Power Struggle

by Carolyn Arnold

  “Daddy hasn’t told us why we’re here. Is it a party? I love cupcakes. Do you have cupcakes?” Brie was clapping and practically jumping up and down, but she stopped when she saw Terry. “Who’s he?”

  Madison smiled and rose to her full height, placing a loving hand on Brie’s head. “He’s my friend, and I work with him. His name is Terry.”

  Brie smiled at Terry and held out a hand.

  Terry smiled back and let the expression carry to Madison. Brie wasn’t anything if not a little lady. Her manners had always belied her age—an old spirit in a young girl.

  Terry took the girl’s small hand with his fingers. “Nice to meet you, Brie.”

  “You too, Mr. Terry.” Brie pulled her hand back, her gaze scrutinizing him for a few moments before she ran toward the front door.

  Madison watched her niece leave and noticed that Troy was standing just inside the open front door. She pulled her gaze from him and briefly locked eyes with Jim before looking away, trying to find Lacey. She must have already gone inside the house.

  Jim’s brow wrinkled. The stress was already making him look ten years older than he was. “Did you find her?”

  She shook her head.

  “What are we going to do? We have to find her.”

  “We—” she gestured to Terry but inferred the whole of the Stiles PD “—will do everything we can.” Madison paused. All of this was her fault… If it hadn’t been for her, Constantine wouldn’t be coming after them. And it all went back to that damned cold case she just had to solve, even though it had meant poking the Russian Mafia. Part of her almost wished she’d left that case cold. Then at least her family would be safe. But even as that selfish thought hit her, she knew that young defense attorney had deserved justice.

  Jim pinched his eyes shut, turned his face heavenward, and exhaled deeply. His warm breath created a white fog in the cold air. “I keep hoping this is a nightmare and that I’ll wake up any second. Or that she’ll just show up or call and tell me her phone died.”

  Madison swallowed, trying to force down the lump of terror in her throat. “Me too.”

  “Why would they want her, though? It’s you they’re mad at.” Jim sucked in air after his last words, and his gaze was full of apology when he tilted his head back down. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Madison bit her bottom lip to quell her emotion and shook her head.

  “They’re trying to get to you,” Jim summarized matter-of-factly.

  “It’s likely.”

  “Likely? Or is that the case, Maddy?” Jim used a form of her name, which at any other time would indicate a kinship and friendliness between them. Now it came out sounding painful and pleading.

  “I’m not sure…” She watched as the uncertainty cast his face in shadow.

  “Are they going to kill her? They are, aren’t they?” His voice was rising in volume. “And it’s all some sort of sick game just to upset you.” The accusation pierced her heart.

  “It’s possible they just want to draw Madison out,” Terry said, clearly stepping in to help ease the tension.

  Jim kept his gaze on Madison, and when she moved to touch his arm, he moved out of her reach and held up his hands.

  “Please, don’t.” He was breathing through his mouth, his facial features hardening. “They’re using her as bait. And bait…”

  Madison didn’t need him to finish. Tangible desperation rained down over him.

  “A CSU team will be going through your house to see if they can find anything to help locate Chelsea. And we have issued a Be On the Lookout bulletin on her car,” she told him, breaking down the acronym.

  “I know what a BOLO is,” Jim snapped. “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” He gestured toward the house, toward the girls.

  “Just stay here for a few days.”

  “What about clothes? And I work tomorrow, and the girls have school and daycare.” Jim was going through the motions, trying to give the impression that he was just being responsible, but stress was etched on his face. Madison knew he didn’t care so much about the inconvenience of changing their schedules around as he did Chelsea’s welfare.

  “I can get whatever you need from the house. As for the rest, it’s best you stay here under police protection.”

  “And just put our lives on hold?” He clung to what normalcy he could, even as it was slipping through his fingers.

  “For a bit, yeah.” Madison felt like a hypocrite for dispensing the very advice she was refusing to heed. “Let’s go inside,” she suggested. The chill was making her hands ache.

  He flailed his hands in the air. “Sure.”

  She didn’t need her brother-in-law to say any more. That single word carried defeat. Tears were threatening to fall, but she refused to let them. She had to be strong for all of them—even when weakness crept in and threatened her sanity.

  Constantine had chosen the wrong woman’s family to come after.

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  CHAPTER

  31

  MADISON STEPPED INTO THE HOUSE, and Troy hugged her and pecked a kiss on her lips.

  “Auntie and Unkie sitting in a tree,” Marissa started singing. Unkie was what she’d been calling Troy ever since she’d slipped up one day and Troy had teased her about it.

  Madison smiled at her niece’s lightheartedness despite the circumstances. Marissa was old enough to know something was wrong—she’d even cried at the school, wondering about her mother—but she was being brave for her younger sisters.

  “You’re going to find Mom, Aunt Maddy. I know it,” Marissa said.

  As much as Madison wanted to soak in her niece’s confidence, her experience as a cop clashed with what her heart longed for. There weren’t always happy endings.

