Book, however, had learned the whole story after wrangling a few legal strings—that having the money to do so and preferring to salvage what remained of Eckton’s good name, Eckhardt had silenced her with a settlement. And, as part of the agreement, had the court records sealed.
Dawn Taylor would want for nothing the rest of her life. Didn’t say much about her convictions, Perry mused. But then, seeing the reporter this morning, it didn’t take a big stretch of her imagination to picture the woman finding comfort in all that cash.
Unfortunately, they were back to a big fat square one, and Jack was out wasting his time. He needed to be here. She needed him here. She needed to feel his arms around her, to absorb his strength.
She needed to lean on him while he reminded her that as small and fragile as Della appeared, she was nothing of the kind. She was strong. She could make it through anything. And Perry knew he was right—as long as anything didn’t include whoever had her deciding she was too much of a threat to keep around.
Seconds after the thought crossed her mind, she heard a vehicle drive up and a door slam in the alley. She glanced out the open back door and saw Jack’s SUV. Relief surged through her.
She got to her feet in a whirlwind, shouts rising outside, and Book looking out the kitchen window behind her saying, “Della.”
He ran out with Perry on his heels. Della had only made it halfway to the fountain before they reached her. And then their questions fell one on top of the other. “What happened? How did you get free? Who took you? What’re you doing with Jack’s keys? Where’s Jack?”
All Della could do was shake her head. Swearing under his breath, Book finally swept her up in his arms and headed for the kitchen, calling over his shoulder for an officer to radio for a medic.
Perry rushed to keep up, holding her aunt’s hand until they reached the door. Once inside, Book set Della in one of the chairs while Perry hovered, feeling useless, finally putting on water for tea.
Book didn’t even give the federal agents a chance to get close. He knelt in front of Della, holding both of her hands in his, his voice breaking when he asked, “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. But you need to find Jack.”
Perry caught back a sharp choking sound, as Book asked, “What’s Montgomery got to do with this?”
“He found me. At the reporter’s house. They were holding me there.”
“Dawn Taylor’s?”
Della took a deep breath and nodded again. “The group behind Eckhardt’s kidnapping are trying to set her up as the one responsible.”
Book snorted. “They’re not doing a very good job. We just cleared her.”
“Wait.” Perry placed her aunt’s cup of tea on the table. Liquid sloshed over the side. “What about Jack? Where is he?”
“I don’t know, Perry. I’m sorry.” Della held out a hand. “I haven’t been able to see anything yet. I had to get back here, and there’s still too much noise, too much energy. I can’t focus.”
“Let’s take this one step at a time,” Book said, boosting up from his knee and pulling a chair close to face Della’s. “Anything you know, anything you learned. We need to know.”
“I didn’t learn anything. Not until Jack arrived and the man holding me started to talk.” She twisted her fingers together. “I say man, but he’s so much of a child.”
“A child?” Perry asked, moving to a third chair and leaning into the table, her arms outstretched on top as she reached toward her aunt. “What do you mean, a child. How old?”
“Early twenties I imagine. But he seemed to be no more than a teen. There are four of them. They worked at Eckton Computing. Chris, Kelly, Pauly.” She closed her eyes for a moment, her hands wrapped around her teacup. “And I believe this one’s name was Kevin.”
Book’s pen scratched across his notepad. “They have Eckhardt—”
“And Jack,” Perry put in, flexing her fingers and trying not to claw a hole through the table. “Eckhardt and Jack.”
“Right.” More notes. “Is Eckhardt—”
“Alive? Yes. But that’s all I can tell you. I don’t know where they’re holding him.”
“What about the kid who took you?”
“Very thin. Six feet tall. Blue eyes. A narrow face. Blond hair that’s a bit long. He wore a knit ski cap, so it was hard to tell, but at least over his ears.”
“What was he driving?” Book asked, his pen flying.
“A very small foreign car. It was white, two doors with a hatch in the back. And a logo of some sort across the rear window.” She paused a moment, then said, “A surfboard. Or perhaps a skateboard. I can’t see it clearly.”
