The swinging beam of a flashlight approached from around the house. The gleam caught the monitor in his hand, steadied on it for an instant. Roan’s dad said nothing until he was close enough to flip off the light and speak in a normal voice.
“You think Melanka was here?”
“I have to go with that idea, because—”
“Because the risk is too great otherwise. If you assume she left of her own accord, and do nothing, she may die.”
“Exactly.”
“And you couldn’t take that.”
Roan gave a short, humorless laugh, even as pictures of the mutilated bodies he’d seen earlier that evening flashed through him mind. “If he touches a hair on her head, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”
“I thought so,” his dad said with satisfaction. “Now then. What are you going to do?”
It was a good question. Roan closed his eyes briefly as he tried to sort through his options. The way he saw it, there were only two: he could go, following on Tory’s trail, or he could stay put, send out an APB and wait to see what happened.
He wasn’t much for waiting.
“Dad?”
The interruption came from Jake on the veranda above him. He cast an impatient glance in that direction. “Yeah?”
“I’m not real sure with the dark and all, but it looks from up here as if the barn door might be open.”
The barn. The Super Bird was there.
It had been there. The dark interior was empty. His car, his pampered classic with unmarred paint, shiny chrome, and Hemi engine, was gone.
Tory had taken it this time. She had taken it and headed home, back to Florida.
But what if she hadn’t? What if it had been stolen by whoever had come for her? It didn’t matter. Either way, he wanted his Super Bird back. He wanted it, and he’d have it if it was the last thing he ever did.
There was no time to waste. With his mind made up, Roan began to click off tasks and duties in methodical order. He made certain Tory had not left a note, checked her closet to see what she’d taken with her, which proved to be nothing at all, and contacted her stepfather’s Florida residence only to be told that he had no information. He talked to his office to make certain things would run smoothly while he was out of town, and also to ask for an APB on the rental car Melanka had been driving, since he’d made a note of the plate number. He left instructions with Jake and his dad, in case Tory got in touch, then he went back upstairs to load his pockets with extra rounds for his weapon and to throw a few things into an overnight bag. He was jerking the zipper closed when his dad appeared in the doorway.
“So what’s the deal?” Pop asked, his voice gravelly with something that sounded a lot like concern.
“Why am I going? I thought we settled that.”
“Oh, I know you’re following after Tory for her protection, but then what? Are you going to straighten things out between you, or just drag her back out of sheer stubborn pride, because she got away and it’s your damn duty to see she stands trial?”
“Hell, Pop!”
“Don’t take that tone with me, son, because this is your old man talking. I may not be as young as I used to be, but I still know what’s what. That woman meant something to you, just as you meant something to her.”
“Yeah, I meant something to her, all right,” Roan answered, his gaze on what he was doing. “I was her jailer.”
“Because that’s the way you wanted it, the only way that felt comfortable to you. As long as you controlled what was between you, you were all right. But the minute you began to lose that, you backed off so far you were near out of sight.”
“She doesn’t belong here, Pop, she never did. She has a grand life somewhere else that she’ll go back to eventually. The little we had together didn’t mean anything. She was just marking time.”
“You figured she was going to leave you, just like Carolyn, so you bowed out in advance.”
“That’s not so!” He looked up, but couldn’t quite focus on the man in front of him for thinking, wondering.
“Not all women need freeways and fancy shops and restaurants and lots of different things to do. Some happen to enjoy peace and quiet and a lake view. Not all women are like Carolyn, Roan. They don’t leave without good reason.”
“Fine. So we’ll talk about the future, if we get the chance.” It wasn’t true. But it was apparently what his dad expected from him, and Roan didn’t have time to argue.
“Now you’re talking! We’ll be waiting, Jake and me, to hear from you. And from Tory.”
He didn’t answer. What was there to say?
But he wasn’t through with explaining himself yet, or so it seemed. Jake was waiting for him, leaning on the passenger door of the car, when he came out of the house.
“I want to go with you, Dad,” he said, his voice so low it was little more than a mumble. “I can’t stay here wondering what might be happening to Tory.”
First his father, now his son. Victoria Molina-Vandergraff had somehow managed to get under the skin of every male on the place, including Beau’s. It was going to be a long time before she was forgotten. Roan threw his bag into the back seat and slammed the door. Then he turned to his son.
“Look—” he began with as much patience as he could scrape together under the circumstances.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Jake interrupted, his head coming up. “I’m too young, I’ll just be in the way, you need to move fast, blah, blah. I don’t care! I want to do something to help. She may be out there hurt somewhere, or maybe kidnapped again and tied up where she can’t get away. She needs us, I know she does, and she’s my friend. I have as much right as you do to go after her.”
The boy had a point. More than that, Roan was proud of him for his protective instinct toward Tory. It showed that he was growing up, becoming a man and a true Benedict. All the same, he couldn’t let him go.
“I know you’re worried about her,” he said, as he reached to put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “So am I. But I don’t even know if what I’m doing is worthwhile or a wild-goose chase. Somebody needs to stay here in case she calls, or to pass on any other news that might come in.”
