by Brenda Novak
Amarok had Garret stop the playback. “What’s that?”
“A tattoo. But there wasn’t much to it, just some dots. Pretty stupid, if you ask me.”
Now that he could see it close up, he knew what it was. “It’s a prison tattoo.”
Garrett stroked his beard thoughtfully. “How do you know?”
“They’re common enough. It signifies that he’s served time. The four dots on the outside represent the walls of the prison and the dot inside represents the prisoner.” Impatient to get on with it, he gestured for Garrett to hit Play and watched as the van guy handed Garrett the money for the cigarettes, put the change in the small dish near the register and walked out. The date stamp on that video segment read 1:05 p.m. “Didn’t you say you have an outdoor camera in the eaves?”
“I do.”
“Can you switch to that?”
“Sure. Just a sec.” After a few keystrokes and some time spent searching for the appropriate segment, Amarok was looking at the carpet-cleaning van Kaylene had described. The unknown man climbed inside, took out a cigarette and sat in the driver’s seat to smoke it. When he was done, he tossed the butt onto the pavement and backed out.
Amarok grabbed Garrett’s arm, which caused Makita, ever watchful that it might be time to work, to come to his feet. “Freeze it there.”
“What do you see?” he asked.
“The license plate.”
“But isn’t it too small to read?”
It was. Amarok couldn’t make out a single letter or digit. “Can’t you zoom in?”
“I haven’t used this program enough to know how to do much more than click on it if I get an alert. But there’s got to be a way.”
Amarok certainly hoped so. He could use a break. Problem was … blowing up the freeze-frame could make it too pixelated to read even after he spent the time to make it happen.
But what else could he do? Without this, he had nothing.
Anchorage, AK—Wednesday, 12:15 a.m. AKDT
The television droned in the background as Emmett Virtanen did fifty push-ups, then a hundred burpees, in sets of twenty-five since those were so grueling, and fifty squats. He was stronger than ever. He’d relapsed when it came to smoking, but he wasn’t going to be too hard on himself over that. He’d only picked up cigarettes again since accepting this shitty job. Regardless of the damage the nicotine did to his lungs, it helped take the edge off his nerves and, without that, he didn’t think he could get through the interminable wait.
It wasn’t that he minded breaking the law. But harming a defenseless woman? Especially a pregnant woman? That was beneath him. That fell under the slimy bastard category of pedophiles, wife-beaters and rapists—the kind of men he’d targeted in prison. He’d actually killed a dude who’d fondled and raped the young boys he coached, and he was proud of it. As far as he was concerned, he’d done the world a favor.
But this … He never should have let Terry tempt him into getting involved. He wouldn’t have, except he needed the money. And he’d justified it by convincing himself that he wouldn’t be responsible for whatever happened to Evelyn Talbot. If he didn’t nab her, for that kind of money someone else would. It was the guy footing the bill who was to blame.
If he’d been told she was pregnant, however, if he’d seen it mentioned in any of the things he’d read about her online, he wouldn’t have done it, especially if he’d known she was so far along.
Shit! What kind of man had his former cellmate and brother-in-law gotten him involved with? And what did he have in store for the woman who was now locked in the old cooler? Emmett hadn’t heard of Dr. Talbot until Terry had given him her name, but he’d learned quite a bit about her since—everything except that she was about to have a baby.
He tried telling himself that she’d wind up dead at some point, regardless. She was surrounded by men as evil as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, for God’s sake. Considering her choice of profession, she was asking for it.
That calmed him down a bit—until the feeling of her rounded stomach pressing into his arms as he grabbed her flashed through his mind again. What would his grandmother say if he was ever charged with the death of a pregnant woman? His “nana” was the one person in this world he loved. Lord knew she was the only one who’d ever stuck by him.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and squinted at the clock, which still hung on the wall from when this building had been used to clean and process eggs. He needed to get some glasses, but, with effort, he could make out the time. He’d guarded Evelyn for only ten or eleven hours, but they were the longest ten or eleven hours of his life, and that included prison. He’d been worried the whole time that the stress of her situation—and the memories it had to evoke given what he’d read about her background—would put her into labor. He didn’t want her baby to come while he was in the picture.
What would he do if the baby did? He couldn’t call for help, not without giving himself away. Maybe there’d be no time to get help, anyway. And he didn’t know the first thing about childbirth, except that his mother had lost her life giving birth to him, which told him how dangerous it could be.
Stupid ass Terry! He should never have introduced his old cellmate to his sister.
Emmett pushed the tattered couch he’d bought from the local Goodwill store, along with a rickety old table he used for his laptop, farther out of the way and grunted as he forced himself to do another fifty push-ups. When could he get out of this place? What had happened to the phone call he’d been expecting?
He grabbed his cell and held it up only to realize that he’d missed the call he’d been waiting for. What the hell? His phone hadn’t even rung! The cell service in this old plant sucked. Cell service in Alaska sucked in general. He hadn’t been able to use his phone at all when he was in Hilltop. Even now that he was in Anchorage, there were spots where thick stands of trees or mountains blocked the signal.
