by Bonnie Vanak
The man shoved a hand through his hair. “Mindy loves Belle. She wouldn’t harm her. Hell, at one point, Evan joked about marrying her.”
Kyle fisted his hands in the other man’s lapels. “Answer my question! Where would Evan take Belle? Does he have a place that’s remote yet close by?”
“He has lots of places. I don’t know!”
“Some place where he could hide a child as well as your sister. Think!”
The man sagged in his grip. “The fish camp. Evan has a house on a small patch of island in the middle of the Everglades. You can’t get there by road. Only boat. I don’t know the GPS location.”
A swamp-locked house. Noisy airboats and bass boats with outboards. “If anything happens to her, you’re responsible.”
Clint sagged. “I know. I should have spoken up earlier.”
The man’s voice dropped to a painful whisper. “I’d hope that Evan wouldn’t do anything to Belle. But he’s changed, Agent Anderson. Ever since his cancer diagnosis, he’s slid downhill. He’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown when he’s not roaring drunk.”
Kyle phoned his partner to send a search party, praying they weren’t too late.
* * *
“Belle.” Evan’s voice sounded strained and high. Arm around Anna in a tight grip, he studied her with a resigned expression.
All the years she’d known this man, she’d never seen him look this tense and fragile. Not even when he was diagnosed with the cancer that would eventually leave him sterile.
“You can’t keep me here, Evan,” she said in her softest voice, not wanting to upset him. With that glazed look in his eyes and his nervous twitches, he was hanging on by a thread. No telling what he might do to her, or Anna, if provoked.
“You can’t think that my family won’t look for me. I’m not invisible.”
“Mother already thought of that. She texted your parents from your cell phone that you were taking your family’s boat out to think about your future and make a decision.”
Removing his cell phone from his pocket, he glanced at the screen. “Two hours after sunset tonight, the boat will meet with a tragic accident, blown up due to a gas explosion. And you will be officially listed as lost at sea. We will be on the yacht bound for the Caribbean soon after and married in another country. Anna is my daughter, and you’ll be my wife. One big, happy family.”
He didn’t sound happy, but angry and bitter.
“Evan, please. We were friends once. Do you really think I’d go along with this?”
For a moment he looked defeated. And then that wildness entered his gaze again. “It doesn’t matter, Belle. It’s what my mother wants. She wants a grandchild to continue the line and Anna is it. Her only grandchild. What she wants, she gets. It’s been like that since my father died. She’s always controlled my life.”
He didn’t want this marriage any more than she did. Kept as a prisoner, never able to escape on her own, Belle saw her future.
Evan had resigned himself to his fate.
She had to try reasoning with him again. “You survived cancer. Chemotherapy. You have a successful career. You have an entire life of your own choosing, Evan. You can break free of your mother and her expectations.”
A cynical laugh, so filled with bitterness, rang from his throat. “Like you have done, Belle? You always do whatever your mother insists. Working for that cardiologist when you know you don’t want that for your career. Searching for a cardiology residency because it will please your parents. No wonder my mother thought you were malleable. You are.”
He hugged Anna tighter and she whimpered. Belle gingerly sat on the bed’s edge. Reasoning with him might help. She couldn’t reason with Clare. He listened only to money.
“You’re right, Evan. I have been too soft when it comes to my future. But that ends here. I’m willing to change and take charge of my life. You can, as well. And give Anna a future where you won’t be a fugitive on the run from the law, living in another country. Switzerland year-round? You don’t even like the cold!”
For a moment, hope flared in his green eyes. Then it died. “No. It’s too late, Belle. I owe my mother everything. My life, my money, everything. This is the only solution.”
No. There had to be another one. Keep him talking—glean as much as you can from him. She pointed to his cell. “What time is it? I’m so out of it.”
Guilt flickered on his expression. “I’m sorry about that. Ted had to knock you out.”
The numbers on his cell-phone screen read two o’clock.
