Silence in the Dark (37 page)

Bailey tried not to disturb Maria as she slept. The child’s fever had returned, and if they didn’t get out of this damp room . . . She didn’t want to think about what might happen. At least they’d brought in some oatmeal and left the light on, and she’d fed her a few bites.

While the constant light wasn’t as bad as the darkness, she still couldn’t tell what time of the day or night it was or how long they’d been captive. Sometime between the taking of the photo and when she realized Maria’s fever had returned, Bailey had given up asking God to send someone to rescue them. She couldn’t control whether help came or not. That was up to God. It surprised her how freeing that realization was.

It had taken coming to the end of her rope to understand that she wasn’t in control. He was. And she didn’t believe that God had sent Danny to rescue them last week only to let them die today.

Another thing she believed—Danny would not let Joel or Edward hand over any amount of money without hearing her voice or Maria’s. She would get the opportunity to talk to her family, so she had to be ready to send them a message.

The sound of a scuffle outside the motel jerked her straight up. Hope soared until the door opened and one of the men entered, carrying something over his shoulder. Without ceremony, he dumped her father on the floor. Maria grabbed Bailey and clung to her.

“Daddy!” Bailey stared at blood oozing down the back of his head. “What did you do to him?”

“The fool was snooping around outside. He’s lucky I didn’t shoot him.”

She scrambled off the bed and stretched as far as the cuffs would let her, but she couldn’t reach him. “Please unlock these so I can help him.”

“No.”

This wasn’t the same man who took the picture. This one wore a full gray beard and sunglasses. She widened her eyes, pleading. “Then take them off so I can go to the bathroom.”

The sunglasses obscured his eyes, so she couldn’t tell if he was softening or not. Then he motioned her to move to the other side of the bed. “I will unlock them for now. When the old man comes to, you better convince him to cooperate unless you want to see him dead.”

“I will. He won’t bother you, I promise.”

He pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the cuffs. “I’ll be back in five minutes. Don’t get any bright ideas of trying to escape—I’ll be right outside the room.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Bailey ran to her father. He was breathing. Then she checked on Maria. The child was burning up. “Stay here and rest,” she said softly.

“Is Uncle Charlie going to be okay?”

“Yes. I’m going into the bathroom, and I’ll be right back. Okay?”

Bailey took care of business, then found three washcloths and soaked them in cold water and wrung them out. She put the first one on Maria. “This should make you feel better.” She checked the front door. Nailed shut. No surprise there, but she’d had to see. She kneeled beside her dad and cradled his head in her lap and wiped the blood from his hair. She laid the other cloth across his forehead. Slowly, he began to come around.

He groaned. “What hit me?”

“I don’t know. Probably the butt of a gun. Does anyone know you’re here?”

He blinked open his eyes. “No. I was just following a hunch.”

“If you can sit up, I’ll help you get to the bed.”

He raised up and pressed his hand against his eyes. “The room is moving.”

“Sit there a minute. Do you have your cell phone with you?”

He felt his pocket. “Whoever coldcocked me must have taken it.” He winced. “Along with my .38.”

She squeezed his shoulder. Her hero. She’d rarely seen him when she was a small child since he’d spent so much time at sea as a merchant seaman. But he was here for her now. “Let’s see if you can make it to the bed.”

He stood on shaky legs, then took a deep breath. “I can do it.”

She turned as the side door opened and both men came into the room wearing the same disguises as earlier.

“You.” The man in the old geezer mask pointed at her. “Over here.”

When she hesitated, he shifted his gaze to Maria. “Right now or I’ll take the girl.”

Bailey moved to where he pointed.

The one with whiskers clamped one end of the cuffs on her wrist and the other on his. “We’re going to take a little trip.”

“Maria?”

“She stays here with the old man.” He turned to her dad. “And if you try to escape, I’ll kill this one,” he said, jerking his head toward Bailey. “Got it?”

“Yeah,” Charlie growled.

“Good.” Whiskers handed her a black sleep mask. “Put this on.”

“But I won’t be able to see.”

