by Linda Verji
This was how murder-suicides happened. Someone with a gun and a loose screw decides that death is the only way to keep or protect those he loves. There was no way she’d let Seraphina be another statistic. As much as she loved Lincoln and wanted to help him, right now hers and her daughter’s safety was her first priority. Once they were safe, she’d work on getting Lincoln right again. With that decided, her thoughts shifted into problem-solving mode.
Okay, first order of business - get the gun away from Lincoln. She discreetly swept her glance over him. The gun was on his left-side pocket – somewhere she couldn’t reach it – which meant she couldn’t get it away from him. At least not yet.
Fine. Plan B. Grab Seraphina and make a run for it. For that to happen, she needed to be out of the car, have Seraphina in her arms, and at a location where there was potential for escape without getting shot in the back. At the supermarket, Lincoln had been hyperaware of her fear and need to get away from him which was why he’d insisted on carrying Seraphina as they switched cars. But with him calmer there was every chance that the next time they exited the car he’d let her keep a hold of Seraphina. Aiko just needed to make sure that exit happened at an escapable location.
Gas station? Another supermarket? All good options. Now, what would it take to make Lincoln stop at one of those places?
“Linc, can we stop for something to eat?” she suggested. Despite the tension holding her body stiff as a board, her voice was even as she added, “I know Seraphina’s hungry by now. She hardly ate anything at breakfast.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the road as he replied, “There are some snacks in the grocery bag in the backseat.”
Damn! Now how was she supposed to get him to stop? Her mind spinning through her options, she turned to Seraphina, “Baby, go check what’s in the bag for you to eat.”
Seraphina shook her head vigorously and clung tighter to Aiko, drawing a sigh from her mother. It was hard to hold Seraphina and tow the bag off the seat to her lap but Aiko managed it. A quick rummage revealed a few juice boxes, biscuits and chips. Judging by the speed with which Seraphina sipped on her juice box when Aiko handed it to her, it was obvious that she’d indeed been hungry.
“Do you want something?” Aiko offered Lincoln.
He shook his head. “No, I’m good. Those were for you two. When we get to Talladega, we can get something more filling.”
“Okay,” she agreed while racking her brains for an excuse of why they needed to stop sooner than that. As luck would have it, it was Seraphina who gave her the excuse she needed ten minutes later.
“Mommy, I want to pee-pee,” the little girl said.
God bless tiny bladders. Aiko turned to her ex. “Linc, we need to stop for her.”
His brow creased in a frown, Lincoln shot them a glance. “Can’t she hold it in?”
“You’re kidding, right?” She arched her eyebrows as she stared at him.
He was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, we’ll stop at the next gas-station we see. But we’ll have to be careful. We don’t want to attract attention.”
While they drove, Aiko went over potential escape plans. Maybe Lincoln would leave them in the car while he went to ask for the keys to the restroom then she could make a run for it. If he insisted on them coming with him, she’d wait until she and Seraphina were in the bathroom then use a window there to make a break for it.
Ten minutes later, Lincoln slowed the car down and turned into a gas-station.
“Okay, let’s go,” Lincoln urged them out of the car, effectively shattering Aiko’s first plan. Fortunately, he let her carry Seraphina as they strode towards the convenience store.
The bell chimed when Lincoln opened the door attracting the attention of the pale-faced, brown-haired, twenty-something attendant at the counter. He tracked their movements as they made their way towards him. The first thing Aiko noticed when they got there was the cell-phone beside the comic book
Glancing briefly at the attendant’s name tag, Lincoln smiled. “Hi, Track. Can we use your restrooms?”
Track gave them all an unsmiling once-over before saying, “You have to buy something first.”
Lincoln turned his attention away from the attendant and pointed to a tray of pies. “How much for three?”
Track lifted from his seat to check the price tag. “Two dollars.”
