18. Landon
18
LANDON
“ W hat the fuck!” I scream as soon as I realize what’s just happened. I actually can’t believe it as a big black van drives past and someone pulls Heather inside. How is that even the sort of thing that happens in real life? It isn’t, and it certainly isn’t the sort of thing that happens to me on my jobs. But working on the most important job of my whole life is when it happens, with the woman I love as well as someone I feel responsible for. “No way. Bring Heather back now.”
But the van speeds off much too quickly for me to catch up. I don’t stand a goddamn chance on my feet, and it takes me what feels like a lifetime to get inside my car and to drive off after her in the van. My God, it seemed way too good to be true when I spotted Heather walking on the sidewalk in the opposite direction to me. I guess I was right about that.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I drive, I try to speed as much of the van has, but I don’t know which way it’s gone. It’s impossible to track something down if you don’t know where it is, but my desperation keeps me going. “Heather, I’m coming for you.”
My pulse thumps wildly. I feel dizzy and in actual pain as I drive. My heart is fucking shattering into a million pieces. I really do feel like now, she might be gone for good. Like whoever took her this time might finish her off. Since I don’t know who it was, I also have no idea what they’re capable of. Since they killed my father, if this is them, then she could be in trouble too. I can’t stand the concept of Heather not being in my life, not being on the planet any longer. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hack it.
“Where the fuck is this van?” I want to scream. “Where the fuck did they take her? Oh, my God. How the fuck did I lose her?”
I got some of the license plate numbers, but not all of them because my head was in a spin. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to track them down with the limited information I have. I definitely can’t do it alone. I’m going to have to go to Max and admit the truth. I’ll have to let him know that I defied him and it all went tits up. He’s going to fucking kill me.
“You don’t have any choice,” I growl to myself. “Heather’s life is on the line. Don’t worry about yourself.”
Really, as long as I can get Heather out of this alive, it doesn’t matter what happens to me. Losing my job will be the least of my issues. Getting yelled at and losing the respect of Max is irrelevant too. I need to save her life.
Driving back to Max’s office sickens me to my stomach. I can feel myself crumbling and falling apart. It’s good when I pull back up to the office and I see my boss’s car in the parking lot. Thank God he’s here, early as usual, so I can get his assistance right now. I don’t know what the fuck I would have done if I found myself alone in the building again.
I run up the stairs two at a time and I find Max sat at his computer with a furrowed brow and a concerned expression on his face. I burst in and rest my hands on his shoulders as I attempt to get his focus all the way on me. He needs to hear me now.
“Landon, what the hell is going on?” Max pulls back to stare at me. “Why are you here so early? You know I’m glad you are actually because there was a voicemail message this morning that I need to make a plan with you about.”
“Yeah, I know. I heard it. It’s Heather, she’s…” I don’t get to finish my sentence because Max’s phone rings, making my blood run cold. He turns away from me and picks up. I try not to get pissed off because he obviously didn’t hear the urgency.
“Hello? Officer Buchan.” Max cocks an eyebrow in my direction. “She has? I see… so we need to… to come up with a calm plan to make sure that this doesn’t spiral out of control. Yes, I understand that it already has spiraled… He’s dead?”
Fuck, it’s all coming out and none of it from me. Officer Buchan seems to be filling Max in on my father’s murder and Heather’s vanishing trick too. Hell, this is going to become a fucking nightmare. I huff and storm away so I can pace up and down while Max gets that asshole off the phone. Officer Buchan will think that this is my fault, but I blame him. If he hadn’t taken Heather away from me and locked her up in his goddamn house, then everything would be fine.
I’ll make Max know that too. I’ll make him see that I’m not the bad guy here. All I’ve wanted is the best for Heather. Sure, I know that he’s mad because of the link that we’ve shared in the past, but he’ll listen. He has to.
“Landon, you need to get in here now,” Max yells as soon as he hangs up the phone. “Fucking hell. This is a mess.”
“Yeah, I know, tell me about it,” I growl back. “I saw it happen. I saw Heather be pulled into a van. Here, let me write down the numbers that I can remember from the license plate.” I grab a piece of paper and I scribble it down. “It was a big, black, dirty looking van and some guys just dragged her into it and drove off so fast that I didn’t stand a chance to catch it up.”
