35. Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter thirty-five
4 :46 a.m. Two hours, twenty-eight minutes without her.
Fox wasn’t particularly surprised to pull into his mother’s driveway and find the lights on in the house at nearly five in the morning. He parked the car, took a deep breath, then rushed up to the door, knowing exactly how he wanted to play this out.
Dean and Mason were in a separate car. They’d have his back.
But he didn’t need help getting Tanya to talk. He had a feeling he’d get exactly what he expected from her.
He didn’t bother knocking on the door. He didn’t have to.
She opened it for him. “Fox, what are you doing here so late?”
“Actually, I think it’s early.”
Her gaze darted past him as she scanned the yard. “What’s wrong?”
“Melody’s been kidnapped. I’m expecting a ransom demand any second.”
No surprise or concern showed on her face. “Then what are you doing here?”
He took a step closer to her, then another, backing her up and into the house. “I need to know who you told about the lottery win.”
“No one.” She held her hands out, then let them drop. “You asked me not to tell anyone.”
Fox shrugged. “Your social worker knows. What about your doctor. A nurse. The grocery store clerk. The travel agent in town you’ve been talking to about all the trips you want me to pay for.” He tried to hold back his temper, but those last words came out with a bite to them.
She shook her head. “I didn’t tell anyone. You asked me to keep it a secret.”
“But you didn’t. Because someone knows. Someone took the woman I love, the woman I plan to marry and have a real family with. The woman who makes me happy. The woman who would do anything for me, including saving me from you.”
Her shoulders squared. “You don’t need to be saved from me. I’m your mother.”
“That’s biology. You’ve never been a real mother to me. Not when I was young. Not now. I’m just a means to an end. And if you used the woman I love to get money out of me, I will make sure your pathetic life ends even more miserably. But if you tell me what I need to know right now—you put me out of my misery—I’ll give you a million dollars.” He held up his phone. “I can transfer the funds to you right now.”
The surprise and greed in Tanya’s eyes turned to calculation. “I don’t know anything. I didn’t do anything.”
The house phone rang.
Fox walked to the kitchen where the phone sat on the counter. “Who’s calling you at this hour?”
4:49 a.m. Two hours, thirty-one minutes without her.
“It’s probably just a telemarketer.”
He raised a brow. “At five in the morning?” He stared at the caller ID. Local number. No name. Probably a burner phone. Her coconspirator?
Tanya tugged his shoulder, pulling him around to look at her. “I’m sorry about the trouble with Melody, but I know nothing about it.” Her gaze darted away, then came back to him.
She’s lying.
“I really wish, for once, you meant that. But you don’t. Because you only care about yourself. And I’m betting that you’re involved in Melody’s kidnapping. It wouldn’t surprise me if you planned it. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to call that number. How much do you want to bet they’ll ask for a ransom for her?”
He started to punch the number into his phone.
Tanya grabbed him by both arms, her nails digging into his skin through his thermal, and shook him, panic in her eyes. “Just pay me the money and I’ll tell them to release her.”
He sighed, even as a sense of inevitability and utter hatred and rage swept through him. “Where is she?” He growled out the words, hating her, wanting her to pay for what she’d done.
4:51 a.m. Two hours, thirty-three minutes without her.
Tanya stepped back and shook her head. “Forty million.”
He nodded. “Right. One million wasn’t enough. Not for you and your”—he narrowed his gaze as he considered—“three accomplices.” Three in the van. One bitch of a mother pulling the strings.
Her eyes went wide.
“I’m not stupid,” he spat at her. “Where is she?”
Tanya stood stubbornly quiet and defiant in front of him.
“Fine. Have it your way. The FBI can deal with you.”
Her eyes went wide, then even bigger as the back door opened and Mason walked in with his gun trained on her and his badge attached to his belt.
Fox stared down his mom. “Everyone in town knows Lyric married an FBI agent, and you thought it was a great idea to kidnap her sister.” He shook his head. “Forty million,” he spat out. “You won’t see a dime. Enjoy prison.” He headed for the front door to get his laptop out of the car, so he could track the phone number.
