Chapter 10

Gavin survived the drive with only one major scare. The sudden swerve of the SUV alerted him to the fact that he had nodded off and he was barely able to avoid leaving the highway. The fact that it was now 04.10 meant that there was little traffic and that probably saved his life. The fright kept him awake long enough to find a place to fill himself up with more coffee before continuing.

He reached Baton Rouge just after lunch and booked into a Marriott this time — using the same Holiday Inn as last time might have been a risk. He worked out how to set the bedside alarm clock and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

When the noise woke him up, he reached over to turn off the alarm and couldn't understand why it continued to bleep at him. Sitting up, he realised that it was too early for the alarm and that the noise was actually his mobile phone ringing. He stumbled out of bed and picked it up.

"Hello?" he mumbled sleepily.

Gavin thought it was a great idea — anything that gave him even a slight advantage was a great idea.

"Are you sure it will work?"

"We can try it out now if you like," Fraser suggested.

Once he had disconnected, Gavin returned the call using his mobile.

"Hi, is that you?" Fraser checked cautiously.

"Yeah. Now how does this work?" Gavin asked.

There was a slight delay, but then, instead of Fraser, he heard Lizzie's voice on the other end of the line.

"Hi Gavin. Please find Fiona and please stay safe," she said.

"Did Fraser just hand the phone over to you?" Gavin asked.

"No, I'm in the other room. He's connected to my mobile using this conference call thingy," she replied.

Gavin was impressed. There was virtually no way he could have detected what Fraser had done and he was sure that they could convince the kidnappers that he was in the house in Cedar City if they had the chance to use Fraser's trick. The only problem might be if the kidnappers were watching the house, but he thought that was unlikely. Fraser came back on the line.

"What do you think? Will it work?" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure it will, let's run with it. All I need to do is be careful when I answer the phone," Gavin replied.

Surprisingly, he managed to get back to sleep again quite easily — a sign of just how tired he had become. It was several hours later before his mobile phone woke him once more and he staggered out of bed to pick it up.

"Yeah?" he answered.

"What took you so long to come to the phone?" the voice on the line asked.

Gavin realised that there must have been a delay between Fraser answering the phone when the kidnappers had rung back and managing to get him to pick up his phone using the conference call facility. He tried to cover that with an explanation.

"Uhh, what? Oh, I was sleeping. Fraser just woke me up." Gavin replied.

"You know who this is. Why are you wasting time sleeping? You should be on your way back to Monroe!"

The recent experience on the interstate made sure that Gavin sounded convincing when he described his near death crash and the need for rest. He made sure to lay it on thick.

"Look, there's no way I'm going to make it to Monroe on time, you know that. I'm here in Cedar City and it's going to take more than twenty hours of driving to get to Monroe. It's just not physically possible to get there by noon tomorrow. You're going to have to give me some leeway here," he said.

There was a moment or two of hesitation on the line as Markow considered this. Having rung the number for the house, he believed that Gavin was actually there. He knew from his own recent experience of the drive that what Gavin was saying was true.

"Okay, you've got until 18:00 — no later! If you're not there by then — well, you know what will happen. Is that understood?"

Gavin was thankful for even this small triumph — he had gained another six hours through Fraser's trick. He decided to ride his luck a little.

"Can I speak to my sister? I'm not giving myself up without first of all making sure she's still okay," he said firmly.

There was no reply, but a few seconds later he heard Fi's voice.

"Gavin, I'm scared, twenty-one times more scared than when the bullies put me in hospital at school."

"Don't worry, sis. You're going to be fine. I promise," Gavin replied.

The voice on the line changed abruptly.

"Satisfied? Be at the church by 18:00 tomorrow."

"Wait!" Gavin exclaimed, but he realised he was now talking to himself.

Moments later, Christine's voice sounded in his ear, that part of the conference call clearly still connecting Gavin to Cedar City.

"Fraser says that the kidnappers have hung up and it's safe to talk," she said.

Gavin didn't reply immediately, as he was replaying the very brief conversation with Fiona in his head. He knew about the incident with the bullies while they had been at school in Glasgow, but he had stepped in to make sure Fiona hadn't been hurt. There had certainly been no need to go to hospital so he knew she must have been trying to tell him something else.

"You brave little fool," he thought to himself, shaking his head at the risk she had taken. "Using 'twenty-one' the way she did was just so out of place. I wonder if she was trying to tell me how long her journey was after she was taken? Without a direction, that information is useless though — or maybe not. At the very least it would rule out the possibility that she's been brought here to Baton Rouge."

"I'm sorry Mom, I was thinking about something. How are you?" he asked.

"Never mind how I am - are you okay? What did the kidnappers say? Fraser said he could have put your conversation on speaker, but he was scared we'd make some kind of noise and give his trick away."

"I'm fine. Tell Fraser that his idea just bought me another six hours. I even managed to get them to let me speak to Fiona."

"Is she okay? Have they hurt her?" Christine asked tentatively, perhaps afraid of the answer.

"She sounded fine. In fact, she even tried to pass on some information to try to help me find out where she is. Honestly, mom, I think she's unhurt."

