Читать книгу The Ransom - Maggie Price, Maggie Price - Страница 11

“MATTHEW…” Terror crimped Kathryn’s voice. A growing pressure around her heart made it beat in hitchy strikes. Her entire body shaking, she forced herself to read the entire text message.

We have your son.

We will kill him if you contact the police. We are watching you. Get one million dollars in various denominations. Keep the money and this cell phone with you. Don’t change your routine. We will call and tell you what to do. Screw up, the kid dies.

The words blurred while heat traveled in a wave up Kathryn’s spine.

“No, no. Matthew…” Panic clawed at her throat; for a moment, the shapes and colors in the room seemed to shift. She felt herself sway.

With a flurry of barks, Abby raced to the bedroom’s door, her right hind leg lifting out of sync with the others. Turning, the dog rocketed back, tramping across Kathryn’s bare feet. The contact snapped her back. She forced herself to breathe. Struggled to think.

Think. Whipping around, she dashed into the bathroom, moving so fast she plowed one hip into the sink. The pain didn’t even register as she wrenched open the door on the medicine cabinet.

A ball of ice dropped into her belly as she stared at the large amber bottle containing the antirejection pills Matthew took daily. Had to take daily. Missing even one dose could jumpstart his system into an attempt to reject his transplanted kidney.

“Oh, God.” The terror burning in her had her stomach heaving. She leaned over the sink and gagged. Nothing came up but a stream of saliva.

Rinsing her mouth, she heard Abby dashing in and out of the bathroom, felt her nipping at her ankles. The doxie’s frenzied barking had Kathryn’s brain clicking to the possibility that whoever had taken her son might still be in the house.

Did she still have time to save Matthew?

Fueled by that hope, she jammed the cell phone into the pocket of her shorts and darted out of the bathroom. As if connected to the dachshund by an invisible leash, Kathryn sprinted after Abby.

Her incessant barks now deep, throaty rumbles, the dog shot down the hallway, a discernible limp in her gait as her long, thin nose skimmed the wooden floor, then lifted as if scenting the air for her master.

Kathryn ran, shouting her son’s name while her chest tightened and the breath sobbed out of her lungs.

Her heartbeat battered her ribs, her temples in a savage, pulsing rhythm. She couldn’t face the possibility of losing her child. Refused to think it. She would find Matthew. Save him before some faceless monster carried him away.

Abby bounded off the staircase, her paws skittering across the waxed floor. She turned a corner, scurried along the hallway toward the rear of the house, her snout sweeping to and fro.

“Matthew!” Kathryn ducked into the living room, Sam’s study, then the dining room, searching for some sign of her child.

Abby slowed, turned and began retracing her zigzagging steps along the hallway. At the bottom of the staircase, she looked up at Kathryn and whined.

She’d lost Matthew’s scent. Breath sobbed out of Kathryn’s lungs. “We can’t give up looking.” Turning, she dashed toward the kitchen, her shouts for Matthew echoing through the empty house.

AFTER SEARCHING the kitchen and Willa’s rooms, Kathryn hammered down the basement stairs, grabbed a flashlight and checked the outlaw tunnel, desperately hoping that she’d wake up from this nightmare and find Matthew playing there.

He wasn’t.

With the tunnel’s dank, musty air still in her lungs, she sprinted back upstairs, yelling his name while she checked each room, closet, looking beneath every bed. She found no sign of her child.

As she raced back down the staircase, the fear that had been pounding at her now screamed into her mind, bursting through her body like a storm of ice.

Matthew was gone. Taken by some faceless someone.

We have your son.

The pain inside her was so huge it reached to the bone.

Intent on searching the stables, she bolted off the bottom step and plowed into a solid, unyielding frame.

“Sweet Jesus!” Reece Silver’s voice was as hard as the hands he clamped onto her shoulders.

“Where is he?” Half-crazed, Kathryn shoved at the veterinarian who’d tended the Cross C’s animals since she was a teen. “What have you done with him?”

