by Kay Hooper
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” She returned the photo to the bag. “He took her this morning? It can’t have been too long ago; she was in and out, I saw her.”
“Wyatt received the note less than an hour ago. Twenty minutes ago, her car was found parked at the side of a small café where she often gets coffee.” His voice was still even, unemotional, as it had been from the moment he’d entered the room. “No one inside saw her arrive, and she didn’t go in. So far, we haven’t found anyone in the area who saw her.”
“The sheriff got the ransom demand?”
Lucas nodded.
“How much?”
“Exactly what he’s got in savings. Twenty grand.”
“Exactly that?”
Again, Lucas nodded. “The kidnapper has never been so precise before, just in the ballpark of what the family or significant other could afford. This time it’s almost to the penny. And I doubt it’s a coincidence.”
“No. No, I don’t think it is. He’s being bolder, isn’t he? Like he’s thumbing his nose at you.”
“At someone.” Lucas shook his head. “He took a cop this time, which is either very, very stupid or very brazen. And I don’t think he’s stupid.”
“When is the ransom to be delivered?”
“Tomorrow afternoon at five.”
Frowning, Samantha said, “But if he knows Metcalf has the right amount in savings, he must know the sheriff could get his hands on it today. Why give you more than twenty-four hours to try and find Lindsay?”
“Just for that reason, I think. To give us time to search. To see how good we are. Maybe he’s even out there watching, observing our methods.”
Samantha studied him across the table. “What else do you think? What do you feel?”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“You know Lindsay, you’ve been around her for days. You don’t feel anything from her?”
Lucas shook his head.
Refusing to leave it, Samantha said, “Because she’s unconscious, maybe.”
“Maybe.”
She didn’t have to touch him to know what lay behind the calm tone and expressionless face, but all she said was, “If Metcalf got the ransom note, do you think it’s because he’s Lindsay’s boss—or her lover?”
Lucas was clearly unsurprised by her knowledge of that relationship. “The latter. He knew their secret, and he wanted us to know he knew. He’s making it personal.”
“Where’s Metcalf now?”
“On his way out to the carnival.”
Samantha came up out of her chair. “He’s what? Jesus, Luke—”
“Calm down. Jay’s with him; she’ll see to it that nothing gets out of hand.”
“He can’t possibly believe anyone at the carnival had anything to do with this.”
“The carnival is fairly close to the café where Lindsay’s car was found. Someone could have seen something. He’s justified in wanting to talk to people out there.”
“Talk? You know damned well he wants to do more than talk.”
“I know he wanted to come in here and throw that picture in your face about ten minutes ago. Sit down, Sam.”
She did, but said bitterly, “Oh, it’s my fault again, is it? Because my prediction was only half right?”
“He’s not entirely rational at the moment. And don’t expect him to be anytime soon. You’re an easy target, we both know that, and he badly wants to get his hands on whoever’s responsible for this.”
“It is not me.” Her voice was flat.
“I know that. On some level, Wyatt knows it. Even the media outside knows it. Which is another complication, since they also knew you were in here to prove your innocence.”
She sighed. “And what I’ve really proven is that I knew or strongly suspected there’d be another kidnapping.”
“Business should be brisk at your booth tonight, assuming you mean to open up for readings.”
Samantha leaned back in her chair, staring at him. “Yeah, genuine psychics are rare beasts. Isn’t it dandy—and useful—publicity that I’ll be validated in the media now.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t have to.”
Lucas drew a breath and let it out slowly. “People will be curious, that’s all I meant.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Stop being so goddamned touchy and help me find Lindsay Graham before this bastard kills her.”
“Are you asking?”
Getting to his feet, he said roughly, “Yes, I’m asking. Because I don’t have a clue, Samantha. Is that what you want to hear? I don’t even have a place to start. And I have no time for regrets, or explanations, or this little dance you and I always seem to do. I’m out of time because Lindsay is out of time; if we don’t find her by tomorrow night, in all probability she’ll be dead. So if you don’t want to help me, at least try to help her.”
“The sheriff,” Samantha said, “is not going to like it.”
“I’ll deal with Wyatt.”
She gazed up at him for a long moment, then shrugged. “Okay,” she said, getting up. “Let’s go.”
Lindsay wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but she was fuzzily aware that it had. Try as she might, the last thing she could remember was eating breakfast that morning with Wyatt; everything after that was a blank.
She wasn’t worried about it. In fact, she wasn’t worried about anything, and had the suspicion that it was because she’d been drugged. This groping-through-the-fog sensation was one she recalled experiencing years before while being heavily dosed with Valium before a minor medical procedure.
Okay, so she was drugged; she knew that much.
She was lying on a hard, chilly surface, on her belly. She also seemed to have something dark loosely covering her head, a hood or something like that. And her wrists were taped together behind her.
An experimental twitch—all she could really manage—told her that her ankles were not bound, but she couldn’t seem to make her muscles work well enough to roll over or try to free her hands. She wasn’t even sure she could feel her hands.
Bound, hooded, drugged.
Oh, Christ, I’ve been kidnapped.
