“Mrs. Boyle,” he said, having obtained her name from the pin on her blouse, “you’ve been very helpful. Now, if I could ask you one more thing. If anyone comes in here asking about either of these deliveries, act as if we haven’t been here. Can you do that?”
Eyes suddenly wide, she quickly nodded. She hadn’t expected cloak-and-dagger. “Sure. I’m in community theater.”
“Then, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he told her, the glance he shot Rio saying he hoped she wouldn’t carry her acting abilities too far. “And if anyone does come in here asking about either of these deliveries, call my cell number or call the station and ask either for me or a Detective Stryker.” He wrote Stryker’s name on the back of his card and handed it to her. “You won’t forget now, will you?”
Eyes still wide, she shook her head.
Rio didn’t have a whole lot of faith in the woman’s promised silence. She’d looked so antsy when he and Stone walked out the door, he figured they’d be gone about eight seconds before she’d be on the phone to her husband or a girlfriend. Desperate that Eve’s and Molly’s safety not be jeopardized, he sent up a prayer that the woman would keep her word. In the past hour, he’d prayed more than he had in the past ten years.
They’d barely hit the sidewalk before Stone started pumping him.
“What can you tell me about this area?”
“There’s nothing there. No campgrounds. No cabins. No potable water. It’s just forest, mountains and a couple of rutted roads.”
“Think he’s keeping them someplace else?”
Unless someone had brought in camping equipment, Rio was inclined to think so. He found that to be the consensus, too, back at the station, where he proceeded, once again, to pace the polish off the floor. By the time a map had been tacked up on a conference room wall and a time line drawn out on a chalkboard, a few other possibilities had also been agreed on. For one thing, it seemed apparent from the delivery schedule that whoever they were dealing with figured the police would be ready to trace any call made to Rio, so that little trap had been eliminated by writing out the instructions. And since it didn’t seem likely that Molly and Eve were being kept at the pickup point, that could only mean that the kidnapper intended to drop them off. Careful as the kidnapper was about not having a call traced, it seemed a fair assumption that whoever was doing the dropping planned to be long gone before Rio got there.
The contingency their abductor hadn’t counted on, however, was Rio obtaining his instructions ahead of time. Because he had, he and the police were waiting in the trees the next morning when the sun began to rise.
Chapter Twelve
The logging road was much as Rio remembered it. It was less than half a mile long, and ended at a clear-cut that had already begun to regenerate itself. Foot-tall firs poked through a maze of flat stumps and pinecones, the large clearing surrounded by a thick choke of scrub and towering trees. The only access to the logging road was the narrow, graded dirt lane that was used mostly for fire protection.
Because there was nothing around for miles, other than forest and rocky, steep-sloped mountains, the only logical place to intercept the kidnapper was at the intersection of the logging and fire service roads. Any vehicle coming through would have to pass there twice. Since the safety of the victims was uppermost, Stone had told him that the kidnapper’s vehicle would be allowed to pass on the way in. Then, once Eve and Molly had been released and were out of harm’s way, the kidnapper would be netted on the way out.
It seemed to Rio that only someone arrogant or stupid would box himself in like that. It also seemed to him that, like all plans, their own was far from foolproof.
That thought was still taunting him as he leaned against the fender of an unmarked police car, staring into the fading darkness and sucking in the sweet scent of pine and loamy earth.
The haunting hoot of an owl drifted from somewhere high in the towering trees. Leaves rustled with the movement of some nocturnal animal on the prowl. A coyote yipped in the distance. Another, farther away, called back. It was that ephemeral time of day between dark and dawn when night creatures lie in wait for rabbits and rodents coming from burrows and dens. Nature looking for a meal before bedtime.
Lying in wait for whoever had taken Eve and Molly were half a dozen officers dressed in dark navy pants and baseball jackets. Some of those jackets had Sheriff spelled out on the back, others Police.
