Web of Smoke (14 page)

She helped him off the ground and brushed the dust off him. They walked back, the way they had come, stopping at the foot of the hill.

“I didn’t go near them dogs, Mama, Grandpa—”

“DC, I don’t want to talk about the dogs and don’t you start lying on top of it, anyway. I want you to say good-bye to me, now. I need to be leaving.”

“When’re you gonna be back?”

“I told you, I don’t know for sure just yet. As soon as I can.”

“But Mama, Grandpa made me put my hand in the cage. I didn’t want to—”

“DC, what did I tell you about lying?”

“I’m not—”

She stared at him with exasperation. “Now why would Grandpa go and do a thing like that? DC, I know you want to come with me, but you can’t. I’ll be back, though.”

“When?”

“Soon. Just as soon as I can.”

DC jerked himself awake. Outside, the dog had quit barking and behind the bathroom door, all was quiet. Easing his sore muscles from the hard floor, he went to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of bourbon. He took a swig, chasing it with a warm beer. When his vision began to blur and the leftovers of his nightmare faded to a ghostly whisper, he staggered back to the hall and sat on the floor in front of the bathroom door.

Soon,
his mother’s voice still echoed in his mind. She’d said she’d be back soon.

But soon had turned out to be never, and DC was a big boy now.

Chapter Thirteen

Kathy Jordan awoke to the bleep of her own pulse dancing on a monitor to her left. She opened her eyes, taking in the pulled curtains and shadowed silence of the white room. She understood immediately that she was in a hospital, but couldn’t comprehend why. A feeling of panic nudged the back of her consciousness, demanding attention, teasing her with disjointed flashes of brutal memory.

And then it hit her.

Jessica.

Kathy jerked, bolting upright in bed.

Where was Jessica?

* * *

After three grueling hours of questioning and an unsuccessful attempt at hypnosis, the police left. Kathy sank back into her pillows as the early morning news droned on, scarcely varying tones with newscasters. Sports. Weather. Special Interest story. Kathy watched. Numbed by shock, sedated to the point of eye-tugging exhaustion, she forced herself awake for local news.

Jessica’s kidnapping dominated the segment. While police scoured the scene for evidence, Jessica Jordan remained missing. Undeniable similarities existed between her abduction and other recent kidnappings. The police refused to comment on the differences.

A stone-faced reporter looked sympathetic as she broadcast to the whole world news of the brutal attack that Kathy had survived. She cringed as the screen flashed with the image of herself on a stretcher, wheeled by paramedics through a mass of blazing lights and blaring sirens.

Twelve hours later her condition had been downgraded from serious to stable and she would be released that afternoon. Her throat was purple and swollen and when she swallowed, it throbbed and burned. Teaching Jessica to call 911 in an emergency had probably saved Kathy’s life.

Every inch of her body was bruised and battered, but her physical pain could not compare to the agony of the yawning emptiness inside when she thought of Jessica. It made her wish she had died. She brushed a stray tear from her cheek.

If this was stable condition, what was critical?

On the TV, the news reporter shoved her microphone under the nose of a big, blond man. Like a bear in street clothes, Mike Simens seemed out of sorts with the bright lights and attention. Kathy watched, surprise rooting her to the floor while recognition narrowed her gaze.

Mike Simens.

She hadn’t thought about him since the last time she’d seen him—at Dan’s funeral. The sight of his face now gave her hope in spite of the animosity that had always tainted their relationship. If anyone could find Jessica, Mike could. He was the best.

In response to the reporter’s questions, Mike hemmed and hawed his way through excuses and explanations concerning the department’s investigation into Jessica’s kidnapping as well as the others as yet unsolved. Bottom line, they didn’t know who the kidnapper was. Last word, all but a few bodies had been found.

All but a few…..

Kathy blinked, her vision blurring as she stared at her hospital room, barren but for the flowers sent from her office. It showed her just how alone she really was. Her tears raced down her cheeks in a flooding wave.

Where was Jessica? Where was her baby?

