Becky felt miles removed from the action and frustrated with her inability to know what was going on. She was standing at a window in a cargo company facility that was owned by the family of one of Bart’s fraternity brothers during his college days.
Nick had explained that with the paparazzi clamoring after him since his accident, she was merely trying to avoid unwanted attention and endless questions while waiting to board a chartered jet. Perhaps that was why the workers had pretty much ignored her except for offering a soft drink when she’d arrived.
She sipped the diet cola from the can and shifted for a better look at Langston’s plane. She was too far away to see any movement around it except for two businessmen climbing into a jet belonging to a local charter service.
She checked her watch again. Ten minutes past the appointed time. Still no sign of the kidnapper or David and Derrick.
Nick was on the plane with Evie and Pete. She’d learned from Sam on the way here that Pete was a top-notch agent who’d been a fighter pilot in the navy before leaving the service to join the Bureau. Sam claimed that he, Evie and the two agents who were hidden away were the perfect team to apprehend the abductor.
Sam was inside the waiting area, just a few yards away from the plane, posing as a businessman waiting to catch a charter flight.
Her phone rang. She recognized the number as Sam’s and murmured a breathless hello.
“I just heard from Pete. There’s been no word as yet. Nick wanted me to let you know.”
Frustration rolled in her stomach and ground along her nerve endings. “He should be here. We did everything he said.”
Only, that wasn’t quite true. He’d ordered them not to call in law enforcement. They’d gone to the FBI. “Maybe he knows he’s being set up.”
“That’s extremely unlikely. Don’t start panicking, Becky. We have what he wants. There’s no reason not to be optimistic.”
None except that her sons were nowhere in sight. Her cell phone beeped. “I’m getting another call.”
“It’s probably Nick, though he’ll be calling on Evie’s or Pete’s phone. We’re leaving Nick’s open for the kidnapper.”
“Okay. Keep your fingers crossed. Keep everything you have crossed.” She broke that connection and took the incoming call.
“All systems are go, here. Are you okay?” Nick’s voice was strained, though he was obviously striving for upbeat.
“No,” she answered honestly. She checked her watch again. Time had never moved so slowly. “Maybe this isn’t the right airport.”
“It’s the right airport. Lone Star Executive in Conroe, Texas. He was perfectly clear on that. Take deep breaths and try to stay calm.”
“Not going to happen.”
“You’ve been great so far, Becky. Don’t fall apart when we’re this close to having the worst behind us.”
If the demented abductor showed up. There truly was no reason for him not to, yet the dread seemed to be swelling inside her like an angry virus that was consuming her lungs. “Let me know the second you hear something.”
“Will do. And, Becky…” His voice became a raspy whisper that faded to silence.
“What is it?”
“When this is over, when the boys are safe, we need to talk about us.”
Her heart seemed to burst to life only to immediately shrivel back inside the cocoon where she’d hidden it away over the last painful months. They were both vulnerable now. Afraid for their sons. Treading panic. Double jeopardy for him with his future in football so unsure.
But she couldn’t bear to start thinking their marriage could work again only to have those hopes slashed the second he went back to the team. Filing for the divorce had been like cutting her heart from her body. She’d put up a front during the day only to cry herself to sleep on countless nights, aching to crawl into his arms one more time. But she needed more than he could give.
She took a deep breath, wishing it could steady her soul. “We’ll see.” She couldn’t promise more than that.
* * *
“HERMANN GRAZIER is a construction worker who lives in Livingston, Texas. His wife is a schoolteacher at a public elementary school. They have two children, a boy aged twelve and a girl aged nine. No criminal record and no reason to think he is involved in the boys’ abduction.”
“Any explanation for how the kidnapper came in possession of Mr. Grazier’s phone?” Nick paced the small plane as he carried on the conversation with Zach, his eyes constantly peering out the window for any sign of David and Derrick. Their arrival was officially—he glanced at his watch—forty-six minutes past due.
“Mrs. Grazier says he had the cell phone last night when they went out to dinner. She knows because he called his mother from the restaurant. She thinks he took it with him this morning, but when she tried to call him, there was no answer.”
“Where is he supposed to be today?”
“Deer hunting with her sister’s husband. Her sister’s family drove over from Birmingham, Alabama, yesterday for the Christmas holidays. They take turns visiting each other’s homes every year and the men always spend at least one day hunting.”
