by Mallory Kane
“Come on, Maxie, honey,” she said as tears streamed down her face. “The good guys won.”
Picking him up, feeling his arms wrap around her neck and his legs circle her waist, she could no longer hold back. She burst into tears.
Behind her, Lucas said, “Is there anything I can do? I can hold him for a minute if you want. Are either of you injured?”
She shook her head, trying to get her sobs under control. She had her nose buried in Max’s hair. Sniffling, she lifted her head. “We’re fine. Where’s Travis?” she asked.
“I haven’t heard anything from Reilly, which is a good sign,” he said.
“I heard a gunshot inside the trailer while we were running away.”
Lucas was still studying her. “Are you sure you’re all right? Your feet are bleeding and you’re covered with scratches,” he said. “Come on. Let’s put you in the front seat of the car. We’re going to have to go to the local police station. I’ve got to deliver my unexpected prisoner there.” He gestured. “I guess you know who she is.” He gestured toward a black car. Shirley was in the backseat, her hands cuffed behind her, looking sullen.
“Her name’s Shirley. She’s the kidnapper’s girlfriend,” Kate said. “But I don’t understand. What was she doing? She shot the lock off the bathroom door. She could have shot us or taken us hostage but all she did was look at me.”
Lucas shrugged. “I don’t think she realized y’all were in there. I think she wanted to use the bathroom as a hiding place for herself.” He opened the passenger door.
“This is false arrest!” Shirley cried as soon as the door was open. “You’re going to be in big trouble for assaulting me. I got rights.”
Lucas stuck his head in. “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to tape your mouth. Got that right,” he said conversationally.
Shirley spewed a few choice words then went silent.
Kate climbed into the passenger seat awkwardly, still holding Max. “Maxie, honey. Let go of my neck. We’re just fine. Sit on my lap, sweetie.” He wiggled, but he was too sleepy to do anything but whimper.
Lucas got into the driver’s side of the car. “The station’s not far. Put your seat belt on and hold on to Max. I’ll drive slowly.” He started the car and drove out of the gas station parking lot and onto the road. The sky was beginning to turn pink and blue and there was a fresh morning smell to the air.
“I’ve got to warn you,” he said. “I know it’s been a long, frightening night for you and Max, but I’m afraid your ordeal isn’t over. The local cops have no idea what’s been going on. So, be prepared, because you’re going to have a long, harrowing day.”
“I’ve been through the longest, most awful five days of my life. But I have my son back now. Believe me, compared to what we’ve been through, this day will be a picnic.” She got the seat belt fastened and wrapped her arms around Max. He was asleep, for which she was grateful.
Lucas’s cell phone rang.
“Please,” Kate said quickly. “Ask about Travis.”
A snort sounded from the backseat. “Travis. That your boyfriend’s name?” Shirley said. “Good luck, ’cause last I saw of him, he was lying in a puddle of his own blood outside that window. Bent shot him.”
* * *
WITHIN THE EIGHT minutes it took to get to the St. John’s Parish Sheriff’s Department, Lucas had gotten in touch with Ryker, who told him that Reilly and his men had taken Bentley Woods into custody and had rushed Travis to River Parishes Hospital, less than two miles from the sheriff’s office. Kate was relieved that he was at the hospital, but it worried her that nobody had any word about his condition.
She watched as Lucas patiently explained the whole situation to the sergeant in charge on the midnight shift, who stared at him drowsily. Once Lucas had finished, the sergeant looked at him blankly for a second, then told him he needed to talk to the sheriff.
Because she had Max, Kate was allowed to wait in the break room, which had an old leather couch in it. She got Max settled down on the couch with a blanket over him and his little wooden car clutched in his hands. Then she crossed to the counter where a coffeepot sat, it’s On light beckoning her. The coffee didn’t smell great, but she poured herself a cup anyhow. It wasn’t the coffee’s taste she was after, it was the caffeine. She didn’t want to fall asleep because she knew if she did, she’d feel lousy when she woke up. She figured it would be better to stay awake.
