CHAPTER 13
Last night’s rain had washed everything clean. Lash took his morning cup of coffee out onto the veranda and gazed across the yard into the trees beyond. Although it wasn’t visible from where he stood, he could hear the water rushing through the creek below. He smiled to himself and took a slow, careful sip of the hot brew, careful not to burn his lips.
It was all falling into place. The kidnapping of Delaney Ruban’s heir was a brilliant plan. He knew exactly how it was going to happen—who was going to do the deed—even the amount of ransom he was going to ask for the safe return of Ryder Justice’s wife.
The ideal location in which she would be hidden had all but fallen into his lap. An aging client had been admitted to a nursing home via letter and phone by a distant cousin. The law offices of Marlow Incorporated had been given power of attorney to see to her monetary needs, as well as prepare for the impending funeral that was bound to occur.
Lash had done as the family had asked. Fostoria Biggers was now residing in the second room on the right at the Natchez Home for the Aged. Fostoria’s money was in the bank, but Lash Marlow’s name was on the signature card of her account. Her home out in the country was to be put on the market, and it would be—as soon as he no longer had need of it, which would be right after the Rubans coughed up three million dollars for Casey’s safe return.
Friday he’d closed his office and gone to Natchez. The two men he’d hired with five hundred dollars he’d borrowed from Fostoria Biggers’s account had come into town last night and were in a motel waiting for his call. The five hundred dollars was just a down payment on what he’d promised them when Casey’s abduction was completed.
He took another sip of his coffee as he came down from the steps. He laughed to himself, and the sound caused a pair of white egrets roosting in an overhead tree to take flight. Fifty thousand dollars. Last month he couldn’t have come up with fifty dollars, and now he had promised Bernie Pike and Skeet Wilson fifty thousand. And, compared to what he would have in his pocket before the week was over, it was a pittance.
The air was rich with the scent of bougainvillea that grew wild within the skeletal arms of a long-dead oak. The grass was still wet from last night’s rain and by the time he reached the ivy-covered gazebo, the hems of his slacks were damp.
He stepped inside, then set down his cup and looked around. For the first time in more years than he cared to count, he could see light at the end of his tunnel of financial woes. It wouldn’t be long before he could begin the repairs on Graystone and he could hardly wait. Even the gazebo was long overdue for a face-lift. And while it would have to wait just a little bit longer, there was one thing he could do.
He began gathering up the unpaid bills he’d been tossing on the gazebo floor, making a pile of them in the middle of the yard. Since the grass was damp, he had no qualms about what he did next.
He struck a match and gave it a toss. The papers were damp as well, but finally one caught—then another—then another, and while he watched, the ugly reminders of his past went up in smoke.
* * *
The folder from Childers Investigations lay on Casey’s desk unopened. The private investigator was gone—had been for over twenty minutes, and Casey hadn’t been able to bring herself to read the report. Fear overlayed curiosity as she stared at the name beneath the Childers logo.
Ryder Justice—Confidential
Right now her world was just about perfect. But when she opened this up, it could reveal a Pandora’s box of despair that no amount of money could buy, sell or fix.
She walked to the window overlooking the downtown area of Ruban Crossing and stared out onto the street without seeing the traffic or the flow of people coming and going into the Ruban Building itself. And because she was so lost in thought, she didn’t see Ryder drive up and park, nor did she see him getting out of the Lincoln with her briefcase—the one she’d left in the kitchen chair during breakfast.
She glanced back at her desk, then walked to the far side of the room to refill her coffee cup. Another cup couldn’t hurt. And it was as good an excuse as any to put off reading the report.
Her intercom buzzed, then Nola Sue’s voice lisped into the silence.
“Mrs. Justice, your husband is here with your briefcase. He’s on his way in.”
A smile of delight broke the somberness of Casey’s features as Ryder came through the doorway, dangling her briefcase from the ends of his fingers.
“Hi, darlin’, sorry to interrupt, but I thought you might be needing this. I’ll just lay it on your desk and get out of your hair.”
Casey gasped. The report! It was on her desk! Before she could think to move, Ryder was halfway there.
Hot coffee sloshed on her fingers as she shoved the cup on the counter and made a run for the desk. “Ryder, wait!”
Startled by the urgency of her shout, the briefcase slid across the desk and then onto the floor, taking everything with it as it felt.
“Sorry about that,” he said quickly, and knelt, intent on gathering up what he had spilled. But he froze in the act, unable to ignore the fact that his name was on every sheet of paper he picked up.
“It’s not what you think,” Casey said quickly, as she grabbed at the papers he was holding.
