The Fourth Victim (14 page)

I hadn't thought about him knowing me. Only about
him finding me. But I knew the ropes. Knew the lengths investigators went to in their search for missing persons.

“I understand,” I said. “You did what you had to in order to find me. And you did. Find me, I mean. Thank you.”

His head slightly lowered, he glanced at me. “You have a lot of potential enemies.”

I didn't think so. One, obviously. And I was waiting to discover who that one was.

I had an idea who it would be. And I wasn't going to be safe. But we'd get to that. After I got home and had a shower. The cops could bring me home. And stay there while I showered. They could watch over me until the kidnapper was found. I'd had cops stationed at my home several months before. I knew how it worked.

“Your abduction wasn't random,” Agent Thatcher said. “And it wasn't amateur.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we believe your kidnapper was a professional. Either hired by someone else or working for himself.”

Maybe I was obtuse, but… “A professional what?”

“A professional criminal.”

I felt cold again. And flushed, too.

It was the word
criminal
that did it. I dealt with criminals. In my office sometimes. In various courtrooms and examining rooms and in various cities around the country.

And I was starting to understand. Sort of. I wasn't ready to go that far yet. I was ready for home. Protection. And a shower.

“No one knew I'd be going skating yesterday. They couldn't have. I didn't know myself.”

“That's part of what leads us to believe this wasn't a random act. There's no way someone could've had the means to get you off that track and in here, leaving no trace, without a plan. There's a six-foot shrub in front of the
opening to this cave that blocks it, looks absolutely natural and is completely mobile. That alone took ingenuity.”

I thought over what I could remember about Friday morning. Courtney Whalen had canceled because she'd gone into labor. My next appointment wasn't until after lunch.

Deb was the only one who knew I'd left to go skating.

“Are you telling me my receptionist tipped off whoever did this? That she's working for them?”
For him? Deb?
I couldn't believe it.

Deb and… No. Just
no.

“No.” I thought for a second there that Agent Thatcher had heard my thanks. And then I realized he was answering the question I'd posed aloud. “She's been extremely worried about you and fully cooperative. She turned your files over to us.”

I cringed at that. I couldn't help it. My files were private. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the people who trusted me to keep their secrets.

I wasn't sure finding me was worth risking the hurt and pain, the broken trust and ruined lives, that could result from making public all the intimacies that had been revealed to me over the years.

But then, police records were private, too. In their own way.

“And her phone records checked out,” Agent Thatcher added. “She's neither taken nor received any calls in the past two months, on her personal or work lines, that can't easily be explained.”

They hadn't accepted Deb's word at face value. They'd investigated my assistant.

And I saw, by the look on Clay Thatcher's face, that I was in serious trouble.

H
e knew the second the realization hit her. And guessed she had no idea of the hurdles they still had to find a way around. Or over. Or through.

In as few words as possible, he tried to reassure the woman who was trying so hard to be as fine as she said she was in the situation. He was worried, and he'd had forty-some hours to get her up to speed.

And it wasn't his life he was worrying about.

The potential danger would hit her far worse.

He began by telling her his theory about the abduction. About the possibility of there being two utility carts. About the city-worker cover, the plan to take her by surprise on whatever day she happened to be there.

About the obviously newly prepared holding tank. Or grave?

“Do you think he was watching me, then? In Chandler?”

She was frowning, but Clay couldn't read any clear emotions and wondered if having a poker face came with her job description or just with Kelly Chapman.

“I think so. Either that or he had some way of keeping an eye on the bike path, waiting for you to show up.”

“How could he do that?”

“I'm not convinced yet that the real city worker who has the path as part of his regular beat is completely innocent here.”

“I saw him…” She frowned and huddled more closely under the blanket she'd pulled up around her shoulders, hiding every part of her from the chin down. “I remember now. I was just putting on my skates when he drove by.”

“On the path. In a cart.”

“Right.”

“Did he have anything in the back of his cart?”

Her mouth twisted, and then she shook her head. “I don't remember.”

“Were you wearing safety gear?”

“Of course. I always wear a helmet and wrist and knee pads.” She looked around. “They aren't here.”

“No. And neither is your purse. But no credit or bank cards have been used.”

