Special Forces Father

by Mallory Kane

  “I’ll get your information. You get me my money.”

  “You’ll get it when the job’s done, along with the second half of the original fee. I’ll call you back this afternoon.”

  “All right.” Bent hung up. Delanceys. It sounded as if it would be in his best interest to find out who the Delanceys were and why they were interested in Dr. Kate Chalmet.

  As he pocketed his phone, the kid’s wailing went up a few hundred decibels. “Can’t you shut that kid up?” he yelled. He was going to go crazy if he had to spend another minute in the same house as that spoiled brat. When he wasn’t crying for his mommy, he was complaining about the toys Shirley had bought him or telling her he wanted milk not juice, or juice not milk.

  “I’m taking the laptop and going out,” he yelled over the kid’s whining. “I’ll be back later.” A lot later.

  “Bring me some more of that jambalaya you bought the other day.”

  “Aren’t you sick of that stuff yet? I didn’t like it the first time.”

  “You don’t have to eat it,” she countered. “Get it from the same restaurant. And get some more apple juice for Max.”

  Apple juice for Max, Bent mocked as he got in his car and headed to the small shopping center a couple miles from the trailer park. It had a grocery store, an office supply store, a coffee shop that sold pastries and sandwiches and a Chinese restaurant. He’d have to drive another three miles to get Shirley’s jambalaya. But first he was going to have a latte and do a little business. He needed to check on that Maryland plate and he wanted to do some research on the Delanceys.

  He’d left a message last night for a buddy of his who was still with the Chicago P.D. By the time he reached the coffee shop, got his coffee and signed on to the internet, his phone rang. It was his buddy calling him back. “Hey, pal, what’s shaking?” Bent asked when he answered.

  “Not much. What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing new. Still scraping by with a couple private jobs. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah. So I ran that plate you gave me. The car’s registered to a Travis Delancey. I dug a little deeper and found out he’s active military.”

  “No kidding? So he’s stationed in D.C.? Is that why his car has a Maryland license plate?”

  “Got no idea. You know all I know now.”

  “Okay. That helps,” Bent said. “Thanks, pal, I owe you one.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  Bent sipped his coffee and typed the name Travis Delancey into a search engine. He found out he was the third son of Robert Delancey, older son of the late Senator Robert Connor “Con” Delancey. There were lots of news stories, comments and blogs about his grandfather, Con Delancey, who apparently was murdered by his personal assistant twentysomething years before.

  Bent was surprised at how much information was online about the family, especially the grandfather. Con Delancey had shaken hands with a lot of famous and infamous people—politicians, foreign dignitaries, celebrities. His grandchildren were all over the internet, too. Bent paged through hundreds of family photos, school pictures, candid paparazzi-like shots until he was practically cross-eyed. It didn’t take long for him to see that they were a state-sized version of the Kennedy family. Both lines were revered as American royalty and yet their histories were fraught with scandal. As with the Kennedys, the Delanceys were a handsome bunch, with a definite familial resemblance. Bent saw how Stamps could have recognized a member of the family even if he’d never met that particular Delancey before.

  But as much information as was out there, the girl, Cara Lynn, was the only obvious connection between the Delanceys and Dr. Kate Chalmet. When he entered Chalmet and Delancey into the search engine, he found the same information he’d discovered before. The doctor and Cara Lynn Delancey had entered LSU the same year.

  College. That was a thought. Maybe there was more than one Delancey family member who went to LSU. He entered Travis Delancey graduated LSU. The search engine asked him if he’d meant Delancy. He amended his search to Travis Delancey college LSU. That brought up a list of Delancey grandchildren and where they’d gone to college. Travis Delancey, about halfway down the list, had LSU beside his name. Bingo.

  Bent then searched images for Chalmet and Delancey and LSU. There were several of Cara Lynn and Kate, together at various school functions. But nothing else.

