Happily Never After (20 page)

She stared at him in disbelief. “This is about Bode?”

“It’s about righting a wrong, an eye for an eye.”

The change of topic confused her. “I don’t understand.”

He jutted his chin out and sneered at her. “You can thank, Taggert for getting you involved in this. He took the one person in this world who believed I was worth a damn, and now, I’m returning the favor. I think that’s a fair trade, don’t you?”

“You’re wrong about our relationship. Yeah, we had a fling but he doesn’t care about me the way you think.” Hoping her words would change John’s mind, they still pierced her to the core.

Hard eyes stared right through her. “I needed to find his weakness, and until you showed up, he didn’t have one. You’re his Achilles heel.” His shoulders slumped as if in weariness. “This isn’t anything personal against you.”

He got to his feet and started to turn away.

“Wait. Please. I need to go to the bathroom.”

Crossing the room to the old stove, he bent down and picked up a rusted can. He came back to where she sat and placed it on the floor in front of her.

When he untied her, the instinct to run was squelched by the fact her limbs were so numb they wouldn’t function. He hauled her up from the chair by her arms. Shaky legs wouldn’t support her weight, and he caught her when her knees buckled. He held her tight against him.

“Use the can.”

“Please,” she whimpered, “would you wait outside?”

“Understand this,” he said in a rough voice, “there is no escape. There’s no one coming for you. You’re mine now.”

Tears blurred her vision, but the ugliness of her situation was crystal clear.

Chapter 25

Bode’s breath fogged the window as he stared out at the dead of night, his heart beating like a jackhammer. That was an apt description of his soul. Dead and numb. They had no leads, no suspects, and no idea where to go from here. In other words, he waited around with his thumb up his ass while Kelsey could be anywhere. Enduring anything. He squeezed his eyes shut trying to squelch those disturbing images.

Steve’s footsteps sounded behind him. “It’s no use.”

He whirled around to go back to the interrogation room. “Let me talk to him.”

Steve placed one hand on his chest to stop him. “You can’t get something from him that he doesn’t know. I’m telling you as your friend, this guy is not involved in this. We need to quit wasting our time on this loser and figure out what’s going on.”

Knowing in his gut that his partner was right, he hastened back over to their whiteboard. All the various facts mocked him. He was missing it. Something here would point them in the right direction. They just needed to keep looking. He read the lines one by one.
Miles Robbins in custody. Kelsey back to work. Mia wanted a picture of the puppy. Wait, a picture of the puppy?

His pulse quickened. “Did someone bring in Mia’s camera?”

Steve frowned as he flipped through his notes. “I don’t think she ever turned it loose. It was still hanging from her wrist when we left. Her mother said it was just a toy. You don’t think—”

He lifted his jacket off the back of the chair. “It’s a long shot but right now, it’s all we’ve got.”

They parked in front of an older brick home and strode up the drive. The cold wind buffeted them as they waited for an answer to their knock.

Steve scrunched down into his coat. “Bad weather’s rolling in.”

Mr. Kent opened the door, apparently unhappy about them being here. “Mia’s already told you everything. She’s asleep, and I don’t want to wake her. Today has been extremely hard on her. Can you come back in the morning?”

Bode stuck his foot in to prevent the door closing. “We don’t want to speak with Mia. We’re wondering where her camera ended up.”

“The camera? I guess it’s here somewhere, why?”

“I’d like to see the pictures in it. Maybe we can figure out what happened to Miss Brackston. It could be our best chance of finding her.”

The other man let them in and then picked up a small camera sitting on the sofa. They followed him into his home office where he sat down behind the desk. “This is a toy, but you can hook it up to a computer and download pictures.”

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Bode waited as picture after picture flitted across the screen. Most of the photos had chopped off someone’s head or the subject was so blurred that it was unrecognizable. The small bubble of hope inside his chest deflated like a leaky balloon.

The next frame was shaky as if she’d taken it while moving but revealed a clear shot of the sidewalk. He squinted for a better look at the next one. It was darker than the others from being indoors. Mia’s finger must have pressed the shutter button while gripping the camera.

“Can you rotate that? Maybe lighten it up a little?”

