by Leanne Tyler
Brand looked at Hawkeye and raised his brows.
“Would you happen to know if Justin and this man were friends?” Hawkeye asked showing Margot a picture of Kevin Petree.
She grinned big. “Oh, you mean Petree Metree. Sure. They were thick as thieves, though Petree looks very different now than he did back then. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, had a bad case of acne that still hadn’t gone away, but it didn’t matter. His family was loaded and he was a legacy to his frat house so he was a yes pledge from the get-go. He was quite nerdy looking in those days too. What’s he do now?”
“He’s a detective.”
“Really?” Margot sounded interested. “He’s really done well for himself, better than I ever expected.”
“You didn’t see him around last night did you?” Brand asked.
“No.”
“Anything else you can think of to tell us about him?” Hawkeye said.
Margot thought for a moment then shook her head.
“Thanks for your help.”
“Wait, one more question,” Brand said. “If you knew him right away when you saw his photo, then why do you suppose Carly didn’t recognize him?”
Margot winked at them. “Because Simone and I got around more than sweet Carly and Colleen ever did, that’s why. We partied with the frat boys.”
Brand nodded. “So what you’re really saying is that Porter and Petree were friends, but they were more in the frat house buddy buddies than they were outside the frat house friends?”
“Exactly. You’ve heard the phrase what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Well, it probably originated in a frat house. What happens in a frat house stays in a frat house.” Margot took another sip of her wine, draining the glass. “I’m not saying that Porter was cruel or acted like he didn’t know Petree in public, but he didn’t act like they were as close. Petree was cool. He knew his place and went with it as if he preferred staying in the background. I always thought that a little odd, but who was I to question it always having to be in the spotlight being a politician’s daughter growing up.”
“You have given us excellent information, Margot,” Hawkeye said.
“For you, Burnsie, I will do anything. You know that. In return, just find Carly. That poor girl just wants a normal life again. She has an appointment this afternoon to look at the apartment on the eighth floor that will be vacant soon. It’ll be nice to have her living so close to me.”
“When did she decide this?” Brand asked.
“Last night while you were off doing your presentation. We were having cheese and wine and she mentioned loving it here and I told her about the soon to be vacancy. I made a phone call this morning before I knew she was missing and arranged for her to see the apartment.”
“But she has a place.”
Margot shook her head. “She said she can’t go back there after what happened. She needed to start fresh and she liked it here.”
Brand crossed his arms over his chest. He couldn’t complain that it was a far better neighborhood than her previous address, but how was she going to afford the rent. Had she gotten the job with Brittany Daniels and not mentioned it to him?
“Good. I’m glad she’s thinking of her future once this is over,” he said.
“It’s a two bedroom, much like this one, if you are interested in knowing,” Margot added.
He nodded.
“Plenty of room for two.”
Brand didn’t acknowledge that last part and he could tell that it irritated the woman, she tapped her painted nail on the kitchen counter in a rhythmic beat.
“I think he gets your meaning, Margot.”
“Good, because he’s unreadable.”
Brand smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “It doesn’t take much to ruffle your feathers.”
Hawkeye’s phone buzzed and he took the call, walking away from them to the wall to ceiling glass windows. When he turned around he announced, “We have a fingerprint match from the bedroom. I take it that Petree was never in the bedroom when you were moving in?”
“Never. I carried Carly’s things in there. He only handled the kitchen items.”
“Then we got him. CSI lifted a full print off the night table. They also found a bottle of chloroform in the dumpster out back with his fingerprints on it as well. Now to figure out where he took Carly.”
“You better reschedule the appointment to see the apartment to another day,” Brand said. “Just to be on the safe side.”
Margot nodded.
“Is he at work today?”
Hawkeye nodded. “He’s been assigned to desk duty for a while because of the SUV explosion. I’m calling his supervisor now to detain him until we get there.”
“My tactical bag? Is it still in the conference room?”
“Yes.”
“I need to retrieve it when we get to the station.”
“You do that.” Hawkeye held up a finger, turned slightly away and spoke into his phone. “What do you mean he went to lunch and never returned? I need you to put out an APB on him now. Just do it. He’s a man of interest in a case and we need to find him ASAP. It’s a matter of life and death. Do I make myself clear? I’ll be at the station in ten minutes. I want an update immediately.”
Brand retrieved his tactical bag and met up with Hawkeye in his office back at the police station. Detectives and police sergeants were coming and going as plans were being put into place. All known address for Kevin Petree and his parents were pulled and cruisers were being sent to those locations as were the home of Justin Porter to be on the safe side.
When Brand walked into the office, Hawkeye was on the phone with Henry Manning. He explained that someone abducted Carly in the middle of the night from the safe house and he was doing everything within his power to find her. “The good news is we believe we know who has her so it is just a matter of time until we get her back.”
“No. I am not accusing her ex-husband. I did not say anything about him being involved. It’s someone else in fact. We have a fingerprint that puts the suspect at the scene so we know for a fact it isn’t her ex-husband.”
