And if he had to hang up, he would wait hours before trying again. Hours. Let the boss stew in his own juices for a good long while. Maybe he’d even wait until tomorrow to call. And he certainly wouldn’t answer Chilcott’s calls. He would let the son-of-a-bitch become more and more frantic, string him along, make him wait until—
“Hello?”
Finally. Mike had begun pulling the phone away from his ear by the time Chilcott answered. The boss was trying to play it cool but Mike could hear the tension in his voice.
“Yeah,” he said after a satisfying delay. “It’s me. Took you long enough to pick up. Busy meeting with the guy you’re going to replace in the statehouse?”
“Don’t be a wiseass. Is Phase One complete?”
“Of course. Did you expect anything else?”
“You were the one who said anything and everything can happen in the field.”
“Yeah, well, regardless, everything went fine. The package is nice and secure inside the post office. There were no problems with delivery.”
“So we’re ready to move on to Phase Two?”
“Ready as we’ll ever be.”
“Okay. Make the call. Then get back to me. I want to be kept apprised.”
“Will do.” Mike hung up and shook his head. I want to be kept apprised. Who the hell talked like that?
15
Jack and Edie had been sitting silently, avoiding looking at each other, for who knew how long. At least half an hour.
Finally Jack cleared his throat and spoke. “We need to discuss the phone call we’re going to get.”
“What about it? All I care about is talking to Janie. I need to know she’s alive and okay.”
“I understand, but we have to play this the right way.”
“Play it the right way? This is no game. Those monsters have my baby.”
“Edie, listen to me. I apologize for the poor choice of words, but it’s important we approach this properly.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have to make clear to them that they need us—or me, at least—just as much as we need them. They feel they’re dealing from a position of power, and I acknowledge that they are. But until I do what they want, I hold some, too.”
He could tell his point was lost on the distraught woman, and he couldn’t really blame her. The only thing in the world that mattered to her was the opportunity to talk to her missing child.
He stopped talking and they resumed their silent vigil.
***
When the phone rang they both jumped.
Even though the email had told them specifically to expect a call, even though they had been waiting on pins and needles for that call, the sound of the ringer jangling through Jack’s much-too-silent home felt rude, an unwelcome intrusion, a dirty joke whispered in church.
They leapt to their feet simultaneously. Edie reached for the phone but Jack grabbed hold of her upper arm.
“Let it ring a couple of times,” he said. He stared into her eyes, captivated as always by their radiant blue.
“Let it ring? Why? That’s my little girl on the line!”
“I know. But we already talked about this. We have to establish some kind of control.”
She grunted unhappily and as the phone rang a second time Jack said, “Tell me again what you’re going to do.”
“Stay calm. Let them know you’ll follow their instructions to the letter. Insist on talking to Janie every day.” She ticked the items off on her fingers impatiently and then reached again for the phone.
This time Jack let her answer. He wasn’t sure he could have stopped her again anyway.
She took a deep breath. “Hello?” She held the receiver tilted away from her ear so Jack could hear.
“Mommy?” The voice sounded small and forlorn and tears began to roll down Edie’s cheeks as she struggled to hold herself together.
“Yes baby, it’s Mommy. I’m right here, honey.”
“I want to come home. When can I come home?”
“Very soon, baby, I promise. Are you okay? Has anyone hurt you?”
“Mommy, what’s going on? Why can’t I—”
Janie’s voice faded away as a gravelly-voiced man in the background said, “Alright, enough lovey-dovey bullshit. Gimme the phone.”
It’s probably just as well Janie’s off the line, Jack thought. Edie’s losing it. A seven-year-old doesn’t need to hear her mom’s breakdown.
Edie clapped a hand to her mouth and began sobbing uncontrollably as the tears fell full-force. One thing this horror show had already taught Jack was that the heart didn’t just break and then start healing. That would have been hard enough to handle. Instead, it continued to fracture, over and over, until you began to suspect the pain would never end.
“Okay,” Gravel Voice said gruffly. “There you have it. Proof of life. The little brat’s fine. For now. Do exactly as you’re told, exactly when you’re told, and she’ll stay that way. If you don’t, well, let’s just say I hope you have a lot of great pictures of her because I promise you will never see her again alive.”
Edie’s legs gave out and she slid down to the floor with her back against the wall. “Don’t hurt her,” she pleaded. “She’s just a little girl and she’s never done anything to anyone.”
“Well now, that’s out of my hands, isn’t it? Whether she lives or dies is entirely up to your boyfriend.”
“Jack knows you mean business. He understands that. He recognizes that you’re in charge and he’s already planning out the job you’ve asked him to do.” Her words came out in a breathy rush, as Edie tried to protect her daughter the only way she could.
“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you? Now put Mr. Superhero on the line. I know he’s there and I want to talk to him.”
Edie handed the phone to Jack without a word. She buried her head in her hands and sobbed. She was shivering like the temperature was fifteen degrees even though it was comfortably warm in Jack’s kitchen.
