“We haven’t been able to acquire the log from your freshman psychology class in college,” Sam said, “but we ran a routine computer check on males who were in your high school at the same time you were there.”
Becky sucked in a ragged breath. “Then I hope you found a more promising suspect than I did by looking at old yearbooks.”
“We had some luck.” Sam handed her a computer printout with two names followed by sketchy information obviously gleaned from police files. She scanned the data quickly.
The first one was Tim Gillespie, a male Caucasian who recently went bankrupt due to gambling debts he’d incurred along the Mississippi coast. The name was only vaguely familiar. She checked his age. “He would have been two years ahead of me. I don’t actually remember him.”
“Not surprising,” Sam said. “According to what we have on him, he only lived in the area a few months.”
“His family may have been migrant farm workers,” Becky said. “We always had several of those who rotated in and out according to what crops were being harvested at the time.”
“He’s a long-shot suspect,” Sam admitted. He tapped the second name. “What about Adam Leniestier? He’s been arrested three times, always for some kind of get-rich-quick scam.”
Adam she remembered well. “I dated him a few times my junior year,” she said. “He was a con man even then, always a charmer and constantly trying to get someone to do his homework for him, but he was never in any real trouble.”
“He’s obviously progressed, but still guilty of nothing that’s put him behind bars for any extended period of time.”
Nick leaned closer to read over her shoulder. “Stealing credit cards from girlfriends and writing hot checks. That sounds worthy of a jail term to me.”
“Not if he sweet-talks the girlfriends into withdrawing the complaint,” Sam said.
Becky kept reading. “According to this, he did serve a few months for bilking FEMA out of money after Katrina.”
“Right,” Sam said. “He claimed he lost everything. Truth was he was living in New Jersey at the time.”
“His dad still lives in Colts Run Cross,” Becky said. “Mr. Leniestier goes to our church and works for the highway department, but Adam’s mother divorced him right after high school and I haven’t seen Adam since.”
“Still, he sounds like the kind of man who might try to pull off a kidnapping.” Nick slid the printout closer. “Except that it says here he’s living in Denver now.”
Becky considered the logistics. “If Adam got the idea for the kidnapping after seeing you get injured on Sunday, he’d have had to move fast.”
Sam nodded and rubbed the tendons in his neck. “We checked. There’s no record of his taking a flight to Texas.”
“He could have driven all night,” Nick said, “or bought a ticket using a fake ID.”
“Distinct possibilities,” Sam agreed. “We’re following up on him, but I don’t think he’s our man.”
Becky got the impression Sam hadn’t told them everything yet. “Is there another suspect?”
His eyes narrowed. “Do you recall a student in your class named Jake Hawkins?”
This time the name triggered disturbing memories. “I remember him.”
“What can you tell us about him?”
“He moved to Colts Run Cross my senior year—too late to be included in the yearbooks. He seemed nice enough, but…”
“But what?” Nick asked when she hesitated, his voice hoarse and edgy.
“He never talked about his parents, but he moved in with his grandmother, Nancy Hawkins. She was a retired schoolteacher, the kind of teacher students loved to hate. Anyway, she died from a fall on her stairs right after Jake started living with her, and some of the kids claimed he murdered her.”
“He was never arrested for that,” Sam said.
“No. The police said it was an accident, but you know how rumors are. They just get started and take on a life of their own, especially since Jake wouldn’t talk to anyone about the accident after that—not even at the funeral. I don’t know where he went to live after his grandmother died.”
Nick stepped away from Becky, but closer to Sam. “What do you have on him?”
“He spent three years in a state penitentiary for attacking a pregnant woman in a case of road rage on I-20 near Dallas. Apparently she rear-ended him, and he yanked her out of the car and stabbed her repeatedly with his pocketknife. The woman didn’t die or lose the baby, but she spent a month in the hospital. Jake was paroled two months ago.”
“Was he in the Huntsville facility?”
Sam nodded.
“So he’s likely still nearby.” Nick rammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. “Damn. That’s just the kind of lunatic who might kidnap two young boys on an impulse.”