Evan kissed Anna’s head. “Go outside and tell Mr. and Mrs. Clare you want to play on the swings, honey. We’re going to leave here at sunset and then you’ll be on a big boat on the ocean. It will be a wonderful adventure.”
Anna’s lower lip wobbled. Belle nodded at her. “It’s okay, Anna. Go play. Be careful.”
Evan watched his daughter leave. “She’s so pretty. I worry about her out there, so I ordered the Clares to watch her at all times when she’s outside.”
Belle tried again. “Evan, I’m sorry about the cancer. But you don’t have to be a victim anymore. Help me and help Anna. I know you care about her.”
“I do,” he whispered. “I always wanted a child. She’s my only hope, Belle. I wanted to die after chemo was over and they told me I’d never have a family of my own. They warned me before chemo what might happen and offered to freeze my sperm, but I was too damn arrogant and just laughed. I would be fine.”
“Evan.” Belle’s throat tightened with emotion. “Anna is your daughter from an affair with Mercedes. Did she work for you?”
He nodded. “Her family’s from Chile. She was born here while they lived in Florida, but when she turned eighteen, they wanted to return so she could marry this wealthy cattle rancher. They said if she didn’t, they’d disinherit her. So she left them and found a job with my family through my mother’s company.”
“And you slept with her.”
“I loved her. Thought I did. But my career meant more to me than anything else, so I returned to Boston and nothing came of it.” He snorted. “I didn’t even know she was pregnant. My mother never told me. Just paid the hospital bill and let Mercedes remain at the house after Anna was born and paid her to work there, but insisted Mercedes go on birth control pills. Mother told me she would always clean up my ‘mistakes.’”
“She’s not a mistake, Evan. Anna is a sweet, smart little girl.” Belle tried to appeal to the side of him that wanted to keep Anna safe. “But she’s scared and grief stricken because she thinks her mother is dead. You have to remedy this.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “I was such an arrogant jerk, making money, living the life, not caring about anything or anyone other than myself. And then I got the cancer. I wanted to die. Last year when my mother told me Anna was mine, I found a reason to live again.”
Her hand covered his. “Then let her go, Evan. Let her go before your mother returns and something goes wrong. Before someone gets hurt.”
“I can’t. You’ve always been the strong one, Belle, the one to find the way home. Not me.” He kissed her cheek. “I’m going to lie down and take a nap. I suggest you rest, as well.”
Evan walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Belle rubbed her temple. It was up to her now.
And then she spotted what he’d left on the bedspread.
His cell phone.
The way home.
Hope flared inside. She gazed at it, realized there wasn’t a signal. But she remembered her last visit here. Clint had taken her fishing a short distance from the cabin and she’d kept testing her phone for a signal. In the middle of the water, there was a chance she could get a weak signal.
Taking the cell phone, she quietly slipped downstairs out of the bedroom.
Evan’s fourteen-foot bass fishing boat was the only b
oat at the dock. The flat-bottomed skiff wouldn’t help her escape, not when she didn’t have the ignition key. Belle searched the craft for an emergency transponder. Nothing.
No way in or out. The mosquitoes were horrible, but they wouldn’t kill her. The gators would. Or the snakes. She shuddered. The grassy wetlands were filled with danger. During the day, they might be able to wade out because the water was seldom more than three feet deep in places.
But water moccasins and alligators made it too dangerous.
Clutching Evan’s phone, Belle went into the living room and peered downward. Outside, a stout woman pushed Anna on a swing as Ted Clare stood guard. The man would never suspect her leaving. He probably thought she was helpless.
Belle crept down the stairs and out the front door, her sneakers making little noise on the grass. The dock was a short distance from the cabin. A well-worn path cut through the thick brush.
Even if Kyle sent up helicopters, they’d have trouble finding this building. It was secluded and private.
