by Mallory Kane
“Doc? You okay?” the man asked, with what sounded like a grin in his voice. “Did I surprise you?”
For a moment Kate couldn’t speak. She didn’t think she had enough air. She just sat there, her palm splayed across her chest, and tried to take long, slow breaths. As a psychiatrist, she knew what was happening to her. She was on the verge of hyperventilating. If she didn’t get it under control, she’d be gasping and heaving for air. She didn’t want to have to breathe into a paper bag or into her cupped hands. She wanted to be able to talk to this awful man—find out why he was telling her this and what he was going to do.
“N-no,” she stammered—not a complete lie. She’d been afraid he’d really known. It was useless to question how he’d found out. Useless to worry about what he planned to do with the information.
“That’s what I thought. Well, I must congratulate you on having managed to have a Delancey kid. I didn’t know much about the Delanceys before, but now I do. Very impressive. I wonder how much the kid’s grandparents would be willing to cough up to save their first grandbaby. Yep, I know that, too. Little Max is the first great-grandchild of Con Delancey, right?” He laughed. “Or maybe I should say the first one anybody knows about.”
Kate didn’t hear anything after cough up to save their first grandbaby. Her hand moved from her chest to cover her open mouth, just in time to stop the scream that was crawling its way up her throat. Oh, no, please. No, no, no.
“Apparently you’re speechless, eh, Doc? That’s okay. You need time to process what I’ve told you. Time to calm down. No sense in making you talk to the kid right now. It would just upset both of you.”
“No-o-o,” she sobbed. “Please, let me ta-talk to him.”
“Nah,” the kidnapper said. “I can’t stand to listen to the little brat cry.”
“Please,” she whispered.
“But I tell you what. You let your baby-daddy know what I know, and we’ll all have a great little conversation soon, ’kay?”
“Wait!” she cried. “Wait, please.”
She heard a sigh. “What? I’m not letting you talk to your kid.”
“Please, don’t call the Delanceys. Give me some time. I can get money. I can pay you. Just please don’t call them.”
“And what’s going to convince me that you have the kind of money the Delanceys have?” he asked.
“I don’t. But—” How could she convince him? Maybe the same thing that made her not want the Delanceys involved would make sense to him. “You don’t want to get mixed up with the Delanceys,” she said firmly. “Why do you think I’ve tried to keep my son’s father a secret all this time, when I could go to them and probably not have to work another day in my life?”
“I don’t know. You love your job?” The kidnapper was obviously getting impatient with her.
“Because their influence spreads all over this state. You don’t want them onto you, I can promise you that. There are at least four policemen in the immediate family, plus a prosecutor, plus a very dangerous private investigator. Not to mention an army Special Forces operative. How many of those do you want on your trail?”
There was a pause. “How do I know they’re not already?”
“You don’t. You’re just going to have to trust me, like I’m offering to trust you.”
“All right. What’s your proposal, and more important, how much money can you get me?”
Kate tried to think fast. She knew how much money she had, down to the penny, and it wasn’t going to be enough to tempt this man. A small inheritance from her parents plus the money she’d been saving for Max’s college fund would add up to $73,000. Not even a drop in the bucket, when measured next to the funds of the Delanceys.
“A quarter of a million,” she said as confidently as she could.
“Really,” he said, disbelievingly. “On your own, without the Delanceys, you’ve got two-hundred-and-fifty big ones?”
“I’ll need a day—maybe more, depending on the bank—but yes.” She heard a slight flutter in her voice. Dear God, she hoped the kidnapper hadn’t heard it.
“I don’t like it. How do I know you’re not just stalling me to give your boyfriend time to get his detective brother on my trail?”
“You don’t. Like I told you, you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Yeah? Why? How’re you going to convince me to trust you?”
Kate took a halting, shaky breath. “Because you have the one thing in the world that I would give my life for,” she said. “You have my son.”
The phone clicked and went dead.
“No!” she cried, jerking the phone from her ear and looking at the display. “No, please!” But the call had been disconnected. After a couple tries, she pulled up the phone log and saw the same notation she’d seen every time she talked to the kidnapper. Private Number. She pressed Star-Six-Nine—nothing. She pressed Call—nothing. She clicked Edit, Store, every button she could find to press, except Delete, but nothing worked.
She slammed the phone down on the counter, then sat with her head in her hands.
What was she going to do now that the kidnapper knew that Max was a Delancey? If she thought her child was in danger before, it was nothing compared to now. Her heart felt as though the kidnapper had reached into her chest and ripped it out of her when he’d hung up.
She had no idea what he was going to do. Had he rejected her offer? Was he convinced he couldn’t trust her? But if he thought the Delanceys were already onto him, wouldn’t her plan still be better than him trying to get money out of them?
She turned her gaze up to the ceiling, wishing she could force an answer from heaven.
At that instant, she heard a key in the front door. It opened and Travis walked in.
“Wow!” he said, grinning. “It smells great in here. Spaghetti, right?”
* * *
WHEN HE LOOKED into Kate’s eyes, he stopped short. “Is everything okay?”