There was a pause before Hawkeye spoke again. “I thought you needed to know what was going on with your daughter, Henry. The Chicago PD is doing everything we can do to get her back to you safe and sound.”
“No. He was in the hospital all night. Remember, he was injured in a sparring match in the gym when we went downstairs after the meeting. The EMTs were loading him into the ambulance. So, he couldn’t protect her. In fact, now that you mention it that seems like the perfect excuse for Carly to have not been protected. What if that wasn’t an accidental injury at all? Thanks, Henry, you may have opened up another line of investigation without knowing it.”
Hawkeye ended one call and he immediately placed another. He motioned for Brand to sit down while the phone rang. He spoke to the trainer on duty in the gym about the log sign in. It didn't take him long to find out the officer's name, Spencer Kirkland, who sparred with Brand in the ring. Then he called Kirkland's unit supervisor. Several phone calls later, Burns had talked to fellow officers that the man worked. He was able to make a connection between Kirkland and Petree.
“It’s a thin line, but enough of one that if we work it right, we could get the two to turn on each other. All we need to do is make one believe the other is getting immunity first.”
“Now what? I can’t sit here waiting for the word to come in that your people have something. I need to be out there searching for Carly.”
“And we will, but we need to make sure all bases have been covered first. We don’t need to waste our time running around town when we can pinpoint the likely spot she is at from here.”
“But what if she is being held where she has only so much air and time is running out?”
“There would have been a ransom if that was the case. Besides, this is Porter using Petree to do his dirty work just like you said. He doesn’t want to hurt Carly. He wants to control her. She g
ot away from him when she moved away from her apartment and he couldn’t have his P.I. watching her. So he had to swoop in and snatch her away from the Lakeshore apartment.”
“I thought you said I couldn’t go making accusations without evidence?”
“I did, but the way Henry immediately went to Porter’s defense when I called him. He wasn’t concerned about his daughter. He was more concerned for Porter being falsely accused of her abduction. That just burns my biscuits.”
Chapter 15
Carly listened to the cat finish the food and then purr appreciatively. When the sound became muffled, she assumed it was because the cat was bathing its paws. She rolled to her side and her back again until she came to a wall and tried to wiggle herself to a sitting position, not allowing her mind to play tricks on her this time. She assured herself that the hissing sound she’d heard earlier had been the cat, not a cobra snake. The scurry of little feet may have been a mouse, but she was certain the cat had taken care of it straight away if it got near its cage. Maybe that was why there had been the hissing in the first place.
Rocking herself, she used her hips and legs to manage to get to a sitting position finally. In her efforts, she also dislodged the blindfold covering her eyes, so it was askew and she could see a little light now. Using her legs and her bottom, she scooted the best she could until she came to what felt like a structure at her side, but it wasn’t sturdy. It gave way with her and the cat began screeching and hissing, making an awful noise that hurt her ears.
It didn’t take long for the door to be flung open and a flood of light to return to the room.
“Mon Dieu!” the woman who’d fed the cat said.
For some reason Carly imagined the woman crossing herself, but she pushed those thoughts out of her mind. She had to get her to help her. If only she could spit the wad of fabric out of her mouth, but it too was tied around her face so it wouldn’t come out.
She tried making groaning sounds to draw the woman’s attention to her mouth and she rocked back and forth, trying to entreat her to come forward. Instead, the woman slammed the door and Carly heard her footsteps retreating quickly from the room.
Why? Why wouldn’t the woman try to help her?
Anger rose up in her chest and that made Carly determined to get free on her own. The woman had opened the door twice without unlocking it. She’d come in freely. That meant the only way Carly was being held was by her bindings. If she could get her hands free, then she could get her ankles free and escape on her own.
If the woman hasn’t reported to finding Carly being awake to someone.
That was a chance she’d have to take if she wanted to get out of here.
She had to get out of here. She had to get to Brand. He was hurt and in the hospital. He didn’t even know she was missing. No one knew she was missing.
That thought spurred her on. She was more determined to get out of there than she had been before to get back to Brand.
The officer that Brand had sparred with the night before was detained from leaving the building after his shift ended. A detective questioned him about a routine traffic stop he’d made earlier that day. They were in open view as Kevin Petree was walked through the station into an interrogation room. From Brand’s viewpoint, it was clear that Petree saw the detective questioning Kirkland. The murderous look that crossed his face proved that Hawkeye’s point was made. Petree assumed that the officer was spilling what he knew on him.
Both Brand and Hawkeye watched and listened at the window as detectives questioned Petree about Carly Manning. He didn’t budge at first. He played it cool, pretending he knew nothing about her once he was reassigned. He didn’t even flinch when the detective revealed the fingerprint matches in the bedroom and on the chloroform bottle.
