Nothing to Fear (36 page)

Mrs. Vaughn looked up at that, relief in her eyes. “So he does have his Keppra?”

“My doctor friend got him a new prescription.” Dana’s lips trembled and sternly she pursed them. “Now he’s dead. And Sandy, too.”

Ethan pulled her to him and she didn’t pull away. She wasn’t sure she could if she’d wanted to. And she didn’t want to. “I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered. “We’ll find her before she can do any more harm.”

“Dana.” Mia’s voice was soft and warning bells went off in Dana’s head. “A beat cop found Sandy’s car about two hours ago.”

Dana’s head shot up, eyes wide, heart pounding. That Mia hadn’t spilled whatever this was immediately meant it wasn’t good news. “Tell me.”

Mia looked pained. “The beat cop found a seventy-two-year-old woman in the backseat of Sandy’s car. She’d been knocked unconscious but she’s in stable condition now. The old woman’s car is missing. He also found this in Sandy’s backseat.” She pulled a plastic bag from her jacket pocket and handed it to Dana. “Don’t take it out of the plastic. I have to get it to the evidence room.”

Dana took it, her hand shaking. “It’s Evie’s,” she confirmed, her voice as unsteady as her hand. “It’s the St. Luke medallion Caroline gave her for her birthday two years ago. Right after . . .” She swallowed hard. “Right after she got out of the hospital.”

“After Winters attacked her,” Mia said to Abe who just nodded silently. And wrote it all down.

There was something comforting in Abe Reagan’s thoroughness, Dana thought as she gave the bag back to Mia. “She never took off that medallion, Mia. Never.” She exhaled on a ragged breath. “She wanted us to know she’d been there.”

Ethan tightened his hold on her shoulders. Tilted her chin up. There was something comforting in Ethan’s steady eyes, too, and Dana looked her fill, taking comfort wherever she could. His eyes narrowed slightly as he focused on her face. “Dana, the way I see this, we know a hell of a lot more than she thinks we do at this point. We have to use that.”

Dana looked up at him, her jaw set. “She thinks we’ll blame Evie’s disappearance on Goodman,” she said, forcing her voice to be stronger and Ethan felt a surge of pride.

Mia started to pace. “Conway has no idea we know about the Vaughns.”

“We need to get all the places she frequented before she went to prison,” Reagan said. “We’ll need the address of your old apartment, Mrs. Vaughn, and the house where you grew up. Plus we’ll run checks on all the drug runners that were arrested with her.”

Mia nodded, still pacing. “We need to figure out what she has in mind. It seems like she wouldn’t go to all this trouble unless she had something really big planned.”

“It will be symbolic,” Dana said. “Something that will make Mrs. Vaughn suffer like she did. And I’m certain Sue sees herself as having suffered a great deal.”

“She has my son,” Randi cried. “Isn’t that suffering enough?”

Dana shook her head. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Vaughn. I think she took Alec to lure you here. Why else would she work so hard to get to Chicago, to find a safe place to hide here? This isn’t about Alec as much as it’s about you. You betrayed her. You sent her to juvie when she was a teenager and you sent her to jail when she was an adult. In her mind you are the cause of everything bad in her life. I think it’s going to get worse for you before it gets better.”

There was a beat of sober silence, then Ethan forced himself to say aloud what he’d been thinking. “For you, too, Dana,” he said. “She took Alec to get to Randi. She took Evie to get to you.”

Dana looked up, met his eyes, and Ethan’s heart simply stopped. She knew that she was second only to Randi Vaughn on Sue’s list. And characteristic of Dana Dupinsky, she didn’t care that she was at risk.

“No way in hell,” Ethan growled, sinking his fingers into her shoulders. “There’s no way in hell you’ll even consider it.” He looked up, found Mitchell’s gaze resting evenly on his face. “Tell her she can’t. It’s stupid to even consider it.”

“Dana, you can’t. Buchanan’s right.”

Dana shrugged out of his grasp. “You can’t stop me. It’s me she hates, not Evie. The words she wrote in the note she left next to Sandy’s body were for me. I know that. I also know I’ll do anything to get Evie back unharmed.” She turned to Mia, brows lifted. “You got that, Mia? Anything. She wants to trade, you do it.”

Mia shook her head. “No, Dana. No trades. She’ll kill you.”

Dana walked to the window, standing alone in the crowded room just as she’d stood alone in the crowded park Monday night. “Evie’s innocent in all this. I won’t have her suffer because of me. You make the trade, Mia. Or I’ll do it for you.”

