Surrender to Love (21 page)

H
enry Wilkins had lived in Shiloh for most of his sixty-eight years and knew just about all the townfolk, but he most certainly did not know the slick Italian man who had nearly mowed him down on the sidewalk. Despite his urge to demand that the guy watch where he was going, Henry had instead greeted the stranger with a smile. It was part of his belief system to treat people the way he’d like to be treated.

But when the stranger’s beady eyes lifted to meet his own, there was no ignoring the man’s coldness. In fact, something about the Italian raised Henry’s hackles and warned him that there was more to the man than met the eye.

The Italian said nothing to his greeting, which was just fine as far as Henry was concerned. As he walked past the old Southern Hospitality Hotel, he glanced into the nearly vacant parking lot and noticed another slick Italian withdrawing something from the trunk of a blue car. This fellow glanced around, and Henry couldn’t put his finger on what troubled him about the two strangers.

By the time Henry made it home, he found his wife and her usual bridge partners gossiping as usual around their flimsy card table.

“I know. Miss Arlene called me this morning with the horrible news,” Henry heard Bernice saying in a low voice. “I just can’t believe that something like that could happen out here.”

“Poor Carson,” Henry’s wife Connie piped up. “I can’t imagine what something like this is doing to him. He’s never gotten over the death of his wife.”

Henry shook his head with a wry smile. Connie could dish out the dirt with the best of them.

“Actually, I heard that Carson had fallen head over heels with some woman staying at the Georgia Inn,” someone else said.

“Yeah. All of Moreland is talking about it,” Bernice agreed. “It’s supposedly the same woman whose daughter was taken along with Bobbi.”

Henry stopped short of the refrigerator. What had she meant by “taken”?

“Does Sheriff Benton have any idea who took the girls?” Connie asked.

“Not to my knowledge. It’s all very strange, if you ask me. The kids who witnessed what had happened said it was two white men in a blue car, whom none of them had ever seen before. And you know those kids know just about everyone who lives in these parts.”

“I guess there’s nothing we can do but to pray that those two little girls will be returned to their parents safe and sound.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the women; meanwhile Henry’s mind reeled with what he’d heard, and the image of the two strangers and the blue car he’d seen at the hotel came to mind.

Henry continued his course toward the refrigerator and extracted a can of Coke. He’d been a friend of the Webber family
for more years than he could remember. Maybe he should see if there was any merit to what the women were discussing.

He moved over to the kitchen phone and picked it up. “I’m sure it won’t hurt to call.”

Lilly and Grace greeted Julia and Carson with hugs when they entered the Georgia Inn. Neighbors and friends also packed the rest of the house. Everyone assured them that the girls would remain in their prayers for a safe return home.

Julia stood on trembling legs as her frail emotions threatened to unleash another rush of tears. The love and support the town of Moreland offered overwhelmed her.

The phone rang and Julia’s head swiveled sharply toward it. She watched Lilly as she answered it by the second ring.

Julia had no explanation for the sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she kept her eyes glued on Lilly as she talked into the phone.

“Who is this?” Lilly asked with a deepening frown. The caller’s answer caused the color to drain from Lilly’s face, and she lifted a trembling hand to cover her heart.

Julia maneuvered through the small crowd.

Lilly glanced up from the phone in time to meet Julia’s steady gaze. “It’s for you. He says he has Bobbi and Robin.”

Paul was headed toward his office door when a quick knock sounded on the other side.

Tony rushed inside and nearly collided with Paul. “I just got off the phone with Sheriff Benton. You’ll never guess the situation.”

“Dr. Kelley’s daughter has been kidnapped.”

Tony stopped short. “How on earth did you know that?”

“Frankie Montello just called.”

“Talk about a blast from the past,” Tony marveled.

“Tell me about it. Seems he’s got himself in a little pickle.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“He and his cousin Nicholas have the girls.”

“Isn’t Nicholas rumored to be a hit man?”

“Among other things.” Paul walked out of his office with Tony following close behind.

“You want to run that back by me?”

“Maybe later. I’m on my way to see Mason. You get your team ready to head down to Shiloh within the hour.”

“Shiloh?”

“Yeah, that’s where Frankie is supposed to arrange the exchange for the girls, and I want our team there.”

