by B. J Daniels
Crystal nodded. “It was an accident. She was just a kid. Maybe sixteen. Pretty little thing. Frank never got over it.”
“Who is that in the photo, leaning over her?” Something about the blurry figure looked almost familiar to Abby although his face was hidden.
“Her boyfriend. He was hysterical. I felt so sorry for him.”
“Do you remember his name?”
Crystal shook her head. “It’s been years.”
“What about the girl’s name?”
Again the newswoman couldn’t recall.
Abby folded the newspaper clipping. Frank had shot the bystander. But what did that have to do with anything? What did the clipping have to do with Julio? With the stolen drug money? With getting her daughter back?
She watched Crystal pull out a drawer in her desk, knowing instinctively the woman wasn’t reaching for a weapon. Crystal dug out a pint of vodka and poured two fingers into her dirty coffee cup.
“You know, I always envied you,” the older woman said. “You had everything I wanted.”
Abby watched her in surprise, wondering how a woman like Crystal Winfrey Jordan could have wanted for anything back in her heyday.
“You had Frank’s respect,” Crystal said, lifting the cup in a mocking toast. She downed the clear liquid without a blink and licked her lips. “I used to think he was half in love with you.”
The words hit Abby like ice water. She shivered in the confined, hot room. She’d seen Frank as a mentor. Surely Crystal couldn’t mean that he’d had a romantic interest in her.
Crystal poured herself another drink and downed it. “I do remember the name of the barbecue place, now that I think of it. The girl worked there, was a good friend of the family. It was called H’s Second Avenue Barbecue.” Crystal seemed to focus on Abby. “But what does this have to do with getting your daughter back?”
“I’m not sure it does,” she admitted, hating to think she’d wasted her time coming here.
Crystal looked up at her, tears welling in her eyes.
Abby felt the old kinship, a remembered closeness with this woman. “Frank’s involved with a drug lord name Tomaso Calderone and he or Calderone’s men have my daughter.”
Crystal shook her head. “Not Frank.”
“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.” But she could see that Crystal didn’t believe it. The woman was still in love with her ex-husband. Love was blind and deaf, it appeared.
“I’m sorry about what happened to you, but Frank would never have hurt you,” Crystal said. “Nor your little girl.”
“I’m sure he didn’t know I was alive in Mexico these past six years either.” Abby wrote down the cell phone number on a scrap of paper and laid it on the desk. “If you hear anything about my daughter, will you call me?”
Crystal’s faded blue eyes welled again with tears. “Frank doesn’t have your daughter, Abby. He’s in intensive care in a hospital in San Antonio. He’s not expected to live. He was shot trying to save you and your daughter.”
Chapter Fourteen
With her flight not leaving for several hours and still stunned by what Crystal had told her, Abby drove around Houston, feeling lost. She kept thinking back to last night, replaying Frank’s words in the dilapidated building in Study Butte. Searching for the key to finding Elena. He’d wanted to know where the money was. Said it was the only way she could save her life and Elena’s. She’d gotten the impression he’d been expecting someone. He’d said she was wasting valuable time. But had he been expecting the men in the helicopter? The men who had taken Elena?
What bothered her most was that Frank might have been trying to save her and Elena. Was that possible? She’d heard shots behind her and Elena as she fled, but she couldn’t be sure Frank had been shooting at her. Nor could she explain what he’d been doing with Calderone’s men.
She called the Presidio hospital on the cell phone from her car, hoping to talk to Jake but the nurse said he was still out, sleeping peacefully and still improving.
Relieved he was better, she hung up and sat for a moment looking out into the darkness. It had been easier, thinking Frank was behind the kidnapping. But if he wasn’t, then who had her daughter? And why hadn’t they called?
She tried calling the hospital in San Antonio but couldn’t even find out if Frank Jordan was a patient.
Bereft and more frightened than she wanted to admit, she dialed directory assistance, desperately needing something to occupy her mind—and the time—before her flight.
