Stolen Omnibus – Small Town Abduction (6 page)

“Me too.” Mark gently squeezed the back of her neck and then kissed her forehead. He stepped away, slowly, heading toward the back room to where Janine had disappeared. “I’ll be in there waiting for you when you’re ready.”

Once he was gone Lena turned back to the boxes stacked near her desk. She opened one and removed one of the dozens of files inside. She flipped to the section that outlined the medical conditions of the children that had grown ill.
Liver failure, heart congestion, weakening immune system, immediate transplant needed for patient survival.
Lena set it aside and opened the next file, which was more of the same, as was the file below that one, and the next one, all the way to the box’s bottom.

In the next room were the faces to all of that paperwork, faces that Lena had promised justice to. She wasn’t sure if they’d understand as parents—if she were in their position she wasn’t sure if she’d understand herself. But hypotheticals weren’t going to bring Kaley back.

After a long deep breath, Lena opened the door into the next room, where every face turned to her in silent anticipation. The sullen faces of the mothers and fathers parted as Lena stepped through to the other side of the office. A few hands grazed her arm in condolence as she passed, but no words were spoken.

Dark circles pulled tired faces down like anchors. Countless nights in hospital chairs with the sight of their sick kids had caused lines of stress and made them weary, tired, and beaten. The win from the vote last night was the first piece of good news that any of them had received since before their children were diagnosed. And what she was about to tell them would smother that small piece of hope before it even had a chance to thaw the pain that had frozen them for the past two years.

“Thank you all for coming.” Lena’s voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “I know it was short notice, and I understand that each of you have your own issues to deal with, but I wanted you to hear this from me personally.”

“We’re praying for you, Lena.” Katie Speath raised her head, her once-brown hair turned gray, and her cheeks weathered and gaunt well beyond her forty years. “And for Kaley.” A series of nods and soft hums echoed her sentiment.

Guilt made Lena’s stomach churn, and she bowed her head. “I appreciate that.” She lowered her eyes and saw the dirt at the tip of her boots. The sight triggered a flash of the kidnapper’s footprints in her house. “And it’s one of the reasons that I called everyone in here today.”

Color drained from Lena’s cheeks as she lifted her head. Her knees wanted to buckle, but she managed to stay upright, using the desk to her right for support. “I know how much all of you sacrificed to help get me elected, and I want you to understand how much respect and admiration I have for each of you.” Her mouth went dry, as if a piece of cotton had rolled on her tongue. When she swallowed it was hard and gritty.

The dozens of bodies in her office shifted uneasily now. Arms crossed over chests protectively, and the once-softened expressions of condolence had shifted into hard stares of treachery.

“Whoever took my daughter left behind a note with demands. It said that if I wanted Kaley back, then I’d have to end my support for the oil regulation bill in the next thirty-six hours. If I don’t, they’re going to kill her.” Lena’s voice wavered, and she pressed her leg harder into the side of the desk for support, bracing for the inevitable backlash.

Her years as a lawyer, but even more so her years as an addict, taught her that people were fine about “feeling” a certain way about someone until the moment that feeling turned into something real, something that affected their life in a material way, then self-preservation took over.

“So that’s it?” Katie Speath was the first to speak out. “You can’t really believe that your daughter will be returned to you if you do this?”

“It’s the oil company behind this!”

“We can’t give in to them now!”

“What about my sick kid? Huh? When will I get my healthy boy back?”

Each accusation was justified, every point sharpened with the panicked tongue of a parent—parents who had watched their children waste away, parents who had lost their savings, taken out second mortgages on their homes, sold every precious belonging they had to keep their kids alive. They were in pain. That pain needed an outlet. And Lena took all of it.

“I understand everyone’s hesitations and frustrations, but—”

“
No!
” The shrill cry erupted from the middle of the crowd, and every head turned as Carla Knox stormed to the front. Red-faced and crying, she trembled. She kept her arms locked like pieces of steel beams and clenched her fists until the flesh had grown so colorless that it was nearly transparent. “You can’t do this.” She’d separated herself from the crowd entirely and slowly shuffled her way to Lena. “You promised us. You promised that the people who hurt our children wouldn’t win.”

