Kidnapped (7 page)

Caroline cracked open one eye to see him, but Luke merely looked back at her as he dialed his partner. “Jackie, I'm here and they aren't. Do you have anything?”

“Nothing so far. I'm calling the hospitals from Benton to Atlanta. Give me another twenty minutes, and I'll have them covered. As a precaution, I went ahead and put the description and plates for both of their vehicles out to the state patrols.”

“Thanks. I'll call you back in twenty minutes.” He hung up.

“I didn't panic,” Caroline whispered.

She'd calmed down enough the involuntary twitch beside her right eye had stopped. “You were just getting close,” Luke said kindly. “I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier. Talk me through the plans for this weekend.”

She ran both her hands through her blond hair. “I talked to Benjamin when he and Sharon were leaving the clinic, just before 4 p.m. They were going home to finish packing before driving in. Mark was checking a house under construction and then driving from there. One of his partners said Mark left the house about five thirty. I've got notes of the calls I made.”

“Go get them please.”

Luke watched her leave the room. She'd have a list; she liked to be organized about problems and decisions. He glanced around the room for the first time and realized she had the room transformed into a bit of an office, stacks of papers neatly arranged on the table, schoolbooks turned so she could read the titles on the spines.

Caroline returned with a spiral-bound notebook and handed it to him. “I was using the second phone line for the calls so I wouldn't block this number.”

“Good thinking.” There were two pages of small print: Friends. Family. Work. Hospitals. Police. As he read the neat handwriting he saw she'd covered most of the bases. “Benjamin and Sharon left the clinic about 3:50; Al Jenson talked with Mark at 5:30. It's now 9:18. You've found no one who saw or spoke to them between those times?”

Caroline shook her head.

“Mark would have called if he was going to be this late. You know Sharon. I assume the same would be true for her?”

“She'd call me.”

“Therefore, they aren't in a place where they can call or the call can't get through. A cell tower near Benton having problems might explain it. There may be a problem dialing into this building. Have you had any incoming calls tonight?”

“No.”

Luke opened his phone, called Jackie, and asked her to call Mark's main number. The phone rang. “Okay, that's not the problem.”

“They must have been in accidents. They could have driven here twice over by now.” Caroline crossed her arms and rubbed at her forearms. “I've been calling the hospitals . . .”

“It's possible, but the cops would have seen an accident. Maybe Mark on a back road could be missed, but not Sharon coming in on the interstate. Jackie's getting nothing talking to hospitals either.” He looked at her list. “You called the Benton sheriff.”

“He had an officer drive by their house and confirm that Sharon and Benjamin appeared to have left. He checked my place too since it was on the way. His patrols haven't seen either car.”

“The clinic doesn't get an answer when they page Sharon?”

“No.” Caroline started rocking ever so slightly on the couch. “Something has happened to them.”

“Something didn't go as planned.” Luke reached out to touch her knee and stop her movements. He was worried about Sharon and Mark, but it was a work-the-problem worry; Caroline concerned him more. He'd be managing her as much as the search. She wasn't accustomed to a crisis like this, and only a cynic would want to push someone out of her sheltered life to learn the coping skills this would require. “Relax, that's an order.”

Her gaze touched his for a moment and immediately shifted away as a blush chased the pallor from her cheeks. A year of dating her and he still had the bad habit of embarrassing her.

He quietly sighed and moderated his voice. “It's going to be okay, Caroline. If Sharon and Ben coming in first had car trouble, Mark would have seen their car and stopped to help. I'm betting they're together. And I'm willing to bet on a Labor Day weekend it is possible to go over three hours hassling with the system to get a tow truck and a phone that works.”

He checked her list one last time and made a couple decisions. “I want you to get a folder or sack and walk through the house here, collect any address books, calendars, day planners, church phone directories, or work phone sheets you can find. If it has a phone number on it, bring it.

“Everyone is a creature of habit: he'll call a garage he used in the past, a rental car company, even a credit card company that provides roadside service. We'll find what we need somewhere in those numbers. After that, get your purse and shoes. We'll drive the interstate back to Benton.”

She squeezed his hand. “Thanks. I'm glad you're here. Give me a couple minutes.” She got up to head to Mark's study.

Luke waited until Caroline left the room. He called Jackie back. “I need someone to sit here and listen for the phone who can watch a couple movies and stay awake. Someone who doesn't panic if there's bad news to relay. Does a name suggest itself?”

“Try Mary Treemont. She works night shifts for the dispatch center. She's off this weekend and would do it for babysitting money if you throw in a bonus for the last-minute call. I use her as backup all the time. Hold on, I'll find her number.”

Luke closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. His family was missing.
At least Caroline has the smarts to look as scared as she feels.
He'd freeze up like she was doing if he let himself feel it.

Jackie read the number off to him and he added it to Caroline's list. “We're heading back to Benton. Odds are still good that this is car trouble, but if that changes, can you be ready to run the search from here? I'll leave a packet on the counter,” he said calmly, knowing what he was saying. A missing persons case for an entire family would require dozens of law enforcement officers, hundreds of searchers, thousands of flyers.

“Luke, you know that's a yes. As soon as you feel you need to escalate this, call me.”

“It's appreciated, Jackie.” He selected pictures from the shelves and removed the backs to retrieve the photos. He put together a spread of individual and family photos into a folder. “Give me a couple hours and let's see what we find in Benton.” The script for a missing persons case was one they had both run in the past. This wouldn't get that far, not if he could help it. “Change of subject: If there's a solid hit on Frank, call me. I'd like to know that situation is dealt with tonight too.”

“I will.”

Luke heard Caroline move from the study to look in the kitchen drawers by the phone. “Let me call you at the bottom of the hour from the interstate.” Luke hung up and then used Caroline's list and dialed one more number.

