Her Mistletoe Protector. Laura Scott
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darkness outside the glow from his headlights. He could tell that beyond the open cornfield was a subdivision full of houses, many of them twinkling with various holiday lights. The kidnapper could be anywhere. Either on foot or—if he wasn’t working alone—in another vehicle.
“Where are they? Where’s Joey?” Rachel barely waited for him to stop the car before she was out and racing over to see for herself.
He followed hot on her heels, ready to prevent her from disturbing any evidence. But he needn’t have worried.
She simply stood there, staring inside the empty truck, her eyes welling with tears. “They’re gone,” she whispered.
He curled his fingers into helpless fists, knowing there wasn’t any way to put a positive spin on this latest turn of events.
Joey was gone and Nick didn’t have a clue as to where he might be.
* * *
Rachel shivered, ice creeping slowly through her bloodstream like a glacier. She’d been so certain they’d find the black truck. Find Joey.
But her son was still missing.
“Come on, Rachel. I have to call my boss,” Nick urged, putting a hand beneath her elbow to nudge her away from the truck.
She didn’t move, couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from the empty truck. Joey had been in there, with a hood over his face. She couldn’t bear to think of how frightened her son must be. “Hang in there, Joey,” she whispered, as if he could hear her. “I’m coming to get you.”
“Rachel, there’s nothing more we can do here. Not until we get a forensic team to go through the truck to pick up trace evidence.”
“No cops,” she said weakly, even though she knew it was too late. Nick was a cop and she’d called him right before the crash. And obviously they needed all the help they could get to find Joey. Her frozen brain cells finally put a few pieces of the puzzle together. “How did you get to me so quickly?” she asked with a frown.
He shrugged and ducked his head before he abruptly turned away, heading back to his vehicle. She forced her legs to follow him, wincing as she stepped on a stone with her foot that didn’t have a shoe.
“Wait,” she said, stopping him once again as he reached for the radio. “Can you call this incident in as a hit-and-run? Without mentioning Joey?”
“Rachel, you know that’s not smart,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I get that they have you running scared, but the more people searching for your son, the better.”
Logically, she could agree, but there was nothing logical about her feelings regarding the mob. And she was convinced that her husband’s uncle, Frankie Caruso, was the mastermind behind Joey’s kidnapping. “You don’t understand,” she said brokenly, wishing she could convince him. “If they get any sense that the police are involved there’s nothing to stop them from killing him.”
“Why would they kidnap your son in the first place?” he asked. “You have to admit, kidnapping is a huge leap from stalking.”
She drew her arms across her jacket, trying to maintain some warmth in the cold December night. Her left ankle throbbed, but she shoved the pain aside. No matter how much she hurt, she wouldn’t allow anything to stop her from finding her son. “Maybe the Mafia is looking for money from my company? Money that will help them rebuild their organization?”
“It’s possible, since the Mafia has taken several big hits lately,” Nick mused. “And you think they targeted you because of your marriage to Anthony?”
“Yes. Don’t you see? It all fits! My father’s money helped me escape Anthony all those years ago, so now they want me to pay them back. That’s basically what those threatening notes said, right?”
Grimacing, Nick nodded slowly. “I guess in a twisted way, that makes sense.”
She was dizzy with relief, knowing she’d finally managed to convince him of the Mafia link. “The mob fights dirty and plays for keeps,” she murmured. “If you call in reinforcements, the dirty cops might find out and let Joey’s captors know. I just can’t take that chance.”
“Not all cops are dirty, Rachel,” Nick said, a hard edge to his tone.
She sensed she was losing the battle. “During my brief marriage to Anthony, I knew of several Chicago cops who were on his payroll. None of them would lift a finger to help me. Can you honestly say that there isn’t the possibility of dirty cops still on the force?”
He scowled as he twisted the key in the ignition. “No, I can’t tell you that as much as I wish I could. I hate knowing that some of the very men and women who are supposed to put criminals away actually join forces with them, instead. Kidnapping is a federal offense, so we could call in the FBI.”
Fear tightened her chest to the point she felt she couldn’t breathe. “Are you sure there isn’t any possibility of someone linked to the Mafia working inside the FBI, too?”
Nick let the car idle as he scrubbed his hands over his face. “No, I can’t tell you that, either. Because there was a dirty FBI agent involved in a case I worked on last summer. We arrested him, but I always wondered if there weren’t others, too. Others that we missed.”
The thought of losing her son was making bile rise to her throat. “Please, Nick. All I’m asking for is a little time. Please keep Joey’s involvement out of this for now.”
He turned his head and stared at her for a long moment. “I’m going to at least let my boss know what’s going on. I know he’s not dirty and we need someone to trust.” She wanted to protest but knew that he had a job to do. Nodding stiffly, she dropped her hand from his arm so that he could call in a crime team to investigate the crash scene and the abandoned truck.
She didn’t relax a single muscle until he disconnected the call, without once mentioning Joey. Unfortunately, her relief was short-lived when Nick punched in another number.
“Hey, I think we have another link to the Mafia angle,” he said into the phone.
She strained to hear the other side of the conversation, which she assumed was with Nick’s boss. “Yeah? Like what?”
Her heart squeezed when Nick briefly explained what had transpired. “I’d like to keep this quiet for now, while we wait for some more evidence. If the Mafia is behind this, there isn’t much to stop them from doing something drastic if they sense we’re onto them.”
“I’m not sure I like that plan, Butler.” She could hear Nick’s boss’s weary tone. “The feds won’t be happy if we don’t follow protocol.”
“Yeah, but you and I both know that there have been far too many dirty cops, both locally and at the federal level. Just give me a little time to see what we can shake out, okay?”
“All right. But keep me posted.”
“Will do.” Nick hung up the phone and then put the car in gear.
“Thank you, Nick,” she murmured softly.
“Don’t thank me,” he said in a harsh tone. “We don’t have Joey back yet. And you need to know this may not turn out the way you want it to.”
“We’ll get him back.” She wasn’t even going to consider the possibility of failure.
He let out an exasperated sigh. “I hope so, but you have to understand that we don’t have a lot of time. If we don’t hear from the kidnappers soon, I won’t give you a choice. We will call in the FBI.”
She wanted to argue, feeling deep down that calling in the FBI would be the worst thing they could do. After all, she knew from personal experience how the Mafia worked. The members of the mob were cruel and ruthless and wouldn’t hesitate to kill her son just to prove their point.
The threatening notes she’d received were right. She had screamed