The mother’s grief had transcended into something more than just pain. It was rage. “Carla, you have to understand—”

“You don’t understand!” Carla thrust her finger in Lena’s face, spit spewing from her lips. “I have a daughter in the hospital who had her kidneys destroyed by the water she drank, the water that the oil company polluted! I have a husband in a coma in the ICU with burns that cover over sixty percent of his body from the explosion on the rig he worked on.” She wasn’t able to hold back the tears anymore, and the finger that was still shoved in Lena’s face trembled along with her voice. “So don’t stand there and tell me that you fucking understand, because you don’t. But now you feel it don’t you?” Her whole body shook, and the madness in her eyes only intensified. “You finally feel the dread that all of us have felt over the past two years. You’re no longer on the outside looking in. Your daughter’s life is in the same peril all of ours are. And I hope it stays that way!” She capped the rant with a hard shove into Lena’s chest.

Lena tripped and landed on her ass, and before she even had a chance to look up, Carla Knox charged, fists swinging, voice screaming, and eyes wet with hot tears. Bodies rushed over to stop the fight, and a flurry of hands reached for both Lena and Carla as the two grappled on the floor.

Carla yanked Lena’s hair, thrashing her head back and forth while Lena clawed her fingers against Carla’s neck, drawing speckles of blood. One last hard yank, and then Lena felt her head break free from Carla’s grip.

“You can’t do this! You can’t do this to us!” The crowd pulled Carla back, and the deputies from outside rushed through the door. Reporters thrust cameras inside to get a look before being pushed back behind the police line.

“Everybody out!” The deputies escorted the families outside, and before Lena could stop them from leaving, she herself was pulled back into the kitchen, kicking and fighting the officer the entire way.

“Let go of me!” Lena ripped her arm from the officer’s grip, and it wasn’t until she turned around that she realized it was Jake who pulled her away.

“Take it easy.” Jake lifted his hands defensively and then stepped around her to the doorway to get a better look at the crowd being funneled out of the office. “That probably went better than expected.”

Lena gently patted the side of her head where Carla had tried to rip the hair from her scalp. “Yeah.” She found a seat in the chair and then collapsed. The morning and the riots from the night before had worn her down, nailing her bones to the chair, and her body refused to move. “I didn’t know what else to do, Jake.” She struggled to lift her head, and when she found her brother’s gaze she saw her own pain reflected in his eyes. “I don’t know if this is the right thing.”

Jake knelt on one knee, bringing him level with her face, and gently cupped both of her hands into his. “Whatever you need to do to get your family back is always the right thing.”

Lena threw her arms around her brother’s neck, feeling the tears burst from her eyes as she squeezed him tight. Despite the few years of separation in their age, they’d always shared a bond, something that was unbreakable no matter what, and whenever one of them was in trouble that bond had always grown stronger.

“Listen, I need to go and look up a few things at the office. We got some good leads from the autopsy that I need to check on.” Jake pulled back and wiped a thumb across her cheek, catching a tear before it rolled all the way down. “I’ll keep the deputies here and make sure that Gwen is still okay back at the house. All right?”

Lena nodded. “Thank you.”

Jake kissed her forehead and walked to the door, his boots thumping against the wood, but stopped and turned around just as he had his hand on the knob. “Whoever took Kaley fucked with the wrong family.” He swung the door open, placed his cowboy hat back on his head, and left.

The words resonated in Lena’s mind, and for the first time since she found out that Kaley had been taken she wasn’t afraid. Purpose surged through her veins and gathered all of the fear and pain that lingered in the wake of the morning’s events, hardening them into the needed grit to push on. Jake was right. They picked the wrong family.

Chapter 5 – 31 Hours Left

On his escape from Lena’s office, Jake swatted away the reporters’ questions as a horse’s tail flicked away gnats that got to close to its ass. He crossed the street to the station and escaped inside before he grew deaf.

“Sheriff!” Deputy Longwood bellowed over the crowd. At nearly six feet six inches, Longwood was easy to spot across the room. He squeezed his way past the crammed bodies and met Jake at the front of his office. “The lab gave me some new information in regards to some evidence found on Coleman’s body.” He kept his voice hushed, and Jake was glad he hadn’t brought up the incident with Kelly.