“Benton sheriff's office. May I help you?”

“This is FBI Special Agent Luke Falcon. I need to speak with the sheriff. It's urgent.”

Chapter Six

L
uke kept the car air conditioner on to make it easier to stay alert. Caroline leaned forward in the passenger seat, the shoulder seat belt pulled tight, scanning the opposite lanes of traffic going back into Atlanta. “If they are off the road, it's hard to see across the lanes.”

“We'll go as far as Sandy Hill, turn around and drive back toward Atlanta in those lanes as they would have done,” Luke replied. The speeds were picking up and the hour was growing late. It would only take one driver with a bit too much to drink to cause a horrific accident. “If we don't find something between Sandy Hill and Atlanta, we'll search the stretch from Sandy Hill to Benton.”

“I should have called you hours before. In the dark, this is impossible.”

“We'll stop at pull offs and show the photos around. Benjamin is not going to make an hour-plus journey at the start of his vacation without one stop for a soda, a restroom break, and an ice cream cone.”

He didn't add that staff at rest stops had probably changed shifts, that a mom with a young boy was the norm, that Benjamin had likely changed from the clothes Caroline remembered from school before leaving home. Finding them on this road was a long shot; it was just better odds than the next option on his mental list.

“What do you think happened?”

Luke glanced at the dashboard clock. 10:05. Caroline had waited longer than he expected before asking the question. He didn't plan to tell her what he thought. She was definitely in the civilian side of the world, and the law enforcement answers would just turn her pallor a deeper gray. “I don't know, Caroline. Right now we have too few precious facts.”

She went quiet for too long for his comfort. He glanced her way. “Tell me about this month,” he asked.

“What do you want to know?”

He just wanted her talking rather than brooding. “Start somewhere and catch me up on what's been going on with everyone this last month. Has anything unusual happened?”

“Not like last fall, if that's what you're really asking.”

Her fast reaction told him a lot about how last fall still stung in her memories. “As I said at the time—the only reputation you've got with me is that you notice things. And frankly, right now I'm hoping you've got a really good memory as well.”

She shifted in the seat. “Sharon had her first patient who gave birth to triplets. She's carrying photos around like she was the one to deliver them. I think Mark was in Atlanta a couple times to meet with his partners, but otherwise he was working out of the Benton office. Benjamin has been talking about the tree house Mark is helping him design and anticipating seeing the Braves game this weekend.”

“Anyone new around their place? A handyman, a landscaper?”

“No. Mark and Sharon have been talking about starting work on the pool they want to add to the house, but they haven't done more than Mark developing the blueprint for it. Mark hired a couple new people at his office, and I think Sharon hired another nurse.”

Luke glanced over at Caroline. She'd about circled the top of her Styrofoam cup with fingernail marks, and the cup was going back around for a second circle of impressions. “You've got a good memory for details; it helps.”

“I don't know how. I don't know where they are.”

He didn't know how to explain it, but he listened to her words and relaxed. She reacted to trouble as if she had an antenna tuned to it, and nothing in her memories concerned him. “Trouble tends to advertise itself. A normal routine is good news. If you'd said one of them had recently had a flat tire while the car was in a parking lot, or someone tried to break into one of their offices, I'd be worried.”

“I'm scared, Luke.” He covered her hand and just held it. She finally sighed. “I don't do trouble very well.”

“We'll find them.” Luke reached for his cell phone in his pocket and handed it to her. “Why don't you call Mary Treemont and see if there have been any calls at the condominium. Check if she's been able to figure out that hundred button remote control sufficiently to get her movie to play.”

Caroline accepted the phone. She looked relieved to have something to do. She punched in the numbers.

Luke watched the lanes of oncoming traffic flow by, listening to Caroline. She was trying so hard to stay hopeful and positive as she dealt with this, but it was like watching someone standing on a ladder realizing the rungs below them were breaking. She was scared.

And so was he.

It was wearing him out keeping the conversation going, to not let himself slip into the silence he preferred that would fill this car if Jackie were beside him and not Caroline.
What do I think happened to them? I think they're in real trouble.
Two vehicles with a common destination did not disappear without a trace. However this ended, it was not going to be all good news.

I hope I'm simply being morbid without cause.
Caroline would regather her hope this would work out soon and positively; he was already bracing himself to hear the worst. And the realization that he'd likely be the one breaking the terrible news to her was not something he wanted to dwell on.

Failure is not an option, Lord. I've spent my life trying to avoid a big failure, and it's going to hit in my personal life and happen to my family—the one thing that the rest of my life hinges on. Seconds right now are clicking by painfully like the impact of a thousand fine cuts. I can handle a few shocks; I can't handle a catastrophe.

He glanced at Caroline.
And neither can she.

* * *

They stopped at each interchange along I-20, showing photos in the fast-food and sit-down restaurants. Luke made a point of showing each waitress a photo of Mark Falcon. His cousin made an impression with his good looks, and this was one evening Luke didn't mind exploiting that fact.

He got two maybes and one proposition that if he was related she'd love to have his card. He gave the waitress his card and his partner's number.

“It's after eleven; where do we try next?” Caroline joined him back at the car, her hands around a super-size soda. She'd come back with candy bars and ice cream cones and big drinks.

Luke had figured out after the third stop that she felt compelled to buy something in exchange for a look at the photo. She'd go broke as a cop. But she had gotten one sympathetic manager to run back his security tape and show them the one car he remembered that matched Mark's. It hadn't been his, but it had been a hopeful moment in an otherwise too quiet night.

“I was thinking we'd show their pictures at the stops between Benton and Sandy Hill, but I think it might be better just to go to Mark and Sharon's house and let you get a look around and maybe figure out what Benjamin is wearing.”