Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I got this one!” Ellory exclaimed. It was way harder than she’d thought it would be to figure out how to climb the stack of boxes and break into one of the top containers. It was also one thing to maneuver in such a small space as this, but another in the pitch dark…and more difficult still with a very freaked-out little sister to look after.
But after several false starts, and after falling on her ass twice, she’d made it to the top of one of the stacks of boxes. Then she’d used her fingernails to pry up the tape on one side of the uppermost box. That took a while too. Whoever packed the boxes did an excellent job.
It was nerve-racking to reach into a box without being able to see what you were about to touch. It could be something sharp that would cut her, or something gross and slimy. But Ellory hoped to be able to use anything they found. Clothes could be used to cushion the floor beneath them, flashlights would be super helpful right about now, a box full of water bottles wouldn’t be unappreciated. But of course, she was hoping for something like a bunch of guns or knives…or some sort of tool that could cut through metal.
Snorting at herself for such ridiculous thoughts, Ellory forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. Reaching into the box, she braced for whatever she might find.
To her surprise, whatever she touched was soft. Furry. It wasn’t alive—thank goodness—and it had both hard and soft parts. Moving her hand around cautiously, Ellory discovered there were a lot of whatever it was she was feeling. Frustrated at her lack of sight, Ellory turned her head to speak to her sister.
“Yana?”
“Ellory?” the little girl returned.
“I’m going to drop something down. I want you to move so your back is against the boxes. As far away from me as possible. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Do it now.”
Ellory’s limbs were shaking. She wasn’t used to such strenuous exertion. Holding herself up by balancing on the tiny ledges of stacked boxes wasn’t exactly something she did every day. If she made it out…no… when she made it out of there, she was going to ask Ricky if he’d help her get more in shape. She was skinny and short. Hopefully once she hit puberty that would change, but in the meantime, she wanted to be able to do physical stuff like this more easily in the future.
“I here,” Yana said.
Ellory was proud of the little girl. This situation was scary as hell. But she was handling herself pretty well, all things considered. Maybe it was because of where she’d come from. Of everything she and her brothers had to do to survive in their home country. And that made Ellory a little sad. Proud, but sad.
“Okay, I’m throwing down whatever this is. Stay where you are until I climb down. Understand?”
“Yes.”
Ellory shifted her balance on her toes and picked up whatever was in the box. She held it over the small space they’d been allotted and dropped it. There was a soft thud when it landed. “Okay?” she asked Yana.
“Okay!” the little girl said immediately.
Ellory picked up another one of whatever was in the box and dropped that too. Then did it one more time. She wasn’t sure when she’d have the strength to climb back up the towering boxes of doom, so if she’d found something they could use, she wanted to be able to have a couple of them…whatever it was.
“I’m coming down now. Stay where you are, Yana. You’re doing so good.”
“Ellory care.”
“I’m being careful,” she reassured the little girl. With her muscles shaking, Ellory carefully made her way back down the stack of boxes. When she reached the bottom, she couldn’t help but be pleased that she’d made it.
Feeling around, she found the items she’d thrown to the floor.
“Yana go you?”
“Yeah, it’s safe. Come here,” Ellory told her. Within seconds, she felt Yana’s outstretched hand, looking for where she was standing. Taking it, Ellory sat on the metal floor of the container with a small sigh. It felt good to sit. To rest her legs. Her thighs and calves were going to be very sore from balancing on the small lips of boxes she’d used as a ladder.
Yana settled into her lap as if she’d done it a thousand times. Ellory couldn’t help but be glad she was there, which immediately made her feel guilty as hell. She didn’t want her sister to be here, no way in hell, but having her there made everything feel a little less scary. She couldn’t break down. Had to stay in control to look after Yana. If she’d been by herself, she would probably be in a heap on the floor, sobbing. She wouldn’t have found the energy or bravery to climb up those boxes in the dark.
“Let’s see what we have here,” she said, as she reached for one of the objects. Ellory turned it over in her hands and tried to picture in her mind what she was holding. After a moment, she realized it was a stuffed animal of some kind. The hard spots were probably the plastic eyes and nose. There was something between the paws of the thing, but Ellory couldn’t figure out what it was. She turned it over and over, running her hands along every inch of the toy.
Just when disappointment was setting in that she’d found a box full of stuffed animals that would be absolutely no help whatsoever in getting them out of their prison, she touched what felt like a button hidden in a seam of the fur along the stuffed animal’s back.
Without thinking, she pressed it.
The thing came to life in her hands, scaring the crap out of Ellory and making her throw it across the small space. Yana jerked in fright and hit her head on Ellory’s chin in the process.
Blinking, Ellory couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The stuffed animal was a bear holding a present. It wore red and green overalls, and what scared her and Yana so badly was a string of tiny lights, flashing around the gift in the bear’s hands, and the song “Jingle Bells” that immediately started playing.
