Special Forces Father (12 page)

Travis shook his head. “No. He didn’t see us. Even if I didn’t notice him, Dawson would have.”

“Well, he found out
somehow.”

Travis’s forehead creased in a frown. “Stamps or Whitley must have talked.”

“Stamps or Whitley? What are you talking about?” she asked.
Stamps?
She didn’t like the expression on Travis’s face any more than what he’d said. He looked chagrined and he wouldn’t meet her gaze. She saw his throat move as he swallowed.

“I—went to see Stamps yesterday, after I talked to Dawson.
I figured he needed to know that we were onto him—”

“You went to
see
him?” The anger she’d been searching for earlier, that she’d hoped would sweep away the empty ache of missing her child, now began to burn through her. It didn’t get rid of the emptiness, but it felt good. “You went to see Senator Stamps. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Now, Kate—” Travis began.

“Stop
talking!” she snapped, slicing a hand through the air. “Don’t even pretend you have an explanation for this.” She stepped over to the stove and turned off the spaghetti sauce, congratulating herself for having presence of mind enough to do that. She closed her eyes. As much as she wished she could depend on Travis, she knew from experience she couldn’t. She was the one who always handled things. So
she would handle this, too. But she was going to need all the information she could get. With a huge sigh, she asked, “Who’s Whitley?”

“Congressman Gavin Whitley. He’s actually the one who hired the kidnapper. Dawson traced down the kidnapper’s phone number and found out where he bought it. I found that same number on Whitley’s phone. So now, with that information and using your phone, Dawson
should be able to zero in on where they’re keeping Max.”

“Please, Travis. I don’t want you to do anything else. I don’t want Dawson to do anything else. I’m taking care of it, just like I always have. When you walked out on me in college. When I found myself pregnant with your child. If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s how to get along without you.”

“Come on, Kate. You don’t
have to—”

“I swear to you on your child’s life, if you don’t leave this alone right now, I will take Max and move away from here and you will never, ever find us. You will
never
see your child.” Kate felt sick, saying those words. It wasn’t what she wanted. It had never been her choice to raise her child alone. She’d always thought that one day he would come back and they would be a family.

But she knew now that her vision of them as a family was a pipe dream. The reality was what it had always been. Travis would walk away and Kate would handle it.

She lifted her chin and glared at him. “I don’t have much that’s mine. But Max is my son and this is my house. I want you to leave, now.”

Travis stared at Kate, trying to process everything she’d said. He knew how many times
he’d let her down. But he wasn’t going to let her down this time. He wished there was a way to tell her that, to make her stop and look at him and see—not the boy he’d been, too angry and too immature to be responsible. But the man he’d become. Who knew how to channel his anger. Who knew what was worth living for—and even dying for. He’d sat in that filthy dark room where his enemy had kept him
for five months, completely alone. He’d faced his shortcomings, his demons, his fears. And now, at last, he knew that only love could heal what was wrong with him. He hoped he wasn’t too late in recognizing it.

“Kate, don’t do this. We can get him back. I promise you.”

But her chin just went up another fraction of an inch and her glare never wavered.

He shook his head, held out
a hand in supplication, then when she ignored it, let it drop to his side. Then he walked past her into their child’s room and threw his clothes into his duffel bag before hoisting it over his shoulder. When he came back into the living room, she was still standing in the same place, but her head was now bowed and her eyes were closed.

He walked past her to the front door, then turned around.
“Kate, you’re telling me to leave, but I swear to you,
I
am
not
walking out on you.” She didn’t react. “Damn it, Kate. Look at me.”

Slowly she raised her head and met his gaze. Her face was awash with both a profound sadness and a steely determination.

“I am not walking out. I’ve got this phone, and you’ve got the number in yours. Call me and I promise I will be here before you hang
up the phone. That is my solemn promise to you—on our son’s life.”

Travis didn’t miss the irony of declaring to Kate that he was not walking out on her in one breath and in the next, turning around and leaving. But he’d told her the truth. Even if she never wanted to lay eyes on him again, he was not going to leave her to face the kidnapper alone. He would be right here, watching her, making
sure she was safe.

