Stolen Child

by Jane M. Choate

  “Give me your phone number,” she said. Once he did, she entered it into her phone.

  She lifted her gaze to Grey’s. His eyes held such pain that she wondered she didn’t drown in it.

  * * *

  If the circumstances had been different, Grey would have appreciated the cool air inside S&J’s air-conditioned offices. As it was, though, he simply cataloged it as he had other impressions.

  Shelley Judd was self-assured, confident, with a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of openness. Rachel Martin, on the other hand, was quiet, intense and, unless he missed his guess, full of secrets.

  Acknowledging that he needed them, he swallowed hard. He, who had been on missions where death—or worse—was a distinct possibility, was dangerously close to breaking down in front of two strangers.

  Nothing made sense. Not since he’d received the telegram from his former mother-in-law saying that his baby daughter Lily had been kidnapped.

  Why was someone trying to kill him outside her home? And why go after him at all if ransom would eventually be demanded? He had no answers, only questions.

  Rangers were trained to find solutions. He had five years in the rangers, and yet right now he felt as clueless as a greenie on his first day in the field.

  If he didn’t find Lily, anything he’d done in his life up until now was meaningless. If he didn’t bring his daughter home, the shooter was welcome to him.

  No. He refused to go down that path. Self-pity wasn’t his style. He wasn’t going to wear it now.

  “Let’s go see the nanny,” Rachel said. “I want to hear what she has to say.”

  He pushed back his chair. “Let’s go.” Outside he pointed to a seen-better-days pickup. “That’s my ride.”

  “Looks like it’ll do the job,” she said and climbed into the passenger side.

  He appreciated that she didn’t complain about the truck’s battered state or less-than-pristine interior with the occasional spring popping through the upholstery. What mattered was the heavy-duty engine that would handle rough roads and treatment. He figured he would likely encounter both on this, his most important mission.

  Grey climbed in the driver’s side then shifted the truck into gear.

  When Rachel shifted in her seat, probably to avoid a spring, she sent him a wry look. The small smile that found its way to her lips transformed her face, and he did a double take. Beneath the scraped-back hair and plain clothes, the lady was beautiful.

  He kept his thoughts to himself. Instinctively, he knew she wouldn’t welcome the words.

  The woman was an enigma. He only hoped she was as good at her job as Shelley had promised. As for him...finding Lily was all that mattered.

  They located Jenae Natter’s address in a neighborhood that might have been fashionable in the 1940s and squeezed the truck into a grassy rut that served as a makeshift driveway. Pots of petunias and Johnny-jump-ups flanked either side of the stoop. A small patch of grass fronted the red-brick, five-story building, which appeared to have started life as a large single-unit house.

  Inside the old-fashioned vestibule, they checked which apartment belonged to Jenae and saw that she lived on the second floor. A door slammed from the floor above, and a dark-clad, masked figure ran down the stairs. Surprise shone in his eyes as he saw Rachel and Grey. He turned and headed back the way he’d come, Grey in hot pursuit, Rachel a few steps behind.

  “He’s heading for the roof,” she shouted.

  Grey took the stairs two steps at a time, trying to overtake the man, but the narrow stairway hampered his movements.

  They reached the rooftop and then squared off from each other, sizing the other up.

  “Nobody has to get hurt,” Grey said.

  “Yeah? We’ll see about that.” The man charged Grey with the force of a battering ram.

  The impact sent Grey to the ground, but he took his opponent with him.

  They each sprang to their feet and grappled, two evenly matched warriors. For every move Grey made, his opponent parried. A vicious kick to Grey’s side caught him just above the kidneys. Agony coursed through him, but he didn’t go down and succeeded in inflicting a blow under the man’s nose, causing blood to spurt.

  Enraged, the attacker came at Grey again, this time sending him to the edge of the roof.

  Carried by momentum, Grey went over. At the last second, he managed to grasp a hunk of the concrete ledge with his right hand.

  And held on.

  But for how long? His angle was such that he couldn’t swing his other arm to help take his weight.

  Grey had to survive, not for himself, but for Lily.

  Then his plight set in with thundering reality. The ledge was crumbling and his right arm screamed with pain as he held on with all his might. He knew that the odds of surviving a five-story fall were slim.

  Lord, if this is it...

  He’d reckoned without Rachel. Her hair a nimbus of blond and golden brown outlining her face, she leaned over and grabbed his wrist. “Hold on.”

  TWO

  Rachel grasped Grey’s wrist and pulled. She was plenty strong, but could she drag a man who outweighed her by more than eighty pounds up and over the roof’s ledge?

  Pain burned through her arms and shoulders. She ignored it. Ignored the sun beating down on her head. Ignored the scrape of loose pebbles stinging her skin. Ignored everything but the man whose life was in her hands.

  The man Grey had been fighting had run off, and though she regretted not being able to capture him, she was grateful that she didn’t have to grapple with him while trying to save Grey.

  Sweat slicked her palms, causing her to lose her grip momentarily. She firmed up her hold on his wrist and dug in her heels.

  “You can’t do it,” he yelled. “If you don’t let go, we’ll both go over.”

