by Cindy Dees
Nick froze, arrested by the observation. “You know, that’s a very good point.”
She looked up from where she was smearing mascara on his white dress shirt. “How’s that?”
“I think we may be on the same side as Adam’s kidnapper in this whole mess. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s done us a favor by pulling our son out of harm’s way, but there may be an element of truth to that. If the kidnapper’s not associated with the CIA, FBI, or Meredith, he may be safer with the kidnapper right now.”
“Oh my god,” she breathed in horror. “The FBI has Ellie.”
She couldn’t help it. She started to shake, and then to cry. Not her baby, too. Her legs collapsed, but Nick caught her against him. He bent down, scooped her legs out from underneath her and carried her over to a big armchair by the window. He sat down, cuddling her against his chest like a baby, herself.
No matter how bad things were between them, they were both worried parents. They would always have that in common. And right now, she wasn’t strong enough to turn down his emotional support.
Nick murmured soothingly, “As long as we play along with them, I can’t imagine they’ll keep her from us. We just have to pretend that everything’s okay until Agent Morris gets here with her.” His eyes lit up. “In fact, I have an idea. Blackledge is a single guy, right?”
Laura nodded.
Nick grinned. “Even better.” He dug out his cell phone and dialed quickly. “Agent Blackledge. It’s Nick Cass. Do you have an ETA on Agent Morris and our daughter? My wife is getting…uncomfortable…you know, nursing mother…to pump or not to pump…”
She smiled in spite of herself at the awkward sputtering suddenly coming from the other end of the phone.
“Twenty minutes? Thanks,” Nick said. “If you could have someone bring her up right away…”
More sputtering. Nick hung up. “There you go. Twenty minutes.”
To pass the time, Laura climbed out of Nick’s disturbingly comfortable lap to check her email—the private one she hadn’t told the FBI about. A familiar name caught her eye as she scrolled down through various junk mails to it. “I got a message from Clifton Moore.”
Nick tensed. “What does he have to say?”
Foreboding filled her as she opened the short message and scanned it rapidly.
Federal prosecutor will announce suspension of trial in a press conference at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. Be sure to put eyes on it.
“Not so soon!” she gasped.
“What?” Nick moved quickly to her side and read the message for himself. He swore quietly. “We’re out of time. We’ve got to do something.”
She added tightly, “‘Eyes on’ is an old code phrase between Clifton and me. He’s telling me my investigation is compromised from inside the Agency. We can’t trust the CIA.”
“We sure as hell can’t trust the FBI, either,” Nick replied.
She looked up at him in dismay as the totality of their isolation struck her. “We’re completely on our own. If we’re going to find Adam and rescue him, it has to be now. We have until 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.”
“It’s time for Daddy Finders Inc. to become Adam Finders Inc. To heck with the government. We’ll find him ourselves.”
Panic rolled through her, a wild storm riding a wind of despair. “I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“Maybe not alone,” Nick replied firmly. “But together we can do this. We’re both highly intelligent and extremely motivated. Between the two of us, we have massive resources outside the U.S. government. The first order of business is to find somewhere safe to leave Ellie tonight.” He ticked off the requirements on his fingers. “She needs to be out of the house, with someone we trust, and whom the government won’t know to look for.”
Laura nodded, mopping tears from her eyes that threatened to spill down her cheeks. Nick was right. She couldn’t fall apart now. Adam needed her. Needed them. And goodness knew, they couldn’t drag Ellie all over the countryside when they went after Adam. Memory of that awful chase through the Cape Cod woods with men shooting at them and Ellie screaming her head off flashed through her mind.
She announced suddenly, “I know just the person. Emily Holtz’s mother lives not far from here. Emily’s the woman who helped rescue you from the ship.”
Nick nodded. “I remember her well.”
“Her mother, Doris, is as fierce as a lioness when it comes to protecting her cubs. She was the woman in the safe room with Adam the night we rescued you and brought you here. She protected Adam when your kidnapper tried to recover you.”