“Tradition.” Nick mumbled the word, then wondered why. He couldn’t care less about Hermann Grazier’s traditions, and he was sick to his soul of clues that went nowhere and negotiations that were ignored.
Damn. He’d preached staying calm to Becky, but he was losing it fast. “Where is he hunting?”
“His wife didn’t know, but the phone call came from somewhere near Oakhurst, Texas, just a few miles east of the area where the last call was made from. There have been no calls made on the phone since the one made to you by the kidnapper. And if the phone is turned on at the present time, it’s lost the connection with the network.”
“So basically we know nothing.”
“I’m working every angle I can, while I’m saddled with keeping the kidnapping a secret.”
“It won’t matter anyway if this exchange takes place.” Nick almost choked on the if. This had to take place. Everything the kidnapper had asked for was ready and waiting. Accompanied by FBI agents, but he was certain the kidnapper didn’t know that. If he had, he’d have never set up the meeting to start with.
“You still think we should have gone with the AMBER Alert and full-scale search, don’t you, Zach?”
“What do I know? The boys will probably come hopping across the tarmac toward the plane any minute now. We’ll all be celebrating back at the big house by dark.”
It sounded good. But the clock was ticking. The drive from the Oakhurst area where the call originated to the airport in Conroe shouldn’t have taken more than an hour tops. “Did you give the information you just gave me to Sam?”
“I did. He’s the one who gave me Pete’s number so I could call you. I knew you’d be keeping your line open.”
“Have you talked to Becky?”
“I did, but I didn’t mention anything about Hermann Grazier to her. She’s a meltdown waiting to happen. I’m not sure how much more she can take.”
Neither was Nick and that was slicing away at his control like the sharp edge of a machete. They needed action. They needed their sons’ boisterous antics. Needed to hear their laughter ringing in their ears.
They needed one lousy break.
He finished the conversation and went back to pacing. After another hour had passed, even Evie and Pete had given up on trying to reassure him.
Two hours later the kidnapper had still not made contact. Nick walked away from the plane and called Becky. He needed to hear her voice. Most of all he needed her with him. He didn’t have to go back on the plane. He could drive her home, and Sam could ride with Pete and Evie.
He made the call, but he was too late. Jaime had already come for her and was driving her back to the big house. He’d call her on the way home, though. It was time they pulled out all the stops.
Nick picked up his pace as he walked to the area where Sam was waiting. From out of the blue, something felt as if it had snapped in his back and white-hot pain shot up his spine. The doctor’s warning echoed in his mind. He ignored it. The negotiations were a bust, but he couldn’t give up. He had to find David and Derrick. For them. For Becky. For anything in life to ever matter again.
* * *
“I’VE LOOKED IN every pocket. He doesn’t have a phone.”
Derrick dropped the cold rag he was using to soak up the oozing blood from the kidnapper’s shoulder. “He has to have a phone. That’s what he went after.”
“Well, he must have just bought whiskey instead.”
The kidnapper mumbled something that sounded like more of the bad words he’d been shouting before David had stuffed a cotton washcloth into his mouth to gag him.
Derrick picked up the almost empty roll of duct tape and tossed it to the sofa. The kidnapper was on the floor, right where he’d fallen when David had lassoed him and yanked him down like a mean calf.
Derrick had done the real damage, though, popping him over the back of the head with the Indian statue. Well, mostly he’d caught his shoulder, but it had left him howling in pain while Derrick bound his wrists and ankles just the way the kidnapper had bound theirs yesterday.
Then, just to make sure he stayed put, they’d tied the end of the rope to the leg of the sofa. He’d have to drag that around with him if he moved. Pretty cool. Derrick couldn’t wait to tell his friends how they’d tricked the grown bully.
“I bet Janie Thomas tries to kiss me at the Christmas pageant when I tell how we captured this jerk,” Derrick said.
“Ugh.”
“I won’t let her, but I bet she’ll want to.”
“How come she’ll want to kiss you? I’m the one who lassoed the kidnapper.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t pick her for your kick ball team in PE.”
“She can’t catch. Can’t kick, either.”
“But she’s hot.”
“You don’t even know what hot means.”
“Do so.”
David scratched the itch where the tape had irritated his right ankle. “Forget Janie. What do we do now that there’s no phone?”
“We’ll have to try to find our way back to the main road.”
“What if we just get lost again?”
“We won’t,” Derrick said. At least he hoped they wouldn’t. It had been pretty scary out there roaming around lost, especially in the dark. “But this time we won’t have anyone chasing us. The kidnapper will be right here waiting on the cops.”
