Cate snuggled a little closer and whispered, “She’s got us.”
He smiled thinly. If they could be of any use to her. The Wallaces could have already put out the word to all their customers: get rid of the kids, at least temporarily. That could mean shipping them off somewhere, selling them to someone else or, if the so-called parents had enough to lose, killing them. Desperate people took desperate measures to avoid prison.
The Wallaces were desperate.
His butt was growing numb by the time they saw some activity across the road. Cate shifted to the ground, sinking out of sight, and he did the same. Sutton came out of the house, juggling a travel mug, a protein bar and his suit coat to lock the deadbolt behind him. He strode to the steps, beeping the electronic lock on the SUV, then climbed inside, turned in a U and headed toward the road.
He was in his midforties, excess pounds around his middle and sparse hair on his head. He wore a smug, self-satisfied look, as if he were king of his realm, off to his practice in an upscale building, to treat the kids of parents who could afford his rates or had the insurance to cover them. He probably never did volunteer work, never treated a patient for free or, more, paid for the treatment himself, like Cate did. Sure, she called the supplies she shipped to La Casa donations, but Trent and Susanna knew she was the donor.
Sutton turned toward town, unaware that his kingdom was about to get shaken up.
“Bastard,” Cate muttered. “Let’s make sure he’s gone, then go over and see if Luisa will talk to us.”
Justin stood, then pulled her to her feet, deliberately tugging hard enough to pull her off balance and into his arms. She caught herself with both hands on his chest, giving him a chiding look.
“You’re incorrigible.”
He grinned. “But you adore me anyway, don’t you?”
“You have enough ego for any ten men. I’m not adding to it.” But she wrapped her fingers around his and held on until they reached the car.
They waited until ten minutes had passed, then he started the engine. On the short drive to the Sutton house, he figured what to say if Sutton returned for some reason—that he was hoping to talk to Mrs. Sutton about a horse. Based on Garcia’s information, including the wife’s blog that included tons of pictures of herself, dogs and horses and no mention of a husband or child, it didn’t seem likely the doctor shared her four-legged passion.
“You stay here,” he said when he parked where the SUV had been.
Cate paused in the act of unbuckling her seat belt. “We know Sutton’s not here.”
“But we don’t know whether anyone else is. Presumably there are animals out back. Someone’s got to take care of them while the wife is gone.”
Scowling, she folded her hands in her lap.
Sliding out, he ducked back down to grin at her. “Thanks, doc. You know, I adore you, too.”
That was a major understatement, he thought as he climbed the porch steps. Like saying diving was fun or Cozumel was nice.
The first picture window he passed opened into an office, dimly lit and empty, the door closed. Reaching the door, he rang the bell and listened to it echo inside. After the sound faded, he rang it again, then walked farther along the porch to the next window. The living room was also dimly lit, also empty. Everything looked immaculate—not a footprint on the carpet, tables gleaming, nothing obviously out of place.
It was a good housekeeping job for people who worked and didn’t have a housekeeper.
When he shifted his gaze to the kitchen, a faint blur of movement caught his attention, nothing solid, just a shadow shifting on the wood floor. He crossed the porch in a few strides, gestured to Cate to wait, then circled to the rear of the house.
The porch there was identical to the one in front, though the boards were more worn. A path of paving stones led to the barn and kennels; a door opened into what was probably the dining part of the kitchen. Unlike the front door, this one had a window with red gingham curtains blocking the lower half of the glass. Above the fabric the dining room was visible—a scarred oak table with four heavy chairs, a hallway leading into shadow, a countertop separating the table from the ’70s-era kitchen.
He rapped his knuckles on the wood. “Dr. Sutton? Mrs. Sutton?”
Utter silence was the only response.
Stepping closer to the door, he lowered his voice. “Luisa? Can you hear me? ¿Puedes oírme? Soy un amigo de Susanna.”
More silence. Stillness.
“Luisa, quiero ayudarle. Susanna y Trent me enviaron.”
