Operation Alpha Page 20

  She had never even made it home.

  Chapter 29

  He’d knocked on every door in the row of condos and then on those across the street. Found only two people home on a Wednesday morning, neither of whom had seen anything unusual. Only this one, from right across the street, said that she’d heard Ria’s car leave last night, which was odd for her.

  “I was hoping that she had a hot date,” the older woman with the stylish haircut and nice smile said as she eyed him with interest.

  “I’m working with her on something,” he said quickly, as if it mattered to this total stranger.

  So we’re a secret?

  He winced inwardly as his mind jabbed him anew with the sharp edge of that memory.

  “Too bad,” the woman said. “She’s a sweet girl, a genuinely good person. They’re not thick on the ground these days.”

  “No,” he’d muttered, staring at said ground.

  “Lots of thick-headed men around, though.”

  His gaze shot back to her face. He summoned up the manners his mother had taught him. “Yes, ma’am, there are a lot of us. My mother says it’s the nature of the beast.”

  The woman laughed. “I’d like your mother—she raised a polite son. And now I really mean it when I say too bad. You’d be a lucky man.” Liam felt another jab, though he completely agreed with the woman’s assessment. Whoever ended up with Ria in his life would be a very, very lucky man.

  And as long as it wasn’t him, she’d stay alive.

  Her expression changed then, became serious. “You let me know if there’s anything I can do. Ria’s always been a good neighbor and a good friend, and if she needs any help...”

  “I will,” he promised and handed her his Foxworth card, figuring that even if Ria wanted to avoid any contact with him, at least her pleasant neighbor would let him know when she came home. “And if you see her, please call me. Or have her call me. No matter what,” he added, knowing Ria might well want to avoid any contact with him at all.

  He started back down the street, shaking his head at the tangle he’d made of things. He just had to hope she would put Dylan’s case before her own feelings. And he realized in some surprise that he didn’t really have to hope, because he knew she would do just that. Because of who she was. She cared, deeply.

  And there it was again. She cared. His effort to keep this in the confines of work-related matters failed miserably, because all the way back to his truck he was inwardly telling himself Ria was all right. She had to be all right.

  He kept silently chanting it as he got in, feeling as if he were trying to build a dam with the words to hold back an oncoming flash flood. It took him a moment to recognize the emotion; it had been so long since he’d felt it. Not because he wasn’t capable of it or was too well trained—Foxworth-trained—to let it in, but because he’d not let anyone close enough to generate it in a very long time.

  Panic.

  He sat in his truck outside Ria’s place, noticing that the knuckles on the hand clenched around the steering wheel were white.

  She’s a sweet girl, a good person. You’d be a lucky man.

  Last night was worth it just to learn that feeling like that is possible.

  She won’t think that in the end, he thought, fighting down the roiling emotion that churned him up in a way he’d never felt before. She won’t think it was worth it when feeling like that about him cost her everything.

  He couldn’t let that happen. There had to be a logical reason for her vanishing like this. Even if it was just to go off somewhere and castigate herself for being foolish enough to go to bed with him. Even if she hated him, he could live with it as long as she was all right. He could—

  His cell rang, triggering the Foxworth system. He hit the button on the overhead console instantly, hoping to hear Ria’s voice.

  He didn’t.

  “Liam? Dunbar.”

  His hopes sank. “Yeah. What’s the status?” He knew the veteran detective wouldn’t take the lack of small talk personally.

  “We’re out at the Oakley house. No one here.”

  Liam’s first thought was to be thankful Dunbar had made the effort to involve himself in this, since anything involving juveniles was not his jurisdiction, as it were. The man had gone over and above time and again for Foxworth. But they’d returned the favor a time or two, as well.

  Then what Dylan had said came back to him.

  “Wait, no one’s there? I just talked to Dylan an hour ago and he said his brother was home sick with the flu.”

  “No sign of anyone home, and there’s a vehicle in the garage. But a neighbor says he saw them leaving about an hour ago. Hold on a sec,” Dunbar said, and Liam could hear him talking to someone else. Then he was back. “Detective Devon just made a call to the boy’s school. Kevin didn’t show up there today.”

  “If he’s really sick, maybe his father took him to the doctor.”

  “Could be,” Dunbar said. “But the school says he didn’t call in that the boy would be absent today. And he didn’t answer the number they have on file for him.”

  “Maybe he didn’t think about it if the kid was sick enough.”

  “Or maybe he’s not sick at all.”

  Liam had been half hoping not to hear those words, because they’d been tumbling around in his head from Dunbar’s first report of no one there. But that he’d gotten there so fast told Liam the same thoughts were sparking in his mind, and Dunbar was a very, very good detective.

  “Guy says Oakley slapped the kid around a little.”

  Liam’s jaw clenched. “Bastard.”

  “So it seems. You know anything about a new, younger girlfriend for Dad?”

  Dunbar’s query caught him off guard. “No. Something Dylan would have mentioned at some point, I think. Why?”

  “Just something a neighbor said. The one who saw them leave.”

  “Them?”

  “Yeah. Dad, the boy and a woman he didn’t recognize. In a car he didn’t recognize. And none of them seemed very happy, he said.”

