by Karen Harper
Her stomach went into free fall again. Without her narcolepsy meds, she’d begin to have hallucinations, nightmares. But then, this was a nightmare right now.
Instead of stuffing her gag back in her mouth, he shoved it between her jaws and tied it around and across her open lips. Could she think that was a slight kindness, a concession? If he let her talk again, she needed to continue to get him on her side, make him trust her enough so she could get away.
He picked her up, tarp and all, and plodded through grass and past trees toward a small, lit building. She could barely make out a narrow road beyond. A truck came in—a large, black one—illuminated by the rising moon. She remembered Stan Helter had a vehicle like that. Its headlights swung across the tropical terrain, and with a honk-honk, headed down the road deeper into the ranch. Its lights had hit the silhouette of the guard building, but not them.
“Big Cat’s back,” he muttered, starting to sound out of breath. “Only a couple of ’em have the opener, ’cause I control the gate.”
Despite starting to feel that terrifyingly weird sense of losing reality, Claire jerked alert. Irv Glover must once again be working here. As the guard and gatekeeper! So he not only could be doing all this on Helter’s orders, but maybe that shallow grave had something to do with the sex trade or illegal immigrant women working at the Trophy Ranch. Maybe that’s where they stashed women who had gotten sick or—or were killed for not obeying.
And it meant Glover had the run of the entire ranch to dispose of her.
* * *
Bronco came bursting into the trailer where Nick was waiting for Grant to arrive. Nick was also keeping an eye on his cell phone in case Claire called or texted. They hadn’t found her phone or purse so she could have those with her, though she wasn’t answering her cell.
“Nick,” Bronco said, gasping for breath. “I swear, Heck and me just spotted what might be Claire’s earring. Left it where it is, ’cause you say to do that with evidence. Come see!”
Nick tore out right behind Bronco. Jace, crutches and all, was at the scene with Heck.
“It’s hers, right, boss?” Heck asked, pointing.
Nick got on his hands and knees. Between the two fences the small, golden hoop, minus its pin, lay amid fallen leaves.
“Yes. That’s what she wore today. Maybe it came off when she was carried over these fences. Any marks of ladders around here?”
“No,” Jace said, leaning in too. “Brit,” he called over his shoulder, “we need those lights we had the other night! Brit! Where the hell did she go now?”
“I’m over here!” Her voice came from behind thick foliage. “The cops will be furious, but maybe they’ll understand we had to do some things on our own when they see that note. I think we need to cordon off this whole area and search for any other clues. Nick,” she said, joining them at the fence, “you’re right, that’s what she wore today.”
Nick’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat. “Her sister gave them to her. What about Darcy? She’ll have a fit I didn’t tell her, let her help, but we can’t get her in this too.”
Heck said, “Gina told me Darcy went home a long time ago. Had to write up notes about the success of the event.”
“Damn,” Nick whispered as tears filled his eyes and he looked away. “I’m going to call Ann to have her bring Grant right here when he arrives. I can’t believe I’m telling all of you to tamper with evidence at a kidnapping site, crime scene, but let’s search every inch of this place. We’ve already tramped our footprints all over it.”
“I’ll get the lights,” Brit said. “They’re bright ones Jace and I used when that chopper friend of his landed.”
“That’s how I can help,” Jace said. “He has access to a thermal imaging infrared camera. From a low-flying plane it can pick up the heat humans—or animals—give off in total darkness. You can even see the shape of the image, like of someone running.”
Nick said, “A low-flying chopper or small plane flying over the ranch might panic her abductor. But we may need all the help we can get. Can you call him? But no flyovers until I talk to him.”
“He was in the corps. Never leave a marine behind, and we’re not leaving Claire out there.” He turned and lurched away as he tried to maneuver his crutches on the soft ground.
“Okay,” Nick said, “let’s get those lights in here. Soon we’ll have two—I hope—lifesavers here to help us, Grant and Jace’s pilot friend.”
