Finding Home (25 page)

“Colt,” she whispered.

“I’m scared for her.  She’s been
so sheltered her whole life.  I know she’s scared.”

“Honey, listen to me.  I know
you’re scared for her.  When you get on the jet, take a few minutes and
just relax.  There’s nothing you can do until you get there.  You
relax and focus on that girl and then you get there and you find her and you
make them wish they’d never touched what is yours.”

Voices drifted to Sarah, almost
sounding tinny, like from a bad radio.  Had she left the TV on when she
fell asleep, she wondered.  She felt heavy, like she was weighed down and
thought she must have taken a sleep aide.  A hand touched her throat and
she stiffened; it was not Colt’s hand.  She tried to move but found she
couldn’t. 

“I know you’re awake,” she heard a
male voice say.  “Don’t waste your time trying to move.  The drugs
will keep you immobile.”

“Why?” she managed to whisper.

The hand moved from her throat and
briefly touched the top of her head.

“Doesn’t matter.  Nothing for
you to concern yourself with.  Go back to sleep, little Christine,” she
heard.  She felt a pinch in her neck and then everything went black again.

Colt stalked into his house, his eyes
scanning the faces of all those gathered in his dining room.  Claire came
to him and embraced him quickly, then stepped aside so he could get to his
team.  Tag came to him next.  The guy looked wrecked.

“Colt…I…,” he began but he couldn’t
finish.

Colt put his hand on Tag’s shoulder
and looked him directly in the eyes.

“I know what you’re doing, man, and
you need to stop.  This was not your fault.”

“She was taken…on my watch.”

“They grabbed her at work.  That
could have happened with me in town, too.  Bottom line is, we didn’t have
a specific threat and we didn’t think it warranted putting 24/7 protection on
her.”

Tag nodded.  “I can’t believe
this has happened again.”

Colt squeezed his shoulder. 
“We’ll get her back.”

“Colt,” Buck said, stepping forward.

Colt shook his hand.  “Have you
received any ransom calls yet?”

“Not yet.”

Tessa came forward, her husband,
Shane at her side. 

“Shane has been talking to Waco P.D.,
they are passing along all they have,” Tessa told him.

“I appreciate it,” Colt said, shaking
Shane’s hand.

“I wish I had more to tell you,”
Shane said, “there wasn’t much to go on.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this,
Colt, but until we get a ransom demand, there isn’t much we can do,” Tessa
said.

Colt’s eyes shifted to the men who
were at the table, his team.  Mike Casiano, Riley Stanton, Derek Whitten,
Coop, and Tessa’s step-father, Glen Gibson. These were the men who would help
him get her back.  He met the steady, confident gaze of his team leader,
Mike Casiano, and took a deep breath.  Mike was a quiet man, but he oozed
confidence and competence.  There was no one who was better at what he did
than Mike.  His presence alone in the room made Colt feel immensely
better. 

“I can’t just sit back and do
nothing,” he said, eyes on Mike, imploring his former commander to understand.

“I understand where you’re coming
from,” Shane said, turning Colt’s attention.  “You know I do.  When I
knew things had gone bad for Tessa, I couldn’t wait to go in after her. 
So, I know how you feel more than anyone else here.  But, I knew where
Tessa was.  I knew what I was going up against.  Right now, we don’t
even know what we’re looking for or where to look.  As much as it sucks,
Tessa’s right.  We have to wait until contact is made.”

Mike spoke for the first time, his
deceptively soft voice drawing Colt’s eyes back to him.

“You need to decide, along with her
family, what level of activity you want from us.  If you want us to be
primary on this, then you need to tell the FBI, because they will likely be
involved before long.”

Colt nodded then looked over to
Buck.  “Sir, I know she’s your daughter, but…”

Buck held up his hand, stopping
him.  “She is my daughter, but because of these monsters, if it is indeed
the same people, she’s closer to you than to me.  I’ve worked with the FBI
for years and while I’ve seen the good they can do, I’ve also seen how their
hands are tied on some things.  Tag and I have been speaking to your
colleagues here while we were waiting for you.  I know you are all very
good at what you do.  I’m willing to trust you to find her, and just keep
the FBI informed and standing by, just in case.”

