Chapter Fifteen
Hailey
My head is splitting.
That’s the first thing I notice. Not where I am or how I got here, just this vicious, throbbing pain behind my eyes that makes
even blinking feel like punishment. I’m lying on something soft, which is wrong. The last thing I remember is the lodge, footsteps
in the hallway, the door splintering open.
I force my eyes to focus.
Not the resort. Not anywhere I recognize.
I’m in a cabin. Wood and stone construction, high ceilings, massive windows showing nothing but snow-covered pines and white
sky. A fire crackles in a stone fireplace that takes up most of one wall, and in front of it—
Liam.
He’s on a leather couch facing the fireplace, slumped sideways with one arm dangling toward the floor. Not moving.
I’m off the bed before I’ve fully processed what I’m seeing, crossing the room on unsteady legs, the drug still making everything
tilt. I drop to my knees beside him and press two fingers to his throat.
Pulse. Steady and strong. Okay. Okay, he’s alive. Just out cold, the same way I must have been. His face is pale under the
stubble, his breathing slow and even. Whatever they gave us, it hit him hard.
“Liam.” I shake his shoulder. Nothing. “Liam, wake up.”
He doesn’t stir.
I can’t do anything for him except wait. In the meantime, I need to figure out where we are and how we’re getting out.
My heart is pounding harder than it should be. I make myself breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Panic won’t help. Panic has never helped, not once in my entire life, and I’m not about to start letting it run the show now.
I stand up and really look at this place.
One large open room. The bed where I woke up, king-size, positioned against the far wall with a view of those floor-to-ceiling
windows. The sitting area where Liam is still unconscious—two leather chairs and the couch, arranged around the fireplace.
Beside the fireplace, an entire wall of firewood. Large pieces on the bottom, medium in the middle, kindling arranged by size
on top. Someone spent way too much time on that.
Past the sitting area, a kitchen that makes me stop and stare.
This isn’t a cabin kitchen. This is something you’d find in a Manhattan penthouse. Wolf six-burner range with a red enamel
finish. Sub-Zero refrigerator humming softly against the stone wall. Granite countertops in a deep gray that match the fireplace.
Professional-grade cookware hangs from a copper pot rack, each piece gleaming like it’s never been used. I open the refrigerator
and find it fully stocked with ingredients you see in food magazines. High-end cheese. Fresh herbs. Beef wrapped in butcher
paper with a label I can’t read. A bottle of Dom Pérignon chilling on the top shelf.
None of this makes sense. People who kidnap you don’t stock the fridge with champagne.
A bathroom connects to the main space through a doorless archway. Rainfall shower, heated floors if the warmth under my socks
is any indication, thick towels monogrammed with initials I don’t recognize. White marble and brushed nickel and more luxury
than most hotels I’ve stayed in.
The door catches my eye next. Heavy, solid wood with iron hardware that looks almost decorative. From the inside, there’s
no lock mechanism at all. Just a handle that turns easily when I try it.
The door doesn’t move.
I try again, putting my weight into it. Nothing. Whatever’s holding it shut is on the other side. Reinforced, probably. Bolted from the outside. I could throw myself against it all day and accomplish nothing but a bruised shoulder.
I check the windows. Triple-paned glass, set deep into the stone walls. I could throw a chair at them and it would probably
just bounce off. Even if I broke through, I’d be facing sub-zero temperatures in whatever I’m wearing. No coat. No boots.
Nothing but the T-shirt and leggings I fell asleep in at the lodge. Bare feet on heated floors—a detail that would be luxurious if it weren’t so clearly designed to keep us from running.
We’re trapped.
Whoever took us didn’t just grab us and throw us in a hole. They prepared. They thought about thread counts and kitchen appliances.
That scares me more than a hole would have.
I glance back at Liam. Still out. Still breathing. One bedroom, one bed, and he’s on the couch. Whoever put us here made choices
about the arrangement, and I don’t like what those choices imply.
I’m running my fingers along the window seals, looking for any weakness I might have missed, when I hear him groan.
He’s stirring now, one hand coming up to press against his temple.
“Hailey?” He pushes himself up on one elbow and squints at me like I might be a hallucination.
“Yeah, I’m here.” I cross back to him, crouching beside the couch. “How’s your head?”