“Wouldn’t his parole officer know where to find him?” Becky asked.
“Unfortunately, he’s already broken the conditions of his parole by moving from his original address without letting anyone know where he was relocating.”
“So he could be anywhere,” Becky said.
“Yes, and unfortunately, there’s more.”
Her legs grew wobbly, and she dropped back to the sofa. More. Always more. “What now?”
“The prison psychologist was the only one who didn’t recommend parole. He felt Jake was still capable of violence when provoked. He believed Jake to be emotionally unstable, prone to irrational rage and generally angry with the world.”
Becky fought the burgeoning dread, but she had to face facts. “In other words, he’s a dangerous sociopath.”
“Find Jake Hawkins,” Nick said. “I don’t care what it takes. Just find him, or I will if I have to hire a whole damn army of men to track him down.”
“We don’t know that he’s our guy,” Sam reiterated.
“Find him anyway.”
Given to irrational rage when provoked. And nothing would likely provoke him faster than finding out that they’d called in the FBI. And the longer this went on, the more likely he was to discover that fact.
Becky felt the stirrings of vertigo. Why didn’t that damn phone ring?
* * *
“DERRICK.”
Derrick jerked awake instantly at the sound of his name. His eyes darted about the room as he came to terms with where he was and why he couldn’t move his hands.
He remembered turning the faucet with his head and running water over his wrists to try to loosen the tape. It hadn’t worked. Neither had rubbing his wrists back and forth across the edge of the TV. He didn’t remember falling asleep on the sofa, but he must have.
“Wake up, Derrick, and talk to me.”
“I am awake.” He held his breath expecting to hear the kidnapper yell at them to shut up. There was nothing. Surely the guy was still gone to get a phone. Maybe he wasn’t coming back.
“What’s going on out there?” David asked.
“Nothing.” Derrick wiggled his way to a standing position and wished he could go to the bathroom. He needed to real bad. “Are you doing okay in there?”
“Kind of. Where’s the kidnapper?”
“I don’t see or hear him. I don’t think he came back last night.”
“Then I’m doing great. I have the tape off my wrists and almost off my feet.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I fell asleep, but then I woke up and started looking for something sharp. There’s a nail sticking out of my headboard. I rubbed against it until I finally cut through the duct tape. Oh, jeez!”
“What’s wrong?”
“The last of the tape came off my ankle. Felt like the skin was going to come off with it, but it’s okay now.”
Derrick heard a clunk that he figured was David sliding off the bed. He started working his way toward the door that separated them. He was glad he wasn’t an inchworm that had to move this slowly all the time. He heard David rattling the doorknob.
David groaned and muttered a word their mother would have a fit if she’d heard him say. “I can’t get out of here.”
“I’m sure the kidnapper took the key with him.” Even if he hadn’t, Derrick couldn’t have reached the padlock near the top of the door frame, and he sure couldn’t climb on a chair with his feet bound.
Derrick had never seen a padlock on a bedroom door before, and he figured the guy had put it there just to lock them in.
“I’ll have to break the door down,” David said, “like the guy did in that movie we watched with Grandpa the other night.”
“He had something to ram it with,” Derrick said. And he hated to say it, but the actor was a lot bigger and stronger than David.
“There’s an old Indian statue in here. It’s made of iron, I think, like that dinner bell Bart hung on the back porch. I can hammer the door down with it, I bet.”
Derrick backed out of the way as the statue crashed into the wood. The old wood cracked and splintered. Not enough that he could see David through the hole, but a few more hits and he might be able to.
The statue crashed into the wood again, and this time there was an opening big enough he could have pushed his fist through it. The kidnapper would be super mad when he saw that. They’d best be long gone.
“Hurry,” he called.
This time when the metal crashed against the door, the statue broke right through and ended up on Derrick’s side. David grabbed the splintered wood and tore it away until he could climb right through.
“Grab a knife and cut me loose,” Derrick said. “We have to get out of here before that stupid kidnapper gets back and goes ape.”
“Yeah. We gotta move fast. He may be out kidnapping more kids.”
