Quest (Dane Maddock Adventures) (4 page)

“Thomas swore that solving this mystery, whatever it is, would rock the world—his words, not mine. He seemed to think he was going to be rich and famous.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. He’s an academic. Even if he solved some sort of mystery in the Amazon, there’s no money in that. What would he get out of it? Mostly fame among scholars, maybe a few mentions in the media.” Closing her eyes, she took two deep, calming breaths and rubbed her temples. Before getting Andy’s message, she had convinced herself that Thomas was not truly in danger. He’d been overdue before and always returned safely. Now, her whole world had been turned upside down. She almost wished for a return to a few hours ago, when her greatest concern had been an irrational fear that her boyfriend was cheating on her. She needed to think about this calmly and logically. “Okay, so we don’t know what mystery he was working on. What do we know?”

“Nothing. I’ve looked at what’s in the envelope, and I’m baffled, though he insisted it would be sufficient to set us on his trail without giving anything away were it to fall into the wrong hands. I think you might have more luck with it than me. When you see it, you’ll understand why.”

“There’s so much about this that doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t he tell me anything? If he thought he might not come back, why didn’t he leave us a map or something? He could have written a note saying,
“Look for me here,”
and put it in a safe deposit box. And why did he confide in only you?” She wanted to add
“and not me,”
but she’d already embarrassed herself once today with her jealousy.

“In respect to the first two questions, I can only tell you that he believed someone might be after not only him, but anyone else who might know something about what he was doing. I think he was right. I’ve been on holiday for the last week, and yesterday I received a call from a colleague who told me that a man has been asking after me around the university. I called a neighbor, who said someone had come to her door asking about me as well. Now I’m afraid to go home.” He sighed. “As to the latter question, he knows I keep his secrets.”

Before Kaylin could follow up on that last cryptic comment, his head snapped up and he once again looked up and down the street before turning to face her.

“There’s no more time for talk. The Powder Magazine is coming up on the right. The carriage is not going to slow down, but he will pull as close to the curb as he can. I want you to slip out right in the middle of the tour group that’s waiting at the gate, and then get to your car as quickly as possible. I don’t know if you should go home, but you definitely need to get help. In fact, you should probably get out of town, just to be safe. I’ve gotten you involved now, and I regret it.”

“Andy I…”

Ever the professor, he hushed her with a raised index finger, as if she was a student. “I’m sorry to bring you into this, and I hope the situation is not as grave as I fear, but who really knows?” He gave her a small, sad smile. “Here’s your stop.”

He gave her a gentle shove and she sprang from the carriage. Her last thought before she hit the ground was,
Why did I wear heels?
And then she was stumbling into the midst of a dozen or more tourists waiting to see the colonial-era gunpowder magazine and its museum.

She landed in the arms of a dark-skinned young man in sagging jeans and an Under Armour shirt. He helped regain her balance and looked her over, though his expression was one of concern rather than lewdness. Satisfied she was all right, he looked toward the carriage, which was now rounding the corner onto Church Street. “Did that dude try to push you out?”

“Oh, no.” She forced a laugh. “He didn’t want me jumping out of the carriage in heels, and he tried to grab me, but I was too quick. I guess I should have waited for the carriage to stop.”

“Why didn’t you?” He was still staring at the carriage, as if he didn’t want to let it out of his sight until he was satisfied with her story.

“That’s my divorce attorney. My estranged husband’s kind of crazy, and while we were talking, I saw his car come around the corner. I guess I freaked.” Someday she would have to write a note to Mr. Harper, her high school drama teacher, thanking him for all those improv lessons. She looked around, not needing to feign nervousness. “I just want to get to my car and get out of here before he finds me.”

“I’ll walk you there.” The young man offered his hand. “Tariq.”

“Kaylin.” He had a strong grip, but his hand was surprisingly soft. “I appreciate it, but I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble because of me.”

“It’s all good. Which way’s your ride?” He stayed right beside her, shielding her from the view of passing vehicles. As they walked, he told her a little bit about himself. He was a high school senior, and hoped to attend Citadel next year. She told him that she was a Navy brat, which elicited a nod of approval.

As they neared the spot where she’d left her car, she looked down the street and gasped. The carriage was stopped on the side of the road, and someone was pushing Andy into a waiting vehicle. Another man, tall, barrel-chested, with short, ash-blond hair was talking to the carriage driver, who turned and looked back down the street, spotted her, and pointed. The man turned, his blue eyes locked on her, and he started in her direction.

 
They want to take me too!
Her heart pounded and she nearly stumbled.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Tariq pushed her behind him and made a beeline toward the man. “Get in your car and go.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt because of me. Just run.” She couldn’t believe this was happening, and she certainly hated that she’d gotten an innocent young man caught up in it.

“Just get in your car, alright? I got this.”

Kaylin fished her keys from her purse with trembling fingers and struggled to unlock the driver’s side door.

“Hey, lady! I need to talk to you!” The unfamiliar voice must have belonged to the man who was coming after her.

“Yo man, what’s up?” Tariq stepped in front of the larger man as Kaylin pulled the door open and slid inside.

“Get out of my way.”

