Very carefully, he lifted each of his hands, checking to make sure there had been no adjustments to the leather cuffs that tethered them to the sides of the bed. The one on the right was tight as ever, but there was still play in the one on the left. That was the cuff he’d been working on right before his captors had come in and beat the crap out of him at the last location. Thankfully, they either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t thought it important enough to check.
He started rotating his hand back and forth again, hoping to expand the cuff enough so that he could slip it off. He could tell he was close; maybe another quarter inch would do it. What he wouldn’t have given at that moment to be one of those people who could dislocate their thumbs at will.
As he twisted again, he heard someone right outside the door. Immediately, he dropped his hand to the side and closed his eyes. The door opened, and from the sound of the steps, he knew it was the woman. She had a different way of walking from the men, less labored and random, as if every step was calculated to land at a specific angle and pace—confident, assured.
“Mr. Becker.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Eli felt the sting of her hand against his cheek.
He almost opened his eyes, came so damn close. If she’d hit any harder, he would have.
She told him to wake up and slapped him again. Again, he simply rolled with it, playing the part of the unconscious prisoner. It wasn’t that hard. The drug they had given him wasn’t completely out of his system yet and helped suppress his response.
“Mr. Becker, open your eyes.”
After a few seconds of silence, he heard her walk to the table at the foot of the bed and begin rummaging through the bag.
When she returned, she said, “Last chance.”
If he wasn’t afraid before, he was now. It took everything he had not to open his eyes to see what she was planning. His imagination was more than willing to fill in the details, picturing an array of torture devices from knives to Tasers to pliers and things he didn’t even know the names of. When the needle pricked his skin, it was almost a relief.
As she walked back to the table, he felt only a slight burning sensation at the point of injection, but a moment later, before she had even left the room, the burn began to spread.
Like a jolt of liquid electricity, the drug raced through his body, cycling up his heart, making it pound so rapidly it felt like it was going to burst out of his chest. His lids shot open wide, his whole face tensing at the sudden surge of energy.
His breaths came hard and fast as his muscles began to contract.
Stop!
Involuntarily, his fingers curled in toward his palms and his feet yanked at the cuffs holding them to the bed.
Stop!
He gritted his teeth, trying to regain control.
Stop it!
One by one his muscles began to relax, until he was finally able to breathe almost normally again. But then he caught sight of the door.
She’s coming back, and when she does…
With renewed purpose, he began twisting his left hand against its cuff again, his gaze switching back and forth from the restraint to the door.
He felt his hand slip a little, so he pressed his thumb as tight as he could to his palm and pulled. Resistance at first, but it lasted only a second before his hand popped free.
He immediately reached over and undid the cuff on his right wrist, then sat up and leaned toward the restraints holding his ankles. That’s when he heard her steps in the hallway.
Close.
Too close.
No way he could free both feet before she got there.
His gaze fell on the black duffel back. Without a second thought, he scooted down as best he could, stuck a hand inside the bag, and grabbed whatever was in reach. Just as quickly he lay back down and covered his hands with the sheet.
Blindly, he tried to identify what he had grabbed. A plastic case a bit longer and thicker than a cigarette box, something that felt like a wooden chopstick, and a metal instrument with a palm-length handle at one end and a blade at the other. A scalpel?
As the door opened, he flattened his hand but didn’t bother closing his eyes.
The woman smiled as she entered the room. “Mr. Becker, nice to see you awake again.”
“Where are we?” he asked.
“No place important.”
Her hand was on the bag now. He could let her look inside.
“I want to go home. Please. Let me go home.”
She looked over. “All you have to do is cooperate and you can go anywhere you want.”
“I’ll…I’ll cooperate,” he said, sounding defeated. “I’ll tell you whatever I know. I just want to go home.”
She lifted her hand from the bag and took a step toward the bed. “I’m pleased to hear that. It’ll save us both a lot of trouble. Why don’t we start at the beginning? Tell me why you were looking into Operation Overtake.”
Another step. At his hip now. Not close enough yet.
“You promise not to hurt me again?”
“If you truly cooperate, there will be no reason to hurt you.”
He’d have only one shot at this, so he waited.
One more step. “Mr. Becker?”
He nodded as if he’d come to a decision. “Overtake. I…I was looking…”
“Looking for what?”
A little closer, dammit!
“For…for…” he said, hoping to draw her in closer.
Instead, she turned back toward her bag.
“For the girl,” he blurted out. “I was looking for the girl.”
The woman turned back around and moved in close. “The girl? But the girl is dead. She is dead, isn’t she?”
“Well, um, you see, I was hired to…”
When he was sure her gaze was locked onto his, he gripped the knife and worked his right hand out from under the sheet.
“Hired to what? Find the girl?” the woman demanded. “Tell me! Is she alive?”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll tell you.” His voice weakened with every word, so she leaned in close to hear him.