“Pop will be here.”
“You’re right. But there’s another problem. I can’t deal with a killer if I have to watch out for you as well as Tory.”
Jake’s lips tightened before he said, “I can take care of myself.”
“In a fair fight, yes, but this guy doesn’t fight fair. If I was forced to choose between saving you or saving Tory, I don’t—” He stopped abruptly, unable to go on.
“Yeah,” Jake said slowly. “I get it.”
Roan nodded, cleared his throat. “If you have any problems here that Pop can’t handle, call Clay or Luke. Kane has his hands full right now.”
It was Jake’s turn to nod.
“Fine.” He turned to go.
“Dad?”
He glanced back with a lifted brow.
“You…take care of yourself.”
Roan smiled. “Yeah. I’ll do that. Don’t worry.”
“Bring Tory back.”
He couldn’t promise that, and didn’t try. With a quick pivot, he caught his son in a bear hug, then stepped back, buffeted him on the shoulder in the traditional rallying gesture of males embarrassed by their own emotion, but acknowledging it anyway. A moment later, he climbed into his patrol unit and drove off. When he turned onto the highway at the end of the drive, Jake was still standing where he’d left him, watching him go.
On his way through town, Roan put gas in his unit and called the hospital to check with Kane, pausing long enough to congratulate his cousin on being the father of a fine new baby girl. Regina was tired, Kane said, but had done a wonderful job. Roan, hearing the preoccupation in his cousin’s tone, didn’t bother to explain what was going on with Tory but only congratulated him again and hung up.
As he pulled out on the road, he placed a final call to the office t
o check on the search for Melanka’s rental car. It had been found; Melanka had turned it in at the airport. He had taken a flight to Florida, and he had been alone. Only one ticket had been charged to his credit card. No one by the name of Tory Molina-Vandergraff had been on that departing plane.
For about two seconds, Roan allowed himself the luxury of relief. Melanka had left town. Tory hadn’t been with him.
But there was still the blood. What about the blood?
Suppose Melanka had killed Tory and hauled her body off somewhere to dump it? Suppose he had taken the Super Bird so the rented vehicle would be free of evidence, and had plunged both car and Tory off into the lake or the river? Or what if he’d hired some creep to do the job for him while he, the picture of innocence, dropped off his rental car and flew home? Tory would simply disappear. He might never know what happened to her, or what might have been between them.
God. He was going nuts, not knowing, but only guessing. Maybe guessing wrong.
Roan weighed the radio mike in his hand, about to put out a bulletin on the Super Bird. If Tory was driving it, heading for the sunshine state, he could have her picked up even if it was in Mississippi, Alabama, or in the Florida panhandle.
Yes, but hadn’t he done enough to her? She didn’t need to be chased down by some gung ho officer like Cal, one who might do a body search, cuff her without giving a damn about her hurt shoulder, then throw her in a tank with dope dealers and hookers where anything could happen to her.
No. He couldn’t stand the thought of that, either.
If Tory wasn’t in the Bird, what did it matter? If she was gone, lying somewhere in the swamps, then he wanted her killer. He wanted Melanka’s head, and he’d have it if he had to drive to hell itself.
He ended the call, slapped the mike onto its hook, then plowed his fingers through his hair as he stared at the road unwinding in front of him. Why hadn’t he believed her when she’d told him she’d been kidnapped and that the men who had done it had orders to kill her? He’d thought himself that she didn’t seem the type to consort with the lowlifes captured by the security cams. If he’d only followed his instincts.
Still she’d been so evasive, so vague and changeable. Yes, and he’d been knocked off balance by a visceral and hormonal attraction of the kind he hadn’t felt since high school. She’d got under his guard when he’d held her in his arms and felt her warm blood seeping into his shirt, and he hadn’t liked it. He hadn’t wanted her to be real and innocent because then he’d have to deal with what he felt. And that had scared him so much he’d preferred not to think of it at all. It had scared him because he’d known that he had to lose, that she’d either be found guilty and sent to prison, or else return to whatever fine and easy life she’d left. Either way, he’d be alone again.
Look where it had got him, that refusal to face facts. Tory had left because she couldn’t trust him to protect her any more. He’d left her alone, and now she was gone. He had to find her, had to make her safe again, even if it meant losing her. It was better to know that she was alive somewhere in the world than to think that she might have left it for good. He could not stand to think of her gone, dying in pain and horror while he was off about his duty. His eternal duty that meant nothing if she wasn’t there. His duty that he was leaving behind, now, without a qualm or second thought or an instant’s consideration for what anyone might think of his using an official vehicle for a semiprivate matter. So much for how important it was, to him or anyone else.
He had to believe that she’d taken his car. It was the only acceptable explanation. Everything else was too damned hard to face. Impossible, in fact.
So where did that leave him?
If Melanka was flying, he didn’t have her, couldn’t touch her for the next—what, sixteen or seventeen hours that it would take for the drive to Florida? Or longer than that, if she stopped for the night. Maybe her ex-fiancé knew where she was headed and meant to get there ahead of her so he could be waiting when she showed up?
