“Yeah, I . . .” Jess had a thought and stopped dead. Her head swivelled toward her old bedroom, and then she changed course and hurried toward it. “Is anybody else here?”
“No, just me. Mom’s at Sarah’s and—”
“I want you to get out of here.” Jess pushed through her bedroom door and went straight to her computer. She still used it sometimes, and kept it up to date. Turning it on, she glanced back at her sister, who was just a few steps behind her. “Where’s your Jeep?”
“Out front. What’s going on?” Maddie’s comprehensive glance turned to a frown. “Have you been crying?”
Mark was shot. . . .
But she didn’t say it. Jess swallowed to try to dislodge the lump in her throat, and ignored Maddie’s question.
“Go get in your Jeep and drive away. Go to Sarah’s. Do you hear me? Right now.”
She had turned on the small lamp beside the computer and was fishing in her desk drawer for the cable she needed as she spoke.
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“Yes. And I’m not going to tell you what.” She found the cable and sat down in her chair to hook it up. “Go.”
“Jess . . .”
Blood pounding in her temples, her eyes still blurry from the tears she had shed, working as fast as she could with fingers that were clumsy and cold from shock and grief, Jess didn’t look around. “Go to Sarah’s. Right this minute. Please, Maddie, I’m begging you. You know I wouldn’t tell you to do it if it wasn’t urgent.”
“Okay.” A lifetime of trust was in Maddie’s reply. Without another word, she turned and left the room.
“Don’t tell anybody you saw me until tomorrow at the earliest. Whatever you do, don’t bring Mom or anybody back over here tonight,” Jess called after her sister. Knowing how her family worked, she needed to be sure that was understood. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” Maddie’s now frightened-sounding voice floated back to her.
“Hurry. Don’t take anything. Just go.”
She could hear Maddie ’s footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, as she listened to the front door open and close, she heaved a sigh of relief. At least her sister would be safe.
Then she got down to work. The process took a few minutes, but it wasn’t hard, and it was helped along because she knew all the shortcuts. In fact, she was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t even realize she had company until she saw a shadow of movement in the still-open door and heard Maddie say, “J-jess.”
She was just registering the wobbly tone of Maddie’s voice when she glanced over her shoulder to see Maddie standing there watching her.
One of the dark-suited goons had an arm around her neck and a gun pressed to her temple.
32
J
ess’s heart went into overdrive. Her blood ran cold. Her eyes collided with her sister’s. Maddie looked scared to death.
Oh, God, what have I done?
“Hello, Ms. Ford.” The goon flipped on the overhead light. He was maybe six feet tall, broad rather than lean, with buzzed black hair and an olive-skinned, harsh-featured face. Black suit, white shirt, black tie. One of
them.
With nervous fingers, Jess immediately pressed a button on the computer and scooted her chair back a little to get out of the way.
“I had to . . . he made me . . .” Maddie stuttered. The arm around her neck tightened, cutting off her words, making her claw at his arm and gasp for air.
Jess knew she didn’t have time to waste giving a useless command for him to let Maddie go.
“You’re on a webcam. Millions of people are watching you right now,” she said crisply, as the gun left Maddie ’s temple to point at her. Remembering how quickly Mark had been shot, how fast Mark had shot the guy in the apartment, her worst fear was that he would blow her and Maddie away before he even realized that he was on
Candid Camera
. Her heart hammered. Her pulse raced. But it was terror for her sister even more than for herself that helped her project an outward calm.
She could not bear to see another sister die before her eyes. She had lost so much tonight: the man she loved. She couldn’t lose Maddie, too.
“What?” He frowned, looking from her to the computer. The camera mounted on it was small but unmistakable.
Smile, asshole.
“You heard me. You—and me and my sister, all of us—are on the Web right now. Live. Everybody out there is listening to this conversation. If you shoot us, they’ll be watching. All those people will be witnesses.”
