He picked it up, saying, “I guess I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.” He cracked open the casing for the steering wheel, and in less than two minutes, the engine roared to life.
“We’re actually stealing this car?”
“Borrowing it. It’s not like I plan to sell it for parts. But we can’t get another person involved, so Uber or a taxi are out.”
He pulled out of the parking lot.
“You said you’d tell me more, although you won’t tell me who was on the phone.”
“Can’t.”
“Neither call?”
He tapped the brakes, and we stopped at a light. He looked at me. “I want to, Ivy. Part of me just wants to let it all out, to share everything with everyone. But if I do, you could be on someone’s hit list.”
“Udovenko?”
He arched both eyebrows. “His network is a lot vaster than I ever knew. If he or anyone in his organization thinks you have pertinent information, then you could be next.”
He held my gaze, which I imagined was to drive home the seriousness of his statement. It worked.
“Then tell me the part you can share.”
“You know I’ve been working for the Ukrainian SBU. But I also have another client, another reason why I was trying to embed myself into Udovenko’s operation.”
Was he some type of double agent? Wait, that was more about governments spying on other governments, similar to what Armand had been suspected of doing. “What other entity would hire you? INTERPOL, another country? What?”
“It’s a who.”
He looked ahead; the light was now flashing red, obviously malfunctioning. He tried to change lanes, but we were blocked in on both sides.
“So, who?” I asked.
“Richard and Edna Watson.”
I gave him a who-is-that shrug and a shake of my head.
“Their names aren’t important, but their daughter, Brianna, was kidnapped two months ago. Literally stolen right from her own bedroom. Local police, FBI all got involved. They found no clues. None. No prints, no hair, no enemies in their past. Therefore, all the attention turned to—”
“The parents.”
“Weeks went by and the pressure built. Then, out of nowhere, they got a call from someone who lives in Poland.”
“Poland?”
He nodded. “Apparently, their daughter wore something like a dog tag, which had key information written on it, including her home phone number.”
I found myself gripping the cloth seat. “They found her?”
“No, unfortunately. They’d actually just reached out to me. So I looked into it and found out this person had found the dog tag in what we would call a pawn shop. Through a lot of digging and some payoffs to the right people, I found out a person with known ties to Udovenko had sold it.”
“Why would Udovenko be involved in some random kidnapping in the US?
“I wondered the same. Now this couple, Richard and Edna Watson, live in Andover, just outside of Boston. That’s where Udovenko has developed—”
“I heard. His drugs are on the streets in that city.”
“Nick told you.”
I nodded, then I began to piece it all together. “Don’t tell me, the Watsons were one of Udovenko’s drug runners in Boston, and they stole from him or something, and then he got his revenge.”
“The Watsons didn’t know it, but I checked them out, looking for ties to Udovenko or the drug operation. Nothing there. And no evidence of them being involved in their daughter’s kidnapping. They were clean.”
“How did you get all of that?”
“A lot of methods. What helped speed it up was wiretapping.”
“Seriously? You’re just blatantly telling me this?”
“Who are you going to call, the NSA? Please.” His voice was filled with sarcasm.
A cop was in the intersection, directing traffic. We began to inch ahead.
“So, whatever happened to Brianna?”
“While there isn’t a body, I learned from a person lower in Udovenko’s operation that she was a proof of concept.”
“A what?”
“They were trying to see if they could kidnap her, get her to some lab where they were supposed to do some type of testing on her, and then, once she died, ship what was left of her overseas to people who would pay for the body parts.”
I rolled down the window and let the wind and light rain slap my face. Once I contained my gag reflex, I turned back to Zeke, “This can’t be. It’s the most heinous thing I’ve ever heard of.”
He pounded a fist against the steering wheel. “I just wish I’d been able to find out who was running this lab, doing the testing that would essentially kill these kids.”
“What the hell were—”
“Are. I believe they’ve procured—through kidnappings or some other means—a bunch of kids with the same condition, using them as test monkeys.”
The pickup lunged forward as Zeke hit the gas.
“What condition?” I asked.
My phone rang as he opened his mouth. It was Stan. “Hold on,” I said to Zeke before answering the call. “Hey, Stan.”
“They got him, Ivy. They fucking got him.”
I scooted higher in my seat. “Who, Stan?”
The sound was muffled, as if he’d dropped the phone. “Stan. What’s going on?
“Ivy, it’s Nick. I’m in the car with Stan. Ethan has been kidnapped.”
Blood rushed to my head so fast I began to see spots in my vision. “What?”
“It’s true. We’re trying to track him, heading west on Highway 90.”
I smacked the seat and looked to Zeke. “Change of plans. Call Z. Stan’s son has been kidnapped.”
56
Zeke hopped the median, then sped down a one-way street—heading into the flow of traffic. I cussed nonstop until he screeched around a corner, nearly fishtailing our hunk of junk into a taco stand. But at least we were on a road heading in the same direction as the rest of traffic. I saw a street sign flash by: Old Highway 90.
“This connects with 90 just before you hit the loop.”
“Yep.” He swung his whole body left, which led to me smacking my head against the door window. We were blowing by car after car like they were standing still.
