by Linda Ladd
“So they want to get rid of them.” Black was so angry, his voice shook. “We need to get out there and find them. Now.”
Novak turned to him. “Think about this. If they wanted Claire dead, her body would have been out there on that riverbank. They didn’t hide their other victims. They shoot people and leave them behind. That’s their M.O. Why not throw all of the victims to the gators, if that was the plan? Claire is still alive. I can feel it. I know it. We just need to get to her, and my bet is on that baby house, or whatever it is. We need to find it. They know I rescued Allison and she could’ve told me about that place. If we don’t hit it soon, they’ll shut it down.”
Black pushed his chair back and started roaming again. He’d had very little sleep, that was obvious, and the worry was eating him alive, so he needed to get some rest or he was going to crash hard. Black stopped in midstride and said, “I can get us satellite images of the Everglades pinpointing structures, but I can’t see them having a place out here anywhere, either. Park rangers are everywhere and so are tourists. Close to the parks, maybe, but not inside.”
Osceola watched Black turn back abruptly to the window and gaze outside. The rain had begun in earnest again. It spattered the windowpanes and cast silver-speckled reflections across Black’s tired face.
“I’ve got boats out there looking, but I tell you what, I’m ready to pull my whole family out of this thing before somebody else gets hurt.”
“None of us would blame you for that, Eldon.”
Eldon sighed heavily. “Well, I’m still in but I might withdraw my men. I want to find whoever shot down those boys.”
Black nodded. “The helicopter’s going back in the air as soon as the rain lets up. I’m not going to stop.”
“We’re gonna find her, Dr. Black,” Lori Garner said. She had been quiet, but she was affected by both Eldon’s and Black’s pain. “Novak’s right about this. We find that house, we find her, maybe both of them.We’re wasting time standing here and jawing about it.”
Black spun around and stared at Lori, as if he had just noticed her presence. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Lori Garner, and I’m here because Novak asked me to be here. From the stories he’s told me about your wife, she’s a serious, capable, well-trained police officer. That tells me she’s likely to know how to keep herself alive until we can get to her. Moreover, and trust me on this, Doctor, she is carrying your baby, and she’ll protect it above all else. She’ll cooperate in whatever way she has to with those guys, and she’ll do whatever it takes to keep herself and her child safe. She’ll know we’re out there looking, and she’ll be expecting us to find her. That’s why she’ll hold on until we get there. And we will get there.”
Novak could tell that Black was startled by her levelheaded assessment. Novak was not. Lori was a woman who had her head on straight and usually said what she thought and said it well. Novak was glad she’d been the one to say it. It brought Black down a notch, because she was as calm and logical as he was agitated. Claire was a survivor and always had been, and they all needed to remember that.
“That’s true. She’ll hold on as long as she can,” Black agreed, locking gazes with Lori. “When we do find them, I’m going to make them pay for taking her and killing Eldon’s boys. Are you up for that, Ms. Garner?”
Black was not himself, and that was the understatement of the year. Confronting her needlessly was out of character for him. Although he knew Lori would not like it, Novak answered for her. “She knows what she’s doing. She served this country in the military, first as an MP and then as an Army sniper in Iraq—and not that long ago. Lori will hold up her end, all right, and she’ll have our backs. Believe me, Black. I’ve seen her in action.”
Lori wasn’t one to be talked around. “Damn right, I can hold my own. I will, and I can damn well speak for myself, Novak. I don’t need you telling people what I think.”
Black glanced at Novak, and then looked at Eldon. “All this talking is pointless. When did your search parties check in last? I need to get back out there.”
“Twenty minutes ago.” He frowned at Black’s impatience. “Most of them are a little upset, you know, and not yet used to the idea that two of our young family members were just murdered on Novak’s boat, and that several more were gunned down at the river with one dead and two in the hospital. Some of us here lost family members helping you get your wife back. Best you remember that, sir.”
