Silenced (Alaskan Courage Book #4) (22 page)

Jake pushed the bowl of crunchy noodles away before he ate them all. What was taking Kayden so long? Yes, she was on crutches, and yes, it would obviously take her longer, but . . .

He glanced at his watch. It’d already been twelve minutes. What if the floor was slippery and she’d fallen in the ladies’ room?

He moved to stand and then sat back down. If he barged in on her, if he even knocked on the door and she was fine, she’d be ticked. Better to wait. He watched the numbers on his digital watch tick by. Thirteen minutes. Fourteen. At fifteen he stood. She could be mad at him if she wanted, but he had to be certain she was okay.

He moved across the restaurant toward the back hall, his chest tightening.

He passed the men’s room and paused at the door to the ladies’ room. Bracing himself for the backlash, he knocked.

No answer.

“Kayden.” He knocked a second time.

No answer.

He pushed the door open a crack. “Kayden, just making sure you’re all right.” The sinks were empty.

“Excuse me?” A woman said impatiently behind him.

He turned to find a short blonde.

“Sorry. My friend went in there fifteen minutes ago and hasn’t come back out. I’m worried something’s wrong.”

“Maybe she ditched you.” The woman pointed to the back door not five feet away.

Fear grasped Jake by the throat.
Please, no
.
He rushed into the bathroom.

“Hey!” the woman yelled.

“Kayden.” He searched under stalls.
Empty
. She wasn’t there. He raced past the blonde and out the back door. The alley was narrow but wide enough for a vehicle. Had Angela . . . ?

Terror choked the breath from his lungs.

Kayden woke to the sound of an engine and road noise. She opened her eyes, but darkness engulfed her. She was lying on her back on what felt like a hard metal floor—a pickup?—and something hard was poking beneath her shoulder blade.

She shifted, her hands bound, her legs too. It didn’t feel like rope against her skin. It was sticky and tight. Duct tape, perhaps. It covered her mouth as well.

She turned her head to her right and saw two slits of red equal distance apart. Taillights. She shifted to move her feet closer to one of the lights. Whatever was poking her back dug in deeper. Leading with her casted foot, she kicked at the red light, trying to bust it out. It took several kicks until it shattered. Hopefully it would draw a cop’s attention.

She kicked at the pickup’s hard top, trying to pop it open, trying to keep most of the force on her uninjured leg, but pain radiating down her leg was all she got for her trouble. She settled back, knowing the next best thing she could do was listen for any markers that might help her identify where Angela was taking her.

Jake burst into Landon’s office. “She’s taken Kayden.”

“Angela? Are you certain?”

“Kayden went into the bathroom at the Imperial Garden and never came back. I checked the bathroom and it was empty. The rear door is only a few feet away. And there’s space in the alleyway for a vehicle.”

“You think Angela followed you there and then sat in wait?”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

“Did you try calling Kayden’s cell?”

“It was in her purse, at the table with me.” He dropped it on Landon’s desk.

Landon picked up his phone. “Let me call Piper and make sure Kayden didn’t bolt . . . for some reason.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe she realized you two were on a date and—”

“She just took off without her purse, cell phone, or a means of transportation?”

“I know it’s farfetched. I just need to confirm.” He moved his hand off the mouthpiece. “Hey, babe. Is Kayden with you?” His expression hardened. “When’s the last time you heard from her? Jake’s here.” He went on to explain, trying to calm Piper down in the process. “Let me get on this, and I’ll call you back. You don’t have to . . . Okay. See you soon.”

“She’s on her way over?”

“I imagine they all will be.”

“That’s good. The more people we have to track Kayden, the better.” They were going to need all the help they could get. They had no leads on Angela’s whereabouts.
Wait a minute . . .
“Kirra. I’m such a fool.”

“What about her?”

“When we checked with the DMV and didn’t get a hit on anything registered to Carol Jones or Angela Markum, we let it go, decided we’d hit a dead end, but Kirra must at least know what her car looks like. We can put out an APB on the description.”

“You really think she’s stupid enough to drive the same car she did when posing as Carol?”

“It’s a long shot, but right now it’s the only lead we have to go on.”

Landon lifted the phone. “I’ll call Kirra.”

Within twenty minutes all the McKennas, Darcy, and Kirra had descended on the station.

“We should call Cole,” Gage said.

Jake hated to bother him on his honeymoon, but if he had a sister who’d been kidnapped, he’d want to know ASAP.

Kirra provided a description of the car Angela had used when posing as Carol—a Nissan Altima. Silver. Four-door sedan.

