Authors: Sharon Sala
Suddenly Tara was seeing the room through Flynn’s eyes. It looked like a seedy motel, but there wasn’t anything in sight to tell her where it was. Then she watched the door open. She felt Flynn’s adrenaline surge, and when she saw the man who walked in, she understood why. The man was huge—both tall and heavy, with long gray/brown hair and a full gray beard, but she couldn’t see enough of his features to be able to identify him.
“Well, boy, looks like we don’t need your help after all. Your old man is dead, so we’re gonna have to revamp the set-up.”
“Dad’s dead? No! You’re lying.”
Tara felt the shock and then a wave of sorrow sweep through him. She was crying with him as he struggled to get free of the ropes.
“No lie, kid. That’s what our source told us, and we’re none too happy about it ourselves. Bringing you here to McAlester to visit him at the prison was a waste of time.”
“Does that mean you’re letting me go?”
“What it means is that we’re gonna have to shift focus. We found out your mama paid your daddy a visit here at the prison a few weeks back, and we’re thinkin’ that if old Mike knew he was dying, he’d be tellin’ someone about that money. We’re thinkin’ he told your mama where it is, and now she’s gonna have to cough it up before we can let you go.”
“No, Sam. You’re wrong. Dad wouldn’t do that. He’d know Mom wouldn’t take it. He’d know that she’d tell the police, first.”
“Sorry. I’m not buyin’ that story. We’re about to bet your life that you’re wrong, because if your mama don’t cough up that money, you’ll both be joinin’ your old man a lot faster than you planned.”
Tara gasped, and just like that, the link was gone. But she’d seen and heard enough. Now she needed to tell the police. She ran out of his room and back up the hall.
“Uncle Pat! You need to call the police now!”
Mona jumped up and grabbed Tara’s arm. “What did you see? Tell me! Is he alive?”
“Yes, ma’am, he’s alive.”
Mona’s eyes rolled back in her head as she fainted. Pat caught her, and laid her down on the sofa. When he wanted to fuss over her, Tara grabbed him by the arm.
“Uncle Pat, hurry. Make the call,” then she sat down to wait for the police to arrive.
Detective Allen was at his desk
when the call came in. He paged Rutherford, who was at his son’s Boy Scout meeting. It took less than fifteen minutes for them to get to the O’Mara house.
“What are you two doing here?” Rutherford asked, as Uncle Pat let them in.
Tara stood up. Her hands were shaking, but her voice was firm.
“We’re here because this is the closest I could get to Flynn, and I needed a connection. He’s in trouble. A big heavy-set man with long gray/brown hair and a bushy gray beard is holding Flynn hostage. Flynn called him Sam. He’s in a motel in the town where the prison is located, but I don’t know the name. They were going to make him visit his father tomorrow at the penitentiary and get the location of the money, only Michael O’Mara died tonight so they’re shifting focus to Mrs. O’Mara. They think because she visited him in prison a few weeks earlier that he surely told her where he hid this money.”
Rutherford shoved a hand through his hair. “O’Mara died?”
Tara shrugged. “It’s what Sam said.”
“Allen, check that out, will you?” Rutherford asked.
His partner nodded and stepped outside to make the call as Rutherford eyed Mona.
“Mrs. O’Mara, did you visit your ex-husband recently?”
“Only once, a few weeks ago, right after I found out he had cancer. There were some hard feelings between us and I didn’t want him to die without making peace.”
“Yes, ma’am, but did he mention any money?”
“No, no, but I wish to God he had, because then I would have something to tell the men who have Flynn.”
“You need to hide her,” Tara said. “As long as they can’t find her, they’ll keep Flynn alive. The minute she tells them what she just told you, he’s dead.”
Rutherford looked nervous. “Is that what you heard this Sam guy say?”
“What he said was that if Mona didn’t help, they would be joining his father.”
Mona gasped.
Detective Allen came back inside. “She was right. O’Mara died this evening.” He eyed Tara curiously, as if trying to figure out how her brain worked.
“It’s a really run-down motel,” Tara offered.
“There’s one other thing,” Allen said. “Our murder victim has an older brother named Sam.”
Rutherford spun. “Then we might just know the name of the man who has Flynn, which means we can get a make and model on the car he drives and search motels in and around McAlester.” He looked at Tara and grinned. “You really need to rethink my suggestion a few months ago and become a detective when you’re out of college. We could sure use someone like you.”
Tara glared. “I don’t think I’d like to be a detective. I know I didn’t like being grilled and lied to this morning.”
“Uh, yeah, sorry about that, but we didn’t actually lie,” Allen said.
Rutherford wasn’t going to apologize. “We were just doing our job, and that’s what we’re going to do now. Mrs. O’Mara, do you have any relatives out of town
. . .
or someplace to go that these men wouldn’t know about?”
“I’m not leaving town and I’m not leaving this house. If I’m their next target, then that may be the only way to get my son back.”
Rutherford argued. “You heard Tara. You can’t help him if you don’t know the location of the money, but you need to find a place to hide and stay out of sight. It’ll give us time to find your son.”