“What?” He stared at the monitor, then looked closer, as if he suddenly realized that he, Maddie, Jess, the whole scene he was part of, was there on the screen for him to see, just like he was watching them as part of a TV show.
“Turn it off. I’ll kill her.” The threat was directed to Jess. The gun was once again pressed to Maddie’s head.
“Jess.” Mortal fear clouded Maddie ’s eyes. Jess watched her sister’s face whiten until it was the color of chalk, and felt her stomach turn inside out.
I’m sorry, so sorry . . .
Maddie ’s hands were on her captor’s arm, just resting there as if she was scared to try to pull it loose, scared to move. She looked like she was ready to faint. Jess felt herself breaking into a cold sweat.
“Too late, everyone already saw. It’s already all over the Internet.” She knew she had to lay all her cards on the table fast. Palms clammy, she clutched the armrests of her chair and projected confidence like she had never projected anything before. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? They’ve already seen you. They can identify you. They’ll know you killed us. Everybody out there who’s watching this right now.”
His gun hand jerked. The computer exploded with a bang as a bullet hit it. Jess jumped and squeaked as shards of glass and plastic flew past her to rain down everywhere in a shower of debris. Her heart lodged in her throat. Maddie’s scream was immediately cut off, and Jess realized he had tightened his hold on her neck again.
A smoky, burning smell wafted beneath her nostrils.
“Fuck your camera, bitch.” The gun pointed at Jess. In a split second her heart hit what felt like a thousand beats a minute. Trying not to cringe in terror, she tensed, feeling cold sweat pour over her in waves as she braced for the bullet that any second now was going to blast through her flesh.
Oh, God, would it hurt?
Desperately, she kept talking. “You can’t erase what’s already out there. Plus, you should probably know I found the phone. The President ’s phone. You need to call whoever you’re working for and tell them that. Tell them I posted all those dirty videos of the President all over the Web. They’re on YouTube. CNN’s iReport. iWatch. Everywhere. If they haven’t gone viral already, you can bet they will any minute. That means they’ll be all over the world. Millions of people will see. There ’s no stopping it. Nothing anybody can do. It ’s over. You need to call and tell them that.”
“She ’s t-telling the truth.” Maddie wet her lips. “She ’s good at stuff like that.”
Jess pointed at the phone that was now lying beside the shattered remains of her computer. The cable was still attached to it.
“See?” she said. “That’s the President ’s phone. See the cable? I uploaded his videos to the Internet.”
The goon stared at the phone.
“Nobody else home,” a man’s voice called from what sounded like the top of the stairs. “We got cleaners on the way, so hurry up.”
Jess realized there was a second goon, and didn’t know why she was even surprised. She should have learned by this time that they traveled in pairs.
“There ’s a problem,” the goon called back. “Come down here.”
Listening to the sounds of heavy footsteps on the stairs, Jess cast a cautious eye over the desktop, looking for anything she could use as a weapon. There was nothing. These guys were big, strong, well-trained professional killers. What was she going to do, staple them to death?
“What kind of problem?” The second goon was maybe an inch taller, twenty pounds lighter, and a little better-looking than the first. But in dress and manner, they could have been twins.
“Tell him.” The first goon nodded at Jess. His gun was still aimed right at her. One squeeze of his finger and . . . even as the tiny hairs at the back of her neck prickled to life at the thought, she forced her mind away from it. But at least his grip on Maddie had eased. His arm was more around her collarbone than her throat now. Maddie still looked terrified, with her eyes big as plates and sweat beading her upper lip, but at least she could breathe. Jess could see her chest heaving from where she sat.
Heart hammering, doing her best to keep up a brave front, Jess told the second goon what she had done.
He walked over, looked at the President’s phone, looked at the cable, looked at the dead computer, then looked back at the first goon.
“You better call,” the second one said.
The first goon’s lips compressed. Letting go of Maddie, he gave her a shove toward Jess.
“Get over there and behave.”
