The Next Mrs. Blackthorne (Bitter Creek Book 6) Page 27

  I need you, Jack. Come find me. I’m here at the same hospital as my mom, on a floor that’s under construction. I think Donnie is going after my mom, so please protect her.

  I forgive you for not telling me you were a Texas Ranger. And for keeping an eye on me as a favor to North. I have to admit that even I find it hard to say no to Uncle North.

  I want a chance for a future. With you, I hope. If that last bit scares you, don’t worry. I’ll make it all right once you’ve rescued me and this is all over.

  The end. Amen.

  Kate hadn’t realized her message into the ether had become a prayer, but apparently it had. She knew God worked in mysterious ways. He also helped those who helped themselves.

  She began to work again on the tape that covered her mouth.

  18

  “I thought she’d be somewhere in the courthouse,” Jack said. “But we’ve cleared the building, searched high and low, and we haven’t found her.”

  “Not even with those bomb-sniffing dogs?” Clay asked.

  Jack shook his head. “Nothing. They didn’t find a whiff of explosives. We’re baffled.”

  “Where’s Bomber Brown?” North asked.

  “On his way back to jail,” Jack said.

  Clay looked around the courtroom where he’d presided over the surprisingly fast-moving trial. “Donnie didn’t show here?”

  Jack shook his head. “I don’t get it. What was the point of taking Kate if he wasn’t going to make a ransom demand or a demand to exchange her for his father?”

  Clay’s cell phone rang, and he hurriedly reached for it, hoping against hope that it might be Kate. He didn’t recognize the number on his caller ID. “Who is this?” he said curtly.

  “I think you know who this is,” a voice said.

  “Where’s my daughter? Where’s Kate?”

  “She’s right here,” the voice said. “With her mom and her mom’s friend.”

  Clay gestured at North and Jack to come to him. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Clay held the phone so the two men could hear the other end of the conversation.

  “Well, first off, that deputy marshal you sent to guard your woman is history.”

  Clay swore under his breath and exchanged a bleak look with the other two men. “Just listen to this,” the voice said.

  In the background Clay could hear women’s voices, and then Libby’s voice came on the phone. “Clay?”

  “Libby? Are you all right?”

  “Jocelyn and I are fine, but North would hate it here. We’re—”

  “Tell him what I told you to say,” the voice in the background interrupted.

  “Kate is wearing a vest of explosives, Clay. And Donnie has a remote detonator, which he says he’ll use if you don’t do exactly as he asks. I think—”

  Clay heard Donnie cut her off. Then the boy said, “We’ve left the hospital and gone somewhere else, so don’t waste your time looking for us. You’ll never find us in time. You have exactly one hour to release my father and get him on a jet headed for South America. When I hear that he’s out of U.S. airspace, I’ll tell you where the women are.”

  “What guarantee do I have that you’ll let the women go if I do what you want?” Clay asked.

  “None,” Donnie said, his voice nasty. “What I can guarantee is that if you don’t do exactly as I say, there’s not going to be a big enough piece of any of these women left to bury in a Baggie.”

  Then the phone went dead.

  Clay snapped his phone closed and looked into the faces of the other two men, where he saw his own agony and anger and helplessness reflected. “Anybody here think we should let Bomber Brown go free?”

  Neither man even moved a hair, the answer was so obvious. They all knew the government didn’t negotiate with terrorists. And that the most likely result of acceding to Donnie Brown’s demands would be the deaths of the three women. Clay was certain Donnie intended to detonate his bomb no matter what, and in a place where there would be other innocent victims.

  “I never should have left Libby and Joss alone at the hospital,” North said as he headed for the door to Clay’s chambers, where they’d congregated. “I should have been more careful.”

  “It’s that damned kid,” Jack said, catching up to him. “He doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. Why would he drop Libby off at the hospital if he was going to use her as a hostage later?”

  “To keep her alive?” North said sardonically.

