Chapter 15
“I think we need to install a Xanax salt lick for times like these,” Fisher muttered to his fiancée.
Hew didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know they were eyeing him as he paced back and forth across the length of the War Room.
He had tried to sit down. But every time he got quiet and still, his brain offered up increasingly horrific mental reels of what Sabrina might be enduring.
Had she been tied up? Beaten?
Was she bleeding? Broken?
Had her abductors left her alone in the dark somewhere with nothing but her fear to keep her company? Or, worse, were they with her? Tormenting her? Abusing her in ways he—
Stop it! He silently railed at himself. You’re not doin’ her any good by imaginin’ the worst.
Pressing a hand to his chest, he tried to relieve the pressure there. It didn’t help. His ribs felt too tight for his lungs.
He’d been in plenty of hairy situations.
Had dropped friends behind enemy lines, flown into hot zones to pick up wounded brothers-in-arms, and dodged missiles and mortar fire with a chopper full of men depending on him to get them home in one piece.
But this…this waiting, while Sabrina was god-knows-where suffering god-knows-what, was worse than anything he could remember.
“Found her!” Ozzie crowed from his spot at the bank of computers.
Those two syllables were enough to lock up every muscle in Hew’s body. Then, like they were spring-loaded, they launched him across the room.
“Where is she?” he demanded from behind Ozzie’s chair. “Show me.”
Around him, he could feel the rest of the Knights gathering. Graham, Sam, Hunter, Fisher. A wall of grim-faced warriors who’d do everything possible to get Sabrina back.
There should’ve been comfort in that. But there was nothing that could comfort Hew now except for her safe return.
Ozzie zoomed in on an image. Then, he zoomed in again. And again, until Hew was forced to bite his tongue and curl his fingers into fists lest he start yanking out Ozzie’s mad-scientist hair by the roots because the man seemed not to grasp how short Hew’s fuse was.
“Oz, man, what are we lookin’ at?” he finally asked impatiently.
It was clear they were viewing real-time satellite footage, but it was grainy and grayscale thanks to the abysmal light of the moonless night.
“Pretty sure that’s the van that followed Sabrina.” Ozzie tapped the keyboard with rapid-fire precision, and the image came into sharper focus.
Hew’s chin jerked back when he realized Ozzie had zeroed in on the bottom of a wheel. The vehicle it was attached to was parked atop a dirty concrete slab, and only part of its hubcap was visible beneath the drooping edge of a tarp.
Hope bled out of him like air from a punctured lung.
“That’s it?” He managed to grit the two syllables from between his teeth. “That’s all ya got?”
“I know, I know.” Ozzie’s fingers began another dance across the keyboard. “It doesn’t look like much until you compare it to this.”
Another image popped up on a split screen beside the first. It was the photo they’d captured off the CCTV cameras of Sabrina and her tail as she drove past the city’s limits.
Ozzie zoomed in on the van’s front wheel.
“Look.” He pointed to a jagged white scratch that ran across the hubcap like a lightning bolt.
It matched the scratch on the hubcap in the satellite imagery.
“Damn good eye, Oz.” Boss clapped a hand on Ozzie’s shoulder.
“Where is it?” Hew demanded, his voice low and tight. “Where is she?”
“West of the city.” Ozzie pulled up a wide-angle view of the site where the van was parked beneath the tarp.
“It’s that old bottling plant we pinpointed as a possible location.
It’s been abandoned since the seventies.
Nothing much left of the place but busted brick, broken concrete, and a few outbuildings. ”
The eagle-eye view showed the bottling plant was a ghost of a building. Isolated. Forgotten. A perfect place to hide a hostage.
“Can we get infrared on the site?” Hew asked, feeling his nerve endings itch. It was like his skin struggled to contain the adrenaline ballooning inside him. “See if she’s bein’ held in the main building or one of the smaller ones? See how many unfriendlies we’re dealin’ with?”
“Not using this satellite.” Ozzie shook his head. “We need to wait for a military eye-in-the-sky to swing back around.” He checked his watch. “Another forty minutes, give or take.”
Forty minutes.
It might as well have been forty hours the way time was creeping.
“Forty minutes it is,” Graham chimed in. “In the meantime, we learn everything we can about that site. Entrances. Exits. We need blueprints, if they exist.”
“I’ll make the call for the bird.” Hew was already turning, already moving. Finally, finally they had actionable intel, and he could stop twiddling his dick. “If we fly in fast, we can hit ’em before they know what’s comin’.”
He bolted up the stairs two at a time, his phone already in hand. The instant he hit the third floor, his thumb flew over the screen until he found the contact information for the private airport where the Black Knights housed their Black Hawk.
He was about to press the call button when his boots turned into cement galoshes outside Sabrina’s open bedroom door. The small lamp atop her dresser glowed a soft yellow. But the quiet inside the room thundered louder than any battle zone he’d ever flown over.
A bright rug covered the floor, woven in a dizzying pattern of coral, teal, and sunflower yellow.
Novels lined the shelves of the two low-slung bookcases she’d pushed under the windows.
And the phone stand and ring light she used to film her social media posts sat beside the little armchair angled into the corner.
It was so her.
So vibrant. So thoughtful. So…warm.
Every square inch of the space carried her fingerprint, carried her fruity/floral smell. And the sudden, choking thought that she might never step foot inside—
That’s not goin’ to happen! he silently swore.
Motion flickered in his periphery. He turned his head sharply, his heart leaping—
But it wasn’t Sabrina emerging from the mound of pillows atop her bed. Of course it wasn’t. It was Peanut.
The cat’s gray fur was rumpled. His big yellow eyes blinked up at Hew with feline reproach, seeming to say, How could you let this happen? How could you let them take her?
Hew’s throat tightened around a knot.
“I know, buddy.” He moved to crouch beside the bed. “But I’m goin’ to bring her back. Just ya wait and see.”
Peanut stepped toward the edge of the mattress, pressing his whiskered cheeks against Hew’s knuckles. Hew buried his calloused fingertips in the soft fur, drawing comfort from the only thing in the room that still carried a hint of Sabrina’s gentle warmth.
Then, he stood abruptly. Hit call. And listened as it rang and rang.
The airport's ground crew rarely worked in the office. They preferred spending their time in the hangars or in lawn chairs by the fueling truck. Eventually, however, a deep, familiar voice barked, “Lake Michigan Aviation.”
“Larry,” Hew said without preamble. “We need the chopper fueled and ready to fire up in forty minutes.”
Larry Eastman didn’t miss a beat. “I can have her good to go in thirty.”
“Even better.”
Hew moved with purpose then, trotting into his own room.
It didn’t smell nearly as nice as Sabrina’s.
Unless you think gun oil, leather, and Downy dryer sheets make a good combo.
Crossing to his dresser, he snatched up the ridiculous lobster plushie beside his dopp kit. It was red, soft, and stuffed with buttery-smelling cotton.
A gag gift from the team.
A wink at his Maine roots.
Sabrina’s go-to when she needed comfort.
She liked to rub the claws like worry beads, and he’d tried to gift it to her. But she’d refused. Saying it gave her an excuse to visit him.
As if she ever needed an excuse.
Clutching the stuffed lobster until his knuckles blanched white, he stared at the silly thing and silently promised, I’m comin’, Sabrina. And heaven help the bastards who took ya, ’cause I’m bringin’ hell with me.