Too Far Gone

by Allison Brennan

  At first, nothing. Kane and Jack were in the kitchen eating pizza. Sean wasn’t on any of the screens, but Lucy saw Madison walk down the hall with two plates. She paused outside Sean’s office door—Sean must have been in there—and talked for a minute, then continued down the hall out of sight. A second later she entered the game room. Gave Jesse his pizza. They talked and ate. In less than three minutes, Madison had closed her eyes. Jesse made a call—that had to have been to Lucy. At the same time three white vans pulled up out front. Each driver stayed in the van and three teams of four—twelve people!—emerged. Two men stayed in the front guarding the front door, but didn’t attempt to break it down. They wouldn’t have been able to; it was steel-reinforced. How the hell did they know that?

  The others went around back. While they were doing that, Jack staggered down the hall as if he were drunk. He had his phone in his hand, but dropped it. He disappeared from camera view and must have made it to the bathroom where they’d found him.

  At that point, the plate-glass windows in the living room shattered simultaneously. They must have known that there was a clear safety film on them because they had tools to make breaking the glass easier. One man stayed outside with a semi-automatic weapon, and nine entered. Three went to the kitchen, three went upstairs, and three went down the hall toward Sean’s office and the game room.

  There was no hesitation, no looking around. They knew exactly what they were doing, knew the layout of the house, and had a plan.

  Kane was on the floor in the kitchen, unconscious. One of the men kicked him, and then moved away. He stayed in the kitchen, while the other two went to inspect the sunroom. Kane rolled over and shot the man in the kitchen, then collapsed again.

  The two men ran in from the sunroom, saw what happened. One was about to shoot Kane in the head, but the other hit his gun hand and said something. They left.

  At the same time, three men dragged Sean out of his den. He was partially conscious, but obviously lethargic and not completely there. They took him fighting out the back door.

  Another man carried an unconscious Madison out, followed by the last man carrying Jesse. They all left.

  The entire thing, from vans pulling up to pulling away, took less than five minutes.

  They were gone six minutes before SAPD showed up, and seven minutes before Lucy and Nate arrived.

  “Ransom,” Jack said.

  “They planned the whole fucking thing. They breached this fortress,” Leo said. “They had to know about Sean’s security.”

  “They knew enough to know that they couldn’t disable it easily, so they disabled the people inside,” Lucy said.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said.

  “This isn’t your fault. I’m glad you’re okay.” She hugged him. Her heart was beating so hard she didn’t know how to make it stop. “We’ll find them.”

  “Ambulance is here,” one of the cops said.

  “You may need to get your stomach pumped,” Lucy told him.

  “Fuck no,” Jack said. “I’ll make Kane puke.”

  Kane groaned. “Vasquez.”

  “Probably,” Lucy said, “but we can’t prove it. And no way would he bring Sean, Madison, and Jesse to his house. I need that guy in the kitchen to talk.”

  “Where’s Bandit?” Nate said.

  If anything happened to Bandit, Sean would be destroyed.

  They searched the entire house. The dog wasn’t there.

  Lucy reviewed the security footage. She hadn’t noticed the first time because she was so preoccupied with the smoothness of the operation, but Bandit had run after them. In the front, Sean, Madison, and Jesse were loaded into the same unmarked van. The three vans sped out together. They were identical. Smart. If anyone was trying to pursue them, they might not be able to tell which one had the hostages.

  Bandit ran after the vans.

  Nate hit the wall and made Lucy jump. He walked outside.

  “We’ll get them back,” Lucy said, sounding more confident than she felt. “JT will get a ransom call, he knows what to do. We’ll get them back,” she repeated.

  They had to.

  “Call JT,” Jack told Lucy. “Tell him everything, send him the videos.”

  “Right. Okay.” Lucy felt a million times better now that she had a plan. She went to Sean’s den, saw the overturned chair. His computer was on the floor, but fortunately it hadn’t busted. She put it back on his desk. Saw what he’d been working on—the financial documents he’d sent to Dean Hooper last night. The ones about RCK ransom policy and the offshore companies that Sean thought Carson still controlled.

