A Place In the Sun
48
"I have to speak to Gillian," Maria and Gillian heard from the hall as they stood up.
Maria opened the double doors to the hall just as Ryan came down the stairs.
"Tracy, what are you doing here?" he asked, motioning to the guards that she was okay to enter.
Tracy huffed triumphantly as the guards let go of her arms. "Ray called me again."
"What did he say?" Gillian asked, fighting off the urge to slam Ryan's ex against the wall. Ryan held Gillian's arm, knowing that she wanted to hurt Tracy.
Tracy shifted her eyes from Ryan to Gillian and Ryan knew that the news was not good.
"Maybe I should talk to Tracy in private and then I'll tell you all about it," Ryan said hastily, trying to usher Gillian and Maria back into the other room.
Gillian quickly stepped away from Ryan. "No, if it is about Ray, then it is about Katalin and I want to hear it," said adamantly.
"There's no time for all of this," Tracy said, walking past the quarreling couple and into the living room. Everyone else quickly followed her.
"Obviously Ryan told you about my involvement with Ray and I can't tell you enough how sorry I am for that," Tracy said sincerely, wringing her hands. She turned to Ryan. "Ray called late last night."
"What did he say this time?" Ryan asked.
Tracy again looked from Gillian to Ryan, unsure of how to tell them the news. "He wants Gillian," Tracy said, tears brimming in her eyes. "I'm so sorry."
Ryan pulled Gillian close to him. Gillian closed her eyes to try to hold back tears. "Maria was right," he said quietly.
Ryan looked up at Tracy and she could read the question in his eyes. "Tomorrow; tomorrow morning."
"I can't believe it—tomorrow," Maria gasped and buried her face in her hands.
Tracy handed Ryan a piece of paper. "Here are the details."
Tracy waited a few moments as no one spoke. The silence was awkward and Tracy did not know what to do next. Finally she quietly turned and left.
Rubbing her temple with one hand, Gillian extended her other to Ryan, who handed her the paper. As she read it, she choked back tears.
"He says that the only way I will see Katalin again is go to with him tomorrow," Gillian said, her heart sinking.
Ryan wiped the tears from her eyes as he held her close. "It won't come to that. We're going to figure out something today and get Kata back," he promised.
Maria briefly stroked Gillian's hair and patted Ryan on the shoulder as she left the room to find Edmund. As soon as Maria had left, Gillian pushed Ryan away and stood up.
"What?" he asked.
"This whole thing with Tracy," she said. "If she was not in the picture, maybe none of this would have even happened."
"Wait," Ryan said. Gillian's comment about Gillian reminded him of the directions Tracy had made when they had tried to find Ray. "Tracy might actually be able to help us."
"How?" Gillian asked him through blurry eyes.
Ryan felt the back pockets of his jeans, then pulled a map out of one of them. "Tracy followed Ray a while back and the other day we retraced her route. She wrote down the street names and I traced it out on this map. She didn't follow him the whole way but at least this gives us an area to look in.
Gillian took the map from him and looked it over. "She could be hidden anywhere in any house on any one of of those streets," she said, furiously wiping tears from her eyes.
"We'll find her," Ryan said after a few moments of silence.
"Ray wants me to join them tomorrow," Gillian restated his instructions in a sickened tone. "We don't have much time."
Ryan took Gillian's chin in one of his hands and turned her face so he could look straight in her eyes. "I am not going to let him have you. We are going to find our daughter. I promise."
"Ryan--" she was cut short by a commotion in the hall for a second time that day. They looked up to see Julia struggling to free herself from the two guards.
"Ryan, Gillian," she said, out of breath. "I know where Ray has Katalin."
Ray and Tyler both were startled by the noise in the next room. Ray jumped out of his seat and started toward the room when he remembered his brother was watching him.
"Uhh...there's been squirrels in the cabin; probably just one of them," Ray told Tyler. Tyler nodded in feigned agreement. "I'll go take care of it."
Tyler cringed as his brother left the room. He knew there were no squirrels. Ryan and Gillian's daughter was in the next room and she had just made noise when Ray had wanted her to be quiet.
In the bedroom, Ray pushed aside the furniture and yanked open the closet door. Kata quivered in the corner as Ray advanced toward her. He grabbed the front of her jumper and pulled her to him.
Through clenched teeth he told her, "Girl, you'd better not mess things up now. My brother's out there and he can't know you're here. Now, behave yourself; your mom will be here tomorrow."
At this news, Kata relaxed as he put her down.
"Mommy's coming here?" Kata asked hopefully.
"Tomorrow. If you're good."
"And Daddy?"
Ray shut the door and pushed the furniture back against it.
Kata threw herself down on the floor, crying quietly. She missed her daddy. Even though she hadn't known him very long, she had loved him long before ever meeting him and loved him even more now. If it was up to Ray, she'd never see her daddy again.