Jack gently squeezed her shoulders to no response as he placed the phone to his ear. “What kind of slimy bastard involves a child in something like this?”
“The kind that means business. Don’t you forget that.”
“You listen to me, you sick son of a bitch,” he said, his voice a guttural growl. “If anything happens to that little girl you had better grow eyes in the back of your head, because I will never stop looking until I find you. And once I find you, I’ll never stop coming at you until I slit your throat and let you watch yourself die.”
Gravel Voice seemed unimpressed. “Blah, blah, blah. Empty threats, Mr. Sheridan. Now it’s my turn to talk, so pay attention. You have exactly one week to complete the job as outlined in your email. Your clock starts now.”
“I already know that.”
“Then know this: when you’ve performed to our satisfaction, we will provide details on where and how to pick up Janie. Get the job done quickly, Ms. Tolliver gets her child back quickly. The length of time that poor mother suffers is entirely up to you. But consider this your very own trigger warning. A literal one. Do not even think about fucking with us. Do so and that little girl gets two 9mm slugs in the head. Do you understand me?”
Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this angry. He doubted he ever had. He wanted to crawl through the telephone line and rip Gravel Voice’s eyes out of his head and shove them down his throat. Wanted to beat him to a pulp with his bare hands.
But he forced himself to remain calm. Janie’s life was at stake.
“Yes, I understand,” he said. “But I have one demand, and it is non-negotiable.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it’s so. Edie Tolliver will be permitted to speak with her child every day, without exception, until the assignment is complete. If so much as one day goes by without her talking to Janie, the deal is off.”
“It seems you still don’t understand your position in the pecking order, Mr. Sheridan. We hold up th
e hoops and you jump through them. Period.”
“That may be,” Jack said, speaking through a jaw clenched so tight the pain radiated into his skull, “but the first day that goes by without Ms. Tolliver hearing from her little girl, the agreement is off and you can kill Jim Studds yourself. I’ll be too busy hunting your sorry ass down to do it for you. Do you understand me?”
“Enough is enough. You’ve gotten your proof of life. You’d better get to work or Little Miss Blondie will never see her snot-nosed brat again.”
“And you’d better call here tomorrow, or you’ll never be able to breathe easily again.”
The line went dead.
Jack held the phone in hands shaking with rage.
He set it down and knelt next to Edie. Her head was still buried in her hands.
He lifted her chin gently, forcing her to look at him. “You did a great job.”
She shook her head. “I forgot to tell them to call every day.”
“You were outstanding,” he repeated. “I didn’t mind passing along that little message myself. I only asked you to do it because I wasn’t sure whether I’d get to talk to them.”
She nodded dully. Her eyes were glazed and she lay limply against the kitchen wall. Talking to Janie seemed to have sapped all her energy.
“They will call here tomorrow, and you will get another chance to talk to Janie. And I’ll get her back to you. I promise you that.”
She nodded again and closed her eyes. She looked exhausted.
Jack slipped one arm under her knees and the other under her lower back and lifted her gently off the floor. He carried her to the couch and placed her on it before covering her with a blanket.
“Try to get some sleep,” he said. “Nothing’s going to happen for a while, and I’ll be across the room at the computer if you need me.”
Edie coughed out a bitter laugh. “I won’t be able to sleep. There’s no way I’ll sleep again until I have my baby back in my arms.”
Then she closed her eyes and was gone.
16
Jack didn’t have the slightest inkling as to the specifics of Mole’s operation, nor had he ever had reason to care until about an hour ago. Ron Earl had tried to give him a quick and dirty rundown of the program’s basics upon delivery—something about infiltrating protected ISPs and back-tracing hidden addresses—but he’d stopped as soon as he came to the realization every word was going straight over Jack’s head.
Now Jack wished he’d paid a little more attention.
Supposedly the software had been designed to be user-friendly to non-computer experts, but Ron and the rest of the design team hadn’t wasted any effort developing the fancy graphics or pretty bells and whistles that would have been required had Mole been intended for public use.
After easing Edie onto the couch and trudging back to his computer, Jack touched his mouse to remove the screensaver. Filling his monitor was a Mole screen consisting mostly of a series of numbers and symbols, none of which meant a damned thing to Jack.
The top of the screen was dominated by a banner announcing: MOLE IS IDENTIFYING ORIGINATION, DO NOT EXIT PROGRAM. A rudimentary status bar ran across the bottom of the screen. The status bar did nothing to instill confidence in Jack that Mole was identifying anything, the optimistic statement at the top of the screen notwithstanding. The status bar was barely one-third filled in and seemed to be moving at a glacial pace.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes. They were grainy and dry. It felt much later than five-thirty in the afternoon. He glanced across the room and noticed Edie had kicked off her blanket. She mumbled something in her sleep and then fell silent again.
When he returned his attention to the monitor he almost wished he hadn’t. Nothing had changed. The banner at the top continued to radiate optimism, while the status bar at the bottom insisted on dashing it.
Jack pushed out his chair, moving slowly to avoid waking Edie, and walked into the kitchen to put on some coffee. This had the makings of a very long night.