Black no doubt heard his rebuke, loud and clear. His anger faded instantly, and his face flushed with guilt. “I’m sorry. I am truly sorry. I just can’t stand her being out there and not knowing where she is. I am so grateful that you’re helping us. I’m sorry those boys lost their lives, Eldon. Forgive me.”
Eldon nodded acknowledgment of his apology. “We’re short on men now, so I contacted Sheriff Walsh, and he’s agreed to help us from here on out. They’re mobilizing county helicopters and multiple airboats, and they’re keeping me posted on the half hour. If your wife’s out there somewhere, we can most likely find her. He’s also setting up checkpoints on the surrounding rural roads. I gave my boys the opportunity to stand down. None of them took it.”
“And we’re grateful to them,” Black said quickly. “We need all the help we can get. Hold on a sec.” He pulled out his vibrating phone and looked at the screen. “It’s my private number, the one just for Claire. It’s FaceTime.”
“Then it’s her. Pick up, quick,” Novak told him.
The room got quiet. Black looked afraid of what he’d hear, and Novak understood why. Black hit the speaker option.
“Claire? Where are you?”
“Sorry, not Claire, huh uh, but she’s right here.” It was audio only, a man’s voice, muffled and low. Novak wasn’t sure it was Max Kellen. It didn’t sound like him.
“Let me talk to Claire. You better not hurt her.”
“Of course not, she’s fine. I’ll let you talk to her if you’re a good boy.”
Another flush ran up and darkened Black’s face, and this was pure anger. The expression did not bode well for Kellen when Black found him. “What do you want? Let me talk to her.”
“Don’t be impatient, Doctor. We’re taking good care of her, I promise. We’re feeding her prenatal vitamins and everything.”
Anxious, Novak stood up and moved behind Black. He wanted to see the screen. He wanted to see Claire’s face so he’d know she was okay. He wanted Claire to appear on the other end of that line, alive and well. A man’s head was visible, but he had on a black ski mask to disguise his features.
“Let me talk to my wife. Now.”
“We know you want her back. Of course you do, her being with child and all that. So, listen up, here’s what you’re going to do if you want to see her again. You’re going to scrape together, oh, let’s say, five million dollars, ready for a wire transfer to an offshore account.”
Black’s hard features relaxed. He got calm fast, relieved something was finally happening and that Claire was being ransomed. That meant she wasn’t dead yet. Novak felt encouraged, too.
“I want to see her right now or I’m not going to deal,” Black told him. “I want to see that she’s all right, and then I want to talk to her. Do that, or I’m out.”
“Of course you do.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s right here beside me and perfectly fine.”
“Put her on, goddamn you.”
The speaker slowly turned the screen around until the headboard of a bed appeared. A woman was handcuffed to the bedrail with duct tape over her mouth. She was covered with a white blanket. It was Claire, all right, no doubt about it. Novak’s heart took a glad leap because she looked okay. The camera moved up closer and focused on her face. Her big blue eyes were open and calmly surveying the camera. Her face was scratched up some, but her blond hair looked clean, and so did th
e bedsheets and wall behind the bed. He could see no visible injuries except a glimpse of a small bandage on her arm.
“I want to talk to her,” Black demanded. “Take off that damn tape and put her on.”
“Sorry, can’t do that. Not until you show us a bit of good faith. By the way, ordering me around in that tone won’t cut it, Doctor. I’m not one of your hospital flunkies. What I am is the one who decides if your wife lives or dies. Don’t ever forget that. I hold her life in the palm of my hand. I can snuff her out on a whim.”
That’s when Black blew it. He became so furious so fast that he actually shook as he tried to control the overwhelming rage. Novak stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, man. Easy now.”
It took a few seconds, but somehow Black sucked it up. “If you hurt her, I swear to God, I’ll hunt you down and I’ll kill you in the worst way possible.”
“Now what did I just say? Guess I need to teach you a lesson in manners. Watch this. This is what is going to happen every time you show me disrespect.”
