Last First Kiss (27 page)

****

Sophie had a thumping head. She felt giddy
,
and she couldn’t breath
e
properly because a rag had been placed inside her mouth and her hands tied behind her back.
Her shoulder muscles ached
;
and she felt sic
k
,
and she’d been put into the back of a van. She’d guessed the same one that had followed her.

She’d been kidnapped
,
but why?
Grans wasn’t well off,
and
neither was Wade
,
so money couldn’t be a motive.

Unless of course, this had something to do wit
h Michael Ambrose’s murder and maybe they
were going to kill her
,
too. But wait a minute
wouldn’t they have already done that?

She heard something now.
Voices, a man’s voice talking. She remained quiet and still, hoping to figure out if she recognized him or not.
Wait
,
a woman’s voice was talking back to him.

“Just what the hell have you done? He’s going to come looking for her. They all will.”

“She’s our leverage.”

“Well you better be sure she is because I’m not going to take t
he fall with you over this one. Kidnapping can bring in the FBI.”

Sophie heard footsteps
around the back of the van and then the catch on the back door being released. Dear god
,
he was going to kill her. Tears ran down her face as a man with a mask stood there with a knife in his hand.

He jumped into the van and sat beside her. He fingered her hair
,
but she tried to pull away.

“I can see why you’re so precious to him.”

Sophie tried to say something but couldn’t because the cloth was making her retch. He put the knife toward her a
nd cut her cheek.
It stung and smarted
,
even more w
hen one of her tears slid over it.

“Please,” she tried to say. “L
et me go, please.”

“That all depends on your boyfriend
,
or is it fiancé now?”

****

“Sh
e couldn’t have just disappeared
into thin air.”

Wade ran his
hand through his hair and paced
up
and down in his father’s house after the police officer had calle
d to say he hadn’t found her or seen any sign of her
in
Greenville
.

“We’
ll find her. I bet
b
y morning she’ll be home and have a s
imple explanation where she’s been
all this time
,” said Bob.
“Maybe she ran into an old school buddy. You know women? They’re probably jabbering about this and that
,
and she’s
forgotten
the time.”

Wade shook his head. “I know something’s wrong
,
and I’m
not le
aving Soph out there all night,” said Wade pointing out the window.

He headed to the door ready to leave,
but his dad got hold of his arm.

“And what if anything happens to you
? Then
Emily and I have lost two of our loved ones. Say
she comes back and you’re gone. Then she’ll start worrying
,
and we’ll be back where we started.”

His dad had a valid point
.

“L
et’s both of us go back out one more time and look for her okay
?”

“Thanks
,
Dad.”

He slapped Wade’s back
. “She was probably in shock hearing about the baby.”

“I was in shock.”

“She’ll come around to accepting that these things happen.”

Wade shook his head. “She thinks it’s a
n
omen that we’re not supposed to be together. What with Tra
vis getting her pregnant
and…”

Oops
,
that slipped out before
I
realized it.

“Sophie and Travis
had a baby?” asked Bob.

“No, Sophie h
ad a miscarriage. She was pregnant…that’s
reason she married him, not because she was in love with him like she’d made out.”

“W
ell
I’ll be darned.”

“Dad, we have to find her.
I’ve spen
t
eight long years without
her
,
and
I can’t do it for one single day more
.”

Bo
b put his arm around Wade’s shoulder
. “We will
,
son, we will
,
and you two will live happily ever after.”

Chapter Fourteen

Wade hadn’t slept all night. He and his dad had scoured every part of
Greenville
and the surrounding area
, even close to the canyon
,
but there’d been
no sig
n of Sophie. His cell phone rang
as he was in grabbing some coffee at his dad’s house where he’d stayed
overnight
.

He prayed it
wa
s Soph when he saw Emily’s number flashing on
the screen. Maybe his girl was home safe and sound.

“
Oh
Wade, some
on
e sent us a box.”

He could tell she was crying and had barely managed to get those words out.

“What is it
,
Emily?”

He went cold, the most morbid thoughts running through his head.

“I think you should ge
t over here because someone’s kidnapped
Sophie.”

Wade
didn’t wait to
hear
the rest of Emily’s sentence because
he
r
an out of the house
as fast as he could.

