Kidnapped

  “Will do. I’ll call with whatever is found.”

  * * *

  Luke rolled down the squad car window, hoping to dissipate some of the smell hovering like a cloud around him.

  “I think it’s on your boots,” Jackie said.

  “And clinging to my shirt and jeans and jacket,” Luke added. “I’m heading to Mark and Sharon’s to change before we go to the sheriff’s office.” He nodded to the notebook she held. “Anything in Gary’s scribbles that looks promising?”

  “I either can’t read the page or it doesn’t make sense. Some of this looks like bird-watching notes.”

  “Let’s hope someone on the task force can read it.”

  “Do you plan to tell Sharon Gary is dead?”

  “She’ll hear about it in the next few days even if we don’t tell her. Gary is apparently the stalker who was bothering Caroline last fall, and if we’re right that he was also the one to send that bouquet of roses to Sharon’s office—knowing he’s dead just closes several nagging worries. What do you think about me showing Sharon those folded-up photos?”

  “I wouldn’t. Gary knew where she was at and didn’t get her help, at least indirectly that makes him responsible for Caroline being missing now. Hating a dead man is an ugly emotion to have to wrestle with.” Jackie opened the photos. “The campsite photo confirms what we already know. The one of Ronald—it might help to know if Sharon recognizes him, but we could get that information with a formal photo lineup.”

  “When asked, we’ll tell her that the state police found Gary’s body, but that it appears he was killed before Caroline was called and the switch was made.”

  “I could live with that.” Jackie watched the countryside along the highway, studying the houses. “Sharon was held near here. Everything points back to Benton. And that makes me think the guy who hired Frank is a local.”

  “Someone who wants money, who would have the contacts that could give him Frank’s name . . . it’s got to be a small universe of people.” Luke turned on the radio. “It’s time I had a long talk with Mark. His family wasn’t chosen at random, and they aren’t close to being the wealthiest people around here. Someone selected them for a reason.”

  * * *

  “Luke, I’ve racked my brain for names,” Mark said, pacing his study. “I’ve had my secretary pulling client lists, searching for anyone disgruntled, anyone who makes me uneasy, or who has come back into our lives recently out of the blue. I’m hitting a blank wall.”

  “Five million, then ten million, with incredibly short delivery deadlines—the ransom request itself suggests an awareness of how much cash you could make liquid quickly. Why not ask for twenty million?”

  Mark shook his head. “I would have paid any amount, somehow.”

  “Do you remember anything more about the first ransom call?”

  “I was driving back to Benton; the setting sun was in my eyes, and I had just reached up to move the visor. I picked up the phone, and a garbled voice said, ‘I have your wife. I will kill her.’ And then he told me where to take the money at midnight.”

  “Why the old church?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A tap on the door interrupted them. “Can I come in?”

  Luke turned and smiled at Sharon. “Sure.” He hugged her because she looked so tired, so stressed. The nap she’d taken didn’t look like it helped much.

  “There’s no word on Caroline?” she asked softly.

  He simply shook his head.

  “They found Gary Gibson,” Mark said, coming around the desk. “He was killed sometime in the last couple days.”

  Sharon winced. “His death is somehow related to what has been happening?”

  “We’ll work the case assuming that it does. I don’t like coincidences.”

  She sank onto the couch and wrapped her arms around one of the big pillows. “I liked him, Luke. Despite everything you’ve told me about his watching us, calling and frightening Caroline—it’s hard to put together with the man I knew. That man was nice. He’d bring fudge to my head nurse when he came by the clinic to have his blood work done. Caroline worked at the clinic part-time that summer, and I know she and Gary got to be friends while he waited for all the tests to be run. He cared about her students and would ask about them; he would bring cartoons from the newspaper he thought she’d like. I think he even asked Caroline out to lunch a couple times.”

  “That interest turned into an obsession. I doubt he ever thought this was what his life would become.”

