Lethal Ransom

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “Air.” She gasped like someone who had been under water too long. “I need air.”

  Her hand dropped to the door handle. She flipped it open and scrambled from the car. Her sore feet inside the slipper socks the hospital provided hit the pavement too hard. The air smelled of exhaust from the nearby road, and wet concrete. But a stiff breeze blew the clouds from the sky and flowed around her like a warm, gentle touch, and her lungs expanded. She straightened, inhaled, and ran away from the confines of the car to—what?

  Something. She needed to get to something. Her condo so she could be alone and think and figure out why anyone wanted to kidnap her. To her office where she could look at her case files and figure out who might want to harm her. Back to the US marshal’s office to find out how she could trade herself for her mother’s freedom. She ran across the nearly empty parking lot and the lure of the nearby “L” station for a train she couldn’t ride because she didn’t have her purse for her transit pass nor her phone to access electronic tickets on the commuter train.

  She didn’t even have her office or condo keys. She didn’t have her handbag back yet.

  She realized at that moment she was crying. She stumbled to a halt beside a light pole. It was something to lean against, but it was cold and indifferent to how her insides felt, shredded.

  Footfalls sounded behind her. She supposed she should have flinched or taken off running again. After all, criminals wanted her and she had just stupidly run across a deserted parking lot at night. But she didn’t move. She knew who was racing after her, the deputy marshal whose broad shoulder would be so much nicer to lean on than the light pole, if he weren’t a man in uniform, or a suit, or any other symbol of a man one couldn’t count on to be around when needed.

  He was there at that moment, though.

  “I’m all right,” she said to ward him off. “I just needed air.”

  “I understand. My car’s a little small. But I don’t think this is the best place to get your supply of oxygen.”

  So soothing. So reasonable.

  She wanted to shout, I let my mother get kidnapped instead of me. Don’t be so nice to me.

  “Let’s get you someplace comfortable.”

  “I want to go home.”

  He hesitated a moment before saying what she knew he would. “I’m afraid I can’t let you go home right now.”

  “Is it a crime scene?”

  “Not at all, but it could be watched to see if you show up.”

  Of course it could.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, annoyed she hadn’t thought of that, shivering from the prospect that someone could remove her from her home without guaranteeing that her mother would go free.

  “Then where will I go?” she asked. “You won’t lock me up somewhere will you?”

  “We do have houses—”

  “No.” She faced him, hands up as though she could push him away. “I can’t be locked up somewhere. I have to do something. I have to get my mom back.”

  “We will, but we need your help to know why someone wants to abduct you.”

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. In spite of that SUV following me from work, I thought it was my mother who was the target. She seemed odd in the car. I thought she knew something. I thought—I’ve told you what I thought.”

  Nick nodded. His head was bowed over his phone, and he was texting, thumbs flying over the screen. The tone of incoming texts rang in continuous staccato bursts.

  Kristen glared at him more because she wanted her phone, her line to communicating with her friends, than because he wasn’t giving her any attention. She didn’t need his attention, especially if what he was doing meant her mother’s safe return. She hoped those texts had nothing to do with locking her away somewhere for her own good. What was good for her might not be good for her mother.

  Her feet hurting, she leaned against the pole and raised one leg to tuck her foot behind her knee and rest it. After a few moments, she switched legs.

  Nick glanced at her. “I’m sorry. I’m making arrangements and getting updates.”

  “Which are?”

  “I’m taking you to my sister’s house.”

  “I mean the updates.”

  His sister’s house sounded as bad as a lockup. The marshal and his family were strangers she didn’t know if she could trust.

  “We can pick up your phone and purse.” Nick slid his phone into his pocket.

  Kristen stared at him. “That’s your update? You all have nothing else?”

  “We thought we had the license plate of the SUV that took your mom.”

  Kristen straightened. “That’s good news, isn’t it? Can’t you trace it?”

  “We did. The plate doesn’t match the description of the vehicle.”

  “Stolen?”

  “The license plate was. We don’t know about the vehicle.” He held out his hand as though he expected her to take it and let him lead her back to his car as he started to walk forward. “Let’s go get your phone, then get you someplace safe and comfortable.”

  “Why is your sister’s house safe?”

  “Her husband’s a former cop who’s now a home security systems salesman.”

  “I can’t impose on strangers.” She fell into step beside him, only wincing slightly.

  “No one is a stranger to my sister.”

  “She’s a stranger to me.”

  “So am I, but you got in my car willingly several times now.” He flashed her a grin.

  Her toes curled inside the rubber-soled socks. “That’s different. You’re law enforcement.”

  “Fair enough.” They reached the car and he held the still open passenger door. “I can leave you at the marshal’s office when we stop for your phone and purse. They will take you to a safe house to wait until we free Her Honor.”

  She would be locked into a safe house for her own good. She knew that. She was a victims’ advocate and had reluctantly sent clients to such places for their protection, witnesses to horrendous crimes. People the Marshals Service had helped her make disappear. Now the marshals wanted to help her disappear for a while. A short while, she hoped.

