Brian barely heard the last word. He was running for the garden, dread clenching his heart, and the overwhelming thought in his mind was that he had waited too long to tell her.
• • •
Serena wasn’t conscious of her aloneness. Nor, a little later, did she immediately realize that she had company. She had forgotten that the danger of her being alone was still present, that it took time to call off dogs on a hunt.
She had forgotten to be aware, to be wary.
But her instincts prevailed, and when heavy hands fell on her shoulders, those instincts warned that the hands were unfriendly. Her body reacted instantly, twisting, surging away from the unfriendly grasp.
More hands grabbed her, strong hands, and in the instant it took for her to react, to lash out at her attackers, a white pad was pressed to her face, covering her nose and mouth.
Chloroform.
Her mind identified the odor, and as she quickly succumbed, her body went limp and helpless.
And her last thought had been the realization that they’d let down their guard too soon.
NINE
GONE.
An icy calm came over Brian when they found Serena gone. He and the private investigator—both caught off guard—searched the garden and grounds, while Josh raced to alert Stuart. He agreed with the P.I. that they’d found no signs, no clues as to where Serena had been taken.
In Josh’s room Brian listened silently while Serena’s brother gave instructions for the P.I. to try to find out if anyone had seen Serena get into a car and could give a description of the vehicle, and then sent him from the room. When Brian finally spoke, it was in a quiet voice.
“What now?”
Josh looked at him searchingly. “First, we can’t call in the police or FBI; it’d be certain death for Serena if we did.” He pulled his cigarette case out and opened it.
“May I?”
“I didn’t think you smoked,” Josh answered, surprised.
“I don’t.” Brian accepted the light. His hands were steady.
Josh lighted his own cigarette, and expelled the smoke in a short burst. “Second—unless we get a call, there isn’t a hell of a lot we can do ourselves.”
“And if we get a call?”
“If Serena has any idea where she is, she’ll try to tell us somehow.”
“What if we don’t get a call?”
“There’s still hope,” Josh said quickly. “The kidnappers will get in touch with their bosses to announce their success. We’re assuming the bosses don’t yet know we’re on to them. If we’re correct, they’ll probably contact Stuart, who will make certain they understand the situation. If the bosses do know we’ve discovered them, it’s entirely possible they’ll cancel the operation and give orders to release Serena.”
Brian smoked for a few moments in silence. Then he said in a cool tone, “Even if Serena’s seen their faces?”
Josh hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Even then. A kidnapping can, if all parties agree, be kept quiet. It doesn’t have to end in murder.”
Brian was studying the glowing end of his cigarette. “Correct me if I’m wrong. There are … buffers between the dogs and the masters.”
Feeling quite savage himself, Josh silently approved the allusion. He nodded. “Right.”
“Suppose,” Brian suggested, “the dogs don’t like their orders. They’re the ones in the hot spot, the ones who would have to face a kidnapping rap. Suppose they operate on the theory that a dead witness can’t testify against them, and they disobey orders.”
Josh drew a deep breath. “Cheerful bastard, aren’t you?”
Brian waited.
“Then she’s dead,” Josh said flatly. “But the chances are against that happening. These particular masters choose their dogs well, and pay them accordingly. And they don’t pay big bucks for stupidity. If the dogs follow orders, they’re taken care of; if they disobey, they’re very likely dead themselves. They know that, Brian.”
“I hope they do.” Brian studied his cigarette again, then stubbed it out. In a peculiarly conversational tone he added, “Because if they don’t know it, if we don’t get Serena back alive and completely unmarked, they’ll never see the inside of a jail.”
Having felt the punishment of Brian’s fist after what had been, relatively speaking, a case of mild frustration, Josh understood completely. He understood that after Brian got through with them, Serena’s captors undoubtedly would see nothing.
Nothing at all.
Serena woke to darkness. Her head hurt, her mouth was dry, she was cramped and uncomfortable, and she was quite thoroughly bound and gagged. She was also, she suspected, in the trunk of a car.
A moment of cautious testing was enough to convince her that whoever had tied the knots behind her back had known what he was doing; she couldn’t loosen the rope. She abandoned the attempt, unwilling to waste her energy. Even though she was blinded by darkness and stuffed into a car’s trunk, she tried to gather some impression of where she was.
She refused to allow her own terror to control her. Never. Never that. It was self-defeating.
Easily said, of course. She was terrified.
Fiercely shoving that realization away, she concentrated on listening, on feeling. And she knew after a moment that the car was stopped. Parked? she wondered. The engine was running, and she could hear something else. A rumble. As much to keep her mind occupied as to learn something, Serena concentrated on that sound.
Then the car moved, briefly. She could still hear the rumble, she realized. The car stopped, and the engine died, and Serena listened closely to voices that sounded muffled and curt.
When the trunk lid was lifted, she closed her eyes tightly against the bright light. The sun was still high in the sky; either it was the next day or, as she supposed, she hadn’t been unconscious for very long.
Hands moved behind her, and she barely felt the sudden release as her wrists and ankles were untied, since she’d lost all feeling in her hands and feet several minutes before.
