Back on Solid Ground (38 page)

“You’re a
complete lunatic!” Stacy said, horrified.  “No one will ever believe that I
committed suicide.”

“Of course
they will.  Just like they believed that your mother’s death was an accident,”
he laughed.  “Oh, by the way,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling
out a piece of paper, “I’m going to need you to sign this.”  He handed her the
suicide note and watched as Stacy read it.

Stacy laughed
in disbelief.  “I’m not signing that,” she said, ripping it up and throwing it
on the floor.

Trent dismissed her belligerence with a wave of his hand, “I’ve got another copy.  And
you’ll sign it all right,” he said with certainty.  “Now, let’s get your lover
on the phone, shall we?”  He pulled out his phone and dialed the number on the
card Niki had given Stacy.  “What a pity. Voice mail.”  At the beep, Trent started talking.  “Hello, Mr. Lautrec.  It seems that my daughter is in dire need of
your assistance.  I’ll be calling you back first thing in the morning.  If you
want to see her alive, I won’t get your voicemail.”  He smiled at Stacy. 
“Don’t you just love it!” he said, rubbing his hands together.

Stacy was
numb with shock.  She needed to get away before her father got a hold of Niki.

“I have some
business to attend to now,” Trent said.  “Be a good girl and maybe I’ll bring
you some food later.”  He left the cabin and Stacy heard the engine start and
the car drive off. 

Stacy pulled
at the handcuffs and tried to squeeze out of them, but it was no use.  She lay
down on the dusty cot and tried to think of a way to get her crazed father to
come back to his senses. 

Trent drove into town and came back to the ranch with a sack full of junk food and a
bottle of whiskey.  He parked in front of the ranch house and went inside and
fixed himself a drink, then sat in his easy chair and popped powdered-sugar
donuts into his mouth until he had finished the entire package. 

Niki
chartered a jet back to San Antonio and met Jason at La Mansion. 

“I heard from
her father,” Niki said.  He handed the phone to Jason and replayed the message
for him.  Jason listened and handed the phone back to Niki.

“Carlos said
he’d be here in the morning,” Jason said.

“We may not
need him now,” Niki said.  “I have a feeling her father is going to tell us
exactly where she is.  Did you come up with any prints?”

“No.  If
someone drove it back here from the restaurant, he wore gloves,” Jason said. 
“So, what are we going to do?  Wait until we hear from Trent?”

Niki’s phone
rang before he could answer.  “Yeah,” he said.

“We’re in
town.  Where are you?” Carlos asked.

Niki gave
instructions on how to get to the hotel and thirty minutes later, Carlos and
Eli were knocking on the door. 

“Thanks for
coming,” Niki said, shaking hands with Carlos and then Eli.

“She’s being
held somewhere out in the country,” Carlos said, without as much as a hello.

Jason greeted
Carlos and Eli, then turned to Niki.  “The Trents have three ranches.  He may
have taken her to one of them.”

“Do you know
where they’re located?” Niki asked.

“No, but her
friend Holly seems to know everything there is to know about the family.    We
should get her down here,” Jason suggested.

“I hate to
get her involved in all of this, but I don’t think we have any choice,” Niki
said. 

“She’s
already involved,” Jason said. 

“Who are we
talking about,” Eli asked.

“Stacy’s best
friend,” said Jason.  “The tall blond standing next to Stacy at the hospital
interview.”

“Oh yeah,
what’s she like?” Eli asked.

“Like Stacy,
not in looks but in every other way,” Jason said.  “She’s smart and resourceful
and just as hard-headed.”

“Call her,”
Niki said.

Jason called
the mobile number Holly had written down for him and she answered immediately. 
She got to the hotel within twenty minutes and Jason introduced her to Niki,
Eli and Carlos.

“We met briefly
the other night.  Thanks for coming down,” Niki said.

You are
precious.  No wonder Stacy’s in love with you, Holly thought. “What’s the
plan?” she asked.

“Tell us
about the ranches,” Niki said.

“Like I told
Jason, the Trents have three ranches.  The closest one is in Boerne, which is a
30-minute drive.  There’s another one up by Dripping Springs, which is about an
hour away.  And the third is close to Victoria.  That one’s at least a
three-hour drive.”

“What kind of
structures are on the land?” Carlos asked.  “Do any of the ranches have cabin
type houses?”

