Captive Justice: A Private Investigator Mystery Series (A Jake & Annie Lincoln Thriller Book 4) Read online

  “I’ll do exactly what you say.”

  Another strange laugh. “Now, this is where it gets interesting.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want someone else to deliver the money.”

  “Someone else,” the doctor repeated. “Who?”

  “Jake Lincoln.”

  “Jake Lincoln? I don’t know him.”

  “He’s a private investigator.”

  “How will I find him?”

  “Look in the phone book, doctor.”

  “Why him?”

  “I have my reasons. Now, are you going to do as I ask?”

  Dr. Gould didn’t hesitate. He had no choice. “Yes of course. I’ll find him.”

  “Good, good. You’ll contact him and then I’ll call him with my instructions later.”

  “What if he refuses?”

  Another maniacal laugh sounded. “He won’t refuse.”

  The doctor thought a moment. “How can I contact you if—?”

  “There’ll be no more contact between us, doctor. From now on I deal with Jake Lincoln. Your instructions are simple. Contact Lincoln, get the money to him, and then it’s out of your hands.”

  Arthur Gould hesitated.

  “Do you understand?”

  He had no choice. “Yes, I understand.”

  “There’s one more thing, doctor.”

  “Yes?”

  “If anything goes wrong, your wife will die.”

  The line went dead as Arthur Gould sank into a chair and trembled, helpless and afraid.

  Chapter 4

  Wednesday, August 31st, 9:56 a.m.

  ALL THAT COULD be seen of Jake was his feet sticking out from underneath his pride and joy, a 1986 Pontiac Firebird.

  He had heard a light rattle from underneath the engine, a sound not one in a hundred people would notice, but Jake had, and it needed to be fixed.

  He turned his head and saw Annie’s running shoes step inside the garage and move in his direction.

  “Phone call for you,” she said.

  He pushed with his feet and the creeper rolled him out from under the vehicle. He stood, wiped his hands on a rag, and asked, “Who is it?”

  “He wouldn’t say. He only wants to speak to you, and he called on the house line,” Annie said as she handed him the cordless phone.

  “Hello?” Jake said into the phone.

  “Is this Jake Lincoln?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a private investigator?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  The man spoke in a feverish tone. “My name is Gould, Dr. Arthur Gould, and my wife … she’s been kidnapped.”

  Jake looked at Annie, touched the speaker button and whispered to her, “His wife’s been kidnapped.” He spoke into the phone, “Have you called the police, Dr. Gould?”

  “No, I’m not sure what to do. He … the kidnapper said not to call the police.”

  Jake hesitated and then said, “The police should always be notified. They’ve had experience in this and they know exactly how to proceed without letting the kidnapper know they’re involved.”

  Silence on the line.

  Jake continued, “Perhaps you should let the police handle it, but we’re happy to do what we can to help if they’re unable to catch the kidnapper.”

  “There’s more to it than that, Mr. Lincoln.”

  Jake waited.

  “He’s holding her for ransom and he told me to contact you. He wants you to deliver the ransom money.”

  Jake looked at Annie. She looked back at him and cocked her head. Jake frowned and said, “That’s an unusual request.”

  “I realize that,” the doctor said. “But he was insistent.”

  Jake thought a moment, trying to gauge Annie’s thoughts.

  Dr. Gould was impatient. “Will you do it?”

  Jake watched Annie nod and he spoke into the phone. “I’ll do it.”

  The doctor sighed in relief. “Thank you, Mr. Lincoln.”

  Annie whispered to Jake, “How much?”

  “How much money is he demanding?” Jake asked the doctor.

  “One hundred thousand dollars.”

  Jake raised a brow and asked, “Can you get the money today?”

  “Yes, I’d thought it might be more but I can get it immediately.”

  “Did you get any instructions yet as to when or where the exchange should take place?”

  “He said I must get the money and get it to you by this afternoon and he’ll call you.”

  Jake looked at his watch. “Then we’d better hurry,” he said. “Perhaps my wife and I should come and see you right away.”

  “Your wife?”

  “My wife and I are partners and it’s best if we both come to interview you.”

  “Very well, then.”

  “We’ll come over now.”

  Jake found a pencil and an envelope on the workbench, scribbled down Dr. Gould’s address and phone number, and hung up the phone.

  The couple looked at each other and Jake frowned. “We’d better get there right away.”

  Chapter 5

  Wednesday, August 31st, 10:22 a.m.

  DR. GOULD’S HOUSE was situated in what was once an old neighborhood, the houses built back when land was cheap and the lots were large. In recent years, the older houses had been torn down one by one, and the rich and the newly rich were coming in, tearing down the old, and building luxurious new dwellings.

  Jake pulled the Firebird into the triple-width driveway and stopped beside a BMW. They climbed from the vehicle and went up the stone driveway, past the immaculately landscaped front lawn and onto a large verandah.

  Annie clanked the knocker and the door was opened almost immediately.

  Dr. Gould was in his midthirties, but the stress evident on his face made him appear a decade older, and as he invited them in, he sighed deeply and pointed through an archway toward the front room.