Julia accepted the phone from Lilly’s trembling hands. Before she pressed the handset to her ear, Julia’s chest tightened with fear. What if they’d hurt her baby—what would she do then?

“Hello?”

Carson suddenly appeared at her side.

“Is this Dr. Kelley?” A gruff male voice came over the line.

She closed her eyes against the tough tone of her daughter’s kidnapper. “Yes.”

“Good. I believe we both have something that belongs to the other.”

Tears brimmed in Julia’s eyes as she shook her head against the phone. How could she tell this man who held her daughter’s life in his hands that she didn’t have what he was looking for? The chances of his agreeing that there had been a mistake and returning Robin and Bobbi unharmed were slim.

“Where’s my daughter?” she asked instead. She needed more time to think.

Carson leaned down and Julia angled the phone so he, too, could hear the man.

“Your daughter is just fine, and we’ll return her if you’ll just return our merchandise.”

“How do I know that you won’t hurt the girls? How do I know that you haven’t already?”

“I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

“No dice,” Julia said, and was shocked by her own audacity.

A long and tense silence hung over the line. It took all she had to wait it out and let the stranger on the other end respond. But she took heart at the fact that he hadn’t hung up.

“Do you have our package, Dr. Kelley?”

“Do you have my daughter?” she countered.

After another lengthy pause, the man’s deep laughter rumbled through the phone. “It seems we’ve developed a stalemate, Doctor. What do you suppose we should do?”

“I want proof that both girls are alive. Then and only then will we discuss any kind of an exchange,” she negotiated forcefully.

He laughed again. “Bravo, Dr. Kelley. One would almost think that you’ve done this before.”

“I’m a fast learner.”

When he laughed again, Julia’s firm grip on the phone tightened.

“Dr. Kelley, I’m no amateur. The last thing I want to do is give you time to devise a plan with the police. We’re going to play this game by my rules. I want you to bring our merchandise to—” there was a soft rustling of paper “—the abandoned warehouse off Canton Road at seven-thirty. It’s a huge brick building. You can’t miss it.”

Julia glanced at her watch. She had nearly two hours.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked.

“Do I have a choice?”

“No. See you at seven-thirty. And don’t forget our diamonds.” The line went dead.

Julia and Carson glanced at each other, stupefied, as they mouthed the word
diamonds.

Paul finished briefing his boss on all that he’d learned regarding the Mercer case and waited patiently for Mason to digest the information.

“So what you’re telling me is that not only do we have a leak in the agency, but this person also killed the Mercer brothers?” Mason, though angry, managed to ask the question with controlled detachment.

“It appears that way.”

“Any ideas who it is?”

“Not off the top of my head.”

Mason drew in a deep breath and with a firm nod of his head made his decision. “All right. Have Agent Iaanelli and his team set up a mobile unit down in Shiloh. I’m getting in touch with the New York field office to have Vinny Montello arrested.”

“And what about Frankie?”

Mason shook his head. “I wish that you hadn’t promised him blanket immunity. Had he come to us earlier I would feel better about the whole thing.”

Paul agreed with his sentiment but had every intention of fulfilling his end of the bargain. “I had to make the deal. Without Frankie we don’t have anything on Vinny. We need his testimony.”

Mason’s exhalation mirrored the frustration seeping into his expression. “I know. What about the girls?”

“Now, that’s a sticky situation. If it were just Frankie, we would have no problem getting the two little girls back. However, there’s Nicholas.”

“The cleanup man,” Mason stated with disdain.

“Yeah. Frankie suspects that his cousin was assigned to him by Vinny as a sort of babysitter for him.”

“Meaning?”

“I got the impression that if Frankie shows that his heart isn’t in the family business, then Nicholas, if his rumored reputation is to be believed, wouldn’t hesitate to kill his own cousin.”

The phone rang at the Georgia Inn, and a profound hush hovered over family and friends.

Lilly reached for the phone, but Carson covered her hand with his own, and with a warm look told her to let him answer. Gladly, she allowed him to do so.

“Hello.”

“Ah, Carson. Just the man I was looking for.”

“Henry,” he said, with a large measure of relief. “How are you?”

“I’m hanging in there. I’m calling because I just overheard some disturbing news from Connie and her bridge partners, and I guess I wanted to make sure I heard right.”