* * *
SHE’D LEARNED A lot listening to Lucas’s recounting of the situation to the sergeant. Travis had told her that Dawson and his computer whiz kid were working on a way to pinpoint the exact location of the kidnappers through his cell phone. She knew that they’d only had one chance, because as soon as Bentley Woods answered his phone and realized the caller wasn’t who he was expecting, he’d hang up. She hadn’t known that Travis had found Woods’s phone number in Congressman Whitley’s phone. That meant Whitley was a party to the kidnapping.
Lucas also told the sergeant that Stamps was apparently unaware of the kidnapping scheme aimed at saving him from a felony conviction, but that there was suspicion, if not actual evidence, that Darby Sills was involved.
The sergeant was unhappy that the sheriff’s office hadn’t been brought in on the ambush from the beginning, and let Lucas know in no uncertain terms what he, and by extension the sheriff, thought about a bunch of cowboys from the NOPD and the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Department pulling off a dangerous, harebrained scheme like that right under the St. John’s sheriff’s nose. Lucas was appropriately apologetic and earnest about their fear for the child’s life if they brought in any official authorities. He was careful to explain to the sergeant that a professional kidnapper, a disgraced dirty cop named Bentley Woods, had been called in from Chicago to handle the job. Through a connection of his own in Chicago, Lucas had learned that Woods had been a prime suspect in a couple murders for hire in Cook County, Illinois, but that in neither case was there enough evidence to convict him.
That information horrified Kate. Her child had been in the hands of a man who committed murder for money. She moved to the couch and draped her arm across Max’s legs in a protective gesture, trying to shove the image of the kidnapper with that gun in his hand out of her brain.
After about forty minutes, the sheriff came in, and nodded for Lucas and the sergeant to follow him into his office. He closed the door.
Kate couldn’t hear anymore, and despite the coffee, she could barely keep her eyes open, so she decided to catch a nap while she was waiting. She laid her head back against the couch cushions and dozed.
“Dr. Chalmet?” a voice said.
Kate cringed as she opened her eyes. For a split second her drowsy brain told her that it was the kidnapper talking to her, before she woke up enough to remember that she was in a room at the Sheriff’s Department of St. John the Baptist Parish.
She looked up. It was a man in a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was youngish, maybe late thirties, but had the look of a chronically tired suburban dad. “Dr. Chalmet? I’m Detective Adrian Darrow. I need to ask you some questions.” He gestured to the wooden table, where a couple fast-food bags and a small recorder sat. “I got a chicken biscuit, a sausage biscuit and some French toast sticks. Plus some milk and orange juice. I hope that’s okay.”
“Thank you,” Kate said, glancing at Max. “I think Max is going to sleep for another couple hours—he’s exhausted. But the sausage biscuit and the orange juice sound great.”
He pushed the bags toward her.
“What time is it, anyway?” Kate asked.
“About a quarter to nine,” he said.
“Wow. It was just after sunrise when we got here,” she said, then took a bite of the sandwich. “Good,” she mumbled, chewing. Once she’d swallowed, she asked, “Is there any information about Travis Delancey? He was shot. They took him to the hospital that’s close to here, I think.”
“I don’t know,” Darrow said. “I’
ll get somebody to check. But first, I need to ask you some questions.” He turned on the recorder. Kate spent the next two hours reliving all the fear and anxiety of the past five days as she answered his questions.
* * *
“I DON’T CARE who I have to see, how sore I’m going to be or how many forms I have to sign if I leave now. Do you understand?” Travis groused. “It’s after noon. I’ve been here since before dawn and I am leaving—with or without discharge orders.”
The nurse opened her mouth, closed it, opened it one more time, then whirled on her heel and left the room.
Travis turned and looked at his brother Lucas. “Don’t just stand there. Help me.”
Lucas laughed. “That dead-calm look you gave the nurse. Is that some supersecret, classified U.S. throat-paralyzing glare?”
