Return to Mystic Lake (14 page)

He paused at the bathroom long enough to check that she wasn’t in there and then headed on to her room. Empty. His heartbeat accelerated.

He knew there was a door in the kitchen that she’d told him led down to a basement she used for storage. He raced back to the kitchen, flung open the door and thundered down the stairs into a small basement that held nothing but a couple of boxes labeled Winter Clothes.

Gone.

She was gone.

There was no way she would have left the house alone. She knew the dangers of being outside without having him along as backup.

He raced back up the stairs and went to the video equipment in her bedroom. He knew the security tapes were looped and he could replay them to see if anyone had come to the door.

His hands trembled as he punched the buttons to rewind the tape and he gasped in shock as he saw his father on the front porch. “Don’t open the door. Please, Maggie, don’t open the door.” He whispered the words desperately even as he saw the front door open.

He froze, watching the monitor and moments later his father walked out of the house, carrying an obviously unconscious Maggie in his arms.

Instinctively he grabbed his gun, wishing he could shoot his father’s image and make him drop Maggie. He wanted her safe, away from the man Jackson knew was a sociopath.

The monitor didn’t show Jerrod getting into a car—he simply walked out of sight with Maggie in his arms. Jackson remained immobile, unsure what his next move should be, as terror threatened to burst his heart right out of his chest.

He knew he should be doing something, searching for her, but he didn’t even know where to begin. Edward Bentz...Mystic Lake.

Edward Bentz had to have the answers. There was no doubt in Jackson’s mind that the mild-mannered traveling salesman had been his father’s minion. Jackson had to get to Mystic Lake. Hopefully, Jerrod would keep Maggie alive as a bargaining chip, for Jackson knew what his father wanted most was to kill Jackson.

Within minutes he was in the car and driving faster than he’d ever driven in his life toward the small town. If Bentz wasn’t in his rented room, then Jackson would head straight to Roger Black and see to it that every law enforcement official in Mystic Lake was looking for Bentz and the newly released prisoner who had Maggie with him.

Dammit, he should have realized what was going on the minute it entered his mind that the attacks on them might be personal. But he’d been certain his father was still locked up and he hadn’t thought of Jerrod being devious enough to hunt Jackson clear across the country to a case he was working.

He hadn’t tried anything like this in all the years he’d been behind bars. Why now?
Why not now?
he countered. Who knew what drove Jerrod Revannaugh besides naive, lonely, wealthy women?

Maggie. His heart cried her name and the love he’d never felt for any woman before filled his soul. Maggie. She had to be all right. He had to find her and make sure she survived this horror he’d brought to her doorstep.

Chapter Fourteen

Maggie came to and with a dazed semiawareness realized she was bound at her ankles and wrists, and tape covered her mouth, making it impossible for her to scream for help.

Dark... She was in the dark in a small space that smelled of oil and gasoline, and through her groggy hangover she realized she was in the trunk of a moving vehicle.

As the full implication of her predicament exploded in her brain, panic fluttered her heart and surged bitterness up the back of her throat.

She swallowed against it, knowing that panic would accomplish nothing. She remained still, lying on her side, and took several deep breaths in and out through her nose.

Think, Maggie, don’t panic,
she told herself. Thankfully her hands were bound in front of her with what felt like duct tape. She knew the futility of trying to slip or rip the tape away. She assumed her ankles were bound in the same way. She tested the strength of the tape, attempting to pull her ankles apart, but there was no give at all.

He must have been watching the house, she thought. When he saw Jackson leave, he took the opportunity to engage her. She’d been a naive fool, thinking that maybe he was there for some sort of happy reunion with his son.

She should never have opened the door to him. But she had, and now she was in the back of the trunk of a car carrying her to an unknown destination for some unknown purpose.

Her heart raced faster. One thing was clear. Jerrod Revannaugh didn’t intend for her to walk away alive from whatever he’d planned. Not only had he kidnapped an FBI agent, but he’d introduced himself to her, allowed her to see his face.

She was already a dead woman.

The minute she’d opened her front door, she’d signed her own death certificate. The only thing she didn’t know, that she couldn’t understand, was why this had happened.

Why her? She’d never met Jackson’s father before, knew virtually nothing about him. So why had he taken her instead of just waiting and dealing with Jackson?

Somehow she knew she was a pawn between father and son. Jerrod probably believed that Jackson loved her, that she would be a useful tool to get his son to do something. What he didn’t know was that Jackson didn’t love her. And now she understood why he was probably incapable of loving somebody too deeply. Who knew what kind of childhood he’d had with a man who could drug and kidnap a woman?

She shoved away thoughts of Jackson, thoughts that caused pain as her love for him remained undiminished by the current events.

She had to figure out a way to get out. She’d read somewhere of a case of a woman who’d been imprisoned in the trunk of a car and she’d managed to punch out a back taillight and get another driver’s attention.

