Whisper of Revenge (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 4) (20 page)

And then it struck him that there was one painting he could
save.  Or maybe this was the moment meant for him to really let it – and her –
go.  Eyes watering, he looked toward it as he started for the front door.  What
he saw had him stopping involuntarily.

A hole had been blasted through her head.  Gunshot?  Blood,
or only red paint, streamed from the wound.

Rage choked Elias as much as the smoke did.  He ran to the
front door, handed the lockbox to his neighbor, took a breath and went back in
for the painting.  Maybe, in dying again, Michelle could tell them something.

By the time Sean Holbeck arrived, Elias stood fifty yards
from his house watching as firefighters wet down the garage and the surrounding
trees.  It was far too late for the house.

Holbeck walked over and looked at the painting, lying on the
grass.  “What the hell—?”  Then he growled out an obscenity.  “That’s Michelle
Thomsen, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Holbeck stared for a minute.  “This guy
really
hates
you.”

Elias laughed, until he started coughing instead.

Hannah.  For all Daniel’s precautions, Elias needed to be
with her.

*****

Hannah hadn’t realized how empty the house would feel once
Elias was gone.  For all the emotional distance she had tried to keep, she
hadn’t convinced even herself.  He’d been her rock, and now she was alone.

Her heart had leaped at the idea the ‘something special’
left at Elias’s house might be Ian, but logic squelched hope before it took
root.  He was playing with them, that’s all.  The something special was
probably, in truth, something shocking.  Another vicious swat at Elias.

Forty-five minutes after leaving, he called.  Hannah knew
exactly how long it had been, because she’d been watching the second hand sweep
around the wall clock in the kitchen.

She snatched up the phone.  “Elias?”

“My house is gone.  Burned down.”

“What?” she whispered, aghast.  “Even your studio?”

“Especially my studio.”  Darkness infused his voice. 
“That’s where the fire started.  By the time I got here, he’d had plenty of
time to slip away.”

“All your work.”  Maybe he’d been the original target, but
she couldn’t help believing this wouldn’t have happened if not for her.

“You haven’t heard from him?” he asked, as if he was more
worried about her than he was his losses.  Was that even possible, or would it
all hit him later?  Even if that was true, Hannah felt a coal of warmth at his
caring.

“No.”

“Firefighters are still working to wet down the
surroundings.  They won’t leave until they’re sure the fire is out.  I’m on my
way.  I don’t like you being alone.”

His tension sounded stretched tight enough to snap.  She
opened her mouth to remind him she would undoubtedly have to go alone, anyway,
when the kidnapper called.  But Elias was gone.

Not two minutes later, the second cell phone rang again. 

She hadn’t thought she could be any more afraid than she
already was, but a new spurt of terror squeezed her heart and lungs until her
head swam.  Even so, she hastily picked up the phone Emily had brought to her
from Daniel and dialed.  “I think it’s him.”

“Okay,” Daniel said.  “Go.”

Musical phones.  She picked up the one that was ringing.

“Hello?”  How ridiculously normal that sounded.

“Same deal as last time,” the muffled voice told her.  “You
walk out of the house, set your phone down on the porch rail where I can see
it, and get in your car.  You
do
have the money?”

“Yes.”

“Keep this line open.  I’ll give you instructions as we go.”

“Yes.  Okay.”

With the screen having gone black on the extra phone, she
couldn’t tell if the connection with Daniel was still open, but she had to
trust it was.  She slipped it in her pocket and walked out the front door,
lifting her own high so he could see, if he was really here, and placed it on
the railing.  Then she reached back inside for the duffel bag with the money.

Stuffed in a similar bag, Ian wouldn’t have weighed nearly
as much, she thought with a shudder.

Hannah unlocked the back of her Highlander and set the
duffel on the cargo floor, then slammed the rear hatch before getting in behind
the wheel.  She set his phone on the seat, the phone Daniel gave her in a
molded nook that usually held CDs or miscellaneous junk.  The engine started
without hesitation and she backed toward the street.

“Which way?”

“Go to Schooner and turn north.”

