Chapter 18 Sebastian
EIGHTEEN
SEBASTIAN
I try not to stare in the direction she left in, but everything in me is driving me to go after her. To stop this, to demand that she not put herself at risk, to force her to let me handle this. But I can’t. It pains me to admit that, as crazy as her plan is, it’s a good one.
Setting Courtney up and having the cops find her red-handed with Starling tied up in her trunk is a guaranteed way of getting her arrested and out of our lives.
Honestly, if Courtney hadn’t escalated and tried to convince Tom to hurt Starling, I’d have been content to just fuck with her life.
But I won’t allow anyone to hurt my wife, and as far as I’m concerned, Courtney has dug her own grave, and she should be grateful that she’s only going to jail or the loony bin.
My heart beats steadily in my chest, every minute that passes making my muscles tighten with anxiety.
The moment I spot Evan striding casually back from the admin building, my chest hitches and my blood starts to heat with fear.
If he’s back, then Starling is drugged, incapacitated, and locked in the trunk of a car.
Even though I know the plan inside and out, there are so many elements that are out of my control, and I hate it.
“We’re all set,” Evan says, retaking his seat beside Sammy. Curling his arm around her shoulder, he pulls her into him, his smile brittle and fake.
“We’re a go,” Clay says quietly, his gaze fixed on the security footage from the parking structure he has playing on his cell in his lap.
Inhaling purposefully, I try to slow my heart rate. I need to stay calm just in case anything happens, but it’s getting harder and harder to fight the need to chase after my perfectly psychotic wife and make sure she’s okay.
“When are you sending the text?” Sammy asks.
“When she looks like she’s getting sick of waiting,” Clay tells her.
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure she’d show up at all,” Hunter says.
“Oh, she was always going to show up. She wants Starling’s life, and the text Starling sent her was tea central. It would drive Courtney crazy not to know what she wants,” Sammy says.
With his cell in his lap, Clay types too fast to follow on his laptop.
I don’t know for sure, but I’m assuming he’s doctoring the security footage to make sure that none of the cameras have a view of Courtney’s car.
We only want the cops to see her entering the parking structure after Starling and then leaving in her car in five minutes’ time.
“What’s she doing?” I ask.
“She’s leaning against her trunk, scrolling social media on her cell,” Clay answers, his gaze barely moving from his laptop.
Five minutes.
Six minutes.
Seven minutes.
I watch the seconds tick by, counting each one and controlling my breathing as I wait.
“It’s been eight minutes since she entered the parking lot,” Evan says exactly sixty seconds later. “I’d say worst case, Starling has thirty-seven minutes left until she’s fully conscious again. Send the text, let’s get things moving.”
My brother looks almost as anxious as I feel, and I’m reminded once again that she’s his sister and how real this bond they’ve forged in the last few months actually is.
He’s always cared about her; all of my brothers have, but for Evan it’s more.
She’s his little sister, and if something goes wrong, I don’t think he’ll ever get over it.
“Sent,” Clay says, turning his laptop toward me so I can see the message we all agreed on earlier.
Tom : We need to meet to talk about this. The Lockwoods are acting weird, so we need to go somewhere neither of us is associated with. I’ve dropped you a pin for a warehouse I saw to rent. It’s a thirty-minute drive from Kingsacre.
Clay minimizes the messaging app, and the camera footage of Courtney reading the text fills the laptop screen. As we watch, she rolls her eyes in annoyance, visibly huffs, then starts to type something on her cell. Her reply comes through a few seconds later.
Courtney : They don’t know anything, but if they do, try and get some more footage so we have more leverage.
“Wow, she’s a cold bitch,” Sammy says on a laugh. “Reply and tell her that if she doesn’t meet him, he’ll tell us she’s involved when he gets caught.”
Clay glances at me, clearly looking for my input, before he responds. I nod once, swallowing thickly.
Spinning the laptop back around, he quickly types out a response, then turns it to face me again. Reading quickly, I nod, and he hits send.
Tom : How long do you think it would take them to track all of this back to you too? I want to protect you, but if I’m going down, so are you.
