She sat at the desk for hours. She could hear the gunshots from the range in the distance. Eventually, she lay down on the bed, the same bed she’d slept in as a little girl, and drifted off.
LYNDON SPED THROUGH THE STREETS, parked at the curb, and ran up the steps, closely followed by Mac. This was the only place he could think to go. He hoped James was still here.
He walked in the door and stopped at the sight of the chair where they’d left James. Empty.
He looked around the kitchen and living room. The tables that’d served as the workstation were still there, and so were the monitors and a few other pieces of equipment. But the computer was gone.
Though he knew there was nothing worth finding, he started looking through every room and then every drawer and cabinet anyway. James was the only person he could think of who might know where Kadance’s family lived, where they might have taken her. He needed to find some clue as to where he’d gone.
At the sound of scratching, he paused. For a second, his hope rose that maybe James wasn’t gone. Maybe he was still here somewhere.
Then he realized the scratching had to be Mac.
He looked all around the apartment. No Mac.
A voice came from the hall. “Hello, little guy. Are you lost?”
Lyndon headed down the hall toward the door to the apartment, which he’d left open. There was an older woman standing in the open doorway of the apartment next door. She was smiling down at Mac. Mac must have scratched at her door. But why?
When Mac saw Lyndon, he rubbed against his legs and meowed. Lyndon felt like he understood exactly what Mac was doing.
He smiled at the older woman. “I’m so sorry.” He leaned down and petted Mac. “I don’t think I’m enough company for his big personality.”
“He’s an awful cute little man.” She pulled her crocheted cardigan tighter around herself.
“I think that’s the only time anyone has ever referred to him as little.”
She chuckled. There was something he liked about the sound, perhaps how he could hear her age in the laugh but also her vibrance, just like his grandfather.
“Are you friends with the young man living there?” She nodded toward James’s apartment.
Lyndon went for honesty. It was what he was good at. “No. But I do need to find him.”
“It has been awful quiet. He moved out?”
“Looks that way.”
“Well, I won’t say I’m upset. He blasted that darn music all hours. I couldn’t sleep at all.”
“I’m really sorry about that. It should be quiet now.” Then Lyndon added, “Do you happen to know where he went?”
“You said you’re not a friend?” She raised an eyebrow, and her forehead wrinkled in a well-practiced manner—she’d given that same look to many a person.
“No, ma’am.”
“Then why are you wanting to find him?”
Lyndon took a breath and decided how much to tell her—the truth but not so much as to risk putting her in danger. “I think he might know where someone is. My friend. His ex-girlfriend.”
“Ex, huh?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I heard him talking to some delivery boy about his girlfriend coming to see him. Same girl?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“He seemed to think she’d be happy to see him. He sounded awful excited.”
“He was certainly excited, but she did not want to see him. She’d run away from him. Now she’s missing, and I’m worried.”
“Why did she run away from him?”
Lyndon suspected she had some kind of information. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be testing him like this, trying to determine if she should trust him. “He betrayed her and tried to hold her against her will.”
“And who is she to you?”
“She’s . . . she’s my friend.”
She raised her brow again, and her sharp gaze sliced into him. “She’s more than your friend?”
“She’s very important to me,” he admitted. “She doesn’t see me that way, but I would never ask for more than she wanted. I just want to make sure she’s safe.” He realized she could easily decide Lyndon was the crazy guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer, rather than James.
Mac lifted up onto his hind legs and pawed at Lyndon’s hand. Lyndon picked him up and cradled him.
“Is that your cat?” the woman asked.
“He’s hers, actually. When she disappeared, he decided to stay with me.”
“No collar or carrier.”
“He’s almost more like a dog. I don’t think he’s ever seen the inside of a carrier. And I don’t think there are any leash laws for cats. If he is technically a cat.”
She smiled. Then she reached out and petted Mac’s head. Mac leaned into her hand and rubbed his face against her palm.
Is Mac purposefully flirting to get her to talk?
“That’s a sweet boy.” Then she turned her attention to Lyndon. “I believe you.”
“I promise I only want to protect her.”
Her wrinkles curved with her smile. “I think that’s true.”
“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
“We weren’t friends, mind you. Not a bit.”
“Anything might help.”
“Well, he passed me in the hall once, and he said something about the smell of my baking reminding him of his mother’s pecan pie and how much he missed Savannah. It was pecan tarts I was making, and I didn’t give that boy not one of them.”
“Savannah. That might be very helpful. Do you remember anything else? Did he mention his mother’s name? I don’t even know his surname, just that his first name is James.”
“Griffin. That’s his last name. Mailman gave me his mail once by mistake. As for his mom’s name, I’m not sure. From the way he talked, though, she sounds like a real nice southern lady. Surely, she’s ashamed of such a boy.”
“Thank you,” Lyndon said. “Thank you so much.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have more.”
“You’ve been very gracious to give me what you can.” Lyndon started down the stairs, Mac still in his arms.