Rio, in dark jeans and a denim jacket, couldn’t see any of them. The patrol cars were hidden in the trees, lights off. The men themselves were hidden, too. Each man had a two-way radio and his service revolver. The three sharpshooters positioned in a triangle at the intersection had sniper’s rifles.
Rio had his bare hands.
“I mean it, Rio,” Stone whispered from beside him. “You stay out of this.”
“If he’s touched one hair on either of their heads…”
“I know you want to rip out a throat,” Stone cut in, “but you won’t do Eve and your daughter any good in jail or dead. The only reason you’re here is because you know these woods.”
The faint crackle of static had Stone lifting his radio to his mouth to respond to a fifteen-minute check-in. Edgy with waiting, Rio turned to the narrow strip of dirt a few yards away. Now that dawn was breaking, the men were on full alert, all eyes trained on the roads.
Rio tried to detach himself, to step back and look at the situation as he might have under different circumstances. He should have found it all very interesting: the logistics, the timing, the heavy anticipation. He couldn’t have detached himself had his life depended on it.
The summons on the radio hadn’t been a check-in, after all.
“Station 2’s got `em in sight.”
Stone made the announcement in a flat whisper, pointing to his right to indicate the direction, then motioned to his partner. Brad Canfield slipped silently out of the car, his features masked beneath the brim of his dark baseball cap, and took position behind a tree at the edge of the road.
It was only seconds before Rio heard the hum of a car engine and the crunch of gravel being eaten up and spewn out by tires. Whoever was driving wasn’t taking time to enjoy the sunrise.
Even if he hadn’t heard the vehicle, Rio would have known the course of the car by the radio reports traveling from man to man as they closed ranks behind the unsuspecting sedan. The car was dark in color. Midnight blue or black. No one could tell yet. There were three adults inside—two appeared to be male and were pulling on ski masks. One driving and one in back. The woman in the front passenger seat was blindfolded. The child couldn’t be seen.
“She’s probably in back,” Stone said to Rio. “They’re keeping them separated as insurance.”
Rio didn’t have to ask what his friend meant. If something went wrong when Eve got out, they would still have Molly.
He heard the car’s engine change pitch when it slowed to turn onto the logging road. Its headlights momentarily illuminating the pine boughs camouflaging the unmarked car, it picked up speed again as it shot past where Rio, Stone and Canfield waited.
Rio had been told that he and Stone would head for Molly and Eve to make sure they were all right, then he would stay with them in the trees while Stone joined Canfield, who was to block the road with their vehicle after the sedan passed again. The other two police cars were already pulling into position on the road from which the sedan had just turned.
From their station halfway between the clearing and the three-way intersection, Rio watched the sedan’s taillights dim, then brighten again as the brake lights came on.
He was about to move, anyway, when Stone motioned him forward. The pale light of morning was beginning to reveal shades of green amid the gray. That meant they would be seen on the road. Not willing to risk that, they moved just inside the protection of the trees, covering the ground like two dark, powerful cats intent on prey. Coming to a silent stop in the thicket at the edge of a clearing, they saw that the sedan had stopped t
wenty yards away.
The driver was already out. Of average height and slender, his red ski mask defying anyone to guess hair color or features, he jerked open the passenger door. Every muscle in Rio’s body tensed when he saw him haul Eve out by the upper arm, then shove her away. The white cloth tied around her eyes made it impossible for her to see, and she stumbled on the uneven ground. Catching her by the front of the same peach-colored shirt Rio had last seen her in, her captor shoved his finger at her face and said something Rio couldn’t hear. Eve couldn’t see the intimidating gesture, but whatever it was her captor said made her nod and stand perfectly still.
She had to be positively terrified.
Neither Rio nor Stone took their eyes from the car as the second man emerged, but Rio felt Stone’s restraining hand on his arm. The warning wasn’t necessary. As hard as it was watching Eve being manhandled, he wasn’t about to endanger her more by tearing out after the guy.