"What are you planning to do to try to get her released?"

"I'm going to pay a visit to the father of the man I think is behind all of this. If reasoning with him doesn't work, I might try something a little stronger. If that fails, then there's another powerful man here who might be able to do something and I plan on paying him a visit too. My final resort is a direct approach to the man I think is the one who's pulling the strings."

"Gavin, you have to promise me that you won't hand yourself over. There's no way we can trust these people to hold to their word. If I lose Fiona I don't know what I'd do, but if I lose you both ... well, I just can't think about that."

"Mom, you know me better than that I think. If there's even a small chance that I can see Fiona released then I'm going to take it. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

"She'll never forgive you if you do that. Think about it. Even if they do let her go, do you want her to live the rest of her life with your death hanging over her?"

Gavin actually laughed.

"Mom, I'm not dead yet, not by a long way."

They argued back and forth for a few more minutes before Christine gave up.

"I'll put your father on," she said, and was gone before Gavin could react. The next voice he heard was Frank's.

"I heard her last remark, so there's probably no need to tell you that Christine knows everything. I was saving that for later."

Gavin began pacing up and down the hotel room — a sure sign that he was getting stressed.

"Everything?" he pressed.

"Everything," Frank confirmed.

"How did she take the news that it was you who shot Glen?" Gavin asked, worried as to what the reply was going to be.

"Well all I can say to you is 'thank you'," Frank said, completely out of context in their conversation.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot," Gavin realised, "she's probably listening so you can't answer that. Wait a minute, are you saying that that's what she said? Are you telling me she said thank you?"

"Exactly," Frank confirmed again.

"Wow! I didn't expect that."

"Neither did I, but I'm glad."

"You sure picked your moment to drop all that on her. Isn't everything else that's going on enough for her to cope with right now?" Gavin asked.

"I had my reasons, son. It had to be now, tomorrow might be too late. You be careful now."

Gavin swallowed to try to get the sudden lump out of his throat. Reading between the lines, he realised what his father was telling him.

"I will dad, don't worry, I will," he managed to reply.

They talked for a few more minutes and then Gavin said that he had some final preparations to make so they exchanged somewhat halting goodbyes in the circumstances.

"I've never told you this, son, but I, I..."

Gavin understood Frank's difficulty and interrupted to make things easier. It was a Glasgow thing, where men were hard and emotions something that they didn't deal with easily.

"Me too, dad, me too," Gavin said.

"No! I want to say it. I love you son, take care."

"I love you too, dad. I'll see you soon, so don't worry too much."

There was a tear in his eye when Gavin ended the call. He checked the time and saw there would be no point in trying to get back to sleep a second time. Instead, he turned to his laptop to take one final look at Google Earth and what it showed of the two addresses he was interested in. When he heard a knock at his door, he checked the time again and saw that it was 21:00 on the button.

Crossing to the door, Gavin opened it carefully and pulled James Wiggins inside quickly. James' appearance was down to a call that Gavin had made immediately after Frank had told him to turn back for Louisiana. Given what he seemed to be heading into, he felt that he needed a gun. James was the only source he could think of and he was hoping his friend had come through.

"How was the drive?" Gavin asked.

"Man, that was a bitch. Are you telling me that you've done that almost three times in the past week? You must be running on empty pal," James replied.

"Did you bring it?" Gavin asked.

"Whoa! Don't worry, I've got it," James laughed.

He reached inside the bag he was carrying and handed Gavin a gun similar to the one he had used in Glasgow. It was only then that Gavin saw that James was wearing surgical gloves as a precaution.

"It's fully loaded and I've got a spare clip," James advised, handing over the spare.

"Thanks. I'm sorry for dragging you into this but things are getting serious. As I said on the phone, they've kidnapped my sister and want to exchange her for me. You don't need me to tell you what that means — I might be in big trouble. To be honest I've felt kind of naked without one of these ever since I landed in the US," Gavin said turning the gun over in his hand.

"Never leave home without it," James said. "There are only two things I need to ask. First, I'm not expecting it back if it's used for anything serious — so get rid of it if you have to. Remember, this gun is currently legit and registered to me, so if you do need to dispose of it, make sure you do a good job. Secondly, I want to come with you."

"No worries on the first count, I won't let you down. I'm afraid the second one is out of the question though, I've already got you in too deep."

"Aw, come on, man. I promise I won't get in the way. Just cut me in on a little bit of the excitement, please? You wouldn't have the gun without my help," James pleaded.

He could see that Gavin was wavering.

"I'll drive. If you're going into a danger zone, I'll wait behind, honest. I just want to be there," James pressed.

Gavin couldn't see that there would be much danger if James sat in the SUV while he was doing what he needed to. James was taking a big risk in giving Gavin his gun, maybe he did deserve a reward for that — although it was doubtful tonight's business could be called a reward.

"Okay, but you stay in the SUV at all times," Gavin conceded.

"Yes!" James cried gleefully. "Where are we going?"

"Maybe you should have asked that first before trying to get in on the action," Gavin laughed. "We're paying a visit to one, possibly two men. I'm hoping one of them will be able to help me get Fiona released."