Surprisingly, H’s Second Avenue Barbecue was still in business after all these years. Like many Texas barbecue joints, it was small, nondescript and out-of-the-way. She smelled the meat cooking over the hickory as she got out of her car. There were only a few tables and half a dozen stools at a counter, most empty this time of the night.
She sat down at the counter and opened the menu, looking the place over before she settled on a barbecued pork sandwich and a cola.
As a young waitress wearing the name tag Jennifer took her order, she noticed the framed photographs on the walls, some of them quite old. She studied one—a picture of two people holding large platters of food.
She got up for a closer look. “Who are these people?” she asked as Jennifer rushed by.
“The original owners.” The girl carried two huge plates of barbecued pork ribs that smelled wonderful as they passed. “The Harpers,” she added over her shoulder.
Harper? She told herself there had to be thousands of Harpers in the country as she sat down again. When Jennifer brought her sandwich and cola, she asked, “Did they have a son named Dell Harper by any chance?”
She could tell immediately the girl was too young to know, but an older waitress had overheard and came over. “You knew Dell?” Her name tag said she was Suzie.
“Maybe. Was he with the FBI?”
“Unfortunately.” Suzie pulled down one of the photos from the wall and walked over to where Abby was sitting. She used the hem of her uniform top to clean the glass.
“Dell was a friend of mine,” Abby said, recalling what Jake had told her, wishing she could remember Dell. “I used to be an FBI agent in the same division.”
“The FBI did nothing but hurt Dell,” the woman said bitterly. “First his girlfriend was killed. Then Dell, dying like he did.” She wagged her gray head. “Pretty near destroyed that family. Bud and Lenore sold the place and left. Couldn’t blame them.”
“It was Dell’s girlfriend who was shot by an FBI agent out front?” Abby repeated, her heart thudding.
The woman nodded. In the back, the cook called out “Order up,” and the waitress handed her the framed photograph as she hurried to the kitchen.
She looked down into the faces. A smiling couple in their forties, a tall, lean young boy of about eleven standing with them. All three held platters of barbecued ribs in front of them.
She stared at the boy’s face and felt a small nudge of memory. A prickling feeling of warmth and fondness, almost a memory. And something else. Something darker, colder, more frightening.
If she and Dell had really been close, then he must have told her about losing his girlfriend. She felt a ripple of apprehension crawl up her spine. What a coincidence that Dell ended up working for the man who’d killed his girlfriend. If you believed in coincidence.
Suzie came back and put the photograph on the wall again without a word.
Abby took a bite of her barbecued pork sandwich out of politeness. She no longer felt the least bit hungry, even though the barbecue was delicious. Why on earth had Dell gone into the FBI after what had happened to his girlfriend? How had he ended up working under Frank Jordan? And what was the clipping doing in the bus-station locker?
She feared none of it had anything to do with Elena’s kidnapping. Dell Harper was dead. He’d died in the explosion that had almost killed her and had killed Buster McNorton. With a start, she realized that Buster McNorton was the other agent who’d been on the scene w
hen Dell Harper’s girlfriend was killed. Now Buster was dead, as well.
She put down the half-eaten sandwich, paid her bill, leaving a good tip, and started out of the restaurant, her heart pounding. She couldn’t wait to get back to Jake.
But near the door, she spotted another photograph. Her footsteps slowed. She stared at the smiling faces. Bud and Lenore Harper with their son Dell and another young man. The two boys wore baseball uniforms.
She grabbed Suzie’s arm as the older woman was going past. “Is that another Harper son?” she asked, her heart a deafening drum in her ears.
“No, Dell was their only child.”
“Then who—” She pointed at the second young man in the photograph.
“That was Dell’s best friend, Tommy Barnett. The two grew up here in the neighborhood.”
Abby swallowed. “Does he still live around here? Or have family?”
