Allison’s heart fluttered frantically in her chest as she watched Dalton type the address for the web page into the browser that would hopefully show her son alive.
She wanted her son home now, but at this moment what she needed was to see him alive and well. She leaned closer behind Dalton’s shoulder.
The page pulled up and she gasped. Tears leaped to her eyes, momentarily blurring her vision until she swiped them away. Cody sat in a straight-backed chair and held the morning newspaper in his hands. His eyes radiated a horrifying fear and although there was no sound, his mouth moved and she knew he was calling out to her.
Although physically he looked okay, his terror shot through her. Oh, God, he needed her. She wanted to reach through the computer screen and somehow get him, hug him tight against her heart.
“This looks like a live stream,” Dalton exclaimed. “We need to capture the image.” His fingers flew over the keys as tears raced faster and faster down Allison’s cheeks.
Knox moved next to her and threw an arm around her shoulders, tension radiating out from him. “Damn,” Dalton swore as the site suddenly went black.
Almost immediately the phone rang and Knox grabbed the receiver. “Twenty-four hours, a million dollars at the exchange place we discussed,” the robotic voice said.
“That’s not reasonable,” Knox replied. “We don’t have a million dollars here, and there’s no way for us to get any large sum of money in the next twenty-four hours. It’s Saturday afternoon and the banks are closed until Monday.”
“Five hundred thousand by midnight on Monday.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand by midnight on Tuesday,” Knox countered.
Allison stared at him in horror. She couldn’t believe he was bartering for their son’s life and moving the possibility of getting Cody back to another day. What on earth was wrong with him? Had he lost his mind?
“Okay, Tuesday night,” the voice replied. “And if I see anybody else anywhere in the area, I’ll kill the boy.” The phone line went dead.
Knox hung up the receiver and Allison launched herself at him. She slapped him, vaguely registering his shock as his cheek turned red with her handprint. She pummeled him in his chest as she sobbed uncontrollably.
He grabbed her wrists in an attempt to stop her assault. “Allison, stop! What in the hell are you doing?”
“What in the hell are you doing?” she retorted. She tried to yank her wrists from his hands, but he held on tight, only making her angrier.
He pulled her out of the kitchen and into the living room. He still held her wrists tightly, as if he knew if he released them she’d use them to attack him again.
He was right. She wanted to punch him again and again. In the back of her mind, she knew she was wildly out of control, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t believe what he had just done.
“We could have gotten him home within twenty-four hours, but you haggled for his life as if he was nothing more than an item at a garage sale or a flea market.” The words spewed out of her on choked sobs.
“I had to buy us some time,” he replied.
“Time for what?”
“Time for us to find him.” Knox’s eyes were pools of anguish. “Hopefully Dalton can trace the kidnapper through the web page, but it will take time. We’ve finally gotten something to work with so we can catch whoever is behind this.”
“I don’t give a good damn about capturing the kidnapper. You believe your mother is behind this? You know what I think? I think you want to catch her and punish her more than you want to get our son back.”
Knox drew in a deep breath and let go of her wrists. He stepped back from her, his eyes positively frosty. “If you think anything is more important to me than getting Cody back, then you’re dead wrong. What makes you believe the person who has him isn’t going to take the money and kill him anyway?”
A small gasp released from her. Her brain was in chaos, her body filled with so many emotions she couldn’t make sense of any of them, and his words only added to the horror.
“We need to find the kidnapper and take Cody back before that money drop ever happens. That’s the only way to ensure we get him back alive,” he said.
She hadn’t thought his eyes could get any colder, but they did as he took another step away from her. “You don’t think I want him back here as quickly as possible? I had less than two weeks with him while you had nine years. He doesn’t even know I’m his father because you didn’t want me to tell him and now I’m afraid I’ll never get the chance to. You should have let me know that I was his father the minute you found out you were pregnant.”
“I didn’t want you to know,” she retorted. “You left me. I decided to keep Cody from you because you didn’t want me and I never wanted your mother to have the ability to use him to hurt you any more than she’d hurt you in the past,” she retorted.
“My mother had just been convicted. We were losing our family home and I was a mess. I had to leave town before I lost my mind.”
