[36]
Olivia paced the front porch and finally gave up, went back inside to hurry Wade up, and found Katie coming down the steps. “She’s not there, not upstairs, not in the closet, not in her aunt’s apartment above the garage, not anywhere.”
A sick feeling started in the pit of Olivia’s stomach. “She has to be. No one saw her leave or I would have heard about it.”
“She said she was going to the bathroom and would be right back. I was helping her pack so I finished zipping up her suitcase. When she’d been in there awhile, I knocked on the door. She answered that she’d be out in a minute.”
“Wait a minute,” Olivia said. “She wanted to tell Stacy bye.”
“Yes, she asked. I never had a chance to tell her that she couldn’t because we had to leave immediately. I knocked several more times, then I went in. And she was gone. The door to the other side, going into the guest bedroom, was open.”
Olivia pictured the setup. Amy’s room shared a bathroom with the guest room Olivia had taken her nap in after the radio station explosion. “Why would she leave?” she muttered.
“She wouldn’t. Someone had to take her,” Katie said.
“But they would have had to come in the house to get her, and we both know no one got in.” Olivia paced, thinking. “She simply had to leave on her own.”
Katie frowned and shrugged. “But why? What could compel her to walk out the door when she knows the danger?”
“Her friend. It had to be. She snuck out to go meet her.”
“Then we have to find her—and fast. Let’s go tell Wade.”
Olivia took off down the hall with Katie following her. Olivia’s phone buzzed. It was Haley wondering where they were.
Olivia
Amy is missing. Start looking for her. Tell the others to start searching and call in the dogs. She can’t be far yet.
Haley
On it.
Olivia burst into the den. Only to find it empty. She stopped and frowned. “He’s not here.” She knew she was stating the obvious, but couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“And the doors leading out to the porch are wide open,” Katie said.
Olivia’s bad feeling grew to mammoth proportions. “He was supposed to come straight from the den to the front door, get in the car, and go. We would have passed him if he were coming to the front door.”
“We need to search the house.”
“No we don’t. He’s not here and neither is Amy.”
Katie stared at her and Olivia felt a wave of nausea and horror sweep over her. “She’s done it,” she whispered. “She’s got them. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. And we’ve got to find them. Fast.”
Wade woke slowly. At first he let his mind stay blank. Then the text picture of Amy’s scared and tearstained face came to mind, and his heart thumped while he breathed a prayer for her safety. Please, Lord.
He took inventory. Hands tied or taped in front of him. Still sleepy. Warm. No, hot. Too hot. He maneuvered himself around until he could feel his back pocket. He gave a grunt of disgust when he found it empty. Whoever had drugged him had taken his phone.
Amy. He had to get to Amy. Where was she?
He looked around even as he strained against his bonds and fought the effects of the drug. Where was he? His eyes landed on the far wall and his heart stuttered in his chest. A table was pushed up against the wall. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. It was the rows and rows of pictures. From the top of the table to the top of the wall. A huge collage consisting of hundreds of pictures.
Of him. All of him. He squinted and thought he saw one of him with his wife from years ago. Only she had a red X slashed across her face.
He swallowed as he took it in. Disbelief pounded in his mind.
“Amy,” he whispered.
A surge of adrenaline burst through him and he tugged once again. But he had no strength, no control over his muscles for now. He ceased his useless struggle, blinked, and lay still. He knew how this would play out. He would be groggy for another couple of hours. Then it would be time to fight.
Olivia paced the den, thinking. Law enforcement officers had swept the grounds and the house. Katie had called in two FBI agents she’d worked with in the past. Neighbors had been questioned and a BOLO released to the press. Olivia knew Wade would hate the attention he’d face if he came home. When. When he came home. He and Amy. They would come home.
God, please . . .
Yes, she was even willing to start praying again if that would do any good.
Bruce Savage sat on the couch staring into space, his face drained of color, the pallor making him look ten years older than the last time she’d seen him.
The door opened and one of the officers entered with a bag and a cell phone. “We found these in a little clearing. Do you recognize them?”
Olivia took the phone encased in the plastic bag. “This is Amy’s,” she said softly. She pressed the button and started going through her messages. The very first ones jumped out at her. Texts from Stacy. Olivia pulled her personal cell phone from her pocket and dialed Stacy’s number.
