Consequence

by Rachel Higginson

  They led us inside of the now empty daycare facility. I remembered having a warm feeling of rightness when I’d toured the building, stupidly believing this was the best fit for my baby. And safest.

  Betrayal spread through me, a hot, sharp tingle that poisoned my blood. The logical side of my brain knew it wasn’t their fault. They hadn’t lived a life of crime and sin. They hadn’t summoned the ghosts of my past into my present. I’d done that. I was the responsible party.

  But the emotional part of me, the hurting mother that had lost her baby girl, needed to blame someone, needed to lash out and destroy whatever was connected to this deep, dark pain and fear.

  Another officer took over, speaking with a tone of authority and calm decisiveness. He was twice my age and had a gray handlebar mustache that looked like it was made for him. He started going over theories and the fire, how it seemed to be arson to drive people out of the building, and details about the footage, but I stopped listening to him.

  The police were a necessary evil at this point. I knew who had my daughter. At least I had a short list of suspects. And I wouldn’t be handing any of their names over to the small, rustic, Frisco police force. Best case scenario, they’d work hard for a few days, realize they had zero resources to find her and would give up. Worst case scenario, they’d pull in the FBI and everything I had worked so hard for would blow up in my face.

  Besides, I wouldn’t need their help to find her. Whoever took her wasn’t planning on keeping her indefinitely. She was only the mechanism to draw me out. Or Sayer. Or both of us.

  The black and white footage started playing. The quality was grainy, distorting the images and making faces almost unrecognizable. Maybe Miss Beth and Miss Harmony should take some of the exorbitant tuition I paid them every month and invest in a better security system.The angry, irrational rage monster snarled in my chest, and I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms to keep from snapping at everyone around me.

  There he was. He had a hat on so I couldn’t see his face, but his frame was masculine and the clothes he wore suggested male. The kids filed out of the building two by two, teachers spread between them intermittently. Nobody noticed him. He stood obscured from sight within an offset corner of the building, but if somebody had been looking around they would have seen him immediately. But all their eyes were on the children.

  Again, logically I knew this was the daycare worker’s job, this was how they were trained to react to the possible threat. Emotionally, the information added fuel to my fuming fire.

  Juliet walked at the back of the group, hand in hand with another boy who seemed half asleep still. My stomach clenched at the sight of her and a silent sob racked my chest.

  Juliet. Only an hour ago.

  I swayed unsteadily on my feet, the dizzy feeling intensifying at my helplessness of watching this video now. One hour later. One hour too late. A heavy arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me into the attached body. Registering it was Sayer and that every one of his muscles had gone rigid and stiff, I stayed next to him, giving and receiving comfort simultaneously.

  We watched in horror as the faceless man, took one step forward, grabbed Juliet’s hand when her teacher’s head was turned and yanked her toward his body. Within a second, he had his huge hand pressed over her face. It was so big that it covered her nose, her mouth and up to her eyes. They were around the building in the next second, nobody noticed she’d been taken, nobody turned and wondered where she’d wandered off to. The kids and teachers marched quickly off screen, the camera left to capture only the kidnapper’s escape.

  An officer changed the tape and with it the camera angle. I continued to watch the abduction in escalating horror. I swelled with pride as Juliet continued to struggle and fight, never once giving into the monster that was three times her size. She kicked out and when that didn’t work, she bucked, trying to shake him off her. Her little fists swung wildly until he used his other arm to restrain her against him. At some point she must have bitten him because he nearly dropped her.

  The footage ended when a windowless van pulled up on the side street. The man threw Juliet in the back of it and slammed the doors closed. My stomach flipped violently at the thought of my little girl in the back of that van, terrified, confused, panicked. The kidnapper calmly slid into the passenger side and the van drove away.

  I scanned quickly for a license plate, but there wasn’t one. “Rewind it,” I demanded. “I want to see it again.”

  “Ms. Baker—”

  I dropped my tone, brokering no room for argument. “Rewind it. I want to see it again.”

