by Diana Gardin
I need her home.
And then I can deal with my feelings about what she did.
We’re all sitting around the living room, minus Lawson and Indigo, and I speak first. “Bain and I want to go after them. Immediately.”
Grisham, also known as Ghost when he’s on a mission, frowns. “How do you plan to do that? Do you know where he took her?”
I shake my head, the fogginess still a distinct, damned frustrating cloud hanging over me.
Bain speaks up, leaning forward in his seat and placing his elbows on his knees. “When he was here, Wolf remembers Walker mentioning something about meeting up with Ward. We figured out that meant he had other cops on the payroll. There’s no way that arrest is going down tonight the way it should.”
Jacob checks his smart watch. “I can check with my contacts, but I bet it’s too late to be there when the arrest goes down. If the dirty cops were going to take Ward off the scene, they’ve already got him.”
My hands go to my hair, tugging on the short strands. “He can’t get to Frannie and the kid. He can’t.”
Ben claps a hand on my shoulder. “Working on it, dude. Settle.”
Being halfway out of commission is driving me fucking insane. My brain isn’t working the way it should be. What if, out in the field, my instincts aren’t working either? What if my responses are slow? What if I can’t get Frannie out of danger when she needs me to?
Grisham is talking, and I focus in on his words even though my heartbeat is racing and my head throbs with pain. “If he has his wife—”
My whole body bristles, and I feel Bain’s eyes on me.
“—and his child, and he’s free, the only thing he’s going to want to do is flee the country. He’s gonna bounce.”
Jacob nods. “But not from the Wilmington airport.”
I never heard the sliding glass door to the balcony open again, but Indigo speaks. Her voice is deeper than usual, husky with sadness. “Russ is smarter than that. He would have advised Eli to use a private plane at one of the smaller, less public airports outside of Wilmington.”
Grisham nods. “So we need to narrow those down. Figure out which one has a small private plane leaving tonight. Maybe even within the next couple of hours, before dawn. That’s how we’ll get him.”
Ben glances at me. “That’s how we’ll get your girl back.”
I suck in a breath. “We’ll be cutting it too close.”
Jacob shakes his head. “No choice. We’re going to work the case, Wolf, just like we always do. We know you’ve grown to care about her. We’re all aware that this isn’t just another case for you. Seems like my boys fall faster than chess pieces when you have to protect a beautiful woman.” He offers me a wry smile, but I’m too tense to return it.
My brain clears. This has to happen. There’s no way my Pistol Annie is getting on a plane to God knows where with her abusive estranged husband tonight. I won’t allow it to happen. “Get Sayward Diaz out of bed and get her miracle fingers tapping on her motherfucking keyboard. The rest of us can arm up and load up. We’re going hunting.”
23
FRANNIE
I recognize Lo’s car waiting in a remote corner of the gas station parking lot as soon as we pull in. I point it out to Russ, my heart hammering a rhythmic drumbeat in my chest.
Russ has already told me the plan, the point of being that Lo doesn’t panic and drive away with Dove.
Which is exactly what I would want her to do at the first sign of trouble. She knows that I would never want Dove anywhere near anyone who seems dangerous, or want her in a compromising situation. It’s the whole reason Dove is staying with her in the first place. I’ve trained her for it. She knows what to look for.
It’s the whole reason I told her over the phone that Eli already knew where Dove was and that he was coming for her. Hopefully, now she’ll turn Dove over to me. Even though a part of me hopes she’ll just take Dove and get as far away from here as possible.
I just don’t trust that Eli won’t find her.
I have to make sure Dove is safe. That’s my first priority.
As we drive into the parking lot, Russ’s low voice is a threatening reminder. “Remember, none of this works without the baby. Eli is getting on that plane with his family in twenty minutes. Grab her and let’s go.”
I put one hand on the door handle. “What if she runs?”
Russ exits the SUV and walks around to my door. He pulls it open and glances around the deserted parking lot. Then he shoves a gun into my back. “Let’s hope she cares enough about her life not to do that.”
