Girl Undone (TJ Peacock & Lisa Rayburn Mysteries Book 3)

by Marla Madison

  He held out his arm. “Be my guest.”

  Bart spotted Jen across the room. She looked great in a floor-length sheath of lime-green silk edged in bands of matching sequins. He was wearing his only tux, one with a white jacket and black tie and hurried toward her to ask her to dance. When he got to within a few yards of her, he stopped. The old boyfriend, the one she admitted kept her guessing constantly, was standing at her side. He couldn’t believe she’d invited that jerk. Bart would never understand women. There was only one way to deal with it—he headed for the bar and ordered a martini.

  “Didn’t think you were a drinker.” TJ stood next to him wearing a dress the color of bright-red lipstick.

  “I make exceptions now and then.” He took a large gulp.

  “Thought those were for sippin’.”

  “I’m not in a sipping mood.”

  TJ followed his gaze to the dance floor where Jen and her date had their arms around each other. “Thought you guys were just friends.”

  Hard to deny it now. “One of us feels that way.”

  She nodded toward Drew. “Heard he’s a tool.”

  “You heard right. But she’s hung up on the guy.”

  “I were you, I’d take advantage of all the single gals in this room. Let her see you have options.”

  Jamie kept to the sidelines after breaking away from the man she came in with and finally spotted TJ talking to a small guy with reddish hair. TJ looked just like the picture of her Jamie had found online. No wonder Jeff had found her appealing. She was about Jamie’s height, five foot five or so, small boned and with a smooth, tanned complexion that came from genes rather than sun. After TJ broke away from the man she’d been talking to, she looked around the room and then headed to a hallway roped off from the general public. She disappeared behind a door across from the glassed-in manager’s office. When she came back out to the party a few minutes later, Jamie decided it was too early to approach her. The talk she needed to have with TJ would go much better after they’d both had a few drinks.

  Following TJ’s advice, Bart made the rounds and danced with every unattached woman in the room, not that there were all that many. He finally cornered a popular redhead wearing a bright yellow dress, and when they reached the dance floor, he asked, “What’s your name?”

  She paused a moment before answering, “Audra.”

  “I’m Bart. How does it happen that someone like you doesn’t have a date on New Year’s Eve?” He suspected Audra wasn’t her real name and wondered if he should report her to Richard, but they had no reason to think Headliner had a woman working with him.

  “My husband and I divorced recently.”

  Safe answer, he thought. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m not. Things really weren’t working out.”

  He held her closer as they danced and inhaled her sensuous perfume. “In that case, maybe we could have dinner sometime.” His boldness surprised him, but he figured the martini was doing its job.

  “I’d like that. Give me your cell number and I’ll call you.”

  Bart wasn’t sure her request was a put off, but he slipped her one of his business cards when they left the dance floor.

  He left her and found Richard. “Have you seen anyone that could be him?”

  “Not yet. Have you?”

  He decided to err on the side of caution. “There’s this woman I just danced with. When I asked her what her name was, she hesitated too long before telling me. I think she gave me a fake name.”

  Richard laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Bart caught on and, red-faced, went back to the bar.

  67

  Caruthers was restless. That damn Peacock and her friends were screwing everything up for him with all the security he knew surrounded the place. No fucking way he could get to Bart tonight without turning his infiltration of the New Year’s Eve party into a suicide mission. His plan to get into the event had worked like a charm. He’d watched for an unescorted woman, and once he found one, hadn’t even had to ask if she wanted an escort. They’d gone their separate ways after gaining admission when she showed her invitation at the door.

  He had to come up with a plan B. For him, this wasn’t all about Kosik any more. The others hadn’t been there when the Peacock bitch interviewed him about Whitney. He had felt like those freaky purplish eyes of hers could see right into his brain, reading what he was thinking. All Bart Kosik could do was publish innuendos, but Peacock, with that detective husband of hers, could land them in jail, or more likely, land him in jail. She didn’t have shit on any of his friends.

  An idea was forming in his mind, a way to stop her. The woman had a kid. Women would do anything for their kids, most women anyway. His own mother had taken off and left him and his sisters with an abusive father when they were only toddlers. But Peacock looked like the other kind, the kind of mother who would walk across hot coals to protect her kid.

  Since the party was crawling with cops and security, Schindler’s house, where the kid and the grandma were, couldn’t be very well protected. Not tonight. That’s where he had to go. Security here wouldn’t be checking people who were leaving the party, just the ones arriving. He could get over there now, snatch the kid and take him for a ride. The broad would do anything to get the kid back, even forget she’d ever met a firefighter named Caruthers.

  Jamie was about to approach TJ when she saw her leave the room again and once more go into the roped-off hallway. Thinking her behavior strange, Jamie followed her and sneaked down the hallway after the door closed behind her.

  She listened at the door and heard TJ say, “He been sleepin’ long?”

  Jamie ducked back out into the main room. The boy was there. She knew Donna Denison usually watched TJ’s son, so she must be in there too. Jamie didn’t understand why TJ wouldn’t have had her son and Donna stay at her home.