“Who?” Reece loomed over her, controlling her with hands well-used to keeping strong horses in line. His face was slender, almost gaunt, and the brown eyes staring down at her were filled with confusion. “Johnny? He and I came up here to talk to you. About the mare that came down with colic yesterday? He went down the hall to the kitchen to see if you were there.”

“Not Johnny,” Kathryn gasped. “Matthew! He’s gone.” The hallway with its dark wood walls and floor seemed to be closing in on her. In desperation she fought against Reece’s hold. “Let go!”

“Not while your eyes are glassy and your face is as pale as a boiled egg.” While he spoke, the vet half-nudged, half-dragged her into the living room. “You need to sit, catch your breath.” His face was grim as he prodded her into one of the wing chairs that ringed the fireplace.

“Can’t…” She tried to pull in air. “Breathe.”

“Lean over.” Crouching beside her, Reece placed a palm against the back of her head and shoved it between her knees. The movement forced the air out of her lungs. Staring at the colorful braided rug, Kathryn pulled in a deep breath, then another.

“More,” Reece said. “In and out.”

She gave a vague nod. There were steel wires around her chest, around her head. Tightening, tightening.

The echo of boot heels coming down the hallway had Kathryn jerking her head up. When the Cross C’s foreman stepped into the room, she nearly sobbed. Johnny Sullivan had put her up on her first horse, he’d taught her to ride, how to use a rifle, to rope a steer. He, along with Willa, had taught her how to love.

Dressed in worn jeans, a plaid shirt and scuffed boots, Johnny gripped his sweat-stained straw hat in one arthritic fist. When he spotted Kathryn, the clear blue eyes in his leathery tan face narrowed. “God Almighty, girl, you look sick as a dog.”

“I’m not sick.” She straightened in the chair. “It’s Matthew. He’s gone. Johnny, they took my baby.”

“Who?” He moved to her, exchanging an uncertain look with Reece when the vet rose to his feet. “Who took our boy?”

Reece scrubbed his palms down his jeaned thighs. “I think she thought I did.”

“I thought they might still be in the house,” Kathryn said, her breath coming in pants. “When I ran into you…” She shook her head. “They left a cell phone in Matthew’s room with a message. They want money. They’ll kill him if…” Kathryn’s entire body trembled. “His medicine. He has to take it every day. He could die if he doesn’t.”

“We’re not gonna let that happen.” Tossing his hat onto the nearby coffee table, the foreman settled a hand on her shoulder, squeezed. “I’d best get Sheriff Boudry over here.”

“No!” Kathryn grabbed his hand, felt the familiar rougher-than-sandpaper calluses. “They’ll kill Matthew if I go to the police.” She dug the cell phone out of the pocket of her sleep shorts, and gripped it tight, the sole lifeline she had to her child. “I have to do what they say, or they’ll kill him.” She paused, her mind reeling in a hundred directions. “Devin. I have to call Devin and tell him. Call the bank.”

Reece’s concerned gaze skimmed over her face. “My advice is bring in a security expert before you do anything.” He stepped around the leather couch and headed to the wet bar. There, he opened the small refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of water and twisted off the cap.

“A security expert,” Kathryn repeated. Watching Reece walk back toward her, she struggled to control her thoughts. “Devin uses a security company in L.A., but I don’t know the name. I’ll find out.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Devin’s in Tibet, making a movie.”

“You don’t want rent-a-cops or bodyguards.” Reece set the bottle on the table next to Kathryn, then settled on the chair beside her. “You need someone who knows how to deal with kidnappers. A negotiator.”

“He’s right,” Johnny said and gave a curt nod. “I can call over to the Double Starr and talk to Clay Turner.”

“Clay?” For a crazed moment, Kathryn stared up at the foreman, wondering if he’d somehow found out about what happened between her and Clay during that long-ago summer. “No, Matthew isn’t… I lost…” She clenched her jaw. Matthew.

Reece leaned in. “Did you hear about Clay’s parents getting kidnapped in Colombia a couple of years ago?”

Kathryn nodded. Right now, she could remember only one detail. “They died. His parents died. Horribly.”

