by Tess Diamond
“You’re hurting people, Roger,” Maggie said seriously. Maybe if she appealed to his sense of justice, she’d get through to him. He wasn’t a natural killer; she was positive of that. He was just a guy on a mission. A guy she’d trapped in a corner with no escape. “Kayla is innocent in this. You know that. She’s just a kid. And Agent Harrison was just following orders.”
“There’s a price to be paid,” Mancuso said coldly. “My brother paid the ultimate price. He was an American hero. He uncovered a massive scheme worth billions, and Senator Thebes and his friends had him killed for it! Someone has to pay!”
Maggie straightened in her seat, her eyes widening. “What do you mean ‘and his friends’?” she asked.
Mancuso snorted. “I thought you were smart, Maggie,” he said. “Thebes is a senator. Do you really think he’s going to order a hit himself? Of course not. It’s too risky. And he’s not going to have those kinds of connections. Someone bigger than Thebes—someone who’s just as deep into this—gave the order. I’m not going to rest until I know the faces of the bastards who killed my brother. I want their names splashed all over the news and the papers and the Internet. I want them punished.”
Maggie thought very fast. He was right. Thebes probably didn’t order the hit. He likely just informed whoever was in charge of the threat Joe Mancuso posed. Thebes had plenty of reasons to keep this covered up, but the real power behind this mess? They had even more motivation to keep their misdeeds under wraps. And they clearly weren’t shy about pulling a trigger when it served their purposes.
“Roger,” she said. “You’re a smart guy. Hell, I would say brilliant at this point—”
“Don’t try to flatter me to make me trust you,” he snapped.
“I’m not,” Maggie said—and she wasn’t. He was smart. He had to be, to get this far. And he was dedicated. That’s why she had to sway him toward trust. It was the only way to get everyone out safely. “But if you’re right about the kind of men who are behind this, you know they’re not going to let you expose them.”
“That’s not my problem,” Mancuso said. “It’s yours.”
“Roger—”
“No,” he said. “You’re supposed to be the best, right? Then go be the best, Maggie. Kayla doesn’t have a lot of time left.”
“Is she conscious?” Maggie asked, images of a pale and dying Kayla filling her head. Her wrists burned, as if rope was still chafing them. She flinched, unable to rub at the skin, to banish the feeling.
Dammit.
“Last time I checked.” Mancuso sneered.
“Okay,” Maggie said, running through the scenarios in her head. She needed someone to check on Kayla. She had to know the girl’s condition before she made any big moves. She hated playing fast and loose with Kayla’s health. But if Maggie had a time frame to work with, she’d be able to time her negotiation better. She’d have more control. She needed to know if Kayla was at immediate risk medically or if Maggie had some time to work with before she was in real danger. “I want to send a doctor in to look at Kayla.”
“No way!”
“Roger, I’ve been frank with you,” Maggie said, going in for the kill. She needed this. She needed to know the girl was okay before she executed her plan. “I could’ve fed you lies about the men who killed your brother. I could’ve given you false names or promises. But I didn’t, did I?”
There was a pause, a suspicious one. Maggie’s hopes spiked in the silence, her heart beating fast. He was listening. He was thinking.
He was considering.
“We need to establish some trust here,” Maggie said. “On both sides. So we can all get through this, we can all get what we want. All I want is to send in a doctor—not to give Kayla insulin, but just to look her over. If you let the doctor in to check on her, then I’ll give you electricity. You can watch the TV. You can see for yourself what’s happening—how the press is gearing up to destroy Thebes. Isn’t that what all this is about? You want to see that, don’t you?”
Another pause. This approach may have been a thin thread, but it was a strong one. Please, please let Mancuso agree.
“I want my phone working again too, then,” Mancuso said. “I want to be able to make outside calls to people other than you.”
Relief flared in Maggie’s chest. He’d jumped at the bait. They were making progress—finally! She took a deep breath and went on. “I can get the electricity back on, but I can’t do the phone, not yet,” she said. “Look, you’ve seen me work. You know how I operate. I’m not going to try anything funny with the doctor. I’m not here to pull the wool over your eyes and send in a SWAT member in a lab coat—you and I both know you’re too smart for that. I’m not here to trick you, Mancuso. I only care about Kayla’s safety and well-being.” She didn’t want to emphasize her concern about Paul, because she knew Mancuso would leap on that, try to use it to his advantage. An FBI hostage was valuable, maybe even more valuable than a senator’s daughter, but Mancuso hadn’t realized that. He was operating on panic and instinct right now. He had no backup plans. He was on his own, no plan—no blueprint, just instinct. It was probably terrifying for a control freak like him. Maggie had to keep that in mind. Fear was a great motivator. The problem was that it sometimes pushed people in the wrong direction.
She had to guide him in the right direction in order to get the hostages to safety.
“Fine,” Mancuso said. “But no one else is allowed in. No matter what happens tonight, you and I are in this together.”
For a moment, it almost didn’t register. For an impossibly long moment, she thought she’d heard wrong. She had to have heard wrong. He couldn’t have said what she thought he did . . .
But he had.
