Chapter 35
Zane
Lucas hadn’t let me interrogate O’Connor as quickly as I wanted, saying “If you want clear answers, give him a minute.”
The problem was Peyton didn’t have any minutes to waste.
“What happened?” I asked.
Pete, Constance, and Lucas were with me and the detective at one end of the long conference room table.
Jordy had set up at the other end to do his computer shit and follow any lead we got.
O’Connor scratched at his chest where he’d been tased. “Damn, this still hurts.” He took in a long breath. “The guy Tasered me as soon as I came out of the bathroom. I didn’t have a chance to draw my gun.”
“Why did you leave Pay… Leighton alone?” Pete asked before I got the chance.
“I didn’t. She needed to go to the bathroom, and I wasn’t going to join her in the ladies’ bathroom, that would be creepy. So, I went to use the mens’ room certain I’d finish before her.”
I calmed my voice. “Why didn’t you wait for us?”
“There was no telling how long you would be, and she’s the one who insisted.” He leaned forward, agitated. “What was I supposed to do? Tell her no?”
“Was she still in the bathroom?” Constance asked.
“I assume so. I mean I took a quick piss and then got jumped. I couldn’t move after the Taser. The asshole pulled out a syringe and stabbed me in the neck. That’s the last thing I remember.” He rubbed the injection site that Pete had found.
“When was this? How long after Zane told you he was leaving the office?” Lucas asked.
“Right away. She mentioned it as soon as you left,” he said, looking at me.
“What did this guy look like?”
“There were two of them.”
“Two?” Pete asked.
O’Connor nodded. “A big bald guy, a wrestler type, Tasered me, and was in my face to drug me. The other guy walked by when I was on the ground. I didn’t get a good look at him. All I got was medium height, brown hair. I didn’t see his face. Both of them were dressed in black. That’s about it.”
“What about the bald guy’s face? Any identifying—” Constance asked.
Marci burst in. “Peyton’s on the phone.”
I launched out of my chair. “Which phone?”
Marci backed out of my way. “Her desk.”
Hope filled me as I bolted to the door.
Lucas did too. “Pete, stay.”
As I turned down the hallway, I heard O’Connor ask, “Who’s Peyton?”
Lucas followed as I sprinted for Peyton’s desk.
When I reached the desk and picked up the phone, the warble told the story. “Peyton? Peyton?” No response. “Shit. The line’s dead.”
Lucas pointed at the buttons on the phone. “Which line is that?”
“The main company number,” Marci answered. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked with obvious distress.
“No, you did fine.” Lucas raced back to the conference room, and I followed.
“What’s going on?” O’Connor asked when we returned.
Lucas ignored him. “Jordy, she got free and just called the main number here. Tell me where the call originated?”
“Leighton?” O’Connor asked.
“On it.” Jordy checked his watch, then his fingers flew across the keyboard.
“It’ll take forever to get a warrant,” O’Connor said.
Jordy raised his hand. “Got the call. It came from…”
The room filled with tension as we waited for an address.
“Be a landline, be a landline,” Jordy chanted. Then, he banged his fist on the table. “Shit, it was a cell phone and it’s not giving me GPS coordinates, probably inside a building. I won’t be able to get an exact address, but I can triangulate a rough location from the cell towers.”
“Do it,” Lucas commanded.
“How’d he do that?” the detective asked.
I ignored him, clenching and unclenching my fist. We were so close, but not close enough.
“What can we do without an address?” It was O’Connor again.
Jordy didn’t even look up from his laptop. “We can search cameras in the area to find her.”
“Forget that. We have to interview witnesses in the area,” O’Connor insisted.
Constance shook her head.
Jordy raised a fist. “Got it. Registered to Jian Chen.”
I looked straight at the Boston cop, anger boiling up. “No wonder you never caught this guy.” I shouldn’t have said it, but it was the fucking truth. Interviewing witnesses would take forever—time we didn’t have. That would virtually guarantee that the trail went cold.
“Fuck you,” O’Connor spat.
I worried that Lucas would come down on me for being so confrontational, but that thought disappeared when I caught the smirk Constance only partially hid. She agreed with me that the detective’s methods were shit. If she was on my side, things wouldn’t be that bad.
O’Connor slammed his fist down on the table. “You have no fucking idea how smart this guy is. I’ve been on this case for years. You have no idea how to go about catching a criminal.”
“Home address on Chen?” Lucas asked.
O’Connor was pissing me off. “Yeah, on the case for years, and you blew off Leighton, a real eyewitness who came forward,” I said. “That’s stupid police work.” Stupid was a kinder word than what I meant.
