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“He c-called me.” Miss Sarah started to cry. “Demanded money, said he has our baby and will kill her if we don’t deliver what he wants.”
Ted tried to think clearly, work his way through the panic that knifed through his body.Not his Mandy. No one could be allowed to hurt her.
“What’s the time frame?” Ted remembered his family receiving a call like this when Emily was kidnapped.
Don’t let this happen to someone I love again.
He acknowledged it then and loathed himself for not telling Mandy last night.
“He’s calling back with those details. You have to find our girl,” Miss Sarah begged him. “He said no police, or he’ll hurt her.”
No police or your daughter will die.Those words had been spoken to his father. Emily had died anyway, even though they followed the instructions.
“We’re not playing by his rules,” Ted said, pulling out his phone. He called Chief Blake and Dylan, telling them it was urgent and that they needed to come to Mandy’s apartment.
His voice sounded tight and raspy, as he battled down the panic. Something had happened there, and he felt that her apartment held the answers.
Not Mandy too; he couldn’t lose her like he had Emily.
“Let’s go.” He ushered the women out to the car.
They drove in silence, reaching Mandy’s place in a matter of minutes. Chief Blake pulled in behind him, and Dylan a second later.
“What’s going on, Ted?” Chief Blake moved to stand beside his driver window. Head of the Ryker Falls police, he was a well-respected man in town, and one Ted trusted. Not overly tall, he didn’t carry a big build, but he was tough and wiry and not to be messed with.
“Mandy’s been kidnapped by someone from her past,” Ted said after Dylan had climbed in the passenger side. “Miss Sarah took a call confirming it not long ago.”
The back door opened, and Chief Blake climbed in beside Mandy’s aunts.
“Okay now, you need to explain this to me from the start. I know you can both do that, because neither of you are the kind to panic,” Chief Blake added.
The women huddled together in the back seat both nodded.
“Do either of you know who kidnapped her?”
“We do, his name is Logan Hall.” Miss Sarah drew in a deep breath before she continued. “Mandy’s father grew up next door to where we lived. He was like our little brother. Then he moved away, but he kept writing to us. When we came to Ryker Falls, we told him about the move. Eventually the letters stopped, but we never forgot him.”
Miss Marla took up the story.
“We got a call from a Detective Stiller one day; he said that Brian Carter, Mandy’s father, had been murdered by Hall. Apparently, Brain owed the man money and they got into a fight over it. They’d found a letter in his possessions stating that if anything happened to him, they were to call us, as we’d look after his daughter.”
“What’s her name?” Ted rasped.
“Amanda Carter,” Miss Marla said softly. “The detective said if we didn’t take her, she’d end up a ward of the state. We didn’t hesitate, as neither of us had children. We flew out to get her.”
“Okay, we have that part. Now move on to why you think she’s been kidnapped and by whom,” Dylan said. Like Chief Blake, he was scribbling in a notebook.
Her name was Amanda Carter.He didn’t care who she once was, she was his Mandy now, and he had to get her back. To contemplate any other scenario wasn’t possible. He wouldn’t lose another person he loved. He acknowledged that now… had to, because the pain in his heart thinking about Mandy out there somewhere with a murderer was enough to derail him. But he wouldn’t allow that; he’d stay focused, for her.
“She saw him murder her father. He used to take her with him at night when he sang. Often, she’d sleep in the car. She saw that bastard murder her father and testified at nine years of age to put him away.” Miss Marla said. “His lawyer managed to convince the judge he’d been defending himself, and it was his word against Mandy’s. He wasn’t in prison long, but before he was led out of the courtroom, Logan Hall said he would come after Mandy when he was out.”
“And now he has,” Dylan added.
Ted couldn’t begin to understand what kind of life Mandy had lived with her father, sleeping in a car at night. So much he didn’t know about her.But you will.
“I won’t let him hurt her.” His word came out in a growl. “That can’t be allowed to happen again.”
“We’re getting her back, Ted.” Dylan looked at him.
