Lost With Me (The Stark Saga Book 5)

by J. Kenner

  “You hacked into a security feed,” Damien says, his voice low and tight, trembling on the edge of control.

  “Not me. But I hire the best.” He meets Damien’s eyes, his own deadly serious. “Actually, you hire the best. This is why. Denise.” He lifts his wrist, speaking into some sort of wrist unit. “Send the feed to my tablet.”

  A moment later, an electronic tablet on the small kitchen table buzzes. Ryan taps it, and Damien and I watch a jerky black and white image.

  “There’s a bank branch in the same strip mall as Anne’s art class,” he explains. “You’re seeing the feed from the exterior ATM.”

  For a moment, there’s nothing. A few cars leaving the lot. A few moms I recognize from class. Then Anne and Bree step into view. Bree’s holding Anne with her left hand, and I can see car keys in her right. Anne clutches a paper bag in her free hand, which explains why they’re leaving so much later than the other kids from the class. They’d walked down the sidewalk to the small convenience store.

  They pause as Bree looks both ways, then I see them step off the sidewalk and onto the parking lot. They walk toward the Volvo we bought Bree to use when driving the kids around. I can’t tell how far away they are when the hatchback pulls in front of them, but Bree tugs Anne tight to her side, keeping her from stepping toward the car. The driver’s window comes down, and I see a shadowed face hidden under the rim of a cap.

  “We tried to enhance the image, but the perp’s wearing a stocking mask. Features distorted. We’re pretty sure it’s a Caucasian, but even that we can’t be one hundred percent on. Not with a black and white image and such poor resolution. And as for male or female … well, the odds are male, but at times like these, I prefer evidence to odds.”

  I start to nod in understanding, then gasp when I see the barrel of a gun. The kidnapper waves it, and Bree stiffens. I see her look from left to right, obviously trying to assess the situation. Then she hustles Anne into the back seat. The last thing I see before the car drives out of the frame is Bree pulling Anne into her arms.

  My vision blurs, and I realize I’m crying. Damien draws me to him, and I cling to his shirt, terrified and helpless.

  “What about Bree’s phone?” Damien asks. “It’s trackable.”

  “We found it on the street just past the entrance to the parking lot,” Ryan says. “Her entire purse was tossed.”

  I shudder and hold Damien tighter.

  “I’m sorry.” The voice is soft and gravely. Someone who’s been crying so much her voice is raw. I look up, and see Moira standing in the doorway. She has Ryan’s chestnut hair, but her eyes are golden brown. Like him, she’s slim and athletic, and usually she has an easy smile and a demeanor that suggests a wicked sense of humor.

  Right now, she just looks broken.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” she repeats.

  I want to say it’s not her fault, but the words get lodged behind the tears in my throat. So instead I stand, and she hurries to me, and we clutch each other, both crying as our legs give out and we sink to the floor together.

  “Who?” she asks. “Who would have done this?”

  “Sofia,” I whisper. Then I pull away from Moira and turn to look at Damien. “Sofia,” I repeat.

  “No.” Damien stands, the horror in his voice palpable. “She wouldn’t.”

  “Bullshit.” I rise to my feet, my whole body aching, my heart most of all. “She lost it after the miscarriage. The note on my car. The graffiti in my office. She snapped. Goddammit, she snapped after she lost her baby, and now she wants mine.”

  I expect Damien to protest again, but all he does is drop back into his chair, his elbows on his knees and his face in his palms. He believes it. He really believes that I might be right.

  I start to go to him—I want to wrap my arms around him and hold him close, comforting him as he comforts me—but I’m halted by heavy footsteps and a deep, sympathetic voice.

  “We need to call the police.”

  I look over to find Charles Maynard, Damien’s attorney, standing near the threshold between the living area and the kitchen. Evelyn stands beside him, and I gulp out a sob. She opens her arms and I run to her, letting her hold me like a child as I cry. As I watch Damien stand and face Charles.

  “No police,” he says.

  “Damien—no.” I take a step toward him, but he just shakes his head.

