MULTIPLE MOTIVES (The Kate Huntington mystery series Book 1) (25 page)

“Once again I must commend your acting skills, Rose,” Liz said, sounding almost normal.

“Thanks. I’m hoping that’ll spur him to get the tie and note to the lab. He should’ve done that right away, and taken pictures of them to show you all, instead of carrying them around in his damn pocket!”

She paused and, for the first time in days, a full-blown, dazzling smile spread across her face. “When this is over, I might just be able to get that man fired.”

Skip’s and Ben’s mouths dropped open.

Mac glared at them, growling under his breath. Rose gave him a sharp look, one eyebrow in the air. He quickly looked away.

“Any ideas about the note?” Kate asked.

“Wait, there’s more,” Rose said. “It occurred to me Phillips might not be following procedure in other areas either, so I asked how the canvassing for witnesses was going. He said he wasn’t wasting manpower on a fake kidnapping. So here’s my thought, Kate. The note says to me that the perp’s watching your house. I think we should move Operation Bait and Switch to your neighborhood and do our own canvassing. See if anyone saw anybody hanging around your house.”

“Can I say something?” Skip asked.

“Of course,” Kate said.

“Is it time to dump the idea of trying to get the perp to go after Dan. Just split up and do as much canvassing as possible.”

“How about Mac stays with Dan,” Liz said. “And Rose and Skip canvas on their own.”

Rose nodded. Mac was so scruffy-looking, probably nobody would open their door for him, but if he hung back while Dan rang the bell and did the talking. Should work.

Kate seemed to hesitate. Then she said, “Okay, but you both stay close enough that you can get there quick if Mac and Dad need help. Everyone, synchronize your cell phones.”

They all gave her a blank look. “Make sure you have everyone else’s number in there, on speed dial. Dad doesn’t have a cell phone so I’ll give him mine. Put Liz’s landline on speed dial as well. That’s how you’ll contact us.”

Everybody exchanged numbers and punched buttons on their phones for a few minutes. Skip earned a few tension-breaking chuckles when he quipped, “Sorry, Mom, you’re not my number one gal anymore.”

“Skip, there’s something you need to know,” Kate said. “One of our suspects is a woman who’s about five months pregnant. But you can’t assume she’ll be protective of her baby. There’s a part of her that doesn’t want the child. And if she comes after Dad, that means she’s a killer and she has Rob.”

She paused and looked around the room. “Are you all capable of doing what it takes to bring her down?”

Good question, Kate!
Rose silently chastised herself for not thinking to ask it.

Total silence reigned for a moment.

“Dad?”

“I’d hate to hurt the babe, Katie, but if this is the person who has Rob and who took…” Dan stopped. Tears pooled in his eyes. He cleared his throat. “If she’s who took
our
Eddie from us….” He turned his head away and swiped at his face with his shirtsleeve.

Rose looked down at the floor. She swallowed the lump in her own throat.

“Mac?” Kate said.

“I wasn’t finished, lass. Even if it means I’ll burn in hell for killin’ an innocent babe, I’ll not let this woman go loose to harm one hair on yer head. And I wanna see that strappin’ lad of yours comin’ back through that door, Liz.”

After a beat, Mac said quietly, “’Bout says it all, Uncle Dan.”

“Amen,” Rose whispered.

“I’m not fond of the idea of tackling a pregnant woman,” Skip said, “but if she’s got Rob and has killed before, then we’ve got to stop her, bottom line.”

Kate nodded. “All right, troops, let’s do it.”

~~~~~~~~

Liz had suggested the men rummage through Rob’s closet and find some fresh clothing, so the people they approached would actually talk to them. She sent Rose to Shelley’s closet.

Kate insisted everyone grab something from the kitchen that would serve as breakfast. Then one at a time, they slipped out the back slider.

Once they were all gone, the house was suddenly too quiet. Kate sat down at the family room table and prayed silently,
Dear God, keep him alive and help us find him.

She glanced at Liz, who had hobbled over to the sofa. She was curled into a semi-fetal position, the leg brace forcing her to keep that leg straight. With her eyes closed, she looked almost like a sleeping child, if you ignored the haggard look on her face.

Ben was sitting in the recliner, back straight, handgun in his lap, alertly watching the sliding glass door. From the tilt of his head, Kate knew he was listening for sounds in the rest of the house as well.

She was trying to sort out the flash of insight she’d had earlier, but her brain was too tired to think. She crossed her arms on the table and rested her head on them, planning to get up in a minute and get herself something to eat.