  “We will do our best, sweetie,” Madison said gently.

  Marissa walked off toward Hershey, where her other nieces were playing. Lacey had yet to say anything to Madison, but the girl was watching her now. She smiled, and Lacey came over.

  “Hi.” Lacey stood in front of Madison.

  “Hey, sweetie.” She pulled her niece in for a hug, and the girl didn’t fight the display of affection.

  After a few seconds, Lacey drew back. “Mom’s going to be okay, right?”

  Madison froze. Words wouldn’t form on her tongue. What if she wasn’t going to be okay?

  “Your aunt’s going to bring her home,” Troy interjected, coming to Madison’s aid and resting a hand on the small of her back.

  She should have been touched by Troy’s confidence, but it struck her another way. Maybe they shouldn’t make promises they didn’t know they could keep.

  Madison addressed Troy. “Terry and I are going back to the house.”

  Lacey walked away, probably sensing adult talk was coming. Once her niece was out of hearing range, Madison continued. “We’ll see how Crime Scene is making out, get clothes for the girls and Jim.” Her phone rang then, and everyone in the room fell silent.

  “That could be him now.” Jim paled, but anger flashed in his eyes.

  Madison pulled her phone out and answered. “Madison Knight.”

  “How are you holding up?” It was Cynthia, and the couple of seconds that passed before she spoke had Madison’s heart rate spiking.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Cynthia sounded desperate to remedy the situation, as if wishing she could snap her fingers and bring Chelsea back.

  “There’s a silver picture frame in the living room on the table behind the couch. It has a photo of Chelsea and her family in it. Dust it for prints, as well as the computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse.”

  “Will do, but I meant anything of a personal nature.”

  “We just need to find her, Cyn.”

  “I could track her phone.”

  “It’s off,” Madison fired
back, instantly regretting the bitter edge. “Sorry, I—”

  “No apology necessary. I get it.” Cynthia let the line fall silent for a moment. “There could still be a way to track her phone.”

  “How?” As far as Madison knew, a cell phone had to be on to be traceable.

  “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but there are different ways to track a phone’s location. One way is based on Internet access.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.” A tension headache burrowed into her brow.

  “Does your sister have an iPhone or Android?”

  She thought back to lunch with her sister, how she’d had her phone on the table. “An Android.”

  “Okay, did she register her phone with Android Device Manager?”

  “I don’t know. Jim,” Madison called out to her brother-in-law, who had walked over to his girls.

  He came back, and Madison asked him what Cynthia needed to know.

  “Knowing how important her phone is, probably,” he replied.

  “Ask him if she opted to turn on Location History or Timeline for her Google account,” Cynthia said, obviously having heard Jim’s answer to her other question.

  Madison relayed what Cynthia had said to Jim.

  “Again, probably,” Jim began. “Why? Can this help—”

  “He’s not sure,” Madison told Cynthia.

  “Well, we’ll find out soon enough. I’m going to need her log-in information.”

  “I’ll get it,” Madison said. “Just explain what you’re going to do.”

  “Google could have saved the location where her cell phone last had an Internet connection.”

  Madison’s chest expanded with the first good breath she’d taken in a while. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” her friend cautioned. “Let’s just check it out and go from there.”

  Cynthia’s words dampened Madison’s spark of hope.

  “Do you have her account info?” Cynthia asked.

  “We’ll need the username and password that Chelsea would have used for Google on her phone,” she said to Jim.

  “You got it.” Jim started rattling it off.

  “Did you catch that?” Madison asked Cynthia.

  “I did. I’ll call you the second I have something.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Please. Whatever I can do to help.” Cynthia hung up, but she had left Madison feeling optimistic despite her friend’s advice to temper her expectations.

  Besides, even if they found out where Chelsea’s phone had last logged its location, she could be a long way from there now. However, it would give them a start and a possible timeline for when Chelsea was taken.

  “What did she say?” Jim’s eyes softened, and he seemed to be teetering on the brink of hope.

  She filled in Jim, Troy, and Terry, and added, “Let’s just take this one step at a time, though. Not get too attached to this working.”

  “She’s my wife,” Jim blurted out, causing the girls to look at him. “I—we—have to cling to whatever hope we’re offered.”

  Madison pressed her lips together and nodded. “Run us through what her schedule was for today.”

  “You already know about the play.” Jim’s gaze took in all the adults. “But she gets up at about six and gets the girls off to school and daycare. She leaves the house around eight.”

  That was around the same time that Tendum had left his post unattended.

  “Obviously that much happened.” Jim said. “You’re trying to figure out when and where she was taken?”

  “Yeah. What were her plans after she dropped off the girls?” Madison asked.

  “I’m not the best listener sometimes.” Jim’s face fell, and his shoulders sagged. “Your sister has a lot to say— But if she was here right now, I’d let her talk all night.”

  “It’s all right,” Madison consoled him. “She does talk a lot.” She found herself smiling, no doubt her soul’s attempt to buoy her spirits and his.

