Chapter Eight
James
I wake with a smile on my face, hoping to be able to slide into Allie once again. I’m desperate to feel her quake around me, desperate to see myself bring her to the edge. I need to tell her I love her, that I would be totally and completely lost without her at this point. When I roll over to tell her just that, my smile falls immediately when I realize she’s not there.
“Fuck!” I shout, jumping out of bed and rushing downstairs, hoping to find her there. I run through each room, my heart pounding faster and faster as I find each of them empty before arriving in the kitchen to see she left a note on the counter telling me she went to Katie’s and should be back around 7:30. I glance at the clock. 8:07. Fuck.
The bottom of the note lets me know she shared her location with me for safety reasons, and I head out to the security hut to the side of the house, ready to get answers. I had it built after my last close call, and the men inside should be watching the cameras, guaranteeing 24 hour a day constant surveillance.
When I get there, I find the man on watch completely passed out and the second officer nowhere to be found.
“Get up!” I bark at the sleeping officer, and he jolts in his chair, his eyes filling with shock and fear at the anger in my voice. Good. He should be terrified.
“Why the fuck are you sleeping on the job, Tony? I told you someone had to be on watch 24/7. Allie is missing and so is your fucking deputy. So why don’t you tell me when exactly you fell asleep and where the fuck you think this other guy is?”
“I’m so sorry, sir. We just had another baby and…” he takes one look at my face and must realize now isn’t the time for excuses. “I must have fallen asleep around 5:45, Luis was here then, I know that. How long do you think Allie has been gone?” He gets on his walkie and starts mumbling that he needs all hands on deck.
“She left me a note saying she would be back around 7:30, and as you can see, it’s well past then. I checked my phone and her phone’s last known location was at her friend Katie’s house, about ten minutes ago,” I tell him, my voice still seething as the hut starts to fill with the rest of the security team pouring in from other locations.
“Allie’s missing,” I shout. I point at three of my men. “You, go to Allie’s house and stand guard in case her grandfather returns.” They take off, and I turn to the rest. “The rest of you, with me. We’re heading to her friend Katie’s house where she was last seen. Let’s go.”
We hop into my fleet of black SUVs and race the few miles to Katie’s house. When we pull up, I see the Mercedes I told Allie to use parked out front. I breathe a sigh of relief, hoping that means she just lost track of time with her friend.
I approach the front door, and it’s immediately opened by a red-haired woman dressed in scrubs and looking like she has been crying.
“Oh my god, are you James?” she asks, her voice quaking with each word.
“Yes. Katie?” I ask and she nods.
“Allie came over her to tell me all about you this morning, and I asked her to lock up because I had to run to work. I had just pulled into the hospital when I checked my doorbell alerts and saw her being knocked out by some man in a mask. I rushed back here as quickly as I could. I was just about to call the cops.”
“No cops.” These fuckers were mine to deal with. “Can you show me the footage of her being taken?” I ask and she nods, pulling out her phone and replaying the scene. I see Allie plugging a combination into the door lock, and my chest tightens when I see a masked man walk up behind her, knocking her on the head with the butt of his gun. A moment later, a silver van pulls into the driveway and I immediately know how to find these fuckers. The idiots didn’t even bother to cover their license plate, fucking useless.
“Can you send this to me?” I ask Katie. She says yes and I rattle off my phone number before quickly dialing the head of my security team. He’s former FBI and no stranger to pulling plate numbers. He sends me an address along with pictures of the warehouse the van is registered to. I know then and there that’s where they’ve taken Allie.
As I’m turning to leave, Katie stops me.
“Jim… my brother, I think he’s caught up in something shady. He’s who Allie was supposed to pick up from the airport the other day, when she accidentally kidnapped you. But it was weird, he didn’t even seem upset to not have a ride when I told him what happened. He seemed almost relieved?” She pauses before swallowing and continuing. “I’m not sure if this means anything to you, but he was on a ‘business trip,’” she puts the words in air quotes, “to Colombia and has been acting so shady ever since he got back, just total silence which is very unlike him. I’m worried.”
Fuck, if he was coming back from Colombia he could very well be involved in all of this.
“Thanks for telling me,” I say to Katie, not wanting to confirm her suspicions in case I’m wrong. “I’ll let you know as soon as we find anything.” She nods, and I jump back into the SUV, once more racing to my find my girl.