What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(98)

“We’ve got to find him!” Verona was frantic. “And Max. We’ve got to get Max.”

“Yes. But whoever this is—” she pointed at the man in Rae’s drawing “—should be scared, but isn’t. That child is not helpless.”

Verona calmed, mesmerized by Kellen’s certainty. “Wait. I know what to do. I’ll call Arthur. He can handle anything!”

Kellen grabbed both Verona’s wrists. “No. You must not involve Arthur or any of his people.”

“You think Arthur Waldberg—No! No, he’s so charming. So efficient. So polite and gentlemanly. He’s not at all like all the other winery managers who are young and unruly and...” Verona’s voice trailed off and her eyes got wide. She looked at Kellen. “You can let me go now. I’m never a fool twice.”

Birdie came out of the bathroom with a rattail comb, a can of hair spray, and picked up the lighter by the fireplace.

Kellen continued, “Max and I talked about who we thought might be a problem.” Arthur and his people. “Verona, go to the house, find Max and tell him what’s happened. Tell him to bring the bag out of the gun safe in my room. The code is 3252.”

Verona turned and fled, leaving the door open.

“This is pitiful.” Birdie showed Kellen her stash. “If this guy’s got a gun, we’re going to die.”

“We’ve got to find Nils. He brought the head. He’ll have weaponry to protect it.” Kellen thought through this logically. “Verona left Rae in the room alone. Nils was on guard duty. Rae begged to see the head. Nils wanted to make her happy, so they went to the Triple Goddess and were ambushed. That’s how this guy and Rae got the head. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“So maybe Nils will have weapons, and maybe not, and maybe he’s dead.”

Kellen called his number. In the distance, they heard a ringing and walked out into the corridor. The door across from Rae’s room was half-open, and she pushed it the rest of the way.

Nils Brooks lay sprawled on the floor. Blood oozed from the back of his head. “Not good!” Kellen knelt beside him and checked his pulse. “He’s alive, but he’ll have a headache.”

Birdie flung herself at Nils’s luggage. “You find Rae. I’ll see what weapons I can collect.”

Kellen ran to Rae’s room. It was empty. “Who was he?” she muttered. “Where did he take her? Today, there aren’t that many places where people...aren’t. Wine cellar. Mixing shed. Storage.” She stood in the middle of the tiny suite and looked around, trying to see anything out of place. Crayons were scattered across the desk. One naked princess doll had been tossed beside her pile of glittering clothes. Graham cracker crumbs festooned the rumpled comforter.

Rae’s voice echoed in her head. I’ve got stars on my sash and on my hair thingie.

There. A star on the floor.

What a child she and Max had produced! She started out the door.

Birdie met her. “Whoever got Brooks cleaned him out of weapons.” She offered the rattail comb.

“That’s okay.” Kellen picked two sharpened colored pencils off the floor. They weren’t worth a damn at a distance, but they were deadly in close quarters.

Kellen and Birdie stalked down the corridor, two women gowned in wedding finery.

“Look.” Kellen pointed to a star at the top of the stairs. “That’s off Rae’s sash.”

“Hansel and Gretel. She knows her fairy tales.” Birdie was impressed.

“She knows her superhero tales better.” Kellen moved with deliberate haste down the stairs. “She’s LightningBug, I’m ThunderFlash, and between us, we’re going to make someone sorry.”



54


Verona rushed into the kitchen where Max was pouring wine for the guests and laughing at wedding jokes, and signaled him to come with her.

“It looks as if I might be in trouble again.” He put the bottle on the counter. “Help yourselves, and no fighting!”

He and Verona left on a wave of wine-fueled good humor, and as soon as they set foot onto the empty porch, his mother grabbed his sleeve. “Rae is missing!”

“Again?”

“Max, she’s really missing. A man took her.”

“What?” All his joy in the day fell away. “When?”

“A few minutes ago. Kellen said you knew who it was.”

Of course. On his wedding day, like a fool, he had put all the safeguards in place and believed he could take a moment to be happy. He should have known. He should have learned from the past. He should have been more vigilant. “Kellen knows Rae is gone?”

“She sent me.”

“Why didn’t you call?” He should have never smiled. He should have been the man who understood there was no place for joy, not today, not ever.

“We tried. You didn’t answer your phone!”

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “My God.” Four attempts to reach him.

“I was running here, and I kept calling you. I kept hoping you’d pick up.”

His mother put him on a rack, broke his bones and his heart.

“Kellen’s searching for Rae right now,” Verona said. “She said for you to get the bag out of the gun safe in her closet. The code is—”