Colorado Abduction - By Cassie Miles & Marie Ferrarella Page 0,36
Carolyn repeated those words to herself. Nicole will be home for Christmas.
“Ain’t this something?” he said. “With the feds and the choppers and bloodhounds and all.”
“Dylan said he’d call out the National Guard if that’s what it takes.”
They went quiet. She never felt a need to make conversation with Lucas. In the many years she’d known this old cowboy, he’d always been prone to taciturn silence. According to gossip from Polly, Lucas Mann had a reputation as a ladies’ man when he went into town, but Carolyn found that characterization hard to imagine.
He shifted his weight from one boot to the other. “You and Burke went over to the Circle M. How’d that turn out?”
Unable to adequately describe her disgust with the Sons of Freedom, she shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
“Logan’s not a bad kid, you know.”
When she was dating that scumbag, Lucas had been one of the guys who thought she should marry him. “He’s changed.”
“Betcha he was downright happy to see you.”
Why would Lucas make that assumption? “How much do you know about the Sons of Freedom?”
“Not much. They’re against the government getting in the way of everyday people. Going back to the good old days.”
“When women had fewer rights than cattle?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Carolyn. Ain’t nobody fixing to send you back to the kitchen.” He lifted the wreath onto his shoulder. “It don’t seem like the SOF means any harm.”
Not unless you count murder. And whatever other criminal activities they were engaged in. She’d seen the sophisticated weaponry. Old-time pioneers didn’t need automatic assault rifles. “If I ever see Sam Logan again, it’ll be too soon.”
The front door of the ranch house slammed and she looked toward the sound. Her brother stepped onto the veranda and gripped the railing. Even at this distance, she could see tension weighing down upon him, bending his shoulders.
Giving Elvis a final pat, she hurried back to the house. The closer she got, the more distress she saw in Dylan. When she touched his arm, he was trembling.
His voice was so low she could barely hear him.
“We got another call from the kidnapper.”
Chapter Twelve
When Dylan was a toddler, two years younger than Carolyn, she hated to see him cry. At the first sign of tears, she’d cuddle him, tell him stories and sing songs until he smiled. If only she could do the same thing now—sweep her brother up in her loving arms and ease the aching in his heart.
She wrapped an arm around his middle and leaned her head on his shoulder. Memories of long-ago lullabies whispered in her mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to offer false promises that everything would be all right.
“I told the kidnapper,” Dylan said, “that we were having a hard time getting the ransom in time because of the banks. He changed his deadline. We have until Monday at five o’clock.”
“That’s good news,” she said.
“Not for Nicole. She has to be with those bastards for two more days. God only knows what they’re doing to her.”
Burke joined them on the porch. His manner was subdued but assertive, striking exactly the right tone of calm control. She wondered if that attitude was something they taught at Quantico or if it came naturally.
He said, “You did a good job on the phone, Dylan.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking,” he said darkly. “I’d rather give them the money and get my wife back.”
In an ideal world, that was how a negotiation should work. But not with a kidnapper. If Nicole was being held at the Circle M, Logan would never free her—she could identify him. If the pregnant woman, Sunny, was to be believed, Logan had already presided over one murder. Nicole might be the next.
“We have two more days to find her,” Carolyn said. “You did good, Dylan. You bought us more time.”
“And Dylan got the kidnapper to promise one proof of life a day. More photos of Nicole give us more clues,” said Burke.
Thinking of evidence, Carolyn asked, “Did you trace the call?”
“Not this time. He was too fast, and there aren’t a lot of cell towers in this area to use for tracking. But it was the same cell phone number as the first call.”
“Sheriff Trainer was trying to get information on the phone,” she remembered. “Figuring out where the disposable cell was purchased.”
“Thus far,” Burke said, “he’s been unsuccessful.”
“And what about Nate Miller?” she asked. “Did the sheriff find anything at his house?”
“Smith joined the sheriff and his deputies for that search.