Trumped Up Charges (10 page)

“Sounds like a good idea,” Adam agreed.

“I’ll take a Diet Coke if you have one,” Hadley said.

“So happens I do.”

R.J. left them alone to talk about him. He heard another vehicle pull up as he leaned over to get the soda from the bottom drawer. He grabbed another beer while he was at it.

He didn’t know if he and Adam would find any common ground or not. But he sure hoped Adam didn’t let Hadley down. She needed a hero in the worst way.

According to Meghan, Adam had saved lives before. No reason to think he couldn’t do it again.

* * *

F
RED
HAD
SET
UP
a headquarters of sorts in the upstairs sitting area. The room was large with windows that overlooked a corral and a fenced pasture where at least a half dozen full-size horses and several colts roamed.

He’d brought his own equipment with him—a computer, portable printer, folding wall board with an area map for flagging locations, and wires and mechanical parts and tools for tying the cell phone that the kidnapper had left Hadley in with his own phone.

Adam was impressed with his level of preparedness and his professionalism. It was easy to see why the man was so successful.

While Fred had set up, Adam and Hadley had filled him in on all the facts, as they knew them. Then they’d all sat down to watch the video again, and again, and again.

After the third playing, Fred stopped it.

“Why do you think he’s waiting so long to call me?” Hadley asked.

“He’s an amateur at this. My guess is the abduction was a spur-of-the-moment decision and now he—or she—is trying to figure out how to get out of the country with that much money in their wallet.”

“Can’t he just drive across the border?” Hadley asked.

“It’s not as easy to do that as it used to be. And he’s probably figured after the fact that as soon as the cops know he has the money, every border patrol agent in the country will be on the lookout for a man carrying that much cash.”

“What about a charter plane?” Adam asked.

“Same set of problems if he goes with an honest company. And if he goes with a dishonest one, the pilot may kill him for the money and dump him from the plane sans parachute.”

“How do you know he’s an amateur?” Hadley asked.

“He didn’t hide the fact that he had a key. If he’d made it look as if he’d broken in, the field of suspects would have been practically endless.”

“Is that all?”

“There’s the fact that he didn’t have an escape plan ahead of time. That way he’d have only have to risk one contact with you and there wouldn’t be so much wait time for the police to spend tracking him down.”

“Is there anything we can do to speed this up?” Hadley asked.

“As a matter of fact there is. He needs an escape plan. I’m going to give him one. A plan that will lure him into our trap instead of the other way around.”

“I don’t want to take any chances with the girls’ lives,” Hadley said.

“That’s why we insist on my plan. I’ll start work on that now. All I need you to do, Hadley, is to let me handle all conversation from here on out with the kidnapper. You can answer the phone when he calls, but after that, leave the talking to me.”

“What about the ransom money? I don’t have anywhere near five million dollars.”

“How much do you have?”

“How much do you need?” They all turned to see R.J. standing at the door. “How much do you need to pull this off?” he asked again.

“Fifty thousand in twenty-dollar bills should be more than adequate.”

“I’ll go to the bank and get it now.”

Adam was pleasantly shocked, but he didn’t really want any charity from R.J. “I’ll pay you back,” he said. “I’ll start making payments as soon as I get a job.”

R.J.’s brows arched. “You don’t have one?”

“I’ve only been out of the service a month.”

Actually he’d had a couple of offers that he’d turned down. After the military, any job requiring him to be tied to a desk in a stuffy office seemed worse than landing in the enemy’s stronghold.

“We’ll also need a couple of small duffels,” Fred added. “They don’t have to be new.”

“I can provide those, as well,” R.J. said.

Fred grinned. “Then let’s fire up the grill and start cooking. It’s time to bring Lila and Lacy home.”

Adam liked his optimism. And he loved the smile on Hadley’s face.

But still they needed the kidnapper to call.

