by KJ Kalis
“It doesn’t look like their house,” Carla said, staring at the screen.
“No, it does not. Get me that address right now.”
23
Jess and Chase were checking the vials in the cooler one more time, going over the plan with Jamison when Jess’s phone rang, “Charlie?”
“I know where Abby is.” With that kind of information, it didn’t bother Jess that he didn’t say hello.
“What? How did you figure it out?”
“One of the new girls from the hacker program figured it out. Abby is wearing an RFID chip on her tennis shoe. Carla said the coach was using them for tracking their forty-yard dash times.”
As soon as the words came out of Charlie’s mouth, Jess realized what he was saying. They’d all been so proud of how fast Abby was. It never even occurred to Jess that if Abby was wearing the same shoes she ran in they could track the chip. “She was able to find her?”
“Yes. I’ve got the address. I’m gonna send it to your phone.”
“We were just about to leave to go to the meet. Shouldn’t we do that and follow their instructions?”
“I don’t know, Jess. That’s gonna have to be your call. I’m not on the ground with you, so I can’t say. All I know is we have a confirmed location on Abby right now. I can’t say that we’ll have anything better anytime soon. Once they have her on the move, there’s no guarantee what could happen.”
“Okay, thanks. Send that address.” Jess started to run the scenarios in her head as she hung up the phone.
“What was that about?” Chase asked.
“One of the hackers on Charlie’s team found Abby. We’ve got a location.” Jess’s phone chirped. It was a message from Charlie, the address attached with two simple words, “Good luck.”
* * *
Jamison stared at Jess, “Send it to me. Right now. I’m gonna roll SWAT to that location.”
“But we’re supposed to be going to the meet right now. What if they’ve already left?” Chase said.
Jess pulled up the mapping feature on her phone and then ran directions between the address Charlie just sent her and where they were supposed to meet Landon and his crew. She checked the time. It wasn’t far. It would only take Landon and his crew a few minutes to travel between the two locations. “Unless they want to get a head start on us, they’re probably still there.”
Without saying anything, Chase scooped up the ABG vials and ran into his lab, coming out a second later, darting down the hallway. Jess could hear the jingle of his car keys as he passed. She grabbed her cell phone and ran after him, “Chase! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to go get my daughter and wife back.”
Jess took off after him running for the stairwell, leaving Jamison still in the conference room. She flew through the door and jumped down the steps, trying to keep up with him. As she heard the door on the first floor pop open, she saw it click into place as she got to the landing on the first floor. She caught a glimpse of Chase, but he was still ahead of her. Running across the lobby, she saw him rush out the front doors, toward his car. The screech of tires caught her attention. Chase ran right in front of a car that was trying to pull into the parking lot, having to slam on its brakes to avoid hitting him. Chase barely broke stride, only giving a little wave and running for his car. By the time Jess caught up, he’d already started the car and was backing out of the spot. “Tell me where we're going,” he yelled, shifting the car into drive and slamming on the accelerator, the car lurching forward with a squeal of tires.
Jess pressed her hand against the dash, holding herself in her seat as she got her seatbelt on. Once it clicked, she pulled up the mapping program on her phone. “Get on the freeway. Go south. Down two exits and we’ll get off. It’s not far. This says it’s an eight-minute drive.”
Chase passed three cars going well above the speed limit down Mesa Boulevard. He merged onto the freeway so fast, Jess was worried he was going to lose control of his car and flip it. “Chase!” Jess shouted. “We’re not going to do Abby any good if we die in a car accident on the way there.”
Her comments didn’t deter Chase’s wild driving at all. Jess breathed a prayer under her breath, hoping they would get to Abby’s location safely and without getting killed or pulled over by a state trooper. As she watched the desert fly by, Jess realized they’d left Jamison behind without even talking to him about what to do. After wiping her palms on her jeans, Jess sent him the coordinates for the building they were going to. She just hoped that SWAT would beat them there and that Landon and his team hadn’t left with Abby yet. If they were in transit to the location where they were supposed to meet up and Jess and Chase didn’t show up with the ABG, Jess didn’t know what would happen. Jess swallowed, trying to push the bile from the back of her throat back down into her stomach. Whether it was from nervousness about getting Abby back or motion sickness from the way Chase was driving, she wasn’t sure.
Chase got off two exits south of Mesa Boulevard, taking the ramp onto Parkland Avenue. “Turn right,” Jess said.
The tires on Chase’s car screeched as they went around the corner. Jess grabbed a hold of the handle that was near the top of the passenger side window, trying to keep herself straight in her seat. She sucked in a breath, feeling her stomach lurch again. Glancing down, Jess saw they needed to make another turn, “Chase, you have to slow down. We have to make some turns here. If you’re going too fast, we’re going to miss them.” Jess glanced down again, trying to see where they were on the map. The next turn was a left. “We’re looking for 33rd Avenue.” Jess looked up ahead of her. There wasn’t a lot going on in this area of Tucson. It looked to be mostly industrial, a cluster of older buildings that had signs in front that read things like, “Tucson Tool & Die,” “Baker Restaurant Equipment, and “Southwestern Fertilizing Service.” She squinted and stared at the buildings, not recognizing anything. Jess pointed to 33rd Avenue as it came up, and Chase turned the car to the left. “Chase, what’s the plan when we get there? They’re expecting us to meet them at Hacienda Park, not at the building.”
