Without as much as a backward glance, the motel room door clicked shut behind her.
49
An old, little-used road pockmarked with potholes turned the last leg of the trip into a bumpy one. Under the plaid blanket, Laurie moaned as her body jostled on the rear seat.
Time was of the essence.
“Almost there, Laurie. Just a little longer.”
A mile more brought them to a rundown, five-cottage motel. The owner, a man with a face full of gray stubble, wasn’t interested in her license plate number or seeing any I.D. The only pictures of interest to him were on the currency that made its way into his hands. Clearly, he hadn’t seen many presidents’ portraits lately; the other cottages stood vacant.
He pointed to his left. “Number five,” he said, handing the metal key over.
A minute later, Laurie felt an arm around her waist.
“C’mon, get on your feet.”
Her body reacted although her mind remained groggy. With help, she stood and walked up three stairs before being guided through a narrow doorway. Once inside the room, Laurie felt herself eased onto the hard surface of a wooden chair before hearing the sound of tape tearing. She struggled as her mind began to clear, but the effort came too late. Her wrists were bound behind her through the spindles of an old kitchen chair. Laurie saw the top of the woman’s head as she knelt in front of her, securing her ankles to the chair legs.
Laurie craned her neck in an effort to find Joey. “Where’s my brother?”
“He’s not here, but don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“What did you do with him?”
“I told you he’s fine. Now shut up; I’ve got to think.”
The contents of the paper bag lay on the table beside Laurie: sandpaper, a small box with a picture of a double-bell alarm clock, and a box of stick-type matches. She tried to make sense of it as she watched the woman check out the rest of the cabin.
With her back to the door, Laurie could see the entire layout with a simple twist of her head. To her right was the dining area consisting of a battered, old table and three chairs presumably matching the one she occupied. A sagging loveseat against the wall to her left denoted what was meant to pass as the living room. She saw a kitchen ahead of her. There was a gooseneck faucet over a single basin-style sink and an ancient refrigerator humming in the corner. A musty smell came from a bedroom to the right of the loveseat, and to the right of that, there was an even mustier bathroom.
“Why are you doing this?” Laurie asked. “Is it about Amy?” She saw mild surprise on the woman’s face as she sat down at the table and began tinkering with her purchases.
“You’re a smart girl. I bet you do real well in school.”
“I do all right.”
“You look a lot like your mother. Very pretty. One of the girls in the in-crowd, no doubt. Lucky you.”
For the first time, Laurie felt she was under personal attack. She watched the woman pull the alarm clock from the box and check the mechanism on the back. “Did Amy pick on you in school or something? Is that why you’re so mad at her?”
“That’s none of your concern. Your father went and stuck his nose in my business, and look what’s come of that. You and your brother would both be home right now if it hadn’t been for him.” The woman glanced at her from the corner of her eye. “He’s lucky I’m giving him a chance to turn things around.”
Laurie saw neither anger nor amusement, only grim speculation.
“Your father loves you a lot, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he does.”
“As much as he loves Joey?”
“Yes.”
“You’re absolutely sure about that?”
Laurie hesitated. “Yes.”
The woman chuckled. “Better hope that notion isn’t put to the test tonight.”
Curiosity demanded an explanation, but fear prevented Laurie from asking for it.
She watched as the woman cut, taped and adjusted the integral parts of the jury-rigged device. Laurie observed a few final revisions to the contraption before the alarm went off and several matches erupted in flame.
Laurie struggled to break free of the tape. “Let me go.”
“Relax. You have nothing to worry about if your father loves you as much as you think he does.” She covered Laurie’s mouth with duct tape. “Well,” the woman said at last, “that ought to do it. You sit back and relax; I’ll be in the bedroom. It’s time for me to give your father a call.”
Before the bedroom door closed between them, Laurie heard a sound she recognized only from old TV movies: a rotary telephone dial.
50
In Eden Prairie, Ray hurried back inside Dan and Julie Monroe’s house.