I briefly close my eyes, and then Russ nudges me with the butt of his revolver. I walk like it’s my last mile, my blood simmering all the while because this is a reunion with my daughter. The day that I usually look forward to above all others. But it’s been tainted by Russ and Eli and the ax hanging over my baby girl’s head, and I’m pissed. Even more than I am scared.
As we approach, Lobelia exits the Rogue. The gas station is surrounded by forest on three sides. Directly across the street is a two-lane highway and then the long road leading into the Albert J. Ellis Airport. The red lights from the runways blink on and off in the distance, and the neon signs from the gas station create an eerie ambience for our meeting.
Lo takes one look at Russ and narrows her dark brown eyes. Hair tossed in a messy bun, she practically vibrates all over from a mixture of fear and loathing. “What do you want me to do?”
“Get the baby out of the backseat and hand her to her mother.” There’s no give in Russ’s voice, no room for argument or error.
Lo looks at me like she’s waiting for a Hail Mary pass, but I don’t have one. I nod at her to do as he says.
My heart sinks as she turns and opens the rear door of the Rogue. She turns back to Russ. “She needs her car seat for the pl—”
“No.” Russ cuts her off, voice flat. “Eli will get his kid whatever she needs when they get to where they’re going.”
I swallow. Over my dead body will Eli ever get Dove anything.
Lo looks like she wants to say the same thing, but she buttons up her lips and reaches in for Dove. When she pulls out my sleeping baby girl, clad in yellow onesie pajamas with her head lolling on her shoulder, my chest aches. Lo cuddles my baby to her chest, and my eyes cloud, because I know how much my friend loves Dove. The last thing she wants to do right now is hand her over. I reach for my baby, leaning in close to Lo for the exchange.
“Use the number.”
It’s barely a whisper, but Lo hears it. Aloud, I say, “Can I have the bag you packed her?”
Lo nods and grabs it from the seat. When she hands it over, Russ jabs me again. This time, I bristle because I’m holding Dove. He can shove me with a gun all day long, but it’s a different story when I’m holding my child.
I take one last glance over my shoulder at Lobelia as we walk away, back toward the SUV, and the look on her face is one I’ll never forget. Sympathy, pain, and gut-wrenching sadness fuse together to plaster an expression of horror across her features.
I hope to God it’s not the last time I ever see her.
Climbing in the front seat with Dove in my lap, I nudge the bag I packed with my foot. As Russ pulls out of the parking lot, probably relieved that his job here is almost done, I use my foot to turn the bag so that the refrigerated side pocket is closest to me. I don’t want to waste a second of time trying to rotate the bag.
When I have a moment to grab my gun, I’m going to take it, and every second will count.
My mouth suddenly goes dry as my mind flips through all the possible scenarios of what could happen. I lean forward and inhale Dove’s clean, light baby scent. Lavender and rain. The smell soothes me, makes me believe in doing whatever I have to do to keep her safe.
No matter what.
Russ pulls across the street, leaving the gas station behind, and turns onto the airport road. A film of sweat grows over my skin, cool and slick.
I can do this. I can do what it takes to save my child.
I press my lips against Dove’s downy smooth hair. She stirs in her sleep, tipping her head back. And when her eyes, sleepy and bright blue, blink up at me, her lashes flutter and a baby-soft smile crosses her lips.
“Fobba,” she gurgles.
Joy fills my heart, mixing with the fear that forces me to glance at the man driving the car.
“The princess wakes,” he muses. “Guess her daddy will be happy about that.”
“Don’t call him that,” I snap.
Russ doesn’t even glance at me. “Facts are facts. Blood is blood. The man is who he is, and I know how you feel about him. But the truth is, he’s her father. What if meeting her, having the chance to be a dad and do things right, makes him change?”
My palm itches, because all I want to do is slap him again. “You’ve met Eli Ward. Do you really believe change is something he’s capable of?”
