“So, do we have a deal?” Rico had finally grown weary of waiting.
Walker sighed noisily. “Yes, yes. Fine,” he spat, sounding impatient. “I’ll let you talk to her.”
I heard the muffled sound of cloth against the phone, which could’ve meant any number of things. He could’ve thrown the phone onto a couch or a bed. He might’ve pressed it against his body or slipped it into a pocket. I couldn’t be sure. And none of those possibilities gave me any clue where he was keeping Rory. Again, I struggled to make out any ambient noise in the background but came up empty.
The seconds seemed to tick by with all the speed and urgency of molasses in winter, each instant taking a near eternity to pass into the next. I chewed on my lower lip and fiddled with my paperclip spear for lack of anything better to do. Another drop of sweat trickled down my back to join the first in soaking the waistband of my pants.
Just when I didn’t think I could take the suspense any more, I detected a faint movement on the other end of the line. Someone picked up the phone or took it out of a pocket, and I heard a soft, scratchy, “Hello?”
Rico and I looked at one another. His face exhibited equal parts relief, disappointment, and fear. I could sympathize. I was thrilled Rory was alive but shattered to confirm that Walker actually had her. The fear, of course, stemmed from the uncertainty about how the rest of this scenario would play out.
“Ryan?” Rico said into the phone. “Is that you?”
A pause, the clearing of a throat, then a slightly stronger, “Yeah. It’s me.”
I let out a breath, thankful Rory had realized she should pretend to be me. Now, I needed to figure out a way to convey to her the correct responses to some of the statements he was bound to make to her so she could continue with the ruse.
“Are you okay?” Rico asked her.
Another beat. “I’m fine.”
Rico shot me a meaningful look that said he thought Rory was just as stubborn as I was. I made a face and went back to my laptop.
“Are you really?” Rico asked at my direction.
Rory hesitated. It was brief, but I caught it. “More or less.”
My fingers flew over the keys as I typed, attempting the hail-Mary pass to end all passes. Because if this didn’t work, we were all about to regret it. I’d thought I’d figured out a way to deliver the information I wanted Rory to have. I assumed Walker was listening in. I needed to impart this without making him too suspicious. I hoped I was right.
“You’re not giving Adam any trouble, are you?” Rico emphasized Walker’s first name exactly the way I’d intended him to when I’d typed it, and he looked at me like I was a lunatic after he read that. I ignored him. I didn’t have time to explain my reasoning.
Rory sighed. “Not anymore,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes against the tears welling there and swallowed hard despite the tightness in my throat and chest. My lower lip quivered, and I tensed. If I could trade places with her, I’d do it in less than the fraction of a second it took my heart to beat. I pleaded with God and the universe at large to please just let her be okay.
Rico made a soft noise in the back of his throat and tapped my knuckles to recapture my attention. I glanced at him, simultaneously warmed and devastated by the sympathy coloring his handsome features. I swallowed again and started to type.
“Good girl,” Rico read over my shoulder. “How would your big sister tell you to keep it up in Gaelic? Dearg choíche?”
He shot me a puzzled glance as he stumbled a bit over the phonetic pronunciation I’d typed out, but I just nodded. Come on, Rory, I whispered silently to myself. Please pick up on what I’m trying to do. Please, please, please.
After a pause, Rory sniffled and said, “You remembered. Nicely done. I didn’t think you paid attention when I tried to teach you Gaelic.”
I let out a shaky sigh of relief. She’d at least realized I was trying to tell her something. Whether she knew exactly what remained to be seen. I’d have spelled it out for her if I could’ve, but I was afraid if I had Rico say too much more, Walker would become suspicious at best and enraged at worst.
“Of course I pay attention to you,” Rico read aloud. “Listen to this: éigin, muinín, socair. I came, I saw, I conquered, right?” Rico frowned at me, obviously puzzled.
“Very good,” Rory choked out, her voice strangled. “We’ll make a right fine Irishman of you yet.”