“T’wern’t that negotiator’s fault.” The foreman’s hand tightened around hers. “A lot of things went wrong then. This is now. Clay was on duty in Colombia when his parents got taken and he got shot. The state department sent in some fella who knew how to deal with kidnappers to work with Clay. He can tell you how to reach that man. Say the word, I’ll get Clay on the phone.”

Kathryn picked up the bottle, took a long, slow drink of the cold water. She wasn’t going to fall apart, wouldn’t let herself. Doing so could cost Matthew his life. She would do whatever she had to do. Deal with whomever she had to in order to get her child back. Just get him back.

Setting the bottle aside, she met Johnny’s gaze. “Find out where Clay is,” she said levelly. “I’ll go talk to him myself.”

“TRACTOR THREW A ROD,” Eddie Woodson informed Clay. “Second time this year.” His straw hat shading his eyes from the straight-up-noon sun, the young, muscled ranch hand with corn-colored hair lapping across a sunburned neck used a rag to scrub smears of grease off his stubby fingers.

Clay sent the tractor a disgusted look. “Ever wonder why equipment always breaks down when it’s in the middle of a field instead of near the work shed?”

Eddie shot Clay one of his good-natured grins. “My ma says stuff like that happens to people who have black clouds hanging over their heads.”

Thinking about his past, Clay couldn’t disagree.

Glancing down, he tested the soil with the toe of one boot. Too dry, he thought and made a note to turn on the system that irrigated this section of pasture earlier than programmed. Also on his mental to-do list was assigning a couple of the hands to start rotating cattle from pasture to pasture.

The designation of chores, the buying and selling of cattle and horses had been his province for the past two years as his uncle gradually turned over the day-to-day operation of the Double Starr to Clay. Ironic, he thought, that the work he’d had no real heart for during his youth was now his whole life.

“Guess we can also blame those black clouds on how things break down when we don’t have parts on hand to fix stuff.” Eddie jammed the rag into the back pocket of his worn jeans. “You want me to drive into Layton now and pick up what we need?”

“Yeah.” Clay adjusted the brim of his Stetson lower to shade his eyes. “I want to check Cimarron, so you can drop me at the barn,” he said, referring to a mare near her time who always had difficulty foaling.

“Doc Silver’s planning on being here for the birth, right?”

“Right.” Studying Eddie, Clay slid the fingers of one hand into the back pocket of his jeans. Because he knew all too well how a young man with a circus going on in his pants operated, he inclined his head in the kid’s direction. “I want this tractor running again today. Which means you can drop by the drugstore to rub up against that cute blond checker. What you can’t do is spend a couple of hours there.”

Eddie’s sunburned face turned even redder. “I enjoy talkin’ to Andrea, is all.”

“Nothing wrong with talking when you don’t have a tractor sitting idle.”

The sudden thunder of hooves had both men looking across their shoulder. Clay narrowed his eyes. He didn’t recognize the chestnut galloping flat-out over the rise, but he had no trouble identifying its rider.

He would know her if he’d spotted her five miles away. Kat had always looked more natural on horseback than she did on her own two feet. Still did.

As the chestnut thundered closer Clay noted Kathryn was hatless, her dark hair flying behind her as her boots pumped against the horse’s sides. Its hurtling hooves puffed clouds of dust into the still air.

Since she’d made her feelings for him clear during yesterday’s impromptu encounter, he couldn’t even guess at what had brought her riding his way, hell bent for leather.

“That looks like…” Eddie squinted, then looked at Clay. “Is that Kathryn Conner?”

“Mason. It is.” Clay noted that the kid was ogling Kathryn the same way the customers had in the café.

“Ma’s gonna drop into a dead faint when she hears I met Devin Mason’s ex.”

“Put a lid on it,” Clay ground out. Frowning, he watched Kathryn jerk the reins back so sharply the chestnut nearly skidded into the side of his pickup. Before the horse came to a full halt she slid out of the saddle, a movement as graceful as ballet. Still holding the reins, she turned his way.

And Clay’s gut tightened. Her face was pale. Tense. Lines of stress fanned from the corners of her mouth. Shadowy smudges clung beneath her eyes.

