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Marcus clicked it off, not wanting to hurt his mother again with the next line. ‘That’s pretty much it.’
‘Play the rest of it, Marcus,’ Della said wearily. ‘It doesn’t matter anymore.’
Marcus sighed. ‘All right.’
Ken Sweeney’s voice filled the room once again. ‘You know what happened when your mother involved the authorities twenty-seven years ago. Let’s not repeat history, shall we?’
‘How do I know Gayle’s still alive?’
‘Ask her yourself,’ Sweeney said silkily.
‘Marcus.’ Gayle sounded frail. ‘Don’t you dare do this. I—’ She was abruptly silenced.
‘Midnight,’ Sweeney said.
The line went dead.
‘What was the video?’ Scarlett mouthed.
Marcus leaned in, filled his lungs with the scent of wildflowers. ‘He’s got Gayle in a cage. She’s tied up.’ He hesitated. ‘He’s taken her clothes.’
‘Blindfolded?’
He swallowed hard. ‘No.’
Scarlett blew out a breath. ‘Okay. So I think we can all agree that he’s not going to let Gayle go. We need to figure out how to find out where she is. Before midnight.’
Jill covered her mouth with her hand, stifling a whimper.
Lisette got up from the sofa where she’d been numbly sitting since finding out that Cal and the others were dead. She put her arms around Jill and rocked her where they stood. ‘You got any ideas, Detective?’ Lisette asked brokenly. ‘Because I can’t think.’
‘That’s part of his strategy,’ Scarlett said. ‘Decimate your morale so that your concentration and focus are fractured.’ She looked over her shoulder at Deacon. ‘You’ve tried to trace the call?’
Deacon had slumped into the chair next to Faith when it had become clear that Marcus and Diesel weren’t going to kill each other. ‘Vince is working on it. He’s not hopeful. He knows it wasn’t really Gayle’s phone. If it had been we’d have traced it by now. Sweeney routed it through a spoofing service to make it come up as Gayle’s number. The phone is a throwaway.’
That was about what Scarlett had expected. For him to have used Gayle’s actual phone would have been far too easy. ‘What about that hard drive I gave you? The copy of McCord’s files? Did Vince find anything on that?’
Deacon lifted a brow. ‘The one you told me to tell him you’d go through yourself?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Hell. Like Vince ever listens to me. What did he find?’
Deacon shook his head wearily. ‘Nothing that would lead us to Ken Sweeney.’
Bowing her head, Scarlett rubbed her temples. ‘Diesel, can you crack a safe?’
Everyone did a double-take at that. ‘Did you say “crack a safe”?’ Marcus asked carefully.
‘I did. Can you, Diesel? If you can’t, we’ll get a team over to Gayle’s right now, but that might take time we don’t have.’
‘Why?’ Diesel asked helplessly.
‘There’s a letter in her safe that I want to take a look at.’
Marcus frowned. ‘You mean the letter that Leslie McCord wrote? Why?’
‘Because she wrote that letter several days before her husband was killed. Jill said the letter had arrived a week before Gayle read it.’ She took a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. ‘It might be nothing, but it’s better than sitting here listening to the seconds tick by.’
Marcus read through the timeline, then read it again. ‘You’re right. Something’s off. Can you get the letter, Diesel?’
Diesel glanced at Jonas Bishop and Deacon uneasily. ‘Maybe.’
Scarlett’s control visibly snapped, and, whirling on Diesel, she jabbed her forefinger up in his face. ‘Neither my father nor Deacon will arrest you,’ she hissed. ‘But I will fucking kill you myself if you don’t give me a straight answer. Can you crack the goddamn safe or not? Yes or no?’
Eyes wide, Diesel nodded once. ‘Yes.’
She grabbed his arm and shoved him toward the door. ‘Then go do it,’ she cried, exasperated. ‘Now.’
Diesel took off at a fast jog.
‘Diesel!’ Scarlett yelled. She ran to the doorway, then turned back to the group, rolling her eyes. ‘Jill, give Deacon your house keys. Deacon, please go with him, and call me with what the letter says when you get it. I’m going to stay here and try to figure out a damn plan.’
Deacon was instantly on his feet. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ He dropped a kiss on Faith’s mouth, still open in surprise. ‘Call you as soon as I can.’
One could have heard a pin drop after Deacon left. Scarlett’s mother sat with her mouth open in shock, and her father was biting back a grin. Marcus found himself aroused despite his worry. It was like a balloon had popped inside his chest, so much pressure releasing.
Once again, she’d cleared his mind, allowing him to think.
Scarlett shrugged. ‘Sorry, Mom. This is me.’
‘Of course it is,’ her mother said. ‘I’m just . . . Wow. I guess I don’t have to worry about you on the job anymore.’
‘No, ma’am.’ Scarlett rubbed her hands together. ‘We need a plan, Mr O’Ba
His lips curved with pride. ‘Yes, we do, Detective.’
‘One that doesn’t involve you trading yourself.’
‘I’m open to suggestions,’ he said mildly.
She scowled at him, then swallowed hard. ‘I’m really mad at you, you know. To even consider it.’
He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. ‘I know. But she’s Gayle and she’s scared. And so am I.’
She pulled away to sit at a table in the corner. ‘We need a way to track Sweeney, but we don’t even know who he is.’
Lisette sat down across from her. ‘I spent the two hours before . . . well, before the shooting searching every database I have for Ken Sweeney. He doesn’t exist. Nor does Demetrius Russell.’
‘They’re using aliases,’ Scarlett said, ‘which is no shock. Kate said the same. She tried tracking the car Alice was driving. It’s stolen. When I left, one of Tanaka’s guys was working on breaking into both Alice’s and DJ’s phones, hoping to find contact information or addresses or anything at all.’
Marcus sat down next to Scarlett. ‘Don’t be mad, but we need to assume we’re not going to find Sweeney in the next two hours.’ He pulled up a map of the park on his phone. ‘We need a plan that gets me in and out of Shawnee Lookout alive.’
She nodded. ‘Alive is good.’
Cinci
Wednesday 5 August, 10.15 P.M.
Ken packed the last of his old photos in a box to go in his suitcase. He was taking only what he couldn’t replace. The photos, the first dollar he and Demetrius had made. His MVP trophy he’d earned playing football during his senior year at college. He’d packed his mother’s diamond earrings, the tiny ones that had no monetary value. Just sentimental. There was no other jewelry. He’d sold it all years ago. Before he and Demetrius had started the business, of course.
He’d needed the money way back then because he’d wanted to keep his family’s home. Which was why he and Demetrius had started the business in the first place.
He’d packed a few changes of clothes, enough cash to get by for a while without raising any flags while going through airport security. He had a bank check he’d use to open an account once he got there. He’d already transferred funds from the other accounts into the offshore account he’d opened years ago under his alias. His rental house was pre-paid for the next six months from that same account.
‘I think I’m ready,’ he murmured.
‘Were you going to say goodbye?’
Ken turned slowly. Sean stood in the doorway, arms loosely crossed over his chest. He didn’t look angry, which was good. Ken didn’t want to have to kill him too.
‘I was going to call when I got there. I didn’t know if you’d want to join me or not.’
‘Depends on where you’re going.’
Ken frowned. ‘Why are you here?’ Sean so rarely left the downtown office. In fact, the last time he had been out to the family house had been right around the time his mother had disappeared. Of course, Ken knew where Sean’s mother was. He’d sent her body through the woodchipper himself. That had been years ago.