Thoughts too terrifying, too
horrifying
to think arched her back against the mattress and pulled her knees to her stomach.

“Where’s my baby?” she whispered. “Where’s my Jessica?”

* * *

By noon, Kathy was easing her sore body from the backseat of the taxi. Standing on the curb, she stared at the yellow police tape that encircled her yard. It whipped in the hot breeze, making a snapping noise that jarred the tenuous grip she had on her composure. Two police cruisers were parked in her driveway, one Chevy on the curb in front. She felt as though she should have knocked as she opened her front door and met the startled looks of the workers inside.

She hesitated on the threshold, poised half-in, half-out. One of the men separated himself from the group and approached. He donned a sympathetic expression.

“Mrs. Jordan.”

“Has there been any news of Jessica?” she asked.

“Ah, no.”

“Have you discovered any clues? Do you have any leads?”

“We’ve recovered some
excellent
forensic evidence, ma’am. That’s what you want in court.”

“I don’t care about court. I care about Jessica and where the hell she is,” Kathy said, her voice heavy with desperation. “Has he called for ransom?”

“He wouldn’t call us, ma’am.”

“What about the other kidnappings? Did they have ransom demands?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Just bodies when it was all over?”

He shifted his weight, flushing an angry red. “Yes, ma’am, but we hooked your phone up with a tap just in case he calls.”

“Thank you” seemed too ludicrous under the circumstances, so she settled for a nod. Looking at the busy crew, she felt in the way. Extraneous. She needed action. Results. Anything to keep her thoughts off Jessica and the gut-wrenching fear her daughter surely was feeling.

“Is there something I should be doing?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. We’ll be here a few more hours, then we’ll be out of your hair and you can get on with things.”

Get on with things? Was he serious?

“Where is Detective Simens?”

The man faltered, clearing his throat as he avoided eye contact. “Detective Simens isn’t on this case anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Reassignment, ma’am.”

She frowned, looking at the fine, dark powder that dusted her counters and tabletops, while her brain teased her with flashes of terror and fear. A hand ripping her underwear…. Her screams pounding against the walls….
Stop it.

She felt nauseous and the floor beneath her suddenly felt soft. She excused herself and went to the bathroom, locking herself in and the cold voices of reality out. She sat on the lid of the toilet and hugged herself, gently rocking her empty arms.

She didn’t know how long she’d been that way when a knock on the door woke her, as if from a trance.

“Mrs. Jordan? Are you all right?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

She stood and turned on the water faucets, filling the sink.

“Not a good start,” she whispered to her reflection as she splashed water on her face and rinsed her mouth. “Not if you want your daughter back.”

The sound of her own voice reassured her. She’d made it through Dan’s death, and she would make it through this. But she would not sit and wait for tomorrow to happen. Never again would she leave something to chance.

She would go to see Mike. Ask why he’d abandoned Jessica’s case. Convince him to return to it.

Mike had been Dan’s best friend. Surely, he wouldn’t have left the investigation if he’d known that the kidnapped Jessica and Dan’s only child were the same little girl. She could use that relationship to guarantee Mike’s cooperation. Even though their dislike for each other was mutual, Kathy couldn’t imagine him turning his back on her. She was, after all, Dan’s widow and Jessica, Dan’s daughter.

She ignored the workers’ curious looks as she left the sanctuary of the bathroom. She searched out the man she’d spoken to before and asked, “Where can I find Detective Simens?”

“At the station. Least that’s where he was when I left.”

No one argued when she stepped out the front door. They all knew there’d be no phone call to wait for.

A uniformed woman at the front counter of the police station directed Kathy to Mike’s desk. The sight of him, a big man sitting at a too-small desk, amplified her anxiety. Kathy couldn’t help regretting their last encounter, when she’d accused him of being responsible for the biking accident that had killed her husband.

He looked up as she crossed the room, acting neither surprised nor concerned about her appearance. He let her hobble to his desk with barely a flicker of sympathy.

“This is just what the day needed,” he said in the deep, gravelly voice she remembered so well.

