Desert Ice Daddy (5 page)

She walked out, glanced at Akeem in the car as she made her way to the bathroom on the side of the flat-roofed building. As she put the key in the lock, the thought that there might be someone in there waiting for her crossed her mind. But the door revealed nothing but a single stall and a black cell phone on the sink. She shoved it into her back pocket, nodded to Akeem as she came out, locked the door behind her and hurried to return the key. She wanted to be back in the car by the time they called her again.

They didn’t wait long. Akeem barely pulled back onto the road when the phone rang.

“Go to the next intersection then turn left,” was all the voice said this time before disconnecting.

A
KEEM WATCHED THE
road and stretched his fingers to relax them on the steering wheel. A full hour had passed since the kidnappers had last checked in. The road he drove was no longer paved, the soil dry and full of rocks, the SUV’s tires kicking up enough dust to be seen from a distance. Most of the vegetation—sagebrush and the like—came only about waist high out there. He could
see for miles, which meant he could also be seen. The few clumps of prickly pear here and there shielded little. They were, however, coming up to a small stand of acacia trees, the road cutting right through them, their only chance of privacy if they were being watched.

They hadn’t been followed; they were the only car on the road. But there could be people lying low in the bushes. It all depended on how many men were involved in the kidnapping. Two million dollars could buy a lot of help.

He hesitated, not sure whether to say what he was about to say. Didn’t want to scare her, but wanted her to be prepared. “If there’s any kind of shooting, duck where you’re covered with Kevlar. And in case you need to get out, there’s a vest for you in the back under the blanket. You should put that on.”

He pulled into the trees and stopped the car. “Now.” He reached for his own vest. There was no way he could have taken them into the house this morning without the cops noticing.

The vests were thin and flexible, made of the latest state-of-the-art material, unlike the rigid panels Mike had used for the car. He’d prepared by picking a larger shirt that would accommodate the vest, had tried it all on last night to make sure it wasn’t too obvious. He tried not to look at Taylor as he stripped, knowing she was doing the same next to him.

He couldn’t help if he had great peripheral vision.

The pale yellow bra begged for more attention. He turned the other way.

“Okay,” she said after an endless minute.

And without looking at her, he stepped on the gas.

The winding path snaked across Hell’s Porch, doubling back now and then, going in loops from time to time, probably cut by four-wheelers that were popular in the area. Ten o’clock rolled around, the heat outside oppressive enough to necessitate air-conditioning in the car by the time the phone rang again.

Taylor seemed to be whispering a short prayer before picking up. She listened then tucked the phone into her jean pocket.

“Stop the car and get out. You’re going to walk the rest of the way. Bring the money. If I see a single cop or a single weapon, the boy is dead.” She was about vibrating with nerves. “That’s all he said.”

“Breathe.”

She nodded and drew her lungs full of air. “I’m so nervous, my ears are ringing.”

“You’ll be fine. It’s almost over.” He pulled off the road, got out and strode to the back, silently cursing this latest demand. He grabbed the two briefcases that held the money. They weren’t going to be able to take anything else.

She was standing in front of the car by the time he walked back up there. He stopped in front of her, saw the desperation in her eyes and put the briefcases down to pull her to him, his intention of providing a distant sort of friendly assistance be damned.

She came willingly into his arms.

“Hey,” he said into her hair that smelled like green apple shampoo. “Almost there.”

He held her as long as she let him—a few seconds, tops; she was too nervous to stand still—then they walked down the dusty road together. Must have walked a full mile, each lost in their own thoughts, before they came to an area where boulders dotted the landscape, decreasing visibility, providing a good hiding place for anyone who was waiting for them. He scanned each rock and wasn’t surprised when a red pickup rolled out into the open from behind one of them.

The car stopped, facing them. Two men, wearing masks, sat up front. He didn’t see Christopher.

The man next to the driver got out and aimed his gun at Akeem. “Put the money down.”

He gave the briefcase that was in his right hand to Taylor instead. He wanted to keep his gun hand free. Despite their demands to come unarmed, he hadn’t thought walking into a situation like this without a single weapon would be a good idea.

“Let us see the boy first,” he called back.

After a stare-off that lasted a full minute, the man finally nodded and called over his shoulder, “Show him the brat.”

Another minute passed before a rail-thin man stepped forward from behind a boulder on the other side of the road, holding Christopher by the shoulders in front of him.

“Mom?” Christopher’s face was smudged with dirt.

