by Kay Hooper
“Maybe.” Samantha shrugged.
“Wyatt’s right.” Lucas gazed at her steadily. “What the kidnapper has seen so far is explainable without unduly linking you to us in any formal sense; you were under suspicion and remained here only long enough to be cleared. But if you’re seen with any of us, or seen coming here now that you’re clearly not a suspect . . .” He frowned. “Maybe the Carnival After Dark should move on.”
“And turn away throngs of the curious, eager to spend money at our games and attractions? If we did that, the sheriff here would lose all faith in his own judgment.”
Metcalf scowled but remained silent.
“Sam, don’t be stubborn,” Lucas said.
With another shrug, she said, “Maybe you’d better hear why I came tonight. Caitlin Graham surprised me by dropping a ring on my table. She told me afterward that it was one Lindsay had worn when they were kids. She wanted me to touch it, to find out if I could pick up anything. I didn’t know who she was, so I picked it up.”
“And?”
Samantha held up her right hand, palm out. The once-white ring was now, like the line across her palm, a reddish mark, but it was quite visible. “So cold it burned,” she said.
“What did you see?” Lucas asked.
“It’s not what I saw, it’s what I felt.” She glanced at Metcalf, then returned her gaze to Lucas. “The places you’re searching. Are any of them near water?”
“Streams and creeks,” Lucas said without having to refer to a map. “One small lake, I think.”
“Simpson Pond,” the sheriff confirmed.
Samantha nodded. “You might want to put those places at the top of your list.”
“Why?” Metcalf demanded. “Because you felt water when you touched a ring?”
She looked at him steadily but didn’t answer.
Quietly, Lucas said, “Sam.”
“He is not going to want to hear this,” she said, her gaze still on the sheriff but the statement clearly aimed at Lucas.
“If it will help us find Lindsay, he’ll have to hear it.”
“All right.” But Samantha returned her gaze to Lucas when she said, “What I felt was Lindsay choking. Drowning.”
“Lindsay swims like a fish,” Metcalf said tightly.
“She was drowning. It hasn’t happened yet, but she’s running out of time. I can almost hear the clock ticking.”
“Do you really expect us to run this investigation based on some vision you had because your turban was too tight or you breathed in too much incense?”
Samantha got to her feet. “Run your investigation any way you want, Sheriff. I’m just telling you what I saw.” She was expressionless, her voice calm. Still looking at Lucas, she added, “If I’m right, whatever happens to put her in that water terrifies her.”
He half nodded. “Thanks.”
“Good luck.” She left the conference room.
Metcalf said, “What I can’t figure out is whether you two are enemies—or something else. It seems to tip back and forth every time you meet.”
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” Lucas drained his cup and rose. “In the meantime, I want another look at that map before we go back out.”
“Simpson Pond?” The sheriff shook his head. “Not much more than a wide place in a stream dammed up by a beaver. And the so-called property on your list is an old log cabin so remote even the hunters don’t like using it.”
“If I were a kidnapper holding a victim I needed to keep safely immobile and silent for another fourteen hours or so, remote is just what I’d want.”
“I can’t believe you’re listening to that nut.”
Evenly, Lucas said, “It’s twelve-thirty. The ransom is due to be delivered tomorrow afternoon at five. Sixteen and a half hours, Wyatt. I say Sam is reliable, and the direction she’s indicating makes sense given our kidnapper’s M.O. So unless you have a better idea, I plan to continue searching these remote properties—with those on or near water moving to the top of the list.”
Metcalf shook his head, the stubborn jut of his jaw mitigated only by the worry and sick dread in his eyes. “I don’t have a better idea, goddammit.”
“Neither do I. And we didn’t need Sam to point out that Lindsay’s running out of time.”
“I know. I know.” Metcalf climbed to his feet, weariness in every line of his body. “So, you’re really psychic?”
“I really am.”
With the vague understanding that psychic covered a wide range of possibilities, the sheriff said, “What kind of psychic are you? What do you do? Look into crystal balls like Zarina? See the future?”
“I find people who are lost. I feel their fear.”
Metcalf blinked. “She was warning you? That’s why she said—”
“Yeah. That’s why.”
“Shit,” the sheriff said.
At first, Lindsay thought it was odd that the kidnapper had left her watch on her wrist and untouched. But then, as the minutes ticked away into hours, she began to understand his purpose.
Scaring the shit out of her.
Part of his game.
That dawned on her at about nine o’clock on Friday morning, after she’d made her umpteenth failed attempt to kick a hole through the clear walls surrounding her and into the featureless darkness beyond. The several steel bands wrapping and reinforcing the thick sheets of apparently shatterproof glass provided all the strength necessary to resist her best attempts to break through.
Worse, she had a strong suspicion that she was running out of air. That was when she’d looked at her watch.
Nine o’clock.
Nine o’clock on Friday morning.
He always wanted the ransom delivered by five o’clock on Friday afternoon. And they were positive—almost positive—that he never killed his victims until the ransom had been safely delivered. So she had eight hours, probably.
