Stolen Omnibus – Small Town Abduction (22 page)

A residual anger lingered, but Mark’s expression had softened. He took a step back. “Have you ever lost a child?”

Ken deflated, taking a seat on the recliner and burying his face in his palms. “Not yet.” Mark took a seat on the adjacent couch, and Ken leaned forward. “He’s sick. The name of the disease doesn’t have any vowels in it, so I can’t pronounce it, but it’s fatal. It attacks the brain stem and slowly shuts down basic cognitive and motor functions until you’re nothing but a vegetable.” The words hollowed him out, and he was barely able to even whisper after that. “He’s nine.”

“Is there a cure, or treatment?”

“No cure. And the only treatment we’ve been able to find is in Europe. A lot of what we’re trying is experimental. It’s not cheap. That’s why I took the job.” Ken offered a light chuckle. “It’s funny—I haven’t talked about it out loud in a while. No one at New Energy knew, at least no one that mattered.”

“How long has your son been sick?”

“Three years.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ken looked to Mark on the couch. The last bits of anger were gone. All that remained was the shell of a man who’d lost a daughter, and who would do anything he could to get her back. “And I’m sorry about Kaley.” He rubbed his hands together. “Do you think your wife will be able to do this? I’ve worked for these guys for the past three months, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of people so willing to do anything that’s necessary to get what they want.”

“Well,” Mark said, shaking his head, “you don’t know Lena very well, then.”

Ken’s pocket buzzed. It was Scott. He’d ignored it for the past twelve calls. He couldn’t put it off any longer. “I have to take this.” He walked out front then to the side of the house, out of the earshot of the deputies. The phone vibrated in his hand, and Ken took a breath before he answered. “Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“I had to run a couple of errands in town. What’s going on?”

“You need to get back to your office. Now.”

The call clicked dead, and Ken lowered the phone wearily. He leaned back up against the side of the house, the cloth of his shirt catching against the concrete siding. He looked to his hand, which trembled. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wedding ring. He twisted it onto the shaking left hand and made a fist, forcing the trembling to stop.

Chapter 8 – 6 Hours Left

The city landscape was well in the distance, but Lena couldn’t stop looking behind her. She kept waiting for the flash of red and blue lights, but they never came, no matter how many times she turned around. She shifted in her seat and saw the bloodstains on Jake’s shirt. She started to mouth something, but no words would come out. She leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes. “I don’t know how we get out of this.”

“We don’t.” Jake took a breath and exhaled quickly. “We continue with the plan. We have Ken set up a meet to exchange the dirt we have on New Energy for Kaley. And it needs to happen soon.” His eyes flitted to the rearview mirror.

The gunshot replayed in her head, but the only thing that concerned her at the moment was making sure that Kaley and Gwen had at least one parent out of jail to take care of them. “We can’t go back to the house.” Lena straightened out in her seat. “It won’t take long for the police to put together the death and our disappearance. We need to keep Mark out of this.” She reached for her phone and scrolled to find Ken’s number. “Once the news gets hold of that man’s death, whoever did buy those bullets will know we’re on their trail. And that won’t be good for Kaley.” A few rings, and Ken answered.

“Did you get what you needed?” Ken’s voice was raised an octave, a healthy dosage of both fear and hope in his tone.

“You need to leave the house before the authorities lock my property down.”

“What happened?”

“The less you know the better. Set up the meeting with the New Energy executives. Tell them what you have. Extortion, the waste dumping, murder, all of it. Tell them I’m willing to spill all of it if Kaley isn’t returned.” She took a breath and waited a second for her mouth to catch up with her brain.

“But what about—”

“Just do it!”

“All right. We’ll need a place to meet beforehand to go over everything.”

“And it needs to be off the radar.”

“I know a place.”

“Good. And when you leave, don’t let the press see you. Text me the location when you’re there.” The call ended, and Lena dropped the phone in her lap. She brushed her hair back, clawing her nails into her scalp, letting out a long, slow breath. “You think the owner was lying?” She looked to her brother, relying on his years of profiling and interrogations. She’d had her own experience in the field, but he was the expert.

