Chapter 10 #2
This time he was given cabin number nine, which was farthest from the two-story home that doubled as a lobby.
The guy behind the desk looked to be almost eighty, with white hair, white beard, and a large belly that protruded over his belt.
Thankfully, the elderly owner was more than happy to take cash.
“Just one night?” The guy looked disappointed. “Not the whole weekend?”
“We might stay another night. I should know more by tomorrow morning.” Grady smiled and gave the guy an extra twenty. “Thanks again.”
“Anytime.” The twenty along with the other two hundred in cash disappeared into his pocket.
Once they were settled inside the cabin, he called Griff but was forced to leave a message. Same thing when he called FBI Agent Braun.
“Should I start making calls?” Lauren asked with a frown. “They should be getting back to us about what they’d found.”
“Not yet.” He sat at the table and opened the computer. He still hadn’t finished going through the social media posts of Nelson’s frat brothers. “Let’s do a little more work first.”
She sighed and glanced over at Lucy who was watching television. “I don’t love all this screen time, and I really hate knowing she’s missing school.”
“I understand.” He hoped the case would be solved by Monday. “There’s one name I ran into last night on Archer’s social media account. A guy by the name of Curtis Handover.” He glanced at her. “Does that sound familiar?”
“Nope.” She sat in the chair beside him. “Why did he catch your eye?”
“Because he said something about Bobby Morton’s death.” He scrolled through the site to find the comment. “Something that indicated he was a good friend of Bobby’s.”
“Even so, that doesn’t mean he’d try to kidnap Lucy.” Lauren frowned. “Unless you think Nelson is a friend of his too?”
“No, it sounded as if Curtis wasn’t happy with your ex.” He found the comment and turned the screen so she could read it for herself. “See this? He wrote: ‘Bobby shouldn’t have died and being sent to prison isn’t enough of a punishment.’”
“Yeah, I see that. But I still don’t think that means he’d kidnap Nelson’s daughter as payback.”
He shrugged. “Maybe this Curtis guy is Bobby’s cousin or something, since they have different last names.”
After entering the new name in the search engine, he found Curtis Handover’s social media page. The second picture was one that featured Curtis and Bobby standing next to each other, grinning at the camera. The caption simply said, “my brother.”
“His brother?” Lauren frowned. “You mean he has another relative other than Randy?”
“Different last name could mean he’s a half brother or even a stepbrother.
” He did a quick criminal background check on Curtis Handover.
The guy’s record was clean. Going back to social media, he dug further until he found a post where the two men were standing with their respective mothers.
The post was captioned, “different moms with the same love.”
“They share a father.” He turned to stare at Lauren. “It looks to me like Curtis blames Nelson for his half brother’s death.”
“A half brother in addition to a first cousin,” Lauren echoed in a low voice. “Why didn’t any of the cops or the FBI mention Curtis? Did they even bother to dig into Bobby’s family to look for suspects?”
“I don’t know.” He shared her concern. “Hopefully, we’ll know more when either Griff or David Braun calls me back.”
She reached over to grasp his hand. “Do you think we’re getting close to uncovering the truth?”
He smiled reassuringly to show his faith in the system, despite how it was his digging that had unearthed another possible suspect. “Yeah, I’m sure this nightmare will be over very soon.”
She nodded, but her troubled gaze remained on the image of Curtis and Bobby hugging their respective mothers.
A non-traditional family that had been torn apart by her ex-husband’s carless decision to drive while under the influence.
* * *
There was no reason to feel guilty over Bobby’s tragic death, but logic didn’t seem to matter. Lauren wasn’t responsible for the way Nelson had crashed while driving drunk. And her daughter certainly didn’t deserve to pay the price, if this was about revenge.
She rose and paced the length of the cabin, feeling restless. The police should have known about Bobby’s half brother as well as his cousin. They should have already interviewed them and either cleared them or kept them as a suspect.
And the gunmen should not be here in Wisconsin, finding them despite their attempts to stay off-grid.
She stared blindly through the narrow opening between the trees at the large farm located west of the cabin. They’d been running from danger for what seemed like forever, with no end in sight. She wanted to scream in frustration but did her best to tamp down her anger.
When Grady’s phone rang, she spun from the window like it was a gunshot. Then she crossed over to be included in the conversation.
“Hi, Griff, I’m putting you on speaker,” Grady said. “Lauren is here. You need to know what’s been going on since we last spoke.”
“I’m getting the impression you don’t like the Chicago FBI,” Griff drawled. “Do I need to fly across the country to help you?”
“No, but you’re right about the Chicago FBI,” Grady agreed. “I feel like they’re two steps behind us when it should be the other way around.”
“Okay, what happened?” Griff asked.
She listened as Grady filled him in. At some level, she found it difficult to believe this was really happening to her and Lucy. That someone had kidnapped Ariel by mistake and was determined to get it right the second time around.
Even if that meant killing anyone who got in the way.
“How do you keep getting found?” Griff asked, clearly perplexed.
“Maybe the Chicago FBI?” Grady drawled. When she frowned, he shrugged, and added, “It could be that the gunmen have a police scanner and figured out we stole the car. But how they found us on our way to picking up the rental car is a mystery.”
There was a muffled voice in the background, then Griff asked, “Dom wants to know if you’ve been on the internet?”
“Yes, we have been using the internet, but why does that matter?” Grady asked. “I don’t see how using the free cabin rental internet or the breakfast restaurant internet or any others would lead these guys to us.”
