Winter's Destiny (21 page)

Nita turned away. “You’re not going to get away with playing mind games with me, Dallas Wayburne.” Nita yanked out a chair and collapsed into it, her cheeks flaming. “Get out your pen and start writing up the charges.”

Dallas slouched in his chair, but his eyes never left her.

“You hear me, Sheriff?”

Dallas sat up slowly and leaned forward until his face was only inches from hers. He spoke quietly. “I’m only going to say this once, Nita, so listen up. In about two minutes Deputy Larson is going to come through that door and read you your rights. You’ll be charged with the kidnapping and the abduction of Jamie Johnson.” His voice was hushed, but it filled the room.

Nita stared at him, aghast. Dallas continued, “You are going to be taken to a cell downstairs where you will remain until your arraignment. The State will ask for the maximum sentence—they don’t take kindly to kidnappers.” Dallas stood and walked to the door.

Nita’s eyes followed him. “You can’t be serious!”

Ignoring her, he put his hand on the doorknob, and pulled open the door.

Nita jumped up so fast the metal chair flew out from under her, clattering against the concrete floor. “Wait! I didn’t take Jamie. You’ve got it wrong.”

Dallas stood still, his back to her.

She continued, “Dan, Brandon, and I have been staying with our father. Jamie’s with all of us, sort of. Dan promised we’d get Jamie when things settled down. But that hasn’t happened yet.”

Dallas turned. “And where exactly is your father's place?”

Nita appeared to consider her options. “You can’t hold me, Sheriff. I haven’t done anything.”

Dallas stepped out the door.

“Wait!” Nita called to him. “I’ll explain how to get there, but you have to let me out of here, Sheriff. I hate this place.”

Dallas ripped a piece of paper from his pad. “Start writing.” When Nita was finished, he read them over. “These are the same directions your mother gave me. It’s a dead end.”

“It looks that way. In fact, my father had the architect design the house so it can’t be seen from the drive. Amy can show you. She was working under his architect at the time.”

Dallas was surprised. “Are you telling me that Amy helped design your father’s house?”

“Yeah. Real joke’s on her. She didn’t know she was designing a house for the doctor who delivered her.”

“And her twin.” Dallas finished the sentence.

Nita smiled slyly. “And her twin.”

“The same twin who was abducted by your parents.” Dallas added.

Nita sat back in her chair. “I refuse to get into that. That’s in the past. Before my time. You got questions for my father, you ask him.”

Dallas studied her. “Who else is at this house besides you, Brandon, Dan and Jamie?”

Nita studied her nails.

“I can come back in the morning.”

“No! I want to get out of here,” she said, hesitating. “My father is there along with his nurse-assistant, Maria. There’s also a security guard. Dan and Jamie are there, of course. I think Alesha might still be there, although I’m not sure. Or, they may have flown her back to Paraguay. And then there’s Helmut and his personal bodyguard, Francisco.”

Dallas leaned across the table and looked her in the eye. “Helmut Eickher?”

She nodded. Nita brushed her dark hair from her face with trembling fingers. “You’ve heard of Helmut Eickher?”

Dallas sat down. “Tell me about him.”

Nita hesitated, her reluctance obvious. “He owns a cellular research company that makes him a fortune. He also runs some research facility in Paraguay and a smaller one in Germany.” She shuddered. “He’s a scary guy. Unstable, volatile. Dan doesn’t trust him; thinks Eickher’s going to turn on us because we know too much. So, Dan’s made arrangements for us to leave the country.”

“Who’s
us
?”

“Besides Dan, there’s Alesha, if she’s still there, Jamie, Brandon, and me. And my father.”

“Dr. George Johnston, the infamous OB/GYN?”

“Seems like you know a lot about this already.” Nita looked at Dallas, expecting an answer, but when none was forthcoming she asked: “Can I go now, Sheriff?”

Dallas pushed his chair back and stood up. “You have to do better with these directions. There are a lot of lives at stake.”

“Okay, okay!” Nita finally said, “It’s what people used to call the Cliff House. You know, down by the caves.”