“Sounds perfect. Now we just have to figure out where Adam is.”
He made it sound so easy. She’d been wracking her brains for days as to how to identify and find Adam’s kidnapper to no avail. How to begin? A comment Nick had made earlier came back to her. Laura said thoughtfully, “You said before that Adam’s kidnapper is on the same side we are. Let’s follow that logic for a moment. Expand on what you meant by that.”
Nick answered, “The kidnapper’s mad at AbaCo. He wants to see them buried. Why? What did AbaCo do to him? If we could figure that out, it might give us a clue as to who he is.”
Laura looked up into his eyes hopefully and continued the logic. “He knows AbaCo’s been doing things that can get the company in serious trouble. Which means he’s either in the Special Cargo division or has done work for it.”
“Why is he taking action now? Why not earlier? Has he seen something that goes beyond what he can stand morally without taking action?”
“It probably isn’t smuggled stuff in boxes that’s got him so riled up. AbaCo’s been doing that for years. Whatever goaded him to action is something new. Something appalling to anyone with a smidgen of conscience.”
Nick added grimly, “Humans locked away in boxes for years on end might make him mad enough to act. And it might explain why he chose me specifically to put the screws to. He figures I’m as mad about that as he is. He can trust me to tear AbaCo apart with the vigor he thinks the company deserves.”
Laura continued eagerly, “So instead of searching the entire AbaCo employee roster for fired employees, we should look for someone who’s left the Special Cargo division recently under any circumstances. Maybe retirement or just quitting. The FBI’s investigation of fired employees might not have been broad enough.”
Nick rose as well. “And we just happen to have the Special Cargo division’s complete personnel roster for the past few years, compliments of our friend Kloffman.”
She raced over to her laptop and reached for the keyboard.
Nick said sharply, “Are you sure the guys downstairs won’t see what you’re doing on that?”
“Good point. Let me deactivate my wireless access and throw up a couple of extra security protocols.”
“Maybe you should wait until Ellie’s safely with us,” he suggested gently.
She lifted her hands away from the computer, frustrated. “Waiting is so hard,” she whispered.
“I got pretty good at waiting in my box,” Nick murmured. “Come here.”
As conflicted as she was about him, she wasn’t about to pick a fight with him now. Adam’s life depended on the two of them setting aside their differences and working together. Reluctantly, she sank into his lap and had to admit it felt shockingly nice.
He murmured, “I used to think about the vacation I would take when I was freed. I would imagine it down to the smallest detail. Where shall we go as a family when we’re all back together?”
A family. Oh, how she liked the sound of that. If only it could be. She turned her attention to his question and replied, “You have to ask? We have small children. There’s only one place on Earth to take them.”
Nick laughed. “Orlando, here we come.” He continued, “Shall we wait until Ellie’s a little older or go right away?”
“Both, I think.”
He nodded encouragingly. “Now you’re getting the hang of it. What will we do first wit
h the kids?”
They spent the next several minutes planning the details of their vacation. Although it did help her pass the time while they waited for Ellie’s return, a little voice in the back of her head wondered if any of them would ever get to take the trip. She mustn’t think that way!
A knock sounded on their door. Laura leaped out of Nick’s arms and threw the portal open. A smiling Agent Morris stood there with a bundle of pink fuzzy blanket in his arms. It was all Laura could do not to fling herself forward and tear her daughter away from the guy. As it was, a sob shook her as the man handed her daughter over.
Nick thanked the agent quietly and closed the door as she retreated to their bed and unwrapped her daughter to perform a count of every last finger and toe. The infant was perfectly fine and thankfully hungry.
She nursed Ellie while Nick activated additional security protocols and opened a search algorithm on her laptop following her instructions. The three of them sprawled on the bed together, with the computer between them. Over the baby’s dark head, she helped him build a mini-program to search the Special Cargo division’s detailed personnel files.
