Shattered (43 page)

Then she didn't have any more time to think or do anything else but scream, raw, terrified screams that tore through her throat only to be muffled by the damned tape, because just as casually as if she was a sack of feed, he heaved her off his shoulder and tossed her down--what? She didn't know. All she knew was that she was helpless to save herself and she was falling a long, long way.

Bart Grant had been in town
for the funeral but had since gone home. Having been informed that his daughter was missing, he was on his way back to Lexington again. When Scott had inquired as to Grant's whereabouts, that's what Sanford Peyton, who'd rushed to Grayson Springs not long after his son and was presently ensconced in the kitchen making calls on his cell phone, had told him, adding that Grant was at that moment about twenty minutes out. Not wanting to give away his hand to this thuggish multimillionaire who seemed to have a finger in everything Grant did dating all the way back to before Lisa's birth, Scott had greeted the news with outward equanimity. On the way out of the kitchen, he'd even grabbed one of the sandwiches Mrs. Baker was busying herself with slapping together, in an attempt to feed the gathered troops, from supplies somebody had brought in, and spent a minute or so listening to her babble on about how devastated Miss Martha would be if she knew. She and Frye, who had finally gotten home after having, as they told Watson, gone for a long drive to clear their heads in the aftermath of the funeral, were reacting to this new calamity with abject horror. Trembling and pale, they were both more hindrance than help, in Scott's opinion. Having soothed Mrs. Baker to the best of his ability, Scott then had left Watson in charge of the search, tossed the sandwich away uneaten on his way out the door, and gone to wait in his Jeep at the end of the lane that led down to the house for Grant to show up. He meant to confront Grant himself, in private, before Grant had a chance to talk to anyone else. He didn't want to have Watson or any other law enforcement type going after Grant, because as soon as he told them what he knew, it lost its power. Once Grant found himself caught up in the legal system, he would make like a lawyer and shut up. If Grant had Lisa, if he knew where Lisa was, that could be fatal.

The thought sent a fresh burst of fear through him.

It was twelve minutes after Scott got in place before Grant showed up, his big white Lexus unmistakable even in the dark. Those were some of the longest minutes of Scott's life. He wasn't a religious man, but all that time--and it seemed like a lifetime--he was praying that it wasn't already too late.

Because if Grant was on his way to Grayson Springs, where the hell was Lisa?

"You sure about this? Dude's a judge, man." Ryan was riding shotgun as Scott pulled the Jeep across the end of the lane, blocking Grant's path. He'd asked Ryan to come with him because, when the shit hit the fan, as it was about to do, his brother was about the only one he could trust to help him do whatever illegal thing he might have to do and keep his mouth shut about it. His plan was to ask Grant nicely first, explaining what sort of information was going to come out if he didn't get Lisa back alive and well, and then if that didn't work, beat the bastard to a pulp until her whereabouts came oozing out of him.

Also, his always-ready-for-trouble big brother kept a highly illegal loaded gun in his glove compartment. Black and deadly, it was now in Scott's possession. He didn't mean to shoot Grant--at least, not unless he found out the bastard had harmed Lisa--but it would hurry things along.

Instead of answering, Scott rolled out of the Jeep and sprinted to waylay the Lexus as it braked at his makeshift roadblock.

"Shit," he heard Ryan say, but when he reached the Lexus's window--fool had already rolled it down, probably to ask what was up with the Jeep blocking his path--and shoved the pistol in Grant's face, his brother, jiggling uneasily but there, was at his back.

"What the . . . ?" Grant gasped, gaping at him in disbelief even as Scott barked, "Get out of the car."

"Buchanan? Is that you? My God, have you lost your mind?"

"Get the fuck out of the car."

Because Grant was sputtering, not moving fast enough, Scott reached in, grabbed a handful of the slimy bastard's jacket, and practically yanked him out. Then he shoved him into the Lexus's backseat and got in with him, making sure he could see the gun, making sure Grant knew he had trouble. Ryan, having already been briefed on his part in the plan, got behind the wheel and did a one-eighty, pulling into the driveway of their dad's deserted house.

