by Lisa Childs
She pressed on the accelerator, nosing the Lincoln through the gates and along an asphalt drive. Big buildings loomed as darker patches of fog. Then the drive curved, a circle forming around a fountain where spotlights shone from the water and illuminated a white brick building embossed with gold letters spelling out Graham-McCarthy Company.
Surprise burned bitterly in her chest. Why hadn’t Donald removed the McCarthy from the building yet since he’d already taken it off the gate?
She wouldn’t have put it past him to scale the building himself and jerk out the letters of a name she’d never carried but that nonetheless touched her with pride.
She glanced around the circular drive, relief flowing through her when a spotlight reflected off Royce’s silver SUV parked across the drive from the Lincoln.
Royce wouldn’t be inside the vehicle. He’d already be out searching, putting himself in danger again, for her and Jeremy. Fear for her son had consumed her since his disappearance, but now fear for Royce pressed against her aching heart.
Gathering her flagging courage, she stepped from the car. The door had hardly shut when strong arms wrapped around her shoulders. Opening her mouth to scream she sucked in a breath and a whiff of butterscotch. “Royce!”
“What are you doing here, Sarah?”
SARAH TREMBLED in his arms, the parking-lot light washing over her ashen face. He wanted to shake some sense into her. She belonged back at the house awaiting the kidnapper’s call instead of madly searching for her son. But he understood.
He wanted to envelop her in his arms again and take away all her anxiety and pain. And guilt. But he carried too much of his own. The cold barrel of the gun burned the small of his back.
“I have my cell phone,” she said, her eyes closed. “Your father’s phone will forward the ransom call to me.”
The muscles in Royce’s gut tightened. Everything circled back to his father. “You let yourself in? The guard still wasn’t at the shack?”
“No, but the gate was closed.”
“It was open when I came through, the shack empty.” And he’d briefly searched for the guard listed on duty, Lionel Patterson. Nothing added up about the man. His emergency vacation days used while he was supposedly sick coincided with Bart’s shooting and Royce’s trip to Winter Falls.
“So you closed the gate?” she asked.
“Yes. I know there are guard dogs on the premises, too. I didn’t want them getting out. But I was probably too late.”
She stepped away from the door. “Dogs? Guards? That high fence? Exactly what does McCarthy-Graham handle?”
“Graham-McCarthy.” The correction was automatic, conditioned from years of being his father’s son. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, but he couldn’t give in to it. Being his father’s son had never amused him before. “They import stuff like fireworks, knickknacks, other stuff. My father told me a while back that there’s been some breakins so they upped security.”
He opened the car door for her. “Sarah, you need to go back to my father’s estate. You need to meet with the FBI agent.”
She shook her head, the red tresses dancing around the shoulders of her cashmere sweater. “No, Royce. I can’t go back there. Jeremy’s not there…” Misery poured out with her words, and silent tears streaked down her cheeks.
Royce ached to hold her, to offer words of comfort. But the words would be meaningless, and they both knew it. And she didn’t need it. Sarah was stronger than that, probably stronger than he could ever hope to be. “Sarah, you need to meet with the agent assigned to Jeremy’s…”
Kidnapping. The word caught in his throat, choking him with a small flood of memories of the golden-haired adolescent. He wanted more than those brief memories.
“No agent assigned to this case is going to find him.” She’d pulled on the calm mask, the facade of serenity that was tougher than any wall he’d ever managed to climb or build. “You’re going to find him. You think he’s here.”
His stomach churned with guilt and frustration. “Sarah…” He lifted a hand and dropped it back to his side. “Haven’t I disappointed you enough yet? I let you down. How can you have this kind of faith in me?”
Tears shimmered on her lashes, but she blinked them away. “I believe in you, Royce. I know you’ll find him.”
Anger surged through him, but not at her despite her stubborn naïveté. Anger at his inability to protect Jeremy gnawed at him. “I need to look around.”
She nodded. “I’ll help you.”
“Sarah, you have to go!”