“Let’s head back to my office.” On the way over, Jake glanced over to the cells. The rioters had been released an hour ago, all of them charged with misdemeanors and given fines, but he saw a man passed out in one of the cell’s cots. He stopped and nudged Longwood with his elbow. “Who’s in the cell?”

Longwood looked up from his notes, shaking his head. “Not sure.”

“Go on ahead. I’ll meet you in a minute.” With each step Jake found himself darting between deputies, soldiers, and Red Cross workers. The man’s face was covered with hair, and he stirred but didn’t wake. And when Jake finally approached the cell bars he felt his blood boil. He snatched the arm of the nearest deputy. “Get me the keys to the cell. Now.”

“Yes, sir.”

The deputy hurried off, and Jake slammed his palm into the bars, the heavy iron ringing with a thud, and Nick woke from his slumber, moaning from the intrusion. He sat up and cradled his head in his palms. The deputy returned, and Jake snatched the keys from his hands and unlocked the cell.

Without a word Jake lifted Nick off the cot by the collar of his dirty shirt and slammed him against the concrete wall. “What the hell are you doing here, Nick?” Years of drug abuse had left him skinny as a rail and light as a feather. Jake could practically keep the man lifted off the ground on his own.

Nick shook his head, blinking his eyes rapidly. “Jake? What the hell are you doing here?”

“You’re in my jail, asshole.” He tightened his grip on Nick’s collar. “You know you’re not supposed to be within ten miles of Gwen and Lena, so what the hell are you doing in my county?”

Whatever brains that hadn’t been eroded from the drugs seemed to recognize the names, but his eyes and speech were so groggy Jake didn’t think Nick was even sure himself. “I saw… something on the television. The riots… I just wanted to make sure Gwen was okay.”

Jake tossed Nick back onto the cot, and the deadbeat cracked his head against the wall. “You haven’t tried to make contact with them in five years. Now, I’m going to ask you again. What the hell are you doing in my county?”

“I told you!” Nick raised his voice but immediately reined in his temper, rubbing the back of his head. “I saw the riots, and I wanted to make sure Gwen was okay. That’s it.”

“She’s fine.” Jake snapped his fingers, and the deputy who’d given him the keys to the cell stepped inside. “I want him taken back to Bismarck. And I want it to happen now.”

“I’ll find someone to take him over.”

Jake took a few slow steps toward Nick, who cowered on the cot, keeping his head down. “If I ever see you in my county again, I will bury you.” He leaned over so they were face to face. “Being sheriff comes with a lot of power. And I
will
use it.”

The cell door slammed with a heavy thud, and again the iron bars rang. Jake locked the door and then tossed the keys back to the deputy on guard duty. When he returned to his office Longwood was sitting down, and Jake shut the door behind him then sat on the edge of his desk. “What’d you find?”

Longwood flipped open the manila folder that contained the lab results. “They found some residue under Coleman’s fingernails, and it had traces of salt, hydrocarbons, radioactive material, and industrial chemicals of magnesium, iron, barium, strontium, manganese, methanol, chloride, and sulfate.”

Jake furrowed his brow. “You and I both know I didn’t do well in chemistry in high school. What’s it mean?”

“Those are all chemicals found in the byproduct water waste from fracking.”

“That’s what the smell was,” Jake whispered softly to himself.

“What?”

Jake waved it off. “Nothing.” He stepped around the deputy and returned to his desk, keeping his hat on as he sat down. “Coleman was a maintenance worker. Made sure the equipment was running smoothly. Taking care of waste product is a job for a roughneck, not anyone with technical training.” He drummed his fingers on his desk. “Have you gone back to the oil site and requested any of Coleman’s files yet?”

“The judge just granted the warrant an hour ago. I was about to head over,” Longwood said.

“I’ll come with you.”

Longwood shook his head. “You have enough going on here, Sheriff. I can handle it.”

Jake rotated his shoulders and pushed himself out of his chair. “I need to put some distance between me and all this. And besides, there are a few workers I want to question in regards to Kaley’s disappearance.”