Sadness seeped from his being. “Just do it. I went up and took a look around. Granted, I don’t know every fucking purse Araneae carries, but the one with all her things is upstairs in the closet.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Sorry, I could confirm that by checking the trackers.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I guess I wanted to see.” He turned to Mason. “It definitely was a helicopter. Back behind the building where we are going to house the capos, you can see how the blades blew the tall grass.”
“You went out there?” Mason asked.
“Yes. Patrick and I were looking at the building you mentioned.”
I recalled Mason’s concern. “Can we get a good print on the landing skids?”
“Not perfect, but close,” Sparrow replied.
Mason looked at me. “I’ll go out there and measure their length before we head down to the bunkhouse.” He looked to Sparrow. “It will probably be dark by the time we get back.”
Sparrow nodded. “I’m ready to start doing something.”
Mason turned to me. “You good?”
“No,” I replied honestly. “But this” —I lifted my chin to the screens— “is what I do. It makes me feel like I’m doing something.”
“I’ll text you with the measurements on the skids. Text or call if you learn something.”
“What about the capos?”
“Patrick is on that,” Sparrow replied.
Mason’s large hand slapped my shoulder. “We’re getting them back.”
“What about ransom?” Sparrow asked. “We haven’t heard anything.”
“We need to keep all lines of communication open,” I said.
After both men left, I began scanning the three different security programs we’d combined. Mason was right about one thing: it would take someone with a higher understanding of security to override this system. Hitting a few keys, I created a visual readout of the three programs and ran them in parallel format. I continued working, narrowing down the exact time of the breach to within seven minutes.
“Reid,” Laurel said from the doorway with a plate in her hand. She forced a smile. “It’s late. I brought you some dinner.”
Dinner?
I turned to the clock on the screen. It was nearly eight thirty, which was nine thirty in Chicago, and yet I wasn’t hungry. I’d been too consumed with what I had been doing. It also didn’t help that the office was windowless.
She carried the plate closer and placed it and a fork wrapped in a napkin on the desk beside the keyboard and my notes. From a pocket in her oversized sweater, she pulled out a water bottle. “Still sealed.” When I didn’t respond, she added, “I know what it’s like to get lost in your work.”
I looked at the long table. “Laurel, this is your house. You don’t have to leave me alone if you have work you want to do.”
“I have a lot I want to do. Right now, I’d do anything to help you find Lorna and Araneae.”
The sight of the food returned my stomach to life. “It looks delicious.”
“I don’t profess to have the culinary skills of your wife.”
I grinned. “I don’t think many can.”
“Was she always a good cook?” Laurel asked.
I thought back to when Lorna and I were first married. Hell, we hadn’t known one another that long. I could say we were in love. I think I was. I think she was. It was a difficult time, and I knew I’d do anything to keep her safe. Cooking was something she wanted to do. Hell, before her, the four of us lived on takeout and packaged meals. Anything was an improvement over that.
The memories brought on an unexpected and needed smile.
“If I tell you the truth, you have to promise you’ll tell her what I say when we have her home.”
“You want me to tell?” Laurel asked as she turned a chair toward me and took a seat at the long table.
“I do.” I imagined my wife’s smile, the way her green eyes could tell an entire story, and how she could communicate without saying a word. “Lorna and I have always been painfully honest with one another.” I shrugged. “There are things—Sparrow things—that I can’t share, but I’ve never lied to her. Besides, I love seeing the fiery smirk in her green eyes. And if you tell her what I’m about to say, which is that with the exception of a few dishes, Lorna was a pitiful cook, while it’s the God’s honest truth, my wife will most definitely give me that look.”
“Pitiful? Really?”
“Chicken Parmesan has always been her specialty. Her recipe was her grandmother’s. That’s something we had in common, our love of our grandmothers.”
Laurel hummed. “I love her chicken Parmesan.”
As we spoke and I started to eat, the program I’d been running caught my attention. The seven-minute gap was down to two. It was working. The layers were starting to fill one another in.
“What is it?” Laurel asked, standing and coming near, peering over my shoulder at the screen.
“I fucking hope it’s our answer.”
Lorna
The food we’d been fed churned in my stomach, sloshing with the water, as I paced the length of the cell and back. I’d lost count of how many times I’d made the trek or the number of the steps it took to get from one side of the room to the other. I’d also lost track of time.
Had night come and gone?
Was this the next day?
Was it still the same, never-ending nightmare?
More than once, I’d fallen to my knees in front of the toilet attached to the wall near a small sink, certain I was about to vomit the contents of my stomach. If it was possible that stubbornness could keep the bile and food from moving upward, I had it in spades.
I would not give up the small bit of nutrients because if I did, I would be helpless to fight for the return of what else I’d lost...one of my best friends.
Hours ago~
After securing our blindfolds, Araneae and I waited in the frightening darkness. Loss of sight amplified the other senses. The lingering scent of our tasteless meal hung heavily in the air and upon my tongue. The rough texture of the blindfold abraded my face as Araneae’s grip of my hand grew tighter. A cool breeze, before undetectable, blew over my arms, bringing goose bumps to life. Beyond the edges of my blindfold, light saturated the room.