“That’s the point.”

Once she had the sleep mask in place, he jerked her arm. “This way.”

Half stumbling, she went where he led. The sleep mask slipped as they stepped outside the motel, allowing Bailey to see peripheral objects. Her heart sank. Bars covered all the windows. A car
door creaked opened, and Whiskers put his hand on her head. “Get in the car.”

Bailey felt for the seat, then half climbed and half fell into what she decided was the backseat. The car lurched forward, jerking her back, then made a sharp turn. She didn’t know how long they were driving before the car made another turn and stopped.

One of the kidnappers spoke to her. “In a minute, I will hand you a phone. Tell the person on the other end you and the girl are all right. Tell them to pay the money. That’s all you say. Got it?”

She nodded and heard the sound of numbers being pressed.

“Hello?”

Bailey recognized Joel’s voice through the speaker on the phone.

“I have the woman.” Whiskers nudged her. “Speak.”

“Joel?” she said. “Maria has a fever.”

Whiskers nudged her again.

“Pay them the money.”

“I don’t know what kind of trick you’re trying to pull, but this isn’t Bailey,” he said.

“It is the woman,” Geezer insisted.

There was a pause, then Joel said, “If this is Bailey, tell me who Danny is.”

“Go ahead,” Geezer said.

“Danny is my fiancé. Tell him not to stop reading his Bible, and if this goes bad, Job 39 will comfort him.”

“That’s enough. I will call you in two hours with instructions on the exchange.”

Bailey sank back against the seat. Now it was up to Danny.

28

W
ill the money be here in two hours?” Danny had not seen any activity that indicated money would be delivered to the house.

Joel shook his head. “We don’t need it yet and don’t even know how much we’ll need. When he calls back, I’ll offer $250,000.”

“Are you trying to get them killed?” Angel demanded. “That amount will just make them mad.”

Edward stood from where he’d been sitting on the couch. “They will expect a low counter offer.”

“Not that low. And what about Maria—Bailey said she was running a fever again. We need to speed this up.”

“We can only go as fast as they allow,” Joel retorted.

“Arguing will get us nowhere,” Ben said. He turned to the tech. “Did the call come from a pay phone again?”

“Cell phone. I’m triangulating the coordinates now.” He looked up. “Got it.” He walked to the map. “It pinged off this cell tower.”

Ben examined the map. “He drove over the state line it looks like. Have you pinged it again?”

“Yeah. It hasn’t moved.”

“Probably decided to use a throwaway this time. I’ll call the sheriff over there and have his deputies search for it.” He turned
to Danny. “What do you think Bailey meant by the reference to Job 39?”

“I assume she was trying to tell us where she’s being held,” Danny said. He grabbed the Bible on the end table. “Where’s Job?” he asked Kate.

She took the Bible and flipped almost to the middle. “I told her to read Job earlier this week,” she said to Danny.

“I have it up on my computer screen,” the tech said. “There are thirty verses here.”

Eric Raines and Ben gathered around the computer. “I wish she’d pinpointed it with a verse, but that probably would have gotten her killed.”

“Do you have another Bible, Kate?” Joel asked.

“Every bedroom has one,” she replied. “I’ll take this one into the kitchen and see if I can understand what she’s trying to tell us.”

For the next few minutes, the house grew quiet as everyone pored over Bibles. Danny motioned for Angel to follow him into the kitchen. He sat down beside Kate. “Have you found anything yet?”

“I’ve scanned the verses, and nothing jumps out. The message was to you, so it’s probably something only you will put together.”

Danny glanced at Angel, then back to Kate.

“What’s going on?” she said.

He lowered his voice. “I don’t trust everyone in the house. If you think you get the message Bailey is trying to send, tell me first.”

She held his gaze. “I assume it’s Joel and Edward you don’t trust.”

He nodded.

“Something about this whole deal is wrong,” Angel said.

Danny worried the watch on his arm. “Our first priority is getting our girls—”

“But if possible, we’d like to get whoever is responsible for taking them too.” Angel’s hands curled into fists. “And those men who took them are only acting under orders from someone else.”

