The Ransom

Her movements felt hazy, almost dreamlike as she made her way along the hallway. Although the distance between the bedrooms was short, she had to stop several times when the trembling in her legs worsened.

The closer she got to Matthew’s room, the more urgent Abby’s barks. The instant she swung open the door the dachshund leaped out, weaving frantic circles around her mistress’s bare feet.

“Matthew?” Kathryn stumbled over the dog into the large, airy room with windows that looked out over the front driveway.

Her gaze swept the bed. The jungle-theme sheets and spread were rumpled, as if her son had just climbed out. His robe lay on the end of the mattress. Kathryn swiveled toward the waist-high bookcases built into the far wall. Toy tanks, airplanes and platoons of soldiers crowded the shelves. Several Jeeps and Humvees lay in a jumbled pileup on the braided rug.

“Matty, where are you?”

Pain pulsing behind her eyes, Kathryn walked toward the adjacent bathroom, Abby on her heels. Glancing down, Kathryn frowned. There was something odd about the way the dog moved, as though she had a slight catch in one hip.

“Matthew?” The silence that pressed like fingers against Kathryn’s eardrums told her before she got to the bathroom that she’d find it empty.

It was.

Her concern growing, she shoved at her hair. Considering it was past ten, she wasn’t surprised Matthew was out of bed. What bothered her was Abby. Matthew never went anywhere without the dachshund in tow. Unless, Kathryn reasoned, he hadn’t gone far.

“Are we playing hide-and-seek?” she asked, stepping to the closet.

When she slid the door open, Abby darted inside, snuffling into each shadowy corner. A whine rose up her throat when she failed to locate her master. Kathryn lifted her gaze to the closet’s shelves, but she saw nothing out of place.

When two short beeps sounded, she stepped to the bookcases. Her heart tattooed in her ears while she waited for the beeps to sound again as she scanned the shelves, trying to figure out what toy had emitted the unfamiliar electronic signals.

When the beeps sounded again, she whipped around toward the bed. Her gaze settled on the nightstand and her eyes widened. A cell phone lay beside the miniature airplane that doubled as a lamp. Matthew didn’t have a cell phone. And even if he’d found one that had been laid aside, she knew for sure the phone hadn’t been there last night when she’d tucked him into bed and dropped a kiss on his rumpled blond hair.

She crossed the room in two strides, grabbed the phone and flipped up its cover. The screen displayed the text message icon.

Kathryn’s fingers made trembling, fumbling stabs at a series of buttons. When the message displayed, its first line sent fear pressing against her heart so she could hear the panicked beat of it roaring in her ears.

WE HAVE YOUR SON.

CHAPTER THREE

“MATTHEW…” Terror crimped Kathryn’s voice. A growing pressure around her heart made it beat in hitchy strikes. Her entire body shaking, she forced herself to read the entire text message.

We have your son.

We will kill him if you contact the police. We are watching you. Get one million dollars in various denominations. Keep the money and this cell phone with you. Don’t change your routine. We will call and tell you what to do. Screw up, the kid dies.

The words blurred while heat traveled in a wave up Kathryn’s spine.

“No, no. Matthew…” Panic clawed at her throat; for a moment, the shapes and colors in the room seemed to shift. She felt herself sway.

With a flurry of barks, Abby raced to the bedroom’s door, her right hind leg lifting out of sync with the others. Turning, the dog rocketed back, tramping across Kathryn’s bare feet. The contact snapped her back. She forced herself to breathe. Struggled to think.

Think. Whipping around, she dashed into the bathroom, moving so fast she plowed one hip into the sink. The pain didn’t even register as she wrenched open the door on the medicine cabinet.

A ball of ice dropped into her belly as she stared at the large amber bottle containing the antirejection pills Matthew took daily. Had to take daily. Missing even one dose could jumpstart his system into an attempt to reject his transplanted kidney.

“Oh, God.” The terror burning in her had her stomach heaving. She leaned over the sink and gagged. Nothing came up but a stream of saliva.

Rinsing her mouth, she heard Abby dashing in and out of the bathroom, felt her nipping at her ankles. The doxie’s frenzied barking had Kathryn’s brain clicking to the possibility that whoever had taken her son might still be in the house.

Did she still have time to save Matthew?

Fueled by that hope, she jammed the cell phone into the pocket of her shorts and darted out of the bathroom. As if connected to the dachshund by an invisible leash, Kathryn sprinted after Abby.

Her incessant barks now deep, throaty rumbles, the dog shot down the hallway, a discernible limp in her gait as her long, thin nose skimmed the wooden floor, then lifted as if scenting the air for her master.

Kathryn ran, shouting her son’s name while her chest tightened and the breath sobbed out of her lungs.

Her heartbeat battered her ribs, her temples in a savage, pulsing rhythm. She couldn’t face the possibility of losing her child. Refused to think it. She would find Matthew. Save him before some faceless monster carried him away.

Abby bounded off the staircase, her paws skittering across the waxed floor. She turned a corner, scurried along the hallway toward the rear of the house, her snout sweeping to and fro.

“Matthew!” Kathryn ducked into the living room, Sam’s study, then the dining room, searching for some sign of her child.

Abby slowed, turned and began retracing her zigzagging steps along the hallway. At the bottom of the staircase, she looked up at Kathryn and whined.

She’d lost Matthew’s scent. Breath sobbed out of Kathryn’s lungs. “We can’t give up looking.” Turning, she dashed toward the kitchen, her shouts for Matthew echoing through the empty house.

AFTER SEARCHING the kitchen and Willa’s rooms, Kathryn hammered down the basement stairs, grabbed a flashlight and checked the outlaw tunnel, desperately hoping that she’d wake up from this nightmare and find Matthew playing there.

He wasn’t.

With the tunnel’s dank, musty air still in her lungs, she sprinted back upstairs, yelling his name while she checked each room, closet, looking beneath every bed. She found no sign of her child.

As she raced back down the staircase, the fear that had been pounding at her now screamed into her mind, bursting through her body like a storm of ice.

Matthew was gone. Taken by some faceless someone.

We have your son.

The pain inside her was so huge it reached to the bone.

Intent on searching the stables, she bolted off the bottom step and plowed into a solid, unyielding frame.

“Sweet Jesus!” Reece Silver’s voice was as hard as the hands he clamped onto her shoulders.

“Where is he?” Half-crazed, Kathryn shoved at the veterinarian who’d tended the Cross C’s animals since she was a teen. “What have you done with him?”

“Who?” Reece loomed over her, controlling her with hands well-used to keeping strong horses in line. His face was slender, almost gaunt, and the brown eyes staring down at her were filled with confusion. “Johnny? He and I came up here to talk to you. About the mare that came down with colic yesterday? He went down the hall to the kitchen to see if you were there.”

“Not Johnny,” Kathryn gasped. “Matthew! He’s gone.” The hallway with its dark wood walls and floor seemed to be closing in on her. In desperation she fought against Reece’s hold. “Let go!”

“Not while your eyes are glassy and your face is as pale as a boiled egg.” While he spoke, the vet half-nudged, half-dragged her into the living room. “You need to sit, catch your breath.” His face was grim as he prodded her into one of the wing chairs that ringed the fireplace.

“Can’t…” She tried to pull in air. “Breathe.”