She pointed at the phone. “You wa-want to know who that was?” she said bitterly, not even trying to stop the tears that welled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
“Who?” Travis approached her gingerly.
“The kidnapper.”
Travis nodded. “I didn’t mean for you to have to talk to him by yourself. I’m sorry I didn’t make it home earlier. What did he say? Did you get to talk to Max?” He held out his arms.
She shook her head quickly, back and forth and back and forth. “No,” she said. “No. You stay away from me.”
“What happened? I don’t understand.”
“Really?” she said, still shaking her head. “You’re going to stand there and tell me you have no idea what you’ve done? My baby is in danger and it’s because of you.” She clenched her fists and worked very hard at channeling all her fear and despair and aching emptiness into anger at Travis. But it still hurt just as bad.
“Kate, tell me what he said.”
“You had to go and get involved, didn’t y-you?” she cried. “Had to get right in the m-middle of it and g-get your cousin involved.”
Travis regarded her with frank bewilderment and spread his hands. “I’m not sure what’s happening here. Why don’t we sit down on the couch and you can tell—”
“Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t patronize me. It’s you and your damn rich family. It’s always been my biggest fear. Why do you think I never went to your parents about Max? I never even told Cara Lynn, and she’s my best friend. And now—everything I feared has come true.” She blotted her face with the sleeve of her blouse. “He knows!”
Travis just stared at her.
“He—knows!” she screamed, pointing to the phone.
Then as calmly as she could, she said, “The kidnapper knows that Max is your child. He’s going to call your parents and see how much they’d pay to make sure their first great-grandchild is safe.”
Travis’s face twisted into a mask of horror as her words sank in. “Oh my God,” he muttered. “How did he f
ind out?”
“You tell me,” she grated. “Maybe he saw you with Dawson.”
Travis shook his head. “No. He didn’t see us. Even if I didn’t notice him, Dawson would have.”
“Well, he found out somehow.”
Travis’s forehead creased in a frown. “Stamps or Whitley must have talked.”
“Stamps or Whitley? What are you talking about?” she asked. Stamps? She didn’t like the expression on Travis’s face any more than what he’d said. He looked chagrined and he wouldn’t meet her gaze. She saw his throat move as he swallowed.
“I—went to see Stamps yesterday, after I talked to Dawson. I figured he needed to know that we were onto him—”
“You went to see him?” The anger she’d been searching for earlier, that she’d hoped would sweep away the empty ache of missing her child, now began to burn through her. It didn’t get rid of the emptiness, but it felt good. “You went to see Senator Stamps. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Now, Kate—” Travis began.
“Stop talking!” she snapped, slicing a hand through the air. “Don’t even pretend you have an explanation for this.” She stepped over to the stove and turned off the spaghetti sauce, congratulating herself for having presence of mind enough to do that. She closed her eyes. As much as she wished she could depend on Travis, she knew from experience she couldn’t. She was the one who always handled things. So she would handle this, too. But she was going to need all the information she could get. With a huge sigh, she asked, “Who’s Whitley?”
“Congressman Gavin Whitley. He’s actually the one who hired the kidnapper. Dawson traced down the kidnapper’s phone number and found out where he bought it. I found that same number on Whitley’s phone. So now, with that information and using your phone, Dawson should be able to zero in on where they’re keeping Max.”
“Please, Travis. I don’t want you to do anything else. I don’t want Dawson to do anything else. I’m taking care of it, just like I always have. When you walked out on me in college. When I found myself pregnant with your child. If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s how to get along without you.”
“Come on, Kate. You don’t have to—”
“I swear to you on your child’s life, if you don’t leave this alone right now, I will take Max and move away from here and you will never, ever find us. You will never see your child.” Kate felt sick, saying those words. It wasn’t what she wanted. It had never been her choice to raise her child alone. She’d always thought that one day he would come back and they would be a family.
But she knew now that her vision of them as a family was a pipe dream. The reality was what it had always been. Travis would walk away and Kate would handle it.
She lifted her chin and glared at him. “I don’t have much that’s mine. But Max is my son and this is my house. I want you to leave, now.”
Travis stared at Kate, trying to process everything she’d said. He knew how many times he’d let her down. But he wasn’t going to let her down this time. He wished there was a way to tell her that, to make her stop and look at him and see—not the boy he’d been, too angry and too immature to be responsible. But the man he’d become. Who knew how to channel his anger. Who knew what was worth living for—and even dying for. He’d sat in that filthy dark room where his enemy had kept him for five months, completely alone. He’d faced his shortcomings, his demons, his fears. And now, at last, he knew that only love could heal what was wrong with him. He hoped he wasn’t too late in recognizing it.
“Kate, don’t do this. We can get him back. I promise you.”
But her chin just went up another fraction of an inch and her glare never wavered.
He shook his head, held out a hand in supplication, then when she ignored it, let it drop to his side. Then he walked past her into their child’s room and threw his clothes into his duffel bag before hoisting it over his shoulder. When he came back into the living room, she was still standing in the same place, but her head was now bowed and her eyes were closed.
