In Harm's Way (Heroes of Quantico Series, Book 3) (34 page)

Colin was right. Rebecca sighed and tamped down her disappointment as she closed the phone. The exercise was probably
a waste of time. Wherever Rachel's cell phone was, there was
little chance anyone was going to hear it.

Nevertheless, she intended to keep calling.

Just in case.

Gary Feltrop came to an abrupt stop as he crossed the fallow
field adjacent to the two-lane country road, his breath forming
frosty clouds in the clear night air. He'd heard the faint buzzing
sound a few minutes earlier, as he'd headed out to make sure the
nose pump he'd fixed this morning for the cattle in the back pasture hadn't clogged up again, but he'd been unable to identify it.

It was closer this time, however. And though muffled, it was
very recognizable.

A phone was ringing.

Puzzled, he looked in the direction of the sound and scanned
the deserted field. The moonlight provided enough illumination
to verify that he was the sole occupant. Besides, who but a cattle
farmer would be out at nine o'clock on such a bitter night?

Yet the intermittent sound continued.

He took a few steps toward it.

The sound stopped.

He halted.

Lifting his arm, he swept the beam of his flashlight over the
area. Two theories came to mind. Someone was hiding behind
the abandoned well, or a trespasser had dropped the phone
while crossing his field.

Trespassers didn't worry him. He'd caught the local high
school kids taking a shortcut across his fields on a few occasions, but they never hurt anything.

Someone hiding behind the well on a cold night like this,
however-that was a bigger concern.

He circled the well from a distance, keeping his beam fixed
on the crumbling stones. Years ago, the shallow, hand-dug well
had provided water to a long-gone house that had stood near
a country lane. The lane had disappeared too, and the now-dry
well had long outlived its usefulness. He ought to tear it down,
fill it in. He would, one of these days.

His circuit complete, he moved closer. Nobody there. He
could check the field for the lost phone in the morning.

Sweeping the beam of his flashlight over the stones, he noted
that a few were missing. That was new. The thing must be falling
apart. Pretty soon it would cave in, leaving a dangerous hole in
the ground. One more chore to add to his to-do list. He shook
his head and tugged his cap lower over his ears. On the positive side, though, it wouldn't take much to demolish this pile
of rubble. And there ought to be plenty of room in the pit for
all of the stones.

To verify that, he leaned over the opening and flashed his
light into the dark void.

Frowned.

Squinted.

What was that gold, shiny thing reflecting in the bottom,
half buried by the stones from the surrounding wall that had
fallen in?

Digging his glasses out of his pocket, Gary slid them on and
looked again.

It was a decorative buckle. On what appeared to be a woman's
purse.

What in the world was a purse doing in the well?

He peered in, wishing his light was stronger. The well was
only ten or twelve feet deep, but the dark mud walls absorbed
the light. Yet he could make out a flap of beige peeking up from
among the rocks. It looked like canvas. The kind used for a tarp.
And it was clean.

Meaning someone had thrown this stuff into his well recently.

Very recently.

And whoever had done it sure hadn't been up to any good.
At the very least, the purse was stolen. At the worst ... well,
he'd watched enough cop shows to know that lots of bad stuff
happened in the world. Here in rural Missouri, though, he hadn't
seen much of it.

He doubted whether the local police chief had, either. Joe
was a good guy, and his laid-back style worked great in farm
country. But Gary was pretty certain he wouldn't appreciate
being awakened on a Sunday night to come check out what he
would assume to be a stolen purse. Better to fish out the purse
himself and take it over to Joe in the morning. He had to go into
town anyway to pick up a few supplies.

After a quick, cold hike to the barn and back, he dropped
a grappling hook into the dry well, snagged the strap of the
purse, tugged it out from beneath the stones, and hauled it
up.

Just as it reached the top, the phone in the side pocket began
to ring again.

No longer constrained by the dirt walls, the sharp jangle
reverberated with startling clarity in the still night air. Gary almost lost his grip on the hook but managed to snag the purse
before it slipped back into the recesses of the well.

As the phone continued to ring, he stared at it, unsure what
to do. This was the third time he'd heard it ring in the past fortyfive minutes. It could be someone trying to reach the owner
of the purse. Someone who cared. And was worried. A father,
perhaps? Or a husband?

Gary was both. He could empathize. So he followed the dictates of compassion.

He answered the phone.

There was no reason to hang around the scene. Nick knew
that. The FBI, joined by detectives from the local police force,
had questioned every member of the hotel staff who had been
on duty at the time of the abduction, but no one had seen anything. They'd also checked the security tapes for the ten minutes
before and after Rachel had been forced to walk out of view,
identifying anyone they could from the cars they'd driven. They'd
managed to contact most of those people, and none of them
had noticed any out-of-the-ordinary activity, either. The ERT
effort was yielding zilch too.

So what was he supposed to do, go home and sleep?

Right.

A disposable cup of coffee appeared in front of his face.

"I filched some from the hotel:" Mark took a sip as Nick accepted the offering.

"Thanks" He took a gulp of the brew. The hot liquid scalded
its way down his throat. "Look, you don't need to hang around.
You can take my car if you want to and I'll grab a ride with
someone later"

"I'm in for the duration."

Nick flashed him a grateful look. "Thanks."

"We'll get this figured out"

"I know"

Neither voiced the obvious worry.