“Don’t worry, honey. I’m here,” Taylor said, then whispered, “That’s Jake,” to Akeem, moving that way already.

“Not yet. Stay there.”

She glanced back at him, confusion and anxiety on her face, but stopped.

“You—” The first guy indicated Akeem with his gun. “Stay where you are.” Then he indicated Taylor. “You bring the money to me and you can have the kid.”

Akeem hesitated, hating the whole setup. Another man appeared from behind another boulder, gun drawn and pointed at him. And he figured they must have more, at least one more, their ace in the hole.

The men were looking at each other, eyes darting in silent communication. Akeem watched them carefully, not liking the mood in the air. Something was up, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. And he had little leverage to bargain for time or anything else, as he was overwhelmingly outgunned, with Taylor and Christopher now smack in the middle of the crossfire should anything happen.

He needed a moment to assess and think, try to figure out what the men were playing for. But Taylor didn’t seem willing to wait any longer. She stepped back and grabbed the second briefcase from him before he could say anything, and was already moving forward again.

“Go slowly,” he called after her, keeping his voice low enough so the men wouldn’t hear what he said. “If anything goes wrong, just hit the ground. Use the briefcases for cover.” Then, because she looked like she needed to hear it, he added, “In a few minutes, you’ll have Christopher.”

But, in fact, that was not what happened.

The rumble of choppers drifted in from the distance, freezing everyone to their spots as they scanned the sky. The sound intensified, came nearer, and within a minute
two police helicopters were swooping in, filling the air with dust when they dipped low.

And all hell broke loose on the ground.

Akeem dived for Taylor, brought her to the ground, propped the metal-sided suitcases in front of them as bullets filled the air. Then had to get right on top of her to keep her there, since she was determined to get away from him and go for Christopher through all the hellish chaos.

Since some of the kidnappers had rifles and opened fire on the choppers, the cops had no choice but to shoot back.

“Stay down!” He had to shout to be heard over the choppers and the gunfire. “He’s going to need you alive.”

But instincts overtook common sense and any logic he could have used on her. She clawed at him. “Let me go!” Wild dogs couldn’t have kept her from her son.

But he had to, in order to keep her alive. Her lithe body writhed under him, but she wasn’t looking at him; her eyes were on her boy. Keeping her restrained took both hands, so he couldn’t go for his weapon. Which might have saved them. The kidnappers were focused on firing at the choppers and paid scant attention to the two of them, neither of whom they considered an immediate danger.

“They aren’t going to hurt the boy as long as we have the money. We need to get out of here,” he said directly in her ear. “Taylor, look at me.”

She did, but only to shoot him a look of fury. “Let. Me. Go!”

He couldn’t, not even knowing how much she hated him for it at the moment.

“I can get him!” She fought him any way she could, aiming a kick that could have disabled him if he hadn’t rolled out of the way, pulling her along.

“Too dangerous,” he said, knowing that in this moment there was probably little he could say to talk sense into her.

“I don’t care. You don’t understand.”

“I understand.” He got her hands under control with effort.

“Let me go. He’s my son.” Desperation distorted her face. “I’m not you. You left your family behind. I won’t do that.”

That last barb hit home and hit deep, but he hung on to her tighter, even as she kicked him in the shin.

The dust and tears mixed to become mud on her face. When he thought she was tiring from her struggle at last, he let go with one hand, crawled backward, pulling one of the briefcases after him, holding it up for cover, dragging her with his other hand. She had enough presence of mind to grab the other briefcase. He half expected her to clobber him over the head with it, but she held it up to give them more cover.

Getting back to the car was out of the question—too
far. He scampered toward the nearest boulder that was large enough to block bullets.

An eternity passed before they made it there.

He pressed her into an indentation in the rock and blocked her body with his. The choppers were coming lower, stirring up dust, destroying visibility on the ground. He couldn’t guarantee that they would be recognized from above and not be shot at.

He kept his gun silent for the same reason. The cops might shoot back at anyone who fired. Plus, in all the dust, he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t hit Christopher instead of the bad guys.

Taylor struggled against his back, probably for a glimpse of her son. He eased forward a few inches so she could see for herself that there wasn’t much to be seen. But the small movement did give him a view through a gap between two boulders. One of the pickups was driving away. One of the choppers followed.

Then another pickup pulled away from behind a boulder and tore down the road, in the direction he and Taylor had come from. And another, going a different way. All in all, five identical pickups raced from their hidden positions in different directions, and the two police choppers were not enough to cover them.