“You should have run to me, not away from me. If your mother is behind this, then I wish you’d never found out about him.” She swiped her tears off her cheeks.
He stared at her for a long moment, their bitter words hanging in the air between them. He then turned on his heels and flew out the front door.
Allison stared after him. So he obviously still harbored bad feelings toward her. She’d thought they had made peace with the past, but his accusations and her own words spilling out on a river of anger told her otherwise.
The past had reared up in ugly words, but she couldn’t think about that right now. What stunned her the most was the fact that he wasn’t as confident about getting Cody back as she’d thought he was.
And that lack of self-assurance shot a new wave of fear through her. She didn’t want to go back and sit in the kitchen where the men were talking about IP addresses and all kinds of computer things she knew nothing about, and she didn’t want to sit on the sofa where she might encounter Knox before their intense emotions died down.
One thing was clear, if she’d entertained even the slightest fantasy that they might find a way back to each other, it had just died a sharp, painful death. The baggage was still there between them, and she suspected it would always be there.
Instead she went into the kitchen, where the men fell silent at her appearance. They had probably heard the fight. She and Knox hadn’t exactly kept their voices low.
She didn’t speak to or look at any of them as she went out the door and into the backyard. She walked over to the tree where she’d hoped to have a tree house built for Cody and clung to a lower branch and wept.
She should have built it last year when she’d first thought about it. Now she had no idea if Cody would ever get to enjoy a tree house.
Had she really been afraid that Cody wasn’t ready to handle knowing that Knox was his father? Or had her decision to wait been her own fears speaking? Had she been afraid of sharing Cody’s love? Afraid that her son would be angry with her if the truth ever came out?
She cried until there were no tears left, only hiccupping gasps that ripped through her stomach.
She should have let Knox tell Cody he was his father the moment he’d shown up in town. She shouldn’t have lied to him years ago when she’d discovered she was pregnant, but she’d felt so alone and had been afraid of Livia. But, no amount of regret could give those nine years with his son back to Knox.
She released the branch and dropped down into the cool grass. She wasn’t sorry for her words to Knox about his mother. His hatred of Livia had driven so many decisions in his life, and not all of them had been good.
He hadn’t gone to college because he hadn’t wanted to leave his siblings alone with Livia. Instead, he’d worked on the family ranch.
He’d gone through a spell of drinking too much their senior year and had blamed his mother. And he’d pulled away from Allison, once again allowing Livia to pull his strings.
She hadn’t even realized that’s what she thought until the words had fallen out of her mouth. She shouldn’t have said anything to him, despite what she’d felt about his relationship with his mother.
She definitely shouldn’t have said that she thought getting his mother behind bars was more important to him than getting Cody. It had been a cheap shot that had cut him deeply.
None of that mattered now. What did matter was she’d never felt as alone as she did now.
She realized as she plucked a piece of grass and allowed the cool breeze to carry it away that for the moment she had abandoned hope.
Knox was optimistic that they’d be able to find Cody before time ran out, thanks to the extra time he’d bargained for and the clues they gleaned from the website. But, she didn’t feel the same.
She was terrified that when this was all over she’d be completely alone with only a killing grief to endure for the rest of her life.
* * *
Cody stared at the bologna sandwich covered in plastic wrap in his lap. It had been tossed to him after his kidnapper had taken a video of him holding up a newspaper.
His kidnapper. He now knew that he’d been taken by the person who wore a long, dark coat and a ski mask. Cody didn’t know if it was a man or a woman. The person hadn’t uttered a word to him the whole time Cody had been captive, although Cody had asked him questions.
Why did you take me? What’s going to happen to me? Who are you? Oh, yes, Cody had asked questions, but the person had not answered. The silence was scarier than any answer the person could give him.
He was still chained to the wall, but the chain was long enough to allow him to walk about the room a bit. He could reach the portable toilet in one corner and an old sink with a plastic cup he used to drink water.
His clothes felt dirty against his skin. He never wore them for this long a time. He needed a bath. A lump rose up in his throat. He needed his mom.
