by Mia Caldwell
Even though Quint wasn’t at his physical peak, she felt more secure, knowing he was at her side.
They cautiously approached the house, trying to peek in the windows as they passed, but the curtains were drawn tight, as usual.
It could be a simple matter of Raneesha having left the door open to run inside for something she wanted to take with her on a quick trip, or she might’ve been getting ready for a late-night drive with Hampton to soothe him.
No, it was unlikely either could be the case, and it was out of character for Amara’s careful mother.
Amara’s heart thumped hard in her chest as they neared the front door, her steps slowing. Quint placed a hand at her shoulder, giving a soft, reassuring squeeze. Quint stepped through the doorway first, scanning the room before waving Amara in.
As they made their way into the living room, nothing seemed out of place or strange, so Amara chanced a call. “Momma? Are you home? You left the door open!”
There was no response, and the silence worsened the rapidly tightening knot in Amara’s chest.
Quint paused, tense and alert. “Her car is still here, right? So she must be here, too. She’s not the type to go out walking at night, is she?”
“Definitely not.”
“Then let’s assume the best, but not let our guard down. Stay together while we look. If Hampton were here, where would he be?”
“In his nursery, upstairs.”
“Let’s go.”
They headed to the stairwell, Amara calling out several more times for her mother. They moved slowly and carefully, listening as they crept up the stairs. Halfway up, Quint raised a hand and then shifted it back, halting Amara mid-step.
In hushed tones, he said, “I hear something.”
Amara heard it, too. It was a strange grating noise, creaking and groaning, coming from Raneesha’s bedroom at the top of the stairs. When they heard a muffled groan, they made their way up the rest of the flight as quickly as Quint could go.
On the landing, Amara dashed past Quint and threw open the door to the master bedroom, darting inside without a second thought.
There, Raneesha sat tied to a chair, gagged and immobile. Her eyes were wide with fear and burning with tears, her breathing rapid and labored.
“Momma!” Amara spun around and tried to re-enter the hallway.
Quint grabbed her, holding her inside the room.
“Hampton!” Amara futilely twisted to escape Quint’s grip. “I’ve got to find Hampton. Let go!”
Quint’s voice was commanding in a way that wasn’t to be brooked. “Whoever did this,” he waved at Raneesha, “could still be here. Help her. I’ll look for Hampton. Where would he be?”
“Let go!”
“Dammit, Amara, listen. I’m not letting you out until I clear all these rooms. Where would Hampton be?”
Amara deflated slightly. “Two doors down.”
Quint released her, stepped back and shut the door in her face. Amara contemplated running after him. Then she heard the muffled sounds of her mother behind her.
She turned and rushed to Raneesha, reaching behind her mother’s head to untie the gag. Raneesha gasped and drew in great gulps of air while Amara went to work unraveling the knots in the makeshift rope made from cloth that secured her wrists and ankles to the chair.
The moment Raneesha was free to move, she stood and wrapped her arms tightly around Amara. Through her choked, gasping sobs, she apologized over and over, nearly incoherent in what seemed more like grief and guilt than from being tied and gagged.
Amara held her tightly until she calmed down, and then she pulled away to place a hand on each of her shoulders. “Momma, what happened? Are you hurt?”
Raneesha took a deep breath, trying desperately to steady herself enough to speak. “I’ll be okay, but —”
She broke down again, heavy sobs racking her body as she collapsed onto the edge of her bed.
The bedroom door opened, and Quint entered. One look at his pale face told the tale of what he’d learned.
He shook his head. “Hampton’s not here,” Quint said. “I found no one.”
Amara’s breathing quickened as the adrenaline roared through her system when the implications drove themselves home. “Momma … where’s my baby?”
Raneesha grabbed gulps of air while Quint propped her up and tried to rub the circulation back into her hands. “Oh baby girl. I’m so sorry. I never thought he’d do something like this. I-I-I can’t —”
Quint stepped between them and in his deep, calm voice, gently asked her what happened.