  “Not yet,” he says, his eyes on me and not Charles. “Trust me. God, Nikki. Trust me.”

  I draw in a breath and feel Evelyn’s hands tighten on my shoulders. Then I nod, just barely. He sees it, and I can almost feel the relief that floods through him.

  “I have a team coming in. Experts.”

  Now it’s my turn to feel relief. He means Dallas Sykes, and that means Deliverance. The vigilante group exists to rescue kidnap victims. And while the need for them hammers home the reality of this horror, the fact that they’re coming fills me with hope.

  Still, they aren’t here yet, and I turn to Ryan. “What about now. What about finding the car. What about—”

  “They’re on it,” Damien says, and Ryan nods.

  “I promise you, my men are all over that area,” Ryan assures me. “And we have back door arrangements with several government agencies. I have someone reviewing a traffic camera feed right now. And anything we can’t get through cooperation, I promise you we can still manage. I’ve already given Noah a heads-up,” he adds, referring to a friend and former Deliverance tech guru, who I know can hack his way through pretty much anything.

  “We’ll find them,” Ryan promises, his gaze going to both me and Damien.

  I lock eyes with Damien, the pain in those dual-colored eyes mirroring the ache in my heart. “I’m going to go see Lara,” I say, because right now, I need to hold her close. I need to know that she’s still here. That she’s still vibrant and real in a world gone completely insane.

  “Do you want me to come, too?” Evelyn asks, but I shake my head. “It’s okay. Jamie’s back there. I won’t be alone.”

  I pause before entering the girls’ room. I draw one breath, then another and another. Then I scrub my palms over my face, erasing any sign of tears. I don’t want Lara to worry. She’s already going to know something is going on. I don’t want her having nightmares about her sister disappearing.

  I plaster on a big smile, then open the door. “There’s my girl,” I say, when I see her sitting cross-legged on the bed playing Go Fish with Jamie. “How’s my sweet baby?”

  I meet Jamie’s eyes as Lara turns to me, rolling her big brown ones. “Momm-eee. I’m not a baby. That’s Anne.”

  “Right,” I say, my voice tripping over the word. “You’re my big girl, and she’s my baby.” I can’t control the shaking in my voice, but Lara doesn’t notice. I reach the bed and sit down, then pull her close to me and hug her harder than I intended.

  “Mommy! I’m trying to play.”

  “Oh. So sorry.” But I barely let up the pressure of my hug.

  Jamie meets my eyes, and I see sympathy and fear. She reaches across and takes my hand, and I blink fiercely, determined not to cry.

  We’re like that, the three of us together on the bed, when Damien comes in an hour or so later. I turn to look at him, just the sight of him giving me hope, though my head knows that’s foolish. He holds out his arms, and Lara runs into them, and I watch as he hugs her tight, pain written all over his strong face.

  Then he puts her down and tells her to run to Jamie. “We need to talk,” he says to me, then immediately holds up a hand when he sees the arrow of fear strike me. “No, don’t worry. We don’t have news, good or bad.”

  I nod, then follow him out of the room with one last glance toward Jamie. And Lara.

  “Sofia’s here,” he says, and I stiffen. “She’s downstairs with some of Ryan’s men in one of the first floor rooms.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s taking a lie detector test.”

  “She agreed to that?”


  He nods. “She understands why we might believe she’d do that.”

  My mind latches onto the word we, and I frown.

  He sees it, then shakes his head. “I don’t want to think it, but I can’t deny you make a good argument. She gets that, too. I figure that’s a point in her favor.”

  I lick my lips. “People can fool lie detector tests.”

  “I suppose so. More in movies than in real life, I think.” His eyes meet mine again. “I need you to be strong.”

  I nod, then reach for him, but he takes a step back. Just one casual step, but it sends ice coursing through my veins. “Damien?” I study his face, seeing something horrible and dark and lost there. Seeing fear like I’ve never seen before.

  “We’ll get her back,” he says. “I’ll make sure we get her back. No matter what it takes.”

  I nod slowly, wanting so much to believe him. I’ve never doubted Damien. But right now I can’t even believe in the reality around me. So how the hell am I supposed to believe in happy endings?

