Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 8

"As soon as it's safe," Chase agreed, preventing Samantha from making any promises that might be impossible to keep.

"You take care, now," the old man said, seeming to address them both.

"Take care of my baby."

Chase wasn't sure if he meant Samantha or his grand-baby, but since he intended to do both, he nodded and stepped into the waiting car. Samantha got in on the other side, pulling her door closed. The noise it made disturbed the quiet peace of the morning.

"Go with G.o.d," Sam said softly, and then he closed Chase's door and they were inside the close confines of the car--together and alone--after almost five years.

The soundless vacuum built again, surrounding him with the scent of her body. That wasn't a distraction he could afford. Not something he could even think about until this was over and they'd recovered the baby. Maybe then... He turned the key, something he never did without a knot in his stomach. Such a simple act. You did it a thousand times in your life and then once' Where to?" Samantha asked, thankfully interrupting that memory.

"North," Chase said.

"Through Eagle Pa.s.s."

She nodded, the movement caught out of the corner of his eye. Deliberately, he hadn't looked at her. Later, he thought again. Maybe later, when this is all over.

THE CROSSING HAD BEEN as smooth as he'd antic.i.p.ated, Chase thought, as he finally drove across the narrow stretch of river that marked the international boundary between the two countries. As far as the topography was concerned, it was really no boundary at all, of course. Especially when they had cleared the dozen or so blocks of the downtown area of Piedras Negras and had driven out on Avenida LS-zaro Cfirdenas, which very shortly became Highway 57.

The scenery that surrounded them was a familiar reflection of the south Texas landscape they had just left--semidesert terrain covered with yucca, mesquite, and a variety of gra.s.ses.

Samantha had said almost nothing since they'd left the ranch, not even the polite commonplaces that you'd exchange with a stranger you were forced to share a car with. He wondered what he'd been hoping for. That she would somehow become the girl who had once made her fascination with him apparent to everyone, even to her father?

The same girl who had given herself to him that night? Too much had happened since then, he knew. To them and between them.

It was after nine when they stopped in Nueva Rosita.

Chase wanted to top up the tank and check out the traffic behind them. He hadn't seen anything suspicious, no one following or seeming to be interested in the Land Rover at all. But a tail would have had to make the same turn off the main highway as they had, and any interest in their progress would be much more obvious now on the smaller, less-traveled state highway.

Seemingly there was no one behind them, but even as he got back into the car, Chase couldn't dismiss the nagging sense that something was going on that he should know about. Something that he should have picked up on. The Kincalds hadn't told him everything, he knew, but he also was certain that they were both anxious to get the baby back and that they, at least, were convinced the ransom note was on the up and up.

Chase didn't understand why he was so antsy. It wasn't like him. Maybe it was just being this close to Samantha.

Maybe the fact that he couldn't take a breath without being reminded that she was sitting beside him. But somehow, as disturbing as that was, he didn't think that was it. All the old lawman's instincts he and Mac used to joke about wee awake. And that was something you never wanted to happen, not when you were carrying a million dollars--money that someone else's life depended on your delivering.

WHEN THEY DROVE INTO the square at Melchor Mdzquiz, it was far busier than he'd antic.i.p.ated. There were too many people who didn't belong. Tourists, maybe, but this wasn't the normal tourist territory. It took him a few minutes to realize what was happening. When he had, he began to wonder if this could be why they'd been sent to this particular location.

Anyone who lived along the section of the border where he and Samantha had grown up knew about the Kikapu.

The tribe had lived in the area since the late 1700s, splitting the year seasonally between their village near here and one south of the town of Eagle Pa.s.s. During August they displayed their leather work in Melchor Mtlzquiz, the town nearest their Mexican settlement.

At his quiet suggestion, he and samantha wandered through the display of goods the Indians had brought into town to sell. Playing her part, Samantha fingered the suede garments, asking questions and giving compliments in Spanish, which the Indians understood very easily.

As Chase walked beside her, his eyes searched the small crowd for anyone who looked as if he might be their contact.

He had parked the car on one side of the square so he could keep an eye on it as they shopped. Neither they nor the Land Rover seemed to be attracting anyone's interest.

His mind continued to worry at the connection between this isolated location and the stretch of border where the baby had been taken. The link of the two Indian settlements seemed too obvious to be coincidental. He'd heard that some of the Mennonites had been caught running drugs, but he couldn't believe the Kikapu had suddenly gotten mixed up in the ransom racket.

h.e.l.l, he thought, mocking that rare naivete. Why not?

Everybody else seemed to be.

But if it meant nothing else, he finally decided, the increased activity in the normally quiet town provided a cover for their presence. They would have seemed far more out of place without the other norteamericanos who were wandering around. Maybe that was the only reason they had been sent here.