She lowered herself into the chair at the side of his desk. “It’s good to see you, too, Mike.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I saw you on TV. You were investigator in charge of Jessica’s case. Now I’m told you’re reassigned. Why?”

“Why?” he repeated, his bushy brows nearly disappearing under a thatch of hair that covered his forehead. “I’ll tell you, Kathy,” he said sarcastically. “The captain thinks someone else would do a better job. You see, I’m not finding the bad guys fast enough, so they’ve decided to give someone else a shot at it.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Hell, they did me a favor,” he continued, his angry tone belying his words. “The FBI’s in on it now. I hate those guys.”

“FBI?”

“Yeah, today one of the girls—not Jess, the other one—she was sighted in Seattle. Crossing state lines gets the FBI involved. I keep telling them that Jessica’s still here, but they don’t listen to lowly detectives.”

“You think she’s still here in San Diego? Alive?”

“I don’t have anything to back it up with, but yeah, my gut tells me it’s true.”

“I can’t believe you’ve been taken off her case. How can they even consider bringing in someone new? Someone who doesn’t know what’s going on? Someone who has to start all over? You’re the best! Where’s your superior? I want to talk to him.”

Mike’s thunderstruck expression quickly changed to one of displeasure. “Don’t you start defending me. I’ve got enough problems without you on my side. Holy shit, I need a vacation.”

He stared at her, finally acknowledging her bruises with a lingering look.

“How are you, anyway?”

“How do I look?”

“You look like hell.”

“That’s pretty close. Were you there last night?”

“At your house?” he asked, tapping his desk with his pen. “Yeah, I was there. Then I got called on the second kidnapping and all hell broke loose.”

He dropped his face into his hands and rubbed. A heavy, blond stubble covered his cheeks. It looked like it had been days since he’d last shaved.

“Do you have any leads, Mike? Please tell me you have some clues.”

“Clues? I got more clues than I know what to do with. Trouble is, I can’t make any sense out of them. I’m still searching for a motive—I
was
searching that is. Have you remembered anything yet? About what Jessica’s kidnapper looks like?”

“No. I can remember what happened, but he’s just a shadow. No face. They even tried to hypnotize me while I was in the hospital, but it didn’t work.”

“That’s pretty typical in trauma cases. Don’t beat yourself up about it. It will come in time.”

“I don’t have time.
Jessica
doesn’t have time. Someone has punched a hole through my chest and yanked out my reason for living, Mike, and I want some justice.”

He lit a cigarette, watching her through the smoke. She blinked, her eyes watering as a stinging cloud drifted her way.

“What are you doing here, Kathy?” he asked at last.

She looked down at her jeans, smoothing the fabric with her finger, groping for an easy way to beg for his help. Being here went against the grain, but the sound of Jessica’s terrified screams echoing in her mind gave her strength and determination to do whatever it took.

“I want you to help me find Jessica,” she said.

He took a drag of his cigarette. “I told you. I’m off the case.”

“I want you back on.”

“I hate to say this, but what you want doesn’t have a lot of pull around here. I can’t even get the inside on what’s happening anymore.”

“So investigate on your own.”

“I could lose my job for it.”

“So take a vacation. You said you needed one.”

“Vacation, hell, that would be early retirement.”

“I suppose it was naive of me to expect your cooperation. I thought you’d want to help me, if for no other reason than out of loyalty to an old friend.”

“Oohh, that one hurt. And here I was afraid you’d turned nice on me. You hate my guts, Kathy. Why come to me?”

“Because you’re the best damn cop on the force. I don’t expect you to want to help me, but what about Dan’s daughter? Don’t you care about her?”

He ground his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray and glared at her through the haze. She stared back, refusing to be intimidated by his glowering expression. Refusing to back down when she had nowhere else to turn.

“Hell, what a goddamn day,” he said, his gravelly voice so deep it vibrated. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

Kathy paused, blinking her confusion.

“What happened?” he said. Then, with a deep sigh, “Tell me what happened last night.”

“He was waiting in the house when we got home,” she answered.

“What time?”