“Cops are on their way,” he said.
“They haven’t been much help so far,” Greyson said in a hard voice. “And they’ve been chumped by the same guy twice now.”
“Give them a chance,” Stone said. “If you need some extra men, just let us know. We’ve probably got somebody nearby we can pull in.”
“I might need to,” he said. “Can you fill Badger in? I’ll put Jessica and the baby safely into my truck and leave Kona to watch them. Then I’ll be hunting.”
Chapter 8
She sat in the truck with one cop beside her, hoping to get an explanation. She kept trying, but the words came out jumbled; then she would squeeze her son tight and burst into tears again. Kona sat near her and Danny, whining.
Finally the cop said, “Just relax. Relax,” he said. “You’ve got your son back.”
“I got my son back,” she said, “but no thanks to you guys. Somebody was standing guard, and he left,” she said. “This stalker-turned-kidnapper guy must have known somehow. He must have seen that they left.”
“Well, we are dealing with a staffing shortage,” he said apologetically.
She shook her head and rocked back and forth. “That’s no excuse, considering all the problems I’ve already had due to this one guy,” she said.
“But your ex-husband got the baby back,” he said.
“He’s not my—”
“So that’s the main thing. But I sure as hell wish he hadn’t gone off on a vigilante justice mission, looking for the guy.”
“Of course he did,” she said. “He knows perfectly well that if he doesn’t—”
“We can’t have him off pretending like he’s law enforcement.”
She glared at him, and the look must have gotten his attention. She was fed up with his constant interruptions. “I don’t think you understand,” she said. “First, he’s not my ex-husband. Second, Greyson is a friend. And I don’t know too much about his military background, but this is what he does. And you can count on the fact that, now he’s gone down this pathway, he’s not likely to stop.”
At that, Officer Winston suddenly looked interested and not in a good way, “Can you give us more details about him?”
She provided Greyson’s name and phone number. “Beyond that you’ll have to find out what you need to know on your own,” she said. “And please don’t leave me alone again.”
“I’m not leaving you,” he said. “I’ll stand right here and make some phone calls.”
She sat inside the truck’s cab and watched as the cop walked back and forth several times. Her heart and mind still couldn’t quite function on the same page. She held Danny close in her arms, but the problem was that there was no reason for him to be sleeping at this point. She noted the bruise on his temple. That asshole had knocked out her child.
If the kidnapper had woken up Danny when taking him, and Danny didn’t recognize where he was, he would have started screaming. A blow to the head would have taken care of any noise coming out of a toddler like this instantly. She wanted to get Danny checked out, but she also didn’t want to leave Greyson. At the same time, she wanted to get a hell of a long way from here. Like mainland USA sounded about far enough away.
While she sat here, gently rocking her son, waiting for an ambulance to provide immediate medical attention, her phone rang. She glanced down to see Unknown Caller once more. “Hello?”
She couldn’t believe that this guy had been so brazen as to come right into her home and steal her son. It still didn’t feel like it had anything to do with her ex-husband. It didn’t make any sense that her ex-husband would do this, except for the threatening words from this guy. So, if it wasn’t her ex-husband, who else would it be? She stared down at the phone. Nobody had answered. She hung up, and then it rang again. She opened the window to the cop who was just getting off the phone.
She held out her phone and said, “This is one of the prank calls I’ve been getting for the last few weeks. Nobody ever speaks at the other end of phone.”
“Put it on Speaker, and answer it so I can hear,” the officer said.
She did just that. There was nothing on the other end. He looked over at her and raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged and said, “By the way, George, your tactics failed, and I have my son again.” There was a weird sound, as if somebody were shocked. “Yes, you asshole,” she snapped. “The fact that you even thought something like this was cool just means I’ll happily watch as the jail cell door slams in your face,” she roared. And it seemed that once she got going she couldn’t stop. “How dare you try to steal my son from me after all this time! You made it perfectly clear you didn’t want anything to do with him.”
She didn’t know exactly what it was that she said, but somehow something must have triggered him because he snapped, “Shut the hell up, bitch.” And then the phone went dead. She took several long, slow breaths. Meanwhile, Kona growled. She patted the dog to calm her.
“Was that George?”
She looked at the stunned policeman and slowly nodded. “I think it was.”
“In that case,” he said, “I need everything you know about your ex-husband.”
She sagged back into the seat, her heart racing and her mind overwhelmed that it very easily could have been George on the phone just then. She shook her head and told the cop what little she knew. “I don’t know what else to tell you,” she said, when she finally fell silent.
“Well, I mean, some of his identifying information would help.”
“I don’t know his social security number,” she said with a frown. “Though I do have
