Reunion (3 page)

Grant heard a quiet knock at the back door and his
heart raced with a forlorn hope that Annie must have wandered off but now was
home. Patti jumped up, phone still to her ear as she headed to the kitchen. She
returned a moment later with a tall, lanky cowboy-looking sort, who leaned lightly
on a silver-handled cane. Despite a slight limp, the man moved swiftly through
each room of Grant’s small house, closing the curtains and turning off all the
lights except for one dim lamp in the living room.

Before he spoke, he pressed the nearly invisible
earpiece, waited a bit, then began. “Michael, I’m here. I assume you will
monitor the situation and that we are recording. Just speak up if there’s
something I miss.” There was a long pause, then the man turned his attention to
those in the room. “I scouted the area for any obvious signs of someone watching
the house. It’s unlikely, unless they have a neighboring property. No sense in
letting anyone see us in here talking though. I’m Graeme Kennedy. You must be
Grant Anderson?” Graeme stuck out his big paw and waited.

The stranger oozed confidence, and with a sense of
desperation, Grant clutched at the offered hand. “Can you get my daughter back?”

“Yep. That’s what I’m here for. Let’s get the
details nailed down—where’s the note?”

After studying the ransom demand, Graeme said for
the benefit of the man on the phone, “We have a handwritten note, block
letters.” He read aloud, pausing after each sentence. “The last two sentences
appear to have been written by a different hand. The press of the pen is less
defined, the shape of the block letters slightly different, and the tone of the
language is distinctive—less refined. Given the plural in the text of the
demand, we will work with the assumption that more than one person is involved.
Hold on, I’m sending a digital image now.” It only took a few seconds for
Graeme to snap a photo with his iPhone and send the picture.

“Where was Annie when you last saw her, Grant?
Come show me.”

They moved to the kitchen and he pointed out the
playhouse. “She usually plays there while I fix dinner. I don’t have much room,
so I do the food prep at the table. She was only out of my sight—” He clamped
down hard on the guilt. There would be plenty of time for that later. Right
now, they needed facts. He swallowed hard. “I was making a salad, so several
trips back and forth the fridge. I want to say only a few seconds but, Jesus—it
was probably more like minutes. I just thought she was playing.”

“Easy, Grant.” RJ’s tone was calming, as was the
heavy hand he pressed against Grant’s shoulder. “This is her house, her
backyard. It’s supposed to be safe for her to play without you watching her
every second.”

Graeme nodded. “Agreed. Where did you find the
note?”

“It was on the front door. When I couldn’t find
Annie, I went a little crazy. Of course I thought the pool first, but she
wasn’t anywhere in the backyard. I checked the alley, then came back inside. I
kept calling her name—looking in the same places over and over. Finally, I ran
out the front door. I just couldn’t fathom she was gone, you know? The note was
stuck on the front door.” He raked his fingers through his hair and fought the
urge to vomit. “What if—” God, he couldn’t say it—couldn’t even think it…

“Okay, everyone back in the living room.” Graeme
said, spreading his arms wide and herding them into the other room. “I think
that solidifies our supposition that there are at least two people involved.
They clearly had an idea of your house layout and your habits around
dinnertime. So that rules out a spur of the moment crime. That means there’s a
motive behind this, Grant—not likely some neighborhood pervert, okay? Just take
that part out of your mind.”

Despite Graeme’s reassurance, Grant’s knees buckled
at the thought of what his daughter might be facing. He collapsed onto the
couch and Patti scooted next to him, the reassuring presence of RJ at his back.

“Who is the first person that comes to mind as
likely to have done this? What about the baby sitter?”

Grant’s jaw dropped open. “Who? No one! I’m a high
school government teacher, for Christ sake. I don’t have any money, I don’t
belong to any weird groups, I don’t know anyone important. Annie goes to day
care during the day and the babysitter is a high school girl who lives next
door.” He started to stand but two pairs of hands held him down.

“Just think, Grant, honey.” Patti’s voice was
calm, but he heard the slight waver, and knew her emotions were close to the
surface, too. Somehow that made it easier to rein in his own feelings.

“Tell me about her mother,” Graeme asked. “Could
this have anything to do with her?”

