by Jan Hinds
Chapter Twenty-six
The hum of the highway woke Paige, but left her disoriented by the darkness and her inability to move. What was the last thing she remembered? She was on the phone leaving a message for Cooper in the parking lot after her workout.
Someone grabbed her.
She tried to sit up, but a firm, hand pushed her back onto her side.
“Don’t struggle and you won’t get hurt. You clearly don’t know what’s best for you, so you’re going to do as I say until you see that I’m right.”
This was someone who knew her? The tape over her mouth prevented her from yelling and a hood over her head kept her from stabbing her captor with visual darts. All she could think was this cannot be happening. She tried to reach out with one leg to get a feel for her surroundings, but her ankles were tied together too.
Cooper must be crazy with worry.
Using her cheek and chin, she worked the hood off until fresher air cooled her face below her nose. Her cheek scraped against rough dark carpet.
Strong arms yanked her upright and deposited her on a seat.
She felt his breath hot against her neck. “Didn’t I tell you not to struggle?”
Her heart turned to ice. Someone else was driving. There were at least two of them. What were they going to do to her?
Pulling up the hood enough to expose her mouth, he peeled the tape off and stuck something hard and round into her mouth, forcing liquid down the back of her throat.
She gaged and tried to spit it out but he held her mouth and nose closed until she swallowed. Her head grew heavy and her muscles turned to jelly.
She prayed this was a nightmare and when she awoke she’d be safe in Cooper’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Cooper faced Dan Cavanaugh in the formal living room on the main floor of his house. “She didn’t simply vanish and she didn’t leave on her own,” he said through clenched teeth. “Someone took her. What good is the FBI? You let Flannigan out and now he’s got my Paige.”
Dan held up his hand in a stop gesture. “We know for certain Ted didn’t take her. Why would he? It would negate his deal. We need to keep an open mind to all possibilities.”
Cooper narrowed his eyes. “Have you even checked the guy to see if he has her?”
Dan didn’t even blink. “Of course I checked on him. He’s got monitor system on him. I know where he is constantly. He hasn’t left his house. He was sound asleep when I got there. He let me search the whole place and even offered to help search for her.”
Aunt Marty covered Cooper’s shoulder with a calming hand. Cooper took a deep breath and said, “Cavanaugh, you have to realize how worried and frustrated I am.”
“I want to find her just as much as you do. I may not be engaged to her, but I love her like a sister.” Dan exchanged a glance with the Fort Wayne police detective Reese Withers and returned his gaze to Cooper. “We need to interview anyone who had contact with her in the past week. We called for a check on all the traffic cameras in a thirty-mile radius. Paige’s name is flagged on all flights and her picture is being circulated at the airports, bus, and train stations.”
Angie, Tina, Zach, Aunt Marty, and Sylvia sat on the two sofas and the accent chairs. Marcus stood behind Angie where he could see out of the front and side windows of the room. Sawyer hovered near the foyer.
Aunt Marty squeezed Cooper’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. “Come sit down. Evie and Stuart will be here as soon as they can.”
Detective Withers consulted his notebook. “Paige went missing from the parking lot in front of your temporary gym, Mr. Pierce. Did you see her or talk to her while she was there?
Sawyer moved into the room. “Yes. I spoke with her.”
Detective Withers waited out the silence. Below his salt and pepper crewcut, his face remained impassive. When Sawyer didn’t offer more, Withers asked, “Can you tell me the nature of your conversation?”
Sawyer’s gaze wandered the room before landing on Aunt Marty.
“I think I can answer that better than anyone, Detective,” Aunt Marty said. “You see, I’m Margaret Vaughn, better known by my pen Margaret Sinclair.”
A broad smile transformed Detective Wither’s features from stoic to enchanted. “I thought you looked familiar. I’ve read all your books, Ms. Sinclair. It’s an honor to meet you.”
Aunt Marty batted her eyes. “The honor is mine. Does your wife read my books too?”
