Matthew’s silence must have given Cal his answer. Cal smacked the dash and the next second, he was cradling his hand.
“It’s not over yet,” Matthew said, “but it will be.”
“How can you be so sure? What’s going on? Is he the guy from India?”
“I don’t think so. His voice is different.”
“Maybe you’re not remembering it clearly. Maybe the stress of being shot at has distorted your memory.”
Cal’s accusations fell mute when Matthew locked eyes with him. “We need to go see Robyn.”
Cal slammed his back against his seat. Hard. “Sure, whatever. We just need to get my girl back.”
“We’ll get her back.” Again, Matthew spoke with more assuredness than he had the right to convey. But if finding Paititi could save Sophie’s life, failure wasn’t an option.
MATTHEW AND CAL WERE IN Robyn’s office, which was streamlined and clutter free. She had personalized the space with framed photographs taken on their past excursions, each one carefully selected so that landmarks were unidentifiable. It was to protect his cover if his father came to visit her, as he did periodically.
“So are we going after the City of Gold?” She was sitting at her desk, grinning. “We’re going to do this. Right, Matthew? It would be the find of a lifetime.” She let her gaze go back and forth between Matthew and Cal.
Neither man said anything.
“What’s wrong? Come to think of it you’re both dragging yourselves along like your grandma died.” Robyn’s eyes widened “She didn’t, did she, Cal?”
“Not my grandmother, no.” With a quick glance, Cal petitioned Matthew to share the news.
“Sophie’s been kidnapped,” Matthew said.
“Kidnapped? What are you talking about? Is this some sort of a prank?” Her smile deflated as she absorbed their message and observed their body language. “You’re being serious.”
Matthew nodded.
“Why? What happened? What do they want? Money?”
Matthew shook his head. “They want the Pandu.”
She massaged her temples as if she had a headache setting in. “That’s not even possible.”
“That’s what I told her kidnapper,” Matthew said.
“You’ve been talking to the kidnapper? Have you called the police?”
Matthew shook his head.
“Let me guess. They said no police?”
“Yep.” Matthew watched as the situation sank in for Robyn, and he was certain it mirrored his initial reaction. It was a hard concept to accept.
“Well…” Robyn flattened her hands on the desk, her fingers splaying repeatedly in, then out, in, then out. “What are we going to do? We can’t get to the Pandu. Even I can’t, and I’m the curator. And if we tried to steal it and got caught…” She took a choppy breath. “I’d lose my job, everything I worked so hard for.”
“I know,” Matthew said. “So I made another proposition. I had to.”
“What did you offer up?” Robyn’s hands stopped moving. Her eyes locked with his. “No, Matthew, you didn’t.”
“To get Sophie back, I had to.”
Robyn stood and paced a few steps, a hand covering her mouth, then lowering to her chin. “So instead of just losing my career, all of us could be sacrificing our lives? And all we have are photographs and coordinates. We have an idea of where to go. What we don’t know is if we’ll actually find Paititi there. This is crazy.” Matthew wasn’t going to point out that a moment ago she was fired up to go in search of the city and now she had changed her mind. He consented that there was a lot at stake.
“Wait. You offered the City of Gold?” Cal’s head snapped in Matthew’s direction. “Indians, Matthew. Indians who beat people with clubs,” Cal said, obviously recalling Daniel’s example of the missing explorer who met that exact fate.
Robyn stopped pacing. “The easy part is the jungle. We’ve survived them before,” she said, ignoring Cal.
Leave it to Robyn to spin things back to the positive.
“Easy for you to say,” Cal muttered. “I’m still having nightmares from the last one, but—” he chewed on his bottom lip “—I guess if it’s the only way to get Sophie back…”
Matthew turned to Cal. “You’ve always been a bit of a—”
“If you say chicken—”
“Guys, can we focus? What if they don’t accept the offer? Or worse, what if we can’t deliver on—”
Matthew’s phone rang. He held it up, and like before, the caller ID was blocked. “Guess this is the moment of truth.” He let it ring again. Answering too soon would seem too eager.
Cal bumped Matthew’s elbow. “Get it.”
Matthew accepted the call but didn’t say anything.
“Well, Matthew, it seems our paths have crossed again. I wish I could express disappointment over that.”
He recognized this voice immediately. When the kidnapper had called him out as Gideon, he’d suspected she was behind this. “I’d swear you’re obsessed with me, Vincent.”
“Oh, I do hate it when you call me by my last name. It’s so masculine,” she sulked.
Her full name was Veronica Vincent. They first met years ago, but that was a trip down memory lane he didn’t care to take right now, or ever again for that matter. Matthew had to admit, though, that the woman had bigger cojones than most men, as well as the power and money to back her endless ambitions. She was as dangerous as a viper bite—fatal if left untreated, recoverable if treated soon enough. The latter was his experience.
He aligned his focus to the matter at hand. “I take it that you received my offer?”
“I did, and I can work with it.”
“Work with it?”