  19

  “Mommy, what’s going on?”

  I open my eyes to find Lara straddling me, her face scrunched up in question. “Why are all the people here? Are we having a party?”

  “No, baby,” I say. “It’s, um, Daddy’s work. Don’t bother the people, okay? Just play in your room.”

  “Okay, Mommy,” she says, then turns her attention back to the electronic tablet that’s currently showing The Incredibles.

  I glance at Jamie, who shrugs. “You don’t have a TV in the girls’ room. And I figured…”

  I nod, happy to have Lara distracted today. “I fell asleep?”

  She gives me a wry look. “You needed it. Don’t worry. They’re doing everything they can.”

  “Is Dallas here yet?”

  She nods. “I saw him and Quincy when I stepped out about twenty minutes ago. Riley, too,” she adds, referring to Riley Blade, a freelancer who’s one of Ryan’s best men and does consulting work on Lyle’s action movies. “Do you want to go out? Get an update?”

  I swallow. I don’t want to leave this room. In here, with Lara and Jamie, I can pretend that everything is okay. The moment I step through that door and into what’s become the nerve center of the investigation, I’ll have to face the harsh reality that my daughter and friend are missing. That I don’t know what will happen to them.

  That there isn’t a thing in the world I can do to change that. And that even Damien can’t make it better.

  I don’t want to go through the door, but I know I have to. And so I draw myself up, kiss Lara’s forehead, and walk to the door. Jamie comes up beside me, and I meet her eyes. “You’re coming, too?”

  She nods. “We’ll send Moira in to sit with Lara.”

  I take her hand and squeeze it. Then I open the door and step out into the chaos.

  Right off the bat, I see Dallas Sykes. A playboy billionaire who used to be known as The King of Fuck, he’s standing with Damien, his wife Jane beside him. Just seeing him is a relief, because I know there’s a hell of a lot more to Dallas than he shows the world. He’s the founder of Deliverance, and I have some idea of how many kids he’s helped recover. And I also know that he understands the other side. What Anne is going through, because he and Jane were kidnapped together as children.

  The thought—kidnapped—makes my heart race again. Because although that’s undoubtedly what happened, we haven’t heard a thing yet from the kidnapper.

  I see Riley—a total badass—standing next to Lyle. I’m not entirely sure why Lyle is here since he doesn’t actually have the martial arts skills of the characters he portrays on screen. Moral support, I assume when he sends me a reassuring smile. And I’m glad of it.

  Ryan is on the phone, and from what I overhear of the conversation, he’s talking to Noah, who’s still in Austin, doing what he can from his office in Texas.

  At loose ends, I pace the room, walking behind the men and women seated at the stations of computers and phones set up around the make-shift conference table. They’re all typing or talking on headphones, working hard, focused on finding my daughter and nanny.

  And yet with every step, I lose a little bit of hope. All this bluster. All this activity. And still nothing. No word. No hint. No clue.

  What if we never get word? What if there is never a clue? A ransom demand?

  What if we never see Anne again?

  Frantically, I turn around, looking for Damien, but it’s Ryan I find in front of me. He reaches for Jamie, who’s been my shadow, and brushes his hand over her hair. Then he cocks his head, just slightly, but enough to have her flashing a tiny smile at me.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she says, then squeezes Ryan’s hand before heading that direction.

  “How are you holding up?” he asks, leading me across the room to the huge glass doors that allow access to the balcony and the view of the ocean. One panel is open, letting in fresh air, and we step over the threshold. It’s Monday now, and the Pacific glows in the morning light. A moment later, Quincy Radcliffe joins us, then surprises me by turning back and sliding the door closed behind us.

  I look between the two men. “What?” I demand, my fear ratcheting up.

  “It’s okay,” Ryan says. “We don’t have bad news. We only want to talk to you.”

  “Why?” I’m still suspicious. I have a feeling I’m going to be suspicious of everything and everybody for the entire rest of my life.

