Chapter 43
LIAM
Stakeouts are boring.
Usually, I leave this kind of work to our captains or lieutenants, but this is personal.
Doesn’t help with the boring part, though.
I’m antsy, eager to get to the part where I make this fucker regret every one of his decisions over the past five years.
The one where I get to pound his face to mincemeat, gouge out his eyeballs, rip out every one of his fingernails.
The one where I get to torture him until he’s begging me to kill him.
“Boss, carpet’s threadbare enough as it is.”
Even though he’s trying to lighten the mood, I fire an irritated glare Dan’s way, then resume pacing.
Every time I pass the front window, which is dressed in the vilest net curtains that most grannies would be proud of, I stop and peer outside.
Nothing. No sign of Murray. In one way, I’m glad.
If he sticks to tomorrow as I fully expect him to, I’ll have more time for my rage to fester.
In another, though, fuck, it’s going to be a long night.
I palm my phone, staring at the picture on the lock screen.
It’s an old photo of Rebel, snapped when she wasn’t looking, standing atop a mountain with the wind in her hair and a flush to her cheeks.
I don’t have a more recent one. As soon as this is over, I’m rectifying that.
By the time I’m finished, I’ll need to buy more storage for my phone.
“How long have we been here?”
Dan checks his watch. “Ninety minutes.”
Jaysus. Is that all?
“Should I make us a sandwich?”
I jerk my chin, and Dan gets up off the couch and heads into the kitchen. I resume pacing. He returns with ham and cheese on sourdough and two Cokes. God bless Maeve. Woman’s a diamond.
I tear off a bite and wash it down with the soda. On my second bite, my phone rings. Patrick. I answer, mouth full. “Yeah?”
“We’ve got trouble.”
I swallow, on instant alert. “What kind of trouble?”
Dan puts down his plate and gets up from the couch, ready to launch into action.
“Sorcha and Rowan went to the spa and—”
“Rowan left the fucking house?” I roar. “Why? Why the fuck isn’t she with you?”
“If you shut your fucking yapping, I’ll tell you.”
I listen while he reels off his decision, and why he made it. Then he ends with “Sorcha just called me. Rowan didn’t come back from the toilet.”
Ice crystals freeze my blood. “Is she sure?”
“Yeah. She’s checked everywhere. Rowan’s not at the spa anymore.”
I punch the wall. Once, twice, three times.
Fuck. That crooked fucking cunt played us both.
I should’ve seen this coming. I failed her.
Again, I failed her. How did he know where she’d be when even I didn’t fucking know?
None of this makes sense, but that doesn’t matter.
The only thing that matters is finding Rowan and bringing her safely home. But where to fucking start?
“Liam.”
I snap back to the present. “I want everyone on this. I don’t care about the shipment. All of them, Patrick. You hear me? I want every port, every airport, every fucking inch of this island searched until we find her. I—”
“I know where she is.”
I blink. “What did you say?”
“I said, I already know where she is. Thanks to Sorcha.”
My head aches. I massage my temples. “Make sense, Patrick. And make it fast. I’m about to lose my fucking shit here.”
“When they got to the spa, Sorcha slipped a tracking tag into Rowan’s robe pocket. I’ve got her live on a map. She’s in transit, probably in a car. I’m sending you the live feed now.”
God fucking bless my sister-in-law. “Tell Sorcha thank you.”
“You can tell her yourself when you and Rowan get back here safe and sound. Want me to send more soldiers?”
I consider his question carefully. More people means more chance of someone fucking up. Besides, everything about the way Murray has handled Rowan this far tells me he’s acting alone. His mother knows, but I don’t think anyone else is in on what he’s doing.
“No. Dan and I have got it. I’ll call if anything changes.”
“Okay. Live feed come through yet?”
My phone buzzes. “Yeah. Just now.”
“Keep me updated.”
I hang up, watching the moving red dot on the screen. “Let’s go.”
Dan drives, and I navigate. We’ve been traveling for thirty-eight minutes when the red dot stops. I zoom in.
“Gotcha.” I enter the address into the car’s navigation system. “When we get close, we stop and go on foot.”
“Sure, boss.”
We navigate a series of narrow country lanes. Hedgerows crowd in, branches scraping the car on both sides.
“Pull in here,” I instruct when the map tells me we’re a half mile out.
Dan parks in front of a rusted gate with tractor tracks beyond.
A dozen or so sheep are huddled together against the weather.
It’s drizzling when we get out. I bow my head against the wind and plow forward.
We crest a hill, the valley surrounded by nothing but farmland.
I frown and turn a complete three-sixty.
There’s nothing here. No car, no barn, no dwelling.
I glance at my phone. The red dot is still there, still not moving. I keep walking toward it. Then it’s behind me. What the fuck? A slow realization slithers into my mind.
“He fucking found it.” I turn around for something to punch, but there’s only Dan, and he doesn’t deserve a broken jaw. I scan the ground. “It’s gotta be here somewhere,” I mutter.
“There.” Dan points and, sure enough, lying in a tuft of grass is a tracking tag.
Murray has my woman, and I haven’t a fucking clue where she is.