“What did you find out?” Dan asked.
“Half of your neighbors aren’t home; the other half didn’t see a damn thing.” He turned to Gail. “Were you able to reach Dick?”
“I’m still trying.”
Ray flinched as his cell phone rang. In his mind he prayed, “Please, God, let this be him.” He pulled the phone out of his jacket pocket. “Hello?”
“Do you have Amy, Detective?”
Ray’s heart sank. He put a finger to his lips, demanding silence from the others, then motioned Dan Monroe over to listen to the other end of the conversation.
“Well,” she said, “do you?”
“Yes,” Ray lied. “What choice did you give me?”
“I’m glad you see things my way.”
“What do you want me to do now?”
“It’s simple. Bring Amy to me. I want you to use your wife’s SUV. In case you go stupid on me, I don’t want you having access to a police radio. Your wife’s car, Detective. You understand?”
Ray saw his own anxiety reflected in Dan’s eyes. “All right, I can do that.” He heard the kids’ voices coming from Bailey Monroe’s bedroom and saw Julie race down the hall to quiet them. Silence returned instantly. “Where do you want me to meet you?”
“Like I said, you’ll get directions as you go. Start by getting on US-212 West.”
Ray motioned frantically for a pen and paper.
“I hope your phone is fully charged, Detective, because between now and the time you get the final directions, this phone connection is Laurie and Joey’s lifeline. So, whatever you do, don’t hang up.”
“I’ll keep the line open.”
Gail handed a pen to Ray and held down a sheet of paper on the table in front of him.
As he tried to obtain information about his eventual destination, Ray wrote as fast as he could. “How far do I have to go?”
“That’s for me to know. At intervals I’ll tell you where to make the next turn. You understand?”
“Yes.”
A seemingly endless pause followed. “Let me talk to Amy.”
Ray held the pen in a death grip, his mind racing. “Sorry, she’s not about to cooperate, trust me. Look,” he said, “I don’t know how much time is left on this phone’s charge. I can’t afford to waste time. The sooner I get on the road, the sooner I get her to you.” He scrawled another line.
“All right,” he heard, “but you’d better not disappoint me. By the way, I have no interest in carrying on a running conversation with you, Detective, so you’ll hear a lot of ‘dead air’. Just remember we’ve got an open connection. I’ll be able to hear whatever’s going on, on your end of the line.”
“I understand.” Ray stuffed the paper in Dan’s hand and signaled for continued silence. Clutching the phone at his side, he kissed Gail. He mouthed ‘I love you’ and rushed out of the house.
Gail and Julie hurried to read Ray’s scrawled message over Dan’s shoulder. It said: Get Dick. Must catch me on 212 West. Silent approach—open phone line!
51
His heart in his throat, Ray drove down Wallace Road, fighting the urge to floor the accelerator. There was no way to know if Dick had gotten the information yet—no way to know if he was on his way. Even if Waverly had gotten his message a
nd managed to catch up with him, Ray had no idea what good it would do. But for four years, he’d come to trust Dick Waverly with his life. Now he prayed his partner—his friend—could help him save his children’s lives.
The cell phone sat in the dashboard phone holder, the silence taunting him. Daylight was fading fast as he turned onto the ramp of the four-lane highway.
“Okay, I’m on 212,” he said. “What next?”
“Not yet. Don’t worry; I’ll tell you where to make your next turn before you’re on top of it.”
“Good,” he said. “I don’t want to have to make the turns on two wheels.”
The only sound that followed was the hum of his tires on the pavement and the blood pounding in his head. He tried to remember some of the towns farther down the highway. Chanhassen and Shakopee were the largest. There was Chaska, Carver, Dahlgren and Cologne, but Dunham could be in any one of the smaller burgs along the way, like Augusta or Hazeltine. There was no telling where Dunham was, and she was doing a good job of keeping her location to herself.
The sky darkened with every passing minute.
