Tahoe Skydrop (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 16) Page 3

  “So you got some kind of note,” I said.

  “Yes. It was a text message from my boy’s phone.”

  Vince pulled his phone out of his pocket, turned it on, pressed a few buttons and turned it toward me. It said,

  ‘Got your boy John. Do exactly as we say, and he won’t get hurt. Call us to set up the mountain climb. If you go to the cops, your boy dies.’

  “And this text is from his phone?”

  “Yes.” Vince pointed. “That’s his number.”

  “When did he go missing?”

  “This morning. I got a call from the school asking if he was sick because he didn’t show up. I told them he left at the normal time. These psychos must have taken him when he was on his way to school. Waiting for the bus or something. An hour later, I got the text. So I asked a friend of mine who used to work at the sheriff’s department as an IT person. I asked if he knew of a good investigator who isn’t a cop. He gave me your name.”

  Vince lowered his head to his hands. His breathing was labored. “Please tell me you think my boy will be okay. I can’t stand this. They say they’ll kill him if I do the wrong thing. I can’t breathe!”

  Brie reached over and touched Vince’s hand.

  “Vince, I think you can relax a bit,” I said. “I won’t sugarcoat this. Kidnapping is serious. But they will keep him alive for the time being. They took him as leverage to get you to do what they want.” I said it with more assurance than I thought.

  Vince took a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly, then inhaled again as if following a relaxation technique he’d learned.

  “His name is John,” I said.

  “Yeah. Jon with no H. Jon Cooper.”

  “How old?”

  “Eleven. Twelve next month.”

  “Jon goes to school in the summer?” I said.

  “Yes. The summer school is a special computer class,” Vince said. He seemed to do better focusing on a subject separate from kidnapping. “He’s really good at computers. So he’s going to summer school for eight weeks.”

  “You are his father?”

  “Yes.”

  The waiter appeared and set a pitcher of beer and two glasses on the table.

  I turned to the woman. “Brie, what is your relationship to Jon?”

  She looked up at me with red eyes. “I’m Vince’s girlfriend. Two years, now. Jon is like a son to me. And I’m… I’m practically his stepmother.” She looked at Vince. “Isn’t that right? Doesn’t Jon see me as his stepmother?”

  “Absolutely,” Vince said. He reached over and gave Brie’s knee a gentle squeeze.

  “Jon’s mother is…” I dropped off.

  “Victoria is a flake,” Vince said. “She never wanted a child, then changed her mind, then wanted to get married and have a suburban life, then left me and took up with a rancher who raises horses up near Redding. It’s easy to see that she’d rather spend time with horses than with her own child. Jon was never more than an inconvenience to her at best.”

  Thinking about how often children are kidnapped by their own parent, I said, “Do you have custody of Jon?”

  “Yes. Victoria was happy not to have legal responsibility.”

  “What is her current relationship with Jon?”

  “Distant but friendly. No closeness. No love. Like an aunt or something. An aunt who comes around just once a year.”

  “And her current relationship with you?”

  “We tolerate each other.”

  “Brie,” I said. “Do you spend a lot of time with Jon?”

  “Yes,” Brie said. “When Vince is working, Jon goes everywhere with me. In the summer anyway. Even during the school year, I pick him up after school and we’re together until Vince gets home.”

  “What’s Jon like?” I asked.

  Brie and Vince looked at each other for a moment, a clear indication to me that they were wondering how much of the truth they should tell me.

  “He’s very smart,” Brie said. “He’s already written some computer software.”

  “How does that work?” I asked. “A kid writing software?”

  Brie looked at Vince.

  Vince said, “We don’t actually know much about it. The summer school computer group had a special project at school. A man who owns some kind of computer company came to his school and did a seminar. I later heard from the teacher that the computer guy paid special attention to Jon. After the seminar, the computer guy told the teacher that Jon was really smart and understood something about computer security and stuff the other kids didn’t get. Rhythms or something.”

  “Algorithms?”

  “Yeah, that was it. What are those?”

  “No idea,” I said. “But I’ve heard the term used a lot.” I looked at Street.

  Street said, “I don’t know much, either, but an algorithm is a basic type of computer process, a set of rules about how the computer processes information. The fact that Jon gets how that works at his young age is impressive.”

  Vince nodded. “Jon showed me some computer stuff he wrote. These strange letters and symbols and numbers. Like something a robot would write. I can’t imagine how anyone would want to do that.”

  “You sound disappointed,” I said.

  “Yeah, I suppose I am.” Vince paused, thinking. “Jon has never once wanted to do something normal for a boy his age. Camping or scouting or sports. Just this endless geeky stuff. And the weird clothes. The boy won’t even wear a normal pair of jeans. Everything has to be certain fabrics. It drives me nuts.”

  “Vince, you need to try to understand Jon for Jon’s sake,” Brie said.

  “I try! But he’s always reading those books. Especially that one about the mystery.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Some kind of girly book. A woman trapped in a castle or something.” He turned to Brie with distaste on his face. “You’re the one who gave it to him,” he said like it was an accusation.

  “There’s nothing wrong with a boy reading books,” Brie said.