He walked past her to the front door, then turned around. “Kate, you’re telling me to leave, but I swear to you, I am not walking out on you.” She didn’t react. “Damn it, Kate. Look at me.”
Slowly she raised her head and met his gaze. Her face was awash with both a profound sadness and a steely determination.
“I am not walking out. I’ve got this phone, and you’ve got the number in yours. Call me and I promise I will be here before you hang up the phone. That is my solemn promise to you—on our son’s life.”
Travis didn’t miss the irony of declaring to Kate that he was not walking out on her in one breath and in the next, turning around and leaving. But he’d told her the truth. Even if she never wanted to lay eyes on him again, he was not going to leave her to face the kidnapper alone. He would be right here, watching her, making sure she was safe.
She had hit him where it hurt, with those comments about him walking out. He hadn’t realized until she’d said it, but that was exactly what he’d done—twice. He certainly had not forgotten the first time. She’d brought up marriage and he’d reacted with such immediate anger, he’d scared not only her, but himself. So he’d done what his older brother Lucas had hounded him about for years. How many times had Lucas said it? You ought to join the military, Trav. They’d whip that anger right out of you.
The army and later Special Forces had given him confidence, skills and a deep understanding of his physical, mental and emotional self. Above all, they’d taught him to channel his anger into a different, more helpful energy and to use that energy to maintain an ironclad control in order to beat every enemy. Lucas had been right.
Now he had to draw on every bit of that control to save his son and keep Kate safe, whether she wanted him to or not. He didn’t know what she was planning to do, but he did know that he wasn’t about to let her deal with the kidnapper alone.
Sitting in his car in front of her house, he dialed Dawson’s number. When Dawson answered, he said, “Have you got a vehicle I can borrow?”
“I’ve got several. What do you need it for?” As usual, Dawson was prepared for almost anything.
“I need something that won’t stand out in Kate’s neighborhood. I’m going to be watching her house. I’m afraid she’s made some kind of arrangement with the kidnapper.”
There was an almost undetectable pause on the other end of the call. Then Dawson said, “Sure. In the parking lot next to the warehouse where we met, there’s a late-model white van. There are various magnetic signs inside, along with a couple pairs of coveralls and a few other items. Use the large magnetic sign that says City of New Orleans. If you wear the white coverall, maybe a Saints baseball cap and sunglasses and carry a clipboard, you can hang around all day. If somebody asks you what you’re doing, tell them you’re assessing the need for house numbers on the curb in front of the houses.”
“Not bad,” Travis said. “It’ll take me a while to pick up those things.”
“No need. They’re in the van. The coverall fits me so it’ll be okay on you.”
“Great. Where are the keys?”
“Upstairs, in the cabinet over the microwave.”
“Thanks, Dawson.”
“No problem. Listen, we’re almost ready to make the call to the kidnapper. Dusty has altered the data that will be sent to the kidnapper’s phone so that he’ll think the call is from Whitley. But we’ll only have one chance, and it’ll be a slim one, because as soon as he realizes it’s not Whitley, he’ll hang up and won’t answer again. So we have to plan when we want to make the call. Dusty is tracking the GPS coordinates of the phone. As soon as he answers, she’ll triangulate the signal.”
“What do you think?” Travis asked. “Should we get the police involved?”
“Not officially. I’ll talk to Ryker and fill him in. See if he’ll work with us unofficially. Lucas already knows about the situation. He just doesn’t know you’re involved. With th
e two of them, we’ll have the city and the North Shore covered.”
“What about the locals?”
“So far we don’t know which local police department we’ll be dealing with. We’ll bring them in, but obviously it’ll be at the last second.”
“They’re not going to be happy,” Travis said.
Dawson nodded grimly. “No kidding. And once they know about the kidnapping—”
“It becomes their case and we have no more control.”
“Exactly.”
Travis sighed. “Kate’s going to hate me even more before this is all over.”
“That’ll be better than her being destroyed by grief, if she can’t save her child.”
* * *
TRAVIS WAS AT Kate’s house by eight o’clock the next morning. He was in Dawson’s van, dressed in the white coverall and ready to look busy and preoccupied as he studied his clipboard. When he turned onto her street, he saw the dark green sedan that belonged to the kidnapper.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. There was nothing he wanted more than to go drag the man out of his car by his collar, toss him onto the ground and stand on his neck until he revealed Max’s location. But Travis knew expert interrogation techniques from both sides—as a Special Forces operative and as a hostage. He knew that there was a very real chance that the man wouldn’t give up the information no matter what. There was also the risk of alerting his partner by preventing a phone call or some other prearranged signal.
No. Travis had to work slowly and methodically to be sure the kidnapper wasn’t alerted. The last thing they needed was for Max to be harmed or whisked away to another location. So he casually drove past the kidnapper’s car and stopped a dozen houses away near the end of the block. Travis wasn’t skilled at tailing, so he was going to have to be extremely careful as he followed Kate and the kidnapper.