Blindside by Catherine Coulter
“You got it, Sheriff,” Wade said. “Over and out.”
Over and out? Katie shook her head. Wade sounded pleased as punch that he was the lead on this. She just hoped he’d be careful. She disconnected and said to Keely, “I sure hope Jeffrey wears his glasses.”
Keely said, not looking up from the bear, “Jeffrey has to wear his glasses or he’d step in the toilet. Millie likes him without his glasses, but she says it’s just too dangerous.”
Millie was Jeffrey’s girlfriend. Katie smiled and felt her tension lessen just a bit. She fully intended to keep the boy with her as long as it took to get him safe. She hardly knew anything about him. She hated to wait before talking with him, but the child needed Jonah a lot more than he needed to answer questions right now.
Sam’s parents. She’d get their names and phone number as soon as Jonah said Sam was okay. She knew they had to be frantic.
Jonah came out from the examination room twenty minutes later, smiling, holding the little boy’s hand. “Sam’s been telling me how his mama kept talking in his head, telling him what to do, how to get himself free.”
How could Sam be okay? He looked white and exhausted, a big Flintstones bandage on his head. Katie said, “You did great, Sam, you didn’t give up.”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t.” There was a flash of pride in that exhausted little voice, and that was good. Sam looked like the little boy he was, wrapped in two very big blue blankets, a pair of Jonah’s black socks on his small feet. Sam looked up at Jonah. “I want to go home, Doctor.”
Katie patted Keely’s head, and walked swiftly to where the boy stood. She picked him up and held him close to her. “You’re just fine, Sam, just fine. Now, if Jonah is through torturing you, I’m taking you home with me. You’ll be safe there until I can get your folks here.”
“We’re in Tennessee?”
“Yes, we are. Eastern Tennessee. Jessborough is the name of the town.”
“Where’s Tennessee?”
“We’re sandwiched among lots of states. Where do you live, Sam?”
“I’m from Colfax, Virginia.”
“A nice state, Virginia,” Katie said and turned to Jonah. “It’s not too far away from here. He’s okay?”
“Yep, he might come down with a cold from his run in the rain, but he’s a strong kid. He’ll be just fine. Give him a nice big glass of juice. He needs the sugar. I don’t want to take any chances that he’ll crash.” He patted Sam’s head, ran his fingers through his damp black hair. “His clothes are still wet. What do you want to do?”
“If you could wrap his clothes up in a towel, I’ll wash and dry them.”
Katie realized she was rocking Sam, sort of stepping from one foot to the other, swaying, just like she did with Keely. She smiled. “I’m going to squeeze him in next to Keely and take both of them home. You like hot chicken noodle soup, Sam?”
He didn’t say anything, but she felt him nod. She and Jonah looked at each other. Neither of them knew what the kid had been through, at least not yet.
“You be careful, Katie, it’s coming down thicker than confetti on New Year’s,” Jonah said. “Take good care of my patient. Keely, you keep a close eye on Sam, too, okay?”
Keely allowed Sam to sit next to her mother, his head on Katie’s leg. She pressed close to his other side. “I’ll keep him warm, Mama.”
“Sam,” Katie said, lightly touching her fingers to his pale cheek, “you’re a very lucky boy.”
Sam, who felt dopey and stupid, said, “That’s what my mama was always telling my dad.”
“I’ll call your daddy right now if you’ll just tell me his name and phone number.”
Sam said against the wet denim on her leg, “My dad’s name is Miles Kettering. He’s really cool. He can fix anything. He fixes helicopters for the government.”
His father was a government contractor? Could that be why he was kidnapped?
“What’s your home phone number, Sam?”
He was silent, thinking, but he couldn’t get it together, and she knew his brain was closing down. “It’s okay. I’ll call information. Colfax, Virginia, right?”
Sam managed to nod before he closed his eyes. He felt her strong leg supporting his head. She still felt wet through the blanket she’d put under his head. He felt the sway of the truck and the little girl’s body pressed close against him. He was warm. He was safe. He was asleep in the next minute.
