Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 5

"Then you're a better man than I am," he said.

"It's not as bad as you'd think, if you're judging from what people say about him. Mr. Kincaid's fair, and he's honest. I guess you can't ask much more than that these days."

"And the pay's good," Chase suggested, smiling.

"The pay's good," Drake agreed, the words almost without inflection.

He supposed that he ought to admire the man for not talking about Sam behind his back, and besides, by that time they'd reached their destination--a bright breakfast room with a small round table. It had been set in a windowed bay that looked out on some of the prim est real estate in the state.

The monochromatic beauty of south Texas didn't appeal to a lot of people, but love of this land was in his blood as strongly as it was in Sam Kincaid's.

When Drake excused himself, explaining that Mr. Kin-caid would be joining him shortly, Chase walked to the windows and pushed one of the sheer curtains aside, looking out on early-morning suns.h.i.+ne that had probably already driven the temperature past ninety.

"It was all supposed to be hers one day," Sam Kincaid said.

Chase dropped the curtain and turned around.

"Mandy's," the old man explained.

"There ain't n.o.body else to leave it to. I'd hoped for a grandson, but I guess that ain't gonna happen." He shrugged and then moved to one of the two places set at the table, sparkling in the morning light with fine china and crystal and sterling-silver flatware.

"You might as well eat before you go," he said, gesturing to the setting at the other side of the table.

"You probably got things to do this morning."

"A few," Chase said, trying to remember what he was supposed to do today, back in San Diego. In addition to the more exotic aspects of his job, he taught seminars on the precautions foreign nationals should take to lessen their chances of being taken hostage in Mexico. He was also under contract as a private security consultant to several of the companies now operating there. But he thought his first appointment today wasn't until afternoon, and so, curious as to what the old man wanted from him, he sat down across the table. And he acknowledged the irony that he was sitting at Sam Kincaid's breakfast table.

The service was flawless, handled by a pleasantly rounded Latino woman named Rosita who kept the coffee hot and her efficiency un.o.btrusive. Sam treated her with casual friendliness and for some reason, Chase was surprised that she truly seemed to like the old man, to enjoy taking care of him.

They were almost through when the swing door of the small room was pushed open. Samantha was dressed today in a black cotton sundress. She had put her hair up, but she wasn't wearing any makeup and the bruise-like shadows under her eyes were p.r.o.nounced.

"Is he really the best?" she asked her father.

She hadn't looked at Chase. On purpose, he thought, so he stood, holding his linen napkin in his left hand. Her eyes tracked to him, just as he'd intended. Maybe she was surprised by his manners. Maybe her own were too deeply ingrained to allow her to ignore him standing there, his unfinished breakfast in front of him.

"Please don't get up," she said.

"This isn't a social occasion."

"I never thought it was. And yes, I'm the best."

"I didn't ask you," she sold. Her eyes went back to her father's face.

"That's what they say," Sam confirmed into the small silence that fell after her deliberate rudeness.

"His was the only name I got. The best. That's what they all told me.

Everybody I asked."

Are you sure?" she asked finally.

"You're not just trying to..."

To control everything, Chase finished for her when she hesitated. Trying to make all the puppets jump on his strings. He wondered again what the old man knew, and then he wondered if Sam was that cold-blooded. But the emotion in his voice when he had talked about his grand-baby had been real. Undeniably real.

"He's the one," Sam said.

"But you got to tell him everything that happened yesterday. He's still trying to make up his mind if he wants the job."

Again the mockery from last night was evident, less subtle this time. Chase supposed he deserved it. Once, he would have cut out his heart with a b.u.t.ter knife if Samantha Kincaid had asked for it, and last night he had pretended that he might not be willing to help her get her baby back.

Samantha's eyes met his again. Chase didn't know what his own face revealed, but she swallowed, the movement hard enough to be visible, before she nodded. She walked around Sam to take the chair in front of the windows, and Chase sat down again in his.

She was near enough that he could smell her. The same fragrance that had invaded his bedroom that night. The same one that had seemed to linger in the small house even the last time he'd gone there. Just before he'd put up the For Sale sign.

"We'd been in to town," she said, her eyes on her fingers that were twisting a narrow fold of the linen tablecloth.

"We always go in on Wednesdays. Everything's less crowded." '

She paused, controlling emotion, he knew. Fighting the pain of remembering those last hours.

"Town?" he repeated, because he needed to know the exact location.

"Eagle Pa.s.s," she said.

Although it surprised him that she had been shopping there, he pushed the question to the back of his mind so he could concentrate on what she was saying.

"Mandy was asleep. In the rearview mirror I noticed a car followingme. I thought about calling the sheriff's office" but they weren't ...doing anything, so I decided I was just being silly. And then, all ofa sudden I looked up and there was a truck across the road ahead of me.I couldn't stop in time and we hit it. Mandy wasn't hurt. That's thefirst thing I checked, and by the time I had, they had alreadysurrounded the Jeep. They were all around us. They had guns.Shotguns. Rifles. They took the phone away and made me get out of thecar. Then they taped my hands together.." and they took Mandy."

