Saving Love (The Piper Anderson Series Book 8)

by Danielle Stewart

  “We’ll be right there,” Chris said hastily as he ran across the street, ignoring the honking horns of on coming traffic.

  He hastily approached Kai, talking too quickly for her to process his words. “Tell me what you remember, what did she look like, what did she say?”

  “Cool it, Chris,” Jason demanded as he pushed by Chris and took a seat next to Kai in the small back room of the karate studio.

  “Thank you for coming in so quickly, Kai. We believe the woman you saw here yesterday might be linked to the abduction of Sydney and Little Chris. Anything you can tell us, even if it seems unimportant, can make all the difference. Now what do you remember about the woman.”

  Kai’s hair was a shade of red you’d never find in nature and actually seemed more purple the closer you got to it. Her black painted nails and her heavily applied eyeliner were in stark contrast to her ghost-white skin, probably made more so by the frightening scenario. Her voice cracked as she began. “I thought they came in together, like she was a friend of Sydney’s.”

  “What made you think that?” Jason asked coolly, and Chris felt like screaming at the kid gloves being used. Every agonizing minute felt like an eternity.

  “They came in at the same time and sat next to each other. I didn’t recognize the woman as being a parent to any of the students. I just figured she was a friend or family member of Sydney’s, well Chris’s actually.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She looked like Little Chris, or I guess Little Chris looked like her. But he didn’t seem to notice her. She just came in, stayed in the back of the room until Little Chris was here with me, and then sat with Sydney and left just before Little Chris was done. I thought that was kind of strange, like she didn’t really interact or acknowledge him at all so why come to his karate class?”

  “What did she look like?” Chris demanded harshly, ignoring Jason’s dirty look. A giant pit had opened up in his stomach and his ability to give a shit about anything but his wife and son had been swallowed up in it. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up and his stomach churned as the description Kai gave hit him.

  “She was tall with dark hair and dark eyes. She had a birthmark on her cheek just under her left eye,” Kai offered but then stopped suddenly when Chris gasped and braced himself against the wall.

  “What is it, Chris?” Jason asked, standing quickly to steady him.

  “The woman—she’s my ex-wife. She’s Little Chris’s mother.”

  Chapter Five

  “Put out an APB on any vehicles registered to a Diana Maria Dallas. I want her DMV picture in the front seat of every cop car in a two-hundred-mile radius. We have reason to believe she could be armed and dangerous.” Jason’s barking orders sent men scrambling in every direction. Chris only headed in one direction himself, and that was down. Down to his knees praying his wife and son were still alive.

  “Tell me everything, Chris. What’s her story? What’s her angle here?” Jason crouched down to eye level with Chris who rolled backward and planted his ass on the sidewalk and his back against the brick wall of the karate studio.

  “She’s my son’s mother and my ex-wife. I haven’t seen her in over six years since my parents . . .” Chris trailed off as the nausea hit a new high. He’d been open with Sydney about the majority of his past but he’d left out one small part. There was one thing he never admitted out loud to anyone and, as he stared down at his shoes, he wondered if telling Jason was necessary. He opted to hold his secret in and tell just everything short of the terrible truth. “She didn’t like my lifestyle and the danger it kept creating for our family. There was something wrong with her, like an imbalance. It got to the point that I couldn’t trust her with our son anymore. I gave her an ultimatum and she left.”

  “She left without Little Chris? So why would she come after him now? How would she have even found you?” Jason asked, looking as though he could tell Chris was leaving something out.

  “She wanted to take him. Threatened to a dozen times but I wouldn’t let her. Nothing she could threaten me with was bigger than the leverage I had. She was off balance. I made terrible choices, I’ll own that, but she was not quite right in the head.”

  “And what leverage did you have?” Jason asked hesitantly. Jason had been briefed about every single detail of Chris’s past. Officially he knew about every infraction Chris had admitted to in his written statement and court documents. And over drinks Chris had told Jason most of the stuff that didn’t make it into the paperwork. But these things he’d kept to himself.