  They finally acquiesced. I watched the tape six more times before I came to the conclusion that there was nothing remarkable about the van, no dents or markers that would lead me to find the right one. Just like there was nothing remarkable about the man that had taken my daughter— other than he knew exactly what he was doing.

  And he didn’t hesitate.

  That was something you became familiar with in my line of work. Someone who had never done that before would have hesitated. There was doubt that accompanied your first couple jobs, the fear that you would get caught, the hesitation from lack of experience. First jobs were sloppy and full of problems.

  This guy wasn’t a newbie. He knew exactly what he was doing. And there wasn’t even a twitch of uncertainty. He was confident he wouldn’t get caught.

  Not until he wanted to be.

  Motherfucker.

  “Mrs. Baker, we’ve issued an AMBER Alert and have our best men tracking your daughter. We’re coordinating with the police departments in Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction,” Officer Mustache said to me, apparently trying to reassure me that watching the security footage one more time wasn’t going to help anything. His voice became stern, parental. “You’ll have to come back to the station with us. We need to file an official report and ask you more questions. It would also be helpful to have a current picture of your daughter.”

  Irritation buzzed through me. We were wasting precious time. But telling him that would only make it worse. I had to play the part. What would normal mothers do? They would go with the nice policemen and tell them every single thing they wanted to know. They would be compliant and helpful. They wouldn’t know that it would be faster and more effective to fly to DC and burn the whole goddamn city to the ground.

  I softened my expression and looked at the man with my best impression of doe eyes. “Do you mind if I talk to my friend first?”

  “Do you need a ride to the station?” he asked. “You could follow in your own car, but are you up to driving?”

  Wiping beneath my eyes I inclined my head toward Sayer. “Juliet’s father will drive us over. We’ll be right behind you.”

  He nodded and walked off. I let out a slow breath and leaned on my hands, resting on the front desk. I felt sick and helpless and more furious than I had ever felt in my life. I would murder whoever took her.

  Frankie and Gus were standing in a corner of the room with Sayer. He’d walked away after the third repeat of the surveillance video. I didn’t know if he’d seen everything he needed to see or if it was too much to stomach over and over and over. Seeing her on the screen but helpless to do anything to bring her back was the single most frustrating thing I had ever experienced.

  My jaw ached by the time I walked over to Frankie. I realized I’d been grinding my teeth for the last hour at least. Pressing a hand to my temple, I cursed the brewing headache pounding my skull.

  Frankie’s eyes flashed, distressed, offering an apology. “God, Caro, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I bit out. And I meant it. She was the only person I didn’t blame for losing Juliet. “I just… I need to get her back.” Emotion pushed up my throat and threatened to choke me. Turning to Sayer I dropped my voice. “Do you know who it is?”

  He shared a look with Gus, before meeting my gaze. “Atticus.”

  My heart kicked a
t my chest. Fucking Atticus. “You’re sure?” I had to ask, even though he’d sounded sure… he’d sounded one hundred percent confident.

  He nodded. “Positive.”

  I forced a breath out slowly. This wasn’t good news by any means, but at the very least, he was an enemy I was familiar with. We didn’t have to fight our way through the entire Italian mafia family or pick off Irish in back alleys hoping to find a helpful lead. It could have been even worse than that—our enemies were endless.

  Atticus was the devil we knew. Totally evil and more than a little deranged, but he would be easy enough to track down. Plus, we were guaranteed he most certainly had an agenda. He didn’t kidnap kids just to kidnap them. He wanted something from us, something he knew we would trade for the life of my daughter.

  That hopefully meant he wasn’t going to hurt her.

  If he even made her slightly uncomfortable he would never get what he wanted. Hell, he’d get the opposite. I would rain down vengeance until he was a weeping, broken man begging for mercy.

  “Take me to the station?” I asked Sayer. “They want an official statement and such.”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  I turned to Frankie, hoping she was already on board. “Be ready,” I ordered. “As soon I get home, we move.”