Ellory stared at it for a moment—then smiled. Huge.
She could see! The bear had lights , and even though they were flashing, they were shockingly bright in the pitch-black space, lighting up their small prison as easily as if she’d flicked on the light to her room back home.
Ellory eagerly reached for one of the other bears she’d thrown out of the box and quickly found the button at the back, turning that one on too. It also flashed its colorful lights and began playing “Jingle Bells.” She did the same with the third.
The bears threw off enough light that she could easily see the boxes stacked around them. Shaking her head, Ellory was amazed that she’d done what she had…climbed up about ten feet or so to the top box. It looked scary as hell, and she probably never would’ve attempted it if she could see what she was doing.
But it was worth it. They had light! Now that she could see, maybe she could make some sort of steps out of the boxes. If she could get back up to the top once more, throw down the top box, then the next, she could create a stairway, making it easier to examine what was in the other boxes around them. Surely they weren’t all full of stuffed animals.
A particular memory from hanging out in the garage with Ricky, tinkering with his stuff, came to mind. One of the first things he’d taught her was how useful a battery could be. Hand warmer, lighter, electromagnet for a compass, fire starter…there were a ton of things he’d shown her. A fire inside this container was a horrible idea…but maybe she could MacGyver something else that would help them.
She grinned. MacGyver. She just had to channel Ricky. If he and his SEAL buddies were stuck in here, what would they do? Her mind spun, and suddenly she was anxious to see what else she had to work with. Brady might think she was useless because of her disease—he’d never said it, but she wasn’t dumb; she could see in his eyes that he thought she was pathetic—but she’d show him.
“Yana, can you hold this guy—I think we’ll name him Fred—and if his lights stop, can you push this button so he starts up again so I can see?”
“Yes,” Yana said, grabbing the bear and holding him to her chest.
Ellory stood and did a few stretches. She felt energized. “One box down, ninety-hundred to go,” she muttered, before helping Yana stand off to the side where she wouldn’t get hit by the box Ellory planned to shove off the top of the stack. Then she took a deep breath and began to climb once more. Time was of the essence. She had no idea how long it would take for the container they were in to be put on whatever ship would take them across the world. The faster she could work, the sooner she MacGyvered a way out of here, the better.
* * *
MacGyver glared at Brady Vogel. As soon as he got word that Kevlar and Blink had Ellory’s biological father in their grasp, he’d left the house to meet up with them. Smiley and the older SEALs had stayed behind to make sure the boys and Addison were all right.
Addison wasn’t happy with him at the moment. She’d wanted to come with him. To face her ex. To demand to know why he’d kidnapped her girls and where he’d taken them. But MacGyver had begged her to stay home. He’d finally gotten through to her by saying that if something happened to her, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
Their parting was extremely painful. MacGyver wanted to stay home with her, hold her, comfort her. His teammates could get the information they needed from Vogel, of that MacGyver had no doubt. But he needed to confront the man. Get answers.
He and Flash had met up with Safe and Preacher at Wolf’s house. Surprisingly, the older SEAL and former team leader had offered up his basement as a perfect place to interrogate Vogel.
When MacGyver arrived, the furniture in the basement had been pushed to the side and Vogel was sitting in a chair, his hands cuffed behind him, his face sporting two very painful-looking black eyes. He had blood coming from a split lip, but he wasn’t cowed. Not in the least.
“I told you what would happen when MacGyver got here,” Kevlar said. “He’s not going to be as nice as Blink and I were. If I were you, I’d start talking. And not the bullshit you’ve been spouting so far,” he growled.
“I’ve been telling you the truth. Ellory texted me and said she was sick of being bullied and didn’t want to tell her mom, since she’d told her the bullying was done. She was embarrassed. So she asked if I would come pick her up. It was her idea for me to say that you and her mom were in an accident. She’s smart! She knew I wasn’t approved to pick her up. Check my phone. The texts are there. She begged me to get her out of school. It wasn’t my idea!”
MacGyver listened without expression. He didn’t believe Vogel’s story for a second. “And Yana? Why did you pick her up?”
“Again, Ellory told me to. Said her mom always picks up her and Yana together. Said the little girl would be afraid if Ellory wasn’t there to get her. She went in with me and pretended to be upset so we’d be able to sign her out too. Check the school cameras, man! They’ll show you I’m not lying.”
“Where’s his phone?” MacGyver asked.
“Here,” Kevlar said, chucking it over to him.
MacGyver caught it and turned it over.
“Code is one-two-three-four-five,” Kevlar added, without the smallest hint of amusement on his face.
