This night appeared longer and darker than any one they had endured since Cody had gone missing. It was just ten o’clock when Allison curled into the corner of the sofa, her heart so terribly heavy her chest ached.
She should have gone to the bank as she’d planned that morning. Maybe she’d feel better if she had the money in a suitcase ready to exchange for Cody.
But, there was no suitcase filled with money. There were no more clues to follow, and the plan for getting her son back seemed fraught with danger.
All the men were gathered around the kitchen table, plotting and planning for every scenario that might come up the next night. Their voices were just deep murmurs, but she found them oddly comforting.
Maybe she was reaching a strange place of peace. They had done everything humanly possible. They had searched and cried and now there was nothing left except to meet the kidnapper at midnight tomorrow and pray that everything went as planned.
She looked up as Knox came into the room. He offered her a smile and sank down next to her. “This is almost over, Ally. Hopefully, late tomorrow night, Cody will be back in his bed where he belongs.”
“That’s all I want in the entire world,” she replied.
“Me, too.” He leaned back and scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “Dalton and Brett should be leaving in just a few minutes. They plan on coming back here at noon tomorrow and they’ll be with us for the exchange.”
“Have you spoken to Sheriff Jeffries this evening?”
“I did. He’s coming by about seven tomorrow night to discuss the final plans.” Knox frowned. “It would be so much easier if he’d just keep his nose out of this. He wasn’t interested in working too hard from the very beginning and I think all he’s interested in now is another photo op.”
“I just don’t want him to mess anything up.” She wrapped her arms around her shoulders as a chill walked up her spine.
“Before that might happen, I’ll punch him in the nose and hog-tie him.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “You are way too eager to punch people in the nose.”
He returned her smile. “Only those who hurt my family,” he replied.
His family. Was that the way he saw her and Cody? In one way or another, they would all be family forever. Even if they weren’t together, she and Knox would always have a special place for each other.
There was no question that since he’d been back in town she’d loved having him to lean on and to talk to. She’d loved the protective light that jumped into his eyes when he perceived that she was being threatened.
The ring of the home phone wiped the smile off her face. They both jumped off the sofa and ran for the kitchen.
“Private caller,” Dalton said and gestured for her to answer it.
What now? Another stupid prank phone call telling them Cody was in the state capital holding a rally for abused animals? She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Cody is safe.” It was a muffled female voice. “The threat against him has been neutralized. You’ll find him in the basement in the old Miller place. He needs his mother and his father to come and get him.” The phone went dead.
Allison hung up the phone and stared at Knox. “Could it be real?” she whispered half-breathlessly. She wanted to believe. She was terrified to believe.
“We didn’t go to the Miller house. It wasn’t on the list of places with basements,” he replied. “We just checked the shed on the property.”
“That place is just outside of the city limits. It wouldn’t have been on the list,” Wendall said.
She clutched Knox’s arm, her heart hammering, and she stared into his darkened blue eyes. “Do you think it might be real?”
God, she wanted it to be. She wanted the caller to be right. Was it Livia who had called? She couldn’t be sure. She tightened her grip on Knox.
“We don’t lose anything if we go and check it out,” he replied.
She had told him she didn’t want to go on any more wild-goose chases, but something in her heart, in her very soul, told her she had to go with him now.
The caller had said Cody’s mother and father needed to come and get their son. She’d said that the threat had been neutralized. Allison had no idea what that meant. All she knew was that the caller had said Cody was safe and if that was true then he needed his parents to bring him home.
Within minutes, she and Knox and Dalton and Brett were in the car and headed to the old, abandoned house with the promise that if anything was there, Knox would immediately call Sheriff Jeffries. Wendall and Jim were following in their car.
They had flashlights and guns and a tense anticipation that filled the car as Knox drove as fast as safety would allow.
“Do you think it was your mother who called?” she asked once they were on their way.
He frowned, his hands so tightly clenched around the steering wheel they appeared white in the light from the dashboard. “I don’t know. I can’t be sure.”