  The fact that TJ had them stashed here wasn’t all that bothered her. From her years of casino work, Jamie could spot security a mile away, and this party had security up the yin-yang. Obviously, there was something going on that she didn’t know about. Maybe it was the guest list. There were a lot of Milwaukee bigwigs present, the explanation could be as simple at that.

  As she watched TJ come back out to the party, she realized that this setup could work even better for her. Jamie would forget about talking to TJ. Donna, who wouldn’t even take a call from Jamie, could hardly throw her out of that room once she got into it. Donna would be a captive audience and have to listen to reason. She would make Donna understand that the boy was all she had left of Jeff, and she needed to meet him, even hoped to be part of his life someday.

  Caruthers, in the long-haired, silver, Elvis-style wig, stayed to the sidelines of the party as much as possible, avoiding the crowd at the bar and dancing with any woman tall enough to shield him from curious eyes. He was about to take off for Schindler’s place to grab the kid when he figured out what was going on right under his nose. He could hardly believe his luck. The kid and the old lady who took care of him were in a back room.

  He’d seen Peacock sneak out of the party room twice to enter a conference room in the back. Then when she came back out after her second visit, he figured she was checking on the kid. He decided to wait about fifteen minutes before making his move. By then, it would be close to midnight, and all eyes would be on the clock. If he were wrong about the kid being stashed there, there would still be plenty of time to get to Schindler’s house.

  Getting the kid away from the old woman would be easy, and then he would only have to sneak him out to where Lanny was waiting in the car on the next block. Passage through the back doors of the building was for exit only, and the doors locked automatically. Because entry from the outside wasn’t possible, they weren’t being guarded.

  68

  The boy was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Neither he nor Donna woke up when Jamie crept into the room.

  She knelt next to the inflatable
bed he slept on, watching him breathe. Except for the creamy tan skin like his mother’s, he looked like Jeff, with the same curly brown hair and small features. He should have been her child, hers and Jeff’s. But Jamie was a realist, if nothing else. Their marriage had been doomed from the start. She had tried to be someone else, a woman satisfied with a nine-to-five job and a comfortable marriage. Jamie had loved Jeff, but their lifestyle just hadn’t been enough for her. But maybe, if she could make her understand, TJ would forgive her for what she’d done and let her at least visit the boy now and then.

  Jamie suddenly realized that coming in here had been a bad idea. She had to leave the party and find a better way of communicating with TJ. Winning her over was Jamie’s only hope of getting what she wanted. She felt a sudden draft from behind her. She panicked, figuring TJ had come back again. Jamie didn’t want TJ to find her here, but the door was opening, and it was too late to hide.

  The person who entered the room was not TJ. A man entered the room. It was the one she’d walked in with, still in his pompadour hairstyle with the long sideburns. Maybe he was TJ’s husband. For a second, Jamie thought she could talk her way out of the room; she’d always had a way with men. She stayed where she was, meekly kneeling next to the inflatable bed where the boy slept.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.

  His angry tone told her he wasn’t in the mood for friendly negotiation. Jamie thought about dashing around him and making a quick exit, but his body language ruled that out. She opted to lie since he didn’t know who she was. “I’m Audra, a friend of Donna’s.”

  “You always visit your friend when she’s sleeping?”

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “None of your fucking business.” He reached into his waistband and pulled out a gun. Jamie froze in place, clutching her small evening bag. Along with lip-gloss and eyeliner, the bag held her NAA Guardian, a small gun perfect for a woman, yet used .32-caliber ammo. Jamie had gotten a special permit to carry it in Dubai after a stalker had tracked her for months before being turned over to casino security. Bringing it home with her had been a real pain and she had almost not bothered, but at that moment she thanked God she’d completed the necessary red tape.

  She said, “I just came in to check on them.” Still on her knees, she eased the gun out of her bag. She thought the man might just be there to protect the boy, but she’d be ready for the alternative.

  “Pick up the kid,” he snarled. “We’re going for a little ride.”

  He was a kidnapper. Jamie’s insides wrenched with fear. She heard Donna move in her sleep and prayed she wouldn’t wake up. She had to stall him, and hope someone else was watching the room. “Why? Where are you taking us?”

  “Just do it or you’ll get a taste of this.” He waved the gun in her direction.

  At that moment Donna woke up and saw the man standing over them. “Who are you?”

  His gaze went to Donna, letting Jamie out of his sight just long enough to give her the

  opportunity to pull out her pistol.

  Jamie aimed the gun with both hands and shot at him.

  69

  Richard and Lisa were standing near the bar talking to Bart when they heard the first shot, followed quickly by another. Richard, certain where the shot came from and fearing for his son’s life, reacted instantly. The rest of the people in the room, who were counting down to midnight, didn’t think much of it, except for TJ whose face froze in shock. She followed Richard as he ran for the break room, gun drawn as he communicated with Justin, who was positioned at the front door.

  Richard burst into the room first. He saw Donna splayed on the couch, out cold, with a nasty lump on her forehead. A woman with a bright red-orange, bouffant hairdo crouched on the floor next to the bed where his son had been sleeping, her yellow dress decorated with a growing red stain.

  The bed was empty.