Suzie shook her head. “The Harpers were his family. The boy lived with an old-maid aunt who died years back, but he spent all of his time here with Dell.” She studied the photograph for a moment and smiled. “Tommy idolized Dell. Did whatever Dell did. If Dell jumped off the roof, then Tommy did. Lenore called him Dell’s shadow, always following Dell around like a puppydog.”
She dragged her eyes from the photo, her gaze hardening as it settled on Abby. “Tommy always did what Dell did. He would have joined the FBI too, but couldn’t get in. Probably doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
Abby stared at the photo of Dell Harper and his best friend, Tommy Barnett, the man who’d held her at gunpoint on the train, the man who’d kidnapped her daughter.
JAKE WOKE with a start and looked around the room, confused for a few moments, before he remembered where he was. The hospital room was empty. No Abby. His heart pounded furiously in his chest and he felt weak with fear. Hurriedly he buzzed the nurse.
“Yes?” she said, a dark silhouette in the doorway. He realized it was dark outside. How many hours had he been asleep? How long had it been since he’d seen Abby? His fear heightened. “Would you get Abby, my—”
“Your wife isn’t here, Mr. Cooper.” His wife? Mr. Cooper? He blinked. Of course Abby would have been too smart to admit him under his own name. And only a wife could come and go freely.
“Did my wife say where she was going?” he asked, his throat dry, his heart thudding in his chest.
“She left earlier. She called a few minutes ago to check on you and we told her you were sleeping peacefully. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”
But he knew better. He knew Abby. And now that he felt stronger, his head clearer, he had a feeling he knew where she’d gone. After the money, so she’d be ready when the kidnappers called. But they wouldn’t be calling. “She didn’t say where she was?”
“No, but earlier she did ask where she could rent a car, and she left her cell-phone number, in case we needed to contact her. Try to get some more rest. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.” She closed the door.
Jake reached for the phone beside the bed and hurriedly dialed the cell-phone number, scared sick for Abby. He knew now how Frank had tracked him to Study Butte. The same way, he feared, Abby was being tracked right at this very moment.
AT THE DOOR of the restaurant, Abby hesitated. She looked out into the growing darkness and knew Tommy Barnett was out there somewhere. She’d felt his presence before El Paso. Except now, she knew who he was. She knew who had her daughter, who’d led her here. She just didn’t know why.
The door opened and a couple came in, bringing with them the warm evening air. She looked past them to the pockets of darkness pooling in the parking lot and stepped back. Not yet.
Turning, she made her way to the ladies’ rest room. It was vacant. Inside, she locked the door and reached into her purse for the cell phone.
She dialed the FBI number, not even realizing that she’d remembered it until her fingers had tapped out the once-so-familiar digits. She asked for Reese Ramsey, said it was urgent and waited as her call was transferred.
Reese came on the line, a little groggy, but he woke up quickly when she told him who she was.
“Abby Diaz is dead,” he said, sounding suspicious.
“Guess again.”
“Yeah? Well I have two reports that say otherwise.”
Just the sound of his voice brought back a memory, crystal clear. “How about that party at Frank’s when you got drunk and confessed to me your deepest darkest secrets on the back steps?”
Silence. “ABBY?”
“Tommy Barnett. I need to know everything you have on him.” She waited for him to boot up his laptop.
If only she could remember what’d happened six years ago. If she was right and Dell was the one who’d tipped off Calderone to try to get Frank, then why was Frank still alive and Dell dead? And why did his best friend now have her daughter? If Crystal had told the truth and Frank Jordan was on his deathbed, what more did Tommy want? The money?
“Sorry,” Reese said after a few minutes. “No Tommy Barnett.”
“Are you sure? Keep in mind that according to the FBI, I’m dead.”
“Look, Frank gave me the results of those tests himself. Take it up with him,” Reese said. “Hold on, I’ve got your boy. Yep. He tried to get into the FBI, but failed psychological testing.”
She gripped the phone tighter. Nutcase. A nutcase had her daughter.
“Oh boy. I just ran his name through the crime computer. He did three of fifteen in a Texas prison.”