The second man was shorter, stockier, and his black mask and dark clothes gave him the ominous look of an executioner. Seeming more annoyed than impatient, he exchanged a few words with the red mask before pushing the passenger seat forward and pulling Molly out much as his partner had done with Eve. Instead of making her stumble her way to her mother, though, he picked her up by the shoulders, her bare feet dangling, then set her down next to her mother. Whatever he said to the child, it had her nodding the same way Eve had done.
Stone’s attention was on the men as the driver climbed back into the car. All Rio cared about were the two people clinging to each other in the clearing of stumps and short, feathery pines. For all Eve knew, she and Molly were being left in the middle of nowhere without food or water. And though his relief to see them visibly unharmed was enormous, he could only imagine what was going through Eve’s mind as she tried to soothe her daughter.
Stone lifted his radio to his mouth. The driver had turned the sedan around and was about to head back down the logging road. At least, that was what it appeared he was going to do until Stone realized that the other abductor wasn’t getting in with him.
Canfield hadn’t waited to hear that part. A second after Stone reported that the sedan had turned, the rumble of the unmarked car’s engine being fired had the man in the black mask spinning around.
Rio saw Eve’s head snap toward the sound, too. Then all hell broke loose.
Moving faster than Rio would have thought possible for someone his size, the man in the black mask bolted for the sedan. He caught up with it as it stopped just beyond the clearing, jerked open the passenger door and dove inside. Seconds later, the sedan shot backward, engine roaring and gravel flying from under the front wheels like shrapnel spray.
The sedan was nearly even with Stone and Rio when an arm appeared out the passenger window. The sharp pop of a gun echoed through the forest, frightened birds scattering. Seconds later, an answering shot rang through the air. At the same instant, a white spiderweb glazed the middle of the sedan’s windshield, a neat black hole forming its center. The car swerved as its back wheel rolled up and over a stump, but neither man appeared to be hit.
The gunfire had Eve ripping off her mask. Swinging Molly up in her arms, she looked frantically left then right.
Seeing how unprotected she was, Rio crouched to run.
Stone swore, then yelled for him to stay down.
“Behind you!” Rio shouted to Eve, realizing she could take cover long before he could get to them. “Get into the trees behind you!”
She couldn’t see him. “Rio?”
“Go!”
Eve was far closer to the shelter of those trees than she was to him and Stone. Shoving Molly’s head to her shoulder, she ran for a copse of aspen as the driver of the sedan gunned the engine, trying to move the car from where he’d high-centered it on the stump. That wasn’t where Rio wanted her to go. He’d meant for her to head into the pines. They were thicker, their trunks more dense. But, small as she was, she darted between the slender white trees with the agility of a doe, then seemed to fade into the shadows.
Rio had no idea what Stone had barked into his radio, but the unmarked police car was suddenly at the head of the road, skidding to a stop at the edge of the clearing. Its door flew open, and Canfield, revolver drawn, fell into a crouch behind it, using it as a shield. The passenger side of the kidnapper’s sedan faced Rio. Tilted as it was with its right rear tire in the air, its driver’s door popped open, too, the thug in the red mask mirroring the cop’s position as a quick succession of echoing blasts returned Canfield’s fire.
The noise was deafening, the cacophony growing with the thunder of the other two police cars barreling up the road. But it was the flash of movement that had Rio’s muscles primed. The guy in the black mask had crawled out the driver’s side and was darting for the aspens. Within seconds, he was inside the copse. The shadows there shielded him, but a red stripe across the back of his shirt was as clear as a beacon to Rio.
The man wasn’t trying to get away. He was following Eve and Molly.
He was after hostages.
Rio didn’t think. He just moved. Leaving Stone yelling after him, he tore into the clearing at a dead run, jumping the stumps he didn’t skirt and bolting behind the sedan. Whatever Stone yelled had the barrage of police fire suddenly stopping, but Rio could hear the sharp report of the kidnapper’s gun and the shrieking hiss of a bullet whizzing past his head as he dove into the aspens. A second bullet ricocheted off one of the white trunks, leaving the splintered wood looking like a spray of toothpicks.