The number rang four times and went to voice mail. She hung up and walked over to lay a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “I need Stacy’s mother’s number. Do you have it?”
Bruce blinked. Then nodded. “Yes.” He handed her his phone. She looked up the number and dialed it.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mrs. Abbott, this is Olivia Edwards, Wade Savage’s bodyguard.”
“Yes?” A distinct cooling. Olivia supposed she could understand that. She’d been questioned at length and caught in a lie. A lie that had nothing to do with Wade, but still she had to be embarrassed.
“Is Stacy there?”
“No. She’s not.” And I’m not telling you where she is. Olivia heard the silent statement loud and clear.
“Mrs. Abbott. Amy and Wade have disappeared. Do you think you could cooperate with me?”
“Disappeared?” The coolness was gone. “Why didn’t you say so? What happened?”
“We’re not sure. That’s what we’re trying to figure out. The officers found Amy’s phone with several text messages from Stacy’s phone about meeting her at their special place.”
“Right, the little clearing in the woods.” She sounded much more willing to talk now. “Stacy’s in her room. Hold on a second.” Olivia heard her call for Stacy to come here. “Honey, do you have your phone? Did you text Amy to meet you at your place?”
“No.”
“Can I see your phone?”
“Um . . . I can’t find it. It disappeared while I was at church.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Mom. It was in my purse, but when we got home and I looked for it, it was gone. I didn’t want to tell you. I was hoping I could find it before you found out. But it hasn’t turned up yet.”
“What have I told you about—”
“Mrs. Abbott?” Olivia interrupted.
“Yes?”
“It’s not Stacy’s fault. I think someone stole her phone for the whole purpose of using it to lure Amy away from the house.”
“Oh. Oh my word. I can’t believe that.” She truly sounded like she couldn’t. “Okay then. I won’t fuss at her.”
“I have to go now. If you or Stacy should hear anything from Amy, will you call me right away?”
“Yes, of course.”
Olivia gave the woman her number, then handed Bruce’s phone back to him. She filled him in. “Where’s Martha?”
Bruce rubbed his face. “She . . . uh . . . she . . . I don’t know. She was feeding all the officers, and I think when she realized they weren’t going to find Amy and Wade right away, she went to her apartment. She was crying when she walked out.” He shook his head and stared at the wall again. The poor man was in shock. He stood and walked over to the mantel. “Did you or anyone else mess with the pictures?”
Olivia frowned. “No sir. Not that I know of.”
He flipped one up that had been facedown. “This is one of Wade’s favorites. Why would he lay it facedown?”
Olivia walked over to look at it. “That’s the one that he has on the desk at the radio station. He told me it’s one of his favorites.”
Bruce nodded. “It’s one of the last pictures taken of him and his mother together. He wanted to buy the property to build this house on, but the owner wasn’t interested in selling.”
“So he got the next best thing.”
“Yes.”
Alarm bells jangled in her mind. “I didn’t notice the picture when I was talking to him earlier in here, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t turned down.”
Bruce frowned. “It’s definitely strange. I noticed it right off, but just ignored it. But I’m thinking that it might be a serious mistake not to take note of it.”
“Could it be a message?”
Quinn stepped into the room. “We’ve got a subpoena for Wade’s phone. Text message transcripts, et cetera. Until then, we’ll keep looking. I’m heading out. It’s been six hours. Bruce’s phone is rigged so that if he gets a ransom call, it’ll be recorded and traced. Officers are monitoring it. Right now, we can keep looking, but we’re in the ‘wait for someone to contact us’ phase.”
Bruce’s face almost crumpled and Olivia placed a hand on his arm. He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes. She knew he was praying.
Quinn gave her a short nod. She knew what he was thinking. If they didn’t find Wade and Amy soon, they might not find them at all. At least not alive.
Bruce stood beside her, his worry a palpable thing, but his now unflappable expression intrigued her. She kept watching him, curious. It had been her experience that most people who found themselves in such a tense, emotionally charged, adrenaline-inducing situation flipped out. They got angry, laid blame, tossed out orders, went hysterical, and required sedation. But not Bruce. He stayed silent, his lips moving every so often in what she decided was prayer.