“We’ll escape and come back and save them.”
“That would be cool. Then we’d really get our pictures in the newspaper.”
“We might even get to be on TV.”
David grabbed a kitchen knife from one of the drawers under the counter. Derrick turned so his brother could reach his wrists.
“Boy, this sure works better than a nail.”
Derrick wiggled his fingers as the tape came loose, and David peeled it from his wrists. “I’ll do my own ankles,” he said, reaching for the handle of the knife.
“Good, ’cause I got to go to the bathroom.”
In practically no time, Derrick’s feet were free, as well.
He gave a whoop and kicked one of the beer cans that littered the floor the way he’d seen the kidnapper do. It crashed into the wall and clattered to the floor as Derrick rushed to the bathroom to take care of business.
David was at the refrigerator when Derrick made it back to the kitchen. “There’s a couple bottles of water,” he said as he grabbed one and twisted off the top. “I say we drink this one and save the other until later.”
“Okay. You drink first. Is there anything else in there?”
“Beer.”
“Mom would kill us if we drank that.”
“There’s ketchup and some bread. We can make a ketchup sandwich. I like those.”
“For breakfast?”
“Better than oatmeal.”
Derrick pulled an opened package of pretzels from the cabinet. That was all there was except for a couple of cans of tuna with easy-open tops, some crackers and a package of uncooked lima beans. He stuffed everything except the beans into the pockets of his jacket just in case they got lost again.
David was waiting at the door. “I wish we had our shoes.”
“I just wish we had a key,” Derrick said, suddenly realizing that they’d have to break down the front door as well to get out of the house. He grabbed the Indian statue from the floor and had it hefted above his head when he saw David pull the rope from his inside jacket pocket. He let the statue slip from his hands and crash to the floor.
“Do you want me to break the door?” David asked.
“Not yet. I’m thinking maybe we shouldn’t escape.”
“Are you loony? I’m escaping and right now.” David dropped the rope and grabbed the statue, grunting as he hoisted it over his head.
“If we run, we might just get lost again and the kidnapper could find us like before.”
“And if we don’t escape, we’ll be stuck here with ketchup sandwiches for Christmas.”
“Not if we’re waiting for the kidnapper when he comes back. He thinks we’re all tied up, so he won’t be expecting anything.” The plan kind of took shape as he talked. He liked it better all the time. “You could lasso him and pull him down, and I could hit him over the head with the statue and knock him out again. Then we could get the phone he went after and call Mom and Dad to come get us.”
David held on to the statue. “What if I miss when I try to lasso him?”
“Then I’ll still hit him and knock him out. I’ll be behind the door. You can be perched on top of a chair, ready to throw the rope as he walks in.”
“I don’t know,” David said.
“Well, I do. We’ll outsmart him. You know, like Home Alone. That way we won’t have to run around in the woods barefoot trying to find the way back to the highway.”
“How are we going to tell Mom and Dad how to come get us when we don’t even know where we are?”
“Then we’ll call 911. They can find you anywhere. We’ll be home in plenty of time for Christmas Eve.”
David swung the rope. “Okay, but we have to get ready for action. The kidnapper might walk in that door any second.”
Derrick’s heart was beating fast. But they could do it. He knew they could. And it would sure feel good to see Mom and Dad walk through that door together.
He just wished the together part would last forever. Divorce was like having a “parent-napper” steal your dad and keep him for most of every year.
* * *
THE TWO MEN stamped along side by side. They’d been hunting together for more than forty years, ever since they’d married sisters. Their wives loved holiday gatherings. Hermann and Bruce loved getting away from the hustle and bustle and occasionally even killing a buck.
They’d gotten a late start this morning. Too much whiskey last night. Sun was full up now, but there was still time to bag a big one if they were lucky.
“What the Sam Hill?”
Bruce shouldered his rifle and stared into the woods. “I don’t see anything.”
“Over there.” Hermann pointed toward the half-washed-out dirt road they’d driven in on. The front of a black car was wrapped around a pine tree.
“Lucky bastard if he walked away from that.”
