by Violet Duke
“Last night, I thought I’d really lost her this time, Addie.” Anguish vibrated through his voice. “She told me she doesn’t want to feel anything anymore. She went right past the high, and went straight to blacking out. On purpose. I don’t even know what she took.”
“Sonny, it sounds like you need to give her sponsor another call, and get her to a hospital or rehab clinic right away.”
“None of that is going to cut it this time. Please, Addie just talk to her. You’ll see. It’s different. Something’s really different and all I know is that for once, even I can’t help her. Please, Addie. I’m afraid I’m going to lose her for good this time.”
The man sounded downright desperate. She remembered the feeling. How alone it felt, how helpless. “What makes you so sure she’ll even talk to me—”
He sucked in a hopeful breath. “Are you saying you’ll meet with her?”
In the entire time she’d known Sonny, she’d never once heard him like this. “Of course I will. Just tell me where she’ll be detoxing and I’ll stop by.”
“No, no. I’ll help her get cleaned up and we’ll come to you—”
“Oh. You want to meet today?”
Marco gaped at her, looking all but ready to yank the phone out of her hands.
“Sonny, hang on for a second.”
She muted the phone and tried to calm Marco down before his head exploded. “I know you think I’m crazy, but she’s my mom. I’ve been taking care of her for even longer than I looked after Tanner and Kylie. Sonny may be a con man always looking for an easy score, and a grade-A ass to boot, but he’s stuck by her through even her worst times. And if he’s this worried that she’s not going to be able to come back from this, frankly, I am too.”
“Addison—”
“No, hear me out. If there’s a chance that I can help her get back into rehab, I want to try. I’m not absolving her or even forgiving her. This isn’t about second chances. I believe in helping people who I’m in a position to help.”
“But she doesn’t deserve your help. She deserves to go to jail for abandoning her kids, and for being a shitty excuse for a parent your entire lives before that.”
“I’m not arguing any of that, but holding her accountable for being a neglectful parent, and looking the other way when she’s at the mercy of an addiction she can’t control are two completely different things. If you saw a defenseless criminal dying at the hands of an even more dangerous and ruthless criminal he had no chance of protecting himself against, would you just turn a blind eye and walk away?”
“Dammit,” he cursed. “Caine was right, you are like Jiminy Frickin’ Cricket.”
She chose to take that as more compliment than complaint. “Marco, I’m just going to try and talk to her, that’s all. Get her to listen to her sponsor, hopefully even check into a full treatment center this time. Over the last few years, I’ve made a lot of good contacts who I know can help her. If I’d found these folks a decade ago, I truly think things would be better for her now.”
He paced back and forth for at least a full minute before finally coming to a decision. “Put the phone on speaker.”
She did.
He got straight to the point. “Look asshole, I’m not Caine, but I’m under direct orders from him to watch the love of his life and make sure she doesn’t so much as get a papercut. So if this is some ploy to get money or guilt her into—”
“It’s not,” came the rushed reply. “I just want her to talk to her mom, that’s all, I swear. I’ll keep a hundred yards away from them the entire time if you want.” Even Addison could hear how genuinely on edge Sonny sounded.
She glanced at Marco, who reluctantly nodded.
“I’ll let the guard at the front know you’ll be coming today. We’ve got a lot going on right now. Do you know when you’ll be by?”
“She’s awake, but I’m going to need another hour or so to help her sober up more—I know she won’t want you to see her like this. I’ll call if it takes me longer than that.” A gusty sigh of relief hit the phone waves. “Thank you, Addie. This means more than you’ll ever know.”
After she hung up the phone, Marco gave her a stressed-out, albeit loving glare…whilst checking the firearm in its shoulder holster. “I’m warning you now, if this guy so much as raises his voice at you, I’m going to shoot first, ask him to quiet down second, are we clear?”
She gave the violently sweet man a hug. “Caine is rubbing off on you.”
“No trying to flatter me. If your mom upsets you and Caine finds out...”
“She won’t.” Honestly, after everything that happened yesterday—both tragically bad and amazingly good—Addison would be shocked if anything her mom had to say fazed her at all.
An hour later, almost on the dot, Sonny arrived at the main office. Without Lara.
“Where’s my mother?”
“I can’t get her out of the car. She was fine when we left the motel. Nervous, but in a good way. But in the car ride over, she started zoning out. Now she’s just sitting in there staring out the window, not saying a word.”
Marco abruptly stepped in between them, proving exactly why he’s earned himself the reputation as one of Spencer Securities’ most imposing personal bodyguards. “Then it’s pointless for Addison to try and talk to her. We’ll reschedule this after she detoxes.”
Sonny looked beside himself. “She really wanted to talk to you, Addie. But when we got here, it was sort of like someone let all the air out of her. Remember how she was that time we got kicked out of our second place? The one that had the pool she liked?”
How could she forget? She and Sonny had taken turns taking care of her for nearly a week. While Sonny hadn’t been able to get Lara to eat, she did eat some oatmeal when Addison had tried feeding her.
Addison gently eased her elbow out of Marco’s grip. “I’ll go to her. Where’d you park?”