“Worst-case scenario, we get there and find out the call was just another hoax,” Dalton said from the backseat.
Were they all fools? Rushing to yet another heartbreaking disappointment? Her stomach rolled with nervous tension. She’d been here before...wound up with hope, praying for a good outcome, only to crash down with a bitter despair.
When the dark Miller house came into view, her heart was so big in her throat she couldn’t speak. The rush of her heartbeat was so loud in her ears she could barely hear.
Knox parked on the side of the road and then turned in the seat to look at the other men. “We go in quiet. I’ll find a door or a window to get inside the house, and you two see if there’s a way to get inside the basement from the outside. Don’t move in until you hear from me.”
He reached over and grabbed Allison’s hand. “You stay with me.”
They got out of the car and the cool night air blew around her and inside her. She gazed at the shed they’d checked on because of the phone tip. It had been empty. Was this yet another crazy person’s idea of fun? Or had they been this close to where Cody was being held and had left him behind?
As Dalton and Brett took off, quickly blending into the night, Knox once again grabbed her hand and together they walked through the overgrown grass and weeds toward the front of the house.
His hand held hers almost painfully tight as they drew closer and closer to the front door. When they reached the small porch, he dropped her hand. He pressed his ear against the door and then tried the doorknob. Locked.
He motioned for her to follow him to the living room window. He turned on his flashlight and peered inside, then clicked the light off again.
She gasped as he smashed the back of the flashlight into the glass. Immediately, he listened once again. No sound came out of the house. Surely if there was somebody inside, they would have heard the glass shattering.
Already, a wave of bitter disappointment swept through her. The belief she’d had that the call might be real died on the wave of silence that greeted them as they crawled through the broken window and into the dark living room.
Once again, Knox turned on the flashlight, sweeping it around the room. It appeared that somebody had been squatting here. A ratty blanket was on the floor, along with a pile of trash and a bottle of pills.
Some addict who had obviously seen the empty house and had taken up residency to eat cheap bologna sandwiches and drink beer, by the look of the garbage pile. It was just another dead end.
Her disappointment transformed into the deeper emotion of renewed anguish. So where was the squatter now? Had he left or was he someplace in one of the other rooms? Possibly asleep or passed out?
Knox pulled his gun as they left the living room and entered the kitchen. There were three doors, one that led outside to the backyard, one that apparently led to a pantry and one that went downstairs to the basement.
She held her breath as Knox opened that door. The stairs yawned dark and silent before them. For several long minutes, they simply stood and listened to the silence.
“Is anyone down there?” he finally called out.
“Knox?” The little boy voice shouted out. “I’m down here, Knox.”
“Cody!” she cried.
“Mom?”
She wanted to run down the stairs, but Knox held her back. “Cody, are you down there by yourself?” he asked.
“There’s a dead man down here.” The words ended on a sob.
She and Knox thundered down the stairs and he clicked on his flashlight. In the beam of light, she saw her son’s beautiful face for the first time in almost four days.
She cried out his name and almost stumbled over a man’s body prone on the floor as she rushed to Cody. When she reached him, she gathered him into her arms as they cried together.
The two small windows in the basement exploded inward as Brett and Dalton came in, their flashlights helping to illuminate the basement.
“It’s okay,” she said tearfully. “It’s okay, Cody, we’re here,” she said as she kissed his forehead, his cheeks and his eyes. She would have liked to kiss each of his fingers and each of his toes as she had when he’d been a little baby.
Safe. Her little boy was safe and in her arms and her heart could scarcely hold the fullness of gratitude and love. She’d been so afraid she’d never hold him again.
“I knew you’d find me,” he said. “I knew it.” His tears came faster when Knox joined them, embracing both of them with his big, strong arms. For just that moment they were a family, and love for Knox joined her intense love for Cody.
She was vaguely aware of Dalton leaning down to place his fingers on the man’s neck beneath the ski mask he wore. “Whoever he is, he’s dead,” he said as he straightened. “I’ll give Sheriff Jeffries a call.”
