Colorado Abduction (3 page)

One of Burke’s men pushed open the door. “Carolyn, it’s the phone.”

“The kidnappers,” Dylan said. “I’ll take that call.”

“No,” she said. “You won’t. I’ve been practicing. I know what to say.”

When he started toward the door, Burke stepped in front of him. “Let Carolyn handle this.”

“Like hell I will.”

She slipped inside and ran to answer the phone before Dylan could do anything to stop her.

Burke would have preferred being inside, listening while Carolyn talked to the kidnappers. But he knew his men would record the conversation. During the next few hours, they’d replay it a hundred times, doing voice analysis and isolating every miniscule background noise.

Right now, it was more important to hold Dylan back. Burke wouldn’t hesitate to kick this cowboy’s ass to keep him from barging in and botching their procedures. He stood in front of Dylan like a brick wall.

“Let me pass.” Dylan seemed dazed, in shock. His pale green eyes—the same color as Carolyn’s—flickered nervously. “I need to be in there.”

Burke didn’t waste time on logical explanations. He doubted Dylan Carlisle could hear anything other than the roar of outrage inside his head. It must be an all-consuming noise, louder than an avalanche.

“We’re staying out here,” Burke said.

“She’s my wife.”

“I understand.” If Burke had allowed himself to become emotionally involved with the people on a case, he would have felt sorry for this guy.

“My wife…” His voice cracked. “I love her.”

Though Burke hadn’t touched him, Dylan staggered backward a few paces. The air deflated from his lungs in a gush of cold vapor. He turned, facing the night sky. His fingers gripped the banister. “We had a fight. Right before she rode off by herself, we argued. I said things. Hurtful things.”

Burke stepped up beside him but didn’t look at him. He stood silently, listening like a priest in a confessional.

“Nicole wants a baby.” The words spilled from Dylan as if he’d been holding everything inside for too long. “We’ve been trying for eight or nine months. But no luck. From the start, we knew she might have to be implanted because she had internal injuries from when she got kicked by a horse a couple of years ago. Kind of an occupational hazard, I guess. She’s a large animal veterinarian.”

Burke heard the pride in his voice. Dylan truly loved his wife.

He continued, “She’s a tiny little thing. But tough. First time I saw her, she stuck her arm into a cow’s birthing canal and pulled a slick, wet, newborn calf into the world.” He shook his head. Something like a sob came through his lips. “You’ve got to love a woman like that.”

That wasn’t Burke’s number one criteria, but he understood. “She was right for you.”

“We were supposed to go to the fertility doctor today. He’d scheduled the implant procedure. But I couldn’t go. Not with the stable fire. I had to be here.”

Actually, he could have called Carolyn. She was more than able to manage the ranch while Dylan was at the doctor with his wife. Burke guessed that something else was going on. Maybe Dylan wasn’t ready for kids.

He continued, “I told her we could do it tomorrow or the next day. Why did it have to happen today? What difference could one day make?”

A big difference. It took less than a day to change someone’s life. Sometimes, less than a minute.

Carolyn pushed open the door and stepped onto the veranda. She trembled. “A million-dollar ransom. He wants it by tomorrow afternoon.”

T
HE SOUND OF THE KIDNAPPER’S
voice set fire to a fuse inside Carolyn. She was furious. And terrified. They had to rescue Nicole.
Now, damn it. Right now
.

But there were procedures to follow, and she trusted Burke’s expertise. He moved around the dining room, checking the various instruments and conferring with his men in technical jargon that sounded like a foreign language.

Needing something to do, she picked up Burke’s leather jacket from the dining room chair where he’d dropped it. The lining was still warm from his body heat. He glanced in her direction. Was he smirking? In spite of her earlier insistence that she wasn’t an errand girl, she’d been reduced to tidying up. Immediately, Carolyn dropped the jacket and stood tall, arms folded below her breasts.

Sheriff Trainer had joined them. The only other person in the room was her brother. Dylan leaned against the wall by the door, near collapse.

“We’re going to play back the ransom call,” Burke said. “I want you all to listen for any sound that might give us a clue to the kidnapper’s identity or his whereabouts.”

“Wait a minute,” Sheriff Trainer said. “Didn’t you get a trace to tell us where he is?”