  “Girly books? Hell, yes. It’s unnatural for a boy to read girl books.”

  Brie turned to me. “It’s called ‘The Mysteries Of Udolpho.’ It’s actually an important book written by Anne Radcliff at the end of the eighteenth century. It’s about a young woman who’s held captive in a castle. It influenced Jane Austen. It might be more interesting than normal for Jon because the character who helps the protagonist escape is named Monsieur Du Pont. And my last name is Du Pont.”

  “What’s important is for Jon to grow up and be a man,” Vince snapped. Then he shut his eyes and took three deep breaths, calming himself. “I’m sorry. This stress is making me not act normal. He’s been taken, and he might get killed!”

  “What else does Jon like to do?” I said, trying to direct them away from what was obviously a sensitive subject. “Does Jon have friends?”

  “No,” Vince said. “Except for two girls who live on our road. But he’s not interested in them, like, you know, potential girlfriends. They’re more like buddies. They talk about clothes. And books. Those girls read books about princesses. What kind of boy talks about stuff like that?” Vince said it with disgust.

  “He’s awfully young, Vince,” Brie said. “He’ll grow up.”

  “When I was that age I was building tree forts and playing football.”

  “It’s a new world, Vince,” Brie said. She sounded exasperated with him. “Everything is about computers, now. He’s going to be one of the kids who run this new world.”

  “I don’t care about that. I can’t stand it,” Vince said.

  “Look, Vince,” I said, “let’s slow down and back up. Take a moment and drink some beer.”

  “Right,” he said. “I get so bent out of shape trying to raise a boy who isn’t, you know, a normal boy.”

  “There have always been boys like Jon,” I said. “He might not be your kind of normal, but that doesn’t make him a bad kid. Is he a bad kid?”r />
  Vince thought about it for moment. “No. That’s just it. He’s a good kid. I never imagined having a boy who won’t even play catch with me. But he’s still a good kid.”

  Vince finally lifted the pitcher and began pouring beer into his mug. But there must have been a flaw in the glass because the handle of the pitcher cracked off. Vince still held the handle as the body of the pitcher fell. It hit the edge of the table, shattered into several pieces and beer splashed everywhere. Vince looked shocked. Then I heard a soft, distant crack.

  “Run, Street! Behind those tents.Take Blondie.”

  I leaped out of my chair and onto both Vince and Brie as if tackling them. His chair tipped over backward, and the two of us sprawled in the dirt. Brie tumbled off to the side. Spot jumped up and, nails gouging dirt, scrambled over to us.

  “You S-O-B!” Vince shouted. “I’m going to take your head off!”

  “Roll away!” I shouted back. “You, too, Brie! Someone is shooting at us!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Get behind that tent! Out of sight from the mountain slope!” I jumped to my feet, grabbed Brie’s arm, and pulled her over to the side of the beer vendor tents.

  Spot and Blondie ran with us. Blondie looked worried. Spot looked confused about the sudden excitement.

  “Hurry!” I shouted at Vince. He joined us in a second. The tent was no protection from a bullet. But it gave us visual cover.

  “I don’t understand,” Vince said. He stood a bit bent and looked up as if objects might fall from the sky and he didn’t know what to do.

  “Your beer pitcher didn’t just break. It was exploded by a bullet. Someone is shooting at us from up in the forest.” I knew the tent might provide us some cover. But our presence was putting the beer vendors at risk.

  “The shooter might fire again,” I said in a low, tense voice. “We have to get out of here. Follow me.”

  I grabbed Brie’s arm and ran. Street caught up to us as we went behind the closest tents and headed for the forest. Vince was directly behind. The other bystanders hadn’t reacted. Either they hadn’t heard the snapping sound, or they didn’t realize it was gunfire.

  I purposely ran across a small open area because I wanted the shooter to notice us so he would stop firing into the area with the beer tents. I heard no other bullets or shooting sounds, although bullets could strike dirt and no one would know.

  We raced toward the forest. In a moment, we were among the trees. After thirty yards, we were well hidden and unlikely to be found by anyone.

  I veered into a dense patch of fir trees and then pulled Brie down to the ground. Vince followed. Spot stood nearby and looked at us, his brow furrowed. I could tell he sensed something serious was going on because he no longer wagged.

  Brie was shaking with fear and shock.

  Vince said, “What do we do? They must have been watching us. If they think you’re a cop, they might kill Jon.”

  “They won’t kill him. They took him to convince you of how serious they are about what they want. The shooter could have killed any of us. We were in full view from anyone up on the mountain. The fact that they only shot the beer pitcher is about letting you and us know that they’re watching you, that you can’t go anywhere or do anything without them knowing. Now they know you were talking to someone. They may not know who I am, but they probably took my photo with a telephoto lens. It won’t take them long before they figure it out.”

  “What do I do now?” Vince’s voice was shaky.

  “In the text you showed me, they said you’re to call them to set up a mountain climb. Tell me about that.”

