Chapter Twenty-Five

 

The news wasn’t good. According to Kev, the FBI was now involved and in transit to the hotel. They wanted Ash and everyone else on-site when they showed, but he had every reason to believe this new development had more to do with him being Liam’s brother, and nothing to do with Colby. Desperate, he ignored the federal summons and caught a cab to Beacon Hill.

The nagging presence of Leviathan Mutual went with him. He had yet to make contact with their brutal investigator, but Ash knew now why the name bugged him. Hammer worked for Leviathan Mutual. Coincidence? Not by all the bloody saints in heaven.

Despite the pouring rain, he asked the cabbie to drop him at the west end of Boston Commons so he could walk up Beacon Hill to see what he’d missed before. Colby’s disappearance had to have something to do with yesterday morning’s fire. But how, he didn’t know. He couldn’t draw a straight line through the evidence at his fire in Southie and get it to link up with Colby’s home here on the Hill. Not unless he’d missed something…

Ash let his eyes wander as he set his long legs to the task while traffic maneuvered the narrow street, itself lined with parked cars and delivery trucks. The house on the far west corner was still under construction, plastic sheeting covering the front facing, with sawhorses set to barricade the newly poured concrete walk. Ah, but rich folk were the same the world over. They already had it all, and yet they wanted more. What this grand old home needed was a cover of ivy and roses, not more concrete.

Tourist buses rumbled past him in the rain, leaving silvery gray puffs of diesel fumes in their misty wakes. Bikers. Walkers. People were everywhere, even mothers in revealing spandex outfits who ran by pushing racing baby-strollers, splashing through puddles in some crazed need to keep their already lithe bodies fit. What were they thinking, looking the way they did while tending their wee children? America was a lusty, beautiful—but daft—land.

At last at Bella’s and drenched to the skin, Ash climbed the steps. Some onerous bloke had ignored the police tape now fluttering in the chilly breeze. He went inside and shut the door behind him.

Stopping, he took in every last detail of the grand entry. Bella’s fine home was an example of how early America had squandered its remarkable wood resources as if the great pine and oak forests were an unlimited resource. Just like Ireland and every other civilized country before them. God, be merciful on us all.

Each doorway had been framed with thick white pine, the walls topped off with lavish crown molding. Each step up the magnificent winding staircase was solid oak, the likes you couldn’t buy today unless you were rich. But none of the wood was polished and proud. Even the American eagle over the double entry didn’t glow like it should.

Ah, if Ash lived here, if he ever owned a home this palatial, he’d refinish every bit of the wood, and he’d polish every banister and balustrade until the whole place gleamed like the treasure it was. But—he swallowed hard over the sudden lump in his throat. This was not his home, and because of him, Colby was missing.

Standing here without her in his arms gave a man pause, was what it did. Fighting the futility of the day, Ash’s spirit lagged for the first time. There were no leads. Nothing solid to go on. No ransom call and no way to know if this was even a kidnapping. Bella’s nonsensical ramblings meant nothing. A blue-eyed woman? Blimey, how many of them were in Boston? Running around in a cape? That may narrow the playing field, but—

Mary, Joseph, and Jesus! What if I never see her pretty face again?

Ash bowed his chin to his weary chest, needing to be sure and strong before he dared look Colby’s poor mother in the eye again. How could he tell her he couldn’t find Colby?

It was then he spied the slender print of a woman’s bare foot in the sooty grime at his feet.

Saints be praised. He took a knee, peering down at what might be his first clue. Colby had been here, he was sure of it. That was her wee print. Didn’t that fire up the pistons in his worried heart? Carefully, so as not to disturb what he now believed was more than just an arson crime scene, maybe one of abduction as well, he turned a full circle. Her shoes. Praise the Lord, he’d found her running shoes back beside the door.

“Colby?” he rang out, daring to hope. “Are you in here?”

It was worth a try, but he knew better. She wouldn’t have gone willingly without her shoes.

Tugging his cell phone from his front trouser’s pocket, he began gathering evidence. Photo after photo, he concentrated on the path he’d tromped over, willing his eyes to truly see the story Colby had unknowingly left for him. Another bare footprint faced his way from the doorway, then the one he’d first spied. Okay, so she’d come into the house, but why leave her shoes behind? It made no sense. There wasn’t a single print beyond that. No sign she’d gone farther. Only her running shoes, tossed near the door as if they were no longer needed.

But wait. Ash crouched to the floor again, holding his breath. At a right angle to Colby’s bare footprint—another shoe print. Not the rubber-soled print that a fireman’s boot might’ve left, but the slick, smooth sole of a dress shoe. Bloody hell, a professional gent’s shoe.

A crushing blow to the heart, damn it! Liam never wore anything but the finest leather shoes. He truly was in Boston then, and he’d come to exact his vengeance. Ash thumb dialed Bella’s hotel room, his heart beating like a banshee. At first ring, he barked, “Kevin. Get me Kevin.”