“Any chance you caught some of her license plate?” Jake asked.

Kirra grimaced. “Sorry. I don’t notice things like that.”

“Was that the only car Angela ever drove?”

“Yes . . . Well, there was one day she showed up in a truck. She said it was a loaner while her car was in the shop.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It was an older model Toyota Tacoma. Midnight blue. Still looked to be in good shape.”

“Did she say which shop she went to?”

“No, but I asked. Told her Lenny’s was the best in town.”

“And she’d gone to . . . ?”

“William Rogers’ place.”

Jake nodded. “On it.”

Jake entered William Rogers’ garage. William was in his sixties, and both of his sons ran the shop. “Hey, Will,” he greeted the junior William—he was working late; it was almost eight.

“Hey, Jake. Don’t tell me your truck’s acting up again.”

“No. I’m here for an entirely different reason.” He took a moment to give Will the details.

“Yeah. I remember the Altima. Needed a new timing belt.”

“Did you happen to note the license plate number by any chance?”

“Yeah, actually. We record the license plates of all the cars we service.”

Thank you, God
.

Jake anxiously paced while Will retrieved Angela’s records.

“Here you go, man.”

“Can I take this, or do you need me to make a copy?”

“I’ll copy it for you. It’ll only take a sec.”

“Thanks.” Now they had a way to track her, possibly, if she hadn’t changed vehicles. “Oh, Kirra Jacobs said Angela drove a loaner truck while you repaired her car.”

“She might have, but I don’t recall seeing it.”

“You didn’t loan her the truck?”

“Nah. We don’t have the resources for that sort of thing.”

“So, if she got a loaner . . . ?”

“You should talk to Nadine over at the rental-car company. Only place I know she’d get one, but they don’t usually rent out trucks. They get too much wear on the four-wheel-drive vehicles.”

“Thanks. Heading over there now.”

Jake made the quick walk two blocks down the street, praying the rental company wouldn’t close before he reached it. The night air was cool on his heated skin. He rounded the last corner and found Nadine locking up for the night. “Hey, Nadine.”

“Hey, Jake.” Nadine’s close-cropped hair was a deep shade of red, though dark roots crowning her part said the color wasn’t natural. “What’s going on?”

He explained, showing her Angela’s photo.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t rent anything to her. And I don’t have any trucks that fit that description. We try not to rent out four-wheel-drive vehicles, because people use them to go off-roading and bring them back all muddy and busted up.”

So Angela Markum had kept a second car. Very smart, but thankfully they had a description of the vehicle from Kirra. It’d be better if they had a license plate to go with it, but at least they had someplace to start.

The truck pulled to a stop with a jerk, and Kayden readied herself to kick out as soon as Angela opened the truck-bed cover.

The cover lifted and she kicked, but Angela stood, still dressed as a man, a safe distance away.

“I suggest you settle down or I’ll have to make you.”

No way she’d comply willingly. She’d never go down without a fight.

“I expected as much. I see we’re going to have to do this the hard way.” Angela lifted a pole and jammed it at Kayden, sending jolts of electricity through her.

Landon put out an APB on both known vehicles of Angela Markum, praying they’d get a hit, but so far, no luck.

The Altima was registered to Carol
Willis
, which meant not only had she adopted the persona of Carol Jones that she used when meeting people in Yancey, she’d also used a second false name to establish fake documentation. Two layers of disguise. Angela had thought of everything—and that terrified Jake.

Unfortunately the Altima was the only vehicle registered in Carol Willis’s name, so chances were she’d stolen the secondary vehicle or paid cash for it to someone desperate enough to sell it without going through official channels.

“I’m going to go talk with Ralph Barnes, find out if he remembers seeing Carol driving the truck,” Thoreau said. “He might have had a reason to observe the license plate.”

“Good idea,” Landon said. “All of Yancey’s search and rescue have been called in. Gage is coordinating search parties now.”

If Kayden was still on Tariuk, they’d find her. Jake’s fear
was that Angela had gone off the island with her, and that would greatly extend their search parameters.

Gage paired up the search teams. Kirra was frustrated when she ended up with Reef, but she didn’t want to make waves by asking for another partner. Kayden’s life was on the line. Surely she and Reef could work past their differences for his sister’s sake.

“Let’s run by and pick up Rex before we start our grid,” she said, heading for the door.

“Why?” He followed her out of the station into the cool evening air. “We have our grid. We should get started.”

“Rex is Kayden’s favorite, and he adores her. Using him will greatly aid our search.”

