by Dana Marton
The doctor blocked his way. “You’re not listening to me, Detective. My patient couldn’t get out of that bed if you offered him a million dollars.”
“I’ll need to put an officer in front of his door.”
“Fine. But I’m telling you, he’s no danger to anyone.”
“He might have murdered a man in cold blood.”
“How?”
“Shooting.”
“Maybe,” the doctor said. “A shooting, maybe. Certainly not in a fight or anything that required strenuous activity.”
That last bit gave Harper pause. “How bad was his heart? Could he have walked a couple of miles through that snowstorm a week ago?”
“He had ninety-five-percent blockage in one artery and eighty percent in another. I doubt he could walk to the end of his driveway without having to lean against something to rest.”
“You’re saying it’s impossible?”
“I’d stake my professional reputation on it.”
“Could he have pushed aside a fifty-pound pallet of canned food?”
The doctor laughed. “No.”
“He spent half of last week in Florida, fishing.”
“He said that’s when he started to feel weak. He never left his motel. Since he came home, he’s been in bed.”
“And you believe him?”
“After having seen the blockage? One hundred percent.”
And there they were, the doctor with his official medical opinion, and Harper left with nothing—all his suspects cleared.
Lamm’s prepper buddies had been crossed off the list one by one.
Who the hell killed the old man?
Harper stepped back from the doctor, severely aggravated with himself. What had he missed? And where had he missed it?
A nurse called from the end of the hallway. “Dr. Abara?”
The doctor looked to Harper. “Are we done here, Detective?”
“Yes. Thank you for your help.” As the surgeon hurried away, Harper called Chase. “Hey, I’m here at the hospital. Are you still with Zane?”
“They’re about to discharge him. We’re supposed to keep an eye on him overnight. Possible concussion, same deal as with Allie. Did you pick up Poole?”
“He’s not our guy. He just came out of surgery. Heart attack.” Harper explained what the doctor told him.
“You still want me to bring Zane back to Broslin?”
“Leave him at the county jail here. They can keep an eye on him. They have more staff. I’d have to bring him back here tomorrow anyway for his bail hearing. Did he get a lawyer yet?”
“Some guy’s driving down from Harrisburg in the morning.”
And if Zane didn’t have a prior record, he’d probably make bail. He’d claim that he just wanted to talk to his girlfriend, that she got hurt because she’d slipped on ice, that the whole thing was a misunderstanding instead of an attempted kidnapping.
Harper called Joe next.
The search of Poole’s house hadn’t turned up a single shred of evidence that could have tied him to the murder case.
Harper swore all the way home.
He wasn’t in the best of moods when he strode into his apartment at the top of the stairs.
“Allie?”
She didn’t respond. The door to the guest bedroom was closed. Maybe she was napping.
God, he was ready to see her, talk to her, have dinner with her. Kiss her.
He thought some more about that and smiled at last. He could get used to coming home to Allie instead of an empty apartment.
A piece of paper on the table caught his attention. He picked it up.
I’m sorry, Harper, but…
He read it to the end before crumpling it, then went back down the stairs and over to the B and B. If she was leaving, she could have told him in person. He would have liked there to have been a discussion.
So he went to see her, because, at the very least, he wanted to make sure she reached the B and B safely and didn’t hurt her ankle. Then, if she told him to leave her alone, he would. Her choice. She didn’t need another stalker. Harper’s feelings were his problem. If she broke his damn heart, he’d do his best to take it like a man.
“Hi, Mrs. O’Brian. Is Allie in her room?” he asked Shannon as he sailed in.
“Oh, Harper.” She tightened her robe. “I think Allie went to bed early. I called up to her when I got home from the grocery store, but she didn’t respond, so I let her be. Sleep is important for recovery. What’s wrong?”
Harper took the stairs two at a time. Knocked while Shannon waited at the foot of the stairs.
No response.
“Allie?”
She ignored him.
“Talk to me.” He rested his head against the door.
It drifted open.
She wasn’t in the room. The bathroom door was ajar, so he could see in. She wasn’t in there either.
Then he saw another note, on the floor this time.
A freaking treasure hunt. Christ, Allie. Not now.
He didn’t have time for this. He needed to talk to her, then get back to the station, go over every scrap of evidence again, crime scene photos, interview transcripts. He was in the middle of a murder investigation with no suspect.
Harper’s thoughts trailed off as he registered that the note in his hand was written in a different handwriting—hard, angular, masculine—from the one he’d found in his apartment. His senses snapped to sharp attention as he read the message written in large block letters.
YOU GIVE ME THE GOLD, I’LL GIVE YOU THE GIRL.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Allie couldn’t break free.
She scanned the inside of the truck again in the negligible light. The rolled-down door only allowed for a gap about an inch wide.
The truck was empty, save for the built-in metal rack she’d been secured to when they’d arrived at their destination and her kidnapper had climbed into the back with her. He hadn’t cuffed her, thank God, but tied her up with electric cord, her hands bound tightly together at the end of a foot-long tether.
