Taken - Before her very Eyes (9 page)

Summer felt the hot tears
building and turned, staring outside, refusing to let Nate see her cry. “But if
it was because of Dean’s contacts, then why wouldn’t John Scott have said
anything. Why not send a message?”

“Because I don’t think you were
supposed to be able to talk after he was through with you.” Nate gave her a
reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “But what about Gavin Stone? You can’t tell
me he’s clean and not somehow using the courier business to his advantage?”

“You’ve checked him out.” Summer
wiped the tears away and met Nate’s blue eyes. “I know you have. There’s no
possible way you could just sit back and not stick your nose in it.”

“Maybe I have?”

“And you came up empty handed,
right?”

Nate nodded.

Summer turned her attention to
the outside world, but her eyes caught her reflection in the side mirror. She
couldn’t believe the way she looked right now, all huddled in the corner of the
front seat with shoulders drawn down and her face slack and sad. How could she
face the world like this? How could she stand tall and fight back when she
couldn’t even sit straight? Turning to Nate, she pushed back her shoulders and
met him with a fixed gaze.

“Gavin Stone has changed. He’s
not the same man he was eight years ago.”

“And what changed him? Eight
years behind bars and three months on probation. Maybe he asked God for
forgiveness?”

Summer shook her head.

“Once a criminal,” Nate said.
“Always a criminal.”

“Remind me again why you never
went through to become a judge.”

“I’ve seen too many kids make
mistakes and they usually continue to make the same mistakes until they die
from them. So, I guess we’ll have to ask John Scott who he’s working for. That
is, as long as the boys do their job and keep him safe for us.”

Summer glanced at her watch and
fidgeted in the seat. “We’d better hurry, Nate. We’re running out of time.”

“Don’t worry,” Nate said,
flipping on the siren and speeding through a red light. “We’ll make it work.”

The news of John Scott’s arrest
last night, combined with Sabrina’s kidnapping this morning had the entire
police parking lot full of reporters all hoping to get a quick sound bite for
the lunch news, but Nate wanted no part of the circus so he bypassed the front
entrance and rounded the building, pulling up at the back door of the service
bay.

“They’re a bunch of vultures,”
Nate said, pushing through the doorway and entering the back hall. “But we might
need their help to get Sabrina back.”

“Not if we follow the kidnapper’s
instructions.” Summer hurried to catch up. “He only wants one thing.”

Nate stopped and turned to her.
“And how do you purpose we do that. Do you think Grimshaw will allow John Scott
to walk out of here, because I think the detective will put up quite a stink if
we try?”

“Then let’s not tell him.” Summer
tried to smile, but couldn’t. “Let it be a surprise.”

“Yeah,” Nate rolled his eyes and
continued walking. “The prisoner? Oh… I think he just stepped out for a
cigarette. You know how we hate second hand smoke in the jail cells. Come on,
Summer, even if you don’t ID him they’ll match his DNA to the case and—” 

“I won’t allow it.” Summer shook
her head. “I’ll say I lied about being raped. I’ll say I made the whole thing
up. That I went with him willingly.”

“No, you’re not gonna ruin your
name like that. I won’t allow it.”

“What the hell do I care? Let
people think what they want. Let them think I was just screwing around and got
caught in some kinky sex scandal.” Summer pulled Nate to a stop while they were
still alone. “I don’t care what happens to me anymore. All I want is to get
Sabrina back and hold her in my arms.”

Nate nodded. “Give me your cell
phone. Someone’s gotta have a charger here.”

Summer pulled it from her purse
and handed it to Nate. “I think there’s still one in my desk.”

When they reached the end of the
hall, Nate tossed the phone to the nearest person and ordered them to retrieve
the charger then headed toward the interrogation room where John Scott had been
placed, for his own protection.

Chief Harold Dickson was standing
guard outside the interrogation room, looking anxiously around at the sight of
all the reporters gathered in the parking lot. He’d never been one to willingly
step into the spotlight, and nearly always fumbled over his words whenever the
cameras were rolling, and Summer knew the idea of addressing the public was
eating away inside him.

