Doriann had wanted camouflage, and she’d gotten it. Her wet purple jacket was camouflaged with mud. She’d found it buried beneath her. As Aunt Renee would say, isn’t it wonderful the way God always works things out?
Doriann thought that maybe it would’ve been a little more comfortable if the dirt had only been ground into the outside of the jacket, but who was she to complain about the way God worked? A little grit rubbing her bare arms raw was punishment for lying to her parents and skipping out of school.
She guessed that being kidnapped and terrified so badly she wet her pants, and being slapped around by sewer-breath and having her leg groped by sewer-brain wasn’t enough. She only hoped God would realize she’d learned her lesson.
She shrugged away the ugly thoughts. She wasn’t usually this grumpy with God, but she’d never been kidnapped before, and she wasn’t sure how to behave.
A small limb snapped loudly beneath her foot, and she froze. The hood of her jacket covered her red hair, but the sun glared down at her through the spring-green treetops. She didn’t know what Clancy or Deb would see if they turned around. She’d stayed well behind them, trying to always keep them in sight. She’d dropped to the ground like a Green Beret three times when she’d noticed Clancy or Deb twisting back. She’d told herself fifty tri-zillion times that this was crazy. An eleven-year-old kid shouldn’t be following drugged killers through the woods.
But she just kept reminding herself of Aunt Renee’s repeated assurance that all things were possible through Christ.
Nearly every step of the way, Doriann had been tempted to run, to turn back, follow the river to the nearest town and get to safety.
But if she took the easy way out, how many other people might die?
Doriann hated to think about what Clancy might do to another kid if he had the chance.
Aunt Renee was always reminding her class that God could use her for something great, and that Doriann and her cousins should take every opportunity to be the best they could be.
This was the best Doriann could be.
Tyrell gathered all the dishes and utensils and carried the tray to the proper receptacles. Jama watched, bemused; he definitely had domestic skills.
No doubt about it, Tyrell Mercer would make some woman very happy someday. Something about a man doing household chores was a definite turn-on. And a man who cooked and did the laundry? It just didn’t get any better. Any woman would be thrilled….
Again, just thinking about Tyrell with another woman shot a bolt of jealousy through Jama. Whoever he married, she’d better be good to him, or she would answer for it.
He was a man who worked hard at a job he loved. For a time, that was as an agriculturalist at the state university. Now he ran the ranch and vineyard. Jama knew he loved the work, as well, but the primary reason he’d returned home was because he loved his family, and Monty had needed help.
Five hundred acres of prime, fertile bottomland and hillside vineyards was more than one man could handle, even with all the best, most modern farm equipment and hired help during the planting and harvest. With Daniel—the younger Mercer brother—now working with Homeland Security in Kansas City, and the twins, Renee and Heather, both living with their families in Kansas City, that left Tyrell. As Jama had assured Fran, Tyrell was perfectly happy to make the change.
“Do you remember the age-old question?” Tyrell settled his smoky-dark gaze on Jama again. “What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?”
“Injury?”
“Most likely. Unless the irresistible force isn’t as irresistible as it seems.”
“Or if the immovable object isn’t as immovable.”
“So which are you, and which am I?” Tyrell asked.
Jama grimaced. Here she’d thought he’d given up on that subject. “Shouldn’t we just focus on Monty for now?”
“You don’t think Dad will want the same answer as soon as he wakes up? Don’t you want to be ready for the poor man, considering his weakened condition?”
“Have I reminded you lately that you have a manipulative streak?”
“So are you saying I would be the irresistible force? That would make you the immovable object.”
“One of the theories is that the immovable object will be smashed to pieces at impact.” She paused, closed her eyes. “Even if it wants to be moved, it can’t.”
“Or both could be destroyed,” he said. “Or both could carry the scars of that impact forever. Or the two could meld together and become stronger than either was before.”
She opened her eyes. He couldn’t know how much she wanted the last possibility to be true. And how frustrating it was to know that it was her own fear that prevented it.