Reef stood, leg twitching. He always wanted to race straight to action. And to be honest, his way of approaching things—act first, think later—was part of what made him so attractive to her . . . and what most annoyed her about him.

“Trust me,” she said.

“Fine, if you really believe it will help, but let’s hurry. That’s my sister out there.”

“I know.”

The ride back to her place took fifteen minutes, and Reef’s leg never stopped bouncing. She fought the burning urge to reach over and clamp her hand on his knee just to make the constant motion stop.

She pulled up outside the barn and raced inside.

They’d been assigned the grid surrounding Northface, along a line of hunting and fishing cabins, but they would follow where Rex led.

She grabbed the sweatshirt Kayden had left hanging on the hook inside the barn and let Rex out of his kennel. “Here, boy.” She let him sniff the sweatshirt. “Let’s find Kayden.”

Kirra drove while Rex rode in the back. “Where’s the last place Kayden was seen?”

“The Imperial Garden. She went to use the bathroom and never came back.”

Kirra stepped on the gas. “The Imperial Garden it is.”

“But we’re supposed to cover Northface.”

“And we will, but Kayden’s scent will be strongest where she was last seen. Rex can even track which direction she was taken.”

Reef looked back at the husky. “Really?”

“Yes. He’s a trained search-and-rescue scent dog.”

“Who trained him?”

“I did.”

“I didn’t realize you knew how to do that.”

“I do. I run Yancey’s canine search-and-rescue unit.”

“Kayden mentioned that. I just didn’t realize you did the training too.”

“I’ve been doing it for years, along with my dad, until my parents moved away.” Dogs were so much more faithful than people, at least in her experience.

“Interesting,” he said with a smile.

She shifted to study him better. Reef McKenna found something
she
did to be interesting? Well, that was a first.

For the rest of the drive to the Imperial Garden, she tried to keep her mind focused on the task of finding Kayden and not on how very handsome Reef McKenna was sitting beside her—tall, sculpted body, curly blond hair, deep blue eyes. The man was breathtaking.
Just like William.

Agony pricked her afresh. It’d been weeks since she’d thought about . . . since her last nightmare. More than a year had passed, and she still had nightmares. When would they stop?

After Reef notified the owners, Kirra led Rex through the front of the Imperial Garden, had him smell Kayden’s sweatshirt. He immediately picked up her scent and followed her path from the front table to the ladies’ room and on to the back door. Kirra opened it, and they stepped outside, the alley nearly dark. Rex sniffed, signaling east.

“She left from here, heading east in a vehicle.”

“He can tell that?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your best guess of their destination?”

“The docks.”

Jake hung up, trying not to chuck his phone against the wall.
The ferry
. He should have known, but how did Angela get Kayden on the ferry and keep her subdued during transport?

No doubt she’d knocked Kayden unconscious or drugged her, and what . . . ? Hid her in her truck? Kirra had said it had a hard-shell cover over the bed. Angela had clearly put a lot of thought into her plans. It was downright frightening, and he feared what else she had in store before their nightmare was over.

His stomach clenched. If Kayden had been at full strength, there was no way Angela could have overcome her. But being nearly immobile, Kayden . . .

He had to focus.
The ferry
. From Yancey there were only two direct options—Imnek and Kodiak. That helped narrow
their scope, but only if Angela remained on one of those islands. If she took another ferry from there . . . He rushed to the ferry station. Reef had said he would call everyone else.

During the summer, the ferry ran every three hours. The ride to Imnek only took an hour and a half. The ride to Kodiak took about three hours. Jake looked at his watch. “Call the ferry stations. Have them watch for Angela arriving,” he said to Landon. He prayed she was headed for Kodiak and they’d still have time to intercept—but she was probably too smart to give them that much time to figure out she had taken the ferry. And if she’d gone directly to Imnek, they were probably too late.

Once Landon was on his cell with the ferry station in Imnek and Gage on the phone with the Kodiak station, Jake stepped inside Yancey’s terminal office. “Hey, Cal,” he greeted the man working the desk, “any chance you remember this lady buying a ticket in the last three hours?” He held out Angela’s photo.

Cal studied the photo. “Can’t say that I do, but the boys were working the line.” During tourist season, the guys stood outside by the vehicle line and sold tickets directly to the drivers, helping avoid a backup.

“Are they still on shift?”

Cal raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. I’ll call them.”

Jed and Russ met Jake by the pier. Jed was young, early twenties, with light blond hair; Russ was older, midthirties, with the weathered skin of a mariner.

Jake showed them Angela’s picture. Both inspected it, and Jed tapped the photograph. “That looks a lot like Carol. I’ve seen her plenty of times, but not today.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, a real hottie for an older lady.”