Bode forgot to breathe as a man’s smiling face showed up on the picture. The man was in mid-turn, with no idea the little girl had captured his image.

“We’ve been looking in the wrong places. All of this was never about Kelsey,” he whispered, as the bottom fell out of his world.

Chapter 26

Bode and Steve were about to enter the building when David stalked up to them.

“You were supposed to keep her safe.” An angry blush covered David’s cheeks.

Steve stepped between them and Bode strode on inside without uttering a word in his defense. What could he say? He’d promised to keep Kelsey from harm and this whole thing was because of him. Long suppressed memories opened internal wounds as he made his way to his desk.

“Okay, his picture is in every squad car in the city and the local station is going to air it on the next news broadcast. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and someone will see this guy and give us a call,” Steve said.

Bode gave a start back to the present. He pushed his dark turmoil aside. Kelsey needed him. His knowledge of the beast who abducted her was their best chance of finding them. “I just hope he’s still local.”

Picking up the phone, he began making calls. An hour later, he hung up and pressed the heel of his hand against his tired eyes. He opened them at the sound of movement.

“What developments are there?” Captain Roberts stared at the board rubbing the top of a hairline that had started to recede twenty years ago.

Bode sat up straight in his chair. “We have a firm ID. His name is John Glade, a former occupant of the state prison for a laundry list of felonies. He’s had a hand in assault, drugs, and theft. He gained his freedom due to a legal technicality.”

Steve frowned at him. “How do you figure into this?”

His throat felt like someone had taken sandpaper to it. “The SWAT team I used to be on killed his wife during his apprehension. I was the actual shooter. This kidnapping has got to be about me.”

Complete silence followed his statement. Every person in the room absorbed the information. A cop’s worst nightmare was that the ugliness in their job would reach out and touch precious loved ones.

Captain Roberts gave a stilted nod. “Let’s get busy finding this guy.”

Bode searched computer records for any link or clue as to where Glade would take Kelsey. The cop in his brain battled against the man inside that wanted to rip and tear the world apart. He needed to remain calm and keep a level head, so he shut down his emotions and pressed on.

The noise volume of the room increased as more and more policemen, whether on duty or off, came in to offer their assistance in the hunt. Most of the cops didn’t know Kelsey, but the word had spread that she was David’s sister. That made her one of them.

He tore his attention away from the screen when someone stopped next to his desk. David, Riley, and an assorted group of hard looking men stood with grim faces.

“Anything new?” David asked.

A suffocating sensation tightened his throat. “We’re still processing information. You know it takes time. Let us do our jobs and I’ll call you when we find something.”

Riley didn’t back down, his expression was fierce. “Tell us how we can help. We need to do something. You’re not the only one here who loves her.”

He didn’t get the chance to answer. Across the room, Steve held one hand up where he was combing through data. “Wait. I think I found something,” he yelled out.

Bode pushed through the group around his desk and peered over his partner’s shoulder. The others crowded around behind them.

“I checked California land records, cross-referencing John Glade and couldn’t find anything under his surname or his mother’s family name. I decided to pull up marriage documents so I could retrieve his wife’s maiden name, and bingo, I got two hits. One’s a parcel of land with an old cabin north of Yreka along the Klamath River. That’s near the Red Buttes Wilderness. His wife’s grandfather is registered as the legal owner.”

Bode’s expression was grim. “Where’s the other?”

Steve glanced up. “It’s a rural house on Bucks Lake outside of Quincy. That whole area is sparsely populated so he’d have a lot of privacy. If he decided to make a run for it, there’d be a straight line into Nevada.”

Bode spun on his heel and strode to the large map covering one wall and searched for both sets of coordinates. “The mountain cabin would practically put him in Oregon.”

His boss joined him. “That’s rough country. If the road doesn’t go all the way to the cabin, it will be hard for him to get her in there. I just checked the weather forecast, and heavy snow is predicted to move in from the north before tomorrow.”

Everything inside Bode screamed that he needed to check out the mountainous region. Glade was a bulky man more than capable of carrying a woman. He would also be at home in the wild. But what if he chose wrong?

“He would have taken her to the mountains.”

“Okay. Once the snow begins, it will be twice as difficult to get up there. I’ll alert the local police in Quincy and have them send someone to the house there to check on it,” his Captain said.