He stared at the cracked linoleum while waiting for Terry to answer, which happened on the second ring.
“There you are!”
“Don’t know how I missed your call. I’ve been here the whole time.”
“You scared the hell out of me. I thought you’d split, man.”
“I’m about to. This place stinks.”
“I thought it was empty, that it had been vacated. Isn’t that what you told me when you rented it?”
“It is empty. The husband of the old woman who owns it died, the business failed and she’s been trying to sell it for over six months, with no luck. She was excited to make the five hundred dollars for two weeks I offered her, even turned the electricity back on when I told her I was going to make one of the buildings that used to house hens into a temporary dog shelter.”
“You don’t think she’ll check, do you?”
“I stuck some stray dogs in there to bolster my cover, just in case. I should be fine if she comes snooping around, as long as she doesn’t get too nosey.”
“That was smart.”
“I am going to start a shelter one day.”
“I’ll help you with that.”
Emmett wasn’t sure Terry would be around to help. Bridget wanted out of the marriage, and that could prove the end of their friendship. “Sounds good. You haven’t said a word to my sister about this job we’re doing, though, have you? Because I told you from the beginning that you’d better not. She’ll be mad as hell if she learns we’re involved in something that could land us both back in prison.”
“Of course not. I’m not that stupid.”
“Good thing, because I guarantee she would leave you and refuse to talk to me.” Emmett wrinkled his nose. “Damn, it stinks in here.”
“What from?”
“I think it’s the candling machine in the next room.”
“The what?”
“That’s what the owner called it. Apparently, it’s the machine that was used to wash the chicken shit off the eggs and separate them into sizes so they could be packed.”
“Can’t you just throw that junk outside?”
“No, it’s huge! And it’s fastened to the wall.”
“Then base out of a different room while you’re there.”
“I am! I’m camping out in the staff area, but it’s tiny, and this part of the building is no picnic, either. I guess after losing her husband and her business, the owner wasn’t very excited to come in here and clean, the lazy bitch. Anyway, when’s your boss going to relieve me?”
“My boss? You mean our boss? Last I heard, you were making as much as me.”
“But I’m the one doing all the work. I came to Alaska and scouted out this place, put in a toilet and a bed and nabbed her. What have you done?”
“I’m the one who figured out how to get her to leave the prison alone so you could nab her. I’ve also fronted the money for everything until we can get paid, and now I’m tapped out and your sister is nagging the hell out of me because we can’t make our house payment.”
“Yeah, well, Bridget has never been easy to deal with. I warned you about that when I introduced you.”
“I was in prison! When you’re doing time, a great set of tits trumps a bad temper any day of the week. Anyway, we’ll both be better off when this is all over.”
“I hope so, because I’m telling you, if the doc in the box goes into labor, I won’t have a clue what to do. And I’m not going to be responsible for the death of a baby. So your man just better get his ass up here and fast.”
“You know he can’t come right now!”
“Why not?”
“I told you in the beginning it would be a week or longer.”
“But you didn’t tell me I was kidnapping a pregnant woman! That changes things.”
“Look, he’s going to pay you extra. He’s sorry for not mentioning the pregnancy, but he didn’t know himself.”
Somehow that mollified Emmett, made him feel less set up. “How much extra?”
“Two grand. That’s a lot of money.”
“It is, but he should’ve done his homework. Then he wouldn’t have had to sweeten the pot.”
“She’s nearly forty, and she’s never had kids. How was he supposed to know she’d start now?”
“Okay, fine.” He toed off a piece of linoleum, making the hole that was already there that much bigger. “So when can he get here? How much longer do I have to sweat this out?”
“It’ll be a few days.”
“Why doesn’t he jump on the first flight?”
“Because he’s tied up! You’ll be fine until he gets there.”
He rubbed his forehead with his middle fingers, trying to decide if he should bail out. He wasn’t an expert on pregnancy, but he did know that a woman didn’t have to be due in order to go into labor. His mother had delivered him early, hadn’t she?
And she hadn’t survived the experience.…
Still, he’d come this far. If the lack of intel was truly an honest mistake, he figured he might as well see it through. “I’ll give him until Friday. That’s two days. If he’s not here by midnight, I’m turning her loose and taking off.”
“Whoa, whoa! Wait a minute. Don’t do that. Just sit tight. You can’t screw this up. If you do, neither one of us will get paid and Bridget will leave me.”
“You heard me. Friday. What does your guy want with her, anyway?” He’d been reluctant to ask, but now that a baby was involved he had to know.
“He wants to convince her that she was wrong about him.”
“That’s bullshit! He had her kidnapped. You don’t kidnap a woman just to talk.”
“You do if you can’t get her to listen any other way. He needs her help getting his sister back. It’s legit, man. I promise. I know this dude.”
“He’s not going to hurt her.…” Emmett couldn’t help being skeptical.
