Chapter Fourteen
It was early, a weak sun graying the horizon through a sky heavy with clouds. Dirk left Meg asleep in her bedroom, went into the guest room and took a shower. Dressed in khaki cargo pants, a dark brown long-sleeve T-shirt, and his low-topped leather work boots, he headed downstairs, in desperate need of a cup of coffee.
When he reached the kitchen doorway, the rich aroma hit him. A pot had already been brewed.
Luke sat in a chair at the kitchen table, a ceramic mug resting next to his iPad.
“Come on in,” Dirk said sarcastically, wandering over to the counter to pour himself a cup. “Make yourself right at home.” The doors were all locked. He hadn’t heard Luke come in. The man moved like a freaking ghost.
“Sleep well?” Luke asked with a disapproving glare and the lift of a single dark eyebrow, clearly guessing where Dirk had spent the night.
“I could use a few more hours.”
“I’ll bet you could.”
“If it’s any of your business—which it isn’t—last night wasn’t about me, it was about Meg. She’s barely holding it together, Luke. She’s a friend. She needed me last night. I gave her what she needed.”
Luke’s disgruntlement faded. “Maybe you did, but at what cost to you, bro?”
Dirk didn’t answer. His head was still too full of Meg. Even after a long, hot shower, the smell of her perfume teased his senses. He could still taste her on his tongue.
It had taken him months to get over her. Now he was right back where he’d been before.
“We need to get her boy back before you fuck yourself up completely,” Luke said.
Dirk sighed. “You’re right. We bring Charlie home and I’m out of here.” He glanced down at Luke’s iPad. “Anything new from Sadie?”
“She ran the Bob Algreen lead into the ground. Nothing there. It definitely isn’t him.”
“Someone’s behind this and it’s not Santini or the babysitter.” The girl was too young, Santini not smart enough.
Luke nodded. “Maybe good ol’ Vinnie will enlighten us.”
Dirk glanced at the clock. It was eight in the morning. Soon they’d be leaving for the Mayfair, which opened at ten.
“If Vinnie doesn’t show or doesn’t have the answers we need,” Luke said, “we’ll have to pull back and wait for the ransom call. We won’t have any other choice.”
“I don’t like it. Puts the kidnappers in charge.”
“I don’t like it either. With any luck, Santini’s itch will get him to the Mayfair and he’ll give us a location.”
Dirk’s jaw hardened. “If he knows where they are, he’ll tell us. We won’t need any luck.”
The faintest edge of a hard smile appeared on Luke’s mouth. Dirk downed his coffee, and the men headed off to collect their gear. Together they had a pair of tactical vests, flash grenades, Dirk’s Browning, an AR-15, and a .45 S&W, Luke’s M9 Beretta, his short-barreled tactical shotgun, and various and sundry weaponry they both had stashed away. They also carried earbuds for communication.
There was more out in the Bronco. Luke carried enough artillery to supply an army, plus he’d loaded Dirk’s extra weapons into the back when he’d retrieved Dirk’s clothes.
If Santini gave them the kidnappers’ location, they’d be ready to head straight there.
Dirk clipped his holster onto his belt, pulled out his Browning nine mil and checked the load while Luke checked his Beretta. They were both wearing ankle guns, Dirk a .38 snub-nosed revolver, Luke a Glock 27, subcompact. 40 cal.
Dirk shoved his little .22 revolver back into his jean’s pocket. The switchblade was probably in a pocket of Luke’s desert camos or stuffed down one of his heavy leather army boots.
Dirk glanced out the window. It was a dark, ominous morning, but the thick gray overcast would help them blend in, make them less noticeable as they waited for Santini at the bowling alley.
“You better leave a note for Meg,” Luke said, and Dirk nodded.
He had just scratched out a message and set it on the dining room table when a knock sounded at the front door.
Luke went to check. “It’s O’Brien.” He pulled open the door.
