Stolen Omnibus – Small Town Abduction (14 page)

“You’re wrong!” Carla screamed and yanked Emily with her as she took a step back. “You may be willing to give up, but I’m not. I’m doing what needs to be done. I’m doing what you never could.”

“Dammit, Carla, listen to me!” Outside, Lena could feel the guns aimed at the barn and knew what it would mean if bullets started flying. “If you hurt that girl, it will weigh on you for the rest of your life. It will follow you to your grave, and what happens to your family then? Who’s going to take care of Rick and Sadie when you’re behind bars? What would they think if they saw you right now?”

Carla’s harsh grimace was replaced with the thoughtful expression of someone weighing the odds of their future. The type of decision where consequences stretched beyond the scope of one life and permeated dozens of others. For a moment, Lena thought she’d reached her, but just as quickly as the moment came it passed. “Rick would understand.”

“But what about your daughter? What about Sadie? What if someone had a gun to her head right now? Wouldn’t you want the person to let her go?” It was the last lifeline that Lena could think to throw, and she prayed that Carla would take it. She took a step forward, both her hands still in view but her mind wandering to the back of her waistband, trying to calculate how long it would take for her to pull, aim, and shoot. She’d had practice with a weapon, but nothing like this, and she didn’t trust herself to make the decision. But she may not have a choice.

“My daughter has had a gun to her head for the past two years. She already has one foot in the grave, as do all of the other kids that New Energy made sick.” Carla straightened her back, lifting her chin, keeping the pistol’s barrel pressed against Emily’s head. There was a calmness to her voice, like when someone who was insane found all the reasons to justify their actions. “What does one more dead kid matter?”

“Carla, no!” Lena lunged forward as the gunshot rang out, and she collided with Carla’s body, and the two hit the ground, Lena landing on top. The ring from the gunshot lingered, and in the light of the headlights she saw the shine of the pistol still gripped in Carla’s hand. She yanked it from her grip, and Lena felt something warm on her left arm. In the dark it was hard to tell what it was, but the moment the barn doors burst open with a flood of light and the officers funneled inside, she saw that it was blood.

The cry was involuntary, and for a split second Lena wasn’t sure who’d been shot. Hands pulled her away from Carla’s body. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer in her chest, yet she felt as if she couldn’t move—that was until she heard the second scream.

Lena looked to her right and saw one of the officers with Emily in their arms. Her face was beet red, and specks of blood dotted her shirt, arm, and cheek. She was screaming her head off, but from what Lena saw the girl was unharmed. She looked back to Carla and noticed the hole in her chest just before a team of medics blocked her body from view.

Chapter 13 – 23 Hours Left

It was an hour before Lena was allowed to leave the barn, and then it was just to be taken back to the station, where she’d prepare her official statement. She didn’t remember much of the ride back, other than the fact that she was exhausted. The majority of her brainpower was focused on reliving the same half second in the barn. She saw Carla’s lifeless body on the bed of hay and dirt. The pair of eyes that had been so angry, so focused, now so empty.

At least the girl had survived with little more than a few bruises and the emotional trauma that would require more therapy than the girl could ever want. But she was alive, something both her parents would be thankful for.

Lena crossed her arms and held onto herself tightly. While the Foremans’ girl would soon be returned home, her daughter was still missing. And if she were to ever see her again, what would happen? Another hostage standoff? A gun to Kaley’s head while some negotiator made promises to some unstable mind that they couldn’t keep?

“Are you all right, Mrs. Hayes?” The deputy driving her back to the station glanced at her from the rearview mirror. He was a young man with kind eyes.

“I’m fine.” It was a lie, but the last person she wanted to speak with about it was a stranger. She leaned her head back against the leather seat and closed her eyes. The light vibrations of the road were soothing, and it wasn’t long before the weight of her eyelids grew too heavy for her to open them. The images of Carla’s body flashed in her mind, but when she finally drifted off to sleep her dreams had replaced Carla’s face with Kaley’s.

Lena watched as her daughter was tied and bound, a gun to her head, her cheeks red, and she was crying, just as Emily had been. She pleaded with the kidnapper, who had remained faceless in the shadows of her dream. But no matter what she said or how hard she begged, the end of the pistol remained glued to the side of her daughter’s head.