Kate frowned. “Surely it isn’t Maria’s uncles.”

“I hope not,” Danny said.

Angel folded his arms over his chest. “Me too. I’d hate to have to kill one of them.”

Danny stiffened as he realized Ben hadn’t returned his gun. He turned to Angel. “Do you have your gun?”

He patted his ankle. “Yes, Logan returned it to me.”

“He still has mine. Do you have another?”

“Not with me.”

Kate stood. “Charlie has a .38 revolver. I’ll get it.”

While she was gone, Danny read Job 39. He grabbed a notepad Kate had on the table and scribbled notes as he read.
Wild animals, wilderness, city, pasture . . .
He looked up when Kate returned, her face pale. “What’s wrong?”

“His gun is gone.” She glanced toward the door. “And he always tells me where he’s going, but he didn’t this morning . . . I thought he’d be back by now or at least called.”

“Do you think he went looking for Bailey and Maria?” Danny hoped not.

She rubbed her hands together. Suddenly, her eyes widened. “He said something last night before we went to bed about there being only a few places in Logan Point where you could hide someone.”

“He didn’t mention any of the places?”

“No.” She picked up her phone and dialed it. After half a minute, she hung up. “He doesn’t answer. I should have realized he’d go looking for them. I need to tell Ben.”

He and Angel followed her into the living room.

“Charlie went looking for them, and he hasn’t come back,” Kate told Ben.

“What do you mean, he went looking for them? Why didn’t you tell me?” Ben said.

“I just put it together when I realized he’d been gone all morning. His gun is gone too.”

“Oh, great.” Ben groaned. “Have you called him?”

“Yes, and he doesn’t—” Kate turned as the doorbell rang. “Maybe he forgot his key and that’s him.”

Danny followed her to the door. No, it was Sergeant Chavez. Kate’s shoulders slumped as she opened the door. “Come in, everyone is in the living room.”

“Good morning, ” Chavez said as he scanned the room. “I heard about the abduction.”

“Any word on who killed Bailey’s friend?”

A frown turned the corners of the sergeant’s mouth down. “The Calatrava, on orders from the priest. He’s disappeared. Have you had a ransom demand?”

“Started out at ten million, and they got mad and raised it to fifteen,” Joel said. “Maria is insured for five against kidnapping.”

Chavez whistled. “Either one is a lot of money. Have you countered?”

“That’s next.”

Danny couldn’t believe how casually the men talked about the situation.

“I’ve had experience back in Mexico with negotiations, if you would like my help.”

Ben looked at Raines, then Joel and Edward. “I, for one, would like the sergeant’s help.”

Raines stuck out his hand. “Eric Raines, FBI.”

Chavez shook hands with him. “It’s been my experience that they will counter your offer with another one, usually half of what they asked for first before settling for about a quarter.” He shifted his gaze to Angel. “In the cases I’ve handled, the victims have been returned unharmed.”

“Good.”

Danny leaned forward. “So you think Maria is the focus of the kidnappers and not Bailey?”

“Have they asked for a ransom for Bailey?”

“No,” Danny said.

“If she was the focus, they would have simply killed her. She’s alive because they need her to take care of Maria.”

Danny would like to believe that, but his gut warned him there was more to the kidnapping than what was on the surface. But why did he feel that way? Pinning that down was a lot like squeezing Jell-O. Just when he thought he had a lead, it slipped away. “I’m going back to the kitchen to read Job 39 again.”

When Angel started to follow, Chavez asked to have a word with him. Angel glanced at Danny.

“I’ll let you know if I discover anything,” Danny said.

In the kitchen, Danny looked at his notes, and nothing jumped out at him. He picked up the Bible and a pencil and started reading, jotting down the key words of each verse.
Wild ox, bind with ropes.
He paused at that one. He hoped and prayed Bailey wasn’t bound with ropes.
Ostrich, wisdom, horse and rider, valley, strength, sword, hawk, south, eagle, nest, prey—

Kate stuck her head in the doorway. “They’ve called again!”