“Summer,” Chief Dickson said,
placing both hands on her shoulders. “I’m so sorry about what happened. I’ve
got everyone on the case and I’ve put it out on the wire all across the area. I
hope you don’t mind but I used the photo of Sabrina from your desk. We’ve
clamped down the entire area and they’ve tightened the border. Don’t worry.
They won’t get far.”

“Is…” Summer tipped her head to
the room beside. “He, in there?”

The chief nodded. He looked worn
out, like he’d aged ten years in a single morning. His normally slender physic
had transformed over the last year, turning him into an unhealthy specimen. She
could see it in his washed out grey eyes. There was something he was hiding.
Some reason why he’d dropped so many pounds in such a short period of time. She
felt a slight tremble in her shoulders but couldn’t decide if it was coming
from the chief’s hands or her own body, so she shook off his touch and turned
to the door.

“Summer,” Chief Dickson said.
“Let’s not be rash about this. I know what you’ve been through and storming
into that room in your condition to face him would be a bad thing.”

“My condition!” Summer screamed.
“That fucker in there is the reason I have a fucking condition anyways! What
does it matter if I go in there? What do you think I’ll do, go nuts and gouge
his eyeballs out?”

Summer drew a deep breath and
glanced around, noticing every eye in the station was frozen on her as flashes
from the cameras outside lit up the front glass doors. Great, she could see the
front page now. Distraught officer freaks out in cop shop.

She felt Chief Dickson pull her
close, turning her so her back was to the crowd outside. “I don’t know what
you’re capable of doing right now, so I’d prefer you come with me into the next
room and we’ll take a look at his mug shots and you can see him through the one
way mirror.”

Summer glanced over her shoulder
at the crowd of reporters waiting behind the police line like caged lions at
the zoo.

“This John Scott fits your
description and also the artist’s sketch. Detective Grimshaw apprehended him in
a small warehouse in the west end of Windsor. He was modifying a shipment of
merchandise to allow drugs to be hidden inside. Although the merchandise isn’t
the same as the stuff we confiscated six months ago, crammed with meth, we
think he was working with the same dealers.”

“So he is working for someone?”

“That’s what it looks like.”
Chief Dickson opened the door to the adjoining room. “But he’s not talking
anymore.”

Summer gave Nate a questioning
look. “Anymore?”

“When Grimshaw brought him in,
John Scott mentioned that he was interested in cutting a deal. He wouldn’t
confess or specify what kind of deal until he had a lawyer present, but still
he was willing to name names.”

“Let me guess, now that the other
inmate tried to kill him, he’s not talking anymore?”

Chief Dickson nodded.

Summer kept her eyes trained on
her feet as they entered the small room. “What was the other guy brought in
for?”

“Assault and battery. Beat the
crap out of a convenience store clerk claiming he’d short changed him.” Chief
Dickson closed the door behind. “Then the guy hung around the neighbourhood for
the cops to pick him up. At first it seemed like a lucky break, but now it
looks like he was trying to get arrested.”

Summer raised her eyes and
glanced at the man sitting slouched behind the table. “Like someone hired him
to keep an eye on our boy and make sure he doesn’t squeal?”

“Looks that way. We’ve run the
other prisoner through the computer and he’s clean. This is his first offence.
No link to organized crime. Not even a speeding ticket on his record.”

“Has he said why he attacked John
Scott?” Nate asked, placing an arm around Summer’s shoulder.

“Said John Scott told him what
he’d done to Summer. Said he remembered Summer’s story and it’d just set him
off.” Chief Dickson picked a picture from the small counter and stared at John
Scott’s mug shot. “We checked the tapes in the cell, but never heard John Scott
speak.”

Summer continued to stare at John
Scott. “Could he have whispered it too softly that the machine didn’t catch
it?”

“Anything’s possible.” Chief
Dickson dropped the mug shot and leaned against the wall. “But you know as well
as I do what kind of sounds that machine picks up.”

