by Rita Herron
“Footprints,” Brandon said as the light beam caught tracks in the dirt.
Kim followed the track marks to some scrub brush and noticed a rag beneath it. She untangled it, then sniffed the cloth, nausea slamming into her again. “Oh, my God, Brandon, he drugged Lucy.”
Brandon snatched the cloth and took a sniff. “Dammit, it’s chloroform.”
Kim’s legs buckled as the implication sank in. The person who’d attacked her had kidnapped her daughter.
BRANDON’S HEAD REELED. Someone had stolen Lucy.
But why? And who? Carter?
Would he really chloroform a child, especially if he thought she was his?
He curved an arm around Kim’s waist to support her. “Come on. You’re going to the house and call the sheriff while I phone my foreman to organize a search party.”
“But I want to go with you,” Kim said.
“No.” Brandon forced his voice to remain steady even though terror filled his throat. “If someone did kidnap her, they might call the house.”
Pain made Kim’s eyes look dazed, but she must have recognized his logic because she nodded. Then she leaned against him as they hurried toward the house. He helped her inside, then raced through the rooms again to make sure it was empty.
When he returned, Kim was holding a damp cloth to her head. Brandon grabbed an ice pack from the freezer, then examined Kim’s injury. “Tell the sheriff to send some medics. You might need stitches or to go to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” Kim said. “I just want to find Lucy.”
“So do I,” Brandon said. “But do it anyway. You suffered a blow to the head, Kim. We can’t take chances. Lucy’s going to need you.”
And dammit, he needed her, too. He wanted to stay here now and comfort her. Apologize for shutting her out of his life years ago. For hurting her and not being there for Lucy.
But he didn’t have time. Every second that passed meant the kidnapper might be getting farther and farther away with his daughter.
He shoved the phone at her, and her eyes looked tormented as she punched in the sheriff’s number. Brandon retrieved one of his rifles from the locked gun case and left it beside her, then grabbed his pistol and phoned his ranch foreman as he jogged to the truck. “Walt, this is Brandon. Someone attacked Kim and kidnapped Lucy. I need you to call the other hands and organize a search party.”
“Any idea who took her?” Walt asked.
He started to explain about Carter, but there wasn’t time. “No. But arm yourself in case he has a weapon.” Brandon hesitated. “And tell the guys to be careful. This is my daughter. I don’t want her harmed.”
“Got it.”
Brandon flipped on the engine and pressed the gas; then he and Walt discussed dividing the ranch into quadrants for searching purposes. The storm clouds rumbled, growing darker and more ominous as he drove around to check each barn and stable in case the kidnapper had hidden out before trying to leave the ranch.
He scanned the dirt roads leading through the property, hunting for signs of another vehicle or a stray horse the kidnapper could have used to make his escape, searching for any clue as to how he had come in and left, but the storm clouds unleashed a torrent of rain that quickly washed away any tracks and made visibility difficult.
Sweat streamed down his neck. He tried to think logically.
Had the vandalism been an attempt to lure him away from Kim and provide an opportunity for the kidnapper to snatch Lucy?
More questions nagged at him. He’d been gone at least a couple of hours. How long had Kim been unconscious?
If the kidnapper had escaped on horseback, were they out in this storm? Had he parked a car nearby and already left the ranch?
He checked his cell phone, hoping, praying it would ring. That one of his ranch hands would uncover a lead.
That his little girl was safe…
That Carter was the one who’d abducted her.
At least if Carter believed Lucy was his daughter, he wouldn’t hurt her.
But if a stranger had abducted her, his little girl could be in serious danger....
KIM STARED AT THE CLOCK as she waited on the sheriff to arrive, counting the minutes since Brandon had left. Where was he?
Dear God, please let him find Lucy.... Let her be safe and let him bring her back to me....