  “Forget it.” On her belly, she braced her feet to gain traction, her calf muscles cramping with the pressure as she took more and more of Grey’s weight. Progress was measured in fractions of an inch. A few more inches and Grey would be able to pull himself the rest of the way.

  You’ve got this. The words pounded in her head as she gained another precious inch. “We’re almost there. Trust me.” She didn’t know if she’d said the words to convince him or herself.

  When Grey swung first his right arm, then his left, over the edge, relief poured through her. He pulled himself the rest of the way up and over.

  Panting, they lay side by side.

  “You saved my life.” His voice was a croak, but she heard the gratitude behind the words.

  “All in a day’s work.”

  Grey was the first to get to his feet, then he offered his hand and pulled her up. He gave her arms a critical look. “We need to get some ointment on those scrapes.”

  She gazed at his arms, saw the same angry scrapes and abrasions that covered her own. “Later. Right now I want to get inside Jenae’s apartment.” She then said what they both feared. “I have a feeling we’re not going to like what we find.”

  They trudged back down the stairs and found Natter’s second-story apartment. The door was left ajar. The smell hit them first, and Rachel knew she’d been right.

  The body of a young woman lay crumpled on the floor. Two small gunshot wounds, a double tap, were centered in her forehead.

  “That’s Jenae,” Grey said. “I met her when Roberta hired her.” Pity filled his voice. “She was so young.”

  Rachel nodded, sickened by the waste of life. From the decomposition and the state of rigor, she guessed that Jenae had probably been dead since early yesterday. What was once probably a pretty face was now bloated, the skin discolored, the veins bulging. Rachel punched in 911 and gave the address.

  “Whoever pushed you off the roof didn’t do this,” she said. “At least not today.”

  “So what was he
doing here?”

  “Best guess? He was looking for something.”

  Spring had skidded into summer, the heat squeezing like an angry fist in the closed room, but Rachel dared not open a window. Any change in the room’s air could throw off the body temperature, a critical factor in determining the time of death.

  Careful not to touch anything, she gazed about the two-room apartment, looking for insights into Natter’s personality. A watercolor of a spring morning framed in what was no doubt a thrift-store frame hung on a wall. A drab sofa was brightened by crocheted throws. The bump-out kitchen held a hot plate, a small refrigerator and a single stool propped up to a narrow counter.

  Her death was a good indication that she had been involved in the kidnapping, either directly or indirectly. Collateral damage. The young woman had paid a high price for whatever she had been promised.

  “There goes our best opportunity to find whoever took Lily,” Grey said, despair thick in his voice.

  Having dealt with other parents caught up in the gut-wrenching fear of having a child taken, she recognized the helplessness and pain. Grey was an army ranger, but he was as susceptible to fear for his child as the next parent.

  A siren sounded, signaling the arrival of the police.

  She hadn’t wanted this job. Hadn’t wanted to get involved in the horror of a child abduction. But she was glad now she’d taken it. There was no way she could have refused to help.

  An hour later, after the police arrived and questioned them exhaustively, she and Grey made their escape. “I want to talk with the neighbors,” she said. “Maybe they saw something.”

  After striking out at the other apartments where the tenants claimed not to know anything, she and Grey were just about to leave when they heard movement in the apartment across from Jenae’s. They had tried it earlier, but no one had answered the door.

  Rachel knocked again.

  A small woman, who could have been anywhere between sixty and eighty and used a walker, answered the door. “Did you knock earlier, dear? I thought I heard someone, but I was in the middle of one of my stories. I couldn’t leave it until I found out who killed Jerome.”

  “Jerome?” Grey repeated.

  “He’s the hero of my favorite daytime drama.” At Grey’s blank look, she chuckled. “Soap opera.”

  Rachel stuck out her hand. “I’m Rachel Martin. This is Grey Nighthorse, Mrs....”

  “Rasmussen. Clara Rasmussen. Lived in this apartment for more than forty years.”

  “Mrs. Rasmussen, did you know Jenae Natter?”

  “Of course. She’s a sweet girl. Why are you asking about her? Did something happen to her?”

  Rachel gently explained, then grabbed the lady’s arm when she swayed. Grey took the other arm, and, together, they helped her into the apartment to settle on a 70s-style brocade sofa.

  “It’s a shame. A downright shame,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, wiping the corners of her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief. “She treated me real polite-like, even helped me with my groceries when I couldn’t manage them myself. Some young people just ignore an old woman like me, but not Jenae. Always had a kind word, she did.”

  “Did you notice anyone hanging around?” Rachel asked. “Someone who didn’t look like he belonged.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen shook her head. “But Jenae did tell me that she’s been seeing a new man. Said he was tall, handsome, a real dreamboat.” She laughed. “She didn’t use the word dreamboat. That was just how I thought about him from her description and the way her eyes sparkled whenever she talked about him. Same way mine did when the mister was courting me all those years ago. He’s gone now, twenty-one years, but I still miss him.” Another dab of the handkerchief.

  Rachel considered what Mrs. Rasmussen had told them about Jenae. Confiding in a friend about a new man in her life spoke of girlish dreams, ones that would never be realized.

  “Did she say anything more about him?” Rachel asked, in an attempt to steer the conversation back on course.

