The - Cowboy’s - Secret - Twins (17 page)

Her fingernails were kept too short to do damage to his face. But surely she could use something in the cabinets.

She searched every nook and cranny on the room and found nothing. The cabinets held only a handful of canned goods, some soup and pork and beans and corn. The refrigerator had a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a package of bologna and a small jar of mayo. The freezer contained five frozen dinners.

She had a feeling the food had been brought in specifically for her and there was just enough for a couple of days. This hadn’t been a spur-ofthe-moment decision on Charlie’s part. He’d planned this and that depressed her even more.

Finally, she sat next to the bed where the twins slept and laid her head back. She could smell her babies, the sweet scent of innocence and love. She closed her eyes with the weary knowledge that at least she knew they’d be loved by Henry for the rest of their lives, even if she wasn’t around to share it.

Chapter 13

“H enry, Hilary is on the phone,” Mary said.

Henry frowned. “I don’t have time to talk to her now. Tell her I’ll call her back later.” He returned his attention to Jimmy, who sat on the chair opposite the sofa where Henry was seated.

“We’re treating the motel room as a crime scene,” Jimmy said. “Even though we don’t know if a crime has occurred. I’ve got a couple of my boys lifting prints to see what we find.”

“It’s a motel room. You’re probably going to find the prints of people who stayed there ten years ago,” Henry said with a weary sigh.

“Ed’s place is pretty clean. It’s possible we’ll lift fresh prints.”

“And then what? Unless you have a matching set on file the prints won’t tell us anything.”

“Henry, we’re doing the best we can,” Jimmy replied patiently.

“I know, I know. You tell Tom Burke that if he had anything to do with this, then he wins. If he’ll let them go unharmed, I’ll leave him alone. I’ll pull out of the race for mayor and he can continue his business practices as he sees fit.”

“Henry, I don’t think it’s Tom,” Jimmy said. “Or anyone he’s hired. I’ve known Tom for most of my life. Sure, he’s a scoundrel, he’s a whitecolor criminal but this isn’t something he’s capable of.”

“Would you stake Melissa’s life on that? Stake the lives of my boys on it?” Henry replied.

“Of course not. I’m just telling you what my gut is telling me and that’s that Tom isn’t responsible.”

“Then who is?” Henry asked as a hollowness threatened to swallow him whole. “Jesus, Jimmy, who is responsible? Who could hate me this much?”

Jimmy swiped his broad hand down the length of his face. “I don’t know. It might not be about hate. It might be about greed. If this is some kind of kidnapping then I’m guessing that you’ll hear from the kidnapper.”

Henry looked at his watch. It was after ten. “We don’t even know how long they’ve been missing. I spoke to her this morning but didn’t speak to her after that.”

“I checked with the diner. Dinner was delivered to the room at around four-thirty so we know she and the boys were there then,” Jimmy said.

“I’ve made coffee,” Mary said as she stepped into the living room. Jimmy stood. “Come on, Henry, let’s go have some coffee. It looks like it’s going to be a long night.”

The last thing Henry wanted was to sit around and drink coffee while Melissa and his boys were out there somewhere. He wanted to beat on every door in the town of Dalhart until he found the place where Melissa and the twins were being held.

But he followed Jimmy into the kitchen, where the two men sat at the table while his mother poured them each a cup of the fresh brew.

“Shouldn’t we call the FBI or something?” Mary asked. She looked as if she’d aged ten years in the past couple of hours.

Jimmy shook his head. “They won’t be interested until I have evidence that a crime has occurred. She’s only been missing for five or six hours and we don’t know if she made the decision to go missing of her own free will.”

Henry frowned and wrapped his hands around his coffee cup, seeking the warmth to banish the icy chill that had taken possession of his body the moment he’d entered the empty motel room.

“If this is a kidnapping for ransom I wish to hell somebody would call me,” Henry said.

They all froze as Jimmy’s cell phone rang. Henry’s stomach clenched as Jimmy answered. He listened for a moment. “Just keep me posted,” he finally said then hung up. “That was Jake. He and Ben have questioned everyone in the block surrounding the motel and nobody has seen Melissa.”

