Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“Only one way to find out. Check the grounds of the quarry.”
“Well, you have a few problems to deal with first.” She motioned to the two men who were bound, gagged, and unconscious, lying on the kitchen floor. “What will you do with them?”
“Want a suggestion?” David’s voice came through the comm devices.
“Go for it.”
“Let me take care of them. Fortress Security has black sites to hold enemy combatants until it’s time to dump them on government agencies.
While they’re guests of Fortress, operators trained in interrogation converse with them.
If they learn anything that will help us find Julio, they’ll pass it along. ”
Excellent idea. In truth, Cam didn’t care what happened to the men still alive as long as they were no longer a threat to Sedona or Julio. And if experts in interrogation worked on the men, all the better. “Do it. How long will it take for someone to pick up these men?”
“Hold.” A minute later, David said, “Ten minutes. Fortress has a black-site team in the area. Brent Maddox, Fortress Security’s CEO, will send a clean-up team to take care of the rest if The Thunderhawks listen to his employment proposal. What do you say?”
“Why should we consider employment with Maddox? I already have a job as a deputy, and you’re holding spots open for the rest of my team. We don’t need to work for anyone else.”
David and his brothers chuckled. “You will regret not hearing him out.”
Elliot said, “David’s right. You don’t fill out applications for Fortress because they get tossed into the trash. Maddox has to invite you to come for an interview.”
Spencer said, “We should hear him out. If we don’t like the terms, we turn him down.”
Rhys shook his head. “We made a commitment to David. It’s not right to make that promise, then go back on it.”
“Hold it,” David broke in. “If you want to work for Maddox, you can choose to work on a case-by-case basis. Think about it and hear him out. That’s all Maddox requires for his help with these mercenaries.”
Isaac looked skeptical. “I’ll listen, but that’s all I promise to do, and we have to talk before we decide. Agreed?”
Cam gave a slight nod. “We need to go, David.” The mission clock ticked loudly in his head. Julio was running out of time.
“Go. Elliot and Owen, go with them. Levi, Caleb, and I will watch these guys until Fortress arrives, then we’ll join you.”
Levi cut in. “Except we’re smart enough to drive.”
“Ha ha.” He had a point, though. Sedona wasn’t used to tramping all over the woods, and this was the second night she’d done just that. “Did you come in two vehicles or one?”
“One,” David said.
“Meet me out back and I’ll give you our keys.”
“Copy that. Thirty seconds.”
Cam threaded his fingers through Sedona’s and led her outside.
David walked around the corner of the house and stopped in front of Sedona. “You doing okay, Sedona?”
She nodded.
Just like before, she said one thing, but her body language said something entirely different. What Sedona didn’t have in skill and experience, she made up for with heart and courage.
David flicked him a pointed glance.
Cam held up his free hand. Yeah, he got it. Help her, or else. “Sedona, there’s no need for you to wear yourself out. Do you want to ride up with David?”
She shook her head before he’d finished. “No. I’m going with you. If I can help Julio, I want to be there to do it.”
“Sedona, I’m going to the same place as Cam,” David said. “He’s going the hard way. You’ll get to ride in an air-conditioned cruiser. You sure you don’t want to change your mind?”
Sedona shook her head again. “I’m fine.” When no one said anything, she corrected herself. “I will be fine.”
Cam wrapped his arm around Sedona’s shoulders. “We’ll meet you there, David.”
“If you change your mind, message me, and we’ll choose a rendezvous point.”
“Copy that.” He glanced down at Sedona. “Ready?”
“Let’s go. I can’t stand the thought of Julio with Simpson.”
She wasn’t the only one worried. He still couldn’t figure out why an assassin would take a little kid.
Cam considered the problem from every angle, but nothing felt right until he hit on one idea. He poked at the idea mentally, circled around it, and poked it again.
No matter how often he poked and prodded, the idea felt like the right one. The question he couldn’t answer was who? The boy was a pawn to put pressure on someone. Was that person Sedona or someone else?
Sedona maintained she hadn’t seen or heard anything. Was she right, or did Sedona know more than she realized?
Taking any of her students would be an effective way to pressure her. By taking Julio or Sedona, who was affected the most?
He thought about that as he scanned the area on each side and in front of them. Not too many options where Julio and Sedona’s worlds intersected.
Sedona didn’t have family to pay a ransom for her, if that’s what the kidnappers wanted.
Except Cam. He would pay anything to save Sedona’s life.
