The Chase (41 page)

“I think she enjoys being around you, too,” Anne said quietly.

Jake’s face reddened and he raised his coffee cup to his mouth.

“Why did you leave town?”

“Kendall and I had a fight, and I realized I would never fit into her world.” Jake gestured around the study. “
This world
. So I decided it was time to quit living a fantasy and go back home to Oklahoma.”

“What did you and Kendall fight about?”

He didn’t answer.

“Jake? What was your fight with Kendall about?”

He sighed. “I ran into her at the polo match. She was with another guy.”

“Who was she with?”

“Stephen Lloyd.”

“Do you know Stephen Lloyd?”

Jake shook his head. “I didn’t really know him, but I’d met him at Fox Run.”

Lieutenant Mallory sat forward in his chair. “Do you know Earl Davis?”

Jake shifted his gaze to the lieutenant. “No, sir, I don’t recognize the name.”

“What about Zelda McGraw?”

“Yes, I know Zelda.”

“How do you know her?”

“She’s my father’s sister.

“Your aunt.”

He shrugged. “In terms of blood relations, that’s what she is. But I always thought of her more as my cousin. She’s much younger than my father.”

“Do you know her son, Zach?”

Jake shook his head. “No. The last time I saw Zelda, she didn’t have any kids.”

Lieutenant Mallory sank back in his chair and nodded at Anne.

“You said you decided to go back to Oklahoma. Is that what you did?” she asked.

“I headed in that direction.”

“What’s in Oklahoma?”

“I have a little spread there.”

“A ranch?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Where is it?”

“Just outside Tulsa.”

Anne eyed Jake curiously. The fact that he had a ranch came as a surprise. Kendall had given her the impression that Jake was a drifter.

“So you were going back to your ranch?” she asked.

Jake nodded.

“When did you leave?”

“Friday night.”

Lieutenant Mallory interrupted. “Mrs. Cummings, a sheriff’s deputy spotted Mr. Dawson at a gas station near Lucketts, Virginia, this morning.”

Anne frowned at Jake. “How is it that you were still in Virginia if you left for Oklahoma on Friday night?”

“I heard the Amber Alert on the radio, and I was headed back here to offer my help.” Jake looked at Doug and then back at Anne. “I’m sorry about Samantha. I know it must be real hard for the both of you right now.”

Anne exchanged glances with Doug. “Samantha wasn’t on the bus, Jake. She was sick yesterday morning, so we kept her home from the field trip.”

Jake exhaled. “Thank God.”

Anne slid her hand into Doug’s. “You said you heard the Amber Alert and you headed back here to offer your help. Why didn’t you call someone?”

“I don’t know. It just seemed like the best thing to do was to hightail it back here.”

Anne studied him for a moment. “All right. Where were you when you heard the Amber Alert on the radio?”

Jake thought for a minute. “I was just east of Terre Haute.”

“Indiana?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What road were you on?”

“I-Seventy.”

“Had you driven straight through since you left here on Friday night?”

Jake shook his head. “No. I drove as far as Columbus, Ohio, and then stopped to get some rest.”

“Did you go to a motel?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Anne’s eyes darted to the lieutenant and back. “Which motel?”

“It was a Holiday Inn Express.”

“Do you have a receipt from the hotel?”

“Yes, ma’am. Back in my truck.”

“Where’s your truck?”

Jake looked at Lieutenant Mallory. “I don’t know. Last time I saw it was at the gas station in Lucketts.”

Lieutenant Mallory snapped his fingers at the deputy. “Have someone check the truck for the receipt.”

“So you stopped in Columbus,” Anne went on. “What time was that?”

Jake thought for a moment. “Probably around four o’clock.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How long were you there?”

“I sacked out for a few hours and was on the road again by noon.”

“And you headed west towards Oklahoma?”

He nodded.

“Tell me how you heard the Amber Alert.”

“I was just driving along on the highway, listening to the radio, and I heard it.”

“Were you surprised to hear it?”