“Why doesn’t he call?” Henry cried. “If somebody has them why in the hell haven’t they called to tell me what he wants?”

The frustration, the fear and the rage that had been building throughout the night exploded and Henry slammed his hands down on the table. “If anybody hurts them I’ll kill them. I swear, Jimmy. I’ll kill the bastard responsible for this.”

At that moment the doorbell rang. Henry leaped up from the table and hurried to the door, his heart thundering in the hope that it would be Melissa.

It wasn’t. It was Hilary.

“Henry, I heard about Melissa and the babies missing. I need to talk to you.” There was a trembling urgency in her voice.

“Hilary, this really isn’t a good time,” he said, unable to stop the crashing waves of pain that coursed through him.

She reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Please, Henry, I think maybe I know who is responsible.”

He stared at her, wondering if this was some crazy ploy to get close to him. “What are you talking about?”

He was aware of Jimmy and his mother stepping into the foyer.

“Charlie was real upset when we broke up. He thought if you and I got married then you’d get him a job that paid well, a job in a fancy office somewhere. A couple of days ago he told me he had plans to get enough money to blow this town and live the easy life. When I pressed him for details he refused to say anything more.”

The words exploded out of her in a rush, along with a torrent of tears. “I might be a lot of things, Henry, but I saw the way you looked at Melissa, I saw the look in your eyes when you saw those babies and I can’t condone this. I think Charlie has done something terrible and I just had to tell you.”

Henry stared at her in confusion. Charlie? Henry’s mind buzzed. Charlie knew where she was staying. Melissa would have trusted Charlie. She would have gone with him without questions. Still, he was reluctant to believe it. “But he was here just a little while ago. He offered his help.”

“I’m just telling you what I think, Henry, and I think he has Melissa and the boys,” Hilary said.

Henry pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in Charlie’s phone number. His heart crawled into his throat as he heard it ring and ring. “There’s no answer,” he said as he clicked off.

“I know where Charlie lives,” Jimmy said with a frown. “There’s no way he could have Melissa and the twins stashed in that tiny little apartment of his. Somebody would hear the boys crying or would have seen him bring them all inside.”

Henry was processing everything in the span of seconds. Charlie could have easily taken the shot at him when he’d been out riding in the pasture. Charlie would have known that Henry and Melissa had gone to town and would have known about when they would be returning home. Charlie, who then tramped through the snow to obscure his own footprints, could have easily tossed the pipe bomb through the window. Charlie. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around it. Charlie had been his right-hand man, his go-to guy for everything around the ranch.

“Charlie has a little shack, a place he goes hunting. Maybe he has them there,” Hilary said.

“Why? I trusted him. I’ve always treated him fairly,” Henry said.

“I think he hates you, Henry. He envies you your money, your life and I think he knew how much you cared about Melissa and the boys, cared enough to pay whatever ransom he might come up with.”

The slow simmering rage that had been building in Henry throughout the night once again rose to the surface. “Where’s the shack?” he asked. Hilary wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I hope I’m not sending you on a wild-goose chase. I don’t want anything to happen to Melissa or those precious babies.”

“Where’s the shack, Hilary?” he demanded. He suddenly felt like too much time had been wasted.

As Hilary gave them directions to the shack, Henry was already pulling on his coat. He grabbed his gun and looked at Jimmy expectantly.

“Let’s go,” Jimmy said with a nod. He looked at Hilary. “If Charlie contacts you, don’t tell him you spoke to us. Don’t say anything to warn him or I’ll see you behind bars for obstruction of justice.”

“Please be careful. I honestly don’t know what he’s capable of,” she said. As Henry stepped out into the cold dark night he had a last glance of Hilary reaching for his mother’s hand. He hoped to hell she was telling the truth and he prayed that they wouldn’t be too late. Melissa was cold. She didn’t know if it was because the little heater simply couldn’t warm the interior of the cabin or if it was fear that had her freezing.

Waiting. Wondering what happened next, that was what had her blood icy in her veins.

She certainly couldn’t sleep, although she was grateful that the boys slumbered soundly. Seeking internal warmth, she finally opened a can of tomato soup and emptied it into a pan, then set it on the hot plate to warm.

