by M. S. Parker
I spun my chair to face the captain. “I want to know what we have to do to find Haley.”
She simply drew another piece of paper from the file she’d brought in. “Is he familiar at all?”
All the oxygen rushed from my lungs and my heart sank as I found myself staring at a skinnier, older, harder version of the man I killed.
“That’s...” I had to clear my throat twice to finish. “That’s Derrell’s father. Derrell Mitchell, Sr.”
She simply nodded and then leaned over, tapped the time stamp. “The photo was taken two days ago at a gas station about three hours south of here. A lot closer to your neck of the woods. The make and model of the van fits with what was seen near the missing child’s home.” She gestured to the front end of the van. “It looks like he was working his way north.”
21
Eric Haskell should have been her dad, her birth dad. He was Haley’s real dad and I knew that. In all the ways that counted, he was her real dad.
He’d been there for her first word, her first step, losing her first tooth. He’d put band-aids on her scrapes and wiped away her tears. He would be the one to teach her how to drive, and shoot hoops, and glare at her prom date and all of that.
I wanted to promise him we’d find her so he could do all of those things, things it seemed to me that a good dad would do. But what did I know about good dads?
Even as I tried to find the words to tell him that, the fair-haired man came across the room to me, his hand held out.
“We’re going to find her,” he said softly.
I looked down at his hand, confused by it. He continued to wait. Slowly, I reached out and folded my hand around his. He squeezed lightly and shook. A good grip. He had a good grip, the kind of hand that told me he wasn’t afraid of work, either.
If I could’ve hand-picked a man to be my daughter’s father, I was pretty sure I would’ve picked him.
“We’ll find her,” he said again.
“Shouldn’t I be telling you that?” I said, my voice hoarse.
“We can tell each other.” He smiled then.
His hair was a few shades paler than mine, and instead of green eyes, his were blue. His features were broad and square and his nose looked like it had been broken once. Mine had too, but it had healed fairly straight. Still, we looked enough alike that somebody could mistake us for family. Haley would never have to worry about people commenting that she didn’t look like her parents.
My phone buzzed again and I tugged it out, checking the message from Carly.
I have to talk to you. Urgent.
Glancing behind me, I counted all the cops, eyed Ryan talking with Captain Grace Bauer.
“People!”
Witter and another cop – Lieutenant Rossini – were clearing the way toward the front, two techs behind them. They were adding to the wire taps on the phone and when we left, Witter and Rossini would stay here.
I’d been told Tuite would be coming with me to my hotel.
Fuck that. I wasn’t going to a damn hotel.
Hunching my shoulders, I hurriedly tapped in a response.
Don’t have much time. Cops here. Some sort of meeting. I’m supposed to go to a hotel with one of them in case I get contacted. They’re pretty sure they know who it is.
There was only the briefest pause before Carly’s reply came up.
That cache be right. Inn follows.
I scowled at the gibberish, but before I could ask what the hell she was talking about, the next message came up.
FUCKING AUTOCORRECT. That can’t be right. You need to call me. I’m following Ridley. He knows something about this, Bobby!
“WHAT!”
At the sound of my bellow, the entire room went quiet, but they could’ve been invisible for all I cared. I half-knocked one of the techs over in my rush to get to Ryan. One of the cops had a hand on his gun. I did notice that, the same way I saw Tuite stilling him with a hand on his arm. I grabbed Ryan by the lapels of his suit, shaking him.
“Call the house! Carly...” My head was spinning. “Carly...she said...”
What the fuck was I doing, talking to him? I dropped him and called the house.
“You’ve reached–”
I cut Laureen off before she could finish. “Get Carly! I have to talk to her.”
My stomach twisted even as I spoke.
“Bobby?” Laureen’s voice had a bad, quavering vibe. “Is that you?”
“Get her, Laureen.”
Voices were starting to rumble around me.
