Free ROCKY MOUNTAIN RESCUE by Cindi Myers

it.”
    “My father owed Sam Giardino some kind of debt. I don’t know what it was, but he made it clear that I had to marry Sammy in order to save his life.”
    So a wife for Sammy was the price for George Franklin’s safety? From what Patrick knew of Sam Giardino, this kind of twisted plan was his specialty. “How old were you?”
    “I was nineteen. I had a dead-end job at a boutique in the mall, but I wanted to go to college. I knew the Giardinos had money. I figured I’d marry Sammy, save my dad, go to school on Sammy’s dime and divorce him after a few years. But it didn’t work out that way.”
    The regret in her voice pulled at him. “No divorce.”
    “And no school. Sam thought educating women was a waste of money and what he said was the law. So Sammy went to law school and I read his books and wrote his papers.”
    “And you had Carlo.”
    “Yes.” She picked at imaginary lint on her pants. “I love him more than anything, and I’m so glad I have him now, but I wasn’t thrilled about becoming pregnant so quickly. Of course, by then I’d figured out that even without a kid, the Giardinos weren’t going to let me leave. Once Carlo came along, I was really stuck.”
    “What will you do now that Sammy is dead?”
    “I’d like to go back to school, if I can scrape up the money. I’ll get a job, find a place to live. I figure after helping Sammy through law school getting my own law degree won’t be too hard.”
    Simple dreams. Not the plans of a criminal mind. Of course, some criminals were very good actors. They could make people believe what they wanted them to. But he didn’t think Stacy fell into that category. “What kind of law?”
    “I don’t know. I’d like to do something to help women and children.”
    “You’d make a good lawyer.”
    “You really think so?”
    “You’re calm under pressure. You’re smart and you know how to think on your feet.”
    “Thanks. I really fooled you, because I don’t feel calm.” She twisted her hands together. “Do you think we’ll find Carlo?”
    “We’ll find him.” He tightened his fingers around the steering wheel. He would get the boy back to his mother if it was the last thing he did.
    The strains of an Alicia Keys song drifted up from the floorboards. Stacy stared at him, the color drained from her face. “My phone.”
    “Answer it.” He pulled over to the side of the road, but left the engine running.
    She fumbled in her purse and pulled out the phone. “Hello?”
    “Put it on speaker,” he said.
    She did so, and a woman’s soft, deep voice filled the Jeep. “Hello, Stacy.”
    “Who is this?”
    “That’s not important. But unless you want your son’s death on your hands, you’ll turn around now and go back to Durango or New York or Timbuktu, for all I care. Do that, and we’ll let you both live. Keep on the course you’re on and we’ll kill the boy and then come after you again. And this time, you won’t escape.”
    “Who are you? What have you done with my son?” She raised her voice. “Carlo, are you there? Can you hear me? It’s Mommy.”
    “Mommy! Mommy, where are you? I’m scared. Mommy!”
    The phone went dead. Stacy covered her mouth with one hand and stared at the phone.
    Patrick gently pried the phone from her hand and scrolled back to the history. “Unknown number,” he said. “I could try to have someone trace it, but they were probably smart enough to make the call from a throwaway phone, or even a pay phone. There’s still a few of those around.”
    “What are we going to do?” Her voice shook, but she was holding it together. After hearing her son’s voice in distress, that took a lot of guts. His job was to stay calm and make it as easy as he could for her.
    “First, we get rid of the phone.” He slid the cover off the back and popped out the SIM chip, dropped it to the floor of the Jeep and smashed it with his heel. Then he broke the rest of the phone into as many pieces as he could