The moonless night swallowed the ocean and the shoreline. Hammering over the potholes, the SUV raced along the narrow road in spite of the enveloping darkness. Fighting impatience, Amy tried to concentrate on driving as she sped down toward home.

Dan’s call had come just as she had parked Nita’s car on her drive. “Meet me at the house in half an hour,” he said tersely and hung up.

Amy was anxious to get there, her hopes high on the possibility of Jamie being with him. She thought about the last time that she’d been with her son, his flaxen hair silky against her cheek, his big gray eyes dancing with curiosity, his sweet scent...
Stop!

Instead of torturing herself, Amy decided to plan her approach so she wouldn’t be seen. Once she reached the house, she’d stay hidden until she found Jamie. Then she’d grab him and run for the SUV with the intention of being long gone before Dan realized Jamie was missing.

When she was close to home, she extinguished the headlights, and allowed the Sportage to coast quietly along the last eighth of a mile. A hundred yards from the house, she nosed it into the brush until the SUV was obscured from the road. She pulled her house key, penlight, and the Beretta from her purse and put them in her pockets, then tucked the purse under the seat, locked up, and crossed the road to the vacant lot next to the house.

A cold, stiff wind blew off the ocean, swaying shrubs and tree branches, making it hard to decipher human movement in or around the unlit house. No sign of Dan’s Mercedes.

Crossing the lawn to the front porch, she climbed the steps, nervously scanning the dark corners. With shaky fingers, she inserted the key into the lock and cautiously pushed the door open.

Amy peered into the dark entrance hall and stepped inside nervously. The house didn’t feel like home anymore. She used to cherish its serenity, security, and above all, the overwhelming sense of belonging it gave her. This house had been more than home and hearth, this was where her soul had lived, where she’d shared her life with a man she had once loved, and where she’d raised their only child, the small being she cherished.

She glanced quickly around. A dusty odor overrode the usual rich smell of woods. She stood nervously in the dark foyer absorbing her surroundings, trying to understand the strange sensations. The joy that had once filled each room with love had been leached away by the events of the past week. All the warmth was gone, leaving behind only a cold, damp sense of foreboding.

She closed the door, switched on the small flashlight, and tiptoed down the hall into the vast, vacant living room. The high walls that once sheltered them protectively, now loomed above her. Amy cast the flashlight across the room as she tread softly over the wood floors toward the bank of windows.

Amy looked across to Cape Peril and the lighthouse that had, for over a century, flashed its powerful strobe intermittently across the ocean, warning unwary sailors away from the rocky cape. Maybe she should have paid heed to the warning. For a second Amy thought she saw a small flicker of yellow light, perhaps from a flashlight, behind the lighthouse, but after watching a few moments, decided she must have imagined it.

She watched for a few minutes, and then her eyes traveled beyond the back deck to the gardens she’d planted years ago. They were impossible to see in the dark, but that didn’t prevent her from feeling an enormous sense of loss. Thinking of the gardens reminded her of the hopes and dreams she’d also planted here. Like seeds placed lovingly in rich soil, she had nurtured and protected them, believing that as the roots spread deeply into the ground, her hopes and dreams would grow and blossom, prospering from the love that she gave.

Suddenly cold, she turned around and cast the penlight across the room, thinking how much things had changed since her departure a week ago.
Was it just a week? If felt like eons.

Like a ghost re-living the past, she drifted through the main floor of the house. In the hall, outside the study, her flashlight rested upon a wall photo taken in the park last summer: Dan, smiling his million-dollar smile, his arms around her and Jamie, creating the illusion of a happy family on a beautiful summer’s day. So deceptive. How could he have maintained the charade so long, without her knowing?
Because I refused to see reality. That’s how. I was so damned afraid of feeling any more pain and being forced to do something about it, that I existed in a bubble.

She wandered listlessly into the study. Her real work seemed a world away from her current existence. Even though she loved architecture, it would become meaningless without Jamie. She couldn’t live without her son.

Glancing out the study window, she thought of the night that had launched this morbid chain of events and wondered what had become of her twin.
Is she still alive?
Will I ever have the chance to meet the sister that’s virtually identical to me in every way?

