Calculated Revenge (16 page)

Noah gasped and sat up. Maybe the way Watts died wasn’t the way she told George. Did Adelle murder her own son to wreak her vengeance? He needed to find out more of the circumstances surrounding that death. How that might lead to her current whereabouts—and Laney’s—he wasn’t sure, but it was an unexplored avenue.

And there was another vital, but unanswered question about the affair that set off this tragic chain of events—where in that little burg did George and Loretta find a place to tryst? Noah got on the phone to Loretta. It was a painful question that had to be asked.

Loretta cleared her throat several times after he requested the information. “We-e-ell, as you know, George ran a construction business. He had contracts all over the place, bigger communities. We’d preplan a hotel and meet there.”

“Different places?”

“Yes, many.”

Disappointment soured his stomach. “So there was no private hideaway.”

Loretta gasped. “I’d forgotten,” she said. “The very day Gracie went missing, George told me he’d bought a small property in the country, some place by a river, so we wouldn’t have to use hotel rooms in the public eye anymore.”

Hope resurrected. “Can you tell me how to get there?”

“No, I can’t. We never used it. Grace went missing that afternoon.” Laney’s mother paused. “The tragedy sobered me up. It was like I’d been drunk and not thinking straight. I suddenly realized what I was doing and knew it had to stop.”

“Thank you, Loretta. I know this was hard for you to talk about. I’ll take it from here.”

“I wish I could have been more help.”

Noah wished it, too, but he reassured her and hung up. Then he got on the phone to the courthouses in counties surrounding Grand Valley. None of them had any record of George Addison owning property other than his house. The man must have sold his love nest after the Thompsons left town.

Noah sighed. Only one source remained for the location, and he was likely perched on a stool in Bucky’s Bar.

Noah got on the phone with Hank. “I need a couple of things,” he told the sheriff. “See what you can dig up on Watts Addison’s death about fourteen years ago. Circumstances were reported to be a car accident. I’d do the research myself, but I need to be in the air.”

“In the air!”

“That’s the other favor.” Noah tapped a pencil on his desk blotter. “Do you know any pilots around here who’d rent their plane and services to leave pronto from the municipal airfield? I need to get to Grand Valley—like yesterday.”

Hank gave a low hum. “Yeah, I think I do. I’ll set it up and have him meet you out there.”

“Great!” Noah pulled the receiver away from his ear and headed it for the cradle.

“Wait!”

Noah returned the received to his ear. “What’s up?”

“Just thought you might want to know the FBI are all over that town, including Burns himself, watching for Adelle.”

“I suppose they’re particularly focused on George Addison.”

“You got it.”

Noah frowned. That was who he needed to speak to, and without FBI knowledge. He’d have to finesse something when he got there. “Thanks. Anything else?”

“They found Adelle’s pickup and pop-up abandoned in an RV park near Louisville.”

“So she’s not driving that rig anymore.” Noah snorted. This woman was wicked clever. “Any word on Laney’s vehicle?”

“Negative. But they did find the real security guard for the Thompson home shot and left for dead in his living room. He’s in surgery, and they don’t know if he’ll make it.”

A bitter taste filled Noah’s mouth. Adelle and her accomplice made Bonnie and Clyde look like stand-up comics.
Laney, what got into you to head straight into their hands?
But he knew. A mother’s love. Now if only his love could track them down.

She had to stop, even if it were just for five minutes. There was no way around it. She couldn’t go into this confrontation with nothing to create an element of surprise so her daughter could get away. Besides, her bladder was about ready to burst.

In a town an hour from Grand Valley, she pulled up in front of a convenience store. Counting every precious second, Laney did her business and got back on the road—one new item in her purse and one tucked into her shoe.

Her phone played as she accelerated out of town. Adelle.

“You’re alone?” the woman asked.

“Yes. How’s Briana?” If only her voice didn’t tremble when she spoke.

“The little princess still slumbers.”

“Don’t you harm a hair on her head, Adelle. I—”

“Save the threats. I will text you the directions to the trysting place.” The woman closed the call.

Gut churning, Laney waited for the beep that would announce the arrival of the text message. Within a minute it came. She studied the directions. She would have never guessed the location. No one else would, either. As far as anyone knew, right next to the state forest like that, there was nothing but trees and wilderness for miles and miles. And yet the site was so very close to where the last evidence of Gracie was found.