After that, everything blurred together. She was horrified to see the metal ring around Cody’s ankle and grateful when Knox found the key to unlock it in the dead man’s pocket.
As they waited for the sheriff to arrive, she sat on the cot and held Cody tightly against her side as he told them about the man jumping out from behind a tree and drugging him.
He told them about the darkness and the bologna sandwiches and about the murder of the man on the floor. “He was down here to give me a sandwich and somebody else came down the stairs behind him. That person was dressed all in black and had a ski mask on, too. Then the person stabbed the man in the back.”
Cody pressed his face into her side and she bit back more tears. She couldn’t begin to understand what had happened there; all she knew was she had her son back and she could finally draw a full breath again.
* * *
Knox had never been so happy to see anyone in his life as he was to see Cody. He wanted to sit on the cot with him and Allison, but he also wanted to know exactly what had happened here. There was a dead, masked man on the floor and a murderer on the loose. What in the hell?
More than anything, now that he knew Cody was safe, he wanted to rip the mask off the body and find out his identity, but he knew he needed to wait for the sheriff. The last thing he wanted to do was screw up any evidence that might give him a better understanding of what had happened.
He’d also wanted to grab Cody to his chest and hold him tight, breathe in the scent of his son and tell him that he was his father. But instead he had backed away after only a brief hug and given Cody and Allison space. He had to remind himself that to Cody he was just a family friend and what he needed at this moment was his mother.
The sound of sirens could be heard coming from the distance and hopefully with them would come some answers. “I’ll go upstairs and let them in through the front door,” Brett said.
“Can we go home now?” Cody asked.
“Not yet, but soon, Cody,” he said, once again fighting his need to hug the boy close. As much as he hated keeping Cody in this dungeon another minute, he knew he had to let Sheriff Jeffries take the lead from here.
Jeffries clumped down the stairs with heavy footsteps, followed closely by Wendall and Jim. “Thank God,” Wendall said as he saw Allison and Cody on the sofa.
“What the hell do we have here?” Sheriff Jeffries stared down at the dead body. He bent down and grabbed the bottom of the ski mask.
“Wait!” Allison protested. “Please, let me take my son out of here before anything else happens.”
“I’ll take them upstairs,” Wendall said without waiting for Jeffries’s okay. “Come on, son. You can tell me all about the little horses you keep in your room.”
Knox flashed Wendall a grateful glance. Too bad the compassionate deputy didn’t want to run against his boss in the fall. Wendall would have made a sheriff the whole town could be proud of.
Once those three had disappeared up the stairs, again Bud leaned down and grabbed the bottom of the ski mask. He tore it off.
“Earl,” Knox said in shocked surprise.
“You know him?” Bud asked.
Knox nodded. “His name is Earl Hefferman. He was my mother’s right-hand man. Last I heard, he was someplace out on probation.”
“And now he’s dead. Have any idea how that happened?” Bud asked.
“I don’t have a clue. According to Cody, somebody in a ski mask and dressed in black came down the stairs and stabbed Earl in the back,” Knox replied.
“I’ll need to question the boy. I’ll do that while we wait for the coroner,” Bud replied.
“I don’t think so,” Knox replied with a new weariness. “I’m going to go upstairs and take the boy named Cody and his mother to the hospital and then home with me. It’s late, he’s had enough trauma to last the rest of his life and you can talk to him sometime tomorrow.” Knox turned to head for the stairs at the same time Brett’s flashlight landed on something just to the side of the stairs.
“What’s that?” Bud asked.
Knox stared at the lacy lavender handkerchief. Was it possible? “It’s a handkerchief. My mother used to carry ones just like that.”
“So, it’s likely that your mother saved the boy and then made the phone call to your house. I need to get more men in the area and let them know who we’re looking for. This might be over for you, but it’s just starting for us.”
