Stranger in Town (21 page)

The box didn’t appear to be the most comfortable place a person could hide, and it wasn’t as sanitary as I would have liked, but I didn’t have much choice.  I considered taking the wood out, but didn’t want to leave any clues that the box had been recently opened.  Instead I turned the wood over splinter-side down, rearranging it into a smooth pile all the way across.  Then I climbed inside.

I sat in a squatted position for two leg-numbing hours before I heard movement outside.  The front door to the shack opened and footsteps walked inside.  It was quiet for a moment and then a man yelled, “It’s empty.”

Another person said, “Let’s get in position before the sonofabitch gets here.”

Orders were called out, positions were assigned, and the door closed.  There was a lot of rustling around while everyone got into place.  Because the shack only consisted of one room, no one remained inside.  I didn’t know if they were cops or SWAT or what.  Jackson didn’t strike me like the kind of place that had a SWAT team on hand, and to call one in from Salt Lake would have taken time, even if they flew there.  Wherever the kidnapper was, I hoped the presence of the FBI had gone undetected.

A vehicle drove down the path and parked in front of the house some time later.  A car door shut.  According to the time of my watch, Cade wouldn’t arrive for another ten minutes.  The front door opened again.  Someone walked in, closing the door behind him.  He sounded out of breath, or nervous, or both.  But he was alone.  If it was the kidnapper, where were the children?

The man paced back and forth for several minutes, stopping only when a second car came to a halt.  Cade.  The car door opened and closed.  I heard footsteps ascend the stairs and then the sound of something hitting the floor inside the house.

“I’ve set the money inside the window,” Cade said.  “Now I’m walkin’ back to my car.”

“No you ain’t,” Eddie said. 

Someone, who I assumed was Cade, was heaved across the room.  “You lied to me,” Eddie said.

“I could say the same to you,” Cade said.  “The girls aren’t here.”

“The address to where they’re located is on this piece of paper,” Eddie said. 

I heard the sound of paper being rubbed together in someone’s hand. 

“But you’re not getting it,” Eddie said.  “We had a deal.  You broke it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Cade said.  “I brought your money—it’s right there.”

“But that’s not all you brought, is it?  I said no cops!”

Come on, Cade.  Keep it together.

“I don’t see anyone.”    

“Do you think I’m stupid or somethin’?  I know camouflage when I see it.”

Cade sighed. 

“It was the only way I could get you the money,” he admitted.  “I told them not to come, and they said they understood.  I can still get you out of here as long as you tell me where the girls are.”

Eddie laughed.  It was a low, husky, sarcastic kind of laugh. 

“Out of here and back in prison,” he said.  “Sorry, don’t think so.”

“You’ll be alive.”

“I’d be dead before I got out again.  I’m not going back.”

“Then you’ll die.”

“Where’s your gun?” Eddie said. 

Cade didn’t answer.

“I said where’s your gun, tough guy?  Hand it over.  Now.”

I wasn’t sure that now registered in Cade’s vocabulary.  There was some movement and then the sound of something hard sliding across the floor.  A gun?

“You make a move like that again, you’re a dead man,” Eddie said.  “Don’t move.”

Someone walked to the window—my guess was Eddie.    

“I know you’re out there,” Eddie shouted.  “You hear me, assholes!  It’s time I made a new deal.  Get out of here, now!  Or you’ll never see those brats again.  You hear me?!”

During Eddie’s angry tirade I pushed the lid on the box open a tiny bit.  My gun was drawn and ready just in case my timing was off.  Thankfully, the man had his back to me.  He was staring out the window, waiting for a reply.  I peeked at Cade.  He was sitting on the floor in a corner on the other side of the room staring right at me.  The look on his face was hard to describe—it was a mixture of shock and anger.  I waved.  And then I realized how dumb it must have looked.  He had a gun pointed at him, and I was waving and smiling like a blonde in a beauty pageant.   

A minute went by.  Then two.  No one outside made any attempt to communicate.  I assumed they were holding their positions, probably trying to figure out what to do.  They hadn’t fired which meant they either didn’t have a clear shot or were waiting for visual confirmation of the girls.

Eddie walked back across the room, and for the first time, I had a decent view of him.  He was big.  The Paul Bunyan kind of big.  No wonder Cade didn’t have the upper hand.