At lunchtime, which by Texas standards was closer to midafternoon, the small shops began to close and the square started to empty of pedestrians. Still n.o.body had made contact.

n.o.body had tried to make arrangements to pick up the million dollars. That wasn't normal and it didn't make sense. Why take the child and then not pick up the ransom?

Because, Chase was beginning to believe, just as he'd suspected, what was going on wasn't about the ransom at all.

His anger built as the crowd, locals and tourists, melted slowly away from the public area of the town. Chase and Samantha stayed in the square, their isolation providing an opportunity for the kidnappers to approach without witnesses if that was what they had been waiting for. Still nothing happened. And nothing's going to happen, Chase thought.

He took Samantha's elbow, almost pulling her with him, and began walking toward the eighteenth-century Baroque-style church that stood at one corner of the plaza. Its darkened interior would at least offer sanctuary from the heat and a place for the private confrontation that was overdue.

Using a quick pressure of the hand with which he was grasping her arm, he stopped Samantha before the wooden doors, standing for a moment in the shadows of the church's portico to glance back across the nearly deserted square. No one was looking in their direction. No one had paid any attention to them during the hours they had been here. Wild-goose chase, he thought. He had felt that all along.

Angry that he'd allowed himself to be manipulated again by the Kincaids, that his own emotions had made him agree to what he'd known was a wasted trip, he pulled Samantha into the church and up the narrow aisle. He directed her into the last of the wooden pews. He sat down beside her and then took a quick look around. It seemed they had the building to themselves. There were lighted candles, but apparently the wors.h.i.+pers had taken the same lunch break as the merchants.

"Why weren't we met?" Samantha asked. She was looking toward the altar, not at him, and her voice was very hushed. Maybe that wasn't a conscious decision. Maybe it just seemed appropriate to whisper in the dimness of the church.

"You tell me. Tell me why we weren't met. Why we weren't contacted. Why don't you tell me what's really going on here?" he countered. He'd been had, had by somebody. He knew it, and it made him feel like a fool.

"What's really going on?" she repeated.

"I don't know any more than you about--" She stopped, realizing what he was thinking.

"You still think this is a hoax. A trick to get custody of Amanda. Well, you're wrong, Chase. This has nothing to do with my husband." The anger was clear despite the fact that she was still whispering, still facing the altar.

"Then I guess the people who took Amanda don't really want Sam's money after all. I wonder what they do want."

She turned to face him at that, and even in the darkness, Chase could see the color drain from her cheeks and her eyes widen.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"It means that n.o.body's real eager to collect their hard-earned loot. And believe me, that hasn't been my experience."

"They didn't give us a time," she argued.

"Maybe we're just early. Maybe after lunch. When things are less crowded. Maybe they're just waiting--" "Why don't you level with me, Mrs. Berldey? Tell me what's really going on."

"I don't know what's happened. Don't you think if I knew anything that would help us get Mandy back, I'd tell you? Why would I lie to you when my daughter's life is at stake? What the h.e.l.l do you think I am? Do you think I don't care about her? Do you really think I'd do anything to jeopardize our chances of getting Mandy?"

Her voice had risen with her growing agitation. Chase put his hand down hard on the top of hers, and the angry questions cut off abruptly. He looked around to see if anyone had heard what she'd said, but they still seemed to be the only occupants of the sanctuary.

Satisfied that they were alone, he looked at her again.

The fear of the first day was back in her face. She hadn't said much during the long morning, but he had been aware of the hope that had radiated from her tense body. The hope that he would be able to put her baby back into her arms.

Whatever had gone wrong, Samantha wasn't to blame, and he felt like an SOB for making her more afraid than she already had been.

"Look," he began again, keeping his own voice only slightly above a whisper.

"Maybe you don't know anything about what's gone wrong, but you and Sam haven't leveled with me. Not from the start. You haven't told me everything I need to know to get Mandy back for you, and I want to know why. What didn't you tell me, Samantha? I need to know what you and Sam are hiding."

Her eyes were on his, and they didn't flinch before the accusation. But they didn't give in, either. They sat in silence, his demand between them. He saw her take a breath, and her lips parted, but before she could say anything, the door of the church was pulled open from the outside.

The sudden shaft of sunlight flashed like a spotlight into the dark interior. They both looked toward the door, but the dazzle of light after the shadowed dimness was blinding.

Chase had time to see the silhouette of a man, starkly outlined against the open doorway. Then the light was gone, the heavy door closing with a small thud that echoed off the plaster walls.