“Fucking hell, so the guys linked to your father now have her.” He narrows his eyes at me. “And your dad is…?”
“Dead? Yeah, I haven’t seen you since it happened.” I roll my eyes, not because I’m being dismissive, but because it’s all so much drama in one go. “He was shot in the head. Probably when the gang came to get Heather and she wasn’t there. I can only assume that they have been trying to track her down ever since and they finally found her. Fuck, now they might kill her too.”
“We aren’t going to let that happen, Landon, but you cannot be a part of the search for her. You know it’ll wind Officer Buchan up if you’re involved, and we really need to do what we can to calm him down. We need to do this job right.”
“I’m not being pushed out of this, Max,” I warn my boss angrily. “I don’t care about Heather’s father right now. I don’t give a shit about his opinion. I need to be out there looking for her. I feel like I’m the only one who can find her.”
“Landon, I know you feel that way, but you have to trust me. You have to know that I can do this. You have seen what I can do with this company, so you need to sit back and let it happen. You need to give me the time to make this work.”
I can practically see the cogs ticking in Max’s brain. He’s coming up with a plan already, but I won’t be pushed out. I’m going to be involved with this no matter what. Heather is my responsibility because I was the one assigned to work with her, but also because I love her. I’m so in love with her that I can’t let her die. Max will have to let me have some leeway.
“Max, I’m going to help with this, you know I am. You have to let me assist because I’m in the middle of it all.”
“Yes, and your emotions are the problem.” Max nods. “Your emotions are what will ruin this. If I let you out there with that look on your face, then everything will explode. I have to do this in a calm and collected way. I can keep you here in the office. You can assist me here. You can work on helping me to track this gang and this van down. We need to do it fast, okay?”
I’m not happy about it, but it’s better than nothing. At least right now, I’m in the middle of it. He’s allowing me to keep tabs on things. I nod, despite the fact that I know if the time comes for me to go out, then I will. It doesn’t matter what Max says about it. This is more important than anything going on in my life. Max can lose his shit if he wants, but we’ll deal with it later.
“Right, so I’m going to take what I have with these numbers and see if I can find the license plate and track it down.”
“Yes, Landon, that’s great, and I’ll get some other guys in early. Get some people out on the road to hunt for them.”
My fists ball up by my sides. Is he trying to irritate me about this? Suggesting that some other guys can get out there to find Heather while I’m sitting here like some chump, not being a hero at all, is just annoying. But fine, whatever. I won’t react. I won’t give him any reason to push me even further out of this. Instead, I move over to my desk and grit my teeth.
“Ignore him,” I whisper to myself as Max gets on the phone to other members of staff. “It’s fine. It’s okay. It will be fine.”
But it isn’t fine. It’s not fucking fine at all. I couldn’t be more pissed off if I tried. I’m even slamming on the keyboard hard as I search. My fingers are going to freaking ache at the end of this… if I even find anything. I mean, if these guys are as smart as they seem, then I’m going to have all kinds of challenges in finding them. They could be really well hidden, for all I know. They could have some goddamn hideout somewhere that none of us know about, a base where they do… God, anything. I’ve no real idea of the sort of crimes my father might have really been involved in. Enough to make him kidnap a woman, that much is true. For him to go to such extremes is terrifying. I should have asked him more when he was still alive. Or perhaps I should have tried to contact my mother already… and I will soon. I’m just trying to prepare myself for it now. So much has happened in the last few hours that I’m a little bewildered by it all. Hopefully, by the time I’m allowed to call the jail, I’ll be in a better headspace.
I shouldn’t have come here, I think that’s my main issue. I should have continued to do this search myself. At least then, I wouldn’t be stuck here, controlled by Max. I could be out there on the streets finding them, putting an end to this.
“No, don’t get lost in that,” I hiss to myself. “Don’t worry about what you could do, worry about what you can do.”
I try to zone in on the computer screen, but it’s making my head spin. I’m struggling to think about anything other than what might be happening to Heather right now. The love of my life has been captured by a group of horrible men, and while they have control of her, I can’t let anything bad happen to her. Somehow, I have to put a stop to this.