In Confidence

by Karen Young

  “Fifteen-year-old boys don’t think of themselves as ever being at risk,” Cam said. “Which is why they often wind up in trouble.”

  Rachel heard her cell phone ringing and reached down at her feet for her purse. Digging into it, she glanced at the number displayed before clicking the talk button. “It’s my home phone,” she told Cam. “Hello?”

  “Rachel.” Dinah’s voice caught, making Rachel’s heart jump into her throat.

  “What it is, Mother? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Kendall. Rachel, she’s not in her room. She’s gone.”

  Robbie’s locker, Nick discovered as he scanned the numbers, was in the last section where most of the seniors stored their stuff. When they were dressing out before the game, all the lights were on, but now the whole area was dimly lit, and by the time he reached 416, he could barely make out the numbers.

  He jerked it open and dug around the junk inside, looking for Sims’s spare glove. Plenty of stuff in the locker, plus it smelled like dirty socks and Nick made a face, actually holding his breath while he searched. No glove.

  He backed away, slammed the door, which made a loud metal clang, and with one hand resting on the surface of the door, his head down, he wondered what he was supposed to do now. Go out there without the glove, get his ass chewed again, but what the heck. He was used to public humiliation now.

  He turned then and almost pissed himself when he saw Coach Monk standing in the shadows. Just standing there. Silent. Scary as shit. Nick’s heart dropped to the ground. His first thought was to run, but when he saw what was dangling from one of Tyson’s fingers, he froze.

  Kendy’s sneakers.

  “Nicky. You have caused me a lot of grief, you know that?”

  Nick tried out a smile he knew looked sick. “No glove, Coach. I looked everywhere.”

  “Forget the glove. You’re coming with me.”

  Nick looked at the little pink sneakers. “Where did you get those?”

  The laces were knotted together and Tyson held them up as if surprised to find them in his hand. “These? Oh, from Kendy’s feet. Where else would I get them?”

  Nick had never been so scared. “What are you gonna do? What do you want?”

  Tyson smiled. “I think you know what I want and nothing will happen to your sister if you cooperate.”

  “Is she okay? Have you hurt her?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I want to see her.” Nick felt sick to his stomach, but he knew Tyson had the power. At the moment. “Coach Monk, I don’t know what you want from me, but we can’t even talk about it until I see Kendy and know she’s okay.”

  “Big talk,” Tyson grunted, reaching for a roll of duct tape.

  “How did you get to her, anyway? Did you hurt my grandmother?”

  “She was taken from her bedroom with your grandma sitting in the TV room watching reruns of Murder, She Wrote.” As he talked, he was wrapping Nick’s wrists with the duct tape. “Piece o’ cake, Nicky.”

  Then, with a shove, he walked him to the exit at the side of the gym where the lighting had been turned off. A corner of the playing field could be seen, but with a game going, Nick knew no one was likely to notice anything.

  “What about the game?” Nick asked. “It’s the top of the ninth. You’re walking out on the team?”

  “I’m walking out on this whole stinking town, Nick. And you’re coming with me. Make a sound and you’ll never see Kendall again.”

  Twenty-Eight

  While Rachel placed a frantic call to Pete reporting Kendy’s disappearance, Cam went to the locker room to get Nick. The game was just ending with Rose Hill eking out a tight win. As Cam hurried past the field, the players still on the diamond tossed gloves and hats skyward in victory at the same time junior varsity and others poured out of the dugout. Cam hardly noticed, but jerked the door open and stood for a moment to get his bearings. He’d been at the gym and in Tyson’s office not too many days ago, but hadn’t ventured here where athletes dressed out, showered and celebrated or decried a game, depending on the results on the scoreboard. None of that mattered at the moment. He was frantically searching for Nick, but he was nowhere to be found.

  With a deep sense of dread, he made his way through the athletes, who were now converging on the locker room as he headed, in the opposite direction, for the door. But before he reached it, he realized from the look on the kids’ faces that there was something wrong. “Anybody seen Coach?” one of the boys said.

  “He came in here just before the game ended. Gotta be somewhere.”