“Can’t wait. Listen, Ryan, can you let me talk to Adam again, please?”
“S-sure.” Rory’s voice was laced with panic and desperation. My heart shattered, like so much fine crystal being hurled to the floor.
“Laval, Asha,” I had Rico say. “Just do whatever Adam says, and we’ll get this resolved as soon as we can, okay?”
Walker must’ve wrenched the phone out of her hands before Rory could reply. I heard her exclaim softly.
“Well?” Walker demanded. “Are you satisfied? She’s alive. And she’s okay. Mostly.”
“Yeah, it’s the ‘mostly’ part I’m worried about,” Rico shot back. “Does she need a doctor?”
“No.”
“Ask her that.”
“What?”
“I want to hear her say she doesn’t need a doctor.” Rico frowned at me and pushed my hands out of the way so he could type. “Would you be able to tell?”
I nodded. I trusted Rory to be honest with me. If she needed medical attention, she’d say it.
“Do you need a doctor?” Walker asked her.
“No.” Rory’s voice floated back over the line from far away. “I’m okay.”
“See?” I could hear Walker’s sneer in just that one word, and my blood boiled.
“Thank you,” Rico said. “I appreciate your cooperation, Adam.”
“Now you’ll let me see my wife?”
I deliberately had Rico pause as I considered my next move. The silence went on a little longer than I’d intended, but I honestly wasn’t sure how to proceed. I mean, no way in hell was Walker going to get to see Hurricane. But I was afraid if I told him that, he’d never let Rory go. And I wasn’t prepared to live with that outcome.
“Adam, you know as well as I do that I don’t have the authority to make that kind of promise. But I can tell you this: I’ll go talk to the head of her detail and see what we can get worked out. Is that fair?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rico staring at me like I’d lost my mind. As I waited for Walker’s response, it occurred to me that my grasp on reality might be slipping, but I couldn’t afford to dwell on that notion. Not now.
I prayed that Walker would agree to this scenario. I just needed to buy us some time. With time I’d be able to think and breathe; I’d be able to figure out how to get Rory out of this. All I needed was time.
“You have one hour” was Walker’s curt reply.
My heart free-fell. It wasn’t nearly enough.
“I need more, Adam,” I had Rico plead. “I’m not even sure where Miss Carmichael is right now.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Walker screamed at the top of his lungs. I flinched at the rage in his voice. “Do you think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?”
“Adam, I promise, I’m not trying to do anything. But you have to know an hour is unreasonable. It could take me an hour just to get to Miss Carmichael’s apartment.” Rico sounded beseeching now, and I closed my eyes against the terror threatening to choke me.
The seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness as my heart raced. I kept my hands curled into fists on my blotter, and every nerve ending in my body felt like it was almost fried.
“I’ll give you three,” Walker said finally. “But if I suspect you might be thinking about double-crossing me in some way, Agent O’Connor dies.”
The silence after Walker disconnected was ominous. I let out a shaky breath and turned so I could look Rico in the eye. His face displayed every emotion I felt, which didn’t reassure me. I’d been assuming that one of us ne
eded to be strong, but from what I could see, it didn’t look like either of us wanted to take up that mantle. Perhaps we should’ve discussed those roles prior to our conversation with Walker.
“Well,” Rico said after a long moment. He perched himself on the edge of my desk and looked at me expectantly.
I cleared my throat and wiped my sweaty palms against my pant legs. “Yes. Well.”
“That went…” He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture.
“Yes, it certainly did.”
“So, now what?”
I sat back in my chair, and some of the tension drained out of me. My entire body sagged. I tipped my head back and ran my palms roughly over my cheeks. That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? Now what? I wished like hell I knew.
“I guess now I start calling in the cavalry.” My words were hollow, flat, my mind running through a million different scenarios and options, and I didn’t have the energy for more than one task at a time.
“Do you have some sort of a plan?”