Too nervous to sit still but too dizzy to pace, she picked up the phone to call Johnny. But she remembered Brandon’s comment about a ransom call, so she hung up, then grabbed her cell phone to use instead. Rain slashed the windows and roof, thunder roaring as she called her brother. What if Lucy was out in this storm? Her poor baby…
The phone jangled once, twice, three times, and she fidgeted, afraid he wasn’t home, but he finally answered.
“Kim?”
“Johnny,” Kim said breathlessly. “Someone kidnapped Lucy.”
“What?” His raspy breath rattled over the line. “What do you mean, someone kidnapped her?”
Kim swallowed tears. “Lucy and I went to the barn to play with the kittens while Brandon checked on some vandalism, then someone hit me over the head, and knocked me out....” Her voice broke. “When I came to, she was gone.”
“Dammit. Where’s Brandon?” Johnny asked sharply.
“He called the ranch hands and they’re searching the property.” Kim clutched the lamb to her heart, rocking it back and forth as she would a child. “Johnny, do you think Carter did this?”
“I don’t know,” Johnny said gruffly. “He’s desperate, but why would he hurt you and then take Lucy? Why not just confront you, talk to you both?”
Kim massaged her temple. “That’s what I was thinking. He knows the police are after him.”
“That’s right. And adding kidnapping charges would only make things worse. Plus having Lucy would make it more difficult for him to hide out.”
Cold fear crawled through Kim. “Unless he wants to use her as a shield. Or to blackmail me into giving him money.”
Johnny cursed. “That doesn’t sound like Carter. I’ve offered to help him financially several times over the past five years, and he’s practically thrown the offer back in my face.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Kim jumped up and hurried toward it. “I think the sheriff is here now.”
“Good. Fill him in, and if Carter calls demanding a ransom, let me know. I’ll pay whatever he asks for Lucy’s return.”
“Thanks, Johnny. I knew I could count on you.”
A heartbeat passed. “You can count on Brandon, too.”
Words died in Kim’s throat. She’d once believed that with all her heart. But now?
She didn’t want to debate the issue with her brother. “Johnny, what if Carter didn’t abduct Lucy?”
“Then we’ll call in the feds, pay the ransom, do whatever we have to do.” His voice wavered slightly. “But we will get Lucy back, Kim. Then Brandon and I will kill the SOB who snatched her.”
Johnny’s vehemence gave her strength, and she swiped at her tears, willing herself to be strong.
“Listen, Kim,” Johnny said. “I’m going to phone that reporter who covered the rodeo. Maybe she can arrange some press for you and Brandon to spread the word about Lucy.”
“Good. Tell her I’ll do anything she wants if she’ll help us.”
She closed her phone, then sighed with relief at the sight of the sheriff’s car in front of the house.
Kim threw the door open and waved him and his deputy in. They shook rain from their hats and wiped their feet on the rug as they entered.
Sheriff McRae gestured to his sidekick, a younger, thin man in uniform, with short brown hair.
“This is Deputy Pikes.”
The deputy nodded in greeting. “Ma’am, a paramedic team is on their way.”
The sheriff gestured toward her blood-tinged hair. “You look like you need to sit down.”
“My head will heal,” Kim said, brushing off his concern. “But my daughter is missing and
we have to find her.”
Sheriff McRae removed a small notepad from his pocket. “Please, sit down. Then tell me exactly what happened.”
Resigned, Kim collapsed on the couch while the sheriff claimed the club chair opposite her.
Her adrenaline surge was waning so she twined her fingers together.
“Did you see who attacked you?” the sheriff asked.
Kim shook her head. “No. He hit me from behind. And when I came to, Lucy was gone.”
“You think this may be related to the break-in at the Bucking Bronc Lodge?” Sheriff McRae asked.
Kim shrugged. “It seems too coincidental not to be.” She explained about the hit-and-run driver. “We weren’t sure if that was connected. I thought maybe it was a drunk driver, but now I can’t help but wonder.”
The sheriff’s scowl deepened the lines around his eyes. “It does sound suspicious. What kind of vehicle was it?”
“Some kind of truck,” Kim said. “We didn’t get a good look, though.”
