While You Were Dead (22 page)

“You’re breaking up, Doc. Where are you? Where’s Crayton?”

Translation: I don’t want to talk to a hysterical female. Men! He’d order her to stay put. To wait for Max, or back-up. For sure he wouldn’t understand she didn’t have time to wait. Not for anything. Lizzie was all that mattered. She simply couldn’t give the police or Max a chance to order her to do anything.

“South of 128th on Riverdale in Thornton. Look for my car.” She repeated the exact address over protests that echoed with static, but she cut the connection, turned off her phone, checked for nonexistent traffic and pulled back on the road. Four large towers with blinking red lights stood as sentries in the fields ahead of her, pulling her attention away from the winding road. She slowed for a particularly sharp curve, checking the display.

There! On the right. She braked then continued. Better to drive by once and take a peek. The sight wasn’t the least bit reassuring. The property encompassed acres of land. The only access from the road was through electronic gates. The moon lit three buildings behind the imposing gate, what looked like a main house and two outbuildings.

Kat rounded another curve, well beyond the walled property line of her destination and rolled to a stop. Clenching the steering wheel with hands that shook, she battled an overwhelming urge to go home and get Max. Except Max, with his injuries, couldn’t help her. She could wait for Reicher to send troops. She should wait for Reicher, but the what-ifs storming her brain wouldn’t allow it. Lizzie’d been hurt enough. She wouldn’t wait another second.

Snuggling the gun she’d stolen from Max in the crook of her elbow, she yanked the keys from the ignition and stuffed them in her pocket. There were trees galore, which probably meant a river or creek somewhere nearby, but they’d serve as cover from the moonlight. She’d just have to be careful where she stepped. She was dressed all in black. Unwilling to make a sound, she eased the door shut and didn’t lock the car. It wasn’t highly visible, but the police should be able to find it. The night was chilly but dry. Quiet. No breeze, so it had to be animals creating the rustling in the underbrush around her. Kat shoved away thoughts of foxes, raccoons or worse.

The gun felt warm from contact with her skin. Warm, but foreign and she wanted to put it away. She checked the safety instead and wrapped the fingers of her right hand around the butt. It wouldn’t go off accidentally, but it was readily available if she needed it. She refused to think what would happen if she ran into trouble before she found her daughter.

Her eyes had already adjusted to the night and the moon made it easy to find a path. The six-foot brick wall that served as a fence turned west toward the house just ahead. She’d follow the wall until she was closer to the outbuildings, then use them as cover to approach the main house.

She would have plowed right into the first guard if he hadn’t lit a cigarette as she cleared the brick wall. He had an earpiece that would have looked more appropriate on a secret service agent, a revolver in a holster at his waist and he cradled a long rifle in his arms. Kat shuddered. He wasn’t out for a stroll. He was on duty. Watching for her? The police? As she looked on from the shadows of a large, windowless building, he appeared to be listening intently to someone. Receiving orders? Had she been seen?

Kat’s heart thundered in her ears, surely loud enough for him to hear. Her fingers tightened around the gun. The guard grunted a response and turned his back on her, heading for the front of the compound. She blew out a long, silent breath. It didn’t help steady her heart, although it was slowly sliding back into her chest.

Finding Lizzie had to be her only priority. And it had to be accomplished quickly. If she was here, Kat would find her, and then God could take care of the souls of any who tried to stop her on the way out.

Compound described the place perfectly. Lizzie’s abductors could hide a small army behind the tall fence. Why else would a man with a gun be on alert outside? She spotted another guard, fifty yards away, also moving toward the country road. They obviously didn’t know she was here, but they were watching for something. For someone.

Kat slid to the back of the building, even more wary now. A pick-up outfitted with a camper top was backed in at an angle, providing the perfect cover for her to reach the next building. She stooped at the rear door of the camper shell, fingering silver specs that gleamed in the dirt. Duct tape. Shredded duct tape. Her eyes narrowed. Ahead of her, nothing moved. Kat shot a glance toward the street, now forty yards behind her, and crouched. The next building–and her next hiding place–was twenty feet away across a bare stretch lit as bright as a schoolroom by the moon. Could she make it before the guards reached the street and started back again?

Moonlight reflected off of something just under the camper. She bent further, careful not to kneel, as that might leave a trail of her actions. The white muzzle of the horse from a Denver Broncos logo winked up at her from a baseball cap. She plucked it up out of the dirt, her heart galloping again.

Kat buried her nose inside the cap and was transported back to a room of wild colors, intense joy, and bitter betrayal. Swaying as she battled the fierce emotions, she clamped her mouth shut to keep back a gasp. Her hands trembled as she twisted the cap in the moonlight, searching the inside band.

L.C.

Lizzie Clark.

Lizzie was here.

Rage overpowered the joy, swept aside the betrayal and left her calm. Exquisitely calm. Calm and cold, steeled with determination so intense there wasn’t room for anything else. She slid the safety off her gun and stole toward the middle building.

##

Max checked the cell phones first. His had no record of recent calls. Kat’s was missing. He dialed it on his. Out of service.

Her car was missing, too. Her purse was on the little table inside the front door where she liked to leave it. Max dumped the contents onto the kitchen table. Her wallet was gone. He tossed the purse to the table, on top of the jumble of miscellaneous contents, and spun around. There had to be a clue, a note, something. When she’d gone shopping while he slept, she’d left him a note, in the kitchen. Except for the blender and the paper towel, the cool tiles were bare. Just like her night stand. That left the living room.

The blinking message light flashed like a beacon from her desk. Max stabbed play, not too hopeful. Unless it was Kat, calling to tell him where she was, anyone who’d left a message must have done so after she departed.

A warm, very English, very male voice filled the room. Then Max’s heart. Fury followed swiftly. “Hi, love. I’m in town.”