  An unlikely, even impossible thought slammed into Liam’s mind. But it wouldn’t go away and had hit with such force he couldn’t shrug it off.

  “Did he say what she looked like?”

  “Younger than Oakley. Dark hair. Pretty.”

  Liam’s heart jammed up into his throat.

  “And,” Dunbar added, “the wit said the kid seemed to know her. Which is why he thought girlfriend.”

  An image flashed through his mind, that day in the park at the swings, when Kevin had talked to Ria, told her things he hadn’t told even his brother.

  “The car the guy didn’t recognize...was it a small red coupe?”

  “No.” Liam breathed again. “It was an old, banged-up hatchback. Oakley shoved the kid in back. And the woman in front. He was rough with her, too, the guy said. Who’s the red coupe belong to? Because there is one here, right across the street. Driver door’s not closed, and there’s a big bag on the passenger seat.”

  Liam’s breath stopped again as an image of a big, black leather purse shot into his mind. “Is there a Cove Academy parking sticker on it? Back window?”

  “Hang on,” Dunbar said, and he could hear the faint sound of movement. Then the answer came, and the last hope it was someone else was blasted away. “Yes, it’s there.”

  Ria.

  Nothing’s going to happen to me.

  She was wrong.

  It was happening.

  * * *

  “Shut up, kid, or I’ll give you a real reason to cry.”

  Ria had been listening to Kevin’s quiet sobbing from the back of the car for ten minutes now. It was quieter after Barton Oakley had ordered him to get down on the floor in the back. Ria thought p
erhaps he felt safer back there in the cargo area, curled up in a ball that seemed smaller than he could possibly be. How he could even breathe was beyond her; the entire vehicle reeked of cigarette smoke.

  “I said, shut up!” Oakley shouted.

  “That’s a sure way to get him to be quiet—scream at him,” Ria snapped.

  Oakley glared at her. “Nobody asked you, teacher. But then you seem to make a habit of butting in where you don’t belong.”

  “If you mean looking out for my students, then yes, I do.”

  “He’s not your student.”

  “But Dylan is. And since he loves his brother,” she said pointedly, projecting her voice toward the back toward Kevin, “what affects him affects Dylan.”

  “His brother,” Oakley snorted. But Kevin, she noticed, reacted to her saying Dylan loved him. She heard his tiny whimper the moment she said it.

  Ria’s mind was racing. How to play this? Should she let on that she knew that Kevin wasn’t his? She could empathize with him, perhaps get him to talk. But that would raise the question of how she knew, and she doubted explaining that would calm things down.

  Besides, she didn’t know what his plan was. She only knew that just as she had been deciding she had to leave or she’d be late for her first class, the man had emerged from the house dragging a protesting, weeping Kevin toward this car. She had faced a dilemma. Liam’s sheriff friend might be on the way, but if she let Oakley get the boy into the car they’d be gone before he got here.

  Then Oakley had backhanded the boy across the face when he tried to pull free, and it had been more than she could let pass. She had called 911, given a hasty report, stuffed her phone in her back pocket ready to call again and gotten out of her car. She’d hurried across the street, calling Kevin’s name.

  The look on the child’s face when he spotted her almost brought her to tears. But her anger was uppermost, anger at a man who looked three times the boy’s weight. She broke into a run toward them.

  “Mr. Oakley, stop. Do not hit that child again.”

  He stopped, which had been the goal. But he turned on her as she reached the driveway, and his frown was deeper. Out of context and in her jeans and sweater, he clearly didn’t recognize her. But Kevin had. And the hope that had flared in the child’s eyes was enough for her. She was doing the right thing.

  “Wait,” Oakley muttered, his brow still furrowed. “I know you.” She saw his expression clear a little as he recognized her.

  “You’re that damned teacher. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Call it a welfare check,” she said, holding out a hand to Kevin, who reached for it eagerly. Oakley yanked the child back. Kevin yelped in obvious pain.

  “Get the hell out of here. This is none of your business.”

  “You are abusing a terrified child. That makes it everyone’s business.”

  “Abusing?” He snorted with harsh, unamused laughter. “I haven’t even come close.”

  Yet.

  The man didn’t say it, but Ria heard it hovering anyway. Whatever he had planned for Kevin, it wasn’t going to be pleasant. She had to stop this, had to stall and pray Liam’s Dunbar or his colleague would get here. Fast.

  “He’s just a little boy, Mr. Oakley. Whatever is bothering you, it is not his fault.”

  “The hell it’s not. He ruined everything.”

  It happened fast then. He grabbed at her. She yanked her arm back, jamming a knee into his stomach at the same time. She connected, and he let go. But he was not as stupid as she’d thought. Or maybe hoped. Because he quickly shifted tactics.

  “Bitch,” he said, grabbing up a screaming, struggling Kevin and lifting him off the ground. Ria got hold of the boy’s leg and tugged, hoping to free him. Oakley just tightened his grip, making Kevin cry out again.

  And then she realized Oakley had pulled out a knife. It looked like the kind of blade her father used for fishing, not huge but long enough to easily do serious damage to a child. He rather clumsily held it near Kevin’s head. She had to let go before the boy was truly hurt.

