Abduction (20 page)

NICK
moved into the undergrowth and sat down with his back up against a tree trunk.  He could have started walking in the direction of Copeland, but he was hurting.  His jaw ached from his chin striking the edge of the tread when he’d fallen through the flight of stairs, and his ankle was now swollen and throbbing, due to his going over on it when he landed.  He closed his eyes and thought bad thoughts.  If Logan thought that this was over, he was very much mistaken.  Funny how one thing in life could become an obsession.  Logan was now his nemesis.  He would not rest until the interfering bastard had been found and killed.

Dozing fitfully, perspiring, sporadically swatting at flying bugs, and letting hate fuel him as he waited, Nick had no idea of how much time had passed before the blare of a car horn brought him to his feet in a hurry.

There were two large SUVs parked at the roadside, both Chevy Tahoes; one crystal red, the other black.  Nick walked out from the tree line to be met by Ace Moran, who held out a bottle of cold water.  Nick took it and drank half of it, then poured the rest over his hands to clean them, tossed the bottle and wiped his mouth.

“No sign of Logan?” Nick said.

Ace shook his head.  “We don’t know what he’s driving.”

“Get me back home,” Nick said as Ace opened the front passenger door of the lead Tahoe for him to climb in.  “I need to freshen up.”

“What about your daughter?” Ace said.

“She’ll be fine.  Logan has no quarrel with her.  He’ll probably drive her up to Fort Myers and put her in a cab back to Sanibel.”

“And then what do you think he’ll do?”

“I don’t know.  He got the girl back, so maybe as far as he’s concerned it’s over.”  Nick took the time to tell Ace everything that had happened.

“What does your gut tell you he’ll do now?” Ace said.

Nick considered it.  “He might decide to call the police and tell them what he knows about my operation.  Get on the phone and make sure that the Bunker is empty and that it’s sanitized.”

Ace made the call.  Told Bobby Thornton what was required.

“I don’t think that he’ll contact anybody,” Ace said to Nick.  “This is something that he’ll want to finish up close and personal with you.”

“I don’t buy that.  He thinks that he’s won.  And if he walks away, then he has.  He’s like a fucking ghost.  We don’t know anything about him, apart from the fact that he’s outsmarted me at every turn so far.  He could be out of Florida in a few hours.  And if he gets on a plane he could be anywhere in the country.”

“Or worst case scenario he could stay close and try to take you out, Nick.  He knows what you do, and probably everything about you.  You need to keep a low profile.  I’ll beef up security at your house, and move into a guest room for a day or two.  Expect him to make a move on you.  For all we know he’s following us now.”

Nick thought it through.  Ace was right.  Logan was like a fucking bloodhound following a scent.  And unlike a hound, he didn’t have a handler to call him off or hold him back on a leash.  The guy had poked his nose into something that was none of his business, saved a woman he didn’t know, and then kept going, risking his life to get the little girl back.  He had questioned enough of Nick’s men to know all about the human trafficking, drugs and everything else.  Maybe he
did
intend to close Nick down, permanently.

“Okay, Ace,” Nick said.  “Set it up.  He’s too dangerous to ignore.  Think of a way to lure him in, just on the off chance that he does decide to stick around.”

Ace got on the phone again and told Greg Modine, the driver of the following black Tahoe, to drop back a mile and look out for Logan and Nick’s daughter as he tailed them into the city.  It was a stretch, but sometimes long odds paid off.

“Can I give Denton a call and let him know that I’m safe and that I’ll be home soon?” Karen said to Logan.

Logan passed her Jade’s phone.  Knew that she wouldn’t go into detail.  He’d seen the look of disgust and shame in the expression that she had fixed Cady with.

“Hi, it’s me,” Karen said.

“Thank God. I’ve been trying to phone you,” Denton said.  “And you’re on someone else’s cell.”

“I borrowed it.  I just wanted you to know that I’ll be home tonight”

“Are you okay?  Where have you been?”

“I’ll tell you everything when I get there.  I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Denton said.

Karen ended the call, handed the phone back to Logan and said, “Who are you, Logan?”

“I get asked that a lot,” he said.  “I’m just a guy that usually manages to get along without much in the way of trouble.  Thing is, if I’m unlucky enough to be in the way when something bad goes down, I do what needs to be done.”

“For strangers?”

“Everyone is a stranger to you till you meet them.  And I don’t like badass people like your father doing what they do and getting away with it.”

“So you take the law into your own hands?”

“If need be, yes.  Looking the other way doesn’t work for me.  And the law can be slow and get things wrong.”

Karen didn’t know what to make of Logan.  He was some kind of a saint and sinner rolled into one: an enigma.  She had never met anyone like him.

“What will you do to my father?” Karen said.

“Put him out of business.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet, but it’ll come to me.”

Karen wanted to ask Logan not to hurt him, but couldn’t.  How could she expect him to show mercy to a man that made his living by harming others?  Deep down she knew that he was deserving of whatever he got.

Merle and Ginny Peterson were sitting out on a patio at the side of the ranch house drinking iced tea when Logan drove the Pathfinder in off the track and parked it on the graveled circle driveway.

Merle got up and walked over to meet them as they climbed out.  Raised his hand in greeting and then did a circuit of the SUV.  “Looks like you managed to keep it out of harms’ way,” he said.  “I had the feelin’ it would at very least have a few dents and maybe a couple of bullet holes in it.”

Tom grinned.  “We treated her like a real lady, Merle.”

“Appreciated, son.  You’ve always been a real southern gentlemen.  I expected nothin’ less.”

Tom introduced Karen and Kelly to the couple, and Ginny made coffee, and brought out a beaker of cold lemonade for Kelly.