Jordy interrupted us. “He lives in Palos Verdes. I’m narrowing the search area. It’s north of here.”
O’Connor leveled a glare at me as his face turned beet red. “Fuck off. I’ve been on the force for nineteen years. How many years of police experience you got? I’m going to catch this guy.”
Constance was a law enforcement professional and it was clear what she thought of O’Connor when she silently shook her head again.
The ends of Lucas’s lips quirked up, then he turned to Jordy. “They couldn’t have made it to Palos Verdes this soon. Any other properties?”
“Fuck,” I roared back at O’Connor. “Catching the guy isn’t today’s goal. We’re trying to save the victim here, your witness, and my woman. We have to use the quickest tool.”
O’Connor stood. “I don’t have to listen to this shit.”
“Sit your ass down.” Lucas’s words were cold and commanding.
The detective froze. “Feet on the ground close cases, not electronic crap.”
“I said sit. We’ve got you closer to him than you’ve ever been.”
O’Connor glared at me, then finally sat.
Constance hid her smirk as she focused her eyes on the table in front of her.
Pete had kept his mouth shut, but gave me an imperceptible thumbs up as he combed his hair back with his hand.
“I can’t find any other properties,” Jordy answered.
Lucas pointed a finger at the detective. “Cameras are faster and more accurate than people’s hazy memories.” His voice had returned to normal. “You should know that.”
“Sure are,” Jordy added.
O’Connor took a moment to respond. “Then show me.”
“Narrowing the area,” Jordy announced.
I got up to see his laptop.
He waved me back. “Hold on. I’ll put it up on the projector.”
The large screen at the end of the room came alive with a map and a circle in red that slowly reduced in area.
“Where does Chen work?” Lucas asked.
“Hold on. There’s only one of me,” Jordy shot back. “And being a wizard isn’t easy.”
“If it was easy, we wouldn’t need you, little brother.” This had to be the third time I’d heard Lucas use that line on Jordy.
It was torture to be reduced to helpless waiting.
Jordy pumped his fist. “Gotcha. She was within that radius when she made the call.” He squinted at the screen. “Near Pico and Broadmore.” He leaned back in his chair.
“You sure?” O’Connor asked.
I thought Jordy was going to react, but Lucas beat him to it. “I’d suggest not questioning my brother’s capabilities again, or I’ll allow him to max out your credit cards, empty your bank accounts, and ruin your credit history. He can do that in less than three minutes. I’ve timed him.”
The blood drained from O’Connor’s face. “Sorry.”
To me, the douchebag did not look at all like he was sorry.
“That’s great, now cameras?” Lucas prodded. “And where Chen works.”
Jordy got back to work. “There’s a lot of nearby cameras. This will take a while.”
Lucas nodded. “Divide the work. Pete, you stay and help Jordy go through the video. Now, let’s mount up and get there to be in position for when Jordy and Pete tell us where she went. Two teams. Constance, you’re with me in alpha team. Zane, you’re bravo team and O’Connor rides with you.”
The detective gave me a withering look, but didn’t object.
Pete’s mouth opened for a second.
I shook my head at him to keep it zipped.
He looked like he wanted to be out with us, where the action was, but heeded my warning. Lucas had given us assignments, and arguing would only slow us down.
I followed Constance and O’Connor to the door.
Lucas held me back when I reached it.
“I get that you don’t want to work with him,” he whispered. “But somebody has to keep him from getting shot.”
“Then you take him,” I suggested. It wasn’t meant as a joke.
He squeezed my shoulder. “You’ll do fine.”
My appeal had been in vain, as I should have known it would be.
With O’Connor in the passenger seat, I let the twin-turbo V-8 loose as soon as we turned onto the street.
Lucas’s Cayenne was already half a block ahead of us.
I caught him after the corner.
“Slow down,” Lucas said over comms. “We can’t afford to stop for a chat with any traffic cops.”
“Copy that,” I responded.
“He can’t help it,” Constance joked in my ear. “The Air Force wouldn’t take him and he still spends all his time trying to hit Mach one.”
Lucas laughed.
“Very funny,” I replied.
“What’s funny?” O’Connor asked.
I tapped my ear near my earbud.
The light ahead turned yellow, and I sped up to avoid getting split off from Lucas.
“It’s going to turn red,” O’Connor objected as he grabbed the door handle and braced.
I gritted my teeth. We were on the way to confront a murderer, and the fat jerk was worried about traffic lights. The sooner he was gone, the better.
“Give me one of those earpieces so I know what’s going on.”
“I don’t have another one,” I lied.