She left him alone and just stood beside him, thinking, offering him her support and letting him know she was there.
She found herself almost praying that his prayers worked, but she felt too unsure, too disconnected from God to even feel like she had the right to pray. She’d pushed him away and had purposefully kept him out of her life. She felt too ashamed to ask him for help now.
Olivia knew her career change had been the right choice, but watching the officers do their job earlier had her on edge and wishing she were a part of them. But she wasn’t. Not really. Not anymore. Her friends on the force supported her and respected what she did, but she was no longer on the team. The team that stormed buildings and rescued kidnap victims.
“Do you believe in God, Olivia?” Bruce asked her.
She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes.” What made him bring that up?
“Do you believe he has a purpose in everything?”
“That one I’m not sure about.”
“I am.”
“Really?” He truly wanted to talk about this now? “What purpose could there be in my parents dying in a plane crash? What purpose is there in your wife dying or Wade’s wife dying? What purpose is there in this whole situation?”
“I don’t know, but he does, and I guess that has to be good enough for me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever have that kind of faith.”
“Well, maybe when you’ve lived as long as I have, you will. But keep in mind it’s not something that just happens by osmosis. It’s like any other relationship. You have to work at it. You have to get to know God on a very intimate level in order to have the kind of faith that will withstand the storms life throws at you. It’s a good thing that we only have to have the amount of a mustard seed. Sometimes that’s about all I can find.” He shrugged. “You won’t find even that much, though, if you treat him as the enemy or simply a passing acquaintance.”
That struck a chord. “Is that what I’ve done? Pushed him away so that he’s only a passing acquaintance now?” Of course it was. She’d admitted it to herself just a few minutes ago.
“I think so. But he’ll take you back anytime you’re ready. He doesn’t hold grudges, just open arms.”
Olivia stared at him. His son and granddaughter had most likely been led into a trap by a killer and here he was comforting her, offering her a spiritual hope that she’d figured was lost forever. It nearly shattered the last barrier she’d managed to keep up around her heart.
Bruce picked up the picture that had been laid facedown. “What are you trying to tell me, Son?” he whispered.
Amy sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. She swiped the tears from her face and stared at the ceiling from her position on the bed. She’d awakened to find herself in a room that looked almost identical to the one in her house. In fact, when she’d first woken up, she’d thought that was where she was. She’d figured she’d just had a bad dream and no one had sprayed anything in her face and no one was stalking her dad.
Then she’d gone to open the door and found it locked. Then the window that had cement blocks in place of the glass. When she’d realized she was trapped, she’d pounded on the door and screamed until she was hoarse. And no one had come. She stared at the vent above her head and slowly sat up. Would it work? Could she do it? Was it big enough?
She looked around. Only one way to find out. Amy scrambled off the bed and grabbed the chair that had been pushed under the desk. She shoved it on top of the bed and under the vent.
“Okay, God, when I am afraid, I will trust in you,” she muttered. “And use the brain you gave me.”
Once she got the chair placed like she wanted, she gently climbed onto it and reached up to touch the vent. Fortunately, there was only a little clip that held it closed. She opened it and swallowed at how small it was. She wasn’t sure she would fit.
But she had to try. She grabbed the opening and stepped up on the back of the chair to get higher. The chair wobbled and she almost lost her balance. Sweat pricked her forehead and made her palms slippery.
But she wouldn’t give up. She just had to get high enough to get to the flat part.
And she couldn’t do it with the chair.
She let herself back down onto the bed and pulled the chair off. She went to the door and listened. She thought she heard voices and backed up until her knees hit the bed. Then realized they weren’t coming closer. Her eyes landed on the desk.
Wade breathed deeply, finally somewhat clear-headed and alert. Waiting. Listening. His heart thundered in his ears and his chest hurt. His breathing quickened and he tried to drag in another gulp of air. But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t breathe!
The elephant on his chest pressed harder. Tighter.
Breathe! He needed to breathe. His left arm tingled. He was having a heart attack.
He panted and finally caught a breath.
