Lead (Blackwood Elements Book 6)

by Elise Noble

  “Nobody’s home,” Cruz said.

  “The question is, has he abandoned the place completely?”

  They already knew he rented. The landlord said he’d been there for almost two years, no trouble apart from paying late on occasion. One of Mack’s assistants had called pretending to need a reference. The same assistant had also been tasked with looking at Imogen’s brother but hadn’t yet managed to find any trace of the man. Or, strangely, any trace of Imogen herself before she moved to Richmond. Mal vowed to follow up on that later, but at that moment, there were more important things to do, such as searching Morton Seacroft’s residence.

  “Only one way to find out,” Cruz said. “Do you want to go in, or shall I?”

  Cruz was an investigator, a former police detective who’d seen the light rather than ex-military like many of Blackwood’s employees. He wouldn’t be so good in a fight, but he was observant, and that was what Mal needed right now.

  “I’ll go in. You keep watch and check out the garage.”

  Keep watch not just for their suspect’s return but for the cops too. Blackwood hadn’t yet mentioned this latest development to the Fort Lauderdale PD because Mal wanted to check out the house without having to iron out pesky details such as getting a search warrant first. But the police were running their own investigation, albeit a slower, more cumbersome one, and it wouldn’t be long before they found Seacroft’s address too.

  And if the asshole happened to arrive back? Mal would take him down the instant he stepped out of his damn vehicle. Cruz carried the essentials in his trunk—rope, duct tape, handcuffs—and if Imogen wasn’t in the van, Mal was good at extracting information. Emmy had a training course for everything. Getting men to talk 101 was run by an old friend of hers, a former Mossad agent who’d taught Mal a dozen creative ways to use a nine-volt battery. Cruz had one of those with him too.

  Mal pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves and slipped forward into the shadows. They were already miked up, which meant they could communicate not only with each other but with the Blackwood control room back in Richmond. Nate, one of Blackwood’s directors, had designed the system, and speaking across three states was as clear as talking across the room.

  “Not much of a lock,” Mal muttered, picking a bump key from his set. Ten seconds later, he was inside.

  The house was tidier than he’d expected, almost spartan. A bedroom, a combined living room/dining area/kitchenette, and a tiny bathroom, the furniture old and threadbare but clean. The home of a neat freak without much money by the look of things. Two things interested Mal. Firstly, the computer on a desk by the window. A bulky old model, but the green light flashing on the front showed it still worked. Secondly, there was a pair of ladies’ slippers beside the bed and a pink bathrobe hanging beside the white one on the back of the bathroom door. Toiletries no self-respecting man would use—lilac and apple blossom shampoo and conditioner, peach face wash, and moisturiser that promised to leave your legs silky smooth—were lined up beside the sink. Every bottle was full.

  Did a woman live here too? A girlfriend? Or…?

  A shelf in the closet was stacked with men’s clothes—well-worn jeans, T-shirts, and underwear that had seen better days. But the rail underneath held women’s garments. Pretty dresses, skirts, and blouses, all with the tags on.

  Expensive chocolates sat beside the cans of SpaghettiOs in the kitchen cupboard. Scented candles in plastic wrappers nestled in an old wooden blanket box right beside three new-looking romance novels and a foot spa.

  No, Seacroft didn’t have a girlfriend. He wanted a girlfriend. This was his fantasy.

  “Nothing in the garage,” Cruz said in Mal’s ear. “Unless you count spiders. There’s a lot of spiders. And judging by the tyre marks, he usually parks the van in there.”

  “It’s not set up to hold a prisoner?”

  “There’s a man-sized hole in the back wall.”

  Back to the computer. It whirred away, left on as if Seacroft had either high-tailed it out of the house in a hurry or expected to return soon. Or perhaps he was just lazy? When Mal nudged the mouse, it asked for a password. He hadn’t honestly expected anything else, but to see the cursor there flashing at him was still a disappointment. Thankfully, Blackwood planned ahead for these little problems. Mal plugged in an external hard drive already loaded with Mack’s proprietary software, and as Seacroft’s secrets began copying across, he got back to his search of the house.

