by David Archer
"Yes, I think so," they heard Gabriella say softly, “but I’ve been drugged. Carol, he’s got me. The killer, I was strapped to a chair…”
“Oh, my God,” came Carol’s voice. “Gabriella, where are you?”
"I don't know. I was run off the road, and—I tried to call Chance, but he isn’t answering… Oh, God, he’s coming.” There was a pause, and then they heard Gabriella say, "No! No! No, please don’t! Oh, God, please don’t! I have a family, I have children! No, please! I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll do anything, just please don’t shoot me!"
The recording ended, and Josie’s fingers began flying over her keyboard.
“Good God,” Pete said. “Josie, can you give us any idea where she is?”
"Not really," Josie said, switching screens to a map when the recording finished. "I've tried pinging the GPS on Gabriella's phone, but no luck. The best I can do is triangulate by cell towers, but that puts her in an eighty mile radius. The center is north of us about forty miles, but that’s all I got. There isn’t anything more, so Gabriella's phone must have been switched off right after the line went dead."
Pete raised an eyebrow. "Does it have to be on to find it?"
"I'm afraid so,” Josie said. “There might be a way I can turn it on remotely, but it'll take awhile, if it works at all."
"Then do it, and call me when you've got her location."
"I'm on it,” Josie said. “Gonna take me a little time, though."
Tina sat down beside her. “Let me see if I can help,” she said.
Pete motioned for Carol and the others to follow him out of the office, so Josie could work.
"Jake," he said, addressing the young man. "I need you to start a missing persons report and get the police to put out a BOLO for Gabriella's van, alright?"
Jake nodded and said, "You got it, boss," before heading back to his desk. He was on the phone only a second later.
Pete turned and looked at Carol, his eyes dark. "I'm going to try to get hold of Chance, tell him what's going on before Jake makes his report to the police and the news media picks up on it. The last thing we need is for him to hear about this on the radio."
"Alright," Carol said. "Are you going to tell him about that call?"
“Yeah,” Pete said. “He’ll want to know everything, of course, so I'm not gonna hold anything back. We need him to get back here as soon as he can make it.”
"What about me?" Carol asked. “What can I do?”
"I want you to go to Chance and Gabriella’s house. Make sure Chance’s grandmother and the baby are okay, and stay there with them until further notice. No, wait. First, you’d better go talk to your boyfriend,” he said. “She’s his sister. Better let their parents know, as well, and then you might want to go grab the boys out of school and take them home.”
“On the way,” Carol said. She stepped into her office and grabbed her purse, then walked toward the door without another word.
Pete took out his phone and dialed Chance’s number, but there was no answer. He cut off the voicemail message and tried again, but there was still no one picking up on the other end.
"Come on, Chance,” Pete mumbled. “Answer the damn phone."
Carol had already made it out the door, but then the door opened again. Two people, a woman and a man who looked like he might be living on the street, walked in and came directly toward Pete, and he groaned.
“Hello, Pete," the woman said as her companion just stood beside her.
Pete turned to face her. "FBI Special Agent Roberts. What can I do for you today?"
"I was just sitting in my office trying to catch up on paperwork this afternoon, and one of my flags came up on the computer. When I went to check it out, this man asked me to bring him here, said he needed to come talk to you."
Pete looked at the man beside her, his eyes narrowed. “I'm afraid this really isn’t a good time…”
“I think you need to make time,” Roberts said. He looked at her for a moment, then turned back to the other man.
"Yes? How can I help you?"
The man raised his eyes to meet Pete’s and just looked at him for a moment. He licked his lips, then said, “I was told to deliver a message,” he said. “I was down near Henderson and I saw an accident. A car got run off the road, and the lady inside it was taken out and shoved into another car. The woman who took her told me to find you and say that she will be safe as long as you don’t try to interfere.”
“A woman?” Pete asked, his eyes going wide. “You saw a woman take the lady out of the car?”
The man nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there until the police showed up. They were pretty busy for a while, so I had to wait until they had a minute to talk to me.”
Special Agent Sherilyn Roberts looked at Pete. "The police went to go check out a report that a car had been run off the road," she said. "The car belongs to Gabriella Reddick, Chance’s wife, which is why it flagged me, but she was nowhere in sight. Mr. Pearson, here, was standing off the side until somebody had a moment to talk to him, and he told me what was going on. I let the police get his statement, then I brought him right over." She looked at Pete sympathetically. “Any idea what’s going on here?”
“I'm not entirely sure,” Pete said, “but we were just calling in a report to the substation. Mrs. Reddick called a few minutes ago, saying she had been run off the road and kidnapped, possibly by the man who’s been killing women the last few weeks. All we know at the moment is that she’s been taken and was apparently drugged. She called on her own cell phone, but I guess the kidnapper caught her at it and took it away. We haven’t been able to get a location on it yet.”
Roberts stared at him for a moment, then took a notepad out of her pocket. “You want to start from the beginning?”
