“Alright, could we make the appointment for the morning?”
“Yes, what time can you come?”
“I will be there by seven sharp. Is that alright with you?”
“That is perfect. Thank you.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Taking a deep breath, he took everything he had on these files and began photocopying them. He was paranoid, but couldn’t explain why. There was something about how this was unraveling that had him on edge. Since there was not going to be anything accomplished tonight, he was going to head over to Doubles. He needed something more familiar than this place.
###
Ashlynn and Ellie were upset that Emily had taken such a big step behind their backs, but they didn’t act the way they were supposed to. They thought too much instead of actually doing something, and that was why they had such issues trying to get these kids back. Sitting there she knew Macey did not care either way, so long as she got her son back.
“I don’t see why you had the need to go and do this without our permission. You have no clearance to do any of this, and it could do more harm than good. Or do you not care?”
Her blood was boiling. “Do you care,” she snapped. “Neither of you have made any contributions towards a solution. Or maybe you can just live with another kid slipping through your fingers. I know I sure as hell can’t.”
“You would not even have known that Blake was being auctioned off if it wasn’t for us.”
“I am more than certain that I would have been able to find something. If you haven’t realized by now, I am more resourceful than you are. Or in fairness, maybe I’m not so encumbered by bureaucracy. I know that must be frustrating for you.”
“Just know that if you screw this up, this whole thing is on your head, not ours.”
“So long as you do as I say, everything should be perfectly fine.”
“What experience do you have in regards to this? Absolutely none.”
“Obviously I don’t need experience to do something. Instead of arguing with me Ellie, you should go get the units together.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you are running the risk of not being able to catch this guy.”
She paused and nodded. Emily knew she was appearing arrogant at the moment, but she couldn’t give a damn what they thought of her and needed them to get on board. Her mind was set on getting Blake back and there was absolutely nothing they were going to do get in her way. Then the unexpected walked through the door.
“Macey,” he growled. “Where is my son?”
There was no way in the world he could know what was happening. There were very few people involved in this situation.
“Get the hell out of here,” Emily said, standing in between the two of them. “You have no reason to be in here.”
“It is my son who is missing,” he said, pushing her forward.
Emily lost her temper and punched him right in the jaw. The pain she felt was easily ignored as she watched as he spat blood and tried to recover from the shock. “The same son you have been ignoring for the majority of his life? Get the hell out of here before I have you dragged out.”
“We can get you on assault, bitch,” London chimed in.
Looking to London she shook her head. “Go for it,” she challenged, “Meanwhile, we are working on getting Blake back right now and we don’t need you two getting in our way.”
“If this was under control he wouldn’t have been kidnapped in the first place!”
“Yes, he would have,” Ashlynn chimed in. “The person who did this is not a first time offender, and he knew how to get to him. Now you need to leave, because there is nothing you are able to do right now other than get in the way and slow us down.”
“Do you have any idea who I am?”
“A bad father,” Emily said. “Now listen to us and get out of here for now. If you really want, we can get in contact with you when we have Blake back.”
He looked at each of them in disgust, and shot a nasty look at Macey. London followed him out, and Emily knew that it was not over with them. Turning to look at Macey she motioned for her to follow. She did so and they were in the study.
“I want to know his social.”
“Why?” Macey inquired.
“He knows about what is happening, and I have a bad feeling he has known from the beginning of this.”
“Are you accusing him of paying someone to abduct our son?”
“Your son,” she corrected. “And I don’t think it’s him.”
“Why not?”
“Just give me his social and then I will show you what I find, but don’t tell them,” inclining her head to Ashlynn and Ellie.”
Macey finally nodded and wrote it down on a scrap of paper. Emily took it and would use it to her advantage. Going to her computer, she saw how Ashlynn and Ellie were watching her, but she was not going to share anything with them until she was done and knew for sure. What she was doing was a federal crime, and she was not ready to go to prison for hacking today.
Everything was beginning to load up and she saw his bank statements. Just what she suspected was there, and she sighed. Macey would not like these findings. She disconnected her laptop from the power cord and was beginning to walk back to the study.
“What is that?” asked Ashlynn.
“If I show you, it would put me in prison, and that just isn’t going to happen today.”
“What if we grant you immunity?”
“I can’t show you,” Emily said. “Because when we get Blake back and we catch the son of a bitch who has him, you guys are going to learn that there was money involved to get him to abduct Blake. That sounds different than your other cases with those other boys.”
“We have no reason to subpoena his bank records.”
“Find some bullshit reason then. That is all I am going to say on the matter.”
Shutting the door to the study, she sat down at the desk and motioned for Macey to come over. “What did you find?”
“He withdrew $750,000 two days before Blake went missing. I am more than certain that it was to pay this person to abduct Blake.”