  This was about money. And if it was about money, that was good because that meant Sean and Jesse were still alive.

  And they’d better stay that way.

  * * *

  Jack put his head between his legs. He still felt like shit, but he tried to puke again and couldn’t.

  “We need a full SWAT team ready,” he said.

  “You think the ransom is bullshit? Did you just say that to calm Lucy?” Leo asked.

  “No.” Jack looked at Kane. He needed his partner now more than ever. The paramedics came in. He said, “I need you to give this man something to puke. We were drugged with a heavy-duty sedative.”

  “We’ll take you to the hospital and evaluate—”

  “Do it,” Jack ordered. He wasn’t taking bullshit from anyone, not now.

  The paramedic looked nervous, but approached Kane. Leo said, “He’s a witness, we need him talking.”

  “I’m. Talking.” Kane was still out of it.

  “Explain, Kincaid,” Leo said.

  “Madison and Jesse. They’re hostages. Sean is just insurance. When Carson pays, Sean is dead.”

  “But Sean has hostage insurance, so shouldn’t—”

  “Trust me on this. Sean knew from the beginning—Carson Spade set the whole fucking thing up but it got out of hand. And if I were Carson Spade, the one person I would want dead over all others is the man who ruined my life. And that’s Sean.”

  Leo glanced down the hall toward where Lucy had gone.

  “She’s tough,” Jack said, “but she needs to put things in motion before she figures this out. And she will.”

  Nate still hadn’t come back in.

  “I need Nate,” he told Leo. “Talk to him.”

  A retching sound in the corner made Jack queasy again. Kane was puking into a biomedical bag. When he was done, he looked at Jack and said, “Screw you, buddy.”

  “Glad you’re alive. Drink water.”

  “I think,” the paramedic said cautiously, “that you should both go to the hospital—”

  “Maybe you should check out the bastard bleeding to death in the kitchen,” Jack said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “New rule,” Kane said. “When working, we don’t eat the same food.”

  “Amen to that.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Sean felt sick. He recognized that he was in a dangerous situation, so he didn’t make any sounds or movement to indicate that he was awake. He assessed his physical condition.

  His head pounded, his mouth tasted like shit, and he was sore all over, as if someone had used him as a punching bag while he was unconscious.

  He focused on his environment. He had to find a way out, any way he could. The ground he lay on was hard and rough, like cement. He breathed in as deep as he dared, felt a pain in his side, but also breathed in cement dust and metal and some sort of chemical. Not bleach, but something similar. It was also hot as hell, no air-conditioning. During the day this place would be a furnace.

  He didn’t hear voices. It seemed dark, so he opened his eyes just a fraction. Yep, dark, though he could see light along the floor for a couple of feet, indicating that there was a closed door.

  He listened again. They wouldn’t have left him in here without a guard. The attack was far too well planned for them to think it was safe to leave him alone.

  That’s when he hea
rd a voice. A faint voice, crying softly.

  Jesse.

  Sean tried to move then realized that his hands were tied with zip-ties. He could get out of them, but he didn’t have the strength right now, or the balance to stand up.

  “Jess.”

  “Dad? Dad? I thought you were dead.”

  Jesse was crying. Oh God, Sean would have done anything to prevent this. How had he screwed it up?

  They’d taken him and Jesse … who else?

  “I’m okay,” he said.

  That was relative. He was better awake than unconscious, but he was in no condition to fight.

  “Are you okay, Jess?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t eat much pizza. They put something in the pizza, I heard them talking about it in the van. But Mom isn’t moving.”

  They’d taken him, Jesse, and Madison. Who else? “She’s unconscious,” Sean said. “If I’m awake, she’ll be waking up soon.” He had to figure out a way to get out of this. He was on to something at his house, something that was just on the edge of his memory. Something in those files he’d been staring at all day—the files he wasn’t supposed to have. It would come to him when the pounding in his head stopped.