Her strongest emotion just then was sheer incredulity. Kidnapped? Her? Jeez, if he wanted ransom money, then he was sure as hell out of luck. She had part of her last paycheck in the bank, but beyond that—
Wait. Sam had said it wasn’t about money. That it was all just a game, a broken, brilliant game—No. A man with a broken, brilliant mind wanted to play a game. A twisted game. With Lucas Jordan. To see who was smarter, faster. To see who was better. Like a chess game, Sam had said.
Which made Lindsay a pawn.
And she didn’t have to grope through the fog for long to remember what had happened to virtually all the other pawns.
Dead.
“Oh, shit,” she heard herself whisper.
She half expected someone—him—to reply to that, but even with her brain fogged she had a strong certainty that she was alone here. Wherever here was. Alone, bound, drugged.
Even through the muffling, quieting effects of the drugs, Lindsay began to feel the first faint twinges of anxiety and fear.
They went out the back way to avoid the media camped out front and encountered Deputy Glen Champion before they could leave the building.
He hesitated for an instant, looking at Samantha, then blurted, “Thank you. The dryer was—I had it checked out. The electrician said it was a fire waiting to happen. So thank you.”
“My pleasure. Take care of that baby.”
“I will.” He sort of bobbed his head. “Thanks again.”
Gazing after the deputy, Lucas said, “Well, you made a friend there. See something in the baby’s future?”
“Yeah. She’s going to be a teacher.” Samantha led the way out of the building.
Lucas didn’t say anything until they were in his rental car and safely out of the parking lot without drawi
ng the attention of the media. Then, thoughtfully, he said, “Aside from Bishop and Miranda, you’re the only seer I know of who can see that far ahead. The baby becomes a teacher in—what?—twenty-five years?”
“About that.”
“And you saw her as a teacher.”
“A good teacher. A special teacher. And her sort of teacher will be needed more than ever then.” Samantha shrugged. “The bright moments of seeing something good I can help bring about are generally outnumbered by the dark moments I see tragedy or evil that I can’t do a damned thing to change.”
“Which is why you warned Champion.”
“I warned him because it was the right thing to do. Just like warning Carrie Vaughn when I thought she was going to be a victim, and Mitchell—”
Lucas shot her a quick look, then fixed his eyes on the road again. “You warned Callahan? You said you’d never seen him in the flesh.”
“I said I hadn’t seen him . . . before I had the vision about him.”
“Splitting hairs,” Lucas muttered.
“I can be very literal-minded, remember? And, anyway, I didn’t see him, I just talked to him.” When Lucas didn’t respond, Samantha said, “It was obvious Metcalf didn’t take me seriously when I went to talk to him about a possible kidnapping, so I called Callahan and warned him to be careful. I doubt he took me seriously either, and it obviously made absolutely no difference, but I had to try.”
Lucas shook his head slightly but didn’t comment on that. Instead, he asked, “And what did you see that brought you and the carnival to Golden?”
“What makes you so sure Leo would change the carnival’s normal route just because I asked him to?”
“Leo would go out and rob a bank if you asked him to. Setting up shop in a small but prosperous town when you asked wouldn’t have given him a moment’s hesitation.”
Samantha was silent.
“So? What did you see? You didn’t know about the series of kidnappings before you got here, right?” He wasn’t very surprised when she answered the last question rather than the first one.
“Not really. We’d heard rumors when we passed through the state last spring heading north that there’d been a couple of kidnappings. Unusual enough in this area that it was noticed and talked about. Heard a few more rumors over the summer as we traveled through Virginia, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania, but since we were never in the actual towns where people went missing, we never heard more than rumors.”
“What did you see, Sam? What brought you here?” For several long minutes, she remained so silent that he thought she wasn’t going to answer him. Then, finally, she did.
“I had a dream.”
He frowned. “Your visions don’t present themselves as dreams.”
“They never had before.”
“Then how can you be sure this dream was different?”
“Because you’re here,” she said flatly.
He was pulling the car into the parking lot of the café where Lindsay’s car had been found, and didn’t say anything until he had drawn off to the side and stopped near the yellow crime-scene tape surrounding the sheriff’s department cruiser.
“You came to Golden because you knew I’d be here?”
Samantha got out of the car, waited until he did as well, then said coolly, “Don’t flatter yourself. Your being here was just part of the package. An indication to me that my dream was a vision. I’m here because I have to be here. And that’s all you get, Luke.”
“Why?”
“Because, as Bishop was so fond of saying, some things have to happen just the way they happen. If you’re meant to know more, you’ll have a vision of your own. Otherwise . . . you’ll find out when you get there.”
He stood gazing at her, trying to decide if she was just being stubborn or honestly felt that by telling him about her vision she would negatively affect whatever she had seen. She was good at hiding her thoughts and feelings when she wanted to; he had never been able to read her, perhaps because he’d never known her to be afraid.
Of anything.
“Shall we?” she suggested, gesturing toward the cruiser.
The two deputies standing watch informed Lucas that the Crime Scene Unit had come and gone, apparently finding no forensic traces they felt would be helpful in either locating Lindsay or identifying her kidnapper.