Travis gave a half shrug and kicked the sheet off his right leg. He wiggled it sideways until his foot was hanging off the bed. Then he braced his hands on the guardrails of the bed and lifted his butt and twisted to the right. When he lowered himself back down, he groaned.
Lucas laughed some more.
“Luke, I swear I’ll come up off this bed and beat you into next week.”
“No, you won’t,” Lucas said. “You can’t even stand up. I can’t believe a bullet to the butt cheek is all it took to ground you.”
“Shut up and help me get up. I need to see Kate and my son.”
Lucas’s grin faded. “Okay. I know. But while you’re dressing, we need to talk.”
Travis had known this was coming from the moment he’d first seen his brother in Dawson’s warehouse.
“A Dr. Gingosian called Mom and Dad.”
Lucas’s words almost knocked Travis flat in the bed. Packed into that one sentence were five years of surprises. “I figured he’d call eventually. Where’s doctor-patient confidentiality when you need it?”
“Maybe the Hippocratic oath takes precedence. He told them what happened to you and said you might need psychiatric care.”
Travis set his jaw and blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t. What I need is to see that Kate and Max are all right.”
“You need to go see the folks.”
“This, from you?” Travis responded. “First, you’re calling ’em Mom and Dad. Seems like the last time I heard you call him Dad was—let me think—oh, yeah. Never! He was always that bastard or if you were feeling sentimental, the old man. And what’s up with you being back here? When you took off for Dallas, you said you’d never come back.”
“Yeah, well, things change. But we were talking about you.”
“No, we weren’t. What things changed?”
“I got a call from Brad Grayson. Remember him? He was afraid his younger sister, Angela, was in danger, because of a case he was trying.”
“Brad and Angela. I do remember them. She always wanted to follow you guys around.”
“Yeah.” Lucas smiled. “Brad asked me to bodyguard her without her knowing it. Turns out Brad was right. The guy he was prosecuting sent some thugs after her, hoping to use her to force Brad to throw the trial. It took some doing but we finally ended up catching the thugs and keeping Ange safe. Now Ange and I are—” He held up his left hand and Travis saw the gold wedding band on his third finger.
“No way!” he said. “Married? You and Dawson both? Did all the Delancey grandkids get married while I was gone?”
“Well, Ryker and Reilly did. Oh, and Rosemary.”
“Rosemary?” Travis’s head was spinning, trying to take everything in. “But she’s—?”
Lucas shook his head. “Nope. She’s not dead. Turns out she survived that attack in her apartment all those years ago. An old woman who owned a little voodoo shop on Prytania took her in and saved her life. She was living that close to us for all those years. Detective Dixon Lloyd, Ethan’s partner, found her. She has traumatic amnesia, but she’s slowly getting her memories back.”
Travis laughed shortly. “Looks like I’ve got a lot of congratulating to do and wedding gifts to buy. Man, sounds like the family started its own soap opera while I was gone.”
“Started?” Lucas echoed. “The Delancey clan has always had a flair for the dramatic.”
“Well, that’s true. So, anything else I need to know? How are Ethan and Cara Lynn? I already heard about Harte from Kate. Maybe I won’t miss his wedding.”
“Our baby brother grew up fast,” Lucas said, smiling. “Ethan and Cara Lynn are doing good. They’ve both managed to avoid the marriage bug so far.”
Just as he finished speaking, the door opened and a young man in scrubs stepped into the room. “Mr. Delancey? I understand you’re ready to leave.”
“That’s right. Can I go now?”
“The discharge orders are written. You need to come back here or follow up with your personal physician to have those stitches out in about five days. No longer than that.”
Travis nodded impatiently. “Got it.”
“I’ve written you a prescription for pain, in case you need it.” He held out a slip of paper.
Travis took it without looking at it. “I won’t.”
The young doctor turned to Lucas. “I understand you’re with NOPD?”
Lucas nodded.
“I’m sure you know the St. John’s Parish Sheriff’s Department wants to see Mr. Delancey. The sheriff asked me to remind you of that.”
