By then, Owen Messick, whom I heard the gang had started calling Ranger, wasn’t at the lake that often. He’d come up for an occasional weekend and I might catch a glimpse of him at the lake store, but he never acted like he recognized me.
At least not until the night of my eighteenth birthday.
A loud noise jarred me from the dream, and I was able to open one eye only to realize I’d been blindfolded. As feeling in my extremities and control over my muscles returned, so did my short-term memory.
First, I’d been tased, then I’d watched in horror as a man wearing a mask and gloves injected something into my leg. After that, I didn’t remember a thing.
I tried to move my arms, but they were bound. My legs were too, and I had a gag in my mouth. While I was wrapped in a coarse blanket, underneath, I was naked.
“Ah, the princess has finally awoken.” The voice of the person speaking sounded familiar, but it made no sense.
The man covered my body with his, pressing his hardness against me. I wanted to puke as he unwrapped the blanket and his lips moved from my neck down to my bare breasts.
“Don’t touch me!” I attempted to scream through the gag, but the words were unintelligible. He flipped me to my stomach and pressed my face into the hard ground beneath the blanket.
When I felt him fumbling with his zipper, I closed my eyes as tight as I could and pulled my knees up, bucking my body.
“You fucking bitch.” He grabbed my hair and pulled my head back. His mouth was next to my ear, and he bit the lobe hard enough that I screamed again through the gag. He sat up, straddling my waist. Seconds later, I felt the pinch of the needle in my thigh, and everything faded to black.
19
RANGER
“Who in the hell is that?” I asked Onyx when we walked into the main lodge of the forestry camp and I saw a woman I didn’t recognize.
His fists clenched. “No idea, but we’re about to find out.”
Diesel grabbed his arm before he could stalk over to where the stranger stood talking with Doc and Merrigan. “That’s Special Agent Bryar Davies. The FBI sent her in.”
“Why am I just learning about this now?” Onyx said under his breath.
When Diesel held up his phone, Onyx looked at his. “Got it.”
Maybe I’d received a text about it too, but I didn’t give a shit. I wanted this meeting over so we could start doing something rather than just talk about it. It was almost midnight, and Maisie had been abducted at nine this morning. Fifteen hours, and as far as I knew, we had no leads regarding her whereabouts.
Onyx introduced himself to the FBI agent, introduced me, then turned to Diesel.
“Agent Davies, Mr. Jacks will be your point person for this investigation.”
Diesel held out his hand, but Ms. Davies—in her late twenties at the most—didn’t shake it.
“This is FBI jurisdiction. If there are assignments to be made, I will be the one making them.”
“Like I said, if you have any questions, Diesel will be the one to answer them.” He turned to walk away, but stopped and looked over his shoulder. “And that’s only if I decide you need to know.”
“But—”
“Doc, Merrigan, a word.” Onyx motioned to me. I followed them into a separate room and closed the door behind me. “There’s been a development Ranger needs to share with you.”
They turned to me.
“Maisie and I are married.”
Doc’s eyes met Merrigan’s, and she nodded. “We know, Ranger.”
I didn’t bother to ask how. It didn’t matter. “If you think I’m going to stand down—”
Merrigan put her hand on my arm. “We would suggest nothing of the kind, and even if we did, Onyx would never agree. However, there are certain protocols that need to be followed for kidnapping cases.”
“Such as?”
“We will take a look at what Agent Davies has prepared, as well as what you’ve done.” She looked between Onyx and me, and neither of us contradicted her.
“Then, we’ll begin.”
“Roger that,” said Onyx at the same time I did.
“Ranger, a word?” asked Doc. “You need to get some rest. Either here or at your camp. I know it’s the last thing you want to do, but you’ll need to be full bore in the morning.”
Before I could respond, there was a knock at the door and Diesel came in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but this can’t wait.”
“What is it?” asked Doc.
“A ransom request has come in.”
We raced over to one of the guys I knew from the agency who was setting up the recording for us to hear. Unsurprisingly, the speaker’s voice had been digitally distorted. The caller requested twenty million dollars be delivered in two separate drops of ten million each. Both were fairly public locations: one in Gloversville and one in Johnstown, the two biggest cities in the vicinity of Canada Lake.
It was a common tactic, seen most often in movies or on TV. The idea was that the kidnapper could surveil the first drop to see if the person who picked up the bag was being followed. If not, the rest would be safe to collect. It rarely worked in real life, which meant our kidnapper wasn’t as experienced as we’d initially believed.
Agent Davies shook her head while listening. “The amount of the demand as well as the requested delivery is different. I anticipate we’ll hear from him sooner rather than later since he gave no time frame.”
“Francis Arnst is here with Al and Mary now,” reported Buster, who was inside their camp when the ransom call came in.
“When did he arrive?” I asked.
“Al contacted him yesterday and asked for a meeting this morning. Mr. Arnst is helping them put the ransom together.”
I nodded, then motioned Diesel off to the side of the room. “See what you can find out about the previous abduction details, specifically if there are reports of more than one assailant.”
“Roger that.”
He was only gone a couple of minutes when he walked back over to where I was talking with Doc, Merrigan, and Onyx. “Nada. Nothing on the abductions themselves.”
My eyes met Onyx’s. There had to have been some evidence, but given the length of time that had passed, it was too late to look for things like footprints.
“Is there any connection between the three previous victims outside of them being from wealthy families who lived inside park boundaries?”
“I believe Money has someone at the CIA working on that.”
“Actually, the FBI discovered a connection,” said Agent Davies, who stood over us with her arms folded.
“And?”
“All four, including the latest victim, went to college in close proximity to Hanover, New Hampshire.”
“Dartmouth,” I said under my breath.
“Yes, two of them were Dartmouth grads, one went to Lebanon College, and the fourth to Plymouth State University.”
I didn’t like this connection one bit, and looking at Diesel, I could tell he didn’t either.
When I went outside, he followed. “Anything from the coroner?” I asked.
“Not yet.”