All of those sensations paled in comparison to hearing, that sense now on overdrive. As if someone had just turned up the volume, the ordinarily minute sounds roared. My pulse thundered in my ears like a violent Chicago storm. The rapid breaths from both Araneae and I filled the air like gusts of wind before tornadic activity.
The atmosphere around us shifted as the door’s lock clicked, activating the internal mechanism. The turning knob and scratch of the door’s bottom over the concrete floor preceded heavy footsteps. The pungent scent of body odor made me flinch.
Beneath my blindfold I once again saw the boots and jeans from before.
“You.” The pronoun was the only directive from the deep voice.
My nerves grew tauter as I waited for more.
Who was you?
I shifted, wondering if it was me. As I did, Araneae’s grasp of my hand loosened.
“Wait, what’s happening?” I asked to the darkness.
“I’ll be fine,” Araneae said, her voice stronger than I could have mustered. “I’ll walk. Please don’t touch me.”
“No,” I called, pushing myself off the bunk. I lifted my chin in time to see the man’s legs covered in jeans and his boot-clad feet moving beside Araneae’s legs and bare feet. “Don’t take her without me.”
My plea echoed in the small cell, a lingering cry as Araneae was taken away. I ripped the blindfold from my eyes in time to see the door click shut. I ran toward it, pulling on the knob. It wiggled in my grip, but not enough to activate the latch.
“No, please,” I called to whoever could hear.
My hands balled to fists as I pounded on the solid metal—pound after pound until my hands bruised and tears fell from my eyes. “She�
�s pregnant,” I cried as too many visions came to mind. “Please don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt the baby.”
No one answered.
There was no one to respond.
I was alone.
I spun around, taking in the cell where we’d been placed, thinking about the reality. This was a lockdown. My experiences back in the tower in no way prepared me for this isolation. When there, I’d had space—Mason’s apartment, Reid’s apartment, the first floor of the penthouse. What I’d considered solitary was a beautiful big home compared to where I was now.
Completely alone.
That wasn’t quite accurate.
I recognized my companion. It was one I’d known for most of my life. Its name varied, but most people called it fear—that sensation that surpassed the normal senses and burrowed under the skin. As a little girl, I felt it lurking in the shadowy corners, taking residence under my bed and chilling my skin as a warning.
Was that what it was doing now?
Was my companion warning me?
My skin prickled as I again turned completely around. There were no dark corners to keep it hidden. I crouched down, peering under the bunk bed, and lifted my chin upward, searching in the rafters near the burning light bulbs. I couldn’t see it, but that didn’t matter. It was here, a master at disguise.
No longer was I fearful of one of my mother’s johns, or an odd man on the L. Today there was nothing as obvious, yet it existed all around me, an invisible force capable of mass destruction. Its presence was in every fiber of my being. Even as the tears dried and my stomach calmed, fear remained.
Present time~
I couldn’t lie upon the thin, cot-like mattress. Before our dinner arrived, Araneae and I decided that I would sleep on the high one. It made sense for her not to climb. Truly her baby bump wasn’t big enough to be a hindrance; it was the principle of the thing. A pregnant woman didn’t need to climb.
Of course, I’d never made it up to the top bunk. We’d sat together on the lower bunk, our backs against the wall, finding comfort in one another’s company. My mind swirled with possibilities.
Maybe they discovered who she was, the founder of the Sparrow Institute, co-owner of Sinful Threads—a successful fashion company, and most significantly, the wife of Sterling Sparrow.
I tried to reassure myself that Araneae was safe and on her way back to Chicago or Mason’s ranch. If our kidnappers knew both of our identities, keeping just one of us would be enough. Reid and I were more than financially secure. He would pay generously for my return. He wasn’t the only one. I had no doubt that Sparrow would pay too.
There was a time when he didn’t want me around.
It was past.
We’d worked through the obstacles, leaving our friendship stronger.
My breathing caught as the light disappeared.
With trembling hands, I hurriedly secured my blindfold as my pulse thumped again in my ears, my breathing reverberating against the cement-block walls. I held on to the metal frame of the bunk bed as the locking mechanisms in the door clicked and finally, the bottom of the door scooted across the floor.
I strained to see what was hidden, to smell what hadn’t yet registered, to feel a familiar touch, and to hear what was still out of range. And then I heard.
Reid
I pointed at the large paper topographical map of Mason’s property lying upon his dining room table. “We need to verify that the helicopter left the ranch’s property.”
The hums of my colleagues filled the air.
Although it was nearly midnight, we were all together in a room with a table large enough to hold the surveys and maps. The dining room’s long wall of windows that during the day offered a stunning view, now peered out at the beginning of a moonless night. With the combination of latitude and longitude, the hours of daylight here at the ranch were much longer in the summertime than in Chicago. Even so, the sun had recently given up the ghost, giving way to a lingering dusk.
The suspended day and delayed night created an eerie and unsettling sensation.
