by Hunt, James
“Because of me,” Grant whispered, his mouth dry, but his eyes watering.
“C’mon,” Multz said, giving Grant a tug down the hall. “You need to sit down.”
But Grant reclaimed his arm, stumbling backward. “You said she was taken because of her connection to the case.” Grant shook his head, remembering what Links had told him over the phone, that he would be reaching out to him again. “She was taken because of me.”
“Grant, you need to take a minute and—”
“Where’s Rick?” At first Multz remained quiet, but then Grant took an aggressive step toward him. “Where is he?”
“Upstairs. Interrogation room seven. But, Grant, you can’t—”
But Grant had already turned away, ignoring Multz’s pleas to stop. When he turned the corner of the hall, he glanced down at his watch, the timer still running. But Charles’s death closed the case on the Copellas. He stopped the timer and was about to restart again out of habit, but he froze.
What he would have to do next, the road that he would be forced to travel, he couldn’t treat this as just another abduction case. Because this wasn’t about time anymore, it was about survival. It was about doing whatever was necessary to bring Mocks and her child back alive.
To the left in his peripheral he spied a trash can, and he walked over, a rage simmering beneath the self-loathing and the guilt over his closest friend’s abduction. It was that earth-scorching, apocalyptic fire that consumed everything. It was a fire he hadn’t let loose since Ellen’s death, and it nearly killed him. But as he made his walk toward Rick and his judgement, he found that shroud of apathy fall over him. His life didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter how many people had to die to bring Mocks back. He wasn’t going to fail. And he didn’t need a fucking watch to tell him that.
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Missing Person: Book 2
1
It was the heavy pounding in her forehead that woke her up. The pain was dull at first and then sharpened as she regained consciousness. Blood from the wound on her head had crusted, leaving behind dried flecks of a deep crimson red on her forehead.
Disoriented, Mocks blinked a few times, but the darkness never lifted. Panic took over, and when she found her arms and legs restrained at her wrists and ankles, her heart rate spiked higher.
Tied down and blindfolded, Mocks squirmed in her chair and the baby kicked to match her anxiousness. Her shirt and pants were wet with sweat. And then, as the ringing in her ears faded, she realized she wasn’t alone.
Chatter echoed around her, men speaking in a foreign language, followed by laughter, no doubt directed at her. From the different tones, Mocks counted at least five in the room.
The accents were heavy, their origins most likely Eastern Europe or even Russia, which probably linked them to Joza. She remembered the pair of men that attacked her at home having the same accent.
Door hinges groaned, and the playful chatter ended, replaced by the steady clack of heels against concrete. The steps grew louder, and they finally ended near Mocks. She waited for someone to speak, but as the silence lingered, she chose to make the first move.
“My name is Susan Mullocks.” Her voice cracked, her mouth dry. She swallowed, trying to wet her tongue with spit but struggling to produce any. “I’m a lieutenant with the Seattle Police Department.” She paused, waiting for some type of reaction, but received nothing. “If you’re associates of Anton Joza, then—”
“Of course they’re associates of Anton Joza.” The voice preceded more slow, methodical steps that circled Mocks. “You were helping the FBI and the US Marshals in their investigation of Joza. Any reasonable law enforcement officer would be able to deduce who abducted them, but do you know why?”
The steps ended behind Mocks. She turned her head to the left, her hands and feet beginning to throb and swell from the tight cords of rope that kept her restrained.
“Nothing?” The voice sounded surprised. “No theories into why we would take a Seattle Police Department lieutenant instead of someone closer to the case?”
“If I wanted to play games, I would have signed up for Bingo night,” Mocks answered. “So why don’t you just fucking tell me.”
Hands groped the back of her head, and then a quick tug removed the blindfold, replacing darkness with blinding light.
Mocks shut her eyes, the brightness as painful as the rope around her wrists and ankles. Slowly, she opened her eyelids, allowing slivers of light to greet her sensitive eyes, and her vision adjusted.
She examined the room, finding it bare save for her, the chair, the thugs, and the halogen lights in the ceiling. But as she looked in the corner of the ceiling, she noticed a small black device. It was a video recorder, rigged into the wall.
Mocks counted seven men. Each of them was dressed in tactical gear and armed with assault rifles. The thick black eyebrows, large noses, and muscled bodies matched their Eastern European accents.
Footsteps started again, and Mocks watched a man dressed in a suit and tie appear from behind her, and who stopped right in front of her.
“Hello, Lieutenant.”
He smiled, but the friendly gesture was forced and unwelcoming. He was a short man, plain looking save for a pair of bright-green eyes and pointed ears. His face was familiar, but her pregnancy brain struggled to connect the dots. And then it finally hit her. “Nathan Links.”
Links spread his arms wide. “My reputation precedes me.” He smoothed out the front of his suit and then examined Mocks in the chair. “I think we’re beyond the need for restraints.” He snapped his fingers, and one of the armed men brandished a knife and set her free.