Having those familiar, haunting words spoke to her again felt like falling off a cliff. The bottom of her world dropped away, she was hanging in midair, panicked, spiraling down. She was back in the woods, twelve years old and running, running, her feet bloody and torn, her hands still bound as she tripped and fell. She was back in the shed, Erica’s shoulder pressed against hers, her sister’s whispering voice filling her ears. Begging her to run. Begging her to leave her. Maggie nearly dropped the phone as she croaked out, “What?”
No answer.
“Mancuso! Mancuso? Roger?”
But Mancuso had already hung up, leaving her with the pieces.
Leaving her broken, like the little girl she’d been so long ago.
Chapter 48
The phone fell out of Maggie’s hand, clattering to the floor. Everyone else in the mobile unit faded away as Mancuso’s words—Erica’s words—spun in her head over and over.
How had he known? Was it just a coincidence? Was she going crazy? Reading into things? Had she even heard him right? Yes. She had. She knew she had. She was sure of it.
She felt sick to her stomach, about to fly out of her skin. She rubbed at her wrists, unable to stop, unable to rid herself of the painful itch under her skin.
Erica . . .
“Maggie?”
She started, blinking furiously, trying to collect her thoughts as her heart kicked against her rib cage. Run, Maggie, it said. Run. Run. RUN!
There was nowhere to run. No one chasing her. She wasn’t twelve anymore.
She took a deep breath. Calm, Maggie. Control.
“Agent Kincaid?” Agent Collins’ blond brows furrowed, his mouth a flat line of concern as he peered at her. “You’re not really going to turn the electricity on, right? That was just a bluff?”
Maggie took another deep breath, forcing down the panic. She couldn’t think. She needed to think.
Get it together, Maggie.
“We need to establish trust,” she said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Agent Grant snorted. “We need to establish control. Let him know who’s in charge here.” Irritation grated inside her, distracting from the panicked confusion that threatened to overtake her entire being. She latched on to the irritation, the frustration, letti
ng it fill her and drive everything else out.
“It seems to me that you are having trouble remembering who’s in charge here,” Maggie snapped. “I am. And I know what I’m doing.” But doubt rose in her. What if she was wrong? What if she got everyone killed? Just like she got Gretchen killed . . . just like she got Erica killed.
“She’s right,” Jake said, coming to stand next to her. Concern was written on his face, but he was by her side. He was on her side. It bolstered her, helping to quell the panic and questions spinning in her head. “You really want to startle a guy holding a dead man’s switch? Do you want to be responsible for making the call here? Because if you choose wrong, Harrison’s and Kayla’s deaths are on you. Agent Harrison is one of your own. Kayla’s not even old enough to drive. Start acting like you understand the risks here instead of focusing on some action-movie rescue you’ve got in your head.”
Agent Grant scowled, the prominent ridge of his forehead making him look even more like a caveman, but mercifully, he shut up.
Maggie turned to Frank, who was sitting near the computer station. She glanced at the screen, at the transcript of her call. Right there were Mancuso’s words—no matter what happens tonight, you and I are in this together. Maggie stared at them for a moment, her mind spiraling down again into the dark memories of her childhood. She was barely keeping it together, and any second, Frank would realize it. She had to get out of here. She needed space to breathe. Freak out. Something.
“We need a doctor,” she told Frank. “And we need one fast. Someone we can trust. No affiliation with the Bureau, but it would be good if he had some sort of combat training, just in case. Ex-Army or -Marine is preferable. He goes in, unarmed, just to assess Kayla’s health. We have to play this straight, Frank. It’s the only way.”
Frank pulled his cell phone out. “I’ll get someone. Might have to fly him in by chopper, but I’ll get it done.”
Maggie nodded curtly. “I’ll be just a moment,” she said, her voice strangled with the emotion rising in her chest. Before Frank could protest, she marched out of the mobile unit, walking as fast as she could into the cover of the trees, a good seventy feet away from all the law enforcement and flashing lights. It was getting cold, and she pulled her jacket tighter around herself, shaking not from the chill, but from shock. She could hear frogs croaking in the distance against the groan of wind in the tree branches. When she came to a stop, far enough away that no one could see her, she began to shake.
Oh, God. What was going on? She pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to stop the tears. She needed to move. Her skin buzzed with adrenaline as her mind circled frantically, trying to make sense, trying to keep calm—trying and failing miserably.
“Maggie?”
She whirled around. Jake stood there, illuminated by the moonlight, his eyes worried. He walked up to her, cupping her cheek, drawing her close. She shut her eyes, the fire in his touch soothing the restlessness under her skin.
“What’s going on?” he asked, concern written all over his face. “You went tearing out of there. Mancuso . . . did he say something to you? You seemed really freaked out suddenly. What am I missing?”
She looked up at him, stricken, wanting nothing more than to lean into him. To let how he made her feel—alive, excited, hopeful—force everything else to fade away.
But Mancuso’s words echoed through her like a horrible warning. She had to tell someone.
“Mancuso,” she said haltingly. “The last thing he said.”
“About being in this with you?” Jake asked. “That’s good, right? It shows you built trust.”