  “Really weird.”

  “Yeah, ’cause he would have had something to say to Jace for that error that almost cost the game. Where’s he at, I wonder?”

  Cam slowed his pace, listening with a fatalistic calm. Tyson had left in the final moments of a crucial game. And Kendy had been snatched from her bedroom less than an hour ago. Now Nick had disappeared? Forcing back a red tide of rage, he elbowed past two big, sweaty ball players and went out into the still brightly lit confines of the ball field.

  The same general confusion and bewilderment was everywhere. The game had been won and Coach Tyson had disappeared. He spotted Rachel searching the crowd, her face panicked. He wanted nothing more than to banish that look from her face, but he was only going to make it worse.

  “Did you find him?” she asked anxiously.

  “He’s not in there, Rachel.”

  She pressed her fingers to her lips, shaking her head in denial. “No, he must be. He has to be. Where—” She stopped, reading the look on his face. “Oh, Cam, they’re both gone. What can we do?”

  “Did you call Pete?”

  “Yes, he’s on his way over. He sent a car to my mother’s house, but he said we should wait for him here.” Her hands were clasped together, held close to her chest as if praying. “He said no matter how you did it, you should keep Monk Tyson from leaving.”

  Cam sighed, rubbing at the five-o’clock shadow on his cheek. “Too late, Rachel. He’s gone, too.”

  Kendy thought she was having a really bad dream. It was like she was floating and she was very thirsty, so she was going to have to get up and get a drink of water. But when she tried to move, nothing worked. Her whole self was just stuck on the bed. And then came the voices from somewhere. It was a lot of trouble, but she finally managed to open her eyes.

  “It’s wearin’ off. See, I told you I didn’t give her too much.”

  “Monk’ll be here any minute so we need to have her on her feet by then.”

  A short laugh. “Why? She’s not his type.”

  “Tell you what, dude. I don’t like getting mixed up in this. It’s one thing roughing up the kid on his bike, but this shit—”

  “Yeah, what’s he gonna do with her once he’s got his hands on Nick?”

  Kendy finally managed to stir a little, then she rose up on her elbows, looking at the two men. “Are you talking about my brother?”

  “Yeah, Nick, right? He’ll be here in a few minutes.” The man with a Harley Hog T-shirt folded his arms across his chest and looked down at her. “You be a good girl and everything will be fine.”

  “Are you the person who hurt my cat?”

  “Who, me? Nah, no way.”

  She stared hard at him. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Both men looked at each other nervously. “Oh, okay,” said Harley Hog. “It’s that door right there.”

  Kendy slipped off the bed and stood for a minute, a little dizzy. Looking around, she saw that the room was like the cabins where her Girl Scout troop camped out. “Where is this place? Is it at the lake where we camp?”

  “No lake, honey. Just trees and sky.”

  “Is that my backpack?” she pointed to the floor where it lay.

  “Yeah.” Harley scooped it up and handed it over. “Jay here saw it in your room, honey, and he thought you might need it.”

  There was something yucky about Harley Hog when he tried to be nice, K
endy thought. But she was glad the other man, Jay, had picked up her backpack. She did need it. It had her camera in it, and if she had a chance to take some pictures, she would.

  “There’s Kristin,” Rachel said, spotting her coming toward them with Shelly Reynolds, one of her friends. “Maybe she knows something.”

  “Hi, Ms. Forrester.” Kristin sent Cam a polite smile.

  “Hi, Kristin. Shelly. I don’t mean to be abrupt, but have either of you seen Nick? He went to the locker room just before the game ended and never came out.”

  “I was going to ask you the same question,” Kristin said. Biting her lip, she gazed around the ball field and over to the parking lot, which was quickly emptying. “I think he must have left.”

  “There’s Pete now,” Cam said. Although no siren was going, blue lights flashed from the chief’s vehicle as he nosed through the traffic in the opposite direction from fans exiting the ballpark. Cam touched Rachel’s arm. “If you want to stay here for a minute, I’ll go over and see what Pete says.”

