Calculated Revenge (15 page)

Snatching up her purse and car keys, she left the apartment at a run and didn’t bother to lock up.
God, help me,
her heart cried.
Noah, please find me,
a piece of it echoed.

At the bottom of the stairs she peeked out the front window. The unmarked FBI sedan sat across the street. Fine. Let them watch all they wanted for someone to have a go at her. They wouldn’t expect the woman they thought they were protecting to sneak out the locked rear service entrance and drive away.

Soon Laney was on the road out of town at the wheel of her compact car. Her whole body trembled. She’d have to stop for gas at some point and chew up precious minutes she didn’t have to spare. How could she possibly reach this unknown rendezvous on time?

And if she didn’t meet the deadline, would she arrive to find her daughter’s body? Or worse, no body, only pools of telltale lifeblood, screaming her failure as a mother. Just like she failed as a sister.

A
t 7:45 a.m., Noah padded to his kitchen, yawning. He’d awakened later than he intended, but then he’d been burning the candle at both ends for days now. Hopefully, Laney had gotten some rest last night, too. If only he’d had the right to stay with her in her apartment. Thoughts of her alone and processing another death in this bizarre case had disturbed his slumber.

Despite the tragic development of Glen Crocker, he hoped they were closing in on Adelle and her mystery accomplice. There could well be something in her house that would give them a clue to her whereabouts and even the accomplice’s identity. After checking out progress in repairs to the school building last evening, he’d returned to the crime scene in Wellesly to discover Agent Burns had arrived full of “spit and vinegar” as his grandmother used to say. The agent hadn’t been too delighted to see Noah, but the feeling was mutual.

He’d returned home around ten and hit the sack. A phone call to Hank this morning should get him up to speed on developments, and he’d decide from that information what rock to turn over next in the hunt for a couple of very sick perps. The sooner this case wrapped up, the sooner he could concentrate on being the kind of man Laney needed to round out her family.

Smiling, he dumped coffee grounds into a filter and turned
the machine on. Funny how he’d resisted the thought of romance with a coworker. The school district didn’t have any policy against it. In fact, he knew teachers and fellow administrators in other districts who were married to each other. Now that the smart, gentle, courageous woman had melted through his defenses, the reasons he’d given himself for remaining aloof sounded more like self-serving excuses to protect a wounded heart. He’d do whatever it took to be with her.

His cell sounded as he poured cereal into a bowl. He checked the caller ID. Hank. “What’s up?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. This Adelle woman is a queen bee schemer. The feds aren’t happy at how little she left behind for them to go on. We do know from the neighbors that her pickup truck gone, and a little pop-up camper she kept in the backyard. We’ve got an APB out on those vehicles, but that’s about it since last night.”

“That’s all you can do, then.” He did hate the waiting part of this game.

They ended the call. Noah poured milk onto his cereal as he thumbed Laney’s apartment number into the phone. It rang and rang, then went to voice mail. He frowned. Was she sleeping that soundly? He tried her cell, but that went to voice mail, too. Abandoning the coffee in the auto-shutoff machine and his milk and cereal on the counter, Noah trotted from his apartment.

He was an idiot for not bunking on a sleeping bag in her hallway. What a fool to think an FBI watcher outside would be enough. If she’d simply made a trip to the store and left her cell in her apartment, he’d wring her neck. But his gut said something was wrong.

Laney flexed her fingers around the steering wheel of her car. It had nearly killed her not to answer Noah’s call, but she didn’t dare leave evidence on her cell that she’d spoken to
someone. If only she could give him some type of clue where she was headed. She’d been in such a panic when she left her apartment that taking a few seconds to leave him a note had been beyond her mental processes. What was she thinking to confront these ruthless people by herself? But now she was on the road, and she couldn’t take time to stop.

Her cell played again, and she checked the window. It was her parents. Were they only now discovering that Briana was missing? It would be nearly 9:00 a.m. in Louisville, but Bree sometimes slept that late when no one got her out of bed. Then again, Laney gnawed her lower lip, she only had Adelle Addison’s word that Briana was at their mercy. Nothing someone like her said could be trusted.

Laney’s phone beeped that she had a message. Should she check it? Adelle hadn’t told her she couldn’t access her voice mail. Listening to a message shouldn’t qualify as communicating with anyone. She punched in her voice mail access code and put the cell to her ear.
C’mon, Dad…or Mom even…tell me the Bree-Bee is all right.
Then she’d turn this car around and—

“Laney!” Panic saturating her dad’s voice confirmed the worst. A sob left her throat. “Where are you? Oh, dear God, help us! We went in to wake Briana up, and she’s not there! Just a life-size china doll in her bed. Call us. Now!” Dad’s harsh breathing mingled with the faint sound of her mother weeping in the background. “We’ve called the authorities, and we’re going to call Noah next. We think Briana was taken by the private security guard on duty last night. He’s missing, too. Oh, my Laney-girl, I’m so sorry.” Dad’s voice broke, and the message cut off.

