Pain exploded through his head, then nothingness covered him.
31
Dani wanted to scream, to wail her despair. Stuart’s house was empty with no sign that he or Simon had been there recently. She sat in the car and chewed on her thumbnail while her mind spun. He wasn’t here. But Stuart had him. Where would he take him?
Adam returned to the car, his face grim, jaw tight. “Nothing.”
“Did David get ahold of Mitchell yet?” Summer asked.
“Yeah. David texted me while I was inside and said to call him as soon as I could talk.”
“So call.”
Adam dialed the number and pressed the speakerphone button.
David got right to the point. “Mitchell Lee came home. I’ve been talking to him for the last two hours. Simon stole Isaac’s phone and texted Mitchell to set up how Simon would get back to Greenville. Mitchell stole his mother’s credit card and reserved the bus ticket, faxed the information needed for a minor to travel alone to the bus depot, and arranged to meet Simon at the school.”
“How old are these kids again?”
“I know, right?”
“What else?”
“Mitchell said they met and went to Stuart’s house. Stuart wasn’t home so they headed over to the Bureau office.”
“And the rest is history.”
“Pretty much. Mitchell said he saw Stuart pick up Simon and rush him to his car. Simon managed to sign to him to turn the phone on, so he did, knowing we’d trace it.”
“But he didn’t call 911.”
“No. He said Simon made him promise not to call anyone, just to turn the phone on.”
“And of course he had to be loyal to his buddy and do what he asked.”
“Of course.”
Adam sighed. “All right, thanks.”
Simon rolled over and threw up over the side of the bed. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt this bad. Maybe when he’d had the flu last year. Maybe. The dull ache in his belly had moved back into the arena of severe pain. He pressed a hand to his side and let the tears flow. He wanted his mom. She would know what to do.
When he finished retching, he wiped his mouth on the comforter, not caring if Stuart got mad. At this point, he would welcome a fist to the face. At least it would be a pain he could deal with. This hurt in his stomach—
He looked around. Where was he? He didn’t recognize the room. It was different than when he’d fallen asleep. Where had Stuart brought him now?
A shadow moved across the bed and he looked to the door. The man seemed vaguely familiar.
Simon blinked. “Where’s my mom?”
“Call her.” The phone landed on the bed beside him.
Simon grabbed the phone and looked at it. If he called her, would he be putting her in danger? He lobbed it back. “I’m deaf, moron.”
The man moved fast and was beside the bed before Simon could take another breath. Hard fingers twisted themselves into the collar of his shirt, knuckles pressing against his throat, cutting off his air. Fear, fast and furious, flowed through him. “Dial the number, kid, if you want to see tomorrow.” The man shoved him away to stand over him and stare down at him.
Simon hauled in a deep breath and felt another wave of nausea ratchet through him. He gagged and the man nearly tripped in his haste to avoid getting spewed upon. Simon looked at him. “Who are you?”
“You mean you don’t recognize your own uncle’s partner?”
Recognition swept through him. “Joe.”
“Yeah. Now that the introductions are over, I need your help.”
Simon squinted. Without his hearing aids, he was having to rely solely on speech reading. His head pounded with the effort to concentrate. “What?”
Joe turned to the door.
Simon sighed. “If you’re saying something you have to look at me, I’m deaf.”
Joe turned, his irritation apparent. “I said, your mother has something I want. She and I are going to make a trade and we’ll all live happily ever after, got it?”
Looking into the cold brown eyes, Simon felt sure the man didn’t have a happily ever after in mind for him and his mother.
“Got it.” He shot a glance toward the door. “Where’s my uncle Stuart?”
“He’s tied up with something right now. Quit yakking and start dialing.”
Simon stared at the phone. He looked up. “I don’t know her number.” Again the man started for him and Simon held up his hands as though in surrender. “I really don’t know. They … they gave her a new phone and I don’t know what the number is. I don’t, I swear.” His words tumbled fast from his lips. He wished he could hear how he sounded because he wasn’t sure he was making any sense to the man standing over him.
Without another word, Joe turned on his heel and left the room. Simon lay back against the pillow and groaned. No way was he calling his mom and leading her into danger. He knew the number. Had memorized it the moment she’d gotten it. But he wouldn’t dial it.
He gathered his strength and rolled off the bed, walked down the hall, and saw a woman’s back. She faced Joe. Joe faced Simon. Joe yelled something and the woman looked like she yelled back, her hand movements choppy and agitated. Joe grabbed the woman by the back of the hair and pulled her closer, talking the whole time. Simon wished he could see more of his lips. Then Joe let her go and this time Simon managed to see the words. “I have a plan and I need your help to make it work.”
Simon sank to the floor and leaned his head back against the wall. He felt so weak, so tired, so sick. He closed his eyes and kept them closed. Even when someone shook his shoulder he didn’t open his eyes to acknowledge he was awake. He felt a cool hand on his forehead. A smaller hand that probably belonged to the woman. He pretended it was his mom. Then rough hands grabbed him and carried him back to the bed.