  “Her brother got tough with me a couple times about it and I beat the hell out of him. I planted his fingerprints at the scene of a robbery one of my guys committed, and he had to take off to dodge the cops. Once she saw what I was capable of she knew she couldn’t cross me. I owned some cops in the town and half the judges.” Chris hung his head with shame. “She never stood a chance against me.”

  “If all she wants is her son then that should bode well for his safety. You don’t think she’s out for vengeance do you?” Jason asked.

  “I think she was a little crazy back then and there’s a good chance she’s still crazy now. She’s taken my wife and son hostage—a sane person doesn’t do that. Plus who knows what she’s planning to do with Sydney.” Chris dropped his head into his hands and ran his fingers anxiously through his hair.

  “We’ll fix this, Chris. We’ll bring them home.”

  “And then what? We move again? We go back to hiding out and pretending their relationship with me isn’t putting them in constant danger? This time it’s my ex-wife who I ran off years ago. How long can I keep letting my history control their future?”

  Jason’s hand came down hard on Chris’s shoulder and stayed there. Even though they constantly argued about everything from sports to who was right about the best sandwich in town, Jason had been a friend to Chris. Not because he was assigned to his witness protection case but because they seemed to see something in each other that bonded them. Both were a bit broken, but what kept them connected was the fact that they were both still trying. They wanted a better life for themselves and those they cared about even if they didn’t know how to get it. “Let’s just get them home this time and we’ll figure out the rest later.”

  “Marshal?” Rafi asked, quietly pulling Chris out of his misery for a moment. In his hand he held two bottles of water and gave one to each of them. “Is there anything else I can do to help?”

  Jason spun open the top of the bottle and took in a long swig. “Just stay here and reach out to one of the Marshals if you think of anything else or see anything suspicious. We’ve got a good lead on who the woman is. Now we just need to know where she may be taking them.”

  Rafi nodded as though the orders he’d been given were something he’d take very seriously as he headed back inside the karate studio.

  “I want to go back to my house. Now that I know they were taken maybe Sydney left me some kind of clue. She’s sharp, Jason, she’d do that if she had a chance.”

  The ride back to the house was chaotic as Jason barked out more orders to his team. There had been no sighting of any cars matching the description of anything registered to Diana. One neighbor had made mention of a black SUV with an out-of-state plate in the area that morning but couldn’t give any more information than that.

  “There is one thing I’m not good at, and that’s being helpless. I can’t just sit back and wait to hear something,” Chris groaned as he walked around his home, looking for something out of place. If there had been a struggle it had been minimal since nothing was knocked over or broken. He froze in front of the pictures lined up on the mantle.

  “You see something?” Jason asked, tuning into the expression on Chris’s face and assuming it was something noteworthy.

  “Yes, I see something. I see the woman I love holding on to my son in front of the Christmas tree they put up and surprised me with. I see the two smiles that save my life on a d
aily basis. I see my whole damn world.” He picked up the framed picture and popped off the back, folded it in half and put it in his pocket as he kept moving around the house. Finally in the bathroom he spotted something. “Jason, come here quick.”

  “What is it?”

  “The drain is popped out of the sink. It’s not usually like that. You know, it’s usually popped up but it’s ripped out. I think there is something down there.”

  Jason got down on his knees and started turning off the water under the sink. Shouting out to the Marshals in the living room, he asked for a pipe wrench.

  After a few minutes of working, the pipes were free, and from the trap fell a small key. A key that Chris recognized because it was something he saw often. “Handcuff keys,” Jason said as he inspected it. “This is the real deal, too. The type police officers use. But why toss the key down the drain?”

  “If you never planned to let someone go you wouldn’t need the key,” Chris said, spinning around and punching the wall so hard he left a hole in the sheetrock and knocked a framed seashell picture from the wall. “She’s a lunatic and she’s got them cuffed up. They’ve got to be scared out of their minds.”