  He looked closely at the photos of Cara Lynn Delancey. It wasn’t that much of a stretch from Dr. Chalmet being friends with Cara Lynn Delancey to the theory that Dr. Chalmet’s little boy was Travis Delancey’s son, especially considering he’d shown up in New Orleans within hours of the kid’s kidnapping.

  Excitement churned in Bent’s gut, along with the espresso drink. He saved the link to the photo in his bookmarks and shut down the laptop. Then he walked over to the office supply store and got an enlargement of the photo of the doctor with Cara Lynn Delancey.

  Back in his car, he studied the picture. He could easily make a case that the whiny brat was related to the Delancey girl. There was a striking resemblance. Yep, the kid could definitely be a Delancey. Bent felt his scalp burn with excitement. This little tidbit could turn out to be a gold mine.

  * * *

  AFTER KATE LEFT for her office, Travis headed to Baton Rouge to confront Congressman Gavin Whitley at his office. When he walked into the suite, he saw that the door to the plush inner office was open.

  He didn’t stop at the secretary’s desk. Instead he walked right around it.

  The fiftysomething woman said, “May I help—?”

  But by then he’d left her in his dust and was in the congressman’s office. Whitley sat behind his desk, staring out the window.

  Travis quickly took in the items on the top of the dark wood desk. They included several legal-sized manila file folders haphazardly scattered across the surface, a Styrofoam take-out container and a cell phone. “Congressman Whitley,” he said.

  Whitley’s head snapped around. “What?” He blinked as his eyes focused. “Who are you?”

  “I think you know,” Travis said, “but I’ll introduce myself. I’m Travis Delancey. I spoke to your colleague, Myron Stamps, yesterday.”

  The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He leaned forward and started to lift the receiver on his desk phone, but then his gaze snapped to the office door behind Travis.

  Travis figured it was the secretary at the door, but he knew better than to turn around and look.

  “Congressman, I’m sorry. I couldn’t—”

  “It’s all right, Mary. Call security please, to escort this—gentleman—out of the building.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell the guards no hurry, Mary. I’ll just need a few minutes,” Travis said.

  Mary looked at each of them in turn, then compressed her already thin lips as she left the office and closed the heavy wooden door behind her.

  Travis calculated that he had two minutes at most, if he wanted to get away without being detained and asked a lot of questions. “I have one simple request,” he said to the congressman. “Return Dr. Chalmet’s child to her immediately and she won’t press criminal charges. I haven’t decided what I will or won’t do yet.”

  Whitley’s brows drew down and he shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I don’t have the time or the patience to play this game, Congressman. I don’t have a security force to call, but I do know several police detectives. I can call them. They’ll be glad to come over here and put you in handcuffs for kidnapping a child—a federal offense, by the way. Or maybe you’re ready to start talking, right now.”

  Whitley’s lips began to tremble, but he stuck to his guns. “I will repeat. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Travis reached out and picked up the cell phone. “Really? I must be mistaken, then,” he drawled as he looked at the recent call log on the phone. There were several calls that appeared routine—other congressmen and senators, his wife, h
is country club. But there was one that was labeled Unknown. Travis’s pulse skittered. “So this recent seven-minute phone call right here?” He held up the phone’s screen so Whitley could see. “The one that says B.W. Who’s that?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t remember that call,” Whitley said. “Perhaps it was a wrong number.”

  “Wrong number? You programmed it into your phone, and this call is seven minutes long.”

  “Aah, yes. I believe that’s—a real estate agent. That’s right. I’m thinking of buying a cabin on the lake.”

  Travis laughed. “I don’t think so.” He pulled out his phone and called Dawson. “Hang on just a minute,” he said to Whitley.

  When Dawson answered, Travis said, “Hey. I’m with Whitley. Just took a look at his phone and found out he’s been talking to our friend. Want the number?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Travis read the phone number off to Dawson. “It’s labeled B.W.”

  Whitley started to rise. “You can’t do that—”

  Travis glared at him. He sat.

  Dawson said, “Great. This’ll simplify a lot of things.”

