Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Buddy stood with Sterling at the remembrance board, not seeing a single face on it.
His eyes were locked on Fallon’s back as she drifted farther from the raffle booth with the man she’d claimed knew her father.
She moved like someone trying to look unbothered—steady steps, shoulders squared—but something in the rhythm was off. Too controlled. Too careful.
Then the text hit Buddy’s phone like someone had pressed a gun to his spine.
Fallon: Stand down. Let me leave with him. Parking lot. His car. If you don’t, Trent’s mom dies. More girls die. I die.
The words weren’t Fallon’s, not even close, but they were written with enough intent that he could feel the barrel pushing into her ribs as she typed them.
He didn’t stop walking—he didn’t dare—but the world tunneled into a narrow corridor of motion where only one thing mattered.
Her silhouette weaved through the thinning edge of the crowd as the bastard at her side steered her toward the parking lot.
He angled his body just enough to keep her in sight between sun-bleached tents and the heavy knot of people queuing for fried shrimp.
The heat pulsed in from every direction, thick and sticky, amplifying voices, twisting laughter into something warped, making the air itself feel as if it were vibrating with wrongness.
Sterling shifted half a step closer, but neither of them drew attention—just two men skirting the periphery of a fundraiser that had suddenly become a hunting ground.
“I need all eyes on Fallon,” Buddy said, barely moving his lips, “we’re live. Fallon’s under direct threat. Parking lot trajectory.”
Sterling nodded, jaw tight, eyes scanning for secondaries.
Buddy’s phone buzzed again—not Fallon this time.
“Buddy! Buddy!” Trent’s voice cracked through the noise before he collided into Buddy’s shoulder, breath ragged, color wrong, the hospital pallor still clinging to him like frost. He grabbed Buddy’s arm with shaking fingers, the bandage on his side pulling as he bent forward.
“I can’t find my mom,” Trent choked out. “I left her right there—right there by the picnic tables. I went to the bathroom, came back, and she was gone. She’s not picking up. Her phone’s off. I tried to call. Text. Track. She’s just gone and that’s not like my mother.”
Buddy caught him by the elbows, steadying him before he tore something open. “Slow down.” He waited until Trent’s eyes locked on his. “You can’t run around like this. You’re injured.”
“I don’t care,” Trent snapped, voice climbing. “She’s all I have, and she’s dying. What if…”
Buddy exhaled sharply and lowered his voice. “Listen to me.” He held up his phone just long enough for Trent to see Fallon’s text. “This is connected.”
Trent’s breath hitched. “Motherfucker. I’m gonna—”
“You can’t do shit if you pull open those stitches. You need to rest, and I need to get back to making sure nothing happens to Fallon or your mom,” Buddy said. “I promise to keep you in the loop.”
“I’m not going to sit back and do nothing. That’s my mother,” Trent bit out, panic and anger wrestling in every syllable.
“You want your mom safe? Then you listen to me.”
It landed. Not gracefully, not easily—but it landed. Trent swallowed and stepped back, chest heaving, fury and fear vibrating off him in waves. He wasn’t okay with this. He never would be. But he stayed put.
Buddy hit comms. “Dawson, we’ve got a problem—Trent’s mom is compromised. Fallon is being forced into compliance. She’s being walked to the parking lot. I’ve still got a visual, but I’m gonna lose that soon.”
Dawson’s voice came through tight. “Copy. Chloe—redirect the crowd near the boardwalk to keep them from bottlenecking. Jasper and Grayson start looking for Mrs. Mallor.”
Buddy kept moving, weaving between families and clusters of volunteers with the deliberate calm of a man on the verge of losing his mind.
Fallon’s pace hadn’t changed, but her posture had—her shoulders were drawn slightly inward, her head angled just off the natural line of conversation. Anyone else would miss it.
Not him.
His phone buzzed again.
Fallon: Stop moving closer. Stop following. If you don’t, Trent’s mom dies.
Buddy didn’t let the flinch show, but his ironclad resilience cracked like old bones. This was Simon’s playbook all over again—the pressure points, the split focus, the rules designed to force him into choosing the order of who lived and who died.
Not again. Not this time.
“I’m climbing down.” Dove’s voice cut in, tight and breathless. “I’ve got limited visual on the exit road, but I’ll be mobile in sixty seconds. Keaton and Hayes are repositioning from the water’s edge.”
Good. Good. Not enough. Never enough.
“Buddy—Bingo just arrived,” Dawson said. “He came in a few minutes ago. He’s heading your direction.”
Relief hit Buddy’s bloodstream fast and sharp, like a shot of oxygen. Bingo was a variable the bastard couldn’t have predicted. Fallon didn’t even know he was home.
