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

“Like I’ve been shot,” she said wryly.

North saw the smile on Clay’s face before he reached out to brush his knuckle against her cheek. North knew what Clay was doing. Reassuring himself that she was alive. That she was fine. That he hadn’t lost her.

“You’re going to be fine, Libby,” Clay said. “I wish I could stay, but there’s an emergency, and I have to get back to the courthouse.”

Libby grabbed his arm as he started to rise and said, “Donnie Brown has Kate.”

Clay sat back down and said, “How do you know that?”

“He told me so. He’s going to make a bomb, Clay,” she said, her voice high-pitched and frightened. “He said he’s going to call in a bomb scare, but he isn’t just threatening to blow the place up. There’ll be a real bomb at the courthouse.”

“Now that we know—”

“He hates the government and lawyers and judges,” Libby interrupted “He’s going to hurt Kate to hurt you.”

“Kate?” Clay said.

“He’s got our daughter, Clay. And he’s making a bomb. It isn’t too big a leap—” Libby’s sob cut her off.

North watched as Clay gently tucked a blond curl behind Libby’s ear, love written large on his face. “Don’t worry, darling,” Clay said. “I’m going back to the courthouse now. I’ll find Kate and make sure she’s safe.”

North was already on the phone to Jack. He listened and then said to Clay and Libby, “Jack says there’s no bomb scare. There’s nothing at all to indicate there’s any problem at all at the courthouse.”

“But he said he had a bomb,” Libby said. She tried to sit up and cried out in pain and grabbed her side.

Clay eased her back down onto the pillow and said, “Please, stay still, darling. You’re hurt.”

“Oh, my God,” Libby said, tears shimmering in her eyes as she struggled against Clay’s light hold to sit up. “Donnie’s going to attach Kate to a bomb. I’ve seen that in the movies. I know—”

Clay eased her back down on the bed. “Easy, baby,” he said. “North and I are going to the courthouse, and Jack—he’s a Texas Ranger, North says—will be there, too. Between the three of us, we’ll find Kate.”

“Jack’s a Texas Ranger?”

“That’s another story,” North said. “And we have to go. There’ll be a deputy marshal here in a few minutes to guard the door.”

“Please don’t let anything happen to Kate,” Libby said, clutching Clay’s arm. “Promise me.”

“I’ll keep her safe,” Clay said.

Libby wouldn’t let him go. “Promise me!”

“I promise,” Clay said. “I have to go, darling,” he said. But he made no move to free himself.

“I’ll stay here with you, Libby,” Jocelyn said.

Reluctantly, Libby released Clay, her heart in her eyes, the promise she’d demanded still echoing in the room.

It was a promise Clay shouldn’t have made, North thought. Because there was no sure way he could keep it.

Kate was surprised when the door to the storage room opened and the light came on. When she saw Donnie, she tried not to look afraid, but her body started shivering, and she couldn’t get it to stop.

“Hi, there, sweet thing,” Donnie said with a grin. “This’ll all be over soon.”

Kate wished he’d stop saying that. She shuddered as he ran his hands over her body under the guise of untying the ropes that kept her prone in the closet, touching what she never would have allowed him to touch. She made a disgusted sound deep in her throat and Donnie snickered.

“Might as well let me enjoy it now,” he said. “Pretty soon there isn’t going to be a big enough piece of you left for anybody else to enjoy.”

He didn’t take the tape from her mouth, but she called him names that she was sure he understood, because he only grinned more broadly.

She struggled as he hefted her over his shoulder, and when he almost dropped her, he smacked her hard on her bottom. “Stop that,” he said. “Or I’ll have to put you out.”

Kate immediately stopped wriggling. At least if she were conscious, she’d have a chance to save herself. Unconscious, she was…hamburger.

The thought made her giggle hysterically. Which made tears brim in her eyes. She wanted her mom and dad. She wanted Jack. She wanted to live, which seemed the most impossible wish of all.

She wondered where they were that Donnie could move her without fear of discovery. She’d thought they were at the courthouse, but that seemed not to be true. But if they weren’t in the courthouse, why all the shiny floors and—

She glanced into one of the rooms as Donnie carried her down the hall and realized they were in a hospital. With shiny floors and an antiseptic smell. Where were the patients? The rooms seemed to be empty.