“Don’t touch the gag,” a deep voice ordered sharply. “And don’t give us any trouble, or we’ll tie you up again.”
As she was lifted from the trunk Serena could make no effort to resist. Each of the two men took hold of an upper arm to support her. She was still so numb, she couldn’t have struggled effectively if she had wanted to.
They hustled her into a building, and she had only a moment to try to absorb some impression of where she was. Recognition woke in her mind, and she held on to it fiercely. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
The building was old, and smelled of disuse and decay. Serena, dwarfed between her large captors, was taken into a small, windowless room. The furnishings consisted of a rickety table on which sat a telephone, incongruous in its shiny newness.
Serena pulled the gag from her mouth as they released her, a test that she apparently passed, since they made no objection. They wanted her to talk, she realized, and her mind began working frantically. Feeling was returning to her hands and feet, she could feel the sensation of needles stabbing, but she was still virtually helpless. She swallowed, her throat still dry and painful, and looked for the first time at her captors.
They were big men, powerful, but with their nondescript hair and eyes, and their average faces, Serena would have a hard time describing them. They were as alike as bookends, dressed casually to fit in just about anywhere. Both watched her intently, but there was no savagery in their expressions.
No threat.
Serena was not particularly reassured.
“There’s no need for you to be afraid, Miss Jameson,” one of the bookends said in a voice he probably imagined to be soothing. “Just do what we say and don’t make trouble. We’re going to spend a little time together, that’s all. You’ll be back in your hotel by nightfall.”
“We want you to call the hotel,” the other bookend said curtly. “And tell Mr. Long and Mr. Ashford that you’re all right. Tell them
not to do anything foolish, like calling the police. Your health depends on their caution.”
It should have sounded melodramatic, instead it sounded frightening.
Serena kept her expression as haughty as possible. “You’re going to regret this,” she said coldly, playing the part she had already selected. “When my father finds out—”
“Make the call,” the second bookend ordered brusquely.
Serena walked easily to the table and picked up the receiver, placing a call to the hotel. She asked for Josh’s room, having decided that both he and Brian would be there waiting for just such a call. And they were.
“Josh?”
“Serena!” His tone of voice revealed how relieved he felt, also how concerned he was. “Are you all right? Can you say anything?”
She looked at the second bookend, not surprised to find he had a wicked-looking automatic weapon pointed at her. She forced a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, I’m fine. I haven’t felt this good since Jackson. They tell me,” she added, “to warn you not to be incautious. No police. My … my health depends on it.”
One of the men stepped toward her, and Serena tried quickly to say what she hoped wouldn’t be her last words to her brother. “Tell Brian—” The receiver was taken away from her and replaced firmly. She was sorry she hadn’t been able to finish the message, but the calm of her captors eased some of her worry. They hadn’t noticed the vitally important “throwaway” line in her message.
She hoped Brian would understand.
The first bookend complimented her politely. “Very good, Miss Jameson.” Then he looked at the second man. “Take her out. I’ll make the call.”
Serena obeyed the slight wave of the gun, and preceded the second bookend out of the room. She found herself in a huge space, the shadowy interior illuminated only by faint light coming through the dirt-encrusted windows. A warehouse, she realized. There was a single chair beneath a naked, glaring lightbulb suspended from the high ceiling. Beside the chair was a small table that was bare except for a Thermos bottle.
She didn’t like the thought of what might be in that bottle.
Looking at the second bookend with arrogant astonishment that was only partly feigned, she said, “Surely you jest.”
Her calculated sneer had its effect; he scowled at her. “Sit,” he ordered.
Serena lifted one delicate brow at him and said, “It’s obvious you need to associate with a better class of victim. I never attended obedience school, so please refrain from the canine commands.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts and stared at him with what she hoped looked like fearless scorn.
Brian was on his feet, staring at Josh. He was so still, he might have been carved from granite. “Well?”
“She’s all right, but we’re not to call the police. She sounded fine, Brian.” Josh decided not to mention that Serena’s last words had been cut off with chilling abruptness. That was not something the other man needed to hear right now.
“Could she say anything?”
Josh frowned. “Yes, she could. And did. She said she hadn’t had this much fun since Jackson. It has to mean something to one of us. I’ve never been anyplace called Jackson with her, so the clue must have been meant for you. Which Jackson? Mississippi?”
Brian scowled. “No,” he said. “Not there, I’m sure. We didn’t pass through Jackson, Mississippi.”
Josh ran a hand through his dark hair. “Well, then? There must have been a Jackson sometime during the trip, or she wouldn’t have said what she did. It has to mean something she’d expect you to remember. Think!”
“Wait.” Brian nodded. “Now I remember. It was Tennessee. Jackson, Tennessee. It was a special stop, just for one day. We had to go out of our way, I remember, but she insisted.”
“Why? What was special about it?” Josh tried to think clearly. “What did she want to see there?”
“She said—she’d always been intrigued by the ballad of Casey Jones.”
