Cold Silence (A High Stakes Thriller) (15 page)

"What's R.J.'s number at home, Peter?"

Peter repeated the number out loud and Travis dialed.

"Hello?" came Cody's tentative voice.

"It's Travis Landon. I—"

The phone clicked dead. He looked at the phone to confirm she had indeed hung up on him. Jesus Christ. He held back swearing in front of his son, but a string of not-so-nice words came to mind for Cody O'Brien.

He punched redial and heard the phone ring again. There was no answer, and after four rings, then five, then six, he hung up. What home didn't have an answering machine? Jesus, he was going to have to go back over there. Son of a bitch. "Uh," he groaned, livid.

"Maybe they're not home."

Travis nodded, refusing to draw his child into Cody O'Brien's petty game. "Print that page out, will you?"

Peter's tiny fingers flew across the keyboard as he hit the Ctrl-P function.

Over his son's shoulder, Travis searched the site for links or text, anything that might offer more information, but it was blank but for the picture.

He ran his mouse over the page, searching for a hidden link or text.

"There's nothing but the picture, Dad. I already checked."

Travis blinked and looked at Peter, nodding, but his gaze was instantly drawn back to the frightened expression on R.J.'s face. Someone had been very careful to make sure all they showed was the boy. The boy who should have been his child.

"Where's the E-mail?"

Peter shifted the mouse. "Right here."

Travis read the return E-mail address. It was a Hotmail account, and the name was a series of numbers. He memorized them and realized it was today's date. He knew they'd learn nothing from that. The E-mail had come in early that morning.

"Someone can come try some cookies," Mrs. Pat called from downstairs.

"You're sure R.J. was wearing this yesterday?" Travis asked.

"Positive," Peter said, staring back at the picture.

"Cookies," Mrs. Pat called again.

Travis ignored her, too many thoughts battling for space. "Oh, God."

R.J.
was
gone. For some reason he didn't understand, Cody was lying. Her son was missing, but he hadn't been the target. Peter was the target. Someone had meant to kidnap Peter and had gotten R.J. instead. He knew what that meant: It meant R.J. was actually missing. R.J. and not Peter.

"Something's wrong, isn't it, Dad? Something with R.J.?"

Travis gripped his son's shoulder and pulled him close, trying to figure out what to do. Instead he ran his hands through his son's hair. "Yeah, partner. Something's wrong."

Chapter 14

Sitting on the cold, hard cement, Cody heaved the Browning Rimfire Grade 1 rifle onto her lap and broke the gun open to clean it. She'd done the same for the three other guns, and her hands were black from the gun oil she used to wipe out the barrel and lubricate the parts before putting each one back together.

The phone sat beside her on the floor and she stared at it between moves, silently cursing Oskar Kirov. When she felt herself close to breakdown, she gritted her teeth and polished and scrubbed the gun's surface harder, not allowing herself to slow for the ache in her forearms or the echoing emptiness of her gut. Food would wait. She needed to be prepared when he came.

And he would come. She had to believe that this was just the beginning of his game. She heard the creak of the porch stairs and set the gun silently down on the cement floor. Lifting the Glock, the gun the Bureau had taught her to shoot with, she clicked the release and slid the magazine into her opposite hand. It was full. Replacing it, she took a deep breath and held the gun straight down at her right side, her finger off the trigger, before slowly moving toward the door to the basement.

The footsteps continued slowly across the porch, and Cody strained to hear others. They wouldn't all come to the door. She wondered how many there were and where they were positioned. Lifting her pant leg, she tucked a second gun, a derringer, into the holster under her sock and straightened her cuff. She heard the bell ring and waited. The footsteps were silent.

Cody moved slowly up the inside stairs until she could see the hallway. Sitting down on the step, gun in front of her, she tucked her head around the corner and stared at the shape behind the curtain on her front door. The bell rang again and she jumped slightly, wondering if Kirov's men would ring three times before breaking the door down. The shadow turned back to the street, and then she saw a male face flash beneath the raised blinds on the side window. He cupped a hand over the window and looked around. As he did, Cody measured his features. It wasn't Kirov. Damn it. It was Travis Landon again. Why wouldn't he go the hell away?

The bell rang again and Cody tried to ignore it. When it rang for the fourth time, she went to the door.

"Damn it all," she muttered, tucking the Glock in her belt and walking up the rest of the stairs. She crossed the foyer quickly and pulled the door open.

Travis looked up and stared at her, blinking.

"I told you to go away, Mr. Landon. How much clearer do I have to be?"

He pointed to her face. "You're... you've got a smudge—"

She realized she was covered in gun oil and dirt. "I was cleaning." She didn't say what.

He nodded, still frowning. "I need to talk to you. May I come in? Just for a minute."

"No. You may not. I don't know what your problem is, but I'm very busy. You have to leave."

"We really need to talk. It's about—"

"I don't have time." She started to close the door.

"It's about R.J," he said. "I know he's gone."

Cody stopped and looked at him. His face made her insides freeze. She glanced down to see that the street was quiet. Colonel Turner must have retreated into his house, and she didn't want him to hear this. Waving Travis inside, she quickly closed the door and pointed to the small sitting room she used as a reading room. Travis perched on the edge of one chair while Cody stood at the door without touching anything.

She watched Travis look around, clearly curious about the house. Every moment he did tried her patience more. "This needs to be quick, Mr. Landon."

He pulled open his jacket and removed a white envelope from the pocket.