Bode turned away and hurried down the hall toward the locker room. A hand on his shoulder stopped him from opening the metal door.

Steve stood beside him. “Are you sure you want to do this? We don’t know if this is the right place. Hell, we don’t even know if the cabin is still standing. We could hang tight and send a local patrol out to take a look around. Since this is really about you, Glade could still be here in Redding, wanting a showdown.”

He lowered his head, resting it against the cold door as he worked to breathe. The tendons in his neck felt tight as he maintained a tight lid on his rage. When he was back under control, he forced the words out. “My gut tells me this is the spot. I can’t stand by and wait for him to make the first move.” His voice lowered. “I just can’t.”

Steve squeezed his shoulder. “Well, I guess we better leave then. The team here can comb the city and call us if anything else pops.”

He had handed Steve a ballistic vest before his friend left. After checking his Sig P226, he slid it into his holster. The last thing he pulled out of the locker was his M14 rifle. While with SWAT, he’d spent hours and hours training with this very rifle.

Steve came back into the room. The worry and stress were visible on all their faces. “Captain has given all local law enforcement agencies the details. We’ll rendezvous with them outside Yreka. The locals are also arranging a guide familiar with the area. It’s pretty mountainous territory. Have you ever been up there?”

He grunted and finished stuffing items into the many pockets of his pack. “Yeah, and I talked to my brother Shawn. He’s part of a group that’s meeting us, so he knows what we’re facing. We hunted outside of Fort Jones a few years back. We spent some time fishing and hiking in the National Forest. The terrain is brutal in some places, and with the storm coming in, this could get pretty rough.”

The weather was going to be a problem if they didn’t get there as fast as possible. Worry clawed at his insides. Kelsey was a city girl through and through and the cold would be hard on her. He focused on the job ahead and forced his personal nightmare to the back of his mind. If he allowed himself to dwell on what ifs, he’d become useless.

They entered the main room of the department where the rest of the squad had gathered. His boss gave him a steely stare that made the strongest of men squirm. “Taggert, where are you going?”

Straightening to his full height, Bode met his stare without flinching. “I’m going to bring Kelsey home.”

Captain Roberts shook his head. “I should have already taken you off this case. You’re the one who told me to make the decision when the time came. Well, the time is here. If you want to keep this job, you need to step away.”

Something inside him clicked into focus as an eerie calm consumed him. He couldn’t think of one single reason why this job should come first. In fact, his real reason for living was out there somewhere. And
nothing
would keep him from getting to her.

Reaching down, he unclipped the badge resting on his belt and held it out. They stared at one another in silence.

Captain Roberts cursed under his breath. “If you can follow orders on this then go, but you can’t be in charge of this operation.”

Bode nodded. He didn’t care who would be in charge. His future was at stake, and he planned on doing whatever was necessary to bring his woman back home where she belonged.

He looked over at Steve and asked, “You coming?”

Both men exited the building and hurried toward his truck parked in the lot. The wind howled around them, and Steve pulled his jacket tighter. His own anxiety had spiked off the charts, so the cold didn’t register. They settled their equipment inside. Several large trucks rumbled to a stop beside them.

One of the windows slid down. Riley was driving with David in the passenger seat. David stared him in the eye and said in a voice that brooked no argument. “We’re going.”

“We don’t even know if this lead will pan out,” Bode argued. “Why don’t you wait here and see if something local comes up.”

“You understand how this animal thinks. We’re going with you.”

Bode glared at his friend. “This is police business. You’re all civilian’s and not invited to the party.”

David’s resolve was clear. “Don’t worry, no one will get in your way. Now, you can lead us, or we can follow you. But you’re wasting time.”

He didn’t bother to answer but wheeled around and yanked his door open. Steve scrambled to jump in beside him. The big engine raced as they entered the entrance to I-5 and he flipped on his police lights.

The usual hour and thirty-minute drive should take them about an hour, so Bode settled in the seat and geared up for what was to come.

Thinking about what Kelsey could be facing would immobilize him. So he focused on what he would do to Glade when he found him. He wouldn’t let himself think of the consequences if he’d made the wrong decision.