The Ransom

Clay sliced a hand toward the kid. “Take off.”

Eddie slid behind the wheel and turned the key; the powerful engine rumbled. Clay noted the way Eddie lifted his chin in order to keep Kathryn framed in the rearview mirror as his drove off.

“I need your help,” Kathryn blurted, at the same instant Clay stepped toward her.

“What—”

“They took Matthew. My baby. He’s gone.”

Clay furrowed his brow. His first thought was that she and Mason had some sort of custody dispute going over their son. “Who took him?”

“I don’t know.” She jerked the phone off her jeans, flipped open its cover and jabbed buttons. Her hand trembled so badly the phone shook when she handed it to him. “Johnny and Reece Silver said you could help. You have to help.” Her voice shuddered as badly as her hands and her words tumbled over each other. “Matthew needs his medicine. They left it. He could reject his kidney. They said you can help me. They left the phone.”

Struggling to makes sense of her jumbled words, Clay looked down at the phone’s display. His lungs stopped working the instant he began to read. His gaze whipped up to meet hers. “When did you get this?”

“Two hours ago.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I overslept. Woke up sick. I could barely make it to Matthew’s room. He was gone. Abby tracked them downstairs, but lost his scent. He’s gone. They took Matthew.”

Dread clamped a vise on Clay’s chest as he pictured the compelling little boy with sparkling brown eyes and a plastic deputy’s badge pinned to his T-shirt. He knew all too well what could go wrong during a kidnapping. Which was the last thing Kathryn needed to hear.

“How far did Abby track Matthew’s scent?”

“Just to the bottom of the staircase. They shut her in Matthew’s room when they took him. She’s limping. I think they kicked her.”

Clay rescanned the text of the ransom message, hoping to find something that might dull his initial fear for the boy’s well-being.

He didn’t.

“They’ll call soon, won’t they?” Kathryn asked, her voice reedy with terror. “Tell me how to get Matthew back. He needs his medicine. I’ll do whatever they say. Give them anything they want. I have to get him back.”

“They’ll call, but I’m not sure when,” Clay said while his thoughts veered to his parents. His father had been the number two man at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, his mother the ambassador’s executive assistant. The rebels who’d snatched them had believed the U.S. would put pressure on the Colombian government to release jailed compatriots. A patient group, the rebels had waited two weeks to make initial contact. The hostage negotiator brought in by the State Department had told Clay that kidnappers knew every minute they delayed contact made those left behind more desperate. More afraid. More willing to pay.

And so Clay had waited for the call, then after that for his parents’ safe release while his mind replayed the instant the rebels ambushed his parents’ car while he was at the wheel. To Clay, it didn’t matter that he’d taken a bullet during the attack—he’d been a cop, he should have sensed the danger closing in, should have protected his family. Should have done something. He knew he would never be rid of the guilt nor the mistrust of his own instincts that prompted him to turn in his badge. And there was no way in hell he’d risk Matthew’s life by letting Kathryn rely on those faulty instincts.

“I can help you only so far.” Closing the phone’s cover, he offered it to her. “You need someone who knows how to deal with kidnappers. That isn’t me.”

From under the brim of his hat he watched her face, saw fury flare in her eyes so white-hot it could have sparked a pasture fire.

“Damn you, Clay Turner, I know I meant nothing to you.” She tore the phone out of his hand with the intensity of an erupting volcano. “But if you think I’ll let you turn your back on me a second time when my son’s life is a stake, think again.”

He said nothing for a moment. How could he when her words sliced to his core?

“I’m not turning my back,” he countered levelly. “While I worked for the State Department, I had some training on what to do right after a kidnapping occurs. Which is how to keep things calm until someone who knows what they’re doing arrives on the scene. The best way I can help you is to put you in touch with a hostage negotiator I know. A man who does this for a living. His name is Forbes. Quentin Forbes. He’s the best there is. He knows kidnappers in and out. Knows how to negotiate—”

“I don’t want to negotiate,” Kathryn hissed. “I want to pay the million dollars. I’ll pay whatever they want as long as I get Matthew back.”

The desperation in her voice tightened the knots in Clay’s gut. Another lesson Forbes had hammered into his head was that to pay too much too soon was to make kidnappers think they could squeeze more money out of the family. That doing so sometimes resulted in the extortion of a second ransom for the same victim. And prolonged the heart-wrenching wait. Not to mention they had no proof of life, which would be the first thing Forbes would demand.

