Chapter 13
SETH
Still fuming about Charles Dumond being a wishy-washy, indecisive asshole, I finish up for the day.
The bouquet I got for Madison sits on the shelf near my office door. I should’ve had the damn thing delivered. What kind of statement am I trying to make, anyway? Do the flowers have to mean something, other than to commemorate Kyle’s birthday?
I suppose they don’t. But I never gave her flowers on Kyle’s birthday before. We lost contact after his death. Not because I didn’t want to talk to her, but because it felt unnecessary. He died, and our connection was severed.
But today, I’m thinking about him, and I’m thinking about her. I’m thinking of the man we lost. Her husband—my brother.
And I’m thinking maybe it doesn’t matter that I’m trying so hard to stay away, because the feelings I have for her? They’re the same whether I’m around her or not.
I won’t show up at her house unannounced, though. In the elevator, I send her a text. Are you home? I’d like to swing by.
By the time the elevator reaches the parking garage, she still hasn’t answered. Maybe she’s busy, or she didn’t hear her phone. Another phone rings in the garage, its tinny ringtone echoing against the cars and cement. I don’t see anyone around, and it continues to ring.
Madison isn’t answering her phone, either. I end the call before her voicemail can pick up. Damn it. I don’t want to go back upstairs with the flowers and try again later. Maybe I will just have them delivered. It’s easier, less emotional.
Deciding to give her one last chance, I dial again.
The other phone in the garage rings anew.
My instincts kick into high gear. This is probably a coincidence. Someone probably left their phone in their car, and now they’re calling it to find out where it is, thinking it’s hidden in a couch cushion or something.
I end the call to Madison, and the other phone stops ringing.
It sounded like it was coming from a few cars away. I dial again, moving in that direction.
The other phone rings. This time, I don’t hang up—I follow the sound.
The ringing isn’t coming from inside a car. It’s coming from underneath a car, the phone wedged against a tire as if it were kicked there.
It’s Madison’s phone, lighting up with my call, the cracked screen warping my name. Dread makes my blood run cold.
Something’s very wrong.
* * *
MADISON
The SUV motors along the freeway. I can’t tell which direction we’re going, although I stare hard at the window, trying to see road signs. So far, all I catch is the edge of the signs, from an angle that makes reading impossible. No matter how I tilt my head, I can’t get the right vantage point.
“Be still,” our kidnapper says. “Or I will shoot you.”
I go still.
If I had to guess, I’d say this guy is Alessia’s ex-boyfriend. The dark bruise forming on her cheek is one clue. His Italian accent is another.
We drive for what feels like a long time, but is probably less than an hour. After slowing down and taking a few turns, the car stops. From my point of view, I can only see the tops of some pine trees, maybe cypresses. Did we go all the way to the mountains? Or maybe the coast?
“You will be quiet. You will be obedient,” he says. “Or I will have to hurt you.”
He gets out of the car, then opens the back door. Now, instead of a gun, he holds a knife. I flinch away.
His eyes go wide, as if he’s hurt that I would be scared of him. “I’m cutting the ties off your feet.”
Alessia whimpers when he grabs her ankle to hold her steady. He murmurs something to her in Italian. She says something back, sounding quiet and cowed.
This isn’t the woman who shouted at me in the parking garage, telling me to stay away from her “husband.” This is a woman who is trapped and hopeless.
I can’t let that hopelessness touch me. Whatever their drama is, whatever this crime, I’ll get out of it. I have to.
He roughly spins me around so I face him now, instead of Alessia. Through the open car door, and past him, I see the exterior of an ugly motel. The motel room doors and windows all face the parking lot.
“You’re going to get out of the car and go straight to the room with me.” He yanks on my hand. “Both of you.”
I stumble when he pulls me out of the car. My legs are sore from sitting in that cramped position in the back of the car.
“Up,” he barks. “No funny business.”
I stare at the windows of the motel rooms. Why is nobody looking out? Surely one of those rooms houses a bored or nosy person who wants to take in the sights of the parking lot?
But there’s no one. And even if there was, I’m not sure this is the kind of place where suspicious behavior would be reported.
I can’t do this. I can’t let him push me into a hotel room and keep me there. Alessia shuffles along like her spirit is already broken. I guess I can understand—when you’ve been beaten so many times, it’s probably difficult to have any fight left.
But I can’t give up, not yet. Three feet from the motel room door, I wrench my arm from his grasp and bolt.
