“You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself wrapped up in, Amber,” he said close to my ear. “Even Peter couldn’t appreciate what we’re really up to. If he’d known, he would have made sure you and everyone he cared about left this damn country. But even a guy as smart as him didn’t see it.”
“Please. I don’t know anything.”
“We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”
He pushed me forward. I stumbled, but he lifted me up. When we reached the end of the narrow alley, he shoved me into a waiting SUV. There were two more men inside, but I didn’t see their faces before someone covered my head with a dark bag.
“I have a baby…”
Chapter 24
Megan
I was searching through my desk drawers for a pen when I happened to open the drawer where I’d stashed the gift for Amber that I’d found in Peter’s desk. A part of me wanted to open it, to see if there was something inside that was related to what he’d been investigating before he died. But my sense of respect for other people kicked in, reminding me that Amber came to us. She told us everything she knew as soon as she decided she could trust us. And she was with Cole. Like it or not, I had to trust her to share with us any information that might be inside this box.
I slipped it into my bag and snatched it up, deciding to call it a night. Sam was glaring at something as I stepped out my office door. It didn’t take long to figure out what it was. It was the same thing as always. Hayden was across the room, leaning close to one of the system operators, a pretty, college-age girl wearing a tight t-shirt and short skirt. I could feel the sexual tension from across the room.
“Ignore him,” I said, laying a hand on Sam’s shoulder.
“He’s a professional. He shouldn’t act that way in the office.”
“Yeah, well, he’s Hayden. He can’t help himself.”
“Maybe.”
Sam kind of shook herself and then focused on me, her big eyes filled with so much emotion that I could feel the weight of it as her eyes rested on me.
“Going home?”
“Yeah. You?”
She shook her head. “I want to finish working on Peter’s hard drive.”
“There’s no rush, you know. It’s been sitting in his office for ten months. A few more days won’t hurt.”
“I know. But it’s not often you ask for my help.”
“No. Just every single day of my life.”
“Not like this.”
I pushed out my bottom lip as I tried to think of the right words to respond. But there didn’t seem to be any.
She touched my arm. “Go home. Get some sleep.”
“I’ll try.”
I was in my car a minute later, wondering what I should do for dinner. Then I remembered the gift and decided to run by Cole’s place. Maybe he’d have something hot on the stove when I got there.
He opened the door before I’d finished knocking, his eyes shifting from me to the elevator down the hall.
“Waiting for something?”
“I’m getting a little worried about Amber and the baby. They went shopping with Mom, but they should have been back by now.”
“Mom’s at home. I talked to her less than an hour ago.”
“She is?”
Cole turned and charged into his apartment, leaving me standing in the open doorway. I went inside, pushing the door closed with the back of my foot as I watched Cole grab his phone and dial.
“Mom? Is Amber with you?”
He waited for a second, the worry etched into his face growing deeper by the moment. He hung up without saying anything else.
“She left the baby with Mom and went out. Mom says she was meeting friends.”
“Maybe they’re running late. You know how women are when they get together.”
“Amber doesn’t have friends.”
He turned and surveyed the apartment for a long minute, snatching up a tablet that was sitting on the coffee table. I moved up behind him as he turned the thing on and moved through the different applications. He opened Amber’s mail and looked through it, highlighting one after another until he came to one from Rice University.
Thank you for your application…
That was all I read before Cole tossed the tablet on the couch.
“Goddamn it!”
“What?”
“She’s been looking for a job. She must have gone on an interview.”
“That’s good, right?”
“She left the apartment while I was at the grocery store this morning. At ten. She’s been gone for more than eight hours.”
I followed him out of the apartment, tugging my cell from my back pocket.
“Hayden? Get Dominic and meet us at Rice University.”
Cole drove too fast. I had to grab the dashboard a dozen times to keep from slamming my head against it. I wanted to tell him to slow down, but I knew it wouldn’t do me any good. We pulled into the parking lot at Rice, right outside the cafeteria. Cole jumped out of the car and caught a woman coming out the back door.
“Amber Zavalas had an interview here this morning? Could you tell me what time she left?”
The woman’s eyebrows rose. “She never showed up. It was a pity, too, because she was the best applicant we had.”
Cole turned to me, this look on his face that was a cross between absolute panic and I-told-you-so.
I had my cellphone in my hand again. Sam answered almost immediately.
“Call the bus depot. Ask them to quiz their drivers, the ones who drive the line between my parents’ house and Rice. Ask them if they saw a girl who fits Amber’s description riding the bus around ten-thirty this morning. Then call the hospitals, the police, see if they might have a report of a kidnapping or if they’ve got someone who fits Amber’s description. Okay?”
“Sure. Anything else?”
“See if you can access the security cameras at Rice and on the buildings nearby.”
“I’ll do that first.”
I hung up, watching Cole pace. I’d never seen him quite so agitated before.