  “Marshal, I just got a call from the lab,” a female officer interjected as she waved them back to the living room. “The blood found here got a hit in the database. It’s Bolivar Dallas. He’s got a long record of assault and robbery in his history.”

  “Bo,” Chris said despondently. “It’s her brother. If she weren’t after vengeance then he certainly would be. He hates me. I don’t even want to think of what he’s capable of when it comes to getting back at me.” Chris’s back sprung as straight as an arrow as he had an epiphany. “What about Sean? Has anyone checked with him?”

  “He’s in rehab you said, right? That’s a very secure facility,” Jason offered, looking confused.

  “Bo hated Sean, more than he hated me. They crossed paths a million times growing up and it never turned out well. If Diana was here for Little Chris it wouldn’t surprise me if Bo wanted to get his hands on Sean. Maybe that’s the clue Sydney was leaving me when she canceled her plans with Anne this morning. I need to call the facility and make sure he’s all right. Can we get some Marshals there?”

  “Yes, I’ll send them now,” Jason assured him as he put his phone to his ear and started giving instructions to whoever was on the other end of the line.

  Chris frantically dialed the rehab facility where Sean was. “I’m the brother of Sean King, is he doing all right today? Has he had any visitors?”

  “Let me check, I’ve just gotten in today.” The phone went instantly to hold music before Chris could even relay how urgent it was. Nearly five minutes past before anyone came on the line.

  “Mr. King,” the woman’s voice said with such a desperate shake in it that Chris already knew something was wrong. “I need you to hold for a supervisor please.” Again the hold music cut in and blared loudly. Another five minutes past before a man’s voice came on the line.

  “Mr. King, my name is Oliver Isle. I’m the on-site director. Is it possible for you to come in and speak with us?”

  “No, it is not possible because I’m dealing with a situation here. My wife and son are missing. If something’s happened to my brother then you need to tell me now. Cut the bullshit.”

  After a long exhale the man seemed to give in. “Your brother did have visitors this morning. They said they were his sister-in-law and her husband. She signed in as Diana Dallas.”

  “Where is my brother?” Chris asked as he clenched his fists tightly, feeling his heart thudding against his ribs.

  “I’ll be honest with you, he’s hurt badly. It looks as though he was tortured and has been injected with an unidentified substance. He’s not conscious right now. He’s being transported to the hospital. The nurse on duty thought he was resting this afternoon. We didn’t realize something was wrong. He’s being loaded into an ambulance now. Can you meet him at the hospital?”

  “I need to find my wife and son. Just do everything you can for my brother. There are Marshals on their way now. Tell them everything you know.” Chris hung up without asking the questions he wanted to scream into the phone. How could this happen in such a secure facility? How could a man be tortured and no one notice?

  “They got to Sean. They tortured him, either for information or just revenge—I don’t know—but they are transporting him to the hospital now. I don’t know how he is really. He’s not awake,” Chris relayed to Jason as he tried to dam up his emotions. It wouldn’t serve him at all right now to let his fear and sadness take over. “What do we do now? How do we find them? We can’t just wait for a hit on a car of hers. We need a plan.”

  “I’ve added Bo’s information to the APB and at some point they’ll be spotted. There isn’t any place they can hide long-term. Tell me where they’d go if they were in trouble. Where is their family? Where would they hide?”

  “I haven’t spoken to her in years. I don’t know,” Chris said, clenching his fists again. Then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit him. “She has family in Florida. She traveled to Cuba twice while we were married to see her grandmother.”

  “If she left the country with him, especially to Cuba, it would be near impossible to get him back.” Jason wiped at the sweat that had began gathering on his forehead.

  “That’s what she’d want. She’d go for something as permanent as possible.”

  “Well, they can’t drive to Cuba so that gives us something else to go on. I’ll

  start digging into that. Are you sure you don’t want to be with Sean?”