“Yes, darling, but please don’t repeat what I say. You sound like a parrot, and it’s unattractive.”
This woman possessed the ability to make him tingle, but this time it wasn’t from pleasure. It was from adrenaline and rage. He could feel his friends’ eyes on him, but he wasn’t going to meet either one’s gaze.
“What do you want, Vincent?”
“Isn’t it more a matter of what you want? I understand we have your friend.”
“To the point.”
“I will accept your offer on two terms: one, you will take two of my people with you.”
“No, that’s not going to happen. I’m already offering you an invaluable find.”
“You’re asking me to trust—”
“Let Sophie go! She has nothing to do with this!” Cal called out, bending closer to Matthew’s phone.
Matthew cupped it and shushed his friend. He accompanied his directive with a glare.
“Keep your guy quiet, Matthew.”
Cal had received the message as evidenced by the bulging vein in his forehead, his hardened gaze, and his crossed arms.
“You said there were two conditions?”
“Yes, I almost forgot.”
As Vincent laid out the other term, Matthew wondered what he’d gotten them into. Failure was a distinct possibility, and there was no way they could adhere to that short of a deadline, as well. He considered Sophie, then the risks. “You’ve got a deal.”
“Most excellent.”
“Now that I’ve agreed to your terms, I have some of my own.”
“I love it when you take charge like this, Matthew. It’s so sexy.”
“Shut up, Vincent.”
“Ooh, so nasty,” she cooed.
“I’m taking my team,” he said.
Robyn and Cal were in front of him. Robyn was waving her arms in the air, and both of them were jabbering away. He brushed them aside.
“You can take your team, and by that I assume you mean your two close friends. Hardly a team, Matthew, but whatever works for you.”
It wasn’t tim
e to celebrate victory yet.
A few beats later, Vincent added, “My two friends will keep you honest and make sure that you report it if you find the City of Gold.”
“You seem to be forgetting you have Sophie. That is motivation enough.”
She smacked her lips. “Consider it an added incentive. Besides, I know you’re arrogant enough to think you can have both the City of Gold and your friend. Don’t cross me, Matthew. She’ll pay the price for your betrayal.”
There was a brief lull in the conversation, but Vincent broke the silence. “I will arrange transport. Tell me where you’re headed and be at Pearson Airport at oh-six-hundred. And Matthew? Don’t be late. I do hate tardiness. Do we still have a deal?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Now who is the parrot? You will have your goons meet us at the airport. You get the plane, but all you need to know to arrange transport is that we’ll be landing at Viru Viru Airport in Bolivia.” The last thing he needed was her people taking off with the coordinates, staking claim to Paititi themselves, and sealing Sophie’s fate. “And another thing, you send video updates every day to confirm Sophie’s alive.” He gave her Daniel’s phone number.
She sighed. “Yes, okay.” Then she hung up without another word.
Matthew lowered his phone. Robyn had her neck angled to the left, her eyes bulging. Cal’s gaze was fixed on Matthew.
“Did I hear you right? Vincent’s behind this? You’ve got to be kidding me.” She crossed her arms and spun so her back was to Matthew.
“Who’s Vincent?” Cal asked.
Robyn turned back around. “Vincent is this—”
“Enough.” Matthew stood. “We head out for Bolivia tomorrow morning at six.” His stomach churned thinking about Vincent’s unreasonable condition.
“Tomorrow?” Cal exclaimed.
Matthew continued. Maybe it was best to come out with the stipulation. “We have one week to find—”
“One week? Something like this takes months, if not years, to plan.” Robyn was wringing her hands. “What about vaccinations? Permits? Travel arrangements?”
“If we want to save Sophie, we don’t have a choice. Daniel has all the information we need.” He didn’t want to elaborate that the seven-day countdown began immediately.
“And you’ve had time to go over all of it?” Robyn asked.
He wasn’t going to answer that one.
“That’s a no,” Cal said.
“I’ve read enough. Daniel has people there who can help us. He and I will get everything organized tonight. Just get yourselves ready.”
Robyn looked at him, unblinking. “What else, Matthew?”
Sometimes she was too smart for her own good.
“We have to take two of her people with us,” he admitted.
“God, not tagalongs.” This was from Cal, who had taken over for Robyn and was pacing the room.
“Call them whatever you like,” Matthew said coolly.
Cal stopped moving. “Why do I sense there’s more to this Vincent person?”
“Because you’d be spot on, Cal.” Robyn responded to Cal with her eyes on Matthew. “Vincent is Veronica Vincent.”
“A woman is behind this?” Cal asked, clearly surprised. “What about the Liam look-alike?”
Robyn licked her lips, her eye contact with Matthew not faltering. “Just keep it in your pants, Matt, or we’ll all pay the price this time.”
“She didn’t say anything about coming along with us.”
“You better hope that she doesn’t.”
Anger tapped in his cheeks. The worst part was that Robyn was right. Veronica Vincent was to him what kryptonite was to Superman.