Knox crept up the stairs slowly, his mind whirling. Was that really what had happened? Had his mother somehow caught wind of what Earl had done and come to her grandson’s aid? It was difficult to believe for, if she had, it would be the first real act of love he’d ever known her to commit.
Wendall, Allison and Cody were seated on the carpeting in the living room. With Wendall’s flashlight providing the illumination, it appeared as if the three were gathered for a fun night of storytelling.
“Who is ready to go home?” Knox asked.
“I am!” Cody exclaimed and scrambled to his feet.
“Me, too,” Allison added.
Wendall and Allison also stood. “Jim and I have a few things to pick up at the house, but we’ll wait until tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Wendall. Thank you for everything,” Allison said.
“Just doing my job,” he replied modestly.
“You did more than your job, and we appreciate it,” Knox said.
Within minutes, the three of them were in Knox’s car and headed to the hospital and then hopefully home. Well, not to his home, but to the place where his heart resided.
“Mom, when we get home will you make me some pancakes?” Cody asked. “All I’ve had to eat is some bologna sandwiches and I don’t ever want to eat those again.”
Allison turned in her seat to look at him. “Cody, my love, you never, ever have to eat another bologna sandwich, and I will happily make you pancakes when you get home.”
Thank God Cody hadn’t been hurt physically, Knox thought as he listened to Allison talking to her son about all the friends and neighbors who had come out to help look for him.
Only time would tell if Cody suffered any emotional trauma. Thankfully children were supposed to be resilient and he hoped Cody would carry no scars from his ordeal. If necessary, they would see to it that Cody got some counseling.
His mother. Was she really here in Shadow Creek, and had she been in that basement with Earl and Cody? Or had Marlene Miller, the former owner of the Miller house, carried the same kind of handkerchiefs when she’d been alive? He dismissed the very idea, for the handkerchief had looked clean and new, not as if it had sat in a basement for over a year.
Thoughts of Livia continued to haunt him nearly two hours later when they gathered around the kitchen table for Allison’s pancakes. Hopefully, some fingerprints could be pulled from the handkerchief and they would tell the tale.
Cody had been checked out by a doctor at the hospital who had pronounced him fine, and the three of them had returned to Allison’s house.
The kitchen smelled of hot syrup and buttery pancakes and love. Knox watched as Allison reached over to touch Cody’s arm, swept his hair off his forehead and then squeezed his shoulder, as if to assure herself that he was really here.
“I dreamed about this,” Cody said as he wiped a dollop of syrup off his chin with the back of his hand. “I dreamed about pancakes and ham and cheese sandwiches and being here in this kitchen with all of us together.”
“We dreamed about it, too.” Allison handed him a napkin. “Well, not so much the food part, but we definitely dreamed about you being back here.”
“The worst part was being scared and having nobody to talk to. I tried to talk to the guy who took me, but he never said a word to me. I’ve never gone so long without somebody talking to me,” Cody said.
“You’re probably going to wish your mother and I stop talking to you over the next couple of days,” Knox said with a small laugh.
“No way,” he replied.
Cody ate three pancakes and then rubbed his eyes tiredly.
“I’m not a baby or anything, but maybe would you keep the hall light on for the rest of the night?” he asked Allison.
“I’ve been sleeping on your bottom bunk while you’ve been gone,” Knox said. “How about I do that for tonight and then I’ll head home tomorrow?” He shot a quick glance at Allison, hoping he wasn’t overstepping his boundaries, but she gave him a small smile.
“That would be great,” Cody said.
“Now, how about you head upstairs for a quick bath while I clean up the kitchen?” Allison said.
“Can Knox come up and talk to me while I take my bath?” Cody asked.
“Sure,” Knox replied. “And you can tell me the names of all the horses you have on your shelf. I know you told me once before, but I’ve forgotten some of them.”
He followed Cody upstairs where he took a much-needed bath and then dressed in a clean pair of pajamas. By that time, Allison had joined them upstairs to tuck Cody into bed.