“But why? He doesn’t even have a relationship with his son, and it’s not like I even ask him to pay child support for him. I can manage on my own.”
“I don’t think it was him,” Emily said slowly. “London would destroy your ties with him because he still comes around. I think she is jealous of the little bit of attention he gave to Blake. Maybe she thought he was giving you attention instead.”
“That is crazy.”
“Yes, but you’ve met her, and you know there is something wrong upstairs. Whenever Todd came to visit you he would leave her sorry ass wherever she was. He cheated on you with her, and maybe she thought he was going behind her back with you. But there could be other motives too—who knows?”
“Just get my son back Emily, and once he is back we’ll sort the rest of it out.”
“Are you upset with the fact that it seems they paid someone to abduct him?”
“Yeah but I can’t deal with that now. I can’t divide my energy because of them. My only focus has to remain on my son.”
Emily nodded, “We’ll get him back in just a few hours. I just want you to stay here until we have him.”
“No, I have to go.”
“You can’t Macey. I need you to stay here.”
“Do you have any idea what you are asking? How hard it would be to not be involved with getting him back? Emily, I know you are not a mother, but if you were in my shoes right now you would not have the ability to let others go out and do this without you. I lost him and I want to be there to hold him when you get him back.”
“I know, but you will be there in all the ways that matter. I’ve got this, Macey.”
Macey bit her lip and was deep in thought. Emily would ensure that her child would always be safe, but she was not a mother
—not yet. Walking out of the study, she felt anxious and unsure of what would happen if this went south.
Chapter 34
Sitting in his booth, he was watching as his father finished taking the inventory. He would be here until the wee hours of the morning and David had always respected that. He remembered when his father discovered that he had changed his major. He had been furious. His father wanted to be a lawyer before his mother got pregnant and he started working as a bus boy. He learned all the ins and outs of the business after he had made friends with the man who ran the restaurant, and he was able to own and operate it, thanks to the generous assistance he had gotten from Emily’s father. His father had given up his dreams in order to provide a stable life for his family, instead of taking out loans for college.
“Do you need help mopping?”
His father chuckled, “In all the years you have asked that, have I ever said yes?”
“No, not once. But things can change quickly, huh?”
“You are right, but you couldn’t mop properly. Hell, until Emily moved in, you had to hire someone to clean your condo.”
“Well, you aren’t wrong about that, but I can learn how to do things properly if I set my mind to it, you know.”
“The moment you become a father is when all of this kicks in, if you’re lucky that is.”
“Pops, I want to ask Emily to marry me.”
He stopped mopping for a moment and he shook his head. “The two of you are still testing the waters.”
“What, are you trying to say that we could not be the couple you and Mom are?”
“No, I am saying that if you propose to her now, she might say yes for all the wrong reasons, or she might say no. Either way, you are not ready to ask her that question. You need to wait about another year.”
“I suppose you could be right about that.”
“Could be? I know I’m right. Look, David, there is a lot to life you have not experienced. You know a lot, and you have seen a lot, but there are still some major milestones in your life you have not come across. This girl is your first real relationship, and you don’t need to screw that up with some silly question.”
“It is a serious question,” he protested. “And it will not mess anything up.”
“Ask your mother her opinion about it. Obviously you had not told her that earlier on.”
“I didn’t think about proposing to her until a few weeks ago.”
“Why? What made you start thinking about it?”
“I just feel as if I wouldn’t be able to function without her, and I want her to be part of my life for as long as I can have her there. She would be a wonderful mother and a terrific wife. From the moment I met her I think I felt something.”
“Do you think you hired her for all the wrong reasons?”
“No, I don’t think so. She is brilliant and eager to do what it takes to get the job done. I just don’t want to lose her for any reason, you know? I am very fond of her.”
“It was obvious from the beginning,” he watched as his father dragged the mop bucket with him. He knew he was going out to dump it.
Getting up from his booth, he followed him outside and he remained there in silence. “Do you know how long I’ve known I loved your mother?”
“No,” David said. His parents really never talked about how they met or anything along those lines. It was something he wondered if he would share with his future children or not.
“I was newer to the high school and your mother was a keeper for the soccer team. She was spontaneous and smart and was always surrounded with a bunch of friends. No one really noticed me, and then one day I was in the cafeteria. I was not paying attention to what was going on and I dumped my lunch all over her white blouse. I figured I was socially doomed forever, but your mother was not a spiteful girl, and took pity on me. Before long, we were dating and the rest is history.”
“Was it just a feeling?”
“Yes, but it was not one I recognized until we started dating. You know you really don’t know how much you love someone until you throw yourself at them.”
“If I ever lost her it would be the most difficult thing to live with.”