Clicking back into the security footage, we all watch as Courtney’s face morphs into an angry scowl.
Digging through her purse, she pulls out her car keys, unlocks her car, and slides into the driver’s seat.
Our view of her is restricted once she’s in the car, but her text reply pops up on Clay’s computer as her rear lights click on and her engine starts.
Courtney : On my way.
We watch as she backs her car out of the space and starts to maneuver out of the parking lot.
My heart starts to beat a frantic staccato in my chest as I open the tracker app on my cell, and lay it on the table, watching as Starling’s dot steadily blinks on the screen, her location moving as Courtney exits the campus and starts to drive away.
“Holy fuck,” Sammy whispers.
“How long do we wait?” Hunter asks, his lips pursed into a flat line, his shoulders tense.
“Fifteen minutes. We need them to be far enough away from campus that it’s suspicious,” Clay says, the only one of us who still looks calm.
Picking up my coffee, I take a sip, and the cold liquid tastes like ash as it hits my tongue. When I lower my cup to the table, a hand covers mine. Looking up, I find Sammy’s worried eyes staring at me.
“She’s going to be fine,” she assures me.
I nod, because if I speak, I’m going to say something crazy, and I need to at least pretend to be calm, collected, and in control right now.
“In an hour, this will all be over, and you can spend the rest of the day fucking her into submission again. Maybe you’ll even knock her up,” Sammy promises.
“Do you think it’d be weird if our son fell in love with your daughter?” Evan blurts. “Are they actually cousins if Starling and I aren’t biologically related?”
“It’d be kind of weird. But if we all have kids and don’t do the gender selection our parents did to get us, then it’d make sense that some of them might end up together,” Hunter offers.
“I’m working on convincing Bunny to get started on babies.
She wants to wait, but I think I’m persuasive enough to convince her. ”
“I think your idea of being persuasive is blackmail,” Sammy deadpans. “That didn’t work out so well for you last time.”
“Fuck you, Sammy,” Hunter snaps.
“No, fuck you, Hunter. Starling’s not here to keep you humble, so I’m taking up the mantle for the next hour until she gets back.”
Sammy’s reminder that Starling isn’t here drags us all back to the present and the moving dot on the screen that shows my wife’s location.
No one speaks again as we watch Starling get further and further away while the clock ticks down. The moment fifteen minutes pass, Evan hands me his cell, and I hit dial on Chief Turner’s personal cell number.
“Hello,” he answers.
“Chief Turner, it’s Sebastian Lockwood.”
“Sebastian, how are you? I’m afraid I don’t have any update on the situation with Mr. Underhill. He’s still refusing to tell us who he’s been working with—”
“I think Starling is in danger,” I blurt, not having to fake the fear in my voice, as I interrupt him.
“What? Why?”
“About twenty minutes ago, my wife received a text message from an old friend, someone she only reconnected with this week but that she’s known since elementary school. As they’re both at Kingsacre, and since we were already on campus getting coffee, Starling left to go and meet her.”
“What makes you think she’s in danger?” Chief Turner asks.
“She’s not on campus anymore, and she’s not answering her cell phone. She doesn’t have any security with her. We’re all together, and we’re at school. We thought she’d be safe here.”
“How do you know she’s left campus? Maybe she just went to her friend’s dorm room or out for lunch?” The chief asks, clearly skeptical.
“Starling has a tracker.”
“I’m sorry, what?” he splutters.
“My family is worth a great deal of money, Chief Turner. When I was a child, there were several kidnapping attempts made against me, Hunter, Evan, and Clay. As a result, all four of us, as well as our parents, had tracker chips implanted in our bodies.”
“You have…trackers…inside of you?” he questions incredulously.
“Yes. When Starling and I got together, we knew there was a risk that she could be seen as a weak link and taken with the intention of ransoming her back to me and my family, so she agreed to having a tracker implanted too. All of our wives have agreed to that safety precaution, as well as having full security personnel to protect them.”
“Okay.”
“I checked Starling’s tracker location.”
“And where is she?” he asks, sounding for the first time like he’s taking my concerns seriously.