  “I’m a guide. A guy called me yesterday and said he wanted me to teach him and his friends to do ice rappelling. He said his name was Lucas. He had an accent that was hard for me to understand. When I commented, he said he was Swedish. He said they were filming a movie about men who are trapped on a high mountain and have to get off of it during a storm. They knew that the weather forecast said we have a windstorm coming. So they wanted me to take them up tomorrow in the wind.”

  “Up where?”

  “Job’s Sister. It’s a mountain on the South Shore.”

  “I know it. The second highest mountain in Tahoe after Freel Peak. They were going to film this?”

  “The guy said their cinematographer would be down below at Star Lake and that she had cameras with long lenses. She was also going to be using a drone. But I don’t see how a drone could fly in high wind. The whole idea of going up the mountain in high wind is crazy. Even going to Star Lake would be stupid.”

  I sensed Street tense next to me. Star Lake was near the mining tunnel where she’d been trapped while a crazed arsonist was lighting the forests on fire.

  Vince continued, “So I told them I wouldn’t do it. It was too dangerous. Now they’ve kidnapped my boy. They want to force me to take them up the mountain.”

  “They kidnapped your boy and shot at you to make it clear that they’re very serious about this craziness,” I said.

  “What should I do?”

  “Return their text. Or call them if they left you a number.”

  “And say what?”

  “Tell them you’ll do it. You’ll take them up the mountain and show them ice rappelling. Either that, or we call the cops and let them see what they can do.”

  “No. I won’t take that risk. They were really clear. If I call the cops, they kill my boy. Anyway, it doesn’t make sense,” Vince said. “No one would kidnap my boy and then shoot at us just because they want to film a movie during a windstorm.”

  “They obviously want something else. Something much more important than filming a movie.”

  “You think the movie story was just a cover for something else,” Vince said.

  “Right.”

  “Then how will we find out what they really want? And how will we save my boy?”

  “As you hike, you’ll probably see something useful. I’ll be down below with a scope, watching. Maybe I’ll learn something.”

  “What about Jon?” Brie said. She seemed permanently on the verge of crying. “How can we know he’s still alive?”

  “They’ll keep him alive as long as they need to coerce Vince’s help. When they get what they want, they’ll have cause to walk away. There won’t be anything to gain by harming him, unless they think that he can identify them.”

  “Will they try to ransom him?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “It seems that they’ve chosen you for your mountain skills. They will have seen that you’re a hard-working guide and unlikely to have riches they can exploit.”

  “Where do you think they might be holding him?”

  “Typically, kidnappers will hold a child in a place that is hard to find and hard to escape from. And because children can’t be reliably intimidated into silence, the place will be far enough away from other people so that if the child screams, he won’t be heard.”

  “So there’s no basic way to find him,” Vince said.

  “Not yet. But by paying close attention to everything you see and hear, you may well get a clue.”

  Vince looked devastated.

  Brie spoke first. “Will you help us through this?” Her tone was one of heartbreak.

  “Yes. When Lucas called you, did he give any indication of why that location was important?”

  Vince shook his head.

  “When you call him, try suggesting that you could show them rappelling in a safer place. If they’re unwilling to consider that, we’ll know that whatever they want is location specific. It is something connected to Job’s Sister.”

  Vince made a single nod.

  “I assume you’ve climbed Job’s Sister,” I said.

  “Many times.”

  “From your experience, can you think of anything that makes that mountain special for ice rappelling?”

  “No. But it generally has serious ice on the northeast-facing cliffs. And its cliffs are tall. Other than that, there’s nothing sp
ecial about it.”

  “Is it a good place to learn ice climbing or ice rappelling?”

  “No. It’s fairly high. It’s a long hike to get there. There are dozens of better places to learn.”

  “Why else would someone want to go to that particular mountain?” I asked. “Have you heard of gold or something else valuable up there?”

  “No. I’ve seen some large quartz crystals, but that’s it.”

  “You said the man who called you is named Lucas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He leave you a phone number?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s almost for certain a burner phone. Let’s call it.”

  “And I’m just calling to say I’ll take them up?” Vince sounded very tentative.

  “Right. I think you can be straight up with them. You know they have your boy. You’ll do whatever you have to to get him back safely. You haven’t called the cops.”

  “But the guy shooting at us. He might think you’re a cop, won’t he?”

  “Maybe. But I’m not. You can tell him the truth. Give him my name. Tell him I’m a private investigator, and you just approached me for advice, so they’ll know you haven’t called the cops. Tell him I said you should call Lucas and tell him you’ll do what he wants. If he wants to talk to me, I’m happy to.”

  Vince looked skeptical. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll put it on speaker.”

  He pulled out his phone, scrolled up and down on his screen, tapped a few times, then held the phone in front of him.

  We heard the phone ring. It was answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hello.” The accent was obvious with just one word.

  “This is Vince. I’ll do what you want. Just don’t hurt my boy.”

  “Your decision is to be very smart. Here is those things you will do. We meet in South Lake Tahoe at the High Meadow Trail above the school for children. You will come alone. You will bring the equipment needs for three men. No electronics, no weapons. We have the scan machine to check. What time will be the start?”

  Vince frowned. “I’m thinking. If we want to hike to the summit and also learn ice climbing and rappelling, it will be a long day. We should leave by six a.m.”