Birdie pulled out her phone. “I’m calling Temo and Adrian. Giving them a heads-up we have a possible abduction.”
Kellen gestured slightly, wanting Birdie to be silent. Verona didn’t know about the ongoing threats to Kellen, and Rae could so easily be led astray...by someone familiar. Someone she trusted. And that someone, whoever he was (or maybe she), could use Rae as bait to catch and kill Kellen.
What would happen to Rae then?
She would be killed, too, eliminated as a witness.
“Abduction?” Verona looked between Birdie and Kellen in alarm and then dismissal. “Don’t be silly. Anyone who abducted Rae would bring her back fast enough.”
“Temo’s phone is going to voice mail.” Birdie dialed again. “So’s Adrian’s. This cannot be good!”
“Where’s Nils Brooks?” Kellen asked Verona.
“I don’t know. He was hanging around outside our room, looking pained. I gave him a glass of water and a couple of aspirin. Now he’s disappeared. Rae left a drawing on the desk.” Verona snapped the paper at Kellen.
Kellen took it.
Birdie tapped at her phone. “Brooks isn’t answering. They’ve all gone missing.”
“I think it’s supposed to tell us what she’s doing. There’s something about Mommy and the head. But her handwriting is disgraceful. The schools simply don’t emphasize penmanship anymore. I’ve worked with her, but she has no interest in learning how to... I love her. She’s my granddaughter. But she needs two parents and—”
Maybe Kellen made a noise. Maybe Verona saw something in her face. Her tone changed from irritation to horror. “What’s wrong?”
Kellen stared at the drawing, stared so hard her eyeballs hurt. Rae had drawn herself—LightningBug—going to find the Triple Goddess. Kellen knew it was the Triple Goddess because it was a floating head with yellow lightning bolts for eyes. A man walked behind her; the crude drawing gave no hint of his identity, but Rae had drawn a bulbous five-fingered hand on one side, and that hand held a black crook that was pointed at Rae.
A gun. Kellen was almost positive it was a pistol.
The crayon writing was sloppier than normal, as if she’d been in a hurry. Or scared. Brave little Rae...had she been scared?
“Rae didn’t leave on her own,” Kellen said. “Someone forced her to.”
“But she wrote the note!” Verona didn’t want to believe.
“That someone forced her to write the note.” Kellen looked again at the note part of the drawing. “She wrote to me. ‘Dear Mommy.’ ‘Hed.’ ‘Back.’”
Verona grabbed Kellen’s arm. “What does that mean?”
“Something about the goddess head and—she has my back, and I have hers.” Kellen headed toward the closet and the safe. She used her usual code, 3252.
The safe didn’t open.
She took a breath, slowly punched in the number, 3,2,5,2.
The safe didn’t open.
“No!” She slammed the flat of her hand on the safe. “Why? Why now?”
“Let me.” Verona gave Kellen a gentle shove. “Do you know how many guests forget their own code? Of course everyone of responsibility at the winery has to know how to open a safe.” She typed in a special code.
The safe sang a little song, the door swung open—“There’s nothing here,” Verona said.
“No,” Kellen said hoarsely. “No!” She swept the lighted interior with her arm, as if she was a magician with an empty hat. “Max was supposed to put my bag in here. My bag packed with arms and ammunition. Why didn’t he? What happened?” Stricken, she looked at Verona. “Does Max know I changed rooms?”
Verona shook her head. “No, he doesn’t know. The groom needs to stay far away from your bedroom. What do you mean, arms? What do you mean, ammunition?”
“He must have put my backpack in the bridal suite. How could such a thing happen?” Kellen answered herself, “Well, easily enough, with everything that’s going on today. I should have carried my sidearm with me, but I was thinking of...corsets and ruffles and stiletto heels, and it never occurred to me—”
Verona got it at last. “There are guns in the suite with Aurora’s grandchildren?” Her voice squeaked in horror.
“The safe is locked,” Kellen assured her.
Verona dived for the phone and called the winery switchboard. She held out the phone as if begging Kellen to hear. “The line is busy. I have to leave a message!”
“Then leave the message in your sternest teacher voice,” Kellen said. “You know whoever hears it will immediately do as you say.”