“Uh, she did. She passed away three years ago.”
Aunt Marty moved to the detective’s side and touched his arm. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The two silently gazed into each other’s eyes. Aunt Marty fluttered her eyelashes.
Cooper sat down on the accent chair by the fireplace. He leaned back and folded his arms. “Aunt Marty, you said something about enlightening us all about Sawyer’s conversation with Paige?” He asked impatiently.
“Yes,” Aunt Marty tucked her arm in Detective Wither’s elbow. “You see I’m planning to relocate here to Fort Wayne to research a new series. I wanted to engage someone to work as my Girl Friday, so to speak. I met Paige and her friend Angela there and well, we all met there,” she made a sweeping motion around the room, “except for Cooper, Sylvia, Tina, and Zach.”
Withers shook his head to clear it of his awestruck fan stupor. “You all met together for this interview?”
Without wavering her charismatic smile Aunt Marty said, “Why, yes,” as if a group interview was a common occurrence.
Withers released his arm from her grip. “Why?” He went back to his silent game of chicken to see who would crack first.”
Marcus Shore broke the silence. “It was to find a way to protect Miss Angie from her father who has been abusing her most of her life.”
Every head in the room turned to the usually silent behemoth, whose eyes locked with Angie. “Look I know you think you’re going to protect everyone from your father, but the only way to do that is to make him accountable for what he’s done to you.”
“You have evidence he abused her?” Wither’s asked.
Marcus nodded and gently helped Angie stand. He pulled her against his chest and gingerly lifted the back of her shirt to reveal a crisscross of striped scars, some of them even fresher welts, on her back.
Angie buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
Marcus lowered her shirt and cupped one hand to the back of her head and the other gently on her shoulder as he held her against his massive chest.
Sawyer pounded his fist against the wall so hard he dented the plaster. “How?” he cried out as if in pain. “How could he get to her? He wasn’t to be left alone with her? You said you were going to keep an eye on her to make sure she was safe, Shore. What happened?”
Aunt Marty rushed to Angie and took her from Marcus. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. Was it when you went to get the boxes?”
Angie nodded.
Marcus took out his phone and played a video for the detective and Dan.
When Withers finished watching it, he looked Marcus in the eyes. “You’ll be willing to testify?”
Marcus nodded.
He turned to Angie. “Will you testify against your father?”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes, but that isn’t important right now. All we can do is explain why we all left Paige alone. The important thing now is to find her.”
Sawyer crumpled against the wall. “I’m sorry, Angie. I’m so sorry. We didn’t protect you.” He turned to Marcus. “You said you were going to keep an eye on her and protect her, Shore. How could you stand by and film it while he hurt her again?”
“Please, don’t be angry with him,” Angie said. “It was never your job to protect me. My issues can wait. We have to find Paige.” She turned back to the detective. “What are you doing to find her?”
Cooper understood why Paige was so fond of Angie. In spite of her horrific upbringing, she put her welfare aside in order to find her friend. “Thank
you Angie.” He stood up. “Paige would want you to be safe. You and Marcus should go give your statements and stop your father from being able to hurt you or anyone else.” He kissed Angie on the forehead.
Detective Withers instructed an officer to take Angie and Marcus in to give their statements. He then called another detective who handled domestic battery cases to turn that case over to him.
After they left, Detective Withers sat down with Cooper in the dining room. “Was there anyone who harbored ill will toward Paige? Anyone who might have a motive to harm her or take her? Perhaps an old girlfriend of yours? Maybe an old boyfriend of hers? Someone who might want to extort money from you?”
Cooper scratched the rough stubble on his chin. “Whitley Barrow. I dated her in high school and she indicated she wanted to date me again. We worked on a house together recently. She didn’t like Paige and tried to set her up for humiliation, but Paige outsmarted her.”
“Anyone else?”