“He’s a little busy at the moment. The FBI’s here. Where are you?” Tula asked pointedly. “You’re hiding!”

Her and her bloody questions and answers. Ash balked. Did he dare tell? Could he trust this arm of the federal government to help him find Colby, or would they throw up roadblocks to hinder his every step?

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Tula hushed as if she’d cupped a hand over the phone.

“I can nah,” he admitted before she answered that too, “but tell Kevin I’m sending him photos I just took inside Bella’s home. Someone’s been here, a man in fine shoes and Colby. I’m certain ’tis her tiny footprint I’m looking at. I need Kevin to get these pictures to his arson investigator. I need to know if he agrees with me.”

“Praise the Lord,” Tula whispered. “Find her, Ash. You bring our baby girl home.”

Ash nodded at Tula’s vehemence. “I will,” he promised with all his Irish heart. “But don’t tell Bella. Not yet. Don’t get her hopes up.” Like mine.

His throat dry at this new development, and at the very real prospect that he might be wanted for questioning by the FBI, Ash backtracked, careful not to step where he hadn’t already set his big feet. Ah, the tender scene. Colby’s sweet bare foot alongside the tread of his giant boot print. It nearly broke his heart to leave even this small part of her behind.

Opening the front door, he peered up and down the street before he set one foot to the step. Nothing had changed. ’Twas still raining. Bostonians, more of them with umbrellas now, carried on with their lives as if no woman was missing in their fair city. What he wouldn’t give for that to be so.

With his hand still on the wrought iron railing, Ash stopped in his tracks. There. Three doors down. A woman hurried through the rain. He could only see the back of her… and her long skirt, bonnet, and—a dark blue cape.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Colby couldn’t lift her head, couldn’t even make her fingers wiggle. Drool or blood dripped over her bottom lip. Damn. This made two times in one day—at least she hoped it was the same day—she’d been blindsided, most likely by the same sneaky guy.

There were at least two people rustling in the darkness around her, a man arguing with the crazy one in the cape; her sniping back at him for him not being the man she thought she’d married. Florence—for lack of being able to remember the crazy woman’s real name—seemed in charge, though how that worked, Colby had no idea. Whatever was under that long skirt must be some powerful aphrodisiac to make a man kidnap another woman for her.

Colby was a realist. She knew where this nightmare was headed. Given the place where her search for Bella had ended, she now realized her mother’s disappearance was a ploy to get at her. She’d pissed off enough people over the years—cheerleaders, boyfriends, soccer opponents, maybe a few soldiers—it seemed possible one of them had cracked and come after her. Hell, that might explain Ash’s run-in with the Beantown Stalker. It was highly possible the arsonist wasn’t after him, but her.

She lolled her heavy head to the side, chuckling in a sick, thick way. Blood clots in a person’s throat and mouth tend to make it difficult to laugh out loud. So did the gag in her mouth.

“She’s awake,” the female of this wacked-out duo sputtered, all breathy and female-ish sounding again.

“Yeah,” Colby choked. “I’m awake,” she meant to say. It came out more like “Ah um make,” though the gag.

“Why’d you hit her so hard?” Same dumb chick. Different dumb question.

“I already told you. I wasn’t expecting to see her when I opened the door. I freaked.”

Yeah. A five-foot tall woman in bare feet and a t-shirt is scary like that.

“So, call him.” Crazy lady. Make that Crazy Bitch.

“You call him. He’s already mad at me. ‘Sides, he knows my voice.” Big wuss.

A feminine growl. “Fine then. Give me your phone. Jiminy crickets, I have to do everything.”

Haven’t heard that one since grade school.

Colby held her breath, not hard to do. They’d tied her to a chair and gagged her. The ropes at her wrists and waist were harsh and tight, but her feet and legs were free. Bound to the back of a heavy wooden chair, they’d allowed little slack in those ropes for her to breathe. Escape, it seemed, was futile this time. What a waste. To survive the rugged gauntlet of a Ranger’s life only to end up a powerless victim at Crazy Bitch and Big Wuss’s hands…

Not right. Not right at all.

But then everything got worse. With a glug, glug, glug the rancid fumes of diesel fuel hit her nose. Turning her nose into her shoulder, she choked as her situation disintegrated into a hellish nightmare. Time was definitely running out.

Big Wuss splashed the fuel around the room, but thank God! He didn’t pour any on her. Not like it mattered. The fumes were enough to turn this old house into the biggest fireball Boston would ever see. She wouldn’t live through it, but still. Not wearing diesel fuel was a tiny silver lining in a very dark place.

“Is this Ash Callahan?” Crazy Lady asked.

Colby’s head jerked up. She’s calling Ash?

“You’d better come down to…” The bitch had marbles in her lying mouth. Colby couldn’t make out the address, not the way the woman switched into some perverted Irish accent at the last minute with a bright, “Good day to ya, sir!”

“No,” Colby ground out. These monsters had to be Liam and his woman. Ash needed to stay the fuck away. They were psychos. They’d kill him for sure!