Back AT You

by John W. Mefford

  Back AT You

  An Alex Troutt Thriller

  Book 9

  Redemption Thriller Series - 21

  (Includes Alex Troutt Thrillers, Ivy Nash Thrillers,

  and Ozzie Novak Thrillers)

  By

  John W. Mefford

  ALSO BY JOHN W. MEFFORD

  Redemption Thriller Series

  The Alex Troutt Thrillers

  AT Bay (RTS #1)

  AT Large (RTS #2)

  AT Once (RTS #3)

  AT Dawn (RTS #4)

  AT Dusk (RTS #5)

  AT Last (RTS #6)

  The Ivy Nash Thrillers

  IN Defiance (RTS #7)

  IN Pursuit (RTS #8)

  IN Doubt (RTS #9)

  Break IN (RTS #10)

  IN Control (RTS #11)

  IN The End (RTS #12)

  The Ozzie Novak Thrillers

  ON Edge (RTS #13)

  Game ON (RTS #14)

  ON The Rocks (RTS #15)

  Shame ON You (RTS #16)

  ON Fire (RTS #17)

  ON The Run (RTS #18)

  The Alex Troutt Thrillers

  AT Stake (RTS #19)

  AT Any Cost (RTS #20)

  Back AT You (RTS #21)

  AT Every Turn (RTS #22)

  AT Death’s Door (RTS #23)

  AT Full Tilt (RTS #24)

  1

  Alex

  The words were like a hundred daggers, each one piercing a different organ, severing major arteries. Oxygen was in short supply. The room spun, and I reached out for the chair.

  I blinked, then clenched my jaw. Little sleep last night and hardly a thing to eat all day. Maybe everything I’d just heard had been a weird hallucination—it was almost as if I’d been slipped a mind-altering drug.

  “You must acknowledge that you understand my directions.”

  The digitally altered voice, sounding like a baritone haunted robot, stabbed me in the heart. It was no hallucination. And the person on the other end of the phone was anything but robotic. He—or at least I thought it was a male—had threatened me with the most terrifying weapon a mother could ever face.

  Erin, my sweet, precious daughter. Please…if any entity in the universe is listening, help me…help her.

  I could hear my breath quivering into the receiver, and I released an audible gasp, as if I’d just cracked the surface after being held under water. “Yes, I heard you.” Another quick intake of air. “I will do as you said. But you must promise me…please promise me that you nor anyone else will touch her.”

  Silence. I glanced at my phone. Was the fucking line still connected? I saw the time of the call, now showing 1:33 and counting. “Hello!”

  “I am here. I don’t like demands.”

  Too fucking bad, I thought but dared not say.

  “You want me to pay this two-million-dollar ransom. How do I know you won’t…?” A swell of emotion nearly rocked me off my feet. I bit into the side of my cheek, and the emotional tide subsided somewhat. “How do I know you won’t harm her, or that she’ll even be there once I get you the two million dollars?”

  “You don’t.”

  I was looking for some way of guaranteeing Erin’s safety—and that of her friend, Becca. I’d talked to Becca’s mom just last night when I couldn’t get Erin on her cell phone. Becca’s family had taken Erin along with them on their spring-break trip to Las Vegas. The mom didn’t seem worried, said she was having a “tough time tracking down the girls,” guessing that their cell phones had died or they were in a bad spot for reception or they were busy shopping at the Venetian. Her mood was light, though—nothing to worry about. She promised to have Erin call as soon as the girls returned. No phone call, so I let it go and went to sleep.

  It was almost noon the next day. Brad, my boyfriend of over two years, and I had just finished looking at homes with a real-estate agent. We’d finally made the call that he would ditch his place and we’d buy a new home together, formally bringing him into the family that included Luke, my sassy thirteen-year-old; Ezzy, my equally sassy nanny; and of course, Erin, my independent sixteen-year-old.

