Take a Chance on Me (157 page)

Aaron cocked his head, as if considering her offer. "Who's the father?"

Emma swallowed, her eyes darting from Leelee's shocked face to Aaron. Then back to Leelee—the girl had begun to furiously saw her wrists against the little metal drawer pull behind her back.

"The father is Thomas, my fiancé."

"Fiancé?" they both yelled.

"Yes."

Aaron stared at her with narrow, ugly eyes, and Emma checked quickly to see that Leelee almost had her hands free.

"Pops and I will sell the farm and give you all the profit." Emma's voice was soft and steady as she held Aaron's gaze. "It's worth a fortune to developers now—millions, Aaron. Think about it. That would be so much better than whatever my insurance might be worth. And you can have it all."

As a sickening smile spread across his face, Emma knew she had never been more frightened in her life.

It was eerie seeing an Aaron who wasn't Aaron—gutted out and hollow. Her stomach clenched again.

"You lying whore." With that, his open hand cracked across her mouth, and Emma's head swung around from the force.

"Buttwipe!" Leelee shot up from the floor and lunged at Aaron.

In her swimming vision, Emma watched Leelee make a single upward slice with her forearm, knocking the gun from Aaron's grip. The gun went sailing over the bed just as Leelee jumped Aaron, knocked him back on the mattress, and straddled him, hitting and punching wildly.

Emma was on her feet, ready to do whatever she could to beat Aaron to a pulp and get them out of there, when the door was bashed open and two men stumbled in. They both had guns.

"Hey—it's a party," said the uglier of the two.

* * *

Thomas raced down the lane, gravel and dust flying around the Audi like a swarm of hornets. He saw Emma's truck, and his heart soared—then sank. The driver's side door was flung open, and Beckett was standing in the driveway—in tears.

"Beck?" Thomas flew out of his car and ran to the old man. He grabbed him by the shoulders.

"They're gone. Something happened. I think he has them."

"Emma's gone? Leelee?"

"Aaron's got 'em."

"What do you mean he's—"

"Here." Beckett handed him a fine-grained black leather wallet. "Hairy had it in his teeth when I got back from the Super Fresh just a minute ago. The dog was going nuts—spinning and jumping and crying. I think Aaron has the girls."

"Did you look—?"

"House. Barn. Everywhere. They're gone."

Thomas looked down at the mishmash of tire prints in the gravel. Hell if he could tell if another car had been here. Then he saw the deep cuts in the stones, like somebody's feet had been dragged across the lane.

"I'm calling in." Thomas ran to the car, yelling over his shoulder. "How long ago, Beck? How long ago do you think?"

He shook his head. "I've been home no more than five minutes. That's all I can tell you."

Thomas dialed Reg and told her to get an APB on Aaron Kramer. He flipped open the wallet and started reading from the expired Maryland driver's license.

"White male, DOB 6–14–67 , five-nine, one fifty-five . He's got brown eyes, brown hair. He's—"

Thomas stopped. He stared at the little picture at the top right corner of the license and turned it in the light. He imagined what that clean-cut man would look like in a scraggly beard and a pair of blue contact lenses.

"He's Larry. Oh, fuck."

"Who's Larry?"

Thomas dumped the contents of the wallet onto the front seat and started looking for something—

anything—that might indicate where Aaron had taken them. He found two condoms, two obviously stolen credit cards, a few bucks, and a handwritten receipt for a motel room—paid up until tomorrow.

Thomas gave Reg the address to the King of Hearts Motor Court in Bowie , then gave her the physical descriptions of Leelee and Emma. "Bring in the STATE team," he said. "Get everyone in position for a possible hostage situation. I'm on my way."

"Done. Meet you there."

Beck was waiting on the other side of the car door, his face drawn in worry. Hairy was cradled in his arms.

"I swear to God I'll bring them home," Thomas said. "I'll call you as soon as I know anything."

"The hell you will!" Beckett ran around to the other side and jumped in shotgun. He tossed Hairy in the back. "We're all going. Now drive!"