A pause. “No.”

“
Shit.
” Lena punched the dashboard.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
Each curse was accompanied by another smack. Her hand throbbed when she was done, her knuckles a bright, fleshy pink.

“If you want to end this and make the announcement, then we need to do it quickly,” Jake said, his eyes continuing to drift between the road and rearview mirror. She knew what he was looking for. Police. “You’re not going to get another chance at it if we wait.”

“No. We may not know who they hired to take my daughter, but we’ve got their dirty laundry, and I know they don’t want it aired out to dry.” Lena looked to her left hand, which lay upon the armrest, shaking. She pumped her hand into a fist a few times, but still it remained, voicing the doubts her lips were afraid to speak.

“Listen,” Jake said. “We need to get our story straight for what happened back there. People saw you leave with me, and if they manage to subpoena any witnesses, then they’ll identify you at the scene of the crime. There weren’t any cameras in the building, none that I could see at least, so until they can prove anything, it was me who shot the gun owner.”

It was a mixture of shock and anger that flashed across her face. “No! Jake, you can’t—”

“Damnit, Lena, just listen!” The outburst made her jump, and Jake repositioned his grip on the wheel. “You can’t go to jail. The girls need you. Mark needs you. The town needs you.” He looked over, the lines carved into his face like a piece of granite. “I’m already on my way out. I tampered with a crime scene, manipulated evidence. No judge is going to let me keep my badge after what I did.”

“I won’t let you do that.” Lena forced her voice to steady.

“I can, and I will.” His voice softened. “Everything you’ve been through. Everything you’ve sacrificed. I won’t let you throw it all away. You still have your girls. You still have the legislation. You still have a job to do.” It was hard for Lena to see from the view of his profile, but she thought he turned his face away to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.

“And what if I tell the police I did it?” Lena held up her phone. “I can call them right now, confess everything. They’ll have a phone record of it, and then I’ll go into the station myself and put it in writing.”

“You could,” Jake said. “But the moment you do that you’ll lose both of your girls.” He looked over. “You think you can watch Kaley grow up behind the locked door of a jail cell? You think you’ll be able to help give Gwen advice through those important years into womanhood over the phone once a week?” He shook his head. “You’ve come too far to go back to a life of isolation. I won’t let you go backward.”

Lena wanted to tell him to go to hell. She wanted to tell him that if it weren’t for him, then she never would have pulled herself out of rock bottom during her addiction. She wanted to tell him how proud she was of him and everything he’d done with his life, even the things that were hard to look at. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but she’d worked in the courtroom too long. If she went to trial for the gun-store owner’s murder, she might get a few sympathetic jurors, but the prosecution would hammer her for intent.
She chose to go to town. She chose to break the law. She chose to carry that gun. She chose murder.

The judge would make an example out of her. How could he not? With the havoc that the town was wreaking on itself they would have to prosecute someone, and she would be the biggest fish in the pond. It was whom she would go after if she were the prosecutor. And the trial would just mean more trauma for her family.

“If you do this,” Lena said, “you’re looking at twenty years plus after tacking on the Reese Coleman body. And that’s if we can prove that you didn’t kill him, which is going to be difficult if we can’t find the murder weapon or get a confession out of someone.”

“I know.”

Lena leaned back and closed her eyes. She couldn’t save everyone. Any way she sliced it, one of her family’s life was over.

***

Sunlight shone through the front windshield of Scott’s car and warmed the inside. With the engine off, the temperature inside climbed quickly, even though the sun was starting to fade. Scott sat in the driver seat of his car with one foot in the grass while the other remained on the floorboard. A light breeze waved the grass back and forth in the rolling hills in front of him.

His attention was focused on his laptop screen, which was still flipped open in the passenger seat. An audio file played, and two earbuds were planted firmly in his ears. The recording ended, and he plucked them out and tossed them aside. He stepped out of the car, pulling on his gloves, and squinted into the evening sunlight and marched over to the mangled BMW.