  Jake sat carefully on a couch in front of a large bay window. Annie sat beside him, leaned forward, and waited until the doctor settled into a matching armchair.

  Annie spoke first. “Dr. Gould, I want to say how deeply we feel for you in this situation. I’m aware how hard this is for you and I assure you, our top priority is to get your wife back. Apprehending the kidnapper is secondary and we’ll in no way endanger your wife.”

  Dr. Gould nodded slowly. “The money is no problem to me. The kidnapper said if anything goes wrong my wife will die. When I weigh the value of money against the value of my wife’s life, there’s absolutely no comparison.”

  “Our concern,” Jake said, “is that your wife be returned safely. The problem is, we have no way of guaranteeing the kidnapper will keep his word and let your wife go free once he receives the payment.”

  Annie said, “All kidnapping is serious, but he’s made a threat on your wife’s life, and I’m afraid he might be willing to carry it out.”

  The doctor drew a sharp breath. “So, what do you suggest?”

  “The question is this,” Annie said. “Should we call the police and endanger her life, or is her life in more danger if we don’t call them? That’s something you have to decide.”

  “What’s your opinion?”

  Jake glanced at Annie and then addressed the doctor. “I believe the best plan is to bring the police in on this. They’re well trained to handle these situations.”

  Dr. Gould gave a small nod and stared out the front window. Annie could almost see his mind weighing his options, knowing his wife’s life was at stake.

  “I … I can’t make that decision right now,” the doctor said. “I’ll need awhile.”

  “Of course,” Annie said.

  Jake asked, “Doctor, did the kidnapper say why he wanted me to deliver the ransom?”

  Dr. Gould shook his head. “He said he had his reasons.”

  Annie’s brow wrinkled in thought. “Perhaps he wanted someone emotionally unattached to the situation.”

  “Then he pic
ked the wrong guy,” Jake said.

  Dr. Gould looked worried.

  Annie explained. “What Jake means is, he’s already emotionally attached. We both are, but obviously not as much as you. I’m just speculating, but he’s clearly aware of who we are and he might think that as professionals we’ll do everything exactly as he wants.”

  The doctor nodded and Jake changed the subject. “Doctor, did you by any chance recognize the kidnapper’s voice?”

  “No, he used one of those voice-changing machines. It came through deep and unnatural.”

  “Did anything in his wording sound familiar perhaps?”

  “I … I wasn’t listening for that. I was in too much of a panic to pay any attention, but offhand I have to say no.”

  “It’s unlikely he would give himself away like that, but you never know,” Jake said.

  The doctor sprang to his feet and dashed from the room. He returned a moment later with a cell phone. “I almost forgot; he sent me a picture of my wife.” He swiped across the screen a couple of times, took a deep breath as he looked at a photo, and then handed the phone to Jake.

  Annie leaned over and looked at the picture on the screen. A woman was tied securely to a chair, a gag in her mouth. Annie winced at how frightened the woman appeared.

  “Can we take this phone?” she asked. “The picture was likely sent from a burner phone. It’s unlikely he would use one that can be traced but just in case …”

  “Yes, please take the phone. It’s my private number, so if anyone calls, tell them I’m unavailable.”

  Annie took another look at the photo, shut the phone off, and tucked it into her handbag. “We have someone who can take a look at it. I’ll get it back to you as soon as possible.”

  “Dr. Gould,” Jake said. “We need to know when your wife was last seen, and where.”

  “She left work at the usual time last night, just after five o’clock, and hasn’t been seen since. She always parks in the underground parking area but whether or not she’d driven away, I … I don’t know.”

  “Where does she work?”

  “She’s a paralegal for a small firm a few blocks away. I’ll get the address.” He went into the den off the front room and returned a moment later with an address book. He leafed through it and handed it to Annie.

  She removed a pad and pen from her handbag and jotted the information down. The firm’s name was “Williams & Thresh,” and she recognized the office building where they were located.

  “What kind of car does she drive?”

  “It’s a silver Toyota Corolla. Brand new.”

  “We’ll check this out right away,” Annie said as she scribbled in her pad. “Again, it’s unlikely we’ll find anything, but I want to see if her car is still in the underground parking.”

  “How’ll that help?” Dr. Gould asked.

  “It might not, but we have to check all possibilities. He might have slipped up somewhere.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you have a house line as well? We might need to contact you.”

  “Yes,” the doctor replied. He gave Annie the phone number and she jotted it down.

  “There’s not much else we can do until the kidnapper calls,” Jake said.

  “I’ll contact my bank right away and get them to put together the cash,” the doctor said. “It might take them some time to get that much but I’m sure there’ll be no problem.”

  Jake looked at his watch. “You should do it right away.”

  The doctor nodded and then asked, “Mr. Lincoln, would you come to the bank with me later when I pick it up? I would feel safer with you there.”

  “I will if possible,” Jake said. “However, I need to get back home and stay there until I hear from the kidnapper. We have three phones: the house line, the line for Lincoln Investigations, and my cell phone. We have no idea which number he’s going to use.”

  “I’ll give you a call before I go,” the doctor said. “If not, I might be able to get a guard from the bank to accompany me.”