Jake supposed a woman in her midforties would look
older
to a twenty-year-old.

“Why do you remember her?” There had to be some reason she stuck in his mind.

Jed shrugged with a smile. “Because she was nice. We chatted during her trips. Maybe even flirted a little.”

“Trips?”

“Yeah she made weekly trips to Imnek and back.”

“For how long?”

“Past couple months.”

So she’d been preparing for this all along. “What did you two chat about?”

“I don’t know.” Jed leaned against the rail. “Nothing in particular.”

“Did she say why she was going to Imnek so frequently?”

“Nah. I think I asked once, but she just changed the subject. You know how folks around here are about their privacy.”

“Yeah.” People in Yancey, in most of Alaska, prided themselves on the privacy that living in such a rugged land, away from crowded cities and the need to always be in your neighbor’s business, afforded them.

“And you’re positive you haven’t seen her tonight?”

“Positive . . . but I saw her truck. Some dude was driving it.”

“A man?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re sure it was her truck?” He pointed to Angela’s picture.

“I’m sure. Had the cool Brembo calipers that kick-started our first conversation. Thought it was pretty cool a chick like her was driving a truck with red Brembo brake calipers.”

“Which ferry did the man with her truck take? Imnek or Kodiak?”

Jed thought a moment. “Imnek.”

“Has it docked there already?” Unfortunately, Jake already knew the answer. He just wished it were different.

Jed looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes ago.”

Jake exhaled, frustration searing through him.

“Can you describe the man?” Landon asked, coming up behind him.

Jed raked a hand through his close-cropped hair. “He was kind of short for a dude.”

“How short?”

“Maybe five-six or five-seven.”

“What else?”

“He had short dark hair and a goatee.”

“Have you ever seen him before?”

“Nope.” Jed shook his head. “Not that I recall.”

“Never with Angela?”

“Angela?” Jed squinted.

“
Angela
is Carol’s real name.”

“Oh, right. No, I never saw them together.”

“Did you talk to him at all?”

“The man?”

“Yeah.”

“Nah. Just saw him pull up in Carol’s truck. I thought it was kind of odd, but I just figured he was a friend of hers.”

“Was anyone else with him?”

“Not that I saw.” He looked at his co-worker, who to this point had remained silent but interested. “You, Russ?”

Russ shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know who you’re talking about. And I don’t remember the truck either.”

Landon glanced over at Jake. “You think she has an accomplice?”

“It’s possible. Or it could be Angela, wearing a disguise.” He lifted his chin at Jed. “Could you describe her truck, besides the brake calipers?” Though that detail alone was extremely helpful. “Make? Model? Any chance you saw the license plate?”

“It was an older Toyota Tacoma. Dark blue.”

Jake nodded. “When you say older . . . how old are you talking?”

Jed exhaled. “Oh, I’d probably say an ’03 or ’04.”

“Any chance you saw her license plate?”

“It wasn’t a vanity plate. Just a regular Alaskan plate. Three letters. Three numbers.” He draped his arms along the rails, his fingers tapping the wood as he thought.

“Any guesses?”

“I have no clue about the letters.” Jed rubbed his chin. The faint shadow of blond whiskers dappled his sun-tanned skin.

“Any idea on the numbers?”

“That was 122.”

“You’re sure?” Seemed an odd thing to remember.

“Positive. I do a thing with license plate numbers and football stats. Keeps things interesting. Anyway, 122 . . . Staubach was number twelve and he won two Super Bowls. The man’s a legend—and I’m telling you, that lady looked like she could have been a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader back in her prime.” He blushed a bit. “Well, that’s how I made the connection.”

“Thanks, Jed.” Jake clamped him on the shoulder and then pulled a card from his pocket with his cell number scrolled across the back. “If you think of anything else—anything at all—you give me a call.”

Jed nodded.

Landon ran the partial he supplied through the database while Jake called Ned at the Imnek ferry station to let him know they were looking for a truck that had arrived on the last ferry.

Nobody had noticed Angela’s truck unloading on Imnek, but Ned said they would comb the parking lot for it, just in case Angela was waiting to take another ferry out from there.

“I’ve got two possible truck matches to the partial on Tariuk,” Landon said. “A 2004 Toyota belonging to a Paul Freeman, and a 2003 that last belonged to a Roger Harris.”

“Last belonged?”

“Tags haven’t been renewed in three years.”

“You think he just had it sitting on his property?” He’d seen it before. Unable to afford the vehicle expenses, the owner let it sit, collecting dust.