I stumbled, swaying right.
Mick didn’t pull the trigger, but caught my arm, shoved me forward.
I noticed that Justin and Ashlyn were now several steps ahead, a gap opening up in our group. They didn’t look back to check on me.
We arrived at the sally port. The first set of doors buzzed open, Big Brother always watching. Mick ushered us forward. When we were assembled inside the small portal, the first door rolled closed behind us; then, after a moment’s pause, a second door rolled open ahead of us.
Justin was looking up and to the right. I followed his gaze until I spotted a small electronic eye protruding from the corner. I wondered whether we should wave, or whether that would be childish.
We exited the sally port into a towering white corridor. At least two stories tall, with huge steel girders forming intersecting Vs above us. Keeping with the prison theme of soullessness, the floor was poured gray cement, the walls painted stark white and the windows, high above us, dark eerie panes of glass. Periodically, cement staircases protruded from the right side of the wall, leading to second-floor doorways.
“We’re behind the cell blocks,” Justin murmured. He looked at Mick, his gaze still challenging. “This is the exit hallway in case of fire. Hey,
man.
Tell us where we’re going. I’ll lead us there.”
“Walk,” Mick ordered.
Justin and Ashlyn took the lead again. And I fell immediately behind once more, still trying to force my limbs to fight gravity. Arm
swinging slowly forward. Knee raising slightly, trying to cycle ahead. The lights were bright. Bouncing off every hard white surface. While my head ached and my stomach cramped and I wanted to curl up in a ball in a cool dark place. I would cover my face with my hands. I would succumb, sinking down, down, down into a darkness without end.
“Move.”
Mick’s hand on my arm, shoving me forward. I stumbled, he tried to correct, I stumbled again.
Dimly, I was aware of Justin and Ashlyn, well ahead now. Justin had his arm around our daughter’s shoulders. His head was low. He was speaking in her ear.
I was the distraction, I realized. Mick had to tend to me. And while he and I tussled with my weak, uncoordinated limbs, Justin could lead our daughter out of here. He knew where he was, behind the cell blocks, he’d said, with three locked doors already behind us…
I tripped, almost went down. Mick grabbed my upper arm, dragging me upright and twisting me around till we stood mere inches apart, chest to chest, face to face. I stared into his crazy blue eyes, framed by his even crazier blond-and-black checkerboard hair.
“Walk, goddammit! You move, you perform, you work, or I’ll blow out your fucking brains myself.”
I wished I had my husband’s courage. I would’ve settled for my daughter’s bitterness. Instead, I smiled up at the crazy commando, watching his eyes widen in surprise.
His left hand, bruising my arm. His right hand, with the Taser, dangling forgotten by his side.
“Shhh,” I whispered at him.
“What the—”
“Shhh.”
Then, faster than I knew I could move, definitely faster than he
thought I could move, I grabbed the Taser with my bound hands, twisted it between us and pulled the trigger.
It’s true what they say: The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
I would’ve liked to enjoy the moment more, except from up ahead, my daughter started to scream.
Z had materialized in the corridor. Big Brother always watching.
He had a Taser, too, except his was pointed at Justin, who was now on the ground, entire body jerking crazily. Ashlyn stood beside her father, her face clearly beseeching.
“Whatever you can do,” Z stated clearly from the other end of the hallway, “I can do better.”
At which point, he popped a cartridge out of the end of the Taser, turned deftly and dry fired into my daughter’s exposed forearm.
Ashlyn no longer screamed. Now she more like shrieked.
Her skin, blistering. I knew, because I bore the same burn mark on my upper thigh.
I released my Taser. It dropped to the ground. I stepped away from Mick’s convulsing form, putting space between myself and Z’s fallen comrade.
Much more slowly, Z lifted the Taser from my daughter’s pale skin. He stood, twenty feet away from me, holding up the Taser like a gunslinger, and I half expected him to purse his lips and blow the smoke from the end of the barrel.
Ashlyn was crying. She danced on her toes, bound hands dangling before her, as if that would help ease the pain. Justin had stopped twitching on the floor, but he didn’t immediately rise to his feet. My husband had been hit how many times in the past twenty-four hours? How many unfried brain cells could he have left?
“The background report did not indicate you would be a problem,” Z said, still looking at me. “Interesting.”