“We can use him,” Dawson continued. “He can create a diversion at the parking lot entrance. Natural. Casual. No tells.”
Buddy angled left, slipping behind a food stall so Fallon wouldn’t accidentally catch sight of him. “Someone needs to brief him like now. Get him comms. He needs to identify the vehicle, the man, and any secondary weapons. And if they ditch her phone—”
“The jacket tracker has redundancy,” Dove said. “We’ll keep the signal even if the phone is tossed.”
Buddy swallowed hard. “Good. Position Keaton, Hayes, and Dove on the only exit route. They shadow from a distance. No lights. No heroics. If she’s moved, we follow.”
Fallon and her captor crossed into the outer ring of the crowd, the noise thinning, the light shifting, the boards beneath their feet giving way to gravel as they reached the fringe of the parking lot.
Buddy’s pulse slammed against his ribs. She was walking toward a car she might never walk away from.
He forced himself forward—slowly—threading through families unloading strollers and coolers, blending in as best he could while his insides twisted into something raw and electric. Sterling matched his pace, giving low updates—no alarms, no overt watchers, no weapons flashed—but that meant nothing.
Buddy saw Fallon’s hand brush her thigh, the barest tremor in her fingers. She wasn’t signaling him. She wasn’t signaling anyone. That was fear bleeding through a crack she couldn’t seal fast enough.
His throat tightened.
He loved her. God help him, he loved her. And he was being forced to follow slowly while the woman he loved was marched toward a killer’s car.
Dawson’s voice broke through the radio static. “Bingo’s thirty feet out. Approaching from the west. He’ll intersect naturally at the lane.”
Buddy closed the distance just enough to see Bingo—relaxed stride, ball cap low, a beer in hand like he’d stepped out of a summer postcard instead of a tactical diversion.
Fallon didn’t see him yet.
The man beside her did.
Buddy watched the shift—subtle, predatory, the way the guy’s hand tightened fractionally at Fallon’s back, angling her toward a darker corridor between parked cars. A place where visibility dropped. A place where extraction got harder.
Buddy’s heart tanked to his stomach like a brick.
“Dawson,” he said quietly, “he made Bingo. He knows someone unexpected just entered the field.”
“Keep eyes on,” Dawson replied. “We’re with you.”
Buddy stepped behind a truck to get closer without being spotted.
From here, he could see everything—the way Fallon’s chin lifted as if trying not to tremble, the way Bingo’s friendly smile faltered the moment he realized she wasn’t just surprised, she was terrified, and the way the man beside her shifted his body to block any approach.
They were three steps from the shadow line.
Three steps from a car door.
Three steps from disappearing.
“Sterling,” Buddy whispered, voice steady in a way his body wasn’t, “start your angle. If he draws, you take the shot.”
Sterling moved like smoke.
Buddy kept moving too, blood roaring in his ears, every instinct screaming to run to her, pull her free, end this now—but he couldn’t. Not yet. Not at the cost of Trent’s mom. Not at the expense of more girls.
He fucking hated this.
Fallon flicked her gaze once—one narrow sliver of hope searching the edges of the parking lot.
She didn’t see him.
But he saw her.
He always did.
She crossed the shadow line. And Buddy felt the world narrow into a single impossible truth. He was seconds away from losing her. He dropped his voice to a low, lethal whisper, words meant for no one but himself.
“I’m coming, sweetheart. Just hold on.”
Heat rolled off the pavement in thick, shimmering waves, warping the laughter and music into something distant and wrong.
Fallon’s breath caught as the people ahead of her parted just enough to reveal a man cutting toward them with an easy stride and a beer in his hand.
Bingo. Of all times—of all moments—he’d picked this one to find her.
“Fallon Reeves,” Bingo said, grinning. “I’ve been looking forward to surprising you all day.” He stretched his arms out wide as he came close.
Quincy—or EJ—as she suspected his real name was, released his grip, but not before jabbing her quickly with the gun and then just as quickly, it disappeared into his coat.
“What? No hug?” Bingo asked.
“Of course, I am.”
Bingo pulled her into a hug, one arm wrapping tight, the other casually keeping his beer upright. “Tell me that face means you’re happy to see me, and that no one ruined my surprise.”
Her breath stuttered against his shoulder.
“I’m speechless.” She pulled back with a smile that felt stapled onto her face. “I had no idea you were coming home.”
“Got in late last night. Had some family things I needed to do, but I didn’t want to miss this. I know how much it means to you—and to Calusa Cove.”
“I appreciate you making the effort.”