“Did he have a weapon?”
She nodded. “A handgun, yes. He held it on me while I tied a scarf around my head as a blindfold.”
Perry could see the color rise on Book’s face as he made his notes. It hit her then how very much he cared for her aunt, how anxious he must have been waiting for news on Della.
The way Perry was anxious now, knowing nothing of what had happened to Jack.
“What happens now?” she asked, fearing the answer, waiting to hear that Eckhardt came first—after all, weren’t the federal agents here for him?—and that Jack was a back burner item.
“The medic will check Della over,” Book said, silencing Della’s protests before she did more than open her mouth. “We hit Eckton’s personnel files, connect one of the four to the car Della described, put out an APB—”
The ringing of the phone cut him off. Perry glanced over, glanced back. Della hadn’t been gone long enough for tracing equipment to be put on the line. “Do you want me to answer that?”
Book nodded solemnly, got to his feet. Perry did the same and crossed to the counter where the handset sat cradled in its base. She took a deep breath and picked it up, her heart in her throat as she said, “Hello?”
Both Book’s and Della’s anxious faces looked on as she waited, expecting the muffled or distorted voice of Jack’s kidnapper making demands.
But all she heard was background noise. The sort that usually meant a cell phone had mistakenly—and randomly—dialed a number from the bottom of a pocket or a purse.
Book listened in, waited, then shrugged. She hung up, wishing not for the first time that Della had caller ID. “There’s no one there.”
“Do a call back,” Book said. “Star sixty-nine. See what you get.”
She picked up the phone, frowned when she heard no dial tone, pressed the receiver down and tried again. Nothing. She shook her head, held out the handset. “I can’t get a dial tone. Whoever called is still connected.”
15
SLACKER BOY may have been a few fries short of a Happy Meal, but the rest of the crew was prime Kobe beef. Jack felt like he’d been shuffled straight from the steam table into the Sorbonne.
His only saving grace was that they hadn’t yet discovered his cell phone in his pants. Then again, if the connection had timed out before anyone figured out who was calling, his goose was undoubtedly cooked. So much for all his intensive, specialized training.
After he’d blindfolded himself and Della had tied his hands behind him, Slacker Boy had stuffed Jack in the back floorboard of a tiny import and covered him with a tarp. And stuffed had been the truth of it. The car was the size of a lunchbox, and Jack was a full course meal.
He’d tried not to breathe in the mold spores and cat hair, or more than one layer of the dirt ground into the carpet, and had managed to tuck his chin to his chest and use his sweatshirt as an air filter—not that the fabric had done much to help with the smell.
He’d also managed to twist his hips in one direction, his arms in the other, and grab his cell phone off his belt. It had taken a furious amount of concentration to not only remember Della’s number, but to blindly dial it when he was facedown on his knees and the keypad was upended behind him.
But he finally did, slapping himself a mental high five when he heard Perry’s muffled greeting. He’d then pushed the phone into his boxers and prayed that when Slacker Boy stopped the car, he could shake it down his pant leg to the ground and kick it out of sight.
Not that it would’ve been easy, being blindfolded and all, but he’d never had the chance. The minute he’d been hauled to his feet, he’d been hauled away from the car. He’d listened closely before being pushed up what he thought were porch steps, trying to pick up exterior noises, but heard nothing he could identify.
No traffic, no voices, nothing except what sounded like tree frogs, lapping water and rustling leaves. And that made a whole lot of sense considering everything around him smelled wet. The air was heavy with moisture. The ground squished beneath his feet. He smelled compost and fish and weeds. And the pungent bite of cypress.
Drowning. This was it. What Della had seen. If he didn’t figure out where he was, if the cell phone call didn’t lead Franklin to this location…Jack didn’t even want to think of what Eckhardt had suffered because he was pretty damn sure he’d be suffering the same.
He needed to know where he was. What he did know was that he’d ridden on his knees with his ass in the air for not quite an hour. He’d counted off the minutes until his legs had gone to sleep. He’d spent the rest of the ride trying to keep his head off the floor.