Into the Deep

by Virginia Smith

  She stepped inside a standard hotel room. The bathroom door to her right stood open. To her left, a closet alcove with an empty clothes bar hung beneath a shelf containing an iron and an extra pillow. In front of her, two double beds faced a low dresser. A television set hung from the ceiling on a metal frame. Allison stood between the beds, holding—

  “Joshua!” Nikki’s throat squeezed shut. Joshua’s head lay across Allison’s shoulder, his arms and legs dangling. His eyes were closed, his little face peaceful in sleep.

  She held her arms out. “Give him to me.”

  “Not yet,” Allison replied.

  Nikki took a step toward them. She’d pry her child out of that woman’s arms if she had to.

  But then Allison twisted her body sideways, and Nikki froze. Allison held a pair of scissors in her right hand, the sharp point poised next to the baby’s chubby neck.

  Nikki’s heart slammed to a stop. “You—you wouldn’t hurt him.” Her statement became a plea. “Would you?”

  “I don’t want to hurt him, you know I don’t.”

  Nikki shook her head, unable to tear her gaze away from the scissors. “I don’t know anything about you, Allison. Or, Alicia.”

  Alicia’s eyes widened. “They know who I am?”

  Nikki nodded, but all her attention was focused on her son. Something was wrong. He hadn’t moved at all. Joshua was a light sleeper. The sound of her voice should have woken him.

  “What’s wrong with him? What have you done to him?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” Alicia hefted the child farther up on her shoulder. His limp limbs flopped. “I gave him something to make him stop crying, that’s all. We both needed to get some sleep.”

  Horror crept over Nikki. “You drugged him?”

  “It was just Benadryl. He’ll be fine.”

  Every muscle in Nikki’s body strained with tension. When she got hold of that, that baby thief, she’d strangle her with her bare hands. But first, she had to get Joshua safely away from her.

  “Are there really FBI agents outside?” Alicia cast a nervous glance toward the window.

  “Yes. A bunch of them.”

  “And they know what room I’m in?”

  Nikki nodded. “They know every move you’ve made since you kidnapped Joshua.”

  Alicia winced. “Kidnapped. I can’t believe this is happening.” The scissors trembled as her fingers tightened on the handle. “I’ve got to get out of here.” Nikki stood still as Alicia’s gaze darted in a circle around the room. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Back up.”

  “What?”

  “I said, back up. Into the bathroom.”

  She’s going to leave with Joshua.

  “Allison.” She stumbled over the name. “Or Alicia, or whoever you are, listen to me. Just give Joshua to me. If you return him safely, it won’t go so badly for you. But if you hurt him—”

  She swallowed, unwilling to consider the possibility of Joshua being hurt.

  The scissors circled the baby’s neck to press against the back, the tip resting at the soft part of his skull. “Do it, Nikki.”

  Nikki backed away, her eyes on the madwoman who held her son. Alicia moved forward. The scissors moved away for an instant, long enough for Alicia to scoop up her purse from the dresser and sling it over her free shoulder, then returned to their menacing position. Nikki backed into the bathroom.

  “Now close the door.”

  Nikki hesitated for only a second. Alicia had the upper hand. She had Joshua. Nikki closed the bathroom door.

  A minute later, she heard the outside door slam. Alicia was escaping with her son! Nikki jerked both doors open and dashed into the hallway in time to see Alicia’s back and the top of Joshua’s curly hair disappear around the corner, toward the elevators. She ran after them and arrived in time to see the fire door slam shut.

  Ben slipped inside the back door. Ahead of him, a fire door led to the hotel’s main level, but he knew Nikki hadn’t gone there. She’d heard the room number as well as him. Joshua was being held on the fifth floor, and that’s where Nikki would have gone. Ben dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  On the third floor, he stopped. A dark coat and scarf lay draped over the handrail. The same ones Special Agent Farmer gave Nikki to wear. He picked up the scarf.