“I got the money.” Edwin O’Brien strode into the entry. “It’s mostly hundreds, banded in thousands, a few stacks of tens and twenties, all stashed in twelve twenty-pound canvas bags locked in my trunk.”
“Jesus,” Dirk said. “I hope to hell you trust the people who helped you put it there.”
“They’re good people. They know how much Charlie means to me.”
“I’m glad you came,” Luke said. “You can stay with Meg. We’ve got a lead. We’re just getting ready to leave.”
“Mrs. Wills said she’d be over this morning,” Dirk added, “but it’d be good for you to be with Meg if the kidnappers call.”
“You think they will?”
“Like I said, I think they’ll stick to the plan. That means no call till this afternoon. They’ve thought this through. They’ve got an exit strategy. They have contingencies in place in case something goes wrong.” Like they had when Pam’s phone had been pinged, giving away their location. “They don’t want any more hiccups.”
“We need to leave,” Luke said.
“Where are you going?” O’Brien asked.
“We’ve got a possible location for the babysitter’s boyfriend. We need to talk to him.”
“If you’ve found something, maybe it’s time to bring in the police.”
Dirk turned at the sound of feminine footfalls, felt a tightening in his chest when he spotted Meg.
“We aren’t doing that, Dad. If we do, they might kill Charlie.” She looked better this morning, a faint trace of color in her cheeks, the smudges gone from beneath her blue eyes. He’d done that for her. It was impossible to regret what had happened between them last night.
“We’ve got to go,” Luke said.
Meg straightened to her impressive five-foot-ten-inch height and looked Dirk straight in the face. “Yes, we do, and I’m going with you. If Santini tells us where to find Charlie, we can go get him.”
Dirk’s gaze ran over her clothes: dark blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, her feet in a pair of hiking boots, her hair pulled tightly back at the nape of her neck. She’d thought this through. It was going to be hell trying to talk her out of it.
He reached out and caught her shoulders. “You can’t go this time, hon—Meg. Today’s the big payoff. These guys are bound to be nervous. Anything could set them off. If we go after Charlie, I need to be able to concentrate on keeping him safe and not worry about what might be happening to you.”
“He might need me, Dirk. I’m his mother. I have to be there. I promise I’ll stay out of your way.”
O’Brien spoke to his daughter. “You’re being ridiculous, Meg. These men are professionals. You’re a woman.”
“She’s a woman all right,” Luke drawled, sticking his two cents in again where it wasn’t wanted. “No doubt about that. But I think she’s proved herself. She deserves to be there if that’s what she wants.”
That was totally true, but it didn’t change anything. “Jesus, Luke. We can’t take her with us. It’s too dangerous.”
Luke’s laser-blue eyes zeroed in on Dirk’s face. “Santini may not even show. If he does and we get a location, Meg can stay in the car. If we find the boy, he’s going to need his mother.”
“I’m going,” Meg said. “Charlie’s my son. I have to be there, Dirk.”
He looked up at the ceiling, fighting for control. Much as he didn’t want to take her, part of him admired her courage. Add to that, there was no way he’d stay home and wait if the boy were his son.
A sigh of resignation whispered through him. “You’ll do what I tell you, right? Just like before?”
“I will, I promise.”
“We need to go now,” Luke said.
“Say a prayer for us, Daddy.” Meg leaned over and kissed her father’s cheek, then turned and started walking toward the door.
“You’ve got my cell number,” Dirk said to O’Brien. “Call if you hear from them.” Then they were out the front door and heading for the Bronco.
* * *
The Mayfair Bowling Alley in Kenmore sat in the crotch of a strip mall on NE Bothell Way, a nothing, single-story, out-of-the-way place with a cluster of cars parked out front. It was ten after ten, the bowling alley/minicasino already open for business. Her father’s arrival, Meg’s argument with Dirk, and a traffic snarl had cost them a few precious minutes.
Meg sat tensely in the backseat while Dirk phoned Sadie and read off the plate numbers of the cars in the lot, hoping to find a vehicle registered to Sandoval, Santini, or Pamela Vardon.