“In this case, I don’t think you will be losing her. She will hang onto you as tightly as you hold onto her.”
Walking back in, he put everything up. David put his hands in his pocket and he remembered he had put a flash drive in there. “Could I give you something to hang onto for me?”
“Is this pertaining to something you are working on?”
“Yes, and I want to make sure that there is no way any of it can go missing.”
“What is it?”
“It’s probably better that you don’t know.”
His father took the flash drive and he nodded. “I understand. Just be careful, alright? There is only one of you, and I would like to keep you around for as long as possible.”
All he could do was silently agree. He did not plan on anything happening. However, he could not shake the feeling that something was right around the corner—something he was not prepared for.
###
Sitting across the street from the diner known as Doubles, Alison was watching the doors intently. She had seen David Orlando enter and he had been in there a while. She wondered what his connection to this place was, and how he was able to get in after hours. She watched as he was being walked out by an older man, and could see that they were obviously related. She watched as he got into his car and drove off.
Waiting a moment, she watched as he was turning left at the light and she pulled out of the parking lot she’d been waiting in. At the moment, she was not too sure how she was going to play out his demise.
Following him down the road she kept a good distance, but it was too far. Soon she lost her visual on him. He had turned, but from that she didn’t know where he went. There were dozens of winding neighborhood streets and she had lost him. Her eyes were scanning everywhere, but she didn’t see him anywhere.
###
He was in the park waiting, but it seemed like he’d been waiting too long. He was anxious, the kid was knocked out in his car, which was not too far out of the way. Now he watched as a car pulled in, and the lights were not on. He watched as a single person got out and walked over towards him casually. Nothing seemed odd about her.
Walking towards her, he saw that she was carrying a small bag. “Here is the money,” she said. “Where is the boy?”
“Let me count my money and then I will take you to him.”
“Of course,” she said, as though she understood how this worked. Little did he know that there was a monster underneath her façade and that she was more than ready to take him down once and for all.
Finally, he was content with what he had seen, and he led her towards the car. It was past the place where she had parked. As they neared it, he peered inside and saw him there, so still, as if he was sleeping very soundly.
“What did you do, drug him?”
“Yes, to keep him quiet.” He noticed how upset she was about that. “Look you should understand how three year olds are. They are loud and always moving. It’s irritating.”
“Then why auction one of them off?”
“Three year olds have a greater value on the market.”
“I am assuming you have done this before?”
He looked her in the eyes and he nodded. “I was one of them before.” He opened the car door, but before he could grab him out, Emily grabbed him by the collar and threw him onto the ground.
She heard the sirens and grabbed her handcuffs. She listened as he cursed softly and Ashlynn and Ellie appeared. They took him and Emily rushed into the car. Her fingers were searching for his pulse, and found it finally, but it was faint.
Grabbing Blake in her arms, she looked over her shoulder and watched as the ambulance pulled in with all the squad cars. The EMTs were rushing towards her and they took him. Getting into
the back of the ambulance, she could barely even think about what was going to happen to the guy who was auctioning him off, or the danger she had just put herself in.
Emily watched as they began dozens of different tasks, unsure of what was happening to Blake. Her heart was pounding in her chest, as if she could not breathe. It was a good thing that Macey hadn’t been here to see this, she would have broken down completely. Her instincts had been right to make her stay home. The time was going by so slowly now, and she wondered when they would actually get to the hospital. Would they be there in time?
###
Meghan had found that sleep was elusive. She wasn’t sure if it was because she had been abducted here, or if her mind was just restless. Her mother was in the living room and Dominic had disappeared. He was always somewhere else, and she wondered what his function was. It was not her place to speculate on that though. Her mother was clearly calling the shots.
Turning, she just couldn’t get comfortable and wanted to go out and get some fresh air, but at the same time, she didn’t want to leave her warm blankets. Her bedroom door opened and she saw her mother standing there.
“Is everything alright?”
“No, I am having issues sleeping.”
“You know, whenever I had a hard time sleeping, I would go for a run and come home to my bed. Sure I smelt like sweat, but it seemed to work for me.”
Meghan smiled. “You were a cross country runner?”
“Yes, and a soccer player. I was not nearly as good as you though.”
She saw the medals and plaques hanging on her wall and remembered getting each of those with her team. It had been the one thing she had that her father couldn’t take away. She became so obsessed with it, she had practiced day and night. It was the only thing other than school that she had and she put everything into it. She wondered how her life would be different if she had never been his daughter. If she was part of a different family. However, she was being petty, and she knew that. Her life was not nearly as bad as others and she would always remember that.
“You know, you could have just come to me and told me everything. We could have had a real relationship, instead of one based on you planning to destroy him.”
Promised Box Set Page 75