She didn’t know where she was being take because her kidnapper had covered her mouth with tape and put a pillowcase over her head, then tied her hands behind her back. With more gentleness than she was expecting, he had forced her to lie down in the back seat of another car and covered her with a dusty-smelling blanket. She knew it wasn’t Sophie’s car because it smelled very bad, like onions and urine. Even if she could scream, she doubted there was anyone around to hear her. It was a work day and most neighbors were either at work or had worked the night shift and were sleeping.
He was average height, thin, and he wouldn’t meet her eye when he called her darling. “I’m just going to put this tape over your mouth, darling, so stand still.” It didn’t feel sexual, just a word that he liked to use, but it gave her the creeps, nonetheless. And when she didn’t stand still, he poked the pistol in her ribs. She was too frightened not to comply after that.
He had guided her up a few steps, stopping once to say, “We’re deciding on costumes for the church Halloween party next week.” In the South, everything you say is believable as long as you preface it with God or church. Whoever he was talking to must have believed him because even as she struggled and screamed, though it came out muffled, he replied, “Good job. It looks pretty convincing.” She heard footsteps retreating as her kidnapper pulled her into an elevator. The ride seemed to take forever and then just as suddenly stopped and the sliding doors opened with a ding. He guided her out of the elevator and down a hallway, where he stopped and she heard keys as he unlocked a door and pushed her inside.
The door slammed shut, and she heard a deadbolt slide into place. He grabbed her elbow and led her into a room before he removed her restraints and removed the pillow case from her head. She didn’t know where she was, they’d driven for a while, but she recognized the wall where he told her to stand. It was the same wall where Deidre had stood for her pictures.
“Smile for the camera, darling,” he said
“Please, just let me go. I don’t have any money,” Chelsey cried. “My parents don’t have any money, either.” Oh, God. Mom and Dad, I’m sorry.
“Your girlfriend has lots of money,” he replied as he handed her a large sheet of paper to hold up.
“And she’s willing to pay the ransom, as much as you want. You don’t need me.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t my idea. But at least you won’t be alone.”
“What does that mean? Oh, is Deidre here?” The thought of Deidre being with her gave her hope and took the edge off the fear that was preventing her from breathing deeply.
He snapped the photo, tapped on a couple of buttons, and as soon as he heard the whoosh sound, put the phone back in his pocket and left the room. She was surprised when he didn’t tie her back up and she immediately ran to the window. She was several stories up. Too high to jump, and there was no fire escape that she could see. It was a small room with an overstuffed chair, one window, and two doors. Figuring the other door was a closet, she opened it, hoping to find something she could use to escape with. She was right, it was a closet but it was completely bare. Damn it. She walked over to the exit door and quietly reached her hand out. It suddenly opened from the other side and she jumped back.
An older woman with a pronounced limp walked in, and Chelsey recognized her from her photos.
Deidre took one look at Chelsey and turned back to the man. “What were you thinking? She shouldn’t be here. That wasn’t part of the plan.”
Part of the plan? Oh, my God! Did Deidre stage her own kidnapping?
Chapter Eighteen
Kenny paced in the game room, cursing under her breath. She finally stopped in front of the picture of Chelsey holding the latest message. “Hang on, baby. I’ll find you. I’ll find both of you and when I do, that bitch mother of mine is going to pay.”
“Kenny,” Sophie called from the landing. “Come back up here and eat something.”
“I’m not hungry, Sophie,” Kenny hollered back, placing her hands on her hips and staring intently at each photo. What am I missing?
Sophie walked down the stairs carrying a pizza box and a six-pack of Kenny’s favorite sodas. “I thought you might say that so I ordered your favorite pizza.” She sat the box on the counter and opened the lid. The irresistible smell quickly filled the room. Sophie grinned when she heard Kenny’s stomach growl.
“Oh, you play dirty, Soph,” Kenny croaked as she picked up a slice.
“Whatever it takes to get you to eat, cariño.”