Nothing came up.
They waited a few more minutes, watching from inside the Bronco, parked near the back of the lot. There was no sign of Santini.
“We’re going in to take a look,” Dirk said to Meg, cracking open his door. “Keep your eyes open. You’ve got your cell. Pull up my number. If you spot Santini, give me a heads-up. Whatever happens, in no case do you get out of the car. Understood?”
She lifted her chin. “I’m not an idiot. Of course I understand.”
His mouth edged up, lifting one side of his sexy mustache. “Stay out of trouble.”
The men split up, Dirk heading for the front door, Luke detouring around back in case Santini was already inside and tried to run. Meg watched Dirk’s tall, lean, V-shaped body as he strode toward the entrance and tried not to think of what had happened last night.
For five long months she had tried to forget how good they were together. Tried to forget the way he knew exactly where to touch her. Exactly how to please her. How to make her forget everything but him.
She should be embarrassed by the way she’d begged him to take her, but she wasn’t. She’d needed him last night and Dirk had been there for her.
She needed him now, needed him to help her find her son.
Meg stayed low in the seat but remained vigilant, hoping to spot Santini’s arrival. Minutes slipped past, but still no sign of the man whose photo she had memorized.
Her nerves hiked up when an older-model brown Chevy Malibu pulled into the lot. The driver parked in a space close to the front door, got out, clicked the locks, and headed for the bowling alley.
Medium height, olive complexion, perfectly styled glossy black hair. A handsome, well-dressed man in his early thirties. Santini. Meg’s pulse leaped. Grabbing her cell phone off the seat, she hit the Send button, heard Dirk pick up on the other end of the line.
“He’s here. He’s almost at the front door.”
“Good girl.” The line went dead.
The next thing she saw was Dirk appearing in the entrance to the bowling alley, standing in the door frame, blocking Santini’s way, then pushing him back out the door.
Dirk said something she couldn’t hear, whirled Santini around, and jammed him up against the wall so fast it was almost a blur.
He dragged Santini’s arm up in back and pulled a plastic tie out of his pocket. Santini struggled, but Dirk held him easily, jerked his other arm behind him, and bound the man’s wrists.
From the corner of her eye, she spotted Luke racing around the building to join them. Meg watched with a mixture of nervousness and hope as Dirk and Luke marched Santini across the parking lot toward the Bronco.
Luke opened the tailgate and shoved the man into the back, and Dirk followed him into the space behind the backseat. Until that moment, she hadn’t noticed the metal rings welded into the side of the cargo area. Now, as Dirk secured the prisoner to the rings, it occurred to her that a bounty hunter would need a way to transport his prisoners.
“This is kidnapping,” Santini sputtered, tugging on the restraints.
“Yeah, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Vinnie?” Dirk climbed out and slammed the tailgate, locking Santini inside, walked around, and slid into the backseat next to Meg.
Santini’s handsome face looked pale as Luke fired up the powerful engine and the SUV shot out of the parking lot and roared off down the street.
“Who are you? Where are you taking me?”
“Depends on how fast you tell us what we want to know,” Dirk said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything.”
“My ass,” Dirk said. “And you can be sure whatever it is you say you don’t know is exactly what you’re going to tell us.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Is Pamela with my son?” Meg asked over the backseat. “Where have they taken my boy?”
Santini started trembling, though secured as he was, he could barely move. “I told you, I don’t . . . don’t know anything.”
Dirk’s smile could have cut nails. “You know how we don’t do waterboarding anymore because it’s considered torture? Well, waterboarding is going to look like a fun day at the beach when we’re through with you.”
The rest of the blood drained out of Santini’s face. He tugged on the restraints, rattling the metal rings, must have realized the men had come well prepared.
“I don’t know anything,” he said again, but the words came out in barely a whisper.
Meg didn’t know what Dirk and Luke had planned and she didn’t care. She wanted her little boy safely home.
And there was every reason to believe Vinnie Santini knew where to find him.