As she waited for it to heat she wondered if Charlie had contacted Henry, if he’d already demanded a king’s ransom for the return of the boys. He’d said he’d wait until morning, but maybe he’d gotten impatient. She just wanted this over.

She winced as she stood to stir the soup. She’d worked so long at trying to get the chain off her ankle she’d made it bleed.

Maybe she should be sleeping. Maybe Charlie didn’t intend to return tonight and she should be getting what little rest she could. But even as she thought that, she knew there was no way she could sleep. She wanted to hold her boys. She wanted to squeeze them to her heart. She wanted to hear James’s belly laugh one last time, see Joey’s sweet smile. She stirred the soup as tears began to course down her cheeks once again. Henry, her heart cried. She would never see him again. The only thing she could hope was that he would tell the boys about her, about how much she’d loved them, about what a good mom she’d wanted to be. She froze as she heard the sound of a vehicle approach. Headlight beams flashed into the window. Sheer terror leaped into her throat. Had the deal gone down? Had Charlie come back to kill her?

The footsteps on the porch sounded loud, like gunshots, and when the door opened Charlie came inside. “Hi, honey, I’m home.” He snickered, as if finding the joke amusing.

Melissa turned away from the hot plate. “Have you contacted Henry?”

“Not yet. I told you I was going to give him a little time to worry. I just figured I needed to stop back here and check on my investment.” He leaned against the door and looked down at her ankle. “Looks like you worked hard to get out of that. Short of chewing off your foot, you aren’t going anywhere.”

Melissa had never hated anyone as much as she hated him. She’d never believed herself capable of killing anyone, but she’d kill for her children and if she got the chance, she’d kill Charlie without a blink of her eyes. He kicked out a chair and sat at the small table and she backed up against the cabinet. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I won’t tell that it was you. I’ll say that I don’t know who took us, that he wore a mask and I didn’t recognize him.”

She hated that she was begging for her life, but she wanted to live. She had all the reasons in the world to want to stay alive.

“Lady, I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you,” he replied. With those words Melissa knew that he had no intention of letting her live and a new wave of grief crashed through her.

She turned back to the soup at the same time the front door crashed in. She whirled back around and everything seemed to go in slow motion. Henry stood at the door, bigger than life, his eyes wild and dangerous. At the same time Charlie jumped up and drew his gun and lifted it to point at him.

In an instant Melissa knew Henry was about to die. Without thinking, she picked up the pan of hot soup and threw it at Charlie. As it splashed across the back of his head, he yelled and his gun dropped to the floor. The twins began to cry as Henry let loose a thunderous roar and tackled Charlie to the floor.

Melissa kicked Charlie’s gun under the bed, then ran to the twins as Henry and Charlie wrestled with each other. Her heart pounded as she pulled the screaming boys into her arms and watched the life-and-death battle between the man she loved and the man who would kill her. A sob escaped her when Henry pressed his gun barrel into Charlie’s temple, halting the fight. At that moment Jimmy burst into the room.

“I got it, Henry. Drop your gun,” he said.

Henry didn’t move. His handsome features were twisted into a mask of rage. His entire body trembled and it was obvious how badly he wanted to put a bullet through Charlie’s head.

“Henry, don’t do it,” Jimmy said and touched Henry’s shoulder. “Come on, man. Let him go. I’ll take it from here.”

Henry squeezed his eyes closed, the internal battle he was waging bringing a new fear to Melissa. She knew if he shot Charlie his life would never be the same. It might feel good at the moment but eventually it would destroy him.

“Henry.” She spoke his name softly. He opened his eyes and met her gaze. In the depths of his eyes she saw the torture he’d suffered over the past couple of hours. “Let Jimmy take him away. Please, I need your help with the boys.”

With a strangled sob, he lowered his gun and rolled off Charlie. Jimmy immediately handcuffed Charlie and hauled him to his feet. Henry rushed over to her and knelt in front of her. He cupped her face between his palms, his gaze intense. “Did he hurt you? Oh, God, did he hurt you or the boys?”

“No, I’m okay. We’re all okay.” The boys had begun to calm. He glanced down at the chain around her ankle and as he tensed as if to spring up again, she grabbed his arm. “It’s okay.”