  “Benjamin has been playing with the kittens you rescued, wanting to know how come Gary left them behind. What do you tell a child that makes sense of that? How do you tell him the man is now dead?”

  “Let it go a few days,” Mark replied. “Benjamin has enough hard things to absorb.”

  Jackie tapped on the doorjamb. “Sorry to interrupt. Luke, Marsh just called. They’ve found a camera bag at the landfill and a half-shot roll of film still in the camera. All of it is on its way to the task force to get developed. Do you want to come along?”

  “I’ll be right there, Jackie.” Luke looked at his cousin. “Keep pressing on names. For that matter, write down every person you’ve ever done business with or met socially, from the insurance salesman to the PTA president at Benjamin’s school. We’ll eliminate them all if we have to in order to find that one name we need.”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  Luke nodded and headed out to join Jackie.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The press had taken over most of the street in front of the sheriff’s office. Luke ignored the shouted questions as he went in a side door with Jackie.

  “Who’s got the latest on the recovered trash?”

  One of the agents waved him over. “He was killed in a business district east of Sandy Hill. If the boxes around him match up to the right Dumpster, somewhere around Jefferson Brilliant Lighting, Inc. It’s a custom sign business.”

  “It’s being canvassed now?”

  “Guys are walking the area looking for any sign of blood. A body in that condition—it’s going to leave a messy trail.”

  “This is the rest of it.” Luke gestured to the table. From the less-than-pleasant odor, he guessed the trash had come in with the recovered camera bag.

  “Yes.”

  An agent sorting through the stack tacked another receipt to the board time line. “He was buying a lot of film recently.”

  “Cash or credit?”

  “Cash. We’ve run his credit cards and found nothing since Friday. The bank hasn’t received any checks to clear yet against his accounts, but it may take five days before they start to show up.”

  Henry James walked over to join them. He passed Luke a stack of faxes. “You’re getting popular.”

  Luke scanned the top sheets. They were numerous media appearance requests. “Jackie can handle them.” He passed on the stack and his partner just grimaced at him.

  “Photos are developed!” An agent pushed through the back door, holding up a manila folder. “I think we’ve got something.”

  The trash on the table was pushed back into a box to clear room. They spread out the photos as the task force and the sheriff’s deputies clustered around. The lab had enlarged the prints to ten-by-ten.

  “Interesting.” Jackie picked one of them up. “Sharon and Benjamin together—that puts it before the snatch occurred.”

  “Isn’t that the same outfit Benjamin was wearing when we found him?”

  “Get me a photo from Saturday for comparison, that one of Benjamin getting his scraped knee checked out at the scene by the paramedic.”

  The sheriff lifted the tack and retrieved the photo from the board. “The same clothes,” he agreed. “This photo of Sharon and Benjamin had to be taken Friday afternoon, after they had returned to the house and Benjamin had changed, but before the snatch occurred.”

  “So Gary was definitely at their house. What else is here?”

  He
nry picked one of the photos. “Do we have the place Sharon was held? This house fits the general information Sharon gave us.”

  “What about this one?” Luke found another photo of a home. “Or this one. What was Gary doing? There are at least eight houses here. Architecturally interesting, expensive homes.”

  “Did the lab send a print of the negative strip, so we can see the photo order?” Henry asked.

  Jackie picked up the envelope to shake. “Yes.” She pulled it from the protective sleeve.

  Luke looked at the strip and shook his head. “The photo of Sharon and Benjamin together is the last one taken on this roll of film. This entire roll was taken before the snatch happened on Friday. It’s a dead end.”

  “If this film was still in the camera, and Gary was killed days after the snatch occurred, why didn’t he ever finish taking this roll of film? He didn’t use the camera after Friday afternoon, yet it was found at the scene where his body was dumped?” Jackie asked.

  “Two cameras. Maybe he shoved this camera back into the camera bag Friday, tossed the bag into his trunk, and never reached for it again?”