He’d tried to figure out how to escape, but the ring around his ankle was so tight and the chain was too heavy and secured too well to the concrete-block wall for him to get free. The ring pinched his skin, and he’d finally stopped trying to get free when his ankle got sore from him attempting to slide it through the iron loop.
It scared him that nobody had found him yet. He didn’t even know if he was still in Shadow Creek. For all he knew, he could be in Alaska. They had studied a little bit about Alaska in school, and he knew that it was a long, long way from Shadow Creek, Texas.
He didn’t know where he was and he didn’t know who had taken him. How would his mom or Knox or anybody know who had kidnapped him and where he was if Cody didn’t know?
Tears welled up in his eyes as he once again looked at the sandwich. This was the fourth one that had been given to him. He hated bologna, but he was starving.
He unwrapped it and closed his eyes, pretending that he was back at home and sitting at the kitchen table and his mom had made him his favorite grilled ham and cheese.
* * *
Knox seethed with an anger he’d never known before as he drove away from the house. How dare Allison talk to him about his mother? She hadn’t lived through what he had; she didn’t know the emotional turmoil and damage Livia had wrought on all the Colton children.
He headed toward the crooked tree that would be the exchange point on Tuesday night. Now that he knew the ransom demand was real, he wanted to get the lay of the land.
Allison had acted like she didn’t think he cared about Cody. The most difficult thing he’d ever done in his life was bargain for his son’s life. And if what he believed was true and his mother was behind the kidnapping, then he had no doubt in his mind that she would kill Cody if he could identify her. She would leave no witness behind. That’s the way she operated.
He clenched and unclenched his hands around the steering wheel. He was hoping that Dalton and Brett could find out all the ins and outs of the web page and come up with information that would find Cody before Tuesday night.
You should have run to me and not away from me.
Allison’s words played and replayed through his mind. Some of his anger was expelled on a deep sigh. Perhaps she was right, but he’d felt so tainted by the whole scandal when his mother had been arrested and charged. He’d been broken, and the last person he’d wanted to see him that way was the woman he loved.
At that time, Jade and Claudia were minors and he’d believed he would become their guardian. He wasn’t sure where they were going to live or how they were all going to survive.
Thankfully, Mac had stepped in to take the girls, and he’d even offered Knox a job working as a ranch hand on his property, a job that he’d gladly taken.
Still, he had to admit that Livia had manipulated him more than once over the years, attempting to drive a wedge between himself and Allison. When they’d been dating in high school, Livia had told him she’d seen Allison in town with another guy. Knox had broken up with Allison the next day.
While Allison was away at college, more than once Livia had mentioned that she’d heard through the grapevine that Allison was a very popular young woman among her male classmates.
Livia had made it damned easy for him to believe Allison had cheated on him; she’d made it so easy for him to believe that Cody wasn’t his.
He slowed his car as he drove the road that led out of town to the west. He didn’t know exactly where the tree was located, but assumed it must be fairly visible from the road for the kidnapper to assume they could easily find it.
Attempting to shove away the heated argument with Allison, he focused his attention out the window. As he left the small town behind, the scenery was more rural, with trees and pastures on either side.
Then he saw it. The tree stood alone, its branches gnarled and blackened from a lightning strike that had happened sometime in the past.
There were no buildings around, no place where a little boy could be hidden away. There was also not a place where law enforcement could hide to be ready to take down the kidnapper.
He parked along the side of the road and got out of the car. He grabbed his cowboy hat from the seat and placed it on his head.
His stomach twisted in a hundred knots as he approached the large tree. He could only assume the kidnapper intended to pull up in a car and exchange the money for Cody.
So many things could go wrong. He was still convinced their best hope was to find where Cody was being held before the exchange ever took place.
He’d been thinking only of Cody’s safety when he’d told the kidnapper Tuesday night. That gave them the rest of the day, along with Sunday, Monday and most of the day Tuesday to figure out Cody’s location.
He closed his eyes for a moment and Cody’s face filled his head. A father was supposed to protect his son, and it killed him that this had happened. It tortured him that his being there in Shadow Creek and that damned blog had probably alerted his mother to a weakness she could exploit.
