Kidnapped

CHAPTER 59

Tuesday, May 16

10:00 P.M.

THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

DEXTER FLETCHER got out of the used Renault he had purchased under a phony name and made his way up the stone walkway to the cottage. This would be the perfect place to wait for all the excitement to die down.

A soft breeze brought the fragrance of a nearby meadow to him. No other structures stood within miles of the cottage and its outbuildings. Solitude and quiet. He craved both.

He had come here with Cleo, some years ago, and knew it to be one of her favorite safe houses. The cottage held pleasant memories for him.

Cleo had installed a special doorknob that read fingerprints rather than codes, far more secure than a keypad entry system, and eliminating the need to carry a key. His only fear was that she had deleted him from the user list programmed into it.

He took hold of the doorknob and pressed his right thumb, then his left index finger, onto the reader. He heard a satisfying click and turned the knob.

His last thought, as he smiled and stepped onto the pressure-sensitive plate on the other side of the threshold, was, Good old Cleo, always looking out for Uncle Dex.

His DNA was in debris found half a kilometer away.

CHAPTER 60

Friday, June 16

10:00 P.M.

LAS PIERNAS

MASON FLETCHER might have spent another year or so in prison while a notoriously slow system worked on a review of his case, but the Fletcher family clout was still worth something, and the Express and other media outlets kept the pressure on, so the district attorney got on the bandwagon and agreed that he should be released, and before the end of May, a judge agreed. The full exoneration process was still in the works, but no one doubted Mason would be completely cleared.

NELSON FLETCHER was in custody. Elisa apologized to me-she told me that Ben had mentioned what I said to Frank on the phone that day in the mountains, and it occurred to her that she could use the same words to lure Nelson back to the U.S. “The difference being,” she said, “that when I said them, I was utterly insincere. I owed him a little insincerity.”

They were a changed family, she said, but a happy one. “Thank God for that therapist you and Ben recommended.” They were in good hands, but I knew from personal experience that therapy isn’t a breeze. Mason was still in the throes of readjusting, but helping him do that was Je

Caleb had moved back home. The bond between him and his brother was stronger than ever, and he was reestablishing his relationship with both his sister and a new foster brother-Troy had not been parted from his sister. They saw a lot of Carrie and Aaron-now known again as Carla and Luke-whose surviving parents saw the benefit of letting all of the children spend time together and keep co

“So,” Elisa said to me, “I’ve gone from walking around by myself in a big empty house to waking up with four-sometimes six-children beneath my roof. Only if Richard were here could I be any happier. He would have loved this family.”

It was an easy family to love, full of bright, bold beings. Having heard of his courage, I believed Richard Fletcher would have been proud of it on that count, too.

Caleb and Je

ANNA STOVER claimed that she had merely been disoriented up in the mountains, but wasn’t believed. It was hard to convince anyone that a woman who worked with Las Piernas’s search-and-rescue team and had spent many hours training others in orienteering and searching those same mountains for lost hikers had become disoriented on paved and marked roads, but her lawyer was saying it had been a very stressful situation and could have happened to anyone. She was facing a number of charges, the district attorney arguing that she could have saved lives and prevented injuries if she hadn’t impeded their investigation.

Ben said perhaps it was a case of misguided family loyalty, but he said it without conviction. The Las Piernas SAR group, suffering major public-relations problems, asked Ben to come back and take over. He declined. I suspect he’s going to start his own team.

CLEO’S lawyers have a difficult client. They did talk her out of trying to claim that Caleb and I were a home-invasion team that killed Roy and tried to beat and blind her. She was able to prove that she was out of the country when Gerald Serre-Aaron/Luke’s father-was killed. She claimed that had been Sheila’s work. That would explain how Sheila knew where to be the day the remains were recovered, and her interest in the investigation, as well as the presence of her DNA on the cigarette butts at the scene, but no one was calling that case closed just yet.

One reason for that hesitation was that Sheila was being accused by her own killer. Cleo’s DNA matched the DNA found in the shoe she left in Sheila’s backyard. Striations on the bullet that killed Sheila were matched up to one of Cleo’s many weapons. The ATF was interested in the design and material used on the booby trap at the cabin. They said they had a call from Interpol about a similar trap that had killed a man in France, at a place owned by someone matching Cleo’s description.

IT took me a while to begin to trust Graydon Fletcher. He weathered a sudden drop-off in attendance at the private school, multiple investigations, arrests of several family members, and plenty of suspicion other than my own. Frank told me that he was fully cooperative with the police, and as more became known, the more I began to doubt that he had been part of Giles Fletcher’s conspiracy.

I suppose it was his daughter Edith who paved the way for my ending up liking the old man. She was actively getting the rest of the family to reexamine certain attitudes toward insularity, and Graydon backed her up on all of it.

NO ONE had heard from Dexter. The largest donation toward the reward for his capture came from his wife.

ONE other thing made me decide I liked Graydon. When it was discovered that he was the sole beneficiary of Sheila Dolson’s will, he made a gift of Altair to Ethan Shire.

ALTHOUGH he suffered a few permanent effects from his gunshot injuries, Ethan recovered and went back to work. Shortly after that, he moved in with Ben, who was teaching him how to work with Altair.

LATE one evening, two days after Ethan moved out, Frank and I were sitting up in bed, finishing off bowls of chocolate ice cream in the nude. I got up and put the spoons and dishes in the kitchen sink without bothering to put on a robe. When I came back to bed, Frank had a look on his face that I couldn’t quite read.

“What?”

“Awfully quiet around here,” he said, reaching for me.

I felt my face break into a grin. “Ain’t it great?”

“Damn straight,” he said, and proceeded to try-successfully-to make me holler.