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Then why do you have Sam looking for victims?” He glanced at me, but he didn’t wait for my answer. “They would have taken her away from here, but they probably wouldn’t have gone far. Are there any warehouses around here? Empty houses?”
It was a good question. I pulled up a real estate app on my phone that often came in handy for a variety of things, things different from what the app was designed to do. I found three houses within a mile radius.
Cole snatched the phone from me and raced to his car.
“Cole, we can’t just go rushing in like idiots! They’ll kill her if they see us coming.”
“Then we’ll have to make sure they don’t see us!”
Chapter 25
Amber
We were only in the van for a few minutes. They lifted me up and set me on my feet on soft ground. Someone poked a gun into my side while someone else guided me with a hand on my arm. All these thoughts were going through my mind, fears of rape and torture chasing each other.
What did they want from me?
We went inside somewhere—the light coming through the bag suddenly disappeared—and the man with the hand on my arm pushed me down into a chair. Someone grabbed my arms and pulled them back behind me, trying them with plastic cable ties. Someone else did the same thing to my ankles at the same time. Then a voice, very close to my ear, whispered:“Just tell them what they want to know. Then they’ll let you go.”
I turned my head, but he was already gone.
They left me there alone for a long time. It felt like forever, but it was likely an hour or two. I could feel my breasts growing heavy with milk, my thoughts of my baby making the milk leak a little and my nipples tingle. I wondered what would happen to PJ if they didn’t let me go. I knew Mrs. Bradford had enough milk to keep him all day and probably all night. But after that she’d have to supplement somethi
ng. Would he like it? Would he take it? Would he starve if they couldn’t find the right formula quickly enough? Or would he take well to it and forget all about me?
These thoughts weaved in and out of my head, making me more frightened than the thought that they might kill me. PJ was so much more important than I was.
The hood was suddenly ripped from my head. The light was too bright, burning my eyes. I turned my head away, but someone grabbed my chin and forced me to look forward.
“What did Peter say to you all those times you met with him at the diner in Ada?”
“Nothing,” I said, searching in the bright light for the source of the voice. “We talked about the town, about me. About the diner.”
“He didn’t tell you why he was there?”
“You took him home with you one night in late January. Why?”
“He was drunk.”
“What did he say?”
I bit my lip as my sight slowly came into focus. There were four men now. One leaning against the far wall. One sitting in a chair about eight feet in front and to the right of me. One pacing behind me, coming around where I could see him on every turn. And the one sitting in front of me, leaning forward in his chair as he waited for my answer.
They were all wearing masks. That was a good sign, right?
“Nothing. We didn’t talk.”
“He spent the night at your house.”
I looked him in the eye and tilted my head somewhat suggestively. “We didn’t talk.”
The guy behind him in the chair snorted with laughter.
My interrogator frowned, his eyes moving slowly over me. “You don’t seem like his type.”
“Yeah, well, rich guys like to slum it from time to time.”
“So the kid…”
“Yeah. Peter’s.”
He nodded, glancing back at his laughing friend. “We could use that.”
“Maybe.”
He focused on me again. “He gave you a package. What was in it?”
“Proof that someone was selling software from his company with illegal licenses.”
“Nothing else?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t understand most of it. That’s what his sister told me.”
The laughing man suddenly sat up a little straighter. I think I was the only one to notice, but it was such a sudden movement that I couldn’t believe no one else saw it.
“Why is his sister investigating his death now?”
“Because someone was following me. And someone tried to take me out of the mall at gunpoint.”
“What does she care about you?”
“She probably doesn’t. But she cares about her nephew.”
“But how did all that lead her back to Peter’s accident.”
I tilted my head, my eyes moving to the laughing guy, the way he was watching me with a new intensity.
“She thinks that it’s connected because I saw the bald guy who was following me talk to Peter at the diner in Ada.”
“Do you know what they talked about?” the laughing man asked.
“No.”
The two men exchanged a glance. The laughing man stood and came closer, tucking his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.
“I don’t think she knows anything.” He looked me over, his dark eyes barely visible behind his mask, his voice muffled. “And I think the Dragon people are chasing their tails. They couldn’t possibly know enough to prove anything.”
“But we can’t have them fishing in the dark. They might actually stumble across something.”
“It’s been nearly a year, man. There’s nothing left for them to find. What we didn’t cover up ourselves is probably compromised by time. I told you this was a fucking waste.”
The interrogator looked at me, really looked at me. It was almost as if he thought I might split open and spill all my secrets if he stared at me closely enough.
He sat back, his arms crossed over his chest.
“What does Megan Bradford know about her brother’s accident?”
The laughing man flinched at Megan’s name. Again, I didn’t think anyone else saw it. But I did in the way his eyes narrowed briefly, in the way his chin trembled just below the mask.
I found myself wondering how he knew her.