The tightness eased and it dawned on him he was having a panic attack. All of his symptoms mimicked Amy’s. He shuddered. His poor child. This was how she felt?
He forced himself to stay still, to keep his eyes closed while his mind spun.
A door opened and shut and he tensed. The seconds ticked by slowly.
“Come on, Wade, I know you’re awake.”
He stiffened, the hairs on the back of his neck spiked and goosebumps pimpled his arms. “I’m awake.” He recognized the woman’s voice and froze.
“I’ve waited a long time for this, Wade.”
He sat up and closed his eyes until the nausea passed and the room settled back down. Then he opened his eyes and looked straight into a woman who’d been his friend for the past fifteen years. Or so he’d thought. “How could you, Joanna? Just . . . why? And where’s Amy?”
“Like I said, I’ve waited a long time for this. Amy is fine. For now.” Her fingers loosely clasped a weapon. A gun. Seeing her hold it—on him—almost didn’t compute. But . . . worry for Amy washed through him. “Is she here?”
“Take me to her.” He kept his fear and anger in check, his tone even, not wanting to do anything to anger her or spur her to do something in haste. Like kill him. Which would probably happen if he unleashed the words hovering on the edge of his tongue. Would it set her off? Would she shoot him in a fit of rage?
“In a bit. I want to talk to you first.”
“Before you kill me?”
She scowled. “I never wanted to kill you. I just wanted you to . . . notice me, to see me. I met you first. You should have been mine.”
Wade blinked. How had he been so blind? Sure, Joanna had flirted with him when they were younger and he’d probably flirted back, but it hadn’t been anything serious. To him. Obviously she’d felt different. “Wait a minute. If you never intended to kill me, why all of the craziness? The bombs on the radio station doors, the poisoned chocolates in the boat. Those would have killed me.” Or Amy, but he left her out of it for now.
“I know. I . . . didn’t have . . . um . . . anything to do with those things. I didn’t like that, but he said it would make you notice me—”
“He?”
“—to believe when I said I loved you because I was willing to go to such extraordinary lengths to make you see how much I cared about you,” she said as though he hadn’t interrupted. “I saved Amy from those chocolates!”
“Chocolates you put there!”
She looked insulted. “I didn’t put them there.”
“Then who did?”
“That’s not important. I believed him, though. I believed him when he said you would eventually see me for who I am and that you would be so impressed . . .” She trailed off and studied him. “But now I’m not sure. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, to let him do those things.”
“Did you attack Maddy McKay?”
She blinked at him, her face blank. “Who?”
“The woman outside the radio station. She was one of my bodyguards. She was attacked.”
“Oh her.” She nodded and shrugged. “She watched you. She followed you. She never took her eyes off you. She wanted you and I had to make sure she didn’t have you. But I didn’t attack her. He did. I told him about her the night of the charity. I told him everything.”
The reference to someone else again. “Who did you tell, Joanna?”
She spun away. “It doesn’t matter. It’s time to take you to your room. Get up.”
“One more question.”
She sighed. “What?”
His eyes flicked to the pictures. To the picture of his wife’s face marked out. “Were you ever her friend?”
Joanna’s gaze followed his. “Yes. At first. Before she met you.”
“And how did meeting me change that?” He continued to pull and work his wrists trying to free his hands, but it was hard to do anything while she watched him so closely.
“Because when she showed up, you never looked at me again. Even after I took care of her, you—”
Wade stiffened, all thoughts of getting loose on hold. “What do you mean you took care of her?” he asked softly.
She fidgeted, clearly agitated. “It doesn’t matter now.”
He shifted, the tape chafing his wrists. He felt for a rough edge, a nail, anything, but found nothing. Panic wanted to take over. He struggled to keep his terror under control. “Joanna. Did you kill Pamela?”
“Of course not.”
He watched her pace now, her steps quick and agitated. “Joanna . . .” He sucked in a deep breath. Had to draw from his training. He knew how to talk to people like her, but this was personal. She had taken his child. Amy was waiting for him to come get her.
“She died in a wreck, remember?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“She was drinking and driving. She ran off a cliff.” Her breathing increased and she continued her maddening pacing.