  If anything happens to Nikki…

  He crushed the wool in his fist and buried his face in it. The years since she left him had been empty. Dull. Sure, he’d managed to duck any responsibilities beyond guiding the next group of tourists on a scuba dive, which was exactly what he always said he wanted. No ties. No encumbrances. He could go where he chose, do whatever he wished, answer to no one but himself. It was the life he’d planned, the one Dad had led. Following in his father’s footsteps had created a sort of invisible bond between them, a bond that Ben had desperately wanted as a young boy.

  But in the past several days, from the moment he saw Nikki again on the dock in Key West, he’d begun to realize that wasn’t the life he wanted after all. He wanted more.

  He wanted Nikki and Joshua.

  Still clutching the scarf, Ben placed a foot on the next step. A sound stopped him.

  From somewhere above him, somewhere close, a door slammed shut. The noise echoed down the stairwell, followed by footsteps. Someone was coming.

  An instant later, the door slammed again. His pulse kicked up a notch at the sound of Nikki’s voice.

  “Alicia, stop right there!”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Please, don’t do this.” Nikki stood one flight above, her hand on the rail, and looked down to the next landing at the woman who held her son. “I can’t believe you’d really hurt Joshua. You’re…” She swallowed. “You’re not the kind of person who would hurt a child.”

  A tortured expression twisted Alicia’s features. “Like you said a minute ago, you don’t know me. You don’t know what kind of person I am.”

  “There’s a lot I don’t know.” Nikki edged down one step. One step closer to her baby. “But surely everything you told me wasn’t a lie. You told me about your childhood, and your first prom. Those were real memories, weren’t they?”

  Alicia hesitated, then nodded. “Those were real.”

  Nikki took another step. She was just ten steps away from them now. “Whatever brought you to Portland, whatever reason you had for coming there, we became friends, didn’t we?”

  The woman ran a tongue quickly around her lips. Her eyes darted down the stairs. Nikki didn’t move, lest she frighten her into running farther away.

  I’ve got to keep her talking, distract her. If I can just get close enough to grab those scissors…

  “I know why you lied to me,” Nikki said. “You were just doing what you’d been told to do. Maybe even paid to do?”

  Alicia’s head jerked up and down. “I needed the money. I’ve got college loans to pay off and credit cards and rent. I wasn’t making enough money as a low-level secretary on Senator Harlow’s staff. The bank was about to repossess my car. So when his aide approached me with this assignment, I jumped at it.”

  Nikki eased herself down one more step. “But you didn’t know it would end up like this, did you?”

  A near hysterical laugh escaped Alicia’s lips. “Are you kidding? They got me that job as a receptionist at your company, and I was supposed to become your friend. Get you to talk about your ex-boyfriend. I was supposed to find out if he was still in contact with you. That’s all.”

  “That doesn’t sound so terrible.” Nikki took another step.

  Alicia brandished the scissors, pointed them at the base of the baby’s skull. “Stop right there, Nikki. I’m not kidding. I don’t want to hurt him, but—” Her chest heaved with a dry sob. “Nothing has turned out like it was supposed to.”

  She dashed forward, down the next set of stairs. Terror gripped Nikki for an instant. I can’t lose them.

  She leaped down the stairs after them, screaming, “Alicia, s
top! Don’t take him away.”

  Alicia came to a halt on the next landing. When she turned, her eyes were bright with tears. “‘Just make friends with her,’ he said. ‘Let me know if her boyfriend sends her anything.’” She gave a short, high-pitched laugh. “Yeah, at first that was all. But then he wanted me to get you and the kid down to Key West.”

  Nikki paused. “Senator Harlow wanted us both in Key West?”

  Sniffing, Alicia nodded. “When we realized Ben didn’t know anything about Joshua, Harlow wanted to confront him. You know, shock him. They’d use Joshua as leverage to get that stupid computer file back. But no.” A poisonous glare covered the distance between them. “You had to leave the kid at home. I tried to get you to take him, but you wanted a vacation alone.”

  Nikki swallowed. She remembered that conversation, how Allison/Alicia kept suggesting that Joshua would fall in love with the ocean. Actually, that argument had been the deciding factor in Nikki taking her mother’s suggestion to use the vacation as a much-needed break from the stresses of single parenthood. Ben’s love for a carefree life near the ocean had kept him from her. Irrationally, Nikki didn’t want to expose Joshua to that lifestyle, not yet. She didn’t want to share her son with the ocean.