While the two men’s focus was on the pies, Aiko swiped Track’s phone. No one but Seraphina saw her, but with a look from her mom the little girl kept quiet. By the time Track finished processing their transaction his phone was carefully tucked into the side of Aiko’s skirt. Aiko hitched Seraphina higher up the side of her body to further hide the phone from sight.
The keys to the restroom were hanging on a hook behind Track. Grabbing them, he slipped out of his seat, “I have to go with you, to make sure you don’t steal the keys.”
Lincoln and Aiko followed the attendant as he led them out of the store and to the restrooms. There were two doors opposite each other, one with a sign indicating men while the other indicated women. While Track opened the doors, Lincoln shot a look at the door of the ladies’ restrooms then at Aiko. The look in his eyes said he was seriously considering going in with Aiko and Seraphina. Luckily, he took his own advice not to draw attention to them and didn’t follow Aiko when she and Seraphina entered the ladies’ restroom.
The moment she closed the door behind them, Aiko went into action. Her eyes swept upwards to the windows. Damn it! They were too high up and too small. There went her plan B.
Okay, Plan C. After setting some tissue paper atop the toilet seat then placing Seraphina on the toilet, she pulled the phone from the waistband of her skirt. God must’ve had her back because the phone didn’t require a passcode. Uttering a small prayer, she dialed Damián’s number.
MILES AWAY, DAMIÁN was in panic mode. It was more than half an hour since Lincoln had kidnapped Aiko and Seraphina and they still hadn’t tracked him. This room was filled to the brim with qualified lawmen trained in the art of tracking criminals yet none of them could do a damn thing to find his girls.
“Surely, they must’ve been caught on a traffic camera,” Damián said as he paced the length of the police chief’s office.
“Probably,” Graham Turner, the chief of police, agreed. “But with so little information on the car they were driving, it’s hard to pinpoint what camera might’ve picked them up. However, I have people searching through the city’s surveillance. Hopefully we’ll find something.”
Damián would’ve suggested tracking their phones but he knew it would be no use. The uniforms who’d gone to analyze the scene of the kidnapping had found Aiko’s purse in her car with her phone intact inside it. Meanwhile Lincoln’s phone was off.
Archie, who’d turned up at the precinct just a few minutes after Damián, asked, “What about roadblocks?”
“On every major road out of town,” Turner said. “And I have units alert on every street in the city.”
“I’ve called my contacts in the FBI and they are on high alert too,” Archie offered.
“What if they’re already out of the city?” Damián asked. It had certainly been long enough.
“Well-” Turner hesitated slightly before saying, “I’ve already issued an APB to other precincts in the state and all points of exit. If anyone spot them we’ll be the first to know.”
“So basically what we’re doing is playing wait-and-see, right?” Damián glared at the police chief. “That’s not enough.”
“I’m afraid there’s nothing more we can do,” the police chief returned calmly. His calm only served to increase Damián’s own irritation.
His voice rising with his words, Damián offered, “What about search parties? Satellite imaging? Tracking the car’s GPS?”
“That would only work if we had more information about what kind of car they were in,” the police chief said.
He was right of course but that didn’t make his words any easier to
swallow, and it certainly didn’t ease Damián’s feelings of helplessness. Plopping down on the leather couch, Damián ran his hands over his face. He hated knowing that his wife and daughter were in danger yet being unable to help them.
Archie lowered himself next to him, “We’ll find them, son.”
How? No one knew where to start. Worse, they were dealing with someone well-trained in evasion tactics. Damián closed his eyes and cupped his hands over his mouth as despair washed over him.
“We’ll find them,” Archie repeated, patting Damián’s back as he spoke.
Damián sighed then turned his face toward his father. “You don’t think he’ll hurt them, do you?”
“No.” Archie shook his head. “From what I’ve heard, he loves them.”
Damián wanted to believe his father, he really did. But Lincoln had pulled a gun on Zoe and forced Aiko and Seraphina into his car. If that wasn’t cause for alarm then he didn’t know what was. The sudden ringing of his phone yanked his attention from his morose thoughts.