Amara wanted to be gentle like Quint, but she was beyond wild with fear, so when she spoke her voice was shrill and panicked. “Momma! Hampton’s not in his room. Where is he? Downstairs?”
In an instant, she was halfway to the door.
“He’s gone!” Raneesha wailed, stopping Amara in her tracks.
Raneesha clenched her hands together in front of her chest. “It was Frederik. He came and took little Hampton. Frederik. I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t —”
A scream broke free from Amara, and she quickly clasped her hand over her mouth as the edges of her vision went dark. Quint rushed over, holding her up when her legs gave out from under her. He guided her into the chair where her mother had been tied.
Amara’s tears fell as freely as her mother’s now. None of it made any sense. Hampton gone? Taken by Frederik?
She managed to eke out a single word through her attempts to get air into her constricted lungs. “Where?”
“I don’t know where. I’m so sorry, baby,” Raneesha said, hiccupping several times. “I shouldn’t have opened the door to him. He seemed okay. He wanted to talk about you and him. I thought, maybe there was a chance — as soon as he was inside he attacked me. I couldn’t stop him.”
Amara was devastated, unable to make sense of it. Impossible. “My God,” was all Amara could say.
“It’s all my fault. I know how you felt about him,” Raneesha said. “I just thought — I didn’t realize he was dangerous. Hampton’s my grandson, and I’d never, ever want to h-hurt —” She broke down into sobs again.
Quint patted Raneesha’s back, telling her it was okay. No one blamed her. They just needed her to tell them everything.
Part of Amara wanted to tell him that he was wrong. Amara most definitely blamed her. And it wasn’t okay. And another part of her knew blaming Raneesha wasn’t fair. But Hampton was gone.
Gone. With Frederik.
Chapter Twenty
RANEESHA GOT HERSELF BACK UNDER control, but only barely. “I thought Frederik was fine. But as soon as he came in the door, he was different. Scary. He hit me and started saying all sorts of things I didn’t understand. I was so afraid.”
She began to cough then, clearly overwrought. Quint limped into the attached bathroom, poured her a cup of water and returned with it and a damp washcloth that he gently pressed against the side of Raneesha’s head.
With a start, Amara realized there was blood on her mother’s head. It had to be from where Frederik had hit her. All blame for her mother fled with the realization.
She jumped up and took the washcloth from Quint to dab at her mother’s wound.
Quint half-staggered away and collapsed into the other chair in the room.
Raneesha managed to take a few sips of the liquid, enough to calm her coughs, and shakily went on. “He was crazy, Amara. He was erratic, jerky. I didn’t know what happened to him. He wasn’t making any sense at first, but he started ranting about how you’d ruined his career, ruined his life. He said everyone thinks he lied about your work.”
Raneesha shook her head, her hair, always so immaculately coiffed, stood up on her head in clumps, and some of those clumps were bloody. “He started referring to himself in the third person, screaming about how humiliated he was, how you had no right to do what you did and come away with everything. He said the dean fired him. And he said it was because you took what was his.”
Amara’s brow came down, her hand falling to her lap. “The dean fired him? When?”
“I’m not sure. Yesterday or today, maybe. He didn’t always make sense. What does he think you took from him?”
“I can’t say for sure. He’s been angry at me about so many things,” Amara said. “If Frederik was fired, it was because he was unhinged and had been nothing but trouble for months.” And there was the run-in with him at her office a week ago. Someone may well have reported it to the dean.
Her voice hollow and weak, Raneesha said, “He said you didn’t get to have everything and him nothing, so he was taking your son. He said he’s going to make you pay for what you’d done if you didn’t start playing by his rules.”
Amara went cold all over. Was that a threat against Hampton? He couldn’t be that unhinged, to harm a child. She had to believe that he wouldn’t, or she’d go crazy.