Ahead of him he could hear what sounded like a bear crashing through brush. Pure adrenaline pumping through his veins, he stayed on that sound, instinctively following the path of small broken branches on the trees. From above him came the escalating drone of a helicopter. From behind, the whine of bullets ripping the air.
He thought the helicopter was getting closer when he caught sight of the red stripe on the dark shirt. But all he cared about as the aspens opened onto a dry and rocky streambed was that the moose in the black mask was ten feet behind Eve and that there was no way in hell he was going to let him touch her.
The early morning light glinted off the man’s silver pistol just before Rio, heart hammering, closed the five-yard gap between them and dove for his legs.
“Son of a…”
The angry oath ended in a grunt as the man hit the ground. He went down hard as a felled oak, which meant Rio did, too, since his own body was first to meet the unyielding bed of football-size rocks. There was no time for pain to register. The moose twisted around with a feral growl, arms swinging as Rio grabbed for the gun in his fist and a scream rent the air.
The scream was Molly’s. Eve was too terrified to make a sound. She just kept stumbling backward, trying to protect Molly and watching in horror as the monster that had tormented her with details of what would happen to her daughter and to Rio if he didn’t drop his investigation of Olivia’s murder grappled with what she swore was an apparition. She couldn’t believe Rio was there. Yet she couldn’t bear to believe that he wasn’t.
As if in slow motion, she saw Rio twist her abductor’s arm away, heard his vicious oath as the other man’s beefy body bucked trying to break free. A gold ring flashed like a flame as a thick fist swung at Rio’s head.
The oath from the man in the mask was even more profane. He’d missed.
The look on Rio’s face would have scared her to death had she not been scared to death already. Pure rage leaked from every pore of his body, power rippling from him like a panther in full attack. What the other man had on him in size, Rio had in the visceral fury of a man protecting his own. But the other man still had a gun. And his hand was now free.
The muffled pop melded with the shouts coming from behind them. Rio jerked back, grabbing his arm. The monster scrambled to his feet, but before he could take better aim, the double ping of two rifles fired a split second apart registered over the blood pounding in Eve’s ears. The monster’s arms flew
out, his whole body lifting from the ground before sprawling on the rocks a few yards away.
Eve’s legs threatened to buckle in the scattered seconds before the rustle of brush being trampled gave way to the sight of four men in dark blue running toward them. She was moving herself, fear still pumping through her veins and nothing but instinct driving her. She and Molly had to get to Rio. That was her only thought as, arms tight around her trembling child, she started back across the rocky streambed.
He was there before she reached the other side.
“Thank God,” she heard him breathe as he caught her to him with one arm, trapping Molly between their bodies. “Tell me you’re all right.”
She nodded, shaking. From the moment she’d realized what was happening—just before she’d been run off the road—she hadn’t believed that she’d ever be all right again. “We are now. How did you know where we were?”
“I’ll tell you on the way back.” He let his arm slip a little, his hard black eyes searching her face, her windblown hair. Apparently believing her enough to let the questions go for now, he turned his inspection to the little girl clinging like a vine to her mother’s neck. “How about you, honey?” He started to brush her uncombed hair from her eyes. Seeing the blood on his hand, he pulled it back before Eve could reach for it. “Are you hurt anywhere?”
Blue eyes huge in her face and impossibly solemn, Molly slowly shook her head. “I’m scared.”
“It’s okay now.” He delivered the promise with a wince and reached for his right arm again. “Honest,” he added, far more concerned with her than he appeared to be with the blood leaking between his fingers. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
Coming from Rio, the assurance seemed to relieve some of the tension Eve could feel in her daughter’s body. But Eve wasn’t feeling all that reassured herself. Not with Rio bleeding. She told him that, too, but he wouldn’t admit to her how badly he was hurt. Nor would he let her help him by tying his handerchief around the wound. It was fine, he told her.
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