Russ shrugs a shoulder as his phone chimes, sitting in the cup holder between us. “What I think doesn’t matter.”
Pulling Dove closer to my chest, I use the toe of my black Nike to slowly unzip the side pocket of my bag. I’m still counting on the fact that Russ has no idea that I even know how to use a gun, much less that I carry a concealed weapon with me regularly and am trained to use it.
The airfield comes into view, a few small private planes sitting on the runways sprawled out before us. There are no other cars in sight, which I guess isn’t unusual for three thirty in the morning.
I breathe a sigh of relief, because it also means that Eli hasn’t arrived.
Russ pulls to a stop and leaves his engine idling, then picks up his phone and checks the message he just received. He glances at me, but it appears all his empathy is gone. His expression is blank, even tired. Lines pull at the corners of his eyes, and his mouth turns down slightly.
Leaning his head back against the seat, he glances down at Dove. “They’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”
I sigh. “That gives me enough time to change Dove’s diaper and give her an insulin injection.”
Russ nods. “I’m watching you.”
With my heart thudding against my rib cage, I nod. “I’m going to climb out and lay her down right here on the seat. You can watch.”
He snorts. “Gee, thanks.”
I pull the backpack Lo packed for Dove onto my shoulder as I climb out of the car, having no idea what’s in it but thinking I might need it later. As if she senses my own tumultuous emotions, Dove doesn’t make a sound as I open the car door and then lay her down on the seat to change her. After she’s dressed, I reach deep down inside my soul and find the nerves of steel I need, keeping my eyes trained on my baby girl as I reach for the gun I have stashed in the diaper bag.
Pulling my pistol and aiming it at Russ’s face in one swift motion, I pull the trigger with my right hand. With my left, I sweep my daughter from the car, turning and running with her even as the hollow ringing sound of the bullet rips through the air behind me.
Dropping the gun so I can hold tightly to Dove, I run.
Toward the cover of trees at the forest line about thirty feet away from the runway down toward the airport road.
There’s no movement or commotion from the car behind me, no indication that Russ is in pursuit. The only sound is the whistling, wheezing sound of a nearly hysterical cry coming from all around me. When I realize I’m the one making the sound, I swallow hard around the golf-ball-sized lump in my throat and tighten my hold on Dove.
She doesn’t make a sound. Not a cry or a whine, just nestling to my chest and hanging on to my neck like she’s holding on for her life.
I don’t breathe until I reach the cover of the trees, and the pitch-blackness slips over both of our bodies like oil spilling into the ocean.
It feels like freedom. Like safety.
Not yet.
I turn into the woods and keep walking, cuddling Dove and speaking softly into her ear.
“Mama’s here. You’re safe. I’ll never leave you.”
24
RYDER
My head still throbs, but it’s much clearer as the five of us raid the weapons bunker at NES headquarters in Wrightsville Beach. We left for HQ immediately following our discussion at the penthouse, with Jacob’s stern admonishment to me before I stepped onto the elevator: “If this were any other case, with any other victim, you’d be benched. But when it comes to the women in our lives, I’ve learned I can’t stop my men from going after them. So you follow your instincts, but listen to your team. Be smart and be safe.”
I couldn’t make him any promises before stepping onto the elevator with my team and leaving the condo.
We’re armed with typical Delta Squad mission weapons and gear. Each of us wears black or dark green cargo pants with pockets for extra ammo. Lightweight backpacks stocked with knives for hand-to-hand combat, flash-bangs, grenades, night-vision goggles, and binoculars. Kevlar protects our torsos underneath black shirts and vests with more pockets lined with extra refills and supplies.
And each of us has a rifle we can carry and two pistols in holsters. So it doesn’t matter if my head feels like I got hit by a train instead of a five-foot-three woman who thought she was protecting me.
I’m more than ready for Eli fucking Ward, and if he puts one finger on Frannie he’ll get a bullet between his eyes for his trouble.
We don’t know where we’re going when we load into one of the NES Suburbans, but we want to be on the road when a call comes in with a location, so we pull out of the parking lot and onto the streets of Wilmington.
