Dying for Love (11 page)

“Holy fucking mother,” he muttered as he opened the back of the van and found the boy on the floor, his body shaking like he was having a convulsion.

“What’s wrong with you, kid?”

The boy didn’t respond.

Cold terror shot through him, and he shook the kid. But the boy simply looked up at him with glassy eyes.

Shit. He’d been in a hurry and hadn’t done his research on this one. He liked the healthy, strong ones.

But this kid’s skin was ice cold, his lips turning blue.

He shook him again, but the boy’s feet banged the metal floor of the van, and he was as limp as a dead snake.

Furious and scared the boy would die, he closed the door, jumped back in the van and drove like hell. Damn sleet drilled against the windshield, and fog blurred his view. He swerved to avoid a tree in the road, cursing.

The kid needed a doctor, but a hospital would ask questions, want insurance.

Call the police.

What a fucking mess.

Sweat beaded on his hands as he spun the van around and raced toward the little clinic he’d passed down the road. A doc-in-the-box.

They’d know what to do.

He tucked his gun in his jacket pocket, relieved when he spotted the clinic ahead. Only one car in the parking lot. Had to be the doc’s.

Good.

Something about the boy reminded him of himself. He couldn’t let him die. Besides, he wasn’t a kid killer. He was saving these boys. Turning them into men. Giving them a purpose.

He threw the van into park, jumped out and retrieved the boy, throwing his own coat over him to keep the sleet from pummeling his face. The boy looked pale as milk, his breathing choppy.

Knowing he had to play it smart, he tucked his hat low on his head, then glanced around from inside his jacket, searching for security cameras.

One on the corner. He tucked his head low and ducked, averting his face to avoid being captured on camera.

Breathing hard, he ducked inside, took the jacket off while keeping his hat low, and raced to the receptionist behind the glass partition. She couldn’t be more than twenty, her blond hair streaked with red and black, earrings in the shape of grizzlies swaying from her lobes. Her name tag read “Wynona.”

“Help. He can’t breathe.”

Startled when she saw the way the boy lay in his arms, she jumped up and waved him back through the door.

“Dr. Ableman,” the girl called. “Emergency!”

A wiry-haired man with bifocals rushed toward him, alarm slashing his face at the sight of the child.

“In here.” The doctor motioned for him to place the boy on a table inside an exam room. “What’s his name?”

Shit. If he told him the truth, the doc would run for the phone. “Timmy.”

“He your son?”

“No, my sister’s,” he said. “I was driving him home and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.”

The doctor began to check his vitals. “He has asthma?”

Jesus, he didn’t know. “I . . . his mama didn’t say. She just dumped him on me ’cause she had to go to work.”

The doctor frowned as if his story didn’t quite fit.

“You have insurance?” the girl asked while the doctor went to work on the kid.

It was a routine question, but he spotted a local newspaper with Ronnie’s picture on the front page and realized she and the doc most likely recognized the boy.

“Yeah, I do.” He pulled the gun from his pocket and aimed it at the girl. “Here’s my insurance.”

The girl screamed and threw up her hands. He motioned for her to sit in the corner and waved the gun at the old man, who looked panicked.

“Just fix the kid and we’ll be out of your way.”

The doctor’s graying eyebrows drew together. “There’s no need to hurt us.”

He smiled as if he agreed, but the two of them were already as good as dead.

It didn’t matter how damn pretty the girl was. She’d have to die.

Chapter Eleven

P
aintings of the saints adorned the church. Sunlight shimmered through the stained-glass windows, and a litany of candles filled an altar, some lit, others waiting for sinners and those in spiritual need to light them as they prayed.

Amelia hesitated before they made it to the altar.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

She wrung her hands together. “I don’t belong in church.”

His mouth twisted into a frown. Good God, he understood that feeling. He felt as if the powers that be might strike him down any minute and the demons would carry away his soul.

But Amelia had been a victim. Somehow, he didn’t think he had been one.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I . . . I’ve made too many mistakes.”