After a while, Tom phoned Gail’s number to let her know that he would be at the store in ten to fifteen minutes.  But there was no answer.  Maybe they were already there, and she had put her phone down.  It could be vibrating unheard on a tabletop.  He called the store.  The phone just kept ringing.

It was dim inside the store.  Gail walked towards the counter, between the racks of clothing and other goods; down the center aisle over old, seasoned boards that hardly creaked.

Debbie closed the door behind her and locked it.  Followed Gail, and grunted as Gail stopped abruptly, causing her to walk into her back.

Gail staggered forward under the impact and stopped again.  Just stood there, staring ahead of her.

Boo had heard a vehicle’s tires on the gravel.  He made his way around the back of the counter and just stood in deep shadow.  Didn’t move a muscle.  He would have knelt down behind it, but that was impossible with his broken leg.  He had the rake tucked under his armpit for support.  Still kept his left foot a few inches off the floor, and held the shotgun in both hands, with his finger on the trigger.  He watched the women enter.  No sign of the men, and the second woman locked the door.

Gail got within ten feet of the counter before she noticed him.  She stopped, and Debbie almost knocked her over from behind.

“If you move I’ll shoot you,” Boo said.  “I want both of you to put your hands up, kneel down, and then stretch out on your bellies.”

“You need to think about this, Boo,” Gail said as she raised her hands.  “We’re the only people that can help you.”

“Help me!” Boo said.  “You set a trap that broke my leg, and then left me bound up in the back of a pickup in a rat-infested fucking barn.”

“You broke in here.  You were an armed intruder, Boo.  We improvised, and you got hurt, but not shot dead.”

“And we fixed your leg up and fed you” Debbie said.  “So why not put the gun down and I’ll make us coffee.”

“Where are the two nut jobs that think they can take Cady down?” Boo said.

“On their way back.  They should be here any minute,” Gail said.  “And I really don’t think that you want to piss them off by holding us at gunpoint when they arrive.  You don’t seem to be the suicidal type to me.”

Gail’s phone rang.

“Ignore it,” Boo said.  “I need time to think.”

They waited.  The phone stopped, leaving a heavy silence in the store.  And then the phone on the counter started up, startling Boo.  He didn’t know what to do.

“That’ll be Tom,” Gail said.  “Probably to tell us that they’re almost here.  You really do need to make a decision, Boo.”

He didn’t know what to do.  He could have ten seconds or ten minutes.  Probably not enough time to tie one of the women up and get the other to drive him away from the area.  And even if he had time, they may pass the two men on the country road.  Whichever way he went would be exactly a fifty-fifty chance of them running into each other.  They would recognize the vehicle from a hundred yards away.  And he couldn’t shoot the women in cold blood.  He wasn’t a killer.

Placing the shotgun down on the countertop, Boo said, “Coffee sounds fine.  And a few more Tylenol would hit the spot.”

Gail’s phone rang again.  She answered it on the second ring.

“That you, Gail?” Tom asked.

“Who else would it be?”

“I called a couple of minutes ago.  Where are you?”

“At the store.  We have company.”

“Who?”

“Boo.  He managed to get out of the pickup and break in.  We’re about to have coffee.  Are you nearly here?”

“Yes.  Is everything okay?”

“Fine.”

“Put Boo on.”

Gail stepped forward and held the phone out to Boo and said, “Tom wants a word with you.”

Boo took it and said, “Er, hi.”

“Just to be sure that all’s well, I want you to be out front and unarmed when we arrive,” Tom said. “Any problem with that?”

“No,” Boo said.  “When?”

“Now would be perfect,” Tom said.  “We’re almost there.”

Boo shuffled around the end of the counter and handed the cell back to Gail.  He then clumped to the door on the makeshift crutch and went out to wait.

A couple of minutes later the Camaro came into view, and Boo swallowed hard as it approached fast and then swept past him, to stop outside the barn.

Logan unfurled himself from the sports car and walked over to Boo.  “Nice going,” he said.  “You did well to get out of the pickup, and the rake is great improvisation.  How come you stayed around?”

“I can’t drive with a broken leg.  I thought I’d wait for you guys to get back.  Maybe one of you could give me a lift up to Alabama.”

“Alabama?” Logan said.

“Yeah, I’ve got an aunt there.  I could start over.  Get regular work when I can walk again.”

Logan thought that the young man was sincere in what he said.  A hell of a lot of people didn’t deserve a second chance in life, but maybe Boo did.  Maybe he didn’t.  There were always exceptions to rules.

Debbie came out of the store’s door like a bullet and made a beeline for the car, where Karen was getting out, holding Kelly in her arms.

There were a lot of tears, especially from Debbie.  She took Kelly from Karen and hugged her and kissed her and kept telling her that she loved her, over and over again.  The little girl was in danger of being smothered.

“I love you, too, Mommy,” Kelly said.

Karen felt culpable, as if she was in some way responsible for her father’s actions.  It was almost impossible to believe that he was depraved enough to arrange for children to be stolen from their homes, to be sold on.  It was twenty-first century slavery.  Everything that Logan had told her about her father was sickening.  And yet because of Kelly she believed it: believed that he was a drug pushing human trafficker, immoral to the core.  She felt tainted to the bone to have his genes in her body.  It was something that could not be scrubbed away with soap and water.  The spawn of the devil came to mind.  She was his progeny.

“You’re letting what your father does mess with your head again,” Logan said, putting his hands firmly on Karen’s shoulders and looking into her eyes.  “You’re an individual, we all are.  It’s what
you
do in life that counts.  Other people’s actions,
whoever
they are, define them,
not
you. You’ve got to take this on the chin and get past it.”

“Thanks, Logan, I’m trying to come to terms with it, but it isn’t easy.”