"I need to know what they said. Exactly what they said."

"They ... the leader ... he kept telling me that if I did what they told me, no one would be hurt. That I'd get Mandy back in a few days.

That if I cooperated, I'd be around to watch her grow up.

Otherwise..."

She paused, swallowing again before she went on.

"He said all they wanted was the money. And that we'd be contactedabout how to pay it. So ... I didn't do anything. I just watchedwhile they put her in the car and drove away. I didn't do anything tostop them."

The halting words had grown softer and finally the pained narrative faded. Her shadowed eyes looked up at him, begging for absolution, he understood, for relief from the guilt that she had let strangers take her baby.

"You did the right thing. The only thing you could have done.

Otherwise, you could have gotten your baby killed."

He had said the words before, had said them to a.s.suage this same guilt.

And they were true. He had just never said them with as much conviction as he did now.

"You never know how nervous the kidnappers are. How inexperienced.

They were probably just as scared as you were," he a.s.sured her.

"In situations like that, if someone does something stupid, all h.e.l.l can break loose." He had

fought the urge to touch the twisting fingers. Her eyes continued to search his, trying to read if he were telling her the truth.

"All they want is the money," he finished.

"Just like they told you."

"Who are they?" she asked, eyes still on his, still needing the rea.s.surance that he really knew all about these kinds of incidents, that he was really as good as they had told her father he was.

That was the pertinent question. One Chase couldn't answer.

At least not yet.

"We won't have any idea until we get their demands. And we may not know even then. It literally could be anybody."

"h.e.l.l," Sam said, "there can't be that many of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds around. Why don't somebody do something to stop them?"

"There were over two thousand kidnappings in Mexico last year. Maybe that many different groups involved in them. It's the newest cottage industry down there. It could be anybody," he said again.

"They were very concerned that the authorities not be called in," Samantha said.

"He kept saying, "No police."" "They don't want the police involved for a lot of reasons.

If it's antigovernment guerrillas, the Mexican authorities don't want them to get their hands on the ransom and use it in their fight against the government, so sometimes the police interfere to prevent the exchange. Occasionally there's been corruption. The ransom ends up in the hands of the officials rather than the kidnappers, and then the victims are..."

"Not released?" she questioned, her eyes again reflecting that fear.

"It's in everyone's best interests to see that the ransom is paid, as quickly as possible, and the hostage released.

Their continued success at this very profitable business depends on that."

"And yours," Sam said.

"I offer a service for people who prefer to have someone experienced deal with the kidnappers. You came to me, Mr. Kincaid, I thought, because you wanted my services."

"It just seems a h.e.l.l of a way to make a living," the old man said, disgust in his voice.

"What happened to being a lawman like your brother? Not enough money in it?"

The force of the fury that surged through his body surprised Chase. It shouldn't have. The old man had always been able to rattle his cage. Sam Kincaid might care that much about money, but he should know that a McCullar wouldn't.

Besides, the old man knew d.a.m.n well what had driven him from law enforcement. They both knew. Sometimes Chase still woke up at night, sweating and trembling from watching again as that truck exploded. From seeing his brother's burning body thrown out of it. From reliving all that had come after that.

Despite his determination not to let the old man goad him, Chase found he was on his feet. To h.e.l.l with Kincaid.

To h.e.l.l with whatever he thought about what he did for a living. To h.e.l.l with being a puppet again, his strings pulled by that manipulative old-"Chase," Samantha said quietly, looking up at him.

"It doesn't matter what he says. If you're really the best, I need you to get her back. To get Mandy. Please," He looked down, straight into her eyes, and he knew that it really didn't matter what the old man said. Nothing had changed, despite the years. He would still cut out his living, beating heart if she asked him to. Considering that she was married to someone else and that he would have to have contact with her until this was over, that felt like a remarkably accurate description of what he imagined lay ahead.

Suddenly the swing door opened again, Jason Drake came in, holding a plain white business-size envelope in his hand.

"This was in the post-office box in town, Mr. Kincaid," he said, walking across the room to offer the letter to Sam.

"I think maybe it's the one you were expecting."

I sent Drake into town to see if anything ... personal had come in

the mail," Sam explained.

Automatically Sam reached for the letter, and Chase said, "It might be better if you let me look at it first."

Sam's hand paused in midair. The old man was unused to relinquis.h.i.+ngauthority to anyone, but finally he nodded to his a.s.sistant. There wasa minute hesitation before Drake walked around the table to hand theenvelope to Chase.

"And it might be better if we look at this somewhere more private,"

Chase added.

"My people are trustworthy, Mr. McCullar," Sam said."Rosita's been with me since before Samantha was born, and Drakehandles most of the ranch's business now. I got nothing to hide fromthem."