By the time they were left alone in the settling dust, he was beginning to understand the kidnappers’ plan. He moved forward carefully, gun in hand, Taylor rushing from behind him, trying to read the spent shells on the ground and the tire tracks. He took his time searching through the area, but couldn’t tell which pickup had
taken Christopher. The boot prints in the dust were a mess. Jake Kenner had probably picked up the boy and tossed him in his car, anyway. There wouldn’t be clean prints of a boy and a man, leading to tire tracks.

“He’s gone.” Taylor stood on the spot where they had last seen the boy, her eyes dark with pain, her voice hollow.

The events of the past few minutes stood like a minefield between them. She wouldn’t look at him, just kept searching the jumble of prints on the ground. Minutes passed before she straightened and turned her attention to him. “How did the police know that we were here?”

He hated the accusation in her voice. “Not from me.” But he recalled Gary talking to the cops for a while that morning. Could be he didn’t like the idea of Taylor going to their son’s rescue with another man.

“Did either of the cops touch you in any way, a pat on the shoulder, whatever? Give you anything?”

She shook her head and wiped her forehead. The place certainly lived up to its name. The giant white-gray boulders did a great job radiating the heat of the sun.

He played the morning back in his mind. “Gary?”

She shook her head again, but then after a moment said, “He gave me a Thermos of coffee. It’s in the car.” They’d been way too wired on the drive over to have more caffeine. “Do you think he would—” She couldn’t finish the sentence, the pain of betrayal thickening her voice.

Same as she’d used on him just minutes ago.

Which stung, because, by God, he had never betrayed her. “You can trust me.”

He waited for some acknowledgment, anything. A nod.

She was looking at the ground again.

He let another couple of seconds pass before he grabbed up the briefcases. The dust the choppers had blown around tasted bitter in his mouth as it grated between his teeth. “Let’s get back. There’s nothing more we can do here.”

He carried both briefcases, slowed his gait to hers. On the way here, he could barely keep up. But now she walked as if all life had been sucked out of her. He hated that he’d been here and hadn’t been able to do anything. To have her son within arm’s reach then lose him again was obviously killing her.

Emotions swirled in his gut, rage against Jake Kenner and the rest of his cronies. Rage that had no outlet, because they weren’t here. His heart broke for Christopher. The kid had to be scared to death. And Akeem was scared for him, to be honest. Added to that was another emotion, for Taylor. But Taylor wouldn’t let him comfort her. She was shutting him out.

He stole a look at her face, and it was etched in misery.

“As long as we still have the money, they won’t hurt him,” he said. Unless they’d gotten spooked by the cops and decided to call off the whole operation, cut their losses before they were caught. He wouldn’t tell her that, but it was something he had to prepare for.

The walk to the Navigator seemed twice as long. And gained them little. He took in the shot-up tires, every single one of them, and recalled the pickup that had taken off this way. They wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

“Let’s get inside. The air conditioner will still be working.”

“Are we stuck here?” She broke out of her numb state only long enough to ask that. She slid into her seat while he tossed the briefcases in the back.

“The cops know where we are. They’ll come and get us when we don’t show up back at the ranch. They’ll come to investigate the scene of the shootout, anyway. There are cars on their way, I’m sure. The choppers just got here ahead of them.”

He reached for the Thermos first thing after he walked around from the back and got in, and now he emptied the contents to the ground before closing the car door, starting the engine and turning on the air conditioner. Then he took the damn Thermos apart. Was it possible they’d been bugged and tracked?

“Why would Gary talk? I told him what would happen if he…” She bit back the rest, fingering the Thermos’s top, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Could be the cops went around to his place again after I left him yesterday. Maybe they had more questions and he cracked under pressure. Or maybe he didn’t trust me with you and Christopher.”

He took the silver insert out, but found nothing between that and the outer shell, nothing in the cap. He put the cap back on and tossed the whole thing to the floor in the back. The transmitter didn’t really matter at this stage. The damage was done.

“He didn’t trust me,” she said. “He wanted to be here. I should have—” She shook her head.

The half-finished sentence had him clenching his jaw. She should have what? Come with Gary? Because that drunk idiot would have been better than Akeem? Because he was her ex and the boy’s father? Because Akeem had no business being here with her?

And what if she was right? That thought had him clenching his teeth harder. Because he
had
failed. They didn’t have Christopher.