  Not much food in the fridge, and nothing that expired in the next week. Seacroft hadn’t written anything on his calendar past March. Get a haircut. Mow the lawn. Buy laundry detergent. The gym dates had fizzled out in January. Nothing about abducting an adult movie star.

  Boy, this guy really knew how to live.

  How long to go on the disc? Eighty percent done. Mal had a more thorough hunt for hiding places while he waited—the usual spots like in the toilet tank and beneath the mattress. Nothing. No loose floorboards either that he could see. Then he found the empty pistol box at the back of the closet and cursed under his breath. Somewhere out there, Seacroft was running around with a Smith & Wesson Model 64 in .38 Special. Not a bad gun, Mal had to concede, but if the fucker pointed it anywhere near Imogen, he’d have to die.

  “He threw half a carton of milk in the trash,” Cruz said, slipping in through the front door but staying near the window. “Guess he didn’t want it to spoil while he played kidnapper.”

  “Anything else in there?”

  “One of those plastic garment covers from the dry cleaner, and the tag from a new shirt. White with pink stripes. And he tossed out his porn magazines.”

  “He was planning to bring Misty back here. The house is full of girl stuff, all new, ready and waiting.”

  “Why’d he change his mind?”

  “Perhaps because he realised Imogen isn’t Misty? The question is, what will he do now?”

  “Dump her?” Cruz suggested. “Or try to act out his sick little fantasy with a different leading lady?”

  If he dumped Imogen, would she be alive or dead? For the first time in a decade, Mal felt panic welling up in his stomach. A familiar sensation, but one notable for its absence in the years since he met Emmy and Black. They’d taken his fear and replaced it with determination, and now he forced his training to the fore.

  “He’s a dead man walking.”

  “Driving, more likely.” Cruz flipped through the papers on the desk. “If he bought Misty clothes, that suggests a certain amount of care. And Imogen looks like her. Harming her would be difficult for him.”

  Mal wanted to believe that. Had to believe that.

  “Buddy, I hope you’re right.”

  CHAPTER 14 - MALACHI

  “VIVA LAS VEGAS,” Mack said, in her smooth southern drawl.

  “Vegas?”

  “That’s what Seacroft was researching in the days before he took Imogen. Directions, hotels, the best places to eat, and, uh, wedding venues.”

  “Wedding venues? What the fuck?”

  “And Seacroft’s been sending messages to Misty for months. Years. They started off innocuous, just the ramblings of an obsessed fan, but after she announced her engagement, he wrote her fifty times a day telling her she’d chosen the wrong man. Oh, and he calls himself her fiancé.”

  Cruz was sitting next to Mal in the Jeep, which was parked in the driveway outside Casa di Amore. Joey had offered them a bed for the night, and while Mal could have borrowed Cruz’s spare room, he preferred to stay in the middle of things. Not that he could sleep, anyway.

  “The wedding tipped him over the edge, didn’t it?” Cruz said. “Finding out Misty was betrothed to another man.”

  “Betrothed?” Mal asked. “What century are you living in?”

  “And he planned to take her to Vegas and walk her down the aisle before they came back to Florida to play happy families. What was he gonna do? Brainwash her into saying ‘I do’?”

  Mal thought back to the empty pistol b
ox. “I don’t think he’s got that much finesse.”

  “And Misty said he always seemed so quiet.”

  Yes, when they showed her the photo from his driver’s licence, she’d recognised him from Joey’s parties. The first time she met him, he’d dropped a tray of champagne all over the terrace, and she’d stepped in when his supervisor tried to fire him on the spot. Accidents happened, she said, and after that, he always kept her glass topped up. Their conversations had been nothing more than small talk, but clearly they’d meant more to Seacroft than they did to Misty.

  According to his former boss, Seacroft had kept to himself, turned up on time, and always spoke politely to clients. Apart from the champagne mishap, he’d been a model employee, but he quit after an internal reshuffle left him waiting at corporate events rather than private parties.

  Funny what made a man lose his mind.

  Or who.

  Having met Imogen, Mal could almost understand it.