Laney rested a hand on her purse and scrunched her toes in her shoe, feeling the solid presence. At least she was heading for the showdown armed…sort of.

Armed and terrified.

N
oah flew into the Rochester, Minnesota, airport and rented a car for the last short leg of the journey south. He was pulling into Grand Valley when his phone rang.

“Have you got something good for me, Hank?”

The sheriff snorted. “Just another puzzle. Listen up.”

Noah’s eyes widened as Hank talked. He’d been oh-so-right that Watts was a key to this case, but oh-so-wrong about how that key worked.

Ten minutes later, Noah waved a six-pack of Pepsi toward Bing, seated on his stool-throne in front of the body shop in Grand Valley.

The old man licked his lips, but kept his hands on his knees. “You say you need me to do what?”

“I need you to help me get a chance to talk to George Addison without attracting FBI attention.”

Bing cackled. “That’ll be some trick. The feds are thick as ticks around town. Old George, though, he’s complainin’ loud and long that they asked him a bunch of questions, but he wouldn’t tell ’em nothin’. How do you think you’re gonna have any luck with that mule in manskin?”

“But I think I might have some leverage for his tongue.”

“So run that by me again what I gotta do?” Bing reached for the six-pack.

“I need you to go into Bucky’s Bar and give George a message for me. Then come out and distract the FBI agent who will be following the guy. I need to make a clean getaway with Addison.”

Bing’s mouth moved as if he was chewing cud. “And you say a private chat with George might help Laney and her little girl?”

Noah nodded.

“Then you can count on me.” The man hugged his six-pack.

Ten minutes later, Noah was parked up the block from Bucky’s Bar in a grocery store lot. Soon George emerged from the bar, staring around as if he’d never seen sunlight before. The man made his unsteady way up the block toward the grocery store. Behind him, Bing wandered out of the bar, and then a younger man in a sports shirt and slacks—the FBI tail.

About halfway up the block, Bing whirled toward the young agent, pressing a hand against his chest. He grabbed the agent’s shirt as he folded toward the ground. Unearthly wails carried faintly to Noah from the old gentleman. Noah winced. The gossip-fount of Grand Valley was an overactor.

Without a backward glance toward the commotion, George continued his bleary-eyed charge toward the parking lot where Noah waited. Bent over Bing and locked in the oldster’s grip, the agent got on his radio. Bing’s hysterics revved up another notch, then abruptly ceased as he went limp. The agent began checking vitals, feeling the neck, listening at the chest, as George half fell into the passenger seat of Noah’s car.

Smooth as glass, Noah pulled out of the parking lot. He grinned and shook his head. Bing had missed his calling. The stage had lost a real ham.

“Whaddaya want?” His passenger demanded. “The old geezer shaid you had important information about my shun Watts.”

“First of all,” Noah shot the man a level look, “if there are
any ashes in that urn Adelle sent you, they don’t belong to Watts. Second, I need you to tell me how to get to that place you bought for you and Loretta the day Grace Thompson disappeared.”

Gaze half on her watch and half on the rutted woodland road, Laney took the final turn toward the trysting place practically on two wheels. The second hand flipped past twelve noon as the ancient car barreled between endless forestation. Massive gnarled tree branches hung over the dirt track as if poised to reach out leafy arms and stop her. Laney raced on, missing them by inches.

Her breath came in gasps, and the blood roared in her ears.
Hang on, Bree, honey. Mama’s coming for you.

The vehicle burst free of the trees into a weed-grown clearing. Laney jammed on the brakes and skidded to a screeching stop in front of a dilapidated cabin with no glass in the windows and a porch that was falling away from the structure.

She had no time to reconnoiter or plan. Laney dove out of the car. “I’m here!”

The cry was swallowed by the dense woods. Her feet pounded the rotting boards of the porch, and she burst through the door of the cabin, lungs pumping. Then she stopped still and stared around.

A square table sat in the middle of a bare room with three ladder-backed chairs around it. Animal debris scattered on the floor and a rank smell testified to recent four-legged habitation. She didn’t blame any wild creatures for running from the two-legged skunks who had set up this rendezvous.