She had hit him where it hurt, with those comments about him walking out. He hadn’t realized until she’d said it, but that was exactly what he’d done—twice. He certainly had not forgotten the first time. She’d brought up marriage and he’d reacted with such immediate anger, he’d scared not only her, but himself. So he’d done what his older brother Lucas had hounded him about
for years. How many times had Lucas said it?
You ought to join the military, Trav. They’d whip that anger right out of you.

The army and later Special Forces had given him confidence, skills and a deep understanding of his physical, mental and emotional self. Above all, they’d taught him to channel his anger into a different, more helpful energy and to use that energy to maintain an ironclad
control in order to beat every enemy. Lucas had been right.

Now he had to draw on every bit of that control to save his son and keep Kate safe, whether she wanted him to or not. He didn’t know what she was planning to do, but he did know that he wasn’t about to let her deal with the kidnapper alone.

Sitting in his car in front of her house, he dialed Dawson’s number. When Dawson answered,
he said, “Have you got a vehicle I can borrow?”

“I’ve got several. What do you need it for?” As usual, Dawson was prepared for almost anything.

“I need something that won’t stand out in Kate’s neighborhood. I’m going to be watching her house. I’m afraid she’s made some kind of arrangement with the kidnapper.”

There was an almost undetectable pause on the other end of the call. Then
Dawson said, “Sure. In the parking lot next to the warehouse where we met, there’s a late-model white van. There are various magnetic signs inside, along with a couple pairs of coveralls and a few other items. Use the large magnetic sign that says City of New Orleans. If you wear the white coverall, maybe a Saints baseball cap and sunglasses and carry a clipboard, you can hang around all day.
If somebody asks you what you’re doing, tell them you’re assessing the need for house numbers on the curb in front of the houses.”

“Not bad,” Travis said. “It’ll take me a while to pick up those things.”

“No need. They’re in the van. The coverall fits me so it’ll be okay on you.”

“Great. Where are the keys?”

“Upstairs, in the cabinet over the microwave.”

“Thanks, Dawson.”

“No problem. Listen, we’re almost ready to make the call to the kidnapper. Dusty has altered the data that will be sent to the kidnapper’s phone so that he’ll think the call is from Whitley. But we’ll only have one chance, and it’ll be a slim one, because as soon as he realizes it’s not Whitley, he’ll hang up and won’t answer again. So we have to plan when we want to make the call. Dusty is
tracking the GPS coordinates of the phone. As soon as he answers, she’ll triangulate the signal.”

“What do you think?” Travis asked. “Should we get the police involved?”

“Not officially. I’ll talk to Ryker and fill him in. See if he’ll work with us unofficially. Lucas already knows about the situation. He just doesn’t know you’re involved. With the two of them, we’ll have the city and
the North Shore covered.”

“What about the locals?”

“So far we don’t know which local police department we’ll be dealing with. We’ll bring them in, but obviously it’ll be at the last second.”

“They’re not going to be happy,” Travis said.

Dawson nodded grimly. “No kidding. And once they know about the kidnapping—”

“It becomes their case and we have no more control.”

“Exactly.”

Travis sighed. “Kate’s going to hate me even more before this is all over.”

“That’ll be better than her being destroyed by grief, if she can’t save her child.”

* * *

T
RAVIS
WAS
AT
Kate’s house by eight o’clock the next morning. He was in Dawson’s van, dressed in the white coverall and ready to look busy and preoccupied as he studied his clipboard. When he turned onto
her street, he saw the dark green sedan that belonged to the kidnapper.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. There was nothing he wanted more than to go drag the man out of his car by his collar, toss him onto the ground and stand on his neck until he revealed Max’s location. But Travis knew expert interrogation techniques from both sides—as a Special Forces operative and as a hostage.
He knew that there was a very real chance that the man wouldn’t give up the information no matter what. There was also the risk of alerting his partner by preventing a phone call or some other prearranged signal.