Kenny looked at the slice of pizza for a moment, then put it back down. “Sophie, I don’t know what to do. I mean, should I call Chelsey’s parents?”
Sophie stopped smiling.
“If I do, will that get her killed? If I don’t, will she hate me?”
“I don’t know, Kenny. As a mother, I’d want to know, but you never really know how you’ll feel until you’re in that situation. If my baby was threatened, like Deidre, then I wouldn’t go to the police. I’d do whatever they said to do. I would sell my soul to get my child back.”
“I can’t risk it, Sophie. I can’t risk telling Chelsey’s parents and end up losing both Grandma and her. If… she’s not back by Monday, then I’ll tell her parents. I’ll have no choice but to bring in the police.”
“I think that’s probably a wise choice.”
Kenny looked back at the pizza, and a terrifying thought hit her. “You had this delivered, didn’t you?”
“Sí. It was faster than my mixing one up.”
“Where’s Tobias?” Kenny asked anxiously.
“He’s upstairs. Want me to get him?”
Relaxing minutely, she replied, “Yes, please. I need to talk with both of you.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll get him.” Sophie looked at her curiously, feeling the anxiety flowing off of Kenny. “Eat,” she demanded as she walked up the stairs.
Kenny took another bite of pizza, wiped her fingers, and sat at the laptop. She pulled up a browser and did a search, then she pulled out her cell phone and made a call. “Let me talk to the owner, please.”
Just as Sophie and Tobias came down the stairs, Kenny finished her call and put the phone back in her pocket. Tobias made a beeline to the pizza box, helping himself to a slice.
“Didn’t you just eat?” Sophie asked.
“Yeah, but I would never pass up a slice of pizza,” he explained through crunching crust.
“Okay, I need you two to listen to me,” Kenny said sternly.
Sophie looked at her son, who was making love to his pizza. She slapped his arm and pointed at the box. He frowned and took another bite before tossing what was left into the box.
“Good. Thank you. Okay, so I just got off the phone with a security guard company, and they are sending over three bodyguards to protect you and this house.”
“No. We don’t need bodyguards,” Sophie argued.
“That’s what Chelsey thought and where is she now?” Kenny shot back.
Sophie shook her head, fighting her tears. “I don’t know.”
“Exactly!” Realizing she was being antagonistic, she exhaled and started again. “I want to ask you both to stay here this weekend. Don’t leave the house, don’t order pizza or anything else that needs delivery, and don’t let anyone inside the house. If you absolutely have to go out, then take a bodyguard with you.”
“I don’t even have a car here,” Sophie offered. “Oh, um…”
“I’ll take you to get your car, Soph. I want to take a look at the crime scene.” It was so much more than a crime scene. It was where someone took her lover from her.
“I guess I can skip the BYOB and WYUYH party tomorrow night,” Tobias said with a grin.
“I don’t even like the sound of that,” Sophie stated.
“It’s a bring your own beer and wear your underwear on your head party,” Kenny translated. “Luckily, I always passed out before I got into someone else’s underwear.”
Sophie gasped. “Kenny, you didn’t
?”
She shrugged with a smirk on her lips but didn’t answer the question. She was only trying to follow Tobias’ lead and lighten the mood. “Okay, seriously. Will you two stay inside until Monday?”
“I’ve got a class Monday morning,” Tobias announced.
“Por favor, Tobías. Stay here with me on Monday,” Sophie whimpered.
Tobias took one look at the distress in his mother’s eyes and knew he had to stay and protect her, just to make her feel more at ease. “Está bien, Mamá. I’ll stay here and keep you safe.”
“Te amo hijo.”
“I love you, too, Mamá.”
“Would you two speak a language I can understand, please?” Kenny teased.
“Of course, chica,” Tobias retorted.
Kenny laughed and then began to cry. She couldn’t stop the tears no matter how mortified they made her feel. Watching Sophie and her son together once again reminded her of her own motherly grandmother. She always made a point of telling Kenny that she was loved, either verbally or physically with hugs, lots of hugs. Deidre was a very demonstrative woman, not just with her, but anyone she thought needed a hug. Kenny needed a hug from her. Desperately.