“Her death is on your hands.” The shadow smiled, and a finger pressed against the smooth steel of the trigger and squeezed. The muzzle of the pistol flashed, and the crack of the gunshot awoke her from the nightmare. Lena panted heavily, and her body was covered in sweat.

The car had stopped moving, and when she noticed the surrounding cars in the parking lot she found the deputy’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Hey.” The deputy retained the same kindness as before. “We got here a little bit ago, but I didn’t want to wake you.”

Lena wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Thanks.” She unbuckled the seat belt, and the officer let her out of the back door. Her head was foggy, and her limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated from the quick, deep slumber. A floodlight clicked on, and she squinted as she and the deputy walked through the station’s back door.

The sheriff’s office was still busy, but with most of the deputies still out at the barn dealing with the fallout of the standoff, it wasn’t nearly as full as she’d seen it over the past couple of days. The entrance through the back relieved her of the pain of having to deal with the reporters, but she was forced to walk past the jail cells, where Jim Foreman was still being held.

Lena stopped when she saw him. He sat on the cot that rested a few feet off the ground, far too thin and narrow to provide any actual comfort while sleeping. His head hung low between his shoulders, and he was hunched over with forearms on his thighs. He didn’t realize she was standing there until the deputy behind her spoke up.

“Mrs. Hayes?” the deputy asked.

Jim Foreman lifted his head, and the dreary pair of eyes came alive, and those lifeless hands clenched into fists. “You bitch.” He jumped from the cot and sprinted toward the bars. He slammed his heavy body into the iron door, and it rang with a dull thud.

“Back away from the door, Foreman!” The deputy stepped in front of Lena and moved his hand to the grip of his pistol.

But despite the order, Foreman didn’t retreat. “You think you can sit on your high horse and destroy my family? Take my livelihood?”

Lena stepped around the deputy to get a better look at him, realizing that no one had told him about Emily, how she was safe and on her way back to his house to be with his wife. A part of her wanted to tell him to fuck off, but the parent inside knew the horrible torture of the unknown. “Emily is fine.”

The anger on Foreman’s face diluted. “What?”

“We found her in a barn off of Highway 9. It was Carla Knox that took your daughter. She’s dead now. But Emily is heading back to be with your wife. She’s probably arriving now.”

Foreman lowered his hands from the bar and looked to the deputy, who simply nodded in confirmation. He stumbled backward from the door, his shoulders sagging, and bumped into the rear wall, where he slid to the floor and buried his face in his hands.

What he was crying for, Lena wasn’t entirely sure. It could have been the overwhelming feeling caused by learning that his daughter was safe, or the guilt of falsely blaming Lena and her family for what happened to him, but whatever it was, Lena didn’t stick around to find out. She maneuvered around the desks and found Mark, who was still speaking with a deputy in the bullpen of desks outside Jake’s office. The moment he made eye contact with her he left his seat and rushed to her, wrapping her in his arms. The two rocked back and forth, and Lena leaned into him, the way she used to do whenever she felt the need to drink, or shoot up, or smoke, the way that she never could with Nick.

“Are you okay?” Mark cupped her face, his eyes slightly watery. “I heard what happened over the police radio.”

Lena kissed his palm and nodded, her own eyes watery. “She’s still out there, Mark.” Her lower lip quivered. “My baby’s still out there somewhere.”

“Well, now that the Foreman girl is safe you can make the announcement.” Mark said.

With everything that happened she’d completely forgotten about the kidnapper’s demands. But her earlier resolve of whether it would be effective enough to incite any change was in doubt. She kept thinking of Carla’s eyes and the acceptance of her fate. “She was going to kill that little girl.” The words tasted bitter on her tongue. “And she didn’t care. What if the person who took Kaley is like that? What if they don’t care if she lives or dies regardless of what we do?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Lena separated herself from Mark and walked backward, shaking her head. “You don’t know that.” He wasn’t there. He didn’t see what she had seen. The others were right—renouncing the bill wasn’t going to be enough. She needed to find the kidnapper. And she needed to do it before they reached the same level of lunacy as Carla Knox.