  Annie stood and said, “If there’s nothing else you think we need to know, we’ll get on this right now and let you know how things proceed.”

  Dr. Gould stood. “Please, please get my wife back safely.”

  Annie touched his arm. “We’ll do everything possible, doctor.”

  Chapter 6

  Wednesday, August 31st, 11:14 a.m.

  WHEN JAKE AND ANNIE arrived home, Annie grabbed her keys from the house and jumped into her Ford Escort.

  Her destination was a few blocks away and after a couple of turns, she pulled in front of a row of townhouses, ran up the steps of number 633 and rang the doorbell.

  Jeremiah Everest was known by his friends as Geekly, and when he answered the door the reason was obvious. With dirty-blond hair over his ears, his feeble goatee, a face that spelled “geek,” and John Lennon glasses, he more than looked the part.

  He and Jake had been unlikely friends since high school and his expertise had been useful to their investigations several times in the past.

  He answered the door with a graceful flourish. “Hello, my dear lady. Come into my humble abode.”

  Annie followed him into what was supposed to be a living room but rather was a forest of all things electronic. Computer parts took up space on bowing shelves, with mice, keyboards, and equipment of all shapes and sizes littering every corner. DVDs, drives, and cables bulged from neatly labeled boxes.

  A television sat on a small table and faced a well-used easy chair, the only indications this room was more than a geek’s paradise.

  “It’s a good thing you called first,” Geekly said as he kicked aside a carton of electronic stuff and dragged an extra chair over for Annie. “I was just about to head out.”

  “I won’t take up much of your time,” she said as she sat and pulled Dr. Gould’s cell phone from her purse.

  “It’s no prob. It’s nothing I can’t do later.” He held out his hand. “Let’s see what you have there.”

  She brought the photo up on the screen and handed the phone to Geekly. “What can you tell me about this photo?”

  Geekly frowned at the picture. “What’s this, a kidnapping?”

  Annie nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  “Well, let’s get right on it.”

  He spun around and pulled a box from a shelf, dug inside, and came up with a data cable. “I’ll just transfer this image to my computer, then we can take a look at the metadata,” he said as he plugged one end of the cable into the phone and the other into the USB port of his Mac Pro.

  He clicked the mouse a few times and the image appeared on the monitor.

  A couple more clicks and a window popped up, filled with technical data. Annie had no idea what she was looking at, but knew it must contain information on the photo.

  “This is the Exif metadata,” Geekly explained. “It’s contained within the image file itself and has information that relates to the image.”

  Annie leaned forward for a better look.

  Geekly touched the screen. “Phones contain a GPS system, but just as I was afraid, on this phone the GPS/Location setting appears to have been turned off.” He glanced at Annie. “I can’t tell you where this photo was taken, only when. There’s a lot of other useless information pertaining to this image and the only other thing that might help is the unique ID number of the device.”

  “ID number?”

  “Yeah, every phone has its own identification.” He turned back to the keyboard, and in a moment a small application loaded. He glanced at her and grinned. “I have some special software I can use.” He chuckled. “Not publicly available software, of course.”

  “That’s why I came to you,” Annie said with a smile.

  Geekly copied a string of numbers and letters from the first window, pasted it into a box in the second, and sat back. In a moment, another window popped up. “Looks like a burner phone.”

  Annie’s shoulders slumped. “I was afraid o
f that.”

  “With the ID number, this software helps me track down the phone number as well.” He grabbed a pad and jotted down a number and then handed her the paper, crossed his arms, and leaned back. “The only other thing I have is the timestamp. The photo was taken yesterday at seventeen forty-four, so that’s five forty-four in the afternoon.”

  Annie thought a moment. “So, it looks like she was abducted right after work.” She stood. “I’d love to stay and chat a bit, but this is rather time-sensitive and I have to go.”

  Geekly stood. “Come back when you can stay longer. Bring that lunk of a husband with you, too.”

  Annie smiled, and said, “You’ve been a big help, Jeremiah.” She turned toward the door and he let her out.

  She climbed in her car, removed her cell phone from her handbag, and dialed the phone number Geekly had given her.

  It rang three times and then she heard breathing on the line.

  “Hello?” she said.

  A voice asked, “Who’s this?”

  She thought quickly. “I’m taking a survey. Would you have a minute to answer a few questions?”

  “What about?”

  “About … the amount of time you spend on the phone on a daily basis.”

  She heard a laugh, then silence, and then, “Not very much. This ain’t even my phone.”

  “Could I speak to the owner of the phone?”

  “Dunno who it is. Well, maybe I’m the owner now. Somebody throwed it away and I found it.”

  Annie frowned. “Can you tell me where you found it?”

  “You ain’t gonna take it away from me, are you?”

  “No, you may keep the phone. I just need to know where you got it.”

  “It were in a garbage bin.”

  “Where was the bin?”

  “In the alley.”

  Annie rolled her eyes but spoke patiently. “What alleyway? Do you know the name of the street?”

  “Yup, right off Benson.”

  “Downtown?”

  “Yup.”

  That was in an older part of the city and several minutes’ drive away from the area where Mrs. Gould worked.

  “I gotta go now,” the voice said. “And I’m gonna keep the phone.”