Holly looked
at Carlos surprised.  “Yeah, the one in Boerne and the one in Victoria.  Why?”

“Carlos is
gifted,” Jason interjected.

“That’s
right!  Stacy told me you’re psychic,” Holly said excited.  “And you can see a
cabin?”

“With bunk
beds.”

“Wow, that’s
incredible!” Holly exclaimed.  “Then she’s at one of the ranches,” she said to
Niki. She turned back to Carlos, “Describe something else. There are cabins
with bunk beds at both the Boerne and Victoria ranches.”

“A creek,”
Carlos said.

Holly shook
her head.  “Could be either.”

“A big
house.”

“Either.”

“A target
range by a pond,” Carlos said.

Holly jumped
up and pointed at Carlos. “That’s in Victoria! She’s at the ranch in Victoria!”

“How well do
you know that ranch?” Niki asked her.

Holly
smiled.  “I can tell you anything you want to know.”

Niki handed
her a pad and pen.  “Draw it.”

Holly looked
up at him expectantly.

“You have to
say please,” Jason told Niki.

Niki threw
his hand in the air and rolled his eyes.  “
Please.
”

Holly pointed
the pen at him.  “Only because you said please.” She drew a map of the Victoria ranch, complete with the big house, three cabins, two creeks, a smoke house, the
target range by the pond, cattle guards and gates, and barriers and fences that
divided different areas of the ranch.  The men watched over her shoulder as she
drew and when she finished, she handed the page to Niki and smiled. 

“I knew all
those summers at the ranch would pay off some day,” she said. 

Niki looked
at his watch.  It was almost 11:00.  “I think that’s going to do it for
tonight,” he told Holly.

“What are you
going to do?” Holly asked.  “Are you going to drive there tonight?”

“I don’t know
yet.  Let us call you in the morning,” Niki said, trying to get rid of her.

“I know
you’re trying to get rid of me, and it’s not going to work,” Holly said. 
“Stacy’s my best friend, and I’m going to help get her back.”

Niki breathed
out heavily.  “The last thing we need right now is you trying to be Wonder
Woman,” Niki said.  “Stacy doesn’t need it, and we don’t need it.  We have
enough problems to deal with as it is.  Now go home, and let us do what we do.”

“You’re going
to rob a bank at this hour?” Holly said, looking at her watch.

Niki looked
at Holly and she knew she had gone too far.  “Somebody deal with her,” Niki
told no one in particular.  He walked over to the bar and poured himself a
drink and went and stood by the window.  Just days ago, he and Stacy had shared
one of the best nights of his life in this very room.  It seemed like an
eternity ago.  Niki walked out on the balcony and watched the tourists walking
on the Riverwalk and he picked up a chair and hurled it down into the river. 
There was a huge splash and people looked around to see what had happened. 
Jason was outside in a flash and he stopped Niki before he could toss another
chair.

“You’re gonna
get us kicked out of here,” Jason told Niki.

“I’ll pay for
the damn chair,” Niki said, kicking the one Jason had taken away from him.  
Niki ran his hand through his hair.  “He’s going to kill her.” 

“We’ll get to
her first,” Jason said.  “Do we assume she’s at that ranch and get out there
now, or do we wait until we hear from Trent in the morning?”

“I can’t
think about this one objectively,” Niki admitted.  “Tell me what you think.”

Jason could
always count on Niki to ask for help when he needed it.  It was one of the many
things Jason had always admired about him. 

“Let’s think
it through,” Jason said.  “Stacy’s father is going to want us to meet him
somewhere tomorrow when he calls, and it may be at the ranch in Victoria or it may not be.  And she may very well be there right now, but he can move her
any time.  There’s no guarantee she would be there when we got there.  And I
think her father expects you to take the call from here in San Antonio.  What
do you think?” Jason asked.

“Yes, I agree
that he expects me to be here when he calls,” Niki said.

“Okay.  Let’s
pretend Stacy’s not involved in this.  It’s a kidnapping and we’re waiting for
the ransom call to find out where to deliver the money.  What would we do?”
Jason asked.

“We’d wait
for the call,” Niki said.

“I think
that’s what we need to do,” Jason said.

Niki nodded
his head in agreement.  “Did you get rid of Holly?”