“He dragged me upstairs,” Raneesha said, “and tied me to the chair. I tried to fight him, but he was too strong. He kept ranting at me. He went on for so long, and he was horribly angry. I was so scared. I didn’t know what he intended to do. It seemed like he was going to kill me to get back at you. By the time he grabbed Hampton out of his crib, Frederik was talking about everything like it was a game. He’d gone calm, and that was scarier than the ranting.”
Raneesha began crying again. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have opened that door. I’ll never forgive myself. I don’t expect you to, either. I didn’t mean for any of this — my God, Amara, you have to call the police! We should have done that right away.”
“No one blames you, Momma,” Amara said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Amara looked over at Quint. “Can you call?”
Quint answered, “Yes.”
“Ask for an ambulance, too, for Momma.”
Quint nodded, looking paler than before, even his lips having lost most of their color. He appeared utterly devastated.
In other words, he looked how Amara felt.
All the same, there was a fire behind his blue eyes, and a strength that he was channeling toward her. It was as if she could hear him in her mind.
He didn’t say it out loud, but she heard it anyway: I will find our son.
Could he, she wondered? Was it that simple?
Quint stood, slipped his cell phone from his pocket and left the room without a word.
Raneesha watched him walk out of sight before she asked, “Amara … is that …?”
“Yes, that’s Quint Forbes, Momma.”
“He’s been all over the news.”
Amara’s system had gone into overload and shut down in shock. She felt detached, as if she were an observer of her own tragedy. She suspected the same was true for her mother.
Amara’s voice sounded as if it came from far away. “Yes. I’ve known him for some time. I told you about him. From that conference. We met at the hotel and had an argument about helping people.”
Quint’s voice in the hallway was easily heard, giving the address to the police.
Then he made a second call. They couldn’t tell to whom. The call was quick and simple — Frederik Orlando must be found immediately.
When he returned to the room, he looked at Amara and her mother. All his former frailty had fled. He stood strong and powerful.
“Frederik won’t get far,” he told the two, overwhelmed women. “He took the wrong man’s baby.”
Raneesha’s eyes went wide, her head whipping around to Amara.
Amara’s own head drooped. After a long, trembling moment, she spoke in a quavering voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Momma. Quint is Hampton’s father.”
Raneesha goggled at her before taking several fortifying sips of water.
Amara continued her confession. “Quint was there for me, and he funded my second round of field trials. You saw what happened after, though, didn’t you? The plane crash —”
Raneesha interrupted her, her brow pulled tight in confusion. “Yes, of course. Why didn’t you tell me any of this? And why were you going to give Hampton up for adoption if Quint is his father? Don’t you want your baby, Quint?”
Amara struggled for a long moment, trying to find the answer to the questions. When she examined it, she wasn’t even sure herself. Why was she ashamed of telling her mother that she’d agreed to have a baby in exchange for research funding? And that she’d agreed to such an unusual contract? Could her mother understand that Amara hadn’t truly realized what she was giving up? And then there were the lies. Lies upon lies upon lies.
Of course, she also had Quint’s privacy to consider, but she always knew that her mother wouldn’t say anything to anyone. Amara turned her gaze lower, completely trained on the floor now, shaking her head.
“Yes, Quint wanted, wants, Hampton,” Amara said. “I’m sorry, Momma. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I’m a very private person, and I suppose part of me wanted to keep everything a secret. It was easier that way.”
Quint was beside her, his hand stroking her back. “You had your reasons.”
Amara sniffed, and Quint handed her a handkerchief. It was hand embroidered with Quint’s initials. Beautiful.
She dabbed at her nose. “I’m so, so sorry, Momma. I haven’t told you everything yet, but I will. I’m just … now’s not the time. Please stop crying.”
But that only made Raneesha cry harder. “I can never forgive myself if we don’t find —”
“Don’t even say it,” Quint interrupted. “I will find my son. Have no doubt of it.”
Both women stared at him, awed momentarily by the power emanating from his person.