I’d heard his words, but only dimly. “Huh? Oh. Sort of.” I lapsed back into my own thoughts.
The list of things I had to do was daunting, and I was having a lot of trouble trying to decide exactly what order to tackle those tasks in. I wanted to talk to whoever Walker’s case agent was. Whatever info we had available regarding his mind-set and his whereabouts of late would be invaluable. I definitely needed to call Claudia. Not only did I need her help with obtaining the necessary cell-phone data, but she also needed to be aware of this situation on a personal level. She was still technically Hurricane’s DL, after all. At least for a few more days. She deserved to know how off the deep end this guy had gone. Then I had to talk to my dad.
Shit! How the hell was I supposed to tell him something like this? I tried not to feel the stab of pain that accompanied the mental image of his face when I broke this news to him, but it didn’t work nearly as well as I’d hoped. He’d be devastated. Tears welled in my eyes, and the muscles in my jaw quivered.
Rico rested a gentle hand on my arm. “Do you want to let me in on it?”
I blinked. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the question. But I was fixated on something else and determined to follow my thought through to its obvious conclusion.
I had to drop the bombshell on my father that his oldest child was in the hands of some lunatic who thought he’d taken me. I couldn’t imagine how I’d even begin that conversation. Fuck.
“Ryan?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. The plan. Uh, I guess I should start by talking to the SAIC.” My heart thudded wildly, and I ran my tongue across dry lips.
Rico nodded, completely unaware of the problem’s subtle nuances. “Need me to do anything?”
“Yeah. Can you find Jim or Austin and brief them for me? I’m going to the file room real quick to see if I can put my hands on Walker’s case file. I need to get up to speed on what’s been happening with him the past few weeks. Maybe that will have some clues for me, since apparently PJ can’t tell me who his case agent is.”
“You got it. I’ll make the proper notifications and see if I can get that information. I’ll have it by the time you get back.”
“Thanks.” The word was soft, barely a whisper. I might not have even said it at all. Rico was now the furthest thing from my mind as I turned to leave the office.
“Ryan?”
I paused in the opened doorway with my back to my friend. I didn’t bother to face him. I was barely holding it together as it was. The last thing I needed was to look into his eyes.
“This isn’t your fault.”
I sighed, too spent to even play at a veneer of strength. “Yes, Rico. It is.”
Chapter Eleven
After taking a few minutes to locate and then peruse Walker’s case file, I took the long, scenic route around the office up to what the agents had dubbed Mahogany Row, where all the big bosses sat. I’d desperately needed the extra minute that side trip bought me to scrape my game face into a pile and sloppily slather it on. I’d debated taking a detour down through the lower floors as well but had decided that would just have been stalling. And I really couldn’t afford to waste that kind of time.
The nausea plaguing me for the past hour or so had increased exponentially as I lingered outside my father’s office, unable to make myself go in. The longer I dawdled, the longer the inevitable was delayed, but that sound logic did nothing to light a fire under my ass. This would likely be one of the most difficult conversations I’d had to date, and I wasn’t eager to begin.
I took a deep breath and slowly counted down from ten, putting a specific time limit on my procrastinating. When I finally reached one, I squared my shoulders and rapped sharply against the closed door before I could come up with yet another reason to put it off.
My father’s muffled voice floated out to me. “Come in.”
With trembling fingers, I turned the handle and let myself in. Dad was on the phone when I entered, and he grinned at me, gesturing for me to sit in front of his desk. As I obeyed, the nest of scorpions inhabiting my stomach twisted, writhed, and stung. I perched on the very edge of the chair and tapped my hands against my knees while I waited for his full attention.
My dad took a few more minutes to wrap up his phone call before turning his focus to me. “What’s wrong?”
I’d put a great deal of thought and consideration into how I would break the news. I doubted I could find any good way to inform him, but I’d at least ease into the bad news rather than blurting it out.