A few minutes later, Lyndon sat in the driver’s seat, took out his phone, and started digging. It was frustrating to work without a keyboard, but he moved as quickly as possible. He worked from the premise that Griffin was James’s legal surname. Lyndon had gotten a good look at how James worked when he’d gone through his computer system. James was overly confident in his security—not unwarranted confidence, granted—so he probably wouldn’t think using an alias would be necessary.
Lyndon broke several laws and hacked multiple systems. Once he found who he believed to be James’s mother, he put the car in gear and punched the gas.
Mac clung to the seat but didn’t meow in that angry way of his.
Lyndon drove through the night, didn’t stop for anything but gas. He’d considered calling, but getting a mother to betray her son was better done in person than over the phone.
He expected Mac to fall asleep eventually, but he didn’t. He kept switching positions and couldn’t seem to relax like he normally did on a long car ride.
“It’s all right,” Lyndon said. “We’ll find her.”
Mac meowed.
Early morning, Lyndon came to a stop outside what he hoped was James’s mother’s house. The house was a little brick ranch in a cute but declining neighborhood. It was too early for a polite visit, but Lyndon got out of the car anyway.
The wind was increasing and clouds loomed, but rain had not yet started falling. According to the weather app on Lyndon’s phone, a freak tropical storm was approaching Savannah from out in the Atlantic.
“Do you want to come?” Lyndon asked Mac. “You certainly were helpful last time.” Lyndon had taken to talking to Mac like he understood perfectly, just like Kadance did. He thought he understood why she did that—to feel less alone, like she had a friend.
Mac jumped over to th
e driver’s seat and then down onto the decaying asphalt. He followed Lyndon up the driveway and then onto the little covered porch with white-painted metal columns that had the common but outdated decorative S design. The place was small, humble, but tidy and clean. It reminded him of his grandfather’s house.
Lyndon rang the doorbell.
thirty-eight
THERE WAS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. Kadance ignored it. She was trying to clean the cut her uncle’s ring had slashed across her cheek when she’d refused to spar with them. Of course, there was no mirror in her room—nothing she could make into a weapon. She did as best as she could with water and an old T-shirt. The bleeding had finally stopped, at least.
Another knock. “Kadance, it’s me.”
She glared at the door. What’s James doing here? She didn’t answer.
A minute or so later, the door opened, and her father walked in. “You have a guest.”
“No, thank you.” She kept up the façade of politeness with her father. He liked that game, and it got her fewer beatings. When she was young, they’d had “sparring matches” often, but now that she refused to “spar,” it was just beatings. She didn’t want to show her family everything she’d learned in her service. She had a feeling she needed to hold on to that last bit of surprise she had left.
“Oh, come on. You’ve been cooped up an entire day. You need to socialize.” Annoyance was starting to slip through his polite façade.
She knew when it was best not to push him too much. She dropped the old T-shirt onto the desk, stood, and followed him out into the living room. The whole house was almost exactly the same as she remembered—the same paneled walls and wood floors, the beast of a brick fireplace at one end of the living space, the same antique dark-wood table at the other end. The couch was no longer the old soft goldenrod-colored thing, but a new brown leather sectional.
Ravelin, one of her Uncle Redan’s sons, was in the kitchen with his wife. Kadance had only seen her in person once before. She’d hoped momentarily that she might be a kind face, but from the way she looked at her husband with adoration, it was clear she had no issues with the way things were done here.
Ravelin’s wife didn’t even look at Kadance.
Ravelin did look at her but didn’t say anything, didn’t even give an expression. She was tempted to mention his secret social media account. It was under an alias, but Kadance had found out about it years ago. He would post travel plans and occasionally other seemingly innocuous details—which she would piece together to find their next hit. But she decided to keep her mouth shut. If her father and uncle found out, she wasn’t sure what they’d do to him.
Kadance followed past the kitchen that opened up to the living space toward the big couch. James stood with a big stupid grin on his face, and he straightened the sport coat he was wearing with his jeans. There had been a time when she’d appreciated how his shoulders filled out a nice jacket.
James took a step toward her. “What happened to your face?”
“Nothing,” she said.
James looked to her father, and her father said, “She’s just a little rusty. We’re getting her back into the swing of things. She’ll be her old self soon.” He turned to Kadance and smiled. “Sit with James for a while. We’ll give you some privacy.”
Her father went out front, and Ravelin and his wife went out the back-patio door. Kadance knew they were standing guard at each door to make sure she didn’t get out.
James waved toward the couch. “Sit.”
She sat with a couple of feet between them.
“Do you feel better?” James asked. “Now that you’re away from that guy.”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t speak of Lyndon to anyone.
“Does that cut hurt? Can I help bandage it?”
“No, thank you.”
She knew if Lyndon were here, he’d risk her anger and push until she gave him answers about the cut to make sure she was all right, but James moved on.
“Are you settling in?” James asked. “I bet you’re happy to be back home.”
