Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

dropped the box cutter, watching it bounce and roll, coming to rest under a low shelf.
    Locking the door behind him, he crossed the yard to the cabin and let himself in.
    Wilson Beckett stood at the stove, frying bacon. It smelled good and Mitch realized it had been too many hours since his last meal. But he’d seen the old man’s hygiene. There was no way he was eating anything touched by the guy’s hands.
    Stomping his feet, Mitch rubbed his hands briskly. ‘He’s still not awake,’ he stated.
    Beckett looked up from the skillet, his weathered face bent in a frown. ‘Hell, boy, how hard did you hit him?’
    Not nearly as hard as I wanted to . ‘Maybe a little too hard. I have to get back to the city. Check on him in the morning. If he’s still out, call me. If he wakes up, don’t hit him anymore, understand? I want him lucid so he can talk to his mama.’
    ‘You phone in the ransom yet?’
    ‘Yep.’ Nope . Nor would he. Not part of the plan . Although making the old man think there would be a ransom was definitely part of the plan.
    Wilson’s eyes gleamed at the prospect of sharing five million dollars. As if . ‘ You think they’ll pay?’
    Mitch smiled. ‘I know they will.’

Chapter One
    Baltimore, Maryland, Tuesday, December 3, 9.55 A.M.
    T he kid’s hood was ice cold. FBI Special Agent Joseph Carter lifted his hand from Ford Elkhart’s Chevy Suburban, flexing his fingers to shake off the chill. The thin latex gloves he wore were no protection against the frigid wind, but he’d left his leather gloves at home. At least the latex kept him from contaminating what might be a crime scene.
    Might be, but probably was not. Ford’s boss was already convinced that something dire had happened to the boy, but Joseph considered it far more likely that the twenty-year-old college kid had gone home with his girlfriend last night for wild monkey sex.
    However, Ford’s boss was Joseph’s father, so Joseph figured he could spare an hour to check on the kid, just to put his dad’s mind at ease.
    And, Joseph would admit to himself alone, his own mind. Because even though he mostly believed that Ford and his girlfriend were doing the horizontal tango in a nice warm bed, the uncertainty would nag at him until he knew for sure. Because Ford struck him as a little too soberly reliable to simply not show up to work without a phone call.
    And if something dire had happened, the boy’s mother would be devastated.
    A woman like Ford’s mother did not deserve to be devastated. A single mom, she’d raised her son while earning her law degree and now successfully juggled her job as a prosecutor with an impressive list of charitable activities. She was colorfully bold, warmly brash. Smart as hell.
    And, of course, there were those legs of hers. Joseph let out a harsh breath that hung in the cold air, remembering his first look at Assistant State’s Attorney Daphne Montgomery, more than nine months before.
    No, he couldn’t forget about those legs. He hadn’t been able to forget about her at all. He’d tried. Many, many times. But she was taken. Because I waited too long .
    Making sure her son was unharmed was the least he could do for her. Hell, it was the only thing he could do for her. Because he’d waited too long and now another man got to see her legs up close . . . and the rest of her too.
    His phone buzzed in his pocket and he grabbed at it, happy for anything that would distract him from the direction his mind had taken. The caller ID was no surprise. That his father had waited this long before calling for an update was unusual.
    The CEO of an electronics firm that had its fingers in everything from guidance systems to prosthetic implants, Jack Carter gave definition to the term ‘multi-tasking’. The term ‘waiting’, however, wasn’t high on his vocabulary list.
    ‘Well?’ his father demanded. ‘Did you find him?’
    ‘Found his Suburban,’ Joseph said. ‘About a block from Penn Station.’
    ‘Why was he at the train station? His buddy said he posted on Facebook that he took his girlfriend to a movie for her French class.’
    ‘Only two theaters in town are showing French films, one near the station. I searched until I found his SUV. Appears to have been here all night.’
    ‘That’s a dangerous part of town.’
    ‘It’s not bad during the day.’ Joseph watched a homeless man shuffle into an alley, a bag slung over his back. Probably all he owned in the world. ‘At night it