Corbin Read online

  He was surprised when she didn’t reflexively take a glance. “What we’ll do is, I’ll stand, walk behind your chair, pull it out, then grab your hand again to turn you in the direction of the man in a blue baseball cap, so you won’t be afraid if you see him around at times.”

  Louise nodded numbly.

  Corbin got her up and turned her in the right direction. “You see him, right?”

  She nodded, barely noting her tail, then dropping her gaze. “I’m not going to classes today. I need … to get myself together. Can you tell that man that I’m going to my dorm room?”

  “Sure.” Corbin texted the guy, but the tail didn’t answer his phone, just giving Corbin a discrete chin-up signal. That way, anybody watching wouldn’t see the tail immediately grabbing his phone, giving away his part in all this. Even as Louise walked with determination back to her dorm, the guy waited, turned away, then shortly meandered from her for a bit, stopping to talk to a student—probably asking for fake directions. He nodded, then course corrected toward Louise’s building, which she had just entered, now out of sight.

  Corbin sat inside his vehicle, a cup of coffee in his hand, as he wrote down his longer notes from his interviews with both Carly and Louise, when Hatch rang. “We’re working on your tips. I’ll let you know when we have something. Meanwhile, the parliament member, Nellie’s father, has received a warning to take you off the case.”

  He lifted his head and stared out the windshield. Say what? “Me? Off the case?”

  “Yes, something you did pissed someone right off.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, I’ll say the kidnappers, but Nellie’s dad has no answers as to who called. However, we’re using all our tools and contacts to see if we can trace that call. Just some message about you needed to be reined back in again.”

  “Interesting.” Corbin gave a feral smile. “I just got here and barely started my investigation, and I’ve already touched a thread that set off the bad guys. Go figure.”

  “And it’s been noted. Somebody saw you talking to somebody.”

  “Or somebody I talked to then spoke to somebody.” His mind raced, going over the list of university officials and local authorities he’d spoken to—plus his latest two interviewees. None raised a red flag. Must have spies on the ground. “So what does Nellie’s father want me to do?”

  “He wants you to redouble your efforts because you’re pissing somebody off.”

  That was good. Corbin pissing someone off could be a good thing. “Even though it could get his daughter killed?”

  “We all know how this works,” Hatch said. “If you listen to the kidnappers, then they have the upper hand.”

  “They already have the upper hand anyway.”

  “I think, in this case, we can all agree that Nellie was kidnapped for her child. Since she’s only five months along, I don’t think even the kidnappers would induce birth this early. Regardless her father is hoping you’ll find something fast, before they can harm his daughter. That you’ve already triggered this kind of reaction is a good thing.”

  “But did the local cops get the same warning? The uni police?”

  “Not that I heard, but I’ll double-check.”

  “Still,” Corbin added, “what did the kidnappers think would happen when kidnapping a current parliament member’s daughter? Surely they had vetted their potential victims to a certain extent. If not, this was really amateur hour. Plus I’m just thinking back to who would have talked—or who had been asked about Nellie and this investigation. I gotta say that I don’t see any red flags, which just means the kidnappers have a man on the ground here.”

  “Good point. We figured that, but now we have confirmation,” Hatch stated.

  Almost immediately Corbin’s mind went to the two student interviews he’d just conducted today, and they both mentioned one common theme. “Well, the threat answers one question. She was definitely kidnapped. Both of the students I’d talked to earlier today mentioned that the relationship between Nellie’s father and Nellie was really bad. Carly figures that Nellie would have, in many ways, taken off, just so that her father wouldn’t be a part of Nellie’s life. But Carly also said that, if Nellie did take off, she would have let her friends know. Which is what most people would have expected. Which is what my second student interviewed, Louise, also noted. So now we know for sure that Nellie didn’t disappear. She was taken.”

  “Did either student have any particular reasons why Nellie’s father is so protective?”

  “Yes,” he snorted. “Apparently there was an attempted kidnapping of her from her childhood home, when she was sixteen. And that’s after she was rescued from a fire at the age of ten.”

  “What?” Hatch snapped. “We have the fire noted in our files but have no mention of the earlier kidnapping attempt.”

  “I know. Makes me wonder what else good ol’ dad has scrubbed from public data. Since then Daddy has been domineering, overprotective, and controlling. Maybe you should mention that to the parliament member the next time he calls. We need to know relevant intel like that.”

  “Will do. But that added data makes sense. If you come close to losing your daughter, wouldn’t you want to make sure that she’s safe ever after?”

  “Yes, but apparently it’s gotten to the point where he goes over every boyfriend’s history, tearing apart his life and even that of his family, until the parliament member finds something that he can then destroy them with, so that they walk away and leave Nellie on her own.”

  “Nasty and not very good on her dad’s part.”

  Corbin added, “Of course now that she’s pregnant and that she won’t tell him who the father is, he’s beside himself.”

  “Of course he is because now he feels like he’s failed, and again he can’t fix this because she’s gone missing. Of course, even worse, he was trying to fix it beforehand. So, in many ways, it’s a double whammy for him.”

