Chapter 44
CHAPTER 44
FORD
Though exhaustion dragged at every cell of my body, sleep wouldn’t come. I still felt cold down to my very core, as if I’d never be warm again, despite Bree’s comforting weight curled against me in bed. I simply couldn’t let go of the fear of what could have happened to Peyton and Madison. In the course of giving initial statements to the police, I’d heard Bree report what the kidnappers had said.
They’d intended to traffic my daughter and her friend.
If we’d been any later…
If I hadn’t found the map…
If we hadn’t given credence to Peyton’s theories and followed it…
I’d been a father for barely more than a month, and I was already facing down my worst nightmare. If I wasn’t fully gray by Christmas, it would be a miracle.
Bree’s fingers flexed against my chest. “Can’t sleep?” Her voice was a quiet rasp in the dark.
“No.” On a sigh, I turned to brush my lips against her temple. “Every time I close my eyes, I think about what could have happened to her. To you.”
I’d seen combat during my years in the Navy. There’d been a few close calls, times I hadn’t been sure I’d come out the other side. But nothing had ever terrified me more than seeing Bree bolt from the cover of the trees, deliberately drawing the focus of two men with guns.
“You could have been shot.”
Her hold tightened on me. “So could you. That’s why I did it. Y’all had no cover. They’d have seen you.”
That didn’t make it any easier to convince my panicked heart to settle back in my chest.
She pressed a kiss to my pec. “It all turned out okay. We got to them in time. Peyton and Madison are both safe.”
For now. As the on-hand doctor, Gabi had checked them out and cleared them both. Other than abrasions on their hands from all the digging and general exhaustion and shock, neither girl had any permanent damage. They hadn’t been assaulted. I was beyond grateful for that. And yet…
“This was a threat we didn’t even know to look out for. There are still the men connected to Northwest Global. Am I gonna have to start keeping my kid under lock and key for her own good?”
Bree was silent for a long moment. “We’re gonna figure it out.”
I made some sound of disagreement.
“We are,” she insisted. But she didn’t follow the assertion by blowing smoke up my ass about how. It was something I’d always appreciated about her.
“I don’t think I can sleep.” Gently detangling myself, I sat up.
“Me neither. Maybe a snack or some tea will help.”
I dragged on a T-shirt as a concession to Peyton. Not that I thought she’d likely wake. She’d been exhausted by the time we’d gotten home and showered. But I was trying to make changes, so she’d feel comfortable.
In the kitchen, Bree turned on the light over the stove and filled a kettle with water. I didn’t actually like tea, but coffee was hardly a good idea at two in the morning. It really wasn’t about the tea, anyway. It was about having something to do with our hands while our minds were too busy.
“Feels weird not to have Keeley to let out.”
It had already been so late by the time we’d gotten home we hadn’t wanted to drive all the way to the north end of the island to get her from Sutter House.
I skimmed my hands down Bree’s arms. “We’ll pick her up tomorrow.”
She smiled a little. “Hungry?”
We hadn’t stopped long enough to have any sort of dinner last night beyond a protein bar during the search.
“I could eat.”
She dragged out the carton of eggs and a bag of shredded cheese. I found the last third of a loaf of sourdough from Panadería de la Isla and cut off a few slices for toast. The oven door groaned as I pulled it open.
A minute later Peyton shuffled in looking hollowed eyed and a little haunted.
“I’m sorry, baby. Did we wake you?”
Her hands knit together. “No. I wasn’t sleeping great.”
I opened my arms without thinking. But she walked straight into them and burrowed in for a hug. I wrapped her tight, feeling something in me settle at the contact.
“Having nightmares?” Bree asked softly.
Nightmares. Because of course she would be. I mentally moved therapy higher on my list of priorities.
But Peyton shook her head. “No, it’s not that. Well, not really.” She tucked her head a little tighter against my shoulder. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Nothing in that statement boded well. I fought my instinctive need to tense. Peyton needed to feel like she could share anything with me. That I was a safe space.
I stroked a hand down her hair. “Okay.”
She sucked in a breath. “I found it.”
“Found what?”
“The thing those men were looking for. At least, I think I did.”
Now I did pull back to look at her. “What are you talking about?”
Peyton fidgeted, hooking one bare foot behind her ankle. “You said you saw my notes about that Galef guy’s murder and what I thought was going on.”
“We did.”
“It was at the first site we dug. But the guys who had us were distracted. They kept looking around, I guess, in case anybody stumbled on us. I knew once they had it, we’d be expendable, so I shoved it in my pocket and lied that it wasn’t there.”
All the blood drained from my face at the risk she’d taken. At the fact that my thirteen-year-old knew what expendable meant.
“That was risky but really smart,” Bree told her. “It bought more time for us to find you.”