The muscles rippled across Chase’s jaw, “I’m going to go in there, get my daughter and my wife and give them the ABG. Then, I’m getting back in the car and taking my family home.”
“We don’t have any backup.”
Chase glanced at her, his eyes searing her with a whole new level of anger, “We don’t need backup, Jess. We have what they want. They have what I want. It’s that simple. They’ll give me the girls back. I’ll give them the ABG. We will walk away and go on with our life.” He glared at her, “Either you’ll help, or you’ll stay in the car. Your choice.”
It wasn't that simple. The odds that Chase would march into the building and get what he wanted wasn’t something Jess would bet on, but there was nothing else she could say. She’d seen Chase in this mood before. Single-minded and stubborn to the point of stupidity. As she held her phone, she realized her hands were shaking a little bit. She just hoped that Chase’s belief that Landon and his team would do the right thing was correct. She wasn’t sure it was.
24
Jess and Chase had run out of the building so fast that Jamison hadn’t had an opportunity to talk to them about the trade for Abby. All he had was the address Jess had forwarded to him. By the time he ran out of the lab building and got to his car, Jess and Chase were nowhere to be seen. He quickly sent a text to her, hoping she would take a second to read it, “Jess, don’t go into that building by yourselves. These people are dangerous. I’ve got SWAT on the move as we speak.” It wasn’t exactly true, but he was about to make that call.
“You got something?” Ferguson said as he answered the phone.
“I’m sitting in the Trident Lab’s parking lot. I’ve got a location on Abby Montgomery.”
“How?” Ferguson asked as Jamison put his car into gear.
“Something about a hacker that Jess’s boss knows. You don’t want to know.”
Fe
rguson chuckled, “Sounds like I actually don’t. What’s the play?”
“I need you to roll SWAT to that address. I just texted it to you. Chase and Jess took off out here like he’d been lit on fire. They aren’t waiting for the drop.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Ferguson bellowed.
“I know.”
“What do these people think they’re going to do when they get there?”
Jamison put his phone on speaker and set it on the seat next to him, heading down Mesa Boulevard. He hit the button for his flashing lights, clearing the traffic in front of him, “I have no idea. Chase is a real scientific guy. Not a ton of street sense, if you ask me. He probably thinks he’s just going to charge in there, hand them the stuff they want and get his daughter and his wife back. I’m not sure that’s the case.” Jamison glanced down at his phone hoping that Jess would reply to him.
“I’m gonna get SWAT moving right now. Let’s hope they can get there before the entire Montgomery family gets killed. Try to keep them under control, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.” Jamison said, pressing his lips together. He could only help as far as Jess and Chase would let him. If they were already in that building when he got there, there was no telling what might happen. Jamison ran through the scenarios in his head. The biggest problem was that Landon was not expecting Jess and Chase to show up at the building where they were holding Abby. Landon was expecting to see them at the park. If Jess and Chase were law enforcement that might be a strategic advantage. But they weren’t. They were completely unprepared, and as far as Jamison knew, had no background in dealing with these kinds of situations. They were running on pure adrenaline and the need for justice.
Jamison’s mind raced as he turned onto the freeway, following the squawk of the GPS on his phone. Jess was a little better, he reasoned, since she worked in intelligence analysis, but that didn’t mean she had any real-world experience, anything that might help her in dealing with armed mercenaries. Jamison shook his head a bit, gripping the steering wheel tighter. For that matter, their own SWAT team might be outgunned and outmaneuvered. This whole scenario was likely to blow up like a box of Fourth of July firecrackers if they weren’t careful. Jamison pounded his fist on the steering wheel. Why had he not stopped them when they ran out of the building? Anger flooded through him. It was his responsibility to protect people. Now people he was trying to take care of got away from him. In his gut, he knew he wasn’t responsible for the choices Chase and Jess were making, but that wasn’t how he felt. He had sworn to serve and protect the people around him. And that’s what he was trying to do. But if they ran off ahead of him without letting him help, his hands were tied.
“Let’s just hope SWAT gets there in time…” Jamison whispered.
25
Abby shifted on the little metal bench bolted to the floor inside the cage. She’d been sitting there for what felt like hours, the hard metal sending cramps down the back of her legs and into her back. She wasn’t used to sitting for so long and especially not on something so hard. Most of her sandwich was sitting on a dirty paper towel on the floor. A couple of flies were dancing on the surface. Abby blinked back a couple of tears. She didn’t know what’d happened to her mom. They’d taken her outside and she didn’t come back. Abby heard the shot. Thinking about it, she swallowed, hoping they just moved her mom someplace else. Maybe they just did that to scare her. Abby had seen that in a movie one time. It had been a story about a kidnapping, just like what was happening to her. The kidnappers wanted to scare the person they’d taken so they took someone else, pretended to kill them, and hid them away in the bathroom. Maybe that’s where my mom is, Abby thought, trying to console herself. Maybe she’s in the bathroom. Maybe she’s figured out some way to get a hold of my dad or the police so they can get us out of here.