  Gus cleared his throat. “Caroline?” I hadn’t even acknowledged him yet. I had a feeling it was Atticus—a lingering intuition I didn’t want to voice until now. So facing Gus, Atticus’s brother, was too difficult, the wounds and soul-ripping too fresh.

  Forcing my gaze to meet his, I raised my eyebrows.

  “I’m sorry,” he croaked.

  My brain split again. Logically, I knew that Gus wasn’t Atticus. They had always been night and day. They had always been opposite ends of the spectrum. Gus was lighthearted and easygoing. He was kind. He was funny. He was sweet. Atticus was an unhinged psycho.

  But emotionally… I wanted to kill someone with my bare hands and right now it was him. Because he was related to my daughter’s kidnapper. Because he and Sayer thought it would be a smart idea to show up in my town and stir the pot. Because I wanted to blame everyone and everything and push some of these crazed emotions out of my frantic body.

  I couldn’t bring myself to answer him. Sayer stepped back, tugging me by the wrist to follow him. “It’s not your fault, Gus. Caroline will remember that before we see you guys again.”

  Gus nodded while I ripped my arm away from Sayer. He was going to order me around now? He thought he was in charge again? I saw straight red. A screen crashed down over my vision and painted the entire world in crimson.

  Turning around, I stomped off, determined to find a lingering policeman to ride to the station with. “I’ll find my own way,” I told Sayer.

  He grabbed my wrist again and locked his fingers around the bone. “Enough of this, Six. Breathe for a minute and think things through. I understand that you’re scared; you have every right to be. I understand that you’re pissed; you have every right to be that too. But if you don’t settle down and remember the people that are here to help you, you’re going to make this much more difficult than it needs to be. Don’t forget how fragile this relationship is right now.” He moved a finger between us, and nodded his head toward Gus. “Don’t forget how delicate this renewed trust is, how shaky. You need us. It would not behoove you to make us your enemy.”

  I yanked on my arm, but he held it firmly in his, tightening his grip until the pain cut through my misplaced anger. Following his advice, I took a steadying breath and let the oxygen reach my brain and cool the simmering fury.

  He stared at me and I felt the force of his unsaid emotions, the truth of his warning. I realized, with some surprise, that he wasn’t reminding me of my own feelings. It was Gus that didn’t trust me. It was my relationship with the two of them that was broken. He was threatening to remove his help if I didn’t settle down.

  I swallowed the bitter taste of helplessness and took another deep breath. I sounded like an enraged bull, but the exercise was helping.

  “I need to get my daughter back.” It wasn’t an apology, but it was something.

  “Our daughter back,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “And we will. We’ll get her back together, but you have to start being a team player or I will take you out of the game.”

  His arrogance was staggering at this point. “Sports analogies are beneath you.”

  He took a step forward and slid his hand over my shoulder, up the back of my neck so he could grab a fistful of hair at my nape. He tugged my head until I looked up at him, his grip biting with pain, and dropped his mouth to my ear. “You were just underneath me, not two hours ago. Now pull yourself together, Caroline, and get this over with so we can get to work. Yeah?”

  Despite the circumstances, despite my bitchy attitude and the weight of this consuming fear, I managed to nod. “Okay.”

  His grip tightened momentarily, but he dropped a sweet kiss to the corner of my mouth. He released me, and I tottered backward a step. He was already out the door and headed to his Jeep by the time I’d pulled my wits together. I could blame Sayer for Juliet’s disappearance all I wanted, but I was grateful he was here. If anyone could get my daughter back, our daughter back, it was him.

  And when we killed Atticus, he would make the asshole suffer.

  Chapter Three

  “Why weren’t you the one to pick up your daughter from daycare today, Ms. Baker?” Officer Ramiro asked. He had been at the daycare, or rather crime scene earlier, but we hadn’t met him until we got to the station where he’d led us to his office and began the arduous process of taking our statement.