A nurse approached the table as Jama and Tyrell prepared to leave, announcing that Monty was out of surgery.
She handed Tyrell his cell phone. “Your mother says you need to call your sister, Heather. She’s asking to speak with you.”
Tyrell took the phone, pressed Speed Dial and walked to a quiet corner of the cafeteria.
As he listened to Heather, Jama saw his expression turn to stone.
Tyrell’s fingers went cold all of a sudden, and he felt a tightening in his chest as his sister, the solid, calm, sensible twin, sobbed at the other end of the connection.
“Missing? How long? What happened?”
“We don’t…we don’t know. Oh, Tyrell, I’m so scared. She never went to Renee’s this morning. She told me she felt sick, and she was caught up on all her subjects, and the cousins were driving her crazy—you know how they can be. All over the place all at once, and they never stop talking. I can’t imagine how Renee manages to teach them so much when they never sit still, but she’s so good with them, and Doriann has just blossomed under her schooling—”
“Honey, slow down.” As a cardiothoracic surgical chief resident, Heather had nerves of supersonic titanium. Which was why her sudden jabbering frightened Tyrell badly.
“What is it you’re trying to tell me?” he asked.
“I let Doriann stay home this morning. Alone.”
“That’s not unusual. You’ve done that before.” Not that he approved, and he’d made his opinions known quite strongly in the past.
“I know I shouldn’t have,” she said, “but I understand how it feels to need quiet time to yourself.”
“What happened, Heather?”
“I called her at home, and she didn’t answer. I tried her cell, and it sounded as if she answered, then hung up. I kept calling, and got her voice mail. She hasn’t answered any of my calls.”
Now he was getting really scared. Doriann Streeter was a strong-willed eleven-year-old, but she would not frighten her parents like this.
“Perhaps she’s in a place with no cell reception,” he suggested.
“You know how she is. She doesn’t sit in one place for more than five minutes, and even if cell reception is sketchy, I’ve tried enough times, I surely should have gotten through.”
“So you went home and she wasn’t there, either?”
“That’s right. She and I had a few words the other night about how much I’m away from home, but I thought we’d gotten that straightened out. She understands the demands of my residency program.”
Tyrell had his doubts about that. Sure, he was proud of his sister, but it didn’t seem to him that leaving a daughter at home alone most of the time, or handing her over to your sister to raise, was something any kid was going to completely understand. But what would he know? He wasn’t a parent.
“She is probably still mad, and just doesn’t realize you’re worried,” he said.
“I know she likes to go to the park alone sometimes,” Heather said. “She goes to see the animals in the zoo, and she’s mature enough to go by herself.”
Tyrell held his reply. An eleven-year-old had no business walking unaccompanied along the streets of Kansas City, even in the bright morning sunlight. But remarking about that right now would not be helpful.
“Any ideas?” he asked.
“One, and it terrifies me. We heard a report that two people were seen earlier this morning abducting a redheaded child only two blocks from our apartment. The police are following all leads.”
Tyrell closed his eyes as a sick dizziness threatened to flatten him. He felt a hand on his arm. Jama’s hand. She squeezed, and he saw her eyes filling with dread.
“So if that is what happened,” he said over the phone, keeping his voice calm for the sake of his sister and Jama, “are there any leads?”
“Reports are that this couple has headed east on I-70.”
“Toward St. Louis, then.”
There was a catch in his sister’s breathing, and a gasp from Jama, who squeezed more tightly—no longer giving strength, but needing it.
“Heather Danae, you’ve got to keep it together.” Remaining calm no longer seemed possible, yet he needed to do so anyway.
“She’s everything to me,” Heather said. “If I’d paid more attention to her this morning—”
“Right now regrets and second-guessing yourself won’t help.”
“This could be something more than a random incident,” Heather said.
“Why would you think that?”
“The couple are suspected to be killers. They may be the two who went on a rampage and killed several people across state lines, two of them doctors. This couple is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.”
