The house was quiet, shrouded in a dismal dread that felt as if they’d been plucked from Jack’s Bluff Ranch and dropped on a cold, dark planet. Lenora felt the desperation and ached for her dead husband the way she hadn’t in a long, long time.
Not a day went by that she didn’t miss him. Not the ferocious shredding of her heart kind of pain she had suffered the first months after his death. She couldn’t have survived over two decades of that. Now it was a more a melancholy vacuum that even her marvelous family couldn’t completely fill.
Lenora stood at the front door watching as the rear lights of Trish’s car faded in the distance. She was taking Gina and her infant son, Randy, back to their cabin for the night so that the baby could sleep in his crib. Trish was a good mother and knew her baby and especially her teenage daughter needed a break from the fear and tension that saturated the big house.
Gina was taking this really hard, her usually high teenage spirits scraping the bottom. She’d spent most of the afternoon lying listless on the floor or out walking with Blackie. Lenora’s granddaughter looked as woeful as the nine-month-old pup.
When Zach’s wife, Kali, had gone back to their ranch to check on a new foal, she’d brought Blackie’s brother Chideaux back to Jack’s Bluff with her. In an emotional crunch, two loving dogs were always better than one, and both Lenora and Kali had insisted Gina take the dogs with her for the night.
Bart’s wife, Jaclyn, had left with Trish. Nick had insisted she try to get a good night’s sleep for the sake of their unborn daughter. The rest of the family was still inside, waiting. Endlessly waiting.
As if drawn into the darkness and the solitude of the Texas night, Lenora pushed out the front door, her footfalls sounding on the wooden planks of the porch. The night air was brisk but not cold. The temperature had climbed into the sixties this afternoon, not unusual for December in this part of Texas. The low tonight would only be in the upper forties.
Wherever the boys were, they would likely be warm enough. But were they safe? Did they have food? Were they afraid?
Lenora started toward the porch swing but then changed her direction, descending the steps instead. The noises and smells of the night wrapped around her like the arm of an old friend as she took the well-worn, moonlit path to the huge oak tree where she’d laid Randolph to rest so long ago.
She fell to her knees at the tombstone and rested her head against the smooth marker as salty tears pushed from her eyes.
“Oh, Randolph. I miss you so desperately. If you were here, you’d take control. You’d know how to get our precious grandsons back.” Her tears fell harder as her words shifted to a prayer.
“I trust you, God. I always have. I try not to ask for much, but I’m pleading with you to watch over David and Derrick. I’ll bear anything you lay on me without complaining, but please bring my grandsons home safely.”
Minutes later, the sobs and tears subsided and soothing warmth seeped inside her. She felt as if Randolph had reached from the grave and cradled her in his arms, giving her new hope.
She stayed at the grave site until her knees ached from being pressed into the grassy earth. She had no clear concept of how much time had passed before she started back toward the house.
She saw only the shadow outlined in the moonlight near the house, but she knew it was Becky. She hurried toward her, wondering if Becky had come looking for her, hoping it was with good news.
Becky looked up as Lenora approached. “Mom, what are you doing out here all by yourself?”
Odd to hear it put that way when she’d felt anything but alone. She walked over and clasped Becky’s hand. “I went for a walk. Are you okay?”
“No. I’m afraid.”
“I know, sweetheart. You’re doing all you can. You have to trust God with the rest.”
“I wish I had the faith you do, but I don’t.”
And more reassurances that the boys were going to be fine would sound trite and placating to Becky. “When you talked to the boys they sounded fine,” she said, going for evidence Becky couldn’t deny. “There’s no reason to think that’s changed.”
“Then why didn’t the kidnapper let us talk to them the last time he called? And why doesn’t he call again?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he can’t get to a phone he trusts. Maybe he fell asleep.”
“I should have never listened to Nick. I should have had an AMBER Alert go out right away. I should have called in the FBI sooner. Nick doesn’t know anything about dealing with kidnappers.”
The bitterness in her voice cut straight to Lenora’s heart. “Don’t be so hard on Nick, Becky. No one could have known the kidnapper wouldn’t call as he said. Nick loves the boys. You know that.”
“I suppose—in his way.”
“That’s the only way any of us can love—in our own way. You need Nick in this, Becky, and he needs you.”
“Why would he need me? Haven’t you heard? He has Brianna Campbell.”
“I don’t believe anything they print in those gossip magazines, certainly not that.”
“It’s more than gossip. She answered the phone when I called his hospital room after the accident.”
Lenora swallowed hard. She had never given up on Becky and Nick getting back together, not even when the divorce papers were filed. They’d loved each other so much once. How could they throw their marriage away when they had two precious sons who needed them both?
