29. Brian
29
brIAN
M y daughter had been missing for exactly twelve hours. Grace had disappeared only three hours ago. I couldn’t comprehend the who, what, and why of it all.
At two in the morning, I was wide awake in a conference room at BPD, adrenaline keeping me on my feet as I focused on the massive wall monitor, my arms crossed over my chest, going through video footage from the traffic cameras around Faneuil Hall.
“See anyone you recognize?” asked Oscar, a gang-unit detective under Ted.
For the last ten minutes, he and I had been sifting through traffic cameras that showed Faneuil Hall.
“Not yet.”
Duke was right that Ted would move mountains to find Grace and Fran. He’d called in his team, got the traffic cam footage from the Department of Transportation from both around my building and Faneuil Hall, assigned each of his crew members a task, and was personally questioning Nora and Janet about Ryan Montgomery.
Duke was somewhere in the building, trying to reach his brothers.
All the Hart brothers blamed themselves for not having protected their sister when she was sixteen. Sadly, I understood their guilt and pain so strongly that I now knew why Duke was an overbearing brother. I’d never wanted to suffocate my daughter like Duke suffocated Grace. Now, I was wishing I had.
The door to the conference room creaked open behind me, and Oscar stopped the video when Janet appeared.
“Any luck yet?” Janet asked.
“We just started,” Oscar replied.
“Brian, Josh left me a message. He can’t get ahold of Ryan. His message said he’s been trying all night.”
“Let’s hope we find something on the video,” I muttered. “Keep going, Oscar.”
Janet came to stand beside me. Five minutes into the video, she let out a rush of air. “Can you rewind, Oscar?” She stepped closer to the screen.
“Did you see Fran?” My pulse went from fifty to one hundred in a flat second.
“I’ll play it in slow motion,” Oscar said.
“Stop.” Her brown eyes widened as she regarded me. “See him?” She pointed at a man standing at the back door of a white van parked near an entrance to Faneuil Hall. “That’s Josh.” She covered her mouth with her dainty fingers. “Can you zoom in?”
I’d seen the guy at the academy banquet only briefly, and with his ball cap and the angle of the sun, it was hard to make out the features of the man on the video.
“See his college ring?” Janet asked. “And the scar on his middle finger? That’s him. I’m sure of it. You don’t think—” Confusion washed over her.
“Are you thinking he’s responsible for Fran’s disappearance?” I asked, suddenly recalling Grace’s negative vibe from Josh.
Janet shrugged. “Nah, Ryan’s always said great things about him. He was probably there to pick up Ryan. Maybe his car broke down.”
“But Josh can’t get ahold of Ryan. Isn’t that what you just told me?”
Janet paled.
Oscar swiped a hand over his shaved scalp. “Just because this dude is at Faneuil Hall doesn’t make him guilty of anything. Maybe he was there looking for Ryan but couldn’t find him.”
“No.” Janet shook her head. “I didn’t call Josh until seven p.m., an hour after Ryan and Fran were supposed to meet us at my brownstone.”
My gaze bounced around the room that had plaques on the walls as I recalled the convo between Grace and me in the hotel room.
“Every time I run into a guy in his early twenties, I think it’s him,” Grace said. “His name was Zane, but I’m not sure if that’s his real name or not.”
“Ah, the guy in the banquet hall. You were pale because you thought he could be Zane?”
“How old is Josh?” I asked.
Janet rubbed her hands together. “Um… he started working as a counselor in his senior year of college, and I think he told me he’s been at the Boys & Girls Club for two-plus years, maybe.”
“So twenty-two? Twenty-three?” I said, doing quick math.
“Something like that,” Janet confirmed. “Why?”
“Grace got a bad vibe from Josh when she met him at the academy. Oscar, keep playing the video.” I held my breath, hoping I was wrong. Hoping Josh wasn’t Zane. But if he was, what would he want with Fran?
As soon as the question punctured my brain, my eyes bugged out, and I stumbled backward. A woman and a girl had appeared on the video.
“That’s Fran!” Janet cried. “They’re taking her into that van.”
“She looks like she’s going willingly,” Oscar threw out, stopping the video. “Seems to me she knows that lady.”
“She does.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. “That’s my former waitress who worked for me in Nashville.” My pulse thundered in my ears like waves against rocks, each beat slamming until my vision blurred at the edges.
Janet’s voice faded like smoke in the wind, Oscar’s words melting into a dull roar. My fingers bit into the arms of the chair as I sank down, bile rising fast and furious into the back of my throat.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from the screen. My beautiful, innocent daughter—the little girl who’d fallen asleep on my chest countless times—was being led into a van by Sabine.
Her nosiness was making sense now. Her desire to strike up a relationship with me. That she was always asking about my daughter and when Fran was coming to Nashville.
“Do we have the footage from my building yet?” I snapped, addressing Oscar.
“Give me a second.” His fingers flew over the keyboard.
“I don’t understand any of this.” Janet dragged a chair beside me and sat down. “Why would your waitress want Fran? And where is Ryan? I don’t see him unless he’s in the van.”
