by Marton, Dana
“Flint did right by you. He gave you a job, food and a roof over your head. Don’t do this.”
“Where is the money?”
“Kidnapping is one thing. Murder will follow you everywhere. The world is getting smaller every day. The cops have databases in every country. They’re all linked to each other. You can’t run from capital crime in this day and age.”
“Where is the money?”
“I don’t know. Akeem had it.” She braced for the next slap, keeping Christopher behind her, out of sight, out of Jake’s mind.
That strategy had worked until now, but it seemed Jake was getting tired of his slap-and-ask game. He walked around her, grabbed the little boy by the arm and yanked him roughly to his feet.
“Maybe the kid needs to clear his head. What do you say we go up to the roof together and see how long I can hold him out over the edge?” He flashed a sick grin. “I’m in pretty good shape from the horses, but frankly this whole business has been damn exhausting. What do you think, ten minutes?”
“Mom!”
“Please don’t,” she pleaded and tried to grab for Christopher but couldn’t catch him fast enough with her hands tied. “Please. Your men will be back with the money soon. Please let us go. Nobody has to get hurt. This is just about money. It’s not worth it, Jake. You’ll have what you want.”
“Damn right I’ll have what I want. And I’ll have some fun in the meantime.” He untied Christopher’s foot and dragged the boy behind him.
Taylor had no choice but to follow. She thanked God he hadn’t tied her legs. She stumbled on the stairs, made Jake wait for her. Playing for time was the name of her game. She needed to give Akeem enough time to somehow get away from the two thugs who had carried him off and get back here.
And if he didn’t?
She hardly dared to think of that.
What if she was all alone in this, with an armed man who was willing to do anything to get the ransom?
She blinked hard. Then she would find a way to deal with it on her own. Because, by God, she was not going to let anything happen to Christopher.
She moved as slowly as she could, scanning the staircase for anything she might be able to use for a weapon, but for the most part, the place was stripped bare.
The handle on the metal door to the roof looked promising, had she had a screwdriver to take it out and free hands to swing it at Jake’s head. As it was, she had to pass by it with reluctance. She stumbled, took her time getting up, ignoring Jake’s impatient swearing.
Christopher whimpered.
“It’s okay, honey. Mommy is here.”
However much she dragged her feet, they reached the edge of the roof all too soon. Jake gave a demented grin in the starlit night, bending to grab Christopher by the ankles and upending him, dangling him upside down in front of him, swinging him like a pendulum.
“Mom!”
If she had nerves of steel, maybe she could have played the game longer, waited for Jake until he held her son over the abyss, kept him talking, given Akeem more time. But the desperate look in Christopher’s eyes did her in and she lurched forward, toward him, falling to her knees to press her head to his small body.
“I’ll tell you where the money is.” She forced the words through her tightening throat, and apologized silently to Akeem. Because she knew that as soon as Jake had the money, he would be on the phone to his buddies to let them know that all further questioning of Akeem was unnecessary. And she had little doubt of what would happen after that. “I’ll tell you everything,” she told the man again.
“I thought so,” Jake said and let Christopher fold to the ground.
Her son was immediately pressed against her, his skinny little arms wrapped tight around her neck.
“So where is it then?” Jake was asking.
“I’ll show you.”
He backhanded her once again.
And this time, Christopher charged at him, catching him at the knees and making him stumble back a little. For a wild moment, Taylor hoped he might go tumbling back and over the edge of the roof, but that didn’t happen.
“Don’t hurt my mom!” Christopher charged again.
Taylor dived for him before he could be harmed, throwing her body between the two of them. “I’ll show you, but I swear to God, if you lay a hand on my son—”
“Get up and get going.” Jake shoved them.
The climb down from the roof went slowly. She made sure to keep Christopher up front so they both had to wait for the boy to pick his step. She was in the middle to provide buffer, Jake behind her with his gun aimed at the middle of her back, making impatient noises, swearing and shoving them now and then.
They went all the way to the ground floor, and once again she kept her eyes open for some sort of a weapon. She saw a couple of pipe chunks, but could find no way to pick one up unnoticed with Jake watching every move she made.
He shoved them along to his pickup at the covered loading dock. As he opened the door, he nodded toward the one Akeem and she had driven here.
“And what in hell happened to Pete? Would you mind telling me that?”
She thought furiously, trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make Jake overly mad. Their lives depended on his goodwill. And she might have hesitated too long, because he turned from that car, shaking his head.
“Never mind. I don’t the hell care.”
She was pretty relieved to hear that.
“Could you please cut the rope? I would like to hold Christopher.” She turned to him as he was about to lift them up into the cab.
I’d like to hold my son before we die, was what she was thinking, and maybe it had shown on her face and reached some deep-down smidgen of conscience, because after a moment, Jake untied the rope.
“Thank you.” Hope rose. If she could appeal to that remnant of conscience…
But Jake’s eyes had gone cold and hard again already. “Get in.”
She did so, helping Christopher, holding him at last, which was the best feeling in the whole world just then.