A creak on the steps made him whirl around, heart thudding, then sag against the doorjamb. “Sheesh, Cate, I thought you’d agreed to wait.”
“I’m just checking on you. Is she here?”
“I’m talking. She’s not answering. And all I’ve seen is maybe a shadow.” He turned back to the door, his hand flattened on the frame. “Luisa, por favor. Susanna is worried about you. Everyone at La Casa is worried. We just want to know you’re okay.”
He listened a long time, straining for any sound besides his own breaths, but nothing came.
Finally Cate touched his arm. “She’s afraid,” she said softly. “You know she’s been taught to stay out of sight.”
“I know.” His fingers curled into a fist. “Damn it! If Susanna were here… Luisa knows her. She trusts her.”
Cate didn’t state the obvious—if Susanna were free to be there, they wouldn’t be there—and he appreciated it. But she did catch her breath and raised one trembling hand to point at the door. When he looked, his own breath caught in his chest.
Fragile fingers lifted one corner of the gingham curtain, and peering up at them through the glass, her expression one of bone-deep sadness tinged with the faintest bit of hopefulness, was Luisa.
* * *
Cate bent to the girl’s level. “Hi, Luisa. I’m Cate, and this is Justin. Susanna asked us to come here and see if you’re all right.” She knew the girl spoke at least some English; Trent had surprised everyone by discovering a talent for teaching it. Just like everything else, he’d turned it into a game the girls had loved to play. “Can you open the door, sweetheart?”
After an intense stare, Luisa let the curtain drop. Before the fear that she’d run off to hide could register fully in Cate’s brain, the lock clicked and the door slowly swung in.
“Where is Susanna?” the girl asked, peeking from behind the door. “Is she here?”
“She’s in Cozumel. She sent us to see you. Is it okay if we talk to you?”
“The doctor won’t like.”
“But he’s gone for the day, isn’t he?” Cate eased inside before the girl could change her mind, sat down at the table and nudged another chair out for Luisa to sit in front of her. “The doctor… Is that your new daddy?”
Her small face wrinkled in distaste. “He’s not my daddy, and she’s not my mama. He’s doctor and she’s ma’am.”
Cate gestured to Justin and he pulled out a third chair, drawing Luisa’s attention his way while Cate studied her. “Everyone misses you at La Casa. They wonder how you like your new home. Do you like it?”
She vigorously shook her head. Besides the really bad haircut, her thin sleeveless dress was inadequate for the morning chill. The dress hung from her shoulders, while the cheap flip-flops on her feet pinched between her toes and left a sliver of heel hanging over the edge. She was about average height for her age group, but definitely underweight. Her arms and legs were like skinny sticks, and her right arm bore bruises in varying stages of healing and about the size of the paunchy doctor’s pudgy fingers. More bruises were visible on her legs, and there was a stiffness to the way she held her left arm that suggested a previous injury.
Cate tuned back in to the conversation in time to hear Justin ask, “What do you do here?”
With an expression far too defeated for an eight-year-old, she replied, “I take care of the house. I vacuum. I sweep. I mop. I wash dishes. I cook. I do laundry. I make beds. I clean the
commodes and scrub the bathtubs. I dust the tables and the statues and the pictures.” She ticked them off on her fingers and ran out of fingers before chores.
“When do you start working?”
“When the sun comes up.”
“And when are you usually done?”
“At bedtime.”
“What do you eat?”
Luisa scrubbed one hand across her nose. “Ma’am keeps my food here.” She went to the counter and opened the first door on the left. Inside was a jumbo jar of peanut butter, a loaf of bread and a bag of sugary cereal.
“You don’t eat the food in the refrigerator?” Cate asked, the sausage biscuit and hash browns turning sour in her stomach.
The girl’s eyes darted away as she vigorously shook her head. “No, never.” The guilty gesture proclaimed she was lying.
Good for her, Cate thought fiercely. “Can we see your room where you sleep?”
Luisa hesitated, waiting for an encouraging nod from Justin to lead them down a short, shadowy hall. The utility room opened off the left; the door on the right went into the basement.