* * *

T
HE
REMAINDER
OF
the afternoon dragged by. Adam felt the pangs of being left out of the loop. Even R.J. was contributing more to the girls’ rescue than he was right now, and R.J. hadn’t been told as yet that he was the girls’ grandfather.

In spite of that, R.J. and Hadley had bonded surprisingly well. When R.J. had returned from the bank, fifty thousand dollars cash in hand, she’d accepted his offer to check out some of his prize horses.

After that, they’d cooked supper together. Baked chicken with purple hull peas and fresh tomatoes and corn bread that R.J. had baked in a cast-iron skillet.

Fred and Adam had cleaned their plates. R.J. and Hadley had barely picked at their food. No one had mentioned the fact that the kidnapper hadn’t called.

Now that he thought about it, no one had even mentioned the abduction since they’d discussed Matilda’s call confessing to the missing key and naming Quinton as the most likely one to have taken it.

The fears may not be spoken with every breath, but they were no less real. They were all very much aware that the worst enemy was the ticking clock.

Adam looked out the window and watched as twilight hovered like a black widow spider squatting over its prey. It was after eight—summer days in Texas held on as long as they could.

Hadley tossed the magazine she’d been rifling through to the sofa. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Would you like company?” Adam asked.

“Sure, as long as you don’t expect much in the way of conversation.”

He joined her. They both walked in silence until they were almost out of sight of the house. Hadley walked at a racer’s speed, arms swinging, her hair bouncing about her shoulders. Finally, she slowed her pace.

“I’d like to bring Lila and Lacy to the ranch once they’re home again,” she said. “I think they should get to know their grandfather before the tumor takes over and he starts to lose control of his functions.”

“Did he tell you that’s what would happen?”

“He did. He’s handling it well, don’t you think?”

“I haven’t thought a lot about it.”

“Do you think his other children will move back to the ranch?”

“I don’t know enough about them to even venture a guess.”

“What about you?”

He gave that some thought. “I never pictured myself as a cowboy.”

“I have.”

“When? You didn’t even know my father owned a ranch until today.”

“True, but you have that cowboy swagger. And you always wear jeans and boots. So you look the part.”

“That’s from growing up in Texas.”

He recognized the conversation for what it was—an attempt not to talk about the danger and the anxiety that never let go.

He hadn’t noticed it until she’d brought it up, but he did feel a lot more at home on the ranch than he’d expected. But if he did decide to stick around after the girls were safe, he and his father would have to deal with more kinks than you’d find in a nest of rattlesnakes.

He hoped to be a better father for his daughters than R.J. had ever been. He hoped he got that chance. But how could he stay in Dallas when being with Hadley and not touching her, or kissing her, or crawling into bed beside her would kill him?

“We should go back,” Hadley whispered as if reading his mind.

Hadley turned and set a quick pace as they retraced their steps.

“Is that Detective Lane’s car?” she asked when they approached the house.

“Looks like it could be,” Adam said. “I can’t really tell in the moonlight.”

“Maybe he has news.” Hadley broke into a jog, not slowing until she reached the driveway.

It was definitely the detective’s car. Adam stayed a step behind her as Hadley raced up the steps and into the house.

They found the detective and R.J. in the kitchen. R.J. was sipping whiskey from a short glass. The detective was hugging a mug of coffee.

“Have you found Lila and Lacy?” Hadley’s words were punctuated with short gasps for breath.

“No,” the detective said, “but I’ve located Quinton Larson.”

At last they were getting somewhere, though you’d never know it by the look of foreboding on the detective’s face.

Chapter Ten

“Funny, I don’t remember you calling for directions,” Adam said once they were all seated around the scarred oak table.

“I’ve had a tail on you ever since you showed up on the scene, Adam.”

“Glad to see you’re doing your job.”

“Just tell us about Quinton,” Hadley said. “Does he have my daughters?”

“If he does, they’re not with him.”

