Programmed for Peril

first call was to Stoneman: Get Melody and bring her to the bakery. The second was to the school office, telling them what would happen.
    With Danny D. following she went back to PC-Pros. She took the time to run a final backup of the computer files onto tape. A lot of information and work was locked up in the machine. PC-Pros had been on the edge of success before Carson started trouble. Maybe one day she could bring it back. That didn’t matter now. She took the cassette from the tape drive and locked it in the cabinet safe.
    Room by room she turned off the lights. She didn’t know when or if she’d reenter the building. Technically she was bankrupt. Even at the edge of total despair she had to bow to Carson’s cunning and determination.
    Her devil!
    She went back to her office to pick up her purse and personal belongings. She glanced at her watch. Stoneman could already be at the bakery with Melody. She locked the door and walked out into the September afternoon. She had to squint against the sun’s angled brilliance.
    She was in a hurry to see Melody. Danny D. had to stretch his shortish legs to keep pace with her. Once together, the four of them would flee to New Jersey. Let Carson do his worst to find them—before the police found him.
    In her haste she nearly walked right past the Cadillac. It was pulled carelessly to the curb, the trunk end edged streetward.
    Stoneman’s car!
    She stooped and looked in. Stoneman was slumped at the wheel. “This is the man who was supposed to bring Melody to me!” She rushed to the driver’s door. Danny D. was right behind her. She snatched at the latch, tore the door open. She looked in the backseat. “Where’s Melody?” she asked the air.
    Danny D. touched Stoneman’s thick neck. “He’s alive.” His hands moved through the older man’s closely barbered gray hair. “No bumps. Maybe he had a seizure or something.”
    “Where’s Melody?”
    Danny D. dug in the glove compartment, under the front seats. “What the hell’s this?” He pulled out a miniature canister. At its top was fastened an electronic controller.
    Trish’s breath left her throat in a rush. “He was gassed! Carson gassed him, just the way he did me—and Ron Verner. He gassed him and took Melody!” Trish was aware she shrieked but couldn’t help herself.
    Carson had her daughter!
    She couldn’t take time to wonder how he had managed it. By now he loomed omnipotent over her life. He had seemingly defied the laws of time and place.
    “The paramedics should have a look at this guy.” Danny D. said. He moved to stretch Stoneman’s wide frame out on the seat. From the breast pocket of his suit coat protruded a yellow sheet. Trish snatched it out. Carson’s unmistakable handwriting. She read it.
    I knew it, she thought. From the first moment she realized that the man had returned to her life she had expected it would one day come to this.
    “What’s it say?” Danny D. said.
    “Let’s go to the bakery. You can call the paramedics from there.”
    They burst through the bakery door at a lope. Dino looked anxious. “Melody’s not here yet,” he said.
    “Carson has her.”
    " What?”
    She gave him the yellow note. He read it aloud. “Queen of My Heart—Melody is with me now. When you join us we won’t ever be parted again. We’re in Apartment 724, 2260 Manifold Blvd. Come now. No tricks or games. You know me. Be straight. Your daughter won’t survive either treachery or your absence. Carson.”
    “My God!” Danny D. rushed for the phone. “I gotta call Sarkman and Morris!”
    “No!” Trish stepped into his path. “I don’t want you to.”
    Danny D. shoved against her. “What are you talking about? This nut has your kid, and you don’t want me –”
    “You have to take my word for this—you and all the other police can’t fool or trick Carson. He’s too clever. He’ll kill my child.”
    Danny D. frowned. “So what are you going to do?”
    Trish stepped closer to the phone. She folded her arms across her chest. “Can’t you guess? I’m going to go away with him.”
    "What?” Danny D.’s turn to squawk.
    Not the truth, Trish thought. What she was going to do was go to Carson, just as he wished. At the first chance she I was going to take the pistol out of her purse and shoot him.
    To do it she’d have to make it look as though she was following his directions absolutely. That meant no police. “Just leave the phone alone,” she said.
    His response was to