Authors: Christy Reece
As soon as everyone was seated, McCall said, “Let’s have a final look—”
A cellphone close to Sabrina buzzed, and McCall tossed her an amused glance. “Fox, tell your husband that if he wanted to be in on LCR meetings, he should have accepted my job offer.”
She stood and grinned. “Sorry, boss, Declan is just a little more anxious these days than usual.”
“Understandable. I talked to him a couple of times last week, but if he has new intel, feel free to put the call on speaker.”
“Will do.” She walked a few steps away and said, “Hi, darling. Anything wrong?”
While they waited for Sabrina, Brennan noted a marked difference in the atmosphere. Thorne was looking at Sabrina with an angry and frustrated expression, while Justin and Riley actually looked at one another as they talked in low voices.
Apparently seeing his confusion, McCall said, “To give you some background, Sabrina’s husband, Declan Steele, leads a government agency few people are aware exists. A few months back, Sabrina was abducted and tortured because of her relationship with him. We rescued her and managed to uncover the name of the man responsible. Declan killed the man, but the one who hired him…the bastard behind it all, remains elusive.
“Last week we learned that a bounty has been placed on her and Declan’s heads. Quite substantial. Declan is understandably…concerned for his wife.
“As Sabrina is one of our own, we’ve agreed to share any info we obtain with Declan’s people and vice versa. We’ll do so until this man can be caught or eliminated.”
Aidan stood and began to pace within the small area as if he couldn’t contain his rage. “And the thing is, this asshole has been around for years, and not one damn person seems to even know what he looks like. He’s responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not more. And now he’s got a bounty on my partner.”
McCall nodded. “We’re not usually so willing to share intel with other agencies, no matter how friendly they are. And Declan’s agency doesn’t like to share either. However, not only do we have a mutual need to keep Sabrina safe, this man was responsible for both Sabrina’s and Declan’s abductions. He had them tortured. Taking him down will not only save more lives, but will bring a lot of people peace.”
Before Brennan could ask questions, Sabrina returned to the group. “Sorry, he has no new intel, just wanted to check in with me.” She grimaced. “Oh, he did have one piece of news. Apparently, the bounty on my head has been raised to $3 million, instead of the $2.5 million it was before.”
“And I would imagine Declan’s went up as well,” McCall said.
“Five million for him. He’s not the least bit flattered that his is higher.” Though she kept her words light, Brennan saw the worry in her eyes.
“The bastard has never had two highly trained agencies working together to bring him down either,” McCall said. “Working together, we’ll get him.”
“I know.” Her eyes encompassed everyone. “Sorry for the interruption.”
“No worries.” McCall’s eyes zeroed in on Brennan. “Everyone has a copy of Kacie’s file. After an op, before putting it to bed, we review it and discuss what went right, what didn’t.”
Sounded damn fine to him. Maybe they could shed light on what he missed. “I just went through everything, from the beginning, when the threats began, until Molly’s death.” Brennan hesitated. How could he describe a gut feeling with no facts to back it up?
“And?” McCall prompted.
“There’s something I’m missing. Something’s off, but I can’t place the problem.”
“Then let’s figure it out.” McCall opened his own folder, and there was immediate silence as everyone reviewed what Brennan had been reading through.
After several long minutes, Sabrina looked up from her folder. “Tell us what you see, Brennan. All of this looks consistent with what I heard from Justin and Riley. What’s got you concerned?”
Good question. Maybe if he talked it out himself, he could find the inconsistency.
“The first incident—the one in the park. We thought Tara was responsible because of the convenience. She’s the one who encouraged Kacie to go out, even suggested she go to the park. We now know that Molly orchestrated everything to make Tara look guilty.”
Brennan paused, and when everyone nodded their agreement, he went on, “But how did Molly know that Kacie would be in the park? She couldn’t have camped outside the apartment twenty-four/seven, with a team of Rollerbladers all set to follow and scare the hell out of Kacie. And as guilty as Billy Barton looks, I believed him when he said he had no idea Kacie was involved.”
“You think she had another accomplice, besides Billy and the guy she hired who killed Kacie’s doctor?” Aidan said.
“What other explanation could there be?”
“Keep in mind,” Justin reminded them, “Molly wasn’t lacking for money. I agree she might’ve had more help, but it could’ve been some other Joe Schmoe, like Billy, who she paid to keep an eye on the apartment. And Kacie was gone from the apartment for over two hours. Plenty of time for him to call some buddies and tell them where to find her, and what to do to scare her.”
“Both valid points,” McCall said. “What else, Sinclair?”
“Molly admitted to Kacie that she cloned her computer, but LCR’s tech people never found a laptop that belonged to Molly, and her office computer showed no evidence of cloning.”
“And if it wasn’t cloned,” Riley said, “then she actually got into the apartment to send the emails and download the video. But Molly admitted to stealing Kacie’s key from her purse and making a copy of it, as well as getting her security code from her password book.”
“So if she had easy access to Kacie’s apartment, and therefore her computer, why tell us she cloned the computer when she didn’t? Or didn’t have to. It doesn’t make sense. What if she told us that to throw us off.”
“Throw us off what?” Justin asked.
Hell if he knew. Brennan was aware he wasn’t making a lot of sense. But that’s what was bothering him—too much didn’t make sense, didn’t add up. Whether he had McCall’s approval or not, he already knew he would be heading back to NYC. He never should have left her alone.
“That could explain Molly’s last words,” Riley said.
“What did she say?” Aidan asked.
“That it wasn’t over, that she had only begun. We took that to mean that when Molly’s real identity was discovered after her death, Kacie’s secrets would be revealed.”