For the first time, Charlotte spoke
up from where she was seated with Vivian. 

“Please, just bring her back. 
Whatever you have to do, whatever the cost.  We just found her, I don’t
want to lose her again.”

“We’ll bring her home, ma’am,” Mike
assured her.

Charlotte nodded and shifted her gaze
to Colt.  She held her hand out to him and he crossed over to take her
hand into his.  She held tight to his and looked directly into his eyes.

“I know you love her and I know
you’ll do everything in your power to bring her home.  I’m so glad you
came into her life.”

He swallowed hard and clasped her
hand in both of his.  “I’ll do everything I can to bring her back to
you.  I promise.”

Buck came over to his wife’s side
when Colt stepped away.  He watched Tag move in to join them and clenched
his jaw.  He would bring Sarah back if it was the last thing he ever did.

The next two days turned out to be
forty-eight hours of pure hell for Colt.  No contact had been made from
Sarah’s abductors.  No leads were coming in.  Colt hadn’t ever given
much thought to the location of Sunday’s Gifts, but now he saw it was the
perfect place for just such an abduction to take place.  There were no
other businesses around it.  It faced a relatively busy highway, but the
high brick retaining wall in the front of the building kept the parking lot from
being seen from that highway. Where Sarah had been taken, the covered patio,
was to the side of the building that had very few windows and a large growth of
trees on the backside of it that would have kept anyone from inside the
building from seeing a vehicle parked in that area…if anyone had even been
looking, which they weren’t because the only room with a view of the patio was
the conference room and it was not in use that day.

During those two days, he trained
with his team.  He set up firewalls and surveillance on all of the Bainbridges’
phones.  He met with experts in kidnappings and ransom.  And at
night, he sat on his bed, staring at Sarah’s pictures, wondering if she was
being taken care of, wondering if she was scared and feeling more helpless and
useless than he’d ever felt in his life.

On the third day, he’d been sitting
in his office going over strategy with Mike when Buck Bainbridge walked in, his
phone ringing in his hand. 

“It’s from an unknown caller,” Buck
announced.

“Showtime,” Colt said, nodding to the
older man to answer the phone.

“Bainbridge,” Buck answered.

“You have a very beautiful daughter,
Mr. Bainbridge,” a computer scrambled voice said.  “She was a beautiful
baby as well, but she really has grown into a stunning woman, the image of her
sainted mother Charlotte.”

“What do you want?” Buck demanded.

“Everything,” the voice said. 
“Everything you took from the people near the Valley.”

“What are you talking about?” Buck
asked, surprise sounding in his tone.

“You heard me and you know what it is
you took, don’t you?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.  Why don’t
you spell it out for me?”

“How did it feel to discover your
baby girl was alive after all these years?  To know that she grew up not
knowing who you were.  How did it feel when you found her and she looked
at you like you were a stranger?”

“My family’s grief and our joy at
being reunited with our daughter has been well documented.  I don’t know
what you think I have done to you but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with
Sarah.  As you pointed out yourself, we are strangers to her.  She
has nothing to do with anything you think I did or didn’t do to you. 
Don’t harm her, please.  Just let her go.”

“Not until you pay.  We want
twenty million dollars, then we will see about letting her go.”

“How do I know you haven’t harmed
her?”

“You’ll have to go on a bit of faith,
yeah?”

“I want Proof of Life,” Buck
demanded.

“In time.  We’ll contact you
with details about how to make the exchange.”

The line went dead.  Buck
glanced briefly at his wife then met Colt’s gaze.  Colt regarded him a
moment then went into his office.  Now that contact had been made, he
could begin to do what he was best at: jumping onto his computer and tracking
the electronic trail.  Determination spurred him on.  This was
something he excelled at.  It would only be a matter of time now.