The words were a kick in the gut, and the strength went out of Tyrell. He found a chair and sat in it. Jama sank down beside him, close.
“Mark was moonlighting on an E.R. shift a week or so ago, and a man came in demanding painkillers,” Heather said. “Mark didn’t comply.”
Tyrell understood. He’d heard enough of his brother-in-law’s stories to imagine the variety of people treated in the Emergency Department. Weekends were the worst, when “patients” tried to con the E.R. docs into giving out narcotics, opiates and other addictive drugs. Mark had been around long enough to know when he was being scammed.
“One of the other docs had his car window smashed in the doctors’ parking lot that night,” Heather said. “Mark parks there, too.”
“You think Mark was the target, but the guy got the wrong car?”
“I do. Mark tells me not to jump to conclusions. The man stole Mark’s prescription pad, then tried to have a script filled at a pharmacy. The pharmacist checked it out—saw something wasn’t right. Mark called the police, and the thief, Clancy Reneker, was arrested. He went into a rage, broke away from the officers, and then he and a woman went on a rampage across Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.”
Tyrell couldn’t bear the thought of his beautiful, precocious niece in the hands of drugged killers, especially someone bent on revenge.
“I don’t think I can take this,” Heather whispered. “If those people kill my daughter, I’ll die with her.”
“Now stop that,” Tyrell said gently. “Don’t jump to conclusions. Just go with what you know. You’ve prepared yourselves for the worst. Let’s back off a little and think where else she might be. Might she have just gone to the zoo and forgotten to charge her cell phone?”
“She charged it last night.”
“Okay, then, what if she’s still so upset over your argument the other night that this time she went against character and intentionally turned it off.”
“She wouldn’t—”
“She’s eleven. She’ll be a teenager before you know it, and you know how she thinks she can conquer the world.”
Heather was silent for a moment. “Renee fosters that concept, you know.” There was a return to poise in Heather’s voice.
“Of course.”
“Mark and Renee and Chet are all at the zoo looking for her now. The police are conducting a massive search of the area.”
“Then I hope we’ll hear very soon that Doriann has been found and is in deep trouble with her parents. I’ll have a few things to say to her, myself.”
There was a soft sigh. “Glass half-full, right?”
“Cup overflowing.”
“I love you, Tyrell. I wish you were here. I’m just so…very scared.”
“I know.” Me, too. Terrified.
“Tell me how Dad’s doing.”
“We haven’t seen him yet, but I guess you’ve been told he’s out of surgery. Thanks to Jama, they caught the problem and it should be fixed now.”
“Jama’s the hero of the day. When’s she going to become my sister-in-law?”
“That hasn’t been decided.”
“Tell her I want to be matron of honor.”
Tyrell understood her need for the small talk. “Renee already spoke for it.”
“I feel a good catfight coming on.”
Ordinarily, Tyrell would chuckle politely at the continued, loving rivalry of his twin sisters. He couldn’t work up a smile, and he was glad Heather couldn’t see his face.
“Don’t tell Dad about this, Tyrell.”
“Not until you’ve found Doriann and it’s all over.”
“Are we going to find her?”
“Any minute.”
“From your mouth to God’s ear.”
“You realize, don’t you, that we can’t tell Mom, either,” Tyrell said. “If we do, it’ll be like telling Dad.”
Heather’s silence stretched into infinity. Being a son who had long ago stopped confiding every thought and action to his parents, he couldn’t identify, but he could sympathize. Possibly more than all the other Mercer siblings, Heather depended on her family for emotional support. She and Mark were devoted to each other, but their schedules were demanding and often staggered. Heather needed to talk to her mother about what was happening.
Tyrell knew this.
“Then we don’t tell Mom, either,” she said in a wobbly voice.
“For Dad’s sake,” Tyrell said. “We can fake it for a few minutes.”
“Or a few hours.”
“Whatever it takes. I’m here for you, sis.”