  “Remember those photos in his darkroom?” the sheriff asked. “One of his cameras has a good zoom lens on it. He was photographing even hummingbirds up close.”

  Luke stepped back from the table. “We recovered the one camera that can’t help us.”

  “It’s proof Gary was there. I’d say that makes it relevant,” Henry corrected. “We need to find that second camera.”

  The sheriff’s secretary held up a phone. “Luke, there’s a call for you. Line three.”

  He reached over for the phone on the nearest desk. “Luke Falcon.”

  “Do you want her back?”

  Luke had heard Frank Hardin’s voice only on wiretaps, but he knew it when he heard it. Luke spun around to look at Henry James. Henry immediately picked up another phone and started a trace. A fine sweat began along Luke’s back even as he cooled his voice to a business calm. “Of course I want her back.”

  “For the right price, I’ll give you back your precious Caroline and the guy who hired me to snatch the doctor. He double-crossed me. I’d kill him, but he’s a man better suited to the joy of prison time.”

  Luke didn’t care why the men were at odds with each other; he only cared that there was a slice of opportunity to exploit. “What’s your price?”

  “Ten million, in diamonds this time, no more bills you can mark. And you don’t have much time to deliver them, if you want the guy who hired me to still be in the country when you learn his name.”

  “I have to talk with Caroline first.”

  “No. You’ve got two hours. Call me when you have the stones.” Luke scrawled down the number Frank gave him. Then the line went dead.

  Luke looked over at Henry. He shook his head as he listened in on the attempt to trace the call. “The trace came up short, Luke. He dropped off the line too quickly.”

  “Ten million in diamonds, and I need them now.”

  “Any particular size or color?”

  Luke shook his head.

  “There’s a standing arrangement with Whitman’s. With the cash already in hand, the Atlanta office should be able to fly them out here in twenty minutes.”

  “Tell me we got a tape of this call.”

  “On that line we’ll have a tape of it.”

  “Is she alive?” Jackie asked softly.

  Luke forced himself to take a deep breath and unclench frozen muscles. “He’s not offering any proof. He’s staying around to get paid, so let’s accommodate him. Bug the package, Henry. Get creative and plant a tracking device among those diamonds.”

  “Luke?”

  He shook his head as he headed to the side door. “Caroline’s dead, Jackie. And I’m not going to let the guy who killed her walk away from this.” He had to talk with Sharon.

  By the end of the day, this would be over and his worst fears would be confirmed.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Luke watched Sharon pace across the living room and finally stop by the bay window. “You understand the risks of planting the bug, Sharon?”

  “I understand them.” She sighed as she turned to look at him. “You think she’s already dead.” Sharon was crying, and it hurt him to see those tears, knowing he had been the cause.

  “I don’t know whether Caroline is alive or dead,” he replied carefully, “but I do know Frank Hardin has to be stopped. In the last few days he killed his girlfriend and shot three men. He may have killed Gary. We may not get another chance this good to stop him.”

  “Do you really think you can track these diamonds without his knowledge?”

  “We can.” Henry joined the conversation for the first time. He opened a small case and offered it to Sharon. “One is the bug; the other two are real diamonds for comparison. Which one is it?”

  She accepted the case. “They look the same.” She picked up the stones and weighed them in her hand. “Under magnification you could tell.”

  “Yes,” Luke conceded. “But Frank’s going to be in a rush, and with that bug buried in a pile of real diamonds, I don’t think he’ll have time to check every stone with an eyepiece. It’s a reasonable risk, Sharon. If Frank has left Caroline somewhere, the only way to guarantee we can find her before she bleeds to death is to grab Frank. I don’t trust him to tell us the truth about where she is. We have to grab him.”

  Sharon turned away and stared out at the lawn. She sighed and turned. “Make the call.”

  Luke looked over at his cousin. “Mark?”