Carson closed his eyes, not quite ready to handle such calls, but then again Henry was an old family friend. “Yes. We have a family crisis going on at the moment. I’d rather not go into it right now. But I can tell you that my daughter and a friend of hers have been kidnapped. Sheriff Benton is contacting the FBI and we’re all just waiting to see what’s next. As soon as we know more, I’ll make sure that we give you a call.”

“Did anyone see who took her?” Henry asked, ignoring Carson’s attempt to end the call.

“Yeah, friends of hers saw two men take her.”

“Two, eh? Do you happen to know what they look like?”

Carson stopped. There seemed to be more to Henry’s ques
tioning than a mild or morbid curiosity. “Two white guys driving a blue car. Have you seen something?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“It’s probably nothing.” Henry sighed.

“Why don’t you tell me about it and let me decide?”

“Well, about a half hour ago I saw two guys who didn’t quite look like they belonged here.”

F
rankie returned to the hotel, only to find Nicholas sound asleep at the small desk in the room. He shook his head wearily at his so-called partner and closed the door.

“Well, it’s about time you got back.” Nicholas surprised Frankie as he lifted his head. “I was beginning to wonder if I had to call the family and let them know that you’d bailed out on us again.”

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I was resting. There’s a difference.”

The men’s eyes met in a silent, icy challenge.

Finally a sly smile slid across Nicholas’s hard features as he got up from his chair. “Come on. We’re family. We might as well try to get along.” He walked over toward Frankie and offered him his hand. “What do you say?”

“I say, go to hell,” Frankie countered, and ignored his cousin’s hand as he stepped around him.

Nicholas’s hard laugh sent chills up Frankie’s spine.

“Did you at least call the good doctor while you were out sightseeing?”

“Yeah. Everything’s set. She’ll meet us at that warehouse you saw on the way here at seven-thirty.”

“Seven-thirty?” Nicholas frowned. “Why so long?”

“She has them stashed. She needed a little more time to retrieve them.”

Nicholas said nothing to this. Frankie couldn’t very well tell him that he was buying time for Regis and his men to get there.

“So she does have our package?” Nicholas inquired suspiciously.

“She said she did.”

“Well, it looks like my little plan worked.” Nicholas smiled.

“Yeah. I guess so.” Frankie shrugged. “We’d better figure out what we’re going to feed those girls.”

“Feed them?”

“Yeah. We’re not going to let them starve.”

“Hell, what’s two hours?”

“Don’t be an ass,” Frankie snapped. “It’s not going to hurt us to get them something to eat. Didn’t we pass by a fast-food joint on the way down here?”

“Yeah, a McDonald’s. Goes to prove that there’s one of those in every corner of the world.”

“Okay, so we pick up a couple of Happy Meals. Kids love those things, right?”

“Fine,” Nicholas acquiesced.

Frankie’s gaze followed his cousin’s retreating figure as he headed to the adjoining room. What he wouldn’t give to be able to place a bullet in the hotheaded lout, but Frankie knew better. Nicholas might have a bad temper, but his young cousin could draw and shoot faster than Frankie. He had no illusions about that.

Nicholas clicked the light on in the other room, then shouted a long stream of obscenities.

“What is it?” Frankie rushed to join him. When he reached the door he blinked several times in surprise. “Where are they?”

“Beats the hell out of me.” He ran to the bathroom, then out again. “They’re not in there.”

Simultaneously, the men’s eyes flew to the high jousting windows across the room. Despite the fact that the panels opened and closed at an odd slant, it was the only logical way the girls could have escaped.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Frankie muttered, and had a hard time preventing a smile from tilting up the corners of his lips.

Julia retrieved her gun and extra ammunition, then joined Carson outside of the Georgia Inn.

“What did you go get?” he asked once they were in his truck.

Julia lifted a corner of her shirt and revealed the .357 Magnum.

Carson blinked, then stared at her. “You don’t strike me as the gun type. You know how to use that thing?”

“I took lessons.” She pulled her shirt back down. “Since we don’t know what we’re running into, I figured we should be prepared for anything.”

Carson started up the truck and drove to his shop.

“What are we doing here?”

Carson hopped out and spoke to her through the rolled-down windows. “I don’t think that you should be the only one armed. Wait right here. I’ll be right back.”

She gave him a slight smile and nodded.

Carson dashed into his shop and nearly tripped over the toolbox he’d left on the floor of the shop. Quickly, he picked it up and placed it on the open-hooded Impala before he rushed into his office.

