Chapter 24
Chapter 24
P iedmont knew it was serious when he was summoned from court. Acacia had never done that before, not once. Only the direst circumstance would provoke such an action. He was prepared for the worst, or so he thought. When he learned about the phone call and the gunshot, it was so much worse than he’d imagined.
He couldn’t think clearly—only one thing made sense. He gave Charles directions and headed to the only place that came to mind.
When Amelia answered the door and saw her ex-boyfriend on the other side, she blinked at him in surprised confusion, speechless. “I need you,” Piedmont declared.
“Um,” Amelia said, unsure how to respond.
He peered around her, to the other person in the apartment. “Not you, sorry. Ethan, I need you.”
Ethan came to the door and stood beside Amelia. “What’s the problem?”
“They took Paley, and she might be shot.”
Amelia gasped. Ethan nodded, reached behind the door and grabbed a black bag. “I’m ready.”
“You’re already ready to go?” Piedmont said.
“Not my first time,” Ethan said. He kissed Amelia goodbye, closed the door, and they were on their way. “Tell me everything you know.”
So Piedmont filled him in on the home invasion as well as the mob connection and his inability to determine who ordered the first hit. They reached Charles, and Ethan waved him away. “We’ll take my car, at this point I don’t trust anyone who’s not on my team. Call the detective handling the case and have him send you a picture of the room she was taken from, the one with the blood.”
Piedmont did as he was instructed. A minute later, he had the picture on his phone. They came to a red light, and Ethan studied it. “Does she have a gun?”
“Yes, we’ve been taking lessons,” Piedmont said.
Ethan tipped his head. “It’s likely she was by the bed and the intruders entered the room, meaning she was the shooter and one of them is injured. Judging by the amount of blood, it wasn’t a fatal shot.” He handed the phone back to Piedmont who studied it, trying to figure out what he saw that gave him that idea. Was he merely trying to make Piedmont feel better? But no, Ethan wasn’t the kind to sugarcoat things. Paley had likely been in the midst of cleaning. The bed was half made, meaning she was in the middle of making it. She had probably heard the intruders, spun, and fired her weapon. He smiled a little, proud of her spunk in the face of certain terror. He could only hope it hadn’t enraged her captors, hadn’t prompted them to retaliate.
They pulled into the parking garage of a high-rise building downtown.
“What are we doing here?” Piedmont asked.
“Getting some much needed help,” Ethan said. He pushed a button.
“What?” a voice said.
“It’s me,” Ethan said.
The voice sighed, but soon the elevator doors opened, and they were granted access to the top floor, the penthouse.
The door was opened by someone Piedmont knew, a friend of Amelia’s named Blue. He’d always felt a certain affinity with Blue, recognition from one geek to another. He had no idea what Blue’s connection to Ethan was, but he figured it must be something to do with his job, that Blue functioned in a secret capacity that had been kept hidden.
“I just got home, Becket,” Blue complained.
“It’s not for me, it’s for him,” Ethan said, thumbing in the direction of Piedmont.
Blue sighed. “Him I like. Come on in. How’s it going, Piedmont?”
“Not so well.”
“His girlfriend was kidnapped,” Ethan explained.
Blue looked at him, frowning. “You do have a way with the ladies.”
Piedmont glanced at Ethan in question. “Blue’s the one who located Amelia for us last time.”
Piedmont blinked at Blue in surprise and then, for lack of anything better to do, stared around the spacious abode. “I think I used to own this building,” he noted absently. He had an investment portfolio, and real estate was part of it. He only paid vague attention to the things his broker bought and sold for him, but he’d always liked the building in question.
“You did.” A small woman on the couch piped up. She sat absolutely still, so still and silent Piedmont didn’t notice her until she spoke. In her lap was a massive volume with a picture of a mummy on the cover. “Piedmont Bonvoy,” she said in acknowledgement of his inspection before returning her attention to her book.
“How could you possibly know that?” Blue asked.
“I snooped through your financial records,” she said, not bothering to look up again.
“For that, I’m making you a Facebook account when I’m done with this,” Blue threatened.