Katie pulled the blanket more closely around his shoulders, and whispered to Keely, “He’ll be okay, sweetie. You just stay there, keep him really warm.”
After a moment, Keely said, “I would have saved myself, too, Mama.”
“I know you would have, Keely. Now, let me get information in Virginia and find Sam’s daddy.”
When the phone rang, Miles jumped nearly three feet. He’d been telling the agents again how the government contracts worked, who his competitors were, and how much money was involved. Agent Butch Ashburn, the lead on Sam’s kidnapping, nodded to the other agent, Todd Morton, who’d just swallowed a doughnut too fast and was choking.
“Showtime,” Agent Ashburn said.
Savich, who’d just gotten to the Kettering house, laid his hand on his friend’s arm and said, “Everything’s set, Miles. Just answer the phone. Keep calm, that’s more important than I can say.”
Miles Kettering forced his hand to reach for the phone. He didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to because he was afraid that Sam was dead. So many children were kidnapped and so few survived. He could hardly bear it.
It had been a day and a half. This was the first word. His hand shook as he lifted the phone.
“Hello? This is Miles Kettering.”
“Hello, Mr. Kettering, my name is Sheriff K. C. Benedict from Washington County, Tennessee. Don’t worry, I have your boy, Sam. He’s just fine. He managed to escape his kidnappers. He’s with me. Mr. Kettering? I promise you, he’s okay.”
Miles couldn’t speak. His throat worked. “I don’t believe you. You’re the kidnapper, right? What do you want?”
Butch Ashburn and Todd Morton were standing there staring at the phone, trying to look both calm and competent. Savich took the phone from Miles’s hands. “Who is this?”
Katie understood. She said again, “This is Sheriff K. C. Benedict from Washington County, Tennessee. Sam is just fine. He managed to save himself. I’ve got him with me. Tell his parents not to worry, he’s okay.”
“This is Dillon Savich with the FBI, Sheriff. Thank you very much. Give me your exact location and we’ll be there as quickly as we can.”
Katie gave the man directions. She’d never before met a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She patted Sam’s shoulder, whispered, “Your daddy’s going to be here soon now, Sam,” but Sam didn’t hear her. He was asleep.
She heard Mr. Kettering say in the background, “I want to talk to Sam.”
She said to Agent Savich, “Sam’s asleep. Do you want me to wake him?”
Miles Kettering came on the line. “No, let him sleep. I’ll see him soon. Please, Sheriff, tell him I love him. What about the people who took him? Did you get them?”
“I’m very sorry, but they escaped. But we’ve got a group of my deputies in the field and they’ll do their best.”
When Katie hung up the phone, Keely said, nearly asleep herself, “What about his mama?”
“She’ll probably come, too. If I were her, I’d beat his daddy here to get him.”
“Stealing Sam was a bad thing, Mama.”
“You’re right.” And she thought, I should have just brought the bastard down, not given him a kiss in the arm. I should have kicked his butt like Sam said.
6
Katie’s phone rang at a quarter of seven that evening. It was Alice Hewett from Hewett’s Pharmacy, and she was out-of-breath excited.
“Oh, Katie, that man who kidnapped the little boy—I think it was him. He just left. I called the station house and Linnie told me
Katie’s heart started to pound, deep and hard.
“Was he the fat one, Alice?”
“No, he was the other one, tall, almost sick-looking thin, but he wasn’t wearing that long black leather coat Wade told everyone about, just a white shirt and jeans, and some scarred black boots. But he had a ponytail, like you said. And he was shivering, which means he left that leather coat in his car because he was afraid to be seen in it. He bought bandages and antibiotic cream and some Aleve. And when he was leaving I saw blood on the back of his sleeve.”
“He was in his forties?”
“Yes, I’d say so.”
“And he had a ponytail.”
“Yeah, wet and stringy-looking. He didn’t say anything, just brought the stuff up to me at the register, and paid cash. He had a really big roll. I saw a couple of hundreds, lots of fifties.”
“Did he just leave the pharmacy?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see his car?”