Thomas was soon back on the road, blue light flashing, keeping the line open with Reg. The Special Tactical Assault Team Element was already on the way. Troopers from the Prince George 's County barracks were on site, awaiting orders. The motel manager was being interviewed. The rest of the motel and all nearby buildings had been cleared.

"She's pregnant," Thomas said.

The old man stared at him with startled blue eyes, then looked him up one side and down the other. He broke out into a wide smile. "And?"

"And I'd like your permission to marry her, sir."

Beckett howled with laughter. "Son, my Emma's a grown woman with a mind of her own, in case you haven't noticed. Now, I'm not saying I don't appreciate the old-fashioned courtesy, but it's her permission you need, not mine."

"Yes, sir."

"Congratulations," Beck said. His chin quivered. "Now let's go get our girls."

Thomas pressed the gas, thanked God it was past evening rush, and let the whole mess whirl around in his head. The fear he felt was desperate, potent. And he realized that he'd only felt fear like this one other time in his life, when he was just a kid. When his mother had left.

And it occurred to him that he'd spent the rest of his life making sure he never set himself up to be this afraid again, because obviously, this kind of fear was the flip side of love. When you loved people they became your whole life. And losing them became the worst fate imaginable.

He saw their faces—Emma and Leelee and a baby that was probably no bigger than a pea but was already real to him, real to his heart.

He refused to lose them.

He'd just found them.

Thomas swallowed hard. "Hang on, Pops," he said, putting the pedal to the metal.

* * *

Emma and Leelee were nicely trussed up again, this time sitting in the corner, back to back, wrists linked.

There was no way she was going to get out this time, Leelee realized.

The two goons scared her more than Aaron did. They'd obviously done this sort of thing before, whereas Aaron was an amateur. She should be glad to see Aaron shaking and crying as he sat tied on the bed, but she couldn't be glad about anything.

She had a feeling she and Emma were really going to die.

"If you'd just let me follow through with the plan…" Aaron tried once more.

The ugly guy laughed again.

Man, he was ugly.

He had hair like Squiggy from Laverne & Shirley reruns. Leelee didn't think actual people wore their hair like that, but obviously she'd been traveling in the wrong circles. He was dressed in a mighty attractive yellow polyester golf shirt and a pair of those stretch pants men can order from the back pages of Parade magazine. He had more tattoos than the girls at the tractor pull, but fewer teeth. And he smelled bad.

His skinny friend was obviously the assistant manager of their criminal enterprise. He did whatever the ugly one told him to do, including tying her and Emma together a moment ago.

The last few minutes had been just full of surprises, and by this point, Leelee had put the whole twisted story together. Aaron had owed Scott Slick lots of money and Slick was tired of dealing with him, so he sold Aaron's debt to Goons Incorporated here for pennies on the dollar, and they'd started harassing Aaron to pay up. Aaron was royally pissed, and followed Slick home one night and tried to convince him to give him one more chance to pay his debt. Slick said no-can-do. They argued. Aaron snapped, he said, grabbed a kitchen blender, and whacked Slick in the head with it.

He swore he hadn't meant to kill him.

So there the three men were now, arguing about who they should kill and how they were going to get their hands on money.

Leelee swallowed hard. Obviously, if the goons killed Aaron they wouldn't be getting any more money from him, right? So the Ugly One must be considering Aaron's plan to kill them. That had to be why the three men were now staring at Emma and her like they were juicy T-bones laid out on ruffles of Bibb lettuce.

At least she hoped that money was the only reason they stared.

Leelee started to shake. She shoved down the fear and started talking.

"Hey, did you guys know that Scott Slick was actually an alias for a guy named Simon Slickowski, who lived in a trailer park in Smyma , Delaware , and was last year's World Canine Disco Dancing Champion?"

"What the fuck is that?" the Ugly One asked, frowning.

"Be quiet, Lee," Emma whispered through clenched teeth.

"It's where people wear funky costumes and dance around to disco music with their dogs—you know, Donna Summer, Rose Royce, Peaches and Herb."

"I've always loved Peaches and Herb," the assistant manager said, then began singing, "'We're bumping booties, havin' us a ball …'"

"This is messed up," the Ugly One said. "Everybody just shut up a minute while I think."