  With a nod at Cam, Rachel turned to the girls. “We’re trying to find out why Nick left the dugout so close to the end of the game. Was he upset?”

  “I talked to him during the break between games,” Kristin said, “and that was right after he talked to his dad.” She bit her lip. “He didn’t seem upset.”

  “So it was nothing Ted said,” Rachel murmured, trying to find an explanation that wasn’t so fraught with menace. And it certainly wasn’t Ted who had taken Kendy.

  The lights suddenly flashed on and off, signaling all activity at the ball field was shutting down. Rachel glanced over and caught Cam’s eye. He started toward her. Turning to the girls, she said, “Well, thank you both. If you see or hear of anything—”

  Suddenly she noticed something in Kristin’s face. “What is it, Kristin?” Rachel touched the girl’s arm. “Tell me.”

  Anxiety darkened her pretty blue eyes and she was chewing her lip again. “Well, the reason I noticed he didn’t come back…maybe you should know. I promised not to, but—”

  “But what?” Rachel glanced from Kristin to Cam, whose face was unreadable. “What is it?”

  “Nick asked if I could drive him somewhere after the game.” Her gaze fell to her hands. “I told him I would.”

  “Are you serious? He had strict orders to stay here,” Rachel said, wondering at Nick going against what he’d been told after they’d cautioned him about the danger. “Where did he want to go?”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” the girl said, looking more and more worried. “He thinks Coach Tyson is involved in some pretty awful stuff and he’s on a mission to prove it. He doesn’t think Chief Singletary has enough evidence to stop Coach, so he found out the names of some people who he believes do know stuff that will help the chief put him behind bars.”

  “Oh, my God,” Rachel murmured, and reached out blindly for Cam, who’d returned while Kristin was talking. He slipped an arm about her waist and she leaned into him gratefully as Pete walked up.

  “The main thing now is to find Tyson,” Cam said. “The fact that he simply walked away from a game with just minutes of play remaining tells me he’s ready to cut his losses and make a run for it.”

  “Showing up to coach tonight,” Pete said, shaking his head ruefully, “that was clever. Lulled us into thinking we had more time to make a move on him than we did.”

  “Monk Tyson has kidnapped my children,” Rachel murmured in disbelief, her lips white with fear.

  “Nick would have gone with him willingly if Tyson convinced him that Kendall’s safety depended on it,” Cam said, his face grim.

  “I’m thinking the same thing,” Pete said, “which means he had help. Somebody had to get Kendall while he snatched Nick.”

  “The two thugs who tried to wipe Nick out on his bike,” Cam guessed. “To them, taking a nine-year-old girl would be a walk in the park.”

  “What do you think, Cam?” Pete said, gazing thoughtfully toward the now-empty stands. “He sent Nick on a bogus errand to the locker room, waited a few minutes and followed, cornering him in there?”

  “Seems logical. It would have been deserted at that point in the game, giving him time to persuade Nick to go with him…somehow. Everybody’s attention was riveted on the action on the ball field. Including mine,” he added bitterly.

  Rachel had visions of a terrified Kendy in the hands of men who had no qualms about using a large vehicle to run a fifteen-year-old boy on a bike off the road. What would they do to a little girl?

  Moments later, she slipped into the seat of Cam’s SUV, dazed and shaken. Pete had received a report from the men he’d dispatched to Dinah’s house that the screen in Kendy’s room had been sliced and the glass cut with a professional tool so that the lock was easily accessible. In the opinion of the cop, the window had been tampered with earlier to make entry quick and efficient when the time was right.

  “You mean, when Tyson gave the word,” Cam said, looking ready to tear somebody’s head off.

  “I know when they did it,” Rachel said, wondering now how she could have been so careless. Cam looked at her sharply. “The night you and I were…together and I went home to check that Nick was okay, remember? I heard something outside in the backyard, but I decided it was just my imagination…or Graham. He meowed at the door after a minute or two and I let him in. Then, as I walked back to your house, I felt as if somebody was watching.”

  “They would have had ample time that weekend,” Cam said. “Dinah was gone, you were with me and Nick and Kendy were doing their thing. The house was just sitting there waiting to be compromised.”