Finally he heard her ask, “Where are you?”
“I just passed Dell Road.”
“That’s as far as you’ve gotten? I suggest you speed it up, Detective.”
Ray checked his rearview for the dozenth time. Come on, Dick. Where are you? He’d been traveling five miles per hour under the limit, doing his best to give Waverly a chance to catch up. “Look,” he told her, “if I drive any faster, I could get pulled over. Neither of us can afford to risk that, right?”
Voice grim, she said, “You might want to gamble a little, Detective Schiller. I’ve already set things in motion. There’s more riding on your punctuality than you know.”
Ray’s voice rose. “You didn’t give me a deadline. What have you done?”
“If I were you, I’d just concentrate on getting Amy to me ASAP.”
Minutes later, he announced, “I’m coming up on Highway 41 near Chaska.”
“All right. When you get to Johnathan Carver Parkway, turn left. It’s County Road 40.”
Ray shuddered. Waverly would have no way of knowing where he was once he left 212. “How far away is the parkway road?”
“It’s close. You’ll be coming up on it very soon.”
“Got it,” he said. Praying, he looked at his rearview mirror again. In the darkness, a red light flickered in the distance behind him. Please, God, let it be Dick. With the siren barely audible, the car was closing the distance fast. The siren! Turn off the siren!
Desperate, Ray flipped the SUV’s lights on and off five or six times in rapid succession, praying the taillights, alternately disappearing and reappearing in the darkness, would catch the driver’s attention. If the cop was anyone but Dick, it could be a death sentence for Laurie and Joey. Well back of him, the ‘cherry’ on the vehicle continued spinning, but the siren went instantly silent.
Ray turned his head as the vehicle caught up, then slowed to keep pace in the lane beside him. The other car’s interior light came on as Waverly turned his head in Ray’s direction and mouthed the word “where”?
Ray hiked his shoulders and shook his head. Waverly dropped behind him, following just as Ray made the turn onto Johnathan Carver Parkway.
With his nerves nearly at the breaking point, Ray flinched at the sound of the voice on the cell phone five miles later. “I planned on letting you get to our meeting ahead of me, but since time is of the essence, I’m going to drive there now. Listen closely, because I won’t be repeating the instructions.”
“Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“By this time you should only have another five or six miles before your last turn. I want you to take a left on 25. As soon as you cross the Minnesota River, to your left you’ll see a small area with a little, horseshoe-shaped road—half asphalt, half gravel. Pull in there. I’ll be waiting for you… and Amy, of course. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t mess this up, Detective.”
He heard the phone disconnect and immediately swung the SUV onto the shoulder of the road. Waverly followed suit, watching as Ray raced to his car and yanked his door open. “Hurry. Get in my car, Dick.”
“What’s going on?”
“Dunham’s off the phone, and I know where we’re meeting.”
Leaving his car on the shoulder, Waverly barely got inside the SUV before Ray took off again. “Where are we going?”
“Just across the river.”
“Belle Plaine,” Waverly said.
“Yeah. It sounds like we’re practically meeting on the shoreline.”
“Right at the edge of the Minnesota Valley State Park.”
“Yeah. Get in the back,” Ray told him. “When I get out, if she sees movement back there, I might be able to bluff her into thinking it’s Amy. It could give me enough time to find out where she’s got Joey and Laurie.”
Waverly began hauling ass into the rear seat. “And if that doesn’t work?”
“It’s got to. If not, we can’t let her get away.”
He heard Waverly punching buttons on his cell phone. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the Belle Plaine police. I’ll make it clear—no lights, no sirens. I’ll have them make damn sure they cover every escape route. Are you okay with that?”
“Do it.”
At the cottage, Laurie watched as the alarm clock was set and placed on the counter beside the stove. She gasped when her chair suddenly tipped back and was dragged, scraping across the floor into the bedroom.