Hadley winced as if the detective had hit her. Adam watched as the optimism that she’d exhibited after seeing the video disappeared in a cloud of dread that showed in every line of her face.

“They must be with him,” Hadley insisted. “Where else would they be?”

“All I know is that they weren’t in the house where Quinton has admittedly been staying and there were no signs that they’d been there.”

Frustration burned in Hadley’s eyes. “Even Matilda thinks he’s the one who took Lacy and Lila.”

“Does anyone else live in the house?” Adam asked.

“Two other guys. One is the owner. He claims Quinton’s been hanging around there, but he’s never seen Quinton with a kid. The other inhabitant was too stoned to be much help. But the neighbors we questioned verified that various men and women came and went in that house, but they’d never seen or heard any kids around the place.”

“They could be lying,” Hadley said.

“They could be,” the detective agreed. “It’s not the kind of neighborhood you’d want to walk in after dark. The neighbor on one side was just released from prison last week. But we searched the house thoroughly. There was no sign that Lacy and Lila had ever been inside the house.”

“Does Quinton have an alibi for the night of the abduction?” Adam asked.

“He says he was in Fort Worth, spending the night with an old girlfriend. We’re checking that out.”

“Like she won’t lie for him.” Hadley clasped her hands together, nervously twisting her fingers. “Is Quinton in jail?”

“We hauled him in for questioning, but we don’t have evidence to hold him unless we find something concrete against him. He swears he’s innocent.”

“Ever met a guilty man who didn’t?” R.J. asked.

“A few,” Lane said.

“A damn few, I bet.” R.J. pushed back from the table.

“Quinton made a few accusations of his own,” Lane said.

“What kind of accusations?” Hadley asked.

“He claims you paid him a visit in Houston six months ago.”

“That’s a lie. I would never go see him. Why would I?”

“He says you had a job you wanted him to do for you.”

The detective had thrown out a line, fishing for information. Adam had a feeling that was what this visit was all about.

Adam propped his elbows on the table and leaned toward the detective. “Hadley’s going through enough without you taunting her with hearsay. If you have something she needs to hear, say it straight and get it over with.”

Lane’s mouth twisted into a scowl. He didn’t like anyone messing with his game.

“Hadley might want to hear what I have to say in private.”

She shook her head. “Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of Adam and his father.”

“Then here it is in a nutshell. Quinton says you wanted him to get rid of your girls for you. Not kill them, mind you, just get rid of them.”

“That’s crazy,” R.J. said. “What does get rid of them even mean? Toss them out with the garbage?”

“According to Quinton, Hadley asked about selling them on the black market. She said she’d heard of childless couples who couldn’t adopt through regular channels who were willing to pay big bucks for twin girls. As cute, precocious and well-bred as Lacy and Lila were, she figured they’d bring a bundle.”

Hadley’s face reddened and the veins in her neck and forehead popped out like cords. Had she been able to reach Lane across the table, Adam figured she might have tried to choke him.

Adam was tempted to do it for her. He stood, towering over the sitting detective. “If your idea of good police work is to torment victims then you’re doing a hell of a job.”

“I thought Hadley would appreciate knowing what Quinton is saying about her.”

“It’s all lies,” Hadley said. “Cruel, evil lies. The man is despicable.”

“I’m not saying I believe him,” Lane said.

“But you are repeating his lies,” Adam said. “The next thing we know, we’ll be reading them in the newspaper.”

“I’m sorry that my visit upset you, Hadley. I wish I could have come with better news. But we’re doing everything we can to find your daughters. You can rest assured of that.”

“Then find them,” she said, still so angry she was shaking. “Keep a tail on Quinton the way you did on Adam and me.”

“Without question.”

“I have one more question before you go.” Adam stepped into the detective’s personal space. “Where is Quinton staying?”

“I can’t share that information. Play this smart, Adam. Don’t go looking for Quinton. You get in the way and I’ll have no choice but to have you arrested for interfering with the investigation.”