***

The body was on a gurney, covered with a sheet, and placed in the back of an ambulance. The barn walls were covered in blue and red lights, giving a temporary paint job for the old structure. Beyond the cluster of police vehicles from two counties there was nothing but the open plains of North Dakota. And somewhere in that dark void was Jake’s niece.

Jake watched the ambulance depart toward the highway and kept his eyes on it until he couldn’t see the lights anymore. He tilted the rim of his cowboy hat up and scratched the flesh where his forehead met his hairline.

“Hey, Sheriff?” Longwood asked.

“What’s going on, Deputy?”

“I was hoping I could get a ride back to the station. I rode over here with Davis, and he’s heading home after this.”

“Yeah.” Jake slapped Longwood on the arm and pointed to the passenger side of his truck. “I need to get back anyway.” Jake radioed the rest of his team to wrap it up, and he left behind two units with the forensics team to finish.

Jake kept his elbow propped up against the window and leaned back in his seat, with his right hand on the steering column. He stroked the stubble under his chin and knew that he was long overdue for a shower and a shave.

“How are you holding up, Sheriff?” Longwood always had sincere concern in his voice whenever he spoke.

It was a trait that Jake didn’t possess, and it took him a while in their professional relationship to realize that the man really was genuine. “I’ve been better.”

“Any headway on Kaley’s case?”

“I’m tracking down a few leads in Bismarck,” Jake answered. “How’s the Coleman case going?”

Longwood shrugged. “Still waiting to hear back from the lab about some fibers that were found on the body, and some video footage out near Highway 8.”

Jake felt his stomach lurch, and he felt his mind wander to the rifle on the gun rack behind him. “Video footage?”

“North Dakota Wildlife set up a night-vision camera near the highway where our suspect started the walk to the New Energy property to dump the body. Apparently they’ve had a lot of bear sightings in the area, and they set it up to see if they needed to add any new road signage. Haven’t heard back from them, though. Might be nothing.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, his mouth dry.

The remainder of the drive back was quiet, and when Longwood got out of the truck, Jake lingered behind. “See you inside.” The car door closed with a heavy thunk, and Jake chewed the already-raw nail of this thumb and reached for the glove compartment. Crumpled-up receipts, gum wrappers, and insurance information spilled onto the floorboard, and Jake reached his hand inside and pulled out a black mask. He bunched up the cloth in his hand and swung his door open. He found the Dumpster out back and tossed it inside.

When Jake entered the station he passed Jim Foreman and his cohorts in their cells. They cast him a few dirty looks, but when Foreman locked eyes with him, he saw the puffy redness under the man’s eyes. “They told you about your daughter?”

Foreman nodded, and his eyes watered. “Sheriff, I—”

“Save it for your lawyer.” Jake took a step closer to the bars. “There’s gonna come a day when I’m not wearing this badge anymore. And God help you if you cross my path when that happens.” Jake left Foreman to his weeping and found Lena and Mark in his office. Mark sat in the chair by his desk, and Lena had her arms crossed and was leaned up against the wall. Jake removed his hat and hung it on top of the coatrack. “How’d it go?” As he sat down he watched Longwood at his desk, his phone to his ear, jotting down notes from a message left on his voice mail.

Mark rubbed his hands together slowly, staring at the carpet. “They said they’ll have to wait and see what the forensics tell them about the validity of my story. But I told the truth, so…” He shrugged and clapped his hands together.

Jake nodded and then looked over to Lena. He examined the cuts and bruises along his sister’s face. The last time he’d seen her look so haggard was when she found out that she was pregnant with Gwen. She came to him the night she found out, and she was so frightened. Of course it would be another five years before she was clean, but in that moment she had said she wanted to make a change, make a difference. “Have you made your decision on the announcement?”

“I don’t know, Jake. After what I saw Carla Knox do...” Lena kept her voice low, soft, as if her statement were more of a question. “There isn’t any guarantee that it’ll work.”

“I still have my guy in Bismarck,” Jake said, his attention on Longwood, who was now speaking with two other deputies, all three of them eying Jake’s office. “We get the warrant from the judge—”