Will we be in time?

Nick's BlackBerry began to vibrate, and he pulled it from his
belt. "Bradley."

"Matt Carson:" The Chicago agent dispensed with the niceties and moved straight to business. "We may have a break on
the kidnapping:"

The coffee cup flexed as Nick tightened his grip. "I'm listening"

"A call came in about ten minutes ago from a guy who thinks
his ex-wife might be involved. I'm en route to his house, ETA
about ten minutes. I'd like to pull you in by conference call when
I talk to him. Will that work for you?"

Motioning for Mark to follow, Nick began striding toward the
hotel. "Yeah. I'm at Rachel Sutton's abduction site with Agent
Mark Sanders. We'll find a place and both sit in on the call.
Who is this guy?"

"He's legit. A tenured chemistry professor" The agent named
the university. "His record is clean. The ex-wife's name is Debra
Kraus, and she's living in the St. Louis area. He didn't have an
address. You might want to start tracking her down"

"I'll take care of it. Call me as soon as you're set"

Without breaking stride, Nick filled in Mark, who'd fallen
into step beside him. As he finished, his BlackBerry began to
vibrate again. He recognized the caller ID.

"Rebecca, we have a-"

"Nick, a man answered Rachel's phone!"

At her semi-hysterical tone, Nick came to a dead stop.
"What?"

"I've been calling and calling her number, and he just answered
it." The last word came out on a sob.

"Rebecca, start over. Are you talking about her home phone
or her cell?"

"Here ... I'll let you talk to Colin"

As the phone changed hands, Nick's heart began to pound.

"What's up?" Mark asked.

"I don't know. I'm hoping Colin will make more sense"

"Nick? Colin here. Rebecca's been calling Rachel's cell phone
every fifteen minutes, and a guy just answered. A farmer, I think,
by the name of Gary Feltrop. Lives near a place called New
Melle. He was out working with his cattle and heard the phone
ringing. He fished it out of ... it was in the bottom of a dry,
abandoned well:"

The breath whooshed out of Nick's lungs, and he had to
force himself to ask the next question. "Was anything else in
there?"

"Yes. A piece of fabric he thinks might be a tarp. But there
are rocks on top of it. Like the wall of the well caved in-or was
pushed in."

"Hold a second, Colin"

Hitting the mute button, Nick tried to breathe.

"What's wrong?" Mark frowned and moved closer.

"Rebecca's been calling Rachel's cell. A farmer in New Melle
just answered. He found it in a well:"

A muscle twitched in Mark's jaw.

"Colin? Give me the man's name and phone number" Nick
signaled for Mark to get out his pen and notebook, then dictated
the information as Colin recited it. "Okay. Sit tight. We also have
a break in Chicago we're investigating, thanks to the news story.
Tell Rebecca we're following up on everything"

As the line went dead, he changed direction, heading for his
car instead of the hotel. "Can you make the calls while I drive?
We need the ERT and K-9 unit at this guy's farm in New Melle
ASAP. And we need our people to see what they can find out about a Debra Kraus. I have to leave my line open for the call
from Carson'

Before Nick finished, Mark was punching numbers into his
BlackBerry.

Five minutes later, as Nick sped west from the city, the Chicago call came through and he briefed the agent on the situation
in St. Louis.

"Anything else in the well?" the man asked.

"We're heading that way to check it out:" Nick could hear
Mark talking to the farmer, issuing instructions. His fingers
clenched on the wheel.

"I'm with Allen Harris. He's okay with the conference call.
You want to proceed or wait?"

"Let's proceed. I don't want to waste any time. If we have
to pause for a couple of minutes as I get updates, I'll let you
know"

"Okay. I'm putting you on speaker" There was a click, then
he spoke again. "Professor Harris, Special Agent Nick Bradley
is on the line from St. Louis and may ask a few questions as we
go along:"

"No problem"

"Please tell us what prompted your call tonight"

"The article in the Tribune this morning. And tonight's newscast. I'm afraid this may be a red herring, and I apologize in
advance if it is, but something doesn't feel right and I'd never
be able to live with myself if someone died because I was afraid
to be embarrassed:"

"We appreciate that, Professor Harris, Matt assured him.
"Can you be more specific when you say something didn't feel
right?"

"Yes. My ex-wife, Debra Kraus, was desperate to have a baby. It
was like an obsession. In fact, to be honest, that's the only reason
she married me. But things didn't work out. In our three years of marriage, she had two miscarriages, both of which devastated
her, and she had life-threatening complications during her third
pregnancy. When that ended badly, well, she lost it'

"Define `lost it," Nick interjected.

"At first she refused to believe she'd miscarried again. She
was convinced the baby had been stolen from her. And she'd
sit in the nursery for hours, singing to a doll and pretending it
was her baby. I dragged her kicking and screaming to counseling, but she didn't respond well. And it was a battle to get her
to take her medication. I don't think she ever fully accepted the
fact that her final pregnancy didn't produce a child"

"Why do you think she might be involved in the O'Neil kidnapping?" Matt asked.

"A colleague of mine ran into her in St. Louis a few days
ago. In an area called Chesterfield-I checked with him on the
location before I called you. She had a baby with her, and she
told him she was watching it for a friend. But the thing is, she
had no friends here. She's a loner. And during her treatment I
discovered she's had mental health issues her whole life"