“We’ve all made mistakes,” he said, sure as hell he’d made plenty of them. “That’s why people go to church, for salvation.”

“Maybe I’m not worth saving,” she said in such a troubled voice that his chest tightened.

“You were a victim, Amelia. Commander Blackwood is the one who deserves to go to hell.” He hoped the bastard was burning there.

“But what if my memory is all screwed up? What if one of my alters gave my baby away?”

John released a sigh at the uncertainty in her voice. He didn’t totally understand the alters thing, except that they were part of Amelia. The part that couldn’t cope.

Dammit, she’d had good reason to invent them. “I guess it’s possible, but don’t you think that would have come out in therapy?”

Amelia ran a finger along one of the pews. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I’m not as well as I thought.”

He didn’t know what she meant by that and didn’t have time to ask. A priest appeared from the confessional booth, his robe billowing around him, his gold cross shining in the light, as he approached.

“Welcome to Saint Mary’s. I’m Father Hallard.”

“Thank you, Father.” John introduced them and flashed his credentials.

Amelia removed the rosary from her neck and showed it to the priest. “My grandfather left these beads for me,” she said, then explained about the son she’d given birth to.

“We believe someone brought the baby here,” John said. “It would have been in July six years ago. Were you here at that time?”

Father Hallard shook his head. “No, I came to Saint Mary’s about three years ago. Father Dennis was here, but I’m afraid he’s gone on to glory.”

Frustration splintered Amelia’s face. “How about a nun or another priest who worked with him?”

Father Hallard scratched his head with a crooked finger. “Yes. Sister Grace was here.”

“Can we talk to her?” John asked.

His white brows formed a straight line. “Of course.”

The priest led them through a set of doors that opened to a greenhouse garden. Set in the midst of the snowy yard, it didn’t look real.

Housing units sat to the left, ivy winding up and down the sides of the stone structure, although at this point everything was covered in a layer of white.

Two nuns sat chatting quietly by a fountain while an older nun knelt in front of a statue of Jesus with her head bowed.

Father Hallard gestured for them to wait until she finished her prayer, then he introduced them. “Sister Grace, this is Amelia Nettleton. She claims that her baby boy was stolen from her six years ago and believes someone dropped off the child here.”

Sister Grace clutched the folds of her habit.

Amelia adjusted her shoulder bag. “I think Commander Arthur Blackwood took my son when he was born. Do you remember a man bringing a baby boy here around July fourth of that year?”

Wariness crossed her face, but she nodded. “Not a man. A woman.”

Amelia sucked in a breath. “What was her name?”

Sister Grace frowned. “She didn’t give her name.”

“I know it was a long time ago, but this is important. Please. Can you at least describe her? I’m afraid for my son.”

The nun’s eyes widened. “All I can tell you is that she left a note asking us to take good care of the baby. And she left rosary beads with the infant.”

The woman looked familiar to John, but he had no idea why. Maybe he’d been raised by nuns or attended a Catholic school.

“Did the woman say the baby was hers?”

The nun shook her head. “No, I got the impression he was a child she’d rescued. That she thought he was in danger.”

“What was she afraid of?” John asked.

“She didn’t say. She just asked us to find a loving, safe home for him.”

Amelia gripped the woman’s arm. “What happened to the baby?”

The nun’s eyes darted sideways toward the priest.

“Go ahead,” he murmured.

“I passed him through a team. An underground network that helps women and children escape bad situations.”

John gritted his teeth. The underground networks prided themselves on secrecy. They had to.

“Can you give us the name of the person you handed the baby off to?”

She shook her head.

“She is bound to secrecy for the protection of the women and children she helps,” Father Hallard said.

“Please,” Amelia said to the nun. “My baby was taken against my will. I have to find him and make sure he’s safe.”

The priest and nun exchanged a look, then Father Hallard spoke up. “We can’t give you a name or address. But I’ll see what I can learn.”

Underground networks sometimes used illegal means to hide women in trouble and help them escape. The fewer people who knew about the group, the safer the women and children would be.

John didn’t like it, but he understood it was necessary to protect them.