The kidnapper started flopping his body around. His face got so red that Derrick thought he might be choking. He pulled the rag from the guy’s mouth.
The man spit on the floor and then started cursing them out again.
David got down on one knee and held the rag over the man’s head. “If you don’t quit saying all those bad words, I’ll put the stopper back in.”
The man spit again, this time aiming it at David. It missed, and it ended up dribbling off his own cheek. Served him right.
“Neither one of you have a lick of sense. If you did, you’d be bargaining with me for part of the five million your parents are paying to get you back.”
“Yeah, right, like our parents have that kind of money.”
“You’re Collingsworths. Your family has more money than God. Just your daddy’s bonus is probably in the millions.”
“That can’t be right,” David said. “Mom said those skateboards we wanted were too expensive.”
“And that we were too young for them,” Derrick added, to be fair.
“She’s just stingy,” the kidnapper said. “Anyway I already called them. They’re on their way here right now to bring me the money and take you back to the ranch. I say you get this tape off of me and we make a deal.”
“I say you’re crazy,” David said.
“Yeah, why would we even believe you that our parents are on their way here?”
“Did you think I was just going to keep you brats around forever? That’s the whole point of a kidnapping. They give me ransom money. I give them you, and then I walk away.”
That part made sense. And if Momma and Daddy were on their way here, they’d be the crazy ones if they went off and got lost again trying to find their way to the main highway or to find help.
Derrick motioned to David to follow him outside.
“You could buy a lot of skateboards with your share of the money,” the kidnapper called after them. “And I’d sneak it to you so that your parents would never know you were involved. You’d be the richest kids in school.”
“No way! Janie Thomas is the richest kid in school. Her dad owns the grocery store.”
“Well, at least give me a drink of water before you leave.”
“We aren’t leaving—not yet anyway. And there’s not any water except that gross stuff that comes out of the tap.” And Derrick and David were way too smart to drink that stuff.
“There’s plenty of bottled water. You just have to know where to find it. There’s some food, too. Untie me, and I’ll tell you where it is. You help me get the ransom. I help you. It’s the way the world works. Smart kids like you should know that.”
They ignored him, stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind them. A clap of thunder rattled the windows of the cabin. The wind had picked up, and the clouds turned dark. It was going to rain again. They’d get soaked if they left now.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth about our parents coming to get us?” David asked.
Derrick knocked a cricket from the rickety banister. “I don’t know. He didn’t come back with a phone, so I guess that means he could have used a pay phone to tell them where to bring the money.”
“He left here in that old black car and came back in a new one.” David walked down the steps and leaned against the vehicle. “What do you make of that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he stole it to make his getaway after he gets the money.”
“Football players do make a lot of money, so maybe Daddy is going to pay the ransom.” David hurried back to the porch as the first drops of rain splattered his head.
“I guess we could wait a little while and see if Momma and Daddy come. It’s not like the kidnapper is going to do anything to us now.”
“Right,” David agreed. “No way we’d be stupid enough to cut him free, and if he tries anything, I have his pistol.”
“Which we should probably keep with us at all times.” Instead of on the table where they’d left it when they came out here. Lightning lit up the gray sky followed by booming thunder. The rain fell harder.
“If we go now, we’ll get drenched anyway,” Derrick decided out loud. “I don’t want to be sick during the holiday break.”
“Me, either. Let’s go see if we can find that water. Or I’ll have to start drinking the rain.”
“Food would be good, too.”
“Yeah. I can’t wait to get home.”
* * *
BECKY TRUDGED THE few steps, hating to step into the big house. Her family would try to console her, but they’d feel the same crushing sense of fear and defeat that had haunted her since she’d first realized that the kidnapper was not going to show.
Lenora opened the door. She pulled Becky into her arms and, though she was no doubt trying to be brave, her hot tears wet Becky’s neck.
“Please, Mom. I know you mean to help, but I can’t handle this now. I just need to be alone.”
“I understand, sweetheart. But you can’t give up. We’ll find the boys. We’ll all help, and we won’t give up until David and Derrick are back here with us.”
Words. Just words. The smell of chocolate chip cookies hit Becky’s nostrils and sent her stomach into feverish rolls. She ran for the bathroom, making it just in time to fill the toilet with green bile and the little nourishment she’d been able to force down that day. When she could hold her head up without the bathroom spinning, she went to the sink and splashed her face with cold water.