Unconsciously, he allowed his gaze to come back to find Samantha's face. Wordlessly, in response to the question in his eyes, she shook her head. She apparently had seen no more than he. He wasn't even sure whether the man had come in or had stepped quickly back outside before the door closed.

"Wait here," he ordered.

He slipped out of the pew and walked toward the door.

The shadows were deeper here, farther from the filtered light that spilled from the stained-gla.s.s window above the altar at the other end of the nave. When he reached the door, there was no one there. He pushed it open and looked out into the brightness of the now empty square. His eyes squinted against the sudden change, but he could see well enough to verify there was no movement across the sunbaked plaza. He looked at the Land Rover, sitting undisturbed under the shade of the single tree on that side of the square.

"Do you think that might have been--" Samantha spoke from directly behind him.

"Shh," he cautioned, still listening in the afternoon's quiet lethargy for footsteps or for a motor starting somewhere.

Listening for any disturbance of the sleeping stillness.

There was nothing. Whoever had opened the door of the church had disappeared.

Samantha moved forward to stand beside him.

"A man?" he asked.

She hesitated for a moment before she answered.

"I thought so. It happened so quickly, but ... my impression was a man."

"Yeah, mine, too," Chase said, still looking out on the plaza.

"Could it have been whoever was supposed to contact us?"

"It could have been anybody," he said.

He wondered suddenly if whoever had opened the door had had time to identify them, given the extremes of light and dark. He walked across the portico and pulled opened the church's wooden door. He tried to duplicate the figure's stance in the doorway, peering into the sanctuary. His eyes barely had time to adjust to the interior darkness before the door swung closed behind him. He had been able to find the spot on the last pew where they had been sitting. That was about all.

He stood in the dark church, trying to put it together, trying to think about what to do next. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Nothing like this had ever happened before. It had always been as straightforward as he'd promised Samantha, the kidnappers more than eager to make the arrangements and to pick up their money. This time somebody appeared to be playing games.

His eyes lifted to the stained-gla.s.s window at the other end of the narrow aisle. He recognized the scene portrayed easily enough, although it had been a long time since Chase McCullar had been inside a church.

Even the phrase from the story was still in his memory, one of the countless instilled in his childhood.

"Suffer the little children..." Sunday school at the Mount Ebenezer Baptist Church in Crystal Springs. Ears scrubbed and face s.h.i.+ning, dressed in clothing that he donned only on that occasion, Chase had listened, fascinated, to all the stories Mrs. Wexman had told. There wasn't much time at home for storytelling. There was always too much that had to be done, and even before his mother's death, she was too exhausted after the long day's work to entertain her boys with stories.

The outside door opened, and Samantha was there before he had time to get it all straight in his head. Exactly what he thought was going on here. Exactly what they should do next.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Her gaze followed his to the window above the altar.

"Chase? What's wrong?"

Amateurs, he thought again. Maybe the guy had been trying to give them the message. Maybe he had seen them come in, but hadn't been able to find them in the dark.

Maybe something had scared him off. Or maybe he had nothing at all to do with the kidnapping.

"Come on," he said finally, still no closer to figuring out why they hadn't gotten the word they had waited for most of the day.

"Let's get out of here. We need to be out where we can be seen." He put his hand against the small of Samantha's back to direct her out the door.

"Are you sure there wasn't a note?" she asked.

"Maybe he put the note where we were sitting after we went out."

And maybe he's a magician, Chase thought. Maybe he can disappear into thin air and then reappear somewhere else. But maybe, just maybe, she was right. He didn't have a better suggestion.

-He walked to the pew they'd occupied, his footsteps echoing off the stone floor, the sound floating upward toward the high, arched ceiling to be lost in the shadows there.

There was nothing, of course. Just as he knew there would be. He looked on the floor and even on the nearby pews to be certain he wasn't missing anything--anything beyond the central question that seemed to be escaping him.

"Did you find anything?" she asked.

"There's nothing, Samantha. He didn't leave a note."

He walked back toward her, seeing the loss of hope reflected in her strained features.

"I just hope he's doing what he promised," she said softly."Who?""The leader. The one who did all the talking.""What did he promise?" Chase asked."To take care of Mandy. To care for her as if she were his own daughter. He has a daughter."She hadn't told him that. It didn't seem to have any beating on what he'd been hired to do, but he liked to know everything that had been said and done during the abduction.

Neither Samantha nor Sam had mentioned that part of the conversation.

"Samantha..." he began, and then he hesitated because he knew that

what he was about to say was sheer cruelty.

If she was finding comfort in the kidnapper's promise, he should just leave it alone. Let her think whatever made it easier, but things were not going as they should, and maybe she needed to be prepared for the

possibility-"You think I'm putting too much store in that, don't you?"