Worth Any Price

by Jacqueline DeGroot

  “Should have figured he’d have the lighting taken care of,” he muttered.

  Rand turned to her and whispered, “Well, this is it. I don’t see anyone around,” he checked his wristwatch. “But he should be here any minute now. What do you think, should we wait until we hear him coming?”

  “I don’t know. How long will it take?”

  “Not very long, I don’t imagine, but I honestly don’t know. There are some extenuating circumstances here,” he said with an ironic smile.

  “Well, how do you suggest we get started?”

  He pulled on the crease of his trousers and bunched them at the top of each thigh and knelt, his knees slightly parted. Then he inched around, making sure he was in front of and parallel to the camera. “Come over here and kneel in front of me.”

  She slowly walked in front of him and then gingerly knelt with her back to him. With an encouraging hand on her lower back, he pushed her forward until she was on her hands and knees. Then with sure hands he skimmed up the outside of her thighs until her skirt rose above her hips. Before either of them could react, he deftly hooked the fingers of both hands into the elastic of her panties and drew them down to her knees.

  A small gasp couldn’t be helped as she sucked in as much of her breath as she could. She closed her eyes tightly and trembled as the heat of her embarrassment flooded through her.

  Her smooth, pale cheeks glimmered in the bright light and he was tempted to run his hands over them. Instead, he blinked his eyes hard and called on his professional demeanor to get him through this. Clinical, he told himself, just keep thinking clinical. He drew a tiny white tube out of his jacket pocket and squeezed two inches of a clear substance onto the middle finger of his right hand. Then using the fingers of both hands, he spread her cheeks and lavishly spread the cream around her anal opening.

  Her humiliation was complete; she knew his eyes were following his fingers as they readied her for him.

  With his left hand, he unbuckled his belt, drew down his zipper, and reached inside the opening of his boxers. He wasn’t surprised to find that he was rock hard, he’d expected it in fact. And that was a blessing, because this just wouldn’t work unless he was, and there was a little boy’s life at stake here.

  He smoothed nature’s own lubricant, the creamy substance that had oozed out of the tip of his penis over the angry-looking swollen head and placed it centered at her opening. “Meggie, I’m sorry,” he whispered as he slowly attempted to insert the thick length of him inside her.

  Her muffled moans tore through him as he fought his way inside. She was tight, very tight. He rubbed his thumbs around her opening while he thrust his hips forward, trying to stretch her, trying to make her accommodate not just his ample length, but his sizable thickness. He pulled the skin of his penis back toward his body, trying to squeeze it past the barrier of her tight rim. Her puckered opening was no longer visible as he slowly sank his manhood into her. Muffled sobs racked through her as she lowered herself to her elbows and bit the fleshy pad of her thumb. All he could say to ease her suffering was, “Go ahead and cry baby, it’s okay. Don’t hold back, I know it hurts.”

  His own tears were forming and pooling, threatening to overflow as he finally seated himself. And damn, this was not even the worst part. The hard part would be doing this over and over, however many times it took before he could bring himself to climax.

  He leaned over her and shhhed her and crooned softly into her ear as he forced himself to retreat and plunge in short, irregular strokes. Soon, he could feel the sensual heat overtaking him and then that delightful throbbing that urged him on. He was afraid of being rough with her, yet without the friction it just wasn’t going to happen. He knew that he could think about sodomizing a woman from now until doomsday and not feel the gratifying fullness or the gut-wrenching tightness needed for his release. It wasn’t in his repertoire of favored sexual positions.

  He heard a car door slam and realized it was now or never. He reached under her sweater, found her bra cup, and pushed it aside. Then he cupped her breast in his hand and rubbed his thumb over her nipple. It grew for him and that was all it took. Abruptly, he straightened, and with one hand he spread her cheeks, while with the other he forcefully withdrew and quickly slapped himself against her furrow. Within seconds he spurted his seed between the two white globes of Meggie’s bottom. He watched with a strange fascination as it ran down between the crack of her ass to the grass below. He heard the echo of his labored grunts and the wretched howling groan that had been his, ringing in his ears, reverberating in his skull, and he realized that he sounded like a goddamn animal. A fucking rutting beast! A caveman who had just plowed a helpless unwilling victim! And it made him sick. But he didn’t have time for that right now. Thomas was coming over the rise and his eyes were wide with disbelief.

  “What the hell?”

  “Thomas, let me explain—” Rand said as he stood and pulled up his trousers.

  “Hell, I don’t need an explanation! You were fucking my wife, you bastard! On my own goddamned golf course!”

  “First, I was not fucking your wife, she’s not your wife anymore, and second, it’s not your goddamned golf course, you just work here! Now if you don’t want to listen—” That’s all he got out before Thomas lunged at him. Rand sidestepped him and Thomas ended up sprawled on the grass, the momentum bouncing him on his head. Rand quickly helped Meggie, who was putting herself back together, to her feet and grabbed her hand. He ran with her to his car, calling back to a dazed Thomas. “Trust me, what I did was necessary!”