Reaching the towel, her fingers brushed a crystal bowl filled with shimmering red and gold ornaments. The sight of the bright decoration sent her over the edge, and before she could stop herself, she’d swept the bowl to the tile floor in a crash of broken glass and a stampede of rolling iridescent balls.
She sank to the floor, her body gripped by mind-numbing shudders. A crimson stream trickled down her leg. She’d cut herself, but she didn’t feel anything but the scream gurgling in her throat.
The bathroom filled with people. Someone’s arms went around her shoulders. Someone’s hands tended her wound. The bile rose up in her throat again, and a wave of nausea gripped and tightened her stomach.
“Leave me alone. Please, just leave me alone.”
“I’m here now. I’ll take over.”
Nick’s voice rose above the noise and confusion.
“Go away,” she said.
He didn’t. The others did.
Tears were streaming down Becky’s face now, and her heart felt as if it had died inside her chest.
Nick’s arms wrapped around her, and he lifted her as if she were a small child.
“It’s okay, baby. You have every right to cry, throw fits, scream. You do whatever helps.”
She closed her eyes tightly and buried her face in his chest as he carried her up the stairs. The fight slowly went out of her but not the heartbreak of knowing every second that passed was taking her sons further away from her.
Nick pushed into her bedroom, yanked back the pale yellow coverlet and laid her on the sheets. “You need some rest. Lenora’s calling the doctor to see if he’ll prescribe something to help you sleep.”
“I don’t need pills. I need David and Derrick to come home.”
Nick sat down on the bed beside her. “I just talked to Zach. He’s following our latest dictates and going full speed ahead now like you told him you wanted when the kidnapper didn’t show. The sheriff’s department has put out an AMBER Alert and is faxing pictures of the boys to every law enforcement office in the state. He and Sam will coordinate the investigation together from this point on.”
“This is some kind of bitter reprisal against one of us, Nick. It has to be someone who hates us and wants to get back at us the way Melvin Rogers did when he tried to blow up the big house with all of us in it.”
“Melvin failed. So will this man.”
“But this man has our sons.” She started to shake again, the sobs beginning somewhere deep inside her and fighting their way to the surface.
Nick kicked out of his shoes and climbed into bed beside her. He wrapped around her spoon-style, his broad chest fitting against her back. Just like old times. Only nothing was like old times and would never be again. She grabbed quick, sobering breaths and then pulled away.
“Please just let me hold you, Becky. I can’t do this alone. Neither can you.”
She ached to slide back into his arms, but the cold bitterness of reality wouldn’t let her. She turned to face him, clinging to the same stubborn pride that had kept her going even before the boys were abducted.
“I wasn’t the one who tore us apart, Nick.” She was being a shrew but this all hurt so much. She couldn’t hold all her feelings inside and not choke on the anguish. The kidnapping. Knowing that Nick’s need for her could never last. “You chose football over the boys and me. You chose being a star over being a husband and dad.”
“It was never like that, Becky.”
“Then how was it, Nick? Tell me how it was when you decided to treat me as if I were as invisible as the cheers you craved, because it felt like total rejection to me.”
* * *
“IT FELT LIKE survival to me, Becky.”
Nick slid his feet to the floor and walked away from the bed, stopping at the window and staring into the dismal, gray afternoon sky. She’d never be satisfied short of the truth, never be satisfied until she sent him back to the darkest corners of his miserable youth.
Not that he’d ever fully escaped it. Not that he could and therein lay the roots of all their problems. He’d tried desperately to move past his tainted history, had buried it so deep that not even the news media had discovered it.
But the shame was still inside him, taunting him and reminding him that he would never be good enough for Becky. That he’d never come close to measuring up to Collingsworth standards.
Her brothers could always be counted on to do what was right. They’d never turn their back on a woman in trouble. Simple truths they lived by. The basics that set them apart from the crowd.
Well, he wasn’t a Collingsworth and never would be. He should just accept that and let Becky go on with the divorce and on with her life.
Becky sat up in bed, her eyes wide and accusing. “Just admit it, Nick. Say I wasn’t enough woman for you. Say you deserved someone like Brianna Campbell to sport around and play celebrity with. Tell me there were dozens of Briannas. Damn it, just say something.”
“Brianna? You think our problems have something to do with the likes of her?”
“She was in your hospital room when I called.”