****

“You hold still while I blindf
old you and you won’t get hurt.”

Sophie had
squinted when the back of the van door had opened up, spilling sunlight into the vehicle. How long had sh
e’d been there? It had been
dark when she’d been abducted. The man
, still masked,
jumped onto the van and placed a cloth around her eyes.

“I’m going to help you out and then you’ll go somewhere more comfortable.”

She wanted to say just let me go
,
but her mouth was still gagged. She almost stumbled as he helped her down. She heard gravel crunching under her feet as he made her walk.

If he’s going to kill me, wouldn’t he
have done it by now?

She fell again, more from hunger and thirst than anything else. He dragged her along and then she heard what sounded like a metal door opening. He walked her some more and then
set
her
down on
what felt like a chair under
the back of her legs.

He untied her hands and then pull
ed them behind her back and secured
them again. Next he took off her blindfold and gag.

“Drink this
.”

He offered her
a plastic bottle of water. Sophie was
dry, parched even, but
was reluctant to do as he asked just in case he’d drugged it.

“Come on, it’s just water. I want you safe and sound
,
so I can assure you there’s nothing in it to hurt you.”

She would die if she didn’t drink something, so
took three large gulps, almost choking on the last one.

“Why are you doing this? I’m not from a wealthy family.”

“I know that
,
honey, but your boyfriend’s been snooping around where he shouldn’t
,
and I’ve got to show him who’s
the
boss.”

Wade
. D
id this have something to do with her grandmother’s cas
e? Or did Wade have another one
she didn’t know anything about?

If it was the latter then maybe this guy was Michael’s Ambrose real killer
,
which meant he had nothing to lose by killing her
,
too.

“Don’t worry,
I’ve sent th
e little trophy I took from you
to granny
and Wade Linl
ey. They’ll soon see reason
,
and then you can go home.”

****

Wade couldn’t remember e
ver seeing Emily Richardson cry this much even when she
’d
lost Sophie’s parents.
She was a tough
Wyoming
lady
,
and if she did cry
,
it was
in private. However, here she sa
t breaking her heart.

“Wade, you’ve got to find Sophie. She’s all I have left in this world.”

Wade kneeled down and took her hand between his own. “We’ll get her back.”

“Whatever they want I’ll give them.”

“Me
,
too.”

Wade cell phone rang out
,
and they both jumped.

“
Hello
,
Wade Linl
ey.”

“You want to speak with your
fiancée
?”

Wade’s heartbeat picked up speed.

“Of course I do
,
and if you’ve hurt her I’ll kill you with my bare hands, you fucking son of a bitch.”

He
forgo
t that Emily was in earshot
,
but in all honesty she probably had the same opinion of Soph’s abductor.

“She’s
fine;
just one side of
her hair is a little shorter.”

“What do you want?”

“Stop snooping and let granny take the fall for Michael Ambrose
’s
murd
er
,
and you can have her
back.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Emily looked up at him and mouthed
what does he want?

“Emily Richardson did not kill anyone
,
and she’s not going to jail for it, okay
?”

There was just silence
,
and next thing he heard was his Soph screaming.

His went cold, his legs turning to jelly.

Emily must have heard
it
,
too
,
because she cried harder.

“T
ell him to leave my girl alone,” she sobbed through the tissue she’d put to her mouth and nose.

“Okay, anything you want
,
but you hand Sophie over to me.”

“Now you promise you keep your word because you can’t keep that girl safe, can’t keep your eye on her 24/7
,
and if the old bird doesn’t take the fall, I won’t play nice next time.”

I w
o
n
'
t play nice this time.

“Okay, you have a deal.”

“She’ll
be on the dirt road leading to the
highway
outside of
Greenville
in an hour.”

Wade ended
the call
and looked at his watch.

“What did they want in exchange for our Sophie?”

“You to take the rap for Michael Ambrose murder.”

“Whatever I have to do.”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m going to get Sophie
,
and then I’m going after this son of bitch with a large shotgun.”

****

Sophie coughed. The warehouse they were keeping her in was stuffy
,
and perspiration dripped between her breasts. She coughed again and then strained her ears to listen to what was going outside. It was a woman’s voice again.