KIDNAPPED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (27 page)

“Oh, hey, Doyle. Long time no see.” He glanced up one side of the street, then down the other, making sure no one saw him speaking to the detective.

“Long enough to see you still haven’t given up making book on the streets.” Doyle pressed his informant into the side of the truck, blocking them from view by cars passing by on the street. For once he was as anxious as Lyle not to be seen talking to him.

“Hey, you know me man, just trying to make a livin’.” He moved his hands in a jerky, twitchy fashion. “What cha doin’ out here this early, Doyle?”

 “Funny you should ask, Lyle. You’re the reason I’m here.”

His eyes widened. “Me? I ain’t done nothin’. I swear it, Doyle. Ya got the wrong guy, man.”

“Oh, I’ve got the right guy, Lyle. You’re going to do me a favor, or I’m going to inform the watch commander I have reliable information that not only did you know the murders at the race track last month were going down, you had a hand in them.”

“Hey, I ain’t got nothin’ to do with that, Doyle.”

Doyle let his meanest smile slide over his face. “You know that and I know that. But if you don’t do exactly like I say, I’m going to let the local cops harass your sorry hide for it.”

The little weasel shuffled his feet and nodded like an old time minstrel show dancer, more than willing to cooperate. “Okay, okay, Doyle. Whatcha want me to do?”

“So glad you asked, Lyle.” Doyle released his hold on the semi-slimeball, keeping him hemmed in close to the truck while he gave him the specifics to pass on to the Kreshnins. Then with a warning to follow the instructions to the last detail, he let the snitch take off.

Now, he needed to search out the old factory he’d just set the ambush in.

* * *

The private office number blinked its silent call. Madson lifted the receiver. “What now?”

Every minute that Carlisle and the kid remained on the loose, his stress level doubled.

“Such impatience, my friend. Especially when I have such good news for you.”

The thick Russian voice rumbling on the other end of the line irritated him more. Perhaps he needed to rethink his connection with Petrov. His private Swiss accounts had more than enough money for his purposes. Severing ties with the Cossack was a tricky deal at best and dangerous at worst.

“Tell me your people found Carlisle and the kid.” He rubbed his hand over his forehead as the throbbing started once more. With a brief glance at his office door to assure himself it remained closed, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Another chuckle filtered across the line. “It seems our mole has plucked a bird with brothers anxious to hand him to us.”

“How did you get this information?” A warning tingling started between his shoulder blades and inched up his spine. The throbbing turned into a drum solo. “Is it reliable?”

“The source is known to my people. We deal with him on occasion. His information is most reliable.”

“What do the woman’s brothers want in for handing us over Carlisle and the boy?”

“Revenge. Seems little lady’s big brothers don’t like idea of Carlisle kidnapping her. They want to meet us. They say to turn him and the Nicholai over to us.”

“Why don’t they kill him themselves?”

Petrov chuckled into the phone. “They don’t want dirty hands. You Americans are so afraid of a little blood.”

He ignored the insult. Kreshnin still thought he was an invincible KGB agent. “Where do they want to meet? Can we control the situation?”

“The address is not in my area, but my people can cover all exits. The question, my friend, is do we let anyone walk away?”

Something about this meeting felt like a setup, but if he played his cards right, maybe he could work it to his advantage. He could get out of this whole mess with the kid and Carlisle dead, and the added bonus of the lady’s brothers and Petrov Kreshnin all silent as well.

“No, Petrov. No one leaves there alive.”

“Da. That is what I thought, too.”

No matter what, the kid couldn’t be allowed to give testimony against him. Too many things depended on the kid’s silence.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sami churned the wooden spoon through the homemade cookie batter with a vengeance, pushing all her anger and worry into the spoon’s rhythm.

“Stupid man, thinks he’s invincible,” she muttered as she reached for the oats and poured them into the batter. “Well, he can just suture his own gunshot wounds from now on. I’m through playing human repairman.”

She bit her lip, blinking back the hot tears that threatened to make her cookies more moist than necessary. She reached for the cup of raisins, tossed them in and resumed stirring. “I’ll go crazy staying at home, not knowing if everyone is okay. But at least he has sense enough not to drag Nicky anywhere near this ambush.”