Zeke used his knee to steer the truck as he patted his pockets.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled, reaching my hand toward the wheel.
“I got it. I can drive with my knee.”
“Yeah, right.”
He pulled out his phone, just as I heard Nick yelling for me from the phone in my hand.
“Where are you guys, Nick?”
“Just outside the 410 loop, still on 90. Stan wanted me to ask you if you ever dropped off those naked photos at the Espinoza house.”
“Yes. Didn’t he get my voicemail?”
He repeated the question to Stan as I saw Zeke put his phone to his ear. “You calling Z?” I asked him.
“Not enough time to get into it with her. I’m calling Yao.”
“Yao? What’s he going to do?”
He shot me a knowing look.
“You know him?”
He nodded.
“How well?”
“To trust him. We go back.”
“So, Liu wasn’t ill, was he?”
“Nope. I needed to know that Zahera was safe.”
“So, she’s okay.”
“I hope so.” He adjusted the phone at his ear. “Hey, Yao, this is Zeke.”
“Ivy, you there?” Nick said into my phone.
“Sorry, what?”
“Stan never listened to his voicemail.”
“Put him on speaker.”
“Okay, you’re on.”
“Stan, why are you asking?”
“I’m trying to figure out in my head how this happened. What triggered it?”
“Don’t worry about that now, just keep tracking him. How are you tracking him?”
“Don’t tell me not to worry. Help me think, dammit.”
“Okay, right.”
I could hear Zeke muttering something about Yao taking Zahera to a safe house. I smacked his shoulder. He winced, nearly dropping the phone. I’d forgotten about his stab wound. “Sorry.” He brushed me off, kept talking as he dodged other vehicles like it was some type of video game. I refocused on my phone call. Something had occurred to me. But I needed to ask two questions.
“Stan, did you ever bring in Nancy Klein for questioning?”
“Wanted to, but never got out there, and then Bev got the call about Ethan.”
“And no break-in reports at the Espinoza house?”
“Nope.”
“Stan, I think Carlos Espinoza might be behind this.”
“Kidnapping Ethan?”
I’d never heard Stan’s voice reach that octave.
“Maybe. I don’t know. It sounds crazy. But remember the photos? What the hell was he doing in bed with the Klein sisters?”
“That’s the second woman? Nancy’s sister—”
“Lisa, the nurse from Stonebrook. I don’t know for certain, not until someone checks to see if she has a tramp stamp.”
The truck went airborne for a second as it zoomed up the entrance ramp and onto Highway 90. I bounced off the roof and watched Zeke do the same, but somehow he kept one hand on the wheel and another on his phone.
“You guys okay?” Nick yelled.
“All good. So, Carlos knows two of the key people involved in allegedly passing the data along. And we know that at least eight of the thirteen victims had kids that went to Stonebrook.”
“Make it thirteen out of thirteen. Bryant, my junior detective, confirmed that earlier.”
“Well, then, there you go.”
“It gets worse. All thirteen had at least one kid with autism.”
“Autism,” I repeated.
“What?” Zeke had just hung up the phone.
I smacked the seat so hard he flinched.
“This lab where you said kids were being tested like monkeys. You said they had a condition. What—”
“Autism.”
“Did you guys hear that?”
“What lab?” Stan growled.
“Zeke wasn’t just working for the Ukrainian SBU.”
Zeke looked at me, but he didn’t try to shut me up. He knew it would do no good. Not with Ethan’s life on the line.
Stan and Nick both asked me about a dozen questions in the next sixty seconds. I did my best to give them enough information in the briefest timeframe possible.
Stan then directed Nick to call his detective colleague, Omar Moreno, and have him pick up Carlos and the Klein sisters. Nick made the call.
“Where are you guys? We’re moving at almost ninety, so we might be catching up to you.”
“I’m following him on my GPS tracker,” Nick said. “Wait. It stopped moving.”
“Where, dammit. Tell me where.”
Nick said, “Fifteen miles ahead on Highway 90. Just north, it appears near a town called Hondo. Want me to call the local cops?”
“They’ll screw it up,” Stan said, shaking his head emphatically. “Don’t trust them. Don’t trust anyone. I’ll get us there in nine minutes.”
“I think we’re about five minutes behind you. Hey, how are you tracking Ethan?” I asked.
“He went through a stage where he’d run away from home,” Stan said. “We couldn’t risk him getting out and not being able to find him, so we put a GPS tracker in his favorite pair of shoes, just inside the tongue. He doesn’t even know it’s there.”
“Damn, you and Beverly are smart.”
No response. I held the phone away from my ear, wondering if I’d lost the line.
“You still there?”
“Yep, we’re here,” Nick said. “Stan’s upset.”
“Sorry, Stan. Didn’t mean to—”
“He’s pissed at how this went down.”
“What happened?”
A pause with nothing more than the whir of tires rippling against the grooved concrete. I glanced at Zeke. He shook his head, as if telling me not to press it. I conceded.
“We can talk about it later, Stan. Let’s just get Ethan home.”
“She thought it was a fake kidnapping, Ivy.”