  “Yeah, but he had to know we’d put a police guard on her,” Jack said.

  “It sure as hell didn’t slow him down any,” North said. “You want to ride back to the hospital with me, Jack? Clay, if you take your car we’ll have extra wheels. We can stay in touch on the phone.”

  “I don’t take orders from Grayhawks,” Clay said, bristling.

  “You want to fight with me, or save my sister and your daughter?” North said in a hard voice.

  Clay realized North was right. This was no time for egos or old enmities. Whether they liked it or not, he and North would have to work together to save the women they both loved.

  “Just tell me how we’re going to find this sick sonofabitch,” Clay said, as the three of them left the courthouse headed for their cars. “And get that detonator away from him.”

  “We start with the videotapes from the hospital garage,” Jack said. “That’ll tell us when he came in and when he left.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time,” North said.

  “Then what do you suggest?” Jack shot back.

  “I suppose we can have someone in hospital security do that while we’re on our way,” North said.

  Clay had done his share of investigating, first as a district attorney, and later as attorney general. Nothing happened as fast in real life as it did on a one-hour crime show, where high-tech lab work neatly and certainly revealed the criminal. It was daunting to think of finding Donnie Brown in under an hour. Especially when they didn’t have a clue where he’d taken the women.

  Clay glanced at the other two men over the roof of his car and said, “Maybe Libby left a clue for us in what she said on the phone.”

  “She didn’t say much,” Jack pointed out.

  “What did she say?” North asked. “I’m trying to remember exactly.”

  Clay remembered every word. “She said, ‘Jocelyn and I are fine, but North would hate it here.’ ” He turned to North and said, “Does that mean anything to you?”

  North laughed harshly. “I hate small, dark places. Does that help?”

  “No. Where else do you hate to be?” Clay asked.

  “Shopping malls.”

  “Too public,” Jack said. “Where else?”

  North’s head jerked up. “Libby knows I hate hospitals. Do you suppose they could still be at the hospital, that they never left?”

  “It’s worth a look,” Clay said. He turned to Jack and said, “Should we get the police to cordon off—”

  “I’ll have them set up a perimeter, but let’s give Donnie plenty of room. If he is at the hospital, we don’t want him spooked. I can also have the bomb squad standing by, just in case.”

  It only took ten minutes to get back to the hospital, and they each took a car, which Jack had suggested, in case the hospital turned out to be a wild-goose chase, and they needed to go in different directions later.

  “Now what?” Clay said, when they were all gathered in the hospital lobby. “How do we do this search?”

  “I talked to the hospital administrator on the way here,” Jack said. “They’re doing renovations on the sixth floor. The entire floor’s empty.”

  “That’s a floor above where Libby was staying,” Clay said.

  “This feels too easy,” North said uneasily. “Could Donnie really be holding Kate and Libby and Joss there?”

  “We’ll soon find out,” Clay said.

  “Wait a minute,” Jack said, putting out an arm to stop him. “How about letting SWAT do the hea
vy lifting?”

  “As far as we know, Donnie is working by himself,” Clay said.

  “With a detonator and a lot of explosives,” North muttered.

  “We also know he’s got a gun,” Jack said.

  “If he starts waving it around, I’ll distract him and you can shoot him,” Clay said, eyeing the Colt .45 on Jack’s hip.

  “Sounds good to me,” North said.

  “We need a plan,” Jack persisted, as they took the elevator to the fifth floor. “Donnie isn’t going to give up without a fight.”

  “He’s just one boy,” Clay said.

  “A damned clever boy,” Jack reminded him.

  “Don’t forget the women,” Clay said. “If I know Libby and Kate, they haven’t been sitting on their hands. They’ll have been making plans for what to do when we show up—since they must know we’re coming after them.”

  “You’re right,” North said. “Joss will be telling him all the reasons he’d be better off to give himself up.”

  They discussed whether or not it made sense to evacuate the hospital, but they weren’t sure Donnie was even there, and so much activity beforehand would alert Donnie, if he was there.