~~~~~~~~

Rob woke with a foggy head and a fuzzy tongue. It tasted like a platoon had marched across it, in muddy boots.

There was a fair amount of light coming through the little window. Daytime, but Rob had no idea anymore
what
day it was. The rat in his stomach had invited his extended family over to join the party.

He was sitting on the cot, leaning against the wall. Twice he thought,
I’m going to move now.
Nothing happened. His body once again was not responding to his brain.

His mind wandered to the discussion about Cheryl.

When was that?

Felt like over a week ago. Now her image swam into his mind’s eye. A somewhat hard face, aged beyond her years, with bleached blond hair fluffed around it.

Couldn’t be her. How could a woman, even one as big as her, drag around his dead weight? But then another mental image of Cheryl popped up, tall and robust in her waitress uniform, carrying heavy trays of thick china plates across a busy diner. She was no weakling, and she was smart. She was quite capable of figuring out some way to transport his inert body. No, it was not beyond the realm of possibility that his captor was Cheryl.

He thought about the peephole in the door, imagined Cheryl looking through it, watching him while he slept. Only the image in his mind wasn’t the face he’d seen when they’d met to discuss her case–worried but determined. Now her expression was twisted, diabolical.

He lifted a hand to scratch an itch. It was not a very coordinated movement. His hand flopped around before finding its target. When fingers connected with bare skin and chest hair, he imagined that twisted part of Cheryl watching him now, staring through the peephole at his naked chest.

He felt exposed and shuddered with disgust. His cheeks grew hot with embarrassment. No more than that… It was a feeling he’d never felt before. He couldn’t even come up with a word for it.

He fought the feelings, but his head was so fuzzy.

Why is my head fuzzy?

He tried to focus on that question. The feelings subsided some.

Good, think about that instead. Why… wait, what am I supposed to be thinking about? Oh yeah, why is my head so fuzzy?

His mind flashed to the china bowl.

The soup!

He’d been drugged again.

Then he noticed the bowl had been moved. It was now back by the bucket, near the door. His captor had been in the room while he slept. He shuddered again at the thought of Cheryl–that diabolical version of her–coming that close to him while he was out cold.

Maybe even touching me!

Another wave of emotion washed over him–helplessness, fear, and again the feeling he couldn’t name.

And guilt. About what he wasn’t sure. He just had this vague feeling that he’d done something, or failed to do something, that got him into this mess. He tried to figure out what that something was, then stopped himself. What he needed to figure out was how to get
out
of this mess.

There was a faint smell of beef in the air. His stomach growled and rolled over at the same time. He fought down nausea. There was no way he was going to eat or drink anything provided by his captor again. The rats in his stomach protested vehemently.

Got to get to the door. See if there’s a way to get through it.
He managed to stumble to his feet and stagger across the room. The door seemed sturdy, but he still might be able to break it down.

But how?

While he was thinking about that, might as well get the necessities out of the way. He opened his fly. It took a moment for a thin stream of urine to begin to flow into the bucket. Was he getting dehydrated?

He turned around too quickly and his head swam.
Gotta remember to move slow
.

His eyes fell on the cot. Maybe he could use it as a battering ram. Moving carefully back across the room, he tried to pick it up. It was heavier than he’d thought. He could only lift it a couple inches off the floor. Okay, using the entire cot as a battering ram wasn’t going to work.

But if the thing was so damned heavy, maybe he could break loose a piece of it and use that instead. He slowly lowered himself to his knees and managed to tip the cot onto its side. No wonder it was so heavy, it was made of thick metal pipes.

