LITMIR.BIZ

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of her eyes he saw her heartbreak once again darkening her eyes.

      He stroked her face, a sense of failure sweeping through him. He might have taken her away for a few minutes, but until he brought her son home safe and sound, her pain wouldn’t ever let her go.

      And with each hour that passed, the possibility of bringing Billy home safe and sound grew dimmer.

      BILLY WAS IN TROUBLE.

      Jenny stared at the sleeping little boy and feared that he wouldn’t make it through another night. The sound of his ragged breaths filled her with a fear she’d never known. He hadn’t even had the energy to get off the mattress during the day.

      He’d spent most of the time just lying there, the mere act of drawing breath taking every ounce of his strength. He didn’t even have the strength to be afraid. He seemed resigned to whatever was going to happen, and Jenny wanted to weep because an eight-year-old boy shouldn’t be resigned to his own death.

      She walked around the small room and wondered if they both would die here. She didn’t care so much about herself, but it wasn’t fair that a little boy die in this ugly place without his mommy to hold him, to comfort him.

      If she could just find a way out, or some means to summon help. But she’d been over the small room a hundred times and couldn’t find a way to do either. She’d pulled at the boards that imprisoned them, seeking a weakness, a flaw in their prison, but there was none.

      She’d just sunk to the floor when she heard the sound. A boat. A motorboat. Maybe it was help! A search party. She sprang to her feet, hope raging through her. Maybe Lucas had found them!

      Or maybe it was their kidnapper returning. The hope that had momentarily surged through her transformed to fear. She stood perfectly still, frozen as the sound of the boat grew closer … closer … then finally stopped.

      There was a moment of complete silence, then heavy footsteps rang against wood. Jenny stifled a scream. If it were help, then somebody would have yelled. Somebody would have shouted their names.

      The footsteps drew closer, then a slat in the door opened. Jenny ran to the door. “Hey … hey, you’ve got to get us out of here! He’s sick. Billy has asthma and he’s in bad trouble.”

      Dark eyes peered back at her, then the slat closed.

      She slammed her fists against the door as she heard footsteps going away. “Wait, please come back. Did you hear what I said? He’s in bad trouble. He needs to get to a hospital.” Again and again she slammed her fists against the wood as she began to cry. “Don’t go. For God’s sake don’t leave him here.”

      It was only when she heard the motor on the boat start up again that she stopped beating the door and sank to the floor in tears.

      He was leaving. He was leaving them here. Tears blinded her and she fought against the deep sobs that welled inside her.

      She turned and saw Billy watching her. She quickly swiped at her cheeks. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. She didn’t want to upset him any more than he already was.

      “Hey, buddy.” She scooted over next to him and pulled him into her arms. His wheezing seemed to intensify. She needed to distract him.

      “Have I ever told you that female alligators usually lay about fifty eggs? Can you imagine having fifty kids?” As she told him everything she’d ever known about alligators and crocodiles, she felt him begin to relax against her.

      But she couldn’t relax for, more than fear of her own safety, her biggest fear was that when morning came, Billy would no longer be breathing.

       Chapter Nine

      Mariah awoke as the faint purple spill of dusk filtered through the window. The bed next to her was empty, but the pillow still retained the scent of Lucas’s cologne.

      She didn’t feel guilty about making love with him. She didn’t feel guilty about seeking warmth and life when her heart had been so dead. Nor did she have any illusions about what their lovemaking had meant. It had meant absolutely nothing.

      Rolling over on her back, she stared up at the ceiling and realized that in some way the lovemaking and the sleep afterward had given her a new strength to survive whatever the rest of the evening might bring.

      She got out of bed and dressed in a comfortable pair of gray jogging pants and a T-shirt, then went in search of Lucas. As she reached the hallway, she heard the voice of the kidnapper.

      “… by the twisted tree you’ll find a clue.” She froze, heart banging against her rib cage.

      The voice stopped, then started again. “… by the twisted tree you’ll find a clue.”

      She relaxed a bit as she realized it wasn’t a new call. She followed the sound to the kitchen, where Lucas sat in front of the recording machine with a legal pad in front of him.

      She stood in the doorway and watched as he pushed the Play button again. “Where the grass is green and the sky is blue.” He punched the Stop button, then rubbed the center of his forehead with two fingers as he stared down at the legal pad.

      “What are you doing?”

      He looked up at the sound of her voice, then leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Making notes, listening to the messages, trying to make sense of all this.”

      She slid into the chair next to him. “And have you managed to make any sense of it?”

      He shook his head. “No.” He leaned back in the chair and released a weary sigh. “I’ll tell you what we know. There was no sign of forced entry, so the odds are good that Jenny knew the kidnapper, that she not only knew him but trusted him enough to open the door to him. If they were taken from here.”

      She frowned. “What do you mean? Of course they were taken from here.”

      “We don’t know that for sure. We don’t really know where the crime scene is located. For all we know they were taken from the front yard or the park.”

      She frowned. He had mentioned that before, but she couldn’t imagine Jenny and Billy being hustled into a car off the street or taken from the park … unless they knew their kidnapper … unless they’d trusted the kidnapper. That thought certainly didn’t make her feel any better.

      He flipped through his legal pad. “We also know that the kidnapper is watching us. He was in the cemetery the other night, and he knew that we’d gone to the sheriff’s office this morning. Something else that strikes me is that he doesn’t seem to want dialogue, but instead wants monologues.”

      She frowned at him curiously. “What do you mean?”

      He leaned forward. “Other than the first call that I got and the one that Wally answered, he hasn’t called to talk to us, but rather to leave messages on the machine. He’s specifically chosen times when he knows we aren’t here. He wants to talk to us, but he doesn’t want us talking to him.”

      “So what would happen if we don’t leave here? If we answer every call that comes in instead of letting the machine pick up. Would he stop calling?”

      “It would be interesting to see,” he replied.

      A flash of anger burned inside her. “He might think he’s playing a game with us, but he’s not. Games have rules and when he says there’s a clue, then there should be a clue.” She released a bitter laugh. “I know it’s ridiculous for me to be mad because a kidnapper doesn’t play by the rules I think are fair.”

      Lucas nodded, his forehead still furrowed with a frown. “Our two main suspects are Remy Troulous and Phillip Ribideaux. I know Phillip has been financially cut off by his father.”

      “Which might make him desperate enough to kidnap for a ransom,” she said. “He certainly doesn’t have the tools to make a living the right way.”

      “But

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