“They’re renovating this floor of the hospital,” Donnie said. “So they’ve got it blocked off to the general population. I’ve been doing some painting for the contractor—off the books, of course. Nobody’s working today because the contractor’s mother got killed. Hit-and-run. So sad. We’ve got the whole place to ourselves.”

It didn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to figure out that Donnie had been willing to kill an innocent old lady to forward his plan. Kate felt her stomach knot. This freckle-faced boy was a ruthless killer.

He laid her down on a bed, then rolled her on her side and untied her hands. Kate thought this might be her only chance to win freedom, and she made a valiant effort to hit out with her hands. But there was no blood in her limbs, and they were like dead things, useless to fight him.

Donnie used straps on the hospital bed to attach her hands to the bed rails, then tied her feet to the corners of the bed with rope. “You’ll be fine here until I need you.”

Kate shifted in the bed, trying to find a comfortable position while wearing the vest of explosives.

“I wouldn’t move around too much, if I were you,” Donnie warned. “You just never know when you might cause a spark and then—
POW
!”

Kate looked at Donnie with narrowed eyes. He must be jerking her chain. Surely, he wouldn’t be so nonchalant about carrying her around, if the explosives she was wearing were that volatile.

She looked at the peculiar light in Donnie’s eyes, the sweat on his upper lip and brow, and thought maybe he was that crazy. She shivered. She had to get out of here. She had to get free. She looked around the room for some means of escape, or some method of contacting the outside world. She spotted a phone and glanced back at Donnie, who’d apparently followed her darting eyes.

He shook a finger at her, like he would a naughty child, and said, “Uh-uh. No phone calls. That would spoil everything.” He carefully disconnected the phone jack from the wall and took the phone with him as he headed out of the room. “I may need you to speak to your father to prove you’re still alive. But I wouldn’t want you calling him before the time is right. See you soon, sweet thing.”

Donnie stopped at the door and turned back to her. He reached inside a light denim jacket he was wearing and pulled out a small device. “Just so you know, this is a remote detonator. All I have to do is push this button—”

Kate gasped.

Donnie laughed. “—when I’m at a safe distance. I have no intention of blowing myself up along with you, sweet thing.”

I’m not a thing. I’m a person. A human being, you cretin!

“I think it’s time I paid a visit to your mom,” Donnie said. “She’s staying here in the hospital.”

Kate’s eyes went wide and her heart skipped a beat.

“Oh, yeah. She got shot. Accidentally. Although, I have to say, things are working out well. Your dad’s already been here to visit her, along with your uncle and that cheating football hero you like so much. He’s a Texas Ranger. Did you know? That sonofabitch had me fooled. But not my mom. Or my brother. Neither of them liked the way he hung around the courthouse so much. I think Jack-the-Texas-Ranger might be worried about you. Much good it’s going to do him!”

Donnie laughed as he left the room.

Kate could hear his footfalls echo as he headed down the empty hall. He couldn’t know how relieved she was to know Jack was a Texas Ranger. She knew he cared for her. And that he would find her, or die trying.

She struggled to sit as high as she could in the bed, but her hands were secured too far away for her to bend forward and reach them with her taped-up mouth. But she had more mobility now than she had had in the closet, and she went to work trying to rub the tape off her mouth by rubbing her cheek against her shoulder.

That didn’t work, so she tried forcing her mouth wide, sticking her tongue through her teeth until her jaws ached. The tape moved. A little. But she was far from free.

Kate was terrified of what Donnie was going to do with her mother. She already had evidence of his ruthlessness. She became frantic when she thought of Donnie simply murdering her mother in her hospital bed and then calling her father to come—which he would, on the run—and capturing him as well.

She closed her eyes and thought of her father and sent him a mental message, hoping it would find its way to him.

Watch out for Donnie Brown, Daddy. He’s got me tied up here in the hospital and now he’s after Mom. Be careful! We need you to come save us.

And then she realized that however powerful her father might be, he wasn’t a lawman. Jack was. So maybe she ought to send a message out into the ether for Jack, as well.

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.

“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 heavy 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.”