When the spell broke, Amara turned back to her mother.
“Can you ever forgive me?” Amara asked her mother in broken words.
“Can you forgive me?” Raneesha whispered, as if she was afraid to hear the answer.
“I love you, Momma. Nothing can change that.”
“And nothing can change how much I love you, Amara.”
Raneesha opened her arms and Amara fell into her mother’s familiar, comforting embrace, something she needed now more than she had ever needed it in her life.
The moment Raneesha’s arms encircled her, Amara finally let out the grief that had been trapped inside her from the moment she heard Hampton was gone. She sobbed freely, her mother along with her.
And Quint somehow slipped in behind them, taking both women into his strong, protective arms. If he cried along with them, neither woman saw it, though they felt the radiant heat of his grief.
They stayed that way until the police arrived.
Chapter Twenty One
IT TOOK NEARLY A WEEK, and a whole lot of leveraging and pressure for Quint to discover not only Frederik’s whereabouts, but also his connections.
Frederik had fled to Montevideo, the capital of his home country of Uruguay. He’d taken a chartered flight according to Quint’s sources. Aside from a record of the plane’s arrival on a small air strip outside Montevideo, there was no trace of him.
The Orlando family was well-established in the area, and had lived for generations on a hill overlooking the city. They were a large family, and while most of them still lived in or around the capital, they were rarely seen in public.
Some had broken away and lived in society at large, but the majority remained relatively secluded in their homes or in the large ancestral estate where many of the central family members, including Frederik’s parents and sister, lived.
Since the kidnapping, nearly every waking moment of Quint’s day was dedicated to sniffing out alternative leads. The obvious first choice was the Orlando estate, but Frederik could be hiding anywhere nearby.
While it seemed like a baiting move to fly to Uruguay at all, Quint rationalized that there would be no way Frederik would be bold enough to simply return to his birthplace and think he’d gotten away with the kidnapping.
No court anywhere in the world would do anything but throw him in jail, no
matter how wealthy his family was. Frederik had kidnapped Hampton and fled over international borders. This was no minor offense.
While many countries in South America were plagued with corruption, bribery, and outright nepotism, Uruguay had worked hard at becoming a beacon for openness, fairness, and growth in the region. The Orlandos had ties reaching as far back as the Portuguese discovery and subsequent occupation of the area, but even such a connection couldn’t convince any court to sweep Frederik’s crime under the rug.
Having spent days collecting intelligence about the family, their habits, and their properties, Quint texted Amara with his plan in the wee hours of the morning.
The sun hadn’t yet broken over the horizon, and the sky was alight with the eerie blue glow of a time of day few were ever awake to see. Amara rolled over with a groan, already half awake and snatched up her phone.
Since Hampton had been taken, Amara had hardly been able to sleep, catching only sporadic naps of an hour or two when her body simply wouldn’t go anymore. Despite every effort by Quint, Raneesha, and Kari to put her mind at rest, she couldn’t stop thinking about the danger her son was in.
She missed his smiling face, the routines they’d established together. She cried herself to sleep and woke to different tears drying on her cheeks.
In the hour she’d been at dinner that night with Quint, her whole world had been shaken to its foundation, and everything that made her life worth living had disappeared in a moment. It was as if a hand had reached into her chest and squeezed all the blood out of her heart.
She squinted through the tears and the sudden brightness as she unlocked her phone, rubbing her burning, swollen eyes slowly as they adjusted. The text was uncharacteristically terse, only telling her that it was time to go.
The message swept all grogginess and lethargy away. With a powerful surge of energy, she leapt out of bed for the closet to grab both her outfit for the day and the bag she’d packed for the trip.
Originally, Quint was insistent that she couldn’t accompany him, but after an impassioned plea, he’d reluctantly relented. Since then, when they spoke any time the trip came up, he tried to warn her away from coming with him. She’d hear nothing of it, however, and shut him down almost immediately every time.