-
Chapter 14
SOPHIE WAS BOUND TO A CHAIR, her legs and arms secured by zip ties. If she broke free, Liam’s clone had better run because he’d pay for this. She was certain she hated being restrained more than the average person did. Even commitment in relationships had been a challenge until she’d met Cal. And ironically, the person for whom she had made an exception was the reason she was here, captive and unable to move.
She squinted, trying to block out the setting sun that was streaming in through the wall of windows. This told her two things: one, twenty-four hours had already passed, and two, seeing the CN Tower told her she was in the entertainment district. It was a good thing because of the crowds, but a bad thing with her being so many stories up. Any cries for help would go unheard, but as it was, a gag in her mouth ensured her silence. She had tried jerking her head and contorting to no avail. She wasn’t getting out of this chair or free of the gag on her own.
The place she was being held wasn’t a hotel room. The large floor vases and sculptures looked too expensive. The paintings on the wall screamed of money, too. Based on location and the obvious wealth of the homeowner, she guessed she was in one of the newer high-rise condominium buildings. And from the angle at which she looked at the CN Tower, she’d guess it was one on Spadina Avenue near Front Street.
The last thing she remembered was being at her dream house and the man showing up. He must have drugged her, though, as a big chunk of her memory was blank. She recalled him coming to the door and holding a gun to her stomach. Next thing she’d known, she had woken up here, a throbbing pain in her head from sleeping with her neck craned to the side. And he had been filming her.
Afterward, he had made two phone calls. The first must have been to Cal, as he had used the words your girlfriend. On the second call, he had demanded to meet someone at a local bookstore. She guessed that someone was Matthew, and she surmised this all tied back to India as she’d originally thought when she first spotted the man following them.
The condo was silent now. She must be alone.
Hope was the one thing that kept her calm. Somebody was likely to notice she had been taken. The cookies and coffee would both be growing stale on the counter. The homeowners were away, but surely someone checked in on the place. And her purse. It was likely there, too.
Edwin probably wouldn’t worry about her, as she’d sometimes go a day or two without speaking to him. But Cal had to know something was wrong even before her kidnapper had called him. He would have been expecting her to call last night. She cursed herself for changing their plans.
It was quite possible no one even knew she was missing yet. And if they did, from what she saw on TV, missing persons reports weren’t taken too seriously and a certain amount of time had to pass before one could be filed. She hoped that fictional take wasn’t a derivative of real life.
The man hadn’t arrived at the mansion in a vehicle. She recalled that now. She had originally concluded she hadn’t heard one because she was in the kitchen at the back of the house, but there hadn’t been one to hear.
Did that mean the man took her here, to his place, in her car? A glimmer of hope filtered through her. If the police found her car, they’d be close to finding her. But that hope was short-lived. Toronto was a huge city with a considerable geographical footprint. The Liam guy would have had to be pretty stupid to park her car in his spot in the building’s underground garage. And what would lead police to his building in the first place? The odds were getting slimmer the more she thought things through.
If, or when, they started looking, how were they going to find her at all? There was nothing at the house to point them here. All this would be enough to drive most people crazy, but she had a fighting spirit and she was just getting fired up. With every moment she was left to stew in this chair, limited in movement, with hard plastic biting into her wrists and ankles, she had a greater sympathy for wild animals in captivity. Like them, she was ineffective at resisting her captor.
Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to give in to the overwhelming sense of hopelessness.
She slowed her breathing and strained her ears a
s someone shuffled outside the room. A key was inserted into the door, and it opened.
“Help me!” In her mind, it came out as a scream. In reality, it was a garbled whisper behind the gag.
“I see you’re still awake. How lovely.” The man unwound a scarf from his neck and threw it onto a nearby couch.
Then another thought occurred to her. He must not be worried about company dropping by. He had her positioned in the middle of the living room.
“This whole thing is spiraling out of control.” He paced the room and, after a few seconds, turned to her with a pointed finger. “This your fault.”
Even her hardheaded nature wasn’t going to contest his accusation with the fact that he was the one to blame. If he hadn’t kidnapped her, there wouldn’t be anything to “spiral out of control.”
But for him to kidnap her, obviously hold her for ransom, and to contact Matthew, this had to involve some stupid treasure. At least she could find solace in knowing that if her freedom—and her life—depended on Matthew, Cal, and Robyn securing treasure for this man, they would deliver. She just hoped that she wasn’t living on a prayer.
-
Chapter 15
IAN BRIDGES STUDIED THE WOMAN. She had deep-brown eyes, the kind one could get lost in. But his lack of discretion wasn’t on her. This was all on him.
He hated the fact that Matthew had seen right through him and had known he wasn’t in charge. Was it all because of his hesitancy to jump at the City of Gold? It had to be more than that… Something he had or hadn’t said. He’d likely never know.
He pried his eyes from the woman. He should have walked away from this job at the beginning, but now he was in too deep. A hostage? He really hadn’t thought things through before he’d acted. It was a slight miracle that he had even pulled off the ruse that she was a drunk girlfriend when he brought her up the building’s elevator.
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