by Jude Knight
What the caller said shocked him. “What! Are the others alright? Have you rung the police? Okay, we’re heading home now.”
He slid the phone back into his pocket and met Ethan’s eyes. “Abbie’s been taken. White sedan guy scooped her right off the pony in our own frigging front field! Carly’s hysterical and Claudia’s worse. The police are on their way and you’re coming with us, Stone.”
Ethan grabbed his jacket and led the way towards the car the men had arrived in. “You better believe I am. That’s my daughter you’re talking about.”
They drove a short distance, silent and tense, and turned in through the gates of a smallholding a couple of miles out of town just as the rain that had been threatening all afternoon began; a sudden deluge. They ran through the downpour into the house where Claudia was waiting.
She grabbed his arm as he came into the room. “Ethan! Ethan, tell me where she is! I’ll do anything! Just give her back!”
Ethan put a hand over hers. “Claudia, it wasn’t me. I haven’t done this. But I’ll find her for you. I swear to you I will bring her back or die trying.”
“Mr Stone?” The man didn’t need a uniform for Ethan to identify him as a police officer. Him, and the other man standing silent at Claudia’s shoulder. The stance and the watchful eyes told their own tale. “Marcus Freeman, New Zealand Police. I need you to answer some questions.”
“Don’t waste time with me, man,” Ethan begged. “Go find this damned car. It wasn’t me, I tell you. Ask them!”
Freeman wasn’t deterred. “Do you know a man by the name of Jack Quinton?”
Ethan took a deep breath. The fastest way to get help for Abbie was to convince them he had done nothing. He had to stay calm. He had to answer the questions. “No. I don’t think so.”
“This man?” Freeman held out a photo, and Ethan had begun to shake his head before he took a proper look, and then another.
“That’s Jake Quill,” he stated. “Phillips, take a look at this. That’s Jake, the guy with the Triumph, right?” Phillips took the photo and nodded, as Ethan turned back to Freeman. “You think he has something to do with this?”
Claudia’s voice shook as she answered the question. “It’s Jack, Ethan. He was my… We had history.”
Freeman gave her a compassionate glance before resuming the questions. “Where did you see him, Mr Stone?”
“Here. In Fairburn. He brought his motorcycle in for servicing. I also saw him in Valentine Bay and in Barnsley earlier in the week. Damn it to hell! Look, on Monday, I saw him in Valentine Bay renting a sea-going motor boat, and on the way back in Barnsley, he came into the sports shop while I was there and bought a sleeping bag, some tramping boots, and some maps to the regional park.”
“Where in the park?”
“You’d have to ask the shop. I didn’t… I was just there looking at riding helmets.” Ethan caught Claudia’s eyes, his own pleading. “I thought Claudia might let me buy one for Abbie for Christmas. I stayed in the corner, out of sight. We’d had a bit of trouble, and I didn’t want trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?” Freeman asked, his eyebrows raised.
“He objected to the time it was taking to get in the part to fix his motorcycle. It was my day off, and I didn’t want to hear him going on about it again. I didn’t have an idea… Look, can you guys get on the radio to someone out in Valentine Bay to watch for him? If he’s taking Abbie that way, he’ll not be there for another half hour yet.”
Freeman frowned. “We know our job, Mr Stone.”
Claudia moved closer to Ethan, and he took her hand. Through his worry for their daughter, it felt good to have her close, to be facing the world with her at his side again, but her next words chilled him to the bone. “If Jack has taken her, we must find her quickly. He has already tried to kill her once.”
“We don’t know that the kidnapper is Jack Quinton,” Freeman explained. “We will act, Claudia, but we don’t want to go off in all directions without a plan.
At that moment, Claudia’s phone dinged. She pulled it out and looked at it.
“Check that,” Freeman ordered. “It might be our kidnapper.”
Claudia slid her index finger across the phone and held it to her ear. “Jack! Jack, what have you done with Abbie?”
“Hit the microphone button,” Ethan whispered, and Claudia did in time for them to hear, “Mummy, save me.”
Claudia clutched Ethan’s hand. “Abbie, are you alright? Jack, please let me talk to her. Please, please.”
