Beyond Revenge (The Ransom Series) (6 page)

Her Presence

∞

We were so
together, connected, feeling.

Sometimes I forget
she’s no longer with me.

Everything about
her radiates on

as if she’s right
by my side.

Loving me.

Holding me.

Giving herself to
me.

Her presence lives
on unimpeded.

∞

It was a quiet night at the hotel after
Robert and I left Russo’s place.  It was a quiet morning of getting ready and
quickly eating bagels and fruit from the continental breakfast.

Now that we’re in the car and on the
road again, I can’t seem to shut up.

“He must have paid Russo a pretty penny
for all this,” I say while tapping my fingers nervously on the steering wheel. 
“It’s no wonder the guy went back on his deal with Jack.  He knew Mark would
offer him so much more.”

Robert looks distracted by his laptop,
but I know he’s listening to me.  He’s been like this since the moment we left
the hotel, poring over the compilation of information that we’ve learned so
far, which isn’t much.

He finally looks up at me.  “Would he
keep the other men in the dark or pay them off for their silence?  We can go
after them, but it won’t do any good if they don’t know anything or won’t
talk.”

I think about Robert’s question for a
moment.  Mark’s self-reliance waned in the years leading up to his capture and
subsequent incarceration by Robert, but that all changed when his wife and
daughter were killed while he was in prison.  After he was released, he still
needed me and the rest of his crew to help him, but
he clearly organized
anything of major importance
by
himself.
 
I was his second-in-command, and I had no idea he was planning to take Morgan
from her life less than a week after his release.

A surge of frustration rushes through
me.  “This is exactly the kind of operation he would
run
solo.  Even if I was still with him and hadn’t betrayed him, he wouldn’t
have brought me in on his plans for something like this.”

Suddenly our road trip to our next
destination seems a little pointless.  We’re heading to Mark’s headquarters,
to
the second-to-last place I saw Morgan.  The last place
where
we kissed.

“We have to try,” Robert says, and I’m
grateful for his interruption of my thoughts.

“I know.”

I try not to let the hopelessness I
feel inside take over me, but it’s hard not to see the reality of it.  I have
all this information about the people and locations and day-to-day workings of
Mark’s business, and none of it may be useful to finding Morgan.  Mark wouldn’t
be so stupid as to take her somewhere I know of.  He wouldn’t disclose that
location to someone on his crew who might talk.

“We may only have one option,” I
realize.  Robert looks at me expectantly.  “We can destroy Mark’s operation
from the bottom up.  We can disrupt it
and
stop his
money flow.  If we put his crew and his business into enough chaos, he might
show himself.”

“Or he might retaliate.”

Robert makes a good point.  Regardless
of what we do, Mark has a huge amount of leverage over us.  The thought of him
hurting Morgan any more than he already has because of something we’ve done
makes my stomach churn.

It’s frustrating
to
know
that
she’s out there somewhere with
him, at his mercy, and I’m free in the world with the knowledge and resources
to look for her
,
but I have nothing.  She could be
anywhere, and Mark has all eternity to keep her there.

My anger boils over.  I let out a
frustrated groan as I hit the steering wheel hard over and over again with my
palm.  My fingers curl into a death grip around it until I feel Robert’s hand
on my shoulder.

“You can’t do this.  It won’t help find
her.  I learned that months ago.”

I take my eyes off the road to look at
him and open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.  He’s right.  He’s been there. 
He’s experienced this pain and anger for much longer than I have, and he’s actually
controlling it.  I need to calm the fuck down.

“Sorry,” I say quietly, returning my
attention to driving.  My grip on the steering wheel loosens.  I take some deep
breaths to bring me back down to normal.

I can’t bring myself to talk for the
rest of the drive.  In a way, I’m dreading walking back into that building that
holds so many memories from the last three months.  Morgan and I somehow found
happiness there.  Amidst the madness of being part of a
thriving
criminal organization, we had a life together.  We create
d
life together.

“We’re here,” I announce, pulling the
car off the road into the
large enclosed
parking
garage.  It’s no surprise to find it completely empty with no guard at the
door.

Once we’re parked and I cut the engine
,
heavy
silence fills the vehicle.  Neither of us moves for a
long moment.  I won’t say it to Robert’s face, but I’m absolutely
terrified
to get out of this car.

“Is this the back door?” Robert asks.

“It’s the only door.  The rest of the
doors into the building are welded shut.”

Robert nods slowly.  “Not so easy for
escape, then.”

He’s starting to understand why I
couldn’t get Morgan out on my own during the
last
three
months.  “We could have tried, but if we were caugh
t,
the
things Mark would have done to her…” 
The things he’s probably doing to her
now
.  “I couldn’t risk him separating us.”

I wince, acknowledging to myself yet
again that he found a way to take her from me anyway.  I run my hands up and
down the steering wheel, wishing I was anywhere but here.

“It may be difficult for you to
believe,” I continue, “but we actually had a life here.  We made the best of
our situations and cared for each other and helped each other get through it
all.  We really were in love.”

“Are in love,” Robert corrects me,
cracking a smile.  “This isn’t over.  Don’t give up on her just yet.”