The ropes dropped to the floor and Mocks groaned in relief, rubbing the tender flesh of her wrists. She wiggled her toes and fingers, letting the blood circulate, and then protectively guarded her unborn child.
Links maintained the forced smile then leaned forward, arching his eyebrows. “I read a lot about you.” He reached for her long-sleeved shirt and rolled it up toward her elbow, exposing the scars from the needles used during her years of addiction. He poked the old scabs, and Mocks knocked away his hand. He laughed and crossed his arms. “Defiant. It fits your profile.”
“If you think I know something about Joza’s investigation—”
“Oh, no, that’s not why you’re here.” Links examined a cuticle and then dug beneath his fingernail with another. “You’re my get-out-of-jail-free card.” He flicked out a piece of dirt.
Mocks shifted in her seat and scanned the room. She didn’t think she could have been passed out for more than a few hours, which meant the authorities were aware of her abduction. All she needed to do was buy herself time.
“You think holding me for ransom will help get you out of whatever jam you put yourself in?” Mocks raised her eyebrows. “I don’t think you realize the shit you’ve waded into. You have every law enforcement department and intelligence agency across the country looking for you.” She laughed. “You’re going to need more than me to bargain with the authorities.”
“You’re absolutely right, Lieutenant.” Links hunched over, placing his hands o
n his thighs, and then inched close enough for Mocks to smell the stink of his cologne as his lips grazed her ear. “That’s why Chase Grant is going to help me.”
Mocks shivered, leaning away from Links’s hot breath, which tickled her skin.
Links stepped back. “Your old partner has made my life extremely difficult. All of my planning, all of my sacrifices, ruined by the sake of one man’s need for redemption. Do you have any idea what I was trying to do? I could have helped millions.”
“You were only helping yourself,” Mocks said, grimacing.
“To help everyone in this country.” Links barked. He paced back and forth in front of her as he ranted. “People have no idea what it takes for them to be safe and healthy, to have the luxuries this nation is afforded. Every day is a fight to stay on top, and the cost of power is paid in blood.” He pointed at Mocks and then lowered his finger to her stomach. “Every action I took was for the betterment of this country’s future. For our children’s future.”
“Well,” Mocks said, “on behalf of mothers everywhere”—she leaned forward—“fuck you.”
Links scoffed. “You’re all the same. You think you’re above the slime that runs beneath your feet.” He took three quick steps forward and snatched her arm, exposing the crook of her elbow again where the needle marks resided. “But you’re not. You can look down on me, you can try to judge me from your ivory tower, but everything you stand on was built on shifting sand, and without men like me in this world, the very fabric of society would collapse.”
Mocks reclaimed her arm then tugged her sleeve back down to her wrist, unable to hide the shame that blushed on her cheeks.
“But I’ve had a sudden change of heart,” Links said, walking away from Mocks and toward one of the guards, where he removed one of the sidearms from the thug’s belt. He spun around, holding the pistol lazily in his right hand. “I don’t have anything to lose now.” He laughed, heels clacking in rhythm with his cackling. “You and your old partner made sure of that. So why not see what the world looks like when I stop trying to hold it together.” He stopped less than an arm’s length from Mocks and placed the end of the pistol’s barrel against her stomach. “Let’s see how many people die.”
Mocks trembled, her eyes trained on the trigger where Links placed his finger. A few ounces of pressure were all that separated the life and death of her unborn child. “Please.” She shut her eyelids, which triggered tears to fall. “Don’t.”
Links applied pressure, the barrel digging into her stomach, her baby kicking wildly due to the intrusion. “Got a lively one in there, don’t you?” He regarded Mocks’s belly with a casual indifference. “Do you know the suicide rates for mothers who lose their children?”
Mocks shook her head, her fingernails clawing into the thin cloth of the maternity band of her pants.
“The chances of a mother’s early death after the loss of a child rise by one hundred and thirty-three percent. But that study was only done on parents with children already born.” Links pressed the pistol harder into her stomach. “Shall I conduct some more research?”
Mocks shook her head. “No.”
Time slowed, but Links eventually removed the gun from her stomach, and Mocks exhaled relief.
“No sense in wasting the ace up my sleeve now.” Links handed the weapon back to the thug near the door. “I just hope your old partner is as good as he thinks he is.”
Links disappeared, taking his cronies with him, and the door slammed shut.
Mocks rubbed her stomach, eyes on the door, trying to soothe the still-squirming child in her womb. “For your sake, Links, you better hope you’re wrong.” Because god help whoever got in Grant’s way now.
2
The federal workers inside the marshals’ building had broken out into a frenzy. The number of bodies inside had doubled, shrinking the already limited space, and turned normal workplace chatter into a deafening roar. Everyone was on high alert, but the revelation that the former director of the FBI was in bed with one of the world’s most powerful gangsters tended to stir up trouble.
Grant passed through the halls, bumping against the shoulders of agents in a hurry to deliver news, analyze data, or join a meeting. The commotion made it nearly impossible to think.