“What happened to her?” she asked. “She is alive, isn’t she?”
“She is…none of your business!”
In a burst of speed, he swung his arm around her and jammed the knife into her back.
__________
NOLAN WAS STATIONED closest to the farmhouse and was the first to react to the gunshot. He raced across the parking area, fumbled momentarily with the front door, and rushed inside.
He paused in the living room, trying to figure out where the noise had come from. He had just taken a step toward the kitchen when he heard a door in the hallway fly open, followed by a thud of something striking a wall.
His pistol in his hand, he ran over to the hallway entrance.
Someone was near the other end, writhing on the ground.
“Identify yourself,” he said, moving slowly forward.
The person rolled over, cursing painfully.
“Ms. Clark?” Nolan asked, lowering his pistol. “Jesus, what happened?” He hurried down the all and crouched beside her. “Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not fucking all right,” she spat.
She was trying to reach behind her back for something. As she did, she turned, and he could see a piece of metal sticking out between her shoulder blades near her spine.
“Let me,” he said.
He grabbed the handle and tugged the implement free. Nearly the entire length of the blade had been buried in her back.
“Who did this?” he asked.
“The fucking prisoner.”
He jumped up and approached Becker’s room, his gun raised. Behind him, his boss said something, but he was focused on the door that had swung almost all the way closed. All he could hear was silence from inside as he shoved it open with the barrel of his pistol.
“Hands where I can see them!” he shouted as he stepped through the doorway.
The command wa
s unnecessary.
He lowered his gun and said, “Shit.”
CHAPTER 13
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
ABRAHAM SAT NEAR the gate, waiting for his flight to DC.
From the moment he’d purchased the ticket, he’d felt guilty. He wanted to be out looking for Eli, but who knew where his friend had been taken by now? The only thing he could think of doing was to go to Eli’s apartment near Washington, DC, to see if he could track down any hint of the information Eli had wanted to give him. Maybe if Abraham knew what it was, he could figure out what had happened to Eli.
It was a long shot, but at the moment his only shot.
The other seats began filling up around him but he barely noticed. All he could think about was how he’d failed his friend.
MISSISSIPPI
SHORTLY AFTER SEVEN a.m., Orlando and Quinn returned to the neighborhood where the Moss Point house was located.
“Which one first?” Quinn asked as they climbed out of the car.
Orlando looked around before pointing at a two-story house to the left of the one where Eli Becker had been taken. “They have the best view,” she said.
She and Quinn had dressed in business suits that morning, knowing the importance of looking the part they were playing. As they neared the front door, they could hear the sounds of a family getting ready for the day—a TV, someone running around, dishes clattering.
Quinn pushed the doorbell button.
A distant, “Ronny, get that. If it’s Mrs. Fuller, tell her you need a few more minutes.”
A set of small feet across a room, followed by the door squeaking open. A skinny boy of around eight stared out at them, then said over his shoulder, “It’s not Mrs. Fuller, Mom.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Orlando said, “We’d like to speak to your parents, please.”
“They want to talk to you,” the boy said, his eyes still on Orlando and Quinn.
A deep sigh preceded heavier steps moving toward the door. A woman appeared, wearing a long faded pink robe and hair that looked like it had been brushed back in a hurry.
“Can I help you?” she asked, not doing a great job of concealing her impatience.
“Ma’am, I’m Agent Sax, and this is Agent Mullins,” Orlando said, flashing the fake FBI badge that was part of her kit. “Wondering if we could ask you a couple questions?”
The woman touched her son’s shoulder. “Ronny, go finish your breakfast.”
“I’m already done,” he argued.
“Then go finish getting ready. Mrs. Fuller will be here soon.”
He left reluctantly.
When they were alone, the woman asked, “What kind of questions?”
“About the house next door,” Orlando said.
“Next door? It’s empty.”
“We believe someone may have been using it in the last thirty-six hours,” Quinn said. “Did you see anyone?”
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Maybe someone else in your family saw someone?”
“We were at a marching band competition for the last couple of days. Got back last night.”
They thanked the woman and then tried the house to the right, where an older man named Harold Purdue greeted them in jeans and a tan work shirt. When they asked their question, he said, “Sure, I saw them. Came in night before last. Pretty much stayed inside the whole time until they left yesterday. I called the police because I thought maybe they were breaking in or something, and the cops checked with the Realtor.” He nodded out at the sign in front of the other house. “Apparently all was on the up and up.”
“Do you know what time they left?” Orlando asked.
“Well, I can’t say for sure. They arrived in an ambulance, you know, but it left right after they got there. Yesterday morning there was a van parked out front. Not sure when that showed up. Went out for my afternoon walk. When I came back, the van was gone.”