She’d fought and she’d lost. But she hadn’t given up. As soon as the man left her, she began trying to dislodge the rack. And she kept going, struggling, using every ounce of strength she had.
She yanked again, first up, then from side to side. She could find no give either way. The damn rack was bolted to the floor and roof, as well as to the truck’s side.
“Let me out!” she screamed.
Nobody responded. Nobody came.
She sank down to sit because she needed to catch her breath, needed a few minutes to fight back the towering sense of defeat.
The bastard had to be out there somewhere. She didn’t think he’d leave her unsupervised. He just didn’t feel like talking to her.
“Who are you?” she shouted.
He didn’t respond to that either.
Where was she? The truck hadn’t gone far, one thing in her favor. She was pretty sure they were still in Broslin, or at least nearby.
When, upon arrival, the guy had opened the truck’s back door to hop in and secure her, she’d seen the inside of a regular two-car garage, empty save for a pile of paint cans sitting in the corner by the entry.
She’d been too busy fighting, hadn’t caught more than a few glimpses of the space, hadn’t been able to determine whether the garage was attached to a house. But even if she could break free and sneak inside, there was no guarantee that the house had a landline. A lot of people just used their cell phones these days. And even if the kidnapper was sleeping and she could grab his cell phone, he probably had it password protected.
Her best bet was to escape the plastic-covered wire that held her prisoner inside the truck, force the garage door up, then run. There had to be other houses nearby, people she could ask for help.
“Come on.” She yanked on her restraints again. “Break!”
She needed something sharp. Or something hot. If she had a lighter, she could
melt the plastic. For the first time in her life, she wished she was a smoker. But since she didn’t have easy access to flames, what else could work?
Maybe something abrasive?
Something had to give. She had to escape.
I just need you to make a trade, the man had said.
Trade her for what? Drugs?
The news had been full of human trafficking stories for the past few years, a terrible crime that was growing exponentially all over the world. God, she was twenty-eight. Wasn’t she too old for that? In the stories Allie had seen, the traffickers were snatching kids.
Maybe the guy planned on selling her organs.
Nope to the nope. She shoved to her feet, paced two small steps away from the shelving, then two steps back—all the movement her restraints allowed. She was not going to be trafficked.
“Hey!” she screamed toward the truck’s door. “Let me go. I can pay,” she lied. “I have money.”
Let the bastard come inside the truck again. Let him step close enough. This time, she’d be ready for him. She was going to kick him between the legs so hard, his balls were going to bounce off his teeth.
“Do you hear me?”
A door creaked open somewhere nearby. “I don’t want to hear you, bitch! Shut up, or I’ll make you shut up!”
Wooden stairs thundered under the man’s feet.
* * *
The crisis team, Harper, Chase, Mike, Joe, and Gabi, met at the B and B because Allie had been kidnapped from there. Shannon was there too, of course, since it was her place, and two more civilians: Kennan and Murph. They’d volunteered. Considering Kennan’s US Marine training and Murph’s Army and law enforcement experience, Harper had gratefully accepted their offer of help.
They spread out in the dining room, with Shannon making sandwiches and keeping the coffee flowing.
“Do you have a camera in the back?” Murph asked.
“Just one,” Shannon said, her eyes red rimmed. “Over the old garage in the rear. The camera watches the back of the house. I figured if anyone broke in, it’d be through there, not standing at the front door, in plain view of Main Street.”
Should have been sufficient, Harper thought. More than sufficient. Most people didn’t even lock their doors in Broslin. “Let’s start with the footage.”
“Hang on.” Shannon hurried off to the back and brought her laptop from her office, then queued it up. “It saves to the cloud.”
They crowded around the table’s corner to watch the recording.
“Hold on,” she said again, and showed off her tech skills by casting the video to the TV in the corner. And when she caught Mike’s surprised expression, she added, “I might not be a spring chicken, but I’m not computer illiterate. I can’t afford to be. I’m a business owner.”
Harper moved closer to the TV, and so did the others.
The footage showed empty blacktop and nothing else.
“Guest parking,” Shannon said and sped up the video.
When it showed movement at last, she reset it to normal speed.
“The bread truck,” Kennan and Harper said at the same time.
“I don’t get bread delivery.” Shannon shook her head. “Even when I have a full house, in season, I only provide breakfast. It’s nothing I can’t buy at the store myself.”
“We saw this truck at the pub earlier,” Harper told her, looking at his brother.
“We didn’t have any bread delivered today either.” Kennan leaned closer to the screen. “License plate is covered with mud, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same truck from earlier. When Allie’s ex grabbed her, he was parked behind this bread truck. Not our delivery guy, but I didn’t think anything of it. Delivery drivers stop by for food all the time. Doesn’t mean they’re dropping stuff off.”
They watched the driver, what they could see of him. The sun visor was down, covering half his face. He wore a dark hoodie, so his hair didn’t show anyway. Dark sunglasses covered his eyes. Stubble hid his face and chin.
“The Unabomber?” Mike asked dubiously.