The look on Ryder’s face had undergone a frightening transformation. The sexy smile he’d worn into the room had been replaced by a grim expression of disbelief. He stood, his words thick with anger.
“What does this mean?”
“I…uh—”
“You had me investigated?”
“You don’t understand.”
“So—you’re telling me you didn’t have me investigated.”
Casey couldn’t look him in the face. “I didn’t say that.”
“Then…what you’re trying to say is that file is not a dossier of my life story.”
Because she was so afraid, she took the defensive. “What I did was—”
“What you just did was stand there and tell me a lie.”
She paled. The cold, hard glitter in his eyes was scaring her to death. Dear God, what had she done?
“I did it for you,” she said. “For us.”
He pivoted, then picked up a cup full of pencils from her desk and flung them against the wall. They shattered and scattered like so much buckshot against a tin barn. Moments later, Casey’s secretary burst into the room.
Ryder spun. “Get out.”
Nola Sue gave Casey a wild, helpless glance and left at Casey’s quick nod.
Ryder was so hurt, so betrayed by what she had done that he didn’t trust himself to touch her. When she reached for him, he shoved her hand aside. “Well? Did you find what you were looking for?”
Panic-stricken, she wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg his forgiveness. But she couldn’t weaken now, not when their future was at stake.
“I didn’t read it.”
The curse he flung into the air between them was short and to the point. Casey took it as her just due.
“But it’s true. I was afraid to read it.”
He grabbed at the scattered sheets he’d tossed on her desk and waved them in her face. “Why, Casey? Don’t you know enough about me by now? Couldn’t you trust that there was nothing in my past that could hurt you?” He groaned, and threw the papers on the floor. “Damn you. I would die before I let anyone hurt you—even myself.”
This time she couldn’t stop the tears. They spilled in silent misery.
He kicked at the papers on which he was standing, sending them scooting across the floor. “Then if you haven’t read them, I’ll save you the trouble. Depending on the depth of the report the investigator did, you will see that I’m the middle child of three sons born to Micah and Barbara Justice. They were ranchers. My older brother, Royal, still lives on the family ranch south of Dallas. My younger brother, Roman, is ex-military and is now a private investigator. I am a pilot. I own and run a charter service out of a private airport on the outskirts of Fort Worth. I also own a little under fourteen hundred acres of prime real estate on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, and unlike what you believed about me when we met, I am comfortably solvent. Before you, I had never been married, but last winter, I did something I’d never done before in my entire life.”
Casey tensed.
“I ran away from home.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. Truth be told, she didn’t know what she’d expected, but that certainly hadn’t been it.
“I don’t understand. What happened to make you turn your back on family and friends? Has it anything to do with the nightmares you have? The ones that drive you out of our bed? The ones you won’t talk about?”
He started to shake, and Casey wished to God she’d never meddled.
“I was piloting a plane that crashed. I walked away. My father did not. He’s dead because of me.”
The look that passed between them was full of painful memories. For Casey, they were of the panic she’d seen on his face when he’d taken her to the airport. Of the plea in his voice not to fly in the storm. Of the desperation in his touch when he’d seen she was alive.
For Ryder, it was the death of a myth he’d been living. Of pretending that everything between them was perfect. Of hiding behind a marriage of convenience instead of facing the truth.
“You know, wife—I don’t think you should be so judgmental about the terms your grandfather put in his will. From where I’m standing, you’ve picked up his manipulating ways all too well.”
With that, he turned and walked out of the office, ignoring the sound of her voice crying out his name—calling him back.
* * *
It was all Casey could do not to cry. “Are you sure you haven’t seen him all day?”
Joshua shook his head. “No, sugar, I’m sorry. The last time I saw him he was on his way to your office with your briefcase.”
She groaned, folded her arms on Tilly’s kitchen table and hid her face from the truth. Please don’t let him be gone.
Tilly sat down beside her. “I knew something was wrong between you two the other day. I told Joshua so, didn’t I?”
Joshua nodded.
Casey slammed her fist down on the table. “The other day was nothing.” She stood, unable to sit still any longer. “If only I could turn the clock back to that morning, none of this would have happened.”
Eudora came hurrying into the kitchen. “What on earth is wrong? I could hear shouting all the way down the hall.”
“Mr. Ryder is gone,” Tilly said, and then started to cry.
Eudora looked startled, then glanced at Casey for confirmation. “Is this true?”
Casey threw up her hands. “I don’t know. He isn’t in the habit of telling me anything important in his life,” and slammed the door behind her as she left.
“Well, I declare,” Eudora said, and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue as Erica came into the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” Erica asked.
“Ryder is missing,” Eudora said.
