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I’d seen those pictures. They were doctored, stolen from other people’s social media accounts, and five years old or more. The farce would have made me sick if I didn’t know it was about to ruin them.
Alicia directed Mattie to stand on a raised, temporarily constructed stage just under the projector. She stood off to the side of the slideshow, and while the music started, I turned in my chair to catch her gaze. She stood there on the three-foot stage, her arms folded under her breasts and warm brown eyes fixed to mine. She nodded.
The slideshow played through three slides, showing Mattie five years ago deep-sea fishing, and then standing at the precipice of a waterfall. I wondered who she’d been with when those had been taken. Her friends? She hadn’t mentioned any friends she missed. It felt strange and empty.
It felt an awful lot like the last ten years of my life.
Then, suddenly, the program glitched, splitting into little bars of rainbow artifacts before a picture of several boxes of cathynol, clearly labeled, appeared in front of what looked like a third-world terrorist hideout. Alicia gasped. I smiled. Here we go.
A video of a hostage being tortured by cathynol played on the screen, and the screams of terror and pain filtered through the stunned space as the interrogator proudly explained what the cathynol would do to their systems if they didn’t cooperate. Gasps erupted from the crowd, and several of them made sounds of distress. Now that we had their attention, the video showed detailed shipping logs. Phones began to click, taking pictures.
Alicia and Augustus panicked. They ran to the left side of the projector screen where the media attendant clicked away at the computer, helpless to stop the video. Or, she pretended to, anyway. Tabitha looked up from the screen, her smile mirthless and sharp. I nodded, glancing again at the next picture, which showed the amount of money the Thornes had made off their experimental drug program, and the drug makeup of the “experiment” they were distributing. Cameras clicked fast, and I knew those images would make their way to all the wrong places for the Thornes.
Augustus grabbed the computer, and although it was connected by Bluetooth, he smashed it to the ground. No virus could compensate for physical damage, but we’d accomplished what we needed to. There was no escaping the horrified stares of four hundred drama-hungry millionaires that had settled on the Thornes. They would eat them alive for this.
That would leave a few morsels for me to swoop in on later and finish off.
I swiveled to smile at Mattie, hoping to see a measure of relief in her features—but the spot where she’d stood was empty. I stood abruptly from my chair, shoving it back. My heart thundered, clapping through my chest and pumping adrenaline through my veins. A fast scan of the area didn’t reveal that she’d simply stepped down and out of my line of sight. I jumped onto the stage and went for the projector screen.
While chaos bubbled behind me, rising up in the form of gasping conversation and loudly proclaimed accusations toward the Thornes, I swept the thick projector screen aside, ducking to look behind the shadowed area. This part of the venue ended at a tall, Italian-tiled wall, and off to the right, the glass doors led to the gardens. She’d been standing right here, right in front of the open garden doors and surrounded by tables.
To the left of the room, the service doors led to kitchens. I ran with my heart in my ears, tapping my earpiece. “Tab, she’s gone.”
Tabitha looked up from where she’d been standing, stoic as Augustus yelled at her. She rotated a panicked look around the room. Ignoring Augustus, she left him and met me at the kitchen entrance with worry in her dark brown eyes. “What do you mean, ‘she’s gone?’”
I gestured to the increasingly frantic event space behind us. “She’s not there.”
“I’ll search the gardens and entrance,” Tab said immediately, going into operative mode. “You take the kitchens.”
“Obviously,” I snapped. Letting my instincts lead, I sprinted through the kitchens and to the fire escape exit. I barreled down the eight flights of stairs, my eyes combing each turn for what might look like a struggling, feisty blond and any number of captors. A door on the bottom floor slammed shut.
I unholstered my gun, and holding it in the SUL position, over the back of my hand and pointed to the ground, I ran recklessly down the remaining five flights, barely rounding them safely in my haste to reach the bottom before whoever had taken Mattie could reach their destination. It wasn’t like me to be careless. And it definitely wasn’t like me to be panicked.
But I was both at the moment.
A frantic kind of fear galloped through my body, and I sprinted down the last flight of stairs, skidding to a halt in the empty, utilitarian foyer area before reaching for the heavy exterior door. I yanked it open, half expecting to get shot at. But I found, instead, a dark, poorly illuminated New York alleyway lined with full dumpsters, discarded boxes, and a loading bay to my right.
Too late, I saw the car to my left. Already rolling toward the open streets beyond, I got the barest glimpse of a seafoam green dress and a pair of feet being dragged into the black sedan’s back seat. I swiveled, training my gun on its tires, but it peeled away in the next instant. Heedless of traffic, the car screeched into the one-way lane. In the darkness, I couldn’t make out a model or license plate number. I had nothing.
I tapped my earpiece as I ran. “They have her. I’m pursuing on foot.”
“Cohen?” Tabitha asked, breathless.
I didn’t know with absolute certainty, but it didn’t take a genius to make that conclusion. “Has to be,” I panted.
“I’m coming. Where are you?”
“I’m going to lose her,” I replied, struggling to keep my voice calm when I wanted to riot and burn the city down instead. “I won’t make it on foot.”
Silence lined the ragged breaths that huffed from my lungs as I sprinted down the alley and tore out into the well-lit city street. “Kael…” Tabitha started.
“Get me a car,” I clipped.
“Kael—there’s no point.”
She was right. It was pointless. Even as I sprinted down the sidewalk, my eyes bouncing from nondescript sedan to equally as unidentifiable black sedan, I knew that even if I could recognize the thing, it was long gone. Anyone kidnapping Mattie wouldn’t wait around in traffic. I slowed to a fast walk. “You have a safe house set up here?” My question came out thick and choppy. I felt the panic stealing my thoughts and catching in my voice.
“Wait where you are. I’ll come get you in the car.”