Sophie was a lot like Deidre. She stepped closer with her arms out, but Kenny held up her hand. She had too much to do to stand there and cry all day. She had no choice; she had to keep busy or completely break down.
“Okay. Tobias, someone at my party took that picture of the commissioner and me. I need you to scrub every photo looking for something, anything that might be a clue. Maybe his reflection was in a glass someone was holding. Maybe someone wearing glasses was looking at him. I don’t know, just whatever you can think of.”
“I’m on it,” Tobias said. He grabbed a soda and another slice of pizza and sat down at the row of computers.
“Sophie, as soon as the bodyguards arrive, let’s go get your car, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and Tobias, when we get back, check the cars for trackers again, okay?”
“Will do,” he said over his shoulder.
It was late afternoon when the bodyguards arrived. Kenny checked their IDs and then introduced them to Sophie and Tobias. She explained to them that her sudden wealth and notoriety had brought out the crazy people. They didn’t need to know about the kidnapping. Kenny had requested that one of the guards spoke Spanish, because Sophie reverted to her native language whenever she was startled or became upset. Sophie took one look at the tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man with the square jaw and thanked Kenny for the eye candy. Tobias was much the same with his bodyguard. Ten years his senior, Carla Shaw was a pretty, athletic woman with a fondness for pizza. Kenny hadn’t planned it that way, but if it helped her friends accept their guards she was glad. She knew they would be better protected. As soon as the guards were in place, Sophie, her bodyguard Miguel González, and Kenny drove over to Chelsey’s apartment.
Miguel, a thirty-four-year-old former Marine, stood beside Sophie as she unlocked her car with her spare set of keys. But she didn’t get in. Instead, she watched as Kenny inspected Chelsey’s car. The car wasn’t locked, so Kenny got in and sat down. No keys, no purse, nothing that would indicate Chelsey had even been there, except for Sophie’s car parked beside it.
Kenny pulled out her cell phone and snapped pictures to study later. Chelsey was smart, she would have left a clue, if she was able to. Please, Chelsey, help me find you. Her phone vibrated as she was snapping a picture and it almost caused her to drop it. She recognized the caller ID and accepted the call immediately.
“What have you got?” she asked anxiously. There was no other reason for Tobias to be calling her, so it had to be good news.
“I found a reflection, like you said,” he stated. “Can’t be one-hundred percent sure it’s our guy, but facial recognition pulled up his arrest record.”
“What was he arrested for?” she asked as she got out of the car.
“He’s been in and out of jail for drugs but no long-term convictions.”
“That’s great work, Tobias. What’s his name?”
*
“His name is Harold Otter,” Deidre stated in a light brogue accent. She walked over to the window and looked out. “He claims to be Kenny’s father.”
Chelsey gawked at Harold as he tipped his invisible hat and then left the room, locking the door from the other side. She turned to Deidre and asked, “You don’t know for sure?”
“No, Jaylen always said that she didn’t know who the father was, but he knows all about her and Kenny. Much more than I would have thought a kidnapper would know.”
“If he is the kidnapper, he’s not working alone,” Chelsey said.
Deidre turned and gazed at her. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“My name’s Chelsey, and I’m a friend of your granddaughter. I worked with her at the plant.”
“Oh, that awful garbage plant. Sometimes I can still smell that sour stench from Kenny’s work clothes. When she won the lottery, I had her burn them.”
“So, you must be her grandmother?” Chelsey asked, although she already knew the answer.
“Oh, where are my manners? Yes, I’m Deidra Whitt, Makenna’s seanmháthair and adopted mother, although I always insisted that she call me Mhamó. That’s Gaelic for Grandma, which is Southern for Grandmother.” Deidra chuckled at her own joke, but Chelsey wasn’t laughing.
“So, why are you faking being kidnapped and why the hell did you have them take me?”