Amy looked down at the desk, the thin beam from her flashlight illuminating the stack of bills. She expected to see the letter describing Dan’s indiscretions, but it wasn’t there. She re-positioned the light for a closer look and shuffled through the bills. Gone!

Dan?

Had he arrived ahead of her? Had he found the letter and taken it with him?

Turning in thought, the flashing green light on the answering machine caught her eye. Distracted, her finger went automatically to PLAY, but her thoughts were on Dan. There were several work-related messages. Then, a gravelly voice caught her attention. It was the spike-haired woman Amy had talked to in Beaverdale.

“Hi. Remember me? You left your card and said to call if anything came up. Well, something came up. An older woman came to my door this afternoon. Said her name was Doris Eickher. Anyway, she had a photo of the woman you were looking for—or maybe it was you, who knows? Anyway, she told me that the photo was actually of her daughter. Believe me, this woman was totally stressed. She was going on about how her daughter’s life was in danger, and how she had to find her quickly, and so on. I would’ve thought she was nuts if I hadn’t met you and your sister, no pun intended. I gave her your phone numbers. Well, anyway, just thought I’d let you know.”

Amy replayed the message, listening intently, imagining this woman, Doris Eickher, holding a photo of Alesha, filled with the same hope and desperation that drove Amy day and night—the need to find her endangered child.

Amy played the next message. Then, there was a long pause and she heard tiny breaths and a soft cry.

Jamie!
Her heart leapt in her chest as his voice filled the room. “Mommy.” There was a sniffle, then, “—come get me, Mommy, pl-e-a-se.” He hesitated a minute, then added, “I’m not lost. I can see the caves from my room—”

A male voice shouted in the background. Then there was a click and the machine went silent. Amy hit RE-PLAY, her mind racing, fear for Jamie forming a painful rock in her chest. She listened to his voice again, hearing the fear, and the loneliness. When the tape ended, another voice, this time behind her, sent Amy leaping into the air.

“Smart kid.”

Amy whirled around. Dan was barely visible in the dark doorway. She turned the penlight on him. “Dan!” Her heart was crashing in her chest.

Blinded by the beam of light, he groped for the light switch and flipped it on. Light flooded the study. “For crying out loud, Amy!”

Amy looked behind him. “Where’s Jamie?”

“He’s safe, which is more than I can say for you,” Dan said, stepping toward her.

Amy retreated, her hand flying to the Beretta in her coat pocket. “Don’t come any closer.”

Dan took another step, “Come on, Amy—”

She pulled out the gun and aimed it at him pointblank. Dan froze in surprise. “What the hell—”

“Don’t come any closer. Where is he, Dan?”

Dan reached for the gun. “Put that thing away before it goes off. Have you gone mad?”

As his hand shot past her face, Amy inhaled a strange mix of antiseptic and bacterial soap. It spiked a memory of the break-in—the gloves—that strange smell. “
You
!” She pointed accusingly, recalling his mottled complexion—a result of his allergy to wool—and the stocking cap that had covered his face. “It was
you
!
You
broke into our house.
You
threatened me with Jamie’s life! How could you do that? Your own wife and son!
Why?
”

Dan shook his head. “I was trying to warn you Amy, to scare you off, for chrissakes. The way you were going, you were going to get yourself killed. You still are.”

“Why would that bother you?”

“I’m still your husband, that’s why!”

“That’s a little hard to believe, all things considered. Do you have any idea what’s been happening? What kind of hell I’ve been living? Gramps being burned alive in his own house. Grams being pushed in front of a moving car. Me being run off the highway, chased down by an animal, nearly raped, and drowned. All the time I just wanted to find my little boy.” Her voice shook with anger, but her expression changed when she saw the truth in his face. “You knew, didn’t you, Dan? You knew what they were doing to me.”

He became still. “Not the details. Look Amy, you’re in terrible danger.”

“And why is that?” She asked, breathless.

“They’re going to kill you. Trust me, we don’t have much time. You’ve got to come with me now, while there’s still a chance to escape.” He pleaded.

Amy took a step forward, the gun wavering dangerously. “Come with you?”

Dan jumped back. “No! Don’t! Amy, listen, I know you think I’m a jerk for running out on you—”