On that somber note, everyone in the room fell silent and it was then a cell phone started ringing. Everyone reached for their phones at once. Dana cocked her head, listening. “It’s in your pocket, Ethan.”

He fished the phone out of his pocket, his face hard as a stone. “It’s yours. I forgot I had it. You left it in my room this morning.”

Dana stared at the phone as if it would hiss and strike. “Only Evie knew this number.”

Mia sprang into action. “Everyone stay quiet. If it’s Sue with Evie, try to keep her on the line as long as you can. Remember, she doesn’t know you know about Alec. She’s Jane and her kid is Erik. And you will not trade yourself. Answer it.”

Chicago, Wednesday, August 4, 9:35 P.M.

Sue leaned back against the concrete wall that housed the mall’s multiplex theater and took a nice long drag on her cigarette, the receiver of the pay phone against her ear. Finally there was an answer. A shaky voice. Dupinsky had found the social worker then, and the note. Just the picture of it was enough to make Sue smile.

“Hello?”

Sue exhaled a long plume of smoke, then crunched her brows. “Dana, is that you?” she asked, as small as she could make it.

“Is this . . . Jane? My God, I’ve been worried sick! Where are you?”

“Dana . . .” Sue took an exaggerated breath. “I was so scared . . . I ran. But I wanted you to know . . . I needed to tell you . . .”

“Jane, were you in the house this afternoon? Did you see what happened, honey?”

“Y-y-yes,” she whispered. “I was sitting in the living room watching TV with Erik when that man crashed through the back door. I thought I’d locked it when I came back in from smoking, but . . . I hid, Dana. I’m sorry.” Sue swallowed again and again, trying to make her voice sound thicker. “I wanted to call the police, but I was scared and I hid. He killed that woman and I hid. He shot her . . . Oh, God, he shot her right in the head.”

“I know, Jane.” Dupinsky’s voice was soothing and it scratched at Sue deep inside. I hate when they use that voice. Like I’m an animal and they have to calm me down. “Try to calm down.” Sue gritted her teeth, dug deep for calm, and made herself listen. There was a quaver underneath Dupinsky’s calm. She could hear it. Dupinsky was terrified. “I—I found Sandy Stone, Jane. She’s dead. I need to know exactly what you saw. You’re the only witness. You have to help us catch the man that did this or nobody in the shelter will be safe. Will you tell the police what you saw?”

“No. I don’t want to go near the police, but I’ll tell you and you can tell them.”

“All right, Jane. Tell me, but first, is Erik all right? Was he too frightened?”

Actually Erik handled the whole thing just fine, Sue thought, remembering. Maybe there was hope for the kid yet. Too bad he wouldn’t live long enough for her to find out exactly how much of her blood ran in his veins. “Erik’s not so good. He was scared to death and now he just sits rockin’ himself again. He had a seizure, a bad one. I hid with him in the downstairs closet under some blankets when the man came in, but the man didn’t even look. He wanted to find you and Evie. He was yelling and screaming. Evie told him you weren’t home so he hit her hard. She was bleedin’, Dana. Real bad. Then he dragged her out the back door. He kept screaming that if he couldn’t find you, he’d make you come to him. That you’d pay. That’s what he kept saying, screaming—that you’d pay.”

She could hear Dupinsky’s breath coming fast now. Frightened little pants. It was nearly arousing in its own right. “I need you to listen, Jane. And think hard. Was Evie alive when he took her away?”

Sue grinned, hearing the anguish and fear in Dupinsky’s voice. Then she wiped the grin from her face. It was hard to sound scared when you were grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah, but she was bleeding a lot. She kept calling for you. I wanted to come out, I really did, but I had to protect Erik.”

“You did the right thing, Jane. Your first responsibility is to your son. Where are you now? I’ll come get you and take you where you’ll be safe.”

Sue looked around the mall parking lot, crowded with teenagers hanging out at the movie theaters on a summer evening. She’d be safe enough here. “I’m not going back to the shelter.” She said it on a little hiccup, like she’d been weeping. “I appreciate what you did for us, but too many people are getting hurt at your place. You said we’d be safe, that no one could hurt us, but it was more dangerous there than back with Erik’s father. I’m going to another town now, but I wanted you to know about Evie. She was good to Erik.”

“Jane, wait. If he saw you, you could be in danger, too.”

“He didn’t see me. He didn’t even know I was there. Thank you. I’ll never forget you.”

And with that, Sue hung up the phone and took a nice long satisfied drag on her cigarette while digging in her pocket for the long-distance calling card she’d purchased just a half hour before. One down, one to go. Little birds beware. The cat is coming.