He told her everything he knew about the morning of her abduction. About the sightings. He told her that her abduction had happened so quickly, so flawlessly, that not one person had seen it.

“I was on a deserted part of the path,” she said, her eyes glistening. “Sam warned me about being out there all alone. But I've been skating for years and I refused to be held hostage by fear and—”

She broke off and he figured she was probably reassessing that thought.

“She's going to have a lot to say about this….”

“Not the least of which is the danger of being too predictable,” Clay added, uncomfortable with the idea that this woman would thrust herself so fearlessly into danger. “But we can talk about that later.”

She nodded, then looked him straight in the eye.

“If whoever did this just wanted you dead, you would be,” Clay said. “He could've dumped you here, sealed
up the opening and you'd have suffocated. But he didn't. He went to the trouble of putting a grate on top of the opening.”

“So give me what you've got in the way of suspects.”

Clay's respect for her grew. She was a fighter. “The guy you're helping to put away in Florida,” he said. “They know he's responsible for twelve deaths in the past couple of years but haven't been able to pin anything on him. They've had him in a number of times for questioning. They've even charged him more than once, but nothing sticks. He walks every time.”

“Until now. With my little boy's testimony he's going to be found guilty.”

“And without you, there is no little boy's testimony.”

“The guy—the stepfather—is in prison.”

“He's also the leader of Florida's chapter of a national street gang.”

“With a nod of his head he could have any number of professionals out to get me.”

She was catching on. Clay decided to move on.

“Rick Thomas,” he said next. And watched realization dawn. In a better world he'd be able to spare her. Not here. In this situation she had to know what they were up against.

She had to understand why he was going to ask what he was going to ask….

“I don't know that much about Rick's history, but I understand he had some powerful enemies,” she said, her voice growing weaker again.

“Have some water.” He waited while she did. “Thomas believes there's a possibility of a government mole in the Department of Defense. A man with everything to lose.”

“And if he thinks Rick told me something…”

“They'd want you, as well as any files you have on him, destroyed.”

“They broke into Erin's office…”

“For Rick's file. I know.”

She leaned her head against the wall, and Clay's entire being rejected the idea of any woman suffering as she had, being forced into a state of such total helplessness.

And yet…he wanted to take care of her.
Wanted to.
Not felt obligated to. Not had to.

God, he was tired. He wasn't himself.

“But you have my files,” she said.

“You have friends in the right places,” Clay told her. “An investigation that would normally have taken a minimum of twelve hours to get off the ground started in less than one. We secured your files before anyone else had a chance to.”

“Whoever's afraid of what Rick told me—if that's what this is all about—will be coming back to get me when they realize there's no way they can access my files. They'll want to know what I know.” She paused and then slowly said, “
That's
why there's a grate and not a sealed hole. That's why I'm still alive.”

“True. But as we've been discussing, there are other possibilities. For instance, our man in Florida could plan to work you over so you'll get the kid to exonerate him. That way there's no chance of another psychologist coming along to help the kid talk.”

She nodded, wincing at the small movement.

“We've already cleared most of your other current clients and the people connected to them,” he said. “But…”

He wished he could just let her sleep.

“There's someone else.” She sat up, her mouth as firm as the tone of her voice. “A lawyer named David Abrams.” Clay nodded.

“You know about him?”

He nodded a second time.

“He has to be worried that at some point I'm going to have a breakthrough with Maggie.”

“We agree. There's a strong possibility that you're Abrams's fourth victim. A businessman's wife died because of Abrams's drug scheme.”

“And Glenna Reynolds.” Kelly added the second victim's name.

“And there's Maggie, who—”

Kelly cut him off. “You said
we
agree.”

“Samantha Jones, JoAnne Laramie, my second-in-command, and me.”

“You're letting Samantha help you.”

“She didn't give me much of a choice,” he admitted.

Kelly sent him a weak grin, and Clay felt like grinning, too.

Chandler, Ohio
Sunday, December 5, 2010

“I saw Maggie looking at Abrams the other day,” I said as a flash of memory—and stark fear—struck me. “Maggie and I were at the store. He kept his distance, but the look in his eye—it was proprietary.”

“We have an agent on him.”

I was eager to hear that they'd have the man in custody soon. The abduction would be worth every moment of agony I'd been through if it led to Abrams's arrest.