Disoriented in the darkness, the first thing she did was scoot around the small space, trying to get her bearings. She was sideways in the trunk and she tried to position herself so that her fingers could search for a trunk release inside.

She didn’t even think about what she might do if she did manage to pop the trunk. At the very least she could potentially sit up and maybe get somebody’s attention. Worst-case scenario was that they were traveling in an area where there were no other people around, and her actions would only enrage Jerrod Revannaugh.

Deciding anything was better than just lying there waiting for whatever he had planned, she wiggled and squirmed until her fingers had traced every place she thought a release would be and found nothing.

Unwilling to be defeated, she located one of the back taillights and began to use her bound feet to bang against it. Again and again she slammed her feet into the back of the taillight, until she had to stop to catch her breath, a difficult thing to do with her mouth taped closed.

Sweat ran down the sides of her face, and the T-shirt she’d put on that morning stuck to her. The temperature in the trunk had to be nearly a hundred degrees. If Jerrod kept her in here too long she’d die of the heat and dehydration.

She made several more kicks at the taillight and then gave up, unwilling to expend the energy for what appeared to be a futile attempt.

Where was he taking her? She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious and so had no idea how long she’d been in the trunk.

Was he behind Amberly and Cole’s disappearance? She frowned. No, that didn’t make sense. He couldn’t have done something to them to bring Jackson to Mystic Lake. There was no way he could have guaranteed that Jackson would be sent here from Baton Rouge. Unless he was a company man...unless he’d had a hand in appointing Jackson to his current assignment.

Her heart began to hammer once again as the car turned onto a gravel road, the rocks pinging beneath her. The car went over a short distance and then stopped. The engine went silent and Maggie could hear the sound of her own heartbeat filling the trunk. It was the sound of terror.

Every muscle in her body tensed as the trunk opened. She blinked against the sunshine that momentarily blinded her. Jerrod was nothing more than a tall, well-built silhouette as he leaned forward.

“We can make this easy, or you can make it hard,” he said. “I’ll pick you up and carry you, but if you fight me, I’ll fight back, and with you trussed up like you are, it wouldn’t really be a fair fight.”

She nodded to let him know she understood. She would be a fool to fight right now. She’d have to wait and see if an opportunity presented itself later...if she had a later.

He leaned down and picked her up as if she weighed no more than a child. As she got her first vision of where they were, her heart sank.

In the middle of nowhere, that was where they were. She didn’t even see any landmarks that she recognized. Ahead of them was a large shed with a tractor stored inside and a smaller shed to the side that was probably used for a variety of equipment.

He carried her to the smaller shed and as they drew closer she saw that it was solid and well built on a slab of concrete. He laid her on the ground and then unlocked the padlock on the door.

Once again sheer, unadulterated terror filled her. She tried to roll away, even knowing in her head that it was nothing but the pathetic move of a desperate woman.

He turned back to her and laughed. “Where you going, darlin’?”

She wanted to scream at him to stop calling her that. There was only one man in the world who had the right to call her darlin’, and at the moment she feared for his life as well as her own.

Once again Jerrod picked her up and carried her into the dark confines of the shed. It was completely empty and the concrete floor was hard against her body.

He left her there but returned only moments later, this time with a flashlight and a couple bottles of water. He set them on the floor just inside the door.

“You can scream your head off out here and nobody will ever hear you,” he said, and to her surprise he pulled out a knife and sawed through the tape on her feet.

He motioned toward her hands and she quickly held them out. She watched him cautiously as he removed the tape from her wrists and then ripped off the piece that had been across her mouth.

She thought about rushing him, but she was too weak and he had not only the knife in his hand, but she suspected he also had a gun somewhere on his person.

“Why?” The word croaked out of her dry throat as she managed to raise herself to sit on her butt. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why?” He laughed, although there was no warmth in his cold blue eyes or in the tone of his mirth. “I raised that boy and taught him everything I knew and he turned his back on me, became a damned FBI agent. Six years ago I got myself into a little legal problem and my son, my own flesh and blood, testified against me. I wound up being sentenced to six years in jail. He betrayed me, and the price for that is his death.”

“What did you do with Amberly and Cole?” she asked, her mind reeling with all the information she’d just learned.

“Who?” His handsome face twisted into a confused frown as he stared at her.

“The sheriff of Mystic Lake and his wife.”

“I don’t know anything about them. All of my energy, all of my resources have been used to keep tabs on my dear son. You two have had the luck of the Irish so far. The men I’ve hired have been unusually inept in completing a simple death or two. But I’m here now, and to be honest, this is the way it should be. I should be here when it’s time for Jackson to pay. I’ve had six years to stew and plot, to enjoy the vision of his death.”

For the first time as he spoke of killing his own son, his eyes lit with life, and Marjorie recognized that she was looking into the eyes of pure evil.