A small room, its furnishings consisted of a full-sized bed and a nightstand holding a lighted table lamp and the rotary phone. Laurie’s heart sank when she saw the phone cord had been yanked out of the wall. As she heard a window slide open behind her, a cold draft hit the back of her neck.
“You won’t freeze. It’s only opened an inch.” With the tape across Laurie’s mouth, it was a one-sided conversation. “Well, I’m on my way to meet with your father. You should be comfortable enough in here until he comes for you…if he does.”
The bedroom door closed between them. Moments later, the door rattled as a towel was jammed into the space beneath it. Laurie heard footsteps crossing the room to the kitchen. Ten seconds later, the door to the cabin opened and slammed shut.
Ten seconds.
Laurie realized that was all the time it had taken for the woman to blow out the pilot light on the stove and leave.
52
Moonlight glistened on the Minnesota River as Ray drove across the bridge. He focused ahead and to the left where the meeting was to take place.
“I don’t see her down there,” he told Waverly. “There’s no car.”
“Easy, Ray. We must’ve beaten her here, that’s all.”
Ray crossed 25 and drove to the bottom of the U-shaped road where the tree line marked one end of the Minnesota Valley State Park. He left the engine running and stepped out leaving his door open. The plaintive hoot of an owl faded into the night, and in the near distance, Ray heard the sound of another car engine idling.
In a stage whisper, he told Waverly, “She’s here. Let her see some movement.”
Shifting from side to side, Waverly kept his head below the top of the front seat.
“I’m here,” Ray shouted into the thick, leafless forest. “Let’s do this.”
Twenty yards away, a figure cloaked in darkness stepped from behind a tree. “You have her?”
“I said I did, didn’t I? Where are my kids?”
“Not so fast. Get Amy out of the car where I can see her.”
Ray scrambled. “I’ll do that as soon as you tell me where Laurie and Joey are.”
There was a pause. “Tell you what, Detective… As a gesture of good faith, I’ll tell you this much: your son’s in a motel room in Chaska.”
“That’s not good enough. Which motel?”
She stepped closer, laughing. “Try following the yellow
brick road; it worked for Dorothy and Toto.” Her tone turned demanding. “Now it’s your turn to show some good faith. Bring… Amy… out.”
“Not yet. Tell me where Laurie is,” he demanded.
“She’s not in Chaska. Too vague?”
“Look,” he said, pointing to the movement of the SUV’s chassis. “Amy’s inside,” Ray insisted. “Give me the name of the motel and my daughter’s location and you can have her.”
“Screw you. I set the rules.”
“I’ve got rules, too. If I turn Amy over to you before you give me Joey and Laurie’s exact locations, how do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”
“You have my word, and unlike most people, I keep my promises.”
“So do I, and I promised myself this was going to be done my way,” Ray said, stepping into the broad beam of light coming from the SUV’s headlights.
Counting on Ray to have drawn her attention away from the vehicle, Waverly slipped out of the SUV through a rear door and hid behind a clump of bushes.
“It looks like we have a standoff,” she said. “Maybe a compromise is in order. I’ll give you a hint. A freebie. Your daughter is even closer than Joey. Quite close, actually. In fact, if you don’t cooperate right now, before long, you’ll be able to pinpoint your daughter’s location from right where you stand.” She raised an arm and pointed in several directions. “Or from several miles in that direction, or that one, or any other for that matter.”
He felt his heart drop to his stomach. There was nothing to do but grab Dunham and pray to God they could wring an ounce of humanity out of her before it was too late.
“Okay,” Ray said, stepping back through the headlight beams. “You win. Amy’s tied up in the back. Come help me get her out.”
Approaching with caution, she stepped into the glare of the headlights. Ray’s jaw dropped. “What the…?” His tone was incredulous. “What the…?”
Nicki Wright smiled. “You already said that.”
“Where’s Liz Dunham? What the hell is going on? Are you working together?”
Targeted: A Ray Schiller Novel (The Ray Schiller Series Book 3) Page 27