If he got arrested, so be it. Fred would carry on.

R.J. hitched up his khaki trousers. “If you want to find the abductor, forget criminal records, false accusations and usual suspects. See who’s got the most to gain and is arrogant enough to think he can outsmart all of you.”

Not bad advice, Adam thought. R.J. might have a lot more on the ball than he’d given him credit for. His so-called father might be worth getting to know after all.

Adam would reserve judgment on that until things were back to normal around the Dry Gulch Ranch.

R.J. showed Lane to the door. Adam turned back to Hadley. “Lane is really starting to piss me off.”

“At least the police are questioning Quinton.”

“True, but I didn’t like his attitude when he slammed you with you those ludicrous accusations.”

“He could have been more sensitive, but I’m glad he told me about them. If Quinton is making up lies like that about me, he must be trying to transfer suspicion from himself.”

“That’s definitely possible.”

“I think it’s a lot more than possible. I’m convinced he’s behind the abduction. I just wish there was something we could do besides wait for him to call all the shots. I hate that he’s in charge of their fate.”

“We’re working to change that,” Adam assured her. “When the kidnapper calls, Fred will be ready for him.” It was Adam who wasn’t doing his part. And Lacy and Lila were his daughters, too.

His
daughters. Daughters he’d never seen. Never rocked to sleep as babies. He’d never taken them to the park and pushed them in a swing. Never read them a bedtime story. Never told them he loved them.

He’d never even seen them. What if he never did?

“The military called me a hero,” he muttered. “They gave me medals to prove it. But what kind of man can’t rescue his own daughters from an incompetent kidnapper?”

He felt Hadley’s hand on his arm. He turned and she leaned into him, letting her head drop to his shoulder. A second later she was in his arms. He held on tight, knowing she wanted only his comfort.

The mother of his children. The woman who would always hold his heart in her hands. The woman he could never claim as his own as long as he was only half a man.

But, God, please let her have her daughters back. He’d gladly give his life for that.

* * *

S
HE
KICKED
OUT
of her shoes and stretched across the lumpy bed. “I saw Lacy and Lila’s mother today. She’s probably very pretty when her eyes aren’t red and swollen. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, either, not even lipstick.”

“You got close enough to see all of that?”

“I was standing just a few feet from her.”

“Did you have to get that close?”

“Don’t worry. I was standing in an empty room just down the hall from her mother’s hospital room. I only had the door open a crack. She couldn’t see me.”

“What the hell were you doing in the hospital? I never said for you to follow her around.”

“I didn’t follow her. I just waited outside her mother’s hospital room until she showed up.”

“I told you to locate Adam’s truck or Hadley’s car in the parking lot and then leave the package taped to the windshield. I even gave you the license plate numbers. Do you know how much trouble I went to to get those?”

“Do
you
know how many cars are parked in that lot? And they’re constantly coming and going. I couldn’t possibly check all of them.”

“I gave you simple orders. Find the vehicle. Tape the package in place and then hang around to make sure no one took it before they got back to the car. What part of that did you not understand?”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid. I’m not stupid.”

“You don’t follow orders.”

“No, but I got the job done. Hadley has the video. That’s all that really matters.”

He picked up his empty beer bottle and hurled it across the room, missing her head by no more than a foot.

She jerked to a sitting position. “Don’t you dare throw things at me! I’ll walk out of here right now and tell the freakin’ police where to find you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Try me. Or just keep throwing things against the wall and the people in the next room will call the cops and save me the trouble.”

“In this dump? No one staying here wants the cops sniffing around.”

“Yet you leave me and the girls alone in this scummy motel every night. You don’t even care if someone breaks in and rapes me.”

“Aw, baby, you know better than that.”

He walked over to the bed and dropped to the edge of the mattress. When she turned her back to him, he reached around her and grabbed one of her breasts, thumbing her nipple until it puckered against the front of her low-cut T-shirt.

