Page 94 of One Final Target

“You’re still banking on Tara?” George asked.

“I’m trying to think.” She massaged her forehead with her fingers. She’d been convinced Ian wasn’t a killer. Could she really say Tara was?

“She told Mike she was going to be off the grid for a while. What could she be doing?”

“Why would she abduct Sam? What could she be after?”

Jodie stared at George, speechless. She had no answer for him. Nothing about this case made sense, but that didn’t make it any less scary.

They stayed at Sam’s until Deputy Takano arrived around two thirty in the morning. Jodie paced, prayed, and tried to regain her balance. Good detectives didn’t flit around like moths chasing a light. Yet that’s what she was doing.

As Jodie prayed, a memory from years ago came back to her. Her father’s face shone in her mind’s eye. His eyes twinkled with amusement. Jodie was trying to pull some candy from a candy jar,but she couldn’t get her hand out because she’d grabbed so many pieces her fist wouldn’t fit through the opening.

“It’s made for one candy at a time,”Daddy told her.“Let the extra go.”

Jodie hadn’t wanted to; she wanted all the candy.

“Honey, when you hold too tightly to too much, you can miss out on it all.”

She let the extra candy fall away and brought her hand out of the jar with one caramel.

Right now, her fist was full of conjecture. Before the IED she would have had no problem letting go of the bad, hanging on to the good. She needed to get to that place again.

Bob Takano went across the street to talk to Sam’s neighbor but came up empty there. He joined Jodie and George in searching every inch of the parking pad and street in front of Sam’s house. Near Sam’s car, Takano found a prong from a Taser. If Sam was tased, it probably broke off when he fell.

Jodie looked up at the motion light on the corner of Sam’s house. It had been disconnected. “Bob, look at this.”

Deputy Takano came over and shone his flashlight. “Yep, it looks like they were waiting for him. Disabled his lighting.”

“Then he was tased and taken somewhere,” George said.

Jodie was silent. She folded her arms, hating the fact that there was nothing they could do until they were contacted by whoever had Sam. What if he or she didn’t call?

CHAPTER51

SAM COULDN’T RELAXon the couch with handcuffs. Staying in the same rigid position for so long was making his shoulder muscles scream in tight agony. Time was ticking by. He felt as if he’d been sitting here for at least an hour, if not more. He tried to figure out what time it was. It was after midnight when he got home. He had no idea how long he’d been out after the Taser. Or how far away from his home he’d been driven. There were no clocks in his line of view, and while he could see the clock on the range in the kitchen, it was blinking. Obviously there had been a power outage and no one had bothered to reset it.

Collins hummed to himself, swigging an energy drink, playing on his phone.

After a while, Sam told the kid he needed to use the restroom.

“I need you to take the restraints off,” he told his captor.

“I don’t care what you need. You’re just like my brother. You think everyone is afraid of you and they will immediately do what you say.”

“You have the gun. You’re in control.”

“I am. I’m smarter than you and I am in control.”

“Not sure how it benefits you to keep me from going to the bathroom.”

“Because it does.” His phone rang. Collins answered, walked into the kitchen, talking low, but his eyes never left Sam.

Sam didn’t really need the facilities. But his arms were cramping, and it felt as if the circulation to his right hand had been cut off. He hoped to get the cuffs removed before any permanent damage was done.

Collins seemed unhappy about what was said over the phone. Sam couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then the smirk returned, and he ended the call.

“Okay, you can use the restroom.” He walked over to Sam and dropped a handcuff key on the floor. “Go ahead, bomb guy. See if you can get the cuffs off.”

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