"What do you know about R.J.?" she asked.

"I know he's been kidnapped."

Cody pressed her hands into her jeans, glancing down at her blackened nails and nodding. "And?"

Travis looked around at the house as though something were seriously amiss. "I think I know why."

Cody stared at him. How could he possibly know? Travis Landon couldn't have a connection to Oskar Kirov. It was too outlandish. "Please tell me, then."

"I wasn't sure you'd answer the door, so I put it in an envelope."

"What is it?"

"It came in an E-mail." Travis handed her the envelope. "Peter downloaded it earlier this morning. There's a website listed."

Cody took the envelope, watching how the black on her hands smudged against the envelope. Her prints, as surely as though she'd been arrested and printed with black ink, showed up on the surface. She didn't want those ending up in the wrong hands. She pulled out a folded paper and opened it up, tucking the envelope under her arm. The E-mail said only,
Go to www.ivegotpeter.com.

The thoughts bombarded her mind like bullets. The return address was a series of numbers at a free E-mail provider, not easily traceable. But Peter. Peter was at home. Ryan was the one missing. A wave of coldness crashed over her and she looked up at Travis, shivering. "Peter?"

He nodded, reaching for the envelope, but Cody didn't offer it back.

"I don't have time for computer games. Is this about Ryan? Is that what this is about?"

"Ryan?" Travis repeated.

Cody blinked back anger at herself for misspeaking. What was wrong with her? "R.J. Is this about R.J.?"

"Yes." Travis tugged at his hair in a gesture Cody read as guilt and pain. "He's on that website—a picture of him in Peter's jacket."

A heavy whooshing filled Cody's head. The jacket. Oh, Jesus. The jacket that Ryan had left on the playground and gone back to get when someone took him. "The Bulls jacket?"

Travis nodded. "Peter said R.J. is wearing the same shirt he had on at school. Here, I've got the—"

Without letting him finish, Cody turned her back on Landon and sprinted back to her office. Slamming herself into her desk chair, she turned her Gateway on and waited while the PC started up. It was hardly thirty seconds but it felt like forever. Oh, God. What was going on? A website, a picture of Ryan... it felt all wrong.

She double-clicked her Microsoft Explorer icon, typed in the url, and hit enter. She could hear Travis crossing the floor behind her, but she didn't care. She felt the gun press into her back and realized he would have seen it when she turned. It didn't matter. She didn't care. None of it mattered—only Ryan.

The page loaded slowly, the image coming in thin strips from the top. First she saw a white wall and the top of a dark head and then finally a forehead. Slowly the face filled in, and when the image reached R.J.'s chin, she gasped and touched the screen, her hands smudging black over R.J.'s cheek. "Oh, baby."

Travis came into the room. "I've got a printout of it here." He waved a piece of paper at her, but she ignored him.

Her heart was racing.

"I'm so sorry," he offered, and she wished he'd shut up. "I can't imagine what this must be like. If it was Peter... but if the website is ivegotpeter.com, then it should have been Peter." From the corner of her eye, she watched him pace a small circle. "I can't think who would do this, but the Bulls jacket that R.J. had borrowed... Peter wore it everywhere. People knew him by that jacket. Maybe someone thought Ryan was Peter; maybe the kid in the picture should be my son and not yours."

She listened to him. Someone had kidnapped Ryan. It was Oskar Kirov, wasn't it? She thought over the past eighteen hours. Why hadn't Kirov shown up? Why would he take Ryan and not make another move?

Her stomach tightened with dread. She felt feverish and she wanted to be sick, but she couldn't move. Instead she stared at her son, the lines of his tearstained cheeks jagged on the screen. She ran her finger along the outfit she'd seen him come down the stairs in yesterday morning.

She ran her mouse around the website and looked for a link to show up. She couldn't imagine Oskar Kirov setting up a website, taking a picture, and loading it on the site. It felt too subtle. He would have just taken them out, sneaked into the house in the night, shot him, then her, and been done with it. Kidnapping a child and holding him without contacting her was all wrong.

She cupped her hand and looked back at Travis, who was staring at her. Oskar Kirov didn't have Ryan. Oh, thank God. Thank God that monster didn't have her son.

She blinked and looked back at her son—at the image of him God knew where. But if Oskar Kirov didn't have him, who did? Could it be someone worse than Kirov? She looked back at the Web page. '"I've got Peter.' Who is this? Who's doing this?"

Travis grabbed her chair in a tight fist. "I wish I could tell you. I can't believe this could happen. And it's my fault. Peter shouldn't have loaned his jacket out. I shouldn't have been late. Jesus, if I'd been there right on time, maybe he wouldn't be gone."

Travis looked breathless when he finished, unsteady on his feet.

Cody stood and motioned Travis to a chair before he fell over. "Sit."

He did, his face showing he was still wallowing in guilt and self-pity.

"Who could have done this?" she asked.

"I—I don't know," he answered, looking away.

She grabbed his shirtsleeve. "Think, Landon. Who? Your ex-wife?"

He shook his head. "No. My wife's dead."

Cody stopped, thinking instantly of Mark. "I'm sorry. What about an old girlfriend...?" Cody stared back at the picture and shook her head. This wasn't a woman's crime. The electronic setup, the impersonal way of communicating the kidnapping—it felt male. She looked at Travis Landon, thought about his business. "Someone who knows what you're worth. Have you received anything about ransom?"