Stolen Power

by Peter O'Mahoney

  “They’ll release Millie without checking the bag first?” Casey looked incredulous.

  “We’re not dealing with professionals. This is someone with a strong sense of justice and good morals. Someone who couldn’t conceive risking a child’s life over money. The kidnappers would think that Chase would have to be pretty stupid to take that chance. He’s not a fighter, and whoever the kidnapper is, they’d know that. They’re willing to risk it.”

  “But you disagree.” Casey frowned. “You think he would jeopardize Millie by going back for the money?”

  “I do. I’m going to call him back in one hour, take him through step-by-step of what he needs to do. I’m going to go over the risks with him, emphasize the dangers and let him know what can happen if he doesn’t play by the kidnapper’s rules. And I’m going to be clear: his child will die. And her blood will be on his hands. An indelible stain that he can never wash off.”

  Without willing it, images started growing in my mind of what would happen if we failed. The headlines screaming about the innocent five-year-old who disappeared when the ransom drop went haywire. Millie’s smiling photo next to a picture of Tanya crying.

  And possibly the blame being put on me. On the private investigator. The scape goat who Chase would turn on in a heartbeat to save his own reputation and skin. Yeah, that’s how it would play out.

  Not that I cared about that. I cared about Millie, getting her back without a hiccup. Seeing her safe and well. But with Chase intimately involved in the process, I was understandably concerned.

  “And you think you can calm Chase down?”

  “No, I don’t.” We walked into the elevator to the office. “But we don’t have a choice.”

  After the short ride, we entered into the office. Casey sat down at her desk and turned on her laptop.

  “How did it go talking to Ben? Anything we can use?”

  “He was evasive, but I don’t know if that’s because he’s involved, or because he was looking after his beloved dogs.” A thought went through my head. “When you checked the social media accounts around the area, did you check the dog park nearby?”

  “I did but there was no information to go on. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just photos of smiling, happy dogs.”

  “Check it again. Bring up the photos. Ben’s dogs have social media accounts, so check that location for any pictures of beagles. He posts pictures of those dogs all the time. They used to be show dogs and he’s very proud of it. I want to see if he’s been in the area at all in the last week, any day.”

  Casey flicked open the internet browser, typed quickly, and what she found made my mouth drop open.

  “Ben’s dogs have their own social media accounts, but he doesn’t usually tag their location.” Her mouth dropped open as well as she looked at the background in one of the pictures. “But the last picture was clearly taken in that run-down dog park on the morning that Millie went missing.”

  Chapter 24

  I called Ben’s phone right back. He didn’t answer.

  I still couldn’t quite believe Ben was involved, but I couldn’t hide from the facts. Kidnapper or not, Ben knew more than he was letting on. I felt guilty pursuing Claire’s brother, but it wasn’t the time to get sentimental. I had to track him down. And if necessary to take him down too.

  I tried Ben’s phone again. This time, his wife answered.

  “Hello, Jack.” She sounded cagey.

  “Mary, where’s Ben? I have to talk to him immediately. It’s urgent.”

  “Sorry, Jack. Ben’s not here. He just took off after you called him.”

  “What do you mean, took off? Where did he go?”

  “Is everything alright, Jack? First Ben dashing off, and now you call demanding to know where he is. I mean, I’m kind of used to it, Ben’s work often takes him away unexpectedly, but this feels different. More personal somehow. What’s going on, Jack? You need to tell me. Is something wrong?”

  “Everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about.” I had to try and reassure her. The last thing I needed was for Mary to clam up now. I was sure she could help, she must have noticed something, I just needed to get her talking. “We’re working on something together and I really need to get in touch with him. I couldn’t hear him properly on the phone. He said he was going to call me back, but obviously he’s rushed off without his phone. It’s urgent, Mary. It needs to be done tonight. Do you have any idea or did he give any indication as to where he was going?”

  There was a moment of silence, but I could sense Mary was ready to talk.

  “Well, he took another phone call and he seemed quite flustered as he ran out the door. Literally ran. He didn’t even say goodbye, he just rushed out of the house and disappeared into the night.”

  My hand pressed into the table—it was a guilty move, if there ever was one. Only moments after we talked, he ran. I quickly set the phone to speaker so Casey could listen too, in case she picked up on something that I didn’t. No matter how small.

  “Did he say where he was going? Did he give any indication where he was headed?”

  “Not a thing. He barely said a word, and he didn’t even take his phone, which is very unlike him,” she said. “He doesn’t usually leave the house without his wallet, phone and keys.”

  “So you have no idea where he might be going?”

  “Have you tried the station? If he was called into work, he would usually head there first.”

  She paused and I almost jumped in with another question to keep her talking, but Casey shook her head and leaned in close to the phone to listen better. Then I heard it too, the jingle of keys in the background.

  “Well, that’s strange,” Mary continued. “Ben’s taken my car. He’s left his truck in the driveway. He doesn’t usually take my car anywhere. He hates to be seen driving around in a Volvo Sedan. I think the guys at work laughed at it once. Called it a grandad car, but really, it’s very fuel efficient. Very economical and it’s very unusual for him to drive it without me suggesting it.”