I’m not fast enough. His bruising grip comes down on my shoulder and he spins me around. Sharp pain explodes over my cheek and jaw as he backhands me.
I cry out, but he hits me again.
“There’s a family in the room next to ours.” He gets close to my face, his coffee breath filling my nostrils. “Another attempt to run, any sound you make to cry for help, and I will shoot the kids while the parents watch. Then I’ll shoot the parents. Do not make me harm that innocent family.”
I swallow, eyes watering with tears from the pain in my jaw, my heart cracking. Is this what it means to have your spirit broken, to be filled with so much fear, you can’t even move?
* * *
DAMIANO
My phone rings. It’s Kristoff, the guard on duty with Alessia.
“Is everything okay?” I ask. “Or is she fighting with you about packing?”
“Boss.” His voice is serious. “Ms. Romano sent me back to the apartment so she could attend to some personal business. It’s been forty minutes and she hasn’t returned. I went back down to look for her, and she’s no longer there.”
“Where did you leave her?”
“The parking garage. She wanted to have a conversation with another woman who’d just arrived. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“Was the other woman about five-five, with light brown hair?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck. Call Colton. Tell him to meet me in the guards’ station.”
“Sure thing,” Kristoff says.
I dial Madison while running to the elevator. No answer. I keep calling as the elevator takes me to the first floor, where our security feeds are located. There, I gesture at Fozz, our tech guy, to give me his seat.
He doesn’t ask questions, just jumps right up.
Madison still hasn’t answered her phone.
As I’m pulling up the feed from an hour ago, Seth bursts into the office. Fozz gives a start, frowning behind his giant gray beard.
“What the fuck?” Seth looks between us. “Kristoff said there’s an emergency? And you’re calling Madison’s phone, but she isn’t picking up because I found this on the fucking ground in the garage. She’s missing.”
He holds up a phone with a cracked screen.
“Fuck.” My stomach drops in fear, but I punch instructions into the keyboard. “I think Alessia and Madison might have had a confrontation in the parking garage. Alessia has disappeared.”
“How could Alessia disappear?” Seth asks. “I thought we had a guard on her.”
“We did—Kristoff. She ditched him. He already talked to me about it, but we can see it happen.” I point to the monitors. “Look, right here, she’s telling him to go back upstairs. Probably because she wants to confront Madison.”
We watch as Alessia dismisses Kristoff. A couple minutes later, Madison appears.
First, she walks to the elevator. Then, she pauses, turns, and hurries out of the frame.
Moments later, she reappears, running toward the elevator.
She’s barely in view before someone grabs her.
My heart stops beating as she’s tugged out of the video frame.
There’s nothing else. No clues. No view of who grabbed Madison. Probably not Alessia—the arm around Madison’s chest is muscular and in a dark jacket. Alessia had been wearing a dress.
“Fuck.” Seth pounds the desk. “Where do they go? Where is he taking her?”
I flip through the cameras and to view the parking garage exits—there are two, one on the north side and the other on the south. One by one, we watch the cars that exit the garage.
“That one. The white SUV.” Seth gestures to the screen.
I freeze the frame so Seth can write down the license plate. He says, “Let’s check a few more.”
It’s a good idea, although my instincts are telling me this SUV is the one. Still, we go through the next few minutes, checking cars that might be big enough to hide and hold two full-grown women. There aren’t many.
“You think it’s Francesco?” Seth asks.
I nod.
“We should be prepared that he switched cars after leaving the garage,” he says.
“I don’t think he’s that smart.” Hatred pulses through my veins, matching the terror.
I should have listened to Alessia when she said Francesco was here.
I dismissed her claims because I thought she was stirring up drama.
I stand up and gesture to Fozz. “Can you do a search? Anything you can find for these plates?”
“Sure thing.” He takes his seat back. His fingers fly over the keyboard.
Seth and I watch him work. I want to urge him to go faster. How much time have we lost already? Kristoff said it had been forty minutes since Alessia sent him upstairs. Since then, Seth and I spent about twenty minutes reviewing the feeds. An hour. We’ve lost at least an hour.
“I found something.” Fozz points to the monitor. “That SUV’s plates are listed at a motel—the Fantastic Motel.”
“The one in Bellefleur?” I ask, searching for the address.
“No, Fair Heights.”
Seth and I are already heading out the door.