Not This Time

by Vicki Hinze

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Sara’s fear and worry showed in every tense line on her face. “But if something goes wrong—God forbid—I’d care forever.”

  Guilt, Beth understood. And sitting here worrying would make Sara a nervous wreck. If she went along, at least Beth could watch over her. “I would too.”

  “I’m doped to the gills on antianxiety meds. Very relaxed but not out of my head goofy. Can’t drive.” Sara coughed. “I just hope this is enough to save Robert’s life.”

  Looking into Sara’s fearful face, Beth said the only thing she could say. “I hope so too.”

  Civil twilight would begin at 5:47 a.m. Official sunrise would be at 6:12.

  At 5:00, Jeff seated Beth behind the wheel of Sara’s Saab, Sara in the backseat with the waterproof bag of money, and then he climbed into his Tahoe. Mark Taylor, Roxy, and Crossroads owner, Ben Brandt, piled into Mark’s SUV. Beth’s insides quivered. Backing out of the garage, she glanced at Sara. She had to be a basket case, but she looked as serene as she did in the SaBe lab. Strange.

  About ten minutes out from Jay’s Place, Beth fought to focus. Her nerves jangled.

  “Beth?”

  “Yes?” She glanced at Sara in the rearview. Her eyes were droopy, but she hadn’t dozed.

  “What happened when the kidnappers called? They expected me to be there—”

  “They thought I was you.”

  “That’s absurd.” Sara met her gaze in the mirror. “No one would mistake your voice for mine.”

  Beth agreed—her voice was at least an octave lower—and that they hadn’t known the difference troubled her. “I faked it. Even Robert thought I was you.”

  Sara gasped. “You spoke to Robert? You didn’t tell me.”

  Must be the medication. “Yes, I did.” Beth passed a white Honda and a rusty pickup, then veered back into the right lane behind Jeff. “He sounded okay.” Terrified, but okay. “They didn’t let him talk long.” Should she bring up that bit about Sara being upset with him? The messenger from the terrace fund-raiser? Not with Jeff hearing every word. Thwarted again, Beth added, “He just said for you to do whatever they want.” Beth deliberately omitted his “They’ll kill me.” Sara did not need to hear that.

  She shifted. The moneybag crackled. “Odd. I can’t believe he mistook you for me.”

  Beth replied honestly; otherwise, Sara would know immediately. “I thought it odd too.”

  Through the earpiece, Jeff jumped in. “Robert was in a hypertense situation. Maybe he was too afraid to notice.”

  “Jeff says in tense situations sometimes people don’t notice,” Beth relayed to Sara. “That makes sense to me.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Sara insisted. “He knows my voice—and he knows your voice too.”

  Also true. “Maybe he faked it so the kidnapper wouldn’t know I wasn’t you.”

  “Plausible.” Jeff grunted approvingly. “And probable.”

  Still stinging because of his attitude toward her, Darla, and Dennis, Beth ignored Jeff.

  “If he talked to you as if you were me, he did it intentionally.”

  Beth agreed. She couldn’t ask about the terrace messenger in front of anyone else, but it was only a matter of time before Jeff asked about it. “Robert did say something I didn’t understand.”

  “What?” Sara sounded wary and disturbed.

  Another strange reaction. “He said he knew you were upset with him, but to please do what the kidnapper said.” Beth looked back in the mirror for Sara’s unguarded reaction. “Were you upset with him?”

  “No.” Sara stared out the side window into the darkness. “He was letting you know he knew who he was really talking to—you stay upset with him, Beth.”

  Sara had lied. Lied to Beth. Stunned, her skin prickled. She stared down the road, out at the hurricane bent and twisted trees lining it. Why would Sara lie to her? She hated lying.

  “Makes sense.” Jeff tossed in his observation.

  It did, but it was still a lie. Beth’s stomach soured. If Robert thought Sara would refuse the kidnappers’ instructions and let him die, she had to have been deeply upset with him. That he had doubts about her proved it.