“Fox! Wait!” Tanya shrieked. “I need a lawyer.”
“I’m sure one will be provided to you, since you don’t have any money to pay for one. Mason will tell you as he arrests you.”
“There’s no proof. It’s my word against yours.”
Fox held up his phone. “They heard everything we said to each other. And I recorded it.” He’d left an open line to Mason when he walked into the house.
Before Fox made it into the entryway, Mason stopped him with more news. “Dean did some snooping outside. He found a white panel van hidden in the barn out back. Cops are going over it now.”
Which hopefully meant the kidnappers were close.
Fox glared at Tanya. “Explain that to a judge.” He shook his head and left that house for the last time. Nothing good ever happened in that house. Maybe he’d burn it to the ground.
5:04 a.m. Two hours, forty-six minutes without her.
It took Fox all of two minutes to hack the phone number and determine exactly where it was, not even three miles away. Then he looked up the property records for the place and found it had been foreclosed on some time ago. Perfect place to hide some nefarious shit like a kidnapping. He sent all the details to Mason as evidence.
5:11 a.m. Two hours, fifty-three minutes without her.
Dean stood next to him with his arms folded over his chest as Mason led Tanya out the door.
Mason held up a plastic bag filled with Tanya’s medication. “She refused to leave without these. Said one of them is an experimental drug that’s put her in remission.”
Fox glared at Tanya. “No wonder you didn’t want me at your doctor visits. You didn’t want me to know you were getting better.”
“I wanted you to let me see the world.”
Fox shook his head. “And I agreed to your trip, but you still went through with this. Why?”
“Because I wanted more than just one trip. I wanted a better life.”
“Now, you’ll have a good long life behind bars. Enjoy your stay. The accommodation and amenities are shit and the view sucks. And the food…good luck scarfing that down.”
She tried to rush him, but Mason held her back by the arm, her wrists shackled behind her. “Please. Don’t do this. I’ll tell you where she is if you make them let me go.”
“I already know where she is. Now I’m going to go get her.”
5:14 a.m. Two hours, fifty-six minutes without her.
Mason handed Tanya off to Officer Bowers. “Put her in a cell.” Once Tanya was secure in the back of the patrol car, Mason turned to him. “Let’s go get your girl.”
“Yes, let’s go get Melody,” an unfamiliar man said, walking up on them from the driveway.
“Uh, who are you?” Fox asked.
The new guy grinned at Mason. “Assistant Special Agent in Charge Nick Gunn.”
“Brothers,” Dean said.
“Brothers,” Mason acknowledged. “About time you got here.”
“It took a helicopter and a car. You can update me on the way. If I don’t help get Melody back to her family, safe and sound, Aria will have my ass.”
“We don’t want that,” Mason admitted. “Lyric is asking for updates every ten minutes.”
“Yeah, and I’m going to catch hell for keeping this from Aria.”
Fox was already sliding behind the wheel of his car. “I texted you the address,” he said to Mason. “Now let’s go. You’re wasting time.”
5:18 a.m. Three agonizing, terrified hours without her.
Fox drove away from Tanya’s place, vowing to leave it and her in his rearview forever. He might own the place, but he didn’t have to keep it.
“We’ll get her back,” Dean assured him from the passenger seat. “So slow the fuck down before we get in an accident. These roads are dark as fuck.”
Because they were out in the middle of nowhere.
“One deer and we’re toast.”
But it wasn’t a deer that appeared in Fox’s headlights but a woman, walking along the road, coming toward them, away from their final destination. And he’d recognize her anywhere.
He hit the brakes and swerved to the side of the road, stopping right behind her as Mason also skidded to a stop in front of her.
Mason’s car’s headlights spotlighted her and Fox as he leapt out of his car and ran to Amy. “Where is she?”
Amy held her arms wrapped around her middle, her head down, as she shook. “The-they dumped me on the shoulder and told me to follow the road back to town.” She glanced around her, eyes wide and filled with fear. “I don’t know where I am, or how far it is to a house or town. There’s nothing out here.” She shivered again as her eyes darted from him and Dean to the two men behind her wearing badges and guns, their hands hovering over their weapons.