“That boy better pray for his life if he is involved.” I unleashed the threat despite the cop who was in the room.
“I fast-forwarded the video outside your place to around eleven p.m., since that’s when Grace disappeared.” Oscar pressed Play.
In less than a minute, we were watching Grace open her car door.
I rubbed at the spot where the pain was growing stronger in my chest as Josh walked toward Grace.
Janet grabbed my forearm and dug her nails into me.
I leaned forward, squinting at the screen, watching Grace and Josh talk before she jogged to the corner, peered into an SUV, then went around to the back side of the vehicle and out of camera view.
Minutes later, Josh jumped into the SUV and drove off.
Motherfucker . He’d taken both Fran and Grace.
The images of my daughter and Grace being kidnapped burned through my retinas as a nightmare played out before me.
Janet and Oscar were speaking, but all I heard was buzzing.
I would stake my life that Josh was Zane.
The question remained—why Fran? What did she have to do with Josh’s revenge on Grace?
I rubbed at that nagging pain in my chest, feeling like the walls were closing in. I rushed out of the room, almost falling as my body trembled. Once in the hall, I blew out all the air in my lungs, pressing on my chest, hoping that sharp pain wasn’t about to stop my heart.
Fran’s urgent request that I see a doctor flashed before me.
I couldn’t be having a heart attack.
Footsteps clamored on the floor, sounding like a damn Clydesdale pounding the pavement.
“Brian.” Duke strode toward me with tight shoulders and pursed lips. “Did you find something on the traffic cams?”
“I…” I swallowed. “I think I’m about to have a heart attack, man.”
Ted, smoothing his fingers over his mustache, came up behind Duke. He took one look at me and snapped his fingers. “Sanchez, call a paramedic. Where’s the pain?”
“Chest. It’s tight as fuck,” I said. “Just give me a minute. I’ll be fine.”
For some odd reason, the panic on Duke’s face seemed to lessen my pain.
“Fran is worried about my health,” I said. “I can’t be going down for the count. Not when she was kidnapped by Josh and Sabine.”
Ted and Duke exchanged wide-eyed looks.
“Josh took Grace as well,” I added through a deep breath. “It’s all on video.”
“Please, Brian,” Ted said. “Go into the room and sit down until a paramedic can check you out.”
I shook my head. “I’ll be outside. The fresh air might help.”
“I got him.” Duke grabbed my arm. “Come on, old man. Ted will handle things.”
“Old man? I’m thirty-seven, like you.”
Duke smirked. “You’re having a panic attack. That’s all.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “How do you know?”
“Because I’m having one too.”
I sighed the moment I was outside and breathed in the early morning air.
“Grace and Fran are gone,” I whispered as Duke and I sat on the steps leading to the police station. “I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. I get why you were a freak all these years over Grace.”
He brought up a picture of his daughter, Emma, the spitting image of her father—big chestnut eyes and brown hair, although it wasn’t straight like Duke’s but wavy like her mother’s. “Whenever the world is crashing around me, I look at her. She is what keeps me going every fucking day. My guilt over Grace pales in comparison to what I would do if anything happened to Emma or my wife. So I get your pain.”
“It’s a double whammy,” I said. “The love I have for Fran is far different than my love for your sister, but it isn’t any less.” I leaned my elbows on my knees. “When we were working for Rosario, me dealing drugs and you selling illegal arms, I felt like a king. I felt like I could conquer the world. Now, here I sit, helpless, powerless. No plan. No recourse.”
He opened a text message from Fallyn, and as he looked at the text, I couldn’t help but read it as well.
Fallyn: DEA is set for tomorrow to raid the drug deal.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Are you an informant?”
He chuckled. “Nah, Arturo called me on my way to your place. He learned that his enforcer, Jorge, screwed him. He caught Jorge talking to the Irish mob.”
“Chris told me about Jorge, but I haven’t had a chance to tell Arturo.”
He sent Fallyn a thumbs-up emoji. “No need now.”
I laughed. “Chris mentioned a street war was brewing.”
“Not our problem. And stay away from Arturo.”
“Is the DEA planning on nabbing Arturo?” I didn’t care either way.
“If he’s anywhere near the raid, then yeah. But I doubt he will be.”
“Hey,” Ted’s voice resonated behind us as the paramedics pulled up. “We found Ryan Montgomery. He’s at Mass General. He was brought in around four p.m. yesterday. Blow to the head. The nurse says he’s coming to.”
The first sign of hope had me upright, with Duke following suit.
“Get checked out,” Ted said to me. “Then we’ll head down to the hospital. The kid isn’t going anywhere.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
Ted crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at me with his dark, narrowed eyes.
“He’s stubborn,” I said to Duke.
“He’s worse than us,” Duke said.
I nodded at Ted. “Okay.”
I wasn’t in the mood to argue, and frankly, I was losing steam. I felt like ballistic missiles were being fired at me, left and right.
Maybe it was best to have a paramedic check me out. I needed to be sure I was one hundred percent healthy for whatever else came my way.