"You know where Katalin is?" Gillian said in shock as Ryan ushered Julia into the room.
"Tyler took off after him earlier," Julia said.
"Tyler knows where his brother is?" Ryan asked.
"He thinks so," Julia told him.
"Wait, wait a minute," Gillian interrupted in surprised confusion. "Ray's brother is Tyler?"
Julia nodded, "We were watching the news the other day and he saw the story on the kidnapping and he was devastated to realize that it was his brother that had attacked you and taken your daughter. He came here to Pine Valley looking for his brother and had had no luck."
"I knew Ray had a brother, but I guess I did not connect the two," Gillian said.
"So where does Tyler think that Ray is?" Ryan asked.
Julia quickly reached into her pocket and pulled out the address but did not offer the piece of paper to Ryan or Gillian. "This is where Tyler went. Silver Lake. His grandparents used to take Tyler and Ray there when they were boys."
"Well what are we waiting for. Let's go," Ryan said, reaching for the address.
"No, wait," Julia stopped him, not giving him the paper. "Tyler said not to do anything until 3:00. I don't think he even wanted me to come to you before then, but I couldn't wait. Tyler thinks he can get through to his brother if we give him a chance."
Ray came back to sit on the couch with Tyler.
"Did you take care of the squirrels?" Tyler asked.
"Found a hole and plugged it up. Might help," Ray answered.
There was an awkward silence for a few moments. Tyler felt sick to his stomach, torn between trying to talk some sense into his brother and knocking him out and taking Kata far away from there.
"So what brought you back to the area?" Ray finally spoke.
"You," Tyler said. "I was looking for you."
"You found me," Ray said with a fake laugh.
"When I least expected it," Tyler said. "I've been in the city since the summer. I guess I got sidetracked with, well, falling in love," he smiled. "Why'd you come back here?"
"Followed my girl here," Ray said. "She thought she wanted to leave me, but she's going to change her mind."
"Oh yeah?" Tyler said.
"She came back here and met up with an ex and tells me that she wants to be with him. If he was so perfect, why'd he lose her in the first place?" He raised his eyebrows to accentuate how stupid he thought it was for Gillian to have gone back to Ryan.
"People change, Ray," Tyler said. "Maybe they couldn't make it work then, but they can now."
"She belongs with me," Ray said, his eyes going dark and blank, almost as if looking through Tyler.
"You can't make her stay with you if she doesn't want to," Tyler tried to reason.
"She'll do what I want. I've made sure of it."
Tyler held back his disgust and went on with the charade. "You deserve someone who loves you as much as you love her."
"You being in love's made you go all soft on me, bro."
"I'm just telling you the truth."
"Well it ain't none of your business," Ray snapped. He took a breath to control himself before continuing. "She'll come back to me."
"Maybe after all these years you still know best," Tyler said, trying to figure out what to do next. This line of conversation was getting him nowhere. "Hey, do you have a deck of cards here?"
Ray looked at him like he was crazy.
"You taught me all those great card games when we used to stay here in the summer. I bet we still remember some."
"Maybe somewhere around here," Ray looked in a drawer and pulled out a deck of cards. Ray still tried to act "normal" to appease his brother. They went into the kitchen where there was a table. Tyler announced the game and dealt the cards as Ray offered him a beer. Tyler accepted though he did not intend to drink it. He soon saw he had nothing to worry about as his brother emptied two cans before the first hand was over.
"No, no. If we know where she is, we have to go get her back," Gillian said.
"Gillian's right," Ryan told Julia. "We should go now."
"I knew you'd say that; that's why I wanted to wait to come to you. I wanted to trust Tyler."
"But you came anyway?" Ryan asked.
Julia nodded. "I'm so worried. I waited at home for a while, but by now he's there and it is nerve racking. What if his plan, whatever that is, backfires? His brother has already proved to be violent. If something were to happen to him, or to your daughter, I don't know what I'd do." Julia was near tears.
"We need to get out there," Ryan said. "I'll call the police on our way. They can block the road. If he tries to get away, they'll stop him."
"I'm going, too," Gillian said, half-expecting Ryan to tell her to stay at Wildwind.
Ryan just nodded; there was no sense fighting her on it. "I'm just going to run up and tell Edmund and Maria; then we'll go."
"Thank you," Gillian said to Julia as she bundled up in her coat. "You've found my daughter."
"Don't thank me yet," Julia said. "We don't know for sure that this is where she is."
"I just know she will be there," Gillian assured her.
Tears rolled down Katalin's cheeks as she huddled in the corner of the cold closet. She pulled the scrap of a blanket around her shoulders as she curled up to try to stay warm.
Out in the kitchen, Tyler and Ray continued to play cards. Tyler stole a glance over at the cans piled near his brother. It hurt him not to be able to reason with Ray, but if his brother kept drinking beers at this rate, Tyler thought that he would be able to get Katalin out of the house safely.