One of Burke’s associates, Special Agent Corelli, stepped forward. He was the technical expert, the only man in the room wearing a suit and tie. He pointed to a rectangular black box with several dials. On the screen was a map of the
area. A red dot blinked on a secluded road, too small to be given a name.

Corelli pointed to the dot. “When he made the call, he was here. I’d guess that he’s on horseback or in an all-terrain vehicle.”

Dylan staggered forward and squinted at the screen. “Does he have Nicole with him?”

“Sorry,” Corelli said. “There’s no way of knowing.”

Carolyn went to her brother’s side. “Sit down, Dylan.”

“Can’t.” He stumbled back to his position against the wall. “If I sit, I’ll fall asleep.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“I won’t sleep until Nicole is in the bed beside me.”

A noble sentiment. But it wouldn’t do Nicole any good if he pushed himself beyond his limits and had a total breakdown.

The sheriff tilted his hat back on his head and stared at the blinking dot. Though he wasn’t holding a cigarette, Carolyn smelled the residual smoke that clung to his uniform. “Seems to me that we ought to head out in that direction.”

“He’ll be long gone,” Burke said. “He was smart enough to know that the phone call would be traced. He’s in a remote area with no witnesses. There’s no way we could have gotten there in time. He used a disposable cell phone so we can’t ID the number.”

“There are still records of those things,” the sheriff said. “We can find out where he bought it.”

“We’re running those records,” Corelli said.

Carolyn was surprised that the Delta County sheriff was so attuned to complex investigation techniques. She’d always thought the skinny, gray-haired man was a nice guy, but not particularly competent.

“The good news,” Burke said, “is that our kidnapper is still in the area. More than likely, he’s a local. Somebody you
might know. That’s why I want you to listen to his voice. And the way he puts his words together.”

He pressed the playback button and Carolyn heard her own voice. She was surprised that she didn’t sound as terrified as she’d felt at the time.

“Hello, this is Carolyn Carlisle.”

“I want a million dollars.” The kidnapper spoke in a rasping, ominous, barely audible whisper. “I want it in cash.”

“You’ll have to repeat that. I can’t hear you.” She’d been stalling, doing as Burke had suggested. “Please speak up.”

“Listen hard. A million dollars. Cash. Nothing bigger than a hundred.”

“Do you have Nicole with you? I need to talk to her.”

“Pay me. Or she dies.”

On the playback Carolyn sounded confident. “Don’t you worry. You’ll get everything you want. If it’s a million dollars, you’ll get a million.” She’d been rambling, keeping him on the line. “Please let me talk to Nicole.”

“I want the money tomorrow afternoon at five.”

“It’s going to be hard to scrape that much cash together in one day.” More stalling. “Tomorrow is Saturday. And the local banks probably don’t have a million dollars on hand. We’ll have to go all the way into Denver.”

“Not my problem.”

She remembered Corelli giving her the thumbs-up signal. They had successfully made the trace.

She heard herself say, “I need proof of life.”

There was a pause. “What’s that?”

“Proof that Nicole is still alive. Let me talk to her.”

“You’ll get your proof.”

That was when he disconnected the call.

She looked into Dylan’s face. Tears streaked down his cheeks. Carolyn couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen
her brother cry. When she touched his arm, he collapsed against her.

“This is all going to work out,” she assured him. “I’ll take care of putting the money together.”

Burke cleared his throat. “Anybody recognize the voice?”

“Not really.” The sheriff patted the pocket in his shirt where Carolyn could see the outline of a cigarette pack. “That whisper could have been anybody. I didn’t hear an accent. He didn’t use any slang.”

“Proper language,” Burke said. “Instead of saying ‘Ain’t my problem’ he said ‘Not my problem.’ And he didn’t know what proof of life meant.”

“What does that indicate?” Carolyn asked.

“He’s not a professional kidnapper. He might not even have a criminal record.”

“Which means,” Corelli said, “that his fingerprints might not be in the system.”

Burke nodded toward the other two men, both of whom were wearing black windbreakers with
FBI
stenciled across the back. “Special Agent Smith and Special Agent Silverman are both trained profilers. Sheriff, they’re going to need to talk to everybody on the ranch. Starting now.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” the sheriff protested.