  “But why not just tell Ben about Joshua?” Nikki remembered the picture in Key West. “Why not just send him a picture?”

  “Don’t you think I tried that?” Alicia’s voice rose into a near shout. “I have tons of pictures of you two, but Harlow wouldn’t go for it. He wanted the shock value of a confrontation.”

  She stood in the center of the landing, her back to the fourth floor door. Her voice rose higher in pitch every minute as hysteria crept closer. She kept swinging the arm that held the scissors as she spoke, but the deadly point always returned to Joshua’s skull. Looking down on her, Nikki’s mind was a frantic jumble of fear. If Alicia became hysterical, she might hurt Joshua accidentally. But how to calm her down?

  And then, Nikki saw something. Hope flared like a beacon inside her.

  Nikki’s words echoed down the stairwell. Ben jerked his head upward. An unfamiliar voice answered. Alicia Strickland. They were above him.

  What could he do? The conversation continued above his head. He half listened, his brain searching desperately for a plan. Could he sneak up the stairs, maybe get close enough to grab Joshua and run with him? A possibility, but first he had to know exactly where the women were.

  He took a step up.

  Rubber from his flip-flop flapped against his heel, and he halted, straining his ears. Did they hear the noise above? No, apparently not. Their conversation continued without a pause. But these flip-flops he’d gotten from the donation box in Mexico weren’t conducive to silent movement. He slipped them off, and continued to inch upward.

  “Nothing has turned out like it was supposed to.”

  The cry, followed by a flurry of footsteps, sent Ben scurrying backward. Alicia was running down the stairs, directly toward him. From the conversation he was hearing, he surmised the woman had Joshua, and Nikki was following her. She kept pleading for Alicia not to hurt the baby. Did the kidnapper have a weapon? He couldn’t act until he knew.

  The sound of footsteps stopped, and the conversation continued. Ben once again crept forward, silent on bare feet, until he was half a floor below them. Cautiously, his movements slow, he leaned sideways to peer around the stairs.

  One glimpse was all he needed. He jerked back. Alicia stood on the fourth floor landing, the next one up, her back to the door. Judging from Nikki’s voice, she was apparently not far above Alicia. A plan began to form in Ben’s mind.

  As silently as he could, he backed away. He picked up the discarded scarf from the third floor, then continued, all the way down to the second floor. Then, with slow movements that wouldn’t make any noise at all, he opened the fire door and entered the hotel corridor. The door closed behind him with a quiet snick.

  There was probably another stairwell in this building somewhere, but he didn’t have time to look for it. He dashed across the hallway and stabbed at the elevator button.

  After an interminably long wait, the doors whooshed open. A boy stood inside. The kid’s gaze swept downward, took in the shorts and bare feet, the wool scarf, and then came back to rest on Ben’s face.

  Ben rushed into the elevator, and the kid backed up to stand against the rear wall, as far away from him as the small space allowed. Ben punched the button for the fourth floor, and noticed that the fifth floor light glowed. The kid was going up, presumably back to his room. When the doors closed, he examined the boy. Around ten, maybe.

  “Hey, kid, I need a favor.”

  The boy’s face darkened with suspicion. “What kind of favor?”

  “I need you to go back downstairs and over to the restaurant next door. There’s a bunch of men hanging around the parking lot. Tell them this—Alicia and the boy are in the stairwell on the fourth floor. Can you remember that?”

  The boy shook his head. “My mom only gave me permission to go down to the game room by the lobby until I ran out of quarters. Then I hafta go back to our room.”

  Ben reached into his pocket. He pulled out the money Thomas had given him in Cozumel and flipped through the bills. The smallest was a twenty. He peeled it off and held it out to the kid.

  “You know how many quarters there are in twenty bucks? Eighty. All for one little favor.”

  The boy didn’t take his eyes off the bill, but he shook his head again. “I’ll get in trouble if I leave the building.”

  Ben peeled off another twenty. “Please. It’s important. If you get in trouble, I’ll talk to your mom for you.”

