Chapter 22
Kitt
I hated this plan.
Truly, passionately, hated it.
From the moment Jordy suggested it, I wanted nothing more than to tell him to get such a thought out of his head.
The only problem was, I didn’t have any better ideas.
“Just grab the kid and run.”
What kind of plan was that?
It wasn’t a plan. That was the problem. It was a desperate half-baked idea squeezed out of a pair of tired brains as they watched the minutes on the clock tick by.
An hour and a half until the plane left.
An hour and twenty minutes.
An hour.
Less than an hour.
When we reached the forty-five minute mark, that was when the desperation kicked in, and Jordy suggested our current plan. That I create a distraction and keep the handlers busy so he can grab the kid and run off with him.
The next twenty minutes were filled with planning.
There was a construction area near the gate, where the area at the very back of the airport was being remodeled.
The whole area was roped off with caution tape and flimsy plywood walls, but there wasn’t much security keeping people out.
Probably because the area wasn’t particularly inviting, and there wasn’t anything worth stealing.
Just a lot of exposed concrete, rebar, and old pipes.
If Jordy could get the kid into the area, he felt confident that he could lose the handlers in the maze of scaffolding and hanging tarps.
My job was to help them get there.
A handicap transportation cart brought the best opportunity.
It looked a bit like a golf cart, big and black with seats for several people. It was meant for airport staff to help elderly and disabled travelers get around the sprawling airport. Most importantly, however, it parked right in the middle of the aisle, blocking our view of the opposite gate.
Jordy and I split up. He wove through the crowd and migrated his way over to the gate where our target was waiting, while I approached the security staff driving the handicap vehicle.
“Hello, I hate to bother you, but could you help me?”
The man sitting behind the wheel of the vehicle barely looked over at me. “Yeah? What do you need?”
It was either the end of his shift, or he was very overworked. The man had a stressed-out look about him, like one more inconvenience was going to send him over the edge into a full-blown melt down.
I could work with that.
“My mother’s eyesight isn’t so good. She misread our tickets, and we went to the wrong gate. The gate we need is in a completely different part of the airport. Would you be able to take us there?”
The man sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look. If you misread your tickets, that’s your problem. This vehicle is meant for handicapped, or people with mobility problems. Not people too lazy to take care of their own mistakes.”
Well, that was rude. At first, I felt a little guilty for lying to the man, but all that guilt vanished in an instant. If this was how he talked to people who actually needed help, then he could use a lesson in humility.
“I know, I know,” I said, trying my best to act embarrassed while also keeping an eye on Jordy on the other side of the aisle.
“It’s just that our plane leaves soon, and my mother doesn’t walk that fast. She really should apply for disability, but she’s too proud for that.
You’d be doing me a huge favor if you could help us out. ”
The man sighed again.
“Fine. Where’s your mom.”
“She’s right...”
I looked over my shoulder, then feigned shock.
“Oh, damn. She must have wandered off. She does that sometimes. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if I need to get her checked for dementia. Hold on. Please wait a moment. Hopefully, she’ll answer her phone.”
The man grumbled but agreed to wait while I turned away from him, pretending to be fumbling with my phone as if panicking.
Meanwhile, while I’d been making a fool of myself, Jordy slowly made his way closer to the boy sitting between the two handlers at the other gate.
It happened faster than I expected. One moment Jordy was mingling among the other travelers, looking completely innocuous even to my eyes, and the next he was darting forward and grabbing the boy out of his chair.
At first, the boy struggled, as much as he could in his drugged state, but then Jordy whispered something in his ear and his attitude instantly shifted.
He clung to Jordy’s hand, and the pair of them ran off together into the crowd.
The two handlers immediately ran after them.
That was my cue.
I’d watched the whole thing while lingering near the front of the handicap transportation vehicle, still pretending to struggle with my phone and growing increasingly more frantic like I wasn’t able to contact the forgetful elderly mother than I’d made up on the spot.
