by Becky McGraw
“Well, maybe he’s not as smart as he thinks he is, then…” the man said and took the phone from him. “I’ll get one of our techs to track the phone he called from, if it’s a cell…if not, we’ll have a landline address,” he told them, then walked quickly away toward a van with a satellite on top, which was parked in the lot now too.
Jess turned toward him, and put her arms around his waist, and her head on his chest, then she sobbed and started crying again. “We’ve got to find her, Wade…I should never have gone along with trying to put him in jail…I know how slippery he is.”
“You had to do it, Jess…don’t blame yourself for what that bastard did to you, and don’t blame yourself for him taking Angel…it’s not your fault, sugar,” he told her, but Wade almost wished he hadn’t gone looking for that trouble either. He’d started the whole thing, and had a boatload of guilt pouring through him too.
A few minutes later, he saw the agent come out of the van smiling, and Wade’s heart lifted a little, as he walked over to them. “It’s a cell phone and it’s not a throwaway, so that’s good news. The tech is running the tower pings to try and figure out where the last call came from…and the white Toyota?” he said with a grin, “That’s registered to Ray Turner, and we’ve got the plates, so we’re putting out an Amber alert, and BOLO. If he’s still driving it, we’ll find him.”
Wade heaved a heavy sigh of relief, then asked, “Has anyone checked where he lives to see if he’s there?” A dumb question, but sometimes things fell through the cracks, if you didn’t ask.
“We’ve got agents staked out there, but he’s not there, and hasn’t been there in quite a while from the looks of the newspapers piled on the door stoop.”
“He’s been in Nashville, remember?” Jess told the agent, then added “Your guys were going to pick him up at Golden Bee today. The record company might have provided an apartment for him…because he couldn’t have commuted there, that’s for sure.”
“You have an address for him there?” the guy asked with lifted eyebrows.
Jess jerked her head off Wade’s chest and tensed up, then said, “No, but Mr. Zucker might. Maybe he knows the woman Ray was seeing too, because that’s probably who Tamara is. She told me she wanted to become a country singer, so it would make sense he’d introduce her to Mr. Zucker.”
“Hot, damn, honey…that’s brilliant. Let’s call Mr. Zucker,” Wade said then gave her a squeeze, and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and handed it to her.
Her hand shook as she took it, and then looked up as if trying to remember the number, then she dialed and put the phone to her ear. “Mr. Zucker? This is Jess Sparks, I need your help.”
When she finished talking to him, she actually had a wobbly smile on her lips and told them, “The woman is Bonnie Richards, but she sings under the name Tamara Young, and he’s looking up the address for the apartment where Ray was staying and will call back in a few minutes.”
Two minutes later the phone rang again, and she handed it to the agent, so he could write down the Nashville address for Ray. “Ya’ll hang tight, I’m going call and get the agents in Tennessee to this address, and see what we find.”
Wade called Beau back and told him to hold tight with the cavalry, until the feds let them know what they found in Nashville. Beau was relieved to hear they had some leads, and told him to call him back as soon as he got new information.
After he hung up with Beau, Jess looked up at him curiously, so he explained, “The Bowie Cavalry was on the way, and I didn’t want to make them head here if we need to go to Nashville.”
“Calling Beau was a great idea…he loves Angel, and would do anything to help us.”
“That’s what I was thinking too,” Wade said and huffed out a breath to expel the automatic jealousy that churned up his gut.
“Let’s go back in the condo and wait…it’s getting hot out here, and I don’t want you passing out on me,” he said and kissed her hair.
Wade fixed them iced teas and a plate of sandwiches, then put them on the coffee table in case someone got hungry. He knew he wasn’t going to eat any of them, or anything else, until they found Angel, but someone else might want one. The whole crew was in the apartment now, along with several agents, and local cops. He sat on the sofa beside Jess and pulled her onto his lap. “You doing okay, baby?”
“I’ll be doing okay when they bring my baby back to me,” she said in a trembling voice.
“Me too…” he said not adding, he hoped that bastard was taking care of her, feeding her, changing her diaper, because he didn’t want to make Jess worry more. Wade wasn’t kidding with his threat to kill that bastard if one hair on Angel’s head was harmed. It would become his sole reason for living.
Jess closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder, and Wade hoped she’d fall asleep for a little while, so she didn’t fret so bad. He was doing enough of that for both of them, as the time dragged on and the agent didn’t come back to tell them anything. Sitting here on his ass, while that asshole had his little girl, didn’t do much to alleviate his stress either.