The man sitting inside the next
room didn’t look capable of harming anyone right now. He sat slouched down in
the chair with his head hung low. Summer glared at his eyes, but they were
nothing more than slits in his swollen face. The beating the other inmate had
given him was pretty bad. Bad enough to make IDing him almost impossible. There
were similarities between this man and the man who’d been lying possum beside
the van, covered with blood, but Summer knew even if she wanted to ID him right
now, she couldn’t be a hundred percent sure that this was the same man.

She knew if she wanted to be
sure, she’d have to wait until the swelling and bruises disappeared before she
could send this man away to jail, but with Sabrina’s life teetering in her
grasp, even if Summer could pick John Scott from a crowd, she didn’t think she
would.

“His face is so battered and I only
saw him briefly at the site of the crash and even then his face was covered
with blood.” Summer glanced at the mug shot on the counter and felt a gut
wrenching pain rip through her stomach. She doubled over, grabbing for the
steel counter as she went. Those eyes. She’d seen those eyes haunting her
nights for the last five months. How could she forget them? They were the last
thing she’d seen that night before the drugs kicked in and her mind and life
swirled out of control.

Chief Dickson ran his hands
through the tiny fringe of white hair on the sides of his scalp. “I thought you
might have a better chance of recognizing him from that photo—back when he had
all his teeth.”

Summer drew a deep breath and
slowly looked up at Chief Dickson. His shallow cheeks had turned flush and the
tiny vein running up his forehead, beneath the translucent aged skin was pulsating
right now. She and the chief had become very close over the years and Summer
knew it was because she was the only woman on the force. When he needed someone
to talk to about his wife’s fight with cancer, well he certainly wouldn’t have
turned to the men. Their answers always involved the same thing, drinking.

Summer knew those talks had
lessened the pain of losing his wife and at the same time given the chief a
peek at her innermost thoughts and dreams. So when John Scott had taken her
away, she knew Chief Dickson was doing everything humanly possible to get her
back.

“I know this is hard for you,
Summer, but take a minute before you tell me if you can identify this man.”

Summer felt Nate’s arms lifting
her back to her feet. The pain in her stomach lessened knowing that he was
standing beside her. Knowing that he would accept either of her decisions
without consequences.

Chief Dickson flipped the photo
over and touched her shoulder. “I read the ransom note myself. I know what we
as police officers are supposed to do in a situation like this, but I also know
what is truly at stake here. If you look me in the eye and tell me that’s not
the man who tortured you that night, then I’ll turn him loose right now. But if
you can’t, then I’ll have no choice but to demand a DNA sample be taken and run
against the samples in the file. Either way, this decision is yours to make.”

Nate pulled her closer, shielding
her from the one way mirror. “Chief, give us a few minutes, okay?”

Without another word Chief
Dickson left the room, leaving Summer to tremble in Nate’s arms. Although his
arms were strong, she wished that Dean were here to hold her right now. She’d
thought about this day, the day they’d catch her attacker and how she’d want to
face him and give him a taste of his own medicine, but never, never had she
imagined that things would be so twisted as they were right now. If only Dean
were here. His opinion would mean everything. After all, he was in this
predicament as much as she was.

“Nate.” Summer stepped back and
held her hands out, watching as they trembled. “I recognize those eyes. I know
it’s him. He’s the reason my hands are like this. He’s the reason I can’t stop
shaking.”

Nate nodded. His eyes were narrow
slits and his jaw muscles were vibrating as he glanced into the next room at
the catatonic bastard sitting at the desk. Summer knew what was going through
his mind right now, and if Sabrina wasn’t missing, she’d be more than happy to
escort him inside that room and watch him unload his fury on John Scott, but
regrettably she couldn’t.

“He’s working for the same person
as the kidnapper,” Summer said. “He knows where to find the guy pulling the
strings. If we can get that name, then we’ll have a bargaining chip.”

Nate flexed his clenched fists,
then re-clenched them. “Five minutes alone with him and I’ll have that name.
You keep the chief busy and I’ll go in there.”

“Thanks, Nate.” Summer took his
fist in her hands and pried it open. “But I can’t let you risk your job.”

“Then how the hell do you plan to
get that name?”