“She’s not feeling well, sir. She had...she had one of her migraines and I...um, well, I had her lie down. Nobody is to disturb her–”
I lowered the phone, staring at Ryan. “She left the house, Ry.”
If ever I’d wished to be able to split myself in two, it was now. Part of me needed to be able to focus on what was going on here and now with Haley Haskell, the blonde-haired child who had my mouth and my nose, and apparently hated lima beans with the same passion I did. Her real father was full of stories that made my chest ache.
“Okay, now if anybody calls...”
I listened with half an ear to everything the techs were saying. More than ever, I appreciated the fact that I had been born with a halfway decent brain. It also made me wish I’d appreciated it sooner, that I’d done something better with my life, something that would have kept me from ending up in a place that endangered my daughter.
My phone buzzed and I grabbed for it. Carly had hung up on me after I told her to haul her ass back to the house.
Haley wasn’t the only one who was in danger thanks to me. I couldn’t imagine my life without Carly, but if I’d just gone a different way that day, she wouldn’t be out there on the road, in harm’s way because of me.
I swiped my thumb across the screen, the image of Carly’s face already burned across the surface of my memory.
“Go back home,” I said, my voice ragged.
“If you’d done that from the beginning, pretty boy, none of this would have happened.”
Ice spilled through my veins at the sound of Ridley’s voice.
Ridley.
Motherfucker.
Slowly, I stood up.
“Where’s Carly?”
“What the fuck is she doing away from the house, Bobby? Why’d you guys let her leave?” he demanded.
It scared me shitless, that question. Because he wasn’t angry. His voice was shaking.
“Where is Carly?”
“She’s...” His voice trailed off. Then, after a couple seconds, he cleared his throat. “She’s in the back of my SUV. She’s fine. But...I had...I had to knock her out, Cantrell. Why’d you guys let her leave?”
“We didn’t let her do shit,” I growled, turning my head to see Ryan moving closer. Automatically, I angled the phone so he could listen in. They were supposed to be tapping my phone now, but I wasn’t about to take any chances that they hadn’t started recording yet.
“She left. And for the fucking record, Ridley, it’s your fault. Something you did made her think you needed to be followed,” I said. Even as the words left my mouth I realized it was the wrong thing to say.
I knew Ridley had a thing for Carly, that his reason for hating me was because she’d chosen me and not him. He would never think anyone was worthy of her. Up until this moment, however, I’d thought he’d be more the type to throw me in front of a bullet instead of kidnapping Carly. Now I saw his attraction was really obsession, and that meant Carly had gone from being protected by him to needing protection from him.
Ryan closed his eyes and shook his head.
On the other end of the line, Ridley shouted, “It’s your fault, you lousy fucking con! If you hadn’t gone sniffing after her like she was some bitch in heat...she’s always falling for pathetic, miserable pieces of shit like you!” His voice hitched and he swore. “But that doesn’t matter now. This got out of hand. Listen to me. You fucked up and now you have to fix it.”
&n
bsp; If I could have reached through the phone and strangled him, I would’ve done it without a second thought. Since that wasn’t an option, I closed my hand into a fist, squeezed it until my knuckles popped. “And how do I do that, Ridley?”
“Go to your house.” That word was filled with bitterness. “You took off to Monterey, and you saw the news report. I guess Ryan finally decided to fill you in. I asked Carly, but she was too busy yelling at me...you...” He hesitated and then in what sounded like sheer bravado, he demanded, “You know about your kid, right? That girl Carly was so pissed off about? It’s your own precious little girl, Cantrell. Seems like somebody decided to make you pay for killing that guy and he grabbed your little girl. You want to make it right? Here’s your chance.”
“I already know about Derrell Mitchell, Ridley. He was caught on a gas station security camera.”
Three hours south...
With a grim realization, it hit me that the gas station was probably one of the ones on the highway leading up to the turn-off to the house Jake had left me.
Somebody held up a piece of paper in front of me.
Keep him talking.