Waves of ice water washed over Laney. She put the phone down and returned both hands to the wheel. Her jaw clenched. Adelle Addison might think that her plot to destroy the Thompson family was poised to succeed. She’d reckoned
without the wrath of a mother. Heaven help the woman when Laney caught up with her.

A furious moan escaped her lips. If she had to stop at a convenience store for gas, she’d better take the opportunity to arm herself with something…anything. But what?

As he dashed into Laney’s apartment building, Noah waved at the FBI agent in the car across the street, but didn’t wait to see if the guy got out. Noah took the stairs two at a time to the third floor. Sweating from nerves, rather than exertion, he hammered his fist against her apartment door. The latch let out a
snick
and gave way. Her door gaped open several inches. Noah stared in horror, then charged through calling her name. If an intruder was inside there was no point in being subtle now.

The ticking of a wall clock and the hum of the refrigerator answered him. He raced up the hall. The first bedroom featured a neatly made twin bed and pink princess decorations. He trotted into the next room, obviously Laney’s, with its cheerful but conservative furnishings. Clothing strewed the floor and covers were flung nearly off the bed—evidence of haste in the neat room.

“What’s going on, Ryder?” The agent’s voice called him back to the living room. The man stood with his hand inside his jacket where the bulk of a handgun showed.

“She’s gone,” Noah told him. “Left in a hurry. On her own or coerced, I don’t know. We need to see if her car is in the garage.”

On the way down the stairs, the agent trailed, talking urgently on his phone. They reached the garage. Laney’s stall was empty. Had she driven away on her own power or with someone who had her under duress?

Noah’s cell phone sang out. “Ryder, here.”

“She’s gone,” a gravelly male voice grated in his ear.

Who was it? The accomplice? The voice was vaguely familiar, but…altered. “Yes, we know. Who’s calling?”

“I-it’s me. Roland Thompson.”

“Roland?” No wonder the voice sounded familiar, but the man had either been crying or yelling himself hoarse. “How do you know Laney’s missing?”

“Laney? No, I mean Briana.”

Noah’s knees went weak. He reached out and supported himself with an arm against the garage wall. “Briana’s gone, too?” His mind raced. Of course! That was the only button those kidnapping creeps could push that would guarantee Laney would do anything they said—including take off for parts unknown without telling a soul. “When did Briana go missing?”

The FBI agent lowered his phone from the side of his head and stared at him.

“Sometime in the night. We think it was the hired security guard. He’s gone, too. Only he wasn’t the right one.”

“What do you mean?” Noah’s brows drew together.

Roland hissed in a long breath. “Another dead body. Maybe. The security company just confirmed that our guy wasn’t the one scheduled for last night. FBI agents are on their way to the real security guard’s house, and some are on the way here.”

Noah went still on the inside. “What did the imposter look like?”

“About mid-thirties, and he was bald with scars on his head. Looked like a real tough guy. As a security guard, his appearance was comforting. Hah!”

Disappointment ate at Noah’s insides. That description fit no one familiar. The mystery accomplice’s identity remained a mystery. “If our perps, or at least one of them, were in Louisville last night, then they must have set up a meeting place with Laney.”

“I can’t believe she’s gone, too.” Roland’s statement came out edged with hysteria.

Next to him, the agent’s phone rang, and the guy wandered away to take the call. He’d no doubt be getting the same infor
mation as Noah was hearing right now…and maybe more, if the feds had a line on the identity of the fake security guard.

Laney’s father let out a whimper. “Find our babies, will you, please?”

The other man’s ragged plea twisted Noah’s heart. “I’ll do my best.”

He turned around to see the FBI agent striding away. “…put an APB out on her car,” Noah heard him saying, but the guy didn’t afford him a backward glance. So much for information-sharing between the P.I. and the FBI. As if that was going to happen!

“Let me in on any further developments,” he said to Roland, and they ended the call.

Noah gripped his closed phone. Find Laney and Briana? Yes, that was top priority. But unless the cops got lucky and spotted her car, where did he start looking?

