One Week To Live Read Free Page A

It’s my baby he’s talking about. My baby!”
    “He’s a monster, a demented soul,” Brian snapped, unable to control his disgust toward the man.
    “The kidnapper ordered me to pay close attention to his first nursery rhyme clue because he wouldn’t repeat it. Thank goodness the FBI agent listened in. I couldn’t remember the whole thing.”
    He took out his notebook and pencil. “What did he say?”
    “It wasn’t a real nursery rhyme, more like his own version of one.”
    “Go on.”
    She reached for the folded piece of paper on the dresser and began reading. “Goosey, goosey gander, where do I wander? Uphill and downhill and straight into Sin City. There I’ll see a woman who’s not what she claims to be. So I’ll bring her another child and wait for her to see.
    “It didn’t make any sense. I demanded he explain it, but he’d hung up on me.” She stared at the piece of paper for another minute and looked at him. “You covered the last case. What does his gibberish mean?”
    He glanced at his notes. “I’ll need to study it further before I can hazard a guess. The man talks in riddles, making his clues difficult to decipher. That’s part of his game.”
    “I overheard the FBI agent on the phone saying something about Vegas.”
    “Sin City is another name for Las Vegas.”
    “He’s taking my Polly to Vegas? Why?” Hysteria filled her voice.
    Angie lived in Vegas, but how did the kidnapper know that? In the previous case he’d warned her to stay out of his way or she’d be sorry. Luckily, he hadn’t carried out any of his threats. So if he didn’t want her involved, why bring the kid to her this time?
    “I’ll never see my baby again,” Susan sobbed, once more losing control.
    “You can’t think that.” Long pent-up emotions tugged at Brian. Kidnapping was every parent’s worst nightmare.
    Watching the distressed woman nervously plucking at her daughter’s teddy bear, he again questioned how objective he could be when he wrote the piece. He’d always prided himself on his journalistic integrity and objectivity. He’d only lost that objectivity once. Writing this story while keeping his emotions in check wouldn’t be easy.
    ****
    The summer, desert storm emerged quickly. Jagged white lightning bolts speared the night’s blackness accompanied by the deafening boom of thunder. Then the rain arrived—a pounding deluge that turned desert-dry earth into deadly raging rivers of mud and debris.
    Above the din a tearful child screamed, “Mommy, Mommy!”
    Jolted awake, Angie listened but heard nothing. The noise and fury of the storm vaporized along with her grandchild’s plaintive sobs.
    She groaned. What did a storm have to do with her granddaughter in San Diego? A cloud of uneasiness settled over her. Getting up, she went to check her door and window locks. You’re being foolish, she told herself, crawling back into bed. When the unexplained apprehension continued, she suspected she wasn’t.
    ****
    God , he hated the desert. The barren brown bleakness of it depressed him. Not that he saw much beyond the range of his high beams piercing the night’s blackness, but he knew it existed. A land baked dry by a scorching relentless sun that created summer heat so intense you could fry an egg without benefit of a stove.
    That’s why he’d chosen the night to travel. Nighttime also meant less traffic and risk of detection. He also avoided the interstates, taking the less traveled two-lane roads, careful to obey the speed limits as he passed through the blink-in-the-road towns along the way. He didn’t need a small-town cop pulling him over and spotting the drugged, bound, and gagged kid he held captive in the rear of the van.
    The abduction had gone as planned. He’d been right about the old woman’s cat. Catching it in the backyard snoozing, he’d killed the animal and shoved it through the cat door. He’d been certain that when the old woman walked into her kitchen with her