She caught her breath. “What was he in for?”
“Selling illegal substances. And Tommy was no small-time operator either.”
Drugs? Conceivably Tommy could have found out about her and Elena from Julio. They were in the same business. Maybe even associates.
“Is Jake there with you?”
“He can’t come to the phone right now,” she lied, not sure why. But she knew she wasn’t telling anyone where Jake was. Not even someone Jake trusted. “Thanks for the information.” She hung up, her fingers shaking. What kind of man had Elena? She didn’t want to think.
Someone knocked at the bathroom door. She knew she couldn’t stay here. She thought about calling the police, but couldn’t risk it. Tommy Barnett had Elena. And she thought she knew what he wanted. Eventually she’d have to deal with him if she hoped to get her daughter back.
She opened the bathroom door, half expecting to see him waiting for her. A small gray-haired elderly woman gave her a smile as she hurried into the rest room and closed the door behind her, leaving Abby standing outside in the hallway.
She walked through the restaurant toward the front door, studying the patrons out of the corner of her eye. No Tommy Barnett. No, he’d be waiting for her outside.
But as she walked to her car she saw no one, and yet she swore she could feel him out there, watching her, waiting. Waiting for what?
She opened her car door, her fingers trembling, and climbed in, locking the door behind her. The cell phone rang, startling her. Tommy? Or Reese trying to reach Jake?
“Abby.” The sound of Jake’s voice brought tears to her eyes. “Where are you?”
“Houston. Jake, are you all right? I—”
“Abby, listen. I know how they found us in Study Butte. It’s the cell phone. There must be a tracking device in it.”
She stared at the phone in her hands, realization making her heart pound harder.
“You have to get rid of it, and quick. Frank—”
“It’s not Frank, Jake. A man named Tommy Barnett has Elena. He was a friend of Dell Har—”
Her words were lost in an explosion of glass as her side window imploded. The cell phone was jerked from her hand. She turned and saw the familiar face just before she felt the blow.
Chapter Fifteen
“Abby!” Jake heard the glass break, heard her cry out, then a loud thunk came over the receiver as if the phone had been dropped to the pavement. He listened to the deadly silence, his heart slamming against hi
s chest as he heard another sound. Abby being dragged from the car. A car door opened, then slammed closed. An engine revved, then faded away. He thought he’d die. He closed his eyes, squeezing the phone in his hand. Not again. God, please, don’t let me lose her, not again.
Houston. She’d said she was in Houston. What the hell was she doing there? He couldn’t imagine. Something to do with Dell Harper and another man he’d never heard of. Tommy Barnett. He realized he was still listening. At first all he heard was silence. Then he picked up another sound. It took him a moment to realize it was the loudspeaker coming from a ballpark. A baseball game! He could hear the crowd now.
He listened, concentrating hard. Give me a name. Give me just one team name. Then he heard it. The Texas Red Devils were up by three.
He hung up and called Reese.
“I thought you were Abby calling back,” Reese said.
“Abby called you?”
“Yeah, she’s alive.”
He only hoped.
“She needed me to run a name through the computer,” Reese was saying. “Tommy Barnett.”
“Who is he?”
“A pretty big-time drug dealer here in Houston.”
Great. “Any connection to Dell Harper?”
“Not that I know of,” Reese said, sounding surprised.
Dell was dead and had been for six years. What could it matter now anyway? “Listen, I need a jet. I need to get to Houston and quick. You can fill me in when you meet me at the airport. We’ve got to find Abby before it’s too late.” If it wasn’t already.
Abby had said it wasn’t Frank. Then why would he falsify the reports to make her look dead? Why would he be working with Ramon Hernandez? “Just hurry.” He hung up and slipped out of bed to dress. He felt stronger. Or maybe he just told himself he did. Either way he was going after Abby.
THE WORLD came back slightly out of focus. In the fuzzy grayness, Abby remembered. It all came back fast and furious. Scenes racing through her mind, conversations, the past flooding her memory.