After a moment Josh said, “All I remember of it is that he was an engineer.”
“The railroad museum,” Brian said, his voice quickening for the first time. “It was the only thing we saw. Josh, wherever she’s being kept—there are trains!”
“Trains?”
Instantly both men bent over the huge county map spread on Josh’s bed, searching for railroad tracks and perhaps a freight yard.
If Serena had allowed fear to control her, she would have been completely helpless. She knew that. So, to take her mind off her quivering insides, she had been plotting from the moment she’d come to.
Her scheme was necessarily incomplete, since she couldn’t know when or how a rescue attempt would be made. But she did know one would be made. She knew her father, knew Josh—and knew Brian.
They’d find her.
And when they did, Serena would be ready.
Serena was playing her role carefully. With every scornful look, every haughty gesture, and every arrogant word, she was carefully painting a picture of a rich man’s spoiled, contemptuous, self-assured daughter. A hothouse flower, cultivated in gentle soil and raised to be an ornament.
She was clearly, obviously confident that this was merely an uncomfortable interlude, an inconvenience soon to be dealt with by her loving father. She was annoyed, insolent. She complained of her surroundings, the dirt and darkness, with disdain. She was bored, restless.
Serena was—shrewdly—betting that these men had been told next to nothing about her. But even if she was wrong, there were certain things about her that they simply could not know, thanks to her father’s cautious foresight.
They couldn’t know she was hell on wheels, gifted with fast reflexes and a cool mind.
The role helped her to keep her mind off the very strong possibility that she could be killed. Like Josh, she had a good idea of how the kidnapping was meant to be handled. The first book-end, she knew, had called his boss—who was most likely not the top man. But the top man, or men, would be notified that she was in custody.
Her two bookends were clearly expecting another call, probably to be told that Stuart had caved in. She amended that thought. The book-ends were functionaries only, who probably wouldn’t be told what was behind this. So, the phone call they were waiting for was to let them know that they could release their captive.
But Serena knew that wouldn’t be the call they’d get. Whether or not her bookends were apprised of just what was going on, the top men in this knew, or would shortly know, that Stuart would never cave in. They’d know that they’d been traced, and were being watched most carefully. Holding Serena would do them no good at all, and killing her would bring definite trouble down on their heads.
Serena also knew that what happened then was … well, problematic. The top men could, if they wished, simply give the expected order. And if the bookends trusted their employers to make certain they wouldn’t face a kidnapping rap, the order would be obeyed.
But the possible variations on that were endless.
Her captors could decide—indeed, might have long since decided—that leaving behind a live witness to testify to a kidnapping wasn’t very smart. Or very healthy. They could decide to save their own hides. To kill her, dispose of the body, and head for parts unknown.
Serena could be reasonably certain that the original orders had been to take her, but keep her alive and release her when so ordered. Stuart would not, after all, do so much as a day’s work for the men who had ordered, or allowed, the death of his daughter. After all, she was all he had left.
And it was doubtful the orders would differ now, because the top men had a great deal to lose in having her killed, and a great deal to gain, relatively speaking, by returning her alive. They were being watched, and just because there might be little or no courtroom proof against them didn’t mean they wouldn’t pay, and pay heavily, for having her killed.
So what it all boiled down to was that Serena’s safety depended, curiously enough, on the integrity
of her captors. On whether or not they would carry out orders they’d been paid to carry out.
Serena didn’t want to count on that. It would have been, she knew, insanely foolish to do so.
So she complained occasionally, and made the expected threats against her captors, and pushed them as far as she dared. She was playing her role perfectly.
Now she could only wait for Brian and Josh to find her.
Josh was driving, following the route they’d selected, while Brian frowned over the map he was holding.
“There are five major rail-freight lines and Amtrak,” Brian said. “How can we be sure this is where they’re holding her? D’you really think—?”
Nodding, Josh pointed briefly to the area on the map circled in red. “It has to be near a freight line,” he said resolutely, fighting to convince himself as well as Brian. “They have to have somewhere to keep her; a warehouse would be less dangerous than an empty car, I’d say. An abandoned warehouse, most likely; they wouldn’t want to have some passerby or security guard stumble on them accidentally.
“According to the Chamber of Commerce and the contacts that Paul, our private investigator, has in town, the freight yard we’ve circled is the only one with empty warehouses nearby. The only one that isn’t used anymore. It fits, Brian.”
“D’you think they’ll have the car hidden?”
“Under cover, probably, but we should be able to find it. Paul’s certain they were driving a blue sedan. If they didn’t change cars … we’ll be able to find that, at least.”
“You told him not to crowd us?” Brian glanced over his shoulder at the car behind them.
“He knows. He’ll back us up once we get inside, but he’ll take no action on his own until Rena’s safe.”
They had already discussed how they were going to handle the situation.
After a moment Brian said quietly, “We can’t allow any shooting, and we know they’ll be armed. No matter how we go in, they’ll probably have Serena close, within reach. They’ll use her as a shield to stand us off or to get away.” He was still troubled by the plan they’d decided on.