Divorce was right for some people. She accepted that—but not for Becky and Nick.
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of a car engine and the illumination from the headlights of an approaching car. An unfamiliar black sedan pulled up in the drive and stopped a few feet from where they were standing. A lone man climbed out and started toward them.
The FBI had apparently arrived.
* * *
DERRICK TWISTED HIS HANDS and tried to loosen the duct tape that bound his wrists behind his back. No luck. His ankles were bound, too. Same with David. Worse, the goon had put David in the bedroom and left Derrick on the lumpy sofa so they couldn’t even talk to each other.
He and David tried to run away when they’d heard that stupid whistling. They would have made it, too, if David hadn’t tripped while running for the back door. Derrick had come back to help him, and that’s when the man had grabbed both of them and put a killer grip around their necks with his muscular arms.
They’d tried to fight him off, but he was too strong for them. He’d locked David in the bathroom at the mobile home and dragged Derrick to the kitchen, where he’d found the duct tape. Then he’d left them both tied up and locked in the bathroom while he’d gone back to his cabin for his grungy old car.
Now they were worse off than they’d been before they’d escaped. Derrick blamed himself for that. He should have been smart enough to just grab some food and water and clear out of that mobile home before the kidnapper had found them and brought them back to his cabin.
The kidnapper stomped on a giant roach crawling across the floor.
“I’m hungry,” Derrick said. He wasn’t, but he hoped the abductor would leave them alone again and go after food. That would give him some time to come up with a better escape plan, one where they wouldn’t get caught.
“You think I care if you brats starve? You’re lucky I didn’t beat you to death for attacking me and running off.”
“You beat us and you’ll be sorry. My daddy is probably going to kill you anyway.”
“I’m not scared of your daddy or your rich uncles, either.”
If that was true, the guy was dumber than he looked. The only problem was that neither his daddy nor his uncles knew where to find them.
“Cut out the yakking,” the kidnapper said. “I’m going to call your parents, and when I get them on the line, you tell them I’m treating you well.”
“Why would I tell them that when you got me and David tied up?”
“’Cause I’m telling you to. And because if you don’t, I’ll take this belt off and stripe your behinds with it the same way my daddy used to do to me.”
“Really? Your dad did that?”
“Every Saturday night when he got drunk. Sometimes in between, if I didn’t jump fast enough to suit him.”
Derrick didn’t like the kidnapper, but still, he kind of felt sorry for him. He couldn’t even imagine his dad beating up on him or David. “Do you have a brother?”
“Nope. My mother ran off right after I was born, and nobody else was stupid enough to marry my father.”
The kidnapper kicked one of the empty beer cans he’d just drained and sent it flying over Derrick’s head. It landed in the part of the room where the table and chairs and kitchen stuff were.
“How come you don’t put your cans in the trash like other people?”
“How come you don’t mind your own business?” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and started punching buttons. A few seconds and a bunch of cussing later, he hurled the phone against the wall. It broke into what looked like at least a hundred pieces.
“What did you do that for? You said you were going to call Daddy.”
“Friggin’ phone’s used up.”
“They don’t get used up. Mom uses hers all the time, and it still works.”
“Miss Becky has enough money to buy a better phone than I do.”
“Just take us home, why don’t you?” Derrick said. “My parents will pay the ransom, and then you’ll have money to buy all the phones you want.”
“I’ll get the ransom. Don’t you worry about that.”
But the guy looked plenty worried. And mad. “So what are you gonna do now?” Derrick asked.
“Get another phone. I’ll be out for a while. Don’t try anything stupid. I won’t be near as forgiving next time.”
He shoved his burly arms into his ripped denim jacket and stamped outside, the key clicking as he locked the door behind him. Derrick waited until he heard the car drive away before maneuvering himself into a sitting position and turning toward the locked bedroom door.
“David, are you okay in there?”
“I guess so. I heard a car start. Did the kidnapper leave?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I hope he never comes back.”
“He’ll be back. He just went to get a phone so he can call Daddy. Can you get the tape off your wrists?”
“Nope. I can barely wiggle my fingers.”
“Same here.”
“If we had something sharp to rub up against, we could cut the tape off,” David said. “You know, like a knife.”
“Right,” Derrick agreed. “Or any kind of jagged edge.” He wiggled off the sofa and leaned against it for support until he got his balance. Once done, he started shuffling his way to the kitchen. “I’ll check out the kitchen. You look around in there. But try not to fall. It might be hard to get back up.”
“Okay, but there’s not much in here.”
Derrick should have better luck in the kitchen, but he’d have to work fast. One of the drawers was slightly ajar. He could see a knife inside it but didn’t see any way he could pick it up.