“I guess they don’t care about you,” Eddie said, “so the two of us are going to take a little walk.  We can get out the back by going under the house.”

“But you’re surrounded,” Cade said.

The man laughed.  “Not the way we’re going.  Now let’s go.”

Cade stood up, looking Eddie in the eye.  “No.”

“Then you’re a dead man.  We go out together, or you die.”

Cade swung at the man, giving it everything he had.  It was impressive, and for a moment I thought the man was shaken enough for Cade to knock the shotgun loose, until I heard the pump action of the gun loading the shell.  

I didn’t think.  I didn’t hesitate.  I launched out of the box and fired, twice.  The first bullet clipped Eddie’s shoulder, stunning him, and the second hit him in the chest.  Eddie didn’t have time to react before his massive body collapsed to the ground.  Cade knelt in front of him.  I lowered my weapon.  My hands were experiencing some kind of spasm.  I holstered my gun and rubbed my hands together.  It didn’t help.  And I knew why.  I was fairly certain Eddie was dead or dying, and I’d never killed anyone before.  I’d always wondered what it would be like and how I would feel after I’d done it.  Maybe that’s why I was shaking.  I wasn’t prepared for my own reaction.  I thought I’d feel something more: remorse, regret, sorrow.  But I didn’t feel any of those things.  I felt nothing.

The outside of the shack was abuzz.  Men were talking, heading for the door.  I dove for the piece of paper that moments earlier had slipped from Eddie’s hand.  Men ran through the doorway.  Guns were aimed in my direction.  After all, who was I and what was I doing here?  Before the paper was ripped from my hands, I opened it, desperate to see what it said.  But what I saw was my worst fear.  The page was blank.   

CHAPTER 40

I sat at the station waiting for Cade.  It was morning, and it had been a long night.  After the chief explained who I was and how I ended up there, I’d received an escort, in the back seat of a police SUV of all places.  It was my first taste of what it felt like to be a common criminal, and hopefully my last.  I was taken to an interrogation room and detained for several hours for questioning.  The feds hadn’t found my presence amusing, not even a little bit, and they still didn’t know the half of it.  In the end, I’d saved Cade’s life, but they didn’t care.  They never did.

I was ordered to stay away from the case “or else.”  If they only knew how involved in it I really was, I wondered what they would have said then.  I was told I couldn’t leave town, not yet.  They seemed to think they might not be done with me.  But I was done with them.

Eddie Fletcher wasn’t dead.  He was in critical but stable condition.  When I fired my gun, I’d tried to wound him enough to give Cade the upper hand, but to keep him alive just in case the paper turned out to be exactly what it was: useless.  The fact he was still alive gave us all something to hope for—not that it stopped me from running the moment I shot him over and over in my mind.  If only my bullet could have wounded him instead of almost killing him.  If only he could have told us where to find the children.  If only the paper hadn’t been blank.

If only.

I was released, pending possible contact if they needed anything else.  Cade and I stopped by the hospital to see his father who was again referring to him as “Joey.”  I left the room almost as soon as we entered.  Father and son needed time together.  I wasn’t sure how much more they’d have left.

Eddie’s room was under twenty-four-hour surveillance, and with the feds involved, I wouldn’t be able to get to him.  Not that I hadn’t considered trying.  I went to the lobby, and waited until the nurse forced Cade from the room.  “Detective McCoy needs his rest,” she’d said.  He’d persisted, saying his dad didn’t want him to go.  But no amount of pleading was enough to appease her.  It was a speech she’d probably heard a hundred times before, one she was immune to.    

Cade glanced around the waiting room, trying to spot me in a sea of unhappy people.  His eyes looked different from the first time we’d met.  They no longer had the same spark.  They were a pale grey now, not the lustrous blue I’d remembered.    

“Do you think he’ll talk?” Cade said. 

“Eddie?”

Cade nodded.  I shook my head.

“He doesn’t have a reason to.  Even if they try and make him a deal, it won’t be the kind he’ll take.  At this point, I don’t think he cares.  He’s critical.  He’d rather die than face more prison time.  He doesn’t give a damn about the children.  I could probably walk in his room and choke what little life he has left out of him—he still won’t tell me where they are.”

It was a sad reality, and I didn’t want to face it.  I wanted to believe I could still find Olivia and Savannah.  We knew who he was, and the feds were tearing apart every inch of his life for even the smallest clue, but would it lead them to the girls?  I wasn’t optimistic.