It was just shy of three hours later when the front door opened and the agent they’d been working with stepped through the door, and Wade’s heart stopped at the seriousness in his expression. Wade pushed Jess off his lap, then launched up to his feet, and shouted, “What the hell happened?”
The man held up a hand and said, “It’s good…they found Bonnie Richards and Angel at the apartment there…but Ray Turner wasn’t there, and she had no idea where he was.”
Jess wailed then let out a big shuddering sigh, and collapsed on the sofa. “I don’t fucking care about Ray Turner…where can we go pick up our baby?” he demanded with so much relief pouring through him, his legs almost gave out too.
“Agents have her with them and they’ll be heading this way shortly, but it’s a ten hour drive, so…”
“Fuck that…tell them to hold tight, we’re flying to Nashville, call and tell them,” he said then grabbed Jess’s arm and pulled her up from the couch, then dragged her toward the front door.
He opened the passenger door of his truck, and helped Jess inside, then ran around to the driver’s side and got in. Suddenly, he realized he’d almost ran from the condo to the truck and he hadn’t used his cane. Wade smiled, then shoved the key into the ignition and roared out of the parking lot toward the airport. He tossed his phone to Jess and told her, “Call the airport and get us a flight,” he told her then pulled out his wallet and tossed her his credit card. “And I don’t give a damn how much it costs…just get us on a flight.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a salute and a grin, then dialed the phone.
She paid through the nose for first class seats on a direct flight leaving from Dallas Ft. Worth airport, just an hour after they parked in the short term lot. They got out of the truck and he took her hand and walked swiftly toward the terminal building.
Wade tapped his toe the whole time they were on the flight, and when they landed, he wanted to plow down the flight attendant blocking the door to get off the plane. He and Jess didn’t have luggage, so when the attendant opened the cabin door, they shot through it, and headed for the escalator. Once they stepped outside the terminal, he pulled out his phone and called the agent to get an address where they could meet the other agents to pick up Angel.
Wade could hardly breathe, and his heart was racing by the time a taxi dropped them off in front of the federal building in Nashville. He was sure Jess was in the same shape, because he saw her chest heaving and her face was pale.
“Let’s go get our daughter, darlin’,” he said then opened the taxi door and slid out, then helped Jess out. He started to walk toward the entrance, then remembered he hadn’t paid the driver, and told her to go ahead inside, so he could take care of that tiny detail.
The driver was on the phone with his dispatch when Wade walked back up to the car and handed him a hundred dollar bill. The look on the man’s face told W
ade he thought they had intended to stiff him on the fare.
“I’m sorry about that, I’ve got a lot on my mind,” Wade told him, and the man started making change, but Wade held up a hand and told him, “Keep the change, thank you for getting us here,” then he turned and walked toward the intimidating building.
After he went through a metal detector, he went to the elevator and up to the third floor, then looked for the room number the agent had given him. Two men in dark suits were standing on either side of the door and he walked between them and grabbed for the door knob, and they grabbed him and shoved him into the wall, then one of them put his forearm on Wade’s neck. “Who the hell are you?” the guy grated near his ear.
“I’m Wade Roberts…um, Angel’s father,” he said in a muffled voice, because his jaw was being held flush to the wall. He couldn’t identify what he was with Jess, because they hadn’t defined their relationship. She was his girlfriend, but somehow that sounded tawdry, with Angel involved, so he wasn’t going to say that…she wasn’t his fiancé or his wife, either, so he just aligned himself with Angel, and left it at that.
They really needed to talk about that…he needed to decide what the next step in their relationship was going to be…what he wanted it to be. He knew he didn’t want to live without Jess or Angel, ever, but he didn’t know if they were at the engagement, marriage point either. He didn’t know what Jess thought of the idea either.
“Do you have some kind of identification?” the second man, who was now leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest, asked him.
“Wallet is in my pocket,” he said then added, “This is ridiculous…I’m here to pick up my daughter.”
“Her mother has already picked her up,” the man informed him, as he felt the other guy pull his wallet out.
“I’m here with her mother, Jess Sparks…we flew here together…rode here from the airport. I went back to pay the taxi fare.”
“Jess Sparks?” the man asked in confusion. “Her mother is Bonnie Richards, who is Jess Sparks?”
Wade got a sick feeling in his gut, and pushed with all he had against the agent holding him against the wall, then yelled, “Jess Sparks is Angel’s mother! Have you seen her? Tall blond, beautiful?”
The man snickered, “Nah, I’d have remember, if I’d seen a beautiful blond…that’s my type…only one I’ve seen is a short brunette, Ms. Richards, when she came to pick up the baby.”
“That woman is supposed to be in jail for kidnapping my daughter! How the hell could she have picked her up?!?!”