However, as soon as Jordy and the boy started running, I shoved my phone back in my pocket and jumped behind the wheel of the vehicle.
“Hey,” the rude security officer shouted as I pushed him out of his seat.
“Sorry,” I called back as I switched the vehicle into drive mode. “I’m not taking it far.”
That was an understatement. I barely had to move the vehicle more than a few feet, just enough to block the path of the two handlers and give Jordy a chance to escape.
The vehicle jolted when one of the handlers literally ran into its side.
“What?” they shouted, confused.
That confusion wouldn’t last. These were professional criminals. My little disruption wouldn’t knock them off their game for long.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Grace Calderon stand up from her seat as she realized what was happening.
I needed to get out of there. These people were dangerous, and the fact that we were in public wouldn’t protect me once they decided to take me out.
Jumping down from the vehicle, I took off running after Jordy and the boy.
The two of them had managed to cover a good amount of ground during my brief distraction.
They were already at the end of the hall, almost to the construction area.
In just a few more seconds, they would disappear among the manmade labyrinth of concrete and metal.
My first instinct was to follow them. Run after these two victims and keep them safe from the monsters pursuing them. I’d failed so many times to protect people in the past. Surely, this time I would succeed.
Behind me, I heard the running footsteps of the handlers, close enough that I could almost feel their breath on my neck.
Without warning, I was suddenly struck by a memory so clear it was as if I’d traveled back in time.
I wasn’t standing in the airport anymore.
Instead, I was once against standing on my sister’s front lawn.
I’d just gotten the call that my cousin and her ex-husband were found murdered and rushed over to my sister’s house.
There, I’d found her taking care of our cousin’s child.
The poor boy had suddenly found himself as an orphan and didn’t even know it yet.
At only six years old, he probably didn’t even understand what that meant.
He was happily playing in the yard while his whole world changed without his knowledge.
My sister and I had immediately started arguing as soon as I arrived.
She never agreed with the way I handled our cousin’s case and insisted that more was going on than just a custody battle.
With both our cousin and her ex-husband turning up dead, my sister’s suspicions were proven right, and she was on the warpath.
Our argument had devolved into hurling insults at each other when a car drove down the street.
Unlike the cliché Hollywood scene, the kidnappers hadn’t shown up in a sketchy white van or anything like that.
The car had looked perfectly respectable and wouldn’t have caught my attention at all if it weren’t for the blacked-out windows.
As a lawyer, knowing the law was my job.
Not just criminal law, but all kinds of different laws that most people didn’t even think about.
Because of that, I knew that our area had made blackout windows on residential cars illegal several years ago, so the sight of that car instantly rubbed me the wrong way.
Just like when Jordy grabbed the kid away from the handlers, the bell ringers also acted quicker than I ever expected.
The car barely even slowed down. As it neared my sister’s house, the passenger side door opened, and someone darted out of the seat.
They grabbed my little cousin right out of the yard and were already running back to the car before anyone realized what was happening.
It was my sister’s husband who acted first. He saw everything from the house’s front porch and took off running across the yard after the kidnappers, shouting for my sister to call the cops.
My sister didn’t listen. Instead, when she realized someone was about to kidnap our little cousin, she also took off running.
There was no hesitation as she threw herself in front of the car to keep in from driving away, bouncing off the hood and breaking one of her legs in the process while her husband wrestled with the man holding our cousin.
It turned into a brutal fight, but in the end, my sister’s husband managed to wrest our cousin out of the kidnapper’s grip and the car drove off empty-handed.
And what did I do during that whole scene?
Nothing.
When I realized what was happening my brain just froze.
I’d never been involved in any sort of physical altercation.
I’d never even set foot inside a gym or taken an exercise class.
I spent all my time sitting behind a desk going over paperwork and reading through legal journals.
That was my world. Neat and organized, with everything written out in black and white text on a page.
There were no quick decisions. No calls to action. I relied on logic, not instinct.
Now, when I needed my instincts to kick in, I found that I had none.