Maggie Price - The Ransom

“Yes.” Kathryn turned. Clay stood across the room, studying the cork board on the wall above Matthew’s desk. Pinned to the board were drawings of odd-shaped horses sketched in a rainbow of crayons. A snapshot of Matthew, grinning ear to ear while propped in the crook of Devin’s arm, was pinned in the board’s center.

She studied Clay, his profile tough, contained, grim. Being with him, having him here when he’d been gone from her life for so long made everything seem even more surreal. Yet she knew his presence was the only thing keeping her sane.

“Do you think Mr. Forbes will call soon?” she asked.

“If he doesn’t, I’ll try him again.” Clay moved to the braided rug beside the bed, crouched and rubbed Abby’s head. The dachshund’s tail worked like a metronome set on high.

“Kat, when did Willa leave for Dallas?”

“Before supper. Matthew and I made pizza….” Her voice caught as she pictured her son’s mischievous grin while he formed pepperoni slices into a happy face. She couldn’t bear the thought that she might never see him grin again. Laugh again.

“After that?” Clay prodded.

She clamped down on emotion. “We watched TV. Later I put Matthew to bed.”

“Then what?”

“I checked the doors.” She paused, thinking. “Poured my glass of wine, then went to bed and read. I couldn’t keep my eyes open so I turned off the light after about ten minutes.”

Clay cocked his head. “You said, ‘I poured my glass of wine.’ Do you always have wine before you go to bed?”

“Yes.” She’d needed something to help her relax when she learned Devin was having an affair with his then leading lady.

“Who knows you always have a glass of wine before bed?”

“I guess Willa. Before we arrived, I asked her to add a couple of bottles of Merlot to her shopping list. She said it was too bad Sam got sick before he had time to stock the wine cellar he’d had built in the basement.”

“Where’s the bottle you filled your glass with last night?”

“The living room. In the cooler behind the bar.”

“Was last night the first time you’d drank from that bottle?”

“No, I opened it the first night I was here.”

“Since you’ve been back, have you woken up sick any other morning?”

“No. Clay, why do you want to know about the wine?”

“Because you said you felt sick this morning and overslept.” He gave Abby a final rub of her ears, then rose. “I don’t think you picked up a bug. More like someone laced your wine.”

Kathryn’s mouth went dry. “That would mean whoever took Matthew knows my habits.”

“And a lot more. If I’m right, the kidnapper knew Willa would be gone. With you drugged, the threat of exposure was minimal. Then there’s Abby.”

Kathryn looked down at the doxie. “What about her?”

“You said she was limping, like she’d been kicked.”

“Yes. You don’t think she was?”

“No. One reason is how she greeted me when I got here. She’d never seen me before, but she trotted over and licked my hand. It’s logical to think she acted the same way when the kidnapper showed up. If Abby knew him, she would have been more welcoming. And if they wanted to keep her quiet, why kick her?”

Kathryn shoved a hand through her hair. “Doing that wouldn’t make sense.”

“You told me Abby would have had a barking fit over being left behind when they took Matthew. The kidnappers couldn’t be sure you’d pour yourself a glass of wine last night or how much you’d drink if you did. So they wouldn’t want any noise that might wake you. The sole threat Abby posed was barking when they left with Matthew. The best way to deal with that would be to give her a shot of a fast-acting sedative. It’d keep her quiet for hours, and cause the limp you saw.”

Guilt descended over Kathryn like clammy heat. “Matthew was virtually unprotected. It would have been nothing for me to have an alarm installed before we arrived here. I could have hired a security company to patrol the ranch—”

“It’s not your fault, Kat.”

“He depended on me to keep him safe. He’s gone because—”

“Some greedy bastard came in here and took him,” Clay said as he gripped her shoulders. “Another thing I learned from Forbes is how committed kidnappers can be. That whomever they plan to take, they take. If you’d had this place secured like Fort Knox, they would have gotten Matthew some other way.”

“Devin has bodyguards,” she tossed back. “I should have hired someone to watch Matthew.”

Clay gave her a firm shake. “Your blaming yourself won’t help your son.”

She gripped his wrists. “I don’t know how to help him.”

“You stay calm, is how.” Clay felt the knots in his gut jerk tighter. Dammit, every hour that went by put Matthew into greater peril. Why hadn’t Forbes called?

Beneath his palms, he felt Kathryn tremble. Her face was chalk-white, her eyes gleamed with a mix of fear and absolute helplessness.

Easing out a breath, he thought about the conclusions he’d come to. If he was right about the wine and the dog, whoever took Matthew had done a lot of research. “Kidnappers,” Forbes had once told Clay, “plan to the last inch.” The articles Clay had read in the Layton Times and People magazine about Devin Mason had mentioned his son’s kidney transplant.

“What type of medicine does Matthew take?”

“An immunosuppressive drug. Transplant patients take them to prevent rejection of their transplanted organ.”

“So, with research, the kidnapper would know that,” Clay reasoned. “This guy came prepared. Maybe he left that way, too.” He looked toward the bathroom. “You said you saw the prescription bottle with Matthew’s medicine. Can you find out if extra pills are missing?”

“I had the prescription refilled two days ago. There should be only two pills gone from the bottle.”

“Count the pills, Kat.”

“You think the kidnapper took some? To give to Matthew?”

“I think we’d be smart to check.” When she started to turn, he held her in place. “Even if all the pills that should be in the bottle are there, it doesn’t mean Matthew won’t get his meds. Not when it’s easy to buy drugs over the Internet.”

“Okay.” Kathryn closed her eyes. “If I could just be sure Matthew’s taking his medicine.”

“It’s my bet he is.” At least Clay hoped so.

His phone rang just as Kathryn stepped into the bathroom. Relief rolled through Clay when he saw Forbes’s name displayed.

That relief lasted only until Forbes advised he was in England, negotiating the release of an earl’s kidnapped wife.

With tension coiling through him, Clay briefed him on Matthew’s abduction. And the conclusions he’d come to.

“I think you’re right about Mrs. Mason and the dog being drugged,” Forbes said in his perpetually calm voice. “And that a check needs to be run on everyone with access to the Cross C.” Clay pictured the gray-haired, scrawny-necked man who never showed emotion, even in the face of impending disaster. Forbes’s air of quiet confidence went a long way to soothing and calming.

For three months, the man had kept Clay sane.

“What about the cell phone the kidnapper left?” Forbes asked. “Can it be traced?”

“No, it’s a brand I’ve never heard of, so I went online and checked it out. The phone’s a disposable one, sold by a company that doesn’t require a purchaser to sign a contract or have a credit card. All someone has to do is walk into any convenience store, lay down cash and they’ve got a phone with a preset amount of calling minutes on it.”

“With no audit trail assigned to the phone there’s no way to trace who bought it. So, that’s a dead end.”