Hard Core Law

“Why can’t you tell him?” Sage pouted.

“Come on, it has a giant bull.” Another voice piped in.

“We’ve been there, Jacks. It’s got that big bridge, ’member?” Sage poked him.

“Can you come there and pick us up, Daddy?” Jackson cried.

“Maybe Trace Trace can?” Sage’s tears ran full stream down her cheeks.

“You have twenty minutes to be waiting in the middle of the bridge. Both of you. No cops,” a voice said on top of the twins cries.

The video ended. All Josh wanted was to rush to the Chisholm Trail Bridge and pick them up. But they wouldn’t be there. Instructions would be there. The guy who’d dropped the phone off would be watching them to make certain they weren’t followed.

“Let’s go.” He wrapped his hand around Tracey’s. It killed him to hear his kids like that.

“Are they going to keep us running from one spot to another? What’s the point of that? And why have us buy a new phone only to replace it with this one?”

While they were leaving the mall in a hurry would be the ideal time for a kidnapper to try to grab one or both of them. He locked their fingers and tugged Tracey closer to his side.

“Before we get to the car...” He lowered his voice and stopped them behind a pillar at the candy store. He leaned in close to her ear, not wanting to be overheard. “We need to look closely where he touched us. He might have planted a microphone.”

He dipped his head and turned around to let Tracey check. She smoothed the cloth of his shirt across his shoulders.

“I don’t see anything, Josh.” She shook her head and turned for him to do the same.

He pushed his fingers through his short hair. Found nothing. Then ran them through Tracey’s short wavy strands and over her tense shoulders.

“If I were them, I’d use this time to plant a listening device. I’d want to know if we were really cooperating or playing along with the Feds.”

“Who are you playing along with?” She looked and sounded exasperated.

“I’m on team Jackson and Sage. Whoever I have to play along with to get them back home. That’s the only thing that’s important to me.”

“All right. So you think they’re planting something in the car?”

“Got to be. Or this phone is already rigged for them to listen. Stand at the back of this store and keep an eye out while I call McCaffrey on his phone.” Josh took a last look around the open mall area to see if they were in sight of security cameras or if anyone watched them from the sidelines.

Tracey smothered the kidnapper’s phone with the bottom of her shirt. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“So do I.” He waited for her to get ten feet away from him then took the FBI-issued phone and dialed the only number logged.

As soon as he was connected he blurted, “They have a new phone listed in my name. Bought it prepaid at a kiosk. No idea what the number is. Handed us another and told us to head to the Brazos Suspension Bridge.”

“You can cross that on foot. Right?” McCaffrey was asking someone on his staff. “You know they’ll be waiting on the other side.”

Tracey kept watch, walking back and forth along the wall. She’d look out the storefront window, then make the horseshoe along the outside walls again to look out the other side.

Josh kept his head and his voice down. “I can’t contact you on this again. It’ll be in the car.”

“We’ll have men on the north side of the bridge waiting,” McCaffrey stated. “Trust me, Josh.”

“For as long as possible.” He pocketed the phone, waved to Tracey.

“Josh, the kidnapper called you Mack. I remember that they all called each other Mack.”

“It kept them from using their real names. Helped hide their identities.” He didn’t speak his next thought—hoping that they kept their masks on in front of his kids.

They both walked quickly from the mall toward the car.

“We just used five of our twenty minutes. Aren’t you going to call Bryce and let him know where we’re headed?”

“No need. If the Rangers are doing their job, they’ll already know.”

Josh pointed to a moving van that matched the description Tracey had regarding the vehicle blocking the intersection. If law enforcement spotted it, they’d be instructed to watch and not detain.

The truck pulled away from the end of the aisle as soon as they reached the car. He was tempted to use the phone, but he’d just proved to himself that they were being watched. He couldn’t risk it.

Josh didn’t wait around to spot any other vehicles keeping an eye on them. He didn’t care if any of them kept up. “Flip down the visor, Tracey.” He turned on the flashing lights and let traffic get out of his way. “We’re not going to be late.”

Tracey braced herself with a foot on the dashboard. “I’m rich. That’s my secret.”

He slowed for an intersection and looked at her while checking for vehicles. She cleared her throat, waiting. Josh drove. If that was all the FBI could dig up on her, how could that be leverage?

The flashing lights on his car made it easy to get to the bridge and park. He left them on when they got out. Tracey reached under the seat and retrieved a second Jackson emergency kit. He snagged the one he’d brought from the house.

Armed with only a phone and his son’s emergency kit, they walked quickly across the bridge to wait in the middle of the river.

“Not many people here on a Friday night.” Tracey walked to the steel beams and looked through. “I hope they don’t make us jump.”

“That could be a possibility.” One that he hadn’t considered.

“I don’t swim well. So just push me over the edge.”

“You don’t have to go.” Josh stayed in the middle, his senses heightened from the awareness of how vulnerable they were in this spot. “How’s your head?”

“Spinning. You grabbed extra insulin cartridges and needles. That’s what I saw, right? I think I should take a couple, too.”

It made sense. He opened the kit. She reached for a cartridge and needle. If the kidnappers took only one of them, they’d each have a way to keep Jackson healthy.

* * *

TRACEY WAS SCARED. Out-of-her-mind scared. If today hadn’t happened, she would have felt safe standing on a suspension bridge above the Brazos River in the early moonlight with Josh.

But today had happened and she was scared for them all.

“What kind of a secret is being rich?” Josh walked a few feet one direction and then back again. “I don’t get it. Why is being rich a secret McCaffrey would threaten you with?”

“You really want me to explain right now?”