Erica looked startled and turned as her brother, Miles, sauntered into the kitchen with his hands in his pockets, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “What’s everyone doing in the kitchen?”
“Ryder ran off,” Erica said.
His expression changed from one of boredom to intrigue. “Really?”
Eudora frowned. “I don’t believe it. I’ve seen the way he looks at Casey. I suspect they’ve just had an argument.”
Miles scratched his head, as if a thought just occurred.
“If he’s gone, I wonder what that does to the terms of Delaney’s will?”
It was one of the few times in his life that his grandmother chose to slap his face.
* * *
Sometime toward morning, Casey cried herself to sleep. She would have been happy to know Ryder hadn’t gone too far. But she didn’t know, and because of the press it would cause, she hadn’t called the police. If she had, though, it wouldn’t have taken them long to locate that familiar white Lincoln. It was parked at the airport in very plain sight. And it wouldn’t have taken all that much longer to locate the driver. He was standing outside of the fences that separated the highway from runway, watching as planes took off and landed, trying to exorcise the demon that had driven the wedge between him and the woman he loved. It had taken hours before his conscience would let him admit that while she’d gone about it all wrong, she’d had the right to know.
As he watched, a small private plane was taxiing for takeoff, and he curled his fingers through the holes in the chain links, forcing himself to stand as the plane belied the laws of gravity. Since his arrival, over fifty planes had moved past his location, and not a one had crashed on takeoff or landing.
Then why spare me?
The question haunted him as much, if not more, than the fact that his father was dead. Weary in body and soul, he finally moved from the fence toward the car. He didn’t know how, but he and Casey had to find a way to make things right. Living life without her wasn’t worth the breath it would take.
But when he reached the car, it wouldn’t start. The battery was so dead that jumper cables wouldn’t even work, and because the battery was dead, the car phone was also inoperable. Ryder cursed luck and fate and everything in between, knowing that all he had to do was go inside the terminal and call home, but the idea of getting Casey out at four in the morning didn’t seem all that wise, especially after the fight they’d had.
Forced to wait until daybreak when a mobile repairman could be called, he crawled into the back seat of the car, locked himself inside, and lay down and went to sleep. When he awoke, sun was beaming in the window on his face and it was long past nine. He groaned. Casey would be at the office. It would be tonight before they could talk.
* * *
“So,” Miles said. “You’re saying if Casey doesn’t fulfill the terms of Delaney’s will by staying with her husband for the entire year, it could still mean default?”
Lash leaned back in his chair and nodded, while his heart skipped a beat. This was his chance. This was the opportunity he’d been waiting for. Adrenaline surged as he contemplated the call he would make. Suddenly, he wanted Miles Dunn out of his face and he wanted it now.
“Look, Miles, it’s simply a matter of wait and see. All married couples argue and they usually make up. I don’t advise you to put too much hope in what you’re thinking.”
Miles looked slightly embarrassed as he stood. “Of course you’re right. And I hope you don’t think I was looking to gain anything by Casey’s misfortune.”
“Of course not,” Lash said, as he ushered him out of his office.
When Miles was finally gone, Lash told his secretary to hold all his calls, then he slipped out the back door. He intended to make certain that the call he was about to make could not be traced back to him.
* * *
Casey was trying to concentrate on a stockholders’ report when the phone by her elbow suddenly rang. It was the private line that only family used. She grabbed at the receiver, answering on the first ring. It had to be Ryder. Please God, let it be him.
“Hello?”
“Is this Miz Justice? Miz Ryder Justice?”
She frowned. The voice was crude and unfamiliar. “Yes, to whom am I speaking?”
“This here is Taft Glass. There’s a fellow out here by my place who done went and had hisself a bad wreck. I found him myself when I went out this mornin’ to check my trot lines. Looks like he’d been there all night. He’s pinned in this big white car and all, and they’re workin’ to get him out, but he keeps callin’ out your name. I told them medics I’d come up here to the bait and tackle shop and give you a call.”
All the blood drained from Casey’s face. She gripped the phone in desperation. Oh my God, she thought. I lay in bed and slept last night while Ryder was alone and hurt and crying out for help. Her hand started to shake and she gripped the phone tighter. This was why he hadn’t come home.
She reached for paper and pen. “Give me the directions to the scene of the accident,” she demanded, and wrote at a furious pace as Taft Glass continued to speak.
She grabbed for her purse at the same time she disconnected. Her legs were shaking and she wanted to cry, but this was no time for her to be weak. Ryder’s well-being was all that counted.