The surface of the pipes was mostly rust. He pulled and tugged on all the joints, but they were welded together. He yanked on the pipes some more, sweat now stinging his eyes.

His right thumb connected with a sharp edge. A searing pain, and a small gush of blood erupted from the middle of the sensitive pad.

Shit!

He sucked on the thumb. Couldn’t afford to lose even a drop of moisture. Then he wrapped his other hand around it to apply pressure. After a few minutes, the bleeding had stopped, but the thumb hurt like hell.

With his other hand he shoved the cot in frustration. It only moved an inch.

“Can’t give up,” he said out loud, but his mouth was so dry it came out “ka-gib-uh.”

A corner of the thin, grimy mattress was sticking out from beneath the side of the cot. Rob stared at the inviting triangle. He slowly stretched his sweaty body out on the cool floor, laying his throbbing head down on that corner of mattress.

Just need to rest awhile and think about what to do next.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Kate startled awake when the phone jangled across the room. Liz struggled to sit up on the sofa and grabbed the portable from its charger on the end table. Kate raced over. Shoulders sagging, Liz passed the phone to her.

It was Rose calling in to say no luck so far. “We’ve covered the residential area near your house. I’m thinking we should head back over to the businesses in and near your building and talk to their staff. Someone might have been working late and saw something Tuesday night.”

Kate agreed to the plan, then glanced at her watch as she hung up the phone. She’d slept for over two hours in that uncomfortable position, head on her arms at the table. Rolling her stiff neck, she shot a worried glance at Liz, already curled up on the sofa again. At least the press calls yesterday had given them something to do.

Kate headed for the kitchen and her delayed breakfast. She opened the refrigerator and stared into it, but her mind was pondering how both she and Liz were using sleep to escape. She knew she did that when she was depressed. She’d slept over fourteen hours a day the first two weeks after Eddie’s death. But she’d never realized that she used the same defense mechanism when she was scared.

It hit her with a jolt that she’d never before been this scared for this long–not even when Mary was lying unconscious in the hospital. That had been more an intense gnawing anxiety. This was constant terror.

Kate closed the refrigerator and started to sit down at the kitchen table to digest that idea. She caught herself. Best not to sit down again to
think
.

Instead she leaned against the edge of the counter to sort out her thoughts. She was becoming increasingly worried about Liz. Whenever there was something to focus on, something to do, she would rally and seem almost her normal self. But as soon as they were back to sit-and-wait mode, she would slide into a much more fragile state. And
fragile
was not a word Kate would have ever applied to Liz before Tuesday night.

She went back into the family room and sat down in the recliner. Ben was making a circuit of the house, checking for any signs of intruders.

“I had an interesting insight earlier today, and you know how I am,” Kate said. “I sometimes need to process things out loud.”

Liz swung her feet to the floor and sat up on the sofa. She gave Kate a sharp look.

“Okay, and I love to analyze everything to death. Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. So here’s my insight. You know how some men, more traditional ones like my father especially, tend to assume women are going to fall apart emotionally in a crisis, so they try to protect us.”

Liz nodded.

“What occurred to me earlier is that when the men try to protect us by not letting us do anything physically dangerous, they unintentionally make it more likely that we’ll fall apart emotionally. When we’re forced to wait and can’t do anything, one, we have nothing to distract us, and two, we feel helpless. And that’s the worst feeling for human beings to cope with. We can’t stand not being able to
do
something. It’s crazy-making. Is this making sense?”

“Yes. You’re trying to tell me that if I don’t come out of my stupor and do something, I’m going to go crazy,” Liz replied.

Kate gave her a small smile. “Well, yeah, that’s partly why I brought it up. But I also wanted a sounding board. I’m not saying it’s the guys’ fault. They’ve been raised that way. But it’s a vicious cycle. He’s protective, she can’t do anything, she falls apart emotionally, and then he says to himself,” she lowered her voice to a mock gruff tone, “‘See, I was right to protect the little woman.’”

That actually got a faint smile out of Liz. “You notice Dan hasn’t objected to Rose being out there in harm’s way, but he probably would be if she weren’t a cop.”