“Of course.”

“What did you think?”

Jake’s eyes flickered. “Honestly?”

Anne nodded.

“My first thought was that I was a fool to have left Kendall.”

Anne gave him a small smile. “Did you think your father might have been involved?”

“No, not at that time. But when I got back closer to Virginia, I heard the news on the radio about my father’s escape from jail. Then I feared the worst.”

Lieutenant Mallory cleared his throat and Jake looked in his direction. “Mr. Dawson, do you own a Buck hunting knife?”

Jake hesitated. “Yes, sir.”

“Do you have it with you?”

He shook his head slowly. “No, sir. I lent it to someone, and I left town without getting it back from him.”

The lieutenant’s eyebrows shot up. “Whom did you lend it to?”

“Todd.”

“Todd Rucker?”

Jake nodded.

“How do you know him?”

“Just from working at Fox Run.”

“Tell me what you know about him.”

“Todd’s a nice kid, but he seems pretty troubled. It sounds like he didn’t have a very stable upbringing. His mom raised him and he says he never knew his dad. He has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about folks with money.”

The lieutenant pulled a photograph out of a file on the coffee table and showed it to Jake. “Do you recognize this boy?”

Jake studied it for a moment. “That sure looks like Todd. His hair’s just a little shorter, that’s all.”

Lieutenant Mallory flipped the photo over and handed it to Anne. The name
Zach McGraw
was written on the back in black marker.

T
he hands on the mantel clock ticked slowly towards three o’clock with-out a phone call from McGraw.

“Jake, you’re going to wear a path in the floor if you keep pacing like that,” Anne said.

“Sorry, ma’am.” Jake dropped onto a chair. “This waiting around doing nothing is driving me nuts.”

The motel receipt had been recovered from Jake’s truck, clearing him of suspicion in the kidnapping, but Anne could tell by the way Jake regarded Lieutenant Mallory that he harbored some resentment over his arrest.

Doug, seated beside Anne on the couch, glanced again at his watch. “We should have heard from McGraw by now.”

As if on cue, the phone rang and the deputy monitoring the phone raised his hand. “It’s him.”

Doug sprang from the couch and grabbed the phone. “Hello.”

He nodded, the receiver clenched against his ear. “Yes, I have the money.”

Anne noticed Jake hunch forward in the easy chair, his fists clenched, his elbows resting on his knees. She shifted her gaze back to Doug.

“All right. But first I want to speak with Kendall,” Doug said. “I need some proof that the girls are okay.”

McGraw must have refused, because Doug shook his head. “That’s no good, McGraw. I have the money and I’ll agree to your demands, but first I need to know that everyone’s all right.”

Anne could tell from the way Doug clenched his jaw that McGraw was giving him a hard time. “No, don’t hang up,” he said quickly. “I’m not trying to run the show. I just need proof.” He frowned. “All right. Let’s start with that.”

Doug covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “McGraw won’t let me talk to Kendall, but he’s going to let me talk to one of the kids.”

He stared grimly at Anne as he waited for someone to come on the line; then his expression softened. “Hi, this is Samantha’s daddy. Who is this?” He listened for a moment. “Hi, Emma. Are you okay?”

Doug gave Anne a slight nod and a thumbs-up. “Is Miss Waters with you?” His eyes narrowed as he listened. “How did Miss Waters hurt her arm?”

Doug frowned. “Emma?” He swore under his breath and held the phone away from his mouth. “McGraw took the phone away from her.”

He quickly moved the phone back to his mouth. “Yeah, McGraw, I’m still here.”

Doug looked at his watch. “All right. Six o’clock. Yes, that’s my cell phone number.” He took a deep breath. “I promise I’ll be alone. What’s my guarantee that you’ll release Kendall and the children when I deliver the money?”

He listened for a moment. “McGraw? Are you still there? Damn it!” He looked at Lieutenant Mallory. “I lost him.”

The deputy monitoring the call said, “He hung up, but it looks like we got a cell tower location.”