He stopped in surprise.

Sheri Higginbotham smiled timidly. “Hello, Carson.”

It took a moment before he found his voice. “Sheri, what are you doing here?”

“I was hoping to find you here.”

“I thought you were in Atlanta.”

“I was—until I discovered a few things about Julia I thought you should know.”

Suddenly Sheri’s motivation was clear. “So you rushed back here to warn me.”

Sheri’s smile faded. “You already know.”

“A lot has happened since you’ve been away.”

“I see.” Her gaze lowered. “And you still love her?”

Carson hated what he had to do and wished there were some other way for him to handle this. “Yes. I do.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, but it was useless in preventing the tears from streaming down her face. “I see,” was all she managed to say. “Then I wish you two the best.” Sheri moved past him and out the office door.

Carson closed his eyes, not proud of what had just transpired. He turned to follow her. “Sheri.”

She stopped next to the Impala. When she turned, her hand knocked the toolbox over and sent a pile of tools down into the engine.

The racket it caused made them both flinch.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’ve got to go.”

“Sheri, wait.”

She shook her head and raced out of the shop.

“Way to go, Carson,” he said under his breath. He moved over to the Impala and grabbed the toolbox and started picking up the tools.

“Carson?” Julia called out.

“Over here,” he called, rushing to finish gathering everything.

“I just saw Sheri.”

He nodded. “She’s a little upset right now.”

Julia knelt beside him and helped with the tools. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, but I just hurt a friend.”

“I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“No. I’m sure when she calms down, we can talk more about it. I just…” Carson frowned, then looked down into the Impala. “What’s this?”

“What?”

He removed the air filter, then pried out a screwdriver that had wedged itself down into the carburetor. But something else was stuck there. “This is odd.” It took a moment, but he was finally able to pull out a lumpy sack.

“Well, this would definitely keep your car from working.”

“What is it?”

He shook his head and unwrapped the strings that closed the sack. When he did, they both drew a sharp breath, then whispered, “The diamonds.”

Robin led Bobbi down a path that seemed to go on forever. Both of them were surprised that it had been so easy to escape the hotel without getting caught, but neither was ready to express her glee just yet. They wanted to get as far away from the hotel as they could first.

“Are you sure we’re not lost?” Robin asked, rubbing her wrist where the rope had once bound them.

“Of course not,” Bobbi huffed irritably. “It’s just a little farther down the road. We’re going the back way so that the bad guys can’t find us. Mr. Wilkins is an old friend of my grandpa’s. He’ll make sure we get back home.”

The girls continued to walk.

“Were you scared?” Robin finally chanced asking.

Bobbi looked at her, then confessed, “Of course I was. But I couldn’t just let them grab you like that. I had to do something. We’re sisters.”

Robin smiled. “Thanks. I’m glad you did. I’m also glad that you and Stanley used to play Houdini.”

Bobbi laughed. “It’ll take more than rope to hold me. Can you imagine those men’s faces when they discover we’re gone?”

Robin glanced over her shoulder. She didn’t find the scenario funny at all. “Maybe we should go a little faster.”

They broke through a small clearing, and a row of houses came into view.

Bobbi pointed at a brown house with a silver roof. “There. That’s Henry Wilkins’s house.”

Tony and his men arrived in Shiloh in record time and had no problems locating the abandoned warehouse Frankie had told Regis about. It looked as though everything was falling into place. However, they still didn’t know who their leak was in the Bureau. And because of that, Tony made sure he kept up his guard.

“It’s six-thirty,” Virginia announced, looking at her watch; then she glanced over at Tony. “If we’re going to get our guys in position, we need to get them in there now, before the kidnappers get here.”

Tony nodded and prayed that they would have enough time to set up. “Okay, get everyone into position.”

“Are we sure that we’re dealing with just two of them?” Virginia asked as an afterthought.

“That’s what the boss says.” He took in Virginia’s troubled expression. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “It just seems a little too easy, if you ask me.”

“You don’t like easy?”

“Easy makes me nervous,” she admitted.

“That makes two of us.”

Henry and Connie were surprised and elated when Bobbi and Robin showed up at their back door. Henry rushed to call Carson while his wife busied herself trying to get the girls something to eat.