“We just received a phone call on the main squad line.”
Dad’s expression was impassive. He appeared content to let me get this out in my own time without pushing.
“It was from Adam Royce Walker.” The wild fluttering in my belly appeared to have spread to my extremities. Hundreds of fireflies seemed to be flitting around just beneath the surface of my skin. “He indicated that he’d kidnapped someone and would kill them if we didn’t let him see Hurricane.”
My dad’s expression now was one of mild surprise mingled with curiosity. “Well, that’s new.”
I felt like I might be sick. Not just nauseous, but as though I were actually teetering on the edge of throwing up. I cast my eyes around the room for a trash can, just in case. “He has Rory.”
“What?”
So much for not blurting out the bad news. I tried to swallow the lump rising in the back of my throat, but it refused to be dislodged. The leaden ball growing steadily in my gut probably held it there. “He thinks he has me.”
After a long moment of silence, he spoke. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Rico spoke to her briefly. I was listening in. It’s her.”
“I see.” Dad sat back in his chair and steepled his index fingers beneath his lower lip. His eyes glazed over.
I endured the silence for as long as possible, which was about ten seconds. “We’re working on it. I just wanted you to know.”
“How?”
“How, what? How are we working on it?”
He nodded and sat back up, resting his forearms on his desk. “Yes. Did you call NYPD?”
“Not yet. I wanted to inform you and the detail first before I brought in any outside agencies.”
“Probably a good idea.”
I didn’t reply.
“So, what’s your plan of action?” he asked.
“As of about five minutes ago, both Rory’s and Walker’s phones were still on. I was going to have Claudia—I mean SAIC Quinn—get us a ping order for both numbers and then use the cell-tracking team to locate the phones. Once we had that, I figured we could ask ESU to do an extraction.”
It was a shaky plan at best and contingent upon a number of variables, any of which could shift at a moment’s notice. But I hadn’t been able to come up with anything better. I’d sort of hoped someone else would have another proposal. This wasn’t my area of expertise. Not that it would’ve mattered much if it had been. My thought
processes weren’t exactly what one would call clear.
“That plan is going to take a while to implement.”
“I know. But I don’t have any better ideas.”
Dad ruminated for a bit. “No, you’re right. That’s likely the best course of action, given what we know and the assets available to us. How much time do we have? Are we on a schedule?”
“Yes. And not nearly enough.”
“Of course not. How long?”
I consulted my watch. “Two hours and forty-nine minutes.”
“And then what happens?”
“I have no idea. He indicated he was going to kill her. I’d like to say he doesn’t have it in him, but before today I’d have sworn he didn’t have this in him so…” I cleared my throat and tried not to dwell on my failure in assessing his level of dangerousness as I twirled a few stray tresses of my hair around my finger. “What he wants above all else is to meet with Hurricane. At the very least we have that in our favor. He’s probably more likely to attempt to use Rory as a bargaining chip than he is to…do anything else.”
“But you don’t know that for sure.”
“No.” I gave up on my twirling in favor of clenching my hands on my knees. “I don’t. Hence my plan to contact Claudia and see what she can push through for us.”
“It’s a long shot.”
“I know.”
“I don’t like relying on long shots.”
“Neither do I. But what choice do we have?”
Neither of us spoke for a long time after that. I didn’t know about being able to hear a pin drop, but I could definitely hear the soft tick-tick-tick-tick of the small gold desk clock that sat next to my dad’s monitor. Once I took note of it, it only made me that much more aware of the passage of time. As if I weren’t already conscious of it enough.
“How did this happen?” The question was whisper-soft and most likely rhetorical, but I felt the need to answer anyway, if only to dispel the suffocating silence.
“I haven’t figured that out yet. I won’t be able to until I can see historical cell-site data for the phones to determine where they met up so I can pull footage from any security cameras in the area. That’s going to take some time. It might not even be worth it to pursue that avenue. Not until after we get Rory back.”
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