The whole day had been a blur. The only clear memory she had was having breakfast with Aunt Jess that morning. From the minute they walked into the bank, nothing made sense anymore. Only fragments of memories were coming back — the loud noise of gunshots, the scratchy feel of the hood over her head, the smell of dirt as the men made her crawl through a tunnel and the greasy smell of the van they put her in. Abby stared down at the flies that had gathered on the sandwiches again. They seem to buzz around and land every few seconds, trying out different parts of the bread and meat that was left. Abby nudged the sandwich farther away from her with the tip of her shoe, a wave of nausea gathering in her stomach. There was no way she could eat, especially now that she had no idea what happened to her mom. Abby looked down and realized that her right hand was shaking. She stared at it, willing it to stop, but it didn’t. A lump of fear formed in her throat. All she wanted to do was go home, crawl into bed and hug their dog, Roxie.
Abby glanced up. She hadn’t really made eye contact with any of the men since they got her to the warehouse. She’d only been out of the cage one time and that was just to use the bathroom. The tall guy, the man in charge called him Reinhardt, had gripped her arm tightly as he walked her to the back of the warehouse opening the door and looking inside before giving her a little shove and closing the door behind her. “Hurry up,” he’d said. Other than that, all Abby had done for hours was sit and stare at the floor. She was afraid to look too closely at any of the men, afraid of what they might ask her to do. She tried to make herself small, but it was hard. She felt like one of the animals at the local zoo in a cage. Abby shifted on the bench a little, trying to put her weight on her other side of her body hoping the cramps in her back would stop. She glanced down at her hand again. It was still shaking.
From over her right shoulder, she heard voices talking. They were low, almost too soft for her to hear what they were saying. Two men stood at the bank of monitors. They’d been there all day long. The only time either of them left was when one of the men had come to the cage to get her mom. One time, her mom had come back, blood on her neck, her face pale and sad. The other time, she didn’t. Abby felt a fresh set of tears form in her eyes. She sniffed, not wanting them to come out.
The men working at the monitors caught her attention. She glanced to the right, keeping her eyes on the floor, but tilting her right ear, hoping to hear a little more of the conversation. All she could hear were snippets of words -- “Time is running out,” “They need to get us what we want,” and “I hope Chase is smarter than that.” Abby’s heart started to beat faster in her chest. Maybe the men were getting worried. Maybe her dad would find her after all. He was the smartest person she knew. He always had an answer for problems. She just hoped he could find her in time. That someone would. Doubt flooding over her, she fought the urge to scream and rattle the cage door, telling the men to let her out, but Abby sat frozen on the metal bench, willing her hand to stop shaking.
26
Jess and Chase were two minutes out from the building where they believed Abby was being held when Jess finally got Chase to get the car under control, “If you don’t slow down, we’re gonna pass the building. They might see us,” she pleaded with Chase, who finally let up on the accelerator. Jess sighed, feeling part of her stomach return to where it was supposed to be, the wave of nausea lifting a little.
“Which building is it?” Chase said, leaning over the steering wheel.
Jess stared at the GPS on her phone and then looked for the numbers on the building. There weren’t many buildings in the area and most of them looked to be closed. A couple of them had large for-sale signs on them, commercial real estate that had been the victim of a downturn in one way or another. The buildings in the area were brick and cinder block, not at all consistent with the type of architecture that the rest of Tucson had, Jess thought. The structures looked more like they came from the Midwest in an area where manufacturing was a priority, not in the middle of the desert. “There!” Jess said, pointing straight ahead of them. “I think that’s it,” she said, looking down at the GPS. She watched the distance count down and the arrows pointing to the buildin
g on the screen.
In front of them was a two-story brick building that looked much like it had been built in the 1950s. It was nothing more than a square box with a few windows scattered here and there. A small steel awning covered the front door. There was a large for-sale sign posted in the front of the building, mounted onto two staunch wooden posts. A matching sign had been hung near the roof, with the name and a phone number in case someone was interested in purchasing it. “Looks like it’s abandoned,” Chase said, stopping just down the street from the building.
“I’m sure it is,” Jess said. “You wouldn’t want to try to hold a hostage in an occupied building, would you?”
“I guess not.”
Jess stared at Chase for a moment. He seemed extraordinarily calm given what they were about to do.
On the side of the building, Jess saw a door and what looked to be a garage bay, something that was big enough to move trucks in and out of, something the size the kidnappers could have moved Abby in. Next door was another building that looked like it had been constructed at the same time, the same color brick and design. There was no for-sale sign on that building, just a small sign on the front lawn that said PaintWorks. “I’ve never been in this part of Tucson before, have you?” Jess whispered.
