Secrets of Mine (Of Mine #2)

40. Freya

40

FREYA

I pick at the fluff on the rug I’m kneeling on, trying not to let the memories take me.

The ringtone reverberates through the room. It’s River’s phone but he’s put it on speaker, and it’s hooked up to Oz’s laptop and a recording system so we’re all sitting around the coffee table like we’re holding some sort of séance.

It rings again and my heart tremors in time with the sound. I’m disassociating big time right now and have been ever since I flashed back to the rest of my nightmare. A breakdown simmers under the surface of my skin, cracks slowly tearing me apart, but I’m hidden up inside my head, refusing to acknowledge any of it.

It’s too much, it’s all just too fucking much.

So, I block it out and try not to think about the fact that Zach is my brother.

He answers on the next ring. “Agent Park, I was just about to call you. Did you hear about Farrah?”

Oz clicks a button and his screen starts searching for the call trace. He motions for River to keep him talking.

“We did. Dr Knightly just called. How did this happen, Zach?”

Zach sniffs. “Fuck. I don’t know. This is messed up. She told me she was going away on a case but now I’m thinking what if the Cross-Cut Killer got to her?”

River’s jaw ticks. “Maxwell is dead. We tracked him to Freya’s mother’s house and there was a stand-off.”

A breath of air rushes down the line. “Well thank god for that. Are you all okay? Is Agent Danvers alright?”

“She’s fine,” River says, looking at me.

“Good. That’s good. Well, I’ll send a team your way.”

I sit forward. He’s about to hang up but Oz still doesn’t have a lock on the location. He’s typing away, trying to override whatever’s blocking him but he needs more time.

So, I give it to him.

“Where’s Layla, Zachariah?”

The line goes quiet. There’s a chance he’ll hang up now he knows his cover’s blown but I gamble that his desire to gloat will outweigh common sense.

When he speaks again, he doesn’t sound like the Zach we’re used to. He’s darker, more controlled.

“Well hello, Little Star.”

The cracks in my skin deepen and I dig my nails into the wood of the coffee table.

“What do you want?” River asks the question because I can’t get my brain to function.

“I want, Agent Park, to talk to my little sister. But in about twenty seconds Agent Reynolds will finish his trace, so we’ll have to reminisce another time. Goodbye, Freya.”

The line goes dead, and Oz hits the table. “I didn’t get a full lock. All I know is that he’s still in Danville somewhere.”

River squeezes his shoulder. “That’s enough. We’ll go back to your parents’ house, try and find where she was taken from, and track her from there. We’ll find her, Oz.”

Everything happens in a flurry after that. Oz gets Zach locked out of the FBI systems and sends out an agency wide alert.

River phones a friend of his who, in his words is ‘FBI adjacent’ and he arrives to take my mother to a safe house.

The local police come to take care of Maxwell’s body, and we hand the case over to them in record speed.

It’s not till we’re in the car heading to the airport that I get another message from the number I now know is Zach.

Unknown: Tomorrow, 8am. Laurette Park. Come alone and I’ll let Layla go.

I guess I must be growing as a person or some shit because I do what I should have done after I received the first message. I turn my phone around and show River.