I lifted my gaze up and met Tuite’s eyes. His gaze was hard as stone. He didn’t like me, but he wanted to get Haley back, so he’d work with me. I nodded my understanding.
“A couple hours away from Monterey, Ridley. You know what’s a couple hours away from here, man? The house. That’s where I’m supposed to be going now. Why don’t you tell me where the hell you are, where you’re taking Carly?”
“She’s...” He stopped and cleared his throat again. “Look, man. He doesn’t want them. I know that. He just wants you. He wants you to hurt, like he’s hurt. Just get to the house. You have to do it fast too. Don’t go letting the cops know or anything.”
I rolled my eyes at that. I was surrounded by cops.
“You hear me?” Ridley demanded. “He even gets a glimpse of a cop, anybody other than you, and he’ll hurt the kid. I...look, man. I never wanted the kid to get hurt. He just...he wanted something that would get to you, and I knew when I heard Carly talking to Ryan about your girl that you cared about her. I figured that would...”
I was going to kill him. It didn’t matter what happened to me after. I was going to kill him.
“He isn’t going to hurt her,” Ridley kept going.
“You trying to convince me of that?” I asked him softly. “Or yourself?”
“Just get there, okay?”
“And what are you going to be doing?” I asked, turning back to look at the room.
My gaze lingered on Tuite and then Ryan. Getting away from this many cops wouldn’t be easy. Getting to the house that was nearly three hours away from here without a car, without getting arrested...yeah. That was a problem. But I’d do it. To save Haley, I’d do anything. I owed her that.
“I’m meeting up with him.”
“You...” I sucked in a breath. “Carly’s with you!”
“I know. But if I don’t show up...look. I have to go. Carly isn’t going to wake up for a while and I...just get there.”
He ended the call.
The phone fell from my numb hand to bounce off the carpet as I looked up at Ryan. My entire world was going to be at that house, at the mercy of two men who wanted to see me hurt.
My eyes met Ryan’s. “What am I supposed to do?”
It was a quiet, tense ride back in the plane.
Another larger plane was flying the rest of the team down, or so I’d been told. Some of them were probably already on the road, driving. The trip could be made in three hours. If you obeyed the speed limit. Cops didn’t have to worry about that so much, so I was thinking they could get there in almost two.
We’d gone over everything three times now and Tuite was going over it with me a fourth when I turned my back on him and stared out the window. I was ready for him to bust my ass, but to my surprise, he lapsed into silence.
A moment later, Ryan came to sit across from me.
“You can do this.”
I looked up at him. He had a look of complete confidence on his face, and I both hated and appreciated it.
“I’m a huge fuck-up,” I said bluntly. “And two of the people who mean the most to me are...” I couldn’t finish it.
We’d heard from Ridley again.
He hadn’t had much to say though. Just wanted me to confirm that I was on my way to the house. He hadn’t let us talk to Carly, said she was still unconscious. I made a silent vow to make sure he ended up with permanent unconsciousness.
When I asked about Derrell Sr, Ridley had hung up. I’d taken that to mean Mitchell was unequivocally in charge.
Part of me wanted to feel pity for Mitchell. I’d driven him to this, in a way. It was the same way I’d felt about Dale harassing me, that I deserved it. Except Dale’s dad had crossed the line. Mitchell had put his hands on my daughter, and if he found out Carly was there, he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her.
“His son wasn’t some innocent kid, Bobby.”
I looked up at Ryan. “Be a human for once,” I griped. “This annoying habit you have of reading people’s minds? I hate it.”
“It’s too easy with you. Besides, I’d be thinking the same thing if I was in your position.” Ryan leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You keep going back to what you did. You can’t undo it. But if his son hadn’t come after you and your family, you wouldn’t have killed him. You did the right thing. What were you supposed to do, let him kill you? You and I both know that he would’ve killed your girlfriend anyway, and Haley never would’ve been born. And then he would’ve gone after the woman and kid you saved to begin with. You made the right choice in defending yourself.”
