Chapter 10
AVA
The world swirled around Ava, but it was all dulled by the words she’d just heard.
“Ava?” Kyle’s voice sounded miles away, and she barely registered the touch of his hand on her arm.
She collapsed forward, catching herself on the couch as she tried to make sense of the words she’d just heard.
“Ava!” Julia’s voice echoed, distant and muffled. She rushed forward, frantic, before she and Kyle eased Ava onto the couch. Their worried faces blurred as Ava’s vision swam with unshed tears.
She struggled to suck in breaths, her chest constricted. “W-what happened? What do you mean he’s been kidnapped?”
“Two men took him,” Sierra shrieked, her voice piercing as Ava’s senses began to slowly return.
Ava fluttered her eyelashes as paramedics rolled a gurney into her living room.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Sierra complained. “Kyle is just trying to sideline me.”
“You need blood, sis. As evidenced by the stain on your favorite silk jammies.”
“Sierra, you need to at least be seen,” Grant said to her as the paramedics began their work.
“Uh, I can stay…” Julia began, her eyes darting back and forth between her stepdaughter and Ava.
“No,” Ava said, her mind running on autopilot, “no, you should go with her. You should…I’ll…”
“It’s okay, Ava,” Kyle said with a rub of her shoulder. “We’ll figure this out.”
The paramedics loaded Sierra onto the gurney, strapping her in securely. As they prepared to leave, Grant leaned in to kiss Julia’s cheek. “Stay with them. We’ll be fine. I’ll call you from the hospital.”
Ava dug her fingernails into her scalp before she sniffled, tears threatening. “W-what happened?” she asked as the chaos around her settled down.
“Umm, Sierra said we’d just finished the weapon retrieval when there was a knock at the door.
The next thing she heard was a commotion.
Alex burst into the room along with two masked men.
They grabbed him and disappeared through the door.
She heard tires screeching. She tried to run after them, but she pulled her stitches.
We found her on the floor,” Julia answered, her voice shaky.
Ava fluttered her eyelashes as she listened to the words. “Did they say anything? Did they…make any demands? Are there any calls?”
She knew that wasn’t the case. This wasn’t a simple kidnapping in exchange for money.
“Not that we know of,” Julia said with a wince.
Ava’s eyes focused on Alex’s laptop in front of her, his system still monitoring the police station where they’d stolen the evidence. She grabbed it, pulling it onto her lap and exiting the surveillance videos.
She pulled up their own security system, toggling to the camera at the front door. She slid the video back past the arrival of Julia, Grant, and Kyle. When figures appeared on the screen again, she let it play.
Her stomach clenched as she watched the footage, her eyes turning glassy. Two armed men barged into their home and minutes later, they dragged Alex from it and tossed him into the back of a van.
“Oh, Ava,” Julia whispered as she rubbed Ava’s back.
Ava struggled to suck in breaths as her world crashed around her. “No.”
“I’m sorry, Ava,” Kyle whispered.
“No, no, no, no, no,” she murmured as she stood, the laptop nearly pitching to the floor before Kyle grabbed it.
“No, this can’t be happening.”
“Look, Grant has a great security team. Alicia is heading it, okay? She’s got FBI experience. We’ll call her. She can be up here in a few hours–”
“No!” Ava said, the sharpness of her voice startling even her. “No. I can’t wait that long. I have to find him. I have to find him. I can’t lose him. Not now.”
Kyle leapt up as she paced the floor, one hand pressed firmly against her forehead. “Ava, you need to take a breath.”
“I can’t!” she shouted. “I can’t because…”
“Ava, I know this is scary but–”
“I can’t lose him because I never told him.”
Kyle motioned for Julia to help him ease her onto the couch.
“Never told him what, Ava?” Julia asked as they sandwiched Ava between them.
She stared blankly ahead, a tear rolling down her cheek. “I never told him I loved him.”
Julia rubbed her arm. “Oh, Ava, he knew that.”
“No,” Ava said, her features pinching. “I never said the words. I mean, I said them playfully like you say you love pepperoni pizza but…after we got together…I never said I love you. I just…it felt too soon after Chris. I always thought I’d have time. And I never told him.”
Julia and Kyle exchanged a glance.
“You’re going to tell him, Ava,” Kyle said. “Because we’re going to find him. Okay?”
“Kyle’s right. They took him alive for a reason, right? They want something from him. Which means they’ll keep him alive to get it.”
Ava’s lower lip trembled as she stared at the frozen image on her screen, her eyebrows knitting. The white van, the masked faces, and the convenient timing.
Her fingers curled into tight fists, her knuckles turning white as she leapt from her seat with renewed urgency. She dug her phone from her pocket, her movements sharp and determined
“Whoa, Ava, what’s the plan here?” Kyle asked as he rose with her.
She pressed her phone to her ear, her nostrils flaring as the line rang.
He tugged the phone from her, toggling it on to speakerphone. “You’re not thinking straight. Who are you calling?”
A moment later, a robotic voice answered. “Ava, is there a problem?”
“Yes, there is. What did you do to Alex?”
A pause sounded before he answered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? Alex is gone. He was kidnapped while I was with you. Now, you tell me, Raven, what did you do with Alex?”
“I resent the implication, Ava. I have done nothing with him.”
“So, you’re saying this was The Board.” She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to shove the frightening implications away.