Once she was safe, he’d hunt the kidnappers to the ends of the earth until he found each one of them.
But how would the kidnappers know unless they had watched him with Sedona?
That left a connection at school or with Julio. Couldn’t be anything Julio did. Did he see something? Perhaps, but what criminal couldn’t laugh off whatever Julio claimed and make up a plausible lie?
So, Maria, Eddie, maybe the father, the father’s people, or school was the connection, and Sedona was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She saw or heard too much and was a risk to someone’s operation.
He glanced over his shoulder at Rhys, who instantly moved up.
“Yes, sir?”
“We need information on Maria, Eddie, Julio’s brother, the father, and the father’s people.”
The computer man chuckled. “Reaching for anything, huh?”
“Yeah. Mama Bear Maria will gut me like a trout when she finds out I missed Julio at a second location.” Cam frowned. “Nothing makes sense if the action instigator is Julio. What could a little kid know that threatens a criminal? For that matter, who would believe a five-year-old?”
“Makes sense. What am I looking for?”
“Anything that connects Sedona, Julio, and any of these people and the school.”
“As soon as I’m in one place longer than a couple of minutes, I’ll get on it.”
“Thanks.”
“Yep.” Rhys dropped back into position again to resume guarding Sedona and Cam.
“Why are you investigating Maria?” Sedona glared at him. “She has nothing to do with what’s going on. Maria would never put her children in harm’s way.”
He’d have to disagree with her on that one. “What do you call working from eight o’clock in the morning until after midnight five nights a week and leaving your children in the charge of a surly teenager?”
“Survival. Maria works two jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.”
“What happened to the father?”
“He’s not in the picture. I’m not sure if he’s dead or simply walked out on them. All I know is Julio never talks about him, just his mother.”
“We’ll confirm that.” Cam felt it was only fair to issue the warning.
Her head whipped in his direction. “Of course you will. I didn’t expect otherwise.”
“What do you know about Eddie?”
“He’s cranky and acts like his brother and sister are pains in his butt.”
Cam chuckled. “All younger brothers and sisters fill that role.”
She blinked. “That’s good to know. Maybe in being an orphan, I had it better after all.”
No, she hadn’t. Nothing was better than fighting like cats and dogs with your siblings, and having a brother or sister take on the world with you when you needed them. “What did Julio tell you about his brother on the night you were kidnapped?”
She smiled. “He said Eddie was acting dumb over a girl. His brother was supposed to be waiting for him behind the school, but when we walked out of the building, Eddie and his truck weren’t there.
Just the two creepy men were. They stared at us so hard that Julio and I walked around the side of the building to the front to see if Eddie was there instead.
Sure enough, I think he’d moved to get away from those men, too. ”
“Did Eddie say anything about them?”
“Not really.”
“Why did Julio thank you for not talking to Eddie?”
Another smile. “He wanted to fight his own battles. He said Eddie would make fun of him, so I promised not to tell Eddie anything Julio said to me.”
Cam thought about that for a beat. “Eddie was afraid of the men at the back of the school?”
“Julio said he was, but he didn’t act like it when I talked to him for a minute.”
“Of course not. You don’t let an attractive woman know you’re afraid. Ever.”
“Oh, come on. Eddie doesn’t think of me as attractive. I’m just his brother’s kindergarten teacher. Eddie barely knows I’m alive.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Sedona. You’re gorgeous, and every male with a pulse notices you as soon as you walk into a room.”
“If you say so.”
Elliot said, “Can we drop this conversation for a time when I don’t have to hear it? Makes me miss my wife.”
Sedona grinned as the sniper’s brothers teased him mercilessly.
Good. Cam wanted her distracted for a few minutes. Every fighter in a war zone and law enforcement officer recognized the value of humor in the middle of the horror. Those moments saved your sanity.
“I’m with Elliot,” Dario grumbled. “Makes me wish I had a wife.”
More chuckles from the rest of the team.
When the laughter petered off, Owen Montgomery said, “We need to find the leak.”
“You still think it’s one of our own?” Elliot asked.
“Has to be.”
He grunted. “We can’t leave a traitor in our ranks. If he sold out once, he’ll do it again, and this time a cop may pay the price.”
Cam’s cell phone vibrated. He stopped, pulled the phone from his pocket, and swiped the glass screen. “It’s Cam. You’re on speaker with The Thunderhawks, Elliot, Owen, and Sedona.”
“Eddie is gone.”