At least they now knew that Cody hadn’t appeared to have been physically hurt. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if his son had shown signs of physical abuse.
At the sound of a car approaching, he opened his eyes and turned to see Sheriff Jeffries’s patrol car pulling up behind his.
He remained where he was as the sheriff got out of his car and approached him. “They told me at the house that you’d taken off. I thought I might find you here.”
“Then you know we received proof of life and the exchange is supposed to take place here,” Knox replied.
“I watched the tape.” The lawman rolled back on his heels and then narrowed his gaze. “So, you really thought it was necessary to call in the Texas Rangers?”
“I didn’t call them in. They came on their own. They’re good friends of mine and they aren’t here in an official capacity.” A new gratitude swept through him as he thought of the two men who were using their vacation time to be there with him now.
“As long as they don’t get in my way,” Bud replied.
Little chance of that happening, Knox thought. It was difficult to get in the way of somebody who was basically doing nothing at all.
Bud looked around and frowned. “Going to be hard to have men out here in place for the exchange. There isn’t a hidey-hole in the area.”
“I don’t want any men in place. We were told that if any law enforcement was seen then Cody would die. I’m not going to take that kind of chance with my son’s life.”
“You’re just going to pay the money and hope for the best?” Bud said with a lifted eyebrow.
“I’m still hoping we’ll find Cody before Tuesday night,” Knox replied.
“I’m working on it,” Bud replied.
“And I appreciate everything you’re doing,” Knox replied. The last thing he intended to do was put his trust in any of Bud’s efforts. If Cody was going to be found, it would be through the work of Dalton and Brett.
“Do you have a plan?” Bud asked.
“Not yet,” he admitted.
“If you find out where Cody is being held, I’d better be the first to know. It’s obvious he isn’t being held anyplace around here. Hopefully, wherever he is, there will be places where we can provide backup.”
“I appreciate it,” Knox said, although he wasn’t sure at this point if his plan included letting Bud know anything they might find. “Was there anything else?” he asked.
He was suddenly eager to get back to the house and find out if the men had discovered anything about the website. He wanted to watch it again and see if he could figure out the space where Cody was being held.
“Just that it’s important we keep each other informed on any breaking news on this case. I think maybe another press conference would be a good idea, this time with you and Allison speaking to the public.”
“I’ll talk to Allison about it,” Knox replied as he took off walking toward his car.
“I’ll be in touch,” Bud yelled as Knox got behind the wheel.
Knox felt as if he’d been beaten as he drove back into town. Hell, he had been beaten by Allison. She’d shocked him with her fury as she’d slapped his face and then pummeled her fists against his chest. But she hadn’t hurt him physically.
He felt emotionally beaten, and he knew there was no way he and Allison would come out of this situation as the same people. They would be forever changed, forever scarred by the unrelenting terror, the horror of what they were enduring right now.
The last thing he’d wanted was for the stress to make them turn on each other. They should be clinging together right now, giving and getting strength from one another, not fighting with words as swords.
You should have run to me and not away from me. Once again her words played in his mind. They’d definitely turned on each other in an ugly way, one that he now regretted.
He’d been wrong to guilt her about the fact that they hadn’t told Cody about him being the boy’s father before the kidnapping. She’d been trying to do what was best for Cody and he’d understood that. He’d delivered a low blow to her and he owed her an apology for that if for nothing else.
The intense anger that had driven him out of the house was gone as he returned. He parked in the driveway and got out of the car, suddenly feeling much older than he had a week ago.
Allison wasn’t in the living room or in the kitchen. “Where’s Allison?” he asked the men in the kitchen.
“She went outside to the backyard when you left,” Wendall replied.
“Knox, we got a screen cap of the website before it went down,” Dalton said. “I want you to watch it and give us your opinion.”
He had to believe that Allison had gone outside because she’d wanted to be alone. He also had to suspect that he was probably the very last person on earth she wanted to see right now.
He sat in the chair Dalton vacated and looked at the laptop screen. Dalton hit a button and the video of Cody holding the newspaper played. All he could focus on was the fear that radiated out from Cody’s eyes, the little body that trembled with terror. Knox wanted to reach into the screen and grab his son and hold him until the fear left both of them.