“Good, try to pin it down.” Lieutenant Mallory looked at Doug. “Fill us in.”

Doug set the cordless phone on the coffee table. “Emma said she’s hungry and wants to come home but that all the kids are okay.”

“What did she say about Kendall?” Jake asked.

Doug frowned. “She said something about Kendall having hurt her arm, but McGraw grabbed the phone away from her before I could ask her anything else.”

“What does he want from you?” Lieutenant Mallory asked.

Doug gave Anne a quick glance. “McGraw wants me to take the money to the ransom drop, but he didn’t answer when I asked for a guarantee that he was going to release the kids. I’m supposed to leave here in my car at six o’clock and head west on Route Fifty. He said I’m to keep driving until he calls me on my cell and tells me what to do next.”

Anne swallowed hard and looked away. She knew Doug would do as McGraw said. There was no way he’d risk having McGraw harm the kids.

“We’ve got the location, Lieutenant,” the deputy called.

The lieutenant hurried towards the deputy, and Doug walked over and held his hand out to help Anne up from the couch. Jake followed them to the desk.

“The cell tower the call came from is located right about here.” The deputy placed his finger on the Loudoun County map that was spread out on the desk.

Doug squinted and leaned closer. “That’s between Philomont and Hamilton. There’s nothing in that area but farms and a few new subdivisions.”

Lieutenant Mallory nodded. “I expected them to be much farther away by now. They’re hiding right under our noses.”

“They could be holed up in a house under construction in one of the subdivisions,” Doug suggested. “It’s the weekend, so it would be a safe bet that no one would be there before tomorrow morning.”

“But they’ve got to be someplace where they could hide the bus without having anyone see it,” Anne said.

Right.” The lieutenant frowned. “Which means they’re probably not at a construction site, because the bus would stick out like a sore thumb. Unless there is a structure large enough to drive the bus inside.”

Doug stared at the map. “They have to be someplace that’s unoccupied, or they would have been spotted by now. I’m trying to think of a farm in this area that’s not currently in operation, or one with an abandoned storage barn or some other remote building they could hide the bus in.”

Lieutenant Mallory turned to one of the deputies. “Send some manpower out door-to-door along Harmony Church Road, asking if anyone’s spotted the bus.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jake took a step towards the map. “Did you say Harmony Church Road?”

The lieutenant nodded. “Why?”

“Can I take a look at the map?”

Doug shifted to the side to make room for Jake.

“Where’s the cell tower?”

“Right here.” Lieutenant Mallory stabbed at the map with his finger.

Jake ran his finger along the map from the area of the cell tower to Harmony Church Road. “I think I know where they are.”

“Where?”

“A farm named High Meadow.”

Doug frowned. “That’s George and Dana Worthington’s farm.”

“Right. I went there with Kendall to pick up a horse for Mrs. Southwell. There’s a big storage garage for their horse van, which the bus would easily fit in.”

“I know the building you’re talking about,” Doug said. “But it’s right behind the stable. There’s no way that they could be hiding there without being seen.”

Jake nodded. “I think there is. The Worthingtons’ farm manger, Albert, told us that the Worthingtons take all the horses and the staff and leave town for the month of August. The only person left on the property is Albert.”

Lieutenant Mallory stared thoughtfully at Jake. “How would McGraw know about the garage, or the fact that the farm was going to be vacated in August?”

“Because Todd was with us. Or I guess I should say Zach. And now that I think about it, Kendall took us to see the Worthingtons’ horse van, and Zach seemed much more interested in the layout of the garage than he did in the van.”

Doug looked up from the map. “Wait a minute. I seem to recall hearing George say something about building a pigeon roost at High Meadow. Did you see one when you were there?”

Jake nodded. “There’s a pigeon roost under the eaves at the back of the garage.”

The lieutenant looked at Doug. “Why do you ask?”

“When McGraw was on the phone yesterday, he shot the gun off and said something about being pissed off at the pigeons.”