Hermann trudged toward the wreck. “Don’t look like it’s been there too long. Not rusted out—well, except for that spot on the back fender, and that’s an old dent.”
Bruce was fifty pounds lighter than Hermann, mostly because the sister he’d married was a lousy cook. He overtook Hermann, reaching the car first. Hermann was only a step behind.
The driver was slouched over the steering wheel, not moving. Blood smeared the side window and was clotted in a clump of hair on the side of his head.
Hermann moved so as to get a better look. “This must have happened in the last few hours. If the man’s dead, I bet he’s not even cold yet. Color’s too good.”
He eased the door open. The smell of cheap whiskey and marijuana hit him in the face.
“Guess that explains why he collided with the tree,” Bruce said.
“Yep. Poor bastard didn’t even get to finish his stash.” Hermann pulled two joints from the man’s shirt pocket and stuffed them into his own. “For later.” He felt for a pulse. “Heart’s ticking.”
“He’s just sleeping off a drug and booze stupor. Do you think we should call for an ambulance?”
“If we do, we’ll get stuck out here for hours waiting for them to show up and then have to talk to some meddlesome country bumpkin sheriff,” Hermann said. “And we’ll have to deal with this codger if he wakes up. And he ain’t gonna be in a good mood when he finds I lifted his doobies.”
Bruce leaned in and put a hand on the man’s back. The man groaned and jerked but didn’t open his eyes. “We could call 911, just in case he’s hurt worse than he looks.”
“If you call, they’ll have your name and number, so you’re still gonna get involved whether you like it or not.”
“Guess you’re right. Gotta wonder what he was doing out here in the middle of nowhere, though.”
“Probably getting away from a wife who’s a dry-hole gusher just like we’re married to.”
“You’re not telling me nothing I don’t know. Mary Sue can talk the horns off a billy goat.” Bruce slid his hand down the back of the seat and lifted the injured man’s wallet from his pocket.
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m just checking to see if he has some ID on him.” He opened the wallet and looked in the money sleeve. “Guy’s broker than we are.”
“Well, I’m not contributing to the cause,” Hermann said, his eyes already peeled for game. “Are we going to hunt or not?”
“Wait, here’s an ID. A driver’s license, just issued two months ago to Jake Hawkins. Age thirty-two. Address in Huntsville, Texas.”
“That’s not more than forty-five minutes from here. He’ll find his way home when he comes back to the real world.”
“Hey, what’s this buried in the back?” Bruce pulled out two hundred-dollar bills and unfolded them. “What do you know? The guy’s not totally busted.” He started to refold the bills, then stopped.
Hermann put his hand on his brother-in-law’s shoulder. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Damn straight, I am. He’s just going to waste it on booze and drugs. In a way you could think of it like we’re doing him a favor to take it.”
“If you put it that way…” Hermann grinned, though he felt a bit uneasy. He’d never stolen money before—unless you counted cheating on your taxes.
“One for me and one for you.” Bruce handed Hermann his hundred. “Now, this is what I call a successful hunting trip.”
“And we haven’t even spotted a whitetail.”
They walked off, not bothering to shut the car door behind them. A jaybird jeered from a tree branch over their head. A rabbit scurried from one thick clump of underbrush, only to disappear into another one.
And an elegant buck with an impressive rack stepped into the clearing mere yards away. Hermann found him in the sight of his rifle and poised his finger on the trigger.
But the crack of gunfire did not come from his gun. He spun around in time to see Bruce fall to the ground in a pool of blood. And then the second bullet fired.
* * *
ODORS OF COFFEE, bacon, sausage, eggs, grits and biscuits wafted from the kitchen as Nick and Sam joined the Collingsworth family in the dining room. It held one table in the house large enough for all of them to fit around. The table was new, but was an almost-exact replica built by Matt and Bart to replace the one lost in the fire and explosion that had barely missed taking all their lives.
The Collingsworths had been through a lot together. It didn’t surprise Nick at all that they would hang together in this.
Nick took the chair to the left of Becky while Zach’s wife, Kali, squeezed into the chair on Becky’s left.