He watched from the doorway as she stood on the bottom rail and swept Cody’s hair from his face, then kissed him on his forehead.
“I want you to have wonderful dreams. I want you to know that you’re safe now and you have nothing to worry about. It was a bad person who took you, but there are a lot of good people in the world.”
“I know. I love you, Mom.”
“Oh, buddy, I love you, too.” She kissed him once again and then pulled the sheet up around his neck. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She got back on the floor and smiled at Knox. “Happy dreams to you, too.”
He nodded, for a moment too much emotion in the back of his throat to reply. When she left the room, Knox stripped to his boxer shorts and got into the lower bunk.
“I’m so glad I’m home,” Cody said, the last word ending on a yawn. “Will you tell me a story before I go to sleep, Knox?”
Knox was in the middle of a story about the first time he’d ever ridden a horse when he knew Cody had fallen asleep. For the next fifteen minutes or so, he merely listened to the sound of his son’s deep, even breathing.
Safe. Cody was finally safe and where he belonged, and Knox hoped that now he would be able to officially claim him, that the time was now right for Cody to know he had a father who loved him with all his heart and soul.
Now Knox had to figure out where he belonged. With this trauma over, the rest of his life suddenly loomed before him. One thing was clear in his head. He wasn’t leaving Shadow Creek again. His son was there and the woman he loved was there.
He couldn’t even pretend that he thought he had a future with Allison. With Cody home, she wouldn’t need Knox anymore, and he believed it was the aching need of two grieving parents that had temporarily brought them together.
Certain that Cody’s sleep was deep, he crept out of the bed to find Allison. He hadn’t even had a chance to tell her about the handkerchief.
He found her in her bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring out the nearby window. “Allison,” he said softly.
She turned and smiled at him. “Is he asleep?”
He nodded and walked over to the bed and sat down next to her. “I imagine he’ll sleep until noon tomorrow. Hopefully he won’t have any nightmares.”
“I hope not, too.” She released a sigh. “Thank God it’s all over, although it was very strange, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe not so strange,” he replied and then told her about the lavender handkerchief found in the basement. “Before she was arrested, my mother was obsessed with fancy handkerchiefs. I know it was hers. She was down in that basement.”
She looked at him in surprise and then slowly shook her head. “If it was your mother, then maybe she has some good in her, after all,” she said. “I can’t be sorry that she killed the man who stole Cody away from us. Who knows what he might have done with Cody before the exchange?”
“I’m just surprised she didn’t wait until the actual exchange happened so she could kill Earl for the money he’d gotten from us. That’s more like the mother I know.”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” she replied. “If she hadn’t done what she did, there’s a possibility we might have never gotten Cody back.”
He nodded in agreement. “So I guess life returns to normal...whatever that is,” he replied. Without the worry eating him up inside, without the fear tearing at his gut, his desire for her roared to the forefront. But that was not what he saw in her eyes at that moment, and he tamped down his want of her.
“I’d like to be with the two of you when Sheriff Jeffries interviews Cody, if that’s okay,” he said.
“I think before that happens, we need to tell Cody about you. It’s a conversation that should have happened before. Maybe once breakfast is over in the morning?”
His heart swelled. “You know that’s more than okay with me. And once that is over and after the sheriff talks to Cody, then I’ll pack up my bags and get out of your hair.” There was a small part of him that held its breath, hoping that she might say something that would indicate she wanted him there with her for always.
“What are your plans?”
That single question effectively killed any hope he had of a future with her. “I’m not sure. All I know is that my plans will be here in Shadow Creek. I’m not going back to the Rangers and I want to be here always and forever for my son.”
He rose from the bed. “And now I think what both of us need is some good sleep. Good night, Allison.”
“Good night, Knox.”
He left the room and crawled back into the lower bunk. He should be deliriously happy. Cody was home safe, and tomorrow the boy would know that Knox was his father and that was all that mattered. And he was happy, except for the aching pain in his heart where Allison was concerned.