Chapter Twenty #2
Jason handed him a laptop open to a blank page. “Take note of anything important as it’s reported.” He pulled out a dining chair and rapped the back with his knuckles. “I’m sure you know the drill. Positions, people, times, locations, etc. Whatever you hear.”
Ford sat, grateful to have a purpose and something to focus on.
A few minutes later, Emma set a mug of steaming water and a basket of assorted teas in front of him. “Do you like milk or sugar in yours?”
“Thank you, no.” He plucked a bag of mint tea from the selection—he hardly needed caffeine right now—and dunked it in the water, absently toying with the string as Jason handed him a small earbud.
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with this model.” He demonstrated as he said, “Just swipe up or down on the flat side to adjust the volume. Press and hold if you need to talk. Don’t worry, the teams’ equipment is less conspicuous and it’s set up for automatic two-way audio.”
Ford nodded. He knew the brand even though he used a different one in Europe. As soon as he stuck the device in his ear, reports from multiple low voices began to filter in, and he swiped up to hear better.
“She’s on the phone,” a woman said softly, the audio quality crystal clear, no wind or wave noises filling the airwaves between speakers. “Skater turned south. Coming your way, Finn.”
“Eyes on.” This voice was deeper and raspier.
A bit breathless, another man said, “Nat left the cell phone behind and is heading back toward the garage.”
Jason chimed in, the sound of his voice disorienting as it rumbled live into Ford’s left ear, and then came through tinnier and on the slightest delay in his right.
“Finn, you and Brendan track the skater. Don’t stop him until he’s at least half a mile away, and make sure he’s not being tailed.
If he stays close, just watch until I give the word. ”
“Copy that.”
For lack of anything better to do, Ford wrote down “Skater.”
Emma sat at the round dining table with her own mug of something steaming and adjusted her earpiece. She gave him a tight smile as they both listened to the play-by-play, her shoulders rigid, fingers gone white where she gripped the handle of her hot drink.
Jason pulled a chair close and sat down with his arm around her, a painful reminder that Ford couldn’t do the same to the woman he loved right now. He wasn’t sure she knew it yet, but if she’d have him, he was all in, full stop.
He hoped like hell he got the chance to ask.
Finn’s voice interrupted that thought. “She’s heading down toward the International Boardwalk.”
“That’s a tiny, mostly commercial marina at the base of the pier, below street level, adjacent to the main harbor,” Jason said, addressing Ford.
“There’s a skatepark and a boarded-up arcade on the ocean side.
On the shore side are a bunch of little bars, shops, and restaurants, but they’re all closed now.
“Most of the boats docked in there run tours, commercial fishing, or sailing lessons, but there are a few private slips, one or two live-aboards. According to Michael, it’s well lit, and there’re just enough people around that my teams don’t seem out of place.”
“Okay, thanks.” Ford appreciated the intel, even if he couldn’t do anything with it himself. He needed the distraction, and maybe Jason got that. He’d been through some harrowing situations with Emma recently. Maybe he recognized the brand of fear in Ford’s eyes.
“Shit,” a woman’s voice—presumably Reina’s—huffed into his earpiece, and the back of his neck went cold. “She’s not going all the way down. She just opened the whale tour gate, and she’s heading toward a speedboat docked at the bottom of the ramp. Maybe a twenty, twenty-five-footer.”
“Fuck,” Ford and Jason said in unison as Ford stood so fast he bumped the table. Tea sloshed over the rim of his mug. “Fuck.”
“Leave it,” Emma said, jumping up to grab a towel.
Ford’s hands shook with the need to do something.
As Emma mopped up his mess, she caught his gaze. “She’s strong and clever, and most people—especially men—underestimate her.”
He swallowed hard and nodded. Emma was right, but it wouldn’t matter if Natalie was Wonder Woman, he’d still feel better if he could be out there with her.
Another man’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Looks like two guys in the boat. One at the helm. The other’s stepping off.”
Ford’s chest tightened, his face turned hot. If something went wrong, no one on Jason’s team was close enough to make a difference. She was on her own, and Ford had to resist the urge to break something.
He held his breath and waited.
“He’s patting her down,” Jason’s man said in his ear.
Ford clenched his fists. This was fucking torture.
A few seconds later the voice said, “Used a device checker on her and seems satisfied. She’s boarding the boat.”
Belatedly, Ford remembered the computer. Right now, there was one thing he could do to help, and raging at his sense of impotence wasn’t it.
He slid back into the chair and started taking notes.
“We’re running out of boardwalk,” Reina said. “Gonna go up top and circle back, but after that we’ll be too obvious if we stick around.”
Jason pressed a hand to his ear. “Roger that.” Letting go, he looked up. “I have another couple slowly motoring out of the harbor. We have coverage.”
Ford nodded, frankly impressed that the other man had been able to pull together so many people on such short notice. But they couldn’t account for every contingency, and so far Natalie hadn’t activated the tracking bean.
Refocusing on the reports coming in through the earpiece, he wrote down every excruciating detail. The type of boat she boarded—something called a bowrider—approximate size, distinguishing marks, and the part of the name that was visible: UAKE Newport, CA.
“Valerie?” Jason’s voice interrupted in stereo. “Can you trace the boat?”
“On it,” an unfamiliar woman’s voice said.
“AJ, where are you?” Jason asked.
“Passing the sea lion float,” a man said amid a cacophony of deep barking. “It fucking stinks.”
“Stay sharp and keep your head down.”
“Copy that, boss.”
Gratitude made Ford’s eyes ache. So many people had come together to support Natalie.