“My dad will be thrilled,” Jane said, and Ethan snickered.
“This was worth the price of admission,” he said. “But not really,” he added, catching sight of Piedmont’s frown.
“Here we go,” Blue said, and the three men leaned forward in time to watch a grainy video of Paley being stuffed into the back of a car. “Got a plate.”
He typed some more while Piedmont’s insides twisted with anxiety. She had been alive when she was put into the car. If they wanted to kill her, they could have done it immediately at the house. It had to be some kind of ransom situation. He hoped so, or why else would they have a need to hold onto her?
“Here we go,” Blue repeated, and everyone froze again. The car stopped in front of another house.
“That’s Paley’s former house,” Piedmont said. They watched as another woman was gathered and stuffed into the back of the car, this one obviously pregnant.
“You know her?” Ethan asked.
“That’s Paley’s husband’s girlfriend,” Piedmont said. “What would they want with her?”
“Let’s see,” Blue said, and began typing again.
“Paley Anderson?” the woman on the couch asked. Piedmont turned to her in surprise.
“You know Paley?”
“She and my younger sister, Poppy, are 4H frenemies.”
“What are 4H frenemies?” Ethan asked, plopping down beside her and helping himself to a bowl of candy on the table.
“They had a mutual interest in the baked goods 4H class and became friends, but they were each other’s greatest competition, so they were also enemies. Frenemies,” she explained.
“Like me and Piedmont,” Ethan said.
“No,” Piedmont said, shaking his head.
“I’m growing on him,” Ethan stage whispered.
“You have that effect on all of us,” the woman said, and Blue snickered.
“I love you, Jane,” he muttered absently. “Okay, here we go. A week after he filed for divorce, Paley’s husband took out a hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy on her. And his girlfriend. And, let’s see here, he’s in debt up to his eyeballs and somehow managed to purchase a new car with fifty thousand dollars cash.”
“Someone got a loan from a shark,” Ethan surmised.
“And someone is trying to use the women in his life to pay it off,” Blue added.
Piedmont’s phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number. He held it aloft and read out loud, “We have your girlfriend. We want a million in crypto currency in an hour or she’s dead.”
Blue held out his hand for the phone, and Piedmont handed it over. “Let’s see where this came from,” he muttered and started to type again. “Here we go, not too far away, at a warehouse downtown.” Piedmont reached for his phone, but Blue shook his head. “I need to set up a dummy account, fake the money transfer, buy Ethan some time to get in and out.”
“You can do that?” Piedmont said, impressed.
“I can do anything,” Blue said, smiling. “Now you two better scoot.”
“Thank you,” Piedmont said. “I owe you so much.”
“Yes, you do,” Blue agreed. “Make a generous donation to the Egyptian anthropology collection at the Smithsonian, and we’ll call it even.”
“Okay,” Piedmont said, not understanding but willing to comply.
“Good luck,” Jane called, “and thank you for your donation.”
“I didn’t understand any of what happened in there,” Piedmont said once he and Ethan were out of the apartment.
“Blue’s a hacker, Jane’s an anthropologist at the Smithsonian,” Ethan said.
“Oh,” Piedmont said. “Who’s Becket?”
“No one, it’s nothing,” Ethan said tightly.
Piedmont barely listened, instead realigning the previous encounter through the new filter. At the moment, he had a hard time thinking of anything at all. His entire mind and body hummed, so tightly strung he would probably twang if bumped. He vibrated with nervousness and anxiety. All the what ifs of the situation ran through his brain with lightning speed.
In contrast, Ethan was perfectly relaxed, his perpetual half smile on his face. As he’d said, this wasn’t his first time. “What am I doing?” Ethan said suddenly, stopping short.
“Rescuing Paley,” Piedmont reminded him.
“No, I mean why are you with me? Stay here with Blue and Jane. I’ll come back for you when it’s over.”
“No.”
“No?” Ethan said.
“No. I’m not staying behind again. I’m going with you this time,” Piedmont decreed. He expected an argument, but Ethan shrugged one shoulder and resumed his smile.
“Suit yourself, here we go.” They loaded into the car and took off.