“How about the color?
“It was too dark and it happened so quickly,” Kim said. “Then he flew on past.”
“So you’re still thinking that your buddy Carter might have broken in at the BBL, then followed you here and struck you to take your daughter?”
Kim nodded, then gestured toward the cloth they’d found on the ground. “We found that rag and Lucy’s stuffed lamb near some scrub brush outside the barn. There were track marks across the dirt as if the kidnapper dragged her into the woods.”
Sheriff McRae sniffed the rag. “You’re right. Seems suspicious. But with this rain, I doubt we’ll find more evidence tonight.”
The deputy removed his cell phone from the clip at his belt. “I’ll issue an Amber alert.”
Sheriff McRae worked his mouth from side to side. “Kim, if you have a photograph we can air on the news and send to all the pertinent databases and law enforcement agencies, that would help.” He turned to his deputy. “Also, Pikes, alert authorities that she might be traveling with an escaped felon.”
Kim rushed to her purse and removed a picture of Lucy from her wallet, tears pulsing behind her eyes as she looked at her daughter smiling in the photograph. “This was taken on her last birthday,” she said. “She’s four.”
Sheriff McRae studied the picture; then he handed it to the deputy. “She’s a cutie.” Sympathy softened his eyes as he met her gaze. “We’ll do everything we can to find her, ma’am.”
A siren wailed outside, lights twirling through the window sheers.
Deputy Pikes rushed to the front door to greet the paramedics, and Kim clenched her hands together, mentally reviewing the last few days in her mind. The attack at the Bucking Bronc, the hit-and-run, now another attack on her, and Lucy missing…
Why had someone targeted her and her daughter?
FRUSTRATION AND WORRY knotted every muscle in Brandon’s body as he headed back to check on Kim. He and his hands had driven the property several times and searched every place he could think of, even an old abandoned mine on the far end of his land.
His gut told him that Lucy’s kidnapper had left The Woodstock Wagoneer.
He checked his watch, then his phone, but Kim hadn’t called. Not a good sign.
No ransom call might mean that Carter had Lucy and wanted to get to know her. Or it might mean that this kidnapping had nothing to do with Carter, which left him totally perplexed and terrified.
Because the other possibilities and scenarios were too horrible to imagine.
Lucy in the hands of a child molester or madman. Lucy being carted off to be sold like that child-kidnapping ring he’d heard about in Miami.
Lucy being abused or hurt....
No, he couldn’t allow his mind to travel to those dark places. He had to remain strong and positive for Kim’s sake.
And he had to find his daughter and make up for all the years they’d missed together.
He parked in front of the house and saw the ambulance and sheriff’s car. Good God, this was a nightmare. Kim had been attacked twice.
And now Lucy was gone. He’d sworn he’d be a better man than his sorry-assed father.
But so far he’d failed miserably.
He would make this right, though.
Mentally he ticked through the past few days. If the kidnapper was the same person who’d broken in at the BBL, had he been watching them ever since?
It was possible.
He hadn’t left Kim’s or Lucy’s sides since they’d arrived.
Until tonight.
His gut clenched.
The kidnapper had been waiting on him to leave Kim and Lucy alone, unprotected.
And the vandalism had given him his opening....
Dammit, he’d fallen right into the kidnapper’s trap.
Chapter Eight
Brandon saw the strain on Kim’s face as he entered the house. The medics were examining her so he went straight to the sheriff and deputy.
“Did you find anything?” Sheriff McRae asked.
“No.” Brandon jammed his hands in his pockets to keep from pounding the walls. “Some of my men are still searching. The bastard probably left the ranch, but Kim’s brother, Johnny, is bringing his chopper and we’re going back out to search some more.” He glanced at the phone. “No ransom call?”
The sheriff shook his head. “We issued an Amber alert and set up a tip line. And my deputy faxed her picture nationwide and to NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.”
Brandon nodded, his body riddled with tension. He had to do more. Should be doing more.