  “Exactly.”

  Hatch asked Corbin, “Do you think the two students you spoke to may have had something to do with this warning?”

  “Nope. I didn’t get that from either of them.”

  “Okay. I’m just wondering if either of your interviewees told somebody else—and, if so, who and why?”

  Immediately Corbin shook his head, even though he was on the phone with Hatch. “That implies Carly and/or Louise were part of the kidnapping event—or somebody one of them know is part of it and is sharing intel with the kidnappers. Yet these are two university students, who, while young and rich, have their heads on pretty straight. I don’t see them for this.”

  “Had to ask. You know we’re just tossing out straws at the moment? Do you have a list of everyone you’ve talked to so far?”

  “Yes, I’ll take a picture of it and send it through.”

  “And did you discuss the other cases?”

  “Yes, but only with Louise, my second interviewee.”

  “Which just goes back to that theory that potentially they’re not related.” They pondered that, then Hatch added, “And how do you feel about it?”

  “I have no reason to feel either way at the moment,” Corbin said cautiously, “but it doesn’t feel right to go in that not related direction. There’s just such a connection between pregnancy and young children that it’s not one I’m prepared to ignore.”

  “No, of course not. Anyway, watch your back. Especially now that somebody knows you’re here, looking into this.”

  “Got it.” Corbin sighed. “More than that, their man on the ground will now know that I’m here looking and that I’ve been warned off too. So, if I don’t stop, they will know Daddy won’t play their game.”

  “Exactly,” Hatch added. “We have to move fast and keep Nellie safe.”

  “Sure, but we first must find out where she is, so we can actually keep her safe.”

  “Get back to me as soon as you can.”

  “Yeah. I need the team to do a sweep of the security cameras on that university. I know the local authorities viewed it, maybe uni police too, but somebody took Nellie from that location. So, if she isn’t showing up in any of the vehicles, then I want a list of all the vans that went through the place; and if work vehicles were seen there, I want to know what companies were possibly involved.”

  “We’re on it,” Hatch said, and, with that, he hung up.

  Corbin stared down at his phone, wondering how the kidnappers already knew about him. Considering the fact that they were already warning him to keep off the case was alarming.

  “Why me?” he wondered aloud. “The local cops were here. They had to have ruffled some feathers too. Plus lots of university officials were around, looking for her, so why me?”

  And, of course, the easy answer was that the kidnappers had thought this investigation would die a quick death with the normal law enforcement process. So that failure brought in Corbin, a new face and an unknown element. And maybe the kidnappers were afraid that Corbin would find something.

  Because that’s really what it came down to. There was no need to put out a warning, unless the kidnappers thought Corbin would find something. He planned to redouble his efforts.

  For a long moment, he thought about the people he’d spoken to. But the one who really came to mind was the first student friend of Nellie’s. “Carly had to know something more.”

  On that note he headed toward the main university campus. Somewhere along the line, she must have mentioned it to somebody. He wanted to know who. As soon as he got to the campus, he called her to see what class she was in.

  She didn’t answer, didn’t pick up. With a foreboding instinct that told him something was seriously wrong, he pulled up her address and her class schedule and then quickly phoned Hatch. “See if Carly showed
up this afternoon for her classes.”

  “What’s wrong?” Hatch asked.

  “My instincts are screaming at me. She’s not answering her phone. I’m heading to her dorm.”

  “Will do.”

  And, with that, Corbin took off toward her residence. When he got to the right address, he stepped into the coed dormitory and headed for Carly’s room straightaway. He knocked on the door, and, when he got no answer and heard no movement or other noise inside, he turned and looked around. A guy walked down the hall toward Corbin. “Hey, do you know the woman, Carly, who lives here?”

  “Yeah, sure, but I haven’t seen her today, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I spoke with her this morning,” Corbin noted. And then he thought about it. “At least I think that was who I was talking to.” He pulled out his phone and held up the picture of Carly. “Is that her?”

  “Yes, that’s her, and this is her place.” He knocked on the door and called out, “Hey, Carly, are you in there?” But there was only silence. “She should be at classes anyway. You should check that first.”

  “Will do.” Corbin waited for the guy to disappear, pulled out his tools, and quickly opened the door. His heart sinking, he closed the door and called Hatch immediately. “I’m inside her dorm.”

  “And?”

  “It’s the worst.” He studied the woman on the floor. “Blunt force trauma at the back of the head. Door was locked, so somebody with a key. It is likely somebody she knows did this. She told him what she needed to tell him, whether it was by force or not, and then she was killed here.”

  “Damn. Cops are on their way. We’ll tear apart her life.”

  “I don’t want to be held up by talking to any cops right now, so I’m leaving.”

  With that, he stepped back out again, making sure nobody was around to see him, and quickly walked away. The university would be crawling with cops soon enough. And he didn’t want to get caught in that cycle. Besides what he needed was the camera feed.

  He quickly sent a text message to Hatch. I need the camera feed from the university covering that dorm room over the last three hours.