17
Edie was running as fast as she could. She was sprinting but didn’t know why.
She didn’t know where she was going.
She didn’t know anything except that it was critically important she run.
The landscape surrounding her was bleak. It was nightfall and she was on the side of a secluded road and the trees were bare and skeletal. They danced on an invisible breeze and their branches reached for her with bony fingers, and the fingers were accusatory, but of what she did not know.
No houses lined the lonely road. Not a soul was in sight.
She was utterly alone.
Edie continued to run without knowing why. It was odd that she wasn’t getting tired considering the speed she maintained.
She wracked her brain, trying to determine what she was running toward. Or was she running away? There didn’t seem to be anyone or anything chasing her, but the road was winding and hilly and there was no way to be sure.
Something was picking at her brain, at the edges of her consciousness, but the more she tried to focus on it, the more the specifics eluded her. It was as if—
A cry in the distance snapped her out of her reverie. The sound was plaintive and somehow familiar, and without knowing why, Edie picked up her already frantic pace. She had to hurry.
As she ran, the cries came again and again, desperate and needy and ever more strident.
And then she knew.
The cries were coming from Janie, and her little girl was terrified and maybe even injured and she needed her mommy and Edie had to get to her.
Somehow she put on a burst of speed. Now she knew she was running toward something, and that something was holding her baby, and while she didn’t know what was holding her baby, she did know this: nothing would stop her from getting to Janie now that she understood her purpose.
She ran on, Janie’s voice becoming clearer with each pounding step. “Mommy help me, please Mommy, help meeee…”
But where was her little girl? The voice was frightened but loud and clear; she should be right here. Edie looked in all directions and saw nothing, only the skeletal trees and the gathering darkness.
Then she looked skyward in frustration, and when she did she froze.
Stopped running in mid-stride, stumbling in the process and nearly falling to the pavement.
Stared in silent terror as a vulture circled overhead. It was massive, the size of a circus elephant if not larger. Its wingspan was easily twenty feet and when it flapped those grotesquely large wings, Edie could hear a sound like a giant flag whipping in a strong wind.
The vulture was much too big to be real, and yet there it was. It wheeled and darted in the sky but never strayed, remaining directly above Edie, staring down at her with cold bloodshot reptilian eyes.
The creature was terrifying, but after her first glance Edie barely noticed it.
Because trapped in its claws was her child.
Janie.
For a long moment Edie was unable to move, unable even to breathe, shocked into inaction by the sight of her baby girl hanging limp and helpless high above the pavement. Blood dripped with metronome-like regularity from the bird’s talons. It was Janie’s blood, and it splattered onto the road, each drop sounding as loud in Edie’s ears as the crack of a rifle shot.
And then Edie got her breath back.
She screamed in helpless agony at the hideous creature, “Take me, take me, please take me, put my baby down and take me instead,” and then she was crying and screaming and cursing and leaping at the vulture but it was too high, it was so high and it was holding her baby, and then the creature was pecking at Janie, opening gash after gash in her skull, and the blood was falling to the pavement in a steady flow, and Edie’s legs let go, they were unable to hold her upright any longer and she dropped to the ground, and then without warning the creature released Janie, and her tiny little-girl body plummeted toward the pavement, and—
And the ground was shaking
as her daughter’s falling body blurred and became insubstantial in her vision and then faded away entirely.
But the ground continued shaking, the tremors getting stronger and stronger, and then her eyes fluttered open and after a moment’s sheer confusion reality clicked into place.
The ground wasn’t shaking and she wasn’t lying on the pavement. No vulture circled overhead. She was prone on Jack’s couch, exactly where he’d placed her after the phone call from the awful man who’d taken Janie. Jack hovered over her, one hand on her shoulder shaking her awake, his touch gentle, concern evident in his worried expression.
Edie’s heart melted.
She should hate Jack Sheridan. Up until just now she’d thought she did hate him. He was the not the man she’d thought she was falling in love with, that much was obvious.
And now Janie was gone and he was to blame.
She’d made clear her revulsion at all he’d revealed. She had been cold and hard as she tried to process the loss of both her daughter and her new boyfriend. He was not a stupid man; he had to know she could never be with someone who assassinated people for a living, even if those people were the worst sorts of criminals.
But despite everything he held her as she suffered, rocking her out of her nightmare with heartbreak in his eyes and unfathomable gentleness in his manner. He was broken by the knowledge that he was responsible for Janie’s disappearance and Edie’s suffering. Guilt radiated from him, leaking through every pore like a disease.
And although Edie now questioned everything she thought she knew about this man, one thing remained clear: he stood ready to risk his life—to give it if necessary—to return her child to her arms. Because sharing space with the heartbreak in his eyes was a steely resolve.
Jack Sheridan would get Janie back or die trying.
Edie ran her fingers through her tangle of hair and shook her head groggily. Her mouth tasted like she hadn’t brushed her teeth in six months.
“How long was I asleep?” she croaked.
“Not long. Maybe half an hour.”
Trigger Warning Page 8