They could all hear the answer. “Shut up, Claudia. I’m talking, and you and Abbie are doing as you’re told. You can make sure your little brat stays safe, but you have to do exactly as I tell you. Do you hear me? Do you understand?”
Claudia was nodding “Yes. Yes. Anything.”
“Be waiting outside Cherry Tree Park on the main highway in forty minutes. Got that? Forty minutes. Who’s there with you?”
Claudia looked around at them all. Ethan, Freeman and the other police officer with him. Her friends. “Carly and Trent. I’m at their house.”
“Just them?” said the voice from the other end of the call. “Don’t lie to me, Claudia. You know I can tell when you lie.”
Ethan squeezed Claudia’s hand, trying to lend her his strength. She squeezed back as she answered. “Just Carly and Trent. And their children.”
“Okay.” The voice sounded smug. “Don’t call the police. Just be waiting. Alone. One of your friends can drop you off but they had better be gone by the time I get there, or else. You and I are going to take a little trip.”
“And you’ll let Abbie go?” Claudia asked.
“Abbie will be fine. As long as you follow instructions.”
Beep. He had ended the call. Claudia turned to Ethan, her eyes huge and swimming in a face drained of colour, and his arms had wrapped around her before he’d considered whether his comfort would be welcome. Her own arms hugging him as if he was the one solid rock in a stormy world reassured him, and he dropped a kiss on her hair.
“We’ll get her back, Claudia,” he vowed.
“He’s crazy.” Phillips was shaking his head. “You can’t go with him, Claudia.”
“She might not have to.” Ethan fixed the police officer with a glare. “Now will you get hold of the sports shop? If we can find out what maps he bought—look, I’m guessing that the boat is for his escape, and the hut is to stash Abbie, and maybe Claudia, too. Somewhere in the regional park. No road access; he was specific about that. But he has a damned good bike. He’ll have left the car somewhere and taken Abbie the rest of the way by bike.”
“Or he’s dropped Abbie somewhere else, and plans to take Claudia to the hut,” Phillips argued. “Or the hut has nothing to do with it.”
“No. The hut matters. Hiring a deep-sea boat and a hut makes no sense unless they’re both part of his plan.” Becker was frowning, and Ethan could almost see the wheels turning in the man’s head. “I know the guy who owns the shop. I’ll call him. Marcus, you talk to the police station in Valentine Bay and make sure that boat can’t leave. Rhys, get hold of Pete from the tramping club, would you, and ask him to bring his topographical maps over? Of the park?”
Ethan nodded. “The hut he’s using has to be reachable by motor bike and within three-quarters of an hour of Fairburn. Closer, probably, but let’s be certain.”
In moments, they were all busy talking on the phone, while Ethan stood there, a useless fifth wheel. No. Not quite useless. Not while he could hold Claudia, his arm around her shoulders, lending her some of his strength. “We’ll find her,” he assured her again. “We’ll get her back.”
“I caught the owner before he left the shop,” Becker said. “These are the maps.” He waved a piece of paper with some numbers on it.
Phillips, who had managed to track his tramping club contact down after several calls, grabbed the paper and read the numbers out. “He’s coming straight over,” he said, as he thumbed off the phone.
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The cop also reported on results. “We’ve got two patrol cars on their way to Valentine Bay, and the constable who lives out there heading for the wharf to talk to the harbour master.”
“See?” Ethan told Claudia. “Your friends will find her. She’ll be fine.”
“So will Claudia,” Becker announced. He raised his voice to be heard in the adjoining room, where his wife was trying to keep her children from panicking while hiding her own fear. “Carly, love, get me the box of bugs, will you?” To the others, he explained, “Listening devices. I’ve been collecting different kinds and testing them out.”
They were tiny things that needed to be handled with tweezers. As Becker fitted one into a pocket formed by undoing a couple of stitches on the hem of Claudia’s wristband, he commented on his selection. “This one is top of the line for its price. It’ll be in Speed of Darkness. My villain is using them to bug the detective.”