A daddy longlegs scurried across the floor and crawled over his toes. He couldn’t move his foot to kick it off. Another thing, the kidnapper had taken their shoes away from them so that if they escaped again, they’d have to run barefoot through the woods. Like that would stop them.
He needed a jagged edge, and he needed it fast.
* * *
SAM COTRELLA HAD BEEN with the FBI for ten years now. He’d never planned to become a resident expert in dealing with child abductions. It had just happened over time, starting with his first kidnapping case in Ohio over five years ago.
Most of his cases had turned out well. A few hadn’t. Those were the ones that came back to haunt him at moments like this. They were also the reason he knew there was no time to waste even though it was almost midnight.
He settled in the family den with Nick and Becky Ridgely and tried to size up the situation as best he could as they filled him in on the details. Becky’s brother Zach, a local deputy, and her sister-in-law Shelly, formerly a CIA agent, were in the room, as well.
The rest of the family had left the room at his suggestion. Nick and Becky could fill them in later, but too many people talking while he was getting specifics often confused the issue.
“The man Langston talked to said you’d worked abductions before,” Nick said once he’d given the rundown on what had happened and how they’d handled the situation to this point.
“Several. You might remember the Graham case in Houston last year.”
“I remember it,” Becky said. “A fourth-grade girl was abducted by one of her father’s employees.”
Nick looked puzzled. “I don’t remember that.”
“You wouldn’t,” Becky quipped. “It was during football season.”
The tension in the room swelled to new proportions. Sam knew from the basic information he’d been given before arriving that the missing twins’ parents were separated. He’d worked in situations like that before, too. The strain between them would not make this any easier.
“Julie Graham was the daughter of a Houston CEO,” Sam explained. “A disgruntled employee with a history of mental illness abducted her from the park near their house while the nanny was tending to a younger sibling.”
Nick leaned in closer, his muscles taut. “How did you get her back?”
“The father turned over the money at the agreed-upon time and location, and once Julie was safe, we came down on him with a SWAT team we’d put in place. The abductor tried to shoot his way out and was killed in the exchange of gunfire.”
“I don’t want gunfire,” Becky said. “I don’t want to take any chances.”
“We never want gunfire,” Sam said. “But the girl was never in danger. We’ll negotiate a plan of exchange that focuses on keeping the boys safe.”
“There’s not much to negotiate,” Nick said. “I have the money. He can have it. All I want is my sons.”
“So what exactly do you expect from the FBI?” Sam asked.
“I want you to find David and Derrick in case the kidnapper doesn’t call.”
“My gut feeling is that he will call,” Sam said. “He wants the money. That’s what this is about. Otherwise he wouldn’t have made that phone call about the ransom so soon after the boys were in his possession.”
“That seems reasonable,” Becky agreed. “But Nick told him we have the money and he didn’t seem in any hurry to get it. And he wouldn’t let us talk to the boys.”
That worried Sam, as well. There could be several explanations for not letting them communicate with their sons but most obvious was that the boys were in no condition to assure their parents they were safe. No use to point that out. Both Nick and Becky were well aware of the danger their sons were in.
His goal now was to convince them that they needed his guidance all the way.
“If you do exactly as the kidnapper wants, we may not be able to protect your sons. That’s why we need to negotiate and why you need to let me veto any arrangements for the exchange that I don’t think are feasible.”
Becky pulled her bare feet into the chair with her and hugged her knees close to her chest. She looked a lot like a vulnerable little girl herself in that position. Sam could only imagine how hard this had been on her—and the worst might be yet to come.
“The kidnapper promised that we’d get David and Derrick back safely if we cooperated,” Becky said. “I guess we were fools to believe him.”
“You were frightened parents,” Shelly countered. “That’s why we need Agent Cotrella’s expertise.”
“I’m still not sure how this works,” Nick said. “Are you saying we should tell him you’re from the FBI and that he’ll have to negotiate with you? I’ll tell you up front that if that’s the plan, I don’t like it.”
Sam swiveled the desk chair so that he was looking directly at Nick. “The abductor won’t even know I’m here. I’ll listen in on the calls and guide you through the conversation by feeding you information, but you’ll do the talking.”
“If we put the phone on speaker, he’ll immediately suspect police or FBI involvement.”
Sam nodded. In spite of his reluctance to call in the FBI, Nick had a good grasp of the situation. “I have a two-man tech team on the way,” Sam said. “They’ll put attachments on the phone that will allow me to listen in to your calls without the kidnapper suspecting anything.”
“Can they trace a cell call from a prepaid phone?”