“Everyone clear on the plan?” Grisham asks from behind the wheel. He glances in the rearview, his eyes meeting mine from my captain’s seat in the middle row.
All I do is nod, glancing out the window. Adrenaline surges, my blood heating up and causing my left foot to jump in anxious impatience. The waiting is killing me. I want to do something, but we need Sayward to call with the intel.
From the seat beside me, Cowboy speaks up. “Bull’s-Eye finds sniper position and stays there. Gives us intel via communication devices on enemy location and movements. Gives us the lowdown on terrain, possible complications that we can’t see. The rest of us partner up, try to come up at them from two sides. Ghost and Wolf take point, me and Sleuth at the rear. Close in and find an opening to grab our targets. Rescue Ops team is our backup and will clean up after we get Frannie and the baby out because we don’t know which cops we can trust. WPD can sort their shit out when we’re done.”
Frannie and the baby.
Frannie and the baby.
Frannie and the baby.
The words repeat themselves over and over again inside my head, like a fucking prayer. I squeeze my eyes shut, rubbing my forehead.
When Ben’s done talking, he glances at me and grins. Then he lifts his voice, talking to Grisham and Lawson up front. “That about cover it?”
Grisham’s mostly a serious guy, but he cracks a smile. “Yeah. I think you got it down.”
Sleuth peers over the front seat, pinning me with a shrewd look. “It’s not a question that you’re gonna be able to pull this off. But if there’s anything you want to air out before we go in hot…we’re right here, man. We all know how you’ve been feeling about her. Some of us have been there.”
Grisham lifts his chin from the driver’s seat. Once upon a time, he fell for the woman who’s now his wife, Greta, when she was being stalked by a former NES employee. I heard the stories about how he was the one to figure it out and save her, and I always wondered how that would have felt. And then everything went down with Lawson and Indy and I thought it was crazy that Lawson had to do this kind of job with this kind of pressure when the woman he was clearly in love with was in danger.
And now it’s me. And it’s not just the woman I love. There’s a child involved.
“Are we all just gonna tiptoe around the big-ass elephant in the Suburban?” Ben blurts out.
A quiet groan emits from Bain in the backseat.
“Because Frannie has a baby. She didn’t tell anyone. You didn’t know, right, Wolf? Isn’t that shit messing with your head?”
The air whooshes out of me like I’ve been punched in the balls. My teeth grind together. Lawson cranes his neck, trying to stare Ben down, but he isn’t done.
“I mean, fuck, man. Do we even know the baby’s name? How old is it? Is it a boy or a girl?”
“Shut the fuck up, Cowboy.” Bain’s words are a growl. “Just…chill for once in your life.”
Ben glances at me, probably seeing the rage seething just beneath the surface. “Fuck. Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to screw with your head. But weren’t you already…?”
I sigh, leaning forward and scrubbing my face with my hands. “Yeah. I was. Everything you just said has already been running through my mind every second since she knocked me out. I can’t fucking stop thinking about it, Cowboy. But if I let it consume me now, I can’t save her. Them. God. And all I want to do right now—all I need to do—is save them.”
Ben nods. “Roger that.”
Lawson touches two fingers to his forehead and dips his chin before turning back around. “We got you, brother.”
Two things happen almost simultaneously. My phone rings on the console beside me, and Grisham’s lights up the car’s synced Bluetooth system.
I snatch mine up. Not recognizing the number on the screen, I answer it like a work call. At three thirty in the morning. “Thorn Ryder.”
“Oh, thank God!” The woman’s voice on the other end of my phone is urgent, and the hairs on my arms stand up. I look at Ben, and he tries to read my facial expression.
“Mr. Ryder, my name is Lobelia Novak, and I’m calling you because Frannie told me to. She’s in trouble.”
Her words tumble over each other in her rush to get them out, and I try to calm my racing heart and act like this isn’t about the woman I love. Like this is just a regular mission I’m working.