“I’m afraid
to.”

“Why?”

“Think about
it,” Jason said.  “What would Stacy do if the roles were reversed and Holly was
in Stacy’s place.”

“She’d leave
here and drive straight to the fucking ranch on her own. Goddammit!”  Niki kicked
the chair again.  “This is a fucking nightmare!” He looked at Jason. “So what
are we supposed to do?”

“Got any
rope?” Jason said, and they both laughed. “Maybe we should tell her about Trent’s call,” Jason suggested.  “She’s not stupid.  I would think she’d be sensible.”

“Okay.  It’s
worth a try,” Niki said.  They walked back inside and Holly came up to Niki and
apologized. 

“I’m sorry
about the bank comment,” Holly said.  “But you need to realize that Stacy and I
have been best friends since we were three years old.  That’s 26 years, Niki. 
And you’ve known her for less than a month,” Holly said.  “I’ve already been to
her funeral once and I’m not about to go to another one.  So if there’s
something I can do to help Stacy get away from her father, not you and all your
buddies combined are going to stop me,” Holly said, crossing her arms.

Niki listened
as Holly lectured him and when she finished he knocked on her head.  “Stacy,
are you in there?” he said, and Holly laughed out loud.

Niki looked
at Jason, “I told you,” Jason said.

“Sit down,”
Niki told Holly, motioning to the couch and Holly took a seat.  “Stacy’s father
left a message, saying that Stacy needs my help.  He said he would call back
first thing in the morning with instructions.”

“Did he say
he has her?” Holly asked.

“He has her.”

“Why didn’t
you tell me that before?” she asked, then she waved off the question, “Never
mind.  So you’re going to wait here until he calls?”

“That’s the
plan.  Although Carlos and Eli could head to Victoria tonight, and I’d still be
here for the call in the morning,” Niki said, looking over at Jason.

“They could,”
Jason said.  “But what if morning comes and Trent sends us in the opposite
direction and Carlos and Eli are three hours away?”

“We’ll wait
for the call,” Niki said.

“I could
drive to Victoria,” Holly started to say, but Niki and Jason cut her off.

“No!” they
said in unison. 

“Well then
I’m going with you in the morning,” Holly said, and nobody argued. 

They mapped
out a strategy for Eli, Carlos and Holly to scope out the cabins, hoping that Trent would leave Stacy alone while he dealt with Niki and Jason.  It was almost 2:00 a.m.
when everyone went to their own rooms, and Holly slept in a bedroom in Niki’s
suite.

Trent sat up at the ranch house until dusk, then he drove back over to the cabin to check
on Stacy.  He tossed a Hostess Twinkie at her.  “Here’s your dinner.”

“I need to
use the bathroom again.”

Trent fumbled in his pocket and came out with a key and he removed the handcuffs.  He
followed Stacy out of the cabin with the pistol pointed at her back and she
went behind a tree and used the bathroom, then she made a run for it. 

The trees
were thick and provided good coverage, but she was wearing heels and she
couldn’t run fast. 

“Get back
here you bitch!” Trent yelled, chasing after her.  He fired the gun in the air
but she kept running, and Trent was gaining on her easily.  Stacy turned around
to see where her father was and when she turned back the ground disappeared and
she fell into a deep pit, landing hard and hitting her head.  Stacy groaned and
rolled onto her back and looked up at the sky.  Her father stood at the top of
the massive hole with a sinister smile on his face. 

“I see you
found your lover’s grave.”

Stacy’s head
was killing her and she reached up and felt it and her hand came away with
blood.  She looked around the pit she had fallen into.  The hole was at least
five feet deep, four feet wide and more than six feet long.

“Well haven’t
you been the
Digging-Est Dog
,” Stacy said.

Trent burst into a recitation of the book he had read to her hundreds of times when she
was a little girl.  Afterwards, he was quiet for a moment, then his face
clouded over and he got an angry look on his face.

“Get out,” Trent said. 

Stacy found
her shoes and tossed them up on the ground by her father, then she scaled the
wall and climbed out of the pit. 

“If I didn’t
have such a good show planned for you, I’d kill you right now,” Trent told her.  He followed her back to the cabin and cuffed her to the bed again then
left without saying another word.  He returned at first light with his
telephone in hand and dialed Niki’s number.