Maybe it was Aiko or someone who knew where she was. His heartbeat increasing in pace, Damián extracted the phone from his pocket. He frowned when he saw the unfamiliar number on screen but answered anyway. “Damián Colter here.”
“Damián?” Even if she hadn’t whispered he would’ve known her voice.
“Aiko?” He quickly sat up, and the tension in the room rocketed as everyone else came to immediate attention
“Yeah, it’s me,” Aiko whispered. “I can’t talk for long.”
“Where are you?”
“Outside the city limits, somewhere past Rockford, close to Sylacauga. Right now we’re at a gas-station. I think it’s called Hansens or something?”
“Outside Sylacauga. Gas-station. Hansens or something close,” Damián relayed to the police chief who frantically gestured for his subordinates to take note. Turning his attention back on the phone, Damián asked, “Has he hurt you?”
“No,” Aiko murmured. “But he’s not okay, psychologically. I think it has something to do with your dad. He says – Damián, I have to go. They’re knocking on the door.”
Damián started, “A-” The line went dead.
“Shit,” he cussed.
The police chief jumped into immediate action, assigning tasks to his officers. “Doherty, Skarrat, call Sylacauga and Talladega PDs and tell them our suspect is headed their way and to set up a road block. Remember, the suspect is armed and dangerous. Mr. Colter, we need your phone to track that number.”
Damián handed over his phone to the tech guy. “Get the number quickly. I’ll need to have the phone with me when I leave for Sylacauga.”
The police chief started, “Mr. Colter, we don’t let civilians get involv-”
“I’m going,” Damián cut into his words. There was no way he was going to be stuck in here worrying while Aiko and Seraphina were out there – in danger.
“I think I can get a helicopter to get us there faster,” Archie offered as he whipped out his phone and dialed. A few seconds later he said into the phone, “Reuben, I need that helicopter now…”
The police chief looked like he’d swallowed a bunch of sour grapes, but knowing that he was beaten, he let the matter lie.
“I’ve got the phone she used,” the tech guy suddenly called out. When everyone was hunched around him and his computer, he pointed to a red spot on the map on his screen. “That’s them. They just passed Sylacauga.” He started tapping on his keyboard.
“What are you doing?” the police chief asked.
“Umm…. Checking the phone now,” the tech guy offered distractedly, his eyes on his computer screen. Suddenly he sat up. “Got it. It belongs to a Track Davis.”
“Laverne.” The police chief turned to another one of his officers. “Get a hold of this Track Davis. Make sure he’s not in possession of the phone right now. We don’t want to end up tracking the wrong car.” Laverne started towards the door, but the chief stopped him. “Also, get the locals to question this Track Davis. Maybe we can get an official description of the car.”
“Turner,” Archie yanked the police chief’s attention back to him. “Can the helicopter land on the roof?”
The chief nodded. “I’ll let my guys know.”
Damián had never been so grateful to have a father like his. In less than ten minutes, they had the telltale rumbling of an incoming helicopter and made their way to the elevator.
It was while they were on the elevator that part of his conversation with Aiko filtered into his thoughts and he turned to his father. “Aiko said that Lincoln was not okay and that it has something to do with you?”
“What? What is she talking about?” Archie blustered. “Why would I have anything to do with Lincoln?”
But something about the guilt that flashed in the man’s eyes, set all of Damián’s instincts on alert. Just the thought of his father being involved in any of this bullshit that had brought danger to his doorstep was enough send red hot anger searing through him. He gritted between his teeth, “What. Did. You. Do?”
“Nothing. I swear,” Archie insisted. “Whatever he said-”
Damián didn’t even know how it happened. One second he was listening to his father attempting to lie to him and the next his arm was flying towards his father. His fist crushed into Archie’s jaw.
“What the-” Everyone rushed to hold back Damián as Archie crumpled to the side of the elevator.
“I’m good.” Damián shrugged away the arms holding him back. Just then the doors of the elevator opened. With one last disgusted look at his father exited the elevator and headed up the stairs to the roof.