“Whatever happened, happened. We are going to focus on what we need to do to have the best outcome of what happens next.”

Inshallah, his uncles would have said. Accept Allah’s will in everything; they had told him that countless times during those four years he had spent with his grandfather in the Arabian Desert after his mother’s death.
Trust in Allah and keep your camels watered.
In other words, don’t worry about things you have no power to change, but be prepared.

“I’ll call Flint.” She pulled the cell phone from her back pocket, pushed some buttons, furrowed her brow. “I can’t make a call.” Frustration crackled in her voice. “I think it’s fixed so that they can call me, but I can’t call anyone.” Then the anger seemed to drain out of her as she went pale the next moment. “Do you think he got hurt?”

There had been some blood in the dirt, which she might or might not have seen. Akeem sure as anything wasn’t going to bring it up.

“No way.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled away almost immediately. The car was filled with the tension between them.

“The cops wouldn’t shoot anywhere near him,” he said to set her at ease. “And the kidnappers were aiming up, at the choppers. No way any of them could have hit him by accident.”

A few moments passed while she stared blankly through the windshield. Then her chest rose with the deep breath she drew. Her eyes hardened as she pulled herself straighter in her seat and turned to him at last. “We are going to get him back.”

“Yes, we are.”

A long moment passed with silent communication, acknowledging what had happened as well as the need to move past it for Christopher’s sake.

“I hate just sitting here,” she said.

Which didn’t turn out to be a long-term problem. The cell phone in her back pocket rang the next second.

“S
AY GOODBYE TO YOUR SON
,” the voice on the other end was shouting.

“Please don’t do this.” Instantly, adrenaline was racing through her veins, clenching her whole body together. Fear clasped her heart, blood drumming in her ears. “Please.” She swallowed her tears and struggled for control. She needed to remain coherent. “I didn’t talk to the cops, I swear. Please. I don’t know how they found us. I’m still here. I still have the money.” That was what they needed. She had to keep reminding them of that.

“You made a big mistake,” the voice sneered, still hard with anger. “It’s over.”

The world disappeared from around her for a sec
ond, her vision fading to black before coming back again. Christopher was her life. She couldn’t lose Christopher.

“Please,” she begged, crying now. “I have the money. You’ll get everything you want.”

A long silence followed on the other end of the line. She held her breath, unsure if the man was still there or if he’d tossed the phone without bothering to click it off.

But then words came that allowed her lungs to fill with air again. “I’ll call you back tomorrow. If you go within a mile of another cop, your little bastard will be dead.”

“Is he hurt? How is he? Let me talk to him,” she pleaded but he did click off this time. The line was dead.

She let her head drop onto the dashboard and struggled with her tears and for control for long minutes before she could collect herself enough to tell Akeem what had happened.

“We better get out of here.” He was opening his door already.

“How?” There was no way they could fix the car.

“On foot. You can bet that sooner or later the cops will show up. And when they do, they’ll have plenty of questions for us. If the kidnappers are monitoring us somehow…” He looked around and scanned the horizon. “It’d be better for now if we kept our distance from the police.” He slid to the ground. “We don’t want the kidnappers to see us anywhere near the cops.”

“Where are we going?” She followed him to the back where he was unloading some serious gear: two large duffel bags.

He grabbed the first-aid kit from the backseat and shoved it into one of them. “Back to the boulders.”

“Are we going to spend the night out here? What’s in those bags?” she asked.

“Supplies I usually carry when I ride out to camp. I put them in this morning—I didn’t even know why I was putting them in at the time.” He shook his head.

Camping. He did that now and then, rode out to Hell’s Porch for days at a time. Flint had told her that. She wondered if he missed the times he’d spent with his grandfather in the desert, although he’d always been tight-lipped about those years. He’d never forgiven his grandfather for the way the old sheik had treated his mother.

“So, how well do you know this place?”

“I know some of it.” He swung the bags over his shoulders. “It’s too vast to be thoroughly known by any one man.”

She could certainly believe that. “Won’t the police come to the boulders, too?” she asked after a moment, surprised that they weren’t there already. Probably still following the pickups.

“Probably, but I want to take another look at the tracks. We need to be going in some direction, might as well follow one of the tracks and at least have a chance of ending up somewhere close to Christopher.”

That made sense. She could almost forgive him for keeping her from Christopher back there. Almost. “I’ll carry something, too,” she offered.

“The money.”

He handed her the briefcases, and she grabbed them, ignoring when their fingers brushed together.