Wade knew Pamela drank. It had been a contention the entire time they’d been dating. He knew he never should have married her, but he’d been young and in love with the girl who’d made him laugh . . . and feel like he was the center of her universe.
Until Amy had come along.
Joanna sniffed. “She didn’t deserve you. She never gave you gifts. She wanted to party and drink and . . .” She waved a hand. “It was wrong. I could see how it hurt you.”
Yes, yes it had.
“And it bothered you to see me hurting?”
“Of course it did,” she wailed. “But I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“You were my friend, Joanna. I trusted you. You were drinking with her that night,” he said. “You let her get behind the wheel of the car.”
She scoffed. “No, Wade, I didn’t let her. I forced her to. She drank until she passed out. She mocked you and talked about what a brat Amy was and how she was stuck with the two of you.” Her fingers squeezed the butt of the gun so tight he thought it might go off even without her finger on the trigger. “I drove her to that cliff, then dragged her over into the driver’s seat and strapped her in. Then I put the car in neutral and pushed her over. Gravity helped with that one. I picked a downward-sloping spot.” She shook her head. “I actually almost went with her. I had a hard time rolling out of the passenger seat after I put the car in gear.” Her eyes widened. “I thought once Pamela was out of the picture you would finally see me. I knew you’d need time to grieve and I tried to give that to you. Then Martha moved in with you and she talked about how lost you were, how you were still grieving. So I waited. I even dated other guys so you would see I was desirable. But you never seemed to notice. Even after Justine.”
Wade gaped. He almost couldn’t take it all in. His mind wanted to cower and run from what she was telling him. His wife hadn’t lost control of her car and gone off a cliff. She’d been murdered. And Justine . . . ?
“So you started sending me gifts through the mail?”
“Yes. I thought if you saw how giving I could be, how generous, you would be intrigued. But you weren’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “You mocked me on your show. You threw my gifts away.” Tears filled her eyes. “How could you do that?”
“How could you terrify and kidnap my child!” He yelled the words before he could stop himself, his control slipping away bit by bit, word by word.
Joanna flinched and raised the gun.
Wade dropped his head, his breaths coming in harsh pants. He desperately reined in his fury, the desire to strangle the woman in front of him. He had to stay calm. For Amy. “So what now? Are you going to kill me because I didn’t love you back?”
“Kill you? Of course not. I love you.”
His head snapped up. Completely confused, he stared at her. “You’re not?”
“No. I figured the only way you would realize—that you would see me—was if I just put you in a position where you had to. I think once we’re together for a while, you’ll see that you can love me. Just like those arranged marriages in the past. Sometimes people didn’t love each other when they first got married, but eventually they grew to love their spouse.” She shrugged. “Maybe one day you’ll come to love me.”
She was crazy. But he already knew that. The fact that she’d admitted she wasn’t going to kill him helped. It meant that Amy was probably safe as well. “Can you release my hands?”
“Oh no. I can’t do that. You’re too strong and I’d never be able to overpower you again. You’ll just have to stay here and I’ll visit and bring you food and gifts and we’ll talk, but I can’t free you and you’re not going anywhere.”
“Joanna, think about it. I need my hands. I need to eat and take care of other business like going to the bathroom.”
She looked stumped for a short second, then just shook her head. “You’ll have to figure that out, but I’m not untying your hands.”
Frustration filled him. “Where does Amy fit in this plan of yours?”
She frowned. “She’ll stay in the room I’ve made for her. I knew you’d never cooperate unless she was here too. But as long as you cooperate, nothing will happen to her.”
“You made a room for her?”
“I did. I made one for you too. Do you want to see it?” She sounded almost excited. Like a giddy child at Christmas.
Wade started to feel hopeful. If he could find a way to talk her into at least releasing his hands . . .
He nodded as though thinking about her statement.
“Who was the other person?” he asked.
She jerked. “What do you mean?”
“Who was helping you? On the video from the church, there was someone else. A man. And at the radio station, you couldn’t have put those bombs on the doors. We know there’s someone else involved. Who?”
“Me.”
Joanna shrieked and spun. A crack sounded and Joanna fell to the ground. Wade stared, first at Joanna, then at the man who’d shot her.
And felt his world fall apart all over again.