the disappointment felt like. She’d lived through it before. She could survive again.

  Still, she stared at the paper. The words blurred through the tears that settled in her eyes. She cleared her throat. “Where are the Tierneys living now?”

  Fernandez took a deep breath. “Colorado Springs.”

  Jess stood up. “Colorado? Then if Hallman was the blackmailer who called me on Monday, he never did have Peter here in Kansas, did he?”

  “Probably not. It’s impossible to say right now.” Fernandez shook his head slowly. “We’ve already been in contact with the Colorado Springs Police.”

  She heard a new note of concern in his voice, which couldn’t be good. She was almost afraid to ask, but she managed to croak, “And?”

  Fernandez frowned. “They already knew the Tierneys. Lynette Tierney dropped their son off at school this morning, but a couple of kids reported that they thought they saw him talking to a suspicious-looking man. He never made it into school.”

  “Today? This very morning?” Jess sank into her chair and looked at the call log on her phone. She whispered, “Gotting called me after he abducted Peter from school.”

  “Seems so,” he said gravely.

  She shook her head. She knew who and how Peter had been taken now. Some of the people involved in the abduction were dead, some were in custody. But Earle Gotting, the original kidnapper, had survived them all. That made him either the luckiest bastard in the world.

  Or the most ruthless.

  A moment of total clarity shot through her veins. Gotting would kill Peter this time if it suited him. She knew it as well as she knew every last tiny thing about Peter’s body. The little mole under his left arm. The broad, flat fingers that were so like his father’s. The dark brown eyes and curly blond hair that matched hers. Even the freckles across his nose that his half-sister shared.

  “Do we have a photo of Steven Tierney?”

  Fernandez pulled a copy of a photo from a folder and handed it across his desk. Jess noticed her hand shaking as she took it from him.

  She glanced at the photo. One quick look was all she needed. She gasped. Her entire body began to shake. She tried to speak, but no words came out.

  Fernandez noted her reaction. He walked out of the room, saying, “Let me get you some water.”

  She barely heard him. Her gaze was fixed on the boy’s picture.

  Steven Tierney looked like the computer generated, age-progressed photo of her baby. Except the boy in this photo was so obviously alive. Vitally alive. He might almost be breathing in her hands.

  He’d acquired a couple of small scars on his chin, probably from childhood hijinks. His earlobes were rounded, as they’d been from birth. He still had his father’s lips. Strangely, she remembered the shape of Richard’s mouth, after all these years. And she was looking at it again now.

  DNA tests would prove what Jess already knew. Steven Tierney was her son. She’d found him. Finally.

  Fernandez returned with the water and a box of tissues. “Are you okay?”

  Puzzled, she cocked her head and realized she was crying. She smiled, took both from Fernandez and wiped her tears. “I will be. It’s hard to express how I’m feeling right now. Happy. Relieved. And yet, terrified,” she laughed. “On so many levels.”

  Fernandez smiled and joked, “I know what you mean. Hey, teenagers terrify me, too.”

  She laughed and cried again. She sipped the water. After a while, she managed to stop crying. For now, anyway. She shoved her emotions out of the way. They still had to find Peter and now that bastard Gotting had him again.

  “Hallman’s crime was blackmail. Now, we’ve got a kidnapping,” she said.

  “Exactly.” Fernandez nodded.

  “My son’s life is at stake.” She checked her watch. “I have less than twenty-four hours to get five million dollars and turn it over to Earle Gotting.”

  “Don’t panic, Jess. There’s a lot we need to—”

  “You do what you need to do. What I have to do is call Carter Pierce,” she said calmly as she threw the crumpled tissues along with the empty water bottle into the trash. “I’m the farthest thing from panicked. There’s no time for panic.”

  “We have to go through the steps. We have a protocol for dealing with kidnapping. Thorough investigative—” He paused when he saw the steady look she gave him. He took a deep breath. “There’s a flight to Colorado Springs in three hours.”

  “I’ll talk to Carter, and I’ll be ready when Gotting calls again,” she replied.

  “There’s a lot to do before we think of handing over money,” Fernandez said. “We want to get Earle Gotting out of the shadows and Peter back in one piece.”

  She nodded, but she’d already pushed the speed dial on her cell phone. Thelma answered Carter’s phone and put Jess straight through. She told him what she needed. Before she finished the request, he told her she’d have the money instantly.

  “And where are you? Kansas City? I’ll have a jet waiting for you at the airport,” Carter said. “What else?”

  “That’s more than anyone could ask for. I can’t thank you enough, Carter.” Jess’s eyes began to tear up again. What had she done to deserve such a friend? Before the uncontrollable blubbering commenced, she said thickly, “I’ll call you again as soon as I can.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Wednesday, November 29

  11:00 a.m.

  Kansas City, Kansas

  The private charter flight was scheduled to depart from Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport. The facilities were considerably better than the coach class arrangements Jess was used to on commercial flights.

  Her phone rang. She recognized the Colorado area code.

  “Where are you?” he said.

  “Earle Gotting,” she replied.

  There was a long silence, which was all she needed to confirm his identity.

  “Where are you?” Gotting asked again.

  She waited a moment. “Kansas City.”

  “Get yourself to Vista Hermosa. It’s a town in Colorado. There’s a regional airport there. You can change planes in Denver.”

  “Why Vista Hermosa?”


  “Because you’re bringing me five million dollars to exchange for your son, I assume.” He paused. She heard a big sigh. “Don’t be stupid, Jess. Get the money ready. Bring it with you. You’ll be with Peter before the end of the day tomorrow. Otherwise, you’ll never see him again.”

  “I don’t have five million. I work for a living. You must know that. You saw me on Denver PM.” She paused. “I’ve got fifty thousand. I’ve saved thirteen years to pull that much together.”

  “Don’t mess around here,” he growled. “Get the money from your boss.”

  “I tried. He can’t. He’s rich, but it’s all tied up.”

  Gotting laughed harshly. “No, it isn’t. He’s always giving it away to charity.”

  “He makes big donations, but it’s all stocks.”

  “That’s your problem.”

  “Even if he does pay, it’s just a loan. I’ll have to pay it back.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “But, five million dollars? I’ll never be able to pay that back.”

  “You’re not listening. Five million or he dies. Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll move on.” Gotting grunted. “But it matters to you. Just tell me if it doesn’t and I’ll stop wasting my time.”

  Jess waited. Listening. Gotting breathed softly. He wasn’t angry. She figured he was the sort of person who thrived on conflict.

  “You have him? Peter’s with you?” she said.

  He growled. “Get the money.”

  “Listen. Wait. What if I can raise half?” She begged because she figured he was a man who’d like knowing she suffered. “Maybe I can get three.”

  “If you can get three you can get five.”

  “I can’t. Even if I put up everything I have as collateral, it’s not three million. I live in an apartment. I have a job. I’m not rich. You know that, Gotting.”

  There was a long silence. Gotting’s breathing was still steady. He was thinking about it. She could tell. Thinking took time.