  He tried to scoot over to where he’d heard Jesse’s voice. Jesse met him halfway. “Are you tied up?” Sean asked.

  “They put these plastic things on my wrist.”

  Sean should have taught Jesse how to get out of them. He didn’t feel the weight of his gun in his waistband; they must have taken it from him. But he had a small pocketknife in his shoe. It was under his sock, and he could still feel it against his skin.

  “Jess, I need you to get my knife out of my shoe.”

  “You have a knife? Why didn’t they take it?”

  “They took my gun, buddy. They didn’t find the pocketknife. It’s a small Swiss Army knife, it’s not going to get us out of here, but it will cut these binds.”

  “It’s dark.”

  “I know. Your eyes will adjust.” He felt Jesse turn around, his hands fumbling down his body until he reached his shoes.

  “It’s in my right shoe, under the sock. It slipped down a bit, but you can reach it.”

  It took Jesse a minute, but he got out the knife. “Got it.”

  “Come here and cut my ties.”

  “What if I cut you?”

  “You won’t.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know, Jess. But I’m here. We’ll get out of this.”

  Sean had the best security for home defense, and that hadn’t stopped this attack. The damn Trojan horse. Had they killed the pizza delivery guy or bribed him? Sean was going with bribing. Give the kid a hundred bucks to play a joke on an old friend. It would work as often as it would fail. Or they gave the kid a hundred bucks and had one of their men deliver the pizza. If he refused, kill or incapacitate him. Whichever way, Sean hadn’t seen it coming, and that made him scared and angry. Scared because he could usually predict any plan and have a counter-plan for it. He wasn’t as good as he thought. His brother and Jack could be dead because he hadn’t thought things through well enough.

  And he was angry. Because his kid was scared and tied up in a dark room, and Sean wanted to kill whoever put that fear into his son.

  Starting with Carson Spade and working his way up to Jeremy Robertson, going through Bart Vasquez and all his goons.

  Sean winced when Jesse nicked him. The blade wasn’t sharp, but the tip was.

  “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s okay. Get the blade under the ties, and saw rapidly back and forth in short, firm movements.”

  Jesse figured it out, and a minute later Sean was free. He took the knife and cut Jesse’s ties in one stroke. “Where’s your mom?”

  “There’s a bed in the corner.”

  Sean was getting used to the dark. The thin light under the door helped. The bed was actually a cot, and he realized they were in a break room of sorts. Mostly empty, maybe abandoned. A lopsided table, a couple of chairs, the cot, a sink, row of metal lockers. There could be supplies in the cabinet that he could use. If he had to MacGyver an escape, he would do it. While he wanted to take out all these bastards, the priority was getting Madison and Jesse to safety. And right now he didn’t think he could win a fight against even one person, not when his body was weak and shaking from the sedative.

  “Madison,” Sean said and gently patted her cheek. “Madison, we have to wake up now. Come on, let’s go.”

  She didn’t move. He put his ear down to her mouth. Was she breathing? He couldn’t tell. He searched for her pulse. He thought he felt something, but his heart was pounding and he couldn’t tell if it was hers or his. He felt the carotid artery on the side of her neck. A very faint pulse.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He had no idea what Vasquez drugged them with. Madison weighed probably between 110 and 120. But Jesse seemed fine. “How much do you weigh, Jess?”

  “Um, a hundred thirty? Maybe more?”

  Jesse was thirteen, healthy, and growing. He was five foot seven, half an inch shorter than Lucy. They had joked that when he came back for Christmas he’d be taller. Yeah, he was at least 130. Madison was five foot five and very thin.

  “How much pizza did your mom eat?”

  “A piece. Maybe a piece and a half. What’s wrong with her? Is she okay?”

  His voice went up in panic.

  “Shh,” Sean said. “She’s still out. She weighs less than all of us, so it makes sense that she’s going to be knocked out longer.” He looked down at his watch—it was gone. Well, dammit, he loved that watch. What did they think, he had a secret communicator built into it? That would be cool, but so far no one had developed the tech unless it was in close proximity to a phone or computer.