  “Necessary? Necessary!” Thomas hollered, just managing to get to his knees. “Since when is buggering necessary, you pervert! Get out of my sight! Meggie, Meggie, I can’t believe you’d even let him do that to you. And here, where I work! Both of you get out of my sight!”

  “Thomas . . . Toby—”

  “No, Meggie. Not right now.” Rand said harshly, gripping her hand tight. “It won’t help. He’s not in any mood to listen. C’mon, let’s go.”

  After dropping Meggie off at her house, Rand drove to the police station. He said he had information about the serial kidnappings and was sent to the officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Kel Vain.

  After introductions in Kel’s office, Rand walked over to the tiny window that looked out on the old city. “I just thought you should know that there could be a child turning up soon.”

  “What do you mean?” Kel’s eyes were sharp. He didn’t miss a thing. The man’s clothing was first-rate, but he was rumpled, seriously rumpled.

  “She’ll probably kill me for coming here and telling you this, but this woman I know, her child was kidnapped . . .”

  “And . . .?”

  “And I just helped her complete the third thing she had to do to get him back.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She will be.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “Bad enough.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “At home waiting. But I don’t think he’ll bring the boy back there. It’s an apartment in a huge complex. I don’t know how he got him out of there in the first place, but I doubt he’ll chance bringing him back.”

  “I need to get your statement.”

  “Later. After he’s back. I’ve got to go back and be with her now. I just thought you should know to look for her little boy. His name is Toby.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Meggie. We’ll tell you everything once the boy’s home. My name is Rand Cheswick; I’m a surgeon at New Hanover. I’ll give you my cell number. Call if you find him, I’ll call you if he shows up first.”

  “How long ago did you . . .” Kel waved his hand vague
ly, “pay the ransom, so to speak?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “On camera?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think it was linked on line?”

  “No, it was just a portable video recorder.”

  “You aren’t going to tell me where it is, are you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I could keep you here.”

  “What good would that do anybody?”

  “None, I guess. Here,” Kel said as he handed him a pad. “Write your name and number on this for me.”

  Rand took the pad and sat in the detective’s chair behind the desk. He crossed one ankle over a knee and started writing. Then as he handed back the pad and put his foot on the floor, grass cuttings from his cuff littered the floor. “Gosh, I’m sorry,” Rand said as he stooped to pick them up. “Didn’t even get to play golf and I still manage to take away some of the turf.”

  Kel looked at the grass stains on the otherwise pristine, albeit wrinkled trousers. And suddenly, it clicked. “A golf bag!”

  “What?”

  “That’s what he uses to get the kids in and out! The grass . . . give me some of the grass from your cuffs. Do you know what kind of grass it is by any chance?”

  “Yeah, I do. I know the man who manages the course. They overseed with rye during the winter. This time of the year they’ve got a new crop of Bermuda coming in. Why?”

  “Because it’s the same kind of grass we found on one of the kid’s clothes. What course is it?”

  “I’d rather wait . . .”

  “I’ll find out with just a few phone calls. It’s probably your club, right? I’d hate to have to keep you here when I’m sure she really could use you right now.”

  “Wilmington National. There’s a camera on the first tee box. But for God’s sake, let him get there and get the tape first. If anything happens before Toby—”

  “I promise, nothing will happen. If he’s true to pattern, Toby’s probably already been released. I’d better get the word out to the men, he could be wandering around the mall at this very minute.”

  “We could only be so lucky.”

  As Rand left, Kel picked up the phone and called the lab. “I need the report on the grass we found on Kayla Wyndham’s overalls as soon as you can get it to me. I need to know what kind of grass it is.” He wondered if the smell of dirt and grass could be the “really smelly” odor Kayla had talked about. Those two combined with fertilizers could create a memorable stench.

  When Rand pulled up in front of Meggie’s apartment building, he found her huddled on the stoop, her portable phone clutched in her hand. She stood as he approached.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked as he gathered her up into his arms.

  Tears had dried on her face and new ones threatened. “I just couldn’t stay in there anymore. I thought if I just got out of the way, he might bring him back.”

  “Meggie, that’s crazy. He wouldn’t chance it, and besides this is the only way in.”

  “I left his window open and the back slider on the balcony.”

  “You’re on the second floor!”

  “He got in before!”

  “You’re not being rational. Let’s go upstairs. I need to talk to you.”

  Her eyes widened with fear.

  “No! It’s not that. I don’t know anything new. His arm went around her shoulders and he led her inside and up the stairs. “It’s just that . . . . Well, I went to the police.”

  “You what?” she screamed.

  “Don’t worry, it’s okay. They don’t know anything about you, or even who Toby is for that matter. I only wanted them to be on the lookout for a lost little boy. You know as well as I do that it’s more likely he’ll be dropped somewhere. They needed to know how to get in touch with us.”

  She thought for a moment, then slowly nodded her head. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. They need to know who to call. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight. This waiting is killing me.”

