LITMIR.BIZ

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with the people on a case, he would have felt sorry for this guy.

      “My wife…” His voice cracked. “I love her.”

      Though Burke hadn’t touched him, Dylan staggered backward a few paces. The air deflated from his lungs in a gush of cold vapor. He turned, facing the night sky. His fingers gripped the banister. “We had a fight. Right before she rode off by herself, we argued. I said things. Hurtful things.”

      Burke stepped up beside him but didn’t look at him. He stood silently, listening like a priest in a confessional.

      “Nicole wants a baby.” The words spilled from Dylan as if he’d been holding everything inside for too long. “We’ve been trying for eight or nine months. But no luck. From the start, we knew she might have to be implanted because she had internal injuries from when she got kicked by a horse a couple of years ago. Kind of an occupational hazard, I guess. She’s a large animal veterinarian.”

      Burke heard the pride in his voice. Dylan truly loved his wife.

      He continued, “She’s a tiny little thing. But tough. First time I saw her, she stuck her arm into a cow’s birthing canal and pulled a slick, wet, newborn calf into the world.” He shook his head. Something like a sob came through his lips. “You’ve got to love a woman like that.”

      That wasn’t Burke’s number one criteria, but he understood. “She was right for you.”

      “We were supposed to go to the fertility doctor today. He’d scheduled the implant procedure. But I couldn’t go. Not with the stable fire. I had to be here.”

      Actually, he could have called Carolyn. She was more than able to manage the ranch while Dylan was at the doctor with his wife. Burke guessed that something else was going on. Maybe Dylan wasn’t ready for kids.

      He continued, “I told her we could do it tomorrow or the next day. Why did it have to happen today? What difference could one day make?”

      A big difference. It took less than a day to change someone’s life. Sometimes, less than a minute.

      Carolyn pushed open the door and stepped onto the veranda. She trembled. “A million-dollar ransom. He wants it by tomorrow afternoon.”

      

      THE SOUND OF THE KIDNAPPER’S voice set fire to a fuse inside Carolyn. She was furious. And terrified. They had to rescue Nicole. Now, damn it. Right now.

      But there were procedures to follow, and she trusted Burke’s expertise. He moved around the dining room, checking the various instruments and conferring with his men in technical jargon that sounded like a foreign language.

      Needing something to do, she picked up Burke’s leather jacket from the dining room chair where he’d dropped it. The lining was still warm from his body heat. He glanced in her direction. Was he smirking? In spite of her earlier insistence that she wasn’t an errand girl, she’d been reduced to tidying up. Immediately, Carolyn dropped the jacket and stood tall, arms folded below her breasts.

      Sheriff Trainer had joined them. The only other person in the room was her brother. Dylan leaned against the wall by the door, near collapse.

      “We’re going to play back the ransom call,” Burke said. “I want you all to listen for any sound that might give us a clue to the kidnapper’s identity or his whereabouts.”

      “Wait a minute,” Sheriff Trainer said. “Didn’t you get a trace to tell us where he is?”

      One of Burke’s associates, Special Agent Corelli, stepped forward. He was the technical expert, the only man in the room wearing a suit and tie. He pointed to a rectangular black box with several dials. On the screen was a map of the area. A red dot blinked on a secluded road, too small to be given a name.

      Corelli pointed to the dot. “When he made the call, he was here. I’d guess that he’s on horseback or in an all-terrain vehicle.”

      Dylan staggered forward and squinted at the screen. “Does he have Nicole with him?”

      “Sorry,” Corelli said. “There’s no way of knowing.”

      Carolyn went to her brother’s side. “Sit down, Dylan.”

      “Can’t.” He stumbled back to his position against the wall. “If I sit, I’ll fall asleep.”

      “That sounds like a good idea.”

      “I won’t sleep until Nicole is in the bed beside me.”

      A noble sentiment. But it wouldn’t do Nicole any good if he pushed himself beyond his limits and had a total breakdown.

      The sheriff tilted his hat back on his head and stared at the blinking dot. Though he wasn’t holding a cigarette, Carolyn smelled the residual smoke that clung to his uniform. “Seems to me that we ought to head out in that direction.”

      “He’ll be long gone,” Burke said. “He was smart enough to know that the phone call would be traced. He’s in a remote area with no witnesses. There’s no way we could have gotten there in time. He used a disposable cell phone so we can’t ID the number.”

      “There are still records of those things,” the sheriff said. “We can find out where he bought it.”

      “We’re running those records,” Corelli said.

      Carolyn was surprised that the Delta County sheriff was so attuned to complex investigation techniques. She’d always thought the skinny, gray-haired man was a nice guy, but not particularly competent.

      “The good news,” Burke said, “is that our kidnapper is still in the area. More than likely, he’s a local. Somebody you might know. That’s why I want you to listen to his voice. And the way he puts his words together.”

      He pressed the playback button and Carolyn heard her own voice. She was surprised that she didn’t sound as terrified as she’d felt at the time.

      “Hello, this is Carolyn Carlisle.”

      “I want a million dollars.” The kidnapper spoke in a rasping, ominous, barely audible whisper. “I want it in cash.”

      “You’ll have to repeat that. I can’t hear you.” She’d been stalling, doing as Burke had suggested. “Please speak up.”

      “Listen hard. A million dollars. Cash. Nothing bigger than a hundred.”

      “Do you have Nicole with you? I need to talk to her.”

      “Pay me. Or she dies.”

      On the playback Carolyn sounded confident. “Don’t you worry. You’ll get everything you want. If it’s a million dollars, you’ll get a million.” She’d been rambling, keeping him on the line. “Please let me talk to Nicole.”

      “I want the money tomorrow afternoon at five.”

      “It’s going to be hard to scrape that much cash together in one day.” More stalling. “Tomorrow is Saturday. And the local banks probably don’t have a million dollars on hand. We’ll have to go all the way into Denver.”

      “Not my problem.”

      She remembered Corelli giving her the thumbs-up signal. They had successfully made the trace.

      She heard herself say, “I need proof of life.”

      There was a pause. “What’s that?”

      “Proof that Nicole is still alive. Let me talk to her.”

      “You’ll get your proof.”

      That was when he disconnected the call.

      She looked into Dylan’s face. Tears streaked down his cheeks. Carolyn couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her brother cry. When she touched his arm, he collapsed against her.

      “This is all going to work out,” she assured him. “I’ll take care of

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