Something was wrong. Bad wrong.

“Ma’am.” Oblivious, Eddie dragged off his straw hat and stared with undisguised curiosity at the woman who’d been the talk of Layton for the past weeks. “Welcome to the Double Starr, Mrs. Mason.”

Giving Eddie a vague nod, Kathryn released her grip on the reins. While the chestnut trotted a few feet away, she kept her gaze locked with Clay’s while she clenched one hand on the cell phone clipped to the waistband of her jeans.

“I need to talk to you.” Her voice shook. “Alone.”

Clay shifted his gaze. “Eddie, go on now and run that errand.”

“Sure.” Cramming his hat back on his head, the young ranch hand walked to the pickup, swung open the door, then paused. “How you gonna get back to the barn, Clay?”

“I’ve got my cell. I’ll call one of the other hands.”

“Okay.” Eddie shot Kathryn another look of interest. “Ma’am.”

Clay sliced a hand toward the kid. “Take off.”

Eddie slid behind the wheel and turned the key; the powerful engine rumbled. Clay noted the way Eddie lifted his chin in order to keep Kathryn framed in the rearview mirror as his drove off.

“I need your help,” Kathryn blurted, at the same instant Clay stepped toward her.

“What—”

“They took Matthew. My baby. He’s gone.”

Clay furrowed his brow. His first thought was that she and Mason had some sort of custody dispute going over their son. “Who took him?”

“I don’t know.” She jerked the phone off her jeans, flipped open its cover and jabbed buttons. Her hand trembled so badly the phone shook when she handed it to him. “Johnny and Reece Silver said you could help. You have to help.” Her voice shuddered as badly as her hands and her words tumbled over each other. “Matthew needs his medicine. They left it. He could reject his kidney. They said you can help me. They left the phone.”

Struggling to makes sense of her jumbled words, Clay looked down at the phone’s display. His lungs stopped working the instant he began to read. His gaze whipped up to meet hers. “When did you get this?”

“Two hours ago.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I overslept. Woke up sick. I could barely make it to Matthew’s room. He was gone. Abby tracked them downstairs, but lost his scent. He’s gone. They took Matthew.”

Dread clamped a vise on Clay’s chest as he pictured the compelling little boy with sparkling brown eyes and a plastic deputy’s badge pinned to his T-shirt. He knew all too well what could go wrong during a kidnapping. Which was the last thing Kathryn needed to hear.

“How far did Abby track Matthew’s scent?”

“Just to the bottom of the staircase. They shut her in Matthew’s room when they took him. She’s limping. I think they kicked her.”

Clay rescanned the text of the ransom message, hoping to find something that might dull his initial fear for the boy’s well-being.

He didn’t.

“They’ll call soon, won’t they?” Kathryn asked, her voice reedy with terror. “Tell me how to get Matthew back. He needs his medicine. I’ll do whatever they say. Give them anything they want. I have to get him back.”

“They’ll call, but I’m not sure when,” Clay said while his thoughts veered to his parents. His father had been the number two man at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, his mother the ambassador’s executive assistant. The rebels who’d snatched them had believed the U.S. would put pressure on the Colombian government to release jailed compatriots. A patient group, the rebels had waited two weeks to make initial contact. The hostage negotiator brought in by the State Department had told Clay that kidnappers knew every minute they delayed contact made those left behind more desperate. More afraid. More willing to pay.

And so Clay had waited for the call, then after that for his parents’ safe release while his mind replayed the instant the rebels ambushed his parents’ car while he was at the wheel. To Clay, it didn’t matter that he’d taken a bullet during the attack—he’d been a cop, he should have sensed the danger closing in, should have protected his family. Should have done something. He knew he would never be rid of the guilt nor the mistrust of his own instincts that prompted him to turn in his badge. And there was no way in hell he’d risk Matthew’s life by letting Kathryn rely on those faulty instincts.

“I can help you only so far.” Closing the phone’s cover, he offered it to her. “You need someone who knows how to deal with kidnappers. That isn’t me.”