“She’s almost ten miles from campus.”
“Could she have driven herself—” he starts.
“My wife is a terrible driver, and her security guard usually acts as her chauffeur, but today we all came together in one vehicle that’s parked close enough to us that I can see it right now. She’s not on campus anymore, and there’s no way she drove herself away from here.”
“Maybe we should all just take a breath—” he starts again.
“Chief Turner, you’re the one who said there had been threats made against her.
You told me to be careful. You suggested she was in danger.
Starling would never leave campus, we thought she’d be safe here.
She wouldn’t choose to go anywhere alone right now.
I’m worried, and I need the police department’s help. ”
Chief Turner’s exhale of breath is audible through the phone. “Who was she meeting?”
“Courtney Ortega.”
“And she’s Mrs. Lockwood’s friend?”
“They were friends as children and then briefly in high school, but to my knowledge they haven’t been in touch since a brief, contentious moment during their freshman year here at Kingsacre.
When we bumped into Courtney on campus this week, they reconnected, and Courtney came to our home for lunch.
She made a few…strange comments to my wife, but they grew up together, so Starling wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.
But there’s no way Starling would leave campus without telling me.
She knows the only people I’d trust her safety with, other than myself, would be her brother, Hunter Rossberg, or Clay Jansen.
She would never go somewhere with anyone else, at least not willingly. ”
The silence that lingers after my last words stretches until Chief Turner eventually speaks. “Is there any way of sending me a live link to Mrs. Lockwood’s location? I could send a couple of officers out to check on her.”
“Would you be accompanying them?” I question.
“Oh. Of course,” he reluctantly agrees.
“I’ve texted you the live link. We’re going to follow her too, but my family and I truly appreciate your assistance with this matter. Starling is my parents’ second child, and they’d never forgive themselves if anything happened to her because of our wealth and social status.”
It’s a low blow to remind him who I am and who my parents are, but I don’t care. If pulling strings gets me what I want, it’s nowhere near the worst thing I’ve ever done to get my own way.
“It would be better to allow the police to take the lead on this. I’m confident that your wife has simply gone somewhere with her friend and that it slipped her mind to inform you of her plans, but we’ll check on her.”
“Thank you, Chief Turner,” I say, ending the call. The moment I push out of my seat, the others all follow suit.
“Let’s go,” Evan says, his body language as on edge as I feel.
Walking as a group to the valet station, I point to our car, and the attendant lifts our keys from the lockbox. Taking them from his hand, I shove a hundred-dollar bill toward him, then stride purposefully to the SUV, unlocking it so we can all climb in.
Instead of allowing me to drive, Hunter takes the driver’s seat, starting the engine and driving off campus moments later.
“Is Turner on the move?” I ask, my jaw ticking as Hunter drives quickly in the direction we know Courtney is heading.
“Yep, I think he must have just gotten into a car, because he’s on the street and moving at faster than walking pace,” Clay confirms.
“How long will it take him to reach the warehouse?” Evan asks, his palm gripping Sammy’s thigh tightly.
“It’s about a fifteen-minute drive from the police department,” Clay informs us matter-of-factly.
“And how long will it take us?”
“Approximately twenty-five minutes, unless something dramatic happens. Chief Turner should get to Courtney about five minutes after she gets to the warehouse, close enough that she shouldn’t have given up waiting and left.
She waited eight minutes for Starling to arrive, she’ll wait at least that long for someone who is threatening to out her,” Clay states.
As he talks, his fingers keep typing frantically as his laptop screen flicks between Starling’s tracker location, the camera feeds around the warehouse, and the text messaging program he’s now using to send texts from Courtney to Tom, informing him that she has Starling and is taking her to the warehouse.
My heartbeat echoes in my head as I force myself to breathe.
In and out. In and out. I refuse to allow myself to dwell on how scared Starling will be if she wakes up from the drug Evan injected her with before the police find her.
I try not to think about how much her arms must be hurting from being tied behind her back or how many bruises she’ll have on her beautiful skin after she’s bounced around in the trunk of the car.
All I focus on is each mile that passes and how much closer to having my wife back in my arms I am.