It takes a moment, but when Robert’s words finally seep
into my brain, I nod. 
“You’re right,” I say confidently,
taking a deep breath and hardening my resolve to find her.  “Let’s go inside.”

With
weapons in hand, we approach the
door cautiously only to find that it’s locked.  I step back and try multiple
times to kick it in, but it’s too thick and secure.  It barely budges.

“Let me try,” Robert says from behind
me.

For a moment I think he’s crazy
,
then
I see the
narrow metal instruments
in his hand
s
.
 
“You
can pick locks?  What kind of cop picks locks?”

Robert
grin
s
at me.  “The best kind.”

I step back and watch in awe as Robert
fiddles with the
picks
in the lock and has the door
open in less than a minute.

“You’ll have to teach me that one
sometime,” I say as Robert pockets
the tools
in his
wallet for future use and returns the firearm to his hand.

I lead the way in, gun forward and
flashlight out as we make our way down the dark hallway.  Once we’re far enough
in that I’m convinced the building is
completely
empty,
I
put away
the flashlight and start turning on lights
as we move along.
 
“We would have seen someone by
now.  No one’s here.”

Robert stands down behind me, though he
keeps his gun ready at his side.

We finally arrive at the one place that
has any potential for useful information within this hellhole
:
Mark’s office.

The door is locked, but I know it’s
made of cheap composite wood that will easily break.  Robert looks ready to
fish in his wallet again
for the lock picks
, but I
wave him off.  “I got this one.”

With one heavy kick, the door flies
open.  I turn on the light and move immediately to Mark’s large mahogany desk,
opening and closing drawers and pulling out
some
papers I find onto its surface.
  They don’t look like anything more than
useless scraps and notes, but I’ll take anything I can get at this point.

I glance at Robert taking in the
office
around him.  He probably didn’t expect such a roomy and lived-in
space.  The bookshelves, TV, and maroon leather furniture around the room with
subdued lighting and artwork on the walls make it look like any normal man’s
office
, hiding the fact that this space belonged to
a
deranged, psychotic criminal.

I can’t look at the couch or the
armchair and not imagine Morgan sitting there
with her nose in a book,
relaxing while Mark and I work
ed
at his
desk.  Being in this place where Morgan and I spent so much time together on a
daily basis brings all the memories
of the last three months
back
to me
.  It’s like we never left even
though Morgan isn’t here with me.

“She spent hours sitting there
reading,” I say to Robert, nodding to the furniture.  “I think she made it
through half the books on these shelves by the time we left this place.”

A sad look crosses Robert’s face as he takes
one last glance at the furniture before moving away from that part of the
room.  He’s suddenly very interested in the papers I’m pulling out of the desk.

“We should bring these with us,” he
suggests.  “There might be receipts or correspondence.  I’ll need your help
determining what’s normal and what’s not.”

I look around the room for something to
put the papers in.  The small makeshift bar that Mark set up in here catches my
eye.  In the cabinet underneath it
,
I find a box of trash
bags and remove
one
of them.

We pile the
limited amount of
paperwork into
the
bag and do one last
look through the room for anything else that could be useful.

“He was thorough.  There’s nothing else
here,” Robert comments.

I share Robert’s feeling of disappointment
even though his observation doesn’t surprise me.  “This is how he eluded
capture for so many years.  He wasn’t one to leave evidence behind.”

“I guess I was lucky, then,” Robert
responds with a short laugh that shows little humor
,
“
though
if
I had more concrete evidence of his other dealings, he
would have been in jail so much longer, and this never would have happened.”

I don’t know what to say.  We’ll both
live with regrets about Mark and everything to do with him for the rest of our
lives.  Pondering what could have been
does
nothing
to
help
our current situation.

I clear my throat and grab the bag of
papers, throwing it over my shoulder before moving to the door.  “There’s one
more place I want to check before we leave.”

We make our way up the staircases and down
the hallway to the apartment I shared with Morgan during our time here, to the
one place where we were truly separated from Mark and his business and the rest
of the world.

The door is locked, but it’s so old and
run-down I manage to break it open with a hard slam of my shoulder against it.

I turn on the light and am instantly
overwhelmed by the feeling of Morgan that still exists in this small
apartment.  Her presence is felt all around me as I take in the plaid fabric
couch where we held each other for hours, the tiny kitchen with ancient
appliances where I’d sometimes make her breakfast with eggs that I stole from
the mess hall, the unmade bed where our naked bodies last met to share in the
ultimate connection between us, the pillows we cried into when we realized the
full
weight of what we had done after we tried to create life
together.

She is everywhere in here, and yet she
is nowhere.  I have no idea where she is.

“This is where you both lived,” Robert
says,
almost in disbelief at his moment of realization
.

I nod.  I don’t know that I can
properly speak right now.

Robert
looks around
the small room, picking at the peeling paint on the white wall as
he
ambles
to
ward
the couch. 
Morgan’s dresses are still there, resting neatly across the arm of the
worn
piece of furniture
.  They’re the outfits Mark bought for her
after she proved that her presence and sex appeal were secret weapons that
could be used
in his
business meetings.

Robert fingers through them, no doubt
noticing just how revealing and sexy the dresses were meant to look on her.  I
don’t want him to think about his daughter like that.