“She didn’t go through that hole,” said Donnally.
Hawk looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“The Chief says there’s a false door in the wall that they took your mother through,” Janita said.
“A false door?” asked Hawk. “What door?”
“It looked like the wall, that’s why you didn’t see it,” Matty said.
“This is crazy,” said Hawk.
“I agree,” said Janita.
But the chief was turning red. This was not going according to plan. He was determined to be the hero of this capper, not that black gal. “Whatever,” he said. “But what I can commit to you,” he said to William and Matty, the real power center in that room, “is that we’ll find your wife and your mother. That’s the point.”
“And Keep Miss Cooper informed,” Hawk said. “She’s on the case too.”
The chief took umbrage to that. He looked at Mr. Webster to take his side.
But William wanted his wife back. “You heard my son,” he said.
The chief, fully set back, said that he would.
And then they waited.
One hour went back.
Then two, which caused panic to set in.
But before they hit the third hour, William’s phone began ringing.
According to Chief Donnally, they had his phone set up to get global positioning of locations, cell tower dings, and whatever else they needed. Once the chief was certain they were ready, he nodded for William to answer.
But when William quickly said hello, there was no sound in return. He said it again. And again. But no one answered. “Can you hear me?” he said into his phone. But still no answer.
William looked at Donnally. “Hello?” he kept saying into the phone. “Hello?”
But as soon as he said hello that final time, the line went dead. The person on the other end had ended the call.
“What the fuck is this?” Nat asked angrily just as the front door of the home flew open and William’s grounds security chief ran in.
They all stood up. “What is it?” William asked him.
“You aren’t going to believe this, sir.”
“Believe what?”
“Mrs. Webster is outside. She just walked up!”
Everybody in that room took off running out of that house. But nobody was running faster than William.
When they made it outside and indeed saw Reecie Webster, still in her fur coat and heels walking up the driveway, they all were stunned. William, Matty, Nat, and Hawk, and Janita too, stopped in their tracks in utter relief and shock. But Dray, Minka, and Barbara ran to their mother. And when she saw her three youngest children running her way, she smiled the smile of a grateful mother and threw her arms around all three of them.
And then they escorted her up to the others.
For Matty, who believed that everything should be decent and in order, he couldn’t wrap his brains around what washappening. She was kidnapped and returned with no ransom demand? How could that be?
For Hawk, he was pissed. And a part of him still wondered if his drama queen mother staged this whole thing.