“Miss Long filled us in on the hit-and-run, and the possibility that Flagstone might have followed you here.” The sheriff tapped his pad with his pen. Brandon explained his theory about the vandalism being a diversion. “Could be,” Sheriff McRae said. “Can you think of any place Carter might go or take Lucy?”
Brandon sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face, grateful for the questions. He was too damn upset to think straight.
“He might go to his old man’s ranch,” he said. “His dad died a few weeks ago, but he owned a spread on the north side of San Antonio. It’s probably deserted.”
The sheriff made a sound in his throat. “Sounds like a logical place to hide.”
Brandon nodded, then cited the address. But anxiety clawed at him. The trouble was, it would be the natural place for the cops to look. So where else would Carter go?
He sure as hell didn’t have any friends that Brandon knew of. Other than him and Johnny. And Carter had written them off long ago.
Unless he’d made friends in prison. The thought made his blood turn to ice.
If one of them had Lucy, there was no telling what he might do to her....
He inhaled sharply, desperate to think logically.
Even if Carter wasn’t involved, if his friends were aware of his relationship with Johnny and Brandon, or if Carter had spouted off about Lucy and been mad at Kim for not bringing her to see him, maybe one of them had decided to kidnap her and use her to pay their way out of town. Both he and Johnny’s success stories had been featured in the papers. And the rodeo at the Bucking Bronc Lodge had upped publicity for the ranch and for them as investors, painting them as among the wealthiest men in Texas.
“We’re operating on the assumption that your buddy Carter abducted your daughter,” Sheriff McRae said. “But what if he didn’t? Do you or the lady have any other enemies?”
Brandon chewed the possibility over in his head as he explained his theory about the publicity.
“You’re right,” McRae said. “Being two of the most wealthy ranchers in Texas can draw random crazies.”
Brandon’s stomach roiled. All this time he’d wanted money and recognition. Now it might have endangered his child.
“I asked Miss Long about former lovers or ex-boyfriends who might hold a grudge against her.” The sheriff folded his arms. “But she couldn’t think of anyone. How about y
ou? Other than Carter Flagstone, is there anyone you know personally who’d want to target you, Mr. Woodstock? A disgruntled employee? A business associate you’ve crossed? An ex-lover or wife?”
“Let me think about that.” Brandon’s anxiety mounted as he contemplated the enemies he might have made. Sure, he’d stepped on a few toes along the way to success. Bought up some land out from under a couple of guys who planned to bring in mining or some other operation that wouldn’t sit well beside his ranch.
But they wouldn’t kidnap Lucy in retaliation. Would they?
No…the fact that he had a child wasn’t public knowledge.
And Marty didn’t need the money. She had no idea Lucy was his either. Hell, he hadn’t known until a few days ago.
“Think about it some more and make a list,” the sheriff said. “Have Miss Long’s brother do the same. Bigwig like Johnny Long is a perfect target for a kidnapper.”
Brandon nodded. He’d pick his brain for names and fax them to the sheriff ASAP. He just hoped they found Lucy tonight or that Carter called.
He didn’t want to contemplate the other possibilities.
Or that they might not see Lucy again at all.
KIM SUFFERED THROUGH the paramedics’ exam but refused to go to the hospital, so she signed the necessary forms and sent the ambulance packing. She had to be near the house in case the kidnapper called.
It had to be Carter. It had to be....
Although the sheriff’s questions about Brandon’s enemies raised doubts. Had his success garnered a stalker or crazy person who’d seen the latest publicity on him, learned Lucy was his child, and targeted them?
Her poor little girl…was she alive? Safe?
A knock sounded at the door, and she tensed and met Brandon’s gaze. The sheriff gestured to let him handle it, then went to see who was outside.
Brandon inched closer to her, his dark gaze so tormented that she was tempted to reach out and console him.
“Are you okay?” he asked gruffly.
She stiffened, forcing herself not to lean on him. How could she answer that question? Physically she would survive. But without her daughter…