She’d be livid if they intervened before she found her brother, but she wasn’t opposed to backup, and Jason’s team had already overdelivered.
Unfortunately, nothing could ease the hot anxiety pumping through Ford’s veins.
He dutifully took notes and tried like hell to pretend it wasn’t Natalie out there, willingly motoring off in the middle of the night to meet with a man who’d happily throw her overboard if she didn’t give him what he wanted.
At Wallace’s instruction, Natalie endured a rough pat down from a guy whose dinner had been heavy with garlic.
Every time he leaned in close to give her a command, her stomach soured.
Or maybe that was the motion of the dock.
It most definitely wasn’t nerves, because she didn’t have those. Couldn’t afford them.
The minute Garlic Breath ended his demeaningly thorough inspection and finished waving a bug detector over her shivering body, she used her tongue to nudge the rubbery disc between her teeth.
A faint but satisfying click sensation indicated that she’d bitten down hard enough to turn it on, and now she simply had to trust that it was working.
Once she boarded the boat, ’roid-jacked goon number two motioned her to a little well of padded seating at the bow of the boat while he and his twin sat behind the windshield at the center helm.
She sank onto a vinyl bench, the jittery feeling she’d suffered since learning of Erik’s kidnapping replaced by an odd sense of seething calm and a crisp clarity.
The fact that if she fell overboard she’d probably drown? Irrelevant.
The slice of human scum in the form of Harrison Wallace had been responsible for thousands of deaths, and since the courts wouldn’t hold him responsible, the Night Herons had exposed him and let the world play judge. And the world had judged him harshly.
Dallas and Nolan had tracked down as many of his legitimate and offshore assets as possible and funneled them to the impacted families.
School scholarships, unexpected life insurance payouts, and lottery wins wouldn’t bring back their loved ones, but the extra money eased some of the financial strain and stress.
In addition to a nice chunk of his money, Wallace had lost his job, his family, and his reputation.
His desire for revenge didn’t surprise Nat.
The fact that he’d figured out who to target did.
Her team was careful, but they must’ve left behind some clues along the way.
And someone had either been paying very close attention, or had some serious resources available to narrow the field to her and Emma.
The only heartening part was that he wanted the rest of her network, which meant he didn’t currently have it. Now it was up to her to ensure he never got it.
This ends with me. One way or another.
She shivered in the thick breeze, sea spray stinging her cheeks and tangling her hair as the boat exited the harbor into the choppy open ocean.
A sudden burst of speed pressed her into the vinyl seat, and the engine drowned out all other sounds.
They passed a buoy where sea lions somehow lounged without rolling off the edge, and she turned to watch the lights of shore get smaller.
Ford was out there somewhere, probably walking a hole in someone’s carpet. Her stomach dipped. Would she see him again?
Either way, Nat couldn’t count on someone else coming to her rescue.
Even if the tracker in her mouth worked, she had to assume she was on her own now.
The bracing wind chapped her face, stung her eyes, and ignited her spirit.
The odds were against her, but somehow she was going to show mother-fucking Harrison Wallace that he could not win.
The lights on the boat went out.
She gripped the edge of her seat, straining to see as they bounced over the swells. Slowly her eyes adjusted enough to register the sparkle of lights from land dancing on the water, and the marine layer overhead reflecting the shockingly bright glow of Los Angeles.
They left the bay behind, venturing into deeper water, and Nat had an interminable number of minutes to regret not bringing a thicker jacket.
The boat followed the coastline at a distance, heading around toward San Pedro and the LA Harbor before hooking abruptly landward, zooming straight for a dark cove and a small yacht anchored on the outskirts, its lights blazing.
Because of course the asshole had a yacht. He should’ve been destitute at this point, but all these rich jerkoffs had assets registered in their wives’ names or held in a trust for their kids, money the Night Herons wouldn’t touch.
The ease with which guys like Wallace got away with fraud and murder—and lived the high life even after their reputations had been ruined and their bank accounts redistributed—made Nat ragey. If only her anger was enough to keep her warm right now.
When the boat finally stopped about fifty feet from the yacht, her gut lurched and her ears rang in the abrupt silence. Low voices rumbled on the other side of the windshield before a single light on the bow blinked on.
After a few minutes, a small dinghy motored toward her, another over-pumped figure in black at the tiller.
Once he tied up to their stern, the handsy dick in head-to-toe tactical gear who’d frisked her earlier waved her through a swinging door in the windshield and on toward the back.
Holding her head high, she pushed her gnarled hair out of her face and walked between the two guards, trying to relax her jaw enough to stop her teeth from chattering.
The dinghy’s driver held out a hand as she stepped onto the low platform at the back of the larger boat.
She reached out with her good hand, a gust of wind blowing her hair into her eyes as she stepped across the gap.
The firm surface she’d been aiming for dropped abruptly and she toppled forward, landing hard on her hands and knees between the two narrow seats.
Ow, fucking ow. Her not-fully-healed shoulder screamed at the jarring impact. Her stomach roiled and threatened to send up the dinner she’d picked at earlier.
Her sentry sat on a padded plank that served as a seat, and barely waited long enough for her to recover her equilibrium before accelerating toward the yacht.
Huddled on the other bench in the tiny inflatable, gripping a handhold so she wouldn’t get bounced over the side, she reminded herself why she was here.
To save Erik, protect her teammates, and destroy Harrison Wallace.
It was only as they pulled up alongside the yacht’s diving platform that she realized the GPS tracker was no longer in her mouth.