“Of course it is,” MacGyver muttered, before unlocking the phone and opening the text messaging app. There were texts from Ellory, begging him to come get her from school. Suggesting that he tell the secretary that he and Addison had been in an accident. On the surface, they seemed to prove the man wasn’t lying—but MacGyver’s bullshit meter was still pinging like a motherfucker. Especially after the conversation he’d had with Ellory that very morning at breakfast.
“Where are they now then? Where did you take them?” he asked the man.
“I dropped them off a few blocks from your house. Again, it was Ellory’s suggestion. Since Addison works from home, she didn’t want her mom to see them getting out of my car. Thought Addison would be hurt or something, since Ellory didn’t call her to get her from school. I don’t know, man. She’s a teenager. They make no sense.”
“She’s only twelve,” MacGyver said, feeling annoyed. For some reason, he wanted to make it clear that Ellory wasn’t yet in her teens. It made a huge difference in his eyes.
“Whatever. Look, man. I was trying to do the right thing. My daughter was in distress and I wanted to help. That’s it. I have no idea what happened to her and the other girl after I dropped them off.”
Everything within MacGyver was screaming that Vogel was lying through his teeth. It would be an easy thing for Tex to check the cameras at the schools and the timestamps on the texts. They didn’t have Ellory’s phone, but Tex could also look into her phone records and make sure Ellory really did send the texts. He could ping the locations and see where the texts were made from. Her phone was off right now, so they couldn’t track her or Yana that way.
Frustration ate at him. He thought for sure once they had Vogel, they’d have the answers they needed. But Yana and Ellory could be anywhere.
Just then, Preacher’s phone rang.
“Preacher. What? Fuck. Right. Hang on, let me put my phone on speaker…okay…we can all hear you.”
“MacGyver?” It was Smiley.
He stepped closer to Preacher. “Here,” he said.
“Addison just got a ransom call.”
MacGyver’s world spun. “What?”
“Yeah. The guy said he has Ellory and Yana. Said he wants two hundred and fifty thousand for their safe return.”
MacGyver couldn’t speak. He was literally frozen.
“When did the call come in?” Safe asked.
“Just now. Less than two minutes ago.”
“I told you I wasn’t involved in this!” Vogel crowed from where he sat.
MacGyver blocked him out.
“We didn’t get the entire thing recorded, but we got most of it,” Smiley said.
“Play it,” Kevlar ordered. “Maybe we’ll recognize the voice.”
There was some shuffling on the other end of the line, and then a voice MacGyver had never heard before in his life spoke on the recording.
…fine now, but if you don’t get two hundred and fifty K to me by tomorrow night, they won’t be fine any longer. Don’t call the cops, and the money should be in fifty- and twenty-dollar bills. Don’t try anything funny or you’ll never see the girls again. Put the money in a cardboard box and leave it behind the gas station on Fourth and Aspen, by the dumpster, at ten o’clock sharp tomorrow night. Then drive away. This will be your one and only chance to get them back.
Everyone was silent for a moment.
Then Wolf asked, “Anyone recognize the voice?”
MacGyver shook his head, along with the rest of his team.
“Fuck,” Kevlar muttered.
“He’s going to kill my daughter! What are we gonna do?”
Everyone turned to stare at Vogel. This was the first time he’d shown any emotion other than desperation for them to believe him, so they wouldn’t continue using him as a punching bag…and it didn’t seem genuine.
Why was he so concerned now ? Shouldn’t he have been freaking out the entire time, from the moment he realized his daughter was missing?
The man knew where the girls were. MacGyver would bet his Budweiser pin on it.
“Let him go,” he said in a low, controlled tone.
“What?”
“Are you fucking kidding?”
“Have you lost your mind?”
MacGyver ignored his friends’ exclamations. “You’re coming with us back to the house. You’re a witness. You were the last one to see Ellory and Yana. Any scrap of information you know, we need to hear. Cars you passed, people you saw, things Ellory said. You’re her father, so you deserve to be a part of this as much as we do.”
To his relief, no one questioned him further, and MacGyver ignored the speculative looks his teammates were giving him. He turned to Preacher, who was still holding out his phone. “Smiley?”
“I’m here,” his friend said.
“Tell Addison and the others we’re on our way back to the house. We’ll figure out a way to get the money one way or another. Even if I have to sell everything I own, I’m getting our girls back.”
“Will do. Later.”
MacGyver didn’t have time to discuss what he was thinking with his friends, and in any case, he certainly wouldn’t do so in front of Vogel, but they knew him well enough to know he had a plan. They would go with the flow until he could tell them what he was thinking.
Vogel knew something. The girls’ disappearance started and ended with him. He may not have made that ransom call—but he also didn’t seem surprised by it. And his emotions definitely weren’t genuine.
Sometimes keeping your enemies close was the best way to gather intel. And that was exactly what MacGyver was going to do. He wasn’t going to let the man out of his sight. He was the key to finding Ellory and Yana, of that MacGyver had no doubt.