Maggie Price - The Ransom

“That looks like…” Eddie squinted, then looked at Clay. “Is that Kathryn Conner?”

“Mason. It is.” Clay noted that the kid was ogling Kathryn the same way the customers had in the café.

“Ma’s gonna drop into a dead faint when she hears I met Devin Mason’s ex.”

“Put a lid on it,” Clay ground out. Frowning, he watched Kathryn jerk the reins back so sharply the chestnut nearly skidded into the side of his pickup. Before the horse came to a full halt she slid out of the saddle, a movement as graceful as ballet. Still holding the reins, she turned his way.

And Clay’s gut tightened. Her face was pale. Tense. Lines of stress fanned from the corners of her mouth. Shadowy smudges clung beneath her eyes.

Something was wrong. Bad wrong.

“Ma’am.” Oblivious, Eddie dragged off his straw hat and stared with undisguised curiosity at the woman who’d been the talk of Layton for the past weeks. “Welcome to the Double Starr, Mrs. Mason.”

Giving Eddie a vague nod, Kathryn released her grip on the reins. While the chestnut trotted a few feet away, she kept her gaze locked with Clay’s while she clenched one hand on the cell phone clipped to the waistband of her jeans.

“I need to talk to you.” Her voice shook. “Alone.”

Clay shifted his gaze. “Eddie, go on now and run that errand.”

“Sure.” Cramming his hat back on his head, the young ranch hand walked to the pickup, swung open the door, then paused. “How you gonna get back to the barn, Clay?”

“I’ve got my cell. I’ll call one of the other hands.”

“Okay.” Eddie shot Kathryn another look of interest. “Ma’am.”

Clay sliced a hand toward the kid. “Take off.”

Eddie slid behind the wheel and turned the key; the powerful engine rumbled. Clay noted the way Eddie lifted his chin in order to keep Kathryn framed in the rearview mirror as his drove off.

“I need your help,” Kathryn blurted, at the same instant Clay stepped toward her.

“What—”

“They took Matthew. My baby. He’s gone.”

Clay furrowed his brow. His first thought was that she and Mason had some sort of custody dispute going over their son. “Who took him?”

“I don’t know.” She jerked the phone off her jeans, flipped open its cover and jabbed buttons. Her hand trembled so badly the phone shook when she handed it to him. “Johnny and Reece Silver said you could help. You have to help.” Her voice shuddered as badly as her hands and her words tumbled over each other. “Matthew needs his medicine. They left it. He could reject his kidney. They said you can help me. They left the phone.”

Struggling to makes sense of her jumbled words, Clay looked down at the phone’s display. His lungs stopped working the instant he began to read. His gaze whipped up to meet hers. “When did you get this?”

“Two hours ago.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I overslept. Woke up sick. I could barely make it to Matthew’s room. He was gone. Abby tracked them downstairs, but lost his scent. He’s gone. They took Matthew.”

Dread clamped a vise on Clay’s chest as he pictured the compelling little boy with sparkling brown eyes and a plastic deputy’s badge pinned to his T-shirt. He knew all too well what could go wrong during a kidnapping. Which was the last thing Kathryn needed to hear.

“How far did Abby track Matthew’s scent?”

“Just to the bottom of the staircase. They shut her in Matthew’s room when they took him. She’s limping. I think they kicked her.”

Clay rescanned the text of the ransom message, hoping to find something that might dull his initial fear for the boy’s well-being.

He didn’t.

“They’ll call soon, won’t they?” Kathryn asked, her voice reedy with terror. “Tell me how to get Matthew back. He needs his medicine. I’ll do whatever they say. Give them anything they want. I have to get him back.”

“They’ll call, but I’m not sure when,” Clay said while his thoughts veered to his parents. His father had been the number two man at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, his mother the ambassador’s executive assistant. The rebels who’d snatched them had believed the U.S. would put pressure on the Colombian government to release jailed compatriots. A patient group, the rebels had waited two weeks to make initial contact. The hostage negotiator brought in by the State Department had told Clay that kidnappers knew every minute they delayed contact made those left behind more desperate. More afraid. More willing to pay.

And so Clay had waited for the call, then after that for his parents’ safe release while his mind replayed the instant the rebels ambushed his parents’ car while he was at the wheel. To Clay, it didn’t matter that he’d taken a bullet during the attack—he’d been a cop, he should have sensed the danger closing in, should have protected his family. Should have done something. He knew he would never be rid of the guilt nor the mistrust of his own instincts that prompted him to turn in his badge. And there was no way in hell he’d risk Matthew’s life by letting Kathryn rely on those faulty instincts.

“I can help you only so far.” Closing the phone’s cover, he offered it to her. “You need someone who knows how to deal with kidnappers. That isn’t me.”

From under the brim of his hat he watched her face, saw fury flare in her eyes so white-hot it could have sparked a pasture fire.

“Damn you, Clay Turner, I know I meant nothing to you.” She tore the phone out of his hand with the intensity of an erupting volcano. “But if you think I’ll let you turn your back on me a second time when my son’s life is a stake, think again.”

He said nothing for a moment. How could he when her words sliced to his core?

“I’m not turning my back,” he countered levelly. “While I worked for the State Department, I had some training on what to do right after a kidnapping occurs. Which is how to keep things calm until someone who knows what they’re doing arrives on the scene. The best way I can help you is to put you in touch with a hostage negotiator I know. A man who does this for a living. His name is Forbes. Quentin Forbes. He’s the best there is. He knows kidnappers in and out. Knows how to negotiate—”

“I don’t want to negotiate,” Kathryn hissed. “I want to pay the million dollars. I’ll pay whatever they want as long as I get Matthew back.”

The desperation in her voice tightened the knots in Clay’s gut. Another lesson Forbes had hammered into his head was that to pay too much too soon was to make kidnappers think they could squeeze more money out of the family. That doing so sometimes resulted in the extortion of a second ransom for the same victim. And prolonged the heart-wrenching wait. Not to mention they had no proof of life, which would be the first thing Forbes would demand.

Clay scrubbed a hand over his jaw, his callused fingertips scraping across the scar on his right cheek. The scar was visual proof of how cold-blooded a kidnapper’s determination could be. Better to let Forbes deal with Kathryn on the issue of negotiating the ransom, Clay decided. With everything. Considering his own track record, the farther he stayed from this, the better chance Matthew had of getting out alive.

“Whether or not to negotiate the ransom amount is something you can talk over with Forbes. He’ll also advise you on what to say and what not to say when the kidnappers call.”

The wind picked up, slapping strands of her dark hair against her cheeks. It seemed to Clay that she swayed beneath its force. Her face was white as death now, the gleam of shock in her eyes subsiding as realization set in.

Knowing the fire that had pushed her this far was fading fast, he gave thought to taking hold of her arms and shoring her up in case her legs gave out. Suspecting she would prefer a rattlesnake bite to his touch, he opted to tug his cell phone out of his shirt pocket.