Maddie stumbled toward her. Jess rose on unsteady legs to wrap her arms around her sister, whose breathing was ragged and who shook from head to toe. Maddie was several inches taller than she was and quite a bit bigger, but it didn’t matter: In this time of extremis, her little sister looked to her for comfort and protection. Knowing that she had pretty much provided what protection she could by employing the webcam and the Internet, Jess tried to keep her own physical responses under control as she registered with an icy thrill of fear how both men watched them with nearly identical expressions: not hate, not even dislike, but cold indifference, which was more terrifying than either. They would clearly have no more trouble shooting her and Maddie than they would disposing of a piece of trash. Jess’s insides churned at the thought, but she tried not to let it show. Seeing how terrified she was would only scare Maddie more.
Keeping his gun on them, his thick body blocking the door, the first goon pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and punched in some numbers.
“There ’s a problem,” he said into the phone. Then he told whoever was on the other end what Jess had told him, said a few
uh-huh
s and
yeah
s and concluded with a terse, “Got it.”
Then he hung up and waved his gun at her.
“You. Glasses. Get the phone. We ’re going for a ride. All of us. And if you give us any trouble, the first person we’ll kill is baby sister.”
THEY WERE HEADING NORTHEAST.
Maddie rode in the front seat beside the second goon, who was driving. Jess sat in the back beside the first one, whose gun rested casually on his thigh. Both women had their hands fastened behind them with plastic ties; seat belts secured them in place. The car was a black Lexus, comfortable and roomy, smelling of new leather—and fear. As the lights of the city gave way to the quiet rushing darkness of back roads that wound through the countryside, Jess’s stomach cramped and her throat went dry at the thought of what might be waiting for them at the end of the journey. Having been ordered not to talk when she’d first asked where they were going, and having that order reinforced by a casual aiming of her seatmate ’s gun at Maddie, she sat silently behind the driver, watching her sister’s pale face in profile. Maddie ’s lips trembled, and her breathing was ragged. Her shoulders slumped, and she kept glancing around and licking her lips.
My fault. I got Maddie into this.
Her already lacerated and raw heart felt like it was being shredded anew every time she looked at her sister’s despairing face.
Their only hope was that someone had seen what was happening via the webcam and notified the police. Of course, it would take the police some time to track the broadcast to its source, and even when they did, they would have no idea where she and Maddie were being taken. She didn’t even know that.
So her only hope wasn’t a hope at all. It was more like wishful thinking. If she and Maddie were to survive, they needed something more concrete.
But before she could think of anything, the Lexus slowed, turned into a winding lane, and purred uphill.
Jess’s heart began to pound as she realized their destination was at hand. The car slowed still more as it approached a wrought-iron fence that had to be at least ten feet tall. Equally tall bushes behind it formed a hedge that prevented Jess from seeing anything beyond it but curving treetops swaying against an inky-dark sky. They braked, and Jess saw that they had reached a tall gate complete with a small stone guardhouse and uniformed guard. The driver rolled down the window and waved. The guard, clearly recognizing him, nodded back and said something into a headset he wore. The gate opened inward. The Lexus rolled through.
“Where are we?” The question escaped her. There was no answer except the increasingly loud gasps of Maddie’s breathing. The goon beside Jess gave her a single contemptuous glance then turned his attention forward. Jess was left to look out the tinted windows to try to make sense out of what was happening.
Acres of large trees; grass smooth and, so late at night, dark as black velvet; perfectly matched stones lining the driveway; then, finally, a glimpse of an imposing stone mansion—they were pulling up the driveway of an estate. An awesome estate, the kind that had to cost millions of dollars.
Jess’s mouth went dry as she thought about who might own such a place.
Then she had no more time for speculation, because they had reached a large underground garage and a door was opening for them. As soon as the Lexus pulled inside, the door closed behind them.
Trapped.
The word echoed through Jess’s brain, chilling her to the bone.
A moment later they were out of the car and walking through a small door into the house. There was a tension in the air now; Jess could feel it, and her nerves stretched taut as piano wire. Her scalp prickled. Her pulse surged.