  “I know. C’mon, I’ll fix us some coffee. It could be a long night.” He opened the door to her apartment and ushered her inside. Then just to humor her, he left the front door unlocked and didn’t bother to shut the slider leading out to the balcony. A steady wave of heat met the cool air conditioning at the kitchen archway, and a few mosquitoes were making themselves welcome, but he didn’t dare shut it.

  They sat on the couch sipping coffee and tensing at every sound in the stairwell. At eleven a slightly inebriated Thomas showed up at the door, banging to be let in.

  “I want to know just how long you’ve been fucking my best friend,” he said belligerently as he pushed his way past the door. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Rand sitting on the couch.

  “Speak of the devil . . . .”

  “Thomas,” she pleaded, holding him back by gripping a section of his shirt.

  “I’m going to kill him,” he growled.

  “Thomas, Toby was kidnapped.”

  Thomas spun and faced her. His eyebrows shot to his forehead as he dealt with the shock, and his mind began putting everything together. His expression changed and the harsh planes of his face softened the instant he had puzzled it through. “Oh, Jesus! Oh, Meggie. Shit, I’m so sorry. Oh, sweet Jesus. Rand, Rand . . . . Damn, I’m sorry!” He spun back to his friend and roughly jammed his palm to his forehead as if holding back a tremendous headache. “Oh, jeez, now it all makes sense. Baby, baby,” he said as he reached for Meggie and took her into the shelter of his arms. But she didn’t want the comfort of his arms; she wanted the comfort and security of Rand’s.

  Rand sat quietly on the couch watching his best friend hold the woman he had recently been so intimate with, and he wanted to run. Run and find someplace where he could be alone. Alone to jab his fists into the wall, alone to curse and decry the absurdity of the torrent of feelings he was experiencing. Then his cell phone rang.

  Everyone stilled as he shoved over to his opposite hip in order to extract the phone from his pocket. “Don’t get your hopes up, it could just be the hospital.” But glancing at the caller I.D. screen he didn’t recognize the number.

  “Dr. Cheswick.”

  “We have him. Dorothy Hodder, the head librarian at the regional library on Chestnut was locking up. She found him in the women’s bathroom. He’s fine.”

  “We’ll be right there.”

  “Prepare her. We had to cut off a lot of his hair to get the tape off. And make sure she knows we’re going to have to interview her and her son and do a complete crime scene workup before she’ll be allowed to take him home. And it would be a good idea if she brought some clothes for him.”

  “Will do. We’re on our way.” He clicked his phone closed.

  “They found him. He’s at the New Hanover Library on Chestnut Street. He’s okay.” His eyes met Meggie’s. “I’m sure he wants his momma more than anything in the world. C’mon, I’ll drive you.” He playfully slapped Thomas on both cheeks. “You’re certainly in no condition to drive. And you’d better hurry and sober up, the police may not be too thrilled to have to deal with a drunk.”

  “I’m not a drunk!” He faced Meggie and gripped her forearms tightly. “What else did you have to do? What other demands did this pervert have? There’s always three isn’t there?” When she just stared at him, he shook her, “Tell me, dammit!”

  Rand rushed to Meggie’s side and pried Thomas’ hands from her. “I’d hate to have to cold cock you, but I sure as hell will. This is not the time to deal with this. Now leave her alone!” He wrenched Meggie from him and tucked her under his arm. “C’mon, grab some clothes and let’s get going.” He followed her into Toby’s room and closed the window while she rummaged through drawers.
When he sensed Thomas looming in the doorway, he turned to face him. The scowl on his friend’s face told him that this was not over, not by a long shot. Thomas’ feelings for Meggie and his blind jealousy were overriding his good sense.

  “I want to know what else you had to do!” he screamed at Meggie, his fists balled tightly at his sides. “Tell me what this bastard did to you!” And he was pointing directly at Rand.

  Well, that was it. Rand wasn’t going to put up with this. He walked over to Thomas and growled, “She doesn’t need this from you right now! In fact, she doesn’t need you at all!” He pulled back his fist and connected with Thomas’ jaw, sending him in a heap to the floor.

  “Rand!” she screamed running over and restraining him by the shoulders. Rand shrugged her off and bent to grip Thomas by the shirt collar. He dragged him down the hallway to the bathroom, threw him into the tub, and drew the curtain. Then he turned the cold tap on full and pulled the shower lever out.

  “He’ll be fine. C’mon let’s go,” he said as he grabbed her arm and ran with her out the door and down the steps.

  On the way over to Wilmington’s downtown area, he reached over and patted her on the knee. “I don’t recommend you tell him about the ransom requirements. I don’t think he can handle it.”

  “He never was a strong man.”

  “You’d think that someone so blindly jealous of you would have been faithful to you. He sure as hell expected it of you.”

  “Men are an enigma,” she whispered.

  “We think the same thing about women.” Then he let out a long sigh and said, “You know you’re going to have to tell the detective everything.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you going to need me to be with you?”

  “You’ve done enough, Rand. You helped me get him back. I can never thank you enough.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” he bit out.