“I apologize for not asking you first about using Donovan.”
“No apologies—she didn’t tell me until I asked. As soon as I got off the phone with JT earlier I called to read her in and she told me she was already working on it.” He paused. “Noah, don’t you trust me?”
Noah didn’t know what to say to that. Of course he trusted his boss … but he didn’t understand what Rick meant.
“Sir, I should have called you this morning when I first saw Eden.”
“Why?”
“I know she’s a thief. I suspected she was up to something—when Sean and I were undercover together last year, he told me he hadn’t seen Liam and Eden in years.”
“But you had no proof that she had committed a crime or was about to commit a crime, there was nothing you could have done.”
“I could have sat on her,” Noah mumbled.
“No Monday morning quarterbacking. I need to know if we have a problem.”
“No, sir.”
“But.”
“We’ll discuss it when Lucy is safe.”
“Fair enough.”
What was he supposed to say? That he thought his boss violated the law every time he worked with RCK? That he didn’t know if he could look the other way at times … but sometimes he had no problem? How did he define when and where? How could he be an effective agent if he bent the rules so often? What if he was forced to break them?
No one can force you to do anything you don’t want to do, Armstrong. Remember that.
Maybe that was the problem. The rules and laws he believed in sometimes were wrong. But who was he to judge the right and wrong of the law? He was to enforce it, let the system correct itself when necessary.
Unfortunately, the system wasn’t perfect.
And anarchy is?
“I gave JT your direct contact information,” Rick continued. “You met him last month, correct?”
“Briefly.”
“If he can’t reach Kane, he’s going to contact you.”
“He should call Sean.”
“Sean is too emotionally involved to make decisions. You need to be in charge on our end,” Rick said. “RCK is going to extract Lucy when we find her. Kane Rogan is going to be in charge of the operation and Sean will be involved. But I need you, as Lucy’s boss and a federal agent, to be completely in the loop. With JT in Sacramento trying to identify their mole, I need a diplomat to finesse what might come up. Call me, text me, anytime for anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have to go—thank you, Noah.”
Noah hung up. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that conversation with Rick, but right now knowing that so many people were working on finding Lucy gave him hope.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lucy heard voices downstairs, then nothing. Had they left? Gone to sleep? The quality of light didn’t change, which told her there was a lightbulb on. She didn’t know what time it was. Everything was still blurry, but she could see where she was going. She found a bathroom, used the toilet, then searched for a potential weapon.
There was nothing. There wasn’t even a towel rack she could dislodge from the wall.
As her eyesight returned, she realized she was in a den of sorts. Two couches, a coffee table, a desk and chair. It was devoid of clutter, except for a few vases like the one she’d broken. She searched the debris for something she could use to stab or cut, but the ceramic had broken into pieces too small to weaponize. The bookshelves had only books and a few knickknacks. She picked up everything to judge the heft of each piece and determine if she could do any damage. The only thing that might work was a long, slender leaded-glass vase. It had some weight to it.
She carried it around with her as she continued searching the room. There were four tall, narrow windows. When she pulled aside the heavy drapes she found storm windows on the other side. Great. Through the narrow slats she saw it was black outside. Middle of the night? Early morning? She didn’t know. But she’d come home at three in the afternoon, and now it was sometime between ten at night and dawn. She kept trying to read her watch face but couldn’t make out the hands. She thought the small hand was between the one and two.
There were papers in the desk, but nothing she could read at this point. What if her eyesight never went back to normal? What if they’d hit her and that had affected her optical nerve?
Why are you worrying about it now? Getting away is your number one goal.
Finally, she sat back down and waited. Listened, but there was only silence. Eden and Liam hadn’t even come to talk to her, to try to explain themselves. For all she knew, they’d left.
Why?
Her head ached and she closed her eyes.
Sean.
He would be home by now. He’d know she was missing. Or Siobhan was there, had called Kane or Noah. If she was okay. If they hadn’t hurt her. Ryan would have worried about her when she hadn’t come back to headquarters. Hours had passed and people would be looking for her.
Eight years ago she’d been kidnapped and her family had worked tirelessly to find her. If Dillon and Kate hadn’t found her, she would have been killed. Patrick had been severely injured, and she still harbored deep-seated guilt over that. Knowing she wasn’t to blame and believing it were two different things. She had come to terms with what had happened. Being raped and tortured had been soul shattering, but she’d battled and won. It had taken years, but she had survived and wasn’t hiding in the shadows, fearful of the world. She was fighting to make it a safer place for everyone. She had found love and a peace she never thought she’d attain. Perfect? No, life would never be perfect. There would be times when her past would haunt her. And the life she’d chosen in the FBI forced her to face evil over and over. But the people she saved, the criminals she locked up, the crimes she solved—it all made the difficulties of her chosen profession tolerable.
But Sean was her anchor. Without him, she’d be sucked into the dark spiral of work as a vocation, as the goal of life, when Sean had taught her that the goal of life was to love and be loved.
