Chapter 49
foreknowledge
Cian
The list seems to keep getting larger, even as we scratch things off. I stare at the line items remaining. They’re the most complex. No short-term fix works for any of them.
Phoenix Consulting was thrown on the back burner, but it’s not going to make it there long. No income, nothing being built to sustain me this fall or next spring. Commercial real estate is a long game with horrendous lead times.
No excuses. I need to work on that every day or every night. Exhaustion doesn’t matter. Every day I put it off is a week of no income… or worse.
Placing a check mark near that item, I pull out my phone and begin a to-do list for the business. Emails that need to be sent. Phone calls that need to be made.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the other line items are worse, so I should be able to build the business while the other three impossible tasks loom over me like the grim reaper himself.
My brother wants to use the girls to bait Jonas to Denver. Sever the head from the snake, if you will, allowing the people in South Dakota the freedom to choose.
There are multiple problems with this strategy. The least is that people who are in the life don’t know how to leave, and someone waits in the wings to be worse or do worse. We all know the stories, those who drank the Kool-Aid or those who found their own graves blindly following the leader.
Jonas has proven to be cold, brutal, calculating, and savage. As far as opponents, I’d choose one with less intelligence… and less cruelty.
Underestimating him is a dangerous mistake. He walked, bold as brass, into a crowded restaurant—and we’re not talking Olive Garden. We’re talking about a shopping center converted into a restaurant-slash-entertainment center that rivals some Vegas hotel lobbies—to kidnap at least two people.
That didn’t happen without planning or foreknowledge.
Foreknowledge.
Fuck. How did he know?
Learning where Sariah lives was easy. The FBI splashed her face on every computer and TV screen as the hacker responsible for taking down a child porn ring.
But dinner? That was different. We discussed it at home. I’m sure Renée asked Emma via phone or over text, but otherwise it was all in the family.
How did Jonas know?
I grab my phone and swipe to the tracking app. Sariah is at the nail salon, the bubble never moving, but Renée? Fuck me, Renée’s bubble flies up Wadsworth.
Not again.
Grabbing my phone, I dial Liam.
“Yeah?”
“Something’s going down. Open the tracking app.”
“Fuck. Tell me where, brother.”
“You go to the stationary bubble. It hasn’t moved. I’m following the one that’s moving.”
“You think?”
“I don’t know shit. But I know Sariah wouldn’t leave Renée alone. I’m betting it’s a ditched bag.”
“I’ll keep you posted.”
“I’m over this. This has to end.”
“Or?”
“There is no or. This ends. If not today, then tomorrow. If I have to go to South Dakota to do it, so be it.”
“Don’t be rash. And check in.” He disconnects.
I run for my truck, slapping the phone onto the holder recklessly and having to do it a second time when it tumbles. I lose precious seconds. Seconds I cannot afford, before throwing the car into reverse and flying down my street.
I pause long enough to see the trajectory and find myself on I-25 heading north to make up time. Thanking heaven above that it’s only summer tourists and not yet football traffic, I weave in and out of lanes until the downtown bottleneck has me punching my steering wheel.
The bubble is ahead of me, northbound on the interstate. Out of reach, but also stuck.
Now I get to find a needle in a haystack since we’re all stuck.
When my phone rings, filling the cab, I jump. I’ve been so focused that the disruption jars me.
“Yeah.”
“You were right,” Liam begins. “Sariah’s purse is in her car. The driver’s side door is open in invitation. She’s lucky it wasn’t stolen.”
Lucky. Lucky? Only in that two moving targets would’ve split our focus.
A whistle rends the truck.
“What?”
“Been talking to you for several moments. Where’d you go?”
“I’m here. Sorry. What did you say?”
“The owners say Sariah was shoved in a black SUV. She screamed for Renée to run, and she did back into the salon but was chased by a man who dragged her out kicking and screaming.”
My blood boils.
“She was put in a different SUV that tore out of the lot heading east.”
Fuck.
“I’m on my way.”
“Thank you.” The words are weary and heavy and are pulled from me with great pain.
“We end this.”
“We end this.” My words fall on deaf ears since my brother has already disconnected, but my vow is to my family.
All of them.
I dial Rosie.
“Hello?”
Crawling through traffic has shortened my patience. “Rosie, it’s Cian. We have trouble.”
Shifting and shuffling are followed by a door closing. “What’s happening?”
“Are the girls safe?”
“Are my girls safe?”
“They will be. I need you on guard, Rosie. Something’s going down, and it’s going down here. Again. Make sure those girls are safe.”
“You make sure mine are too.”
“Without a doubt. Call me if anything sets off your intuition.”
“I will. Cian?” Her voice is steel when she says, “Bring my girls home.”
“I will.”
The weight of her words is an anchor to my already-heavy heart.
Sariah
The only reason I haven’t absolutely lost my shit and killed the driver with my own two hands is that I need my wits about me. The doors have the damn child safety locks engaged. I learned that at the first stop sign.
He quickly pulled over and duct taped my hands behind my back.
FBI special agent, my ass. Isn’t impersonating a federal officer a crime? Either way, he’ll go down.
I’m fucking over this.
I’ve lived in fear for as long as I can remember. Escaped only to be dragged back time and time again. Then freedom wasn’t so free, since I spent more than a decade looking over my shoulder. Moving cross country, wiping my digital footprint, changing names.
That shit is exhausting, and I’m exhausted from it.
What this kidnapper has failed to factor in is a mom who is at her wits’ end when it comes to life’s unfair deals.
A second vehicle follows us, leaving no room for cars to merge. We’re a caravan, heading north toward Wyoming.
Other places, I may not know that, but the mountains to my left are a clear sign.
That car holds my daughter. That’s the only reason I haven’t kicked my driver in the head and made a run for it. I’m not weak. I will protect her.
But I can’t if I’m dead on the side of the road in a rolled SUV.
How long will it be before Cian realizes we aren’t coming home? How long before he worries?
My phone is in my purse in a parking lot in Lakewood.
Whether Renée likes it or not, the next house will be somewhere out of the immediate area. I love my home. I’m in love with Cian’s. But I’ll be good never driving those streets again. Too many memories. Too much worry. Too many places where my blood gets cold just remembering them.
Maybe therapy is just what I need if I’m thinking about real estate moves when I’m in the middle of the second kidnapping in a week. I’m like the clueless girl in every horror film who goes in search of the thump or creaking step instead of staying with her friends. I’m not stupid.
Who the hell kidnaps someone at a restaurant? Or a nail salon? I only stopped because he said FBI. But I knew. I knew in my gut that something was wrong.
The FBI doesn’t kidnap women. If they do, I’ll expose that shit too.
My mind spins on the ways to expose it, the firewalls to breach, the way to share the data publicly. I’d probably be arrested for treason, but if that’s treason, so is kidnapping Americans from nail salons, so…
I repeat the license plate number of the SUV I was tossed into over and over until it’s burned in my brain. Then I do the same with the one following us.
At this point, they’ll be cannon for me.
Another vehicle passes us. It’s surprising because we’ve been speeding since we got out of Denver traffic. Somewhere around Firestone, the driver decided to roll on the throttle.
I know that truck. Not just the license plate, the truck. He pulls in front of us and slows just a bit, forcing our caravan to do the same.
The driver swears and yanks toward the passing lane just in time to see a police officer in the center median and hit the brakes. Guilty, motherfucker.
The reds and blues whip on behind us. True to his dumb nature, the driver lays it down and races on ahead.
We leave Cian in the dust. Just as we do Renée in the SUV behind him.