LINCOLN, AIKO AND Seraphina were back on the road. Intensely aware of the phone tucked to the side of her skirt, Aiko glanced at Lincoln. She didn’t know how he’d react if he knew what she’d just done or that the police were probably on their tail by now, but she hoped he didn’t try something stupid.
But what if he did do something stupid - like trying to take the police head-on? Oh, God! Maybe she shouldn’t have called Damián. The police weren’t exactly known for handling kidnappers – especially black ones – with kid gloves. And Lincoln wasn’t in his right mind so it was very possible that he’d end up doing something to provoke them into shooting him. Oh, God! What had she done? She didn’t want Lincoln hurt.
“Is something wrong?” Lincoln shot her a concerned glance.
“What?” Aiko’s heart jumped to her chest. “No. Why?”
“You’re shaking.”
Was she? Aiko’s gaze lowered to her body. Yup, she was! Her leg was trembling causing her skirt to flutter with the movement. She stiffened the muscles trying to quell the shaking. “I’m just a little cold.”
“You can have my jacket.” Keeping an eye on the road, he extracted his gun from his pocket, tucked it into the door panel before shrugging out of the jacket and handing it to Aiko.
His generosity sent guilt spiraling through her and the sick feeling in her stomach grew. What had she done? Had she just sent Lincoln to his grave.
“Mommy.” Seraphina who seemed even more relaxed since they’d left the gas-station, cut into her thoughts. “Can I have some chips?”
“Sure.” She set Seraphina between her thighs then shifted and turned her body so she could reach into the backseat and grab the snack bag.
She was coming back up to sitting position when Lincoln asked, “What’s that?
“What?” She turned her gaze toward Lincoln to find him staring at her waistband. Correction – at the phone tucked in her waistband.
Oh. Shit.
CHAPTER 25
The tension and fear swirling in the car was so thick a knife couldn’t cut through it. Aiko had thought that she knew fear when Lincoln had dragged them into his car at gunpoint. But, no. That fear was nothing compared to what she was feeling now. This was beyond fright, more than terror. Icicles of panic clung to each one of her nerves sending tremors across her whole being, her skin w
as peppered with goose bumps and her whole body was trembling
“What’s that?” Lincoln repeated, but this time he leaned forward to grab it, letting go of the steering wheel in the process. The car swerved dangerously in a squeal of tires.
“Linc, watch the road,” Aiko yelled even as her words were drowned out by Seraphina’s sudden cry. She wrapped her arms tighter around her daughter and bounced her lap. “Sssh, it’s all right, baby. It’s all right.”
Now seated upright, Lincoln quickly swiped his finger over the phone’s screen, stared at it for a moment before tossing the gadget out the window. Then he turned his full rage to Aiko. “Who did you call?”
Aiko’s breath caught and her lungs tightened as she stared at him. “Calm down, Linc.”
“Who. Did. You. Call?” Lincoln glared at her. She had never seen him this angry – never. His eyes were wild with rage and the vein at his temple was throbbing madly. “Was it the cops?”
“No. No. No.” The words tumbled from Aiko’s lips in a rush. “Just Damián. I swear.”
“Did you tell him where we were?”
She wanted to lie. God, how she wanted to lie. But her mind and body seemed to be on different wavelengths because she found herself nodding.
“Damn it, Aiko.” He slammed his hands on the steering wheel causing both Aiko and Seraphina to flinch.
“Ssshhh, it’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” Aiko soothed the now whimpering Seraphina even though she knew that this situation was so far from okay it might as well be in outer space.
Lincoln glanced at Seraphina. The little girl’s obvious fright must’ve touched the still-sane part of him because when he next spoke, the volume of his voice was much lower. “Do you realize what you’ve done? Because of you Ryang now knows where we are.”
Aiko didn’t know who Ryang was, but at this moment the only danger to her and Seraphina was Lincoln.