Catherine Coulter - Riptide

“Use my private line,” Thomas said. “It’s untraceable. Adam, your gun looks good.”

“You’ll like my house,” Adam called after her. “It’s a showcase, it’s the prettiest place you’ve ever seen. Plants don’t like me, but everything else does. I have a housekeeper come in twice a week and she even makes me casseroles.”

Becca turned to face him. “What kind?”

“Tuna, ham and sweet potato, whatever. Do you like casseroles?”

“You bet,” she said.

He heard her laugh as she walked away.

He wanted to hear what she said to Tyler McBride, he really did, but he didn’t move. Neither did Thomas, who stood there leaning against the refrigerator, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m giving her privacy,” Adam said. “It’s tough.”

“Yeah, and you want her to think about your house, don’t you?”

“It’s a very nice house-an old Georgian brick two-story, lovely yard that I pay a big chunk to keep looking good. Remember I told you how my mom talked me into buying the property some four years before, told me it was a good investment. She was right.”

Thomas said, “Parents usually are.”

Adam grunted and looked at his reflection in the gun barrel. “McBride wants her, that’s why he’s called. He wants her to know that he’s still laying claim. Damn, I don’t trust him, Thomas. He’ll use Sam if he has to. He can’t have her.”

Thomas said, grinning now, “I can see the scowl on your face in the barrel of the gun. No, more than a scowl.”

Adam grunted. “How about seriously pissed off?”

What was she saying to Tyler McBride? Worse, what was he saying to her?

In her father’s study, the door closed, Becca was leaning on the big mahogany desk, so pale, so off balance that she felt transparent. She knew that if she looked in a mirror, she wouldn’t see anything at all. “No, Tyler,” she said again. “I can’t believe this.”

“No, Becca, it’s happened. Sam is gone. Gone from his bed when I looked in on him this morning. There was this note pinned to his blanket that said I had to call you, that I could get to you by calling the office of the CIA director. So I did. And now you’ve called.”

“No, Sam can’t be gone,” Becca said, but she knew that he was, she just knew it.

“He wrote in the note that I wasn’t to say a word to anyone, not the local cops, not anyone, just you. He wrote that he’d kill Sam if I said anything.”

She heard his breathing hitch before he said, “Thank God you called, Becca. Jesus, what am I going to do?”

Becca heard the awful deadening fear in his voice, the anger, the helplessness.

“Don’t call Sheriff Gaffney, Tyler. Don’t. Let me think.”

He nearly yelled, “Of course I won’t call Sheriff Gaffney. Do you think I’m nuts?” Then he added, more calmly now, “He wrote that you had to come to Riptide.”

Oh, God, she thought, and said, “Just a second, Tyler, let me get Adam.”

“No!” She nearly dropped the phone he’d yelled so loud. Then she heard him draw a deep breath. “No, Becca, please, not yet. He says if you tell anyone-including your father-he’ll kill Sam. Dammit, I didn’t even know you had a father until the media went nuts over you and him. Jesus, Becca, the guy’s just murdered four more people. He’s got Sam. Do you hear me? That maniac’s got Sam!”

“I know, I know. Read me the entire note, Tyler.”

“Oh God, all right.” He was breathing hard, and she knew he was trying to get control. Finally, his voice more steady, he read: “‘Mr. McBride, you will speak as soon as possible to Rebecca Matlock. To find her, call the office of the director of the CIA. Tell them to inform her that she is to call you immediately, that a life is at stake. Then you will tell her to come to Riptide. You will tell her not to tell anyone, including her father, or else your son is dead. You don’t want him to end up like Linda Cartwright. You have twenty-four hours.’ ”

“How did he sign it?”

“He didn’t sign any name at all. Just what I read to you, that’s it. Oh God, Becca, what am I to do? You know what he did to Linda Cartwright, what he’s done to all those other people. Look at what he did to you. All of Maine is up in arms about Cartwright’s murder.” He waited a beat, then yelled, “Aren’t you listening to me? A fucking Russian agent has got my son!”

“I wonder why he doesn’t want my father to come? It’s my father he’s after. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’ve listened to everything on the news,” Tyler said, calmer now. “It doesn’t make any sense to me, either. Please, Becca, you’ve got to come. If you hadn’t called me, I don’t know what I’d have done.”

“If I come, he’ll hold me to get my father. Then he’ll kill both of us.” She didn’t add that he would also kill Sam. Why wouldn’t he? She was afraid that Sam was already dead, but she wasn’t about to say it aloud. Just the thought nearly brought her to her knees. Not Sam, not that precious little boy. No, she couldn’t fall apart. Think. There had to be something she could do.

“Oh shit, I know he’d try to kill both of you. Yes, I know that. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, Tyler.”

“Please don’t tell that Adam character or your father, please.”

“All right. Not yet, anyway. If I do decide to tell them, I’ll call you first, warn you. I’ll get back to you in three hours, Tyler. Oh God, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I should never have come to Riptide. The man’s crazy, obsessed.”

He didn’t disagree with her, on any of it. “Three hours, Becca. Please, you’ve got to come. Maybe you and I together can trap him. Somehow.”

When Adam came into Thomas’s study five minutes later, he saw her standing at the front window, staring out over the fine green lawn. She was rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers, her shoulders slumped. She looked defeated, beaten down. He frowned.

“What’s going on? Why did McBride have to speak to you?”

She shrugged. “It was just as you thought. He was worried about me, very worried, what with all the stuff on TV.”

“I don’t believe that’s all, is it?”

Then she turned slowly to face him. “Of course it is. The FBI people have just pulled up.” The car was black, the two men were wearing black, their hair was cut short. And Krimakov had taken Sam. He moved fast, too fast, faster than any of them could have imagined. What to do?

“What’s wrong, Becca? You look white around the gills.”

“Not a thing, Adam. It’s Agent Hawley and Agent Cobb. Let’s see what they have to say. I suppose they’re sworn to secrecy about where they’ve come from?”

Adam said as he walked toward the front door, “They would be drawn and quartered if they ever opened their mouths.”

Adam shook the two men’s hands and stepped back. Tellie Hawley said, “It’s good to see you again, Adam. Mr. Matlock, Ms. Matlock. Bet you’re wondering how we got ourselves assigned to this.”

“It did cross my mind,” Thomas said, as he waved them toward the living room.

“Boy, it’s hot out there,” Scratch Cobb said, gave Becca a big smile, and unbuttoned his black suit coat one button. “A very nice house,” Scratch added to Thomas as he walked beside him into the living room. He was looking at a particularly lovely old Tabriz carpet.

“Thank you, Agent Cobb,” Thomas said. “Won’t you be seated?”

After everyone was settled, Agent Hawley said, “Since we were the ones who initially spoke to Ms. Matlock in the hospital, and since I knew you, sir, Mr. Bushman decided we should stay on as the leads. Of course Savich and Sherlock are on it as well, and he approves of that. It doesn’t mean, of course, that the folk here at FBI headquarters are sitting on their hands. They’re not.”