Special Forces Father - By Mallory Kane Page 0,66

awkwardly, still holding Max. “Maxie, honey. Let go of my neck. We’re just fine. Sit on my lap, sweetie.” He wiggled, but he was too sleepy to do anything but whimper.

Lucas got into the driver’s side of the car. “The station’s not far. Put your seat belt on and hold on to Max. I’ll drive slowly.” He started the car and drove out of the gas station parking lot and onto the road. The sky was beginning to turn pink and blue and there was a fresh morning smell to the air.

“I’ve got to warn you,” he said. “I know it’s been a long, frightening night for you and Max, but I’m afraid your ordeal isn’t over. The local cops have no idea what’s been going on. So, be prepared, because you’re going to have a long, harrowing day.”

“I’ve been through the longest, most awful five days of my life. But I have my son back now. Believe me, compared to what we’ve been through, this day will be a picnic.” She got the seat belt fastened and wrapped her arms around Max. He was asleep, for which she was grateful.

Lucas’s cell phone rang.

“Please,” Kate said quickly. “Ask about Travis.”

A snort sounded from the backseat. “Travis. That your boyfriend’s name?” Shirley said. “Good luck, ’cause last I saw of him, he was lying in a puddle of his own blood outside that window. Bent shot him.”

* * *

WITHIN THE EIGHT minutes it took to get to the St. John’s Parish Sheriff’s Department, Lucas had gotten in touch with Ryker, who told him that Reilly and his men had taken Bentley Woods into custody and had rushed Travis to River Parishes Hospital, less than two miles from the sheriff’s office. Kate was relieved that he was at the hospital, but it worried her that nobody had any word about his condition.

She watched as Lucas patiently explained the whole situation to the sergeant in charge on the midnight shift, who stared at him drowsily. Once Lucas had finished, the sergeant looked at him blankly for a second, then told him he needed to talk to the sheriff.

Because she had Max, Kate was allowed to wait in the break room, which had an old leather couch in it. She got Max settled down on the couch with a blanket over him and his little wooden car clutched in his hands. Then she crossed to the counter where a coffeepot sat, it’s On light beckoning her. The coffee didn’t smell great, but she poured herself a cup anyhow. It wasn’t the coffee’s taste she was after, it was the caffeine. She didn’t want to fall asleep because she knew if she did, she’d feel lousy when she woke up. She figured it would be better to stay awake.

* * *

SHE’D LEARNED A lot listening to Lucas’s recounting of the situation to the sergeant. Travis had told her that Dawson and his computer whiz kid were working on a way to pinpoint the exact location of the kidnappers through his cell phone. She knew that they’d only had one chance, because as soon as Bentley Woods answered his phone and realized the caller wasn’t who he was expecting, he’d hang up. She hadn’t known that Travis had found Woods’s phone number in Congressman Whitley’s phone. That meant Whitley was a party to the kidnapping.

Lucas also told the sergeant that Stamps was apparently unaware of the kidnapping scheme aimed at saving him from a felony conviction, but that there was suspicion, if not actual evidence, that Darby Sills was involved.

The sergeant was unhappy that the sheriff’s office hadn’t been brought in on the ambush from the beginning, and let Lucas know in no uncertain terms what he, and by extension the sheriff, thought about a bunch of cowboys from the NOPD and the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Department pulling off a dangerous, harebrained scheme like that right under the St. John’s sheriff’s nose. Lucas was appropriately apologetic and earnest about their fear for the child’s life if they brought in any official authorities. He was careful to explain to the sergeant that a professional kidnapper, a disgraced dirty cop named Bentley Woods, had been called in from Chicago to handle the job. Through a connection of his own in Chicago, Lucas had learned that Woods had been a prime suspect in a couple murders for hire in Cook County, Illinois, but that in neither case was there enough evidence to convict him.

That information horrified Kate. Her