  “We need to find them, and fast. He lacks sophistication, but he’s got plenty of options. Vegas might have been his original plan, but thanks to the mix-up at the wedding reception, he’s deviated. How will he handle that?”

  Cruz ticked off the possibilities on his fingers.

  “One, he drops Imogen off at a gas station and pretends this never happened. Maybe he makes another play for Misty. Two, he gets rid of the evidence.” Cruz refused to look at Mal when he said that. “Three, he tries to shoehorn Imogen into Misty’s place.”

  “So basically, we have to search from the Everglades to the Mojave Desert while we pray for a phone call. Even if we got the whole of Blackwood involved, that’s still an impossible task.”

  “The Fort Lauderdale PD can handle the basic legwork here, and we’ll crib off their notes. We’re already rearranging workloads in the office. How many people can we bring in from elsewhere? Mack?”

  “I’ll ask the scheduling team,” Mack said. “And I’ll also contact the Vegas office. They can start calling around the hotels I’ve found in the search history. But when Seacroft gets to the city, there are so many places to hide. If he is heading to Vegas, it’d be a hundred times easier if we stopped him before the city limits.”

  How long would it take Seacroft to get to Nevada? Two days? Maybe more if he stopped overnight to rest. But he had a twelve-hour head start, and Mal hadn’t gotten any sleep either.

  Should he head west? If Imogen was still in the Florida area, the police stood a good chance of finding her now that their wheels had ground into motion, especially with Blackwood providing assistance as well as running their parallel investigation. But what if a rescue was needed on the other side of the country? Mal rated his own chances as better than local law enforcement’s.

  “How the hell do we find one van on two-and-a-half thousand miles of roads? Can you do anything with cameras?”

  “Not in this country. There’s not much of a network.”

  “Satellites?”

  “Too slow to manoeuvre into position. But you know who’s on the west coast at the moment?”

  From the way Mack said it, Mal dreaded to think. “Who?”

  “Emmy. You should call her. You know how much she loves solving impossible problems.”

  Yeah, and she’d also make sure he never lived this one down. Letting his date get kidnapped from right in front of him? Mal could hear the laughter now. Plus Emmy would tell Sofia what had happened, and he might wake up castrated.

  But he swallowed his pride.

  “Okay, I’ll call her.”

  CHAPTER 15 - EMMY

  EMMY BLACK ADJUSTED her sunglasses and turned to the next page of her book. Okay, so it was actually a gun catalogue, but it was still words on paper. She’d started off reading a biography of President James Harrison, but the number of factual inaccuracies was stunning and she’d tossed it into the ocean an hour earlier. Then fished it back out again in case a dolphin choked on it.

  “Sure you don’t want to join us?” her husband asked, pausing next to her to knock back the rest of his smoothie. Whatever he’d put in it, it smelled worse than the stomach contents she’d vomited up in the early hours of the morning. Trying to match two former Navy men in the drinking stakes hadn’t gone well.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Lightweight.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He just laughed and jogged back towards the water. Asshole.

  Usually when they came to California, they stayed in their own beach house in Malibu, but since they had work to do in San Diego this time, Black had suggested staying with an old friend of his so they could catch up. And by catch up, he meant plan a murder and go surfing. The target was dead, hence last night’s celebrations, and now the two men were out on longboards while Emmy recovered.

  Pale’s house was out in the sticks between Oceanside and San Clemente. Two storeys, six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, eighteen acres, and a private beach. Far too big for one man, but Pale liked his space and his privacy, much the same as Black did. They’d been buddies for years, going back to their days in the Navy SEALs followed by a stint in a shadowy CIA unit Black rarely talked about. There’d been four men in their team, nicknamed the four horsemen. White had died on active duty, something that led the remaining three members to re-evaluate their priorities. For Black, that meant regaining control. He didn’t like being told what to do, especially by asshole politicians who played God from behind a desk, so he’d started Blackwood Security with Red, also known as Nate Wood. And Pale? He’d moved to Hawaii and funded his surfing habit with the occasional contract killing.

  But now Pale was back.