Wearily, Dana handed the phone back to Ethan, her lips pursed in a tight line. “She told me Goodman kidnapped Evie, that she saw it all, but was hiding. That when Goodman was gone, she took Erik and ran.”

“She doesn’t know Detroit PD caught Goodman this morning,” Mia commented from the bedroom doorway, sliding her own phone in her pocket. “CSU is working to get a trace, but it’ll be harder with a cell phone. Why would she call you, Dana? What’s in it for her?”

Dana’s shrug was grim. “She wanted to hear me in pain, to know I was worried about Evie and powerless to do anything. She set it up that if Goodman couldn’t find me, he’d use Evie to get me to come to him.” She narrowed her eyes when Mia frowned. “I know. No trades. I heard you.”

“But you never said you wouldn’t pursue it,” Ethan said, his jaw taut. He was still angry. It all but emanated from him in waves.

“She still thinks you only know her as Jane,” Reagan inserted, probably as much to keep the peace as anything else. “Good work, Dana. You never slipped once.”

Another time, the praise would have made her warm with pride. Now, it barely registered above the rage that bubbled just below the surface of her mind. “I want to kill her,” Dana muttered. “Slowly and painfully.” She looked over her shoulder at Randi Vaughn. “She said Alec had had a seizure, Mrs. Vaughn, but she could be lying. If he did, does that put him in physical danger?”

Randi took a deep breath and Dana had to be impressed with how she tried to stay calm. “Depends on how deep he went under and how long it lasted. Normally they only last a few minutes, but he’ll be weak as a kitten for at least a day. If she calls again, can you find a way to make sure he takes his medicine?”

Dana found a small smile for the terrified mother. “I’ll try. She also—”

Another cell phone began to chime and Sheriff Moore raised her brows. “Well, you may be able to do that yourself, Mrs. Vaughn. I had the phone at the beach house forwarded to my cell. This could be for you. Remember, you don’t want to let on that you know she’s in Chicago. You’re still in Maryland, remember that. Try to keep her talking.” She put the phone in Mrs. Vaughn’s visibly trembling hands. “Good luck.”

Randi clutched it with both hands, her skin taking on a greenish tinge. Ethan moved to her side, put his arm around her shoulders. He took the phone from Randi’s shaking hands, flipped it open, and held it to her ear so that he could hear it, too. He gave her a nudge and a nod. “Go,” he mouthed.

“H-hello?” Randi stuttered. Her body was shaking so hard he thought she’d crumble.

“Hello, Mrs. Vaughn. Do you know who this is?”

Randi flashed frantic eyes to Ethan, terrified to say the wrong thing. Ethan shook his head. “You don’t,” he mouthed.

“No. Who is this?”

A low laugh sent a chill up Ethan’s spine.

“You don’t have any idea, Randi? What if I called you Miranda? Would that help?”

Randi’s eyes slid shut. “Sue. So it is you.”

“I’m hurt there would have been any doubt, Miranda. You’ve done well so far. You’ve stayed put and haven’t called in the cops. I’m proud of you.”

Randi stiffened, her eyes darting from Reagan to Mitchell to Moore. “No, I didn’t call the police or the FBI.” The knowledge that Sue thought she was still compliant seemed to bolster her and she sat straighter. “Where is Alec, Sue?”

“I bet you’d like to know. I wanted to know, too, when I was sitting in a jail cell while the DA tried to indict me for murder. You knew it and you took the kid. Made it look like I’d killed him. You wanted me to fry. You stupid little bitch.”

“I never wanted that, Sue. I never told them you killed Alec.”

“Erik, Miranda. His name is Erik. No, you never told them I killed the kid, but you arranged for him to disappear just the same. It looked like I did kill him. I was just lucky the DA was inept. I got stuck with reckless endangerment. Did you know that?”

There was raw fury in her voice. And people talking in the background. Lots of people. Then the blast of a car horn.

“No, I didn’t know that. I’m sorry, Sue. I did what I thought was right all those years ago. Sue, Alec is sick. He needs medicine. Please bring him home. I swear I won’t say a word if you just bring him home. I’ll give you whatever you want. The five million. I swear.” Her voice faltered, broke. “Please just let him come home.”

Sue chuckled. “I did bring him home. Now you’ll have to come home, too, if you want to see him again. This is what you’re going to do. Got a pen and paper?”

Ethan took out his pen and motioned Reagan to hand him his notebook. Nodded at Randi who drew a shaky breath. “Yes, I do.”