He blinked back tears. Claire. Their baby. Lexi. It was like his entire life needed to be rescued too.
* * *
The outside lights were on, but inside the small guard building, Glover only turned on a flashlight. It made his features look like a fright mask. He took the gag out of her mouth, so that gave her hope he had some kindness in him, and she had to tap into that.
He had been working here as a ranch guard under an assumed name for—for how long? What month was this?
Reality was getting wavy, drifting as it sometimes did if she was off her strong meds too long. She hadn’t even taken her herbals in the rush of events. When was all that? Oh, yes, today, but it was nighttime now.
She saw she was sitting on the floor with her back against a cot. He had a tiny fridge and hooks with extra clothes in this small space. And tacked to the wall a faded photo of him with a much younger Duncan. So he could and did live in this guardhouse, at least some of the time.
“We’re not staying here,” he told her. “We’re heading in.”
“Into the ranch?”
“Know it like the back of my hand.”
He swigged water from a big plastic bottle, then—maybe there was hope!—put it to her lips. She drank greedily.
But when a voice came in over an intercom or radio in the next room, he stuffed the gag back in her mouth, went around a corner and took the call, something about a helicopter coming in later with a load.
In the middle of the night? she wondered. It was night, wasn’t it? She had to get Lexi to bed, see what Nick was doing. If only her mother would stop reading that story to her and Darcy...a tragic story, one that scared her so she might not sleep... When was Jace coming home from another flight to Hong Kong? He was gone too much, but he loved flying. Was he flying a helicopter now and bringing in another load? A load of what?
She heard her captor take a second call. Even in here, she could hear a man’s voice, very angry on the other end of the phone. A man’s voice asking if he had the phones. Or had he said bones? And where were those bones? Had he buried them again?
She had to concentrate, to hang on. She never forgot to take her meds. But it was worse in middle school before she knew she was sick, when the kids called her Sleepy Creepy and Crazy Claire. And then things got better, but she was so scared they weren’t going to get better in the school she was in now because this teacher didn’t like her at all.
32
Nick was relieved when Grant arrived. Since he’d helped Nick out a couple of times with Helter and his ranch, he was desperate for his advice and assistance now. Grant took one look at the lighted flamingo isle and, frowning, hunkered down close to Nick where they’d just turned up another piece of bone near where the earring had been found.
“Thank God you’re here,” Nick said. “Whoever took her left a note that said if we bring in the cops, she dies.” Again Nick blinked back tears. He had to hold on here, stay steady.
“You think she’s been taken onto ranch land?” Grant asked as the others backed off a bit to give them some room. “It’s a big place, but I’m sure we can get Stan’s staff to search for her. That wouldn’t be calling in the cops, at least.”
“We found fragments of old bones here, which I can’t figure out. Human ones, I think, not from these birds or other zoo animals.”
Grant looked really alarmed, even stunned. “Human bones here? Could that be a warning
too? I mean, the bones wouldn’t be from here, but maybe planted as part of the threat for you not to pursue Claire? Can I see those?”
“We left them where they are, but you can sure look at them,” Nick said, leading him over to the islet. “See, the digging here, the depression. This little place is high ground in flat Florida. We think someone was buried here in a fairly shallow grave, maybe years ago as the bone pieces look discolored, maybe leeched in by the soil.”
Grant leaned against a palm tree, closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose with one hand. Nick was moved and impressed by how much Grant cared about a woman he didn’t really know, but then the man had known tragedy.
“Unbelievable,” Grant whispered. “But we’ve—we’ve got to find her.” He looked down at the ground, then followed Nick back to where they’d found the second bone piece and Claire’s earring.
“So,” Grant said, “exactly what would you like me to do? Tell Stan or not? Ask for help to search or not? Despite the moon, it’s damn dark over there in hundreds of dangerous acres.”
“And,” Nick said, frowning toward the thick foliage near the fence where Claire had evidently been lifted up and over, “even if someone took her onto ranch land, it doesn’t mean she’s there now. But I’ve got to try that.”