Grant shook his head. “I don’t see how. About six
months ago…an attorney contacted me to tell me Michelle had passed away and
named me as guardian of her child. I didn’t even know she had a kid. We dated
years ago but nothing came of it and we sort of drifted apart—so it was a huge
shock. It was an even bigger shock when I met with the lawyer and found out
Annie was actually my biological child. But when I saw her…” The smile felt
good. “She looks just like me when I was a kid—I mean if I was a girl.”

“Okay, is there any family who might be
contesting? Did Michelle have any other relatives?”

With another quick shake of his head, Grant
answered quickly. “No. It was one of the things that drew us together in the
first place. I met her at the school where I work—she was a substitute teacher
there for a couple of weeks. The holidays were coming and neither of us had
family. Like I said, we drifted together, had a brief thing, then drifted
apart. We were together about six months. I never heard from her, and I had no
idea she was pregnant.”

“What about students? Anyone with a grudge?”

Grant gripped his head between his hands, wanting
to shut out the other man’s words. “A student couldn’t…wouldn’t do something
like this.” He whispered his words, shaking his head. This whole situation was
impossible.

“Is there any reason to believe you’d have access
to fifty-thousand dollars?”

“No! For God’s sake, I’m a teacher. I barely swung
the down payment on this place when I found out about Annie.”

“I said I would cover the ransom, Grant,” RJ
reminded him. “It’s too late to call the bank tonight, but with the time
difference, I can call early tomorrow. I just wish we knew—”

The ringing phone was like an icy shot through the
room. Grant jumped and started to reach for the phone, but Graeme got there
first, and he covered the device with his hand. “You have to trust me. You
listen, you write or mouth anything you think I need to know.”

Graeme snapped the phone up and answered. “Who is
this?” There was a long silence, and Grant clutched at Patti and RJ as if they
were his only lifelines. There was just enough volume on the call for some of
the words to spill over to be heard by everyone in the room. The voice sounded
funny, not quite real.

“I am Mr. Anderson’s representative in this matter.
Let me speak to Annie.”

Fighting a desperate need to grab the phone and
demand this asshole return his daughter, Grant balled his hands into fists and
took a jerky half step before RJ captured him from behind. His friend wrapped
him in strong arms, his broad chest a comforting press against Grant’s back.

With a grimace, Graeme turned his back on the
commotion and moved further across the room.

“Yes, I have the money. We want the exchange
tonight. No. No. That is not acceptable. You get nothing from us without proof
of life.”

A thin, reedy cry spilled from the phone and Grant
started shaking violently. RJ held him tight from behind, while Patti moved to
stand directly in front of him, her steady gaze boring into his. The two of
them keeping him sane…barely.

“Jesus…I don’t have the money. Not tonight. What
if—”

Graeme glared over at him and continued to growl
into the phone.

“Please, Patti…she’s gonna be so scared. I need to
talk—”

“Honey, they aren’t going to let you talk with
her. Right now you have to let Graeme do his job. Enwright can front the money
if they agree to the exchange tonight. That’s what Graeme is trying to work
them into—a quick exchange.”

“Fuck!” Graeme dropped the phone from his ear,
then spoke into his headset. “Did you get that, Michael? Yeah, I agree. Not
long enough for a trace, and there was some type of a sound diffuser on the
phone. Okay, you work it from your end, I need to speak with the father.”

Graeme walked up to him, his lips a thin, tight
line. “They want to do the exchange at twelve tomorrow. Like some kind of
fucking cowboys at high noon. They gave no reason for the delay—then again, the
note never said exactly when they’d call either. These are fucking amateurs. I
don’t like it, but there isn’t shit we can do about it. We’ll use the time to
try to get a lead on them. Now I need the mother’s full name and any details
you might have, plus the names of any students, fellow teachers, or crotchety
neighbors who might have a grudge. We’ll go from there.”

Moving around from behind Grant, RJ stayed close,
so that their shoulders still brushed, and looked up a couple of inches to meet
Graeme’s frustrated glare. Not that it was their fault the kidnappers were
amateurs, but it was easy to see how the uncertainty made everything less
stable.

“I don’t know if I can get the money here by noon.
It’s in a money market account. I’ll probably have to take a signature loan or
maybe I can use it as collateral—”

“No worries, there. Michael keeps cash on hand for
kidnapping cases. If we have to pay, you or Grant will reimburse him. He’ll
work out the terms, and I promise it’ll be fair.”