I looked back at the window. The height made my stomach pitch and twist, but it was better than thinking about everything that could go wrong on the ground. For once, the flight itself wasn’t scaring me.
“You’re right,” I agreed. And I knew it too. I knew all of it. But that didn’t make it all right in my head.
“Okay then. You were a thug who grew a backbone, Bobby. Don’t go losing it now.” He stood up and smacked the back of my head before turning to leave.
The deliberate taunt had probably been an attempt to get me aggravated, but I was too scared to be aggravated. Except he was right, again. I hadn’t laid down ten years ago. I wasn’t about to do it now.
I was older. Smarter. And I wanted to think I was a better man too.
No. I sure as hell wasn’t going to lay down. Not with Haley and Carly counting on me. I’d die before I let something else happen to either of them.
The cooler weather justified the heavier coat and the sweater, which was good. The Kevlar vest felt awkward and bulky, although it was a lot thinner than I would have expected.
“What do I do if he pats me down and finds this? The wire?”
“Let him.” The tech was fiddling with something so small I could barely see it, and then he grabbed my head, tugging me down.
“Hey!”
“Be still,” he snapped as he jammed something in my ear. “They told you they’d be hooking you up with a double wire, didn’t they? This is the back-up. It’s short range, but we’re already set up less than two hundred yards away. He won’t think to check your ear.”
He had a point. I sure as hell wouldn’t have thought to check my damn ear. Gingerly, I probed it, but the tech smacked my hand again. I gave him an incredulous look.
“Don’t mess with it.”
Then he marched away and Tuite and Ryan took his place. Ryan looked as grim as I’d ever seen him. I wanted to reassure him that I’d get Carly back safe, that this would be one thing I wouldn’t fuck up. I just couldn’t form the words. Instead, I asked a question.
“Anything more from Ridley?”
“No.” He flicked a look up the hill. “Helicopter pilot caught a glimpse of the car.”
“And?”
He just shook his head. “No and.”
He was lying to me. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did. I wanted to argue, and I might have, but there was no time. Haley and Carly needed me.
Sick inside, I turned to look up the hill. “What am I doing?” I muttered. “I’m not a fucking cop.”
“No.” Ryan rested a hand on my shoulder. “This guy won’t trust cops. His son’s a cop. He knows how they act, how they work. Just buy us time, Bobby. And don’t be a hero.”
No chance of that since I knew I’d never be the hero of anyone’s story. The best I could hope for was to not be the villain anymore.
Ryan lapsed into silence and Tuite took over. He tapped his ear. “That mic is sensitive. It will pick up any word you say, no matter how quiet. If a mouse farts, it’s going to hear it.”
“I’ll be sure to advise the mice of that then,” I said tightly.
He snorted. “Don’t let him take you out of there. We’re working on putting a tracker on the car he took, but–”
“If he tries to go anywhere, I’ll get into mine,” I said abruptly. “I mean, the car Jake left me. It’s got a lo-jack on it, right Ryan?”
Ryan nodded.
Tuite grunted. “Still. Try to keep him there. It gets dicey anytime people try to move and this is already ugly enough. Don’t let him make it uglier. And like your buddy here is telling you, don’t be a hero.”
I didn’t bother to answer. I was pretty sure everyone had figured out what role I really played here, and it wasn’t the white knight.
22
I pulled up in the SUV they’d told me to take. I didn’t know who it belonged to, nor did I care. It was a Chevy and that was about all I knew, only because I hated Chevys. Somebody had been smoking inside it, and the smell of cigarette smoke clinging to the interior made my already aching head feel like it was going to come apart.
Don’t be a hero.
I wasn’t going to be a hero. I was going to do what I did best: cause somebody a lot of pain. I’d done it all too well from an all too young age.
Younger than anyone in the FBI or on the security team realized. Younger than anyone alive knew.