“I didn’t invite her. She just showed up.”
“But you have been dating her.”
“A friend of hers is going out with one of our running backs. The four of us had dinner together one night. If that constitutes a date, then I’m guilty. But dinner is all it was.” He shoved his hair back from his face and went back to stand at the head of the bed.
“I could have lots of women, Becky. It goes with the territory. I’ve never wanted anyone but you, not since the first night we…”
The first night they’d made love. The memories rushed his mind now, so intense his body reacted in unwanted ways. He concentrated on killing the tell-tale stirrings that would only make this worse. “There’s never been anyone but you, Becky.”
She shivered and wrapped her arms around her chest. “I almost wish there had been other women, Nick. They would have been easier to compete with than football.”
He nodded, knowing she was right on some level even though it wasn’t what she thought. “Football wasn’t my mistress, Becky. It was my life, at least I thought that until faced with losing David and Derrick.”
He wrapped his hands around the bedpost, wishing he had a football in them right now. Only he might never have one in them again, at least not as an NFL player. He was losing everything. How the hell could the truth hurt him anymore?
“I’m not who you think I am, Becky.”
“What are you saying?”
“My father didn’t die while fighting insurgents in the Middle East. My mother didn’t die of cancer.”
“I don’t understand.”
No, how could she? She knew only the fabricated version of his life, the fairy tale he’d concocted when he’d gone to live with the last foster family. His muscles bunched and throbbed as his thoughts hurdled into the past.
“My father attacked my mother in a drunken fit of rage when I was six years old. It wasn’t the first time he’d hit her, and I’m sure it wouldn’t have been the last. Only this time I was going to protect her. I went to the kitchen and got our longest knife.
“But I wasn’t fast enough. When he slammed his fist into her stomach, she stumbled into the knife I was holding. I was going to protect her. Instead I killed her.”
Becky slid from the bed and stood beside him. Her face had turned pale but her shoulders were squared, her stare unrelenting. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“The same reason I never told anyone. I wanted to forget it had ever happened. I thought about telling you time and time again, but you’re a Collingsworth. Your family reeks of perfection. I didn’t want your pity or theirs. I never wanted anyone’s pity. Football made sure I never got it.”
“But that was all so long ago, Nick. You’ve proved yourself over and over since then. Besides, you were just a kid, and none of that was your fault.”
“You’d think, but it doesn’t work that way. Football was the only thing I ever truly excelled at. It made me feel like I was somebody. And once I’m on the field I can’t settle for less than perfection. No matter what I know logically, it’s like I’m driven, the same as when I played high school and then college ball. I have to be better than everyone else to be good enough.”
“You should have told me. It would have helped me understand.”
“I’m telling you now. I want a chance to make us work, Becky. Just a chance, that’s all I’m asking. But a real chance where you live with me even when things get tough, and you don’t go running back to the ranch.”
She leaned into him, resting her head on his chest. He circled her with his arms and buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair.
“Oh, Nick. I want to say yes, but…I need time,” she whispered, finally pulling away.
It wasn’t the answer he wanted. But it was probably better than he deserved.
Becky’s phone rang. She grabbed for it and checked the caller ID. “It’s Zach.”
* * *
“HAVE YOU FOUND OUT something new?” Becky asked before Zach had opportunity to return her greeting.
“I’m not sure. Some kids on four-wheelers out riding in the area near where the phone call was made found a car with its front end wrapped around a tree. They called the information in to the local sheriff’s department. Two deputies are there now.”
“That’s all? Just a wrecked car?”
“I think the car may be the one used to abduct David and Derrick.”
A collision would explain why the kidnapper didn’t show. But…“Where are the boys? Have you checked the local hospitals? Was there blood?”
“We’re checking the hospitals now. There’s no sign of blood in the car, but the vehicle fits the description of the one that picked up the boys on Monday, and deputies have found two pairs of kids’ sneakers in the floor of the backseat.”
“What size? What brand?”
She swallowed hard at Zach’s answers. “The shoes have to be theirs, Zach. I’m coming out there.”
“That’s not necessary. You should stay home in case the kidnapper makes contact again. Besides, there are law enforcement personnel on the scene, and I’m heading there with Bart and Matt as we speak. I’ll keep you abreast of any new information as soon as I get it.”
“No. I’m coming out there.” She might not be any help, but if her sons were in the area, then she wanted to be there, too. “I’ll need exact directions.”
“Okay, but let me talk to Nick first.”