I wanted to jut out my chin at him. Yell at him for harming my child, torturing my husband. But the heaviness was back, an internal
lethargy that would sink me yet. I tried to plant my feet, found myself swaying instead.
“Ashlyn…,” I might have whispered.
Except, suddenly, with an ear-splitting roar, Mick leapt to his feet, fists clenched, face enraged. In exactly half a second, his gaze found me, locked on target, and he charged.
I collapsed, trampled like a dandelion before a rampaging bull. He was bellowing, Ashlyn was screaming, and I could hear another voice, maybe Z, calling out something, but mostly I was trying to curl up, to tuck my head into my bound arms as Mick grabbed my hair, lifted my head and shoulders half off the floor, then slammed me back down onto the concrete.
Cracking. Maybe a rib. More likely my skull.
More screaming. More yelling, and then a strange sizzle and burn until I realized that Mick was off me, once more on the floor, once more convulsing wildly, except this time it was his own guy who stood above him, Z and his creepy cobra-tattooed head, pulling the trigger.
“Get. Yourself. Fucking. Under. Control.” Z released the trigger. Mick groaned audibly. “Do you hear me?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Yes, sir! Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir!”
“Fucking right. Up. Get your sorry ass to the control room. I’ll take things from here.”
Mick got up, staggered for a second, then marched down the corridor.
The moment he was halfway down the hall, Ashlyn rushed forward, dropping to her knees beside me.
“Mom, are you all right? Mom? Please?”
I felt her long hair against my cheek. Her own fingers, trying to push my lighter strands back so she could better see me.
“I just…need a minute.”
Z didn’t talk. He stood. After a few minutes, I was able to sit up, Ashlyn helping support me. Somewhere along the way, Justin had managed the same, his back propped against a wall, his legs splayed in front of him.
Our first attempt at rebellion. My ribs ached, my head ached, my leg burned. Ashlyn’s forearm sported a square of blistered flesh. Justin had yet to make it to his feet. The Denbe family had tried to take on the evil commandos, and the evil commandos had won.
As if reading my mind, Z looked down at me. “If you ever try that again,” he said firmly, “your daughter will pay the consequences. Whatever pain and damage you inflict, she will bear the cost twice over. Do you understand me?”
Slowly, aware of my pounding skull, I nodded.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Ashlyn said, and once again I was startled by the vehemence in her tone. “I don’t care. I hate you,” she spit out at Z, as if that should bother him. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
“Forget the money,” Justin spoke up behind us. “I will see you fucking killed for this. One day, sooner or later, you’re gonna take a bullet to the brain, and I’ll be the son of a bitch who put it there.”
Z merely snorted.
“Please,” he said, indicating for us to rise. “Mick has already picked out your graves, and Radar would kill his own mother if the price was right. Around here, I’m the best friend you got. On your feet. You still got chores to do.”
Chapter 17
TESSA CALLED ANITA BENNETT to arrange a meeting with the chief of operations at Denbe Construction. At this stage of the game, Tessa figured it was time to get a better sense of the core group of company officers who’d be called upon to handle the ransom demand, if/when it should occur.
As long as she was visiting Denbe’s worldwide headquarters, Tessa also decided to make a quick detour to the travel agency, located in the main lobby of the steel-and-chrome high-rise office building. Kate, Christy, Katie, the hairdresser had thought.
Sure enough, front desk, facing the double-wide glass doors, sat a fresh-faced brunette whose brass desk plate identified her as Kathryn Chapman. A younger Katie Holmes, Tessa thought, which was scary, as Katie Holmes was young enough.
Tessa would estimate the girl’s age at twenty, twenty-one. With perfect skin, warm brown eyes, and a positively beaming smile.
Tessa glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes before she was due at Anita Bennett’s twelfth-floor office. She approached.
“Can I help you?” Kathryn Chapman greeted her.
“I hope so. I’m here on behalf of Denbe Construction. I understand your firm handles their travel plans.”
“Absolutely. Are you a new employee?”
“You could say that. My first assignment is to track down the big boss, Justin Denbe. Do you happen to know where he’s traveling? Because he doesn’t seem to be at home this weekend.”
