She believed him. The coldness in his eyes, the hardness in his voice let her know he meant what he said. Charlie knew Henry would pay whatever the demand to get his children back, but she was definitely expendable. Henry didn’t love her.
She was grateful that the boys didn’t awaken as she unfastened them and pulled them from the car seats. She held them tight as Charlie motioned her into the shanty with the barrel of his gun. Once inside he turned on a light that illuminated the dismal interior.
There was a sink, a small refrigerator, a two-burner hot plate, a microwave and a small table along one wall. On the other side of the small room was a single-size cot and a door she assumed led to a bathroom. A small electric heater blew warm air, but not enough to heat the entire room.
“Put the kids on the bed,” he commanded.
On trembling legs she moved to the cot and gently placed the sleeping twins in the center of the small area. Tears blurred her vision as she straightened up and turned to face her captor.
“Unfortunately this is going to be your home away from home for the next day or two,” he said. “Sit down.” He pointed to one of the chairs at the table.
With one backward glance at the sleeping twins Melissa did as he asked. “You threw that bomb through the window, didn’t you?” she asked and was appalled by the quiver in her voice.
Charlie opened the cabinet beneath the sink and pulled out a heavy chain. The sight of it shot a new wave of fear through her. “Yeah, it’s amazing how easy it is to build a little pipe bomb. I shot out the tire on Henry’s car, too. My original plan was to waylay you as you left town, but Henry’s decision to move you into the motel made it all so easy.”
He straightened and locked one end of the chain on a metal hook that had been driven into the wall and then approached her with the other end.
“Please, you don’t have to do this,” she said, the tears not only blurring her vision but running hot down her cheeks. “I can talk to Henry. I’m sure he’ll give you whatever you want. Just please, let me and my babies go.”
“Shut up,” he said. He bent down and grabbed her ankle. She instinctively kicked at him, the survival instinct roaring to life.
He stepped back from her, the gun pointed at her head. “Don’t make this difficult. I told you that if you cooperate, you won’t get hurt. But I won’t hesitate to put a bullet through your head if you give me any trouble. You understand?”
She drew a deep breath, gulped back a sob and nodded. She didn’t want to give him a reason to kill her. She had to stay alive. She had to figure out a way out of this and save her boys.
“Now, I’m going to put this chain on your ankle. There’s enough length for you to move around the room, take care of the kids and use the bathroom. There’s some grub in the refrigerator and you should be fine until I get back here.”
He fastened the chain around her ankle and she shuddered at the cold bite of steel against her skin. “I’ll bring in your things so you should have everything you need.”
With that he disappeared out the door. Instantly Melissa grabbed the chain in her hands and began to attempt to pull it out of the wall. She yanked and pulled, but there was no give at all.
She quickly dropped the chain as Charlie came back in carrying her suitcase and the diaper bag. The one thing he didn’t have was her purse with her cell phone inside.
“Don’t look so worried. You should only be here a couple of days, however long it takes him to get the cash for me. I’m not even going to make a ransom demand until tomorrow. I’ll give him a night to worry. It will put him in a better mood to deal with me and my demands.”
“Please, Charlie,” she said one last time. “If you let us go now I won’t tell anyone what you did.”
“If and when you get a chance to tell anyone I’ll be long gone. I’ll be a rich man on some tropical beach living under a new name.”
“Henry will never stop looking for you,” she insisted. “He’ll hunt you down wherever you go. You’ll live your life looking over your shoulder.”
He smiled, obviously not concerned by her words. “But what a great life it’s going to be. I’ll be back later.” He dropped the suitcase and diaper bag to the floor, then left the shanty. She heard him lock the door from the outside and then she was alone with just her sleeping babies to keep her company.
“Henry, there’s no sign of a struggle or forced entry,” Jimmy said. He’d arrived at the motel room with two of his deputies. “There’s nothing to indicate that anything bad happened her. Maybe she just went home.”
“Without her car?” The urgent burn in Henry’s gut had only intensified over the past half an hour.
“Maybe she had somebody pick her up,” Ben Whitfield, one of the deputies, said.
Henry shook his head. “She wouldn’t have done that. She wouldn’t have left without telling me goodbye.”
“Maybe the scene at your house last night scared her more than she let on. Maybe she was afraid to tell you she was going home because she was afraid you’d try to change her mind,” Jimmy said.
A new sick feeling swept through Henry. Had he been pushing her so hard the past couple of days that she might have taken off without telling him? Afraid that he’d push her to do something she didn’t want to do? Even though their time together had been relatively brief, he believed he knew the kind of woman Melissa was and he was convinced that wasn’t the case.
“I’m telling you, Jimmy, something’s happened. We’ve got to find her.” He looked at the sheriff. “She’s in trouble. I know it. I feel it.”
“Ben, you and Jake hit the streets, see if you can find anyone who might have seen something,” Jimmy said.
“What about Tom Burke?” Henry asked.
“I already checked with Gordon. Tom is home with his family and can’t have had anything to do with Melissa or your boys.”