He tipped his head toward EJ. “Who’s your friend? I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”
EJ didn’t offer a hand. Didn’t offer anything except a polite-enough nod that didn’t come close to touching his eyes.
Fallon’s pulse skittered. “Someone who worked with my dad,” she said quickly, hoping Bingo wouldn’t ask the next question. “He, um—”
“Wow, your dad, huh?” Bingo tugged at his cap, lowering it over his darkened sunglasses. “I miss that man and his amazing stories. He was always so good to me.”
“He liked you. Thought you were going places,” she whispered, and she meant it. God, she meant it. But fear clamped cold fingers around her lungs. She needed him gone. Needed him safe. Needed Trent’s mom alive.
And the girls. Always the girls.
Bingo glanced between them, still smiling, but Fallon knew him well enough that behind those shades—subtle, trained eyes were cataloging… everything.
EJ stepped forward lightly, like he’d been waiting for this moment. “We really do need to be going,” he said, placing a hand on Fallon’s elbow.
Bingo’s head snapped up. “Going where? She never leaves the fundraiser early. Ever. You must be new.”
Fallon’s stomach dropped.
EJ’s smile didn’t change. “We’ve been working on something special. For the fundraiser. A surprise. I’d hate to ruin it.”
The lie slid out of him like silk.
“Interesting,” he said lightly, taking a sip of his beer, “I thought I knew most of the folks helping her. And here I thought I was the only surprise in the works this year.”
EJ didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. “We’d better go if we want this to work.”
Fallon’s hand trembled at her side. “I didn’t tell anyone about this,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She hadn’t lied since she told her parents that she was working that shift at the Crab Shack the night Tessa disappeared. Now, that was irony at its best.
Bingo’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Okay. But let me walk you—”
A second man appeared at EJ’s shoulder, cutting off the offer with a quiet, “We need to move. Now.”
He wasn’t aggressive. Just… decisive. Confident he would be obeyed.
EJ touched Fallon’s arm—not roughly, but firmly enough to inspire dread. “Come on.”
“I’ll see you shortly.” Unable to meet Bingo’s gaze, Fallon forced her feet to follow.
Forced herself not to look back. Forced herself to believe Bingo would know that this wasn’t normal, and he’d catch the license plate number.
Or something. Anything he could give to Buddy that might save Linda, the girls, and herself.
Buddy wouldn’t be able to live with himself he couldn’t save them.
The SUV waited at the far end of the lot—one of three lined up like they’d been positioned hours ago. Dark. Tinted. Ominous in a way that made her bones feel hollow.
“Get in the back,” EJ murmured.
She expected empty seats. Maybe duct tape. Maybe rope.
Not Linda Mallor.
The older woman was slumped against the leather, wrists cuffed, gag pulled too tight across her mouth. Her eyes were red, panicked, pleading.
Fallon’s own breath caught like barbed wire. “Please,” she whispered to EJ’s accomplice. “Take the gag off her. She can’t breathe like that.”
“No,” the man said simply, already pulling out restraints. “Hands.”
Fallon’s pulse thundered. “Please—just the gag. She’s terrified.”
“Hands,” the man repeated.
She didn’t have a choice. She put her wrists forward, and the plastic ties cinched tight—too tight—burning into skin that had been unblemished only minutes ago.
The SUV lurched forward, following another just ahead of them. Fallon’s stomach twisted as the marina blurred behind them.
Then—they stopped. Not gradually. Abruptly.
The entrance was blocked by an ambulance, parked sideways, lights off but hazard blinkers on like it had broken down in the wrong damn place.
The driver leaned out. “Gonna be a few minutes,” he shouted. “Emergency call. We’ve got to unload.”
Her heart hammered. Too loud. Too hopeful. Too dangerous.
The back doors of the ambulance swung open.
Two EMTs jumped out, rolling a gurney—white sheets, metal frame, equipment clipped to the sides.
One of them was Hayes. Only, Hayes wasn’t an EMT, at least not for the Calusa Cove Fire Department. Sure, he was a firefighter, but he’d given up his role as medic when he’d left the military.
He didn’t look at her.
He didn’t even flick his eyes toward the SUV. Of course, he couldn’t see through the tinted windows.
He just moved with the calm, practiced urgency of a man doing his job.
But Fallon felt it. Hope tightened like a fist in her throat. Help wasn’t here. Not yet.
But it was close. So close, she could sense it. Even as the SUV idled. Even as EJ’s hand settled lightly on the seat beside her. Even as Linda’s muffled sob shook the dark.
Fallon lifted her chin, heart pounding, wrists burning against the ties. She was out. But she wasn’t lost.
Not yet.