  Got it. BTW, both previous boyfriends of Nellie are cleared. The one is in seminary in the States. Confirmed by the university’s head office. The second turns out to be a career criminal and remains in jail. No visitors in the last year, so doesn’t seem like any mastermind relevant to our time period.

  And, with that update, Corbin returned to his truck. His day had been busy. He hadn’t even had a chance to check in at his accommodations. Just then his phone buzzed. Hatch had sent him the security feeds from the university. When he checked his phone, the feed wasn’t clear enough to see anything. Swearing, he quickly drove to the room that had been booked for him.

  It was actually a small apartment, not too far away, which was good and yet also bad because he needed food. He quickly made a U-turn in the parking lot and backtracked to a drive-through, grabbed several burgers and several coffees, and made it back to his apartment. There he sat down, brought up his laptop, hooked up to the internet, and logged on.

  He accessed the campus video feed and found the relevant dorm room, where he hit gold. There he watched a man walk down the hallway. Several other students were coming in and out of their rooms, laughing and joking, but all of them completely ignored this one man.

  He knocked on the door, where Carly lived, and it opened almost immediately. She smiled at her visitor and opened the door wider to let him in. The man’s features were hard to see on the video feed. He texted Hatch. See if we can clean this up and get an ID. He gave him the date and time stamp for the Smith Hall feed.

  He waded his way through the rest of the video to see if the guy came out again. He did, but he had a different look to him. Now he looked older, stood taller and straighter, and he quickly walked away. Corbin sent the relevant time stamp for that part of the video to Hatch as well.

  “Kudos for the disguise,” Corbin muttered to himself. But it wouldn’t be enough. Not now that he knew that somebody had deliberately targeted people he was talking to. And he was damn sorry about Carly. She obviously knew her visitor, as she’d let him in, but how did she know him?

  And with that question in another text message sent off to Hatch as well, Corbin started to eat his burgers. Good thing we have a tail on Louise. But Corbin’s mind raced, wondering just what the hell was going on here. And, if Nellie’s kidnapping wasn’t connected to these other women, where the hell were those women?

  Chapter 3

  Nellie woke the next morning, still in the same ugly darkness. Except this time, she had a better idea where the bathroom was. She got up slowly and made her way there. She found the light switch, and, as soon as it turned on, she turned and checked out the bedroom and frowned. She was still alone. There was no sign of the other woman.

  Nellie used the facilities, came back out again, and sat down on her bed. The food must be drugged. And the problem with that was, she needed the food, but she didn’t want anything to happen to her baby. When the door opened, the other woman walked in and sat down beside her in her own bed in a nonchalant way.

  Nellie stared at her in shock. “Are you okay?”

  She looked over at her and nodded. “Yeah. Why not?”

  But her voice held such a bitter tone that Nellie knew something was going on. “What happened? I woke up, and you were gone.”

  “Yeah, that happens sometimes,” she replied. “Nothing good comes from this place.”

  “What about your daughter?” she asked gently. “How is she?”

  “Alive,” she said succinctly. “And that’s about all I can say.” And, with that, she laid down on her bed and rolled over.

  Nellie wasn’t sure whether her roommate had been warned to stay quiet or if something else was going on. When the guard arrived with plenty of food for her, she studied it carefully. She looked up at him and said, “Could you at least reduce the drugs a little bit? I understand that you’re trying to keep me complacent and quiet, but I really don’t want to hurt the baby.”

  “Nobody will hurt the baby,” he snapped, and then he was gone.

  She winced. Great, go ahead. Eat your drugs, Nellie. It won’t matter because, hey, they’ll be looking after your baby.

  The other woman rolled over. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

  “Well, I get some of that, but I’m obviously not getting all of it.”

  “They’ll take your kid away from you,” she said flatly. “As soon as you give birth, it won’t be yours anymore.”

  Nellie stared at her in horror. “Is that what happened to you?”

  “No, I already gave birth before I got here, but I was picked up with my daughter, and now they are weaning her off me.”

  Nellie hated to ask the question burning at the base of her throat. “But do you know what they want to do with our kids?”

  “Adopt them out.”

  Nellie’s hand went to her chest to control her breathing after the initial shock. “What if we didn’t want them adopted?”

  “It won’t matter because you don’t get a choice.”

  “And if we refuse?”

  “I presume that’s why the other woman is dead,” her roommate said. “You have to sign forms, giving your rights away.”

  “Oh, God,” Nellie gasped, staring at her. “I really don’t want to give birth in this place.”

  “No, I wouldn’t either.” She looked around their room. “But, hey, you figured out how to get a light on.”

  “Was that supposed to be a test?”

  “I don’t know, but they sure as hell didn’t show me.”

  “It’s in the bathroom,” she shared.

  The woman looked at her in surprise, then nodded. “I guess I’m just used to the darkness. When you’re up all night long with kids anyway, I never bothered turning the lights on anymore.”

  “Will you sign the forms?”

  “I don’t have any choice,” she snapped, then reached a hand to her head. “God, I feel like shit.”