“North on Schooner,” she repeated, before realizing in a
panic she couldn’t do that with each bit of instructions or he’d become suspicious.

Would Daniel be close behind her?

Her chest ached with fear, some of which was reserved for
Elias, who would reach her house to find her gone.

*****

Daniel pursued via Spruce Street, which paralleled Schooner
a block over.  Through the phone he heard engine sounds, surrounding traffic,
once a burst of laughter or voices that had probably come from a group emerging
from one of the restaurants or the beer pub popular with tourists.  Spruce
Street stayed quiet evenings; all the action was on Schooner, closest to the
beach and tourist central.

He turned over ideas about tonight’s destination, which
wasn’t necessarily productive since the asshole could have her suddenly turning
again and heading for the highway.  But there were a couple of possibilities this
direction that might be smart choices for a kidnapper wanting to make an
exchange amid confusion.

The Surfside would be coming up on Hannah’s left in about a
quarter mile.  It was the biggest hotel in town until Bresler’s new resort over
the point opened.  Dating back to the sixties, the Surfside was two-story, an
ugly, elongated structure allowing every room to have either a ground-level
patio or balcony looking out at the beach and ocean.  Three or four
pass-throughs interrupted the length.  At one end of the Surfside, the Waves
Restaurant would still be busy tonight.  The parking lot was large, the
lighting only so-so – Daniel had talked repeatedly to the management about that
without results – and the hotel’s beachfront was vast, rocky and picturesque in
daylight.  At night, it was just plain dark.  There might be beach fires,
couples taking romantic strolls, sea lions barking toward the point.  A lot of
places to hide, a lot of ways to escape.  Just beyond was the Sun ’N Surf, a
cheap, family hotel that had hung on despite the climbing value of waterfront
property.

Alternatively, there was a community park down this way, not
huge but taking up a city block.  Public restrooms that should be locked this
time of night, but who knew?  A playground that was the main attraction along
with a chainlink enclosed tennis court and some concrete basketball courts as
well as a smaller treed area with picnic tables.  Another parking lot.  A
couple streetlights on this end, but mostly dark beyond.  He and his officers
had had to round up teenagers partying beneath the trees often enough.

Still no sound from Hannah’s end.

A faint buzz had him reaching for the second phone he
carried, set on vibrate.  A text from Sean.

Didn’t tell you Michelle painting mutilated
.

Mutilated?  What did that mean?  Slashed, or—?  Daniel shook
his head, still sickened to know Elias’s house had been burned to the ground.  
Daniel was one of the few people privileged to have seen the artist’s huge,
light-filled studio lined with cabinets designed to store empty canvases, paint
supplies, frames, and every piece of unsold work he’d kept from the time he was
a teenager.  Drawers packed with folders full of sketches, hundreds of them. 
The house, beautiful as it had been, could be replaced.  The rich body of his
work was irreplaceable.  So much he’d accomplished wiped out of existence. 
Daniel doubted it had really hit Elias yet.

Another buzz.

Burton on his way to town
.

There was his answer.  Right now, all he cared about was
Hannah.

And then Daniel heard garbled words, followed by her
strained voice.  “Which end?”

The Surfside?  Or the park?  Daniel took a left at the next
corner, afraid he’d lose her if he didn’t regain a visual on her vehicle.

*****

She was hyperventilating.  How could she repeat out loud,
“The Surfside?”  As if that wouldn’t be obvious.

“What if there isn’t anyplace to park?” she tried.  “It
looks awfully crowded.”

There was another, smaller motel next door to the Surfside,
and a couple restaurants, but at least that should give Daniel an idea.

“Follow instructions.”

She’d been right; the lot was packed.  She had to stop a
couple times to let people walk in front of her car.  It felt surreal, her
enclosed in a dark bubble, trying to deliver $250,000 in cash to a kidnapper, while
everyone she saw was laughing, talking.  Calling goodbyes across the parking
lot.  Happy.

Please let Ian be here.  Please.

If only Elias were with her.

Some things you had to do alone.