Brand walked away half an hour into the interrogation. He knew it could go on for hours before the perp would crack. There had to be a way to speed things up. He walked across the room to where the detective was still chatting about the routine stop.
Boy, that detective must be good if he can keep this one on the hook with that bull this long.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said.
“Not a problem. We were finished,” the detective said. He stood and left his desk.
“Good to see you up and about. Sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to take you out and send you to hospital.”
“It’s all good. It was an accident, right? It wasn’t like you did it on purpose?”
“Right.”
“Unfortunately, your buddy in there is throwing you under the bus.”
“My buddy?”
“Petree.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Kevin Petree. Come on. Don’t play dumb with me. I know you know him. He told me all about how you two were friends when he was driving me around. You must have really done something to piss him off for him to turn on you like this.”
“What’s he saying?”
“You know. How you’re the one that broke in and kidnapped Carly Manning for Justin Porter last night.”
“He what?” Kirkland said loudly drawing the attention of others around them. “I had nothing to do with that. No way, man. He ain’t pinning that shit on me. I helped him take you out, but that is it. Nothing else. He wanted me to help him do the job last night, but I told him you were a one-time deal.”
“Is that so?” Hawkeye asked arriving in time to hear it all. “And just how did he persuade you to injure Brand for him? Was there money involved, Officer Kirkland?”
Kirkland got to his feet. “No, Commander. There wasn’t money involved. I owed him a favor and this was to clean the slate.”
“Did he tell you where he was taking her?” Brand asked.
“No. Once I refused to take part that was the end of the discussion.”
Hawkeye nodded. He picked up a clipboard off of the detective's desk with a sheet of paper that looked to contain a good paragraph of typed text with a line underneath for a signature. “Here, sign this.”
“Why?”
“Just do it if you don’t want to lose your job.” Hawkeye held the clipboard for the man to sign. “Okay, Kirkland. You hang on here. Brand, come with me.”
Hawkeye went to the closed interrogation door and knocked. The door opened and he went in, holding up the clipboard.
“I have a signed statement here from Kirkland. He’s confessed to his involvement. So we know you took her. Where is she, Petree?”
“We know you took her, Petree Metree. So you might as well tell us or do I need to persuade you?” Brand said, stepping around Hawkeye to look the man in the eye. “Not one hair on her head had better be harmed. Do you hear me?”
Carly slumped against the wall and felt like crying in frustration. In all her efforts, she’d gotten the blindfold all the way off, but that was all. Now she was exhausted. Her tailbone hurt from sitting on the hard concrete floor for so long and she was getting a chill. Not to mention she was hungry and she really needed to go to the bathroom.
In the distance, she thought she heard the faint sound of a siren, but she didn’t pay attention to it. She’d given up hope of hearing the sound of someone coming for her all day. She closed her eyes and imagined Brand holding and kissing her the way he had after they moved into the apartment and again after the funeral service. She could almost feel him close as she thought about him and then she recalled how he’d been when they first met. He’d been so gruff and hard around the edges, but he’d soon softened. Had she done that to him?
The sirens were closer and grew louder and louder. The cat hissed, jumped on the side of the cage, and then let out a hair-raising yawl. Why would anyone keep a creature in a cage like that; in a room like this? No wonder the cat was acting feral.
Those thoughts hadn’t run through her head until she heard running of feet pounding on the pavement close by. Then someone ordered, “Go. Go. Go.”
The door to the room flew open, flooding the space with light. The cat meo
wed at an octave so sharp it pierced Carly’s ears. Then the light vanished as the frame of Brand filled the doorway.
“Carly!” He called as soon as he spotted her, crossing the distance to her.
She attempted to scoot toward him, but he reached her before she made any progress. He had the gag untied and out of her mouth immediately and she gasped for air, sweet, unencumbered air.
“Thank heavens. There is a deranged cat in a cage over there. Someone needs to save it.”
“Don’t worry about the cat. Let’s get you out of here,” Brand said. He made quick work of unfettering her wrists and then her ankles. Rubbing her wrists vigorously he brought circulation back before he scooped her up and carried her outside her dungeon.
“Where am I anyway?” she asked. “I had a sense of familiarity for some reason, but I don’t recognize this place at all.”
“Are you sure?” Brand asked. He stood for a moment and let her take a good long look around until he heard her gasp.
“The country club.”
“You said it. You spent how many days here when you were married?”
“More than I could count, but I was never down here. Near the kitchen area. I was always up at the dining area.”
An ambulance pulled up and the EMTs came running over with a gurney. Brand put her on it.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital.”
“You need to be checked out. We know when you were abducted chloroform was used. We need to know if any other substance was used.”
A black SUV pulled up and Hawkeye got out on one side followed by Henry Manning on the other.
“What’s he doing here?” Carly said as one of the paramedics cuffed her to take her blood pressure.
“I’ll find out,” Brand said. He stepped away to inquire why Manning was there. He started to ask when Hawkeye shook his head, so he remained silent.