“But what if it didn’t?” Justin said. “That would mean Kacie’s still in danger.”
And then it clicked, what had been hounding him that he hadn’t been able to connect. “The email Kacie received at the beginning.”
“The one supposedly from Harrington?” Sabrina said.
“Yes. Kacie commented that she’d looked through the emails before she decided to leave them until later. Then when she returned from her foundation’s event, she read through the emails, and that’s when she saw it.”
“Yeah…and?” Aidan said.
“So if she looked through the emails before and didn’t see it, then that would mean someone would’ve had to come inside her apartment and place the email there.”
Everyone nodded.
“But Molly was with Kacie the entire night. They all went to the event in a limo and came home in it, too. Even if Molly left and then went back, the event was all the way across town. There’s no way she would’ve had time to do that, especially not knowing when Kacie would want to leave. Someone else would’ve had to put the email on that stack.”
Brennan muttered the words none of them wanted to accept, “Kacie’s still in danger.”
Without commenting further, McCall picked up the phone beside his seat and pressed a button. “Jack, change of plans. We need to get back to New York ASAP.”
Doing what he’d been dying to do since he’d left her a few hours ago, Brennan pressed Kacie’s speed-dial number on his cellphone. The phone rang, Brennan held his breath. No answer. As her voice mail came on, requesting the caller leave a message, Brennan went to the heart of the matter. “Kacie, you’re still in danger. Get to the police immediately. And call me as soon as you get this message.”
Brennan ended the call, wanting to say more…wanting to say anything that would stop what he already feared had happened. He had left her alone, vulnerable. And though there was no evidence that anything had happened to her, Brennan knew to his soul that it was already too late.
Chapter Thirty-nine
She woke up crying. At first she had no idea why she was so upset, so terrified. Darkness surrounded her, but that wasn’t a big deal, not anymore. Since Brennan had come into her life, she had been able to sleep with the lights completely off.
Brennan.
He was no longer in her life. He had left. Was that why she was so sad? But no, it was something else. Something else had happened…something evil. She grasped for answers, but her brain refused to cooperate.
She closed her eyes on a sigh. She would worry about it tomorrow.
No! Her mind told her to wake up, something was very wrong. A fierce whisper told her to get up and fight. Fight what? Who?
Masculine laughter echoed in the darkness, and she froze with an unnamed terror. Who was that? Where was she?
She moved…or tried. Something had hold of her arms, wouldn’t let go. She squirmed and wiggled, her heart pounding so hard it drowned out her hearing. Beneath the thunder of her heart, she heard gasping, sobbing breaths. Panic, set free, took control. She was caught, trapped. Who had done this?
Beneath the terror, she felt a moment of deepest despair.
Not again… Please, God, not again.
Lights blazed, and Kacie got her first glimpse of her new horror. Only it wasn’t as scary as she’d feared. She was in the living room of a cabin. The décor was rustic, minimalistic. It was an open-spaced area where she could see both the kitchen and dining room from where she sat on the sofa.
She looked down. She was sitting on a sofa? Then why… Now she knew why she couldn’t move. Her hands were cuffed together and then tethered to chains attached to the floor beside the sofa. Bound, chained. New panic threatened to explode her chest.
Think, Kacie.
How had she gotten here? She twisted left and right again, her eyes searching. No one was in the room with her. Who had done this? What had happened?
She closed her eyes. The last thing she remembered, she had come home from her shoot. She’d wanted tea and a bath, and then… Gasping gulps expanded her lungs then seized as she began to hyperventilate.
Harrington
.
He wasn’t dead. He was here. He had taken her.
“Now, now, you’re getting all upset, and that’s not what I want at all.”
Kacie twisted around, trying to see where the voice was coming from. The voice sounded familiar.
Not
Harrington’s. But who?
Footsteps came closer, and Kacie pushed away the fear so she could focus. She had sworn she would never be caught in such a predicament again. And though she felt pretty damn hopeless right now, she refused to give up. She had been through too much, had overcome hell, to allow this to happen to her again. She would kill this time. She didn’t care who or what, she would kill before she allowed anyone to touch her without her permission.
At last, he came within view. Confusion whirled in her mind. Good-natured family man with two grandsons he adored and a wife who baked him apple pie on Sundays.
“Vincent?”
He smiled, and she wanted to cry, because it was the smile he always gave her. When he was talking about his grandkids, about how much he loved his wife, his kids. Why had this seemingly devoted husband, father, and grandfather kidnapped her?
“I can see your confusion, so let me set the record straight.”
He sat across from her and proceeded to become a different person. Hair peppered with gray came off, revealing a slightly balding but much younger head. Bushy eyebrows were plucked off, revealing they had been glued to his other brows. He also removed the slightly yellowing teeth she was used to, revealing a gleaming, white smile. He was easily twenty years younger than the old man she’d known as Vincent.
“Who are you?”
His smile was kind and sweet—that hadn’t changed, just the reason for it. “You know me, Kacie. And this is the real me.” He spread his hands as if to apologize. “I had to wear this disguise so no one would know about us.”
“Know what about us?”
“About how you feel about me. You know how this city is. Magazines and newspapers would have had a field day if they saw us together, the beautiful supermodel and the security guard. But now, we’re here together, just like we were meant to be. No one ever has to know about us. We can be together, our privacy intact.”
This was beyond bizarre. But he didn’t look like he was going to hurt her yet. At least not yet. Maybe she could keep him talking and then try to talk him into letting her go. She refused to believe that wasn’t possible.
“You’re the one who put up those photos of me…with Harrington?”