At the dock, Evan’s flat-bottomed skiff remained tied to a piling. No keys. No way would she leave Anna here along with the Clares and a man who was perilously close to falling to pieces.
She didn’t have any hope of finding land. But she didn’t need land. She needed a signal. Belle gazed into the murky water. It couldn’t be more than waist deep.
If her plan worked, the FBI could find her. If not, at least she’d prevent anyone from leaving.
Belle jumped into the skiff and set down Evan’s phone. The battery was running low.
After untying the skiff, she used one of the oars on board to push off. Paddling quietly, she headed through the cypress trees flanking the water until reaching the open trail of water used by boaters. The cell phone registered a weak signal.
Immediately she dialed 911. “Nine-one-one, what is the address of your emergency?” the dispatcher asked in a faint voice.
“I don’t know. Operator, my name is Belle North and I’m being held prisoner in Evan Worthington’s fish camp in the Everglades, north of I-75. There are two people armed with guns. They’re moving us at sunset. You need to call FBI Agent Kyle Anderson and tell him...”
The line went dead.
Frustration bit her. Hopefully the dispatcher had heard her. She glanced at the phone. Chances of anyone picking up the GPS signal were dim, but still...if it meant they’d be found.
Belle placed the phone on one of the boat’s benches. She looked around. Water, so much water. The distant croak of an alligator warned she was not alone. Insects hummed in the nearby trees and a great blue heron flew overhead. She envied the bird’s freedom.
If she stayed here, used the oars to steer herself south, she might be able to flag someone down. But this waterway was seldom used by boaters during the week, and besides, there was Anna.
I can’t leave her alone.
The boat could stay here and get spotted. She could not.
Taking a deep breath, she climbed out and lowered herself into the murky water. It was warm as bath water. In strong, sure strokes, she swam back toward the cabin. To keep herself calm, she mentally recited a list from her anatomy class.
Something splashed into the water from the trees. An S shape, wending its way toward her.
Cervical vertebrae, seven bones. Thoracic vertebrae, twelve bones.
Water moccasin.
Lumbar vertebrae, five bones. Sacral vertebrae, five bones at birth...
Closer now. The snake headed straight for her. Razor-sharp saw grass blocked part of the waterway, but she kept swimming, biting her lip when the grass cut her hand. Now she bled freely, letting every predator in the water know she was injured.
Belle swam faster, kicking with all her might. She spied the dock ahead, a wooden ladder leading to safety.
Ribs, ribs, oh God, the ribs.
Muscles burning, her lungs bellowing air, she pushed harder than ever before. The ladder!
Grabbing it, she hoisted herself up, gasping for breath. Shaken, she lay on the dock, watched the snake swim lazily by.
Too close.
On shaky feet she stood, brushing off her wet clothing when a hand roughly seized her.
“Where the hell did you think you were going?” Ted Clare roared.
Hands went around her neck, squeezing tight. Belle gasped, the edges of her vision growing cloudy.
She was going to die out here.
Chapter 23
Maybe he was a louse in his former marriage, maybe he’d lived his life on the edge, all for the career. Maybe he screwed up a lot. But right now, Kyle would have sold his soul for a break. A big one.
He got it in the form of an emergency dispatcher relaying a call from Belle, out in the middle of the godforsaken swamp.
It was too risky to send up helicopters. The sound would alert Belle’s captors.
But it wasn’t too risky for his new best friend—a stealth drone. The unmanned aerial drone had optical, zoom and thermal cameras.
It had flown to the spot they’d tracked down via the cell phone’s GPS signal. Weak, but traceable. Though the thick canopy of trees made it difficult to see, they could pinpoint the cabin, see the thermal imaging that five people were inside.
Belle and Anna, plus Evan probably. But how heavily armed were the two others?
No way would he risk Belle’s and Anna’s lives.
About a half mile close to the cabin, they cut the engines on the skiffs and paddled toward the island cabin. An alligator grunted nearby and he saw the sleek black outline of a water moccasin glide through the murky water. A rich, fermented smell permeated his nostrils as sweat trickled down his back.