  “Look, I’ll do anything to ensure the safety of my daughter, and her friend too. Anything. But I don’t have two million dollars. Give me a few days, and I’ll see what I can do. Or I can wire you some money…maybe ten grand, and then promise to pay you another ten grand if you release Erin and Becca.”

  A pause. This one longer than the last. I gritted my teeth, waiting for a signal. If they’d done any research at all, they had to know that I didn’t have access to two million dollars, today or even if we waited a month. Maybe they were desperate for money. To someone grasping to the edge of the mental cliff, ten grand might make them jump at the offer.

  “You have not been listening to me.” Agitated.

  “No, it’s just that I’m being honest with you. You want me to be honest, right? I don’t have two million dollars. I don’t know anyone who has that kind of money. But I can get you ten grand. Like I said, I’ll even wire it to you now, if I know you’ll drop the girls off at the police station. Once I have validation they’re okay, I’ll send you the other ten grand. I promise.”

  I knew it sounded lame the moment I’d said it. I promise? Was I fucking delirious, thinking this was some dispute with the president of the neighborhood homeowner’s association?

  “I thought you cared about your daughter, Alex.”

  “I do. Believe me, I care. She’s my world. Don’t hurt her…please,” I said with a sniffle. I didn’t sound like a seasoned FBI agent. Almost everything I’d learned had seemingly been sucked from my mind.

  “If you care, then you’ll follow the instructions.”

  “I don’t have two million dollars, though. Are you hearing me?”

  “Are you fucking hearing me, Alex Troutt? You don’t question my methods. You’re not allowed to ask if I will hurt your daughter. You will follow my instructions, or she and her friend will both die. And it will not be a quick death, that I assure you.”

  “Okay, okay…please, just…” I stopped myself from asking. It would do no good.

  “You have eight hours to get to the Vegas airport. Once there, I will text you further instructions. Again, I must stress that you do not tell anyone. Not a soul. I know you work for the FBI. You probably believe they can help you. They can’t. If you contact them, we will know. And we will kill Erin and her friend. Is that understood?”

  “Yes.”

  The line went dead.

  My chin dropped to my chest. Brad walked into the living room.

  “Dear God, Alex! What’s wrong, babe?” He wrapped an arm around my quaking shoulder.

  I lifted my tear-filled eyes and opened my mouth. Before I could say a word, the phone vibrated in my hand.

  Were they calling again?

  2

  I punched the green button on the phone before I looked at the number. “Did you decide you’d rather have the ten grand?”

  “What the fuck is going on, Alex?”

  My brain did a double-take. It was Sonya Faulk, Becca’s mother.

  “Sonya, what do you know?” I held the phone away from my ear so Brad could listen. I had to share this horror with him, if no one else.

  “I just know that I received…” She gasped out a few sobs, then a grunt, as if she had to clip the emotion off before it took hold of her. “I received a call from a man…or woman, I’m not sure. They have our daughters, Alex. These monsters have our daughters.”

  She had received a ransom call too. Brad squeezed my shoulder, his eyes wide with distress. I gave him a quick nod and tried not to hyperventilate.

  “Sonya, I received the same call. Please tell me what—”

  “What have you done f
or them to take our daughters, Alex? You’ve got to tell me. This can’t be. This can’t be.” She began to sob. And then I heard some shuffling.

  “Sonya, we have to keep—” I started.

  “I’m not going to sit around and take orders from some woman.” It was the dad, Byron, and his anger was off the charts.

  “Byron, I was telling Sonya that I received the same call. We’re in the same situation. But I need for you to tell me what they told her…or you. Who received the call exactly?”

  “Dear God, Alex, what in the hell have you done now?” He wheezed as he inhaled, sounding as though he’d lost a lung.

  Another glance at Brad. The pain etched on his face was another reminder of how very real this situation was.

  “Byron, it’s not about me.” I paused a second, instantly questioning whether I knew that to be true. Didn’t matter, not now anyway. “Just please tell me what they told you or Sonya.”

  “I got the call,” Sonya said, her phone now on speaker.

  “Just in the last few minutes?”