“Wow. Obviously, I’ve heard a lot about Enwright
Security, but I didn’t realize just how broad the range of services, I guess.
Do you work a lot of kidnapping cases?”

Graeme’s mouth tightened into a grim line before
he answered. “Enough. Not one of Phoenix’s finer statistics.” Narrowing his
eyes, Graeme raked his gaze over RJ, no doubt noticing his muscular build and
doing a little mental calculation about RJ’s ability to carry off a small
child. Looking back up, Graeme waited a long beat before speaking.

“Most people never hear of us unless they need us.
How did you run across the name?” Crossing his arms over his chest, Graeme
waited, clearly expecting an answer. Fair enough, this was a child kidnapping
and there had been no explanation for RJ’s presence here, other than a friend
of a friend. In any child disappearance, the first place law enforcement looked
was those closet to the child, to family and friends.  

RJ had finally managed to kick his sluggish brain
into gear and figured out who Graeme Kennedy was—the vice president of security
for Enwright. This was the man who headed all their private investigations,
police liaison work, and security details. He was indeed a big dog.

“I work R&D for Marker Solutions—you know,
like the earwig piece and mic set you’re talking into? Or…worked. I’m uh…okay,
this is weird. I’m scheduled for an interview at Enwright on Monday. So, yeah,
I’m familiar with your company, and now some of the pieces fit together and I
realize who you are.”

There was an audible gasp. “You’re moving back to
the valley?”

There a quality to Grant’s voice that RJ couldn’t
identify.

“Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe. I have a couple of
interviews lined up. We’ll see.”

“That’s great. Why didn’t you tell me?” Patti
asked, stepping around Graeme to give him a hard, quick hug. Just as every
other time she’d touched him tonight, the contact set his pulse into a staccato
rhythm. Between Patti in front and Grant leaning against his side, the
temptation to lean into the touch was nearly overwhelming. Clamping down hard
on his wayward emotions, RJ stepped back and clenched his fists, digging his
nails into his own hands. This was neither the time nor the place to consider
his physical reactions to his two old friends.

“It’s not certain, yet. I don’t have a job, just
some interviews. Plus, we didn’t exactly have time.”

Feeling the need to turn the focus away from
himself, RJ looked over to Graeme. “You’re going to have to call the police,
aren’t you? I mean…Enwright Security is a big deal. You can’t really afford to
circumvent the system.”

Grant was in his feet in an instant, his face
ashen, arms reaching toward Graeme. “Noooo! They said they’d kill her.”

Patti stepped closer to Grant, pulling him into her
arms, saying all the right words. Suddenly self-conscious, RJ kept a small
distance between them and awkwardly patted Grant’s shoulder.

Across the room Graeme spread some papers across
the dining room table. The security expert’s shoulders were stiff, as if he
hadn’t wanted to reveal the law enforcement connection just yet. But that was
stupid. Patti had known, and RJ figured it out—it didn’t seem quite fair to leave
Grant the only one in the dark about the legal requirements. Still—why the fuck
hadn’t he let Graeme explain in his own time, rather than blurt it out himself?

“Hey, RJ,” Grant whispered next to his ear.

Turning back put the three of them nose-to-nose
and too close for his comfort. His breath caught in his throat, the temptation
to lean in closer nearly overwhelming. Still, RJ didn’t pull away. This was
about supporting their friend—if he wanted touch to keep him grounded, then
that’s what he’d get. He could only imagine—and not very well—how devastated
Grant must feel right now.

Patti pulled back from the embrace, allowing RJ to
do the same before his eyes became permanently crossed. “I-I’m sorry, Grant. I
want to help, not fuck things up. Tell me what I can do.”

“I don’t know—I don’t know what to do…” Grant’s
voice shook, and his lips trembled slightly.

“You leave things to me, Grant. This is my job,
and I’m damn good at it. We are dragging our feet on notifying the officials.
We won’t hold out reporting beyond morning, though. We’ll approach it from the
top down—start with Michael’s connection with the feds. Pisses the locals off,
but it also reduces the number of cops standing around waiting for something to
happen. We also intend to pay if we have to, which is going to make them all
fucking mad—but you’re the client, and Michael and I will do whatever it takes
to bring your little girl home.”