Ahead, a doorway led into a second room. A soft scraping noise came from that direction. Chest tight, Laney backed away and came up against the edge of the front door frame.

A familiar figure stepped out from the inner room into a narrow stream of sunlight from the open front door. Not Adelle.
Laney’s voice dried up in her throat as she locked gazes with the last person she ever expected to see at this moment in time.

He motioned toward a chair with a hand that clutched a sturdy rope. “Have a seat, Laney.”

Noah sped out of town as fast as he dared to avoid drawing attention. George Addison gave terse directions—turn here, go there. And in between he muttered terrible curses down on his sadistic wife.

The man seemed to have sobered up considerably as he absorbed the news that his son was alive. Noah could promise that much anyway. Hank had said that there was an accident report that noted grave injuries in a motor vehicle accident, as well as a newspaper obituary for Watts Addison, but evidently a person couldn’t believe everything they read in the paper. However, there was no death certificate officially filed anywhere in the country. The certificate George had waved at the FBI must be as false as the urn of ashes.

Oh, yes, Noah now knew the true identity of Adelle’s mystery accomplice. He just didn’t know what identity the former Watts had taken after news of his death was so greatly exaggerated. And until they found out, George refused to leave the vehicle, even when Noah threatened to toss him out bodily. The man swore he’d tell the FBI where Noah had gone and have the feds out there before Noah had a chance to get Laney clear.

He caved at that prospect. It hadn’t been in his plan to drag the drunken mess along, particularly when he had to put up with the guy’s unwashed odor and liquor fumes. However, he understood the parental instinct.

Briana, hang on, little princess. I’m on my way and so is your mama.

For all he knew Laney could be at the site this moment, confronting terrors unspeakable. He pressed the gas harder.

Laney stood her ground. “Pierce! What are you doing here? Where’s Briana?”

“We’ll get to that.” Adelle’s voice came from behind her, and Laney whirled. The woman stood on the grass beyond the porch, aiming a pistol in her direction. “Obey my son.”

“Your son?” Laney stumbled forward in a daze as Adelle followed her into the room. As she sank into the chair, Laney stared at the man she knew as Pierce Mayfield. He began to tie her wrists to the chair arms. “You don’t look one bit like Watts.” Her gaze darted to a smirking Adelle. “Did you have another child no one knew about?”

Grinning, Pierce straightened. He reached up and pulled the brown wig from his head, revealing a scarred, bald pate. “I had a terrible accident. My face was so smashed up, they had to reconstruct it over time and many surgeries. I asked them to make certain changes in my appearance as part of the process. The surgeons did an excellent job, don’t you think?”

“Watts? Adelle?” Laney looked from one to the other.

Her former neighbor lady hadn’t changed much in appearance. She was still a slender, almost rail-thin woman, with a sharp chin and a long neck. But she’d gained a few wrinkles around her hazel eyes, and Laney would bet money that the solid brown hair color came from a bottle.

“What have you done with my daughter?” Laney glared at her captors.

They glanced at each other and snickered.

She kicked at Watts, grazing his left shin, and he quick-stepped backward. Scowling like thunder, he cursed her. Adelle laughed. Laney stared at Watts’s shoes. He wore the leather lace-ups she’d seen on him at the last day of school party, but now the seam near the left big toe was spreading and giving way.

“Your foot was hurt in the accident, too,” Laney said. “How come you don’t walk with a limp?”

“Years of practice.” Watts lifted his chin.

Adelle sniffed. “And he spends a ton on replacing shoes to wear in public when the edge starts giving way.”

Laney narrowed her gaze on Watts. “I hope your foot hurts like an abscessed tooth.” She wiggled her wrists to test the binding. Very tight. Much good her feeble “weapons” did her now that she couldn’t get to them. And besides, she mentally smacked herself, she’d left her purse in the car. “All I care about is my daughter. Where is she?”

Adelle sighed like a long-suffering teacher. “I told you the princess is sleeping.”

Laney’s heart squeezed in on itself. Did the woman mean Briana was really asleep or a more permanent kind of slumber? There was no clue to the truth in the evil glee etched on this woman’s face.

“Keep an eye on her.” Adelle nodded toward her son and went out the door.

Laney flexed her hands around the arm of the chair, desperate plans forming and failing in her head. “Watts, you can’t really want to be part of this insane scheme. We were playmates. And Briana’s done nothing to you.”