  “It’s just—Nikki, you and Damien, you two need to stick together. You don’t and it’s going to destroy you.” Ryan pauses, letting that sink in. “That’s what you guys are. You’re each other’s oxygen.”

  My head snaps up. “You don’t think we’re together? Where Anne is concerned?”

  “That’s not what he means,” Quincy says, his accent sounding thicker with the urgency in his voice.

  “This is killing him,” Ryan says. “You know Damien. He’s a man who gets what he wants. He wants his daughter back. And he can’t just snap his fingers and make it happen. He’s at someone else’s mercy. He hates that.”

  “And you blame him for that? I hate it, too.”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “Do I?” I’m being unreasonable, letting my fear morph into anger.

  I force myself to take slow, deliberate breaths as I clench my hands into tight fists. I relish the sensation of my nails digging into my palms, and I say nothing until I’ve formed the words in my head. Words that make me realize how angry I am. How angry I’ve been all day, and not just about what’s happened to Anne. “He let that woman back into our lives. Not openly, which I could have handled. Surreptitiously. After reassuring me for years that she’s better, suddenly he’s sneaking around at night.”

  “I know. He told us.”

  I barely hear him. “We’re oxygen, you said? In that case, he’s the one who poisoned the goddamn air.”

  He shoves his hands into the pockets of his slacks, his head lowered. When he lifts it, his eyes are full of determination. “I don’t think this was Sofia’s doing.”

  I cross my arms, my posture tense. “Did she pass the polygraph?”

  “She did,” Quincy says. “I monitored it myself, and believe me when I say I have experience. We’re going to do it again, as well. At least two more times.”

  “But that’s not the point,” Ryan says. “I don’t believe it’s in her to hurt Damien like that. Or Damien’s child. I don’t think you believe it, either. Two years ago, you told Jamie you thought she was doing better.”

  “Two years ago, she was.” I remember the woman who asked permission to hold my eldest daughter. Who was kind and respectful and who apologized to me profusely. “A lot can change in two years. Did Damien tell you that she lost a baby?”

  Ryan nods. “Yeah. And that’s a factor. I still don’t think it’s her. And you know she’s not the only suspect. Tell me who else it could be. Anyone we should turn our attention to.”

&nbs
p; I make a face. “Anyone looking to make money.”

  “You’re thinking ransom,” Quincy says. “Under the circumstances, who wouldn’t be? But even most kidnappings for ransom originate with someone known to the family.”

  I nod, his words resonating. He’s been working with Dallas for years, and in addition to being an MI-6 agent, he watched Dallas being snatched all those years ago. As much as anyone can, Quincy Radcliffe understands what I’m going through. A victim left behind.

  “Who else should we look at?” he presses. “Doesn’t matter how bloody outrageous you think it is. We have the manpower to investigate. Who’s new to your life? Who’s said something that felt off? Who has a grudge?”

  I look between the two of them. “Have you asked Damien these questions?”

  “We have,” Quincy answers for both of them. “He’s concerned about Marianna Kingsley, of course, and Richard Breckenridge.”

  I nod. “That sounds about right.”

  “And?”

  I close my eyes, hating that I’d even think it, but they’re right. I have to share any suspicions. “Eric, maybe,” I say. “He used to work for me, and he’s lost the job that he left me for. He’s back, and…” I trail off with a shrug, hating that I’m even saying this.

  “Anyone else?” Quincy asks me. His voice is gentle, but his words are firm. “No matter how far-fetched.”

  “I don’t know.” I drag my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know. Carl Rosenfeld? He’s held a grudge for a longtime, and then suddenly one of his old employees applied for a job with me.”

  “Who?” Ryan asks.

  “Brian Crane. He’s a programmer. I don’t really think either of them—”

  “Better we dig too deep than not deep enough,” Quincy says, and I nod. I’m not going to argue with these guys. Whatever it takes to get Anne and Bree back, I’m on board with it.

  “We don’t know who’s behind this, Nikki,” Ryan says. “Or rather, we don’t know yet. But there is one thing I’m sure of.”

  “What?” My voice is eager. Intense. Desperate for any scrap of hope.