He turned the cellphone and focused on a man standing beside Claire. That man wore a similar ski mask, and he made a show of placing his hands around Claire’s throat. Black stood rigid as he began to choke off her air until she started struggling to breathe.
“Stop it, stop. I’ll pay whatever you want. Where do you want me to send it?”
The screen returned to the caller. “All right, now we can deal like two gentlemen. You get that money together for a wire transfer, no cops, no FBI, and I’ll call you back when I get around to it. Don’t try to trace this phone, because it won’t do you any good. It’s a burner, and I’m going to disable it as soon as we hang up.”
The screen went to black. They all sat in silence. Then Black muttered a string of curses. “They’re lying,” Black said after a moment. “He’s never going to let her go. They’ll kill her as soon as I give them the money. She can tell a jury about their whole damn setup. They won’t risk that.”
“Maybe not. Or they may keep her until after the baby’s born. That way they’ll double the ransom,” Novak said.
“Whatever. Look, you’ve got no choice but to do exactly what he told you to do,” Lori said. “Can you get that kind of money together?”
“Of course,” Black said. “That’s no problem.”
“He’s loaded,” Novak told her. “He can get it.”
Novak believed that finding the house was the real key to keeping Claire alive. He also believed, just like Black, that they’d kill her as soon as Black paid up. “I’m telling you, if we can locate that place, the one where they took Allison, we can get Claire before anything bad happens.”
“I’m going to make some calls and get the money together,” Black told them. “So you need to concentrate on finding that house, Novak. At least I know she’s alive now.” He strode out of the room, already talking on his cell.
“Well, she looks in good health. That’s something,” Lori said.
“We need to get satellite pictures ASAP. Eldon, you think the sheriff can get those for us? I’ve got some friends contacted for that, too, but I haven’t heard back from them yet. Black does, too.”
Osceola nodded. “I’ll ask him. He’s probably on his way out here. He might be down on our dock with his boats by now. Let’s go see what he’s found out.”
Novak wanted to know more about the sheriff. “You trust this guy to work with us? Maybe he could cut some procedural corners if we have to?”
“I trust him, but we’re not friends. This thing is inside his jurisdiction, so he’s calling the shots. I don’t have a choice. He has to come in.”
“Good. We need all the help we can get,” Lori said.
Novak knew things could get worse in a hurry, but Claire was still alive and uninjured. She was locked up in a house somewhere in the area. All they had to do was find it. He and Lori followed Eldon out of the room and into the pouring rain. Now the weather was against them, too. Great, just great.
Chapter 16
Sheriff Chris Walsh and some of his men were waiting for them down at the Safari’s covered boat dock. Walsh was a tall man, heavy in the gut, with big rough hands that had seen many a day of manual labor. He stood under the gray corrugated roof, and the rain slamming it sounded like a particularly brutal kettle drum solo. It was so noisy that the sheriff had to shout, but what he came out with was good news. “One of my deputies remembers a house that meets the description you guys gave us. Enough so, in fact, that we think it’s probably the one you’re looking for.”
“Where is it? How far from here?” Eldon asked him quickly.
“Not sure exactly, but outside the park. Close, though, in a swampy area where the floodwaters empty out into the wetlands. Whoever lives out there could probably hide forever before anybody happens upon them. We’re lucky Dylan remembered seeing that place.”
Novak glanced at Black. His friend’s face remained impassive. He’d seen Claire, and she had been alive, after he’d lived consumed with the fear that she was dead for days. Now he had something to hold on to. More important, he could finally do something about it. All their faces were haggard; every single one of them was fighting fatigue and sleep deprivation.
“Can we go onto that property legally?” Novak asked the sheriff. He wanted to get out there before Kellen had a chance to move Claire. If he got a whiff of trouble coming his way, she’d be gone.
