Tracker

She ran toward the big, two-story house, every cell in her body on overload. “Kevin? Kevin, Mommy’s here.”

An officer stopped her at the wide stained glass front door. “Ma’am, you can’t go in there.”

“She’s with me,” Zeke said, showing the officer his ID. “Her two-year-old son could be in danger.”

“He’s gone,” Rex Harmon said when Penny rushed inside, shaking his head. Rex, an avid hiker, had a room across from hers. “That man—he had a gun and he took the little boy.”

“No!” Penny put a hand to her mouth and moaned, a sick feeling pooling inside her stomach. “No...”

“What did he look like?” Zeke asked, pulling out a picture of his half brother. “Is this him?”

“Nah,” the older man said. “This thug was short and muscular with long, greasy blond hair and funky eyeglasses. He got into a beat-up old black van.”

Zeke’s eyes flared with awareness, his gaze hitting on Penny. She grabbed onto a chair, her worst nightmares coming to the surface. The same man she’d seen in the woods. Kevin had been right there, inside that van. She could have saved him.

“Do you know that man?” she asked Zeke, each word a struggle, each beat of her pulse a condemnation.

He nodded. “Possibly. But we’ll figure that out later.”

“Was this man in the van?” Penny demanded, her finger jabbing at the picture of Jake.

“No,” Rex said, sympathy in his eyes. “He was alone but he overpowered Miss Claire and hit her on the head. I heard her scream and I saw him with the boy. Miss Claire was hurt but she got to her shotgun. Only he had a gun, too, and he pointed it at the kid when we both ordered him to stop. Miss Claire dropped her gun and the man got in the van with your son and left.” He glanced from the officers to Penny. “I tried to get a license plate but it was all rusted out.” He gave Penny an apologetic look and waved a hand at all the officers swarming around. “I was about to call you when they showed up.”

Penny’s stomach twisted and recoiled. A cold sweat crept up and down her spine. She sank down on the stairs and pushed at her hair. “Is Miss Claire okay?”

“She’s fine,” Rex said. “She’s in her room with a female officer. The EMTs looked her over but she won’t go to the hospital.”

Penny stood, dizziness overcoming her. Zeke reached out to her and guided her to a chair. “I’ll find him. I promise. You stay here while I go and check on your babysitter.”

He asked Rex to bring her some water. The front door swung open and another man wearing an FBI vest entered, along with another canine. She’d seen them outside and heard Zeke introduce him as Special Agent in Charge Max West. He had short, spiked blond hair and blue eyes that seemed to stare everyone down, but like Zeke, he seemed confident and born to be in charge. She also noticed a jagged scar on his left cheek.

That only reminded her of how dangerous this situation had become. Jake had sent someone to kidnap her son and now he was at their mercy. That man could have killed Claire and Rex, too.

She watched, impatient and numb, while FBI agents and K-9 dogs filled the inn, their presence a sharp contrast to the dainty furnishings and heirloom antiques placed all around the Victorian-style mansion turned boardinghouse.

Max West gathered all of them around and explained what would transpire next. Roadblocks, an Amber Alert, all train and bus stations made aware, all flights out of nearby airports monitored. And all agents out on the hunt.

Penny put her head in her hands and prayed. Helplessness weighed her down, a sense of doom and despair causing her to catch her breath. Why, oh, why, had she come back to Montana?

Law enforcement set up electronic equipment on every available spot and stomped over the braided rugs and slammed the stained glass doors, moving, while she sat there, frozen in a nightmare. She had to do something, anything, to find her little boy.

Agent West came over to her and asked her several rapid-fire questions about Jake. Did he say where he was headed? What did he look like? What kind of weapons was he carrying? Did he mention an accomplice?

He explained to her that they were aware she’d been on the run and why. They knew she’d been in a chalet in Colorado earlier in the summer. Had Jake come after her there?

Penny nodded and answered all the questions, anger warring with fear and regret. “I came back here because...I wanted my son to be here, close to where I grew up. I thought I was safe.”

“Did you come here hoping Jake would find you? Did he arrange to meet you out in the Basin area?”

“No.”