They sat in front of Stuart’s house, not moving, just thinking, planning. Adam knew the minutes counted and he had to make the right decisions. He prayed for divine guidance. “Does Stuart own any other property other than the house that we just left?” Adam asked.
Dani leaned her head back against the headrest. “No. Not that I know of. Stuart never talked to me about that kind of thing.”
Adam called David. “Are you back at the office yet?”
“I am. Sitting here in front of the computer. What can I do for you?”
“Can you look into Stuart’s real estate holdings? He’s not at home, but I’m wondering if he’s got another house somewhere.”
“A lake house,” Dani whispered.
“What?” Adam shot her a questioning look.
“The night Janessa was killed, Stuart came to the door and said he wanted to take me away, let me use his lake house to relax and get away from it all. I just remembered. What’s the nearest lake?”
“Lake Bowen? Lake Greenwood? Lake Hartwell?” Summer suggested.
“Keowee?” Adam said.
“Hold on. I’m checking,” David said. He would access a secure database used only by law enforcement personnel. Thanks to the governor, Operation Refuge also had permission to use it.
“Come on, David.”
“Hey, I’m only as fast as this computer.”
A few seconds later, David came back on the line. “He has a lake house at Lake Keowee.”
“About an hour from here. What’s the address?”
David gave it to him and Adam repeated it so Summer could put it in her GPS. Adam made a decision. He dialed another number.
“Ralph Thorn.”
“This is Adam Buchanan. I need your help again.”
“How?”
Adam filled him in. “I trust you, Ralph. Dani trusts you. We don’t have anywhere else to turn for this one.”
A slight pause that was only a brief two or three seconds, but felt like minutes. Finally Ralph agreed. “I’ll call the Seneca police and have them head out to that address. I also have a friend, an agent, who’s there for the weekend. I’ll call him and h
ave him scope out the house.”
“Let us know as soon as you hear something.”
“Will do.”
“Wait a minute,” Dani said. “Aren’t we going out there?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because if he’s there, the FBI will let us know and we can set up a plan of action to get Simon away from Stuart.”
“Stuart is the FBI. He knows all of the plans of action. I need to talk to him. I need to be there. He’ll listen to me. I’ll beg, I’ll lie. I’ll do whatever it takes to get my son away from him.”
Adam gripped her fingers. “I know you would, Dani. But trust me. This is the best way to handle this.”
Tears swam in her eyes and he expected her to flat-out refuse. If she did, he had no idea how he was going to convince her to sit tight.
Her phone rang. She glanced at the screen, then up to him. “It’s Stuart.”
Dani answered the call and put it on speaker. “Stuart. Where are you? Where’s Simon? How could you do this to your own nephew?”
“Dani, so good to hear your voice.”
Dani froze. “You’re not Stuart.”
Adam’s eyes slammed to hers. He lifted a brow. She shrugged.
“No. I’m afraid Stuart wasn’t invited to this party.”
“What party?”
“I have your son, Danielle Harding, and if you want him back, I’m going to have to insist you give me my plates.”
“Your … what?”
“Plates. I’m sure you’ve seen the news and figured out the money you’ve been passing around is counterfeit. Very good counterfeit. Almost exactly like the real thing. I’m actually surprised someone caught it. But that’s beside the point. Those plates were very expensive and I want them back.”
Dani shot a look at Adam. He waved a hand encouraging her to keep talking. “Stuart had Simon. How do I know you have him now?”
“Hold on for a minute.”
Heart in her throat, desperate to find her son, Dani held. Within seconds her phone beeped. The man came back on the line. “Check your messages. I’ll call you back soon.”
He hung up and she clicked over to the messages. And gasped. “No. Oh no. My baby. He really has him and he looks so sick.”
Adam took the phone from her hand and looked at it. “We’ve got to find him fast.”
“How many hours is it that hostages have before they’re living on borrowed time?”
“Don’t go there.”
“I don’t know where else to go, what to do, or how to do it. I’m completely dependent on you and your agency to get my son back.” A slight pause. “And I don’t like it.”
Adam rubbed his chin. “We could not wait on Ralph. I could call in the FBI.”
“They’re probably the ones who have him,” she snapped. She rubbed her eyes. “Sorry. No, I don’t want to call in the FBI or any other law enforcement. I want to give them what they want, get my son, and move to an island in the Caribbean.”
“Then we need to know where the counterfeit plates are.”
“I have no idea.”
Adam thought for a moment. “I’m willing to bet if we find out what that key from the safe goes to, we’ll find the plates.”
Her phone rang and she didn’t bother waiting for it to finish the first ring. “I’m here. What’s wrong with my son?”
“Nothing he won’t recover from, I’m sure. Assuming you will cooperate.”
“Of course.” Somehow she found the strength to keep her voice steady. Somehow she found a way to press down the terror raging inside her. Simon needed her calm. He needed her to think. “Where are the plates?”
A moment of silence stretched her nerves to the breaking point.
“You have them,” he said.
“No, I don’t.”
“They were in the safe.”
“Trust me. We’ve gone through every item in that safe and there were no counterfeit plates in there.”