* * *
Chance had been watching his suspect in the library for a couple of hours, and had noticed that the battery in his phone had died. He was sitting in one of the big reading chairs, holding a book and trying to look like he was actually paying attention to it while he kept one eye on the scruffy-looking man who was sitting at the far table. The guy stood at the stack of books in front of him, but he was paying more attention to the women who were in the library that he was to anything he might be reading. Chance had decided he was worth watching, but the guy hadn’t so much as spoken to any of the girls.
He took out his phone to check the time and that’s when he realized it was dead. He fumbled in another pocket for his backup battery pack, plugged it in and waited for the phone to power on. When it did, he saw that he had six missed calls, including one from Gabriella and four from Pete.
He tried calling Gabriella back, but it went straight to voicemail. A chill went down his spine as he called Pete.
“It’s me,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Chance? You need to get back to the office, right now.”
Chance glanced at the man he had been watching and saw that he had moved. “Pete? Why, what’s going on?”
“I just need you to get back here,” Pete said. “I’ll explain it when you get here, but you need to get here fast.”
Chance felt a chill again, but didn’t want to ask any questions at the moment. “Okay, I'm on the way,” he said. “Keep your britches on.”
Chapter 9
Pete was standing just inside the door when Chance arrived, with Agent Roberts right beside him. Chance glanced at her as he stepped inside, then looked at Pete.
"What’s all this?” he asked. He looked at Roberts again. “And what brings you here?"
"Chance,” Pete said, “maybe you better come sit down.”
Chance looked at him for a moment, then let Pete lead him into his office. He sat down in the chair in front of the desk, while Roberts sat down beside him.
"Okay, what’s going on?" Chance asked as a chill went through his entire body this time. “What’s this all about?”
"Chance,” Pete began. “Ga
briella has been abducted. Her car was found run off the road down on Warm Springs Road, and a witness saw her forced into another vehicle."
Chance felt panic begin to clutch at his chest. "She’s missing? Pete, that’s not…"
"Chance,” Roberts said, “I'm afraid it’s true, but there’s more."
Pete told him about the call Carol had received, and then they went down to Josie’s office so that Chance could hear the whole thing for himself. He listened to the panic in his wife’s voice, and Roberts couldn’t help noticing that his face seemed to turn to stone.
“Get a grip, Chance,” she said. “We’ll find her, we will.”
Chance nodded. “First things first,” he said. “She was begging someone not to shoot her. That means whoever it was had a gun.”
Pete looked at him. “That would make sense, yes. According to the witness who saw the abduction, the kidnapper was a woman, not a man. The sight of a woman with a gun probably shocked her.”
Chance nodded his head. “She was begging for her life, making the point that she’s got a husband and kids. Pete, we have to do something.”
Roberts put a hand on his shoulder. “We will, Chance,” she said. “You just have to hold it together. The last thing in the world you need to do right now is go off half cocked.”
“I won’t,” Chance growled. “Where do we start? Do we have any idea where she might be?”
“Not at this point, no,” Pete said. “Josie is working on it, but...”
“The only thing we know so far,” Josie cut in, “is that her phone is somewhere within an eighty mile radius of the city. Tina and I are trying to get it activated remotely through the phone company, but they aren’t cooperating, so we’re trying to do it another way. I don’t know if it’s going to work or not, but we have to try. If we can get it turned on, we can triangulate the phone with cell towers and get within at least a half mile of its actual location.”
Chance nodded again. “I appreciate it,” he said. He looked around. “Where is Carol?”
“I sent her to tell your in-laws,” Pete said. “She and Max went to get the boys from school and take them home to your house to make sure your grandma and the baby are safe. She called a few minutes ago, everything is okay at your place. Your father-in-law is on the way there, and Carol will come back when he arrives.”
“That’s fine,” Chance said. “It’s not fair, you know. Whoever took her, it’s not fair that we don’t know who it is. Did the witness have any ideas?”
“He’s working with the police sketch artist now,” Roberts said. “Hopefully, we’ll have a composite to put out shortly. Chance, do you have any idea who might have done something like this? Could it be somebody you pissed off in the past?”
This time Chance shook his head in the negative. “Nobody ever gets close to my family,” he said. “And I can’t imagine anyone who might want to hurt Gabriella.”
“It’s possible she’s just the next in the string,” Roberts went on. “But the fact that the witness was told to come to Pete makes that pretty doubtful. It sounds like the killer knows you’re on the case, and wanted you to get the word about it, but without contacting you directly.”
“Chance, think hard,” Pete said. “Is there anybody you’ve dealt with in the past that might know about Gabriella? You and I both know that enemies can go after families.” The pained expression in his face said it all. Pete’s own first wife and child had been murdered by a local mobster he was trying to shut down.
“I'm thinking, but I'm not coming up with any answers. I guess it could be somebody we’ve dealt with from the office. We can look at the cases I’ve worked on, see if maybe somebody from one of them is trying to get revenge.”
“I’ve already got Jake going through them,” Pete said. “If he finds anything, he’ll tell us.”
Chance looked at him. “Pete, we have to find her. The boys, Robin, we all need her.”