“I’m leaving you with a flashlight and some water. I’m not inclined right now to kill you, but I do take great joy in the fact that for the next couple of hours my son will have no idea where you’ve gone or if you’re dead or alive.”

“Jackson won’t care. He’s nothing more than my partner,” she protested.

“Oh, he cares, and once I contact him he’ll come for you. Your white knight riding to your rescue, but unfortunately, the white knight won’t survive to see another morning.”

“Wait!” she cried as he stepped out of the shed.

As a reply he slammed the door closed and she heard the sound of the padlock being clicked into place and once again she was plunged into utter darkness and despair.

* * *

J
ACKSON
REACHED
B
ETTY
F
IELDS
’
S
house in record time, a new fear crashing through him as he saw that Bentz’s panel van wasn’t in the driveway.

Of course it wasn’t, he thought. Because Jackson was relatively certain that the panel van had carried Maggie away. He had no idea where his father might be holed up with Maggie, but he knew in order to get some answers he had to find Edward Bentz.

A knock on the door was answered by Betty. “Agent Revannaugh, how nice to see you again.” She smiled sweetly.

“Where’s Edward?” he asked, politeness gone beneath urgency.

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know. He left earlier but didn’t mention where he was going.” Betty’s forehead wrinkled. “Is there a problem?”

“Call the sheriff’s office if he shows up here,” Jackson said, his feet already moving him back to his car.

Panic simmered in his veins, a panic he refused to allow to blossom into its full potential. Panic didn’t allow rational thought, and he had to think.

With Edward gone, his next stop was at the sheriff’s office. He was led into the office where Roger Black sat behind the large desk. Roger must have sensed something, for he stood, his brow wrinkled. “What’s happened?”

“Maggie is gone.”

Roger’s frown deepened. “Gone? What do you mean she’s gone?”

“She’s been kidnapped by my father. I saw it on the security video at her house.”

“Why would your father want to kidnap your partner?” Roger asked as he sank back down in the leather chair behind the desk.

“Look, I don’t have time to give you all the reasons why. We don’t have the luxury of chatting about my father or my past with him. All you need to know is that he took Maggie and I believe Edward Bentz is involved.”

“Bentz?”

Jackson wanted to reach across the desk and slap Roger upside the head. “I need you to get off your ass and get your men out looking for Bentz’s van. I want him found sooner rather than later.”

“No need to get all riled up.” Roger stood once again and walked around the desk to stand before Jackson. “Just take a breath, man, and tell me what else you need from us.”

Jackson sucked in air, trying to calm the nerves that had his body on fire. “My father’s name is Jerrod Revannaugh. He was released this morning from a prison in Baton Rouge. I believe he’s now either in Kansas City or here in Mystic Lake.”

His chest tightened and he clenched and unclenched his hands into fists at his sides. “I’m guessing he’s here because I believe he hired Edward Bentz to keep track of me.”

“What does he want from you?” Roger asked.

“He wants to kill me, but at the moment I’m more afraid for Maggie’s life than mine.”

“Have you got a picture of your father?” Roger asked.

“No.” Jackson sighed impatiently. There was too much talk and not enough action going on. “You can get a photo of him off the internet, but right now you need your men to be looking for Bentz’s van. My gut says if we find Bentz, we’ll find my father and Maggie.”

“Excuse me a minute and I’ll get the process started.” He walked around Jackson and disappeared from the room. Jackson assumed he was going to talk to his dispatcher and get the word out to all units working the streets.

Something had to happen fast. He knew his father, he knew the black soul Jerrod possessed. With every minute that passed, Maggie’s life was in danger.

As he waited impatiently for Roger’s return, his gaze darted around the office, thinking idly that all the clues to everything that had happened in the town might be here.

Hopefully one of Roger’s men would see Edward’s van seconds after the call went out. If Jackson didn’t get to Maggie, if he couldn’t save her, then he’d be worth nothing.

Shame and humiliation had already made him keep the secret of who his father was, what kinds of crimes he’d committed. Now his shame and humiliation might be the very cause of Maggie’s death.

“No,” he whispered, his knees nearly buckling at the thought of losing her. Rage and fear forced his eyes closed for a moment as visions of Maggie filled his head.

Her childlike excitement in the hotel suite, the laughter that was a rare and beautiful gift and the unbridled passion of her lovemaking all combined to create his love for her, a love that was too deep to explain.

He opened his eyes and his gaze instantly fell on the top of the wooden file cabinets. He frowned as he saw something there he hadn’t noticed before.

A pair of black gloves.

A pair of black motorcycle gloves.

He took a step around the desk and saw a gray helmet half-hidden next to the wastebasket. His blood ran cold. Roger hadn’t been on the list he’d given them of motorcycle owners. Why would he leave himself off?