CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The ringing cut through her buffeting thoughts. She’d thought it would be hard to return, but that was nothing compared to laying her heart on the line, then letting it be flayed alive.
She knew she’d never have a chance with James. Maybe, while they were stuck in a storm and protected from the world in this house. But not a real chance. Never that. It was one thing intellectualising it, another to come up front and personal with it.
She'd given it her all and come up short. Again. How could she possibly have thought it would be any different this time?
Because you gave your heart.
She should have known her heart was worthless.
She glanced at the number. David’s return call. How she wanted to let it go, but she knew there’d be repercussions if she didn’t answer. Swallowing bile, she answered the call. Her hand shook so badly, she had to hold it with both hands and hold it to her ear.
“You have thirty minutes to get ‘ere.”
“Where… where do you want me?” Her voice trembled as much as her body.
“Playground. Arthur Street.” Then the call disconnected. She listened to the dead line for moments before she could will her body to move.
This was it. She had to go. If the universe didn’t give her a not-so-subtle hint one way, it had the other. She had no place here.
She was stupid to think she ever had.
She quickly made a phone call to Steve and listened to his instructions as though she was someone else. Someone who hadn’t had their heart carved out of their chest and trampled on the ground. She’d even been able to answer.
She’d snuck out of the house using a side door, dodging anyone milling about in the hallways – staff or guests - and dashed out into the night, then she’d run. Run until the breath sawed out of her lungs, only stopping when she reached the playground. She searched the darkness, but David wasn’t here yet.
She sunk onto the beam of a treated pine fence and sat down to wait. Minutes passed, and the cold began to seep through her clothing. She saw a car pull up silently a little way down the street. She thought it might have been David until she realised no one had gotten out of the car. She belatedly realised it had to be Steve. That he’d told her he’d organise fellow police and wait for David’s appearance.
She tugged her coat tight around her, fighting the cold. Her breath condensed in the frigid air. Minutes dragged, seconds feeling like hours.
Her mind was as numb as her body. She knew she should feel something, she should hurt, she should be crying, sobbing, anything, but there seemed to be nothing inside to come out. She was wrung dry. Hollow.
She had nothing more to give.
At least when David turned up, she’d have the relative warmth of a jail cell. But where was he? She glanced at the time on the phone. An hour had passed, and he hadn’t shown. Worry clipped at her like steel teeth. Where there was money to be made, David was never late.
The phone vibrated in her hand, making her jump. James. She bit her bottom lip until she tasted blood, caught in a mental tug of war. She wanted to hear his voice so bad, it was a physical urge, yet she held back, fighting the temptation to answer the call.
She’d left. It needed a clean break.
Like death.
The ringing stopped. Loss flooded her area where her heart should be. The phone vibrated with a message. Heart thumping, she quickly tapped the screen.
Have you got Madeline? I can’t find her. Where are you? I can’t find you anywhere either.
She gasped, her stomach lurching. She brought trembling fingers to her mouth. This was wrong. So wrong. David, not here. Madeline missing.
No!
No, no, no!
She bent over, losing the contents of her stomach in a nearby bush. She wiped her mouth, and bolted to the parked car. Steve opened the car, meeting her in the middle of the street. She grabbed his arms, wrenching the material in her grip. “He’s got her. David’s taken Madeline.”
They wasted no time, jumped into his car and sped to James’ mansion. Steve meted out a string of commands on the CB. Soon, two other cars that were completely hidden raced after them. Elizabeth clung to her seat belt and door handle as the car tore up the long driveway. Dread thickened her veins with black terror.
Steve had contacted James on the way here. A quick conversation had confirmed everyone at the party had looked for Madeline.
She was missing.
She got the rest of the story through the one-sided conversation.
David had called James, demanding a ransom. He must have somehow found out she’d already gone to the police and decided to cut his losses and take what he could.
Her mind was a tornado of fractured thought, the little girl’s terror lashing about like a strand of loose barbed wire in the storm. She pushed down the roiling bile that constantly rose in her throat. David was an unknown factor. She didn’t trust him to look after Madeline. If he’d already done something to her…
Her body shook. It took her three times to open the door after Steve jerked the car to a stop. Finally she wrenched it open, stumbling behind the policeman, through the foyer and into Hanna’s room.
Silence rung in the room. A handful of James’ friends surrounded him. Mrs. D’llessio wept, her hands wringing the dirty apron tied about her waist as she sat next to James on the plush couch.
A movement of black caught her attention. Anastasia. To her amazement, she wasn’t draped over James or wrapped in pretension; instead, she sat, round-shouldered and still, in a chair along the wall. Concern laced her features.