  She glared at Nick—up at Nick. At five feet ten inches, she didn’t get to look up with many men.

  She dropped her gaze to remember the uniform and why she was with him in the first place. “I think I’m being manipulated, except I don’t know why you would prefer I go to your sister. If bad guys are after me, isn’t she in danger, security husband or not?”

  “It’s such a small risk anyone will trace you there, she’s willing to take it.” He released the door. “But let’s get going. This parking lot is too exposed, and we’ve been here too long.”

  She took the message for what it was—we might be watched—and slid into the Mustang. Nick closed her door before she reached for the handle, then rounded the hood to the driver’s side.

  They said nothing on the two-mile drive back to the marshal’s office, a quick trip at night with relatively little traffic on the road. Despite him running the air-conditioning, Kristen kept her window down for the free flow of air. She could think better with uncirculated air in her face. Yet thinking meant feeling and feeling brought guilt.

  She had done something that made bad guys want to harm her. They didn’t want a ransom. If so, they wouldn’t want her as exchange for her mother. Mom was worth more on the ransom market than Kristen.

  She didn’t know what the men wanted. She only knew their actions fell on her shoulders, were her fault, and she needed to find a way to stop them. She would find it regardless of the consequences.

  * * *

  Nick didn’t like Kristen’s silence. He liked her panic even less. She was strong-looking in appearance, gorgeous with those lake-blue eyes, high cheekbones and athletic build. Yet Kristen’s appearance was dece
iving. She was as fragile in her spirit as petite Michele, his deceased fiancée, had been, maybe more so. Michele had come across as confident in her worth, in her belief others’ kindnesses to her were deserved. And they had been. Michele was one of the most giving people he knew, a true servant of the Lord’s.

  Yet in the end, that open heart of hers had been her undoing. She thought she was safe no matter what part of the city she ventured into because she helped so many people in need. Michele had trusted God to keep her safe. She had trusted the wrong people, and they had killed her. Nick suspected Kristen trusted no one, which might be just as dangerous to her safety as believing in the goodness of others.

  Or that God would take care of her.

  Nick shook off that thought. His family had been helping him to regain his faith since Michele’s death. Yet sometimes, doubt reared its ugly head.

  Kristen was not Michele. Kristen was strictly business. He was assigned to protect her. Protect her he would—with his life if necessary. He would not fail her as he had failed to be with Michele when she needed him most.

  He had failed her. God hadn’t.

  Along the lines of protecting Kristen, Nick pulled into the parking garage, but texted for someone to bring her personal items to them. She didn’t need to be walking on her battered feet. That meant the two of them sat in his car, Nick vigilant for all the garage was secure, and Kristen silent, still gazing out the window until another deputy marshal brought her purse and two laptop computers, her mother’s and hers, to the car. She thanked the courier, then fell silent again until Nick pulled onto the street.

  “They’re not going to question me further now that they know these men are after me and not my mother?” Kristen spoke at last.

  “They will, but not until tomorrow.” He headed to Lake Shore Drive and the north end of the city.

  Beside him, Kristen clutched her hands on her knees. “Isn’t that too late? Wouldn’t talking to me tonight help them find her sooner?”

  “Do you know any reason why someone would want to harm you?” He countered her question with a question, the obvious question she had surely been asking herself since he informed her of what they had heard from the kidnappers.

  She shook her head. “I can look on my computer, search case files for possibilities.”

  “But you can’t share that information with us because of confidentiality laws, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So we need to see what the kidnappers’ demands are.”

  “But you know already. They want me.” She bent her head and muttered something like, “And they can have me.”

  Nick inhaled the clean, crisp scent of the lake blowing through the open passenger window. “Of course they can’t have you. We would never exchange one person for another. And right now, we don’t even know where they want to make such an exchange.”

  “And when we do?”

  “When the Marshals Service knows, they will act appropriately.” He wanted to offer her some comfort, something proactive. “Meanwhile, think of someone who holds a grudge against you so we can get permission for you to release that information.”

  She needed to eat and rest, if he could get her to do either. He hoped his sister Gina, could. She was good at persuading people to do what was best for them. She had brought him back from the brink after his fiancée’s death.

  Call it what it is—her murder.

  Killed because he had been working and couldn’t help her when she got a flat tire, and she walked to an “L” station.

  He understood how Kristen must be feeling at that moment. He supposed that was why his boss had assigned Nick to watch over her, to protect her. Callahan knew Nick would give her sympathy, even empathy.

  He wondered if he should tell her about Michele. Twice before their exit, he opened his mouth to say he knew how she felt, but closed it again. Gina might have forced him to eat and rejoin the world, to keep going until the grief eased, but she hadn’t been able to get him to talk about Michele to anyone. Those thoughts and feelings were between him and God. He wasn’t going to change anything with a lady he barely knew and was unlikely to see again in twenty-four hours, except on a wholly passing way if she came to the courthouse.