“Then I suppose you’d better find them. Kurt would have left some kind of clue so they would be found. He left me a letter, you probably have one too. You have twelve hours and then I start sending your son to you piece by bloody piece.”
The phone clicked off and she simply stared out the window barely controlling her need to scream.
Adam took the phone from her. She thought she heard him ask for David, then she shut her mind off to everything around her except for her prayers for her son.
32
“Let’s go to the office,” Adam told Summer. “We have the items from the bag. The key. Everything. The guy’s right. If Kurt wanted those plates hidden, yet found when necessary, he would have left some kind of clue. Instructions. Something.” He rubbed his eyes. “We need to go over that letter again.”
She shivered and he knew she wasn’t interested in seeing it again. Unfortunately she didn’t have a choice.
“You said the letter didn’t sound like Kurt.”
“No, not really. Other than the fact that he would arrange to have me killed so we could be ‘together forever.’ Unfortunately, I can see him saying that. Followed by his stupid ‘Gotcha.’” She shuddered. “It’s gotten so I absolutely hate that word.”
Summer drove with skill and speed and soon Adam found himself helping Dani out of the vehicle and into the office building.
Within minutes, they had the safe contents once again spread out on the conference room desk.
“I feel like we’re spinning our wheels,” Dani said.
“Give me the letter,” Adam said.
David passed it to him. Adam looked at Dani. “Okay. Come look over my shoulder and tell me what jumps out at you as being out of character for Kurt.”
Dani stepped behind him and again he was struck by his acute awareness of her as a woman. A very attractive woman. And a very scared mom.
She cleared her throat. “‘You know my job is dangerous, it’s never safe. I take risks everyday. Risks that ensure I’m making huge deposits in the bank for our future.’ Okay, that right there.”
“What?”
“That sentence about making huge deposits in the bank for our future. If he knew I’d be reading the letter, why talk about our future. He’s talking in the present tense. Should he say, ‘I was taking risks’? Or something? And the whole ‘making huge deposits in the bank’ thing. It just doesn’t sound like him.”
Adam nodded slowly. “Okay, that makes sense. What else?”
She swallowed. “‘They’re risks you’ll never know about. One day those risks might get me killed. I’m not planning on it, of course, but you never know. One other thing. You may think I’m not aware of Stuart’s obsession with you, but I am. Let me make myself clear, Dani. Only you hold the key to my heart.’ Everything else up to this point sounds normal.” She snorted. “Or abnormal, depending on how you look at it.”
“Definitely abnormal,” he agreed.
She took a deep breath and continued. “‘There’s no one else for me and there’s no one else for you. He will never have you. Once Stuart finally realizes that, he will understand that I will always win and he will always lose. I’ll see you soon, my darling. Kurt.’ The rest of it sounds exactly like him.”
“So let’s isolate those two sentences. What do we have?”
“‘I’m making huge deposits in the bank for our future,’” she said.
“And ‘Only you hold the key to my heart.’”
“Why would he put those sentences in there? He’d never say that.”
“And he knew that you would know that.”
“He expected me to find this letter long before I did, didn’t he?”
“Yes, I would think so.”
She tightened her lips. “I’m glad I didn’t.”
Adam looked back at the two sentences. “So what words stand out to you?”
“Huge, deposits, bank, future, key, heart.” She muttered each word. Then drew in a deep breath.
“What is it?”
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“The bank that Kurt used. I think it was called Future America?”
Adam circled the word future. “So, we’re dealing with a bank?”
“Not just any bank. The bank of Future America.”
“Okay, I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that this key,” he picked it up and held it out to her, “is a key to a safe-deposit box at the bank of Future America.”
“But which one?”
“Whichever one is closest to your house.”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. “The one closest to his office.”
Adam nodded. “All right, let’s check that one out.”
“But it’s in Kurt’s name. They won’t let me in.”
David cleared his throat. “You’re assuming it’s in Kurt’s name. What if he put it in your name?”
“But wouldn’t I have to sign some papers? I think I’d remember.”
Adam nodded again. “Let’s just see what happens when we request to get into the box.” He looked at Dani. “I have all of your old identification that you would need.”
His phone rang and he answered it on the first ring. “Hi, Ralph.”
“We found your man.”
“Stuart?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He’s dead. Bullet got him right between the eyes.”
Hearing that Stuart was dead registered, but emotionally she felt numb. All she could think about was her son. Her heart ached with a fear she’d never felt before, but right now she had it under control. Being proactive, doing something to help get him back, helped tremendously. Earlier, waiting for the team to come up with a plan had nearly had her climbing the walls.
Adam retrieved her old identification documents and she dyed her hair back to her original color so it just looked like she’d gotten an extreme haircut. She ditched the glasses and dressed in khakis and a baby blue sweater Summer had unearthed from somewhere in her office.
When she walked into the conference room to announce she was ready, she found the team around the table, heads bent, hands clasped. Adam glanced up and motioned for her to join them. She walked over and took his hand and joined her heart to his as he prayed aloud. “Lord, we ask you to protect Simon. He appears to be a sick kid, God, and needs your healing hand. Let us get him back safe.” Dani felt tears slip down her cheeks as she listened and prayed right along with him.
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