Vic.

English-upper-crust-to-the-core Vic.

Smooth, steady Vic.

Husband Vic.

Ex-husband, he reminded himself.

It didn’t help.

Vic wasn’t finished. “Are you lonesome tonight?”

Max saw red, but quickly told himself it didn’t matter. She didn’t get the message.

“Vic?” Kat’s breathless greeting was the last thing on the machine.

Red didn’t begin to describe it. His cell phone’s quiet ring was the only thing that saved the answering machine from total annihilation. Max backtracked to the kitchen and flipped it open. “Crayton.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Reicher sounded as furious as he felt.

“I wish I knew.”

“Where’s the doc?”

“You tell me.” Max tried to will away the rage, the betrayal, and couldn’t. “Why? Did you hear from her?”

“She said she was going to get your. . .Lizzie. Then her cell gave out and now there’s no answer.”

Fear ate up the rage. Dread started in his brain with thoughts he wouldn’t acknowledge. It slid down his spine and out into his body, icy-hot pinpricks that brought physical pain. “What else?”

“There isn’t anything else. Don’t you know where she is? She was supposed to be taking care of you.”

Max ignored that. “I was asleep. She’s not here. Run a Victor Fordon for me, would you? That’s all I’ve got. He’s English.” He spelled out the last name for the detective. “There’s a message here from him, says he’s in town. She got the message before she left. He’s her ex.”

“Ex what? Husband? I didn’t know she was married.”

“She’s not!” Too much fire. Max closed his eyes, systematically removing all the emotion from his mind, closing the door on his heart, letting ice take its place. “Get me anything you can find on him. East coast. Media-relations attorney or something like that.”

The transformation from Max Crayton, Security Consultant, to trained agent took too long. Fear, that monster capable of eroding all the training in the world, just wouldn’t leave. He turned on the water and picked up her coffee pot, balancing the phone between his shoulder and ear, ignoring the pain the positioning caused. “Get back to me as soon as you can.”

Max drank the first cup of coffee before the pot had finished brewing. He downed the second while he played the message again, trying to filter out the expectant, breathless sound of Kat’s voice as she answered. How could he have slept through that? He ate bread, because the coffee would shred his stomach without a buffer. The caffeine cleared the remaining mists from his mind. He methodically began to tear her house apart.

There were plenty of pictures, he discovered. None out. All in boxes. One of her parents. Dozens of Lizzie. Pictures of him, of Kat with him. He didn’t remember her taking so many pictures during that long-ago, make-believe time, but apparently she had. There wasn’t a single picture of Vic. Not one. Not anywhere.

Max left the disheveled Christmas ornaments in the garage and headed back to the kitchen. He poured another cup of coffee and returned to the upended contents of her purse. Lip balm, tissues, a quarter, a small hair brush and a mirror. No scraps of paper, no gum wrappers, no ticket stubs, not even a parking receipt. Not a single strand of hair in the brush. Panic chewed hard on the edges of his stern control.

He nearly winced. Nearly. Instead he finished his third cup of coffee and headed for the computer. Good old Vic had left a message on Kat’s machine. It would be traceable–eventually. The phone company had records, but they took days to access. His gut screamed he didn’t have days. If this didn’t work, he’d call Viper.

“Advanced search,” he muttered. “Victor Fordon.” It took forever to type in the request using only one hand.

Not a single hit.

Max frowned. The man was a media consultant–an attorney. PR. How could he not have his name all over the internet? He called Reicher.

“You get anything?”

“Not so far. Ready to tell me what’s going on?”

“I told you. I was asleep.” Max hit the play button on the answering machine so Reicher could hear for himself. “You talked to her last. Where was she?”

“I couldn’t hear. The connection was horrible. What was she wearing? I’ll send out a BOLO.”

“I don’t know.” His control slipped a little more. Where was she? “She took a shower, changed her clothes. She’s in her Lexus SUV.”

The one you checked for electronics and then didn’t disarm when you cleaned the house.

Her car wasn’t clean. That was all he knew for sure. At the very least, whoever was behind all of this had access to her voice. Maybe worse.

“I’ll run the plates.”

“Did you check with the airlines on Fordon’s arrival?”

“It’s going through channels.”

Red tape. Max knew how to cut through that and even though he didn’t relish calling his former boss yet again, it was time. “I’m here,” he said simply and disconnected. He dialed, waiting endless seconds while the receiver recorded clicks and whirls, routing and rerouting the call through myriads of filters and screens. Max’s gaze fell on his kit, sitting unobtrusively next to the couch. Had he left it there? He couldn’t remember, but something about it didn’t seem right. He knelt, fingers awkward in performing what used to be the simple task of opening the case. The rifle was untouched. His Sig Sauer wasn’t.

“Viper.”

“It’s Ice.” He wished it really were. Unfortunately, the man in love with Kat was making that level of detachment impossible.

“Have you found her?”

“No. And now there’s a complication.” Viper didn’t speak. Max didn’t expect him to. “I need some intel. Anything you can find on a Victor Fordon. English accent. Talking head. Shark.” How much to tell? “He called here tonight, supposedly from somewhere in Denver. A woman went to meet him, then called the police saying she was going after Lizzie. She hasn’t been heard from since.”

“Where’d she call from?”

“Cell. It’s no longer in service–either because she’s out of a service area or she’s turned it off.”

“You think she found your niece?”

“I don’t know.”

“She important to you, Ice?”

The question shook him. Of course she was important, but why had Viper asked? Was it that obvious? Had his control slipped that much? “Yes, sir.”

“We’ll get right on it.” He rattled off questions, Max supplied the answers he knew. Kat’s full name, date of birth, phone numbers. Relationship to Victor Fordon.