Chapter 24 #2
Truth be told, I’d love to have an excuse to bend her over my knee and spank her. Her ripe arse has been begging for it since my hands had a taste of it the other day. But her mind is only half on us. She’s absorbed in the makers’ stalls. I plan to use her later, when we get home.
* * *
Iona
As we make our way to the printmaking booth, I’m piqued at the way Leith dismissed my reasoning. I know he’s hurt at being temporarily fired and doesn’t want to go in half cocked, but I firmly believe Diran will trust in Leith again once Leith comes forward with what we’ve found.
The model car tent is right across from the printmaking stall, and Leith gives my waist a squeeze. “I’ll be over there while you hobnob with the printers.”
“Okay.”
As we separate, I tell myself Leith is angry at being let go and wants to punish Diran and the Crew. But withholding the information Galiene gave us and what we’ve found in the last few days feels like a meaningless suicide mission.
I’m examining a gorgeous handmade book about local birds set in Caliban serif typeface, when a large hand claps over my mouth and someone yanks me around to the back of the booth.
Before I can scream, a needle jabs my thigh, and more hands grab me.
My limbs feel like rubber, and my bones dissolve.
I’m dragged to the back of a van and tossed inside.
The surface is cold and hard, and my brain spins like a top.
Then everything goes black.
* * *
Leith
Along with a crowd of other car fans I watch two woodworkers complete the assembly of a couple of low-slung racecars.
They’re going to install the same small motor in both and see which car goes faster.
My money is on the yellow one, since the red one is apparently slightly heavier.
But my mind keeps returning to Iona. I wonder if she’d like me to take a video of her at the fair so she can post it on her socials.
She looks especially delectable today in a flirty white sundress with green and yellow seahorses splashed over it.
She’s done invaluable work on the Lowing case, putting aside her own work to help me in this crunch time.
We have two more days to pull this off, and I’ll likely need to go without sleep both nights.
Still, it’s good for Iona to have a brain break with this craft fair, and even I’m finding the change of setting productive.
“Alright, everyone!” one of the woodworkers announces. “Let’s put the two cars to the test.”
They set them at the start of the course, both men holding remote controls.
“Five, four, three, two . . . go!”
The cars whiz down a straightaway, climb a high peak, then descend a helix bridge.
The crowd goes wild, chanting for one or both cars to go faster.
I take a moment to turn and search for Iona, but two hulking guys are blocking my view of the printmaking booth.
Reluctantly I turn back to the race. As soon as it’s finished, I’ll go join her.
The red takes a hairpin curve faster, but the yellow passes it on a climb. Finally they spiral their way up a series of pigtails, and the yellow crosses the finish line a split second before the red.
The man who made the yellow throws his arms in the air. “Fastest time ever on this course, ladies and gentlemen. Two minutes thirty-three point seven seconds.”
I stuff a tip in the jar and turn to press my way through the thick throng. At last the printmaking booth appears, only I can’t see Iona. My heart picks up speed as I scan the crowd without spotting her. Taking my phone out, I check the tracking app. The green dot is right here.
I call her, but it goes to voicemail. Then I text, “Where are you? I’m at the printmaking booth.”
Once more I scour the sea of heads surrounding the booth. My foot catches on something on the ground, and I look down, nearly crunching a phone with my shoe. I stoop and pick it up.
It’s Iona’s. It’s covered in her cream-colored case with the piles of books drawn on it.
Fuck. I don’t see her getting far without her phone. But she’s nowhere in sight. My gut tells me someone took her.
Checking my watch, I see it’s been twenty minutes since we separated. Twenty minutes in which a kidnapper could’ve done plenty of dirty work.
“Excuse me.” I catch the attention of one of the printmakers. “Did you see a woman with long red hair and a white sundress?”
“Och, aye. She was here a few minutes ago, eh, John?” one of the women supplies, turning to her colleague.
“Aye.” John nods. “I haven’t seen her for a bit though.”
“Did you see her leave?” I inquire tensely.
“No. We were setting this typeface,” the woman replies.
“Thanks.” I turn to the rest of the people milling about the booth and raise my voice. “Did anyone here see a redhead in a white sundress?”
They shake their heads and mutter, sorry, mate.
My stomach bottoms out as I text Draven. “Iona’s missing. Join me at the printmaking booth.”
Five nerve-wracking minutes later, he strides toward me, a frown etched on his brow. “There are four car parks around here but only one main entrance to the park.”
I shake my head, exploding a taut breath.
“It could’ve happened as early as twenty-five minutes ago.
They’ve got a head start. And we don’t know what vehicle we’re looking for, assuming that’s how they left.
” We need to work smart, not hard. “Let’s go to Declan’s and question Galiene. She may know something.”
It’s no use paging the fairgoers to look out for her. If she was taken, her kidnappers will have hidden her.
Why the fuck didn’t I put her two soldiers on her today, given the density of the crowds at the fair?