But as soon as she was up, Jake took the rope and tied her feet together. “You try anything, I just as soon shoot you. Just so we understand each other.” He walked to the driver’s side.
She said nothing, just held Christopher, who snuggled against her, burying his little head in the crook of her neck. With a child’s instincts, he knew they were in trouble and remained silent.
When they got to the first gate, Jake gave her the key to the padlock instead of getting out himself, keeping the gun pointed at her son. He didn’t have to say anything.
She got out, hopped over to the gate with painstaking care not to fall on her face, opened the lock and hopped back in. When they reached the second gate, past the guardhouse, he gave her another key.
“Make sure you lock the first gate up,” he said.
She did that, opened the second gate, waited for the pickup to pull through, locked that padlock and hopped to the car, but didn’t get in.
“Let him go,” she said instead.
Jake just laughed. “Any more brilliant ideas? Full of jokes today, aren’t we?”
“Do you really want the death of a kid on your hands? Do you know what the jury is going to give you for that? Let him go.”
“I’ll let you go together when I have the money.” His tone turned mocking. “You’re just gonna walk on out of here.”
She wasn’t willing to bet her son’s life on that. “Let him go now. I’ll catch up with him. If you don’t let him go, how can I believe that you’re going to set us free once you have the money? And if I think you’re going to kill us either way, do you think I’m really going to lead you to those millions?”
She hated to be discussing this in front of Christopher, but she had no other choice. Either she saved his life now, or neither of them were going to live long enough to worry about how traumatized he became from being kidnapped. When this was over, she was going to spend as much time and effort as was necessar
y to make him feel safe again.
“You have nothing to gain by killing him. He’s a four-year-old child. He talks about you every night before bed, you know. How Jake did this and Jake did that. Do you know that he thinks you’re the best horseman on the ranch? Do you know that when Flint asked him last week what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, ‘Jake?’”
She was telling the truth. Christopher was in love with horses and quick to hero-worship any man who worked with them. “He thinks the world of you. How can you do this to him?”
But as carefully as she watched, nothing in the man’s eyes softened. Which didn’t mean that she was going to give up. Not while there was still breath in her body. Of that he could be sure.
“This one is going to haunt you, Jake. How are you going to enjoy all that money?”
“You leave that to me.” He glared at her, then shrugged at last and mumbled something about coyotes, then jerked his head toward Hell’s Porch as he looked at Christopher and nodded to the open passenger-side door. “Scram.”
Christopher wouldn’t move an inch, of course. He was just a little kid, out in the middle of nowhere in the dark, scared to death. Not that he didn’t have every right to be. But now he had been given a chance. Getting him to move was up to her.
She lifted him from the cab. “See that?” She pointed the way she’d come with Akeem. “Flint is there, waiting. You have to walk to him. I’ll be right behind you.”
God bless his heart, he really looked, peered hard into the darkness.
“I don’t see him, Mom.”
“Maybe you have to walk a little. Go on. Be a good boy. Go to your uncle Flint.” She gave him a hug she never wanted to end, and a kiss on both cheeks, taking in his sweet, smudged little face, knowing chances were good this was the last time she would see him. “I love you, honey.” Then she pushed him forward a little.
Akeem would come. Akeem could track. Akeem would find him.
“Are you sure?” He searched the darkness.
“Of course I am,” she said when she was anything but. “You are such a big boy. You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”
That had him taking the first step. He wanted to be a big boy so badly. Being surrounded by cowboys all day long had him itching to be wearing chaps and working the horses with them.
She held her breath as he took another step, and another.
Since he wasn’t going the way the pickup’s headlights were pointing, his small form was growing less and less visible as he went.
She had no other choice, she told herself. This was his best chance. But knowing that didn’t make watching him go any easier.
“I still don’t see Uncle Flint, Mom,” he called back when he was just a blur through the darkness and her tears.
“Keep going, honey. He’s there somewhere. Just keep walking straight and I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.”
She was sending him into so much danger. So many bad things could happen to a little kid out here at night. She didn’t even dare think of the wildlife. But with the desert, there could be some element of luck involved, a chance. When it came to a bullet at close range, the chance of lucking out was zero.
And she trusted Akeem, believed that whatever it took, he would come for them. Believed it enough to send her son into the wilderness.
She blinked her eyes, wanting to see him just as long as she possibly could, but Jake stepped between them, drawing up the gun to her chest.
“Now that the touching part of the night is over, where is my damn money?”
“You’ll have your damn money,” she snapped, her heart breaking because as she looked over Jake’s shoulder, she could no longer see Christopher. She had missed that last second, possibly her last chance to see that sweet little shape, to escort it a few steps farther with her gaze in all that darkness.
“Now,” Jake growled the single word.
Her heart was shattering into jagged little pieces as she pointed at the guardhouse behind them, behind the gate she’d just locked.
“You couldn’t say that when we were there?” Jake looked like he might backhand her again.
She couldn’t have said it, in fact. Christopher needed time to get as far from here as possible before Jake put his hands on that money.