With a final swipe at the mixture, she shoved the spoon hard into the bowl. Turning to check if the oven had finished heating, she ran smack into Jake’s solid form. She tried to move around him, but his arms held her in place like two vice grips. Embarrassment flooded her. “How much did you hear?”

“Not much before you swore you weren’t going to play human repairman for me anymore.”

She kept her eyes fixed on the third button of his navy blue shirt. If she saw the amusement in his voice mirrored on his face, she couldn’t be held accountable for hurting him.

“Samantha?”

“You’re in my way, Jake. I have cookies that need to go in the oven.” She pushed against him, but he held her fast.

“It’s going to work out alright in the morning, I promise.”

“You don’t know that.” The warmth of his body and the comfort of his arms eased her fears just a little.

He slipped a finger beneath her chin, forcing her head up. Concern and tenderness etched lines around his eyes. “Doyle staked out the warehouse for escape routes, this morning.”

His hold on her tightened. His jaw clenched in that stubborn male way of his, and steeliness crept into his eyes.

“The Kreshnins are going to pay for what they did to Nicky.”

“How do you know the Kreshnins won’t try to set their own trap?”

“I’m counting on it, sweetheart.”

“You’re counting on it?” She pushed hard against his chest, and this time he released her. “You’re planning on getting killed aren’t you. It doesn’t matter to you one iota if you live or die in this battle, does it? You don’t care if someone else might miss you, do you?”

“It’s never mattered to anyone else before, Samantha.”

She turned her back to him, bending to pull out a pan for the cookies. “Well, this time it’s different,” she muttered, half-hoping he wouldn’t hear.

“Why is it different, Samantha?”

With determination, she focused on plopping spoonful after spoonful of cookie dough onto the pan, then shoved it into the hot oven.

“You’d make me beg?” Hope and desperation edged his voice.

She tried to ignore it. Her fingers gripped the spoon tightly in her hand. Couldn’t he see how his words lashed at her like a whip against her naked flesh?

Her mind and body wanted to screech,
I don’t think I’ll survive losing someone else I love,
but the words remained unspoken between them.

Her heart clenched with pain as his footsteps retreated down the hall’s hardwood floor, then faded away.

She gazed out into the stark winter landscape of Doyle’s backyard. The naked trees appeared mournful and forlorn against the steel gray sky. The scene matched the despair creeping in at the edges of her heart.

Sami gripped the edge of the sink tightly, pressing all her frustration and tension through her arm muscles down into the counter top. Dammit, she wouldn’t give into the fear now. When she had nothing to do but wait, then she’d deal with her fear.

Determined, she dragged out another baking pan and filled it with globs of dough. Just like she did at work, she’d stay busy. The more she moved the less time she’d have to worry. It was one of the reasons she chose the job she did.

Of course, she’d perfected working and worrying when Aimee became ill. The longest days of Sami’s life had been after Aimee’s death. There had been nothing to do but blame herself for not saving her daughter. Every day since then she fought the battle to stay busy enough to keep the pain and memories at bay.

“Sami?” Nicky asked from the doorway behind her.

She forced a reassuring smile onto her face as he joined her. “Hey there, Nicky. Do you like oatmeal raisin cookies?”

“I never had them, Sami. Are they as vkoosnee, delicious as Russian cookies?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had any Russian cookies.” Sami removed the first pan of cookies from the oven and replaced it with the second. “You sit at the table while these cool a minute and I’ll see if Doyle has enough milk left for us to have cookies and milk. Then you can decide for yourself how good they are.”

“This is American children’s custom, yes?”

“When I was a girl about your age I would help my mother bake cookies all the time. My big brothers would gobble them up almost as fast as we could make them.” She found enough milk for two glasses. Pouring them each one, she set a plate of soft, chewy cookies between them. The smell of cinnamon, oats and hot raisins wafted up from the plate.

Nicky took one, sniffing it for a minute then sinking his teeth into the treat. “Mmm, good, Sami.”