  “He’d want me here. He’d want me doing anything I could to find Sydney and Little Chris. He loves them.” The last time Chris and Sean had spoken was an ugly day. Sean had started slipping back into old habits and it scared the hell out of Chris. So like any scared and hotheaded man he lashed out at Sean and it came to blows in the backyard. If not for Sydney talking sense into the both of them, it might have been the end of their relationship. Within an hour Sydney and Sean were in the car on their way back to rehab, and Chris hadn’t had the chance to apologize. He hoped he got that chance.

  Chapter Six

  “We’ve worked up a timeline,” Jason said as he gestured for Chris to sit down beside him at the kitchen table. Chris’s legs didn’t want to stop moving. Sitting down seemed counterproductive but after a moment he gave in. “It looks like Bo and Diana withdrew twenty thousand dollars from her bank account last week. We believe that was likely to secure fake passports and some kind of air passage to Cuba. She’d been making multiple phone calls to her family down there. She was lining something up, that’s clear. Yesterday Diana made contact with Sydney and had plans for the two of them to get coffee while Little Chris went to a play date—probably a distraction while Bo abducted Little Chris. Something changed at some point and they decided to abduct him at your house instead. In the morning they went to Sean’s facility and attacked him either to get some information or just to hurt him. Then they headed to your house, broke in, and attacked Sydney and Little Chris. They’d have forced Sydney to call Anne and claim Little Chris was sick. That was around eleven. There was a struggle and Bo lost some blood at the scene. They all left the premises and haven’t been seen or heard from since.”

  “And what the hell does that get us? If they secured fake passports for Bo, Diana, and Little Chris they sure as hell don’t have any use for Sydney. They’ll kill her and dump her the first chance they get. Trust me, Bo is capable of it. I’m amazed Sean is still alive.” For the first time Chris let the terrifying idea that he might come out of this completely alone, robbed of everyone he loved, sink into his brain.

  Chris’s phone began ringing and he pulled it out of his pocket, ready to tell whoever it was he didn’t have time to talk, that his entire life was hanging in the balance. When he didn’t recognize the number he answered it with curious hesitation. “Hello?”

  “You son of a bitch,” the fami
liar female voice snapped at him. “I should have known that you’d find a way to make this harder.”

  “Diana, where are you? Where is my son, where is my wife?” Chris’s voice went frantic as Jason pulled the phone from his ear and switched it to speaker, cutting through the air with his hand to silence everyone in the room. They instantly obliged and all fell in around the phone as it lay on the table.

  “Your wife is a maniac, but what else should I expect from someone who’d put up with you? It was supposed to be easier, it was supposed to work out, but she just won’t quit.” Diana’s voice was manic.

  Chris took momentary solace in the fact that Sydney might still be alive. “We can work this out, Diana. I’m sorry you’ve been out of Little Chris’s life for so long. We can change that though. Just bring them home and we’ll work it out.”

  “Who are you kidding? You aren’t capable of being calm and reasonable. You don’t compromise. I know you. Home is with me now. I just need you to talk some sense into your crazy wife. Talk some damn sense into her before I lose my patience.”

  “What do you mean? What do you want me to do?” Chris never liked taking orders from anyone, but in this moment whatever kept his family alive would be worth it.

  “She canceled her plans with me and almost ruined everything. So we had to go to your house this morning and I was just going to take my son and leave but she couldn’t deal with that. She lost her shit and hit Bo upside the head with a frying pan. The handcuffs I was going to use to keep her there, she slapped one on her and one on my son so I couldn’t take him unless I took her, too. Then she tossed the damn key down the sink so we had to bring her. Now she’s holding my son in a bear hug. I don’t want Bo to kill her in front of him but we’re out of time. You tell her to let me cut the handcuffs or she dies.”

  “Let me talk to her,” Chris said flatly, looking over at Jason for his opinion. On a piece of paper Jason scratched down, She doesn’t want to hurt Little Chris but she will hurt Sydney. Tell Sydney to let go.