No. Travis had to work slowly and methodically to be sure the kidnapper wasn’t alerted. The last thing they needed was for Max to be harmed or whisked away to another location. So
he casually drove past the kidnapper’s car and stopped a dozen houses away near the end of the block. Travis wasn’t skilled at tailing, so he was going to have to be extremely careful as he followed Kate and the kidnapper.

It was eight-thirty before Kate came out of the house and locked the door. She didn’t pay any attention to the car with the real estate sign on its side, parked a few houses
away from hers. She backed out of her driveway and drove off. The kidnapper pulled away from the curb and followed her.

Travis followed the green sedan at a safe distance. He expected Kate to drive to her office, but she didn’t. Instead, she led them to a bank and parked in its parking lot. Again, the green sedan parked half a block away and Travis drove on past and turned at the next light.
He pulled into a small parking lot and quickly changed the magnetic sign from
City of New Orleans
to
Upton Upholstery—Uptown Style for 15 Years.
He slipped out of the coverall, took off the Saints cap but left his sunglasses on, then made the block and parked at a fast-food restaurant across the street from the bank. He walked into the restaurant and bought a burger and a soft drink and went back
to the van to eat while he waited.

He knew what Kate was doing and he wasn’t happy about it. He’d done what he could to keep her from having to deal directly with the kidnapper, at the very least trying to be there when he called.

He couldn’t believe she had enough money to come close to tempting the kidnapper away from Travis’s wealthy family. Even on a psychiatrist’s earnings, there
was little chance she could scrape up a decent fraction of what the kidnapper might demand from the Delanceys. What frightened him the most, though, was that the kidnapper would decide that two birds were better than one and he’d kidnap Kate, as well.

And he knew that for all his training and all his carefully honed restraint, he would kill the man if he hurt Kate or their son.

Kate
was inside the bank for over two hours. Travis had moved from the fast-food parking lot to a side street a couple blocks away from the kidnapper where he couldn’t see the bank’s parking lot. When the kidnapper pulled away from the curb, Travis followed him. As soon as they came to a straightaway, he saw Kate’s car in front of the green sedan. She went directly from the bank to a credit union, where
she only spent about forty-five minutes. Then she went directly to her office, oblivious to the two vehicles following her.

Once she walked inside her office building, the kidnapper, who’d been idling at the curb half a block away, pulled into the street and headed away. Travis started the van and followed him. He wasn’t sure if following the kidnapper was the best idea, especially in a decade-old
minivan, but he couldn’t pass up the chance that the kidnapper might lead him to where he was keeping Max.

The kidnapper got on Interstate 10 and took the Airline Highway exit. He was heading to his hideout. Travis was sure of it. Now he had a decision to make. He was going to follow the man and he would find out where he was keeping Max. But what was he going to do then?

He knew how
to move through deep forest or open desert nearly undetectably. With the proper equipment, he could pick locks and cut window glass without making a sound. But he held little hope that those skills would help him. Even if he could sneak into the place where they were holding Max, even if he could neutralize the kidnapper and his partner, how would he approach his son? To Max, he would be nothing
more than another stranger.

Suddenly, the green sedan sped up, darting from one lane to another, avoiding cars. Travis’s pulse sped up. The kidnapper had spotted him. He gunned the van’s engine, but there was a dismaying lack of pickup. Still, he floored it. He wasn’t going to lose the kidnapper if he could help it. He watched the speedometer creep higher, too slowly, and listened to the
van’s engine struggle. Ahead of him, the sedan was putting more and more distance between them. Airline Highway was a long, straight road, but as the sedan grew smaller and smaller, it became harder for Travis to keep his eye on it.

The van’s engine was straining. The speedometer appeared to be stalled at ninety. Travis focused on the road ahead, but now he couldn’t spot the dark green sedan
at all. He didn’t give up, though. If he couldn’t see the sedan, he was certain the sedan couldn’t see him. So he kept driving, past Kenner, past the airport and farther, into LaPlace, then on until he saw the signs for the Maurepas Swamp. He slowed the van down and took the next exit.