James’ white-faced gaze zeroed in on her. His face was filled with tormented pain and confusion as he searched hers for answers. She’d been the one to put it there. Her knees buckled, Steve catching her upper arm so she didn’t fall. She fell beside James on the couch.
“Where have you been?” His voice cracked as he searched her face for answers.
Her mouth had completely dried. She ran a shaking hand through her hair, brushing it out of her eyes. How did you tell someone the worst thing to happen was because of her?
She ran a dry tongue over her dry lips. “I’m so sorry, James.”
His forehead creased. “Sorry? Why?” His gaze jostled to his friends' faces, then back to hers. “What are you sorry for, Elizabeth?”
“What are the demands?” Steve took over, his deep voice penetrating through the tension.
James clasped his hands, his attention shifting to the tall cop. “Ten million. Cash. By tomorrow. He’ll let me know the drop off point when I’ve got the money.”
Tomorrow?! Elizabeth couldn’t stand Madeline being alone with David for one minute, let alone all night.
“I shouldn’t have let him take her,” Mrs. D’llessio wailed. She broke down into wrenching tears.
“You couldn’t have known that waiter was a kidnapper,” James said.
“I should have known. He had that look about him, you know? The bad look. But he was dressed as the waiter. Like the others. I was busy. They were getting only peanut butter for the bread. I didn’t realise she was gone until it was too late.” The housekeeper’s voice trembled.
“If it makes you feel any better, he's a professional,” Steve said.
“Still, I should have known.” Mrs. D’llessio shook her head, eyes glazed, staring at nothingness.
“Elizabeth, you know David Logan intimately.” Elizabeth ignored the way James jerked his attention to her, keeping her eyes trained on Steve. “Can you think of a typical place he would go to hide when he was committing a crime? A hotel? Hide in plain sight in a public place? Would he lay away in a car in a side street and wait this out? What did he normally do when he blackmailed people?”
“What does he mean?” James’ voice was strained, confused. She heard the disbelieving question in his expression. How do you know?
She drew a deep breath, steeling herself. He deserved the truth. “I’m not who you think I am, James. I…I tried to tell you…”
“You know this person?” His tone was filled with disbelief.
“I tried…tried to tell you.” She trailed off, words lost.
“Elizabeth, please think. Time is of the essence. Time for explanations can come after we find your little girl, Mr. Rhyder,” Steve interjected.
She gazed at all the faces trained on her. James, friends, cops. The same expression laced on them that was in James’ voice. Accusation. Seeing it was as hard as the anticipation of it. Nothing less than she deserved. At least in this instance, she might be able to help.
Her mind whirled in a tornado again. She squeezed her eyes closed. Think. What did David usually do? He had a pattern. What was it?
Think, Elizabeth. Madeline’s fate is in your hands. It’s the least you can do for bringing this destruction on an innocent little girl's head.
What did he brag about? “Right under their noses, babe. Right under their noses, and they didn’t even know.” He’d crack up laughing, finding humour when she’d be devastated.
“He was always close. He’d be in a barn or in a house next door. Something like that. He thought it was funny. So close, and they could never find him.”
She looked up at Steve, who ran worried fingertips over his forehead. He looked young, but the short sides of his hair had started to salt and pepper. He glanced at two other officers. “Smith. Cook. Visit the neighbours on either side. Jim, what about the house?”
An officer stepped from the back. “Inside is clear. Haven’t searched the guest house out back, though.”
“Guest house?” Steve’s brows rose.
James stood, jaw clenching. His body was tense, poised to strike. “It’s not part of the property. Totally isolated.”
Elizabeth’s heart pounded. “That sounds like a place he’d go for.”
Steve rounded up the rest of the officers and organised a plan of attack. His gaze rested on everyone who wasn’t in uniform. “Stay here. We’ll let you know what we find.”
The policemen hustled from the door, leaving tense silence in the room. Elizabeth stood. “Like hell I will.”
She couldn’t sit and wait. Like Steve said, she knew David Logan. And right at the moment, she couldn’t be in the same room with James. Not now. She wouldn’t be able to cope with the recrimination she knew would be on his face.
“Elizabeth!” James yelled as she dashed through the door.
She ignored him, rushing to the sunroom that looked out over the back yard. She ran to the window, watching as the police filtered around the outside of the guest house in organised stealth.
She felt James behind her. She closed her eyes. He deserved the truth. He deserved to know who she was. What she was, and now was the time to come clean. Now was the time to face her worst nightmare.