“Won’t he be able to detect it?” Claudia asked, with barely a quaver in her voice.
“He might,” Becker acknowledged. “Unlikely, though. It’s pretty sophisticated. Spread spectrum. He’d have to have the right equipment and the training to use it.”
Claudia shook her head. “I doubt that he’ll look. He thinks I’m stupid. He thinks everyone except him is stupid. He might search me, but he probably won’t think of looking inside the wristband. After all, how would I get hold of a sophisticated listening device?”
Ethan was still holding Claudia, his arm around her shoulders. “I don’t want you going alone.” He turned to the police officers. “Can we get Abbie while he’s coming for Claudia? A helicopter?”
Marcus Freeman shook his head, regretfully. “We can’t get a helicopter up in this weather. And it’s getting worse.”
Carly answered the doorbell, and ushered in a man in an oilskin with a satchel full of maps, who was introduced as Pete. They gathered around the dining table as Pete spread out the two maps that matched the ones Jack Quinton had purchased.
“No way he’s got a car up there,” Pete warned. “Look, you’ve got a hill climb here, and another here. Steps, not a track. And the width between trees, here? Not a chance. Not on the swing bridge up here, either. In this weather, I wouldn’t want to do it even on foot, and from what you say he hasn’t had time to do the hike, let alone get back again. Which he must have, because there’s no cell phone coverage in that part of the hills.”
Ethan wasn’t prepared to believe the maps had nothing to do with Quinton’s plotting. Maybe he just felt the need to do something, but surely... “How about on a bike? Quinton has a damned good motorcycle.”
Pete stuck out his lips as he thought, then nodded. “People have done it on a bike,” he acknowledged. “Be dangerous in this weather, though.”
“Quinton made it,” Ethan said. “And out again.”
“If we’re right,” Freeman pointed out. “If we’re wrong, whoever checks out the huts is on a wild goose chase. And a dangerous one.”
“Does anyone have any better ideas?” Becker asked, looking around with one eyebrow raised.
Freeman pursed his lips. “We’ve got a call out for anyone who might have seen the white sedan or the motorcycle.”
“How long will it take till you find her that way? And meanwhile she’s…” Calm. Stay calm. Ethan took a deep breath. “Look, if she’s at the boat, or if he’s planning to bring her there, you guys’ll stop him and save her and Claudia. But if she isn’t…”
Claudia’s interruption silenced him, and the others who were about to speak. “Then he is in charge, just as he prefers. I won’t do anything to risk Abbie. You have to go after her, Ethan. If she’s up in the hills…”
“My bike’ll get me there, Claudia,” Ethan assured her.
Phillips shook his head. “It’s a roadster. Great bike, but a dirt bike’d be better.”
“It’ll have to do,” Ethan replied. “We don’t have time to find a dirt bike. Can someone drop me back at the garage to collect her?”
“I have two dirt bikes,” Phillips told him. “Both of us going will be safer than one, and we’ll have a better chance of getting there on the off-roads.”
After a moment’s thought, Ethan nodded, before turning back to Claudia. “If she’s where we think, I can have her in half an hour, or a bit more. I don’t like to think of you with that maniac. Can you talk him into waiting? Claim a delay?”
Claudia shook her head. “I’m not prepared to risk it. Trent will drop me off, and listen to what happens, and Carly will relay messages. And the police will be close. Trust them, Ethan. They’ll make sure I’m not taken.” She stretched up and he bent his neck to accept the kiss on his cheek. “Go and find our daughter. Bring her back to me.”
“If I don’t find her, the police will. We’ll bring her home, Claudia. Just stay safe yourself, okay?”
Claudia had forgotten Ethan’s calm. Before a race, he’d retreat somewhere deep within and come back intensely focused; all fear, excitement, anger, joy—all emotions walled off to allow his brain and his body to concentrate on the task. With one or two deep breaths, he had done it again, and the sight allowed her to take her own first deep breath since she saw Abbie taken.
In moments, he and Rhys were gone, out into the pouring rain. Now it was her turn. “Time to go,” she told Trent.