She could scarcely fathom that she’d known this scarred and cold-eyed man as the kindly, but boring Pierce Mayfield and also as the fourteen-year-old daredevil boy whose voice had barely begun to change when the Thompsons left Grand Valley.

The familiar stranger sneered at her. “Mom stuck by me through everything. I do what she says and like it.”

Adelle came back inside, carrying Laney’s purse. She dumped the contents onto the table and sifted through them. One object she hefted with a laugh. “Bug spray? You came prepared for the Minnesota woods, all right.” She set the can
down and examined Laney’s cell phone. “Looks like you were a good girl and restrained the urge to call for help.”

“Forget this vendetta,” Laney said. “Just tell me where my daughter is and get out of here. By now there are FBI agents crawling all over this area. They’ll find this place eventually. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you two might have returned to the scene of your original crime.” Was Noah nearby, too?
Oh, please, God. Guide him.

Adelle flipped the phone shut and tossed it onto the table. The woman eyed Laney dispassionately. “I assume you’re referring to Grace. That was no crime. It was an—”

“Adelle!” The strident cry came from outside, and whipped all heads in that direction.

“Adelle Addison!” The bellow came again. “Where’s my son?”

Noah froze at the edge of the woods on the west side of the moldering cabin. Blast that drunken fool! He’d ordered George to stay in the car he’d parked out of sight up the drive. Noah had seen the gun in Adelle’s hand when she stepped outside and grabbed Laney’s purse from that rattletrap out front, and he didn’t need someone getting shot on his account. Too late now.

In front of the cabin, the soused father kept hollering. There was nothing Noah could do for the man. His efforts had to be for Laney. Noah looked down at the tire iron in his hand. Not much good against a bullet, but George might be the witless decoy he needed…if the guy didn’t catch one of those bullets first.

Noah crept toward a glassless side window of the cabin.

“Time for you to die, George,” Adelle yelled back.

“That’s not part of the plan, Mom,” a familiar voice protested.

Noah’s neck hair stood on end. He mentally smacked himself. Watts, aka Pierce, had been under their noses the entire
time, a slimy little worm ingratiating himself to the community and trying to romance the object of his hatred. Lower than sludge was an understatement.

“He’s got to pay, too,” Adelle hissed to her son.

“I can’t let you kill my dad,” Watts answered.

“He’s a pig.” Adelle’s voice had risen to a screech. Good, she was getting worked up. Maybe she’d get careless. “Look at him,” she went on. “The slob can hardly stand up.”

Foosteps retreated toward the front door, followed by a second pair, heavier than the first. Were they both leaving the building? Better and better.

He wasn’t going to get a clearer opportunity. Taking a deep breath, Noah heaved himself through the window.

Bickering, Adelle and Watts disappeared out the front door. Skin chaffing, Laney worked frantically at her bonds. She had seconds…maybe. A shot sounded outside, then a yelp. Laney jerked. Had the death toll just risen? Familiar hands began working at the ropes.

“Noah, you found me.” Laney’s heart leaped as she gazed into his tense face. His hair was a mess and sported a piece of green leaf and his face was scratched, but he’d never looked so handsome. How she loved this man!

“Are you all right?” His green gaze searched hers.

“I’m fine, but they won’t say what they’ve done with Bree.”

Adelle’s gun barked again, followed by the tinkle of shattered glass. A car window most likely. Shouts and curses and running feet sounded.

“Don’t waste time with those knots,” Laney told Noah. “There’s a pocketknife in my right shoe.”

“Brilliant woman.” Noah bent and came up with the instrument. He stared at the miniature object. “You call this a knife?”

“It was all the convenience store had.”

He sawed at the ropes. One side parted.

“This thing is small but mighty,” Noah pronounced.

The second side began to fray as hard breathing and creaking boards announced the return of her captors.

“Here.” Noah pressed the knife into Laney’s free hand. “Finish the job and dive out the window.”

He snatched up a tire iron from the floor beside him and moved to meet the pair with the gun.

If he could just stall for time, Laney might get away. Noah took up a post beside the open door, prepared to clobber the first person who stepped inside. If he could knock the gun away, he might survive the encounter. If not, well, Laney stood a chance of losing her kidnappers in the dense trees.