Silence in the Dark (30 page)

Danny watched as Kate pressed a cold washcloth to Solana’s face as she lay in the ER bed. The monitor indicated her fever was over 103. He’d never seen anyone so sick in his life. He looked up at the IV dripping into her arm, then at Kate. “Why isn’t her fever coming down?”

“I don’t know.” She wrung out a washcloth and handed it to him. “They may have to give her an ice bath.”

He didn’t know what that was, but it didn’t sound good. He turned as a nurse entered the room with a blanket.

“This should bring her temperature down.” She spread the blanket over Solana and plugged it in. “It’s a cooling blanket.” She nodded at the overhead monitor. “We’re monitoring her vitals at the desk, but press the call button if you need anything.”

Danny lifted his eyebrows as Joel came into the room and looked around.

“Where’s Bailey?” he asked.

“Gone to the house to get a few things. She’s staying overnight with Solana,” Kate said.

“Why aren’t you in Corning?” Danny said.

“I was worried about Maria, and Angel told me Solana was sick as well and that Bailey was down here with her.” He shifted back and forth on his feet and glanced around the small room. “Maybe I can catch Bailey at the house. Call me if you need me. I’ll be there for a while, then I’ll head back to Corning.”

“Sure,” Danny said. “How’s your dad?”

“About the same.” He edged toward the door. “Surgery is at nine in the morning.”

“I’ll keep him in my prayers,” Kate said.

Prayers.
As the door closed behind Joel,
Danny glanced at the monitor again. Solana’s fever hadn’t changed, and he was certain Kate had been praying for her. It was like his mother all over again,
except he thought God would hear and answer Kate’s prayers. If God didn’t hear hers, just whose
did
God hear?

He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’m going after something with caffeine in it. Can I bring you something?”

“No, I’m good.” Kate wiped Solana’s face again.

He wandered down to the nurses’ station and poured a cup of coffee. If there was anything to this prayer business, when he returned, Solana’s fever would be down. When he returned to the room, he glanced at the monitor. No change. He set the coffee cup on the window ledge. “You really think prayer will do any good?”

“What?”

“Your prayers. You told Joel you’d keep his dad in your prayers, and I know you’ve been praying for Solana. I don’t see that they’ve done any good.”

The sadness in Kate’s eyes reminded him of his mother.

“God hears our prayers, but that doesn’t mean he always gives us the answer we want.”

“Then why pray?”

“I don’t know about anyone else, but I pray because it brings God close. It gives me comfort, and I know he’ll answer my prayers in a way that’s best.”

He didn’t see how his mother’s death was best for anyone.
Unless heaven is real.
Sometimes he really wanted to believe that, especially since he’d been doing what Kate asked and was reading the Gospels.

Behind him, Bailey cleared her throat, then came into the small room and set an overnight bag on the floor. “How is she?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “No change.”

“These blankets are so heavy,” Solana whispered in Spanish.

Kate bent over the bed as she struggled to throw the blanket off. “Leave it there. It’s supposed to bring your fever down.”

He checked the monitor: 102.5. Her fever was coming down. Because of prayer?

“How do you feel?” Bailey asked.

Solana opened her eyes. “Terrible. How’s Maria?”

“Last I heard, she wasn’t throwing up any longer and her fever was down.”

Solana nodded, then drifted off to sleep.

An hour later, Kate had returned to the bed-and-breakfast, and Danny accompanied Bailey as Solana was moved from the ER to a room on the same floor as Maria. Once Solana was transferred to the bed and the nurse had taken her information, Bailey turned to him.

“There’s no need for you to stay,” she said. “There isn’t any place for you to sleep.”

“You mean you won’t give me the daybed?” It didn’t look that comfortable.

“We’ll be fine. No one’s going to bother us in a hospital, not with all the security guards around.”

“We’ll see,” he said. True, he had seen several guards stationed in and around the building. He sat on the daybed. “You might as well sit down. The doctor said she’d probably sleep all night.”

She sat beside him, slightly bouncing on the bed. “This won’t be so bad.”

He shifted his weight and raised his eyebrows. “If you say so.”

She was quiet a minute, then sighed. “I heard you and Mom talking about prayer.”

“You were eavesdropping?”

“Uh-huh.” She glanced toward Solana. “I’m glad we didn’t eat the hot dogs.”

“Don’t even go there,” he said with a laugh. “Are you hungry? I can get us something to eat.”

“Maybe a little later.” She took his hand, and her eyes bored into his. “Keep searching, okay?”

“I will,” he promised her. “But I want you to promise me something too.”

“What’s that?”

“That you won’t go back to Mexico.”

“Don’t go there, Danny.”

“I don’t think you should.” He sensed her bristling, but he plunged ahead anyway. “Why can’t you do mission work in Logan Point?”

“Because that’s not where God called me to work.”

“How do you know? Have you asked him? Or are you just trying to find the most dangerous place to work, thinking it will earn you brownie points with him?”

Her jaw shot out. “I . . .”

He wanted to kick himself. Why couldn’t he just be patient? This was not the time to push this, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. “Just think about what I said. Okay?”

21

F
or the hundredth time, Joel berated himself for using the necklace to hide the numbers. He should have hidden them somewhere else or memorized them. But that was why he’d engraved the numbers on the necklace—he couldn’t memorize anything.

And now Bailey wasn’t at the house and neither was the locket. He’d searched high and low for it and was returning to the hospital in hopes of finding Bailey by herself. He held up his hand to block his side mirror when lights from behind blinded him. When the vehicle pulled out to come around him, Joel slowed to let it pass.

Abruptly it swerved in front of him and stopped. He slammed on the brakes, stopping inches from the bumper. What was going on? A wreck maybe? Or a deer? The area was full of the four-legged creatures.

