Under the Magnolia (10 page)

She waited until he reached down to
pull down the gag covering her mouth then sucked in a deep breath.
Anger surged inside her as she glared up into his dull brown eyes.
"Let me guess. It's nothing personal."

He offered her a half-hearted smile.
"I guess that
is
just about the last thing you want to hear right now." He leaned
forward to check the bonds around her ankles, and his denim jacket
fell open to reveal a pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans.
"You always were nice to me."

Kicking him might be satisfying, but
it would be pretty stupid when he was armed and she was the next
thing to helpless. She ground her teeth together and resisted the
urge to make any fruitlessly heroic escape attempts. "If this is
how you treat people who are nice to you, I'd hate to see how you
treat everyone else."

His expression didn't change as he
retied the rope around her ankles, securing the knot a little better
this time. "About the same, I guess."

"So you're just going
to...what? Rape me? Kill me?"

He struck a match with one shaky
hand then dropped it without lighting his cigarette. "I ain't no
pervert, Miss Gardner."

Then he knew and
was
going to sell her. She didn't know whether to feel relieved at the
momentary reprieve or terrified at what was to come. "Then you
might as well shoot me, Stu. Because you're going to get me killed."

His face hardened. "I just want
to make enough money to get out of here." He rolled her over and
checked the rope binding her wrists. "And then I ain't ever
coming back to Carter's Bay. Hell, I ain't ever setting foot in
Georgia again."

She swallowed, closing her eyes.
"And how much is my life worth?"

"Don't rightly know yet. Should
be at least twenty, maybe even twenty-five thousand."

Addie couldn't help the short laugh
that left her. "Then someone's taking advantage of you."

Surprisingly, he only nodded as he
pulled out another match and struck it, finally lighting his
cigarette. "Maybe so, but it's still the best deal I'm ever
gonna see in my lifetime."

"Jesus Christ, Stu." She
couldn't sit up, but she managed to shift enough to stare up at him.
"Twenty thousand dollars is going to give you what? A few months
of living in comfort? Is that really worth having Wesley Saxon out to
get you for the rest of your life?"

For the first time since he'd
stopped the truck, his eyes flashed, and he rubbed his chin as he
stared down at his cigarette. "Now, you
do
have a point there, Miss Gardner." He reached out and clumsily
brushed a lock of hair from her face.

It was hard not to flinch back from
him, but she forced herself to stay calm. "It's not too late,"
she said, hoping her voice sounded convincing. ”This doesn't
have to happen, Stuart. We could go back, before anyone misses me."
And then Wes will lock you
up for the rest of your life...
if
you're lucky.

His eyes clouded over for a moment,
and then the dull, blank look was back. "We already crossed the
Florida state line, Miss Gardner, and we'll be at the dock soon."
He pulled the tarp back down over her, and she heard him add quietly,
"Don't worry. I don't think they're gonna hurt you."

She listened to his footsteps and
waited for the sound of the door opening and closing. Once the truck
started, she inched her legs back up, determined to start in on the
knots again.

The vision came before she had the
chance. It seized her fast and hard, bringing with it the terror
she'd come to expect. In the blackness she saw the scene unfold as if
in a dream. She was in a cheap motel, stretched out on a lumpy,
uncomfortable mattress with her hands still bound. A dark-haired man
stood against the wall, the gun in his hand trained on the door.

She knew what was going to happen,
and her heart constricted in her chest. She tried to scream, tried to
shout a warning to the man who was coming through the door even as
her heart broke—

In the back of a beat up old truck
somewhere in Florida, Addie screamed as she watched Wes take three
bullets to the chest.

Chapter Six

Wes blew into the station and
immediately started firing off orders. "Howie, see if you can
get me a GPS trace on Addie's cell. Chris, call all of the teachers
at the high school and see if anyone's seen her."

Chris stared at him, puzzled.
"What's the matter, Wes?"

"Addie hasn't been home yet."
He yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and shoved it at Chris. "A
lot of the numbers are in there."

Jack came out of the back storeroom,
a box of batteries in his arms. "I saw Addie this morning. Stu
Carlin was giving her a ride, I guess."

Cold fear warred with hot fury
inside Wes. "My mother called and asked me to keep an eye out
for him. Said he didn't show up for work today."

Howie rose and walked around the
desk. "Okay. What would Stuart Carlin want with Addie?"

Chris gulped. "Well, there's
the obvious. She's a good-looking woman, and Stu isn't exactly a
treasure to behold."

That earned him a derisive snort
from Jack. "Stuey Carlin may be a little creepy, but he's not
the type to go around raping women."

Wes tamped down the urge to yell at
all of them and held up a hand. "Then we have to think of other
reasons." He was loathe to reveal Addie's secret, but he wasn't
about to let her die just to keep her confidence.

Jack snorted again. "He's
probably going to sell her to a trafficker. They run shipments of
psychics in and out of private ports all up and down the coast."

Wes froze and looked at each of the
three men in turn. "And that possibility doesn't surprise any of
you?"

Howie shook his head and grabbed a
notepad. "Hell, it's the worst-kept secret in Carter's Bay, Wes.
Addie's whole damn family is psychic. Everyone knows that."