Amelia shook his hand. “Thank you so much. This means a lot to me.”

Amelia wrote her cell number on a piece of paper, then tore it off and handed it to the priest. “I’ll be waiting.”

John’s phone buzzed. Coulter. He punched connect. “Yeah?”

“John, we just got a 911 call. A shooting at a doc-in-the-box. A witness claims he saw a white van leaving the place in a hurry. CSI is there now.”

A white van. John sucked in a breath. “I’ll meet you at the clinic.”

“Make it the hospital,” Coulter said. “The girl is hanging on by a thread. I’ll stay at the clinic with CSI.”

Adrenaline surged through John. If the kidnapper had taken Ronnie to the clinic, that meant the boy was hurt or ill. But he might still be alive.

And this woman might be able to tell them something.

He had to hurry.

John dropped Amelia off at her place, and raced to the hospital. A car accident, five cars in a chain reaction due to the black ice, slowed him down as other drivers decelerated to get past it.

An ambulance had just arrived, and he hurried to the emergency workers surrounding the patient on the stretcher.

The medic shouted vitals to the ER doctor in charge, one nurse held the IV pole as they pushed the woman inside, while another held pressure on her wound. Blood soaked the sheet and her clothes, and she looked so pale that John wondered if she’d survive.

“I’m Agent John Strong with the TBI,” he said, addressing the triage group. “Is this the shooting victim?”

“Yes. Her name is Wynona Akers.” The heavyset nurse at the foot of the bed shot him an irritated look.

“Wynona may know something about a missing child. She’s our only lead right now to the kidnapper.”

“She needs emergency surgery,” the doctor said. “Your questions will have to wait.”

“I understand,” John said, “but the boy’s life is in danger.”

The young woman moaned, her eyes fluttering open. John rushed along beside the team as they pushed the gurney into an ER room.

Wynona reached for his hand, and he took it. “What happened, Wynona?”

The doctor shouted orders, a page for another doctor blared over the intercom, and the nurse tried to shove John away.

But Wynona clung to his hand as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Scared.”

“Shh, it’s going to be all right,” John said, soothing her. “They’re going to take good care of you here. But I need your help. Did the man who shot you have a boy with him?”

She gave a small nod.

John showed her a photo of Ronnie from his phone. “Is this the child?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice cracking. “Couldn’t breathe.”

“He was having an asthma attack?”

She nodded, her eyes closing again.

“Was the boy alive when they left?”

The girl nodded slightly.

“What did the man look like?”

She tried to speak but a rasp came out instead. “Hang in there,” he told her.

But a second later, alarms pealed and the nurse coaxed him out the door as they shoved a crash cart in the room to try to save the girl’s life.

He watched through the glass partition, praying she’d make it.

But her body jerked and convulsed as they used the paddles on her, and the monitor flatlined.

The followers of the Commander were strong. He should know—he had been one of them.

They had united, and believed in his mission. They would carry on his legacy and continue to protect what he’d done.

But now he had his own plans. His own agenda.

“Amelia Nettleton hooked up with that agent John Strong, and they’re asking questions about the baby.”

He held the phone with a white-knuckle grip. He’d hired this man to do his bidding, and by God, he’d better perform. “They have to be stopped.”

Tension vibrated over the line. “What do you want me to do?”

“Whatever it takes.”

He ended the call, ditched the van at a junkyard, broke a window in the run-down garage, and lifted a set of keys for a beat-up gray sedan that had been left for repairs. He shoved the kid inside. The clipboard said the owner wouldn’t be back for three days, and the mechanic had already fixed the engine and rotated the tires.

Perfect.

The car would help him and the kid get off the grid.

At least the boy was alive. The medicine had eased his breathing, and the kid had passed out. He hoped to fucking hell he slept all night.

That had been too damn close. He’d started the van, and by the time they were pulling out, a black Cadillac had rolled in and parked, an old man and lady getting out.

He’d almost killed them, but damn if the scrawny woman wasn’t pushing a walker, the old man leaning on a cane, both of them wearing glasses and hearing aids.