Fury roiled through her. Did they actually think she’d wanted this? That she wanted to be sitting here, paralyzed with fear, wondering if her son was alive or dead?

Finally, Penny lifted her head and said, “He planned to go live on a tropical island, and he said he has a lot of money stashed somewhere but I don’t know where. He wants my son, not me. I didn’t want him around Kevin, and I sure don’t want him taking my son away from me. The man tried to kill me. Why are you questioning me when you should be out there searching for Kevin?”

Max West gave her a stern but sympathetic stare. “We’re doing everything we can to help us find your son, Penny. We’ve taken prints on everyone who works here or is staying here, and we have officers going door-to-door around this area to see if we can find any leads or get any eyewitnesses. Don’t go anywhere.”

“I know who took my son,” she said, her voice rising. “Why aren’t you listening to me? I was an eyewitness. Up close. So close, I feared for my life. Go and find my son before it’s too late.”

Zeke pulled Max aside and said something into his ear. The other man shot a frown at her. Did he know what she was afraid of, what was tearing through her racing mind?

Zeke came over and bent down in front of her. “It’s highly unlikely that they’d hurt Kevin, Penny. You have to keep telling yourself that. Jake wants him, so he would order them not to harm him.”

Closing her eyes to the shattering nerves breaking apart piece by piece throughout her core, she said, “Sure. And while I’m at it, I’ll keep telling myself that Jake doesn’t have him in that van headed to another getaway car or to the airport.”

Zeke stared at her for a brief moment but one of the other agents called him. “I’ll be right back.” Then he whirled around. “And, Penny, don’t go anywhere, understand? That would only make this worse.”

Penny didn’t believe it could get much worse but if they didn’t do something soon, she would sneak out to her Jeep and do whatever she had to do to find Kevin. And she’d take Claire’s shotgun with her.

FOUR (#u3ca50513-3288-5fb6-81ca-7826ef7c1554)

Fifteen minutes passed and Penny didn’t think she could take another moment of waiting. Here she sat, wringing her hands, the sound of people talking around her drowned out by the emptiness clamoring inside her heart. “Kevin,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Kevin.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

She opened her eyes to find Claire Crayton gingerly stepping down the stairs, a bright red bump shining on her forehead. Claire had been so kind to Penny when she’d pulled up in the parking lot a month ago, on her last ounce of gasoline, Kevin crying in his car seat. Claire had booked them a room immediately and offered to babysit anytime Penny needed her.

“I tried to stop him but he hit me hard with his gun and I went down like a rock. Grabbed my gun but...he held the child and...” The older woman’s eyes watered and her voice wobbled to a halt. “He took our precious boy. It’s my fault, too.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Penny said, standing to wrap her hands around Claire’s plump, comforting shoulders, her own eyes wet with tears, her own bruises and scratches burning from the salt. “It’s my fault. I knew his daddy was dangerous, but I never dreamed he’d send a henchman to kidnap my son.”

Then she started sobbing against Claire’s plaid shirt, the scent of rose water and cinnamon cookies overtaking her. “I want him back, Claire. I want my little boy back.”

A strong hand touched her on the arm.

Zeke.

His dark eyes held the same despair that raged through her, raw and jagged and burning. He placed her back in the nearby chair and kneeled in front of her again, his eyes on her. “Listen, we’ve got people out looking already, and we’ve put out an Amber Alert. But I need you to take me to the room where Kevin sleeps, okay? Cheetah can pick up his scent. It hasn’t been that long, so if I hurry I can locate him.”

“Did the others search his room?”

“Yes, but they were looking for clues regarding the kidnapper. They’re searching for him while others are searching for Kevin. Both of them, really. I want to focus more on Kevin since Cheetah is trained in search and rescue.” Touching a hand to her arm, he leaned in. “I promise I’m going to do everything in my power to bring Kevin back to you.”

“I’m going with you to search,” she said, standing and hurrying up the stairs, her heart beating just as fast as her hiking boots.

Zeke took off after her. “No.”

“Yes.” She stopped on the second-floor landing and turned at the first door on the left. “This is our room. I have the bedroom and he sleeps here in the living room in this crib.”