“An upline agent called and told us it was all a misunderstanding, and that we were to give the baby to her.”
“Did you check her I.D.? Or double check with your boss to make sure the call wasn’t bogus?” Wade asked him sarcastically.
The blond agent’s face flushed and his jaw worked, then he said, “No…we did what we were told to do.”
“How long ago did she pick her up?” Wade asked him with narrowed eyes.
“Ten, fifteen minutes ago,” the man replied.
“We’ve been in here ten minutes, and came through the front door. Lock the building down and find her—now!” Wade demanded, then turned when heard heels clicking down the hall and turned to see Jess walking toward him with a smile on her face.
“Hey, sugar, have you seen Angel?” she asked him then said, “I had to stop by the ladies room.”
He saw the men stiffen beside him, and he looked at one then the other and said angrily, “This, is Angel’s mother…now why don’t you tell her what you just told me?” then he walked off to call the guy in Dallas and ream him out.
Angel was in danger again, and nobody knew where the hell she was…or even if it was actually Bonnie Richards who had her. Wade flinched when he heard Jess wail behind him, then turned and saw her pounding on one of the agent’s chests with her fists and screaming at him. The other man was on the phone and waving his hand wildly. Wade heard an alarm go off, and then people scrambled out of doors along the hall, and headed toward the exit.
He ran back over to the two agents and asked, “What the hell is that?”
“Fire alarm…must be a drill or something,” the big dumb one by Jess told him.
“No, it’s probably a distraction, so she can get the baby out of the building. She must’ve seen us…tell someone! Lock the doors, don’t let anyone out!”
“We can’t do that by law if the fire alarm is going off…” the brighter of the two agents told him.
“Well, shut the fucking alarm off!” Wade yelled then started down the hall, and added, “And then lock the fucking doors!” The elevators probably weren’t working, because of the fire alarm, Wade thought, so he headed for the stairs. His back wasn’t going to like going down three flights of stairs, but he didn’t give a damn, he’d crawl if he had to.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jess stood still in the hallway outside the door where they were supposed to have picked up her baby, just watching in a daze as the loud alarm buzzed in her ears, and people moved past her to evacuate the building. They shoved her to and fro like a ship in a storm. That’s how she felt inside too, like she had no mooring, was just drifting in the middle of nowhere, fighting the waves of panic that had frozen her to the spot, as she realized she wasn’t going to get her daughter back…the woman she’d trusted as a nanny had stolen her again…so she could bring her to Ray. And there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.
Suddenly, someone shoved something very sharp into her back, and said in a low lethal tone near her ear, “Hello, Jess…we’re going to take a little walk, and you are going to keep you fucking mouth shut, or I’ll slice you from asshole to appetite…and that brat of yours too,” Ray told her then shoved her forward into the moving stream of people.
“Where’s my daughter, Ray…I want my daughter,” Jess told him in a voice that vibrated with her fury.
“And I want my money, but that’s not going to happen now is it?” he said angrily, then shoved the point of whatever he had at her back into her skin. “Maybe your boyfriend will give me that money he won at the rodeo though, so I can get out of the country.”
“Let me go Ray, I have money, I’ll give you all of it, if you let me and Angel go.”
“You called the feds, Jess…why the hell would I trust you, or let you go? They don’t have shit if you’re not around.”
“They have a lot, whether or not I testify, Ray…your best bet is to leave the country.”
He snorted, “I don’t need you to tell me that, but they froze all my accounts and I need money…and your boyfriend is going to give it to me, then I’m going to put you out of my misery.”
Jess thought about screaming at the top of her lungs, he was going to kill her anyway, he just told her that, but then decided against it. He was going to take her to her daughter, and then maybe there would be an opportunity for her to get away from him, or at least get her baby out of danger. Going with him was the only way she could be sure she’d see Angel again, so she kept quiet.
Her eyes darted around looking for Wade, hoping she’d see him. She knew he went looking for Tamara—Bonnie—and Angel. Maybe he’d gotten through to those two FBI guys in the hall earlier, and they locked the doors down. If they had, Ray wasn’t going to get her out of here either. The fire alarm was still going off, so that probably hadn’t happened, based on what the guy said about the law.
Ray pushed her to the stairwell where everyone else was headed down, and she grabbed the rail to steady her shaky legs, then took one step at a time. He kept very close to her back, and still held the knife at her side, and his other arm was around her waist. When they reached the landing at the bottom, the fire alarm stopped, and the people on the stairs stopped and started talking and laughing, which caused a traffic jam at the door. Slowly, they filed out the door and into the lobby, and Jess took a deep breath once they were out of the claustrophobic landing.