“Oh, shit,” the brother said, looking as if he wanted to run. Or maybe hurl.
“She broke my wrist,” Adam howled, protecting his right hand with his left. “You bitch.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she noted one of her fellow runners on a cell phone. She wished she could access hers but she didn’t dare shift her attention.
“Get the gun, Caleb,” Adam ordered, his face contorted with obvious pain.
“Just walk away, Caleb,” Kelly said, knowing he wanted to and was the weaker link. “The cops are on their way.”
Caleb’s eyes grew wide and he looked around.
Yeah, you think about that, you scumbag. Kelly backpedaled, keeping an eye on Adam, wanting to put as much distance between them as possible.
Cursing viciously, Adam advanced. She could incapacitate this jerk in two swift maneuvers, but not while she was holding a forty-pound hysterical kid. If she put him down—and that wouldn’t be easy considering his death grip—Caleb could snatch him and haul butt.
So her black belt wasn’t much use. She needed to figure out what was going on here before she released Jason—if that was even his name—to two lowlifes she was now convinced bore no relation to him at all. And if they were family, some type of abuse was obviously taking place.
“Calm down, Adam,” Kelly soothed, continuing to move backward. “Let’s talk about this. More police will be here any second.” Yeah, and where the hell are they?
“Get the gun, Caleb,” Adam shouted.
The harshness of the order apparently decided Caleb, and he moved toward the Glock.
“Think about this, Caleb,” Kelly yelled. “I’m a police officer. You’ll fry if you shoot me.”
“Shut. Up. Bitch,” Adam said.
Kelly wanted to run, but knew turning her back on Adam was a mistake. She scrambled for something to say or do before she stopped a bullet. She could give them the kid to save herself, but damned if she would. This was why she’d become a cop.
Just as Caleb reached for the gun, a siren screeched its warning into the air. Kelly didn’t look, but heard a police vehicle pull up on the street maybe a hundred feet away.
Caleb froze. “Shit. The cops.”
“We need the gun,” Adam said.
“Yeah, well, then you get it.” Caleb sprinted toward the parking lot of the nearby marina.
“Caleb, what the hell,” Adam yelled after him.
Caleb didn’t turn and didn’t answer.
“You’ll regret this, bitch.” With a last threatening glare at Kelly, Adam snatched the Glock with his left hand and ran.
Releasing a breath, she heard the cops approach from behind. But Kelly kept her gaze on Adam until he disappeared behind the marina’s office building.
“What’s going on?”
Still holding Jason, Kelly turned to find two uniformed City of Miami officers, one male and one female. Thank God.
“I’m Kelly Jenkins with Miami-Dade Police Department, badge number 33349. My commanding officer is Lieutenant Thomas Marshall.” She explained what had happened as concisely as possible, aided by interjections from a few of the other joggers who had wandered back to the scene. The officers summoned backup to search the area, but Kelly knew Adam and Caleb would be miles away by the time anyone arrived.
“So you don’t know this child?” the female officer asked. Her badge read L. Rodriguez.
“I never saw him before ten minutes ago,” Kelly told Officer Rodriguez. “I’m not even sure his name is really Jason.”
“What’s your name, kiddo?” Rodriguez asked in that idiotic tone adults use when speaking to a small child. Kelly had used it herself.
Jason burrowed his head deeper into Kelly’s shoulder, tightening his grip on her waist with his legs.
Kelly patted his back. She had no clue how to deal with children. What she really wanted to do was shift his weight to her other arm. The kid was heavy.
“Jason, you need to go with the nice police officer where you’ll be safe from the mean men,” she said.
“No, Mommy, no,” the child begged. “Please, please don’t leave me.”
Rodriguez narrowed her eyes. “Why is he calling you Mommy?”
“No idea,” Kelly replied. “Maybe he was so terrified of Adam and Caleb he got confused.”
“We’ll take him to the station and let DCF sort this out,” Rodriguez said.
“Good plan,” Kelly agreed. Department of Children and Families was the obvious call in a case like this. They’d locate his mom or find a foster home. But for the fact that Jason was so well dressed, Kelly would assume the mom was a druggie on a bender, Caleb or Adam a boyfriend left in charge. Something just didn’t smell right.
Rodriguez reached out to remove Jason, but the child shrieked and refused to let go of Kelly. “No, no, no!” he wailed.
“Shhh, Jason,” Kelly soothed, rubbing his head. “It’s okay.”
The male officer, standing a few feet away taking statements from bystanders, frowned and joined Kelly and Rodriguez. “What’s wrong with the kid?”
“He doesn’t want to let go of Ms. Jenkins,” Rodriguez said.
“Officer Jenkins,” Kelly said, to the male officer, whose name was P. Nordan.
“Don’t you want to go find your mommy?” Nordan asked.
Jason raised his head and looked at Kelly. She noted he had bright blue eyes and blond hair, the same coloring as hers. Were the officers beginning to doubt her story? She didn’t have anything on her to prove she was a cop.
Jason raised a hand and lightly stroked her cheek. “I found my mommy.”
“I’m not anyone’s mother,” Kelly told Nordan. “Didn’t the other joggers confirm my story?”
At Kelly’s words, Jason began sobbing again, and turned his face into her shoulder.
Nordan released a long breath. “The kid is traumatized. I think the best thing is for all of us to go to the station and notify DCF.”
“I’m on duty in two hours,” Kelly said.
“Better call in,” Nordan said.
Rodriguez placed a hand on Kelly’s shoulder, urging her to move toward the police vehicle. “You can do that on the way to the station.”
* * *
AT THE MIAMI-DADE headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Trey Wentworth paced. The depressing utilitarian room they’d stashed him in contained everything they thought he might want—chairs, a recliner, coffee, tea, soft drinks, bagels—even a plate of frosted fruit pastry. As if he could eat. Three so-called special agents continuously observed him, trying to pretend otherwise, definitely waiting for him to lose it. Expecting him to.
He wouldn’t give them the pleasure.
Even though everyone in this room knew something had gone very wrong.
He glanced at his watch for the hundredth time in the last fifteen minutes. The ransom exchange should have been completed two hours ago. He should have heard something by now. He should have been assured his son was alive. But Agent Ballard had returned without Jason, saying the kidnappers didn’t show at the drop site. Trey shook his head. He knew the agents had gone to the wrong park in Coconut Grove, but the idiots wouldn’t believe him.
His mistake was trusting law