“And we believe he and Maggie are in contact.”

“No!” I couldn't accept that. I'd watched her so carefully. “No!” I sat up, ready to get out of there. Get home. Get Maggie out of Chandler. Out of Ohio. Maybe even out of the United States. “If he touched her again…”

Oh, God, we'd made it through the whole pregnancy scare. Surely we weren't facing that again. We might not get so lucky a second time.

Maggie was fourteen years old! A child.

She deserved to be a child.

I tried to sit up.

With one hand against my shoulder, Agent Thatcher held me in place.

“It's almost three in the morning. There's nothing you can do right now,” he said.

I knew that was true.

But I had to get home.

“We don't think they've had any physical contact.” Thatcher's words penetrated my panicked fog. “Our agent followed Abrams to a spot in the woods yesterday morning. Detective Jones confirmed it was where Maggie had her liaison last summer. Abrams picked up a silk rose there, but returned it to the ground.”

I waited. There was more. He'd looked away. And while he'd been sitting still before, now he was fingering the zipper on one of the duffels.

“We've got someone on him 24/7 and Detective Jones and her husband aren't letting Maggie out of their sight.”

I sat back. Took a deep breath. Of course. Sam could keep Maggie safer than I could. She was trained to deal with things like that.

“So what aren't you telling me?”

“Maggie's been pretty upset. Missing you.”

I hoped that was it. I wasn't sure. “I miss her, too. Which is why I have to get home and get cleaned up so I can see her in the morning.”

“Even if you leave here, you can't be with Maggie this morning.”

My senses, slow to react, reeled.
Even if you leave here?
There was that intimation again that
he
was my captor.

“Why not?” I tackled his last statement first.

“You're sitting in the middle of a cesspool of danger. Whoever took you once went to a lot of trouble to do it.
He's not going to be content just to let you go. He'll make sure he succeeds on the second try. And with his next attempt, he might not pick a time when you're alone.”

I stared at him. He was saying I couldn't see Maggie until they found my kidnapper.

“What did you mean by
if
I leave here?”

“There was a ransom call.”

I was almost excited at the news. “So we have a tangible lead, after all!”

“We're hoping so.” Agent Thatcher's tone wasn't all that encouraging. “We believe the demand is an effort to throw us off course rather than the real reason for the kidnapping.” He gave me the details of the two calls and when he explained about the caller's tone of voice and verbal cues, I could tell he knew what he was talking about even if I didn't like the message.

Odd to have a price on my head—even if it was only a diversion. I was worth two million dollars.

“And if I suddenly show up before Monday, we've tipped our hand and lost the lead before we find out who's behind the call.”

“Right.”

I was beginning to understand where this was going.

“So you want to take me to a safe house someplace until then?”

“Not exactly.”

I frowned. And drank a little more water. I was going to need a bathroom soon.

And was trying not to think about the state I was in, sitting there with a man who'd gotten closer to me—in every sense—than any man had in years. I was relying on him. I needed him.

I understood that. And I understood why. He was my savior. It was natural that I'd feel a sense of safety and security with him. That I'd develop a sort of crush on him.

“I've put out a lot of feelers—set up a lot of investigations,” he was explaining. “If I bring you in, this is no longer a missing persons case and it gets turned over. The new team might follow up on what I've started, or they might go on a tangent of their own. If that happens we lose valuable time as they get up to speed.”

I was listening.

“That's one consideration. Another, far more important one is the risk that if
anyone
knows you're alive, there's a greater chance the kidnapper will find out, too. In that scenario you are immediately vulnerable to another attack. The FBI team will be following protocol, which could put you in more danger rather than ensure your safety.”

“Because we're possibly looking at someone with connections.” I might still be groggy, but I was pretty sure I was keeping up with him.

“Right.”

“Like Abrams. He obviously has a lot of friends in town. Maybe even on the police force. I mean, besides Sewell. Who's dead.”

“I'm not willing to risk finding out. Are you?” He was staring straight at me, his gaze intense.

He'd said,
If you leave here.
I was sore, tired, hungry and needed a bath. My head ached. And I was scared. My hands felt mummified. I wasn't sure what he was suggesting.

Maggie. Had
she
left that rose for Abrams?

“No.” I wasn't willing to take the risk.