He was going for the padlock already. “You better be right about this. Come on.”
But she couldn’t make her feet move as she heard her son’s faint voice call out, “Uncle Flint? I can’t see you,” in the distance.
Chapter Ten
Akeem bided his time until he could see the silhouette of the refinery chimney against the night sky in the distance. Then he slumped to his left as if he’d passed out or fallen asleep, went for the gun with his right hand, brought it around and smacked the butt of the weapon against the driver’s temple with full force.
The vehicle veered to the left.
He was grabbing the steering wheel the next second, reaching over with his other hand to open the driver-side door, then kicking the unconscious man to the ground, all with the pickup barely slowing.
And he was on his way.
He slammed the gas pedal to the floor, watching closely, the ground illuminated by the headlights, careful to avoid bigger rocks and potholes. Flipping the pickup over on this uneven terrain at this high speed would have been only too easy. He didn’t think of the dangers, or the hundred points of pain that was his body, he just did what he had to do in that moment, then the next and the next. He had one thought only now—to get back to Taylor and Christopher in time.
FINDING PETE’S BODY in the guardhouse did not improve Jake Kenner’s mood. He made Taylor pull the dead guy outside, so he would have more room looking around in there.
She took her time, groaning under the weight, which wasn’t all pretend. Pete hadn’t been the wiry cowboy type. He had at least thirty pounds on her. She’d never been more eager to be done with a task, but she dragged this one out to give Akeem time to get back before Jake decided that the game was over.
“Where is it?” he barked at her. “I don’t see anything. If you lied—”
“In there. I didn’t see exactly where Akeem put it, but in there, definitely.” She kept glancing toward the desert, but could no longer see or hear Christopher no matter how hard she tried.
“Stay where I can see you.” Jake tossed the chair out, and it crashed into the hard ground less than a yard from her, making her jump. Then came a rickety old desk that splintered into pieces on impact. He was ripping the place apart.
She moved back toward the desert, one step then another, small ones at that, the rope allowed little. Jake had left the gate open this time. Not that she thought she could run from him, not with her ankles bound, but she wanted to listen for Christopher—who she prayed was brave enough to keep going forward—and keep an ear out for Akeem, too, hoping to hear him returning.
“Don’t set your heart on it.” Jake grunted. He could see her from the open door, just as she could see him. He was prying up a floorboard. “Your boyfriend is already dead. Either way, whether he spilled where the money is or not. Those boys can be rough.”
She tried to tune out those words, and moved back a little more to put some distance between herself and the dead kidnapper. Then she sat on the ground. If she could untie the rope that bound her feet, she might be able to make a run for it.
“Get up,” he yelled at her when he stuck his head back out. “And come closer.” He pulled back to his work again. He had to turn his back to her to do that, which apparently he didn’t much like. “Better yet, keep talking.”
So he would notice if she moved, she supposed.
She pushed up to standing. “Once you have the money, you better hightail it out of here. Your friends can show up at any time, and if they do, they’ll want a cut. It’ll be two against one.”
She didn’t want him hanging around, looking for Christopher. She wanted him away from the area as fast as possible.
“You
just worry about your own troubles,” he called back.
And since he didn’t look out, reassured by her voice that she was still where he’d last seen her, she sat back down and went to work on the rope again. She might not have been a cowgirl, but she’d been around horses and tack most of her life; she’d seen a knot or two.
“Talk,” he ordered when she stayed silent for a few seconds, focused on her task.
“It would work out better for you if you let me go, too,” she said.
“You don’t say.”
Another floorboard flew out, then Akeem’s duffel bag. Jake stepped out after it and upended it on the ground, kicked the contents around in the moonlight and swore at the tent and sleeping bag. “I don’t see any money.” He fixed her with a murderous glare.
“Keep looking.”
“I thought I told you to stand.” He kicked an empty canteen her way and it bounced off her shin.
“I’ve been walking almost nonstop for days. My feet are killing me.” She offered an innocent excuse, but obeyed him. “You have nothing to gain by shooting me,” she continued talking when he marched back in. “Everyone already knows you took Christopher. They figured that out as soon as you turned up missing the same day. Everyone knows that you’re involved, but nobody knows about the others.”
Silence in the shack.
“When this is over and I’m questioned, I’ll be giving their descriptions. The cops’ attention will be divided. They’ll be looking for the others while you get away.”
“They’ll be looking for me, too.”
“Your buddies will be a priority. If they kill Akeem like you say they will, a couple of murderers…” She let her voice trail off. “And I’ll be telling the police that you let Christopher and me go in the end.”
Jake appeared in the door again, carrying Akeem’s second supply bag.
“A couple of murderers will take priority over a kidnapper who already gave the kid back.” He seemed to consider that.
“Right.” Taylor held her breath. Please, please, please don’t think too much, just go with it.
Jake upended the bag and rummaged through this one, too. “I still don’t have the money,” he said in a voice that had murder in it, crushing her hopes.