“As long as you eventually found the right windshield and the video and phone are in Hadley’s hands, we’ll be fine.”

“It’s in her hands.” That part was true. “But I’m getting a really bad feeling about all of this.”

“You worry too much, Mary Nell. You want the money as badly as I do. You were with me all the way when we decided to do it.”

“That’s when I thought it would all be over in two days the way you promised.”

“It’s only been two days.”

“But we still have the girls and we don’t have the money.”

“I’m working on it. It’s not as easy as I thought. I have to make sure there’s no way the cops will take us into custody or shoot us when we go in to get five million or when we cross the border.”

“We’re in over our heads. Please, let’s just drop the girls somewhere in town. No one will ever connect us with the abduction.”

“We can’t give up now. We’ll never have a chance to be this rich again.”

“I know but I keep thinking what if someone did this to us? What if Lila and Lacy were our kids and someone stole them from us?”

“Stop bitching.” He yelled a few curses.

Lacy woke up and padded over from her pallet in the back corner of the room.

“See what you did. You woke her up. And don’t use that language in front of her.”

“I want my mommy,” Lacy said. “I want to go home.”

“I know you do, sweetheart. And you are going home soon. I promise.”

“You keep playing momma. I’m out of here.” The door slammed shut behind him.

She went over, locked it and then pulled Lacy into her lap. “Do you want another story?”

“Yes. The princess story.”

The princess who met her handsome prince, became unbelievably rich and lived happily ever after in a kingdom where they could entertain royally and dress in finery every day.

“Once upon a time...”

* * *

“H
OW
MUCH
FEED
per horse?” Adam asked as he made the rounds to each stall with the bucket of R.J.’s special feed mix.

“Two scoops, except for Hummer there on the end. He gets two and a third scoops.”

“No wonder he’s so big.”

“The other way around,” R.J. said. “He gets more feed because he is so big. I saw him in a show up in Nashville last summer and he was so magnificent I had to have him. I paid more than he’s worth, but I like his style and his arrogance. Reminds of myself in my younger days.”

“Does he give a good ride?”

“You know it. He’s sensitive to every pull on the reins, but there are times he has a mind of his own. He likes nothing better than to gallop at full speed until he’s panting for breath. Then he’ll stop and look around as if to ask how I managed to stay in the saddle.”

“I’d like to take him out one day and let him show me his stuff.”

“I hope you will, Adam. When this is over, I hope you’ll think about moving to the ranch. It would be a great place to ease back into civilian life. Lots of freedom. Not a lot of rules. Hard work, but I suppose you’re used to that.”

“There’s no coddling in the marines.” Adam gave one of the horses a good nose scratching as he tried to compare the man he was with to the one his mother referred to as trouble. So much trouble that she hadn’t wanted him to have any part in Adam’s life.

Evidently R.J. had mellowed significantly in his old age. That, or the brain tumor and knowing he didn’t have much longer on earth had changed him.

Adam stopped to admire the big black horse. “What’s his name?”

“Samson.”

“It suits him. Have you always been interested in horses?”

“Interested? Yeah. But the passion’s come since I got too old to pursue my first loves.”

“Whiskey, women and gambling?”

R.J. tossed a pitchfork of fresh hay into one of the stalls. “My reputation always surpassed my exploits, but those were what kept me in trouble and causing trouble most of my life. Not that I’m proud of it, but I can’t run from the truth.”

“Then you don’t gamble, drink and chase skirts anymore?”

“I drink a bit. You know that. You’ve seen me. I still go over to Shreveport on occasion and hit the casinos and I play poker with the other old farts around here once a month.”

“And the ladies?”

R.J. chuckled. “I still notice ’em. I’m not dead yet. But the years take their toll on the old libido, Adam. I could chase, but I’d be like a puppy chasing a bobcat. If I caught one, I sure as shootin’ couldn’t handle it.”