“Okay,” Grant said, “let’s go. I’m sure Stan will help.”
Nick heaved a huge sigh. He’d really wanted to ask Grant if he knew of any illegal immigrants coming in to work at the ranch, even about foreign women for a sort of private sex trade, but he had to think of Claire first. Focus on that now, and pray Stan did not have something to hide.
“I’m grateful, Grant.”
“Nick, I’m so sorry this happened. But if that’s been a human grave over there, it might have been a pioneer burial or even a Seminole Native American interment. Don’t lose hope.” He squeezed Nick’s shoulder.
Nick turned toward Jace, who was hovering. “So you’re in charge,” he told the man he’d been through so much with, both bad and good. “Do what you can through that friend of yours.”
“What friend?” Grant asked. “If we’re going in, no one else does unless we call for help.”
“Agreed,” Jace told him. “I have a pilot friend coming with a recon plane, but we’ll wait for the okay to move from you two. Find her, bring her back. For Lexi, for all of us.”
* * *
Claire was gagged and the man was moving her again. She wondered if she was in St. Augustine where she’d been in a dark dream like this, or maybe this was Cuba. But where were the sugarcane fields she’d run through? She wanted to run away.
The man carrying her—it wasn’t Nick—put her in the back of a golf cart. Oh, they must be on a golf course. Jace had liked to play golf but almost never had time unless he had a layover in Hawaii or California. But he was only flying little airplanes now, at least she thought so. He was spying for the government. That was a secret. She needed to wake up. She had a feeling that she was supposed to be spying on someone too.
The golf cart purred right past a cluster of buildings, a big lodge, a swimming pool lit at night, other buildings. It was quite a golf course. Or maybe they were at a resort, because under the pool lights she glimpsed pretty, dark-haired girls with lovely tans—oh, the women were topless—mingling with men who didn’t look Latino.
Maybe one of the buildings was a smokehouse as she smelled a rich, meaty scent. Her driver said, “Bet you were scared to see that gator in your pool. No clue how it got there, right? Then that big, dead snake. Didn’t get the message, though, did you and your bastard lawyer husband? Lay off! Don’t meddle with that kiddie zoo. Wish I had my hands on him, ’stead of you. Sent me away for years, lost years, and now you’re gonna be lost to him.”
Did this man know Nick? She should know who the driver was but she’d forgotten. Anyhow, she did remember the dead gator and dead snake. She would have liked to lecture this man about scaring children, if she could figure out who he was. Oh, that’s right, he was the one watching and scaring Duncan and his mother too. And he was scaring her now.
The man pulled the golf cart around behind a square wooden building with an air conditioner humming in back. Was it warm enough for AC? She felt sick, shaky. Ice cold.
The driver stopped the cart, dug in his pocket and produced a key. He went to the narrow back door of a building and unlocked it. Wan light slanted out from inside. He hadn’t brought her home because the place was not big enough to be their new house. She still had an urge to call for Nick or Lexi until she realized she had a gag in her mouth.
That was not right. None of this was right! She had to fight to clear her head, not to drift off. Something was very wrong here, very bad.
* * *
“Now listen up,” Jace said to the assembled group after Grant and Nick had left. “I’m gonna call my pilot friend to land here again, this time to bring the thermal imaging infrared camera. But we won’t do a flyover of the ranch unless I get the word from Nick or Grant.”
“It’s true that a low-flying plane might panic whoever took her,” Heck said. “Like, her captor thinks it’s the cops.”
“Still, time’s of the essence when someone’s been kidnapped,” Jace muttered, frowning. “So, we’ll light the way for my friend to land here, even if we don’t go in, which, damn it, I’m dying to do.”
He hobbled off on his crutches and fished in his pocket for his phone. This was a freaking horror movie. After all they’d been through, after Nick had said Claire would stay out of things at least until the baby, stay home, take care of Lexi.