Cooper thought of all the people they’d worked with and had classes with. “Honestly I can’t think of anyone besides Whitley. Or Ted Flannigan. Paige is wonderful to work with. She has our clients eating out of her hand. The only two people who had animosity for her were Whitley and Ted. Are you sure he has an alibi?”
“I’m sure,” Dan said with a frown on his face. “It might not even be someone she knows. There’s the possibility that it was the random abduction by a stranger.”
Cooper closed his eyes and shook his head. He silently prayed for Paige to be protected and brought safely back home to him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Paige awoke in a dark room. Her head hurt and her muscles ached. Someone touched her shoulder and she jerked away.
“Take it easy. I won’t hurt you. You know I’d never hurt you. I’ve only ever wanted to love you.”
Walter Crawford. She tried to talk through the duct tape, but only garbled sounds surfaced.
“I’ll take the tape off your mouth, but you have to promise not to scream. Not that anyone would hear you, except Mom. I don’t want her to get mad at you. Promise you won’t scream?”
Paige nodded her head. Once her mouth was free, she said, “Why are you doing this? You have to know you won’t get away with it. Walter, you’ll go to prison.”
He glanced at the window and down to the floor. “Mom has this dream. She’s been obsessed with it for years. You don’t know what she’s capable of. I had to do what she said.”
Paige looked at the ceiling and cringed at the mold stains above her. “I have to go to the restroom. Please untie me?”
Walter frowned at her. He pulled aside the flimsy curtain covering the bedroom window. “Mom has a gun. Don’t try to run. I don’t want her to hurt you.”
Paige shook her head. “I won’t.”
She felt like a mummy being unwound as he removed the duct tape wrapped around her mid-section. She didn’t fight him as he cut the duct tape from her wrists and ankles. He led her to the bathroom and said, “I’ll be right here. Please don’t try anything. I really do want to keep you safe.”
Paige looked him in the eye and punched him in the nose. “That’s for kidnapping me.” She kneed him in the groin. “And that’s for the anguish you’re putting Cooper and my family through.”
She shut the door and locked it, not waiting for his response. She took her time in the bathroom, silently rifling through the drawers and medicine cabinet. She slipped a nail file into her shoe tucked a dozen sleeping pill capsules into the small pocket in the waist of her yoga pants. She smoothed down her shirt and opened the door.
Walter stood outside the bathroom door, holding a paper towel over his bloody nose. He looked sheepishly at her. “Mom’s going to be mad you did this.”
Paige gave him a warning glare. “Tell her you walked into a door. Where is she?”
“She’s hiding the van in the barn.” His shoulders drooped. “You should have never left me at the prom.”
“You tried to rape me. You were lucky I didn’t report you. I don’t understand. Up until then, I thought we were friends.”
“I didn’t want to. My mom said if I got you pregnant, we’d get married and someday the store would be ours. You and me working side by side, just like your parents have done all these years. That’s all I ever wanted. That stupid Cavanaugh ruined everything.”
“Dan was doing you a favor. He wanted to call the police. The only reason he didn’t was because I asked him not to. The town was still talking about my mom leaving. I didn’t want my dad to have to endure another scandal.”
“I know. Cavanaugh cornered me at school and told me if I ever hurt you again, he’d report me for attempted rape. I really am sorry, Paige.” He lowered his voice. “Be careful around my mom. She isn’t what she seems to be.”
As if on cue, the front door banged open and Claudia Crawford stomped her feet on the mat in front of the door. She carried a shotgun and when she saw Paige untied she lifted the gun to her shoulder and aimed it at Paige. “What’s she doing loose?”
Walter stepped in front of Paige. “She had to go to the bathroom, Mom. She couldn’t do that trussed up the way we had her.”
“Tie her up again. I won’t have her running loose here. We can’t risk her escaping. At least not until we come to an understanding.”
Paige peeked around Walter until she could see Claudia. “What kind of understanding?”