Laney gnawed her lower lip. She was driving her own car. Surely, law enforcement would have an APB out on it. She hadn’t seen any patrol cars, but it was only a matter of time before she passed one. Would the cops follow her to her meeting with the kidnappers? Could that cost her daughter’s life? Or worse, what if the police stopped her on the road? What had the woman been thinking! Adelle’s plan couldn’t work.

Her poor little Briana. How scared she must be. Laney’s chest ached. Anguish, and anger, and fear balled into a tight knot under her breastbone.

Her phone played. The ID was the same number that had been Adelle’s earlier. Sucking in a deep breath, she answered.

“Have you been a good girl?” the woman demanded.

“No cops. No Noah. No phone calls. Oh, er, I did listen to voice mail. So, yes, I’ve done everything you asked of me. Now I want to talk to my daughter.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

Laney stiffened. “She’s okay. She’s not—”

“Relax, Mama. She’s sleeping. I doubt she even knew we removed her from her bed.”

Drugged, then? But she didn’t ask that question aloud. “Who’s we?”

“In good time, dear. By now, you are the subject of a manhunt, as are we. I need you to stop at a friend’s house along the route.”

“Stop! I won’t make the rendezvous on time if I—”

“Relax. The stop will take less time than filling a tank of gas.” Adelle gave directions to a farm place near Laney’s current location and instructions about what she was to do when she got there.

Laney prayed she could remember the details in her rattled condition. Fortunately, it was a simple turn-off and then one more turn. She pulled onto a rutted driveway through an overgrown grove. Moments later, she burst into the clear in front of a dilapidated clapboard house. Bleary windows in the two-story structure looked out on a weedy lawn dotted with vehicles in various stages of disrepair. A pudgy man in a dirt-streaked muscle shirt and grease-spotted jeans ambled off the porch as she stopped her car.

Laney eased out of the driver’s seat, eyeing the seedy-looking character who approached with a set of car keys extended in her general direction. But his gaze wasn’t on her. His wide eyes were locked on her car. She’d bought it new when she got the teaching job in Cottonwood Grove a year ago.

“You get that one.” He jerked a thumb toward a rust-bucket of a low-slung coupe. “Don’t look pretty, but she runs okay. You’ll get there anyway.”

Laney snatched the keys. “Don’t you care that Adelle has taken my daughter and is going to kill her if I don’t reach a certain place on time?”

The man tucked in his blubbery chin, making him look rather like a toad. “Don’t know nothin’ about such nonsense, but I’d do about anything for Adelle. Sounds like you’d best be rollin’ out of here, Missy.”

Laney opened her mouth, but pressing her case would get nowhere with this man. He was rubbing his hands along the smooth paint on the hood of her car. Adelle must have promised him the vehicle, which said loud and clear what plans she had for Laney when they met. Laney hopped into the coupe and wrinkled her nose. It smelled like the inside of a dirty sock. Her gaze narrowed as she put the old clunker into gear. They’d just see who came out on top in a fight for Briana.

Back out on the highway, she checked the gas gauge. Full, of course. Now she’d have no need to stop again and no opportunity to pick up some sort of a weapon. Even a pocketknife would have been welcome. The vehicle switch also meant no possibility of the police spotting her. She had clear sailing to Grand Valley.

But she was also quite alone. Even Noah couldn’t find her now.

God, if ever You’ve heard my prayers, please, hear me now. Help!

Noah sat in his darkened school office with his eyes closed and prayed for God to guide his thoughts. All he knew to do now was what had worked for him in the past when he reached an apparent dead end in pursuit of an elusive abductor. Now that one of the kidnappers was known—the probable brains of the operation—he could put himself in her place, follow her thought processes, explore options from her point of view, and hopefully arrive where she was. When he was a rookie cop, fellow officers had scoffed at his untrained attempts to “profile” suspects and figure out their next move…until he kept being right. If ever he needed that innate ability to hit a bull’s-eye, it was now.

This was how he’d tracked Renee and her abductor to the wilds of Northern Minnesota, when the FBI with their trained profilers had been two steps behind him. He’d found them, all right, but the ending hadn’t been good. This time
couldn’t
end like last time. He shoved his fears into oblivion and gave himself over to Adelle—her needs, her drives, her goals.

He was Adelle Addison, consumed by hatred and a deep, pulsing need for revenge. She was cruel and clever and had no compunction about tormenting the innocent. In fact, she used them as tools to punish those she viewed as unforgivable. She lashed out at Loretta Thompson by killing the most vulnerable daughter. Now she wanted to finish the job by taking the rest of Loretta’s offspring from her. She punished her husband, George, by taking away his only son.