Halfway to the door, she thought of the wallet she’d tossed in the desk drawer this morning and raced back to get it. She reached in and grabbed, getting a handful of pens along with the small leather case. Without taking time to sift through the mess, she tossed it all in her handbag and dashed out the door.
“Nola Sue, cancel all of my appointments. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll call. My husband has been injured in a wreck.”
Nola Sue was still registering shock as the door slammed shut behind Casey’s exit.
* * *
“It’s got to be here somewhere,” Casey muttered, glancing down again at her hastily written map, as she had more than once during the last half hour.
This part of the countryside was one she’d never been in. She was deep in the Mississippi marshlands and hadn’t seen a house since she’d turn off the last gravel road.
She took the upcoming curve at a high rate of speed, skidding slightly as the road suddenly straightened. Suddenly, her nerves went on alert. A few hundred yards up ahead she could see a cluster of parked vehicles. She’d found them!
It didn’t occur to her to wonder why there were no police cars in sight, and no medical units trying to get Ryder free. All she saw was the front half of a white car buried in a bayou and the back half sticking up in the air, like an awkward straw in a giant cup of thick, soupy mud.
Fear for Ryder made her miss the fact that the buried car was a ‘59 Ford and that it had certainly been in the water longer than overnight. Fact was, it had been there closer to a year, and it was still there because the owner had moved away soon after, leaving it stuck the same way he’d left owing rent.
But to Casey, the sight was appalling. Her heart nearly stopped. Dear Lord, the man hadn’t told her the car had gone off into water. She couldn’t bring herself to think about Ryder not being alive. She had to explain to him about the investigation. He had to understand that she’d done it because she loved him, not because she didn’t trust him. In a panic, she braked to a skidding halt, unable to contemplate the idea of growing old without him.
A heavyset man separated himself from the cluster of vehicles and started toward her, while another man, tall and skinny with long, graying hair, watched from the tailgate of his truck. The man coming toward her was short and his T-shirted belly had a tendency to laze over the waistband of his faded blue jeans. The baseball cap he wore scrunched over his ears accentuated the fact that he was in dire need of a haircut. Unruly blond wisps stuck out from beneath the rim of the cap like greasy duck feathers.
A niggle of warning ticked off in Casey’s head. This wasn’t what she’d been expecting. When he leaned in the window and leered, she knew something wasn’t right.
“Miz Justice?”
“Yes, I’m Casey Justice.
Bernie Pike grinned and yanked her out of the car. “Damn, lady. It took you long enough to get here.”
Panic shafted through her as she struggled to pull herself free.
“Where’s Ryder? Where’s my husband?”
He laughed. “Now, that’s probably about what he’s going to be asking himself when you don’t show up tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
He slapped a rag on her face. It smelled of hospital corridors and science classes she thought she’d forgotten.
“Consider yourself kidnapped, honey, and hope that someone in your family thinks you’re worth the price it’s gonna take to get you back home.”
She screamed and fought, tearing the cloth from her eyes and kicking off her shoes as she tried to run. Something sharp pierced her arm, then the world opened up and swallowed her whole.
* * *
Ryder got as far as the edge of town and knew he couldn’t wait any longer to see his wife. Night was too far away. In spite of the fact that he looked as if he’d slept in his clothes, which he had, he needed to see Casey now. He parked in front of the Ruban Building and told himself they would find a way to make things right.
Nola Sue gasped as Ryder walked into the office. “Mr. Justice, thank goodness you’re all right!”
Casey’s secretary wasn’t making much sense. “What do you mean?”
“You know. With your wreck and all, we had no way of knowing how serious your injuries might be.”
He frowned. “I wasn’t in any wreck.”
Her hands fluttered around her throat as his words sank in. “But Mrs. Justice said you’d had a wreck. She raced out of here in a terrible state.”
Suddenly there was a knot in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to think about what this might mean. “When?”.
Nola Sue glanced at the clock. “Oh, at least an hour ago, maybe longer.”
A muscle jerked in Ryder’s jaw. “Who told her something like that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that someone called her on the private line. You know, the one the family uses.” She blushed. “I heard it ring. The walls aren’t all that thick.”
Damn, this doesn’t feel right. “I want to look inside her office. Would you come with me? You’ll know better than I would if something important is missing.”
Nola Sue followed Ryder inside, and together they made a thorough search of the place.
“No, I’m sorry, sir, but everything looks the same.”
Ryder tried a smile. “I’m sure we’re just borrowing trouble. She’s probably at home, cursing the fact that someone sent her on a wild-goose chase.”
Nola Sue nodded. “I’ll bet you’re right.”
Even though he suspected it was useless, Ryder continued to stand in the middle of the room. He kept thinking that they’d missed something. He could almost feel it.