Needing to punch something, I slam my fist into a burlap sack that’s weighting down the tent.
Pain explodes in my hand, and blood trickles down my knuckles, but I welcome both.
How the fuck could I have let this happen?
I didn’t have to separate from her. I should’ve gone with her to whatever booth she wanted to see.
Fuck, I should’ve led her around on a leash.
“FUUCCKK!” I growl.
“Cummoan, Leith. Let’s start looking for her.” Draven tips his head toward the car, and I let him lead me away.
Rage swells like a rogue wave in my chest. I will obliterate whoever took her, whoever aided and abetted her kidnapper, whoever hopes to profit from this act. Iona is mine, and no one touches what’s mine without dying a gruesome death.
Draven drives us to Declan’s, and on the way he asks, “Can you think of a motive they’d have to take her?”
“Assuming they were hired by the COPFS, Iona and I may have been getting too warm in our research. We’ve been looking for a common thread among various partners of the Syndicate whose owners and investors are untraceable.”
He meets my eye in the rear view. “You think whoever owns these companies is behind the kidnapping?”
“Or someone who’s protecting them,” I posit. I bring up something on my phone and tap send. “Ewen, go with Hardie to the address I text you and pick up Ron Pirie. Bring him to Declan’s for questioning.”
“Awright.”
I located Pirie on Thursday but haven’t yet had a chance to question him. Today’s his lucky day. I figure my soldiers will take an hour tops to get Pirie and bring him to Declan’s. In the meantime, I can ask Galiene a few pertinent things.
Half an hour later Declan, Draven, and I stand in the cellar, Galiene once again cuffed to a chair in the center.
I cut right to the chase. “Who kidnapped Iona?”
A smirk teases one side of her mouth. “So they’ve taken your wife, eh?”
In my frame of mind I can’t tolerate her cheek. I give Draven a look, and he slaps her.
“I won’t hesitate to carve up your face, Galiene,” I snap. “Who did this?”
“I don’t know who among the many they’ve hired for this operation,” she sniffs. “It depends on what they’re after.”
It’s as I thought: they want to stop us from getting closer to figuring out what all those partners have in common. But why? What do they have in common?
“You’re sure you have no idea what’s special about the names you told Iona I’d withheld from Diran,” I confirm.
“Aye. I was given my instructions by a man named Dalziel. I don’t know his surname.”
“Is he part of the COPFS?”
“I don’t know.”
I drag a hand down my face. “Awright. Leave her here while we question Pirie.”
* * *
Iona
I come to feeling like someone took a sledgehammer to my head. I’m in a moving vehicle—I assume it’s the van I was dumped into—and my hands and ankles have been ziptied. I startle at the sight of the man seated beside me, his legs stretched out and ankles crossed.
He has a dark goatee, one stud, and a shark tattoo winding up his neck. Looking to be of medium height but stacked with muscle, he sets me violently trembling.
My assaulter.
Alarm bells blare in my head, and a cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck.
“What’s the matter, Red?” His cruel, knife-like laugh scrapes the air. “Having unhappy memories?”
“You—you?—”
“I never got to finish what I started that night. Till now.” He tilts his head. “You’re even hotter by day.”
His voice drifts in and out as I sink into a flashback.
* * *
Neither Grizel nor I say a word in the back of the car.
Maw is driving, and she throws us concerned looks in the rear view, but I can’t reassure her.
I feel like crawling into a hole, curling up, and dying.
I’m covered in shame, mortification, and fear.
Fear that He may be lurking around the next corner or appear at the next party I go to.
What’s to stop Him from following me and ambushing me in an alleyway?
I shiver, my body numb but my brain working overtime. There’s no escape from these thoughts. No one I can talk to to make them go away. I start to panic, my breaths coming too fast for me to control. I feel like I’m trapped in too small a space and there’s no exit.
* * *
Breathe, Iona, Dr. Hsu’s calm voice directs. Ground yourself.
I focus on the burn of the zip ties chafing my wrists and ankles, the smell of diesel from the exhaust, and the taste of metal in my mouth from whatever drug they put in my system. By breathing deeply for a few moments I get my trembling under control.
“Wh-who are you?” I stammer.
“Leith knows who I am.” He rasps a dirty chuckle. “You don’t need to know.” To my horror he pulls out the same knife he used That Night, dragging the flat of the blade over the cropped beard on his jaw. “Where we’re gaun, no one will hear your screams.”
No, no, no, no, no!
“What do you want?” I whisper, unable to hide the tremolo in my voice.
“First you. Then my demands.”
“Then you’ll need me alive,” I falter.
“Alive? Aye.” He licks the blade, his eyes glowing psychotically. “Sane and intact? Mibbe not.”
As my tremors pick up again, he throws his head back and laughs.
Leith, please find me. Please come and soon.
1?A bridie is a horseshoe-shaped pastry filled with beef, onions, and potatoes that originated in the town of Forfar.