Eight hours to find a way out of this sealed fish tank.
Eight hours to live.
Assuming he hadn’t miscalculated how much air she needed to survive that long.
“Shit,” she muttered. “Shit, shit, shit.” Swearing usually made her feel better. It didn’t this time.
She sat cross-legged on the floor of her tank and studied it, trying to remain calm and rational enough to think clearly, trying to find a weakness. She had thrown her entire weight against various points and corners, only to end up bruised, winded, exhausted, and strongly reminded of a bird flinging itself against the bars of its cage.
Think, Lindsay.
Wyatt’s face swam into her mind, and she fiercely shoved it away. She couldn’t think about him now. She couldn’t think of mistakes or regrets or anything except figuring out a way to come out of this alive.
There would be time for everything else later.
There had to be.
Lindsay tried to concentrate, to study her prison. Then she heard an unfamiliar little sound.
Dripping.
She got to her feet and went to the corner where the pipe protruded through the heavy glass. The pipe that had, until now, been perfectly dry. Now it was dripping water. Not much, and not fast, just water steadily dripping.
She looked around at the cage.
At the tank.
Glass walls. Glass ceiling. Some kind of metal floor. All beautifully sealed. Waterproof.
It wasn’t about running out of air, she realized.
As she watched, the dripping water became a trickle.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
Most of them had taken another short break around noon, but nobody wanted to waste any time. They had managed to check out less than two-thirds of the properties on their list, and no one on any of the search teams was under any illusions that they’d be able to reach all the remaining properties in time.
Everybody was past tired, nerves on edge both because of the circumstances and all the caffeine. And the terrain wasn’t helping; the search was physically demanding, e
ven grueling, and exhaustion was creeping into all of them.
By three, Wyatt Metcalf had left the search parties in order to go to his bank and get the ransom money. His instructions were to deliver the ransom alone. Those were always the instructions.
Lucas had advised the sheriff to wear a wire or to hide a tracking device in the small bag that was to hold the money, but he’d also been forced to admit that on every previous occasion when they were involved early enough to take such measures, either the kidnapper had found a way to remove or electronically short-circuit the device or else had simply left the money unclaimed.
And his victim dead.
Metcalf wasn’t willing to take any chances, not with Lindsay’s life. He intended to follow his instructions to the letter. He had refused to be wired, to be accompanied, or to be watched in any way by law-enforcement personnel.
“Hard to be a cop and a lover,” Jaylene murmured when the sheriff reported to them via the spotty radio communication that he was going for the money and would deliver it sans any wire or tracking device.
“He’s not thinking like a cop,” Lucas said, sounding tired.
“Could you?”
Without replying to that, her partner bent once more over the map spread out on the hood of their ATV and frowned. “Six more properties on our list. And two of them on or near some kind of water.”
Champion joined him in examining the map and shook his head. “If we’re still putting the places with water at the top of our list—”
“We are,” Lucas told him.
“Well, okay, then there’s no way we can cover both those places by five o’clock. There’s just no way. Not only are they miles apart, but this one”—he jabbed a finger at the map—“doesn’t have any kind of a road leading to it now. It’ll take us at least an hour and a half from here, and that’s assuming the summer rains didn’t wash the hills and gullies as badly as they usually do. It’d put us there at about four-thirty, if we’re really lucky, and five if the area is as bad as I’m afraid it is. And that’s not counting the time it’ll take to search what’s left of the buildings around that old mine shaft.”
“What about the other place?” Jaylene asked.
Champion chewed on his lower lip as he stared at the map and considered. “The other place is the hunter’s cabin at Simpson Pond. It’s remote, but there’s a halfway decent service road running partway, where the old train tracks used to be. From here . . . less than an hour, probably. But that’s in a different direction, so even if we’re lucky as hell we won’t be able to check out both places. Not before five. Not even before six, if you want my opinion.”
“So we can only check out one of them.” Jaylene was watching her partner. “One of two places only slightly more likely than the other four on our list. Should we flip a coin? Or do you have something to give us better odds?”
Lucas looked at her for a moment, grim, then drew a deep breath, bowed his head, and closed his eyes.
Champion eyed the federal agent uncertainly, reached up to touch his hat as though instinctively feeling he ought to remove it, then whispered to Jaylene, “Is he praying?”
“Not exactly.” She kept her voice low but didn’t whisper. “He’s . . . concentrating.”
“Oh. Okay.” Champion clasped his hands behind him in a parade-rest stance and maintained a respectful silence.
Lucas tuned out his awareness of that silence and the curious stare that went with it. He tuned out the familiar presence of his partner. He tuned out the sounds of the forest all around them. And he focused on one small, bright point of light in his own mind.
The technique didn’t always work, but it was the most successful meditation exercise he’d been able to develop in his years with the SCU. He was in a sense trying to narrow his own psychic abilities, or at least aim them at the smallest possible target. Concentrate on one thing, only one, and direct all his energies there.
Focus on that small, bright point of light, clear everything else out of his mind, and then picture the face of the missing person. Picture Lindsay.