  “This is a big mistake,” she said as she tried to wedge herself between Kevin and the car-door opening.

  “No, it’s the first right thing that’s happened. I’ll teach you to mind your own business. Get in,” Oakley ordered.

  Her? Ria stared at him. “Not likely.”

  “Oh? How about get in the car or I’ll do some real damage?”

  Kevin whimpered as she stared at Oakley in disbelief. She saw the fury, the hatred in his eyes, his expression, the tight line of his mouth.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re only compounding the trouble you’re in. The authorities are already on their way here.”

  He let out a disdainful laugh. “Sure they are.”

  “There were already investigators on the way, but I also just called 911. If you’re hurting or threatening Kevin when they get here, it will only make things worse for you.”

  The man didn’t answer. But in a way Kevin did. He let out a scream as his father—or rather the man he’d been raised to think was his father—shifted the knife to his throat. Ria stared at the thick, heavy fingers on the thin, delicate-seeming neck and the tiny trickle of blood that had already started beneath the filleting blade.

  Looking back at Barton Oakley’s face, she now had no doubt that he would do it.

  She couldn’t leave Kevin alone with the clearly deranged man. She just couldn’t. Part of her was screaming to get away, to run. She kept her gaze fastened on the one thing that overwhelmed that urge—Kevin’s terrified face.

  So she had gotten into the car.

  So now, terrified as they drove, she sat here telling herself she had had no choice. And trying not to visibly shake as she acknowledged she’d gone along with her own kidnapping.

  Chapter 30

  It hadn’t been a good choice, but it had been the only one left to her, Ria told herself. She’d suggested he let her drive, thinking she could somehow use the car as a weapon, but the man would have none of it. He’d ordered her into the passenger seat, only releasing his threatening hold on the child and shoving him in the back of the battered, brown hatchback when she’d complied.

  So now here they were, heading west to a destination only Barton Oakley knew.

  She pondered it all as she sat helplessly two feet from a man clearly far beyond thinking clearly. To blame an innocent child for what was his mother’s infidelity made little sense to her. She tried to put herself in his shoes, reminded herself of what she knew of the male ego, of how he must feel—not only had she been unfaithful but she had lied and let him believe this boy was his. Had, in his view, perhaps, tricked him into raising the child, providing for him. Maybe he felt as if she’d made a fool out of him, because he’d believed it, treated Kevin as his own, raised him as his own.

  She thought she could understand, at least how he felt, but taking it out physically and emotionally on a ten-year-old blasted it out of the realm of comprehensibility for her. Anger, yes; she could understand that. She could even understand not wanting the boy around as a constant reminder. But battering a helpless child?

  She yanked her mind off fruitless wonderings. This was no time for a quiet, thorough analysis of the situation. She needed to deal with what was actually happening. Time enough to figure out the why of it once Kevin was safe. Right now she needed to figure out what to do at this moment.

  She needed to have taken some lessons from Liam. But she’d never thought that, in her quiet life, she’d ever need that kind of skill. Even if she had it, to protect herself while simultaneously keeping a terrified child safe was something else.

  Liam could do it without even breathing hard. He would do it, were he here. He would and could do what was necessary to keep Kevin safe. And her, for that matte
r. No matter what he felt about her. She believed that down to her core, because she knew with an unwavering certainty what kind of man Liam Burnett really was. He would not leave someone in trouble if he could help. He would do the right thing. He might walk away afterward, dodging the personal aspects of what had grown between them, but he would never free himself from entanglement at the cost of danger to her. He would not want yet another death he would no doubt lay at his own door. And there was Kevin, too. He wouldn’t abandon the child to his fate.

  Her breath caught in her throat as Oakley made a turn. A turn she recognized. She knew where this road led. In another five or so miles, they would come to the Hood Canal Bridge. The mile-and-a-quarter-long floating bridge, that wonder of modern engineering that let traffic cross the deep fjord, led to the much wilder and less populated Olympic Peninsula. Was that his goal? The thought gave her a chill. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, sternly telling herself panic would accomplish nothing.

  Right now, this was up to her. Because no matter how much she trusted Liam to do the right thing, regardless of how he might feel, he wasn’t here to do it. And he had no idea she or Kevin were even in trouble. She tried to stay calm, to work it out in her head. Eventually he’d learn she hadn’t shown up at work. Dylan would tell him, if nothing else. But that could be tomorrow, at their next session. She had a gnawing gut feeling that would be too late for her. And for Kevin.

  Everyone at Cove would know it today. She glanced at the clock on the dash. If it was right, first period would be ending about now. She tried to picture the scene, predict what would happen. Emily, bless her, was in that class, so she would obviously know right away. And being Emily she would ask and learn that she had not called in, had just not shown up.

  So what would the girl do?

  And what would Dylan do when he arrived home to find both his father and brother missing? Surely he would call Liam?

  Almost on the thought she felt the vibration of the phone in her back pocket again. Emily? Dylan? Or even Liam himself? She didn’t dare try to answer; she was even afraid Oakley might be able to hear the faint sound of the vibration.