At the mention of Justin’s name, the girl’s smile didn’t falter. Some of the luster left her, though. She turned to the monitor on her desk, tapped her keyboard. “Let me see. And your name?”
“Tessa Leoni.”
“My name is Kate. Pleased to meet you, Tessa. When you have a moment, we have a basic travel worksheet for you to fill out. Covers your legal name, date of birth, frequent flier numbers, seating preferences, that sort of thing. Once we have all that info on file, we can better assist you with your travel arrangements.”
“Good to know.”
Kate turned back, frowning slightly. “I don’t show Mr. Denbe traveling this weekend. Perhaps he’s on a personal trip.”
“You only assist with his business travel?”
“We’re a corporate agency.”
“Huh. And you assist everyone at Denbe? I mean, I should just call you, instead of, say, Expedia.com?”
“I don’t know if Denbe has a specific policy, but, yes, we handle the majority of the travel arrangements. With no disrespect to Expedia, it’s nice to have a number to call should something go wrong, and we’re happy to be that number.”
“Can I use you for personal travel, too, or only business?”
“Many of Denbe’s employees use us for both.”
“But not Justin? You think maybe he made his own plans this weekend?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“You always the one who helps him? Or maybe someone else?”
“There aren’t assigned agents, if that’s what you mean. We all take turns helping everyone.”
The girl was withdrawing. Not deliberately rude, not yet. But her smile had dialed down a few notches. Inside her sharp navy blue blazer, her shoulders were starting to round, her body hunch.
Talking about Justin Denbe hurt her. And she was just a kid, not wise yet in all the ways to hide that kind of pain.
“Maybe he swept his wife away on some romantic getaway weekend,” Tessa said. “Office rumor mill said Friday night was date night. Sweet, if you ask me, after all these years.”
“Would you like the traveler’s profile now?” Kathryn asked softly.
“Kathryn… Kate?”
“Yes?”
“Justin Denbe has gone missing. So have his wife and child.”
The girl looked up sharply. “What?”
“I am with Denbe Construction. As corporate security. The family disappeared last night. We’re trying to find them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“How long have you known Mr. Denbe?”
“Just, you know, since I started here. Nine months.”
“I’m told you and Justin were pretty close.”
The girl blushed, looked down at her desk. “You were misinformed,” she said quietly.
“Kate. Now is not the time. This isn’t about reputations, or job security, or the state of Justin’s marriage. This is about finding a family while they’re still alive.”
The girl didn’t speak right away. She seemed to be conducting an in-depth examination of her dull gray keyboard. Then, “Can we step outside?”
“Sure.”
Kate rose to standing, walking around her desk toward the double-glass doors. She was about Tessa’s height of five-six, but with a lithe build that had all the right curves. Male clients probably flocked to Kathryn Chapman. It didn’t surprise Tessa that Justin had been part
of the pack, nor that he’d emerged victorious. The consummate alpha male.
Jerk, she thought, but it made her sad now. Because in many ways, Justin Denbe sounded like just the kind of strong, successful guy a woman like her hoped to find one day. And look where that had gotten his own wife.
Turned out, Kate was a smoker. They exited the back of the building, to the last refuge smokers had left: a five-foot patch of real estate next to the Dumpsters. The girl lit up; Tessa let the silence work its magic.
“I didn’t mean to get involved with him,” the girl said abruptly. “I’m not a home wrecker, you know. But, I mean, have you met him?”
Tessa shook her head.
“He’s good-looking. Even for an older man, and, and… I guess I got a thing for older men. Daddy issues and all that, right?” Kate’s lips twisted. She took another drag of her cigarette. “There was this snafu with his plane tickets, so Justin came down to work it out in person. I looked up, and…there he was. Tall, broad shoulders, wearing construction boots, for God’s sake. When was the last time you saw a guy in an office building in downtown Boston wearing honest-to-God work boots? I just… I wanted him from first sight.
“But, I mean, I never woulda,” the girl interjected hastily. “He was a client, and it was just business, and I saw his wedding band, not to mention part of the ticket snafu was he wanted to return on Thursday night so he could have a three-day weekend with his family. Then, he got to talking about his wife and daughter. He gushed, you know. Actually beamed with pride… It was so clear he loved them so much. I couldn’t help thinking…” She sounded wistful. “I just thought, God, why can’t I meet a guy like that?”