"And Slick has a bunch of money stashed up in Delaware ," Leelee added. "We can take you to it."

The men began arguing again.

Emma twisted her fingers around to clutch at Leelee's hand.

"Lee! How in the world—? Were you listening in on a private conversation between Thomas and me?

When?"

Leelee rolled her eyes. This was no time for another lecture from Emma. "I just overheard you one night."

Emma hissed and tightened her grip. "Well, just be quiet, would you?"

"I can't! I'm so scared!"

"It's going to be okay."

Leelee grunted. "How?"

"Thomas is coming for us," she whispered. "I can feel it."

Leelee rolled her eyes—their knight in shining Audi! God, how she wished it were true! Thomas was great, but he wasn't exactly a hero. She knew better than to believe in heroes.

"How much is up in Delaware ?" the Ugly One asked.

"Over half a million," Leelee said.

"How in the hell did you know Slick anyway?"

Uh-oh. Maybe she should have kept her mouth shut.

"You're making all this up, aren't you, you little bitch?"

"No! I swear! It's true!"

The Ugly One took a step closer to them while looking over his shoulder at Aaron. "How much did you say the wife was worth, Kramer?"

"Quarter of a million." Aaron slumped further onto the bed.

"Okay. Everybody hold on a minute while I do the math."

Leelee couldn't help it. "Don't hurt yourself," she said.

Emma clamped down on her fingers.

The Ugly One bent down, touched Emma's hair, then Leelee's. He chuckled. "Whatever we do, I think we're going to keep the little one alive."

Emma whipped her head around and sank her teeth into the Ugly One's arm.

"Ow! Shit! Fuck! Hell!"

Things were really starting to disintegrate.

* * *

When they reached the scene, Thomas was told that sniper surveillance showed three men inside, one of them Aaron Kramer, and at least three weapons. The women were tied in the far southwest corner of the room, directly below the front window, Emma facing out. The hostage-takers seemed disorganized and the young girl had managed to keep them off balance by not shutting up.

"Thata girl, Lee," Beckett said.

The STATE team plan was simple: create a diversion and surprise them. Five men were poised at the motel room door, weapons at the ready. Two snipers were positioned in trees in the back. A remote-controlled explosive device—designed more for noise than destruction—was in place under the bathroom window.

Thomas and Regina were right behind the STATE team, tucked into Kevlar vests. The rest of Thomas's team waited in a staging area on the service road, along with five waiting ambulances and an assortment of state police and Prince George 's County Sheriff 's Department vehicles.

Thomas knew from experience that tactical maneuvers like these could be over in seconds—it was possible that within moments he'd have Emma in his arms. That is, if she'd come anywhere near him.

Snipers reported that Emma had just bitten one of the hostage-takers, and the instant of chaos that followed was all the STATE team needed.

As the hostage-taker dropped his weapon and ran screaming to the bathroom, a loud explosion rocked the room. STATE officers crashed in the door. Two officers immediately covered the women while the other three tackled and cuffed the hostage-takers. The takedown was over almost before it had begun.

The next few moments were a blur for Thomas—he watched as Emma and Leelee were cut loose and hugged each other, crying. A STATE team member led them to sit on the edge of the bed and called for the EMTs.

They were alive. That's all that registered in his brain. They looked cut and bruised and beyond exhausted, but they were breathing.

He hadn't lost them. Now he prayed he hadn't lost them.

Emma slowly turned toward Thomas. His heart lurched. His eye squinted. And after a second that seemed to hold his entire world over his head, Emma offered him a soft smile.

"I knew you'd figure it out," she said, and held out her hand.

He got to her instantly, squatting down, his hands racing all over her body.

"Are you hurt? Where did they touch you?"

"I'm okay," she said, shaking her head.

Thomas reached over for Leelee. "Are you all right, Lee?"

She nodded, mute, her lips trembling. She had a shiner that was going to take up most of the left side of her face. Thomas took another look at Emma, and saw a swelling welt along her cheek and a split in her lower lip.