“Where. Is. She?”
“The-they have her. It happened so fast. They took her, then ordered me into the van.”
“After she kicked your ass,” Dean pointed out. “We saw it on the video.”
“She attacked me.”
“After you held her so the guys you’re working with could take her,” Fox snarled.
Amy shook her head. “No, that’s not what happened. She was furious with me for going to your place.”
“You mean sneaking into my bed and sexually assaulting me?” Fox asked, letting Mason and his FBI brother know Amy had some serious charges coming her way in addition to kidnapping.
“That’s not what ha-happened.”
Fox had enough. “Looks like someone broke your nose after you got into that van.”
She gingerly touched her fingertip to the swollen flesh. “It hurts. I need to go to the hospital.”
“Tell us where Melody is and we’ll take you there,” Mason offered.
5:22 a.m. Three hours, four minutes without her.
“We don’t have time for this shit. Tell me where she is.”
“I-I’m not sure.” She turned pleading eyes on the two agents.
He wasn’t having it. “Cut the crap and this fake performance. You’re not scared. You’re out here for a reason.”
“Yes. To get back to town to tell you they want twenty million or they’ll kill her.” She pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket. “Look. Here. It’s the account and routing number. Send the money and they’ll give her back. That’s why they took me and let me go.” She held out the slip of paper. “So I could give you this.”
“Huh.” Fox snatched the slip of paper from her hands but didn’t even look at it, then dropped a bomb on her. “Tanya asked for forty million.”
Amy’s eyes went wide.
Fox sneered. “Guess she planned to screw you and the two goons you’re working with out of the majority of the money.”
“No. No. I don’t know anything about what’s going on. Tanya?” She acted like she didn’t know who set this all in motion.
Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was one or both of the guys who took Melody and brought Amy into this.
Just as the pieces started to fall into place, Mason stepped closer to Amy. “They could have given you the ransom message at the apartment and left without you when they took Melody. Why take you all the way out here, just to make you walk back? Fox was right there, upstairs.”
Amy didn’t look so certain anymore.
Fox closed the distance and put a bunch of pretend sympathy into his eyes and expression. “Amy, I know it’s been a long night for you.”
Amy smiled up at him. “Yes. Yes, it has. I was terrified they’d hurt me. And look at my face.” She pressed her hand to her jaw. “It hurts, Fox. Please. I just want to go back to your place where I’ll be safe.”
“This is as close as you’ll ever be to me again. This fucking ruse you’ve got going is shit. Those dumb fucks realized calling me for the ransom would only allow me to find them faster. Right?”
Amy’s whole face fell into shock, then acceptance that she’d been caught. And just like that, the calculation came back into her eyes. “I want immunity. Then I’ll tell you who took her and where they are.”
Fox swore. “I know where she is and who has her. The only one who connects to Tanya and you is that dickhead drug dealer Brian, whose best friend is Josh, who you met outside my apartment building. Coincidentally. But you know what’s funny? Josh used you to get to Melody, a woman he’s been obsessed with for years.” He took a menacing step closer to her. “If he touches her, if he hurts her, that’s all on you, too. And I will make sure you never see the light of day again.”
Nick stepped forward and pulled Amy’s hands behind her back.
“What are you doing?” she screeched, trying to get away, but she was no match for Nick.
“You’re under arrest for kidnapping.” As Nick led Amy back to Mason’s car, he read her her rights, and put her in the back seat.
Mason put his hand on Fox’s shoulder. “Good job figuring this out. Now, what do we need to know about these two guys who have Melody? Are they armed?”
“I would presume so.” Fox turned for his car. “I’m done wasting time.”
Mason caught up to him. “We’ll park away from wherever they’re holding her. We’ll go in quiet and check things out. We will not go in half-cocked. The last thing we want is for them to hurt the hostage.”
“I need her back,” he choked out. “Now.”
Mason squeezed his shoulder. “I know. But we have to do this the right way.”
5:28 a.m. Three hours, ten minutes without her.
“Fine. All that matters is that we get her back safe and unharmed.”
5:29 a.m. Three hours, eleven minutes without her.