Henry grabbed Jimmy by the shoulder. “We have to do something, man. We have to find them.” The emotions that filled Henry left him weak, a combination of the worst fear he’d ever known in his life.
“We’ll find them, Henry. Why don’t you go home and wait. Maybe she’ll call.”
“I can’t go home. I need to do something,” he said in frustration.
“Henry, take a deep breath. We don’t even know that something bad has happened,” Jimmy repeated.
But Henry knew. He felt it in his gut. There was no way that Melissa would have left town without speaking to him, no way she would have left her car at his house and taken off with somebody.
Something was wrong.
Something was horribly wrong.
“I’m going to drive around and see if anyone has seen her,” Henry said. He couldn’t go home and tell his mother that Melissa and the boys were missing.
Telling Jimmy he’d be in touch, Henry got into his truck and started to drive down the street, looking for anyone who might have seen Melissa and the boys. For the next hour he stopped at each and every business that was open and questioned anyone he found in the place.
Where could they be? What had happened in that motel room? Jimmy was right, there had been no sign of a struggle. Whoever she left with, she’d apparently gone willingly.
Surely if she’d planned on having somebody pick her up and take her back to Amarillo she would have said something to him when they’d spoken earlier on the phone. She would have made arrangements to get her car.
It was almost nine when he finally headed back to the ranch. He didn’t know what else to do, where else to look. He only knew the terror that filled his heart.
The drive back to his place was the longest he’d ever made. Tears burned behind his eyes but he refused to let them fall. Tears implied sadness, grief and he absolutely refused to grieve for Melissa and the boys. He needed to stay strong.
His mother met him at the door. “What’s going on?”
“They’re gone.” The words fell from his lips and suddenly the tears that he’d fought so hard to control spil
led from him.
“Melissa and the boys aren’t at the motel. We can’t find them, Mom. We don’t know where they are.”
Mary reached for him and wrapped her arms around him, attempting to comfort him like she had when he’d been a little boy and had skinned his knee. But he wasn’t a little boy and this was far worse than a bruised knee.
He stuffed back his tears and straightened. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s happened. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.”
He allowed his mother to lead him into the living room, where they both sagged down to the sofa. “Jimmy and a couple of his men are out looking. I drove up and down the streets and asked everyone I saw, but nobody had seen them.”
“Maybe she called a friend,” Mary said, but Henry could tell by her tone that she didn’t believe her own words.
“You and I both know she wouldn’t have left town without telling us goodbye. That’s not who Melissa is.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes and prayed that somehow this nightmare would end.
Both he and Mary jumped as the doorbell rang. Henry shot up off the sofa and raced to the door. He opened it to see Charlie.
“I just heard,” Charlie said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Henry motioned him inside the foyer. “Last night when you dropped Melissa off at the motel did you see anybody around?”
Charlie frowned. “Not that I noticed. I made sure we weren’t followed when we left here. I can’t be a hundred percent certain that nobody saw her when I let her and the boys out of the car. God, man. What can I do?”
Henry raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do at the moment. Jimmy and his men are out searching in town and I don’t know what else to do.”
“I’m heading home. You’ll call me if I can do anything?”
“Thanks, Charlie. I will.” Henry watched as the man left the house and walked to his vehicle in the driveway.
The night was dark and cold and Melissa was out there with his babies. “Maybe we scared her away,” his mother spoke from behind him.
He turned to look at her.
“Maybe we came on too strong. We bought so many things, made it look as if we were making a home here for the twins.” Mary wrung her hands together. “Maybe she’s afraid you’ll take those babies from her and so she ran away.”
“No, she wouldn’t do that.” He knew in his heart, in the depths of his very soul, that she wouldn’t just disappear. He turned back to the door and stared outside. “I think somebody has them. I think somebody took them from the motel room.”
“But why?” Mary cried.
Once again he turned to face her. “Maybe as a final attempt to make me pull out of the election. I don’t know. We won’t know for sure until whoever has them contacts us.”
“Surely whoever has them wouldn’t hurt them.” Mary’s voice trembled with her fear.
He didn’t attempt to give her false pacification. “I don’t know, Mom.”
“So, what do we do now?” she asked.
Henry’s stomach clenched. “We wait.”
Melissa wasted no time the minute Charlie left the shanty. First she worked to try to get the chain off her ankle. He’d secured it with a padlock and she was hoping maybe she could use something to pick it open. But a search of the two drawers in the kitchen area yielded nothing more than two spoons. Even the handle of the spoon was no good in trying to pick the lock.
The boys remained sleeping soundly. She was grateful for their silence. She needed to think. Even if she did manage to get herself free from the chain, then what? She had no idea where they were, no idea how far she’d have to walk with the twins in her arms to get help.
But she figured her odds were better braving the elements than staying here until Charlie returned. Henry had said that his breakup with Hilary hadn’t seemed to matter to Charlie. Apparently, it had.
Charlie had seen Hilary and Henry’s marriage as a ticket for him off the ranch. When that had fallen apart, she’d made the mistake of coming here and giving Charlie a new bargaining chip. She glanced at the twins. No, two bargaining chips, she thought.