Furious at himself, at the world, he leaned against the fence near where she’d been lifted out of here to make his phone call. He hit at the fence with one crutch. The entire length of it shuddered. But something gave way, a clump of low bushes, sod, even a small, dead-looking palmetto tree.
And that exposed a good-sized hole under not just the BAA fence but the ranch fence too.
* * *
The driver had carried Claire into the building and put her in a chair. A sort of refrigerator—or was it a special kind of oven or even a washing machine—sat above her on the counter. It had a control panel and a sort of grate on the front. Was this another hideout where the driver stayed sometimes?
What terrified her was that various cutting tools, knives, things that might be scalpels, were displayed in a rack on the wall. Tacked to a kind of pegboard were furs or hides, one maybe of a fawn. One pelt had been scraped clean and looked more like stretched skin. A strange, sharp smell permeated the area.
Maybe this was an operating room. She fought to clear her foggy, back-and-forth thoughts again. These weren’t doctors’ tools, were they? She knew it wasn’t time for her to have her baby.
Her driver—no, this guy was her captor, she remembered, and that’s why she was tied and gagged. Oh, he had pulled her gag out, but she was so sore from having her mouth forced and held open that she still felt gagged. Her throat was so dry, so sore. He’d tied her wrists and ankles tight, and even her earlobe hurt.
But she had to get up and reach one of those knives to cut herself free. Then she could run for help back to those people at the swimming pool. Yes, her mind was clearing now, but if she only had her meds. He’d said he’d buried them, and he must have buried people too.
She tried to rise, to balance herself with her legs still tied together. She stood on her feet. Dizzy. And without the light her captor had, she might cut herself or make a knife drop reaching for it in the dark. But she had to try.
If she could just grab one of those knives, hide it under her...
She tried to knock one loose with her head. The rest of them bounced and swayed at her clumsiness, but one fell to the countertop. She dropped it on the floor, but her elbow hit a big glass jar of marbles or balls of hard candy on the counter. The jar tipped, but she lunged for it, shoved it back o
nto the countertop with her shoulder, trying to lean on the edge so it wouldn’t fall, but the contents spilled out, rolling, bouncing. At least her captor didn’t seem to hear that over a phone that was ringing.
In the other room, through the open door, she heard that man—that’s right, it was Irv Glover—answer his phone.
“You’re kidding,” his voice carried to her. “You told them pioneer or Indian bones? Fifteen years ain’t that long ago...Yeah, I still have her...Because she saw what I was doing and she—or Markwood—would put it all together...Yeah, okay. The tree houses are empty right now, so meet you there...He’s gonna be with you!...Yeah, I know we have to. It’s been my longtime dream to get my hands on him. Let’s clean this up, get it over with, so we can rebury the bones, and I’ll get out of here for good. I know you’re a climber, but my idea of digging under was a lot smarter.”
Again, Claire fought to clear her head, to remember what Glover said. Did he mean Stan Helter was with him? Or was he talking to Stan? It kept jumping through her mind that Glover hated Nick for sending him away to prison. She knew she had to get and hide the knife until she could use it. Use it to cut her bonds, use it to stab him if she had to. Marta and the boy would be better off without him. And she had to protect herself, protect her unborn child.
She nearly slipped on the marbles on the floor. Only, now that her eyes were adjusting better to the dim light, she realized that she was in a taxidermy shop on the ranch, not a golf course. Terror poured through her.
Besides those skins on the wall, she saw—under her and all around, on the counter, on the floor—the gazes of dead, glass eyes of every size and color. Even green, like hers.
33
“So much for the she-was-taken-over-the-fence theory,” Jace told Bronco and Heck. He carefully got on his knees and leaned down to peer through the hole. “Bronco, see if Nick’s gone yet. He and Grant should see this before they head out.”
Brit brought him one of the electric lamps. “Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered under her breath. “We kept looking over the fences but they came under them, at least here. Took Claire out this way too, I’ll bet.”