“Right out back.”
They followed him out to his car—Marco under protest—and found Lara in the front, glassy-eyed and staring unfocused out the window.
Even Marco looked struck by sympathy at that point.
It was painful to see anyone like this. Strung out, lost eyes, seemingly unresponsive to life as a whole. She climbed into the driver’s seat quietly so as not to startle her.
“Hi mom. It’s me, Addison. Can you hear me?” she asked softly.
She watched as her mother’s cloudy eyes slowly widened, and filled with tears.
Her own eyes filling with tears, Addison grabbed a fast food napkin from the cupholder and wiped the drool from her mom’s face, murmuring in a soothing tone, as she had for more years than she wanted to remember.
A broken gurgle was the best Lara could manage in reply as her body began to twitch.
“You’ll be okay mom,” she said firmly, using her best pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps up tone. “I know everything seems really hard and really bad right now, and the drugs are making you feel like you can’t get through this, but you can. You will. This is the worst of it. It’ll get better from here.”
“Now why would you go and lie to her like that?”
The oily, twistedly excited voice coming from just behind her headrest froze the blood in her veins, terrifying her every bit as much as the barrel of a gun now butting against her temple.
But even with absolute fear holding her hostage, she couldn’t help but scream at the windshield and try to warn Marco when she saw Sonny come up from behind him on the sidewalk and stick a heavy syringe into his neck.
Marco went limp instantly.
At a good fifty pounds of muscle lighter, Sonny struggled but somehow managed to drag him backward to the bushes near the dumpster. And all the while, Addison just watched helplessly. He’d sworn to Caine earlier that he’d protect her with his life; she prayed for that not to be the case.
Normally, there’d be at least a few workers around here at this time of day, but today, every available body was over on the othe
r side of the property at the fire clean-up. No one would find him for a while.
They planned this well.
Knowing her chance of survival was quickly reaching zero, Addison did the only thing she could think to do.
She slipped her phone out of her pocket and into her mother’s.
No response.
“Sonny drugged my mom didn’t he?” She wasn’t even sure why she was asking, but she wanted to know. “She never started using again did she?”
“It’s the same injection you should’ve gotten seven years ago, but just a little more sophisticated.”
“Is she going to remember that Sonny did this to her?”
“Nope. Isn’t ketamine a beautiful thing?” Sick, sick glee echoed throughout the car. “You’ll see soon enough.”
Bile erupted in her throat just as the driver’s side door opened.
What timing.
She spat in Sonny’s face. “My mother was always too good for you.” It was the truth.
Dark, ugly rage overtook his expression, but one nervous glance over at the backseat was all it took to temper his wrath.
Contempt burning in his eyes, Sonny wiped his face off with his sleeve, before giving her a sneering shrug. “With everything he’s no doubt going to do to you, I actually feel a little sorry for you.”
Yanking her out of the car, he was all business again as he patted her down and promptly reported, “No phone.”
“Dump her watch, and that Fitbit on her ankle. If it’s electronic, those Spencer boys probably lo-jacked it.”
Sonny jerking her around like a ragdoll to follow orders, tossing her watch and Fitbit—both of which were in fact lo-jacked—while telling her callously, “You know this is all your fault right, Addie?”
God, she hated that nickname.
“If you hadn’t raised those stupid siblings of yours to be so hippy dippy, I would’ve had my payday already. Wouldn’t have had to resort to all this.” He grabbed her by the scalp and pivoted her face toward her mother’s unfocused one. “That’s your fault too.” He gave Lara a pitying look that morphed into disgust. “You ruined her for me with all your damn do-gooding.”
His anger was short lived, however, when the rear door was thrust open. As he dragged her over to the back by her hair and shoved her into the car, he looked almost sympathetic…
Almost.
“It was nice knowing you, Addie.”
Then the world went dark.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Outside of the courtroom, Caine checked in once more on a few witnesses he’d interviewed during the investigation, and then signaled to the DA that he was heading out. He’d finished his testimony a few hours ago, but decided to stick around to make sure there weren’t any surprises in the case. So far, his gut was telling him this trial was going to go their way.
Just like it was telling him to get over to Addison’s right now.
He’d texted both Addison and Marco after he’d testified to see how the clean-up was going, but had yet to get a response from either of them. And a few minutes ago, just before the judge had called an afternoon recess, he’d felt his phone buzz once in his pocket, only to find his screen blank when he went to answer.
Neither occurrence was too far out of the ordinary, but something in the back of his mind was making him uneasy.
Then it happened.
On his way out of the lowest level of the parking lot, he felt his phone buzz again.
And he nearly crashed into the wall on a turn.
Son of a bitch. Caine had testified in this courthouse enough times to know there was no cell reception in the underground garage. Which meant one thing—
“Addison? Where are you?”
For the last seven years, he’d prepared himself to get this call on his sat-phone. But not once in all that time did he expect to answer and hear nothing but fading, labored breathing on the other end.
His heart stopped, and his entire world came crashing down around him.
“Addison, stay with me. I’m coming, baby, I promise.”
Grabbing his other phone, he speed-dialed Drew’s number.