“Right. They will.” Kellen’s trust in her abilities seemed to calm Verona, and Verona spoke into the phone, asking that someone be sent to the wedding suite to open the safe, secure the bag inside and bring it to room 345. She hung up and in despair said, “But today they’re so busy. Who knows when they’ll listen?”
“True. At the best, how quickly can they get it here?” Birdie asked.
“Not quickly enough. We need to move now.” Kellen began to settle into that deadly calm before battle. “If whoever took Rae is already on the property—”
“What do you think has happened to my granddaughter?” Verona demanded in a high voice.
“She’s been taken by someone who wants me dead.”
“I’ll call 9-1-1.” Verona pulled her cell phone out of her belt pocket and waved it at Kellen.
Kellen clasped her wrist. “No.”
Verona tried to jerk away. “Why?”
“I’ll handle it.” She indicated Birdie. “We’ll handle it.”
Birdie, tall, calm and intent, gowned beautifully and ready to fight.
Verona’s gaze flicked between them both. “How can you—?”
“The police would make this a hostage situation. Rae might die. I didn’t take Rae up that mountain and bring her back alive to lose her now. You can trust me.” Kellen stared into Verona’s eyes. “Do you trust me?”
Verona nodded.
“All right,” Kellen said. First crisis averted.
Birdie said, “When I arrived, security seemed efficient.”
“Yes. I thought it was. I think it is.”
“But.” Birdie nodded and went into the bathroom, searching for weapons.
Kellen turned to Verona. “Would you call Max?”
“He’s in the kitchen! He won’t hear!” Verona was all exclamation points and panic.
“Let’s give him a try,” Kellen said.
Verona started punching her fingers at her screen and cursing in a low voice.
Kellen retrieved her phone and called the security firm. “Mr. Parliman, this is Miss Adams. You’re familiar with Max Di Luca’s daughter, and mine? Yes. Rae.” She nodded, although the man on the other end of the call couldn’t see her. “Rae has been kidnapped by someone. A man, that’s all I can tell you, probably white, possibly with brown hair.” In the picture anyway. “Can you and your men make sure Rae and her kidnapper don’t leave the property?”
“Of course. We have procedures in place for exactly this kind of emergency. We’ll tighten the perimeter starting now.” Mr. Parliman’s response reassured Kellen, making her believe Rae would be found here, somewhere on the site.
Kellen’s job was to make sure Rae was found alive.
“I need a weapon,” Kellen told Mr. Parliman. “A pistol.”
“Miss Adams, I can’t loan you a pistol.”
“Any kind of firearm. My daughter has been kidnapped, and I know whoever did this is a killer. I need to find her.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Adams, I understand, but we cannot loan our weapons to anyone. I don’t know what your weapons knowledge is—”
“I was in the military.”
His voice was soothing and firm, as if she were nothing but a civilian, and a female civilian at that. “But if you accidentally hurt or killed someone while wielding one of our weapons—”
“I’m Captain Kellen Adams of the United States Army. I survived two campaigns in Afghanistan and a terrorist attack in Kuwait. If I hurt or killed someone with a weapon, it would not be an accident.”
“Miss Adams, your hysteria proves my point.”
For one moment, Kellen was blind with rage.
“Now.” Parliman’s patronizing tone eased. “I have with me two gentleman who claim—”
“Mr. Parliman, don’t let Rae and this man get away, or you’ll be nothing but a head on my wall.” Done wasting time, Kellen hung up. Her child had been kidnapped. Kellen needed to go hunting. She required a firearm now, and he was worried about legalities.
Verona took Kellen’s arm again. “I called Max on the house phone and on his cell. No answer. He’s in there with the Di Lucas. You know how loud they are.” Verona was getting loud herself.
“All right. It’s all right.” Kellen grasped Verona’s hand.
“Max isn’t hurt, isn’t he?” the anxious mother asked.
“Did you escort him back to the house and see him go into the kitchen?”
“I took him into the kitchen and delivered him into the hands of the relatives!”
“Then he’s fine. He had no reason to believe we would have a problem.” But Kellen needed help. “Are there any weapons available on this floor?”
“No,” Verona said.
“In this building?”
“No! We try to keep weapons out of guests’ hands, and that’s the best way to do it.”