Claudia’s curly salt and pepper hair crowned her head like an elderly clown’s wig. Her lips curled in a grimace. “A wife can’t testify against her husband. You’re going to marry my Walter and we’re going to be one big happy family.” She eyed Walter suspiciously. “What happened to your nose.”
He sniffed and said, “I walked into the door.”
Claudia’s phone rang. She quickly snapped a roll of duct tape from the kitchen table and tossed it to Walter. “Tape her mouth and bind her hands again. If she makes a sound while I’m on the phone, you’ll both pay for it.”
Walter gave Paige an apologetic look and obeyed his mother.
Claudia answered the phone as soon as Paige’s mouth was taped shut. “Hello, Stuart. Is anything wrong? You’re calling awfully late.”
She listened with a gleam in her eyes. “Oh, that’s dreadful. Do they have any leads as to who took her?” After another pause, she said, “I’ll be happy to open the store in the morning. I’ll have to have Maggie watch it for a while as Walter and I have an appointment in the morning. Don’t you worry about the store. I’ll take care of it as if it were my own.”
She disconnected the call. Her eyes shifted from the phone to Walter. “I’ll show Evie for stealing Stuart from me all those years ago. Once we’re related and he sees us side-by-side at family events, he’ll realize I’m a better partner than she ever was. I already work with him more at the store. I’d have never run off and left him for months like she did. We just need some grandchildren in common. When he sees I’m so much better than his superficial wife, he’ll leave her and he and I will finally be together as we were always meant to be.”
Alarm swept through Paige. This was about her father? The woman was loony bins if she thought her father would ever leave her mother for anyone—let alone that Paige would marry Walter and have children with him.
“I’m going out to get some booze,” Claudia announced. She tipped the muzzle of the shotgun at Walter. “She better still be here when I get back or you know what will happen.”
Paige waited until she heard the crunch of the car tires on the gravel drive fade away. She reached up with her bound hands and pulled the tape from her mouth. “Seriously Walter, this is crazy. You know I can’t marry you. I won’t. Help me escape and we’ll testify against your mother. She’s insane.”
Walter slumped on the recliner across from the couch. “I know it’s crazy, but you don’t know what she’s done. What she can do. If we don’t go along with her, we won’t either of us live till morning.”
Paige looked aroun
d the room in frustration. Her gaze landed on a gaming system. “Do you mind if I play a video game? It helps me relax and feel less stressed.”
Walter graced her with a grateful smile. “I don’t have many games.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I have a live account that I can download some games for us to play.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cooper retreated to his office where he rubbed his chest over the gnawing ache centered there. He’d take the pain from ten broken bones and twenty surgeries over the anguish of not knowing where Paige was; fearing what was happening to her. He laid his head on his arms and closed his eyes for just a moment…
“Cooper, honey wake up. Paige’s parents are here.”
“Mom?” he said with a scratchy voice. “What time is it?”
Sylvia smoothed his hair back, much as she had when he was a boy. “It’s after three in the morning. Stuart and Evie arrived a few minutes ago.”
Cooper scrubbed his face with his palms to wake up. He snatched up his phone from the charger. Three fifteen in the morning. No messages. No missed calls.
He joined Stuart and Evie in the dining room where Dan had set up a computer and connected gizmos to track and monitor incoming calls. He brought everyone up to speed on what they knew.
Dan rocked on his heels. “Agent Franklin will be joining us as soon as she can get here from DC. Her area of responsibility is missing women, specifically women abducted and sold into—”
“Oh no,” Evie cried. “Not my little girl. Is that what you think is happening?”
“Cavanaugh, are you out of your mind?” Cooper said through clenched teeth as Stuart put an arm around Evie. “Are you trying to give her parents or me a heart attack?”
Sylvia gasped and her fingers flew to her lips.
Cooper pressed his lips together and closed his eyes. “Sorry, Mom. Poor word choice.” He turned to Dan. “Do you really think that might be what happened to Paige?”