Danielle Steel - Fine things

“Oh my God.” She sounded as though she had just died and he felt it. “Oh my God …Bernie …” She couldn't believe it. What kind of person did something like that? What kind of lunatic was he? “Is she all right? Do you know?”

“We think so. And the police won't really get involved because his being the natural father makes it only child stealing, which is no big deal, and not kidnap. They're not real excited.”

“Oh Bernie …” She started to cry.

“Don't, Mom, please. I can't take it. I'm calling because I'm leaving for Mexico tonight, to try to find her with two investigators I hired. They think she might be there …and Thanksgiving is off.”

“Never mind Thanksgiving. Just find her. Oh my God …” For once in her life, she really thought she was going to have a heart attack, and Lou was out at some damn medical meeting. She didn't even remember where he was now.

“I'll call you if I can. The investigator thinks we might find her in two weeks …” To him, it sounded hopeful, to her it sounded like a nightmare, and she began sobbing into the phone.

“My God, Bernie …”

“I've got to go, Mom. I love you.” He went to pack a small bag then, and put on a shirt, a warm ski sweater, blue jeans, a parka, and hiking boots. And as he turned to pick up his suitcase he saw Nanny Pippin standing in the doorway with the baby in her arms. And he told her what he was doing. He was leaving for Mexico at once, and he promised to call her as often as he could. And he wanted her to be careful of the baby. He was suddenly worried about everyone, after what had happened to Jane, but she assured him they'd be fine.

“Just bring Jane back soon.” It sounded like an order and he smiled at the brogue as he kissed his son. “Be careful, Mr. Fine. We need you whole and hearty.”

He hugged her silently and then walked to the doorway without looking back. There were too many people missing now …Jane and Liz …but he hurried down the stairs as Winters honked outside in an old station wagon that one of their operatives was driving.

Chapter 30

As they drove to the airport, Bernie couldn't help thinking how strange his life had become. Barely more than a year before, his life had been so normal. A wife he loved, a new baby, and the child she'd had before. Now suddenly Liz was gone, Jane had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom, and he was about to travel all over Mexico with two strangers he had hired to find her. And as he looked out the window, his thoughts of Jane rapidly overwhelmed him. He was terrified that Chandler Scott and his associates might do something to hurt her. And the thought of their molesting her had been on his mind all night. He mentioned it at the airport to Gertie, but she seemed sure that Scott's interest was purely the money, and Bernie let her convince him.

He called Grossman from the airport again and promised to let him know their progress. And it was a long night after that. They arrived in San Diego at eleven-thirty, and rented a large car with four-wheel drive. Winters had arranged for it from San Francisco, and they set off in the car directly from the airport. They didn't want to waste time stopping at a hotel, and they crossed the border at Tijuana. They drove rapidly through Rosarito and Descanso, and were in Ensenada an hour later. Winters had a feeling that they would have gone there, and with only a fifty-dollar bill in hand, the border guard had remembered them in Tijuana.

It was after one o'clock by then, but the bars were still alive, and they spent an hour in Ensenada walking into a dozen bars, each one taking a cluster of them, ordering a beer, and then showing Scott's picture. Gertie came up with the gold this time, a bartender who even remembered the child. She was very fair, he said, and she seemed afraid of the couple with her. Scott's girl friend had asked him about the ferry to Guaymas at Cabo Haro.

Gertie hurried back to the car with the information, and they set out on the route the bartender had suggested, south through San Vicente, San Telmo, Rosario, and then east across Baja to El Marmol. It was nearly two hundred miles and the trip took them five hours on rough roads, despite the four-wheel drive. They stopped in El Marmol for gas at seven o'clock Monday morning, and at eight o'clock they stopped for something to eat as they drove down the east coast of Baja. They had two hundred miles to go to Santa Rosalia. And it was a long tiresome day before they got there shortly before three o'clock. And then they had to wait two hours for the ferry to Guaymas. But they hit gold again when the ferry operator who helped them load their car remembered Scott, the woman, and the child who sat between them.

“What do you think, Jack?” He and Bernie stood on the deck watching Baja disappear behind them, as Gertie stood some distance from them.

“So far so good, but don't expect it to stay that way. It doesn't work that way, as a rule. At least we're off to a good start so far.”

“Maybe we'll get lucky fast.” Bernie wanted to believe that, but Jack Winters knew it wasn't likely.

It was a hundred miles from Santa Rosalia to Empalme, and two hundred and fifty from Empalme to Espiritu Santo where the man on the boat thought Scott had gotten off. But in Espiritu Santo the men on the dock were sure he had gone to Mazatlan, which was another two hundred and fifty miles. And there the trail went cold. By Wednesday they knew nothing more than they had in San Francisco. It was another week before, with painstaking work covering almost every bar and restaurant and store and hotel in Mazatlan, the trail continued to Guadalajara. It was only three hundred and twenty-four miles from Mazatlan to Guadalajara and it had taken them eight days of painstaking work to follow Scott there.

In Guadalajara they knew he had stayed at a tiny hotel called Rosalba's on a back street, and they knew very little more than that. Jack had a feeling they would have gone inland, maybe to one of the small towns on the way to Aguascalientes. It took them another two days to follow that lead, and by then it was Friday and Bernie's time had run out. He had to be back in San Francisco in two days to get Scott's phone call.

“What do we do now?” They had talked all along of Bernie flying back to San Francisco from Guadalajara, if they hadn't found her yet, so he could take Scott's phone call, and the Winters would stay in Mexico to hear from him. They were calling Grossman daily, and Bernie was calling Nanny and Alexander. All was well with them, and he missed his son terribly. But by Friday, his thoughts were filled with Jane, and the bastard holding her hostage.

“I think you'd better go back tomorrow.” Winters was thinking as he spoke, and they were both drinking a cerveza back at their hotel. “I think you ought to tell him that you've got the money.” Winters' eyes narrowed, formulating a plan, but Bernie didn't like it.

“Five hundred thousand dollars? And what do I do when I'm supposed to give it to him? Tell him it was all a joke?”

“Just arrange a meeting place with him. We'll worry about it after that. It'll tell us a lot if he wants to meet us somewhere down here. You can explain that it will take you a day or two to get down here, and by then, with luck, we'll have him.”

Winters was thinking all the time. But so was Bernie. “You don't think they're back in the States by now?”

“Not a chance of it.” Winters was sure of that. “He's too scared of the cops, if he has any brains. They won't do much to him for this, but with his record, that stolen car is going to wind him right back in jail, on a parole violation, if nothing else.”

“Amazing, isn't it?” Bernie looked at him bitterly. “He steals a child, threatens her, maybe causes her untold emotional damage for the rest of her life, and they worry about a beat-up old car. Nice, our system, isn't it? It's enough to make you a goddamn Communist. I'd like to see the bastard hanged for this!”