She shook her head, her stubbornness evident in her rigid posture and pointed chin. “I’ll help you look.”
The temptation to drive her back to his father’s house washed over him, but there wasn’t time. The first hours after a kidnapping were the most critical. The time to find Jeremy was now. The more time that passed, the less likely it was for the boy to survive. The less likely Royce was to track down a live boy.
Chapter Twelve
Sarah was grateful for the fog and darkness that hid Royce’s grim expression. She could clasp his hand and pretend he believed her son was safe. In the stark light of his father’s house she’d seen his cynicism. He’d done this for years. He knew the odds of her son being found alive.
Nausea turned her stomach upside down and weakened her knees. She held tighter to Royce, matching his strides across the asphalt parking lot.
They’d already checked the guard shack. Royce had found a spare ring of keys in a drawer of which he’d picked the lock. “We’ll check the other buildings. But it looks like he probably took off.”
“His shift isn’t over?” she asked.
Royce squeezed her fingers. “No, he was scheduled till morning.”
No light of dawn burned through the fog. Darkness engulfed them instead. “But morning can’t be far off.”
“A couple of hours, no more.” Anxiousness accompanied his quick breaths.
She doubted he would tell her so, but time was essential here. She knew that, even though she had no history in law enforcement.
“Let’s split up,” she offered even as she clung to his hand. “We can find him faster that way.”
His laugh was short and humorless. “I don’t think so. If they brought him here, they’re desperate and dangerous.”
Anger vibrated inside her, making her tremble. “Since they took my son, they’re the ones in danger.”
Royce didn’t laugh this time. He stopped near a hulking shadow of a building.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Storage.”
“For the…imports?”
“Yes, this is the building I showed Jeremy today. The one with the fireworks.” He jingled the keys, trying them one at a time to no avail. “It’d be faster to pick it.”
Sarah had opened her mouth to agree when she heard the low rumble behind her. A growl. Royce tensed and squeezed her fingers.
With minimal movement, she turned her head. Eyes gleamed out of the fog, and the air vibrated around the hulking animal. A rottweiler.
His breath hissed out with palpable frustration. “I can’t find the key.”
“Then let’s run.” Her fingers slipped free of Royce’s grasp as she raced across the asphalt.
“Sarah!”
Along with Royce’s shout, the dog barked. And another joined it. Toenails scraped on the pavement as they pursued her.
Sarah’s lungs burned for air as she ran. Hot breath blew against the fabric of her trousers. Then a shot rang out. A canine whimper followed.
She spun around. “You didn’t shoot it?”
She couldn’t imagine Royce harming anything. No animal carcass lay behind her. Instead she glimpsed the two dogs slinking into the shadows.
Royce caught her arm with one hand, the gun gleaming in his other. “I fired into the air. I wouldn’t have shot them, but you shouldn’t run. Their nature is to chase.”
Sarah leaned heavily against the comfort of
Royce’s strong body. “Where did they come from?”
His head swiveled around as if he searched the fog and darkness. “I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right.”
“We’re not alone out here.” Fear and hope tackled each other within Sarah. Perhaps Jeremy was close. “Royce…”
“No, and I don’t like this.”
Another shot rang out, shattering the quiet of the night. This one not fired from Royce’s weapon. The bullet skittered across the pavement close to him. He caught her around the waist and pulled her into the shadow of his body.
Sarah quivered in his arms, awed by his self-sacrificing protection. Her feet barely touched the ground as he half carried her toward shelter.
More shots rang out, dancing across the asphalt and ricocheting off a metal shed hiding in the fog. Royce reached around her, dragging the door of the shed open by an unclasped combination lock. “Get down!”
Sarah dropped to her knees, the concrete floor biting into the thin material of her trousers and scraping her flesh. “Royce!”
She turned back for him, but the door shut behind her. Royce had left her.
Gunfire exploded outside the shed, echoing within the tin walls. Sarah cringed, burying her face in her arms. First Jeremy had been taken. She couldn’t lose Royce, too. A scream burned the back of her throat, but she held it inside. Screaming wouldn’t do anything but tell the shooter where Royce had hidden her.
