Chapter Seventeen
As the icy water surged over Meg’s head, terror struck like a knife in her heart. With her arms bound behind her, she held her breath and plunged deep into the lake. For a moment she lost her bearings. Dear God, where was Charlie?
Kicking her legs, she shot herself to the surface and frantically whirled in every direction in search of her little boy. She heard him thrashing and crying for his mama, saw him go under, then spotted his bright head as he came up for a breath of air.
For an instant his terrified eyes met hers, then he went under again. Meg went after him, fear and determination driving her on. Dirk was coming. She had to keep her son alive until he could get there.
Fighting down her terror, Meg searched the murky depths but couldn’t find her son, came up for another breath of air and saw him paddling frantically a few feet away. Spitting out a mouth full of water, she managed to keep her head up long enough to turn around and grab hold of his red-striped polo shirt with her bound hands as he slid under again. She dragged him to the surface but couldn’t quite hold on to him.
Charlie went under. Meg ducked down and saw him, turned and grabbed him again, shoved him up but couldn’t reach the surface herself. Her hiking boots weighed her down, exhausting the muscles in her legs. Her air was almost gone.
Dear God, she and her baby were going to drown before Dirk could reach them.
She knew he was coming, had spotted the fishing boat racing toward them across the lake. She just had to keep her baby alive until he could get there.
Sinking deeper, she searched madly, fear and the cord immobilizing her arms, making her movements clumsy. Her lungs ached. She couldn’t hold her breath any longer. She kicked to the surface and saw Dirk’s aluminum boat approaching.
She had to find Charlie. Dear God, where was Charlie? She went down again, coughed and sucked in water, shot to the surface for more air, then went down again. She spotted him, but he wasn’t moving. She turned and snagged his little red polo shirt, and with her bound hands hauled him up to the surface—but couldn’t reach it herself.
Her breath was gone. She was going to die here today. With a last burst of energy, she kicked to the top, saw her son’s bright red hair and unconscious body floating on the water an instant before he started sinking again.
She heard the clank of metal as Dirk’s boat reached her and he tossed the anchor into the water.
“Save . . . Charlie!” she yelled at him, the effort sucking more water into her lungs. She slid back into the water, drifted lower, down toward the bottom of the lake. Her mind felt fuzzy, her limbs no longer able to respond to her commands.
A glimpse of Dirk’s powerful body diving into the water was the last thing she saw. Dirk would save Charlie. He wouldn’t let her precious son die. How could she not have believed in him? How could she have sent him away? Then her mind went blank as she drifted into the reeds at the bottom of the lake and everything went black.
* * *
Save Charlie! Meg’s plea echoed in Dirk’s head as he dove again and again into the dark waters of the lake in search of her little boy. He couldn’t save them both. She knew it and so did he. He’d be lucky to find the boy and get him out before it was too late.
A silent scream filled his head. He loved Meg. And because he did, he would do what she asked. He dove again, tried to see any sign of the boy, any sign of Meg.
In the minutes before he’d reached them, he had ripped off the bulky Kevlar vest, holstered his weapon and set it aside, and tugged off his heavy leather boots.
Powerless to help her, he had watched Meg fighting to save her son, watched as she spent herself, determined to keep her baby’s head above water. The boy had been limp and unmoving the last time he had gone under.
Dirk pulled in a breath and dove again. The boy was here somewhere. He just had to find him. His hand touched something silky. He grabbed hold and pulled with all his strength. The little boy floated up. Dirk pushed him to the surface and followed him up, sucked air into his tortured lungs, then lifted the unconscious child over the side of the aluminum boat.
He couldn’t save them both. Meg had known it and so had he.
His chest clamped down. Fuck that, he thought, turned, and dove back into the icy water. Again and again he dove, going deeper, fanning out, searching until his legs cramped and his lungs burned from lack of oxygen.
Where are you, baby? His chest ached and it wasn’t from lack of air. He dove again, went deeper, stayed down longer. But he had to think of Charlie, had to surface and give the baby CPR. He had promised Meg.
Just as he started toward the top, he saw her hazy image in the water a few feet away, her hair unbound and floating around her face, making her look like a mermaid.
With a last burst of strength and only a second of air, he caught her hair, kicked, and hauled her up, exploding to the surface and dragging in great lungfuls of oxygen. Meg floated up beside him, but she wasn’t breathing.