“I’m saying this was not me.”
“I need your information—everything you know about The Board.”
“I can’t share that, Ava. I’m sorry.”
She ripped the phone out of Kyle’s hands. “If you don’t help me, this relationship is over.”
“Don’t be too hasty about that, Ava. We must work together to–”
“Forget your demands about working together. It means nothing to me without Alex.”
Silence stretched between them as Ava’s heart hammered against her ribs. “You owe us, Raven. Help me find Alex or this relationship is finished.”
A pause sounded on the other end. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The line clicked, and Ava sank onto the couch, her leg bouncing as her mind whirled. “We have to find him. We can’t wait for Raven. The moment The Board no longer needs him…”
She shook her head, not willing to go any further.
“Ava, let me get Alicia up here. And Ethan. Please? They can help.”
“There’s no time for that, Julia. I need answers now.”
Her mind searched for options, trying to think through the best way to approach the situation. “Okay, we need as much information as we can find from this security footage.”
She puffed out a breath as she grabbed the laptop again and rewound the footage. She started it replaying, slapping the space bar to pause it as she eyed the van. There was no angle on the license plate.
She cursed under her breath, as she shook her head. “There’s no good angle on the license plate. I’ll have to try to get it on another camera.”
“I can look through the other camera, Ava,” Kyle offered. “Just sign me into the security.”
She shook her head as she inched the footage forward frame by frame. “We don’t have another camera angle on the front door.”
His brow furrowed.
“I’m going to need to hack the traffic cameras. What I need from you two is a list of streets to look at next as we trace this van through every camera we can find.”
Kyle raised his eyebrows. “You can do that?”
She glanced at him. “I’m sure as hell going to try, Doc.”
She tapped her finger on the cell phone on the arm of the couch. “I would have tracked this with Alex’s program but…he doesn’t have it.”
Sucking in a deep breath, she tried not to cry as she realized how vulnerable he would feel without his technology.
Her fingers curled into fists as she tapped the arrow key repeatedly to advance the video before she clicked her tongue. “There’s nothing useable on this video. I need to look at the street cameras.”
“I’m pulling up a map of the area,” Julia said. “I assume you want me to look at streets around the house?”
“I’m not sure I understand the street thing.”
“I’m going to find this van on a camera, look at the direction it’s heading, then try to find it on another street. We’ll be able to follow it turn by turn until we see where it goes or we run out of cameras.” She flicked her gaze to him. “It’s how we tracked the van that took you, Doc.”
His lips parted as his features pinched. “I hadn’t realized you two were that involved with the rescue operation.”
“Alex hacked the cams, I gave him the streets to check,” Ava said as she brought up a new window, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
“Are you seriously going to hack into the traffic cams?” Kyle asked.
“I hope so,” she answered as she probed the system, searching for the way in.
A cursed escaped her as she hit a dead end.
“Anything I can do?” Kyle asked as he eyed the screen.
“Pray.” Ava’s nose wrinkled as she hit another dead end.
Julia leaned over the back of the couch, her map ready for whenever Ava was able to view the cameras.
After another failed attempt, Ava slammed her hands against the laptop.
“Easy, Ava,” Julia said. “You’re upset, and you’re frustrated.”
“Alex would have had this done already.”
Julia rubbed her shoulder. “And Alex does this constantly. You don’t.”
“I’m feeling that right now. I need to keep my skills up after this.”
Kyle scoffed and shook his head. “Let’s hope you never need them again. The kidnappings are getting out of control.”
The word pinched her features, and she slid her eyes closed, biting into her lower lip hard.
“I’m sorry, Ava,” Kyle whispered.
She licked her lips, shaking her head. “It’s okay. We found you…we’ll find him.”
With a deep inhale, she wiggled her fingers and set them on the keyboard, stretching her neck. “Come on, Ava.”
She let Alex’s reminders echo in her mind as she probed the security again, finally finding the backdoor. Cameras populated her screen. With a sigh of relief, she said, “We’re in.”
“Oh, Ava, good work!” Julia exclaimed with a pat on her shoulder. “Okay, umm, are there cameras on this road?”
“Yes, one at the end. Just a second.” She navigated to the camera and rewound it back to the time of the kidnapping.
“There,” Kyle said as the van raced past in reverse.
Ava bobbed her head, allowing the video to play forward. Her nostrils flared as she inched it forward frame by frame only to find a mud-covered license plate.
“They covered the license plate,” she said with a shake of her head. “Okay, so no information from that. We’ll follow it. Julia, what’s the next set of streets I should be checking?”
Julia passed them along, and Ava searched the video feed for the van’s next location.
They chased it through the streets until the van disappeared onto the highway. Ava shook her head as she slammed the laptop lid down. “Dead end. There’s no way to tell where it went now.”
She leapt from her seat, pacing the floor as she drummed her fingers against her thigh.
The Board had made a bold move. She needed to counter with an equally bold move. Her eyes fell onto the fireplace poker hanging in the set.
She picked it up, staring at the tip as she tightened her grip around it.
“Ava? What are you thinking?” Kyle asked.
Ava narrowed her eyes at the poker. “That I’m going to get answers one way or the other.”
Resolve filled her, mixing with a new sense of purpose. She had to find Alex. She had to save him. They hadn’t come this far only to lose each other now.