“And you’re sure they weren’t still in the house?” Quinn asked.
“We watch out for each other here. The Saunders, they own that house—they’re good people. So I figured it was my duty to go on over and say hello. You know, get a good look and make sure they’re not doing anything illegal like. I headed over after the walk but the place was empty and locked up.”
“Two more questions, if you don’t mind,” Orlando said.
“No problem.”
“What time did you take your walk yesterday?”
“Same time I take it every day. Start out at three fifteen and get back here just a hair after four o’clock.”
“And the van—could you give us a description?”
“I could, but I’m guessin’ a picture would suit you better.”
“You have a picture?” Orlando asked.
Purdue smiled. “That’s three questions. But yes, I do. When strangers show up, I like to make sure they’re not going to be a problem. I told you we take care of each other here.”
__________
PURDUE’S PICTURE WAS a bit blurry, but Orlando was able to clean it up enough to determine the vehicle was a white Ford E250 cargo van. She couldn’t improve the resolution enough to read the back license plate, but the vehicle had a few telltale markings they could hopefully use to ID it.
Satellite footage was out. From the research she’d done the night before, she knew two satellites had passed over the Moss Point area the previous afternoon. Unfortunately the timing of their crossings did not coincide with the 3:15-to-4:00 p.m. window Mr. Purdue’s walk had established.
That meant Orlando and Quinn would have to rely on traffic cameras. They concentrated their efforts on the I-10 since it was the only highway out of the area. Any other route and Eli Becker’s abductors would have risked getting stuck in stop-and-go traffic.
Orlando concentrated on the closest eastbound cam to the on-ramp the van would have taken to enter the freeway, while Quinn did the same for the westbound one, each focusing on archived footage from a two-hour window starting at 3:15 p.m.
Ten minutes into their search, Quinn said, “I think I have it.”
Orlando paused the footage on her screen and looked over at his. He pressed PLAY and the cars he’d been looking at started moving again.
After a moment, he said, “Here it comes.”
Right on cue, a white van drove into the frame from the bottom of the screen. He let it play until the vehicle disappeared, and then reversed the footage and paused on the best shot of the vehicle.
“There,” Quinn said, pointing at a dark line along the back fender. “And there.” A dent on the roof line.
Both points of damage matched those on the van in Purdue’s picture.
“Yeah, that’s it,” she said.
Leapfrogging west, camera to camera, they followed the van across the state line into Louisiana. There it transitioned to the I-12 and continued west past Baton Rouge.
“We should have seen it by now,” Quinn said a few minutes later.
Orlando increased the speed of the footage they were looking at, and watched long enough to account for any fuel or food breaks the people in the van might have taken. No sign of the vehicle. They did a quick check to see if it had circled back in the other direction but it made no reappearance, which meant it had left the highway.
She consulted the map. The area looked sparsely populated, no real towns, just farm country. Even better, it had only three potential exits.
A Realtor had been used for the house in Moss Point, so Orlando guessed one was also employed for this next location. A quick search brought up all the real estate companies working in a ten-mile circle—about two dozen.
She and Quinn split the list and began making inquires about houses that might be available for a short lease. The final tally was four.
It was time to head west.
LOUISIANA
MARGUERITE SAT AT the airport bar, drinking water and keeping a watchful eye on the departure a
rea for the flight to Washington, DC. The plane had arrived at the gate ten minutes earlier, and while its passengers were still making their way off, those waiting to board began to stir, several even getting in line.
Abraham, on the other hand, hadn’t moved an inch, his gaze still on the far wall. She figured he was thinking about his missing friend. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He looked almost lost.
Her phone vibrated on the bar.
She picked it up and said, “Yes?”
__________
ABRAHAM WASN’T THINKING about Eli. Earlier he had been, but those thoughts had led him to ones about the girl.
Tessa.
She would be eleven now, and likely didn’t even remember him. They’d been together for only a few days, and that was more than half her lifetime ago.
He, of course, could never forget her.
He found himself falling into the familiar game of guessing who she was and why she was so important. He could make up a million answers, but had no idea if any of them were even close to the truth.
I should have never left her.
He hadn’t heard the person take the seat next to him, so he jerked in surprise when she said, “You sure you want to go to DC this time of year? It’s kind of cold.”
His face hardened when he realized who it was.
“Well, look at us,” Marguerite said, “running into each other for a second time in two days.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Relax,” she said. “I’m just passing on a message.”
“What message?”
“Orlando says you’ll want to stay.”
“Why?”
“She said to tell you she thinks she found Eli.”
__________
THEY MET AT a Love’s Truck Stop just west of the Mississippi River. Having traveled farther, Quinn and Orlando were the last to arrive, finding Marguerite, Winger, and Abraham inside the restaurant.
The moment Abraham spotted them, he pushed out of his seat.
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