  “What if we do find Donnie, and he’s sitting on a big bomb?” Jack said. “What then?”

  “Then it’s too late to evacuate,” Clay said. “And we figure out a way to get Donnie and the bomb out of the hospital before he detonates it.”

  “You seem to think you’re going to be able to reason with this kid,” Jack said.

  “And you don’t?” North said.

  Jack shook his head. “There wasn’t enough warning given before Brown blew up the federal courthouse in Houston for everyone to get out. I think he and his father gave called in a bomb threat just so they could watch the ants scurry, so to speak. They wanted to see the fear, the confusion, and the terror they’d created.”

  “You think Donnie was involved in that bombing?” Clay said.

  “I always have,” Jack replied. “But I could never prove it. We’d better split up,” he said. “No sense letting Donnie know how many of us there are.”

  “I think I should be the one to reveal myself to him,” Clay said. “I’m the one he most wants dead.”

  “He’s liable to shoot you and not think twice,” Jack said.

  “I don’t think so,” Clay said. “I think he’s going to want to savor the moment. Which should give you two plenty of time to sneak up on him and get the detonator away.”

  None of them mentioned the fact that they might have guessed wrong. That Donnie might not be at the hospital. That they would then have to live with the loss of loved ones for which they would forever blame themselves. They were all men of action. They didn’t know any other way to be.

  “He’s going to be suspicious,” Jack warned Clay. “He’s going to think you’ve got a gun—or a SWAT team—hidden behind the door. You have to make him believe you’re alone and unarmed.”

  “I can do that,” Clay said.

  They’d reviewed the floor plan before they’d come upstairs and decided that North and Jack would take the stairs up from five and hide themselves on the sixth floor while Clay made a direct approach, simply taking the elevator to six and walking down the hospital corridor, calling loudly for Donnie to show himself.

  “Ready?” Jack said, looking each of the other two men in the eye.

  Clay nodded and saw North do the same. “I’ll give you three minutes to get set,” Clay said. “Then I’m on my way.”

  He watched as the other two men made their way onto the floor and into the places where they’d decided to wait. He eyed his watch, waiting for a second hand that seemed to be standing still. At last, the three minutes had passed, and he stepped out into the corridor and started walking.

  The first two rooms Clay passed were empty. He called out, “Donnie, I know you’re here. I just want to talk to you. Come on out.”

  He was met by silence. Not a scraping chair. Not a squeaking bedspring. Not a woman’s whimper.

  Clay’s heart was pounding in his chest. He’d never been so terrified, more afraid that Donnie wouldn’t show than that he would. “Come on out,” he called again. “I’m alone. I’m unarmed. I just want to talk.”

  He took three more steps, which took him past two more empty rooms. He felt his heart sinking. The kid wasn’t here. They’d badly miscalculated. Donnie Brown was somewhere else. And there was nothing they could do now to stop him.

  “Put your hands up!” a voice called out.

  Clay stopped in his tracks and slowly put his hands up to show they were empty. The voice had come from behind him, which was disconcerting, because he’d looked into every room he’d passed and they’d all appeared empty. So where were the women?

  He started to turn around and Donnie said, “Don’t move!”

  Clay heard him coming down the linoleum hallway and said, “Where’s my daughter, Donnie?”

  “You’re too late, Judge Blackthorne.”

  Clay’s heart was in his throat when he asked, “The hour isn’t up, Donnie. How can I be too late?”

  “You should have been more careful about what you allowed into evidence, Your Honor. If my dad weren’t looking so guilty to the jury, I wouldn’t have been forced into doing what I’ve done.”

  “What have you done, Donnie?” Clay asked.

  “What was necessary to prove my point,” Donnie said.

  “What point is that?”

  “That the government can’t be trusted. That judges are puppets of the government. That lawyers are snakes.”

