The Ransom. Maggie Price
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“All right.” Her lips trembled. “He needs his medicine. We have to find him, Clay. We have to.”
“We will,” he said. And hoped to hell that when they did, Matthew was still alive.
BY THE TIME Kathryn finished walking Clay through the house, it was late afternoon. Now, she stood in Matthew’s bedroom, her arms wrapped around her waist while she stared out the window at the distant stables and barn. Beyond them sat two houses. Nilo and Pilar Graciano and their son resided in the larger of the two. Johnny Sullivan lived next door to them.
Behind the houses land stretched toward the horizon. Matthew was out there. Somewhere. Scared. Wanting her. Needing her. Crying for her.
She closed her eyes. The helplessness—the awful knowing she could do nothing to lessen her child’s terror—wrapped around her like a suffocating strait-jacket. She felt ill from the fear burning inside her. A horrible, all-consuming fear that she was destined to stand at this window for the rest of her life, wondering what had happened to her child.
“So, after you talked to Reece Silver and Johnny, you changed clothes,” Clay said. “Then rode over to find me.”
“Yes.” Kathryn turned. Clay stood across the room, studying the cork board on the wall above Matthew’s desk. Pinned to the board were drawings of odd-shaped horses sketched in a rainbow of crayons. A snapshot of Matthew, grinning ear to ear while propped in the crook of Devin’s arm, was pinned in the board’s center.
She studied Clay, his profile tough, contained, grim. Being with him, having him here when he’d been gone from her life for so long made everything seem even more surreal. Yet she knew his presence was the only thing keeping her sane.
“Do you think Mr. Forbes will call soon?” she asked.
“If he doesn’t, I’ll try him again.” Clay moved to the braided rug beside the bed, crouched and rubbed Abby’s head. The dachshund’s tail worked like a metronome set on high.
“Kat, when did Willa leave for Dallas?”
“Before supper. Matthew and I made pizza….” Her voice caught as she pictured her son’s mischievous grin while he formed pepperoni slices into a happy face. She couldn’t bear the thought that she might never see him grin again. Laugh again.
“After that?” Clay prodded.
She clamped down on emotion. “We watched TV. Later I put Matthew to bed.”
“Then what?”
“I checked the doors.” She paused, thinking. “Poured my glass of wine, then went to bed and read. I couldn’t keep my eyes open so I turned off the light after about ten minutes.”
Clay cocked his head. “You said, ‘I poured my glass of wine.’ Do you always have wine before you go to bed?”
“Yes.” She’d needed something to help her relax when she learned Devin was having an affair with his then leading lady.
“Who knows you always have a glass of wine before bed?”
“I guess Willa. Before we arrived, I asked her to add a couple of bottles of Merlot to her shopping list. She said it was too bad Sam got sick before he had time to stock the wine cellar he’d had built in the basement.”
“Where’s the bottle you filled your glass with last night?”
“The living room. In the cooler behind the bar.”
“Was last night the first time you’d drank from that bottle?”
“No, I opened it the first night I was here.”
“Since you’ve been back, have you woken up sick any other morning?”
“No. Clay, why do you want to know about the wine?”
“Because you said you felt sick this morning and overslept.” He gave Abby a final rub of her ears, then rose. “I don’t think you picked up a bug. More like someone laced your wine.”
Kathryn’s mouth went dry. “That would mean whoever took Matthew knows my habits.”
“And a lot more. If I’m right, the kidnapper knew Willa would be gone. With you drugged, the threat of exposure was minimal. Then there’s Abby.”
Kathryn looked down at the doxie. “What about her?”
“You said she was limping, like she’d been kicked.”
“Yes. You don’t think she was?”
“No. One reason is how she greeted me when I got here. She’d never seen me before, but she trotted over and licked my hand. It’s logical to think she acted the same way when the kidnapper showed up. If Abby knew him, she would have been more welcoming. And if they wanted to keep her quiet, why kick her?”
Kathryn shoved a hand through her hair. “Doing that wouldn’t make sense.”
“You told me Abby would have had a barking fit over being left behind when they took Matthew. The kidnappers couldn’t be sure you’d pour yourself a glass of wine last night or how much you’d drink if you did. So they wouldn’t want any noise that might wake you. The sole threat Abby posed was barking when they left with Matthew. The best way to deal with that would be to give her a shot of a fast-acting sedative. It’d keep her quiet for hours, and cause the limp you saw.”
Guilt descended over Kathryn like clammy heat. “Matthew was virtually unprotected. It would have been nothing for me to have an alarm installed before we arrived here. I could have hired a security company to patrol the ranch—”
“It’s not your fault, Kat.”
“He depended on me to keep him safe. He’s gone because—”
“Some greedy bastard came in here and took him,” Clay said as he gripped her shoulders. “Another thing I learned from Forbes is how committed kidnappers can be. That whomever they plan to take, they take. If you’d had this place secured like Fort Knox, they would have gotten Matthew some other way.”
“Devin has bodyguards,” she tossed back. “I should have hired someone to watch Matthew.”
Clay gave her a firm shake. “Your blaming yourself won’t help your son.”
She gripped his wrists. “I don’t know how to help him.”
“You stay calm, is how.” Clay felt the knots in his gut jerk tighter. Dammit, every hour that went by put Matthew into greater peril. Why hadn’t Forbes called?
Beneath his palms, he felt Kathryn tremble. Her face was chalk-white, her eyes gleamed with a mix of fear and absolute helplessness.
Easing out a breath, he thought about the conclusions he’d come to. If he was right about the wine and the dog, whoever took Matthew had done a lot of research. “Kidnappers,” Forbes had once told Clay, “plan to the last inch.” The articles Clay had read in the Layton Times and People magazine about Devin Mason had mentioned his son’s kidney transplant.
“What type of medicine does Matthew take?”
“An immunosuppressive drug. Transplant patients take them to prevent rejection of their transplanted organ.”
“So, with research, the kidnapper would know that,” Clay reasoned. “This guy came prepared. Maybe he left that way, too.” He looked toward the bathroom. “You said you saw the prescription bottle with Matthew’s medicine. Can you find out if extra pills are missing?”
“I had the prescription refilled two days ago. There should be only two pills gone from the bottle.”
“Count the pills, Kat.”
“You think the kidnapper took some? To give to Matthew?”
“I think we’d be smart to check.” When she started to turn, he held