  I glanced at Sayer, finding courage in the steely look he returned. This was where the lying would begin and I needed to know Sayer was going to cooperate. Up until a few hours ago, I’d believed he was my enemy, a ghost from my past come to haunt my new life.

  Now I didn’t know what to believe.

  The letters I found in his office flashed in my head. He followed me here. He knew about Juliet. He knew about everything. And he claimed he gave up the Russians to the FBI for me.

  I still struggled to trust him. We had a complicated history and he was a master con man. Up until four hours ago, I would have blamed the entire thing on Sayer.

  Only an hour ago, I had been positive he had nothing to do with any of it. Now that I knew more about why he was here, and the passion felt during our office tryst had faded, my accusations swung on a wide-arcing pendulum. One second I believed him. The next, I blamed him for everything. Meaning I needed to fact check. And fast.

  “Sayer and I are working out the details of his move,” I told Ramiro. “He moved here to be closer to Juliet and me. But Juliet doesn’t know about him yet. Sayer has been anxious to meet her. I’ve… wanted to find the right time to introduce them. I was nervous about traumatizing her.” I looked down at my twisting hands and allowed a single teardrop to fall. “But now… now she’ll be scarred no matter what.” I hiccupped a sob and pressed the back of my hand to my mouth. Lies, truth and half-truths, and just enough to explain why Sayer hadn’t met her yet.

  Sayer’s hand rubbed soothingly over my shoulder. “If she’s anything like you, Caroline, she’s tougher than this. You saw her fight. You saw her kick and punch her kidnapper. She’s going to be okay. She’s strong enough to handle this.”

  I clung to his words, even if he hadn’t meant them. I chose to believe them. She had fought. She had fought like hell. And she was strong. She was tough as nails.

  “I’m sorry, I’m trying to get a handle on your relationship,” Ramiro interrupted. “You’re not married? Are you a couple?”

  Sayer tore his gaze from mine to answer the officer’s question. “Yes.”

  My heart stopped beating. Completely. It was so shocked at his bold declaration that it gave up and quit.

  “You don’t look like you agree, Ms. Baker.”

  Shoot. I was a better liar than this. �
�Don’t I?” I cleared my throat. “It’s just so new. I’m not used to it yet.”

  “It’s new? You have a four-year-old daughter together.”

  I felt Sayer’s judgment roll off him. Pull yourself together, Caroline. “We’re high school sweethearts,” I confessed. “Sayer and I grew up together. I thought we were going to get married. Life… took us in different directions. I moved out here with Juliet and Sayer lived his life back east. I just… I thought we were over for good. When Sayer wanted to move out here with us to be in Juliet’s life, I guess I had trouble believing his move had anything to do with me. I’m still trying to adjust to this new normal.”

  “I didn’t only move here for my daughter,” Sayer confirmed with an affectionate glance at me. “She was the determining factor of course, but I wanted my family back. I wanted to fight for the people that mean the most to me.”

  “You’re okay that he’s here?” the officer prodded.

  I licked dry lips and lied without hesitation. “Of course I am. Sayer moving here has been the best thing for me. And as soon as Juliet comes home, it will be the best thing for her too. She’ll love him. She’ll love having him in her life.”

  My hands trembled as I struggled to keep my composure. God, I was out of practice. It was easy to recognize the officer’s careful questions for what they were though. He wanted to make sure I was safe, that Sayer was a welcome presence in our lives. He wanted to cross Sayer off the list of suspects.

  Sometimes policemen and health care professionals came right out and asked what they wanted to know. “Do you feel safe in your home? Do you have reason to be afraid? Is there someone at home hurting you?”

  Sometimes they danced around the issue trying to catch you in a trap. They wanted you to give up the other person without realizing what you were doing.

  Turning Sayer over to the authorities wasn’t an option. And not just because I cared about him enough not to send him back to jail. I needed him now. I needed him to find and retrieve Juliet.