He had to get her out of the water. The aluminum boat rocked as another boat pulled up and the driver cut the motor. Bigger, a KingFisher with an outboard Merc and a blue canvas top. He had no idea where it had come from, but then he saw Luke, and a fraction of his fear lifted away.
Luke spotted the baby and jumped from the bigger boat into the smaller one to start CPR, while the gray-haired driver made his way to the side and reached down for Meg. Working together, they brought her out of the lake into the bigger boat.
Dirk’s muscles trembled with fatigue as he gripped the side and hoisted himself over the edge. Hurriedly, they positioned Meg in the bottom of the craft, cut the cord around her wrists, and Dirk started CPR.
Five rescue breaths, forcing air into her lungs, then thirty chest compressions. Two breaths, then thirty compressions. He flicked a glance at Luke, working over little Charlie, ignored the thick knot swelling in his throat, and continued to work on Meg.
“Charlie’s breathing!” Luke shouted, and Dirk felt a wave of relief and a burning behind his eyes.
Come on, baby. Two more breaths, then thirty compressions. Two more breaths. Meg started to sputter and cough, music to his ears. She gasped in a lungful of air, coughed, and spat out water, and he eased her onto her side, into the recovery position.
“Easy, baby. You’re okay. Charlie’s safe. You’re both okay. Just take it easy.”
She started crying. “Charlie’s okay?”
“He’s breathing. He’s in the other boat. We need to get you both to the hospital.”
“I want to see him.” She tried to rise, coughed, and he eased her back down. He hadn’t missed the dark bruise on her cheek. No way would she have let the kidnapper take her without a fight.
“Luke’s with Charlie,” he said. “Just hang on a little longer.” He wanted to hold her, promise her he’d never let anyone hurt her again. Instead, he turned away. “You ready to head back?” he called to Luke.
“House is clear. The cops should be there by now.”
Dirk glanced back toward the dock and saw distant red and blue flashing lights. Both outboard motors fired up without a hitch, thank Jesus, and they headed back across the lake.
“My name’s Arnie, by the way.” As he expertly steered the boat through the water, the gray-haired man reached out a hand Dirk shook. “I own the house at the other end of the lake. I heard boats on the water, motors running real hot. Took a look with my binoculars and saw you were in trouble. Your friend, Luke, came racing around the lake road and pulled his Bronco up in the yard, and so here we are.”
“You got here just in time. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
“No need for thanks. Just glad I could help.”
“You happen to see where the man in the other boat went?”
“Saw where he beached a ways from the house and took off into the trees. I heard the sound of an engine. Must have had a car parked somewhere down the road.”
“I figured he might. Whoever he was, the guy was a pro.”
“Luke told me about the kidnapping. I guess you two took care of the others.”
Three down, either dead or wounded. Dirk just nodded.
“I hope you catch the bastard who got away.”
“So do I.” But he didn’t think catching the man was going to be easy. As he’d said, the guy was a pro. Even with the FBI on his tail, which by now they would be, there was a chance the man would escape.
Dirk looked down to where Meg lay curled on her side in the bottom of the boat. He didn’t know when he had reached down and caught hold of her hand, but there it was, firmly gripped in his.
She didn’t seem to want to let go.
Neither did he.
* * *
A pair of ambulances were on the scene when they arrived, along with a line of police cars. EMTs wrapped Meg and Charlie in blankets, placed oxygen masks over their mouths, and loaded them onto stretchers.
Meg pulled the mask aside. “Come with me,” she pleaded, still holding Dirk’s hand as the gurneys reached the ambulance door.
“I can’t,” Dirk said. “Two men are dead. Another is barely hanging on. The cops are going to have a lot more questions.”
She squeezed his hand. “You’ll come, though. You won’t just disappear.”
He managed to smile, trying not to remember the sight of her unconscious body floating in the water. “I’ll come.”
One of the EMTs pulled the oxygen mask back over her face, then they were loaded into one of the ambulances. The badly shot-up Mickey was loaded into the other. With any luck the guy would live.
They needed answers. At the moment, Mickey the Moron was the only one who had them. Dirk had only that one brief moment with Meg. The cops had been waiting, guns drawn, when the boats had reached the dock.
He’d been given a moment with Meg after his identity had been confirmed, then he and Luke had both been interviewed. By the time they had their guns returned and changed into some dry clothes in the back of Luke’s Bronco, they’d spoken to half a dozen uniformed police officers, two detectives, and FBI Special Agent Ronald Nolan.