Lewis watched Wayne carrying the
still drugged Sarah Sauter, aka Christine Bainbridge into the lake cabin they’d
chosen for this operation.  Finally, after nearly twenty-seven years, the
one that got away was back.   He would finally be able to extract
what he wanted from Buck Bainbridge. 

“How much drugs did you give her?”
Lewis asked Wayne, watching him place Sarah on the bed in the small bedroom.

“She woke up on the drive.  Had
to put her back under.  Did you make contact?”

“Yes, not too long ago.  They
want Proof of Life.  We need to wake her up and send them a short video,
showing she’s alive.”

Wayne nodded, leaning down and
tapping her cheeks.

“Sarah.  Wake up.  Come on,
open your eyes.”

Groggy, still in the fog of the
drugs, Sarah’s eyes fluttered open.

“There you are.  Look at me,”
Wayne demanded, his voice hard.  He nodded to Lewis to begin video. 
“What is your name?”

“Sarah,” she replied, her voice
sluggish.

“Sarah what?”

“Sauter.  Sarah Sauter,” she
replied, her eyes drifting closed once again. 

“Perfect,” Lewis replied.

Two hours later, Buck’s phone pinged
that a text had come in.  Colt now had his calls and texts set to route
through his computer so that when Buck opened the short video that focused
mainly on Sarah’s face, he could see it on his computer as well.  Her eyes
were bloodshot and had that vague, glassy look to them that indicated she’d
been drugged.  When she was asked to say her name, her speech was slurred
a bit.  Otherwise, he could see no marks on her skin.  Her hair was
messy but no bruises showed on her face. 

Not allowing himself to react to how
vulnerable she looked, he focused on the actual image.  There wasn’t much
to be seen around her.  It was a close up of her face.  He could tell
she was on a bed but that’s all he could really see.  They’d been smart to
keep the camera on her face and not show much of the background.  Her eyes
were only half opened, but he zoomed in on them in hopes of seeing a reflected
image.  Unfortunately, all that could be seen was the phone and part of a
hand.

He worked the audio angle, reducing
the sound of her voice in order to hear the background noises.  There
wasn’t much.  He could hear wind and what sounded like water but he wasn’t
sure of that. 

Whoever had placed the call was also
good at manipulating the servers so that he had to fight through several layers
of misdirects but he was optimistic that he would be able to pin down exactly
where the call had originated.  It was only a matter of time.

“What can you tell from the video?”
Tag asked. 

“Not a lot.  This person knows
what he’s doing.  Not much background since it’s a close up.  The
signal has bounced off of various servers.  It’s going to take some time
to narrow down where it originated.  But since she’s obviously in a bed
and no longer in a vehicle, it’s safe to say wherever she is it will be easier
to locate now.”

“So, she is probably, what, within a
two day drive from here?”

Colt nodded.  “I think that’s a
safe bet.  If she were closer it wouldn’t have taken this long for them to
contact your dad.”

“It’s a roughly eighteen hour drive
from here to our ranch,” Tag said.

“I was thinking that.  This is
personal against your father.  It has to be someone from Wyoming.  I
think they took her back to their home turf.  Where they feel more
powerful.”

“Makes sense.”

“Go get your dad,” he told Tag. 
“We need to start really looking into the people connected to him.”

Mike, Gib, Tessa and Shane came into
his office as Tag walked out.  He quickly briefed them on what he’d found
so far from the video and then waited to hear their thoughts and ideas. 
When Tag and Buck came in, Colt let Tessa, Shane and Gib do most of the
questioning, relying on their FBI and law enforcement backgrounds to get the
best answers from Buck.

“I’m still at a loss on what was
meant by what I took from people from the Valley,” Buck admitted. 

“What is the Valley?” Tessa asked.

“It’s what we refer to the area
surrounding our ranch,” Tag explained.  “We are Valley Ridge Ranch. 
The small town around us is Valley Ridge, but we all say we are from the
Valley.”