She could too easily picture him at their house, controlling his panic and his rage, his fear for her life. He would do anything to find her, and while she wanted him to find her, she didn’t want him hurt.
How could his own family do this to him? Why would they take Lucy? What had they done with Siobhan? Had they drugged her, too? Left her at the house? Was she someplace here?
* * *
Lucy might have dozed off, but a sound woke her up. She jumped up, listened. Definitely people moving around, slowly. She blinked and realized that her sight was back. Her eyes felt heavy and her head ached, but she could see clearly.
She glanced at her watch. Five forty. In the morning? She ran over to the windows. The narrow slats of the storm windows were gray—definitely dawn. She couldn’t see anything else, had no idea where she was, but there were no sounds of traffic. No commuters, no planes, no commercial vehicles or tractors or people. Isolation. Her heart pounded.
Control. You have your eyesight back, you have your training, you need to maintain control.
She picked up the vase where she’d left it on the couch, then stood next to the door. Listened. Someone was taking a shower downstairs. The house didn’t sound big, but there were a few rooms beneath her.
The water turned off. Voices. The smell of coffee.
Her stomach growled.
She heard a female voice … Eden.
She listened intently but couldn’t make out anything they were saying. There appeared to be two distinct male voices. Maybe three, but Lucy wasn’t certain. She didn’t recognize any voice except Eden’s.
Then she heard a vehicle.
She ran to the windows. She still couldn’t make out much of anything through the thin slats, though it was definitely getting lighter out. She craned her neck and saw dense brush, a few trees, no paved roads. The terrain was unfamiliar.
The vehicle—an old truck by the soun
d—became louder, then stopped near the house. The road was a simple flat dirt path that was called a road simply because it could be used as one. In the sudden silence the sound of the single door closing startled her.
She ran over to the door and listened. The group was talking downstairs. She strained, trying to hear what they were saying. She picked up on a few words, but nothing made sense to her. All she heard clearly was mission. What sort of mission were they on? It couldn’t have been in their plans to take her. They wanted the bonds. What had Eden said during that conversation? She’d been talking to Dante.
Tampico.
She said they were meeting in Tampico. Lucy didn’t know of a Tampico in Texas, though there could be. But there was a Tampico down the eastern coast of Mexico.
She didn’t want to be in Mexico … it would be that much harder to escape and get home. She didn’t have resources, people, money, her passport … Where was the American embassy? Mexico City … There were probably facilities in all the major resort towns, but she wasn’t at a resort. Where exactly was she? Had Eden and Liam really taken her to Mexico?
Someone was walking up the stairs. Lucy stood to the side, so they couldn’t see her when they walked in. She only had one shot—if she could disarm whoever came for her, she might have an edge. Get to the truck and bolt. Find a phone, call Sean.
Someone knocked on the door. “Lucy, I know you’re standing by the door.” It was a male voice. Very familiar. “Probably planning to run, maybe fight your way out. You will fail. You are one person, probably very well trained, probably very smart otherwise Sean wouldn’t be marrying you. Be smart now. Stand back from the door.”
She hesitated, considering.
“I have no intention of hurting you, Lucy.”
“Liam?”
“Very good. If Sean and Kane told you anything about me, you know that I don’t kill people. It’s not my style. And I don’t want to hurt or restrain you if I can avoid it. In fact, we intentionally took off the restraints because I don’t want you to feel like a prisoner.”
“But I am a prisoner,” she said through the door.
“Temporarily. I’d like to come in and talk to you, explain what’s happening, and give you some good news.”
What did she do? She could fight one unarmed person, maybe two. She had decent self-defense skills. But if Liam was even half as well-trained as Kane, she didn’t think she would get out uninjured. And Liam wasn’t alone.
“I’m coming in, Lucy. But if you attack, you will be taken down, understand? It’s not just Eden and I. And while I don’t have a gun—I abhor firearms—my friends like them.”
“If you kill me, Sean and my brother will hunt you down to the ends of the earth.”
“Jack, right? Haven’t met him, but he has a reputation. I’m not going to kill you, Lucy. I promise. That doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt. Now back away from the door.”
Reluctantly, she did it. Because she knew there were at least four people in the house—Liam, Eden, and two others—and she wasn’t an idiot. She couldn’t fight her way out of a house she didn’t know and run through an unfamiliar and foreign land.
“Come in,” she said through clenched teeth.
The lock turned, and in walked a man who looked so much like Kane and Sean that it was unnerving. He was shorter, less broad—but just as handsome. He had Sean’s dimples and the same deep-blue eyes that every Rogan had. His hair was lighter, his features a bit more chiseled, but there was no mistaking the Rogan genes.
Eden stepped in behind him. She had a Taser in her hand. She smiled. “Just in case you thought to try something.”
“Put it away, Eden,” Liam said.
“Not yet.” Eden looked at the long vase that Lucy held in her hand.
Lucy put the vase down and showed her hands. “Better?”
Liam smiled. “Thank you.”
“You can’t possibly think that this is a good idea,” she said.
