Paula Graves - Chickasaw County Captive

“Carl, it’s me.” Kristen slid behind the wheel of the Impala. “I need your help.”

SAM DIDN’T THINK BURKETT would leave another message before the meeting that evening-the one succinct message he’d sent had been sufficient to set Sam’s nerves on permanent alert, which he suspected had been Burkett’s intention. But he couldn’t take chances, so he checked his cell phone as soon as he got out of his shower.

As he’d expected, nothing from Burkett. But his sister Hannah had left a message. “I’m on my way over.” He glanced at his watch. He barely had time to dress before she would arrive.

He let her in after the first couple of bangs on the door and staggered beneath the force of her tackle-hug.

“Tell me what you want me to do,” Hannah said without preamble, grabbing his hand and dragging him to the sofa. She was five months pregnant and, thanks to hormones, had two speeds these days, high and supersonic.

“There’s nothing to do. The police are all over this, including your cowboy cop. I’m just waiting like everyone else for news.”

Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a load of bull manure.”

“Riley is rubbing off on you.”

“No way you’re just waiting around for news, Sam Cooper. You’re up to something.” She scooted closer. “What is it?”

“If I had a supersecret plan, do you think I’d tell you, the biggest blabbermouth in the family?”

“That was twenty years ago,” she protested. Her eyes widened suddenly. “You’ve heard from the kidnapper! What did he do, break in and leave a note under your pillow? I know he didn’t call the house or Riley would already know about it. Oh! Your cell phone. He called your cell phone!”

Sam stared at his sister, wondering why she wasn’t the cop in the family. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You can’t go by yourself,” she said firmly. “I’ll call Riley. He can back you up-”

He caught her hand before she could pull her cell phone from her jacket pocket. “No, Hannah.”

She shot him a fierce look. “You’re not meeting that bastard alone, Sam. And don’t even try to tell me that’s not what you have in mind, because you never were any good at lying.” Her expression softened. “You’re the white knight, Sam. This family needs a white knight. You can’t go get yourself killed.”

He felt his control beginning to crumble. “He has my baby, Hannah. What else am I supposed to do?”

“Let Riley back you up.”

“I can’t risk it. Stan Burkett is a former cop-”

Hannah’s eyes widened again. “Stan Burkett? The guy whose son-”

“Yes,” he interrupted.

“My God.” Hannah’s expression grew instantly grim. “That explains the note-‘your child for mine.’”

Sam nodded. “He’ll be looking for signs of police presence. He knows how that works. I can’t chance it, not even with Riley. You get that now, don’t you?”

He could see that his sister wanted to argue, but she finally nodded. “What time are you meeting him?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you that.”

She sighed with frustration. “Can you at least tell me if it’s today?”

“If you don’t hear from me by midnight tonight, you can tell Riley what’s going on.”

“But we won’t know where to look for you.”

“I’ll leave a message for you. What to do in case you don’t hear from me.” It wasn’t a bad idea, really. If something went wrong, he’d want people to know where to look to get back on Burkett’s trail. He could use a free text message scheduling service to leave messages for Kristen and his family. Just to be safe.

Hannah looked as if she still wanted to argue, but she kept her protest to herself, instead pulling him in for a hug. He felt her pregnancy bump against his stomach and smiled in spite of his tension.

“Please be careful,” she said.

“I promise, I will. I’m all Maddy has, you know.”

But that wasn’t true, was it? Maddy had her grandparents, her aunts and uncles. She even had Norah, in a pinch.

And she had Kristen, whether the stubborn detective was ready to admit it or not.

Hannah stayed with Sam a little longer, distracting him with chatter about all the local gossip and goings-on he’d missed during his years away from Gossamer Ridge. Of all his brothers and sisters, Hannah seemed the one most wedded to their hometown, to the beauty of the mountains and the bounty of Gossamer Lake.

When she’d fallen in love with the cowboy cop who’d saved her life when her Wyoming vacation had gone horribly wrong, there had been little discussion about where they’d end up once they said “I do.” Riley had sold his property to his friend Joe Garrison, loaded his two horses in a trailer behind his truck and headed south to Alabama and a new life with his bride.

Sam wished he could tell Riley what he was doing, he reflected later after Hannah had left. Hell, he wished he could tell Kristen. Lying to her about the text message had bothered him a hell of a lot more than keeping it a secret from the rest of the police. She’d put herself on the line for him and Maddy, more than once. She deserved his trust.

She deserved the truth.

But he couldn’t tell anyone what he had planned. Not until he had Maddy safely back in his arms.

CARL MADISON GOT INTO the passenger seat of Kristen’s Impala and reached for the seat belt. The dashboard clock read seven o’clock on the nose.

“The perimeter’s in place.” Carl told her. “We’re using tracker teams who know the lay of the land. Burkett won’t have a clue they’re there.”

“He’d better not,” Kristen answered, her neck already beginning to ache from the unrelenting tension. After passing most of the afternoon working up background information on Stanhope Burkett, she was worried that Sam’s decision to go it alone might have been the right one after all.

For one thing, Sam’s nemesis was a former St. Louis police officer who probably knew quite a bit about setting traps-and avoiding them. He’d quit the force not long after his son’s death and had spent most of the past ten years off the grid, if the lack of a paper trail was anything to go by.

For a while, he’d popped up here and there, speaking to antiwar groups about what he called the “Kaziristan cover-up”-officers getting away with “friendly fire” murders of the enlisted by blaming the victims. But that paper trail had gone cold four years ago after the embassy siege in Kaziristan had changed public sentiment in favor of more military involvement in the area, not less.

The most recent mention of Stan Burkett she’d found was the one that troubled her most, however. The FBI had noted in passing, on a report regarding possible antimilitary activity among some of the more anarchistic antiwar groups, that a man named Stanhope Burkett had been offering survival training to some of the groups for free.

There was no telling where Stan Burkett was keeping Maddy or how easily he might see through Carl’s carefully positioned perimeter. She had no idea what he’d do if he spotted the trackers or suspected the police were watching.

And worst of all, Sam Cooper was thirty minutes away from walking right into the middle of the whole mess.

She glanced at the clock again. Five after seven. Time seemed to be creeping.

“You holding up okay?” Carl asked.

She nodded. “Just worried.”

“You’ve grown attached to the kid. And her father.”

She didn’t answer, her mind full of the reasons she’d given Sam for walking away. With Maddy in danger and Sam putting his life on the line, she wasn’t nearly as sure now that she was doing the right thing. What if she was turning her back on her best chance at happiness? At a real family?