“I said, what’s up?” Tariq gave the man a hard shove, but he barely budged. Kaylin slammed and locked the door, and promptly dropped the keys. Spewing curses, she retrieved them and started the car. Outside, Tariq was grappling with her would-be abductor. Horns blared as she gunned the engine and backed blindly out into the street. The man broke loose from Tariq, shoved him away, and ran toward her car.

She spun the wheel, did a donut in the middle of the street, and floored it, heading the wrong way back up Church Street. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, she saw the man quickly give up chase, and run back to the vehicle in which they’d put Andy. She wondered why the driver had not given pursuit, but then she saw bodies twisting and jerking inside the car. Andy was trying to fight them so she could get away.

Her inattention almost cost her. She returned her attention to the road in time to see a van blowing through the yellow light, coming right at her. She yanked the wheel hard to the right, going up on the sidewalk as the van shot past her, the stunned driver staring at her as he whizzed past.

Back on the road, she took another look behind her and saw the man who had come after her reach the car, draw a gun, and point it through the window.

She lost sight of the vehicle as she turned back onto Market Street. She gunned the accelerator, flew past the Powder Magazine, and blew the red light as she turned onto Meeting Street, skidding through the intersection, and barely missing a taxi cab, which swerved and took out a garbage can on the corner. She hoped no one got her tag number, but an appearance in traffic court was small potatoes compared to kidnapping.

By the time she turned onto Broad Street, she dared to hope she was not being followed. She prayed Andy was alive, and that the man had drawn the gun only to get him to stop fighting. Her eyes clouded with tears as she thought of the gentle professor fighting for his life.

She finally breathed a sigh of relief when she pulled into the parking lot of the Charleston Police Department Administrative Building. She knew someone there she could trust, and hopefully he could help her, Andy, and Thomas.

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight.” Captain Ray Gerard tapped his square chin with the envelope Andy had given to Kaylin. A friend of her father, Hartford Maxwell, during their Navy days, he had remained close to Kaylin after her father's passing. “Your boyfriend is overdue returning from the Amazon and you think he's in trouble.” Kaylin nodded. “But the only evidence you have is this.” He held up the manila envelope.

“I know it sounds crazy, but putting that aside for the moment, Andy was definitely kidnapped. I watched it happen.” She winced at the fresh memory and thought of the gun the man had drawn. “He might even be dead.”

“Yes, about that.” Gerard looked down at his desk, perhaps not wanting to meet her eye. “We can't file a missing persons report just yet. Andy hasn't been gone long enough. What I did do was put out an alert, giving the description of the vehicle and the passengers. Hopefully something will turn up."

Kaylin knew the odds were slim. She had been so surprised by the entire incident that she had not gotten a good look at the car. The best she had been able to tell the police was that it was a silver sedan, as if there weren't thousands of those out on the road. She had been able to give a fair description of one of the men, the one whom Tariq had confronted, but not the driver.

“I don't know what to do now. I don't feel safe going home, but I also wonder if I'm being foolish. This all really has nothing to do with me, except for the fact that I’m dating Thomas. But I don’t know anything about his expedition.”

“Well, if this thing,” Gerard taped the envelope, “is of any significance, and I don't see how it could be, the people who've kidnapped your friend might come after you if they find out if you've got it.”

“But I don't have it any more. That was the whole point of turning it over to you.”

“Even if they find out you’ve given it to me, they’ll figure you at least looked at it. They might want to make you describe it to them, or to stop you from telling anyone else about it. Either way, you could be in danger. You have anywhere you can go? Any one you can stay with for a couple of days?”

Kaylin sighed. “I'll get a hotel for tonight, and then maybe I can stay with friends. But what about Thomas? Isn’t there anything you can do?”

“If your friend Andy is right, and Thomas didn’t follow his planned path, I don't see that there’s much anyone can do, short of going down to South America and asking around. But even that would probably be a waste of time, especially since we don't even know for certain where he started his expedition.”

“But there’s got to be some way you can help!” Kaylin realized she was grasping at straws, but the thought of Thomas being in trouble and her doing nothing to help was more than she could bear.

“Kaylin, I want to help you, I really do, but we're just a local police department. We don't have any international connections, and even if we did, what would I tell them? A professor is missing in the Amazon? That happens all the time. What if they were to ask me for his itinerary, and I tell them we don't think he followed it, but we have this here clue...” Once again he held up the envelope and gave Kaylin a meaningful look.

“I understand.” She wished she could keep the disappointment from her voice. Gerard was a good man, and she knew he would do what he could. Unfortunately, in this situation, what he could do was not much. “I suppose I'll try the dean of his college, and maybe my congressman's office. I have to do something.” She rose from her chair, shook Gerard's hand, and thanked him for his help.

“I really wish I could do more for you, but my hands are tied. I will keep up the search for your friend Andy, though.”

She assured him that she understood, and gratefully accepted his offer of a police escort to a nearby hotel. He walked her out to the lobby and they made small talk for a few minutes, and she promised to drop by for dinner with him and his wife sometime soon. A young officer walked her out to her car and followed behind in his squad car. Her mind was abuzz with a swarm of confused thoughts and jumbled questions. What should she do next? Was Andy okay? Where was Thomas? And, perhaps most important, what should be her next move?