  “Yes, yes. Just tell us what’s going on, Alex,” Sonya continued. “We have to get our Becca back. She’s our only child. We don’t have another one, like you do.”

  I shook my head at the suggestion that my kids were any less important. How could she say such a thing? I bit back a snarky comment.

  “Sonya, Byron, please listen for a second. I received the same call. I hung up with them just seconds before you called. Please tell me what they told you.”

  “I’m not sure we can trust you. You’re involved in something seedy. I know it. Can’t trust the FBI worth a shit these days.”

  Byron wasn’t helping our situation with his vitriol. And I knew I had to get to the airport. Hell, this call could very well be monitored somehow.

  I lost it. “Byron, shut the fuck up! This isn’t helping. You want to get our daughters back, then I need you to answer my questions.”

  A couple of seconds of silence. Brad nodded his approval of my tactic. I put a hand on his shoulder now, my knees wobbly.

  “Okay, okay,” Byron said, his defenses suddenly lowered. “I didn’t hear the beginning of the call. Sonya?”

  I heard some sniffling. “They had a freaky voice. It was disguised in some way.”

  I nodded at Brad and pointed at myself—he returned the nod, indicating he understood that I, too, had heard a similar voice.

  “And what did they say?”

  “That they had our Becca and her friend, Erin. And that we should not go to the police or any law enforcement to tell them of their disappearance. If we did, then they would…” She couldn’t say the words out loud. My heart ached, and tears welled in my eyes. I wiped my face.

  “What else, Sonya?”

  “Just that they would turn over the girls once Alex Troutt completed a task for them.”

  A task? I hadn’t been charged with any task. Just a money demand. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek.

  “What is this task, Alex? That’s why we called. That’s why Byron is so mad. I’m mad…upset. I know you wouldn’t do anything to purposely harm our Becca, would you?”

  “What? No. So, did they ask you for a ransom?”

  “Actually, I asked them if they wanted money, and they just said that they knew we couldn’t afford it, and if we wanted to see our daughter alive, we had to wait for you to complete this task. I know we’re taking a chance by calling you, but we couldn’t just sit here in our hotel room and do nothing.”

  “I understand. Sonya, Byron, listen to me for a second. I’ve done nothing to get our daughters in trouble. The kidnappers called me and told me I had to give them two million dollars. They knew I didn’t have the money, so they told me I’d get further instructions once I landed at the Vegas airport.”

  “But why you? Why didn’t they ask us to do this task? We’re already out here,” Sonya said through sobs.

  “I don’t know, Sonya. I’m trying to figure this out as we’re talking. It’s not making much sense.”

  I asked where they last knew the location of Erin and Becca.

  “Shopping at the Venetian,” Sonya said. “That’s a high-end hotel-casino. They’re sixteen years old; it was early evening. Shouldn’t be any problem. Security is all around. Byron and I were catching a show to see Mariah Carey.”

  The Venetian. I wondered if the kidnappers had somehow lured the girls to a room in the hotel.

  “Okay, I need to get to Logan airport. I’ll try to be in touch as much as I can, once I hear back. Brad is here. If you can’t reach me, you can try him. I’ll have him text you his number.”

  “Alex…” It was Byron again, his throat scratchy. “I’ll do anything to get my Becca back. So, I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything. Just do whatever it takes.”

  We were finally on the same page. Whatever it took, I would bring Erin and Becca home.

  3

  The Las Vegas sun couldn’t be the same as the one above Boston. Or maybe Vegas was about a thousand miles closer to the sun. That had to be the case. Or something like that.

  One step outside the doors of McCarran International Airport, and the sun’s rays hit me like a weaponized laser beam. I cupped my hands over my eyes—I’d forgotten my sunglasses—and all I saw was flat land and cookie-cutter homes. When the plane had descended onto the runway, I’d seen the other side of Vegas, the glitz-and-glamour side, the one that sparkled like diamonds at night, where oddly shaped buildings looked like foreign objects with the Spring Mountains hulking in the background.