  Sean was concerned about Madison. Some sedatives could compromise the lungs, essentially shutting down breathing function. But she was breathing, that had to be a good sign, right?

  All he knew was that she needed a doctor. He turned her on her side in case she threw up in her sleep. That’s when he noticed she wasn’t tied up. Because they didn’t see her as a threat? God, he hoped that was the case and not where his mind went: that she was part of all of this to get the money out of the hidden accounts so she and Carson could disappear with Jesse.

  That’s the stupidest idea you’ve ever conceived. There would be far easier ways to pull out that money and disappear. Carson certainly has the skill to do it.

  Sean took a deep breath and walked over to the door. It was solid metal. Jesse was right on his heels. Sean tried the knob. Locked. No surprise there. He hadn’t found a lock he couldn’t pick. But what if there was a dead bolt on the other side? He heard voices. Not close, but in the same building. He couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Sean quietly went back to the sink and looked in the cabinet. There were some unlabeled containers. He opened them and smelled. Cleaning supplies. Okay, those might come in handy. He lined them up from the ones that likely had bleach or ammonia to those that were less caustic. Next he checked the lockers. All empty. Except each locker had a hook on the back, and some of the hooks were loose. Sean took out his pocketknife and unscrewed two of them. He positioned them in his hands, so the sharpest point was protruding from the back of his hand. They could do some damage. He put them in his pockets.

  But Jesse had the best find.

  “Dad,” he whispered. “Can you use this? I found a mop.”

  Sean felt the mop handle. Wooden. “Perfect, Jess.” He then sat down and took off the foul-smelling rag bottom. Now, this was a weapon he could do some damage with.

  “What now?” Jesse asked.

  “We wait.”

  “My mom…” He looked over to where she was still lying. “We have to do something.”

  Jesse was right, but Sean didn’t think that there was anything they could do.

  Sean hid the tools and pounded on the door. “Hey! Hey! We need help in here!”

  He kept poundin
g on the door until he heard someone approach. “Shut the fuck up,” a deep voice said.

  “Madison hasn’t woken up yet. She needs a hospital.”

  “Who cares?”

  Sean pounded on the door. “Dammit! Her son is in here with her! She’s sick, her breathing is shallow—whatever you bastards drugged us with, she’s having a reaction.”

  “She’ll be fine. Grow a pair.”

  “I will kill you. I will break your fucking neck! Keep me, I don’t care, just take her and her son to a hospital.”

  “You’re in no position to make demands, Mr. Rogan. Now, if I hear anything else from you, I’ll come in and put a bullet in her head, then you won’t have to worry about her at all.”

  He walked away.

  Sean pounded one more time and sank to the floor. Jesse was at his side. Sean put his arm around his son. “We’ll figure something out.”

  Jesse put his head on Sean’s shoulder and Sean closed his eyes.

  He had no idea how he was going to get out of here. Save Madison. Save his son. Save himself.

  * * *

  FBI ASAC Dean Hooper pulled up in front of Carson Spade’s modest house only a mile from headquarters. He had two agents with him, but told them to stay out front.

  Dean rarely deviated from the rule book, but he would if he had to—and this was one of those rare instances when he would prefer not having a witness if he had to play hardball with a lying money launderer.

  Carson was surprised to see him. He was also nervous. He hid it well, but Dean had dealt with hundreds of white-collar criminals. Most of them weren’t violent. One touch of violence in their orderly, illegal lives and they went full panic.

  Dean entered without being asked.

  “This isn’t a good time,” Carson said.

  “This is the only time,” Dean said. He closed the door behind him. “Honesty from this point on is the only thing that is going to keep you from spending the rest of your life in prison.”

  “Excuse me?” False indignation. Over the top.

  “I know you’ve gotten a ransom demand, and you will work with me on this or so help me God, I will make sure everyone on your cellblock knows you had your wife and stepson kidnapped!”