Whoever he was, he was aware of the camera and kept his chin down as he backed the truck against the B and B. He left the driver-side door open so it’d block the camera from seeing more than his feet as he hurried to gain entry into the building.
“Do you keep the back door locked?”
Shannon nodded.
“He probably jimmied the lock,” Mike suggested.
Whatever was happening, the large truck blocked it from view. Ten minutes passed before the guy, head down, features hidden once again, slipped back behind the wheel and drove away.
“You think this is related to Zane Griffin?” Chase asked. “Want me to drive back to West Chester and question him about the bread truck? See if he brought a friend to help?”
“Let’s hold off on that.” Harper’s mind raced. “I don’t think the kidnapper is connected to Zane.” Although he wished it were otherwise, because if Zane knew anything, at least Harper would have a chance to pry information out of the little shit. “The note the kidnapper left says the girl for the gold. I think it’s related to Chuck Lamm’s murder.”
“But other than the police,” Mike scratched his chin, “nobody knows about the gold, except for the members of Lamm’s club. We didn’t release that piece of information. Wasn’t in the papers.”
“The killer knows too,” Harper said. The killer who’d stolen the gold and now wanted it back. Half a million dollars was a hell of a motive.
Chase stepped away. “I’ll put an APB out on the bread truck.”
“The rest of us could start looking,” Mike offered. “Check parking lots, driveways, especially those that are difficult to see from the road. If the kidnapper means to trade Allie for the gold, then he has to hang around.” He must have realized how on edge Harper was, because he hadn’t cracked a single joke since he’d gotten there.
“Hey.” Joe clapped Harper on the shoulder. “It’s more than nothing.”
“Not much more.” Harper wanted to tear the town apart with his bare hands.
“After I put out the APB, I’ll scroll through traffic-cam footage,” Chase told him as he dragged on his coat. “We might have something there. At least the cameras weren’t snowed in today.”
Harper was grateful, but didn’t hold out too much hope. Broslin didn’t have nearly enough traffic cams for full coverage. They didn’t have all that many traffic lights, period. Someone familiar with the town could easily keep to the back streets and evade being recorded.
“How about the fingerprints?” Shannon sniffed, pointing at the plastic-encased piece of paper on the table, covered in fingerprinting dust.
“The results will take days,” Harper told her. “And the prints might not be the kidnapper’s. He could have worn gloves. These could be prints from whoever packaged or sold the paper.”
“No phone number.” She picked up the evidence bag and held it up to Harper. “How are you supposed to call the kidnapper to tell him you’re ready to hand over the gold?”
“They usually do the calling.” Harper looked around. “So let’s start with setting up for that. He’ll call here. This is where he grabbed her. This is where he left the note. He’ll call the landline from a blocked number. Mike? I want you to stay here and wait for the call. Gabi?”
“Whatever you need.”
“Could you bring our call-tracing equipment over from the station?”
“On my way.”
As Gabi ran off, Shannon asked, “Is that like in the movies? It’ll tell us where the kidnapper is calling from?”
“It’ll tell us his number,” Mike responded. “Then we call that into the cell phone company, and they’ll triangulate his current location for us.”
“He won’t hurt Allie, will he?” Shannon put a hand on his arm, while her other hand held a couple of tissues in a death grip.
“No,” Harper said, as much for his own benefit as for hers. “He’s planning on trading her.”<
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Shannon pressed her trembling lips together. “I should have watched her better.”
The same sentence had been pounding through Harper’s brain since he’d found Allie gone.
“We had no way of knowing this would happen. This isn’t your fault,” he told Shannon, then he turned to the rest of the room. “All right. Let’s go and see if we can find that truck.”
Mike stayed with Shannon. Harper drove to Lamm’s place, hoping he’d find a new clue, something he’d overlooked before. In the kitchen, he stopped next to the bloodstain on the floor. His instincts said if he could figure out who killed Lamm, he would have the kidnapper. The chances that the two were separate people were slim. Most people were decent. Even those who might skirt the law here and there balked at top-level crime like murder and kidnapping.
Harper drummed down the stairs to the basement and walked the perimeter as he racked his brain. The supplies on the shelves were untouched as far as he could tell. The killer stole only the contents of the safe and nothing else.
All the people who knew the location of the safe were accounted for. They all had alibis. He’d cleared them all.
What had he missed?
Looking at the open, empty metal box in the cement floor made him think of the floor safe at Finnegan’s. They had the same brand, but not the same model.
Other than family, nobody knew they even had it under the carpet in the back office. And only the family had the code for the keypad.
Harper had been there the day the floor safe had been installed, the old wall safe replaced since they were enlarging the main dining room and the wall had to come down, the office made smaller—
The solution hit him as if he’d stepped on the tracks in front of a coming train: headlights blinding, whistle blaring. The answer was so obvious, he was an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. This whole damn time, it’d been staring him in the face.
He called his mother’s cell phone. When she didn’t pick up, he clicked off and dialed the bar phone at Finnegan’s next. It rang and rang before it went to voice mail.
Harper took off running.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