Maggie shook her head, closing her eyes tightly, trying to find her strength. She knew she was going to sound crazy. Like she was looking for connections in a random phrase spoken by a panicked man. But Mancuso had repeated her sister’s exact words. And he’d said them so deliberately, so knowingly. How did he know? Why did he say it? She’d never told anyone but Jake. Not even her own mother. Logic told her that it was just a coincidence, but her gut said otherwise.
And her gut wasn’t wrong.
“Hey.” Jake’s voice softened. He tucked a curl behind her ear, his thumb resting against the flutter of her pulse. His eyes solemn and wide, he said, “Tell me.”
She took a deep breath and decided she had to tell him. To trust him. “He said, ‘No matter what happens tonight, you and I are in this together.’ And that—that’s exactly what Erica said to me the night I escaped. Word for word, Jake. It’s like . . . it’s like he knows or something. And he couldn’t know!”
She broke away from his touch, pacing, restless. Moving with erratic energy, pacing in circles, trying to calm herself. She rubbed at her wrists compulsively, not caring if he noticed, not caring about anything but answers. “Nobody could have known. I never told anyone the exact wording. Not even the police or the agents who interviewed me when I was little.” She jerked a shaky hand through her curls, flipping them out of her face, trying to stop the trembling. She needed to get a hold of this. She needed control.
But she couldn’t get a hold of it. Not with this. Not when it came to Erica.
She’d spent so long trying to find her. The first two years after Maggie had become an agent, she followed every lead, she went through every file she had access to. She was determined to find her sister’s body and bring her home, to give her mother more than an empty grave to visit. And she’d failed. She’d forced herself to let it go. To concentrate on the living, the hostages she could help. She told herself that’s what Erica would’ve wanted. That her big sister would have been so proud of her.
Had she just been lying to herself? Was their kidnapper still out there? The man who ruined her life? Who killed her sister? Was he watching her? Waiting for her?
Her mind spun with the questions; her wrists burned as if rope was cutting into her skin, rubbing it raw and bloody.
“There’s only one person who Erica could have told before she died,” Maggie said. “And that’s our kidnapper. They never caught him, you know.” She should have found him. She should’ve kept her focus, stuck with searching for answers. It was why she been drawn to join the FBI in the first place. How could she have given it up? Given up on Erica? She should have made sure he’d never do it to anyone else. She should have made it her life’s mission.
“Okay,” Jake said. “Let’s think this through, step by step.” He reached out, stilling her, grasping her by both shoulders and forcing her to look at him. What she found in his face—the warmth, the worry, the determination—made something inside her unwind, spreading calm within her. “You were twelve when you were taken.” She nodded. “And Mancuso’s only a year older than you,” he pointed out. “When you and Erica were kidnapped, he was a thirteen-year-old punk in Virginia.”
“I know,” Maggie said. “I know it’s stupid. It’s not rational. It could just be a coincidence. Do you . . . do you think it is?”
Jake frowned. “It’s a common phrase. He could’ve been just trying to show solidarity. But I don’t know for sure,” he said. “And if your gut is telling you something else, Maggie, I trust your instincts. They’re good. If you think something’s up, then it’s worth pursuing.”
“What if I’m just losing it?” she asked. His hands tightened around her shoulders, like he expected her to start pacing again. “Maybe I’m the wrong person to be doing this.” She gestured uselessly around her, to the mobile units and SWAT trucks parked everywhere. “This is just like Sherwood Hills. I’m reading into things too much. My memories are messing with me. Ruining my focus.”
“Your experience as a hostage makes you strong, Maggie,” Jake insisted, drawing her closer to him, his green eyes earnest. “You have a perspective from both sides that no one else does. If I were Kayla, I’d want you on my side. And if I were your ex-fiancé, I’d know there was no one better, no one smarter, to get me out of there alive.”
“You knew Paul and I were engaged?” Maggie asked.
Jake shrugged. “It’s part of my job to assess anyone coming in close contact with the senator.”
“It’s been over for a long time,” Maggie said. She didn’t want him to think she’d just jumped into bed with him after a broken engagement. Those moments in the greenhouse meant more to her than a quick fling. She’d felt . . . well, she’d never felt that way before. Jake brought something out in her that she didn’t know existed.
“I know,” Jake said. “And Paul’s a good guy. He’s lucky to have you fighting for him.”
Maggie felt calmed by his matter-of-fact manner. The last thing she needed was jealousy or drama.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she confessed quietly. “Every time I think I’ve got a handle on things, that I’m making progress, something happens that throws a wrench into all of it.”
“And you’re rolling with the punches,” Jake said. “You’re playing it right. Buying time and building trust. You’re taking it step by step instead of charging in and messing up.”
Maggie looked in his eyes, calmed by the confidence she saw there. Confidence that soothed her worries . . . and helped her to refocus on the urgency of the moment. She shook her head, as if shaking off her panic. Coincidence or not, she had no time to think about anything but Kayla. She had to push Mancuso’s words out of her head. This wasn’t the time or the place. If he was using them deliberately, he was doing it to rattle her. She couldn’t give him the satisfaction. She wasn’t going to play into his hand.