Lilly answered the phone at the Georgia Inn, then cried in relief when he told her that Bobbi and her friend were safe and sound at their house. Since Carson wasn’t at the inn, Henry quickly called the shop. He was disappointed when no one answered the phone.

“I guess we’ll just sit tight until we can find him,” Henry concluded, then joined his wife in helping the girls get comfortable until their parents arrived to pick them up.

Paul hung up from his call to the New York field office, pleased with the news of Vinny Montello’s arrest. Of course, Montello was a long way from confessing his involvement, but Paul had satisfaction in making some headway on the case.

His cell phone rang again, and this time it was Tony on the other end. “Please tell me some good news.”

“We have everyone in position. There’s no sign of either the Montellos or Dr. Kelley and the mechanic. But we have time before the exchange.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“We haven’t been able to catch up with Dr. Kelley just yet. I have a funny feeling that she and this Webber fella are trying to take matters into their own hands on retrieving the children.”

“Okay, that definitely qualifies as bad news. Anything else?”

“Yeah, I just finished reading the faxed copy of the statement Dr. Kelley gave to Sheriff Benton down here. She supports Frankie’s claim that one of our guys killed David Mercer.”

Paul closed his eyes and clenched his jaw while he counted to ten. “Do you suspect anyone on your team?” he finally asked when he gained some control over his emotions.

“No, but hey, anything is possible.”

“I’m on my way down there. My cell phone should be out of range soon, so use the dispatch if you need to contact me again. You, on the other hand, watch your back.”

“Consider it done.” Tony ended the call and glanced casually over at Agent Virginia Jacobson across the way. He wondered absently if she could be the leak. Her wish to be a part of the team after Agent Newman’s death had seemed real enough.

But just as quickly, he forced the thought out of his mind.

Carson and Julia tried to devise a plan to get the girls back. Their best solution was to drop Carson off at a side road near the back of the warehouse to let him find a good hiding place somewhere within the building. If either of the kidnappers tried anything funny, he’d use the .38 he’d retrieved from his shop to protect them.

Both admitted it was a lousy plan, but it was the best they could do on such short notice.

“Having second thoughts about not involving the FBI or Sheriff Benton on this?” Carson asked.

“Second, third, a million—take your pick,” Julia replied with nervous humor.

Carson leaned over the seat of his truck and kissed her. “This is going to work,” he reassured her, then got out.

Julia slid behind the steering wheel while he shut the door. “Good luck,” she said.

He leaned through the open window and kissed her again. “You make sure that you come back to me.”

She smiled into his kind eyes. “I will. You do the same.”

They kissed again, then Carson turned away from the truck to trek up the back road.

At seven o’clock Frankie and Nicholas pulled into the parking lot at the side of the old warehouse.

“I don’t think that we’re going to be able to pull this off,” Frankie said with a firm shake of his head.

“We don’t have a choice,” Nicholas said, getting out of the car. “All we have to do is to make sure that she has the diamonds.” He looked up at the building. “Do you think that she’ll show up with the police?”

“I think she’s too scared to involved the police,” Frankie guessed, then glanced over at his cousin. “Are you ready to do this?”

“My father is going to be real pleased when we get those diamonds back. I bet the rest of the family will be ecstatic to welcome you back after this.”

Frankie gave him a half smile. “Yeah. I just bet they will.”

Nicholas opened his car door. “I’m going to go on inside and find a good hiding place inside the warehouse while you handle the exchange.”

“Are you forgetting that I don’t have anything to exchange?”

“Improvise.” Nicholas winked at him, then rushed into the building.

“Boss, someone just entered the warehouse,” Virginia said into her headpiece.

Tony nodded at the transmission he heard in the small earpiece he wore. “Did you get a good look at who it is?”

“Negative.”

Tony frowned. “I’ll get Pittman to go check it out.”

No sooner had Nicholas entered the warehouse than a stranger in the dark disarmed him, but his surprise faded at the sound of the stranger’s voice.

“You’ve got to get out of here,” the man said in a gruff voice. “This place is swarming with agents.”

“What? How did they know about the exchange?”

“An anonymous tip.”

“That’s bull. I picked this place out myself not more than a few hours ago. Did that doctor—”

“Shut up and listen. You need to walk out of here now and tell Frankie to call this whole thing off. Once the doctor gets here it’ll be too late.”