Cade pulled off the road next to where my car was parked, and I got out.  Both of us were too deflated to say much of anything.  I promised to call once I’d returned to the hotel.  He nodded and drove away.  I was just about to open the door to my car when something moved inside.  Great, I thought.  Even with the windows up, at least one animal had managed to find a way inside somehow.  I stepped back, considering the various possibilities, but anything could have been nesting inside. 

I approached the driver’s-side window, cupping my hands over the glass.  I looked in, but I couldn’t see much.  My window tint was too dark.  I scanned the ground, looking for a fallen tree branch.  I found one, picked it up, and made a plan.  I’d yank the door handle open and sprint away, hoping whatever was inside would scamper out, hop out, or fly out.  I didn’t care, as long as it was out. 

I pulled the door handle back and ran to the other side, using the tree branch like I was a baseball player up to bat.  I watched.  I waited.  Nothing came out.  Maybe whatever it was had been under the car, not in it.  I crouched down, holding the stick out in front of me.  I waved it around.  Still nothing.  With both eyes partially open, I leaned over, looked under the car, and was relieved when all I found were pine needles and forest debris.

I approached the driver’s-side door again, stick in hand.  Holding the stick out in front of me, I looked in.  The driver’s seat was empty.  The passenger seat was empty.  The back seat was full. 

Two girls were lying down, clutching each other, shivering and cold.  They stared at me, unsure of who I was or what I was doing there.  Their arms were scraped up like they’d been walking through the trees at night in the dark.  I suspected they had.  The older child’s cuts were dry.  The younger had several scrapes on both arms, and even one on her leg, which was bleeding.  It looked like the older girl had ripped a piece of clothing, tying it around the little one’s ankle as best she could.  I had expected to find them in pajamas since they had been whisked away at night, but one was wearing jeans, the other a summery dress.  No wonder she was cold.

I threw my hands over my mouth and welcomed the tears that followed.  Not their tears, mine.  I’d found them—or they’d found me—at last.

Eddie Fletcher had let them go.  Why?  Because he was planning on killing Cade as soon as he had his money.  Cade knew too much.  Eddie knew he couldn’t let him live, but something inside his sick, twisted mind allowed just enough mercy to spare the children.  He probably thought he’d left them to die in these woods, but at least he didn’t have the heart to do it himself. 

The younger girl clutched the older girl’s hand, squeezing it tight.   

“It’s okay.  You are safe now,” I said.  “Don’t be scared.”

They looked at each other, saying nothing.

“My name is Sloane, and you must be Olivia,” I said pointing to the older one. 

She nodded.

I looked at the younger one.  “And you’re Savannah.”

“How do you know our names?” Olivia said.

“I’ve been looking for you.  Everyone has.  Are you ready to go home?”

Olivia jerked back, shaking her head.  “I’m not going back there.”

“I’m sorry if I scared you.  I didn’t mean to.  I’m taking you back to your real homes now.”

I spent the next several minutes reassuring them, saying little about the search to find them and making sure to touch on only the details they needed to know.  They’d suffered enough heartache—I’d leave the other details for their parents—let them decide. 

I went to the trunk.  When I returned to the front seat of the car, I handed something to Savannah.

“Mr. Fluffy!” she cried. 

“Your friend Sierra gave this to me,” I said.  “She said it would keep you safe.”

I promised again to take them home, to their real homes.  They sat in the back seat side by side, holding hands.  In the rear view mirror I caught a glimpse of Savannah, squeezing Mr. Fluffy and smiling.    

I made it out to the main road and called Cade. 

“Is everything okay?” he said.  “I didn’t think I’d hear from you this soon.”

“I found them, Cade!” I said.  “Well, actually, they found me.  I have Olivia and Savannah.  They’re safe!”

CHAPTER 41

I didn’t know what it felt like to be the president of the United States, but when I arrived at the police station, I imagined it must have been similar to what I was feeling.  Cops, feds, and office staffers stood outside, waiting, a look of disbelief on their faces.  Noah Tate sprinted toward the car before it lulled to a stop, pulling the back door open.  He gripped his little girl with both arms, pulling her toward him.  Olivia’s mother waited, cautious, a tissue clutched in her hand.  I imagined the difference in her daughter from age six to age eight was staggering.  But they were home, and they were safe.  Nothing else mattered.