Galen's Gemma - Dale Mayer Page 0,34

head. “That doesn’t say anything, does it?”

“No. But they seemed to think she contacted us and that she did it deliberately.”

“Well, of course she did. I’m her sister. Who else would she call if she’s in trouble?” Gemma said. “Besides, outside of grief and shock and reaching out to her only family, why else would she have called me? And asking for help doesn’t mean Rebecca is responsible for anything else in this mess.”

“Exactly. We’re trying to get close enough to hear their conversations,” he said, “so I’ll let you know if we find out any more.”

“Are you bringing her back?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, “but we really need to get to the bottom of this first.” And, with that, he hung up.

She stared down at the phone in dismay. It was so typical of her sister. She couldn’t even be kidnapped in a clean way. Gemma sat here rocking herself, her arms wrapped around her knees, as she wondered what all this meant. She picked up her phone and quickly sent her sister a text. Are you okay?

No. Of course I’m not okay. Is the cavalry coming?

At that, Gemma tossed the phone on the couch and stared at it. Should she even tell her sister that the cavalry is coming? Because, if Rebecca had anything to do with this, she would just get Zack and Galen in trouble. And that Gemma didn’t want to do.

It seemed like every man she knew fell in love with Rebecca. Gemma hoped that Zack had woken up and understood who and what Rebecca was, but it still wasn’t a crime to fall under her sister’s charms. Zack might have been foolish to fall in love with her sister a long time ago, but that just made him male. And he certainly didn’t deserve dying over it now. He’d come here to help them, and Gemma had set this into play.

Thinking about that, she got out her laptop with the video camera feeds and studied that. Her phone buzzed again. She checked to see a text from her sister, with a single question mark, asking for her answer. And, once again, Gemma chose not to respond.

Studying the laptop screens, she found where the two men went into the cabin and partially escorted her sister out. She now understood what Galen had been talking about. Rebecca went on her own, but Gemma doubted that her sister could have left on her own. Gemma frowned, trying to get a closer look at the faces. One of them was definitely somebody she had seen with Joe at work. The same guy who had been in the backyard, trying to gain entry twice to Rebecca’s house in the wee hours of the morning. The other guy she didn’t know at all. She studied his face, but she couldn’t get a closer look at it.

She sent Galen a quick text that one of the kidnappers was the guy who had been involved in the attempted break-in at Joe’s house.

Galen texted back his thanks. She smiled at that, wondering at her reluctance to answer her sister. She waited in the darkness with her tea, listening for any sound. And then came a buzz from her phone. She picked it up. Galen calling her. When she put the phone against her ear, he whispered, “We’re coming in.”

“Okay.” She hopped up and stepped outside onto the veranda and walked around to the back door. In the back of the cabin in the distance, she saw lights. She walked out to the parking spot, and he pulled up right in front of her. She looked at him in surprise, not seeing Zack.

Galen hopped out and faced her, talking quietly. “It’s just me, and we’ve got a problem.”

“What’s that?”

“We overheard an argument they had with your sister. They’re demanding ransom,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows slowly. “For what?”

“For the return of your sister.”

She shook her head. “And is my sister involved in this?”

“Again, I can’t tell you that,” he said.

She stared at him, in shock. “And just how am I supposed to get ransom out here?”

He took a slow, deep breath. “The ransom they want is Becky.”

*

Galen didn’t know how to tell Gemma that, while he was listening, the kidnappers had made it very clear to Rebecca that they wanted Becky.

Rebecca had screamed, ranted, raved. “No way!”

“That’s fine,” they had said. “We’ll just keep you here until we get Becky.”

“No way!” Rebecca shouted.

At that point in time, he and Zack had split up, and