Nick hit the enter key. The computer would eliminate all females, all non-French-speaking men, and all deceased employees in the Special Cargo Division. Then it would search for employees who’d left the division recently for any reason, rank ordering them according to when they’d left AbaCo. In a few minutes, a list of names scrolled down the screen.
Nick commented, “Unless our guy was some sort of contract longshoreman who didn’t actually work for AbaCo, I’d lay odds our kidnapper’s on this list.”
She nodded resolutely. “Now we just have to figure out where all these guys are. The one we can’t account for is our kidnapper.”
“Easy as pie,” Nick retorted. “We’ll both work on it, and it’ll go faster.”
It didn’t turn out to be quite that simple, however. The two of them spent the rest of the afternoon working on their respective laptops, hunting down the whereabouts of dozens of former and current AbaCo employees. His knowledge of the company’s personnel record system turned out to be invaluable. Laura hacked into AbaCo’s current Human Resources records, and he navigated rapidly to the address list used to mail various pension checks and insurance information to former employees. By eliminating those people who lived outside of North America, they removed over half the suspects from their list.
At about dinner time, someone knocked on their door. They hastily closed their computers and Nick opened the panel. A female FBI agent stood there. “Would you like us to send up some food?” she asked.
“Yes. That would be perfect,” Nick murmured, turning on the charm. Laura watched in amusement as the agent blushed. She knew the feeling. The guy was impossible to resist. “Any new information?” Nick asked.
The agent stiffened fractionally and threw a glance in Laura’s direction. “No, sir. I’m sorry.”
Nick shut the door and pressed his ear to it, presumably to listen to the woman’s retreating footsteps. He turned sharply. “She was lying.”
Amused, Laura asked, “You’re good at telling when women are lying to you?”
He answered sourly, “It comes with the territory when you’re a reasonably eligible bachelor.”
She laughed lightly. She had no trouble imagining the legions of women who must’ve thrown themselves at him over the years. More seriously, she asked, “Do you think she suspected anything?”
“No. You looked appropriately wan and distressed when she checked you out.”
Laura snorted. “You’re not the only good actor in this family.”
He rolled his eyes at her, but accepted the compliment. If, indeed, it was a compliment at all. They traded a look of complete understanding. The two of them were cut from the exact same cloth. They did what it took to get the job done, and neither of them took life lying down. They went out and got what they wanted and didn’t wait around for things to come to them. And right now, they wanted their son back.
She said quietly, “Shall we press on with our investigation?”
He nodded and gestured for her to precede him back to the table and their laptops.
“I think it’s time to add a few more parameters to our sorting program,” she announced.
“Like what?”
“People who are living on the east coast of the United States.”
“We may exclude the kidnapper with those parameters. For example, the guy could live in California but have traveled here for the express purpose of kidnapping Adam.”
Laura replied thoughtfully, “Setting up the logistics of a successful kidnapping takes time. The guy had to prepare a hideout, lay in supplies, figure out how to get into this house. I think he’s been in this area for some time.”
Nick nodded. “Your logic is sound.”
“We’re running out of time. We’re going to have to take a few chances, follow our guts, and hope we’re right.”
He replied soberly, “I’d bet my life on your gut instincts.”
“All right then. Let’s finish this thing.”
“Thank God,” he replied fervently. “I can’t stand waiting around anymore.”
She texted Doris to ask if the woman would watch Ellie while Nick modified the search program. Doris responded almost immediately that she’d be delighted to babysit Ellie. As Laura was replying that they’d be at her home sometime later in the evening, Nick’s computer beeped.
Laura got up and moved around to see what their revised search-and-sort program had turned up. Five names blinked on his screen. Now they were talking. That was a much more manageable list of suspects.
Nick piped up. “Can you check and see if any of these five remaining guys have bought land nearby in the last few years?”