  “Thanks.” Travis hung up, then deleted the listing from Whitley’s phone. He turned the congressman’s phone over, took out the battery and dropped it on the floor. “Oh, no!” Travis exclaimed and took a step, stomping on the battery and smashing it. “Look what I’ve done. I’m so sorry. You’ll have to get a new one.” He set the phone back on the desk and dug a couple bills out of his pocket. “Here’s some money for your new battery. Again, I’m truly sorry.” He glanced at his watch and saw that it had been just over two minutes since he’d walked past the secretary.

  Travis headed for the door. “When I find the kidnapper, he’s going to be begging the police to let him tell all about who hired him and why. Oh, by the way, I hope you had that number memorized. Because it’s not in your phone anymore.”

  To his satisfaction, Whitley’s mouth dropped open as he realized Travis had deleted the phone number. He slipped through the office door and closed it behind him.

  Travis scooted past Mary’s desk, giving her a half salute. “Thanks, Mary. Tell the security guys I hate it that I missed them.”

  Mary was apparently struck speechless, because she didn’t say a word as Travis left the office and headed toward the rear of the building. He was counting on the guards to come in the front. He slipped down the rear fire stairs and circled the building just in time to see two uniformed men heading up the steps at the front of the building. He waited until they’d entered, then jogged to his car and took off, wondering if Whitley was planning to tell them that a Delancey had come into his office, destroyed his phone battery and walked out.

  Once he was back in traffic and headed toward Kate’s, he called Dawson again. “Is it too early to ask if you got anything from that number?”

  “Five-and-a-half minutes? Nah. Not too early,” Dawson said wryly. “Dusty’s already done some computer magic and traced the number to a very busy store on Canal Street. Nobody at the shop recalls who bought it, but the store has been helping the NOPD trace the cell phones of a drug ring, so they’ve been trying to get license plates when they can.”

  “They have the kidnapper’s plate?”

  “Yep. We caught a break there. The plate was partially obscured by mud but it’s a Cook County, Illinois, plate and the first two numbers match the numbers you saw. When we checked with the Cook County DMV, they confirmed the make and model.”

  “So it’s the same vehicle I saw. It belongs to the kidnapper.”

  “Yep. We’ve been trying to pick up the phone’s GPS signal but we haven’t had any luck. He must turn it off when he’s not using it. But we will. When we call him, Dusty will pinpoint him to the nearest tower, or triangulate off three if we’re lucky.”

  “Great,” Travis said.

  “Do you have time to drive over here to Biloxi this evening? We could talk about when to get Lucas or Ryker involved.”

  “Not tonight. I’m going to be late getting back to Kate’s house and I don’t like her to be there alone in the dark. And I’m not so sure about getting them involved.”

  “Okay, but if you try to do something dangerous by yourself, I’ll sic every Delancey on the police force on you if you try.”

  “Yeah,” Travis said with a wry chuckle. “I hear you.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kate had spent the morning reading the rest of the police reports and witness statements in the shoot-out at Paul Guillame’s house. In the afternoon, she’d interviewed both Stamps and Guillame. The interviews had been an exercise in futility. It was as though the two of them had made some kind of pact to say as little as possible about the shooting.

  Stamps spent most of his interview swearing he didn’t remember anything after the shooting started. He acknowledged that the police had found gunshot residue on his hands and clothes and that a bullet from his gun had been removed from Paul Guillame’s left upper thigh. But according to Stamps, he didn’t even remember having the gun, although he did keep it in his glove compartment, since he never knew when he might be driving through rough neighborhoods. I like to visit the neighborhoods of all my constituents, he had told her. I feel it’s important for the people I represent to see me.

  She’d thanked him for coming in, and when he was gone, she’d just stared at the bound notebook where she normally jotted her impressions when doing these types of interviews. She had no idea what to write down. It would be a bald-faced lie to say that Stamps appeared insane. Whether he had temporarily blacked out as he’d said he did once the shooting started, she couldn’t say for sure, but she knew she’d have a hard time maintaining her credibility with the District Attorney’s office if she found that he had definitely been temporarily insane when he’d shot Paul Guillame.