“I don’t know. She told her brother, Cole, that she didn’t think it was an accident and that she had the guys working for her check it out. But if she found something out, she didn’t tell him or me.”
“See?” the laughing man said, hitting the interrogator on the shoulder. “They don’t know shit. We covered our tracks.”
“Yeah, well, you said killing Peter would end the whole thing. You didn’t bother to inform us that he had a sister with an entire security firm at her fingertips.”
“There’s only so much they can find now. Once the other fools—”
“Don’t talk about it in front of her.”
The laugher looked at me for a long second, then shrugged his shoulders and moved back to his chair. He sat with his legs spread, looking for all the world like he didn’t care one cent about what was happening. But there was something in the way he was looking at me that told me he was fully invested in what was going on here.
The interrogator leaned close to me.
“If I find out that you know more than you’re saying, I’m coming after you. And not just you. That baby? I’ve killed more innocents than you could ever imagine. Taking a baby from his mother would be nothing to me. Do you understand?”
Fear paralyzed me. An image of PJ’s empty crib thrust itself through my mind. But I managed to nod.
The interrogator studied me for a long moment, then nodded. He stood and gestured to the man behind me. A second later, pain flashed through my head and the world went dark.
Chapter 26
Megan
Cole was once again driving much faster than he should have done. We screeched to a stop outside the first house, a small, ranch-style home on a street three blocks from Rice. He bounced out the door before the car was fully stopped. I was following when my cellphone rang.
“Sunset and Albans,” Sam said. “Someone just called nine-one-one reporting an unconscious woman.”
“Cole!”
He turned just as he was about to knock in the locked front door of the empty ranch.
“We have her.”
He ran back, but I’d already slipped behind the wheel of the car. I wanted to find Amber as much as he did, but I wasn’t willing to die for her.
We pulled up to the house right behind the police. They made us wait, standing on the sidewalk as they went inside to check things out. I thought Cole would have a stroke. He was pacing, staring down the front of the cottage like he wanted to melt the mortar and see inside, see that Amber was there and she was safe. But before he could somehow develop the power to do such a thing, a cop came out the front door, guiding Amber in front of him.
Cole ran across the yard, grabbing her face in his hands, searching her for injuries. Even I could see that she was bleeding from a cut on the side of her head, but she looked otherwise unharmed. Physically, anyway.
The police told Cole to get back. They needed to talk to Amber before anyone could influence her statement. But she wouldn’t let him pull away. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pressed her face against his chest, sobbing as she whispered, “I’m sorry,” over and over again.
She was safe. That was all that mattered.
***
It was hours later when we were finally alone. Amber was a little dazed by the medication they’d given her for her headache, but her eyes were clear enough. Mom had brought the baby, and she was holding him against her chest. She couldn’t feed him, not to tonight, because of the medication, but holding him close was enough for now, it seemed.
Cole was at her side, his hand on her leg, watching her as if he would never look away again. He clearly was intent on never letting her out of his sight again.
“Is there anything
else you can tell me?” I asked.
She’d described the men and the masks they were wearing, the questions they’d asked. None of it made a lot of sense to me, especially their pointed questions about me and my investigation into Peter’s death. But it sounded like, whoever they were, they were satisfied with her answers. It was curious what she said about them arguing over saying something about others in front of her. I wondered if they were talking about Kurt Sanchez and John Fuller because it hit the news less than fifteen minutes after we found Amber: They were arrested and charged with acts of terrorism in connection to the recent terrorist attacks in France.
“One thing…”
Cole sat up a little. “She’s exhausted, Megan. Maybe we can do this later?”
I started to agree, but Amber focused on me with a determination I could feel like fingers holding me in place.
“One of them knew you.”
“You mean my name? My reputation?”
That seemed obvious. But she was a little loopy from the meds.
“No,” she said softly, her eyes beginning to slide closed. “Every time the guy asking the questions mentioned you, this other guy—the one who laughed when I told them about the night Peter and I slept together—he would have this weird reaction. He’d sit up straighter or stiffen. He flinched once, I think.”
I frowned, trying to imagine what she saw.
“Why?”
Her eyes were closed now. “Don’t know,” she mumbled. “But it seemed almost like it hurt him to hear your name on that man’s lips.”
Luke. It had to be.
“Megan…”
I rushed out of the room and drove across town, my heart in my throat. I drove up to the house where they found Amber and cut the police tape. I picked the lock and rushed into the living room to where the police had spent most of their energy, fingerprint dust still everywhere. He was here. He stood in this room.
I started with just a quick look around the room. But then I begin to search in earnest, fully convinced that he would have left me a message if he could. I was quickly growing impatient, but I kept at it, moving to the other rooms in the house when I found nothing in the living room. But there was nothing. I sank to the floor, tears threatening to roll. But then…didn’t Amber say that he was sitting in a chair by the wall?
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