“I talked to Zach on the drive over here,” Kali said. “He’s in the Point Blank area, showing Jake Hawkins’s picture around and hoping someone there may know where to find him. But he’s not mentioning the kidnapping,” she added quickly. “He’s saying the guy jumped parole, which is the truth.”
“Good,” Nick said. Not that they knew for certain Jake was behind the kidnapping, but he was definitely the most likely suspect that had surfaced.
“Did Zach get any sleep last night?” Becky asked.
“Not much, but Zach can go longer without sleep than anyone I know. When I was in danger last winter, there were nights when he barely closed his eyes.”
Matt forked a couple of sausage patties from the serving platter before passing it on. “Bart, Langston and I are cutting out of here in a few minutes. We’re all taking our own trucks up to the Point Blank area.”
“To do what?” Becky asked.
“Help Zach. There’s a lot of back roads up there and not a lot of extra deputies. It was Sam’s idea,” Langston said. “And it definitely beats sitting around here doing nothing.”
Jaime pushed away from the table. “Why just you guys? I can drive and ask questions. David and Derrick are my nephews, too.”
“You’ll never pass for a deputy tracking down a parole jumper,” Nick said.
“Maybe not, but I’ll come a lot closer to getting men to talk to me than you guys will. And I can look like a deputy if I want. I have a pair of khaki chinos and a boring jacket I can wear.” She turned to Sam. “What do you say Mr. FBI agent? Would you buy that I’m a deputy?”
“Not unless you’re wearing heat on your hip.”
“I not only have a pistol but I’m an excellent marksman,” she said.
“And so am I,” Shelly said. “I’ll go with you.”
“Is that a good idea?” Lenora asked.
“Time is of the essence,” Sam said.
He let it go at that, but as far as Nick was concerned the solemnity in his tone said a lot more. The boys had been missing almost two full days now, and they hadn’t actually talked to them since shortly after the kidnapping. They had the ransom. It was the kidnapper who kept changing his tune.
Something was obviously wrong. And if he knew that, so did Becky and the rest of her family. They were walking that thin line between anxiety and outright panic.
Nick managed to get down a few bites of food. Becky didn’t. She stared into space as if she couldn’t even bear to look at the spoonful of scrambled egg she’d put on her plate.
Nick hated to see her hurting like this, hated that he hadn’t protected their sons better. Hated that the only comfort he could offer were empty phrases.
His phone rang. The room grew deathly silent. Nick checked the caller ID. “Out of area.”
Sam nodded, and Nick took the call even as he, Becky and Sam hurried back to the study.
He answered with his name. “Nick Ridgely.”
“Good. You’re just the man I want to talk to.”
His coach. Not the man he wanted to talk to. Nick motioned for Sam and Becky to ignore the call. “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you, but I’m involved in a family emergency that I can’t leave. It should be resolved soon, and I’ll rush back to Dallas the minute it is and have the MRI and the CAT scan the neurologist ordered.”
“This isn’t like you, Nick. Why don’t you level with me about what’s going on?”
“Would it help if I said this was literally a matter of life and death?”
“It helps. I really need for you to say more.”
“Look, I know I’m breaking the terms of my contract. You can fine me whatever you think is fair.”
“I don’t want to fine you. I want you to check back in the hospital. From what I hear from the doctor, you’re not only in danger of never playing again but of risking paralysis.”
“I think he’s overreacting, but I’ll have the tests run. Soon. Hopefully tomorrow.”
Nick glanced at Becky. Damn. She was still wearing the earphones. He didn’t want to get into this with her. Not now. “I can’t talk now, Coach. I’ll get back to you soon.”
“Don’t wait too long.”
“No. I won’t.” Nick broke the connection before Becky heard more. She’d already heard too much.
She stared at him with a haunted look in her red and swollen eyes that ripped away the last of his tenuous control.
“Were you ever going to tell me the truth, Nick, or was all that talk about you changing just another broken promise?”
She was right. If he was ever going to change, the time was now. Only, there were some secrets he could never share.