  He nodded. “Catch the guy, Luke.”

  “Henry?”

  “We’re ready.”

  Jackie handed Luke the slip of paper he had jotted the phone number on. He picked up the phone on the desk and dialed. “I’ve got your diamonds, Hardin.”

  * * *

  Jason Fromm stuffed the papers critical to accessing his private accounts into his briefcase. Everything he loved in this home office—the collectibles, the artwork, the sense of presence in the cherry wood and leather furniture—he was having to walk away from. Frank would pay for this.

  At least Frank had done him one favor—shot everyone who knew of his role in the kidnapping. Frank himself would be facing a death sentence, so he’d never let himself be taken alive. But tying up the final points of the failed kidnapping didn’t solve his original problem. Without an infusion of cash, in a matter of weeks it would be known that his financial world was collapsing, and he was basically broke. The bank would collapse.

  It was best that he just disappear and start over again somewhere else. One stop by the bank for a special withdrawal, an equally short stop at the guesthouse to collect a few personal items and turn on the pilot lights of the stove and let a gas explosion destroy the house and safe room, and he would be on his way to the airport. It would be next week before they figured out he was not in Atlanta as his staff thought, and by then he would be in the remotest stretches of Europe with a new name, back in his home country.

  Jason carried his bags to the car. Benton had been a source of trouble for long enough; he wouldn’t miss the town.

  Chapter Forty

  The small bag of diamonds didn’t look like ten million dollars. Luke stuffed the pouch into the inside pocket of his jacket, then picked up the small items Jackie had set on the kitchen table: a pocketknife, keys to police cuffs, a roll of medical tape. “A whistle?”

  “Benjamin thought you might need to call one of his favorite dogs or something.”

  Luke smiled and pocketed it. He wouldn’t need any of these items, but it couldn’t hurt to have something in his pockets that might help if he found Caroline bound and gagged but still breathing.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me along, Falcon?”

  “I need you here with Sharon and Mark. You know what the odds are now.”

  “I know.”

  Luke nodded toward the road where a police helicopter was now coming in to land. ?
??This is going to be another one of Frank’s dances from place to place before he tells me where to leave the diamonds.”

  “Caroline—I’m so sorry this happened, Luke. That we didn’t know in time to stop her from going out on her own.”

  “Benjamin has his mom back. Caroline would have thought that to be worth any price.” He reached out a hand and squeezed his partner’s. “Stay with them, Jackie. I’ll be in touch.”

  He zipped up his jacket, picked up the briefcase carrying one of the many tracking units for the package he carried, and headed outside to meet his ride. It was some reassurance to see no media helicopters hovering, recording this. The restricted airspace seemed to be holding. He knew Sharon and Benjamin and Mark were watching from the living room window, but he didn’t turn to wave good-bye. This was hard enough as it was.

  Luke took the copilot seat, slipping on the headphones Joe handed him. “The first stop is a bridge five miles east of here.”

  Joe nodded and lifted off. “I’m carrying enough fuel we can stay in the air four hours, and two other pilots will be ready to join us once that package starts moving. Do we know how many people might be with Frank?”

  “Except for the guy who hired him, I think he’s probably the last one left.”

  “So the fact this bird is carrying enough firepower to stop a tank could be considered overkill.”

  Luke smiled. “At this point, I will use whatever’s available. There are enough flares aboard if we end up searching the woods into the night?”

  “Flares, the spotlight, and cases of bottled water for the guys on the ground. None of us plan to come back empty-handed today.”

  Joe keyed the radio to confirm a clear flight path over the area hospital.

  * * *

  Joe circled the bridge while Luke scanned with high-powered binoculars. “Frank could be under it, but I don’t see any sign of life.”

  “Agreed. Set it down.”

  Joe set down in a field east of the road, away from the power lines. Luke pulled on gloves and opened the door. As soon as he stepped out of the helicopter, Joe lifted off again to hover and provide security.