Deville had plenty of quiet places for Grant to think. Hell, the whole damn town was quiet. And standing here in the middle of chaos, he desperately needed some quiet.
“Grant?” Sam appeared through the thick horde of bodies and approached hesitantly. “I’m heading to the meeting with Multz and Hickem. They’re going to be on a conference call with the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Multz wants you to join.”
Grant heard the question but simply stared at her. He noticed the white bandage reaching up and out of her shirt. The doctors had wrapped her bruised ribs less than an hour ago, and she was already back to work.
At his silence, Sam inched closer. “We’re going to find her.” She grabbed his arm, offering a reassuring squeeze.
“She would have been on maternity leave in three days,” Grant said. “And now she’s gone.” Grant removed his arm from Sam’s grip and continued his trek down the hallway.
“Talking to him isn’t going to help,” Sam said.
“It’ll help me.” Grant passed three more agents in the hall and then turned the corner, leaving Sam behind. He kept a brisk pace, fists clenched at his sides and his heart hammering in his chest.
Sam called after him, but he didn’t hear what she said, because it didn’t matter what she tried to tell him. He needed to speak to Rick, and he needed to do it now.
There was no hesitation in Grant’s steps, even though he understood the consequences of his approaching encounter. The sheer hell and anger he willingly walked toward was undeniable.
A marshal stood outside room nine. He wore a Kevlar vest and had an M-16 strapped to his shoulder. The dew from the academy was still fresh on his cheeks. He regarded Grant with a curious eye, and when Grant reached for the door handle, he found it locked.
“Off limits, sir.” The words left the marshal’s mouth with a hint of warning.
“You know who I am?” Grant asked.
The marshal nodded.
“And you know who is inside this room?”
Again, the marshal nodded.
“Then open the door, son.”
The marshal paused, staring at Grant, then looked down both ways of the hall. He stepped back and slid his key card through the magnetic strip. Grant reached for the handle, and with the door cracked open, he stopped himself, turning toward the marshal. “No matter what you hear inside, you don’t open this door. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Grant pushed the door inward, stepped inside, and quickly shut the door behind him. Rick sat in a chair with his hands over his face. Three seconds passed before Rick looked up—the calm before the shit storm that was about to erupt.
Rick and Grant locked eyes. The air was sucked from the room, and Grant’s blood went cold.
The legs of the steel chair scraped against the tile as Rick stood, pushing the chair backward. Rick balled his hands into fists so tight that his arms shook. His eyes were red, remnants of his grief, but now there was only rage.
Neither man spoke, but Grant understood the price of his admission into this room. Pain was inevitable. But it was a pain that Grant had become intimate with. It was a pain that he understood.
As quick as a snakebite, Rick charged Grant, slamming him up against the door with his hands around Grant’s neck, choking off his air supply.
“This is your fault!” Saliva streamed through Rick’s bared teeth, and his cheeks reddened. “She never should have helped you. Never! Because you’re just a sad sack of shit who gets everyone that cares about him killed.” He removed one of his hands and punched Grant’s stomach then flung him into the adjacent wall, only to ram him again, this time leading with his shoulder, and then heaved Grant over his head.
; “Gaaah!” Rick spun from the wall, Grant’s head nearly scraping the ceiling, and then body-slammed Grant onto the steel table.
A hot flash of pain spread from the center of Grant’s chest, and as he gasped for breath his spin began to ache, but it was short lived as Rick continued his attack.
Rick punched Grant’s ribs, and Grant rolled off the table, barely able to get his feet under him after he landed on the carpet.
Rick stepped around the table, fists still clenched, panting heavily. He pointed to Grant. “You’ve killed her!” He lunged again, his fist connecting with Grant’s chin so hard that Grant was knocked to the floor.
The floor became unlevel as Grant lay on his side, blinking to try to rid himself of the black spots in his vision and the hot sting on his chin.
Rick stomped over, towering over Grant, and raised his fists high, bringing them down quickly in a hail of fury. “You fucking piece of shit!” Every punch was thrown harder, wilder, the unfiltered rage of a husband and father on the precipice of a loss greater than anything imaginable, beating the one person that understood that kind of pain.
But Grant never fought back, never even raised his fists. He just lay there and took it, knowing that every ounce of pain he experienced paled in comparison to what Rick felt.
After a few minutes, the punches grew lighter, and Rick stumbled backward, heaving his chest up and down, gasping for breath. Spit rolled down the corner of his mouth, and his knees buckled and hit the floor.
A symphony of pain stretched from Grant’s head all the way down to his toes, though the majority of the concert was conducted in his ribs, which were at the very least bruised, if not one or two broken.
Grant slowly lifted his head, pushing himself from the fetal position on the floor, and sat upright. “I’m sorry, Rick.” An unexpected lump formed in Grant’s throat, and his eyes moistened. “I’m so sorry.”
Rick looked Grant in the eye then stood, still trying to regain control of his breathing. “I don’t care.” He turned away and stepped into the far corner of the room.