Tory was no match for Melanka. She wasn’t wary enough, or as vicious as she’d need to be to best him. For all her attempts to be hard and cynical, she was too soft inside, too weak from her injury. No, she was no match for a killer.
Or was she? She’d fooled him, hadn’t she?
She must have known where the release tool was for the monitor all along; she couldn’t have got away so quickly tonight, otherwise. He could pinpoint when she must have found it, at the same time she found the car keys. The question that bugged him was why she hadn’t taken it off as soon as she’d found the means. Unless it was the certain knowledge that he’d track her down, with or without the damn thing. She’d left now because he’d learned who she was and she’d known from looking at him how much difference it made. Because she didn’t trust him, now, to keep her secrets or keep her safe.
Did it matter that she was an heiress and a bona fide princess? Did it really?
Of course it did. It changed everything. Everything.
Roan was, by his best estimate, two hours or less behind her. The Bird was fast but he had the advantage of an official vehicle with emergency lights and a siren if he needed to use them. He should be able to run her down. The greatest danger might be that he’d miss her in the dark or overshoot her while she was stopped for gas or a break.
He had no real authority in Florida or any of the states in between; his jurisdiction extended only to Tunica Parish. Once he passed that parish limit sign, he’d be just a man, like any other. No better, no worse. No special privileges.
It would have to be enough.
The drive passed in a blur of traffic, road signs and communities with the sidewalks rolled up for the night. He took back roads from Natchez to Hattisburg, then turned south and east on Highway 49 to I-10. The wide open interstate unrolled ahead of him with the broken strips of the white center line flashing past like blinking lights as he made time through the night. He stopped for gas and a package of salted peanuts that he poured into the neck of a cold drink bottle as an energy snack, then he hit the road again.
The sun was rising by the time he reached Mobile. He squinted into it as the click of his tires over the joints of the causeway kept pace with his thoughts and fears. He’d seen no sign of the Super Bird.
On through the stunted pine barrens of the Florida panhandle he flew, making time. On the other side of Tallahassee, he found I-75 South and the constant parade of billboards advertising suntan lotion, tropical gardens and retirement havens. With the increasing stream of cars and fifth wheels and motor homes, he entered tourist land and began to see the first bougainvillea, the first palms, the first Bermuda coral-colored villas, and the vast trailer parks like cities made of aluminum and fiberglass. He drove in what had become a semidaze, so it was almost a shock to see exits signs for Fort Myers suddenly appear and realize he had almost made it.
Sanibel, an orderly island with its precious trees and rampant vegetation sheltering private bungalows and beach mansions so large it wasn’t always easy to tell them from the hotels. Most of them were shuttered and silent, however, deserted for the summer as their owners retreated from the humid heat of the rainy season, preferring cooler watering places like Bar Harbor and the Hamptons. Roan was briefly puzzled by the fact that Vandergraff had not left, but thought he might have reached an age where the semiannual move was too much trouble, or that he had overriding financial interests in the place.
Roan had asked his office to find and radio to him the address of the Vandergraff house. It was midafternoon when he finally located the entrance gates of the fenced enclosure. Since they were standing open, he turned in and took the snaking, shell-paved drive though arching jacaranda trees and under towering royal palms to the wide front doors constructed of beveled glass. He pulled up and slowly unfolded his stiff muscles from behind the wheel. Standing with his arms braced on the car door, he took a good look at the Vandergraff winter home.
It was an architect’s dream of angles and wing
s, balconies and cool, shady lanai, a spreading paradise of marble and stucco wrapped around a Moorish style garden with a spouting lion fountain and a shifting, glittering Olympicsize pool. Blindingly white in the tropical sun, it whispered of comfort and seclusion and money. It was a place that would have every innovative convenience known to science and imagination, every luxury of which the mind could conceive. It was Tory’s home, or one of them.
With a quick shake of his head, he shut the car door and walked to the entrance. A maid or housekeeper in a black-and-white uniform appeared, though she only opened the door a crack, staring wide-eyed through it at him and the star on his chest.
Sí, this was the Vandergraff residence, but Señorita Victoria, she was not at home. She had returned, Sí, Sí. But she had showered and changed, fast, fast, and gone out again, driving the purple monster of an automobile across the causeway to Fort Myers. No, she had not said where she was going or when she would return; perhaps it would be late. Señor Vandergraff had gone to the golf and might be back in one hour, maybe two, perhaps three, if the Señor Policia wished to wait.
Roan wished, but decided against it. He’d find a hotel instead, take a quick shower and get a bite to eat. Then he’d be back.
Before he started his car again, he looked back at the house. The place was like a palace. In it, Tory was a real princess, wrapped around with silk and diamonds and all the traditional snobbery of those who had never known want or imagined it. It was her rightful place. The only one she needed, ever.
And abruptly Roan knew that he had dreamed. He knew that somewhere in his mind he’d thought that maybe, just maybe, Tory would want to leave Sanibel and her rich life for the down-home comfort of Dog Trot. That she might do it for him and Jake, Pop and Beau, and all the other Benedicts who would welcome and surround her and make her one of them.
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