The situation was unusual in that he had spent time with Lindsay before she was taken. So he knew more than merely what she looked like. He knew the sound of her voice, knew the way she moved, the way she thought. He knew the way she took her coffee and her favorite blend of pizza toppings, and he knew the man she loved.
He pushed all that into the bright, white light, seeing nothing but the light and Lindsay.
Lindsay . . .
The water was up to her ankles when Lindsay admitted to herself that stuffing her sock into the pipe wasn’t even slowing it down. There was a lot of pressure in that pipe; every time she got the material wedged in there, it was forced back out, accompanied by a gush of water.
The water was up to her knees when she made a final attempt to kick out the glass, knowing that as the water got deeper in her tank she would be unable to use her full weight in an assault on the glass.
All she got for her trouble was soaking clothes when she slipped and fell in the attempt.
She was trying to stay angry, and at first it hadn’t been hard to do that. To yell and swear at the top of her lungs and damn the animal who had done this to her. To scream until her throat was raw, just on the off chance that he’d done the more common criminal thing and screwed up somewhere, somehow, picked the wrong place or made somebody curious enough to check this place out.
Whatever and wherever this place was.
It wasn’t hard, at first, for Lindsay to grimly make attempt after attempt to alter or delay her fate, staying focused on doing something.
She was no helpless maiden, dammit, to be rescued from the dragon. She’d taken down a few dragons in her time and intended to live long enough to take down a few more.
She had things to do, and not just with dragons. She wanted to see the Grand Canyon, Hawaii, and the Great Pyramid. She wanted to learn to ski. She wanted to have kids. She hadn’t realized that until now, but she was sure now, absolutely sure, that she wanted kids. Maybe with Wyatt, if she could knock some sense into his stubborn head. Or maybe with some prince she hadn’t met yet.
Prince. Yeah, right.
Still, she didn’t doubt they were searching for her. A lot of good cops and a couple of good FBI agents. They were searching for her, and Luke and Jaylene were part of that hotshot elite unit that was supposed to be so good at stuff like this, so the odds were at least even that they’d find her.
Maybe better than even.
And maybe they had psychic help to improve the odds even more. At least—they might have if Samantha was as genuine as she seemed, as genuine as Luke seemed to believe she was. Odd, though, that she’d been right about there being another kidnapping but wrong about the victim.
Always assuming she’d told them the truth, of course.
Lindsay spent a good ten minutes thinking about that and finally decided that Sam had no reason to hate her enough to lie about it if she had seen Lindsay in that vision. So she must have gotten it wrong somehow.
But Luke and Jaylene, they were specialists at this sort of thing. They knew what they were doing.
Sure they do. And they followed this guy for a year and a half without catching him!
“They didn’t know he was playing a game,” she heard herself mutter defensively, her own voice a welcome sound over the rushing sound of the water pouring into her tank.
But if they’re so good at this . . . shouldn’t they have known?
“Different places, always on the move—they couldn’t catch up to him. But now they can. Now he’s here, staying put. And they’re here.”
And making great progress here before you were taken, weren’t they?
Lindsay grimaced at her own sardonic thought but also welcomed it. Because it kept her angry.
What were they doing out there all this time, all these hours? Sitting on their goddamned hands? They couldn’t find the signs that somebody had built himself a fucking fish tank big e
nough to hold people? How could he get the stuff he needed without somebody realizing?
Huh?
How was that even possible? It wasn’t like everybody needed huge sheets of shatterproof glass and bands of tempered steel for the little sunroom they were building out back, for Christ’s sake!
Golden was a small town, people talked, they talked about everything, especially the business of their neighbors, and strangers were always noticed, so how had this son of a bitch managed this shit?
And where was Wyatt, goddammit? He was supposed to be here. He was supposed to find her, because he was a good cop and that’s what good cops did.
Wyatt, goddamn you, why haven’t you found me? You should be able to find me. . . .
The anger lasted until the water reached her waist. She looked at her watch, some clear, calm part of her mind calculating, and realized that the tank would be full before five o’clock. At least half an hour before.
She’d be dead before the ransom was paid.
Dead before anyone could find her.
The bastard was cheating.
He had never intended to give Luke a chance to win this round.
When Lucas sucked in a sudden, painful breath, Champion nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Wha—Is he okay?”
“That’s not the question,” Jaylene said, her eyes fixed on her partner. “Is Lindsay okay?”
“No,” Lucas murmured. His eyes were still closed, his head bowed. All the color had drained from his face, and the tension in his lean body was obvious.
“What’s happening, Luke? What’s happening to Lindsay?”
“Afraid. She’s afraid. She’s . . . terrified. She doesn’t want to die.”
“Where is she?”
“Water . . . getting deeper . . .”
“Show me.” Jaylene’s voice was quiet but also commanding. “Which way, Luke? Where is Lindsay?”
He was utterly still for a moment, then startled Champion again by turning suddenly toward the west. “This way. She’s . . . this way.”
Before Jaylene could look at the map or ask, Champion said, “The mine shaft. That’s west of here. The way he’s pointing. Should we—”