It felt as if we were on the brink of a black hole—a loss of time and space that once we crossed over, we’d never return. The unspoken restlessness was evident in our murmurs and seen in the strained features of our expressions. The four of us were tried-and-true soldiers. We’d fought enemies and conquered cities. We’d also experienced loss. The latter was the catalyst that kept us focused, kept us going.
The warm breeze blowing from the open windows, doors, and overhead fans rustled the maps. Patrick and Mason hurriedly rearranged empty coffee cups whose new job now was acting as paperweights.
“Tomorrow the equipment will arrive to clean the ducts,” Mason said as he rescued a flyaway note one of us had written earlier.
This wasn’t the only room. All the windows were open throughout the house. Capos were stationed conspicuously around the exterior perimeter. The house was opened to the world, but no one was getting close.
“I’m going to bed,” Laurel said as she entered the room, her long sweater wrapped around her body, covering her long pants, top, and nearly down to her sock-covered feet.
“We’ll get this secure tomorrow,” Mason reassured her.
“I really thought it was the lemonade.”
“Whatever they added to the ventilation system worked fast,” Patrick said.
“But Madeline...” Laurel began.
Patrick shrugged. “She was tired, as she suspected. According to the information Reid recovered, Maddie was already up in our room before the knockout gas agent was activated.”
Laurel shook her head. “I wish I hadn’t left the other two in the kitchen.”
Sparrow looked up from the maps he’d been studying. “Don’t do that, Laurel.”
“I just...” She let her words trail away.
He stood tall and stretched his shoulders and neck. “Go to bed. We need your help tomorrow in determining the agent that was used. The canister is bagged. If you’d been in the kitchen, you wouldn’t be here to help us now.”
Her blue eyes veered to her husband. From my angle I couldn’t read their unspoken message. If I were to guess, it would be survivor’s remorse. Laurel didn’t need to bear that. Lorna and Araneae would survive this. I couldn’t allow myself to think otherwise.
Mason wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist and laid a kiss on the top of her hair. “I don’t know when—”
Laurel shook her head. “Do whatever you need to do.” She turned toward the rest of us. “All of you, do what you do. I’m sorry my work is cluttering the table in the office. I’ll clean it up tomorrow and take it upstairs. As for now, Madeline is asleep, and I’m going upstairs. No one will disturb you.”
Sparrow and I nodded while Patrick added his good nights to Mason’s.
Once Laurel was gone, Sparrow spoke, his focus back on our discoveries. “We know the helicopter headed west.”
“Based on the size of the landing skids,” Mason began, “we’re looking at the possibility that the chopper could fly roughly three to four hundred miles on a full tank.”
“There’s no reason to think the tank was full. It flew here,” Patrick replied.
“But we don’t know from where,” Mason added. “It could have refueled as close as Bozeman before coming here. Reid is running a program to check the closest fueling stations.”
“Or on your property,” Patrick countered. “If the kidnappers weren’t working alone, one man with a pickup truck and cans of fuel could refuel a helicopter.” He took a deep breath. “This is all theoretically sound, but logistically, there are too many variables.”
It was our ongoing conversation. An idea would come and three would counter. We weren’t arguing as much as brainstorming, narrowing possibilities, and eliminating the improbable.
I looked up from the laptop where I was currently working. “No flight plans were filed anywhere with coordinates that come close to your property.” Before anyone could respond, I added,
“I didn’t expect there to be, but I had to check.”
Mason went to the open window and looked out into the growing darkness. “According to the FAA, private planes or helicopters flying under eighteen thousand feet don’t require a flight plan.” He tilted his chin toward the cooling darkness. “Even the highest peaks are under that range.”
“Right,” I said, “yet a helicopter landed.” I gave it a second thought. “What are the chances anyone noticed?”
“High,” Mason said. “A low-flying helicopter would be an oddity. Yet, none of the ranch hands saw it. Sparrow and I questioned every one of them. They’d been repairing fences in pasture seven, northeast of here.”
“And no one heard or saw a fucking thing,” Sparrow said.
None of the ranch hands had, but Lindsey Dorgan and her eight-year-old son did. They’d been tending some newly acquired horses a few pastures over. Her son heard the helicopter first. Neither of them realized it had landed, but we had the confirmation we needed. Then the information I found on the security video made it official.
Sparrow tilted his chin toward the table. “I want to see a broader map. I want to know every dwelling within a three-hundred-mile radius of this house.”
I began to type upon the keyboard. As the search engine spun, my nerves grew taut. “I need faster fucking service.”
Everyone’s eyes turned my direction.
“It’s all right, Reid,” Patrick said. “We have a fuck more questions than answers.”
“We know they were taken,” I said, waiting for the program to load, “around one o’clock, nearly twelve hours ago. The colorless, odorless agent, commonly referred to as knockout gas, began filtering through the ventilation system at the top of the hour. When the two kidnappers entered through the doors on the balcony off the kitchen, every one of the women was already unconscious.” I stood and began pacing. “The two kidnappers are most likely men based on their build. There’s no way to run facial recognition because they were wearing gas masks.”
“Which means,” Patrick added, “they knew about the agent.”
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