“Wait!” Carly rushed off to her room and came back a few minutes later with a heavy-duty rain jacket and pants. “My bike riding gear. In case he’s back on the Triumph. It’ll keep you dryish.”
Claudia insisted that Trent stop a hundred yards away from Cherry Tree Park, planted beside the main highway as a place to contemplate losses in war. “Stay in the car until he arrives,” Trent suggested. “It’s a deluge out there.”
“I’ll be fine. I want you gone before he gets here.” Claudia would obey Jack. For now.
Trent agreed, and as she trudged along the muddy side of the road, he did a u turn and sped away back towards Fairburn.
Jack kept her waiting, of course. Anything to leave her edgy and defenceless. But Carly’s coat kept her dry, reminding her that her friends hadn’t abandoned her, however she might have felt as she watched Trent’s taillights disappearing into the rain.
Ethan. She held on to the memory of his calm. The repeated concussions had stolen that focus and left a roiling anger in its place. Through her fear for her daughter, her worry for herself, she noted that he had his balance back, and put the thought away to consider later. If there was a later.
Two white sedans passed without slowing down. Then a motor bike, but not a Triumph. Finally, Jack arrived, his bike pulling off the road and stopping a few inches from her feet. She thought so.
Jack had pushed up his goggles and was examining her. “Good. That jacket’ll work. There’s a cycle helmet in the side panier. Put it on.”
“Where’s Abbie?” she asked
Jack’s grin was smug. “Safe. I’ve stashed her away. If you do exactly as you are told, I’ll let you phone your friends and tell them where to find her.”
When he was in this mood, it was safe to try to bargain. “Tell me now, and I’ll come with you and do everything you tell me.”
“No way.” Safe, but not productive, and a glint in his eyes warned her not to push too far. “Get the helmet on, Claudia, and get on the bike. Oh. And give me your phone, first.”
She tried one more time. “How do I know she’s even alive? You’ve already tried to kill her once. If you’ve left her out in this rain…”
“For Pete’s sake. Will you stop drivelling on about that fricking brat? I left her alive, and she’ll stay that way if you just come with me. Stupid woman.” His eyes narrowed and his voice dropped in the menacing growl she dreaded. “You’re mine. When we have time, I’ll remind you of that.”
A truck passed, spraying them with water, and a second or two later, a pickup with a dual cab. Marcus’s private vehicle; the one he’d been driving today. The driver didn’t look their way,
and Jack wasn’t watching.
He’d decided to give her a bit more information. “Okay. I stashed her in a hut up in the regional park. She’s locked in, but she’s got food and water. She’ll be okay for a few days, and by then you and I will be well away. Now. Get on the bike. Be good, and I’ll tell you which hut and let you phone your friends. But you had better obey my every word, bitch, or your daughter may not survive. Not many hikers out in this weather. Give me your phone.”
In less than a minute, her phone was in the bushes, and they were on their way north towards Barnsley.
Ethan’s phone vibrated against his chest, and he pulled off the road to take the call. “Ethan?” It was Claudia’s friend Carly. “Ethan, you were right about the hut. Jack has just told Claudia. Not which one, just that she is up in the regional park.”
“Is Claudia okay?” he asked.
“Yes. She’s doing what she’s told. Ethan, hurry.”
Ethan passed on the news to Rhys in a few terse words, and they pulled back onto the narrow-unsealed road that led up into the hills, arriving a few minutes later at a shingled parking lot, currently empty, which marked the end of the road. A white fence comprised of short posts with a single plank a couple of feet off the ground blocked the way into the regional park. A gap in the fence allowed hikers to enter, with another short fence beyond the gap leaving a narrow path to the left and the right. The notice on the short fence pictured a horse, a dog, a motorcycle, and a bicycle, all with red crosses over them.
“What now?” The gap was too small to allow even the small dirt bikes to wiggle through.
“Check to see if there’s a loose board,” Ethan said, propping his bike on the stand and heading off along the fence to try each board with his hands. Rhys followed his lead, checking the fence in the other direction.
“The only loose board I could find was along there where the manuka scrub grows hard up to the fence,” Rhys reported a few minutes later. “We can’t get through there.”