“It wasn’t my first idea, true, but I couldn’t have you telling Sean what you overheard. I’m really sorry we had to incapacitate you.”
He reached out into the hall and brought in a bag. He put it on the desk. “Food and water. You’re probably starving.”
She didn’t respond.
“Sit down,” he said.
“I’ll stand.”
“Sit,” he said more forcefully, and motioned toward the couch.
He crossed the room and sat at the desk chair. Lucy, keeping her eyes on both Liam and Eden, sat on the couch.
“I don’t have time, so here’s the situation. We’re leaving, you’re staying. In fact, if you leave this house you won’t be safe. Not only are we in Mexico, the territory is rather hostile. You have no identification, and you wouldn’t want to tell anyone that you’re an American citizen or that you’re a cop. Would not go over very well. But, as long as you stay here, you’ll be safe.”
“And you’re leaving me here?”
“Temporarily. I left Sean a note saying that I would call him this morning. In a few hours, I’m going to do just that. It’ll take him at least five hours to reach you, and that’s if he’s sitting in his plane when I call, flies as fast as his little Cessna can fly, has tailwinds, and lands in a nearby field. But I suspect it’ll be six or seven hours before he makes it.” He looked at his watch. “It’s six a.m., I’ll call him at noon, and he’ll be here by dinner. One word of advice: If you don’t get out before dark, don’t leave until morning. Stay the night, the pantry is full, there’s plenty of water.”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
“You overheard where we’re going and who we’re going with. If Kane gets that information, he’ll know exactly what I’m doing, and that won’t benefit us. I’ve been waiting six years for those bonds, but half my life for the treasure. Kane never had faith, he never believed, and I know he never told Sean the truth.”
“Told Sean the truth about what?”
“Kane stole the bonds out from under my nose! That bastard betrayed me—betrayed our family. Our parents and their legacy!” As Liam spoke, Lucy saw his obsession. There was so much more going on than she understood, but the hatred in his voice spoke volumes.
As if he noticed his rage, he took a deep breath and waved his hand. “I don’t care about the money. The bonds will buy Eden and me freedom from the people Kane forced us to go into business with when he took the bonds in the first place. But the information etched on one of the bonds is the final piece to the map that leads to tens of millions of dollars in gold, silver, and historical artifacts. My father was looking for this treasure for his entire life. He gave me everything before he died, told me I would find it. And together we did. Eden and Dante and I, we believed and worked hard, and now the treasure is only hours away.” His eyes glowed, the anger and rage turning to lust—lust for treasure? He might not think it was about the money, but obviously that was part of it. The other part, Lucy was pretty certain, was winning. Liam had to prove to his brothers—and to the world—that he had accomplished something great. “Found something no one else could find. Six years ago, we were on the verge of finding the ruins, and Kane took the bonds. I didn’t even suspect it was him … but what he did hurt us greatly.”
“He hurt your feelings, so you kidnapped me?” she snapped.
“No!” He cleared his throat. “My feelings aside, Eden and I had to take jobs we didn’t want to in order to get out of the debt Kane put on us when he took the bonds. Look, Lucy, I’m sorry we had to involve you—truly sorry.”
He didn’t sound sorry. Maybe sorry that he had to deal with her now, but he wasn’t sorry he kidnapped her and took her to Mexico. He had to know that a US federal agent was in grave danger in certain parts of Mexico. And if anyone knew that she was almost related to Kane it would make it that much worse.
Jack made his fair share of enemies, Kincaid isn’t a safer name than Rogan.
“What would you have done if Sean was at the house?�
�
“Tell him the truth. I would have loved for him to join me. I think he knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that our parents were close to finding this treasure. They talked about it when we were very young, but after Molly died … they lost their drive. Years later my dad and Dante’s dad started looking again. Between them, we had every piece of information we needed, except one, and my dad gave everything to me only weeks before he died. It took me years to find that last piece—that’s why we etched the other maps into the bonds. To protect the information.” He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“I do,” Lucy said. “You’re driven and selfish and have hurt people on this ridiculous quest.”
He almost hit her. She could see that he wanted to, but he jumped up and controlled the urge. Who was this guy? He was nothing like Kane or Sean or Duke. He looked like a Rogan, but he didn’t act like one.
“I don’t hurt people,” he said. “Never have I taken a human life. Never,” he repeated. “Kane can’t say the same thing, can he? And from what I’ve been hearing, Sean can’t, either. This treasure is more important than the money involved. It’s our history. It’s what my dad wanted me to find. Me, not Kane or Sean or Duke, but me. It’s my legacy. It’s the only thing I have left of my family. Kane never understood! I’m the visionary. I’m the one who not only dreams but makes them come true!”
Lucy glanced over at Eden—she was watching her brother. Lucy looked at the door. How many were downstairs?
If she got out of the house—and that was a big if—she had no idea where she was or how to get out. If they were truly going to leave her here, she could leave. All she had to do was find someone with a phone. She spoke fluent Spanish, she could understand any dialect; she could dirty up her clothes and pretend to be local or lost.
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