From under the brim of his hat he watched her face, saw fury flare in her eyes so white-hot it could have sparked a pasture fire.

“Damn you, Clay Turner, I know I meant nothing to you.” She tore the phone out of his hand with the intensity of an erupting volcano. “But if you think I’ll let you turn your back on me a second time when my son’s life is a stake, think again.”

He said nothing for a moment. How could he when her words sliced to his core?

“I’m not turning my back,” he countered levelly. “While I worked for the State Department, I had some training on what to do right after a kidnapping occurs. Which is how to keep things calm until someone who knows what they’re doing arrives on the scene. The best way I can help you is to put you in touch with a hostage negotiator I know. A man who does this for a living. His name is Forbes. Quentin Forbes. He’s the best there is. He knows kidnappers in and out. Knows how to negotiate—”

“I don’t want to negotiate,” Kathryn hissed. “I want to pay the million dollars. I’ll pay whatever they want as long as I get Matthew back.”

The desperation in her voice tightened the knots in Clay’s gut. Another lesson Forbes had hammered into his head was that to pay too much too soon was to make kidnappers think they could squeeze more money out of the family. That doing so sometimes resulted in the extortion of a second ransom for the same victim. And prolonged the heart-wrenching wait. Not to mention they had no proof of life, which would be the first thing Forbes would demand.

Clay scrubbed a hand over his jaw, his callused fingertips scraping across the scar on his right cheek. The scar was visual proof of how cold-blooded a kidnapper’s determination could be. Better to let Forbes deal with Kathryn on the issue of negotiating the ransom, Clay decided. With everything. Considering his own track record, the farther he stayed from this, the better chance Matthew had of getting out alive.

“Whether or not to negotiate the ransom amount is something you can talk over with Forbes. He’ll also advise you on what to say and what not to say when the kidnappers call.”

The wind picked up, slapping strands of her dark hair against her cheeks. It seemed to Clay that she swayed beneath its force. Her face was white as death now, the gleam of shock in her eyes subsiding as realization set in.

Knowing the fire that had pushed her this far was fading fast, he gave thought to taking hold of her arms and shoring her up in case her legs gave out. Suspecting she would prefer a rattlesnake bite to his touch, he opted to tug his cell phone out of his shirt pocket.

“Forbes can help get Matthew back safe,” he repeated. “You can trust me on this.” And she could. After all, he had always been honest with her. Brutally so.

“It’d probably be best if you talk to Matthew’s father first,” Clay added. “Better if you both decide what to do about Forbes.” And if the unthinkable happened, she wouldn’t have to live with the hellish guilt that the sole responsibility for her child’s death lay with her.

She shook her head. “I tried to call Devin. He’s in Tibet, shooting a movie. I couldn’t get a good connection. It might take hours to get through to him.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “I can’t just wait and do nothing. If the man you know, this…”

“Forbes. Quentin Forbes.”

“Forbes.” Dropping her hand, she looked up at Clay, her eyes dark pools of anguish. “I feel like I’m going crazy. I can’t concentrate. All I can think about is Matthew. Clay, they might kill my baby.”

“No.” Because he could no longer stop himself, he reached out, played a hand down her arm. It had to be ninety degrees, yet her flesh was ice-cold. “They don’t want to hurt him. They only want you to believe they will. The kidnappers want money,” he continued. “Keeping Matthew unharmed is their only guarantee of getting it. Hang on to that, Kat.”

Nodding, she looked away. Clay watched as she raked her fingers through her hair, leaving it a dark, rumpled frame around her ashen face. He remembered, perfectly remembered, the silky softness of that hair against his hands.

Again, he felt the hard knot of regret for how callously he had treated her. For all that he’d given up. Thrown away. Lost.

When Kathryn remet his gaze her eyes were expressionless, her face as calm as carved stone. “Call him, Clay. Call your Mr. Forbes.”

“All right.” Clay’s chest tightened. He would do everything he could to save Kat’s son. Just as he’d done all he could to try to save his parents.

Beneath his hand, he felt Kathryn shudder. Until Forbes arrived, Clay knew he was the only man who could help her.

And the last man who should.