Clay scrubbed a hand over his jaw, his callused fingertips scraping across the scar on his right cheek. The scar was visual proof of how cold-blooded a kidnapper’s determination could be. Better to let Forbes deal with Kathryn on the issue of negotiating the ransom, Clay decided. With everything. Considering his own track record, the farther he stayed from this, the better chance Matthew had of getting out alive.

“Whether or not to negotiate the ransom amount is something you can talk over with Forbes. He’ll also advise you on what to say and what not to say when the kidnappers call.”

The wind picked up, slapping strands of her dark hair against her cheeks. It seemed to Clay that she swayed beneath its force. Her face was white as death now, the gleam of shock in her eyes subsiding as realization set in.

Knowing the fire that had pushed her this far was fading fast, he gave thought to taking hold of her arms and shoring her up in case her legs gave out. Suspecting she would prefer a rattlesnake bite to his touch, he opted to tug his cell phone out of his shirt pocket.

“Forbes can help get Matthew back safe,” he repeated. “You can trust me on this.” And she could. After all, he had always been honest with her. Brutally so.

“It’d probably be best if you talk to Matthew’s father first,” Clay added. “Better if you both decide what to do about Forbes.” And if the unthinkable happened, she wouldn’t have to live with the hellish guilt that the sole responsibility for her child’s death lay with her.

She shook her head. “I tried to call Devin. He’s in Tibet, shooting a movie. I couldn’t get a good connection. It might take hours to get through to him.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. “I can’t just wait and do nothing. If the man you know, this…”

“Forbes. Quentin Forbes.”

“Forbes.” Dropping her hand, she looked up at Clay, her eyes dark pools of anguish. “I feel like I’m going crazy. I can’t concentrate. All I can think about is Matthew. Clay, they might kill my baby.”

“No.” Because he could no longer stop himself, he reached out, played a hand down her arm. It had to be ninety degrees, yet her flesh was ice-cold. “They don’t want to hurt him. They only want you to believe they will. The kidnappers want money,” he continued. “Keeping Matthew unharmed is their only guarantee of getting it. Hang on to that, Kat.”

Nodding, she looked away. Clay watched as she raked her fingers through her hair, leaving it a dark, rumpled frame around her ashen face. He remembered, perfectly remembered, the silky softness of that hair against his hands.

Again, he felt the hard knot of regret for how callously he had treated her. For all that he’d given up. Thrown away. Lost.

When Kathryn remet his gaze her eyes were expressionless, her face as calm as carved stone. “Call him, Clay. Call your Mr. Forbes.”

“All right.” Clay’s chest tightened. He would do everything he could to save Kat’s son. Just as he’d done all he could to try to save his parents.

Beneath his hand, he felt Kathryn shudder. Until Forbes arrived, Clay knew he was the only man who could help her.

And the last man who should.

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER LEAVING a message for the negotiator, Clay swung up into the saddle on Kathryn’s mare, then held out a hand to her. When he saw her hesitate, he felt a quick, nasty slice to his heart that he struggled to ignore.

Hard to do when on its heels came a flash of memory: Kat at eighteen, slim and leggy, with black hair to her waist, a young woman not entirely aware of her effect on him. Granted, her schoolgirl crush had her chasing after him for years, but one look at her that summer and he’d let himself be caught…not captured. Still sowing his wild oats, he’d refused to admit there was more to the relationship than the lustful, sweaty need of a man for a woman. Yet, when he reported back to work in Houston, Kat had stayed on his mind. And still he denied his feelings, telling himself he had time to get a handle on things.

Time ran out when she phoned and told him she was pregnant. He’d headed for Layton, his emotions warring. Age-old emotions of the rounder he’d been with those of the man whose heart was trying to lead him for the first time.

But when he arrived in Layton, Kathryn had miscarried. And the pale young woman lying in the hospital bed no longer gazed at him with love shining in her eyes, but with hurt and indifference.

So he kept his uncertain feelings to himself, took her to the friend’s house where she wanted to stay, then left when she told him to go.

And tried to put her out of his mind. Which was something he’d done pretty well, until his parents died and all the guilt and regret flooded over him.

Clay’s thoughts jerked from the past when Kathryn slid her hand into his.

With ease that came from a lifetime of climbing onto a horse, she fit her left foot into the stirrup and settled in front of him in one smooth move. The scent of her hair filled his head. When her backside nestled into his thighs, he felt his insides jolt, like a boulder teetering off a cliff.

Ah, hell. The last thing he needed was a reminder of the heat that had always arrowed straight to his loins whenever they touched.