I was glad she, at least, could speak. Horror still had me by the throat.
Her fingers knit again. “I know I should have given it to the police, but honestly, in all the chaos with the rescue and after, I kind of forgot about it until we got home.”
Swallowing down my emotions, I tried to manifest a calm I didn’t feel. “That’s okay. We’ll turn it over to the police when we go in to make your full statement later today.” They’d no doubt have things to say about fingerprints and chain of evidence, but I absolutely didn’t have the bandwidth to think about that right now. “What is it, anyway?”
“A flash drive.”
“Have you looked to see what’s on it?” Bree asked.
Peyton shook her head.
I scooped a hand through my hair. “Okay, bring it to me.”
“But I want to see.”
I didn’t have a clue what kind of information might be worth killing for, but my imagination was happy to provide a multitude of terrible options. “Baby, we don’t know what’s on there. It may be a thing you don’t need to see.”
Her expression took on that mulish cast I was starting to recognize. “Well, can you open it and see first? It may just be files or information or something. But I’ve come this far. I want to know.”
“Peyton—”
Her shoulders squared in a defiant stance that would do Mom proud. “I put together what the police didn’t even manage. You can’t argue with that.”
“Nobody’s questioning your intelligence, kiddo.”
Bree laid a hand on my arm. “She’s not wrong, Ford.”
I split a glance between them, recognizing I was outnumbered. “Fine. Okay. Bring it here. I’ll screen it.”
While she retrieved the flash drive, I grabbed my laptop from my office. She came back into the kitchen with a thick zip-top bag rolled around a flash drive.
With the notion of fingerprints fresh in my own mind, I grabbed a pair of the latex gloves I kept in the kitchen for cutting jalapenos. Then I carefully extracted the drive and plugged it in. There was a single folder with only two video files inside.
“You go to your room for a few minutes while we screen whatever is on here. If it’s okay for you to see, we’ll call you back.”
With an epic teenage huff, she turned on heel. “Fine.”
We waited until we heard her bedroom door shut. Bree went to check to make sure she was there just in case.
Then she returned to stand beside me. “What do you think this is?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
I clicked on the first video file. The footage was grainy, obviously captured on an old cell phone. My breath caught as I recognized a much younger Miles Busby wearing a faded t-shirt with the logo of his family’s old marina.
“Have you considered my offer?” The question came from a male voice off-screen.
Miles shifted his weight. “I can’t do it.”
“Come on now. We both know your family is struggling. This would provide a much needed influx of cash.”
Miles glanced around nervously, as if checking for witnesses. “It’s dirty money, and I’m not gonna use my family’s business to launder it for you.”
A fist shot into frame, catching Miles in the gut. He doubled over with a grunt. The attacker’s tone remained casual, almost conversational. “I don’t think you understand the situation here. I was being nice, giving you the illusion of a choice. But either you say yes and take the deal, or someone you care about is going to pay the price.”
Miles straightened, wiping blood from his split lip. He spat on the ground. “Fuck you.”
“You’re going to regret that, Busby.”
“Oh, my God.” Bree’s fingers dug into my shoulder. “This has to be about Gwen.”
My stomach churned as I processed the implications. This video had to be from right before Gwen disappeared. Someone had been blackmailing Miles, threatening his family. And now, over a decade later, people were willing to kill to keep this evidence buried.
Without a word, I clicked over to the second video file. The footage was even grainier than the first, but there was no mistaking the terrified face of fifteen-year-old Gwen Busby. Her dark hair hung in tangles around her face, duct tape covered her mouth, and her wrists were bound behind her. She huddled in what looked like the hold of a boat, metal walls visible behind her.
Bree’s fingers dug deeper into my shoulder as a voice spoke from off-screen. “You were warned, Busby. We own you now.”
The camera panned across Gwen’s trembling form before cutting to black.
My heart thundered against my ribs. That video had to have been taken right after Gwen disappeared. She hadn’t run away or been killed on the beach like everyone assumed. She’d been kidnapped to force her brother’s compliance.
“Jesus Christ.” I scrubbed a hand down my face. “This was why Galef was killed. Peyton was right. Whoever did all those break-ins was looking for this. It proves there’s been some kind of human trafficking going on, probably all this time.”
“Ford...” Bree’s voice shook. “What it proves is that Miles was somehow involved. Coerced certainly, but involved. No one else is specifically implicated.”
I stared at her. “What are you saying?”
“What if Galef was blackmailing Miles? What if Miles saw getting rid of him as a way of finally getting out from under this?”
If that was true, then there was still a very desperate man out there who’d already killed once to try to get his hands on this information.
“We have to get this to Chief Carson immediately.” I started to reach for the laptop but froze as I heard the sound of a gun cocking behind me.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”