The space was huge and lit by several forty-watt bulbs, leaving deep shadows that made the skin on Cate’s arms crawl. Luisa bypassed the clutter and storage and ducked through a door into a small, nearly empty room. The sight broke Cate’s heart: a twin-size mattress on the floor with a sheet, a pillow and two blankets. A meager pile of neatly folded clothing stacked on the floor. A snapshot of Susanna, Trent and the staff at La Casa taped low on the wall so she could see it from the bed. A stuffed monkey with its fur rubbed thin from too much cuddling.
Cate’s vision grew blurry. She’d bought that monkey last year, and three dozen other furry critters so the girls could each have a snuggle-baby, as her nieces called them, of her own.
“This is where you sleep, where you live.” Justin’s voice was vibrating with anger so harsh Cate would have had trouble recognizing it if she hadn’t watched him speak.
“Yes.” Luisa skipped across the room and carefully peeled the picture from the wall, then picked up the monkey and skipped back. “I’m ready to go now. I want to see Susanna.”
Cate’s gaze jerked to Justin. She was about to say, oh, no, they couldn’t take her; they had to leave her here while the authorities figured things out, and he knew it. She could see it in the narrowing of his gaze. But she couldn’t make the words come. Yes, it was kidnapping; yes, it was wrong. But more wrong than leaving an undernourished child showing signs of abuse in the hands of the people who starved and abused her?
Justin stepped close to her in the gloom and whispered, “Leverage, doc.”
She gazed up at him bleakly. “Little girl,” she whispered back. Feigning cheerfulness, she asked, “Do you have a jacket or a sweater, Luisa?”
“No. I don’t go outside. I don’t need one.”
Justin slid out of his own jacket, then wrapped it around her before lifting her into his arms. His muscles didn’t strain beneath her slight weight.
Abruptly the elephants started another performance in Cate’s stomach. She was pretty sure there was some sort of law against talking their way into a stranger’s house, and she knew for damn sure there was a law against taking a child away with them. What if they got to the top of the stairs and Sutton was waiting, or one of his wife’s employees? What if one of the Wallaces’ employees was waiting with a little .45-caliber leverage of his own?
She would claw his damn face off.
But there was no one at the top of the stairs. No one in the kitchen or on the back porch or in the driveway. Justin settled Luisa in the backseat of the rental, hastily fastening her seat belt, then he and Cate got in and buckled up. A thought occurred to her as he made a
U-turn the way Sutton had, and she voiced it almost without concern. “You think they have a surveillance camera back there by the barn?”
“Doesn’t matter. Sutton will call the Wallaces, and the Wallaces will know it’s us.”
Just in case, she waved in the direction of the barn. A one-fingered wave that didn’t begin to express the disgust she felt for the Suttons.
They were practically to the highway, Justin grim and silent, Luisa eagerly watching the scenery pass. I don’t go out outside, she’d said. Everything seemed new and unfamiliar to her. The panic that had threatened back at the house erupted in Cate’s chest, constricting her lungs, twitching her nerves and muscles in an anxious spasm. She bent forward, hugging herself tightly, struggling for breath, and Justin spared one hand from the steering wheel to touch her shoulder.
“You all right, doc?”
She glanced at Luisa, still distracted by the view, then frantically whispered, “We’ve kidnapped a child!” Granted, Luisa didn’t legally belong to the Suttons, but it would take time for the authorities to sort that out and they likely wouldn’t be willing to let Cate and Justin go on their way while they did so.
Justin grinned. Grinned. “And you say you’re not a risk taker. When you decide to break the rules, you do it in a big way, don’t you?” He turned onto the interstate access ramp and revved the engine to make a smooth merge into the lane. “Don’t think kidnap, Cate. Think rescued. Sounds a lot better, doesn’t it?”
She looked at Luisa again, so thin, her little shoulders sagging under the responsibility she’d borne for months. Rescued. Yes, they’d rescued her from a life as the Suttons’ own personal slave. The distinction might not make much difference in court, but it was good for her. It was enough to ease her breathing.