  Partly due to boredom, Emmy suspected, but mostly because of one more tragic death. Another old friend of his, gone, and not even on a job this time. No, he’d pulled over at the side of the highway with car trouble, only to get shunted a hundred yards by a semi whose driver got distracted on the phone.

  That friend had been running a top-secret project training the latest batch of government assassins how to do the impossible. Emmy’s competition, Pale called them, but she disagreed. With all the shit going on in the world, there was plenty of work for everyone, plus she’d been trained by Black. Pale was good, but Black was better.

  Anyhow, the powers that be had wheedled, cajoled, and finally offered Pale a fuck ton of cash to take charge of the Choir. Now, he’d confessed last night, he was being driven mad by eight women who scattered make-up all over his Vegas home, used his ammo, and nagged him when he left the toilet seat up. He was only too glad to come to California for a break.

  Pale crested a wave on his longboard as Black paddled out to sea. Both men were shirtless, and Emmy had to admit she was enjoying the view. Yes, there were worse ways to spend a Monday morning, and she and Black had earned half a million bucks for yesterday’s job. They deserved a day off.

  Then the phone rang.

  Ah well, the peace was nice while it lasted. What did Malachi want? A tiny knot tightened in Emmy’s stomach because last year when he’d surprised her with an unexpected call, he’d accidentally foiled a diamond heist in France while on a totally unrelated surveillance trip, and although the outcome had been satisfying—Blackwood three, robbers nil—the car chase through the streets of Paris had gotten messy.

  “Everything okay?”

  “There’s a small problem.”

  “How small?”

  “About a hundred and forty pounds.”

  “Go on.”

  “Imogen got kidnapped from the wedding we went to.”

  “Could you repeat that? For a moment, I thought you said your fake date got kidnapped.”

  “She went to use the bathroom, okay?”

  Emmy tried not to laugh. Really she did. But Mal walked through danger every day at work, only for disaster to strike on his vacation.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I know. Honestly, I know. I might still be a tiny bit drunk from last night.”

  Mal muttered a few curses, a
nd Emmy couldn’t blame him for that. “We think he might be headed west for Las Vegas. Mack got into the suspect’s computer, and he’s been looking up directions and wedding packages.”

  “He wants to marry Imogen?”

  “No, he wants to marry Misty—the girl my friend just tied the knot with. He took Imogen by mistake. They look the same from behind, plus Imogen borrowed Misty’s clothes after she got into a catfight with Erin.”

  “A catfight?” The giggles came back. Tact, Emmy. “I don’t know why you haven’t just pushed Erin out of a plane over the Atlantic. I even offered to lend you a jet.”

  “Because I thought she’d give up if she saw me with another woman.”

  “Women like Erin don’t give up. They just get crazier. Now, tell me the whole story. Start to finish. What are we dealing with here?”

  Mal gave a detailed account, and fuck, Seacroft was delusional from the sound of it. What kind of moron decided to stuff a woman into the back of a van as a form of courtship? Unless she was either threatened or very, very drunk, there was no way Imogen would agree to walk down the aisle, and resistance would only put her in more danger.

  And Mal’s assessment made sense. Three options. Either Seacroft was lying low in Florida, or Imogen was lying in a ditch, or the pair of them were somewhere on…fuck, what roads went from Fort Lauderdale to Las Vegas? I-10? I-40?

  “Get Cruz to handle the Florida end. He’s perfectly capable, and his police connections are better than yours. I’ll approve whatever manpower you need.” Imogen was a friend of Stefanie’s, and Stefanie was Blackwood family. “You can come and help at this end. That’ll be the challenging part.”

  “How the fuck do we find the van?”

  “I’ll sleep on it.”

  “Sleep?”

  Emmy swallowed a yawn. “Figure of speech. Get your ass in the damn jet, Banks.”

  So much for having a day off.

  Would Seacroft really have chosen to bring Imogen to Las Vegas? Emmy reckoned it was fifty-fifty, but half-hearted operations had little chance of succeeding. Therefore, she’d put a hundred percent of her small team’s effort into that fifty percent while the police and the larger Blackwood team did the same with the Florida option.