Then Ryan turned off the headlights and got out of the car. As dark as it was, the Lexus would be practically invisible.

"Stay put," Scott told Grant when the older man made a move to get out, too. "I want to talk to you."

"This is kidnapping, Buchanan." Grant's voice wavered between outrage and fear. Scott wished for the advantage of light--it would help if he could read what was going on in Grant's eyes--but light would draw attention, so he was going to have to do without it.

"Where's Lisa?" Scott's voice was very quiet. Deadly quiet.

"What? Do you think I know?"

Clenching his teeth, trying to control his impulse to slam his fist into Grant's mouth before repeating the question, Scott looked at him steadily. The moon was high enough now so that it cast sufficient light to allow him to see, if not the nuances of Grant's expression, at least the broad strokes. The man was looking at him as if he was a live grenade.

God, Lisa's been missing for more than two hours; please let her be alive. Let her be safe.

The thought filled him with a cold rage that it was all he could do to keep under control.

"Before we go any further with this, let me tell you what I know. I know your daughter was born with a potentially fatal kidney disease. I know the skeleton of a baby has been recovered that was buried under a fountain in Grayson Springs's backyard. I got some medical records a couple of days ago pertaining to a woman named Angela Garcia"--Grant started, and Scott gave him a wolfish smile--"yeah, I can see you've heard of her. I know from those records that she was a little over eight months pregnant when she and her family disappeared. I know you were making regular payments over a period of some five years prior to her disappearance to Angela Garcia through a dummy corporation. Just so we're clear, I've got copies of the checks with your signature on them. I know the family moved here just a few months before they disappeared, and I know the husband was bragging to a few people that he was getting ready to come into a large sum of money." He paused to look hard at Grant and was satisfied with what he saw. The man had shrunk back against the door. His eyes were wide and scared, and unless Scott's nose was misleading him, he was sweating like a pig. "Now let me tell you what I can prove if I have to. The baby buried under that fountain had ARPKD. So did yours and Miss Martha's newborn daughter. Lisa doesn't have, and never has had, ARPKD. She's your daughter, all right, but not with Miss Martha. She's your daughter with Angela Garcia."

He broke off as Grant started to make gasping noises. He looked as though he'd seen a ghost.

"You fathered Angela's older daughter, too, didn't you? You bought that older girl a doll for her fifth birthday right before she disappeared. Oh, yes, I can prove that, too, if you make me. As you know, Lisa has the doll, and the company kept the names of the purchasers of all the My Best Friend dolls sold." As Grant's hand rose to cover his mouth Scott pressed on relentlessly. "You were having an affair with Angela all those years you were in Washington, right under the noses of your wife and her husband. You even had a relationship of sorts with the older girl, Marisa. What, did she know you as uncle something? Those checks you wrote Angela were for child support, weren't they? And then she got pregnant again. This time the husband found out what was up. This time you two got caught. He was pissed, wasn't he? He wanted big money to keep his mouth shut, didn't he? When you didn't cough up big enough or fast enough, he moved his family here, practically right next door to your rich wife with her rich daddy who was funding your political career, and threatened to tell all. And you had a problem, because you knew that no matter what you did, no matter how much you paid, you weren't going to be able to keep the husband quiet forever. So, you dealt with it. You either killed them or hired somebody to do it. All except for your little baby, who was in your girlfriend's womb when the murders went down. Somehow she was born. Somehow she was spared. That baby is Lisa. For whatever reason, you switched your wife's dying child for Lisa. And now you're afraid it's all going to come out, that you're looking at multiple charges of murder one that will put you in prison for the rest of your life, if you don't get the death penalty, and you decided to get rid of the one absolutely irrefutable piece of evidence of the crimes you committed: Lisa."

"No, no, no!" Grant's hand had fallen away from his mouth, and his breathing was so loud and harsh that it sounded as though he was dying. Scott didn't give a shit, as long as he told him where Lisa was first. "You've got it all wrong! I--"

"Shut the fuck up," he growled, lunging toward Grant and pinning him to the door with one hand around his neck while Grant flapped and fussed like a chicken whose neck was about to be wrung. Smiling grimly, he positioned the gun maybe six inches from Grant's forehead, and the man went still. "You're going to tell me where Lisa is."