She had to do more. With trembling fingers she reached for her cell phone. And she prayed the police would arrive in time as she punched in 911.
“Please, send help to Graham-McCarthy Company. Someone’s shooting.”
“Ma’am, what is your name?”
A spark flew off the metal wall near her head as more shots rang out. She clutched the phone and scooted forward on her stomach, scraping across the concrete through the darkness until she slammed into something.
The phone slipped through her fingers and clattered across the cement. She reached out, touching first some type of material then clammy skin. The scream escaped this time, riding on a wave of rising hysteria.
Had she found her son? Had she touched his cold, dead flesh? Blind, she ran her hands over the shape, finding long limbs clad in cotton. But there was more muscle than a young boy had. Lifting her fingers again to where she’d found the clamminess, she touched a scratchy beard. Falling back on years of nursing she slid her fingers down and searched for a pulse. Nothing.
She’d found a dead man in the darkness. Her teeth nipped into her lip, holding in another scream.
Somewhere behind her the door rattled. Where was Royce? She didn’t dare call out. Again she plunged her hands into the darkness, searching for the phone she’d lost, searching for any form of protection. Her fingers closed around a cold barrel, then slid over a trigger. She jerked back.
Behind her a shot rang out, shaking the shed with the close proximity of it. Sparks danced beneath the door. And the lock dropped to the ground. Royce had locked her in to protect her. He’d failed.
She reached again, picking up the gun and clutching the cold metal in shaking hands. She’d never held a gun before, but she didn’t doubt she could use it on the monster who had taken her son and already killed at least one man. Maybe more. Not Royce, please God, not Royce. Her heart beat so fiercely her chest ached.
The door creaked open. The first light of dawn burned behind the fog, casting the tall figure in the doorway in shadow.
Her finger stilled by the trigger. Could she pull it, even to protect herself? She glanced up again, catching the gleam off the barrel of the gun held aloft in the shadow’s wide hand. Even if it meant life or death?
ROYCE REELED under a sickening sense of déjà vu. Light filtered around him and inside the shed, illuminating Sarah and the gun clutched in her hands. The gun she pointed at his heart.
Last time he’d pulled the trigger to defend himself. This time he’d rather die. “Sarah…”
Metal clattered as the gun slipped through her fingers and onto the floor. She vaulted to her feet and into his arms. “Royce, you’re alive? You’re not hurt?”
Her hands patted along his ribs, then over his shoulders. She rose up to press quick kisses across his face. “Oh, Royce, you’re okay!”
His free hand tangled in her hair and fisted, pressing her lips to his for a deep, life-affirming kiss. “Sarah, I thought I heard you scream!”
“I did.” She bit her lip.
“The shooter’s gone now, after taking one last shot at me. Didn’t you hear the car squeal out of the lot?” He cursed himself for catching no more than a glimpse of taillight and license plate. He already knew to whom the vehicle would belong. It was a Graham-McCarthy company vehicle, used for security.
“Good, he’s gone. Did you see anyone else?”
His heart sank. She meant Jeremy. “No, not that I could see.”
“Royce, I found a body.”
His breath sighed out as if someone had sucker-punched him. But she’d said body. Not Jeremy. “Where?”
She turned in his arms. “There.”
Royce peered through the shadows, the first light of dawn not enough to illuminate much of the shed’s interior. Something gleamed near the door. He leaned over and picked up a flashlight. Flipping it on, he guided the beam across the cement floor until it fell upon the face of a man. Jaw slack, eyes wide open, Lionel Patterson’s vacant stare bore witness to his murder.
“The guard.” After the reading of the will, Royce had pulled up a copy of his security badge, so he’d know whom to look for to question. But he couldn’t question a dead man. “I thought—” Royce expelled a shaky breath. “I thought he was the one shooting.”
Sarah’s fingers locked around his wrist, her nails scraping over his skin as she directed the beam past the dead man.