Dirk knew Ron Nolan fairly well. He was a few years older than his own thirty-two, wore his sandy brown hair combed back, athletic, career-minded, and good at his job. They had met on a homicide case that crossed over state lines. Dirk had been hired by the family of the murdered wife to look into the husband as a suspect.
The police had cleared him. Dirk had found new evidence linking him to the crime, and Nolan had been key in making the arrest.
“We’ve got two dead guys,” Nolan said as they stood a ways from the house while CSIs worked the crime scene, “another guy in critical, and another still on the loose. We’ve also got a young woman who is either part of the crime or one of the victims.”
“Or both,” Dirk said. “The babysitter was essential to the plan. She was getting half a mil to feed the kidnappers the info they needed. She’s involved up to her pretty little neck. The fact that she ended up assaulted by her cohorts was an unfortunate turn of events, but I imagine she’s learned a valuable lesson.”
“What’s that?”
“Crime doesn’t pay.”
“Anything else you can tell me about the man who got away? We’ve taken statements from your friend Brodie, including a description that confirms yours. We’ll also be speaking to Ms. O’Brien and her father. Anything you can add?”
“My guess, the guy was the brains of the operation. Smooth, polished, ready for anything that might come his way. He had a safe house and a bug-out location, had an extra vehicle parked on the other side of the lake. I can give you more, but it’s pure speculation.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
“Average-looking, nothing about him that stood out. He’s the kind of guy who can blend in wherever he wants. I think he uses that to his advantage. He’s a loner, doesn’t work well with others, expects them to do exactly what he says. I’d say he was going to pay these guys something, nowhere near equal shares, have them get rid of the babysitter and the kid, then he was going to disappear.”
“Which he did.”
“Exactly. I heard one of the kidnappers mention leaving by plane. You check private airports?”
“We’re working on it,” Agent Nolan said.
“Could be the way he planned to escape. Could also be he just told the others that. Could be there never was a plane. Or it was just meant for him.”
Nolan nodded. “At this point, anything’s possible. Since the ransom call was never made, we don’t know where the kidnappers planned to pick up the money, which would have helped us narrow things down.”
“A lot of things we don’t know.”
“I know one thing,” Nolan said. “Mother and child are safe and well, and Edwin O’Brien will have ten million more in the bank tomorrow than he thought he was going to have. You did damn good, Reynolds, you and Brodie, but it could have gone the other way. Next time make the call. That’s what the FBI is here for.”
“With any luck, I won’t have the problem again.”
Nolan handed him a business card. “Call me if you think of anything else.”
Dirk nodded, waved the card over his shoulder as he turned and started back to the Bronco. Luke was already there, champing at the bit to get back to Seattle.
“Where do you want me to drop you?” Luke asked as he started the engine.
“My apartment. I’m headed to the hospital to check on Meg, but I want to ride my bike, clear my head.”
“I don’t blame you. I’ll go by to see her as soon as I get the chance.” Luke drove the Ford on down the dirt lane. “So what’s the deal with the two of you? You gonna start dating her again?”
“I don’t know.”
“I get what you see in her, bro. I didn’t at first. Now I do.”
A ghost of a smile touched Dirk’s lips. “Meg’s special. No doubt about it. Doesn’t mean her opinion of me has changed. Even if it has, doesn’t mean it would work any better the second time than it did the first.”
“Give yourself some time, man. Just take it slow. Maybe you’ll figure things out.”
But Dirk had figured things out five months ago. And aside from the fact Meg had hired him to rescue her little boy, nothing had really changed.
* * *
“I can’t believe this! You’re telling me you didn’t get the money? All you had to do was make the call!” Jonathan leaned over the sleek teakwood desk in his study. “The deadline was only a few hours away. How could you screw things up so badly?”
“I wasn’t the one who screwed up, Mr. Hollander. You never bothered to mention that your wife’s very close friend was a private investigator. You never hinted that she might hire the man to help her find her son.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jonathan sat back down in the expensive brown leather chair behind his desk, which matched the sofa in front of the fireplace. The study was large, the entire house professionally decorated with contemporary furniture and dark wood accents throughout.
The bookshelves were filled with valuable first editions, at least those he hadn’t yet sold. There was a view out over manicured lawns. In the mirror, he caught a glimpse of his black hair and the hot color in his cheeks.