Lucas nodded and thanked him. As he left, Travis again lifted himself off the bed with his arms, turned his torso toward the side and lowered himself with a groan. “A little help here?” he said through gritted teeth.
“Fine,” Lucas said and gave him a hand. With help from his brother, Travis got up, dressed and went to St. John’s Sheriff’s Department. But by the time he got there, Kate was gone and the sheriff was waiting for him. He was subjected to over two hours of questioning.
As soon as they were done with him, Lucas appeared.
“Nobody’ll tell me anything about Stamps and Whitley and Sills,” Travis said.
Lucas propped a hip on the edge of a desk. “Whitley was picked up for questioning in Baton Rouge. They’ll be talking with the sheriff’s office here. Stamps still denies knowing anything about the kidnapping and Sills is acting as though we’ve accused him of high treason. He’s incensed that anyone would think he’d stoop so low.”
“Well, that tells me almost nothing.”
“It sounds like Whitley’s going to take the fall and Sills and Stamps just might walk.”
Travis glared at his big brother. “Think you could use some of your influence to get them to let me go now?”
“I already did. I told the sheriff your butt hurt.”
“Oh, ha-ha,” Travis said. “Take me to Kate’s house.”
“When are you going to see the folks?”
“When I’m done meeting my son and talking to my—to Kate.”
Chapter Twelve
It was almost seven o’clock on Saturday evening when Travis knocked on the door to Kate’s house. He still had the key she’d given him but he didn’t want to walk in on her. He had an overpowering sense of déjà vu. Here he was, standing outside her door with no idea of what he was going to say when she opened it, just like five days ago.
Five days ago. In one sense, he couldn’t believe it had been that long. In another, it had seemed as if everything that had happened couldn’t fit into a month.
He shifted, sending searing pain through his hip, because in truth, the bullet had lodged in his gluteus minimus muscle, not the gluteus maximus. Fat lot of good that difference would mean to his brothers and cousins. He’d already had just about all the kidding he could take.
The doorknob turned and he stiffened and grimaced.
Kate opened the door about four inches and peered out at him. She didn’t say anything. She had on the terry-cloth robe and her hair was damp and her feet were bare. Her eyes were tired looking and red, but he stared at her, thinking she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Kate,” he said. “I wanted—” Suddenly he was tongue-tied. What he really wanted, he couldn’t say—not to her. He could hardly admit it to himself. He wanted to meet his son, certainly. He’d barely had a chance to look at Max, much less talk to him. But he knew that what kind of relationship he had with him was 100 percent Kate’s call. He didn’t deserve anything, so whatever she wanted to grant him, he would take and be grateful for it.
But that wasn’t what had tongue-tied him.
Kate turned her head to glance behind her at her son. Then she said, “You wanted—?”
His mouth felt dry as a desert. “May I see Max?”
She pressed her lips together until they turned white at the corners. Then she lifted her chin and looked at him with a direct, unblinking gaze. Finally, she blinked slowly and nodded. “Okay, but he’s had his bath and he’s very sleepy. I doubt he’ll be able to stay awake for another half hour.”
Travis swallowed and nodded. “I won’t stay long.”
She stepped backward and swung the door wide. He stepped inside, doing his best not to limp. He saw Max in the living room on the floor, playing with his wooden car.
Travis felt Kate’s eyes on him. He angled his head toward her without taking his eyes off his son. “Thank you,” he said, his voice hitching, then, “Hi, Max. How’re you doing?”
His son looked up, his wide eyes the same shape as his mother’s, but with dark brown pupils. Like mine, Travis thought. “What you got there? Is that your favorite car?”
Max stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “I remember you,” he said. “You gave it to me when you handed me out the window. Your face was painted like a soldier.”
Travis glanced at Kate, whose mouth quirked slightly as she gave him a tiny, awed shake of her head. “He’s a pretty smart kid,” she whispered.
“That’s right, Max. It was me.”
“Are you a soldier?”
Travis walked around the couch and gingerly sat on the coffee table. “I am. How do you know about soldiers?”