  “The waiting is terrible,” he said at last.

  She nodded.

  “And you keep thinking about what you could have done differently.”

  “I could have stayed with her instead of running.”

  Nick flipped on his blinker to take them into the heart of the Lakeview neighborhood. “What good would that have done?”

  “They would have let her go if they had me.” She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “I would know they weren’t hurting her.”

  “Or they would have kept you both and harmed you both.”

  Nick wished he knew her well enough to know how she would react if he touched her hand, her shoulder, gave her that bit of human contact so comforting in times of distress. He didn’t know her, though, so kept his distance.

  Off a more major thoroughfare, he turned onto a relatively quiet street and stopped in front of a four-flat building with a carriage house behind. “My sister and her husband live in the carriage house.”

  “I wanted to live in a carriage house, but I could never find one I could afford.” She popped open her door and climbed out before he could reach her side. “Can you park here?”

  “They’ll have a sticker for me.” Nick gathered up her belongings, such as they were, and carried them through the open gate. “I’m going to ask Sean, my brother-in-law, to lock this for the night.”

  Kristen stared at him. In the light of the security lamps, her face was sickly pale. “You don’t think I’m safe here.”

  “Kristen—” He stopped.

  Her wide-eyed horror roused his sympathy so much, he doubted he could keep an emotional distance from her.

  “Kristen,” he began again, “I don’t think you’re safe anywhere. This is just the best place at the moment if you don’t want to be locked away in a safe house until we hear more from the kidnappers.”

  As if to respond to his statement, a cell phone rang. Kristen jumped. Nick reached for his phone. Nothing showed on the screen, and the ringing continued.

  “It’s mine.” She was fumbling in her bag. A pack of tissues, a tube of lip balm and three peppermints landed on the sidewalk before she drew the phone from the suitcase she called a purse.

  “Let me.” Nick held out his hand.

  But she was already answering. “Hello?”

  She lowered the phone so it switched to speaker mode, and Nick heard the response as clearly as she did.

  “Please,” said a whispery voice, “do whatever they say. They’ll kill me otherwise.”

  “Mom? Is that you? What are they—?”

  A scream interrupted her, and then the call was disconnected.

  FOUR

  The phone slipped from Kristen’s nerveless fingers. Nick caught it before it hit the pavement. He stared at the screen. She stared at him. His face was grim. Hers felt bloodless, nerveless, stiff. She thought she might be sick or cry again or, worst of all, fling herself against Nick’s broad chest and cling to him as the only thing in her world that appeared solid.

  “Blocked call.” Nick sounded matter-of-fact.

  Of course he did. This was his job. He dealt in potential danger or the real thing every day.

  “Let’s get you inside.” He held his hand out to her as he had in the parking lot, a kind gesture of support.

  She took it, holding on perhaps a little too tightly. “My mom—” That was all she managed through her constricted throat.

  She sounded like a lost child and wanted to kick herself for not being stronger in this crisis.

  “We don’t know that was your mother.” Nick paused and looked behind them.

&n
bsp; Checking for someone lurking in the shadows between streetlights?

  All was quiet save for a bass guitar thumping from inside the building to their right and the distant rumble of the elevated train a couple blocks away. Nothing moved but tree branches in a light breeze, but those movements created shadows, and Kristen wanted to race into the carriage house tucked behind the block of four apartments.

  A light burned over the front door of the house and more light shone behind filmy curtains at the windows. Light spoke of welcome, shelter, rest. Kristen would love all those things if not for that scream echoing through her skull.

  “I can’t imagine my mother screaming, but someone can be made to scream against their will.” She admitted the truth.

  “They can under duress.” Still holding her hand, his fingers warm and strong, Nick led the way up the steps of the porch.

  The minute their footfalls echoed on the boards, the front door opened to a rush of cooled air and a spill of lamplight. “Nick, you made it at last.”

  The woman standing in the doorway was probably a decade older than Kristen’s twenty-five, and as pretty as her brother was handsome, with her long, dark hair in a ponytail, her deep brown eyes and sculptured cheekbones. She smiled with a warmth that put the summer night to shame. “Hi, I’m Gina. Come on in and let me feed you.”

  “You don’t need to go to any trouble on my behalf.” Kristen doubted she could eat.

  “No trouble.” She fixed her eyes on Nick. “Speaking of trouble, our big sister says you’re in trouble for not calling her to say you’re not coming to dinner after all.”

  “I forgot.” Nick’s ears looked red. “Now may we come in before you assassinate my character in front of Kristen?”

  Not an assassination to Kristen, just a confirmation. She knew all about jobs that made men unreliable for showing up to dinner. Her father had been that way all her life. Once she tried to get him home early. She was learning to cook and made him a special meal for his birthday. He promised to be home. He arrived long after she had placed everything in the refrigerator, washed the dishes and gone to bed. An emergency at work had been her father’s excuse, his apology accompanied by a gift certificate to her favorite store. Not even a gift.