“Beverly?”
“Who else?”
“Right. Why would she think that?”
“Because I told her about these crazy cases. How people were losing their life savings, how gullible they were. I never expected it to happen to us, to Ethan.” His voice began to break up.
“Stan, it’s not her fault.”
“It’s my fault, dammit. I’m the one that gave her this information. I should have just kept my mouth shut.”
“But Stan,” Nick interjected, “you told me it sounded just like one of those fake kidnapping calls. They asked for money, right?”
“A hundred grand. Which we don’t have.”
“And then you said Bev hung up on them and called you.”
“She did. She was upset.”
“And then they called her back.”
“It was like an out-of-body experience,” Stan said. “She hung up with me, then called me back not even thirty seconds later. They told her she’d fucked up and that Ethan would pay for her mistake.”
I could feel my stomach tear into a hundred pieces, but I kept it together for Stan. “I’m sure he’ll be okay.”
“They called back a third time. The first two times, it was a female. The third time, it was a guy. He said we could have Ethan back if we gave them fifty grand. He said they’d give us four hours to round up the money and they’d call Bev with a drop-off location. But as I started watching the GPS sensor leaving the city, I thought they were lying. Now, hearing about this Autism lab where they pick apart kids and then sell their parts to someone overseas, I’m just—”
“Stan Radowski,” Nick said firmly. “We will find Ethan. He will be okay.”
“You can’t say that.” Stan was crying now. It tore at my heart. “One mile up ahead, take a right,” Nick said.
Zeke flicked his hand against my leg. “We’re less than five minutes behind them. Just tell me where to get off of Highway 90.”
A few seconds passed, then Nick said, “Turn north here.”
I heard tires screech and Nick yelling, “Whoa!” Then he said, “Keep moving. Now turn into this abandoned parking lot.”
“Where are you, Nick?” I asked.
“Castro Avenue.”
I pointed at a sign for Castro, and Zeke nodded.
We slowed and turned right. I realized I hadn’t seen rain or any sign that it had rained since we’d hit 90. The landscape around us was dry, with dust swirling from the wind.
Stan said, “Oh shit, tell me that isn’t—”
I heard a car door slam. And then nothing.
57
We pulled into the parking lot, and I saw Stan on his knees, clothing scattered all around him on the asphalt. His torso was rocking up and down as he held something in his hand. Zeke slammed on the brakes, and I jumped out before the truck stopped.
“Stan,” I said, running over to him. Nick was on the phone a few feet away. I looked at what Stan had in his hands—a black and white jogging shoe. “Is that Ethan’s?”
He brought a fist to his mouth. His entire head was red. He nodded. I bit my lip to hold back the tears, glancing at Nick, who’d just hung up his call and was talking to Zeke.
“FBI has commissioned a copter. It should make it out here in less than an hour.”
“They knew he had a chip on him, Nick,” Stan wailed. “That’s why they threw out all of his clothes. We’ll never be able to track him. Who knows where they went? Hell, they could be so pissed they’ve been tracked that they could—”
“Don’t say it, Stan,” I said.
“Why? Will that help him? He’s screwed now. We can’t help him. We may never hear from him again, unless
we find his body. If they kill him out here in the middle of nowhere, the vultures might get to him.”
“Wait,” Nick said, rushing in front of us, his phone in front of his eyes. “Stan, look inside the tongue of the shoe. Is the GPS chip there?”
Stan peeled apart Velcro and stuck his finger inside. “It’s not here.”
“The signal, it just came alive again. They’re back on 90 heading west.”
We all raced back to our cars and screamed out of the parking lot. Once we were at sixty miles per hour and gaining speed, I reconnected with Nick on the phone. “How far ahead are they?”
“Five, six miles tops.”
I opened up a map app and changed the view to where I could see the actual road and surrounding land. It was flat and brown. Desolate. “What kind of vehicle are we looking for?”
“The only witness report was a vice principal at Ethan’s school. Said she saw a white, box-like van across the street from the school.”
Zeke gave me a nod, pushing the speed of the old truck up to ninety. Stan’s city-issued Impala was still in front of us. He had a flashing cherry light on top of his car, but with no sirens running. Cars were moving to the slow lane as we zoomed by them.
Five minutes went by without a word spoken. I looked at Zeke. His temples were stressed. The crimson stain on his shirt had dried. I assumed the bleeding had stopped.
“I’ve been in worse shape,” he said.
He’d seen me staring. I went back to looking straight ahead, hoping I’d see a white van pulled over to the side of the road.
“By the way, don’t take this the wrong way because you’re an attractive woman, but you’ve seen better days.”
I began to pull down the visor, but I was overruled by the part of me that didn’t care right then.
“I’m hoping I didn’t somehow give you that bruise on your forehead.”
I touched it and immediately envisioned Frankenstein. “No, I got it when I was trying to act cool and stealthy when I left the Espinoza house.”
“When you put the pictures back where you found them?”
“Yep.”
“Sounds like the kind of work I find myself in.” He glanced my way, then back to the road. “Sometimes justice needs a little nudge, doesn’t it?”
The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set) Page 49