“Yes, Katie, the instant I saw that blood I knew. When I heard his car, I peeked out the front window. He was driving an old van, light gray I think, but it was hard to tell with all the rain.”
Katie nearly held her breath. “License number?”
“I just got part of it. He screeched out of here pretty fast. It was a Virginia plate, the first three letters were LTD—you know, like that old Ford sedan—LTD. I think the next one was a ‘three’ but I can’t be sure.”
Katie wanted to leap through the phone line and kiss Alice. “That’s just great,” she said. “Now, was there anything about the man that was unusual, something that would make you remember him as opposed to another man?”
Silence, then, “He was wearing a necklace, you know, a gold chain with some sort of pendant or stone hanging off the end of it. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Oh yes, his two front teeth overlap.”
“Alice, do you want to be sheriff when my term is over?”
Alice Hewett laughed. “No, Katie, it’s all yours. Just looking at that guy made my stomach cramp up. Besides, I’m too young to be sheriff, I just turned twenty last week.”
Katie was pleased, as was the rest of the town, that Alice was no longer a teenager, particularly since Abe Hewett was fifty-four years old and had three grown boys all older than their stepmama. “Well done, Alice. Thank you.”
“Let me know, won’t you, Katie?”
“You bet.”
Katie called Wade at home, got him between spoonfuls of his wife’s special pork stew. “I’m really sorry about this, Wade, but—”
“I knew you’d call, Katie. I sent Conrad over to talk to Alice, see if she remembered anything else. Man, this stew is the best.” A long silence, then Katie heard Wade’s wife, Glenda, say something in the background.
“Tell you what,” Katie said, “stay put. Just keep close to your phone. Call Jeffrey and have him update the rest of our people, including our three volunteer deputies. Keep an eye out for that van—we’ve got a partial plate. It’s Virginia and it’s LTD three something. I’m going to call the FBI, let them check it out.”
“You don’t want me to go out right this minute?”
“Nah, stay put. I’ll call you if something comes up.”
She called the Knoxville FBI field office because she knew the Johnson City field office just didn’t have the staff for this sort of thing. She got Glen Hodges, the special agent in charge, pretty fast and told him what was going on. Then she dialed Agent Savich’s cell phone. He picked up immediately.
“Agent Savich?”
“Yes. Is this Sheriff Benedict? Is Sam all right?”
“Yes, he is, but listen to this, please,” and she told him about the kidnapper’s visit to the pharmacy. “Alice thinks they’re driving a light gray van, Virginia license LTD with a possible next number of three.”
“Got it. I’ll call Butch Ashburn, he’s the agent leading the kidnapping investigation. He’ll find out who the van belongs to.”
“I called Agent Hodges from the Knoxville field office, told him what was going on. He’s on his way here.”
“Good. You have Sam with you?”
“Yes, he’s still sleeping. He’s just fine.” It was then she heard the deep rumbling noise. “You’re in an airplane?”
“Yes, it’ll take us a couple of hours since we’re in a Cessna. Sheriff, I don’t like the fact that the kidnappers are still local. What else is happening?”
“Here’s the deal, Agent Savich. I don’t like the fact that those two guys are still hanging around here either. I’m hoping that Fatso—that’s the name Sam gave one of the kidnappers—is hurt bad and that’s why they haven’t hightailed it out of here. But if he was badly hurt, then why not take him to a doctor? We have two doctors in town. Both of them call me from home every hour so I’ll know they’re okay.”
“Well done,” Savich said.
“Yeah, but you know, the truth is, I don’t know what to make of it. They’ve got to know that everyone is looking for them. Why would they stay local?”
“You’re basing this on one witness?”
“Yes. Her set of eyes is just fine.”
“You shot Fatso in the arm?”
“Yes, that I’m sure of. Then I fired several more times while they were running back into the forest. Maybe I shot him again, I just didn’t see, all I heard was a yelp.” She drew a deep breath. “I know where they were keeping Sam. Agent Glen Hodges said he and his people will dust the place for prints when they get here.”