  Again the terrace messenger’s warning replayed in Beth’s mind. Again she felt his warm minty breath fan across her neck and shoulder. Who had he been? Dr. Franklin had been there. She thought back to her days in his office, talking to him about Sara’s condition. His office. Dimly lit, bookshelves lining the walls. Stack of files on his desk and a banker’s lamp. A leather blotter—and a little crystal bowl of ice-blue mints!

  He would certainly know why Sara had been hospitalized. Even at the fund-raiser, he had been phone-consulting with the ICU personnel and the doctors with Sara. Maybe he wanted Beth to know something else was up with Sara’s hospitalizations but couldn’t tell her without violating confidentiality. Privacy rights had hushed the EMT guys about Sara’s feet, whatever that was about.

  But the ice-blue mints weren’t the right mints.

  The messenger’s breath was the same peppermint scent as the one Jeff had at Sara’s kitchen table. Beth sat up a little straighter in her seat. He was on the terrace afterward, and he could get access to Sara’s medical information. She frowned. But judging by his comments, he would assume Beth knew why Sara had been hospitalized three times. And considering her a suspect, he wouldn’t tell her anything. If she ever got two seconds alone, she’d ask Margaret to look into the reason for Sara’s hospitalizations. She handled the insurance claims. They’d disclose the truth.

  But the messenger had to be someone else. Dr. Franklin was the better bet. She tried to recall his cologne. The terrace messenger had worn a subtle citrus scent. One Beth never had noticed on Dr. Franklin. And she would have noticed it. The fragrance pulled at something low in her stomach. She definitely would have noticed—if she’d been close enough to catch the scent. She couldn’t honestly ever remember being that close to Dr. Franklin …

  Worthless speculation.

  It was. She needed to focus on the moment. Sara could answer the questions and end Beth’s internal debate. And she would, probably, when Beth asked. But that really didn’t worry her. What put knots in her stomach and hurt in her heart hit far closer to home.

  Why did Sara lie to her?

  Jay’s Place was at a bend in the river.

  FBI agents and local authorities had coordinated and well before dawn had dug in at various points up and downstream. The current was swift at the bend and lazy after it—a great place to launch a canoe or a tube for floaters. Here, the river was only about the width of a dozen cars placed end to end, and thick woods flanked both sides—alpine cedars, more twisted pines, and stray oaks and magnolias, which stood out because of their bright green, waxy leaves. A narrow sandy beach jutted out on Jay’s side of the river. The opposite side had a steep, six-foot drop to the water, scrubby and natural with plants and roots helping hold the sand in place. A short distance around the bend, the river widened up again to twice its bend width and the current slowed substantially. It was easy to imagine a group of people in tubes laughing and floating down it, towing a rope-tied tube holding an ice chest full of cold drinks.

  A single tube lay in the sandy beach near the water’s edge, no doubt placed there by one of Jeff’s agents for Sara to put the money in and set it afloat. Later in the day, little kids would be playing there, digging with shovels and filling buckets, building sand castles, but at this early hour, the beach—all of Jay’s—was deserted except for their group.

  “Let’s get this done.” Sara crawled out of the car, hauling the moneybag with her.

  She had on flats—practical but amazing considering her position on heels these days—and black pants, not shorts. She’d be roasting by eight o’clock, but hopefully they’d be long gone before then. She was already staggering. “Let me help.” Beth clasped her arm. “I’ll carry it.”

  “No. I need to do it myself.”

  “Okay.” Beth didn’t
argue. Too much was outside Sara’s control in all this, and carrying the bag was something she could choose. Using it to hold herself together, she leaned heavily on Beth. By the time they made it down to the tube on the beach at the water’s edge, Beth’s arm muscles burned.

  “The tube has a bottom.” Sara bent down and stuffed the bag into the tube’s center hole.

  “Lots of them do. Keeps stuff dry.”

  “Oh.” Sara glanced back at her. “Hand me that cord, will you?”

  Beth passed the bungee cord, but Sara’s coordination was severely impaired and within seconds she muttered, “I can’t do it.”

  Scooting around, Beth attached the cord to a loop handle on the tube, then stretched the cord across the hole, snagged the second loop, and secured the bag.

  “It won’t fall out?” Sara asked. “You’re sure?”

  Beth tugged it. “It’s not going anywhere until someone removes those cords.”