“You’d be surprised by what a computer geek can do as far as tracking internet usage,” Griff said. “Dom thinks you should stay off the internet from here on out.”
Lauren reached over to disconnect the laptop from the internet, then powered it down. While she didn’t understand how using the access drew the bad guys to their location, she wasn’t willing to take the chance.
“Do you think we need to move to a new place?” Grady’s brow was furrowed with concern. “Because we can.”
“How long have you been there?” Griff asked.
“About an hour,” Grady admitted. “And we’ve been online the entire time.”
“Yes, Dom says you need to get out of there. I don’t understand all the geek speak, but he’s worried that’s how you’re being tracked.”
“Okay, we’ll head out right away.” Grady’s expression was grim. “But I need you to investigate a guy by the name of Curtis Handover; he’s Bobby Morton’s half brother. We think he could be working with Bobby’s first cousin, Randy Morton.”
“You think they’re seeking revenge?” Griff sounded skeptical.
“We don’t know.” Grady paused, then added, “We haven’t found anything on Randy, but Curtis Handover posted something on social media that leads me to believe he is upset with Nelson Derringer about his half brother’s death.”
“Okay, I can see why you’d want both of them checked out,” Griff agreed. “The local police didn’t mention them?”
“Nope. And while I don’t know why Curtis Handover, Randy Morton, or anyone else for that matter would try to kidnap Lucy now, it certainly does feel like revenge is the driving motivation behind this. That and money,” he added.
Lauren believed the reverse was true. That the goal was more about the money, with the revenge angle being an added bonus.
“I think you can trust Agent Braun,” Griff was saying. “I’ll reach out to him while you get Lauren and her daughter someplace safe.”
“Understood. We’ll talk later.” Grady disconnected from the line. “I feel bad I didn’t consider they could track us via the internet.”
“It’s okay.” She had never thought of it either. She stood and headed into the living room. “Get your coat, Lucy. We need to go for anther ride.”
“No, I’m watching my show,” Lucy said without tearing her gaze from the television. One of the many reasons why Lauren didn’t like allowing so much screen time.
“Now, Lucy.” Grady’s stern tone caught her daughter’s attention. Lucy frowned at Grady, then scrambled off the sofa to reach for her coat. Lauren swallowed her annoyance at how her daughter listened to Grady better than to her, her own mother.
“Let me grab the groceries.” Lauren moved into the kitchen. “I don’t want to waste them.”
“Yeah, I’ll help.” Grady quickly filled one of the grocery bags they’d just emptied. “We’ll leave the computer behind.”
Packing their things didn’t take long. Lauren thought they would make it out of there when she saw a dark car driving up to the log cabin. She grabbed Grady’s arm, squeezing tightly. “I think they’re here.”
“I see them.” He eyed the rental, but the only way out of the cabin would take them past the black SUV with tinted windows. “Follow me, we’re going around back on foot.”
On foot? She wanted to argue, but there wasn’t time to waste. She turned toward Lucy, and whispered, “Come this way.”
Lucy’s eyes widened in fear, but she nodded and followed her lead. Leaving everything behind, they went back inside the cabin, then headed out the back door. The small woods didn’t extend very far, and beyond them, there was nothing but open farmer’s fields.
She tripped over a tree root, her mind spinning. If they kept going, the bad guys would see them! Unless they could somehow get to the outbuildings in time.
Sending up a silent prayer, she quickened her pace. When Lucy dragged behind, Grady abruptly turned and picked her daughter up into his arms. He lengthened his stride, heading between the trees and into the farmer’s field.
The snow wasn’t as deep as she anticipated, yet it still felt as if they were moving at a snail’s pace. She kept glancing over her shoulder, expecting to see the black SUV coming straight toward them. The car might just make it across the rutted farmer’s field.
She set her jaw and jogged to keep up with Grady. If he could make good time carrying Lucy, then she’d find a way to keep up as well.
After what seemed like eons, they reached the first outbuilding. Grady set Lucy on her feet, then shoved the massive door aside. She had to blink her eyes to adjust to the dim interior of what appeared to be an equipment storage shed.
Grady headed for an old beat-up truck. She was about to follow when she saw the distinct wing of a small airplane.
The farmer owned a small plane? She headed toward the bird, wondering if it was usable. Grady was already poking around under the truck’s hood.
“This is in bad shape,” he said, more to himself than to her. “We might want to just head up to the house to see if anyone inside can call for help.”
“Hang on.” She opened the door of the plane that she assumed was used as a crop duster. Either to spread fertilizer or to kill pests, she wasn’t entirely sure. She climbed up and examined the cockpit.
“Grady? Someone is coming,” Lucy said, her voice panicked.
“I see the black SUV, Lucy. Stay back from the door.” Grady’s voice sounded strained. “Lauren, we need to get up to the farmhouse right away.”
“The men in the car are armed.” She couldn’t stand the thought of the farmer and his family being hurt in the scuffle. Especially since they were far enough out of town that it would take the police a long time to get there. “We can take the plane.”
“I hate to break it to you, but the army didn’t teach me how to fly a plane,” Grady said. “They taught me to shoot a gun.”
“I have a pilot’s license.” She started the motor and was impressed the engine started right up.
Despite the condition of the truck, the farmer obviously kept the plane in good repair.
This was their best chance to escape. She didn’t like taking something that didn’t belong to her, but she wasn’t about to let that stop her from saving her daughter.
If this worked, they’d be long gone before the gunmen could find them again.