  Clay turned, despite Donnie’s warning, and was face-to-face with the boy, who was only a couple of feet away. The kid had a gun in one hand, pointed at Clay’s chest, and what appeared to be some electronic device—the detonator?—in the other.

  “Where’s Kate, Donnie?” Clay asked again.

  The kid grinned. “Down the hall, Your Honor.” The way Donnie said it, Your Honor was an insult.

  “Which means you can’t detonate that vest bomb without blowing yourself up, too.”

  “Sacrifices have to be made,” Donnie said.

  The words sent a chill down Clay’s spine. If the kid didn’t care whether he lived or died, he was considerably more dangerous. “Do you think that’s what your father would want? For you to sacrifice yourself for him? Usually it’s the other way around.”

  Donnie grinned again. “Like, you sacrifice yourself to save your daughter?”

  Clay nodded. “I’d be happy to offer myself as a hostage in Kate’s place.”

  “But I have you both here now,” Donnie said. “Why should I let either one of you go?”

  “You haven’t heard from your father yet, have you?”

  Donnie frowned. “No, I haven’t. But I’ve been watching TV in one of the rooms. I’ve seen the jet they’ve got ready for him at the airport.”

  “That’s all for show, Donnie. Your dad isn’t going to be freed until you release your hostages.”

  Donnie shook his head. “I don’t trust you, Your Honor. By the way, how did you know I was here?”

  “Garage videotapes,” Clay said. “Showed you coming in, but not going out.”

  Donnie’s eyes narrowed. “Really? I don’t believe you.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “You never looked at garage videotapes,” Donnie said.

  “How do you know?” Clay said.

  “Because I disabled the cameras in the garage,” Donnie said smugly. His eyes narrowed. “So how did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t know for sure,” Clay said. “But you weren’t in the courthouse, and I couldn’t imagine how you’d get three women out of here without some sort of ruckus, so I figured you must have stayed on the premises. Which turned out to be the case.”

  Donnie eyed him sideways, but seemed to accept his story. His gaze drifted to a TV that was on in a nearby room without the sound. “There’s that jet on TV again.” He gestured with th
e gun for Clay to move into the room, and he followed him there, holding the gun on him, while he reached over to turn up the volume on the TV.

  The newscaster said they were still waiting for Bomber Brown to appear, and that his son was holding hostages and demanding his father’s immediate release.

  “He’s not going to be released until you let the women go,” Clay said.

  “I guess I’ll have to show everyone I mean business,” Donnie said, shaking the detonator in Clay’s face.

  “Don’t!” Clay said. “Wait!”

  “Why should I wait?” Donnie said, his voice hysterical. “It’s clear nobody thinks I’ll do anything. I’m going to prove—”

  “Wait,” Clay said again, holding out both hands in supplication. “They’ll believe you if you appear on TV with a federal judge as your hostage.”

  Donnie paused for a half second to consider, then said, “Too much chance for someone to bushwhack me. A bomb will speak a lot more loudly than I can.”

  Clay wondered where North and Jack were, and whether they’d located the three women. “I want to speak to my daughter.”

  “No can do.”

  “Why not? She’s here, isn’t she? Somewhere on this floor?”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you,” Donnie said. “But actually, no.”

  “No? Where is she?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Donnie said with a giggle.

  “What about the other two women? Are they here?”

  “Might be.”

  Clay took that as a yes. Which made him worry all the more for Kate, who was by herself somewhere, probably scared half to death. He regretted all the years they hadn’t spent together more than he could say.

  He hadn’t let himself consider Libby’s fate. If she was on this floor, why hadn’t she made some noise, done something to indicate she was here? She must have heard him call out to Donnie. Either she wasn’t here, and Donnie was lying again, or Donnie had tied Libby hand and foot and gagged her or drugged her—or already killed her.

  “Where are the guys you came with?” Donnie asked conversationally.

  Clay pretended confusion. “What?”

  “You didn’t come alone. Where are the other guys?”