  Sara dragged the tube toward the water. “It’s heavy.”

  Two million in bills did pack some weight. Beth worked with her and they twisted the tube over to the water, its bottom scraping the grating sand. Finally, the edge of it glided into little curls of water. Sara got into position to set it afloat and bent down to give it a shove.

  A horrific sense of dread slammed into Beth. She grabbed Sara’s arm. “Wait.” When Sara looked back at her, Beth shared the warning. “Don’t let go. Something’s not right, Sara. Don’t let go.”

  “I have to let go,” Sara insisted, thick-tongued and slurring her words. “They’ll kill him.” Her expression twisted, crumbled. “If they kill him, things could be so awful. Everything will be destroyed. Everything.”

  Certainty rippled through Beth. Sara meant far more than her marriage and, if she weren’t medicated to the rafters, she wouldn’t have said as much as she did. A horrific sense of catastrophe settled in, knotted Beth’s stomach. Confused and torn, she scanned the shoreline, the dense woods that crept down the far riverbank, but nothing struck her as out of place. Still, she couldn’t shake the dread. It was crushing.

  “Sara, listen to me. Something is wrong.” Beth shoved her damp hair back from her face. “Remember that feeling I got when you were going to ride from the canteen to the dorm with Trevor Mason? You were already in the car, and I made you get out? Remember?”

  Sara shuddered. “He got in a wreck a few blocks away.”

  “Everyone in the car was killed.”

  Sara frowned. “What does that have to do with this?”

  “I have no idea,” Beth admitted. “But I’ve got that same feeling right this minute. Don’t let go of that money.”

  That remark clearly had Sara at war with herself. “What? Do you think they’ve already killed Robert or they’re going to, or something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” Beth spat out, more frustrated with herself than Sara could possibly be. The dread started the minute she’d stepped into the water and had intensified every second since. “I couldn’t explain on campus, and I can’t explain now. But I know this is the wrong thing to do. It’s going to trigger something awful, Sara.”

  In soft sand with water soaking her slacks to her calves, Sara stilled and stared down.

  “Sara, don’t. Please, don’t.”

  Worrying her lip with her teeth, Sara shoved the tube.

  “Sara!” Beth let out a sigh of pure frustration. “Why did you do it? Why?”

  “I heard you.” She turned her back to the river. “But there are things you don’t know that I do. Not doing this will definitely trigger something more awful than you can imagine.” Sara dusted the sand from her palms and stumbled up the shallow incline to the parking lot.

  Beth followed her. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s better for you not to know.”

  Exasperated, Beth asked, “Not to know what?”

  “Look, I’m doing what I have to do.” Sara lifted a hand to stay Beth’s protest. “I hear you, okay? But I can’t afford to listen. Not this time.”

  What had Robert gotten Sara into? Whatever it was, it was bad. Would it hurt her? Hurt SaBe? “Sara’s in deep trouble. She needs your help …” the man on the terrace had told her. Beth folded her arms over her chest. “Are you going to explain this to me?”

  Sara calmly turned and looked her right in the eye. “No.”

  Shock pumped through Beth. Nothing but cold resolve shone in Sara’s eyes. “Is SaBe going to be hurt?”

  “Not if I can prevent it.”

  “I might be able to help, Sara. If it impacts SaBe, then I deserve to know.”

  “I said, no. No is a complete sentence, Beth.” Sara walked on.

  Jeff’s voice sounded through the Bluetooth. “Beth, what is going on between you two?”

  Beth kicked at the sand. “I wish I knew.”

  “You have no idea?”

  “None.” Beth pivoted and watched the tube float down the river. The dread knotted in her stomach sank under a deluge of inevitable doom.

  10

  Sara wouldn’t talk straight. Trying not to huff up about it, Beth followed Sara to Jeff’s Tahoe. She still wasn’t steady on her feet and for some reason she elected not to remove her water-soaked flats. They squished with her every step.

  Beth crawled into the backseat beside Sara and waited. Sara never said the first word.

  Dawn went and morning arrived with the full force of hot sun and high humidity. The silence was deafening. Beth glanced at Jeff, sitting behind the wheel. Tension radiated off him and he paled; he’d heard something on his earpiece that disturbed him. “What now?”