They were clad all in dark clothing to blend in, bulletproof vests covering their torsos. As the sun dipped lower into the sky, he stuffed down his fear. Emotions served no purpose on a mission. Kyle shifted his weight, the lightweight Kevlar vest increasing his body heat. Body armor was important on a mission like this.
Suddenly a voice spoke into his earbud. “Pinged the signal. It’s coming from a boat drifting in the water.”
He and Roarke exchanged glances as the agents and police surrounded the boat. Empty, but for a cell phone. An officer handed it to him. Evan Worthington’s iPhone. What the hell was it doing out here?
Someone could have planted it here to guide them. Or lure them into a trap.
Majestic cypress trees flanked the waterway leading to the cabin. He caught a glimpse of gray paint, a roof. Trees on the island shielded the cabin from view, but the dock was straight ahead.
No boat. The skiff must belong to the cabin.
They’d obtained blueprints of the cabin before heading out. Downstairs was storage, the living quarters above.
They pulled up as a detective scanned the island with a thermal-imaging device. No one outside. The dock was a short distance from the cabin, with a path marching through the trees. Fortunately, no one could see it from the cabin.
With the stealth of a big jungle cat, they docked and then headed for the cabin, moving silently down the pathway. Ahead, Roarke used a thermal-imaging scanner to check for body heat inside the cabin.
No way of telling where Belle and Anna were. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. The ground beneath his boots was soft and slightly muddy, so he stuck to the rocks scattered on the path. They moved fast through the pathway. An opening in the trees showed the gray cabin on stilts silhouetted by the setting sun.
Dangerous to move about in the daylight. He preferred waiting for dark, but Belle’s message indicated Worthington was moving them out when night fell. Several officers and agents rounded the cabin to the back.
He motioned to approach and they crept up the front stairs. A board creaked under Roarke’s weight. Everyone froze.
When no one came outside to investigate, they kept going. Opening the door
quietly, they sneaked into the hallway.
A petite figure sat there, crying. Kyle motioned for quiet.
Anna.
She gasped, seeing them, but he held a finger to his mouth and lowered his gun. Kyle whispered into her ear.
“I’m with the FBI, here to rescue you, honey. Are you Anna?”
She nodded.
“Where’s Belle?” he whispered.
Anna pointed to the room at the end of the hallway.
Kyle hesitated only a minute. Even with the child outside, there was danger of her getting hit if this turned into a gun battle. He quietly removed his Kevlar vest and put it around her. Too big, but it offered some protection at least.
No way was he going to lose this little girl. Not on his watch.
Kyle motioned for two police officers to take her outside.
Once Anna was gone, he moved on. Leading the way, Kyle burst into the living room. “FBI! Throw down your weapons and hands in the air.”
Gunfire exploded. He saw a tall woman with a pistol firing at them and a man herding Belle toward the kitchen.
They took cover, firing at the woman. She screamed and dropped the gun as he shot her in the legs.
Weapon in hand, he rushed into the living room, only to see Ted Clare holding Belle, the muzzle against Belle’s temple. Bruises ringed her neck.
Someone had tried to strangle her. His temper sailed dangerously out of control. Kyle forced down all emotions.
“Let her go, or I’ll blow her brains out.”
Belle looked so calm and beautiful.
“I’m getting the hell out of here and she’s coming with me. Make a move and I’ll blow her brains out.” Clare’s eyes darted back and forth between him and the other agents.
“Hold your fire,” he warned the team. “Easy, Clare. You’re surrounded. You’re not getting out of here.”
“The hell with that! I’m not going to prison,” he yelled, the pistol digging deeper into Belle’s temple.
Far from looking panicked, Belle looked intense, as if she concentrated on something.
“Did you know the human body has 206 bones?” she asked Clare in a calm voice.