“He’s not going to make it easy for us,” Samantha said. “He’s not the type to give you points just for showing up.”
The two of them ducked beneath the tape and approached the car.
Lucas said, “If you’re right about this game—”
“I am. And you know I am. It feels right, doesn’t it?”
Without replying to that, Lucas said, “What Jaylene said makes sense. He can’t expect me to play his game until the rules are made clear.”
“Not if he means to play fair, no.”
“I think he’ll play fair—even if by his own warped ideas of fair play. At least as long as he feels confident of coming out on top. But if I start . . . getting ahead on points, then I’d say his rule book will probably go right out the window.”
“You’re the profiler,” Samantha said.
He eyed her. “You disagree?”
“I just think it would be a huge mistake to assume or infer anything about this one, at least until you know a lot more. He’s different from anybody you’ve ever come up against.” She hesitated, then added, “And I think that’s part of the game, you know. To keep you guessing. To challenge your assumptions.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” Lucas demanded.
She looked to make sure the deputies were out of earshot, then said, “You were facing each other across a chessboard, Luke. Both masters. Both equal in ability. Don’t you see what that means? As well as you understand the criminal mind, he understands yours. He’s a profiler too.”
Sheriff Metcalf eyed the dark-eyed, swarthy owner/manager of the Carnival After Dark and tried to keep a rein on his temper. “You’re telling me not one of you saw anything at all?”
Leo Tedesco smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, Sheriff, but we’re a nighttime carnival, you must understand that. My people are generally up very late—and sleep very late. The maintenance crew was up early caring for the animals, of course, but they’re housed on the back side of the fairground, far from the road. I can assure you that none of us saw your Detective Graham at any time this morning.”
“You’re speaking for them all? I don’t think so. I want to talk to everybody.”
Tedesco sent Jaylene a rather rueful look, having obviously decided that she possessed the cooler head of the two. “Agent Avery, Sheriff, I hope you both know we’ll be more than happy to cooperate; I’m only trying to save you wasted time and energy. I understand time is a factor, and—”
“And just how do you understand that?” Metcalf demanded.
“Please, Sheriff, do you really believe anyone in Golden is talking about anything else? Plus we’ve had the media out here more than once, and from their questions and speculations it’s obvious you’re dealing with a serial kidnapper who’s a bit anal about his timetable. He always demands the ransom be delivered by five o’clock on Friday afternoon. Which in this instance would be tomorrow afternoon. Correct?”
Metcalf glared at him.
Jaylene said mildly, “That’s common knowledge, is it?”
Tedesco nodded. “A reporter I know from one of the Asheville newspapers followed a hunch and has already uncovered a few more kidnappings here in the East with the same . . . elements, let us say. And he was too excited to keep the discovery to himself. I’m guessing the six o’clock news today will be filled with lots of information you probably don’t want to get out.”
“Thanks for the warning,” she said.
“Don’t mention it.” He smiled widely, displaying a gold tooth. “Honestly, Sheriff, Agent Avery, I’ll do anything in my power to help. Especially now that Sam has to be off your suspect lis
t.”
“Who says she is?”
Tedesco looked at the sheriff, brows lifting. “Isn’t she? She was in your own jail, Sheriff, when your detective was taken. And has dozens of witnesses to place her here when the first gentleman was kidnapped, aside from the fact that you’ve found absolutely no evidence linking her to the crime. Aside from her very obvious lack of motive and physical strength. Surely even you must admit she’s a most unlikely suspect as a kidnapper.”
Since it didn’t look as though Metcalf was willing to admit any such thing, Jaylene said, “Mr. Tedesco, could you excuse us for a moment?”
Promptly, he nodded and turned away, saying, “I’ll be in the office caravan, Agent. Sheriff.”
Staring after him, the sheriff muttered, “Caravan. It’s an RV that cost every penny of a hundred and fifty grand.”
“And his home,” Jaylene pointed out quietly. “Wyatt, we’ve checked out these people. You’ve checked them out. Police in about eight states have checked them out. They’re decent, law-abiding citizens who run clean games and shows, treat their animals well, and educate their children. They’ve caused absolutely no trouble and have even been going to church in Golden since they’ve been here. Half your town would make better suspects than these people.”
“Goddammit.”
“You know it’s the truth. And what Tedesco said was also the truth. We’ll only waste time we don’t have in concentrating our efforts here. Leave a few of your deputies to take statements if you feel you have to, but we need to move on. We won’t find Lindsay here.”
“And you’re absolutely certain of that?” he demanded.
She held his gaze steadily. “Absolutely.”
Metcalf looked away finally, his shoulders slumping. “Then we’ve got shit for leads, you know that too.”
“We’ve got a little more than twenty-four hours to find something before the ransom is due. I’m telling you, we won’t find anything here.”
“Then where?” The desperation in his voice was clear, and he made no effort to hide or disguise it. “I don’t know where to look, Jaylene. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll tell you what you might have to do,” she said, still quiet. “You might have to look past a few of your beliefs and limits and accept the undeniable fact that ordinary police work may not be able to help us here.”