Their first stop was another fast-food drive-through to get breakfast for Luisa. She couldn’t decide between biscuits and pancakes and a hamburger, so Justin ordered all three, and while they sat in the parking lot, the girl ate until Cate could see her belly distend beneath the thin dress.
“First we get her clothes and shoes that fit,” Justin said quietly, as she munched. “I’ll call Alex’s pilots and tell them to be ready to take off as soon as we get to the airport.”
“And then you call the Wallaces and tell them…?”
“We’ve got the files and we want to move up the trade to tonight.”
“Where?”
“Trent’s cousin Rick… You said he’s in Atlanta.”
Cate nodded, relief shivering through her that finally they were bringing in someone trained to deal with criminals. Finally, please, God, they could do so without getting anyone killed.
“Then that’s where we’ll go.”
“Do you think they’ll agree to the change?”
“They want those files back, I suspect the sooner the better.” His gaze flickered to Luisa. “The sooner we get Trent and Susanna back in the U.S., the better. Preferably before Sutton finds out she’s gone.”
Sutton would be livid at losing his six-figure investment. The brothers wouldn’t be pleased, either, at the possibility of their adoption scam collapsing like dominoes. The loss of all that money. The prospect of all those years in prison. They would come prepared to kill everyone.
If they came at all. They might send Trent and Susanna. They would definitely send their thugs. But Joseph and Lucas themselves might well direct their own private plane to the nearest country without an extradition agreement.
“Okay,” she said, then breathed deeply. Tonight, no later than tomorrow, this ordeal would be over. Trent and Susanna would be free or dead. So would she and Justin. And if they survived? They would continue to see each other…or not. Her theory that this attraction was just a side effect of a dangerous situation, though it didn’t feel that way anymore, might be proven right. Justin’s claim that near-death experiences didn’t make him commit to the first woman he saw, that she was special, might be proven instead.
They might wind up with the happily-ever-after that she really wanted. Or he might break her heart.
But she wouldn’t have any regrets.
They made a fast sweep through a discount clothing store, Cate selecting a complete wardrobe, at least for a few days, for Luisa
while Justin contacted Alex’s pilot. After a rushed drive to the airport, they were on board the Gulfstream and airborne by the time she caught her breath.
Justin didn’t bother with the phone number the oily guy had given Cate, but placed his call directly to Lucas Wallace in his Gulfport, Mississippi, office. While Luisa was occupied by the big-screen television, Justin sprawled back in a chair, looking as if he had nothing more important on his mind than enjoying the flight and sounding it, too.
“Hey, Luke, it’s Justin Seavers.”
Cate leaned close to hear the other end of the conversation. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of tension on the line, then Wallace said in a phony, cheery voice, “Justin. It’s been a long time.”
“Not long enough, buddy. There’s been a change of plans.”
“What plans?”
“Tomorrow’s trade. We want to do it tonight. In Atlanta. Tell your people to have Trent and Susanna there by this evening. I’ll call you—”
“Whoa, hang on. I don’t know what you’re talking about. What plans? Where are Trent and Susanna?”
Justin’s smile was feral. “Considering you’ve been a lying son of a bitch your whole worthless life, you don’t play innocent well. We’ve got your files, and we want Trent and Susanna tonight, not tomorrow. I’ll call you back with a time and place. You’d damn well better have them there, or we send the files to every media outlet north and south of the border.”
Without waiting for a response, he pressed the End button, then offered the phone to Cate. The smile was gone. Good, because it had made her shiver. Now his expression was merely intent. “Call Trent’s cousin.”
It took one call to get the office number, another to connect. “Special Agent Calloway,” Rick said in a distracted drawl.
Her fingers were unsteady, her heart pounding, and she had to swallow to get words out, but her voice sounded pretty normal, she thought. At least for the circumstances. “Rick, it’s Cate Calloway. I’m on my way to Atlanta, and I need to see you.”
He must have been surprised—she only saw him on occasion when he was visiting family in Copper Lake—but it didn’t show in his response. “Hey, Cate, what’s up?”
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