  I glanced at my phone. I had four bars, so the signal was good. But I hadn’t received any text messages or phone calls. During the first half of the four-hour flight, I was tighter than the strings on my old tennis racket. I even considered taking up the flight attendant’s offer for one of those tiny bottles of tequila—well, actually about three of them. But I declined, not wanting to sacrifice my mental acuity just to minimize my stress level.

  After closing my eyes and doing some deep-breathing exercises, I finally relaxed enough to think semi-clearly. I replayed the kidnapper’s call at least fifty times in my mind, hoping to remember something that I hadn’t caught during the actual event. Every time, though, the replay was the same. My brain was either still in shock or the details had simply dispersed like untethered molecules. Nothing new came to me, and by the time the wheels screeched against the Las Vegas runway, I felt quite agitated with myself.

  Another glance at my phone. No activity. All I saw were my white knuckles grasping the phone. Yep, I could feel my tension surging back into the red zone.

  Damn, I wish someone was with me. Brad was a gentle soul, a real saving grace for my life. Before walking out of the house, I’d told him about my call with Darth Vader, giving just the facts, trying to still my emotions, so that he’d know what was going on. We agreed that, for now, he’d tell Luke and Ezzy that I was ordered out of town on urgent FBI business. To them, that was almost normal. Brad kissed me, gave me a quick hug, and said to keep him in the loop.

  Brad was one of the best intelligence analysts in the FBI. He was also twelve years my junior. After some disconcertion about being “that woman,” the cougar, I’d embraced having a hunk on my arm. But right now, I needed a badass partner, someone who wasn’t as consumed as I was with the kidnapping. My usual FBI partner, Nick Radowski, was still nursing wounds that he’d suffered when a bomb exploded near him during the Boston Marathon. That was several weeks back. He was close to returning, even said he looked forward to kicking my ass in a race. Our competitiveness helped drive each other.

  Ozzie Novak came to mind. A dear friend, a kindred spirit. He was a private investigator, was built like someone who wore a mask and a cape, and cared for my family deeply. Hell, he’d saved Luke and Erin and his own daughter, Mackenzie, when my old home had been destroyed in a bombing. But he was back in Austin, Texas, right now, trying to piece together his life with his daughter. His wife had been killed almost two months ear
lier. So, he wasn’t an option, either. I couldn’t reach out to anyone else in the law-enforcement community, including Jerry, my boss and also a good friend. The risk was too high.

  I knew I’d be singing a different tune if this were happening to someone else. But when it’s your own child, your mind operates in a mode that can’t be easily explained, as if it’s on auto-pilot—to find my baby girl, to rescue her, to keep her safe.

  I just wondered how the hell that was supposed to happen. What was this task that the caller had mentioned to the Faulks? I knew there had to be at least two people involved, since the Faulks were on their call at the same time I was on mine. Why were the stories different? Maybe the two kidnappers hadn’t rehearsed what they were going to say. Maybe my kidnapper was so enthralled by the prospect of getting two million bucks, he went straight to the money. Whereas, the Faulks’ contact was more methodical and knew the next step in the process was to have me complete some task.

  A task. Maybe there was no discrepancy between the calls—maybe my “task” was simply to get here and bring the two million bucks. However, I wasn’t exactly trusting my logical side right now. It seemed like I was attached to a massive pendulum. At times, my brain surged with oxygen to the point I thought my head might explode. Then, sometimes just seconds later, it felt like my air passages had been cut off and I might suffocate.

  “Fuck!” I yelled as a jet screamed overhead.

  I was bumped from behind.

  A man in flip-flops and a T-shirt that read “I’m going to get fucked in Vegas” was too busy high-fiving two other guys as they walked out of the airport to notice me. I smelled booze as they passed. A movie zipped to the front of my mind for a quick second: The Hangover, part five or six or whatever sequel they were on. The men laughed as they crossed the street heading for the parking lot. I was certain their trip would be nothing but a blur.