“Hello?”
“Get me the GPS location of Addison’s cell phone.”
Per usual, Drew didn’t bother with unnecessary questions. “Got it. Loading the coordinates to your SUV now. It’s a motel ten minutes from Addison’s housing complex.”
“Call in some back-up and then trace Marco’s phone.” If they were together, her chances of safety were infinitely better.
Drew’s reply came back a minute later. “Marco’s phone is still back at CoRe. Several uniforms from your precinct are on their way to both locations. Gabe’s close. He’ll be at the complex soon.” He paused, then relayed grimly, “According to the vitals tracker on Marco’s watch, he’s alive, but the numbers are low for a guy his size. Been that way for a few hours.”
Caine slammed his palm against the steering wheel, but otherwise, forced himself to keep his shit together.
“Addison, sweetheart, can you still hear me?”
A faint groan was the best she could manage.
“Did David hurt you? Is he there with you right now? Push a button on your phone if you can.” Fear slid through his gut, ran ice cold through his veins when her groans soon tapered off into silence.
Caine had never driven so fast in his entire life. “Drew, I’m almost at the address. Have an ambulance meet me there.” When the motel was in sight, he nearly lost it. “Dammit, Drew. This place is big. There’s four different buildings. Can you narrow it down for me?”
“Give me one sec. I can triangulate to ping her exact location over a satellite map using Gabe’s phone as a third, but I need him to get within range.”
Meanwhile, Caine just kept listening to Addison’s frail breathing on the sat-phone like a lifeline.
“Got a lock on her.” The sound of typing through the speaker went up to hyper speed. “Building with the water fountain out front, third unit from the right facing the back of the property. Can’t tell which floor though.”
Good enough. Gun drawn, Caine broke down the door of the unit on the ground floor first and came to a screaming halt when he saw the small, crumpled body next to the bed.
“Lara.”
After checking the room to confirm she was alone, he ran over to Lara’s side to check her pulse. Her eyelids opened a fraction, revealing pupils nearly entirely dilated. “Lara, look at me.”
She couldn’t. Eventually her lids slid closed again, and her breathing started to slow. Other than Addison’s phone clutched tightly in her hand, the rest of her body was limp, nearly lifeless. Whatever she’d been drugged with was clearly shutting her system down.
Glancing at the phone screen, he saw Lara had managed to punch in the first speed dial number, most likely by accident. Thank God Addison had programmed his number in. As far gone as Lara was, he wasn’t sure she’d even have been able to dial 9-1-1.
“Drew, it wasn’t Addison that called me. It was her mother. She’s been drugged. And her husband Sonny’s nowhere in sight.”
“I’m on it. According to Addison’s cell log, she got a call from a burner phone a few hours ago so I’ll run that one down, too. Give me a few minutes to get more intel.” More lightning fast clicking and clacking echoed before he reported back, “Just got an update from Gabe. He just found Marco drugged and dumped in some bushes behind Addison’s office. Alive, but unresponsive.”
Lara wasn’t much better off. “ETA on the ambulance here?”
“A few minutes out.”
As Drew continued to work on his end, Caine dragged the comforter off the motel bed to keep Lara’s shaking body warm. “Stay with me, Lara. Remember who I am? I’m the guy that’s in love with your daughter.” Caine had no idea if the woman could even hear him in her state, but he kept talking anyway. “You did good calling me, Lara. As soon as the ambulance comes for you, I’m going to find Addison and bring her home. So you have to stay a
live. If not, you won’t be able to see the big day when I finally get a ring on your daughter’s finger. You hear me? I want to see you at the wedding in the front row next to my mom, so just…keep fighting off those drugs and just stay with me.”
A stream of tears leaked out of Lara’s closed lids.
He rocked her and kept talking to her until the paramedics arrived to take over.
Caine had no idea what Drew had called in to dispatch, but when he stepped outside, he saw a dozen of his precinct’s best officers already coordinating a man hunt.
Grayson came over and tossed him a set of keys. “Captain’s orders.”
Though it was breaking ten different kinds of police protocol, Caine didn’t argue. He took the keys to the police cruiser gratefully.
“Drew already sent us the info on the vehicle Sonny was driving,” continued Grayson. “An APB went out. Units all over the city are looking for him. We’ve got everyone on this, buddy.”
Caine followed him over to the group of officers that had gathered to get instructions. Half weren’t even in uniform.
He couldn’t find the words.
Grayson was his saving grace. “Thank us all later. You do what you need to do; we’ll assist in any way we can. Go save your girl.”
That last dictate propelled him to action. Caine gave them all one final, emotional nod of thanks and then headed to the full tactical squad car Grayson had brought him, switching to his Bluetooth earpiece. “Drew, any updates?”
“The burner cell was ditched nearby so that was a dead end, but I was able to hack the traffic cams around the housing complex to track a car matching the one Sonny left in. Followed him to an abandoned lot twenty minutes east. He didn’t stay for long, and I couldn’t get a clear visual from the security cams there, but I did see a second sedan leave seconds after he did in the opposite direction. I couldn’t see the driver or confirm if Addison was in the car though.”