She cruised down a long line of parked cars.  And there, at
the very end of the hotel part of the building, was a single parking spot
facing the beach, blocked by an orange cone.  It was so dark down here.  Nobody
coming and going, she realized, the nearest sodium lamp far enough away she’d
have scuttled for her room if she were a guest.  Probably employees were
condemned to park down here.  Absurdly, she put on her turn signal before
switching it off again.  That was the moment when when her headlights exposed
the handicapped-only sign.

If only the worst she had to worry about was a ticket.  She
drove right over the cone.

Once parked, engine off, she said, “I’m here.  Now what?”

“Get the money, then walk straight onto the beach toward the
ocean.”

She almost forgot Daniel’s phone and had to open and close
the driver’s door again to grab it.

“What was that?” the voice asked sharply.

“I…I forgot your phone.  I’m…”  No, she would not tell him
she was scared, or rattled.  “Nothing.”

She heaved the duffel bag up, using the strap to cross her
body.  It seemed to get heavier every time she lifted it.  She took a deep
breath and murmured, “Straight ahead.”

“Who are you talking to?”  This time, he sounded agitated.

“Myself!” she exclaimed.

“Just walk, and shut up.”

She crossed a short paved area that held several outdoor
showers for guests to rinse themselves before they went to their rooms.  Then
her feet sank into sand and she headed toward the roar of the surf, her eyes
gradually adjusting to the darkness enough for her to see the white line where
waves broke.  Beach fires burned off to her left, closer to town proper, where
tumbles of driftwood logs offered seats and material to burn.  Hannah had this
image of people sitting around those fires, roasting marshmallows, telling
stories, letting themselves be mesmerized by the sparks climbing into the
night, soothed by the rhythmic beat of the ocean.  She and Ian had never done
that.  She thought how much he’d enjoy that, even if he was also scared enough
to want to snuggle right up against mommy ’cuz he might get cold, never because
he was scared.

“Turn directly right.”

She could barely make out the words but obeyed.

“Right again.”

The instructions kept coming.  He was taking her toward the
motel with small cottages north of the Surfside.  But the lights still seemed
far away, the darkness dense.

“Stop.”

*****

Daniel jogged onto the dark beach, two other officers doing
the same, but spread out to form a net.  Others waited in parking lots up and
down the beach, within reasonable walking distance of Hannah’s current
location.

For a night so clear, it was astonishingly dark.  The moon
was barely a sliver.  The stars were beautiful, spread across the velvet
darkness, but useless as a source of illumination.  The surf drowned out most
other sounds.  He had an unpleasant flashback to the night a young girl had
gone missing from her bed at the Sun ‘N Surf, scaring the crap out of her
parents.  She’d gotten turned around out here, on this same beach, frightened
by the vocal sea lions.  Searchers’ voices had been carried away by the
breeze.  They’d found her unharmed, their worst fears unrealized.  That night,
the true malevolence had been elsewhere, as a serial killer broke into the
cottage where Sophie had slept alone.

Daniel shook off the memory.  No help now.

A muffled voice came from the phone.  Daniel couldn’t make
out a word. 
Help me, Hannah. 
But he didn’t know how she could with the
guy already suspicious.  She had to be thinking Ian might be there, only a few
feet from her.

And then he blinked.  Had he seen a flash of light?

*****

“One flash.  Come to me.”

There it was.  She swung north – sort of north – trying to
pinpoint exactly where the quick flash of light had come from.  It hadn’t
been…twenty yards away?

“I won’t give you the money if you don’t let Ian go,” she
said fiercely.

“You’ll do as I tell you, or I’ll kill him.”

Hannah’s foot caught and, unbalanced by the duffel bag, she
tumbled forward, landing with a cry of pain.  She’d come down on rough rocks. 
Her hands and knees had to be shredded.  Her hands felt wet.  A tidepool?  No,
blood, she realized, and didn’t care.  She made an awkward attempt to get to
her feet, but suddenly a hand had seized the strap of the duffel bag and was
yanking.

“Mommy?  Mommy, are you here?” cried her son in a thin
voice.

“I’m here!  Ian!  Where are you?”

“Let go of the money,”
he
snarled, his voice no
longer muffled.