“We’ll find her,” Roberts said. “You have to keep the faith, Chance.”
He turned and looked at her. “Funny,” he said. “Wasn’t that long ago you would’ve been happy to see me suffer.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have wanted anything to happen to your wife or kids. Things have changed, though; I know you a little better than that now, and you haven’t given me any reasons to think I made a mistake in dropping my investigation.”
“If you dropped it,” Chance asked, “then how come you got called out when Gabriella’s car was found?”
“I said I dropped the investigation,” she said with a grin. “I still pay attention to what happens around you.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s a habit, now.”
“Then, are you here officially? FBI, working on a kidnapping case?”
She nodded. “Yes, I got myself assigned. I’ll be working with you and the LVPD until she’s found and this killer is shut down for good.”
Chance just looked at her for a moment, then nodded his head. “Thank you,” he said. “Where’s your shadow?”
“McCord? He’s out with the Vegas detectives now, trying to find any additional leads near where the car was found. Speaking of the car, we got that towed to our crime lab. Somebody is going over it by now, looking for any kind of clues that might be there.”
“So, all I can do right now is hope they find some.”
* * *
Carol had gone directly to where her boyfriend, Gabriella’s brother Max, was working as a security officer at one of the newer casinos. Everybody there knew about Carol, and nobody gave him any static when she stopped by. He was sitting behind the security desk when she walked in, and looked up with a smile.
His smile vanished a moment later, when he saw the look on her face. He said something to his partner, then got up and moved quickly around the desk and drew her into a side room, closing the door behind them.
"Carol," he said when they were alone. "What's wrong? Why are you here?"
"It's about Gabriella," she said. “Max—she’s missing. It looks like she’s been abducted, and it may be the serial killer we’ve been working on with the LVPD.” Carol told him what they knew, which wasn’t much, including about the phone call. She broke down into tears as she spoke, and the look in Max’s eyes just about devastated her. Gabriella was his little sister, she knew that he worried about her. The years when she had been away from the family had been hard on him, and giving him the sort of news she had just delivered was bound to be a shock. "I need you to tell me about the last time you saw Gabriella. It was last night, wasn't it?"
Max nodded, trying to force himself to focus. "Yeah. She was upset about something and wouldn't say what it was while she was at home. Since Chance was working and you were tied up at the office, I went and grabbed her and we went out for dinner."
"What did you talk about about over dinner?" Carol had been asleep by the time Max had come in, and had not thought to ask when they’d had breakfast that morning.
Max shrugged. "We talked a little bit about life back in Texas, and I told her stories about Annabelle. That always seems to cheer her up when she’s down."
"That's sweet. You mean, stories from before Gabriella was born?"
"Well, when Annabelle was younger. She remembers Annabelle just fine, but she likes to hear stories from when she was a little girl." Max smiled wistfully. "Annabelle would have loved you, you know."
Carol smiled. She'd heard this often about the middle Vasquez sibling, and she'd even done the math once and realized that Annabelle would have only been a year older than her, had she lived.
"Was there anything else that you talked about?"
"Raising kids—Robin is already showing signs that she’s going to be a handful. She's more restless than Tommy and Andy were at that age, and Gabriella thinks she’s going to be quite precocious."
"Nobody in your family does anything small, I can tell that already. Makes me a little nervous about us having kids, someday." Carol made a quick note. "Did you get the impressio
n she might have been preoccupied about anything during dinner?"
Max hesitated "Maybe a bit. What are you getting at?" he asked.
Carol let out a sigh. "She's my best friend and Chance's wife, but you're the big brother she idolizes—I think maybe there are things that she'd tell you before telling Chance or me. I'm just trying to figure out if there was something going on that might have contributed to what’s happened to her."
"I don’t think so." Max thought about the question again. "The only thing—she seems to be worried that Chance doesn’t really want her working with him, like she’s crowding in on something he wanted just for himself."
"Seriously? All he’s ever said is that she’s good at what she does. Why would she feel like that?"
Max leaned back in his chair and looked at her. While he knew that Carol and his sister were close, he suspected she didn't know some of the things he was about to say.
"My sisters were six years apart, and Annabelle took to Gabriella like a second mother. They were inseparable, so that when she was old enough, Gabriella started getting interested in some of Annabelle's hobbies."
"Like what?"
"Well, there was the fortune telling thing. The year before my sister died, she became obsessed with it."
"A lot of teenage girls do something weird—I went through something of a goth phase, myself."
Max nodded. "Well, since Gabriella believed imitation was the sincerest form of flattery and she worshiped Annabelle, she took up learning everything she could about predicting the future. She and Annabelle had deep discussions about it, too, and they tried to practice it. And, well—there was one day that was just really kind of weird."
"Weird enough you actually remember it? You must have been living out of the house by this point."
"I was, but I remember it like yesterday because I was home on break from school."
"What happened?"
"Gabriella was moping around the house all day, which was pretty weird in itself, because it was summertime, and she was usually outside having some kind of fun. I asked her what was wrong, and I remember, clear as day, she just started crying. She was only ten at the time."