“We can, but we need cause. I can get you permission from a judge, providing this place is located in my county, but we’re not sure it is yet. I’ve got a call in to the county assessor to make sure but haven’t heard back from her. Ditto the park rangers. Pretty sure they’ll give us permission to go through the Everglades. They’re pretty good about cooperating when we have reason to enter the park. They work well with all the agencies around here.”
“If we don’t move out right now,” Black insisted, “we’ll lose momentum and the element of surprise.”
Walsh looked at him. “I agree. Permission is forthcoming, so I say we go ahead and get on the move. We may have to stop somewhere until the warrant’s signed, but the judge gave us permission to surveil the place, so my men are out there watching as we speak. They haven’t been spotted, and they won’t be, because they know what they’re doing. They’ll stop anybody who gets wind of the raid and tries to run. You’re sure there are kidnapped babies out there? That’s a fact?”
“Not a hundred percent certain, but it’s worth checking out,” Novak told him. “I got it from a victim’s personal account.”
Eldon said, “We need everything nailed down, nice and neat, Sheriff. These guys are bad news. They need to be put away for good. We need to coordinate a plan that will work for all of us. Worst thing we can do is blunder in there blind and screw up. If that happens, Claire’s the one who’ll pay the price.”
Apparently, that same outcome was running through Black’s mind. He wanted to move in now, this minute. “I’m telling you, Novak, once that judge hears that we’re talking about babies being abducted out of their cribs and brought in illegally to this country, he’ll sign it. I say we get out there now.”
Walsh nodded. “Judge Bloodworth is aware of what’s been going on and is ready to sign. I got a man there waiting to bring the warrant to us straightaway. I talked to John briefly, and he’s already on board with this thing. He remembered a case last October where a six-month-old baby was taken out of a stroller in front of The Other Side Bistro in Bonita Springs. The mom was busy buckling her other two children into car seats. When she turned around to get the baby, he was gone. Nobody heard anything; nobody saw who took him. The whole town was outraged, so public opinion will come down on our side if this raid goes sideways.”
Novak was satisfied, just so they got that warrant in hand and made everything kosher from the get-go. This thing had to be airtight. Max Kellen was a lawyer with
lots of legal connections and some mystery man backing him. Novak did not want to see him get off on any kind of legal technicality. Black was in too deep and way too anxious and upset to think things through. He needed to settle down, or he was going to make a mistake that could cost Claire her life. If that happened, Black would never forgive himself.
“Give me the GPS coordinates and let’s go.” That was Black again.
Novak understood the need to act quickly as well as anybody, but they had to do it right. “Tell me more about this house, Sheriff Walsh. Who exactly found it and how?”
“One of my deputies remembered seeing it when he was out looking for a missing boater.” Walsh turned around and gestured at a young guy sitting under the pilot canopy in one of the sheriff’s airboats. “Dylan! Come up here!”
His deputy jumped up and ran up through the drenching rain. Walsh introduced him. “This is Deputy Dylan Moore. He does most of our routine boat patrols in the water around the Everglades proper. Tell them what you saw out there, Dylan.”
“Yes, sir.” Dylan snapped out. He was a young man with a brisk manner, bronzed from hours spent out on the water with buzzed blond hair and clean-shaven cheeks. Otherwise, he was ordinary looking, maybe even nondescript, probably twenty-five or so. He had on a tan county sheriff’s uniform under a black rain poncho emblazoned with the word POLICE in big fluorescent yellow letters.
“Yes sir, I had a feeling I’d seen that house when they described it to us. I remember it from another case we worked. Some fishermen went missing in a storm, and we were searching out around the perimeter of the grasses for a floater when I heard a baby crying. The sound carried out over the water to us, I guess, but I didn’t think much about it at the time. You find houses built out there now and again, but they’re few and far between. I just figured at first it was some camper. It took me a minute to spot the house because it’s pretty much hidden behind trees, but it fits your description to a T. When the crying faded away, we figured the kid was all right, so we went right back to the search.”