Page 16 of Tracking Down the Lawman's Son

“You were telling us about how today’s encounter with your captor was different from other times,” Duncan prompted.

“Yes,” Sandra verified. “A couple of times before today, I’d heard her talking on the phone to someone. It sounded as if she was getting instructions or orders because she said things like, ‘I can do that’ and ‘Understood.’ The call I heard today though was different.” Her voice cracked again.

“How?” Duncan pressed.

“She said she was worried about someone noticing the damage to the truck, that she didn’t want to be pulled over by some local yokel when she went after the kid. Then, I heard her say Bree’s address, like she was repeating it to make sure she had it right.” A bite of anger trickled into her voice. “She said she’d get out there and get the kid before Bree was back from the hospital.” Sandra shifted her gaze to Bree. “I didn’t even know you’d had a baby.”

Bree nodded. “Gabriel. He’s two months old, and Luca’s his father.” She didn’t add more, but Luca could see for himself that Sandra was working this out in her head. Especially the fact that Gabriel had been conceived shortly after Cliff’s murder.

“Duncan and I have a daughter,” Joelle said. “Elizabeth Grace. We call her Izzie. You can meet her after, well, after,” she settled for saying. “For now, we need to know how you ended up at Bree’s and anything else you can tell us about what happened to you.”

Sandra stared at Joelle for a moment, and there was another flood of emotions. One that looked as if it might cause Sandra to lose it, but she reined herself in and continued. “When I overheard the woman saying she was going to take Bree’s baby, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t let my grandbaby be taken and locked up like I was.”

Now the rage flared in Sandra’s eyes. Luca had rarely seen any show of temper from her over the years, but it was there now.

“I crammed everything I could into the last plastic grocery bag she’d dropped off two days earlier,” Sandra explained. “My shoes, toothpaste, even the bar of soap, and when she came in, I bashed her upside the head with it. She fell, the stun gun clattering to the floor so I used it on her. While she was jittering and flopping around, I ran. The truck was parked out front, and the keys were in the ignition so I got in and drove away as fast as I could.”

“You didn’t think to take off her mask and see who she was?” Duncan asked.

“No. I just ran. I had to get to Bree’s. I had to save her baby.”

Duncan shook his head. “But if you took your captor’s truck, then why did you believe she would still come after Gabriel?”

“I thought once she was able to move, she’d call her boss or partner and that he or she would rush to Bree’s and take Gabriel. I couldn’t risk that.” Sandra stopped again to wipe away more tears. “If she killed Cliff, I didn’t want to think what she could do to a baby.”

Neither did Luca, and if all of this was the truth, then Sandra had stopped something horrible from happening. Luca was beyond thankful for his son’s safety. But without the identity of the kidnapper, there could possibly be another attempt to take him.

But why?

Did someone want to use Gabriel for leverage? If so, that brought Luca right back to another why? It was possible someone wanted to use him to sway the outcome of an investigation, but at the moment, there were only two unsolved murders on the books. Cliff’s and Brighton’s. So, did that mean one of them was connected to this?

“Why do you think this woman kidnapped you? Why did she want Gabriel?” Bree asked, taking the questions right out of Luca’s mouth.

“I don’t know,” Sandra said through a hoarse sob. “I’ve obviously had plenty of time to think about it. To think about losing my husband, too. Did he suffer?” she asked Slater. “Did your dad suffer when he was killed?”

Slater shook his head. “The ME said death was almost instantaneous after he was shot.”

Almost.Like Slater and the rest of his family, Luca had read the ME’s report countless times, looking for anything that would lead them to his killer. So far, all they had was that someone had gunned down the sheriff, and he’d bled out.

“If the woman kidnapped me,” Sandra went on, “she must have had something to do with Cliff’s murder. Did she try to frame me? Did she do something to make me look guilty?”

“With you missing, you became a suspect,” Duncan admitted. “But we also had to consider that the killer had murdered you as well.”

Sandra flinched a little. “But she didn’t kill me. Why?”

Again, the big question. Too bad they didn’t have a good answer. But maybe there’d be clues in the cabin where she’d been held. Maybe in the silver truck, too.

“You said you used the stun gun on the woman who kidnapped you,” Duncan continued. “So, she would have been incapacitated for a while. For at least five minutes. Was there another vehicle at the cabin that she could have used to come to Bree’s and fire those shots?”

Sandra’s forehead bunched up. “Maybe. I didn’t look behind the cabin. I guess a car or motorcycle could have been parked back there. You think she’s the one who tried to kill us?”

Duncan shrugged. “I’m considering it.” He glanced down at a notepad. “Tell me about Manny Vickery,” Duncan threw out there, obviously trying a different angle. “How well did you know him?”

“Not well at all. In fact, I’ve never met him. I just knew the name because I talked to Brighton a couple of weeks before she was killed, and she mentioned she’d been going to the Hush, Hush. She was upset, but the only thing she’d say about it was that things weren’t going well with some man she’d been seeing. She was very upset,” Sandra emphasized. “So, I went to the bar to see if I could find out what was going on.”

“That’s how you ended up on the video outside the Hush, Hush,” Luca commented.

“Video?” Sandra questioned.

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