“Play it again,” he said softly, knowing what Dalton wanted him to do.
As the video played a second time, he kept his focus away from Cody and instead studied the boy’s surroundings. A bare lightbulb hung down from the ceiling. He leaned closer to the computer screen. The wall just behind Cody appeared to be concrete block.
Although the bare bulb cast a pool of light over Cody’s head, there was another faint source of illumination that appeared to be coming from a window set high in a wall to the right of the screen.
“A basement,” Knox said with excitement. “He’s being held in a basement.”
Dalton nodded with satisfaction. “That’s what we thought, and the fact that Cody is holding up the Shadow Creek morning paper makes us believe he’s being held someplace here in town.”
“There aren’t that many homes around here that have basements,” Knox replied thoughtfully. “They’re difficult and expensive to build because of all the limestone. Surely we could get a list of places with basements from city hall?” For the first time, a new hope built inside him. They were getting closer.
“You’d probably have the best luck with the city clerk who issues building permits, but city hall is closed until Monday,” Wendall said.
“Who is the city clerk?” Knox asked.
“Myna Turner,” Wendall replied.
Knox frowned and stifled a groan. He remembered the fifty-something woman from ten years before. She’d been one of the loudest mouths dragging the Colton name through the mud and she’d led the successful attempt to get Livia Colton’s name removed from the hospital. He seriously doubted that she’d want to do anything to help him. But she might want to help Allison.
Whether she was ready to talk to him or not, he needed her to know this new development. He got up from the chair. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked out the back door and found her sitting beneath a large tree, the early evening sunshine dappled as it came through the new leaves and cast her features in shadows.
She didn’t look up when he approached. She didn’t look at him until he sank down in the grass facing her. When she did, her eyes were dark gold pools and her face was wan.
“Last year, I intended to have a tree house built for Cody, but one thing led to another and it never got done. I’ve been sitting here wondering what on earth was more important than a tree house for my son.”
“You know, those kinds of thoughts will just try to destroy you,” Knox said softly. He hesitated. He wanted to apologize to her, but he feared she would think he was only apologizing because he wanted her to contact Myna Turner.
“We have a new development,” he said, deciding his apology could wait until later.
“What?” Her eyes came alive.
“We believe Cody is being held in a basement someplace here in town.”
“A basement?”
He nodded. “What we need is to get hold of Myna Turner to see if she can give us a list of people who have basements around here.” He stood and held out his hand to her. “I need you to contact her and ask. It might be the clue we need to finally get Cody home.”
She hesitated only a moment and then reached for his hand. He grasped hers firmly and pulled her up from the ground, fighting the impulse to grip her close to him. He had a feeling she wouldn’t welcome an embrace from him right now.
Together, they went into the kitchen where the other men were once again watching the video. When it finished playing, Dalton leaned back in his chair with a frown.
“No matter how many times I watch it, no matter how I zoom in on the images, I can’t get any more information about the room where the video was shot,” he said with obvious frustration.
“But we still believe it was shot in a basement and that that’s where he’s being held,” Brett added.
“I’ll call Myna and see if she can help us,” Allison said. Her voice was stronger, her eyes more focused as she went to the kitchen desk and pulled out a small, pink telephone book.
She found the number and picked up her cell phone. Knox watched her intently, hoping...praying that finally they had a solid lead.
“Myna, it’s Allison Rafferty. I would appreciate it if you gave me a call back as soon as you get this message. It’s urgent.” She ended the call. “She wasn’t home.”
“Does she have a cell phone number?” Knox asked.
Allison shook her head. “I seriously doubt it, I once heard her say that she believed cell phones were the work of the devil. I don’t even think she has a home computer.”
“Is there anyone else who might be able to get us a list?” Knox asked Wendall.
“Not that I know of. Myna is pretty territorial about her work,” Wendall replied.
“Then we can just hope Myna gets back to me quickly,” Allison replied.
A sinking sensation filled Knox. The clock was ticking, and there was nothing more they could do than wait for a phone call that might or might not be the first step in bringing Cody home.