  “Message from Roxy. As soon as Sara launched the tube, we got an e-mail from the kidnapper. The two of you are to wait here. They’re calling in Robert’s location on that pay phone.” Jeff pointed through the windshield to the phone mounted on Jay’s cedar-shake wall just beyond the picnic area.

  “They’re going to call,” Beth said, glad the wait was over. “This is good, right?”

  “They’re watching us, Beth.” He looked at her in the rearview mirror. “And we haven’t spotted them.”

  Beth’s stomach flipped.

  “Are we keeping people off the phone?” Sara craned to see around Jeff. “Should we be over there?”

  “No,” Jeff said. “Stay put.”

  Sara grabbed the door handle. “We should keep anyone off that phone.”

  Beth touched her arm. “We shouldn’t be out in the open. He’s scared we’ll be shot.”

  “Seriously?”

  “They have the money in sight, Sara. They don’t need you anymore.”

  Suddenly this was all too real, too frightening, and Beth’s fear reflected in Sara’s eyes. Sara, who had secrets that could hurt her, Beth, and SaBe. Shivers rippled over Beth’s skin.

  A dull roar from the river grew loud, then louder. Engines.

  Two Jet Skis zoomed into view from the north, screamed past the launch site to the bend, then down the river and out of sight.

  “Is that them?” Sara squeezed Beth’s hand hard enough to crack bones.

  Jeff barked orders into his headset; acronyms and codes alien to Beth.

  “Can we see if that’s them?” Sara’s voice shrilled and she shook like a leaf tossed by a gust of wind. “They’ll take the money and not tell us where to find Robert.”

  Jeff spared Sara a glance over his shoulder. “No one can get close to the money without us knowing it.”

  Her breathing went ragged. “Don’t do it, Sara,” Beth warned. Another attack now could kill her. “Your body can’t take any more. Keep it together or—”

  “I’m fine,” Sara snipped back.

  “Shh, I can’t hear.” Jeff glared back at them. “They’ve stopped. Approaching the tube.”

  Tension thickened, almost palpable. Beth fisted her hands and held her tongue. Joe, why aren’t you here? I need you here.

  “Think steel, sha. Think steel …”

  “They’re
checking out the bag.” Jeff twisted his lip mic. “Hold your positions until they take possession and start to depart. Can you hear what they’re saying? If so, relay.”

  They’d put a listening device in the bag, a tracking device on the tube. Jeff should be able to hear every word. But if not, then surely his men could. The river was narrow here—maybe twenty feet wide—their voices would carry over the water to the agents hiding in the woods on the banks.

  Seconds passed. Then more. And when Beth was certain every nerve in her body was about to snap, Jeff muttered.

  “What?” Sara reached forward and clasped his shoulder. “Tell me.”

  “They opened the bag and saw the cash. Now they’re debating whether or not to take it,” Jeff told Sara. “One wants to; the other says it’s got to be drug money and taking it will get them killed.”

  “Logical deduction.” That’s exactly what Beth would have thought.

  “They’re not taking it.” Jeff dabbed at his damp forehead with a napkin. “Now they’re discussing reporting it to the cops.”

  Beth grunted. “No way is that going to happen.”

  Jeff looked back at her.

  “What? Would you call?” She shrugged. “I’m just saying …”

  Sara chimed in. “File a report and identify yourself to drug dealers? Welcome to running from them the rest of your life—which won’t be long. I’d want to call; I’m just not sure I’d actually do it. Maybe anonymously.”

  “A caller wouldn’t discuss calling,” Beth said. “He’d dial the phone.” Somebody had to stand up, but it wouldn’t be the skiers. “They’ll let it float and forget they saw it.”

  Long minutes passed. Then Jeff grunted. “You got it, Beth. They closed the bag and left it to float.” He looked back at her. “So much for having faith in people.”

  She resented the dig. “Different criteria, different standards.” She wrinkled her nose at Sara. “No one wants a drug dealer after him—or one coming after his wife or kids. Taking or reporting the money carries risks, and others pay them too. You don’t know these men or what their lives are like, Jeff. Don’t judge them.”