She nodded, liking his logic. They knew from the videos that Adam was being held at a cabin of some kind, likely surrounded by woods to explain Adam’s leaf collection. She ran a search and came up with nothing, however.
Nick frowned. “Can you search farther back? Maybe our kidnapper bought land and held it for a while before he built a cabin on it. Or maybe he’s had it for a long time.”
Again, frustratingly nothing. Her head was starting to throb. This line of research had to pan out. They didn’t have anything else.
Nick spoke again. “How about searching county tax records for the surnames of these guys? Maybe the land’s been in the family for a long time.”
She frowned. “Not every county has digitalized its tax records. But it’s worth a try.”
They got a list of hits, maybe twenty properties in all. She dragged the addresses to a map program and a series of pinpoints popped up on a map of the mid-Atlantic region. She commented, “One of the leaves in Adam’s collection came from a bush that grows well near salt air. So let’s assume he’s near the Atlantic coast. That leaves us with these four locations.”
They tried several more search programs, and nothing they did could narrow down which property was the likely hiding place of Adam’s kidnapper. There was no help for it. They were going to have to check out all four. It was going to be a long night.
As she packed an overnight bag for her daughter, Laura’s maternal urges protested at leaving Ellie with Doris. But she knew it to be the best thing. She had no right to endanger an infant, and furthermore, tonight’s activity would require stealth. And as she knew from personal experience, crying babies did not qualify.
She and Nick waited until Ellie had nursed and was deeply asleep to put their plan into motion. Laura loaded Ellie’s spare baby bag with pistols, ammunition, and a small pair of night vision goggles. She opened the safe in her closet and threw in nearly a hundred thousand dollars in cash, too. It was mostly hundred-dollar bills bundled into five-thousand-dollar stacks. In her experience, when bribing someone—like a kidnapper—cold, hard cash had a much more visceral and powerful impact than a check or electronic wire transfer.
She snuck down the back staircase to
the kitchen with a sleeping Ellie in her arms. Right about now, Nick should be making a rueful request to Agent Blackledge to be allowed to go to the store and get tampons for Laura. She’d predicted that none of the all-male FBI team on duty tonight would volunteer to run the errand for him. From her perch in the shadows a few steps above the kitchen, she vaguely heard Nick grousing about three women living in a house this size and not managing to have a tampon among them. Grinning to herself, she told Marta what she and Nick were up to and slipped quickly into the darkened garage.
Nick joined her in a few moments. In keeping with the errand guise, Laura and Ellie laid down in the cramped backseat of the hybrid car the staff usually used for small errands.
“Any problems?” she murmured as the car backed quietly out of the garage, its electric motor ghostly silent.
“Nope. Just the word tampon terrified them all into catatonia,” he chortled.
“Works every time on bachelors,” she declared as she installed Ellie’s car seat and tightened the straps holding it in place. She eased the baby into the carrier and breathed a sigh of relief when the infant didn’t wake.
“Then I guess I’m not a bachelor anymore,” he commented. “Female stuff doesn’t scare me. Good thing, too, now that I have a daughter.”
Did that mean he was planning to stick around for his kids’ lives, then? The vacation to Disney World wasn’t merely an exercise in mental distraction? Her initial reaction was relief, but hard on its heels came doubt. Could she trust him to follow through? Would he breeze in and out of their lives when it was convenient for him? Throw some money at the kids to buy their love and then take off again? Or would he be there for the long haul? For the doctor’s visits and homework and myriad decisions that came with raising a child? Would he be there for her to lean on? To talk over parental concerns with? Did she dare share the burden with him and risk yet another disappointment?
The drive to Doris’s house didn’t take long. The older woman was thrilled to have a baby to spoil rotten, and her husband looked satisfyingly grim and confident when Laura relayed that there might be a threat to Ellie’s safety if anyone found out the baby was here with them. Nick approved of the well-oiled shotgun Doris’s husband pulled out and leaned against the wall inside the front door.