The guy had no training, and would probably lock up the comm channel. That kind of error could get somebody hurt.
The detective let out a breath. “You dislike me, don’t you?”
“That light was close,” Lucas said in my ear.
“Yeah,” I replied, then realizing what I said, turned to my passenger. “Sorry, I was answering Lucas. No, I don’t dislike you. I dislike that you let my girl get kidnapped.” It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there.
“She had to go and was safe in the bathroom. I had to go too. How was I supposed to know some guy would infiltrate the building and get the drop on me?”
My hand clenched on the wheel. “You anticipate danger at any second, which is why you should have stayed in the hallway until she finished. That’s what protecting someone means.”
“I had to pee, too,” he complained.
What a whiner.
The next light turned red before we reached it, and I slowed behind Lucas. “You should have waited until Pete and I got back, or peed in a cup. The one thing you don’t do is go off in another room and lose sight of your charge.”
“I thought—”
I cut him off with a yell. “You fucking thought wrong, and because of you, she’s in danger.”
He slumped in his seat. “Sorry, I guess so.”
He deserved to have me yell at him for another hour. I stopped because it wouldn’t help Peyton one bit, and I needed his help when Jordy gave us a location or direction on my woman.
It was quiet for several blocks before Jordy’s voice came over comms. “I think I got it. Jian Chen owns a restaurant—Ying Chen Garden. It’s within the radius.”
“Address?” Lucas demanded.
Jordy rattled off an address on Pico, and I repeated it to O’Connor.
O’Connor looked over. “What? Is that where the girl is?”
I shrugged. “We don’t know yet. That’s the work address of the guy’s phone she borrowed.”
Lucas sped up, and I followed. We were still a good ten minutes away.
Hold on Peyton, I’m coming.
“Hey, watch out,” O’Connor squealed as I quickly shifted lanes. He had a white-knuckle grip on the door, with his legs braced against the floor. “You gotta slow down. You’re gonna kill us.”
I ignored him and poured on the gas to keep up with Lucas.
“I found video,” Jordy said excitedly. “It’s ten minutes old, but a black BMW came to a stop near there and a woman bolted out.
It looks like Peyton. She went into a Mexican restaurant two doors down from Chen’s place and was followed by two men from the car.
She must have gone out the back door and entered the Chinese restaurant and borrowed the owner’s phone to call from there. ”
“Is she still inside?” I demanded as I dodged right around the next car.
O’Connor was pale as a sheet.
“I don’t know yet. Hold on,” Jordy said.
Peyton
The angry older man grabbed the phone away from me and hung it up.
I didn’t understand a word of the Chinese he yelled at me.
A different yell came through the partially open alley window. “There she is.”
I swiveled.
Baldy locked eyes with me.
I ran right through the screaming Chinese man and back through the kitchen. Snaking my way around tables of startled guests, I raced for the front door onto the street.
Baldy bellowed from the kitchen behind me.
On the street, I turned and took off, legs pumping for all I was worth. I would have yelled for help, but the sidewalk was empty.
Glancing back as I turned the corner at the intersection, I saw that Baldy hadn’t gotten out of the restaurant yet. Maybe he’d go the wrong way.
I ran as fast as I could, hearing Zane’s voice in my head. “You can do it. Just a little faster, just a little faster.”
Just like on Pico, there was nobody on the sidewalk to help me, but on this side street there also weren’t any cars to flag down for help, no witnesses to the chase.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind me, but I didn’t look back. By half-way down the block, I really regretted not going running with Marci at lunch. My lungs burned, and my legs felt heavy.
I made it only to the end of the block before a hand grabbed my hair and yanked.
Ow, ow, ow. The pain was intense as he dragged me back onto the ground. The brute’s knee landed on top of me.
With his hand clamped over my mouth, my attempt at a scream for help sounded pathetically weak.
Then the nightmare worsened as the monster with bi-colored eyes arrived and smiled from above the brute on top of me. “Very naughty, Leighton,” he said, panting heavily. Then, he pulled out a syringe. “But, we are still going to have a very fun three days, you and me.”
I spat at him but got Baldy instead.
The big man hit me.
Pain radiated across my face.
Monster slapped the big man. “Vlad, I told you. Don’t mess up the merchandise.” So, Baldy was probably Russian.
I spat again and this time got Monster’s pant leg.
He reacted with the most evil laugh I’d ever heard as he leaned over. “Feisty is good. I like feisty. In the end, you’ll learn to obey. I promise you that.”
The syringe came down in a hurry. The prick on my neck as I looked up into his evil face was the last thing I remembered as blackness crept in from the edges.