He searched Ken’s car and opened the glove box and removed the bug he planted. Then, methodically, he removed the bugs in the trunk, under the steering column, and under the seat. Once it was clean he tossed the bugs into his trunk and slammed the lid. He peeled off one of the gloves then dialed a number on his phone.

“Well?” Mr. Alwitz asked.

“The car has been cleaned. The police won’t find anything in there except what Ken has stashed in his glove box.” Scott glanced in the rearview mirror to the wrecked cars.

“This has gone on long enough.” Alwitz’s tone matched that of a parent scolding a child who continued to disobey after a number of punishments. “Questions are being asked of us that we don’t want to have to give the answers to. I need this cleaned up, and I need it done quickly. We don’t have any more room for error.”

“Did you get the recording I sent you?”

A pause. “I did.” Alwitz took his time as he spoke. “She’s using our own playbook against us.”

“What do you want me to do?” He checked his watch. “Deadline ends in a few hours.”

“There’s no way this comes back to us. Regardless of what happens. We sever all loose ends and bury them in the wilderness. Lena Hayes gets nothing.” Alwitz took a breath. “I think it’s time we utilize some of our more unsavory friendships.”

“You want me to make the call?”

“Yes. It’s time we remind Mrs. Hayes who’s in charge.” The call clicked dead, and Scott took a seat behind the wheel of his car. He unplugged the earbuds from the computer and replayed the last recording, which filtered through the speakers. “Tell them what you have. Extortion, the waste dumping, murder, all of it. Tell them I’m willing to spill all of it if Kaley isn’t returned.”

Chapter 9 – 5 Hours Left

The sky had turned beautiful shades of pink, blue, orange, and red as the sun started its descent into the horizon. Mark stood in the wild grass in the backyard of his home and stared at it intently. With the day nearly gone he hoped that whatever Lena had found in Bismarck would bring an end to the waiting.

That was the worst part. Waiting. He’d done a lot of it in his time with Lena. He waited for her to be ready to commit to a relationship. Then he waited for her to be ready to get married, then had to wait until she was ready to have children again, then he had to wait until Gwen trusted him, then he had to wait until Lena was done with building her practice, then during the civil suit, then the campaign, then the legislation, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Mark closed his eyes. A breeze cooled the sweat that collected on his forehead. He’d always been a patient man, and his relationship with Lena had tested that time and time again. But this was different. He wasn’t blaming her for this—he would never do that. Yet the anxiety that flowed through his veins continued to prick that virulent thought tucked deep within his mind.

Little nudges, tiny jabs, all of them building up over the past few days and then becoming louder once Kaley was taken. She was his own flesh and blood. He thought back to what he told Gwen, which he meant with all of his heart, but he also knew that the relationship he had with Kaley was different. Not better, just different. He would always share a special connection with his youngest, because there was a part of him that lived inside her.

Before the tears in his eyes had a chance to fall, Mark wiped them away. He just needed to have faith. Faith that Lena could get it done. He’d seen her do it time and time again throughout her life. Her resiliency was one of her most attractive qualities. She didn’t quit. Ever.

Mark started his trek back toward the house, being mindful of where he stepped for the many snakes that inhabited the great open spaces that surrounded the property. When he entered the back door of the house he stopped, looking down at the floor where he’d shot the man who’d almost killed Lena. A faded blood stain the size of a beach ball still lingered on the tile.

The creak of the screen door snapped Mark out of his stupor and when he looked up inside he saw Ken waiting by the door and a yellow taxi coming down his driveway. He jogged to the front. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Lena called.” In his hands Ken held one of Mark’s hats, which he quickly pulled tight over his head. “We’re setting the meeting up now.” He pulled on his jacket and flipped the collar high, shielding his face, and finished the ensemble with a pair of sunglasses.

“What did she say about the guy in Bismarck?”

The cab parked in the grass, and Ken stepped outside, turning back to Mark and shrugging. “She didn’t.” He climbed inside the vehicle and ducked low in the backseat, practically disappearing from view.