“Maybe not to the exact location, but they’ll be able to identify the general area where the calls are originating.”
“And this equipment will prevent the kidnapper from having any inkling that his calls are being monitored?” Nick asked.
“He won’t be able to detect any difference in the sound of his voice or yours.”
“He’s been calling Nick’s cell phone,” Becky said.
“We’ll monitor both your cell phones and the house phone,” Sam said. “He may change up in an attempt to keep you off guard. Now let’s get down to the specifics of negotiation. Up to this point, you’ve let him make most of the decisions. It’s time you threw in a few demands of your own.”
Apprehension darkened Becky’s blue eyes. “What kind of demands?”
“Make it clear to him that the plane will absolutely not leave the ground until the boys are back with you.”
Nick bristled. “You’re damn right it won’t. The guy can’t be so crazy he doesn’t know that.”
“Assume nothing. He may try to ensure his safe arrival in Mexico by taking one of the boys on the plane as his hostage.”
“Surely, he wouldn’t,” Becky said.
“You’d think, but I had a case in Nebraska a couple of years ago where the kidnapper had abducted a sister and brother. He gave the parents the sister in exchange for the money and told him that once he was sure there were no tricks, he’d tell them where their son was.”
“And did he?” Shelly asked.
“No. Once he had the money, he had no reason to cooperate. He left the boy with an accomplice, who decided to ask for more money. That’s when the FBI was called in on the case.”
“Do we still provide the plane and the pilots?” Nick asked. “As per his instructions?”
“You can provide the plane. The FBI will take care of the pilots.”
“Fine by me,” Nick said. “But the boys will be released to me. I’ll have it no other way.”
Sam nodded. Cool-in-the-clutch Ridgely. That’s how one sportswriter had described him. Sam had an idea that calm resolve would be tested as never before by the time this was over. But Sam’s job went better with optimism. He would ensure the focus stayed on bringing David and Derrick home alive.
For Christmas.
For a brief second Sam let his mind wander to his own kids at home snuggled in their beds with visions of Christmas morning dancing in their heads.
He’d do all he could to make certain this had a happy ending, but the longer this took, the more the possibility of failure increased. The twins had already been in the hands of the abductor for more than thirty hours.
* * *
NICK PACED THE small downstairs study that Sam Cotrella had chosen for his operations room. The guy seemed to know his stuff and didn’t come off as too cocksure of himself. Nick liked that about him, the same way he liked those qualities in his teammates.
Teammates. That was another problem—minor when compared to his sons but nagging, nonetheless. They kept calling and trying to find out what in the hell was going on with him. They were baffled. A few were downright angry and had accused him of going soft and sabotaging their chances of making the play-offs.
The NFL was a business and multimillion-dollar receivers did not just up and walk out of a hospital without a doctor’s clearance.
He’d stalled everyone off with feeble excuses. He was resting at home while the swelling went down and he got the pain under control. He’d miss Sunday’s game but would be ready to work out with the team on Monday. Things were under control.
That was the biggest lie of all. It was 3:00 a.m. and still no word from the son of a bitch who had his sons. Things had never been more out of control. As for the rest of his life, that hell would just have to wait.
The house was quiet, but Nick doubted there was much sound sleeping going on. Every time he stepped into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, there was a new group of family members sitting around the table.
Growing up the way he had, he’d never even imagined there were families like the Collingsworths. They had their differences, but when trouble appeared, they stuck together like superglue.
He’d miss them when the divorce was over. Not the way he’d miss Becky. Not the way he already missed her, even with her lying a few feet away, sleeping restlessly on the brown tweed sofa.
His gaze fixed on her, and a potent ache clogged his throat, making it difficult to swallow. He walked over and covered her with the knitted throw that was lying near her feet. She snuggled into it the way she’d once snuggled against him on cold, wintry nights.
Before he’d let things deteriorate to the point she could barely stand to be near him.
A sharp pain started in his shoulder and crept into his back, growing worse when he tried to take a deep breath. He grimaced and started to the kitchen for a glass of water.
The piercing ring of his cell phone stopped him. His body grew numb, his feet frozen to the floor as he waited for the agreed-on signal from Sam to take a call. It was late. Not even his teammates would call at this hour.
The caller ID said Marilyn Close. He looked to Sam, who’d walked up behind him. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Take the call anyway. The kidnapper could be using a stolen phone.”
Becky jumped to a sitting position and grabbed for the earphones that would let her listen in on the conversation if the call was from the abductor. Sam’s were already in place. He took a deep breath and took the call.
And then the panic he’d worked to keep in check exploded inside him. The voice was the kidnapper’s, but Nick was certain something was seriously wrong.