  Casey tugged on my arm, and whispered, “Ask her if the car has a GPS tracker. A lot of modern cars have trackers that can be turned on, generally because a person thinks the car is stolen. But if so, we can track him.”

  “Mary, does your sedan have a GPS tracker?” I asked.

  Mary seemed so surprised that he had taken her car that she had let her guard down. “Oh yes. I think it does. I’ve never used it, but I’ve got the app on my phone, if you really need to know where he’s headed.”

  “I need the code, Mary.” I grimaced as soon as I had spoken. I had let the urgency back in my voice and I knew this would put Mary back on guard.

  “Actually, Jack, I don’t know if I should give it to you.” She hesitated. “What if it’s official police business that’s taken him out of the house so late? That could be confidential work. And there could be a conflict of interest between your work and his.”

  Casey glared at me and I gave her my most apologetic look. I’d messed up, but I was determined to fix it.

  “Mary, do you really think he would have taken your car for official police work? You know he always takes his truck. Ben’s in trouble and I’m the only one you can trust to help him. He’s in a hole and I’m the one who’s gonna dig him out of it. But I can’t help if I can’t get in touch with him and don’t know where he is. I need that code. I need to know where Ben’s going. Mary, you have to trust me. And you have to do it right now.”

  “I don’t know, Jack.” She was on the edge, and it was time for a touch of the truth.

  “Mary, currently there’s a young girl’s life at stake, and Ben might be walking into a trap.” I tried to negotiate with her. “Ben doesn’t know it, but there’s a five-year-old girl’s life on the line.”

  She paused for a long moment, and I waited.

  “A five-year-old girl. What are you talking about? Who is this five-year-old girl? And what’s Ben’s involvement with her?”

&
nbsp; “I can’t give you the details but you need to trust me. Come on, Mary. It’s me, Jack. Not some stranger. I’m family. And family trusts each other. Trust me now and tell me the code to the tracker.”

  “I just don’t know, Jack.”

  Casey and I both held our breath. We knew this was make it or break it time.

  “Ok, Jack. If you think it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Thank you, Mary. It is.”

  She then proceeded to give me the log-in details to her car’s GPS tracker. I wrote the information down for Casey to see, and she logged it into the account on her laptop.

  “It’s working. I’m tracking the sedan now.” Casey whispered with a thumbs up, as she pointed to a red dot that was flashing on the screen, tracing over the city map.

  “Thank you, Mary. Ben will be thankful as well. I promise.” I hung up the phone. I could tell that Mary didn’t seem convinced, but now wasn’t the time to think about the dynamics of my extended family. Plenty of time for that when the night was over. I just hoped I could keep that promise. Time was running out for a happy conclusion.

  “Bring that with us.” I indicated to the laptop as I began storming out the door. “We’ll track it in the car and meet him wherever he’s going.”

  Chapter 25

  I could feel my heart pounding in my ears as I started up the engine on my truck. This was it, the moment that would determine what happened to this case, and to Millie. If I was right, and Ben was involved, then I was hopeful we could save that lovely, little girl’s life. But if I was wrong, then this was a big move in the wrong direction and we were out of time. I couldn’t live with myself if I let Millie down now in the closing moments of this terrible game. All I could do was hope I was right.

  The tracking signal for Ben’s car stopped after twenty minutes. Driving my truck, I raced through the streets, the engine screaming for mercy as I pushed hard to get to his position. We were still fifteen minutes away from where he had parked.

  I looked at my watch.

  Three hours until the drop time.

  And I still had to take Chase through the process to make sure that he didn’t do anything stupid.

  “Where has he stopped?” I quizzed Casey, sitting in the passenger seat with the laptop open in front of her.

  “It’s not an address I recognize. Let me search the addresses near where the car has stopped.” Her fingers typed fast. “Another industrial lot, only thirty minutes away from the drop area. We’re closer to the drop area now.”

  “We’ve got time. What’s in the industrial lot? Any addresses that stand-out?”

  “We’ve got a hardware store, a carpet center, another hardware store, and… ah, a mechanic shop that specializes in diesel mechanics.”

  My body tingled momentarily as a shot of adrenaline surged through me.

  “That’s our target. That must be where Ben is going.”

  I dropped the truck back in gear, roaring it into action, making the fifteen-minute trip in eight. As I turned the corner to the industrial lot, I slowed down, crawling forward, looking for a white sedan in the dimly lit street.

  “Are you packing heat?” I turned to look at Casey. She tapped her hip under her jacket.

  Slowing the car, I pulled over to the side of the street, switching out the headlights first, and then turning off the engine. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness but even when they did I couldn’t see any movement.

  We sat for a moment, allowing our eyes to adjust further and taking in the surroundings.

  The area around us was dimly lit, with no activity as the time approached 9pm. There was one other car parked on the street, all the buildings were locked up with extra security, and barbed wire covered the top of the chain fences nearby.

  I could see Casey was watching the vehicle intently, so I took a moment longer to look all around. Checking for any signs of movement, anything we should be on guard for. We didn’t have a lot of time, but we couldn’t afford to rush in and mess it up now.

  I was as confident as I could be that we had arrived unnoticed, so I turned my attention to the other car in the street as well.