“That makes sense.” It did. Damn it.
“Why? Why?” Verona had grasped a measure of calm, and now let it slip beyond her grasp. “Why would anyone want to kill you? Why would they take Rae?”
“I don’t know,” Kellen said.
“Military assassin?” Birdie asked.
“That’s my best guess.”
Birdie used her phone to call again, and again said, “No answer from Temo and Adrian.”
“Very bad.” Kellen’s teeth ached from clenching them.
“Is it that man?” Verona asked. “That Brooks? Did he take Rae?”
“No. Max doesn’t like him, but with my approval, he trusted Rae to his care.”
“Nils Brooks made a pass at you on your wedding day!”
Kellen thought of the writhing figure they had stepped over on the way up the stairs. “I didn’t say he was a good man. I said he was dependable and a fighter, one of the best.” And he was MIA. Which only made Kellen more concerned about who had taken Rae.
“We’ve got to find him!” Verona was frantic. “And Max. We’ve got to get Max.”
“Yes. But whoever this is—” she pointed at the man in Rae’s drawing “—should be scared, but isn’t. That child is not helpless.”
Verona calmed, mesmerized by Kellen’s certainty. “Wait. I know what to do. I’ll call Arthur. He can handle anything!”
Kellen grabbed both Verona’s wrists. “No. You must not involve Arthur or any of his people.”
“You think Arthur Waldberg—No! No, he’s so charming. So efficient. So polite and gentlemanly. He’s not at all like all the other winery managers who are young and unruly and...” Verona’s voice trailed off and her eyes got wide. She looked at Kellen. “You can let me go now. I’m never a fool twice.”
Birdie came out of the bathroom with a rattail comb, a can of hair spray, and picked up the lighter by the fireplace.
Kellen continued, “Max and I talked about who we thought might be a problem.” Arthur and his people. “Verona, go to the house, find Max and tell him what’s happened. Tell him to bring the bag out of the gun safe in my room. The code is 3252.”
Verona turned and fled, leaving the door open.
“This is pitiful.” Birdie showed Kellen her stash. “If this guy’s got a gun, we’re going to die.”
“We’ve got to find Nils. He brought the head. He’ll have weaponry to protect it.” Kellen thought through this logically. “Verona left Rae in the room alone. Nils was on guard duty. Rae begged to see the head. Nils wanted to make her happy, so they went to the Triple Goddess and were ambushed. That’s how this guy and Rae got the head. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“So maybe Nils will have weapons, and maybe not, and maybe he’s dead.”
Kellen called his number. In the distance, they heard a ringing and walked out into the corridor. The door across from Rae’s room was half-open, and she pushed it the rest of the way.
Nils Brooks lay sprawled on the floor. Blood oozed from the back of his head. “Not good!” Kellen knelt beside him and checked his pulse. “He’s alive, but he’ll have a headache.”
Birdie flung herself at Nils’s luggage. “You find Rae. I’ll see what weapons I can collect.”
Kellen ran to Rae’s room. It was empty. “Who was he?” she muttered. “Where did he take her? Today, there aren’t that many places where people...aren’t. Wine cellar. Mixing shed. Storage.” She stood in the middle of the tiny suite and looked around, trying to see anything out of place. Crayons were scattered across the desk. One naked princess doll had been tossed beside her pile of glittering clothes. Graham cracker crumbs festooned the rumpled comforter.
Rae’s voice echoed in her head. I’ve got stars on my sash and on my hair thingie.
There. A star on the floor.
What a child she and Max had produced! She started out the door.
Birdie met her. “Whoever got Brooks cleaned him out of weapons.” She offered the rattail comb.
“That’s okay.” Kellen picked two sharpened colored pencils off the floor. They weren’t worth a damn at a distance, but they were deadly in close quarters.
Kellen and Birdie stalked down the corridor, two women gowned in wedding finery.
“Look.” Kellen pointed to a star at the top of the stairs. “That’s off Rae’s sash.”
“Hansel and Gretel. She knows her fairy tales.” Birdie was impressed.
“She knows her superhero tales better.” Kellen moved with deliberate haste down the stairs. “She’s LightningBug, I’m ThunderFlash, and between us, we’re going to make someone sorry.”