  Rachel suddenly buried her face in her hands. “If anything happens to them, I don’t think I can bear it, Cam.”

  “We’ll find them,” Cam said, praying he could make good his promise. “There hasn’t been time for him to get very far. Don’t lose hope.” He knew well what she was feeling and he cursed Tyson for putting her through this kind of torture. It was torture for him, too, Cam realized suddenly. If something happened to Nick and Kendall, he knew it would be almost as hard for him as losing Jack. Which is why he couldn’t let it happen. There had to be a way to keep Tyson from succeeding. He leaned over and took her in his arms, pressing her close to his heart.

  “We’ll find them,” he repeated fiercely.

  Kendall was confined to a chair in the cabin. Harley Hog had not restrained her in any physical way, but he wouldn’t allow her to walk around, either. “I’m thirsty,” she told him. “Can I have a drink of water, please?”

  With a pained sigh, he put aside the electronic game he’d been playing and went over to the small kitchenette. First, she had to go to the bathroom. Then she complained that the bathroom was dirty. Next, she wanted the chair examined for bugs before she’d sit in it. Now she was thirsty. Taking down a glass, he turned on the water.

  “Do you have bottled water?” she asked.

  He turned to look at her. “No, we don’t have bottled water, Princess. Just this kind.”

  “It isn’t safe,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “This cabin is like the place where we go for Girl Scout overnights. We never drink the water because it has a lot of stuff in it that might give you a tummyache.”

  “Trust me,” he said, offering her the glass. “I drink it. It’s fine.”

  “No, thank you.” She folded her arms and turned her face slightly away. “And you’re going to be in trouble—” she glanced at Jay, who stood at the window with his back to them “—both of you.”

  “Is that so?” Harley Hog drank the water himself and put the glass in the sink. “And how do you know that, Princess?”

  “Because my godmother is going to marry a policeman. And when he finds out you’ve kidnapped me, he’ll hunt you down and you’ll be in big trouble.”

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “And who is this policeman your godmother is gonna marry?”

  “Chief Singletary.”


  “Shit!” Jay turned around and looked at Harley Hog. “I’m telling you, Zig, we’re gonna get our asses fried over this. Monk’s digging his own grave, but that don’t mean we gotta jump in it with him.”

  Kendall watched them, knowing the one who was named Jay wasn’t in charge, so it didn’t matter what he thought.

  “We walk out now, we don’t get paid. We gotta wait for Monk.”

  “We’re gonna wind up having to go to Mexico, Zig. We shouldn’t of got mixed up with him again.”

  “Yeah,” Zig returned sarcastically. “And if we didn’t do what he wanted, just sit back and wait for the cops to come down on us for what happened to Jack Ford? Use your head, dude. We’re stuck. Monk’s got us by the short hairs.”

  Kendall stood up. “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom again.”

  Pete Singletary moved from behind his desk with a notebook in his hand. “I sent a unit to Tyson’s house,” he told Rachel and Cam. “There’s some furniture, but clothes, personal items, his car—all gone. Looks like we were right. He was ready to cut and run. Not even somebody with his survival instincts could have cleared out, lock, stock and barrel, so fast. I’m thinking he’s probably known for a while that his time in Rose Hill was running out.”

  “He can’t just walk away from a house with furniture in it, can he?” Rachel asked incredulously. “And what about all that stuff in his office, the mementos and awards? Won’t he need credentials to set up somewhere else?”

  “Not in Mexico,” Cam said, standing behind her chair. “Or some other place where nobody asks too many questions.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. “He wouldn’t take Nick and Kendall to—” She turned and looked up at Cam with dawning horror. “He wants Nick, but not Kendall. He won’t saddle himself with a nine-year-old girl, will he? So what will he do with Kendy?”

  Cam went down on his haunches beside her chair. “I don’t think he’ll hurt her, Rachel. What’s the point? He needed her for leverage to use on Nick, but harming her will bring the wrath of law enforcement down on him. And don’t forget, Nick’s a resourceful kid. He’ll look out for his sister.”