“I don’t need his permission.”
“I know that.”
She handed the phone to Nick and went straight to her closet, stretching to her tiptoes to reach the plain overnight bag she’d bought this fall. She had no intention of coming home until this was settled and she had her sons.
She dropped the bag to the bed, then leaned over Nick’s shoulder to see what he was writing on the notepad she kept on her nightstand.
“Directions to the wrecked car,” he mouthed without taking the pen from the paper.
Hopefully that meant she’d get no argument from him. She left him on the phone with Zach and went to the bathroom to start packing the basic necessities. Her reflection in the mirror stopped her cold.
She looked ten years older than she had before the abduction. New wrinkles had made deep grooves around her puffy eyes. Her cheeks looked sallow, her lips drawn, the bottom one cracked. She’d always chewed on it when she was nervous. And she was worlds beyond nervous now.
A light rain splattered on the bathroom window. She’d best take boots and rain gear. But the boys didn’t even have shoes. The thought sent her determined attitude plummeting back to the abyss of dread.
But if they’d found the kidnapper’s car then the boys had to be nearby.
Maybe wet. Maybe hungry. But safe. She wouldn’t allow herself to think of them any other way.
When she returned to the bedroom, Nick was studying his notes. “We can be there in approximately an hour,” he said, as if their going together was something they’d already agreed on.
“You can’t go, Nick. You have to stay here with Sam.”
He shoved a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “Sam can come along if he likes, but I’ve had it with waiting around for this lunatic. I’m going after David and Derrick. I wish to hell I’d done that in the first place.”
“You have to think of your neck and spine, Nick. You should stay here tonight and rest.”
“My neck and spine are nonissues in this.”
“Not according to Dr. Cambridge or your coach.”
“Let it go, Becky. I’ll check with Sam and let him know what’s up. Can you be ready to leave in fifteen minutes?”
“I can be ready in ten.”
“Have your mother and Jaime pack some sandwiches and a couple of thermoses of coffee, enough for your brothers and anyone else involved in the search. This might turn into a long, cold, wet night.”
He started to walk away, then stopped to touch her cheek and let his eyes lock with hers. His gaze was penetrating and questioning. “I won’t let you down, Becky. I hope you can believe that.”
Her breath caught. He’d bared his soul to her, and now his eyes were pleading with her for something in return. A look that told him things had changed between them. A promise that she could start fresh.
She wanted so badly to give it. Already she felt her walls crumbling. But she’d built up those expectations time and time again over the last ten years only to have them sink into pools of regret. Would they ever be able to get past the heartbreak?
* * *
“I LIED TO YOU,” Bull said. “Your parents aren’t coming out here to get you. Obviously they don’t think you’re worth the ransom. Now that I’ve seen what brats you are, I can see why.”
“You better stop lying to us, or you’re gonna be sorry.”
Derrick knotted his little fists as if he thought one of them could actually cause Bull misery. His punch couldn’t. His and his brother’s stupid cowboy and Indian trick had. But they hadn’t done as much to blow the deal as those two bodies in the woods were going to do.
Bull had been certain he could trick the boys into setting him free, but they were as smart and determined as they were devilish. They weren’t going to buy into his schemes, and they weren’t going to give him a chance to escape—not as long as David was pointing Bull’s own gun at his head. The little imp would be just spunky enough to shoot him, too.
He couldn’t break free as long as they were in the cabin. That’s why he needed to get rid of them. If a couple of eight-year-old boys could cut their way out of tightly wound duct tape, then surely he could do the same and a lot quicker.
Time wasn’t on his side. If he hadn’t given in to the rage and been so quick to pull that trigger, he could have still pulled this off.
But dead bodies brought cops, and the leaves he’d piled over them had surely washed away in the rain. That left him one option.
“So you kids gonna hang around here with me all night?”
“Nope,” Derrick said. “We’re leaving now, and when we come back, we’re bringing our daddy and our uncles, and you will be sorry you ever kidnapped us.”
He was sorry already, but they wouldn’t be bringing anybody back. Once they were out of here, he’d free himself, then escape and track them down. He’d kill both of them before they had a chance to identify him. Luckily he had the hunters’ rifles stuffed in the trunk of their Jeep. A pistol belonging to one of the men was still in the glove compartment.
He watched as they pulled on their jackets and got ready to leave. They were probably nice enough kids when they hadn’t been kidnapped. Too bad they had to die so young.