"I don't have her! I wouldn't hurt my own daughter!" Grant wheezed with panic. His eyes were practically starting from his head. "What do you take me for?"

"Here's the deal," Scott said, speaking through his teeth as he tried not to panic in the face of Grant's continued denials and the amount of time that was passing. "If you tell me where Lisa is, if I get her back alive and in one piece, I'll forget I know any of this. The Garcia thing is in the past. As far as I'm concerned, you can work it out with God or whoever. But I want Lisa. So, I'm going to ask you one last time: Where the hell is she?"

That last was a muted roar.

"I don't know. I swear to you, I don't know." Scott's hand tightened around his neck and he must have looked as murderous as he felt because Grant held up both hands in surrender even as he choked and coughed and squirmed. "Jesus, Buchanan, listen to me a minute. I tell you you've got it wrong!"

"How?" Fixing him with a murderous glare, Scott eased his hold on Grant's neck enough so that the man could talk easily. "You've got about one minute to convince me."

Grant took a great, rasping breath.

"All right. All right. I admit, Lisa is my daughter with Angie Garcia. You're right about that. I know it's true, although I don't have any proof other than the way she looks. I did have an affair with her mother. Her other daughter--Marisa--was my daughter, too. And you're right that that violent animal of a husband of Angie's found out and threatened us. Me. He was going to kill her and expose me if I didn't pay him a million dollars to keep quiet. But I didn't have a million dollars. All the money I had came from Martha's family. I told him that, and the bastard moved the family down here practically right next door to my wife's and told me he was going to go to her father for the money if I didn't pay up. But I never did anything to any of them. My God, I loved Angie, and Marisa, my little girl, and even her boy, Tony. I never knew what happened to them." The sudden anguish in Grant's eyes made Scott's eyes narrow. "I never knew. They just disappeared. But then, as Lisa started to grow up, I noticed how much she looked like Angie, and I began to suspect."

He broke off, licking his lips. Blood pounded in Scott's temples as he faced the terrifying realization that he might indeed have gotten this wrong. Jesus God, if he was wrong, where did he go next? Where was Lisa? Breathing hard, he let his hand drop from around Grant's neck, and lowered the gun.

"You began to suspect what?" Scott's voice was hoarse.

"It was the old man. Martha's father. He did something to them. He and that damned Frye."

She was alive.
Hurt and sick and scared to death but alive. She'd fallen a long way, maybe twenty feet, but because she'd landed in water, the fall hadn't killed her. She'd been dropped into a well, she thought, an old, abandoned well with standing water in the bottom. It was capped, which meant that down where she was, way at the bottom of the shaft, it was absolutely pitch-black. She wouldn't have been able to see her hand in front of her face even if she'd managed to free her wrists from the duct tape and hold one up there. There was no sound, either, except for the sounds created by her movements: sloshing water, squelching mud. The smell of mold and stagnant water was strong. The fall, plus the sounds, plus her sense of touch and smell, had given her a general picture of where she was. The well had curving walls that, from the feel of them, were made of brick. Slimy brick. She had to lean against the wall to keep her balance because, bound as she was, staying on her feet was difficult. Everything she could feel above the waterline was covered with slime. The water was armpit-deep and cool but not cold, with a thick layer of leaves and mud and who knew what else at the bottom that her bare feet kept sinking into. She'd plunged beneath the surface when she'd landed, and for a minute or so, bound as she was, she had feared she might drown. Without the use of her hands, she'd writhed and fought to get to the surface as terrible flashbacks of the car accident had spun through her mind. Then her feet had touched bottom, and in a spasm of blinding terror she'd launched herself upward. And then she had discovered that the water was shallow enough so that she could stand upright in it and breathe.

At first, that discovery had seemed like cause for elation.

But gradually it had borne in on her that the only way she was going to survive was if she could continue standing upright. If she could not, if her legs grew tired and gave out, if exhaustion overwhelmed her and she had to sleep, she would sink down into the water and drown.