When they’d started their search, her top desk drawer had been half-open, but Nola Sue had said nothing was missing. There was a pad of paper and a pen right by the phone, just like—
He froze. The pad. Maybe she’d written something on there that would give him a clue. He raced to the desk, then dug a pencil out of the drawer. Carefully, he rubbed the side of the lead on the blank piece of paper, going from side to side as he moved down the page. Inch by inch, a set of directions was slowly revealed.
Nola Sue leaned over his shoulder. “Oh my goodness. That’s way out of town. In fact, if I remember correctly, that’s out in the marsh.”
His gut kicked, reminding him that fate was not kind. “Call the house. See if she’s home.”
Nola Sue did as she was told and, moments later, gave him the bad news. No one had seen her since early this morning.
Ryder looked down at the pad, afraid to consider where his thoughts were leading, and picked up the phone.
“Where are you doing?” she asked.
“Calling the police. Something’s not right. Someone has played a pretty sick joke on Casey, or her life could be in danger. Either way, I’m not waiting to find out.”
* * *
Casey woke up with a start. Several things became obvious to her all at once. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t move. Her arm was sore and there was a bitter taste in her mouth. And, she remembered why. She took a deep breath and heard herself sob.
“So, girlie, girlie, I see you’re comin’ around.”
She froze. Oh God, I am not alone.
“Please, let me go.”
He laughed, and Casey felt like a fool. It had been a stupid thing to ask, but she’d had to, just the same.
“Now, we can’t be doin’ that. Not until your people come up with the dough. We went to a lot of trouble to set this all up, you know. Don’t you think we ought to be paid for our time?”
Dear God, I’ve been kidnapped! “They’ll pay,” she said, and then choked on a sob.
He laughed again. “And why the hell not? It ain’t like you’re short on dough, now, is it?”
Something skittered across her leg and she kicked and screamed in sudden fright.
“Hey! Ain’t no need for all that screamin’. If you can’t keep your mouth shut, I’ll just have to gag you, too—you hear?”
Her voice was still shaking, but there was just enough indignation to get the man’s attention. “Something ran across my leg.”
“Probably just a lizard. They’s all kinds of water critters down here. Be glad it wasn’t no snake.”
She shuddered and thought of Ryder. Obviously, he hadn’t been in any wreck. They’d used that excuse to sucker her right into their hands. If she’d had a foot free, she would have kicked herself. And along with that knowledge, came a question she was afraid to have answered. If Ryder wasn’t in a wreck, then where was he? The thought of never seeing him again, of dying and not being able to explain to him why she’d done what she’d done was devastating.
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
The man cursed. “I told ‘em not to leave me out here. I told ’em somethin’ like this was bound to happen. But hell no, did anyone listen?”
“Please.”
He yanked at the cord binding her wrists to get her attention, then untied her ankles, dragging her up from the bed and standing her on her bare feet. A few steps later, he gave her a push.
“You got a couple of minutes, no more. And don’t try nothin’, either.” His hand cupped her breast, and Casey could feel his breath on her face. “You’ll be sorry if you do.”
Casey wouldn’t move, wouldn’t let him know how scared she was, or how repulsed she was by his touch.
“Well, what the hell are you waitin’ for?” he yelled.
She held out her hands. “For you to untie me.”
He cursed, but moments later, she felt the rope come loose around her wrists and heard the door slam shut between them.
“No funny business,” he yelled. “And remember, I’m right outside this door.”
Her hands were shaking as she tore at the rag covering her eyes. When it fell free to the floor, she staggered from the unexpected glare of light. Quick to take advantage of the privilege she’d been granted, she did what she had to do, aware that it could be hours before he might let her get up again.
As she washed her hands, she searched her surroundings for something—anything, that might help her escape. But there was nothing in sight. Not even a window in the tiny, airless room.
The only remarkable thing she could see was a varied assortment of crocheted knickknacks sitting on floors, on shelves, even hanging from the walls. It explained nothing.
“Get out here, now!” the man yelled, and Casey jumped. “And put that blindfold back on your face or you’ll be sorry.”
She did as she was told, although she was already as sorry as a woman could be and still be breathing. If only she could start this day over.
Her hand was on the doorknob when the man suddenly yanked it open. He grabbed her by the hand, retied her wrists and ankles, and shoved her back down on a bed.
Loath to recline in a room with a man she could not see, Casey sat with her back against the bedstead, her knees pulled toward her chin. It wasn’t much, but it was as good a defensive position as she could manage. The urge to come undone was almost overwhelming, but she refused to give way. She was going to need all of her wits to survive.