  “White Volvo,” I stated.

  Casey nodded. “Looks like we’ve found the car, but no sign of Ben.”

  “Time for a closer look.”

  We eased our way out of the truck. I kept the doors well-oiled for moments like this. I couldn’t have a creaking door alerting people to our presence.

  I indicated to Casey to flank the left side of the sedan and I would flank the right. Jogging in the shadows, we approached the car.

  Drawing my piece, keeping it low, I jogged to the side.

  I looked in the back window.

  Nothing.

  Casey, weapon in hand, indicated the same. I looked in the front window.

  Again, nothing.

  Casey shook her head.

  I let the breath I had been holding go and indicated we should move forward towards the shadows next to the building.

  “The mechanics shop is the third warehouse on the right,” Casey whispered. “We’ll see it once we go around the next corner.”

  I led us through the shadows, sticking close to the edge of the wall on the empty street.

  I heard the crunch of broken glass under foot behind me and turned to glare at Casey who had frozen in place. With an apologetic look, she cautiously lifted her foot and crept carefully past the remains of a broken bottle. I glanced around nervously, but we were still far enough away from the warehouse to escape notice.

  One streetlight was on ahead of us.

  I sneaked to the corner, and turned my head around the wall.

  The warehouse sat back from the street on a long driveway. There was one long garage door, big enough to fit two trucks side by side, and a workshop door to the right.

  “There’s a light on in the workshop.” I turned back to Casey. “We’ll get to the window and see if we can see anything nearby.”

  Casey strained to see past me without sticking her head out too far. “We’ll have to be careful, places like these are bound to have some level of automated security system. Even if they don’t have cameras, they’ll still have an automatic sensor light.”

  “There are two cars up the right-hand side of the drive.” I looked back around the corner of the wall. “If we stick close to the wall, we have our best chance of staying hidden. On three, we move.”

  She nodded.

  “One, two, three.”

  We moved quickly, and quietly, sticking to the right hand wall. Reaching the first car under the shroud of darkness, we squatted down.

  Ahead of us, I could see movement in the shadows.

  It was a figure squatting down behind the second car. I couldn’t make out which way they were facing.

  I indicated to Casey to cover me.

  She raised her weapon, and I moved forward, my steps not making a sound on the concrete. With my gun raised forward, I snuck closer to the shadow behind the next car.

  “Ben.” My voice was quiet but firm as I looked down at the man squatting low behind the car.

  “Jack?” He almost sounded relieved until he turned and saw my gun. He raised his hands. “What are you doing here?”

  “Trailing you.” My answer was blunt and I stayed in the shadows, a few feet away from him. “And finding a missing girl.”

  “No, Jack, you’ve got it all wrong.” He stayed squatted down, hands still raised. “I’m here to see who’s been contacting me.”

  “You’ve got one minute to explain yourself.” My gun was focused on his torso.

  “I… I got a call.” He looked to the building in front of us. “I don’t know who it was from, but they said they needed my help.”

  “I know you were at the dog park on Saturday morning, Ben. That’s more than a coincidence.”

  “Ok. Ok.” He waved me down. “Look, I don’t know who is in that building. All I know is that they needed my help and they sent me a message say
ing that.”

  I wanted to believe him, but I knew he still wasn’t giving me the whole story.

  “Ben. You’re family, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kill you if it saves the life of a little girl. Best you get talking. And don’t hold anything back.” He could hear the gravity in my voice.

  “Alright, Jack.” He leaned back down, and rested against the car. “Get lower and I’ll tell you everything.”

  I squatted down, gun still focused on Ben’s torso, and indicated for Casey to move forward. She moved forward next to the car, within a foot of Ben. He nodded his hello, more instinct than pleasantry, but she didn’t respond.

  “I got a message last week saying that if I wanted my one hundred-thousand-dollar investment back, all I had to do was go to the park, call Chase on a burner phone, and get him angry enough that he would have to walk away from the playground. That’s all I was told, and I did it.”

  “And then?”

  He shrugged. “I went to the park with my dogs and watched as Chase arrived with his daughter. I called him at 10am as instructed and pretended I was a potential debt collector looking to find money that he had ripped off from other people. Chase got angry and stepped away from the playground. I kept him on the phone for ten minutes until I received a message simply saying ‘hang up’, so I did.” He paused and looked around.

  “Keep talking, Ben,” I instructed. This wasn’t the time for stalling.

  “Ok. I didn’t stick around to be seen. As much as I’m sure he wouldn’t recognize me anyway, I was just a bank check to him, and we only met once in person, but I couldn’t take the risk so I called the dogs over and left. I didn’t know that the person was going to kidnap his daughter. I swear it, Jack,” Ben added desperately.

  “And how do you know that now?” Casey asked.

  “When Chase went back to the playground, I watched him from my car, he became slightly frantic, and then he read a text message. He sat on the nearby park bench for ten minutes and then left the playground without his daughter.” He shook his head. “That’s when I knew something was up. Something wasn’t right. I kept an eye on all the police reports, but nothing came up. And then you showed up at my door the next day saying that you were working for Chase, well, I put two and two together from there.”