“I’m talking about Dirk Reynolds,” Moore said mildly. “The man is ex-military and extremely capable. He and his friend Luke Brodie were on to us almost from the start.”
After receiving a phone call from the man seated across from him, Jonathan had left the bank early and driven home to meet him. His name was Thomas Moore, or at least that was what he’d called himself the last time they had spoken.
Today, instead of having thick, dark hair and a receding hairline, his hair was white-blond and cropped very short. Instead of the expensive slacks he’d been wearing before, he was dressed in a pair of khaki pants and a yellow Ralph Lauren pullover. Casual clothes, though he still wore designer shoes: loafers today, Ferragamo perhaps.
Moore looked completely different, even carried himself in a slightly different manner. Yet every man had his foibles. Fashion seemed to be his.
“If you were worried about Reynolds, you should have shortened the time line. You should have done something!”
“Perhaps. But then, I’m not the one with the problem, am I? My employer sent me to you as a courtesy. I came to help you raise the money you needed to pay off your loan. You are the one who came up with the plan to kidnap your son.”
“It should have worked, dammit! All you had to do—”
“All you had to do was give us the correct information. That you did not do.”
Unease filtered through him. Moore was completely unreadable. Not a trace of emotion showed in his features. Yet an air of menace clung to him like a layer of perspiration.
“I don’t know anything about this man Reynolds,” Jonathan said. “Meg never mentioned him. Neither did her father.”
“He was her bodyguard on the fashion show tour last summer. And her lover—according to the babysitter.”
Jonathan grunted. “Meg does what she pleases. She was always headstrong. I never could control her.”
“Clearly that is true.”
His nerves began to hum. Whoever he was, Moore was a dangerous man. “How much does the babysitter know?”
“Nothing that can help the police. My associate is dead, a man who also knew nothing. One of the men Pamela was working with is dead. The police can track their identities, but it won’t lead them to you or to me. The other man is in the hospital in critical condition.”
Panic tore through him. “Mickey Degan. I spoke to him when all this started. He knows who I am.”
“Yes, I believe you mentioned that. I assure you, he won’t be alive much longer.”
The hair rose at the back of Jonathan’s neck. “You’ll . . . you’ll make sure of that?”
“Tying up loose ends is part of my service. Unfortunately for you, you still owe my employer a great deal of money. I spoke to him a few hours ago. He is extremely unhappy and rapidly losing patience. You know what will happen when he does.”
Jonathan felt sick to his stomach.
Sitting in a low-backed brown chair, one of the two in front of the desk, Moore examined his manicured nails. “He won’t just kill you, I’m afraid. He likes to make an example of people who don’t keep their word.”
Jonathan moistened his lips, which suddenly felt dry and tight. “I’ll get the money. You have to tell him that. You need to convince him.”
“And how do you propose to make that happen?”
“I don’t know. . . . Perhaps ... perhaps we could take the boy again, go directly to Edwin with the ransom note this time. We should have done that in the first place.”
Thomas looked at him as if he were mentally deficient. “They’ll be watching the boy much closer now. Perhaps your wife’s bodyguard friend will take the job himself.”
Jonathan raked an unsteady hand through his thick, black hair. He rested his elbows on the top of his desk in an attempt to look at ease. “If Reynolds hadn’t stuck his nose in, everything would have gone according to plan. The boy would be home with Meg and Gertsman would have his money.”
When Thomas made no reply, Jonathan felt a chill. For the first time he wondered if Moore would have stuck to the plan, wondered if Charlie would have been safely returned. No matter how desperate he was for money, he wouldn’t have allowed the men to harm his son.
“Without Reynolds’s interference, Mr. Gertsman would have his money,” Moore said with maddening politeness. “Plus a few million for you as well.”
“It was just seed money, a way for me to get things rolling again and get back on my feet.”
As Moore stood up from his chair, Jonathan stared into his inscrutable features and felt a wave of fear.
“Ask Mr. Gertsman what I can do to repay him,” Jonathan said, also rising. “Anything he wants. I’ll do anything.”
One of Moore’s bleached eyebrows went up. “Anything?”
Jonathan nodded, hoping his chin didn’t tremble. “I’m in banking. I have powerful connections. Surely there’s something he wants. I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right between us.”
“I’ll relay the message,” Moore said. Turning, he walked out of the study. Jonathan’s heart was still racing when the door closed with an ominous click behind him.