“Then you need to start looking and find him, because I’m not budging. He’s my son—my life. If I need to be the lure that brings them here, then so be it.”
Tara watched her uncle put his arm around Mona and swallowed back tears. This was awful, knowing just enough to panic, but not sure it was enough to help Flynn out of this mess.
“Are you notifying the local authorities in McAlester to look for that man car?” Mona asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Detective Allen is already relaying the info to our department. They’ll coordinate the search with the McAlester PD,” Rutherford said. “And, if you’re determined to stay here, we’ll put a police unit on your street until we have the kidnappers in custody
. . .
if we can find them, that is.”
“Do what you need to do,” Pat said. “Mona won’t be alone. We’ll stay.”
“Promise you’ll call?” Tara asked.
Rutherford eyed the tears in Tara’s eyes. “Yeah, kid, I promise.”
Flynn’s head hurt from crying.
This was, without doubt, the worst day of his life. Kidnapped right off his own front porch, then hog-tied and thrown into the floorboard of Sam Nettles’ truck. They drove for what felt like hours and then dragged him into this nasty motel room after dark and tied him up to a chair. He couldn’t believe his dad was dead and he hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. He kept thinking of his mother and of Tara, wondering if he’d ever see them again.
The two guys who came with Sam were asleep on the bed. Sam had dozed off in a chair, but the gun in his lap was scary enough to keep Flynn still. He didn’t want the man to wake up in a panic and shoot him by mistake.
All of a sudden he saw a shadow pass by the window outside the room, and then another shadow, and then a third. His heart started to pound.
Boom! The door flew inward, hitting the wall with a thud.
“Police! Police! Hands up! Now!”
Sam Nettles jerked as he woke. The gun he was holding slid to the floor as police slapped him and the other two men in handcuffs and hauled them out of the room so fast Flynn thought he was dreaming.
Then an officer came toward him. “Are you Flynn O’Mara?”
Flynn was too shocked to do anything but nod as the man cut the ropes from his wrists and ankles. His arms were so numb he could barely move them.
“Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”
“No sir,” Flynn said. “But I think they would have. Can I go home?”
“There are a couple of cops on the way from Stillwater to pick you up. Hang tough, kid. As soon as we get your story, we’ll have you home before morning.”
Tara sat up with a gasp and looked around the room in confusion. Where was she? OMG, they were still at Flynn’s house, and after that dream she’d just had, she was about as certain as a teenage psychic could be that the McAlester police had just rescued Flynn from the motel. Still, Rutherford had promised that he’d call if it happened, and the phone wasn’t ringing.
Mona had gone to her room about two hours earlier and Pat had fallen asleep in the recliner. The phone was right by the sofa where Tara was lying. She stared at it, willing it to ring. But it didn’t, and the longer time passed, the more anxious she became. What if that had been nothing more than just a dream of wishful thinking?
Her heart sank.
It was 2:00 a.m. when the call came, and all Tara could do was hold her breath, waiting for Mona to answer. Pat sat up in the recliner. Tara looked at her uncle then put a hand over her mouth, too scared to speak.
All of a sudden they heard a door bang against the wall and then Mona came out of her room, crying.
Pat ran toward her. Tara stood up, but was too scared to move.
“They found him! They found him!” Mona screamed, and then collapsed in Pat’s arms.
Tara sat back down because her legs would no longer hold her.
“Is he okay?” Pat asked.
“He’s fine. I talked to him. The two detectives who were here have gone to get him. They said they’d be back by daybreak.”
“What about the men who kidnapped him?” Pat asked.
“They’re all three in custody.”
“All’s well that ends well,” Pat said, and gave her a hug. “It’s a little early for breakfast, but none of us are going to be able to go back to sleep. I’ll make coffee.”
“I have some sweet rolls,” Mona said, and then laughed because her relief was so great that it was either that or cry all over again.
It isn’t over.
Tara’s heart sank. She already knew that, but hearing Millicent say it only made the fear worse. She crawled back onto the sofa, laid down and pulled the afghan back up over her shoulders.
Hiding won’t make it go away.
I know that. Who killed the man who was talking to Flynn? Surely not that Sam guy
. . .
he wouldn’t kill his own brother, would he?”
Silence.
Tara frowned and then whispered, “Millicent? Henry?”
To her disgust, they had made themselves absent. She never understood why they popped up in her life at the most inopportune times, and then when she really needed a question answered, they got all vague and disappeared.
Her stomach hurt and so did her head. She wanted to cry, but it would solve nothing but make her uncle Pat realize she knew something they didn’t. Something hard was under her elbow. She shifted enough to realize she’d been lying on her cell phone and picked it up to check for messages. There was one from Nikki, but it was over a couple of hours old.
Do you and Flynn want to go get Hideaway pizza tomorrow night with Corey and me?
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. If only her life was as simple as Nikki’s. Why did she have to be born so weird? She couldn’t imagine how cool it would be to just live your life without seeing ghosts and bad things happening to people.