“Feels like someone’s mining for copper inside my skull.” He sits up slowly, steadying himself on the arm of the couch, and
looks around. Takes in the cabin, the windows, the fire. I watch him change from confusion to assessment to something harder.
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere remote, based on the view. We were drugged at the lodge and brought here while we were out.” I gesture
at our surroundings. “I’ve already checked the door and windows. We’re not getting out that way.”
He stands, a little unsteady, and moves to the door to see for himself. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t take someone else’s word for it either. He tries the handle, examines the frame, runs his hand along the hinges.
“Steel plate behind the wood,” he says after a moment. “Hinges on the outside. This was built to hold people.”
“I figured.”
He turns back to the room, and I see him cataloguing details the way I did. The exits that aren’t exits. The windows that
won’t break. The one bedroom with the one bed. His eyes hold on that last part a beat too long, but he doesn’t comment on
it. Neither do I. We have bigger problems.
“The kitchen is ridiculous,” I tell him. “Whoever did this spent serious money making sure we’d be comfortable.”
“Comfortable.” He says the word like it tastes wrong. “That’s not reassuring.”
“I know.”
He’s quiet for a moment, still scanning. “No phones. No clocks. No way to tell what time it is or how long we’ve been out.”
“Nothing. I already looked.”
“So we’re blind and deaf and locked in a box, but at least we have a nice stove.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “This
is wrong, Hailey. All of it. People don’t go to this much trouble unless they want something specific, and they don’t make
the cage this pretty unless they plan to keep you in it for a while.”
I want to argue with him. I want to say we’ll find a way out, that someone will notice we’re missing, that Knox—
But Knox doesn’t know where I am. Knox doesn’t even know I left. I couldn’t figure out what to tell him, so I told him nothing.
Just vanished after everything we’d started building together.
The thought opens a pit in my stomach that I force myself to ignore.
“We’ll figure it out,” I say, because I have to say something. “We’ve gotten out of worse.”
“Have we?”
A sound cuts through the silence. A soft electronic chime, like a notification alert.
We both freeze.
Above the fireplace, a screen I hadn’t noticed flickers to life. Large, flat, built into the stonework like it was always
part of the design. For a moment there’s only static, gray snow matching the real snow outside.
Then a face appears.
A woman in her fifties, maybe older. Silver hair swept back from a face that’s aged well, with high cheekbones and skin that’s
seen good dermatologists. She’s dressed in something dark and elegant, a silk blouse or a tailored jacket. Behind her, I can
see what looks like a study or office, leather and mahogany and art on the walls.
For a moment she just looks at us. Drinking us in. Her lips part slightly, and I swear to God her eyes are glistening.
“Oh,” she breathes. “Oh, it’s really you. Both of you, right there, in the flesh.” She presses a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry,
I promised myself I wouldn’t get emotional, but I’ve waited so long for this moment.”
Liam and I exchange a look.
“I have to tell you,” she continues, leaning toward the camera like she’s sharing a secret, “I am your biggest fan. I mean
that literally. There is no one on this earth who has studied your work more closely than I have. No one who appreciates what
you accomplished the way I do.”
“What the hell is this?” Liam says, but she keeps going like she didn’t hear him.
“The Beaumont heist in 2018.” She ticks it off on her finger, beaming. “The Artemis collection the following year. That absolutely
inspired bit of misdirection with the courier swap in Monaco.” Another finger. “I’ve analyzed every detail I could find. The planning,
the execution, the way you two moved together like a single organism. It was—” She stops, searching for the word. “Exquisite.
Truly exquisite.”
I feel like I’ve stepped into some alternate reality where nothing works the way it should.
“The Garrett Museum alone,” she gushes on, practically glowing now. “Do you have any idea how sophisticated their security
system was? I donated three million dollars to that museum. I know exactly what you went through. And you moved through it
like it wasn’t even there.” She shakes her head slowly, reverently. “I’ve stayed up so many nights trying to reverse-engineer
your methodology. So many diagrams. So many scenarios. You two are artists. Real artists.”
“Who are you?” The question comes out steadier than I feel. I keep my face neutral. Don’t let them see you scared. Another
one of Liam’s lessons.