  Then, Paul Guillame’s interview hadn’t gone any better. Guillame declared that Stamps had appeared glassy-eyed and confused when he’d taken the shot. “I could swear he wasn’t even looking at me,” Guillame had told her. He denied any recollection of Stamps yelling a discriminatory epithet at him at any time.

  “You’d swear under oath that he wasn’t looking at you?” she’d asked.

  “Well, maybe not under oath,” he’d prevaricated, “but he sure looked dazed and confused.”

  Now, as Kate drove into her driveway, she was disappointed to see that Travis’s car was not there. She went inside and locked the door behind her, then set down the two grocery sacks she’d brought in with her. She’d decided to make Travis’s favorite, spaghetti, and a salad. He needed to put some meat back on his bones.

  As she put the sauce on to cook and added basil, bay leaves, oregano, lots of garlic and olive oil, her eyes filled with tears. She and Travis had dreamed up this recipe in her dorm room in college, and cooked it in the microwave. She’d made it for Max and herself many times. Now as the sauce heated, the tangy smell nearly broke her heart.

  * * *

  PICKING UP THE SPOON, she stirred the sauce again and turned it down to low. Surely Travis wouldn’t be much longer getting home. She had already stored the Parmesan cheese and a half gallon of milk in the refrigerator, then pulled the remaining item—a package of Oreo cookies—out of the grocery bag. She was determined to make Travis eat as much as he could hold.

  Her cell phone rang. She grabbed it out of her purse and answered it without looking, thinking it was Travis, letting her know when he’d be there.

  “Dr. Chalmet.” It was that voice. Kate’s pulse hammered.

  “Yes,” she said breathlessly as her mind raced. Why wasn’t Travis here? How much longer would he be? He’d promised to be back before dark but this time of the year, it didn’t get completely dark until after eight o’clock.

  She held the phone pressed tightly against her ear, listening for Max’s voice in the background, but she didn’t hear him. “I want to talk to my son,” she said.

  “Oh, Doc, are you going to start with that again
?” the kidnapper said. “I thought I told you, I will decide when you can talk to your little boy. Not you. If you’d just shut up and listen, you might get more of what you want than if you persist in hounding me about talking to the kid. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Good. Now listen to me.”

  She waited.

  “Are you listening?” he snapped.

  “Yes,” she said, suppressing the urge to say yes, sir sarcastically.

  “Good. I’m a real good researcher, Doc. Real good. Do you want to know what I found out today?”

  Kate’s teeth were still gritted, so tightly her temple was beginning to pound. “Yes, please,” she said.

  The kidnapper laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Okay then, since you’re being so polite.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I know who the kid’s daddy is.”

  “What?” she said, startled. “What do you mean?” It was a stupid response, but right now her thoughts were spinning around in her head so fast it was making her dizzy. She couldn’t keep up with most of them, they were spinning so fast. But every once in a while an actual phrase or question materialized.

  How had he found out? Nobody knew, right? Who did he think was Max’s dad? Why did it matter? What would she say if he were right?

  “Travis,” she mouthed silently. Where are you?

  “What do you think I mean, Doc? I mean I know who the kid’s father is. Don’t you want me to tell you?”

  Kate’s stomach churned with apprehension. He was leading up to something—but what?

  Travis, help. I need you.

  “Okay,” the kidnapper said. “I’ll take your silence as a yes. Your son is—a Delancey.” He announced it with the intonation of a game show host saying And the answer is—

  Kate dropped onto one of the counter stools as though a thousand-pound weight had been dropped on her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Every effort to pull air into her lungs made her chest ache and tighten even more. “I don’t understand.” It was all she could think of to say. And saying it used up every last tiny breath of air in her lungs. She held the phone away from her mouth and took a deep, openmouthed inhale.