  A second of hesitation, and then the kid snatched the two bills out of his hand. “You got a deal, mister.”

  A tone sounded. The display above the door announced their arrival at the fourth floor.

  He glanced at the kid. “Don’t forget. Alicia and the boy are in the stairwell on the fourth floor. And hurry.”

  The boy nodded. Ben crouched low. When the doors slid apart, he crept, bent double, into the hallway. He didn’t move until the elevator and the boy were gone, then he inched toward the stairwell fire door.

  Please don’t let her turn around and see me.

  The prayer streamed from his thoughts automatically. His son needed help from him, and he needed help from his heavenly Dad.

  He braced his hands on the doorjamb and inched his head upward to the narrow window.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Nikki’s gaze locked with Ben’s through the glass.

  He’s right behind her. If he jumps through that door, he might be able to grab her from behind.

  But if Ben startled her, she might hurt Joshua. Nikki’s chest squeezed so tight she couldn’t force a breath into her lungs. She had to let Ben know about the scissors before he did anything.

  “Wait!” She held her palm flat toward Alicia, and prayed Ben would know she was really talking to him.

  Alicia’s brow creased. “What?”

  Nikki lowered her hand. “I mean, wait a minute. I just thought of something. If Senator Harlow told you to kidnap Joshua, then he’s ultimately responsible, isn’t he? He’ll get in far more trouble than you.” Her foot moved in an automatic attempt to continue getting closer to her son, but she stopped herself before she took the step. She couldn’t take a chance on doing anything to make Alicia run farther away. “Unless you hurt him. Then nothing is going to stop you from going to jail, Alicia.”

  Alicia’s skin emptied of color. Panic widened her eyes. “I can’t go to jail.” As Nikki hoped, she swung the hand holding the scissors wide to emphasize her words. “I can’t!”

  Behind Alicia, Ben lifted his fingers to the window. He formed a circle with his forefinger and thumb, the scuba signal for “okay.”

  Thank goodness. He sees the scissors. She didn’t dare look directly at him, for fear of alerting Alicia to his presence.

  At that moment, Joshua moved. Hi
s legs jerked, and he lifted his head. It wobbled a minute, then collapsed back onto Alicia’s shoulder. Her son’s soft whine twisted Nikki’s heart in her chest.

  Behind Alicia, the door handle edged downward. Ben was unlatching the door.

  Nikki raised her voice to a near shout. She had to try to drown out any sound Ben might make. “Maybe you can work out a deal with the FBI. You testify against Senator Harlow, and they’ll give you a reduced sentence. Maybe even dismiss all the charges. I don’t know how that works, but if you give Joshua back unharmed, maybe they’ll do that.”

  “You don’t understand!” Alicia screamed the words. The scissors swung wildly. “Harlow told me to keep an eye on both of you. When you called and said Ben had given the computer file to the Reynosa people but that he had a copy, I tried to call Harlow. That weasel wouldn’t take my calls. I had to do something, didn’t I? Harlow can use this kid to get Ben’s copy.” She clutched Joshua tighter, and the child whined again.

  Behind her, the door swung outward without a sound. Just a few inches.

  “So you decided to kidnap Joshua on your own?” Nikki shook her head. “Alicia, why would you do that?”

  “Because I didn’t know what else to do.” She punctuated her shout with a stamp of her foot. “I’m sick of this job. I’m going to rent a car and drive him to Arkansas and let Harlow deal with it.” Her arm swung wide again. “And while I’m there, I’m going to tell him I quit!”

  Several things happened in the next instant.

  A deep voice blasted up the stairwell from below. “Alicia Strickland, this is the FBI. We know you have the child. Bring him down now, and you won’t be harmed.”

  Alicia’s hand, the one holding the scissors, froze in the extended position. Her panic-stricken eyes darted from Nikki to the lower staircase.

  The door behind her burst fully open. Ben rushed forward, a gray scarf in his hands. Quick as a flash, he looped the scarf over the arm with the scissors and jerked.

  The scissors flew out of her hand, bounced off the wall and clattered to the floor.