“Oh, forgive me!” She actually laughs at herself. “Here I am gushing like a schoolgirl and I haven’t even introduced myself.
My name is Marlena Kade.” She inclines her head, almost a little bow. “And I cannot tell you what an honor it is to finally
meet the people responsible for some of the most elegant work of the past decade.”
“So you drugged us and dragged us to the middle of nowhere because you liked our résumé?” Liam’s moving closer to the screen,
like he might be able to reach through it and grab her. “That’s your explanation?”
“Well, that and you have something I want.” Her smile doesn’t waver. “But yes. When I learned you were coming to retrieve
the Snowflake, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. The diamond is lovely, certainly. But meeting you? The actual architects
of those beautiful jobs?” She puts both hands over her heart. “That’s the real treasure.”
I’ve been threatened before. Interrogated before. Held at gunpoint twice. I’ve never had a kidnapper look at me like I’m a
celebrity she cornered at a cocktail party.
“The cabin,” Marlena continues, gesturing at something offscreen.
“I had it designed with you in mind. The kitchen because I’ve done my homework on you, Mr. Calloway.
A girl doesn’t spend five years researching someone without learning what makes him tick.
You’re a cook—a serious one, from what I can tell.
I thought you’d appreciate having the right tools.
” She looks directly at the camera, at me.
“The linens are Frette, Ms. Parker. When you run a media business with the kind of data access I have, people’s preferences become very transparent.
You like nice sheets.” She shrugs, unapologetic.
“I remembered. And the firewood—” She pauses, almost shy.
“This is silly, but the firewood is organized the way the Garrett Museum’s security logs were organized.
By category and size. A small homage. I wasn’t sure you’d notice, but I hoped. ”
“You organized our firewood as a tribute,” Liam says flatly.
“I know it’s a lot.” She has the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “I can be intense about things I care about. But I wanted
you to be comfortable here. I wanted you to know that whoever took you, it wasn’t some thug who doesn’t understand what you
are. It was someone who appreciates you. Who sees you.”
Sees us. Like we’re specimens in a collection. Like we’re art she acquired.
My skin crawls.
“Here’s the thing, though.” The shift happens so fast I almost miss it. One second she’s gushing, and the next her eyes have
gone flat and cold without her smile moving at all. “I want the Snowflake Diamond. You’re going to tell me where it is. In
exchange, you’ll be free to go. I’ll provide transportation back to civilization, money for your trouble, glowing references
if you ever need them.” She pauses. “But I should be honest with you, because I feel like we’ve established a rapport. If
you refuse, or if you lie to me, I will hurt you. I’ll hate doing it. It’ll feel like vandalizing a Vermeer. But I will.”
“So much for being our biggest fan,” I say.
“I am your biggest fan. That hasn’t changed.” She spreads her hands. “But I’m also a collector, and the Snowflake has been
on my list for five years. At a certain point, admiration has to become secondary to acquisition.” Her smile softens again,
almost tender. “I really would prefer not to damage either of you. Please don’t make me.”
She glances at something off-screen, then back to the camera.
“I’ll be in touch soon with more details about how this is going to work.
In the meantime—” And just like that, her whole demeanor flips again, warm and bright like a hostess at a dinner party.
“Make yourselves at home! There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen and the shower pressure is divine. Bye for now!”
The screen goes dark.
Liam and I stand there in silence, staring at the fireplace where Marlena’s face was a moment ago.
“What,” Liam says, “the fuck.”
“She organized the firewood like a museum security system.”
“She knows what sheets you like.”
“She told us to make ourselves at home.”
“After threatening to hurt us.”
“And then said the shower pressure is divine.”
Liam turns to look at me, and for the first time since I’ve known him, he seems genuinely at a loss. “I’ve dealt with a lot
of criminals in my life, Hailey. Mobsters. Oligarchs. A guy in Monaco who collected human teeth. But this?” He gestures at
the blank screen. “This is new.”
“She’s going to kill us if we don’t give her what she wants.”
“Yeah.” He runs a hand through his hair. “That part I understood.”
I look around the cabin. The crackling fire. The gourmet kitchen. The one bed. Our insane captor who just told us to enjoy
the shower.
“So,” I say. “What now?”