  The woman stirred, pointing at the door, “He took the boy . . . he made a call, told someone to meet him out back.”

  TJ, given orders by the police to stay put, waited helplessly while Richard and Justin led the chase to catch up with JR’s kidnappers. She consoled Donna, who had regained consciousness quickly, and sobbed that she’d let her grandson down.

  “Not your fault,” TJ said. But she felt responsible for her son’s kidnapping. She should have known that motherhood made her a weak link. She had her hands pressed on Jamie’s chest in an effort to control the bleeding. The bullet had hit high, hopefully missing anything vital, but she was bleeding from the wound like a stuck pig.

  Donna said, “She tried to save JR, but that man shot her.” She pointed to a small gun

  laying on the floor next to Jamie. “That’s hers.”

  A tall, gray-haired man in a satin-lapelled tux came into the room and announced he was a

  doctor. He carried a small black bag and moved TJ aside to look at the woman’s injury. TJ went over to Donna and sat next to her on the sofa. She nodded at the woman being tended to by the doctor.

  “Who the fuck is she, anyway?” TJ asked.

  Donna said, “Jamie, my daughter-in-law.”

  TJ thought the woman had some nerve showing up at the party tonight, but realized her

  chutzpah in doing so might have saved her son’s life. Unfortunately, her bravery hadn’t saved him from being kidnapped.

  She forgot about Jamie as she realized she had to get out of there and find her son. JR was all that mattered. She ran back into the showroom to find all the guests still gathered, the music silenced, and the bar stacked with people trying to calm their fear with alcohol. She grabbed her coat and headed for the door, ignoring Lisa’s plea to stay there. Just as she got to the door, a woman ran up to her. It was Kelsey. She and Rina had been late arrivals.

  “Let me go with you,” she said.

  “You? No fuckin’ way.”

  She followed TJ out the door.

  Annoyed with the girl for slowing her down, TJ reached into her purse for her keys and

  remembered she didn’t have the Mini. “What are you drivin’?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you—Rina gave me a new Corvette for Christmas.” She dangled the keys.

  The Vette sat in the front of the lot as if offering its services. Long, sleek, and midnight

  blue, it sat crouched in the shadows, its motor purring. Kelsey had hit the remote start when they walked out.

  “Do you know how to drive that thing?” TJ asked.

  “Of course. I’ll drive, you find out where we should go.”

  Before TJ could insist on driving, Bart ran up to them. “Wait!

  You’ve got to take me with you.”

  “Forget it,” TJ yelled. “We gotta get goin’.”

  “You need me,” Bart said, out of breath. “You have to trade me for your son.

  I’m the one they really want.”

  TJ stopped in front of the Vette. Bart actually made some sense. After all, they

  probably took JR as a means to get to Bart. She and her family were only in the way of their mission.

  “You’d better take him,” Kelsey said. She looked at Bart and handed TJ the keys. “Just

  don’t let him drive, the last car he drove exploded.”

  TJ and Bart got into the low-slung sports car. She pulled out her phone and handed it to

  him. “Call Richard and find out which way they’re headed.” She felt her head forced back against the headrest as she stomped on the gas—the car’s pickup was awesome. TJ wished she were driving it under other circumstances.

  70

  TJ and Bart hit Beloit, a city southwest of Milwaukee, only minutes behind Richard and Justin, in constant touch with them on the Corvette’s Bluetooth speaker.

  Richard’s voice announced, “They’re going to try to lose us in the backstreets of Beloit, but we have an advantage—Justin lived here when he was a teenager and still remembers the streets.” Richard also admitted that he’d
made a call to the Beloit PD for assistance.

  TJ and Bart kept pace right behind them.

  “The other officers who left the party in pursuit are at least ten minutes out,” Richard said through the speaker. “It’s up to us to stop them.”

  “I’m gonna circle around in front of em’,” TJ yelled.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Justin called.

  “Yeah, this ride has a great GPS. Gonna corner ’em now. Be prepared to stop.”

  The Corvette shot a circular route around a park and came out on the narrow, two-lane road that Caruthers was on with her son. When she saw the headlights coming toward them, she braked. The tires screamed on the pavement and the car slid into a perfectly-executed T-bone with the road. TJ prayed that the kidnappers would stop in time, without injuring JR. She heard the other car brake.

  Before she could stop him, Bart leapt out of the car, waving his arms.

  “Get back in here, you moron!”

  Bart yelled, “Leave the boy and take me. I’m the one you want!”

  TJ leapt from the car and tackled Bart to the ground, narrowly avoiding a wave of bullets

  whistling over their heads.

  She instinctively pulled out her gun, but she didn’t dare fire toward their car as long as her

  son was inside. Richard and Justin pulled up behind the kidnappers’ car and were out of the unmarked in seconds, guns raised.

  “Police! Put down your weapons.”

  They answered by sending more shots in the detectives’ direction.

  “Give me the boy and we can work something out,” Richard said.

  Still firing at the men TJ was sure were Caruthers and his buddy Grimes, she

  watched as they got back into their car where they were protected from return fire. Suddenly, the engine roared to life and the car jumped the curb, and drove over the grass, heading for the highway.