“It’s the same as I remember.” Only now she saw things more clearly.
He smiled. He’d apparently taken her response as positive. Whatever. He slid a little closer. “I’m thinking I’ll move out to this area. Lots of sunshine. We can use solar power for just about everything.”
She didn’t respond. Did he think she was going to play house with him again?
James glanced at both doors and spoke quietly. “I came to inoculate you. I have one dose.”
She met his gaze. “We stopped the attack. The virus was confiscated.”
“We have more. We’re not so easily stopped.”
Kadance slid to the edge of her seat. “What’re you planning?”
He smiled a little at her. “Nothing you need to worry about. I’m here to make sure you’re all right.” He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a syringe.
“Tell me what you’re planning.”
“I’ll tell you it’s going a lot more smoothly now that that guy is out of the way. You did great ditching him. Man, he was difficult to get rid of.”
She just looked at him. Could he really be this stupid? Then she realized . . . “It was you.”
“What was me?”
“You put the hits out on Lyndon. The mastermind would’ve hired my family to do a sniper hit, but you didn’t want it getting back to her that you’d set it up, so you used someone else, someone who wouldn’t tell her. It was you—the sniper at the storage place, the mercenaries at Dr. Ibekwe’s house, the image on the digital sign telling Lyndon how his grandfather died. You set it all up.”
“Of course not.” His expression was impassive, except the slightest hint of a smile in his eyes.
“You’re jealous of Lyndon, aren’t you? Because of the attention the mastermind gives him, and maybe later because of me too, because you saw me with him.” Then she added, “You do realize the mercenaries almost killed me. They were trying to get information out of Lyndon and were threatening me to make him talk.”
“Those mercenaries didn’t know anything, just hired thugs. I told her not to use them.”
She knew he was lying. “They knew about the virus, the attack, and where it would be.”
His jaw tightened.
“You should’ve been more careful about controlling information. They must’ve figured out enough and decided Lyndon was the key to survival. You put me in danger.”
“That guy put you in danger. If he’d have just—”
“If he’d have what? Just died in the first place?” Kadance’s anger welled up in her chest like lava flowing. “Where is the next attack happening?”
“You don’t need to worry about any of that. I’ll make sure you’re safe.” He reached a hand out to her.
“What does it matter if you tell me? You know my family is not about to let me go anytime soon.”
He paused, and he dropped his hand onto the couch cushion. “Please, just let me inoculate you. I just want to save you.”
Her anger kept rising. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could control it.
The screen door at the front of the house creaked. James stuffed the syringe back in his breast pocket.
Her father walked inside. “I was half worried I’d walk in on the two of you making out.”
“I wouldn’t be so disrespectful to you or to Kadance,” James said.
Kadance lunged at James. She gripped his neck, but he managed to pull one hand off. She slammed an elbow across his jaw, and he fell sideways off the couch, smacked into the coffee table, and landed on the floor with a thud.
She threw herself at him, ready to beat him bloody, but her dad caught her from behind. He had an arm around her middle and flung her away from James. He was smart enough not to try to hold on to her but to keep her off-balance. She stumbled into the wall.
She caught her balance and glared at James. Her uncle and cousins had now come inside as w
ell and were surrounding the scene. Her cousins were all armed with Berettas.
“Go,” her father demanded.
She took a step toward James. The metal clank of several handgun slides being racked stopped her.
“Go,” her father said again.
She continued to glare at James but backed up toward the hall that led to the bedrooms. She made herself walk into her room and close the door. There was no use getting herself beaten and injured, or worse, shot. Then, she wouldn’t be any help to Lyndon.
The lock to her door clicked.
Her rage subsided and left her empty. She needed to escape, but she needed to know where Lyndon was, where the next attack was going to happen. He might already be on the trail.
And she was trapped.
She wanted to punch the wall, but she’d learned that lesson as a teenager. The walls were all poured concrete. She’d just end up breaking her hand as she had then.
But she couldn’t just stand here.
She couldn’t get her mind to work right. She wasn’t used to all this emotion. She didn’t know what to do with it, how to get it out of the way so she could think straight.
She crossed to the one window in the room and inspected it, for the hundredth time, for any weakness in the locking mechanism. Nothing. And if she broke the glass, her family would hear and stop her before she could get anywhere.
The door was reinforced. The lock was a dead bolt with no keyhole on the inside, nothing that could be picked, and the hinges were on the other side in the hall.
Think, Kadance.
She was going to have to be clever to get out of this one. But she couldn’t get her thoughts and emotions to calm down enough. She tried pacing. She tried breathing exercises. All she kept thinking about was Lyndon, how she’d failed him.
Before she thought about what she was doing, she dropped to her knees. I don’t know if you’re real, but Lyndon believes in you. She paused to think of what to say, to consider if she was going nuts. Please watch over him, keep him safe. And please, dear God, please help me find a way out of here. She lowered her head and tried to control her breathing.
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