  A wrinkle worked its way between Mrs. Rasmussen’s brows. “Only that he was sort of secretive. Didn’t like meeting any of her friends or having his picture taken.”

  “Did Jenae happen to get a picture of him anyway?” Rachel asked.

  “Not that she said.” A sob caught in the older woman’s voice. “She told me she was going away with him real soon-like, how he had something in the works that would pay off big and that she was helping him out with it. Always helping somebody, that girl was.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Rasmussen,” Rachel said. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “Anything I can do to help find the person who hurt that sweet girl.” The teary eyes brightened a bit. “It’s my first time to be questioned about a murder. Do you think the police will want to talk with me, also?” Mrs. Rasmussen sounded more excited than resigned at the prospect.

  “I’m sure they will,” Rachel said.

  Back in Grey’s truck, Rachel fastened her seat belt, her thoughts swirling about what they’d learned from Jenae’s neighbor. “It’s not definite, of course, but it could be that Jenae was being used by this dreamboat of hers and then he took her out when he no longer needed her.”

  “How does that help us?” Grey asked.

  “It tells us that, if we’re right, she was involved.” Rachel considered what Mrs. Rasmussen had told them.

  Grey dug his hands through his hair. Rachel read the vanishing hope in his eyes. “Where do we go from here?”

  “I want to try to find out more about Jenae Natter. She was important enough to be murdered.”

  Back at S&J, they went to Rachel’s office and she booted up the computer. A search on Jenae Natter revealed meager information, including her age, twenty-four, her schooling, one year of junior college, and the fact that both parents were deceased. No siblings. No outstanding warrants. The girl had been a nonentity, easy pickings for someone intent on using her.

  She switched her train of thought. “Do you have any enemies in the States?”

  “I’ve been deployed for just under five years. Anyone wanting me dead is in the Stand and fighting for the other side.”

  “Maybe someone you went through training with? Someone who’s carrying a chip on his shoulder because of some real or imagined slight.”

  That gave him pause.

  “There was a man who was in ranger training with me. He didn’t make it. Blamed me for getting him booted out. But that was years ago.”

  “Some grudges run deep. Do you know where he is now?”

  “A couple of years ago, I heard he settled in Georgia. I don’t know if he’s still in the state or not.”

  “What’s his name? We’ll do a search on him.”

  “Victor Kelvin.”

  Rachel got to work. She could navigate her way through a computer search with the best of them.

  “Got it. He’s right here in Atlanta. Works for a trucking company.” She stood. “Let’s go.”

  A familiar sense of tracking a lead filled her. It was a heady sensation that reminded her of all she’d walked away from when she left the Bureau. It had been three years since she’d done real fieldwork, and she admitted that she’d missed it. The satisfaction evaporated as quickly as it had appeared.

  A child’s life depended on her. She’d already lost one child on her watch. Could she save this one?

  * * *

  The trucking company where Victor Kelvin worked was located not far from a marshy area, the smell of pluff mud hanging heavily in the air. The scent carried Grey back to his childhood, where he and his friends had stuck their feet in the gooey gray mud, then pulled them out with a plop of sound. The mud could yank a shoe or a boot right off the leg and refuse to give it up.

  Those innocent days were long gone.

  It wasn’t hard to discern that the company had fallen o
n hard times. Scabs of rust-coated trucks too old for practical use sitting abandoned to the side. Clumps of weeds had worked their way into cracks on the loading area. The overall appearance was one of a business struggling to stay alive...and failing.

  They found Kelvin in a loading area. The onetime ranger candidate had gone to flab. The fleshy folds of his face gave him a jowly appearance, while his belly spilled out and over the waistband of his pants. Grease and dirt stained the shirt he wore, bearing the name of the company he worked for.

  Spite glinted in pale blue eyes as he took Grey’s measure. “Well, well, well. If it ain’t the high-and-mighty ranger himself. Grey Nighthorse. What brings you to my humble workplace? You slummin’ or somethin’?”

  “Kelvin.” Grey held the man’s gaze until Kelvin dropped his and shuffled his feet as though he didn’t know what else to do with them.

  Then he lifted his head and sneered as though he had thought of something funny. “Who’s the lady? I know she’s not your wife. I seen pictures of her before.”

  “My wife died a year ago,” Grey said evenly. “Rachel Martin, Victor Kelvin.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Kelvin said in a tone that said he was anything but. He turned his attention back to Grey. “Good to know you aren’t cheatin’ on your rich wife. ’Course, you always did know where your bread was buttered the thickest.”

  Grey kept his temper.

  “I thought you were still in the Stand, fighting the good fight,” Kelvin went on, his good ol’ boy drawl becoming more marked with every word.

  “I’m home on personal business.”

  “Whadya want with me?” He wiped meaty hands on the legs of filthy jeans. “You can see what they have me doin’. Gettin’ my hands dirty with engines. Not exactly like you glory-hog rangers, is it?”

  “My hands get plenty dirty in the rangers,” Grey said evenly. “As do those of every man and woman there.”

  “Yeah? Wanna switch jobs with me?”

  “I want to know if you had anything to do with my daughter’s abduction.”