What scared her more than anything was that she didn’t think Charlie intended to let her live. The twins couldn’t identify their kidnappers, but she could. If she died then Charlie would be safe. He’d never have to look over his shoulder to see if somebody was after him.
For the next hour she pulled on the place where the chain was connected to the wall, hoping to break it loose. She finally sat on the floor, exhausted by her efforts and overwhelmed with defeat.
Silently she began to weep. She would never see her babies grow up. She’d never see their first step or hear them say Mommy. She wouldn’t be there to put them on the bus for their first day of school, to straighten a tie when they went to their first school dance.
Pain flooded her as she stuffed a hand against her mouth to keep the sobs from ripping out of her. She wept until there were no more tears to weep and then she prayed. She prayed that no matter what happened to her, the boys would be safe. She prayed that they would live a long and happy life with Henry and Mary.
Thoughts of Henry brought more tears. She’d never see him again. She’d never see that slow slide of a sexy grin across his lips, the simmering sparkle of pleasure in his eyes.
Surely by now he knew they were missing. She looked at her watch. Almost ten. He would have called the room and gotten worried when she hadn’t answered. He was probably looking for her now. Unfortunately there was no way he’d ever suspect his right-hand man on the ranch, the worker he depended on. The last person he’d suspect would be Charlie.
She pulled herself up and looked in the cabinets, seeking something that could be used as a weapon. He might intend to kill her, but she’d like to be able to hurt him before he did. She’d like to be able to mark him in a way that might bring up some questions.
Her fingernails were kept too short to do damage to his face. But surely she could use something in the cabinets.
She searched every nook and cranny on the room and found nothing. The cabinets held only a handful of canned goods, some soup and pork and beans and corn. The refrigerator had a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a package of bologna and a small jar of mayo. The freezer contained five frozen dinners.
She had a feeling the food had been brought in specifically for her and there was just enough for a couple of days. This hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment decision on Charlie’s part. He’d planned this and that depressed her even more.
Finally, she sat next to the bed where the twins slept and laid her head back. She could smell her babies, the sweet scent of innocence and love.
She closed her eyes with the weary knowledge that at least she knew they’d be loved by Henry for the rest of their lives, even if she wasn’t around to share it.
Chapter 13
“Henry, Hilary is on the phone,” Mary said.
Henry frowned. “I don’t have time to talk to her now. Tell her I’ll call her back later.” He returned his attention to Jimmy, who sat on the chair opposite the sofa where Henry was seated.
“We’re treating the motel room as a crime scene,” Jimmy said. “Even though we don’t know if a crime has occurred. I’ve got a couple of my boys lifting prints to see what we find.”
“It’s a motel room. You’re probably going to find the prints of people who stayed there ten years ago,” Henry said with a weary sigh.
“Ed’s place is pretty clean. It’s possible we’ll lift fresh prints.”
“And then what? Unless you have a matching set on file the prints won’t tell us anything.”
“Henry, we’re doing the best we can,” Jimmy replied patiently.
“I know, I know. You tell Tom Burke that if he had anything to do with this, then he wins. If he’ll let them go unharmed, I’ll leave him alone. I’ll pull out of the race for mayor and he can continue his business practices as he sees fi
t.”
“Henry, I don’t think it’s Tom,” Jimmy said. “Or anyone he’s hired. I’ve known Tom for most of my life. Sure, he’s a scoundrel, he’s a white-color criminal but this isn’t something he’s capable of.”
“Would you stake Melissa’s life on that? Stake the lives of my boys on it?” Henry replied.
“Of course not. I’m just telling you what my gut is telling me and that’s that Tom isn’t responsible.”
“Then who is?” Henry asked as a hollowness threatened to swallow him whole. “Jesus, Jimmy, who is responsible? Who could hate me this much?”
Jimmy swiped his broad hand down the length of his face. “I don’t know. It might not be about hate. It might be about greed. If this is some kind of kidnapping then I’m guessing that you’ll hear from the kidnapper.”
Henry looked at his watch. It was after ten. “We don’t even know how long they’ve been missing. I spoke to her this morning but didn’t speak to her after that.”
“I checked with the diner. Dinner was delivered to the room at around four-thirty so we know she and the boys were there then,” Jimmy said.
“I’ve made coffee,” Mary said as she stepped into the living room.
Jimmy stood. “Come on, Henry, let’s go have some coffee. It looks like it’s going to be a long night.”
The last thing Henry wanted was to sit around and drink coffee while Melissa and his boys were out there somewhere. He wanted to beat on every door in the town of Dalhart until he found the place where Melissa and the twins were being held.
But he followed Jimmy into the kitchen, where the two men sat at the table while his mother poured them each a cup of the fresh brew.
“Shouldn’t we call the FBI or something?” Mary asked. She looked as if she’d aged ten years in the past couple of hours.
Jimmy shook his head. “They won’t be interested until I have evidence that a crime has occurred. She’s only been missing for five or six hours and we don’t know if she made the decision to go missing of her own free will.”
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