The driver of the car jumped out and ran his way, brandishing a gun.

Joel threw the car in reverse, and an alarm screamed. He jerked his gaze to his rearview mirror. A car blocked his escape.

“Get out!”

Ski masks.
They were hijacking his car. Or they were going to kill him.

He pulled the keys out of the ignition and opened the door. “You can have it,” he said, holding the keys out.

“I don’t want your car. Get out.”

Joel’s blood froze at the Mexican accent. He swallowed the nausea that raced up his throat. It was over. He stumbled out of the car, and the man jerked his arm behind him, forcing Joel to face the car. “What . . . what do you want? Who are you?”

“Your worst nightmare.”

That voice. It was the man he’d lost the hundred grand to—Enrico. Joel’s legs threatened to buckle.

“Do you have the money?”

“N-no, but I will soon.”

“Good. But now I want more. The Montoya girl and Bailey Adams.”

“I . . . I can’t. They’re at the hospital. Someone is always with them.”

“Figure out a way. You see how easy it was to get to you. You have twenty-four hours.”

He licked his lips. “If I agree, what do I do with them?”

“Eagle’s Nest. Room 106.”

Suddenly pain ripped his head, and stars exploded in his brain.

When he came to, he was on the ground and the men were gone. He climbed back into his car and rested his head on the steering wheel until the dizziness passed. He felt the back of his head and cried out. There was a bump the size of a goose egg where they’d hit him.

How did they know where he was? They’d been following him. What made him think the calls had been coming from Mexico? If he didn’t do as they said, they would kill him. He was as certain of that as he was that Edward or Angel would kill him if he helped kidnap Maria and Bailey.

He only had one option. Get into Edward’s account and take enough money to disappear forever.

He massaged his temples. Why did they want Maria and Bailey?
Ransom.
What he owed these men was peanuts compared to what they would ask for Maria. But why Bailey? She had no money.

It didn’t matter. If he didn’t get the necklace, it would be their lives for his.

His cell phone rang, and he checked the caller ID and groaned. His mother.
“Hello?”

“Where are you? Your father is asking for you.”

“I’m in Logan Point. Maria is still in the hospital and . . .” What would be bad enough for her to not expect him? “She has a virus, and I think I’m catching it,” he lied. “But if you want me to come back to Corning tonight, I will.”

“No! Your father can’t afford anything like that right now. You stay there until you’re sure you don’t have the bug.”

“I will. And I hope Dad does okay tomorrow with the surgery.”

“I’ll tell him you wished you could be here.”

You do that.
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll call you in the morning.”

He tapped on his navigation app and typed in Eagle’s Nest, Logan Point, Mississippi. Once he had the directions, he placed his phone in the cup holder and started the car. Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the almost deserted parking lot of an aging motel located on Logan Lake. Bars covered the windows, and the parking lot was deserted except for a road grader and a dump truck. Must be the place that the road crew repaving the bypass was lodging.

If he were picking out a place to stash someone, this would be the place.

Angel stood at the side of the bed, watching the rise and fall of his daughter’s chest as she lay sleeping. He’d missed too much of her life, the good and the bad. She’d been a month shy of her second birthday when he was shot, so he’d missed a lot. He smiled,
remembering her first steps and how she’d said Dada before Mama. Claire had been so jealous and proud at the same time.

It especially rankled that Joel had been the one to replace Angel in Maria’s life. And that Edward had become involved in his family. Certainly wouldn’t have happened if he’d been there to stop it. He hoped his uncle didn’t come back to the hospital tonight; he was unsure if he could stomach Edward another minute.

Edward was a fool if he thought Angel believed his story, although he’d have to admit Edward had been quite convincing earlier. Someone who didn’t know what he was capable of would probably believe him. Angel wasn’t ready to dismiss what he’d believed for fifteen years and what his father had believed before that.

But what if we were both wrong?

Angel turned as someone knocked at the door and pushed it open. Ben Logan. And he looked serious. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

“The ballistics came back on the bullet taken from Geoffrey Franks. Nine millimeter.”

“It’s not from my gun,” Angel said. “Have you questioned my uncle?”

“Haven’t been able to catch up with him.”

“Stick around, he’ll probably be back shortly.”

Ben nodded. “I’d like to test your gun.”

Angel shrugged. “Sure. I’m not worried. But can it wait until morning, after I take Maria home? I want to have a way to protect her here at the hospital.”

“Leave protecting her to me. I need it tonight. Along with Danny’s.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“Not yet, thought I’d see you first.”

Angel pulled up his pants leg and unbuckled the gun strapped to his calf and handed it to Ben.

“You wore that into the hospital?”

Angel shrugged.

Before Ben could comment, Edward stepped into the room. “What’s going on?”

Angel slid his pants leg down. “Nothing,” he replied. “Sheriff, I’d like you to meet my uncle, Edward Montoya.”

“Sheriff?” Edward queried Angel with his eyes.

“He’s investigating the murder of Geoffrey Franks. You knew him, didn’t you, Uncle?”

Edward removed his leather gloves, one finger at a time, before he answered. Then he removed his overcoat before shifting his gaze to Angel. “I did, but how did you know that?”

He hadn’t known; it had been an educated guess. “Danny told me Franks was the purchasing agent for Maxwell Industries, and Montoya Cerámica produces their pottery, so it stood to reason.”

Ben took out a pen and notebook. “Did you know him very well?”

Edward folded his arms across his chest. “He was a business acquaintance. My assistant, Joel McDermott, knew him much better than I.”

“What do you know about the rifles he sold to someone in Mexico?”

“Nothing.”

“How about a company by the name of Blue Dog?”

“Nothing at all.”

Like his uncle would admit it if he did. “I’m sure my uncle carries a pistol. You might want to see what caliber.”