“I’m sorry, Sarah.” She didn’t need to look at the victim anymore.
“No, there!” The circle of light washed over a dark-colored backpack. “That’s Jeremy’s.”
Royce’s stomach pitched. “The one taken while we were on the ferry?”
Her hair brushed against his chin at her jerky nod. Her nails nipped into his flesh as she directed the beam lower, over a small puddle and a syringe. Blood.
Sarah dropped to her knees, an agonized cry echoing throughout the tin shed. “Jeremy!”
Royce tucked his gun under his jacket and hunched down beside Sarah, wrapping an arm around her shaking shoulders. What did it mean? His backpack, a syringe, a small pool of blood…
“Royce, is he…” She couldn’t complete the horrific thought, as she passed out in his arms.
Moments later, when the paramedics arrived, he let them pry her limp body from him, hoping they could offer her more help than he could. Hope, he had none.
Frustration ate at him, and he ignored the cruisers as more police officers filled the lot. He couldn’t give up on the kid. Not Jeremy. He was too smart. He’d led Royce here. Now he needed to lead Royce to wherever he was now.
“Jeremy!” His voice hoarse with emotion, he shouted the boy’s name again and again. The dissipating fog absorbed the sound, offering an echo of other noises. A whimper of one of the dogs as the sirens assaulted its ears and another sound, shoes scraping the side of a building.
He’d seen the shooter drive off, but what if the guard hadn’t been an accomplice, as Royce had believed? What if he’d innocently stumbled upon the others and been killed for his mistake? One of the kidnappers could still lurk around the premises.
If Royce could find him, he could coerce Jeremy’s whereabouts out of him. His fingers curled around his gun, and he slipped into the shadows, sliding around the building from where the noise emanated.
THE BLARE of sirens penetrated the darkness of Sarah’s tormented mind. The needle, the blood, the backpack… All evidence of that her son had been held here. That perhaps he had witnessed the murder of one of his captors.
A sob gurgled up, nearly choking her. She
fought for air, trying to stem the hysteria. And then she reached for hope, struggling to see a logical reason for the needle, for the blood…
As a nurse, she should know. But she couldn’t think as a nurse. Now she was only a mother.
Rough fingers brushed the wetness from her face. “Sarah…can you stand?” Even as he asked, his arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her from the firmness of a stretcher to her feet. “You have to wake up…you have to come with me.”
She staggered against him, and he tightened his hold. “Come on…”
The fog swirled around their feet now, just wisps as the full light of dawn illuminated the parking lot. She glanced up into his pale-brown eyes. “Royce, does this…does this mean my son is dead?” The words burned a trail from her heart to her throat.
“No, Sarah.”
Had he started lying to her now? She couldn’t believe him because nothing good ever stayed in Sarah’s life. Before she’d even been born, she’d lost one good father. Then she’d buried another and with him her sweet, loving mother…
A lover, a brother, a husband…
Her hold on Jeremy had been tenuous at best. Why hadn’t she seen that?
She gestured toward the body the county coroner’s staff carried from the shed. “One of them killed the other. Don’t you think my son was killed first?”
“No, no, I don’t.”
The conviction in his voice wobbled Sarah’s knees. “I can’t believe…you think Jeremy’s still alive.”
The pale eyes glowed in the fresh light. “I know it.”
A breath caught in Sarah’s throat, and a wave of dizziness crashed over her. She closed her eyes, wishing she could feel Royce’s certainty.
She didn’t doubt that they’d been close to him. When that car had squealed out of the lot, her son had probably been inside. Now he’d been taken again. Where? Her heart beat erratically, the echo of it pounding in her head.
“Sarah!”
She couldn’t rouse herself to Royce’s call, couldn’t look into his face and see her fear echoed in his eyes. And the police, they’d be less hopeful.
She covered her ears, trying to shut out the pounding in her head. Then to join in the torment, she started hearing Jeremy’s voice. Jeremy calling, “Mom.” As he did when he got off the bus and rushed into the house full of excitement over his day.