He'd have time later to mull over
the implications of that, for himself and for Addie. For now...
"Okay. Jack, get down to the Blue Lantern and find out if Stuart
Carlin has been talking about taking a trip. Chris, I want you to go
over to his place and look for notes, phone numbers, ticket stubs,
anything like that." The two men were already heading for the
door when he turned to Howie. "And I need that GPS trace. But I
also need you to call Bea and see if she can get me Carlin's phone
records."

Howie was already shaking his head
by the time Wes finished speaking. "No, no way. You need a court
order, and you know it, Wes."

"This is an emergency," he
insisted, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep from clenching
them into fists. "And Carlin is a person of interest in an
ongoing criminal investigation where time is of the essence—"

"And you'll get
fired
,
Wes." Howie's voice was stern, unyielding. "Look, Jack's
right. Stuey Carlin ain't ever been the sharpest tool in the shed,
but he isn't going to
hurt
her. There are other ways to find—"

"He's going to
sell
her, Howie." Wes could barely hear his own voice for the blood
rushing in his ears. "He's going to take her down the coast and
fucking sell her if we don't head him off at the pass. Carlin may not
be the type to hurt her, but can you say the same about whoever buys
her?"

Howie paled at the urgent certainty
of Wes’ words, and he stared up at him for a moment before
shaking his head and reaching for the phone. "You're the boss."

The door to the station house opened
a moment later. Wes’ mother walked in, holding up a hand.
"Don't give me that look. I tried to take her home, but she got
right back in her truck and drove over here. I could barely keep up."

He rushed out the door. "I
know, Granny. Addie's missing. I'm sorry as he--as heck."

"Hush, boy." Granny
Gardner was nearly a foot shorter than her granddaughter, standing a
few inches above five feet at best. There was no mistaking those
eyes, though. Granny stared up at him with the exact look Addie
always got when she was frustrated. "No time for that now. I
know where we need to go."

He stifled a groan. He didn't doubt
that the old woman's words were true; he'd read more than one paper
stating that psychic ability had a hereditary component, and there
were Howie's words to consider. But the last thing he needed right
now was to be responsible for the safety of not one, but two Gardner
women. "Granny, just tell me, and I'll handle it, all right?"

The look she gave him could have
flayed skin from flesh. "Are you going to waste time arguing
with me, or are you going to get in the truck so we can go save your
girl?"

Wes ducked his head back into the
station house. "Forget the phone records, just get me that GPS
trace on Addie's cell. And keep me posted. Bye, Mama."

Howie nodded, the phone still to his
ear. "You got it, Chief."

His mother, however, shot him a
look. "Now, wait just a minute—"

He stepped in and laid his hands on
her shoulders. "Mama, if you ever want to have grandbabies,
Granny and I have
got
to go. I'll explain it all, just not now."

"I—" Her mouth
snapped shut and, from the look in her eyes, he knew he was going to
catch hell later. "Fine. Go."

He'd take a landslide of maternal
fury if it meant getting to Addie in time, so he strode out without a
backward glance. Granny was waiting with her purse in one hand and
her oversized key ring in the other. "We'll take my truck,"
she said, and threw the keys to him.

He blinked at her, then swore as he
snatched up the keys. "Pardon my French, Granny, but what the
hell are we walking into?"

"Stuart Carlin is not a career
criminal," she replied tartly. "He's going to be all sorts
of jumpy and scared to death of what you're likely to do to him for
kidnapping Addie."

"I'm going to beat the living
crap out of him, that's what I'm going to do." He opened his
Silverado and grabbed a bag from the front floorboard then headed
back to Granny's truck.

Granny nodded as she waited for him
to come to the passenger door and help her up into the seat. "We're
heading to Florida. Take the highway out to 95."

"Has he already crossed the
state line?"
I need
to call the damned FBI already.

"Hours ago," Granny said
softly. "But you can't call the FBI, Wesley. Addie will die if
you do."

The engine roared, and his fingers
tightened on the steering wheel. After the last day, nothing shocked
him, not even Granny Gardner possibly reading his mind. "If you
can promise me that she's okay and we’ll get her back, I'll
hold off on it."

Granny said nothing as he pulled her
truck onto the highway that led out of town. They'd gone several
miles before she finally broke the silence. "I remember the
first time you came to my home with Addie. Day after her mama's
funeral, and she'd scared me half to death by running off. You knew
exactly where to find her, and you coaxed her home somehow."

It hadn't been hard to find her.
He'd just gone to the cemetery and heard her sniffling then found her
high in the branches of a live oak by the front gates. "She was
watching them add her mama's name to the tombstone."

Granny didn't seem to hear him. "The
minute you walked through that door with her, I had the strongest
vision of my life. You were down at the county hospital, grinning ear
to ear as you introduced me to my great grandson. She was twelve
years old that day, and you two could barely stand each other half
the time, but I knew then, Wesley. I knew."

The idea of him and Addie together
and having babies nearly choked him with emotion. He'd spent so many
years thinking of a life with her as nothing more than a pipe dream,
but Granny was telling him it was a foregone conclusion. "So...what?
Nothing we do matters? Whatever will be, will be, or whatever?"