Terry busted out laughing. “I doubt he could even if he tried. A strong child could kick his ass. That’s why he hired us—because he’s useless himself. He just needs her to sign a few papers so he can regain custody of his sister. That’s all.”
“Why can’t his parents raise the sister?”
“He doesn’t have parents anymore. Never had a dad to begin with, and his mother abandoned him and his sister when he was sixteen. At least that’s what he told me. Anyway, his sister is only six years younger than he is, but she’s retarded or something. In a facility.”
Someone who was willing to take care of his retarded adult sister couldn’t be all bad. Who’d volunteer for a tough job like that? “Okay,” Emmett said. “I’ll give him through Saturday. But stay in touch. I’m nervous as hell that this will turn into something we never expected.”
“I’m only a phone call away, but I’d better get back to work. I swear my boss hates me. She stares daggers at me every time she sees me.”
“Because you’re a lazy ass.” Emmett spoke as though he was joking, but he knew it was true. That was his sister’s greatest complaint about Terry.
“Fuck you,” he said, joking back. “I gotta go.”
With a sigh, Emmett disconnected. At least he hadn’t snatched a pregnant woman for the use of some sadistic monster. He could hold out through Saturday. It wasn’t as if he had to worry about being found. He’d rented this place via a recommendation from someone else he’d called after seeing a listing on the Internet, when their place was already taken, and there weren’t any neighbors close by.
So far, so good. Come Saturday he’d return to Minneapolis and never look back.
7
Hilltop, AK—Wednesday, 1:15 p.m. AKDT
Evelyn had finally slept solidly. It felt as though many hours had passed. What time was it? She hated not knowing, not being able to do something she’d always taken for granted. She was hungry again—another sign that it had been a while since she’d last eaten—but her captor hadn’t yet brought her breakfast, so … she couldn’t have slept that long.
She listened to see if he might be coming now, but didn’t hear anything. Just for something to do, she got out her shiv. She’d created a handle by tearing the lining of her jacket into strips, which she wound tightly around the coil.
She squeezed it to get it to form to her hand. She liked possessing a weapon, even an improvised one. It was better than nothing, but she’d have only one chance to use it. If she stabbed her captor and for some reason didn’t manage to get away …
She didn’t even want to contemplate what he might do in retaliation. Probably kill her, which was why, when she made her move, she’d have to completely incapacitate him. Otherwise, she’d face the consequences.
The thought of killing someone made her woozy. Like most people, she could act in a violent manner if she was feeling directly threatened. She’d fought for her life—and won—before. But this guy hadn’t done anything to seriously harm her. Not yet, she told herself, unable to shake the memory of what Jasper had done. So while she was frightened and uncertain and even angry, she wasn’t feeling the same level of “kill or be killed” desperation that had fueled other actions. She just knew she had to get out of this place, guessed it was going to get a lot worse if she didn’t, and he was standing in her way.
She heard the lock bolt on the slot begin to move, so she hurried to slip her shiv back inside her mattress. If only this guy would give her some idea of what was happening and why! Then she’d know whether she had to stab him in order to escape—or a ransom was forthcoming and she could simply wait.
“Hello?” She bent down to peer out.
He stepped out of view without answering, but she could hear him moving around, knew he was most likely preparing her food.
“Not knowing what I’m up against is scaring me,” she said. “Are you trying to put me in labor?”
No comment.
“I should probably tell you that I’ve been feeling some contractions.”
“I hope that isn’t true,” he said flatly.
That wasn’t exactly friendly, but at least she’d gotten a respon
se. “It’s not as though I can control when the baby comes.”
“That’s what you’ve said.”
“It’s true! I’m not all that likely to carry this baby to term. When I was sixteen, I was tortured for days. A body doesn’t go through what mine went through and come out of it without sustaining a few scars. My doctor has said it a dozen times.”
He brought her a tray with another peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bag of chips and some more carrot sticks, but she refused to accept it. “If you’d just talk to me for a minute, give me some reassurance, it could make all the difference. I’m going out of my mind in here.”
He cursed under his breath. “Fine. This is your reassurance: relax.”
“You expect that to be enough?”
“You’ll only be here for a few more days. Try to make the most of it.”
“But I don’t understand! Where will I be going?”
“Home.”
“You mean you’re going to release me?”
“Someone else will.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know!” he snapped. “And I wouldn’t tell you even if I did.”
Evelyn was pushing her luck, but she had to find out as much as possible before she faked labor and plunged a sharp instrument into this man’s neck. “Why is it a secret?”
“Look, this is just a job for me. Nothing more. Now take the food, or you’ll go hungry until dinner.”
She believed him, so she accepted the tray. “Please. Don’t go.”
“I told you. You have to sit tight.”
He closed the slot with such force she nearly dropped the tray. “Give me a few more seconds!” she yelled. “If this is only a job for you, if this is all about money, maybe we can work something out between us!”
She waited, hoping the slot would open again, but it didn’t.
“I’ll pay you to let me go!”