Chapter 17 Jack #2
James shook his head. "It was burned down to the frame. No prints, no fibers, no DNA. And the lot’s surveillance cameras were spray-painted over before he arrived. He planned this, Jack. Every step. Probably had some help."
Another dead end. Another door slamming shut.
Carter was a ghost. And he had my entire reason for existing with him.
"He's going to kill them." The words came out before I could stop them. "That's what this is. He's not negotiating. He's not making demands. He's just... taking his time."
"Don't." James's voice was sharp. "Don't go there."
"He burned the van, James. He's erasing his trail. He doesn't plan on being caught because he doesn't plan on keeping them alive."
My theory made sense to me.
James grabbed my shoulders, forced me to look at him. "Men like Carter—they're narcissists. They want recognition. They want you to suffer. That takes time. Which means we have time to find them."
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so bad.
But the look in his eyes told me he wasn't sure either.
The drive back was silent except for the radio. The city kept spinning. The world didn't stop because my daughter and Anna were missing.
The penthouse door opened to silence.
Not the comfortable silence of sleeping children. Not even the tense silence of the fortress we'd built after Carter’s first threat. This was the silence of abandonment. Of rooms that had held life and now held only echoes.
The reinforced door with its gleaming new locks—useless. The security monitors—useless. The panic room—useless.
All of it. Every precaution. Every measure. Every dollar spent.
Worthless.
Hour one: I authorized a reward. A number so large that James actually repeated it back to me, making sure he'd heard correctly.
Hour three: Their faces were everywhere. Daisy's school photo was on every news channel. Anna's picture from her last reading session at the foundation. "Amber Alert issued for Daisy Spencer, 5, and Anna Stewart..."
My daughter was a headline. Breaking news.
Hour five: James came back with updates that weren't really updates. No sightings. The tip line was flooded with useless calls. The city was looking. And finding nothing.
Hour eight: I found myself in the kitchen, staring at the faint ring left by Anna's tea mug on the counter. She'd had tea yesterday morning. Earl Grey with honey.
Twenty-four hours ago.
I traced the ring with my finger. A simple ghost of her presence.
Hour twelve: I couldn't sit. Couldn't stand. I paced. Living room to office. Office to kitchen. Kitchen to hallway. Over and over.
My phone sat on the coffee table, ringer on maximum. Daring it to ring. Dreading it.
It stayed silent except for James's updates. Each one a variation of "nothing yet."
Hour sixteen: I was in Daisy's room again. I found one of her yellow hair ribbons under the edge of her bed. I wound it around my fingers, over and over, the satin soft and worn.
She liked to wear them when we read together. Yellow meant she wanted a happy story.
When had I last read to her? Last week? Five days ago?
God, I left Anna to do everything. I should’ve done more.
Hour twenty: The visions started. My mind supplied its own horror show.
Daisy is crying for me in the dark. Did she think I'd abandoned her? Was she hungry? Cold? Scared?
Anna. The thought of what Carter was doing to her wasn’t just physical pain. He would peel her apart mentally.
He would destroy her soul before he touched her body.
And she would let him. She would take it all to protect Daisy.
Hour twenty-four: James found me in my office, staring at empty security monitors.
"I brought her here," I finally said. My voice sounded dead. "I painted a target on both of them."
"Jack—"
"My surveillance gave him a blueprint. My need for vengeance was the first domino. This is my design."
James leaned forward. "Carter Wilson abducted them. Not you."
But the logic didn't land. It couldn't land.
Hour thirty-six: I was back in the kitchen, making coffee I wouldn't drink, when my phone rang.
Not a text. A call.
Unknown number.
My entire body went rigid. The phone vibrated on the counter, that simple label mocking me.
Unknown Number.
James was in the room in seconds. He saw the phone. His eyes met mine.
"Answer it," he mouthed. "I'm recording."
My hand shook as I reached for it. Swiped to answer.
"Hello?"
Static. Breathing. Then—
A voice. Smooth. Calm. Deranged in its pleasantness.
"Hello, Jack. Did you get my video? I hope the lighting was good."
Of course, it was Carter.
The world narrowed to that voice.
"Where are they?" The words came out somewhere between a growl and a plea. "What have you done with them?"
A soft laugh. "They're comfortable. Well, Anna is less comfortable at the moment. But she's resilient. It's really quite impressive how much pain she can endure when she's protecting something."
My hand clenched around the phone. "If you hurt one hair on either of their heads—"
"You'll what?" Carter's voice sharpened. "You'll find me? Already tried that, Jack. Fifteen years sentence, remember? Look how well that worked out."
James was frantically writing:
KEEP HIM TALKING
I forced myself to breathe. "What do you want?"
"Want?" Carter sounded genuinely amused. "I don't want anything. I already have everything that matters. I have your daughter. I have your woman. And I have time. So much time to make this hurt exactly the way it should."
"Let them go." My voice cracked. "Please. Take me instead. I'll come to you. Anywhere. Just let them go."
"That's very noble. But no. This is about Anna learning she can never escape me. This is about your daughter learning what monsters are. This is about you understanding that all your money means nothing."
Background noise filtered through. Faint. Distant. Water dripping?
"I'll call again soon," Carter said pleasantly. "Maybe with updates. Maybe with proof of life. We'll see how cooperative Anna is feeling."
The line went dead.
I stood there, phone pressed to my ear, listening to silence.
"Got it," James said, his phone already up. "They're running the trace now. That background noise—water dripping, maybe pipes. Could be industrial, a basement, old plumbing."
A location. Finally, a thread to pull.
But the words Carter had said, "how much pain she can endure," echoed in my head.
My phone lit up again. Not a call.
A text. From the same unknown number.
A photo.
My hands shook as I opened it.
The image loaded slowly, revealing hell in progressive strips.
Anna. Bound to a chair in what looked like a basement. Concrete walls. Bare bulb overhead. Her face was turned toward the camera, eyes closed, head slumped forward. Her shirt was torn. Fresh bruises bloomed across her arms, her collarbone, and her face.
And behind her, just visible in the shadows—
A small figure. Daisy. Sitting on the floor, her back to the wall, knees pulled to her chest.
She couldn't see Anna. Couldn't see what he was doing to her.
Carter had positioned them that way deliberately. Making Anna endure torture while Daisy sat feet away, unable to help, forced to listen.
Below the photo, a caption:
Unknown number
She's being so brave for your daughter. How long do you think she can last?
The phone fell from my nerveless fingers, clattering on the counter.
"Jack?"
"Jack, what is it?"
I couldn't answer James. My voice was failing me. All I could do was stare at that image burned into my retinas.
Anna. Daisy. Both of them were in hell.
Because of me.
James picked up the phone. Looked at the photo. His face went gray.
"We're going to find them," he said, but his voice shook. "The trace, the background noise, the metadata, we'll find them."
But how long would that take?
And what would Carter do to them before we did?