Returning his smile, she took a bite of her own cookie.

“Mommy, these are my favoritist cookies,” Aimee said from her perch on the counter as she handed her the box of raisins. “Does they have o’meal-raisin cookies in hebin?”

“I don’t know, sweetie.” She smiled at her daughter, then poured a cup of raisins into the batter. She stirred the gooey concoction while keeping an eye on Aimee who was determined as always to help with the baking. “Why do you ask?”

Aimee didn’t answer for a minute and Sami could almost see the little gears in her head turning as she formulated her answer.

“Coz,” she finally replied, “Grandpa Walt would be sad if he couldn’t have o’meal-raisin cookies no more.”

She stopped stirring a moment to study her daughter.  Michael’s father had passed away just this past summer. Aimee talked about him in heaven frequently as if she were trying to wrap her four-year old brain around the concept. “Honey, heaven is a nice place for your Grandpa Walt to be. I’m sure they have all his favorite foods there, even oatmeal raisin cookies.”

This seemed to appease Aimee who didn’t ask any more questions while they dropped spoonfuls of cookie dough onto the baking sheet. It wasn’t until they were seated at the table later eating samples of their work with glasses of cold milk to wash them down that she returned to the subject.

“Mommy, can I go to hebin to see Grandpa Walt? I could take him some cookies.”

“No, sweetie, we can’t go see Grandpa Walt right now.”

“Why not? I miss his blurby kisses”

Walt had always smacked his lips on his granddaughter’s belly or arm and made wet kisses. Aimee had loved them.

She pulled her daughter onto her lap and hugged her tight. “Years and years from now when you’re old like Grandpa Walt was, then you can go to heaven and see him.”

Sami blinked back a tear as she sat at Doyle’s table remembering the innocent conversation she’d shared with her daughter. How wrong her prediction had been. Two months later Aimee’s leukemia had been diagnosed. Less than a year later she’d gone to heaven to be with her grandfather.

“I used to make these cookies for my little girl.”

“Did she like them?” Nicky said after gulping down nearly half his glass of milk.

“Yes, these were her favorite cookies.” Funny, for the first time in a long time she had remembered something about her daughter not really associated with her cancer and death. Maybe time and distance could be a healer. She looked at the boy sitting next to her. Maybe it takes people to help you get over the pain, too. “Aimee loved to help me bake all kinds of things like you did today. But her favorite snack by far was banana bread.”

“Banana bread?” Nicky gave her such a puzzled look she imagined he saw yellow-banana shaped loaves of bread in his mind.

Sami laughed and took another cookie. The ripe bananas on the top of the refrigerator caught her eye. “Tonight we’ll make banana bread while Jake and Doyle are gone. I bet you’ll like it as much as Aimee did.”

Nicky paused in the middle of drinking his milk, setting the cup on the table. He slumped in his chair, his lips pressed together and his eyebrows drawn down in a scowl.

“What’s wrong, Nicky?” She knew his sudden mood change had nothing to do with her baking.

“I want to go with Jake and Doyle tonight, not sit around like baby. Big Partner will need me to…catch Boss Kreshnin.”

Sami sat in her chair to think how best to handle this mini-Russian revolt. “You of all people know how sneaky Boss
is, Nicky. Right?”

The boy nodded despite his belligerence.

“Then Jake, Doyle and my brothers will need all their wits about them to stay focused on catching him, right?”

Again the boy nodded. This time his shoulders relaxed a bit.

“Now, if you and I were to go with them and somehow got in their way, they’d try to protect us. That would give Boss the advantage he might need to get away.”

Nicky twisted his lips from side to side.

“Or worse, Nicky. It might get Jake or one of the others killed.” She set her elbows onto the table, folding her hands in front of her. “That’s not what you want to happen, is it?”

The boy shook his head, then muttered, “No.”

“Neither do I. The best help we can be right now is to stay here out of the way.”

“That’s what Big Partner say. He say I have to stay here to protect you.”

“To protect me?” Oh the big bad undercover FBI agent hadn’t really said that, had he?

Nicky nodded and reached for another cookie. “He say from worry.”