  “Anyway, I don’t catch everything she says,” he went on.

  “You’re only human.”

  “Right now I wish I was more.”

  I know how you feel.

  “Do you know of anything else on her agenda today besides the play?”

  “She probably hit the grocery store. She goes pretty much every day for something.” He gave her the name of the store Chelsea frequented. “I don’t know what time she’d have gone. She could have gone after the gym or planned to go after the play rehearsal.”

  Terry eyed her skeptically. “Your sister has a gym membership?”

  Just because her partner knew she thought running was the Devil’s pastime…

  She glanced over at him, and he was smiling. She appreciated his attempt to lighten things, even if for a moment. “Ha-ha.” She aligned her gaze with Jim’s again. “So she would have gone to the gym at some point today?”

  “Probably.” He seemed disappointed with himself that he didn’t know for sure.

  “It’s all right, Jim,” she said gently. “It’s hard to think clearly with all this going on.”

  “As long as you are.”

  Again, the burden of being held responsible should she not find and rescue her sister sat roiling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Lately, she’s been going after she drops the girls off at school,” Jim offered.

  “Okay, good. We can check there and see.” Madison turned toward Terry. “Let’s go.” She couldn’t just sit around here doing nothing, waiting on a hope and a prayer that Cynthia would find something or there’d be a hit on the BOLO.

  Madison had her hand on the doorknob when her phone rang. “Madison Knight,” she answered.

  “I have something for you.” It was Cynthia. “Her phone was last connected to the Internet in Stiles this morning at eight thirty-five.”

  Oh god. She had been abducted this morning…

  Madison’s stomach somersaulted. “Please tell me you have more than that.”

  “Oh, I do. I have an intersection.”

  “That’s great.” Madison’s gaze slid to Jim, who was watching her eagerly. “Which one?”

  Cynthia told her.

  Madison’s mind went blank. “What’s there again?”

  “A gas station, a coffee shop, a grocery store, and a McDonald’s.”

  “Get the video footage from the city,” Madison told her. “We can see if her car shows up, and if so, what direction it was headed.”

  “I’ve run it by Winston already, and he’s got an officer working on the warrant.”

  “You’re the best.”

  “Anything for you, Maddy.”

  Madison hung up and announced, “We have a lead.” With the spark of optimism in Jim’s eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to share the time of day Chelsea’s phone had last been active. She turned to Terry. “Ready to go?”

  Jim stepped toward her. “What’s the lead?”

  Madison glanced at Troy, who was watching her with those piercing green eyes of his.

  “Her phone was last online at…” Should she just disclose everything to her brother-in-law? She was feeling lost and sick, not understanding why Constantine would have taken Chelsea so early in the day and not have contacted her. Was it just a matter of him wanting to batter Madison’s emotions and show her that he was in control?

  “What is it?” Troy asked tenderly. Obviously her internal anguish had not gone unnoticed.

  She nodded and told the men about the intersection.

  “She uses that gas station. It’s on the way to the school,” Jim said. “Or back from. And the grocery store on that corner is the one I told you about.”

  With his words, Madison was hit with an idea. “Jim,” she punched out.

  “What?”
<
br />   “Check your online banking. It should show any transactions from earlier today.”

  “Good thinking,” Troy praised her.

  She was busy chastising herself for not thinking of it earlier. But then again, it wasn’t like everything could hit at once.

  “Is there a computer I can use?” Jim asked.

  “Yeah, but you can log into your banking on your phone.” Madison pointed to his waist where his cell was clipped into a holder.

  “Not this guy. I prefer to take precautions,” Jim started. “It’s surprising I even have an online log-in.”

  Madison never knew her brother-in-law was so behind when it came to his acceptance of technology. She put a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Come with me.” She led him to Troy’s desktop computer, which was set up in an alcove off the kitchen. The computer was on, as it often was for whatever reason, though Troy barely used it. But right now, she was happy it was warmed up and ready to go.

  She flicked on the monitor and opened the Internet browser. “There you go.”

  Jim sat down and looked at her as if silently requesting his privacy.

  She held up her hands and backed up. “I’ll be in the living room.”

  She stepped away and listened to Jim’s keystrokes and mouse-clicking. When both stopped, she asked, “What have you got?”

  Jim came into the doorway. “She made a purchase at the gas station on that corner.”

  “Great.” Madison was on her way to the door.

  “Wait. The amount she spent would have easily filled the tank, though, and she rarely fills it. She likes to play the gas-pump price war, as she calls it. Could she be being forced to drive somewhere?”

  Trepidation wormed through Madison as she turned around and saw the fear in Jim’s eyes. “Stay strong, all right?” She held eye contact with him until he nodded ever so slightly. She glanced over at her nieces, who were still preoccupied with Hershey. She turned her attention to Troy. “Take care of my family.”

  “You know I will.” Troy pulled her close and held her tightly. She gave him a quick kiss and then flew out the front door with Terry right behind her.

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