“I’m not too happy that they’re still around, but it sounds like you’ve got everything under control. We’ll be there soon. Be careful, okay?”
Katie pressed the “off” button on her cell. Well, she was being careful. She was keeping Sam with her, the FBI was on the way, and she’d called in all her people—with the exception of Wade, who’d already worked his butt off today. Everyone was out looking for that light gray van now.
Her cell phone played the first bars of “Fly Me to the Moon” a minute later. A man’s voice came on the line. “Sheriff Benedict? This is Miles Kettering. I’m with Agent Savich. I’m sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to thank you, and . . . please take care of my boy. Savich told me he was still sleeping?”
“Yes, he’s out like a light. Do you want me to wake him up?”
“Oh no, it’s just that I’m—” He stalled.
“I understand, Mr. Kettering. If someone had taken my child, I’d be scared out of my mind until I actually had her in my arms. You’re flying the Cessna?”
“Yes. It was the best I could do on short notice, but it’s a solid little plane.”
“It’s pretty bad weather here, as I’m sure you know. You’re coming in at Ackerman’s Air Field?”
“Yes, soon now.”
She checked that Miles Kettering had directions from Ackerman’s Air Field to her house before disconnecting.
She got a call not five minutes later from Glen Hodges, the SAC of the Knoxville Bureau field office.
“I’ve got three agents in the car with me. We’ll be in Jessborough about two hours from now, give or take because of the weather. Is there any more you can tell me?”
“No. Everyone’s out looking for the gray van, and doing general surveillance on anyone looking like either of the two men. I gave Agent Savich the partial license plate of the van. He said he was going to call Agent Butch Ashburn.”
“Yeah, Savich just called me. Agent Ashburn will get the owner of that van in no time.”
“Agent Savich and Mr. Kettering, the boy’s father, will be here soon as well.”
“Savich didn’t say what he was doing involved in a kidnapping? Last I heard he was in L.A. playing around in one of the Hollywood studios.”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Agent Hodges. I just assumed he was assigned to the case with Agent Ashburn.”
“Oh no, Savich is the unit chief for the Criminal Apprehension Unit at headquarters.”
“What’s that?”
“He works mostly with computers, setting up databases and data-mining programs to help catch criminals. The Bureau set up this unit for him and that’s what he and eight or so other agents do.”
“Sounds like something I’d want real simplified.”
Glen Hodges laughed. “I’m with you, Sheriff. Oops, we’re starting to break up. You get in these mountains, and you’re down faster than you can catch a snake. You take care of the boy, ma’am. We’re coming as fast as we can.”
Katie slipped her cell back into her shirt pocket. She asked herself again what more she could do. She didn’t come up with an answer.
At nearly ten o’clock that night the worst fall storm in twenty years—according to the weather folk—seemed to be fizzling out. There was less rain, but the howling winds were still a nice side show, keeping people hunkered down in their homes, hoping their trees wouldn’t be uprooted.
She couldn’t imagine being up in a small airplane in this wind. She looked out Keely’s bedroom window, north, toward Ackerman’s Air Field, and said a little prayer.
All in all, they’d lucked out, Katie thought as she closed the window and walked over to Keely’s bed and gave her a kiss and smoothed her eyebrows. “I can tell you’re awake, sweetie. You just smiled. You love the sound of the rain, don’t you?”
“Oh yes, Mama, and the wind howling like banshees—that’s what Grandma says. You told me you liked it, too, Mama, when you were my age.”
“Yes, I remember pressing my nose against the window, wanting lightning, more lightning, and with it, the boom of thunder—the closer the better.”
“Can I go press my nose—”
“No, not tonight. You’re going to sleep now, Keely.”
“Is Sam okay?”
“Yep, he’s just fine.” One more kiss and Katie sat by her daughter until her breathing evened into sleep. Then she walked to the window and pressed her nose against the glass. It wasn’t the same. Her nose was cold and she wanted to sneeze. She left Keely’s bedroom, knowing she’d pass the night easily, the sound of the rain a lullaby to her daughter.