Deidre’s mouth fell open, and her eyes grew large. “What on earth? Why would you think that I would do something so despicable? My, God. I would never do that to my baby.”
Chelsey jutted out her chin and said, “You told Harold that I wasn’t part of the plan so you must be in on what that plan is.”
“Oh, no. You misunderstood. In the short time that I’ve been held hostage by that man, I’ve learned that Harold is an imbecile, albeit it an imbecile with a gun. I like to push his buttons because that’s the only weapon I have.”
“That’s pretty dangerous.”
“Yes, but as you said, he’s not working alone. I’m just not sure who is telling him what to do.”
“Kenny believes it’s her mother,” Chelsey offered, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor.
“Oh, no. Oh, I hope not,” Deidre whimpered, sitting in the chair.
“You don’t think Jaylen is capable of kidnapping you?”
“Yes, I know she is if it means more drugs, but I hope she didn’t do this, for Kenny’s sake. Even though Kenny never met her mother, she never liked her, which was my fault. She asked once about her mother and I told her the truth, well, most of the truth. I told her about the drugs and how her mother couldn’t escape the hold they had on her. But I was afraid to tell her about how often her mother was in and out of prison because of the drugs. It’s one thing to have an addiction; it’s another to rob someone for money to feed that addiction.”
“She’s convinced that Jaylen kidnapped you to torture her.”
“You see, that’s why I don’t think it could be Jaylen. I heard that she was out of prison now and the first thing she’d want to do is buy more drugs.”
“But she’s been in prison for six years. She’d have dried out by now,” Chelsey argued.
“And you think she abstained while she was in there? No, dear. Harold would have found a way to smuggle drugs in. If not him, then someone else. Probably several people. No, she’d want to get high the first thing. That’s why she wouldn’t prolong this kidnapping; she needs the money.”
“But with Kenny’s money, she could buy all the drugs she wanted. I read the sign Harold made me hold up. They’ve doubled the ransom. It’s now up to eighty-million dollars.”
“Oh, my stars,” Deidre gasped.
“Kenny has offered to pay whatever amount they wanted, but they don’t seem interested in collecting the ransom money early. Like I said, they’d rather torture her first. What I don’t
understand, now that I know Harold is supposedly Kenny’s father, is why would he help perpetrate such a cruelty on his own daughter?”
“And if he’s not the ringleader, then who is it that hates Kenny so much they’d torment her like that?”
Chelsey shook her head. “Maybe it’s not Kenny they hate. Maybe it’s, and I’m sorry to say this, maybe it’s you they hate.”
“Possibly, although I don’t think I’ve pissed anyone off that bad. That said, if it is Jaylen, then yes, it’s me she is trying to torture without regards to what it would do to her daughter.”
“That’s something I hadn’t considered until now,” Chelsey admitted. “We followed your clue about the medals and found Jaylen’s letters.”
“Oh, good. I didn’t know what else I could do. I just hoped Makenna would somehow figure out what the sign stood for.”
“Actually, I speak sign language so I translated, and then she figured it out. We drove up to the McPherson prison but Jaylen had already been released, so we talked to Jaylen’s ex-roommate instead. She certainly is no fan of your daughter.”
“I can’t say that surprises me. From what the warden told me on several different occasions, Jaylen was not an easy inmate to get along with. She had violent mood swings that I blame on the drugs.”
“So, she wasn’t that way when she was younger?”
Deidre’s eyes misted over as she thought of her little girl. “No, she was a wonderful child. So full of life and adventure. Kenny was the same way. But Jaylen fell in love with a boy who took her to a party and talked her into trying cocaine. Everyone was doing it, so why not experiment, right? It didn’t take her long to get hooked on it.”
“I remember how hard it was in high school to say no.” Chelsey reflected. “But luckily my parents were the hands-on type. They’d insist on meeting my date, but then, I never dated much until college, and usually, the girl was studying to be a detective or firefighter and wouldn’t go near drugs. You can’t be a cop if you have a record.”
Jackpot Page 19