“The first twenty-four hours are crucial.” Burke turned to the Smith—Silverman team. “Start your interviews with the sheriff. Keep me informed.”

Carolyn could feel Dylan’s knees beginning to buckle. His body was literally giving out. Before he went limp and dragged them both to the floor, Burke came up beside her and slipped his arm around Dylan’s torso. “Let’s go, buddy. You need a rest.”

He tried to rally. “Can’t go to bed.”

“Just a catnap,” Carolyn said. “On the sofa in your office. You’ll be close.”

With Burke supporting her brother, she went down the hall, through the entryway, and took a right. The second door was Dylan’s office—a large, masculine room with a wall of books and windows that opened onto the veranda. Opposite the huge oak desk that had belonged to her father were two brown leather chairs and a matching sofa.

Burke sat Dylan on the sofa, and Carolyn peeled off his jacket. Getting his boots off was an effort but she managed. Her brother stretched out, immediately asleep. She covered him with a crocheted afghan, striped in green and brown.

Closing the door, she stepped into the hallway with Burke. “Thanks. I couldn’t have carried him by myself. Whoever said ‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,’ didn’t know Dylan.”

“The Hollies,” Burke said. “They sang it.”

She leaned against the wall outside the office, allowing this moment of quiet to soothe her frazzled nerves. It was nice to be here with Burke—someone who didn’t depend on her. “I’m worried about him.”

“Dylan blames himself for what happened.” His voice was low, intimate. “He and Nicole argued before she took off.”

“I heard them.” That was less than six hours ago but it felt like an eternity. “I didn’t catch what they were saying.”

“They were trying to get pregnant. Your brother didn’t want to take time out of his schedule to see the fertility doctor. That’s why Nicole was angry.”

“Dylan told you all that?” She gazed up into his stern, craggy face. In the soft light, his features seemed warmer, more appealing. “If I can’t get him to open up to me, why would he talk to you?”

“Sometimes, it’s easier to tell your secrets to a stranger.”

Unexpectedly, he reached toward her and brushed a loose
strand of hair behind her ear. The stroke of his fingertips on her cheek set off an electric reaction that sizzled down her throat and into her chest. “You don’t seem all that strange. Actually, you’re kind of all right.”

“High praise,” he said wryly. “Don’t make me more than I am, Carolyn. I’m just doing my job.”

She didn’t quite believe him. Burke tried to stay detached, but the hard-nosed attitude didn’t come naturally. “You’re not as tough as you pretend to be. You care about what happens to Nicole. And to Dylan.”

“Caring is human. But I don’t let empathy get in the way of my work.”

“I don’t mean to put you on the spot. It’s just—”

“And I care about you,” he said.

Her heart thumped against her rib cage. Her gaze dropped from his face to his broad chest. Just for a moment, she wished she could rest her head against him. “Thank you.”

“You’re trying to carry your brother, run the corporate business and manage the ranch.” He rested one hand on her shoulder. With the other, he lifted her chin so she was looking into his dark eyes. “Who takes care of you, Carolyn?”

No one
. She had no one to share her burdens. No one who really cared for her. “I talk to Elvis.”

His lips parted in a grin. “First the Hollies. Now Elvis. Are we on a tour of the golden oldies?”

“Elvis is my horse. I tell him my secrets and he listens.”

Burke leaned down and kissed her forehead. He stepped back so quickly that she wasn’t sure what happened. But her forehead tingled. She felt suddenly warm. Hot even.

One of the other agents—either Silverman or Smith—came into the hallway. “Burke, you need to hear this.”

“What is it?”

“The sheriff says the most likely suspects live on a ranch near here. The Circle M.”

Burke turned to Carolyn. “What do you know about the Circle M?”

“The ranch belongs to Nate Miller, but he’s renting the entire property and all the outbuildings to Sam Logan and a group of his followers.”

“Followers?”

“They call themselves the sons of something or other. They’re survivalists.”

Burke looked back toward the other agent. He said just one word. “Waco.”

In a flash she remembered television images of burning buildings and reporters talking about the women and children who had died in the confrontation between the FBI and the Waco cult.

“It’s not the same thing,” she said quickly. “Sam Logan isn’t that kind of guy.”

“How do you know?” Burke asked.

She swallowed hard. “He used to be my boyfriend.”