What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(97)

“What do you think has happened to my granddaughter?” Verona demanded in a high voice.

“She’s been taken by someone who wants me dead.”

“I’ll call 9-1-1.” Verona pulled her cell phone out of her belt pocket and waved it at Kellen.

Kellen clasped her wrist. “No.”

Verona tried to jerk away. “Why?”

“I’ll handle it.” She indicated Birdie. “We’ll handle it.”

Birdie, tall, calm and intent, gowned beautifully and ready to fight.

Verona’s gaze flicked between them both. “How can you—?”

“The police would make this a hostage situation. Rae might die. I didn’t take Rae up that mountain and bring her back alive to lose her now. You can trust me.” Kellen stared into Verona’s eyes. “Do you trust me?”

Verona nodded.

“All right,” Kellen said. First crisis averted.

Birdie said, “When I arrived, security seemed efficient.”

“Yes. I thought it was. I think it is.”

“But.” Birdie nodded and went into the bathroom, searching for weapons.

Kellen turned to Verona. “Would you call Max?”

“He’s in the kitchen! He won’t hear!” Verona was all exclamation points and panic.

“Let’s give him a try,” Kellen said.

Verona started punching her fingers at her screen and cursing in a low voice.

Kellen retrieved her phone and called the security firm. “Mr. Parliman, this is Miss Adams. You’re familiar with Max Di Luca’s daughter, and mine? Yes. Rae.” She nodded, although the man on the other end of the call couldn’t see her. “Rae has been kidnapped by someone. A man, that’s all I can tell you, probably white, possibly with brown hair.” In the picture anyway. “Can you and your men make sure Rae and her kidnapper don’t leave the property?”

“Of course. We have procedures in place for exactly this kind of emergency. We’ll tighten the perimeter starting now.” Mr. Parliman’s response reassured Kellen, making her believe Rae would be found here, somewhere on the site.

Kellen’s job was to make sure Rae was found alive.

“I need a weapon,” Kellen told Mr. Parliman. “A pistol.”

“Miss Adams, I can’t loan you a pistol.”

“Any kind of firearm. My daughter has been kidnapped, and I know whoever did this is a killer. I need to find her.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Adams, I understand, but we cannot loan our weapons to anyone. I don’t know what your weapons knowledge is—”

“I was in the military.”

His voice was soothing and firm, as if she were nothing but a civilian, and a female civilian at that. “But if you accidentally hurt or killed someone while wielding one of our weapons—”

“I’m Captain Kellen Adams of the United States Army. I survived two campaigns in Afghanistan and a terrorist attack in Kuwait. If I hurt or killed someone with a weapon, it would not be an accident.”

“Miss Adams, your hysteria proves my point.”

For one moment, Kellen was blind with rage.

“Now.” Parliman’s patronizing tone eased. “I have with me two gentleman who claim—”

“Mr. Parliman, don’t let Rae and this man get away, or you’ll be nothing but a head on my wall.” Done wasting time, Kellen hung up. Her child had been kidnapped. Kellen needed to go hunting. She required a firearm now, and he was worried about legalities.

Verona took Kellen’s arm again. “I called Max on the house phone and on his cell. No answer. He’s in there with the Di Lucas. You know how loud they are.” Verona was getting loud herself.

“All right. It’s all right.” Kellen grasped Verona’s hand.

“Max isn’t hurt, isn’t he?” the anxious mother asked.

“Did you escort him back to the house and see him go into the kitchen?”

“I took him into the kitchen and delivered him into the hands of the relatives!”

“Then he’s fine. He had no reason to believe we would have a problem.” But Kellen needed help. “Are there any weapons available on this floor?”

“No,” Verona said.

“In this building?”

“No! We try to keep weapons out of guests’ hands, and that’s the best way to do it.”

“That makes sense.” It did. Damn it.

“Why? Why?” Verona had grasped a measure of calm, and now let it slip beyond her grasp. “Why would anyone want to kill you? Why would they take Rae?”

“I don’t know,” Kellen said.

“Military assassin?” Birdie asked.

“That’s my best guess.”

Birdie used her phone to call again, and again said, “No answer from Temo and Adrian.”

“Very bad.” Kellen’s teeth ached from clenching them.

“Is it that man?” Verona asked. “That Brooks? Did he take Rae?”

“No. Max doesn’t like him, but with my approval, he trusted Rae to his care.”

“Nils Brooks made a pass at you on your wedding day!”

Kellen thought of the writhing figure they had stepped over on the way up the stairs. “I didn’t say he was a good man. I said he was dependable and a fighter, one of the best.” And he was MIA. Which only made Kellen more concerned about who had taken Rae.