Trumped Up Charges - By Joanna Wayne Page 0,25

in such horrifying angst about her granddaughters.

She wanted to talk to Janice face-to-face. It was the Christian thing to do.

Officer Grummet she could do without.

* * *

ADAM COULDN’T WAIT to sit down with Fred Casey and come up with a plan of action for dealing with the kidnapper. He’d had a fairly lengthy conversation with him while Fred was waiting at the Dulles Airport and Adam’s clothes tumbled in the dryer. The man’s knowledge and expertise were impressive.

He’d shared with Fred the latest information Hadley had received from Detective Lane. There had been several reported sightings of Lacy and Lila. They were all being checked out, but Lane wasn’t convinced that any of them were credible at this point.

The police had not, as yet, located Quinton Larson, but they had reason to believe he was in the North Texas area.

Lacy’s and Lila’s pictures had gone out to every police agency in the country. Local police were currently making house calls on every child sex offender in the city. Apparently there were many.

Adam considered all the information as he dressed in jeans and a shirt still warm from the dryer. He had one shoe on when he heard the screech of brakes in front of the house.

He hobbled to the door. Hadley beat him to it. She opened it and an instant attack of flashbulbs left them both blinking and squinting.

When he could see again, he noted that the van in the driveway was unmarked, evidence they weren’t from one of the major local TV channels. They’d no doubt be next.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Hadley demanded.

“We’re from a national magazine and we’d like to help you get out the facts about your daughters’ kidnapping.”

“Ms. O’Sullivan is not doing any interviews,” Adam announced.

“Just a few questions,” a perky blonde with a microphone insisted. “Where is the father of your missing daughters?”

Adam would have liked to hear the answer to that himself. Instead he stepped in front of Hadley, sheltering her from the push of the reporter and cameramen. “Ms. O’Sullivan has no comment except that her daughters, Lacy and Lila, are missing and her only concern is their safe return.”

“Who are you?”

None of their damn business. “A longtime friend.” He forced the door shut.

“I wasn’t prepared for that,” Hadley admitted. “I felt like I was about to be mauled by a pack of wolves.”

“It will likely get a lot worse.”

“Then perhaps I should have answered their questions so they’d go away and not come back.”

“They’ll only be replaced by a new wolf pack.”

“So I’m forced to deal with vultures every time I open my door.”

Adam had a thousand reservations about what he was about to suggest. He couldn’t imagine how the idea had popped into his head. “I know a place that would make it a lot more difficult for the media wolf pack to get in your face.”

“Jail?”

“A little more comfortable than that.”

“What’s to keep them back?”

“Barbed wire. Possibly a few riled bulls. Fear of getting shot by a cantankerous old man.”

“And where would I find all of this?”

“At the Dry Gulch Ranch, home of the worst father I never had.”

Chapter Six

Hadley’s world was in a tailspin. Adam was an apparition who’d moved into the nightmare and taken control. She wasn’t complaining. She wasn’t sure how she’d get through this without him. As it was, she was holding on to sanity by a thread.

With the girls missing, the reasons she’d had for avoiding all contact with him had become meaningless. Every priority in her life had shifted or disappeared altogether.

Every priority except Lila and Lacy. Her life had centered on them from the moment she’d first held them in her arms. She’d give her life to keep them safe.

Only now it was others she had to depend on to do that for her. Detective Shelton Lane, whom she didn’t fully trust and who didn’t fully trust her. A hostage negotiator she’d never met. Adam Dalton, the man she’d vowed never to rely on again.

And now the father Adam had never mentioned before and whom he admittedly had no emotional attachment to had been added to the list.

Hadley tossed some underwear into an overnight bag. “Tell me more about R.J. What’s his story and claim to fame?”

“Which version do you want?”

“How many versions are there?”

“There’s my mother’s. She says he’s a gambling, heavy-drinking womanizer with no redeeming qualities. She divorced him when I was four.”

“Smart woman.” Hadley added two pairs of shorts to the suitcase. “Do you remember